Chapter 55: We Cultivate Our Garden

  Arriving at the village of the Mountain of Plague and Misfortune turned out to be an emotional experience for Bogna.

  Not because of the winding path or the unpleasant road—quite the contrary.

  It was because the place she found herself in didn't match what she knew about it at all.

  She trailed Justinian, pinching her skirt’s hem, green eyes wide.

  Finally, unable to suppress her great curiosity, she overcame her fear and turned to the young man.

  "What happened here?"

  She had lived nearby for many years and knew the stories circulating about the abandoned adepts' village well. In fact, everyone knew that ever since the Lord of the Mountain had disappeared, it had fallen into ruin, and the embittered adepts had stolen everything of any value.

  What she saw here, however, was completely shocking.

  Justinian, noticing her reaction, smiled sincerely.

  "We began to cultivate our garden."

  The girl couldn't have known what the infamous Grim Judge was referring to.

  After returning to the hell dimension, he had to rebuild his life from scratch.

  His ambitions were very simple—he just wanted peace.

  So he settled on Empty-Head's mountain, where he focused on working from the ground up to make life bearable.

  "This is what our hands carved out."

  He pointed proudly at the small but fantastically well-kept complex of buildings, which only a few months ago had been filthy and covered in cobwebs.

  Now, those buildings gleamed with new paint, and order reigned everywhere. The old dormitory stood out as the largest building in the village, and nearby was a proud food storehouse, clad in boards of freshly cut wood.

  "I didn't know there were more adepts here," Bogna stammered, pointing to a young, green-haired devil working nearby.

  He looked to be no more than thirteen years old and, with a serious expression, was alternating between observing the potatoes growing in the garden and taking notes in his pocket notebook.

  "Franciscus is not an adept. Come, I'll introduce you."

  The girl followed Justinian with some suspicion. What she had seen so far did not align with the figure of the Grim Judge. She resolved inwardly to be on her guard.

  "Franciscus, this is our new tenant, Bogna," the man introduced her.

  The young devil looked at her with a focused expression and bowed politely, in the way the old women in the village sometimes gossiped about aristocrats and their customs.

  "I am Franciscus," he said with the emotion befitting a clerk, then looked questioningly at the host.

  "The locals left another offering—this time they tossed in the girl." Justinian confessed, shaking his head.

  The devil child nodded, as if he completely understood this custom.

  "It is normal for them to worship those stronger than themselves. Are you taking her as a concubine?"

  His voice, while asking the question that made his companion nearly jump, was just as indifferent as it had been during his introduction.

  "She is our new cook," Justinian replied, looking at his colleague as if he were an oddity.

  The boy accepted this with a slight nod.

  "Also an understandable idea. Especially considering Ignatius's culinary skills."

  With that, he returned to his previous task of tending the potato beds.

  Bogna was slightly flushed at the thought of concubinage, but she could see that the dark legend standing before her had no such intentions.

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  "We have two other tenants," Justinian grunted, then pointed to the smoke rising from the dormitory chimney.

  The girl looked in that direction, squinting, but couldn't see anything. She was just opening her mouth to express her doubt when she noticed something was wrong with the scene.

  As soon as any bird tried to land on the freshly laid, tar-paper-covered roof, the smoke... would suddenly expand, lunging to swallow the unwary. They immediately fled in terror.

  "That's Doctor Totius. He keeps the birds from making work for us."

  At the sound of his name, the philosopher, whose spirit was trapped in a pipe, materialized into the form of a man with a majestic gaze sitting on the roof and nodded in their direction.

  Bogna, of course, watched this with wide-eyed amazement.

  'So the rumors that he can command spirits are absolutely true!'

  The young man, seeing her reaction, just shook his head. Her expression betrayed her thoughts, but there was no point in shattering her illusions.

  Looking around, he didn't see Ignatius anywhere, which made him frown.

  'Is he returning to his old habits?'

  Ever since Greedius's betrayal, the devil had seemed changed. He spent a lot of time in the village and had even begun to work on his cultivation, which was previously unheard of. Although the results were meager, at least the willingness was there.

  Finally, the Grim Judge sighed.

  "Our last companion has disappeared somewhere. Come, I'll show you where you'll be working."

  As they walked away to the nearby kitchen, neither of them noticed the presence hiding on a nearby hill.

  A presence that was watching the girl with great interest.

  Fifteen minutes later...

  Justinian finished showing Bogna around the kitchen, which—like the rest of the village—turned out to be wonderfully well-kept.

