High School of Demon Hunting-Chapter 1474 - 218: Everyone Starts Like This

No Face held Zhuzhu’s small mirror in hand, gazing delightedly at the face within.

As long as the craft is fine, it could disguise itself as any being.

Not just wizards.

Every time it adorned itself with a new appearance, there would always be a moment of vanity — even when dressed in snake skin, pretending to be a pet snake, it enjoyed those initial days immensely.

When Nikita mentioned the Spring Herald Flower and the red fruits to Zhuzhu, No Face’s eyes, although still on the mirror, started to drift unfocused.

The phrase "just survive" suddenly prompted it to think of many past events.

The ability to change appearance and shape at will, to pretend to be someone else, was a unique talent of the Faceless Demons. Long, long ago, the wizards had discovered their existence, and some ancient texts even gave them a very fitting name, Painted Skin, because they lacked eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and their entire face was as clean as a blank canvas.

Painted Skin was not born naturally.

To this day, the Wizard World still debates endlessly about the origins of Painted Skin.

So, No Face also didn’t know why it was faceless — it didn’t know its origins, its name, nor its original appearance.

When it became conscious, it was already a Faceless Demon.

The leader, that is, the Captain of the Poseidon, found it curled up and unconscious in the woods.

If it weren’t for the leader, maybe it would have starved to death by now — such thoughts often slipped through No Face’s mind during idle moments. Right after its birth, due to the absence of a mouth, it almost starved to death.

It was the leader who taught it how to draw a mouth.

"A faceless being, if it doesn’t know how to draw a mouth, will starve to death," the leader said while grabbing a charcoal stub and using a piece of worn parchment, he taught it the skill to draw lips.

After No Face regained its health, the first thing it did was to give itself a big mouth of the Gluttonous Beast.

In memory, hunger was a nightmare even more dreadful than death. That day, it seemed possessed by the Gluttonous Beast, devouring the blood food of dozens of people until it was gravely injured from overeating.

"Only by suffering can one remember the lesson," another saying from the leader to it.

Since that day, No Face never drew itself a slightly larger mouth again.

This slightly pursed cherry mouth suits it best.

Gazing into the small mirror, No Face made the pursed lips even more brightly red. Warlocks call this seduction — another technique taught by the leader, which it remembered firmly in its heart.

"You don’t have the right to choose your identity, but you have the opportunity to choose your face," the leader had said the most important sentence to it: "... What face you choose will determine how you live on from there. In this process, choice is irrelevant, survival is key."

The words spoken by the leader drifted through No Face’s mind, and its wandering gaze gradually refocused.

Looking at the Little Witch not far away, who looked exactly like itself but was dressed in rags, it deeply sighed for reasons unknown.

Nikita heard the sigh behind her.

But she didn’t care.

At this moment, her attention was all on the Little Witch in front of her.

"Come with me," she reached out to the Little Witch, just as Ulysses had extended his hand to her long ago, in the depths of the Sahara: "... That’s how we all started."

’Zhuzhu’ held the second bowl of offerings.

Sipping the greenish liquid from the rim of the bowl, she didn’t want to waste a drop. The rushing magic power flowed through her body with the liquid. Her eyes grew more vivid, yet the sweet scent on her body became fainter and fainter.

Like a candle flame about to run out of wax, insisting on radiating its light amidst the storm.

For a long time.

The little witch dropped the empty bowl in her hand, belched satisfactorily, and wiped the corner of her mouth.

"This must be the legendary ’drinking poison to quench thirst,’" she said, her voice filled with an old-world weariness that belied her age. Her eyes, although still lost, possessed a different kind of confusion from the original one.

The original confusion was a blankness of consciousness brought on by the exhaustion of magical power.

The confusion now was due to the uncertainty of the future.

Nikita responded to the little witch with a sentence she had just said: "What we eat, what we drink, the color of our eyes... it doesn’t matter. It’s good enough to just survive."

"But I still want to sit with my mom and dad," the little witch smiled at her, like a stroke of sunshine at dawn, or a whiff of breeze after the rain—clean and pure.

"Alone, you will die here," Nikita said softly, lowering her eyes to look at ’Zhuzhu’s’ ragged little leather shoes.

"Someone said, he will come back for me," the little witch answered confidently.

"You can’t wait that long."

"Then let’s make that decision after I’m dead," the brave little witch waved her hand, taking her small mirror from No Face and her blank sketchbook from Nikita, turned around, and walked deeper into the bewitching forest.

The two female demons stood behind her, quietly watching her receding figure, without the slightest intention of stopping her. Hidden in the shadows of the oak trees, the Zus carefully patted their chests, communicating their confusion to one another.

"She won’t come back," No Face said with a crisp voice from behind a new face.

"Coming back, or not, it doesn’t matter," Nikita said with a slight smile, reaching out to catch a strand of colorful breeze: "...It’s very good to be able to survive."

An aged Zu crawled to the feet of the female demons, kissing the soil beside their feet.

Its skinny hands nimbly patted its chest, reporting to the female demons what the Zus had discovered outside the bewitching forest.

Nikita’s smile faded:

"Are you saying you saw a wizard’s hunting team at the edge of the bewitching forest?"

The old Zu vigorously patted its chest, confirming the female demon’s speculation.

"Could it have something to do with the thunders from before?" No Face inquired softly looking at Nikita.

"Perhaps," the female demon didn’t answer directly, just released the strand of breeze she had just caught. Once freed from its bind, the breeze courageously surged towards the sky.

And then it was torn to shreds by an even greater gale.

Accompanying that larger gale away was a huge shadow. A shadow that had been looming over the head of the Zu tribe and the female demons since the beginning.

...

...

The wind of freedom blew over the open fields, carrying with it emotion-filled particles that glittered with the spectrum of colors like diamond dust, and flowed into the tall and dense oak forest.

It caused a rustling sound all around.

The sound of the oak trees’ broad leaves,

and the sound of the slender leaves of the weeds on the fields.

Zheng Qing listened to these sounds in a daze, somewhat transfixed. The temporary Protect Legal Formation could block out those emotional winds, those rains with memories, but it couldn’t block out the sounds within the wind and rain.

At this moment, besides the rustling noise of wind and rain colliding with leaves, outside the Array, there were also some continuous sounds, like the beating of little leather drums by savages.

Quite noisy.