Riding in the carriage, under the cover of night, Dorothy and Vanya returned from the mountains to Igwinte, finally reaching a crossroads in the suburbs where they parted ways.
Vanya said goodbye to Dorothy, intending to return to the hotel arranged by the local Church in Igwinte. Before she left, Dorothy called out to her, telling her to split the spoils before leaving. Hearing Dorothy's words, Vanya couldn't help but feel anxious.
"M-Miss Dorothea, please mind your words. We went to perform an act of salvation, a righteous deed approved by the Lord. How can you use a vulgar term like'splitting the spoils,' which is fit for thieves?" Vanya adjusted her glasses, raised her hand, and seriously admonished Dorothy. Seeing this, Dorothy could only smile and apologize.
"Haha, my apologies. I was just joking and spoke carelessly. Don't mind it too much. Alright, this isn't'splitting the spoils' now. Let's share the results of our battle."
"Results of battle... Hmm... Can I really take some?"
After correcting Dorothy's wording, Vanya began to consider Dorothy's suggestion. To be honest, it surprised her a little. Normally, when she participated in archaeological recovery work, any gains were automatically handed directly to her superior. She had never thought about keeping anything for herself; even the results of scripture research sometimes ended up belonging to others.
In this operation, Vanya also regarded Dorothy, who seemed closer to that person, as her superior. Her primary goal was to rescue children who might have been harmed by a cult. Initially, she hadn't planned to take anything or think about things like battle results, so she hadn't expected Dorothy to proactively offer to share things with her.
"Of course. After all, you put in a lot of effort too. I'm a fair person; everyone gets a share. Let's take our time and divide them." Dorothy said frankly, while Vanya still seemed a little hesitant.
"Hmm... Uh... Miss Dorothea, my original intention for this trip was to follow divine will and save those children. It doesn't feel right to ask for things now. Should we... should we prepare a sacrificial ceremony and offer these things to that person...?"
Vanya said this, believing in the Holy Mother. Influenced by the stories of selfless saints who loved everyone in the Shining Light Church scriptures since childhood, she believed noble deeds should be selfless. If one asked for rewards after performing a noble act, it would feel like the original motive was less sincere, and the nobility would be impure.
"Oh, what's wrong with that? You work, you gain; that's how it should be. We are all mortals; don't demand too high a spiritual standard of yourself, it's tiring. There are some things here that you deserve. No need for sacrifice; that person, seeing how hard we worked tonight, will surely approve of us using these things directly as rewards."
Dorothy said with a cheerful smile. Vanya was slightly taken aback upon hearing it, suddenly finding it incredible that the girl in front of her, as a believer, would say such words.
Finally, under Dorothy's persuasion, Vanya reluctantly agreed to accept the spoils.
Next, Dorothy opened her bag, revealing the spoils she had collected, and then started dividing them with the slightly bewildered Vanya.
Based on the results of the battle, Dorothy took the larger share and Vanya the smaller. Dorothy gave Vanya over four hundred pound, nearly a third of the money. The sigils were several Raw Consumption Symbol and a few other sigils. For Spirituality storage items, she received two points of "Shadow" silver coins. Next, Dorothy also gave her one of the two secret transmission books, saying they could swap after finishing them.
Finally, regarding the three extraordinary items: the staff, the candle, and the bracelet. Although Dorothy wasn't sure what they were for, she could passively view their associated Spirituality types through appraisal. The staff had the "Cup" attribute, the candle had the "Shadow" attribute, and the bracelet had the "Shadow" and "enlightenment" attributes.
Just by looking at the attributes, Dorothy could roughly guess the functions of the items, especially the "Shadow" and "enlightenment" bracelet. This was clearly the personal item the Mentor used for counter-divination. This item was unnecessary for Dorothy, who had a system, so she directly gave it to Vanya.
