"{So, your impressions?}" Arima asked Night with telepathy.
"{Strong. Very powerful in fact. Even with just the first seal released, I still have goosebumps right now because of it.}"
Arima smiled, "{Well, that's the kind of results I wanted. By the way, don't forget to take the memories of those two.}"
"{Mh, yeah, of course. But is it really necessary?}"
"{Remember I said that I would bully the humans a bit? I wasn't joking. Investigate if there are some people that need to disappear. Also, where is that woman?}"
"{Lilis? I think she watched the whole time but I'm not sure myself where she is.}"
"{Then it's okay. I'll finish what I have to do here and I'll come back soon after,}" Arima ended the conversation and cut the link.
"Well," Night walked toward Fayla and restrained her before waking her up.
"[Penitentia Conspiciunt] (Penance Stare)," He chanted before she could even say something. Night was quite massive compared to Fayla; she couldn't escape it when such a huge pair of eyes was glaring at her. She was struck by the magic and her head began to hurt.
She grabbed her head and held for a while. Each regret she had done her best to forget resurfaced to torment her. After only a minute, she fell on her knees crying.
The flames in Night's eyes vanished. He solemnly looked at the woman crying in front of him, "Well, you're not that bad of a person," He calmly said to her. The fact that she was not that hurt by the ‘Penance’ only meant that her crimes weren’t serious at all.
Night shook his head and sighed, "But falling in love with that prince in your childhood was a really an unfortunate blunder," He uttered and she stopped crying. Fayla raised her head and gazed at the intimidating dragon.
"…Can you help him?" She asked strangely. Maybe most people wouldn’t understand what she was talking about. But Night glanced at her and smiled.
"Sure," He turned his head toward Lanya who was dragging Drannoc on the ground like he was stained clothing. The prince was in tatters and had multiple injuries along with broken bones and a displaced jaw. Lanya had just a small cut on her cheek and had an extremely unpleasant expression on her face.
"Don't tell me you beat him like that just because of that cut, right?" Night asked and Lanya looked away. As said before, even though people can use healing magic in this world, everything depends on the healer, the injury itself, and the one who caused it. Lanya's cut was made by the prince as he converged a lot of his life force and aura.
"What did you do, seriously? The energy infused in that cut on your cheek is no joke. It feels like he used his ultimate attack for it," Night remarked after checking the cut. He healed it in a second since his own life force surpassed Drannoc’s by far. He then grabbed the prince before tossing him beside Fayla and healing him a bit at the same time.
"The second he saw me, he threw himself at me with a really infuriating expression," Lanya responded with deep coldness in her voice.
Night wryly smiled and woke the prince up after tying him up with magic. He opened his eyes and looked around like an idiot and then his eyes fell on Lanya, "You! How dare you?!" He shouted and then paled after remembering something. He slowly looked down at his crotch and spotted the dried blood.
Night's eyes widened and he looked at Lanya in shock, "Don't tell me..."
Lanya became flustered really quickly and was already itching to kill that prince. Night sighed and looked at Drannoc, "Hey, look at me in the eyes."
"You? Fayla hasn't taken care of you already?"
Night pointed behind him with a blank expression, "If you're looking for her, she is there."
"What?" The prince turned around and froze when she saw Fayla sitting down with a serene face that had lost most of the coldness she had before. He scowled at the strange situation and glared at Night, "What do you think you’re doing? If something happens to me, you can be sure that you will die along with all of the spirits people. My father won’t spare you. In fact, just what that woman did to me is enough to sentence all of you. You better be careful about you do.”
Night laughed and sneered, "Ignorant prince, tell me. Do you know what I am?"
"What you are?"
"My name is Night Bahamut. It was given by Arimane Blade. I am a soul beast."
Both Drannoc and Fayla were thunderstruck by those words.
"A soul beast…?" Fayla mumbled and an immense feeling of fear sprouted in her.
"Impossible!" The prince shouted, "To beat Fayla, it means that you're around the late ninth level! My father is at the tenth level but even his soul beast can't beat Fayla!" He began to shout in shock to reassure himself that there is no way that someone this powerful existed.
Night grinned, "Sorry, but it's true. If Arima wanted to, he could destroy your entire country without my help."
