Cameraman Never Dies

Chapter 72 - 72: Judge hates people, but people likes him

"Cheers!"

Judge, Raphael, and Stein clinked their wine glasses together and drank the fruit juice inside, pretending it was wine— except Judge... he hated wine. They had finished their meals and were having desserts.

Everyone except Renald was having fruit juices for dessert, while he was having another glass of alcohol instead of dessert. The king ordered him to have a glass of minted dessert juice as it was a great help in dealing with the hangover.

He obeyed without question, as it was a regular habit of people to have minted dessert juice after they drank a lot of alcohol.

Judge pitied him in his mind as he got up to leave for his room, thinking the party was over. But he had forgotten about a very important event that followed half an hour late after eating— it was the event of giving gifts to the birthday person.

Judge hurried off to his room to get some more re

———

Alexis was having a hard time sleeping, he went too hardcore with the killing and had just made his target explode by injecting corrupted ether via an artifact. He just wanted to see his prey exploding, but now he was paying for it.

He was completely covered in the blood of his victim, and it was getting harder to scrub it off.

After a long time in the river, he finally got rid of all the thick blood on his clothes. He laid them to dry under the sun as he climbed a huge tree to take a nap.

He dreamed of a young girl, her warm smile filled him with contentment. She was a frail girl, but he was always by her side to look after her.

...

Liyana, a black-haired girl, was extremely frail, she was at the age of fifteen. The best she could do was the daily tasks that required less strain on her body. But she was not someone who would sit still and rest on a bed.

She did all the work she could, she did not have a family that was bound by blood. But she had one person whom she could call family, it was Alexis.

Both lived in poverty, but always had each other in every moment of their life. Alexis always took the heavy work, he farmed and brought in firewood, he also picked medicinal herbs that provide a person with an ample amount of energy.

Liyana had corrupted ether in her body, it was destroying her body from the inside— very slowly, but surely. It was unknown when and where she got in contact with it, but she was always like that when Alexis found her, he was a kind soul then.

Both the children were devout believers of the god of light, Veritas. They always went there to pray together every day. One day, when both of them were working together in the kitchen, Liyana suddenly fainted, but Alexis caught her in time.

She was squirming and screaming quietly as he put her in bed. He sat near her the whole day, making sure she did not feel lonely, he could do nothing else.

The next day, he decided to head to the church alone, and as he was praying, the priest came to him and asked why he was praying so earnestly. He spoke honestly to the priest and even cried on his shoulders. He felt that pathetic.

The priest tried to console him, telling him that it was okay and god Veritas would help him with his hard times.

Seeing Alexis calm down, the priest offered him a solution. He could borrow the purifying artifact from the church to purify the corrupted ether from his friend.

Such an Artifact was a rare thing to be seen in a small church, but this church, even though small, had many people coming in every day. So the central church issued a small purifying artifact to the church.

Alexis was overjoyed and forgot to see the grin that the priest hid, he went home and told Liyana the good news.

Liyana, in her weak state, touched his cheeks lovingly. It was rare for her to do that since they always quarreled verbally, it was how they showed their love for each other.

She asked him to lean in closely, and when he did, she gave him a tight hug and kissed him. It lasted only a short while, but to Alexis, it lasted a lifetime.

She then instructed him to return the artifact and they should not waste the artifact's strength on her. A divine artifact was charged through the surrounding people's faith in the god whom the artifact was made for.

But it was still hard to recharge once it was used to purify, she knew of the fact, and with an artifact without any usable energy, they could not defend themselves against wraiths or monsters in the form of spirits.

But Alexis, driven even more by love, decided to use it regardless of the consequences, not stopping to think even once as to why the priest would give him the artifact while considering the consequences.

He finally cured her corrupted ether, but the cost was high. The corrupted ether was not dispersed but they all came back into her body forcefully as they had no other medium to go.

Alexis watched in horror as the love of his life, Liyana, thrashed and screamed loudly in extreme pain. Her body started to deform and got twisted and turned, she was not a human anymore.