"Ouch! Hot!"

I roll on the ground in a panic to try to put out the flames while the former god of fire shakes his head.

"Is that truly your best? You should be capable of more."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't ready for a fight right now."

"That's precisely the issue, you shouldn't need to 'be ready' for a fight."

I just wanted to ask Vilde if he had any advice on how to deal with the Solitude problem, seeing how he has plenty of experience dealing with the Titans. But after I explained the situation he just challenged me to a fight out of nowhere.

"What was even the point of that fight?"

"I merely wanted to make things clear."

"Make what clear?"

"That you are not yet ready to face a void titan. I'd even go as far as to say that regular demons could pose a threat to you in large enough numbers."

"Am I really that bad?! It just takes a little time for me to get in the mood for battle."

"I believe that you have already seen the most dangerous power the demons possess, the ability to temporarily decrease the level of their adversaries."

"Yeah, I did get a taste of that."

"With that healing of yours, you can afford to have a slow start against most opponents, even allow them to attack you unimpeded. That won't be the case against demons, each time your level is lowered, it will become easier for them to do it again, it is far too dangerous to allow that snowball to start rolling. If that wasn't enough, they also have the power to temporarily disable individual skills and spells."

Uh, when he puts it like that, level reduction sounds really scary for a healer like myself.

"So you don't think that I can beat them? Just how strong is Solitude?"

"If we are only talking about its power in combat, Solitude is in fact the weakest of the six. However, you will need strong companions to assist you, for it is impossible for anyone to defeat it alone."

"Even the weakest of them is that strong?!"

"Well, yes, but the greater issue is its unique skill, each titan has a particularly powerful one. In the case of Solitude, it is impossible to defeat for anyone attempting to battle it alone. It matters not how strong you are, you could be over level 9000 and still lose if you face it without companions."

That's an issue, I don't want to put any of my friends in danger fighting something like that.

"Does that really matter though? Solitude cannot enter this world for as long as you are alive, so I'm not going to fight it."

"It will certainly be for the best if you don't, but I fear that it is planning to lure you to it. Solitude might be unable to come here, but you can go to where it is."

"What?! What makes you think that? I don't know how to leave this world, and I can just ignore its 'lure' anyway."

"The titan will open the door for you. And it is clear to me that it is planning to force your hand with the situation of the kingdom you are planning to visit, that much was obvious from the moment it let you know about the fact that it has taken it over. Ten years is enough for the seeds of evil to sprout, removing those flowers from the country will prove to be nigh impossible. At the very least, you will have to use force. Are you willing to start a war with another country?"

"Well, no. But I can use a more delicate approach, I have some important people of that kingdom on my side."

"You will certainly fail. And then Solitude will inform you of the fact that you can disable its roses by defeating it. You won't be able to ignore the people who are suffering, and you will walk right into its hands."

"I could at least try, and if it looks like I cannot fix the problem I'll just ignore Solitude and come back."

"Do not delude yourself. You know that you are incapable of returning without saving everyone."

Ugh... He's right. If I go there and see people in pain I won't come back until the problem is solved. I'm the type of person who doesn't know when to give up, which is not too bad until I find myself in a situation where I cannot win.

What is going on?! I know exactly what trap has been prepared for me, Vilde told me straight up, and I still have no way to avoid walking right into it?

"Can you at least tell me what you know about Solitude? What does it look like? How does it fight?"

"I'm afraid that I do not remember much, it was a long time ago... It looks somewhat like a gigantic monstrous plant, the bottom half of its body is all roots but the top is vaguely humanoid, and it's exceedingly large, I'd say around 500 meters top to bottom."

"500?!" That's bigger than I thought.

"As for the way it fights... It uses spikes I think. I'm afraid that I did not have many encounters with it, the titan I used to fight most was the one called Violence. I used to battle it alongside my closest followers, the dragons. They would cover the skies and rain fire upon the hordes of demons that Violence commanded while I-"

He's started to ramble out of nowhere. It's easy to forget, but I guess that Vilde is a very old guy.

"Excuse me. I'm in a bit of a hurry, I don't have time for stories that are unrelated to the current problem."

"Ah, my apologies. But now that I've been reminded of them, could you tell me how the dragon race is faring in this era? Are they still wisely using their power to protect the people of this world?"