The prince was speechless and started to think about what he should do, "You don't have to think that much," Night interrupted his thoughts. "Your choices don’t matter anymore. Do you really think that your opinion matters at this point?”
“I decide what you will do. [Penitentia Conspiciunt]," Night's eyes were ignited and Drannoc started screaming from the top of his lungs.
His state right now was a lot more daunting than Fayla. The latter paled, "What are you doing to him?!"
"The same I did to you," Night replied indifferently. "But this guy's crimes and guilt he is supposed to have are not something that can be compared to yours."
Fayla looked worriedly at Drannoc and could only wait. The prince wailed in agony for ten minutes straight. His hair had become white and his face was covered in dried tears. When he stopped screaming, his eyes had lost their past luster and was replaced by a new one.
"I'm sorry…" He bowed his head slightly and apologized in a very composed voice compared to before. That change wasn’t really surprising. Truthfully, the pain and mental scars that the prince had just suffered because of ‘Penance’ are something that maybe even Arima wouldn’t be able to resist. This magic actually neared the classification of mind control. But it was purely a magic that forced the target to regret everything vile he had done in his life.
Night nodded, "Since I copied your memories, I only need you to do two things for me. One; return to your city and spread the information about a man named Arimane Blade. His title is the 'Kind Demon'."
Night told the first thing and the prince slowly nodded with a vacant expression. He already knew that to redeem himself he had to at least listen to Night.
“Two; I'm going to give you a list of people and I want you to gather them within three days from now on," Night's eyes glowed and the prince received the list telepathically. He appeared to be alarmed by something but still nodded in agreement with a fearful expression.
"That’s all. Now, you can go," Night said and the dimension broke apart like glass and they returned to the room they were supposed to be.
Drannoc stood up, he turned around and gently smiled, "Should we go, Fayla?" He asked and Fayla's expression brightened and she happily nodded, "You can go first to prepare the escort."
Night, who had turned into a wolf again, looked at the prince when Fayla had left the room, "I did as Arima told me. I placed a curse on you. You have one year. If in one year you still don't redeem yourself, the curse will kill you. But if you manage to save and help more people than you made suffer then the curse will automatically disappear. I already engraved this in your memories but I should still give you a verbal warning. "
"I understand," The prince bowed and left silently.
After that incident, Drannoc returned to the human capital. The change in his personality shocked the entire country. Even his father tried to see if something was wrong with him. But he never found out about the curse or what happened, and just noted that his son had now more white hair than him. From that day onward, the prince began to help and work for his country.
"It's funny," Lilis appeared beside Night and commented.
"What is?"
"You could just have killed him. I can understand you needed him to gather your target. But you didn't need to give him a chance to survive the curse."
Night shrugged, "That's how Arima wanted it. I asked him about that though. He answered this: 'The moment you use 'Penance', you already killed him'. That’s what he said, meaning that we already destroyed what he was before."
Lilis thought for a moment then stared at Night, "Still, the pain he suffered wasn't enough to pardon the crimes he committed until today."
Night snorted, "I already told him that. He replied with something pretty unexpected."
"Which is?"
Night turned around and jumped on the couch before laying down.
"‘If I can't give a second chance, then why am I still alive?'" Night quoted and closed his eyes.
Lilis was surprised, "Was he talking about his transmigration here?"
"No," Night instantly responded, then he wryly smiled. "That's the answer I got when asked the same thing as you."
Lilis and Night fell silent until Lanya stepped inside the room with Vinia, "What's wrong?"
******************************************
"Here we are," Hieran said when they arrived in front of a place full of giant green leaves and vines illuminated by the sun. It was quite peculiar and unique how it changed from a normal forest with trees, shadowy grass, and mushrooms to a dazzling place with shiny green plants everywhere.
"That's pretty," Arima commented. "So, do we go in?"
"I already sent a message to that woman. Maybe one of her subordinates will come soon."
"By the way, what's her name?"
"Oh, she called herself Evergreen," Rex answered as he stared at something approaching them. Arima looked forward as well and his eyes locked on a squirrel around thirty centimeters tall that was running toward them.