  "You don't need to stress. For now, it's enough for you to replace, ahem... Ignatius's 'cooking'."

  The she-devil's appearance on the mountain was a strange situation, but since she was here to stay, he intended to help her acclimatize.

  The girl, still frightened, nodded attentively, trying to memorize as many details as possible.

  They were both just stepping outside when something strange began to happen.

  The warm, summer breeze suddenly changed into a gusty, cool blast that swirled the dust in the courtyard. The air suddenly became heavier, as if before a violent storm.

  Justinian frowned, sensing the energy gathering in the area. A strange technique he had not encountered before was beginning to materialize.

  He immediately reached for his saber and motioned for Bogna to be careful.

  The shadows in front of the building began to dance faster and faster until a magnificient light appeared in the area, descending from the sky like a legendary immortal cultivator.

  In that brief moment, he had already recognized the energy. Surprise, even disbelief, appeared on his face.

  "It's..."

  From the spot in the sky where the glow had just been radiating, a figure began to emerge.

  The winds trembled as more and more details of its appearance became clearer. Somewhere nearby, thunder rumbled as if lightning had struck.

  Bogna screamed and hid behind Justinian.

  The young man himself, who had worn a serious expression just moments before, now looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  A devil with the appearance of a perfect statue was slowly levitating to the ground. Tall, with dark hair falling over his forehead and muscles so prominent it was as if he spent all his days chopping wood. His magnificent facial hair looked like it was taken straight from a portrait.

  As he landed on the ground, he smiled charmingly, revealing a row of pearl-white teeth. His voice was as smooth as honey. His gaze, however, never left the terrified she-devil's eyes.

  "Welcome, beautiful lady. I’m Ignatius. You’re spring after a long winter."

  His monologue seemed to unleash the beauty of nature all around. Bogna stared at the newcomer, surprised, while Justinian simply buried his face in his hands. Finally, the she-devil looked at him as if only now realizing the meaning of the words he had spoken.

  "What? What did you say?"

  The lord of the mountain smiled sweetly. He knew that none could resist him.

  "I am Ignatius, and this is my land. What a charming she-devil has graced us with her presence? It has been long since..."

  He didn't finish. Bogna, who until now had been standing as if paralyzed, suddenly blinked, and her eyes widened in shock, and then in pure fury.

  "EMPTY-HEAD!" she shrieked so piercingly that nearby birds took off from the trees.

  Ignatius's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he heard the cursed nickname. But before anyone could react, the she-devil bent down, grabbed a thick, broken branch lying by the fence, and with a battle cry, threw herself at the dumbfounded devil.

  "You scoundrel! You lazy bum! You got the Grim Judge stuck here—and we’re paying for it!"

  The blows rained down on Ignatius's perfectly sculpted back and shoulders. The perfect hero's pose instantly turned into a panicked retreat.

  "W-what are you talking about?! I only... Ow! Woman, stop!" he tried to protest, but the hail of blows did not cease.

  Ignatius, unable to bear either the pain or the humiliation, let out a choked yelp and broke into a disgraceful sprint. The young, furious she-devil chased after him, the branch raised high above her head, shouting ever new insults.

  The sight was so absurd that even Justinian froze for a moment in disbelief, after which a shadow of amusement appeared on his face.

  At the same time, hundreds of kilometers away, a very specific caravan was moving through the field-rich lands of the 66th hell dimension. At its head, riding a powerful, fire-breathing steed, rode a pot-bellied nobleman.

  He looked around suspiciously, stroking his majestic mustache.

  Finally, pointing to the tracks in the ruts indicating the passage of a merchant caravan, he intoned loudly.

  "Do you see that, my noble brothers? I've been telling you for years that this scoundrel, the nobleman Sanguinicki, dishonors our magnificent caste and fraternizes with merchants!"

  "Aye!" toasted those who were still sober enough not to have passed out.

  "We'll deal with that upon our return," announced Nikodem Rudnicki, the leader of the caravan. For now, there were more important matters.

  "My dear boy!" he called out to his son, riding beside him.

  "Is it much further to that damned mountain? My noble arse is already numb from this saddle!"

  "Two more days' journey, father!" the young man shouted back.

  Rudnicki spat on the ground and twirled his bushy mustache.

  "Damn these blasted, distant mountains. There's no life like life in the countryside."

  His son nodded, agreeing with this judgment. But they could do nothing about it. For they had urgent business to attend to on the Mountain of Plague and Misfortune.