NOVEL WEB Chapter 444: Chapter 444: Devourer of Demons
"Absurd!" Hearing Remilia's request, Muria stiffened for a moment before standing up and rebuking her with a frown.
"You're rejecting me again." Remilia pouted unhappily at Muria. "Why not?"
"Because you're too young."
"What if I wait until I'm older?"
"It still wouldn't be possible," Muria shook his head. "I already have someone I like, and by the time you are grown, I will likely have established a partnership with her. You won't have a chance."
"I don't mind. I just need to have a child with you to become the heir to the kingdom."
"I do mind." Muria's expression darkened at her seemingly naive words. "Remilia, your thinking is problematic; you're always trying to shirk the responsibilities you should be bearing.
You must understand, the reason you can enjoy your current life, living in such a luxurious palace, is because of your Scarlet surname. As royalty, you enjoy the worship of all the kingdom's residents, and thus you have a duty to protect and help them, not just think about escaping.
This is not the mindset a queen-to-be should have. I was wrong; what you need now is to be tested, not to stay in such a comfortable environment, mechanically handling affairs you don't truly understand."
Remilia, feeling chastised, lowered her head in silence.
"Due to the calamity, nearly thirty percent of the kingdom's population has been displaced, now gathered in the major cities nearby, causing significant security concerns. As the ruler of the kingdom, you need to address these issues."
Remilia looked up at Muria somewhat blankly. She had no concrete concept of everything her dragon brother was talking about. The numbers of demons attacking, the civilians injured, and the property lost, as reported in the battle reports, were just meaningless numbers to her, sheltered within the palace walls.
Without seeing it firsthand, she could never understand what these numbers represented. At this point, Remilia, as a ruler, was undoubtedly unqualified. With her current experience, she might well utter infamous phrases like "Why not eat meat paste?" when dealing with refugee-related affairs.
"Starting tomorrow, you will leave Scarlet and, as the sole heir to the Lockman Kingdom, oversee the post-war city restoration and reconstruction efforts across the kingdom. You need to become a capable queen, not a ruler who only thinks of escaping."
"I don't want to leave Scarlet. I don't want to leave the palace. I don't want to leave you." Remilia hugged her knees, pouting and glaring at Muria.
"That's not up to you." Muria kept his face stern, trying to appear impassive and serious. "You have to go, whether you want to or not. Tomorrow, I'll have a team of Storm Giants escort you."
"Bad brother! I hate you!" Seeing Muria's serious expression, seemingly without room for negotiation, Remilia angrily slammed her pen down on the table, her large black wings unfurling behind her, and she flew out.
"I'm going to play with Yingdila." Remilia had been sitting here reviewing state affairs only to make Muria happy and possibly receive some praise. Now that Muria had angered her, she ran off, not wanting to deal with him.
"Her mental growth is too slow, almost stagnant." Watching Remilia, who left like a petulant little girl, Muria sighed softly.
Even though she had been stripped of the true ancestor's source power, it had profoundly affected her human nature, influencing her soul.
For instance, after Remilia advanced to the level of soul intent, the soul rings she condensed surpassed human limits, achieving the astonishing feat of ten rings, and she hadn't even broken through to the second tier yet. Her ten soul rings were not her limit; she could become even stronger.
This already indicated that her soul had changed. Aside from her appearance, the current Remilia had nothing in common with humans. However, this had its downsides, one being that Remilia's mental maturity was nearly at a standstill.
She was nearly twenty years old but her mental level was still that of a ten-year-old. This shouldn't be the case, and Muria felt that keeping her in the palace was one of the reasons, hence his plan for her to oversee the national reconstruction, which might help her mature mentally.
...
"Master." A dignified middle-aged gentleman knelt at Muria's feet. This was Myles, who had reached legendary status eight years ago and was now Muria's chief enforcer.
"Have you delivered the items to Yingdila?"
"They have been delivered." Mentioning Yingdila, who had legendary strength, Myles showed a look of palpable relief. If it weren't for Muria's orders, he wouldn't want to get anywhere near that creature that seemed to want to devour
everything.
"Has she already eaten everything previously sent?" Muria asked curiously, always harboring a complex emotion of seven parts affection and three parts wariness towards Yingdila.
"All gone!"
"Does she have a black hole in her stomach?" Muria rubbed his brow in surprise upon hearing this news.
The remains of demons have strong contaminative properties, causing nearly catastrophic damage to the environment, so dealing with demon corpses post-battle is a major issue.
Before the calamity, dealing with demon remains was easy due to their rarity, easily handled by demon sorcerers and mages and even in high demand.
Now, it was impossible for mages to dispose of the daily accumulation of demon remains killed by the hunter squads. Thus, the Lockman Kingdom needed a place that could handle demon remains on a large scale.
Thus, Yingdila's stomach became Muria's only choice. Every day, people collected demon remains from across the kingdom and delivered them to Yingdila for her to devour at will.
The day the calamity began was the start of Yingdila's happy life, with nearly endless food each day. Of course, what Yingdila consumed were the remains of mid to low-tier demons.
The remains of high-tier demons at the legendary and soul intent levels were separately collected by Muria. No matter how plentiful, these remains were still valuable and couldn't be fed to Yingdila.
Even so, Yingdila, who consumed hundreds of thousands of demon remains daily, was now undergoing a terrifying transformation. Muria could no longer fathom her strength, which was hard to quantify with the power system of Erathia.
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