"What do you want from the Queen?" The squirrel used a condescending tone as if he had the most powerful backer of the world; apparently capable of protecting him from two tenth level existences, plus another one as strong as the seventh level.
Rex snorted, "We want to meet your master. Tell her that someone who she shouldn’t provoke has come to meet her."
"Denied," The squirrel refused instantly.
"The Queen told me to refuse everyone that dares to ask for a meeting without a reason."
Hieran furrowed, "It's the person who saved her forest. Is that reason not sufficient enough perhaps?"
The squirrel glanced at Arima and laughed, "There's no way the Queen would need help from a human to protect the for…!!"
Arima’s smile became extremely dark and threatening. The squirrel closed his mouth as his body shivered uncontrollably, "Little guy, this is your last chance. Tell her to come here or I will destroy every single barrier protecting this place."
The fear took control of his body but the squirrel still had his mind fighting. When he heard a human uttering such nonsense, he still shouted, "You can't break the Queen's barriers!"
Arima smirked, "You brought this upon yourself. Karma."
When Arima called his sword, Rex and Hieran immediately retreated. They had seen what a simple swing of that katana could do and would not dare to touch the blade even if it was unmoving.
Arima leaped and escaped the confinement of the forest's trees. He gazed at the center of the forest from above. It looked like a giant dome containing a green paradise. The dome was the visual feedback of all the magic barriers set up by the dryad.
Arima gripped his sword tightly and took an Iai stance in mid-air, "[Primum Sigillum, Frio] (First Seal, Break)," He disabled the first seal and the mighty aura was freely spread.
"[Inanis mundi] (Void Blade)," A transparent aura gathered around Karma and clouded Arima’s figure for a second. He unsheathed his katana and swung it before putting it back inside the scabbard in the same motion.
A transparent flying slash was conjured and without any explosion or sound, the dome and the smaller magic formations inside were cut and reduced to mana particles.
Arima spun in mid-air and landed in front of the squirrel. His sword had already been put back inside his soul when his feet touched the ground.
"When it comes to dealing with magic arrays," Arima grinned at the small animal who was trembling at his feet, “Space magic is the best solution… So? Convinced?"
"{So, your impressions?}" Arima asked Night with telepathy.
"{Strong. Very powerful in fact. Even with just the first seal released, I still have goosebumps right now because of it.}"
Arima smiled, "{Well, that's the kind of results I wanted. By the way, don't forget to take the memories of those two.}"
"{Mh, yeah, of course. But is it really necessary?}"
"{Remember I said that I would bully the humans a bit? I wasn't joking. Investigate if there are some people that need to disappear. Also, where is that woman?}"
"{Lilis? I think she watched the whole time but I'm not sure myself where she is.}"
"{Then it's okay. I'll finish what I have to do here and I'll come back soon after,}" Arima ended the conversation and cut the link.
"Well," Night walked toward Fayla and restrained her before waking her up.
"[Penitentia Conspiciunt] (Penance Stare)," He chanted before she could even say something. Night was quite massive compared to Fayla; she couldn't escape it when such a huge pair of eyes was glaring at her. She was struck by the magic and her head began to hurt.
She grabbed her head and held for a while. Each regret she had done her best to forget resurfaced to torment her. After only a minute, she fell on her knees crying.
The flames in Night's eyes vanished. He solemnly looked at the woman crying in front of him, "Well, you're not that bad of a person," He calmly said to her. The fact that she was not that hurt by the ‘Penance’ only meant that her crimes weren’t serious at all.
Night shook his head and sighed, "But falling in love with that prince in your childhood was a really an unfortunate blunder," He uttered and she stopped crying. Fayla raised her head and gazed at the intimidating dragon.
"…Can you help him?" She asked strangely. Maybe most people wouldn’t understand what she was talking about. But Night glanced at her and smiled.
"Sure," He turned his head toward Lanya who was dragging Drannoc on the ground like he was stained clothing. The prince was in tatters and had multiple injuries along with broken bones and a displaced jaw. Lanya had just a small cut on her cheek and had an extremely unpleasant expression on her face.
"Don't tell me you beat him like that just because of that cut, right?" Night asked and Lanya looked away. As said before, even though people can use healing magic in this world, everything depends on the healer, the injury itself, and the one who caused it. Lanya's cut was made by the prince as he converged a lot of his life force and aura.