"Uh, I don't know much personally, but from what I've heard... They used to get killed a lot because of their habit to pick fights with everybody, then the demon king almost drove them to extinction but the six witches saved them, then they became followers of the witches since they didn't really know what to do with their lives, until just a few years ago when the leader of the witches ditched them for some robots."

"I see..."

Vilde is staring at me with his eyes wide open, I'm not very good at explaining things...

"Can we please get back on track? What would you recommend me to do to deal with the ghost rose problem?"

"Mmm, the way I see it, you have three options.

The first is to ignore the problem and abandon that kingdom to its fate, to wait until you are ready to confront the Titans. I do not recommend this. Allowing the demons to spread their influence unopposed is not a good idea, and if you hide from every problem you will not grow, you might never become ready to face them.

The second option is to fight Solitude directly as it wants you to, as defeating it would save that kingdom without much pain. This might seem like the morally correct thing to do but it will almost certainly end in disaster. If Solitude kills you, or worse, turns you into its slave, more people will end up suffering in the long run. I do not believe that a course of action that will end up causing the most suffering can ever be considered morally correct, so you should not do this.

And the third option is to use force, to destroy all of Solitude's demons and followers in that kingdom. This might not be something that you want to do, and it might be difficult to find them all, but it's the only option that I would recommend."

"But if Solitude is really in control of that kingdom it might try to use its knights and soldiers to stop me! If I try to get through them by force I could end up causing a war!"

Vilde closes his eyes and lets out a sigh.

"Back in my time, we would not think twice about killing anyone who assisted the demons in any way. With the survival of the world in question there was no room for softness. Make no mistake, people are only as kind as they can afford to be, even you are not an exception. You should not allow things to become as desperate as they were back then, take your chance now that a war is merely something that you 'might' start."

"Ah... I'm really not qualified to handle something so complicated and important. Why can't I give my levels to someone else?"

"I doubt that there is anyone better suited than you to wield your power. And you do not need to handle this by yourself, don't you have trustworthy allies on your side? You even said that you have some of the higher-ups of that kingdom assisting you. They will probably do a better job at guiding you than I can, all I can really advise you on is how to handle demons. And speaking of which, I have some tools that you might find useful."

Saying that he starts rummaging through all the objects he has hoarded in his room. It takes him a few minutes to find what he was searching for, which is not surprising considering how disorganized it all is.

He finally finds a box and gives it to me. I open it to see that it's full of plain golden rings.

"This is one of the most effective tools for battling against void magic. While you are wearing that ring, any drains of your level will be reduced by half. Only one of them will have an effect at a time, and it will count as half of all the equipment you can use, but it's more than worth it. That box should have enough for your companions as well."

"Oh, thank you."

"Also, you should carry this in your pocket." He gives me a wooden red ball. "It will become engulfed in flames if there are demons nearby, it should make it easier to find them."

"This thing is going to set itself on fire? I don't know if I should have it in my pocket then."

"Worry not, they are the type of flames that don't burn."

"Don't say it as if that was an everyday occurrence."

Vilde slumps his shoulders and stares at the ground for a moment.

"I'm ashamed of the fact that I cannot do more to help you, I wish you the best of luck." He lifts his head and stares into my eyes. "This is very important, so I will repeat it one more time. Do not try to fight Solitude, but if you truly must, then under absolutely no circumstances should you do it alone."

"I get it, but... From all my past experiences, the more you tell me that something would be bad for me if it happened, the more likely it is that I'll end up in that situation."

He blinks a few times. "You appear to have quite a difficult life."

"Sometimes it is. I deal with it the best I can."

forli

So much for writing a chapter each week, as always, I'm a complete failure in every possible way.

In the end, I decided to go with 'it' for Solitude at least, even if it sounds weird at times it kinda sells the idea that it is an otherworldly abomination.

I decided to have Vilde give Luna those rings that halve level drain because I wanted him to provide some actual help and because I keep neglecting equipment too much. But the fact that I didn't plan for it from the start made it very apparent how meaningless the numbers in a litrpg can really be, since each time a demon lowers someone's level it will be the same amount that it would have been either way, I'll just pretend that it would have been twice as much without the ring. In the end, all the numbers are made up to serve the story, even if I do try to keep things somewhat consistent.

And I guess the only reason I gave the void demons the power of level drain in the first place was so that they can have a way to threaten Luna despite her healing.