Chapter 288: Beware of the 'Witch Hunt'

"Heh, rather than lecturing me, you'd be better off taking care of yourself. That witch is quite active right now."

Sherlock had originally intended to finish what he was saying, but Zachhack not only cut him off entirely, he also did so in a way that poked right at a sore spot.

After all, Sherlock's initial mission was to figure out a way to take control of The Abandoned Land, a place where over ninety percent of the population were hardened criminals.

If utilized properly, such desperadoes would be no less formidable than an actual army.

After all, the people there all possessed unique skills and had quite the silver tongues; the talents they awakened were undoubtedly highly specialized.

Yet, this guy had lost quite simply—even somewhat pathetically—to someone who merely flew through the air and dropped bombs, without even...

This caused Sherlock, who had wanted to continue speaking, to open his mouth, suddenly unsure if he should go on.

After all, the second matter concerned the future development of the Pure Origin Sect, or more accurately, it was something closely related to Zachhack himself.

'Forget it...'

'It might be best if an idiot like Zachhack simply died.'

'That way, my own position within the club would rise a bit higher.'

"Hmph, I admit I was careless before, but if I encounter a witch again, I will absolutely kill her."

His expression dark, Sherlock replied with an equally icy tone. Then, seizing the moment his counterpart was momentarily stunned, he stood up, flicked his sleeves, and left!

"Uh..."

Sherlock's abrupt departure caused Zachhack, who was already taken aback, to freeze once more.

This time, he stared blankly for even longer.

'Did that guy still have something left to say?'

'Whatever. If he doesn't want to say it, I don't want to hear it anyway. Fucking pretentious prick.'

Zachhack completely dismissed Sherlock's departure and the fact that he had deliberately withheld information.

After all, compared to a stray dog like Sherlock who could even lose his own territory, his own status in the club was much higher.

Well...

Or perhaps it was simply because he had been in the club longer than Sherlock, so his ranking was naturally higher.

...

Meanwhile.

Having returned to her habitat, Lan Qingyou originally intended to immediately dive into potion making.

However, after casually glancing at the messages on her Card while taking out her items, Lan Qingyou temporarily abandoned the idea.

'Have witches already joined the tea party? Makes sense, considering there were originally four witches on the Golden Plains.'

'And there's also a Knowledge Witch here wanting to craft Magic Scrolls...'

'Sealing magic itself onto monster skins, huh.'

'Interesting.'

'But isn't this exactly what I wanted?'

'Unseen talents, spells, and knowledge—all of these serve as fresh avenues of inspiration for me.'

Thinking of this, and remembering that Susi was very likely to resign from her position to go level up, Lan Qingyou headed to the warehouse. She gathered all the magic items she had accumulated from dungeons recently and deposited them entirely into the Witch's Tea Party group chat warehouse.

This warehouse was considerably larger than the ten-slot storage she had used previously.

It was even larger than the shop warehouse on her current Magic Desk, so storing these magic items there was no issue at all.

After depositing the items, Lan Qingyou also added a batch of materials.

This was especially true for the monster skins that had been processed by the leatherworkers.

The Tower: "@The Moon, get your hands on more monster skins. I have a witch on my end experimenting with a brand-new toy, and the demand is huge."

The Moon: "Received. I will have the people prepare more."

The Lovers: "@The Tower, how big is the demand?"

The Tower: "Let's tentatively set it at ten thousand. We might need to add more later."

The Lovers: "Alright, I'll try to get production started on my end as soon as possible too."

The Empress: "That will still have to wait until The Tower finishes crafting the magic array."

The Tower: "Haha, true enough. Tell you what, I'll head over tomorrow to handle it. If nothing unexpected happens, I should be able to finish it in about three days without sleep."

Since this wasn't her first time doing this and she already had a mature plan in place, combined with the time she had spent refining magic arrays recently, inscribing a mere Five Dragons Reincarnation Magic Array wasn't a difficult task for Lan Qingyou.

At most, it would just take a little longer because the magic array was relatively large.

After coming to an agreement with Jiang Lan and Frena, Lan Qingyou turned her attention back to the Witch's Tea Party channel.

The inspiration she had received from The High Priestess today made her realize that the very things she had worried about in the past were likely already unfolding quietly in places she didn't know about.

Whether for the sake of exploring new research avenues or for self-preservation, what she needed to do was gather all the witches together just in case.

Of course, aside from protecting herself, the benefit of doing this was that it would also protect those witches.

Lan Qingyou wasn't just bragging.

She felt that when it came to defensive barriers, if she claimed to be second on the Kalim Continent, no one would dare claim to be first.

It wasn't even impossible to turn the entirety of The Abandoned Land into a habitat for witches, a private sanctuary exclusively for their kind.

Anyway, warlords were popping up everywhere right now, and everyone was busy staking their claims. Marking out a territory for herself didn't seem like a big deal.

"I see. So you're saying a Kalim version of a witch hunt is very likely to occur?"

After Lan Qingyou explained some of the potential problems currently existing in the world to Susi in the chat, Susi almost immediately thought of an ignorant, foolish, greedy, and ruthless event that had once taken place back on the Blue Star.

That campaign, which operated under the slogan of 'hunting witches,' could be seamlessly applied to the Witch Clan on the Kalim Continent.

Therefore.

For the sake of herself and the entire race, Susi quickly replied to Lan Qingyou.

"I understand. I'll lead a team to start gathering the witches tomorrow."

"Let's focus on sending invitations to the tea party first. It won't be too late for them to settle down here after some of the housing in the Witches' Forest has been built."

"Mhm, understood. In that case, the Temporary Leave Scroll from the Knowledge Witch should come in handy."

"Temporary Leave Scroll?"

Seeing a term she had never heard of before, Lan Qingyou's interest was piqued.

"It's a scroll researched by the Knowledge Witch that allows the Magic Desk to temporarily disconnect from a Shelter, taking the Magic Desk out of the Shelter to forcibly summon the Shelter in another location."

"Oh ho, that's quite interesting. If you don't mind, let me see how it operates later. I feel like it sounds somewhat familiar."

"No problem."

After their brief exchange concluded, Susi put down the Card in her hands and went to find the other three witches. She informed them of the highly probable, terrible news regarding an impending Race War.

The three witches, who had only just left a moment ago to start their experiments, rest, or study, were just as incomparably shocked by this news as Susi had been.