The Captain's Little Pride

Of course.

There certainly wasn't only one way to fundamentally remove a curse.

Lan Qingyou was well aware of this.

That was why she had added a limit to the number of curses in the Book of Curses.

If someone's curse was broken, the magic book would sound an alarm to alert the caster.

This way, even if the target found a solution, they would still suffer a blow.

In short, because of Lan Qingyou's foresight, escaping from a curse was basically impossible.

Unless the caster died or lost interest in you.

Of course, if the caster truly lost interest in you, what you lose might be far more than just the curse.

After discussing some finer details with Diana, Lan Qingyou returned to her shelter with the Book of Curses.

Now that the curses had been researched, learning them wouldn't be difficult.

At least for the members of the Witch Group and the academic elites.

Therefore, the tasks of searching, tracking, collecting, and hunting could be left to them.

As for Lan Qingyou herself, she had other things to attend to.

The Abandoned War had made Lan Qingyou clearly realize that bigger wasn't always better.

While using the Abandoned Land as the Witch race's private domain was nice...

It was certainly impossible to prevent others from coming to live or stay there.

In that case, it was better to shrink the witches' primary activity area.

As long as there were no outsiders, the Witch race wouldn't suffer such widespread losses again.

Furthermore, this would help maintain a sense of mystery.

While remaining high-profile, she would make witches true flowers on a high peak—unreachable and only to be looked up to.

So, next, she needed to research how to achieve this goal.

While Lan Qingyou returned to her shelter to ponder her new project, in a residence over a dozen districts away, a group of people was organizing their gear.

“Are the food and repair tools ready? We need to dive deeper into the dungeon this time, so don't anyone drop the ball.”

A blonde man who looked like the leader said.

“Got it, Captain. You've said that so many times my ears are ringing.”

One of the people organizing the gear grumbled.

Ever since the captain had gathered them to run dungeons half a month ago, such instructions had never ceased.

It wasn't just him; some of the other teammates were also getting impatient.

After all, they were all people who lived with their heads on the line; they really couldn't stand this kind of blah-blah-blah.

But where some disliked it, others found it reasonable.

“Haha, stop complaining. The captain is just being cautious.”

“Exactly. If the captain's caution hadn't made us retreat early, we might have died in the Abandoned Land long ago.”

“That war was truly disgusting.”

“Tell me about it. We were clearly the attackers, and it was a surprise raid, yet it somehow turned into a war of attrition. It was ridiculous.”

“I still feel embarrassed thinking about it.”

“I don't think we can blame ourselves. We were just thrown together randomly without even a unified command. Managing to snatch so much witch blood and so many Magic Eyes in a surprise attack was already pretty good.”

At the mention of the Abandoned War, a sense of helplessness welled up in these men who had participated in it.

Their team had been among the first batch to head to the battlefield.

They were part of the group that had been waiting inside Typhon City to seize the teleportation circle before it was even taken.

As such, they were among those who took the greatest risks but also reaped the greatest rewards.

In fact, their team of over a hundred people had taken the initiative and secured quite a lot of good stuff back then.

However, they had also lost more than half of their combatants because of it.

They had originally thought that death was fine as long as they turned a profit; it was a small price to pay.

And they truly had profited.

Profiting was good, of course, but the problems came afterward.

After they retreated, the fighting did continue, lasting for several months.

Originally, they had planned to make a quick buck and run.

But they couldn't refuse when the buyers informed them that they wouldn't accept the goods if they didn't participate in the fight.

So, they had no choice but to go to the battlefield and coast along.

Conveniently, as unevolved Transmigrators, their mana was pathetically low; they'd run out after a few attack spells and need to rest.

This became their best excuse for slacking off during the war.

Even so, half of the remaining survivors ended up killed as well.

The reason they called it disgusting was entirely because the witches had their own attack patterns, could fly, and even possessed the ability to resurrect.

That was why, as the battle dragged on, more and more people fled, eventually leading to the collapse of the front lines. It was a bizarre event where the entire invading force vanished within a few days.

When trying to take advantage turned into a suicide mission, who would continue such a losing trade?

Yet even after the war ended, those Black Witches remained relentless, sending out people to hunt down everyone who had ever invaded the Abandoned Land.

This resulted in their team, which had twenty-some members left after the war, dwindling down to just over a dozen.

It was precisely because he knew about the Witch race's hunting squads that the captain had adjusted his strategy in time, breaking up the unit into smaller groups.

This was done not only to reduce the chance of discovery but also to ensure they wouldn't all be wiped out at once if they were found.

Regardless, they could still stay in touch via their cards.

In practice, this strategy was extremely effective.

After dispersing, the remaining dozen or so members suffered no further casualties.

This made the captain incredibly proud.

He had gathered everyone this time because he felt the heat of the hunt in their district had passed.

He believed the Black Witch hunting squads had moved on to other areas.

Moreover, the boss had specifically allowed their team to jump the queue; otherwise, they wouldn't have been chosen for the mission or anything else.

“Speaking of Magic Eyes, Captain, how is yours doing? Is it our turn for the surgery yet?”

“It's our turn. We can have the surgery after this dungeon run.”

That's right.

Another reason for jumping the queue was the transplant surgery for the Magic Eyes.

Their team had managed to get four pairs—eight Magic Eyes in total—and the distribution had already been settled. However, the doctor capable of performing the transplant surgery had no availability, so they had been waiting even now, two months after the war ended.

As the captain said, they wouldn't have had this chance if it weren't for this mission.

Of course, the transplant would only happen after the mission was over.

To put it bluntly, they were being treated like dogs.

However...

In the current Kalim continent, plenty of people would jump at the chance to be someone's dog but never get the opportunity.

As long as they could get stronger, what did it matter how they were used?

But this also showed that the profile of the so-called 'Demon Hunters' actually overlapped heavily with that of the invaders.

Aside from some special Magic Eyes sold at high prices or kept as collectibles, the vast majority were actually in the hands of these original invaders.