"What did you do, seriously? The energy infused in that cut on your cheek is no joke. It feels like he used his ultimate attack for it," Night remarked after checking the cut. He healed it in a second since his own life force surpassed Drannoc’s by far. He then grabbed the prince before tossing him beside Fayla and healing him a bit at the same time.
"The second he saw me, he threw himself at me with a really infuriating expression," Lanya responded with deep coldness in her voice.
Night wryly smiled and woke the prince up after tying him up with magic. He opened his eyes and looked around like an idiot and then his eyes fell on Lanya, "You! How dare you?!" He shouted and then paled after remembering something. He slowly looked down at his crotch and spotted the dried blood.
Night's eyes widened and he looked at Lanya in shock, "Don't tell me..."
Lanya became flustered really quickly and was already itching to kill that prince. Night sighed and looked at Drannoc, "Hey, look at me in the eyes."
"You? Fayla hasn't taken care of you already?"
Night pointed behind him with a blank expression, "If you're looking for her, she is there."
"What?" The prince turned around and froze when she saw Fayla sitting down with a serene face that had lost most of the coldness she had before. He scowled at the strange situation and glared at Night, "What do you think you’re doing? If something happens to me, you can be sure that you will die along with all of the spirits people. My father won’t spare you. In fact, just what that woman did to me is enough to sentence all of you. You better be careful about you do.”
Night laughed and sneered, "Ignorant prince, tell me. Do you know what I am?"
"What you are?"
"My name is Night Bahamut. It was given by Arimane Blade. I am a soul beast."
Both Drannoc and Fayla were thunderstruck by those words.
"A soul beast…?" Fayla mumbled and an immense feeling of fear sprouted in her.
"Impossible!" The prince shouted, "To beat Fayla, it means that you're around the late ninth level! My father is at the tenth level but even his soul beast can't beat Fayla!" He began to shout in shock to reassure himself that there is no way that someone this powerful existed.
Night grinned, "Sorry, but it's true. If Arima wanted to, he could destroy your entire country without my help."
The prince was speechless and started to think about what he should do, "You don't have to think that much," Night interrupted his thoughts. "Your choices don’t matter anymore. Do you really think that your opinion matters at this point?”
“I decide what you will do. [Penitentia Conspiciunt]," Night's eyes were ignited and Drannoc started screaming from the top of his lungs.
His state right now was a lot more daunting than Fayla. The latter paled, "What are you doing to him?!"
"The same I did to you," Night replied indifferently. "But this guy's crimes and guilt he is supposed to have are not something that can be compared to yours."
Fayla looked worriedly at Drannoc and could only wait. The prince wailed in agony for ten minutes straight. His hair had become white and his face was covered in dried tears. When he stopped screaming, his eyes had lost their past luster and was replaced by a new one.
"I'm sorry…" He bowed his head slightly and apologized in a very composed voice compared to before. That change wasn’t really surprising. Truthfully, the pain and mental scars that the prince had just suffered because of ‘Penance’ are something that maybe even Arima wouldn’t be able to resist. This magic actually neared the classification of mind control. But it was purely a magic that forced the target to regret everything vile he had done in his life.
Night nodded, "Since I copied your memories, I only need you to do two things for me. One; return to your city and spread the information about a man named Arimane Blade. His title is the 'Kind Demon'."
Night told the first thing and the prince slowly nodded with a vacant expression. He already knew that to redeem himself he had to at least listen to Night.
“Two; I'm going to give you a list of people and I want you to gather them within three days from now on," Night's eyes glowed and the prince received the list telepathically. He appeared to be alarmed by something but still nodded in agreement with a fearful expression.
"That’s all. Now, you can go," Night said and the dimension broke apart like glass and they returned to the room they were supposed to be.
Drannoc stood up, he turned around and gently smiled, "Should we go, Fayla?" He asked and Fayla's expression brightened and she happily nodded, "You can go first to prepare the escort."