After dividing the items, Vanya suddenly remembered that many of these things were considered contraband by the Church and she couldn't take them back like this. Otherwise, they might be detected by the Hui Jian Lamp in the Church. She would be returning to Tivian soon, and taking these things with her was somewhat dangerous.
Facing Vanya's worries, Dorothy said she could help her mail these items to Tivian, as long as Vanya provided a safe receiving address.
Afterwards, Vanya wrote an address for Dorothy on the spot. After saying goodbye to each other, Dorothy drove home. After parking the carriage and settling the Corpse Puppet, Dorothy carried her bag back to Nanyang Flower Road. Carrying a Light, she walked up the stairs to her front door and then saw an envelope placed there.
Opening it, Dorothy found that it was from Grego. It said he had to work overtime unexpectedly again tonight and she didn't need to wait for him; she should eat and sleep early. Igwinte had a very fast and efficient city postal service, so Grego would write and mail a letter back to inform Dorothy when he suddenly had to work overtime. The An Yin Bureau seemed to have a dedicated interface connecting to the post office and telegraph office, making mailing letters very convenient. Dorothy had received such letters more than once.
'Thinking about it, it's impossible they wouldn't be working overtime tonight... This wave of events caused an unprecedentedly large stir. But since the letter was sent back, it proves that the An Yin Bureau successfully dealt with the mutated Viscount Field, and Grego should be fine now...'
After reading the letter in her hand, Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief. Then, after entering the house, she quickly went to her room. After locking the door, she turned on the desk lamp, sat heavily on the chair, and let out a long sigh.
Finally, after sitting on the chair for a long time and recovering, Dorothy began to examine the successes of the day. First, she placed her belongings from the bag onto the desk and started calculating the recent consumption and increase in resources.
First, the money. After looting Buck's house earlier, she had 335 pound. She spent 170 pound after asking Aldrich to appraise some sigils and inquiring about lycanthropes. Then she bought Beacon Sigil from him and asked about methods to eliminate scent, which cost another 50 pound. Finally, she had 115 pound left.
This time at Field's house, Dorothy hastily collected 1209 pound in cash. Of this, 403 pound was given to Vanya, leaving her with 806 pound. Adding the original 115, Dorothy now had a total of 921 pound in cash.
'As expected, a Viscount's house is different. Just taking a little yields so much. This can be considered payment for eliminating their family's enemy. If the first generation Viscount Field knows about it in heaven, he will surely understand me, and might even proactively give more.'
Looking at the large stack of nearly a thousand pound banknotes in her hand, Dorothy couldn't help but think with a beaming smile. This was the first time since transmigrating that she could use so much money.
Next is Spirituality. Dorothy hasn't had much Spirituality consumption recently. She used a little "Cup" to activate Life Devour while in the Field mansion. Now, the Corpse Puppet Ring has just completed overloading its control limit to five puppets and needs 2 points of "Cup" to recharge. Previously, Dorothy obtained 2 "Cup" and 1 "enlightenment" from the complete version of "Lamb Song". Therefore, she only actually consumed 1 point of "Cup" in the end, which she could replenish after reading for a while.
Then there's "enlightenment". "enlightenment" is the Spirituality Dorothy consumed the most. Precise manipulation with the Corpse Puppet Ring, increasing the Corpse Puppet limit, and divination all used "enlightenment". Dorothy's original 5 points of "enlightenment" in her blue bar were depleted, and she even had to draw 2 points of "enlightenment" from her experience bar to use. After offsetting the 1 point of "enlightenment" gained from "Lamb Song", Dorothy ultimately consumed 1 point of "enlightenment" that was originally experience value.
Besides, other Spirituality values remained unchanged. Therefore, Dorothy's current Spirituality status is as follows.
11 points of "Cup", 1 point of "Stone", 2 points of "Shadow", 1 point of "Silence", 7 points of "enlightenment". Among the 7 points of "enlightenment", 5 points are from the blue bar, which is now empty and requires some time to recover.