Night, who had turned into a wolf again, looked at the prince when Fayla had left the room, "I did as Arima told me. I placed a curse on you. You have one year. If in one year you still don't redeem yourself, the curse will kill you. But if you manage to save and help more people than you made suffer then the curse will automatically disappear. I already engraved this in your memories but I should still give you a verbal warning. "
"I understand," The prince bowed and left silently.
After that incident, Drannoc returned to the human capital. The change in his personality shocked the entire country. Even his father tried to see if something was wrong with him. But he never found out about the curse or what happened, and just noted that his son had now more white hair than him. From that day onward, the prince began to help and work for his country.
"It's funny," Lilis appeared beside Night and commented.
"What is?"
"You could just have killed him. I can understand you needed him to gather your target. But you didn't need to give him a chance to survive the curse."
Night shrugged, "That's how Arima wanted it. I asked him about that though. He answered this: 'The moment you use 'Penance', you already killed him'. That’s what he said, meaning that we already destroyed what he was before."
Lilis thought for a moment then stared at Night, "Still, the pain he suffered wasn't enough to pardon the crimes he committed until today."
Night snorted, "I already told him that. He replied with something pretty unexpected."
"Which is?"
Night turned around and jumped on the couch before laying down.
"‘If I can't give a second chance, then why am I still alive?'" Night quoted and closed his eyes.
Lilis was surprised, "Was he talking about his transmigration here?"
"No," Night instantly responded, then he wryly smiled. "That's the answer I got when asked the same thing as you."
Lilis and Night fell silent until Lanya stepped inside the room with Vinia, "What's wrong?"
******************************************
"Here we are," Hieran said when they arrived in front of a place full of giant green leaves and vines illuminated by the sun. It was quite peculiar and unique how it changed from a normal forest with trees, shadowy grass, and mushrooms to a dazzling place with shiny green plants everywhere.
"That's pretty," Arima commented. "So, do we go in?"
"I already sent a message to that woman. Maybe one of her subordinates will come soon."
"By the way, what's her name?"
"Oh, she called herself Evergreen," Rex answered as he stared at something approaching them. Arima looked forward as well and his eyes locked on a squirrel around thirty centimeters tall that was running toward them.
"What do you want from the Queen?" The squirrel used a condescending tone as if he had the most powerful backer of the world; apparently capable of protecting him from two tenth level existences, plus another one as strong as the seventh level.
Rex snorted, "We want to meet your master. Tell her that someone who she shouldn’t provoke has come to meet her."
"Denied," The squirrel refused instantly.
"The Queen told me to refuse everyone that dares to ask for a meeting without a reason."
Hieran furrowed, "It's the person who saved her forest. Is that reason not sufficient enough perhaps?"
The squirrel glanced at Arima and laughed, "There's no way the Queen would need help from a human to protect the for…!!"
Arima’s smile became extremely dark and threatening. The squirrel closed his mouth as his body shivered uncontrollably, "Little guy, this is your last chance. Tell her to come here or I will destroy every single barrier protecting this place."
The fear took control of his body but the squirrel still had his mind fighting. When he heard a human uttering such nonsense, he still shouted, "You can't break the Queen's barriers!"
Arima smirked, "You brought this upon yourself. Karma."
When Arima called his sword, Rex and Hieran immediately retreated. They had seen what a simple swing of that katana could do and would not dare to touch the blade even if it was unmoving.
Arima leaped and escaped the confinement of the forest's trees. He gazed at the center of the forest from above. It looked like a giant dome containing a green paradise. The dome was the visual feedback of all the magic barriers set up by the dryad.
Arima gripped his sword tightly and took an Iai stance in mid-air, "[Primum Sigillum, Frio] (First Seal, Break)," He disabled the first seal and the mighty aura was freely spread.
"[Inanis mundi] (Void Blade)," A transparent aura gathered around Karma and clouded Arima’s figure for a second. He unsheathed his katana and swung it before putting it back inside the scabbard in the same motion.
A transparent flying slash was conjured and without any explosion or sound, the dome and the smaller magic formations inside were cut and reduced to mana particles.
Arima spun in mid-air and landed in front of the squirrel. His sword had already been put back inside his soul when his feet touched the ground.
"When it comes to dealing with magic arrays," Arima grinned at the small animal who was trembling at his feet, “Space magic is the best solution… So? Convinced?"
