---

It was a strange thing to Elena, being asked to be someone's friend. No one had ever seen her that way. Not even when she had infiltrated the Hero party.

"Ba, barh… argh, arf..."

The girl that stood before Elena started to become incoherent and shook like a leaf.

"Calm down and sit. Let's start again."

The strange girl, whose name was Cecilia as she had announced so, managed to get herself on the chair opposite Elena. She let the girl have some time to clear her head while she was observing.

Long blonde hair with deep blue eyes. A good physique and a fairly large amount of mana potential for a human. She was an ideal example of good breeding according to the noble's standard.

Although she is stronger than the nobles here, my maid is still above her in domain power. I was actually quite surprised to find such a human in my city. Talk about luck.

To be honest, Elena was glad Cecilia had come over and talked to her. This party was not so partyish to her. And the others kept a distance from her table, not even passing by. So she wasn't able to practice the provoking art at all. Standing up and going around to talk to nobles didn't feel right to her, a king.

She had considered spiking up the night with some more goblin harassment but this girl came out.

From what she could hear a while ago, this girl right here was in the Duke House, a sister of that fiance of hers. Elena was having a bias against Duke Dovantine so coming to talk to her was a bad idea. But luck was on Cecilia’s side as her approach surprised Elena and sparked her interest.

“Have you calmed down yet?”

“Haa… haa… Good, I’m good.”

Still a bit hyperventilating but the girl in front of Elena looked better now.

"So, do you need something from me?"

There was no noble etiquette in her mannerisms. Elena had long foregone the polite attitude for the Dovantine House. But the girl in front of her was a special case of a noble lady. She didn't catch the underlying tone or any meaning in it.

"Ah yeah, there is that."

She waited for Cecilia to form some sentences in her head. She had time.

"Still not feeling well? Have some cookies then. These are made by my personal maid."

She pushed the tray of sweets toward Cecilia. Seeing snacks before her eyes, she unconsciously put some in her mouth.

"!!!"

There were stars in her vision. Tears gathered on the edge of her eyes. Some unknown emotional expressions were seemingly about to explode on her face. She stuffed many more pieces into her mouth greedily.

"Wahh! It has been too long since I had real sweets! So good, so nostalgic!”

It was a matter of seconds before three plates of cookies and cakes were cleaned. Cecilia even helped herself out with two cupfuls of fragrance tea on the table.

“That was… something.”

Elena couldn’t say anything else while watching it. The girl was driven by desire so easily that she doubted whether or not she was actually a demon that reincarnated.

"Where did you get these? Can I have more?"

Facing such excitement, Elena just coldly looked back. Her face was neutral and still. This kind of psyche reminded her strongly of some of the Heroes. But power-wise, Cecilia was not fitted to fight her so obviously she was no Hero.

Being stared at without any word for a while made Cecilia “wake up” and cooled down. What she had done was still fresh and that kept her face a steady color of red from shame.

“Oh? You can feel embarrassed?”

“...”

Although she hadn’t stayed undetected with the Heroes for long, she knew enough about how to break them out of their pace. It wasn’t anything personal, she just didn’t like to remember those Heroes that she didn't like. They were all enemies but she still liked some of them.

"Anyway, I will answer your question first. The sweets are made by my maid here. She is very good."

Letting Elena lead the conversation, Cecilia timidly looked up for minimal courtesy. She looked at the Heroine of the game as the introduction pointed to and missed the proud tone of Elena at the end.

Elena was watching closely to see what ticked this girl up. She saw the girl's eyes widened up then returned to normal, then widened up again with her mouth opened.

Meanwhile, Emily was standing so straight that she thought her maid was under the butler's usual training session.

Mari had to poke her a bit to make her greet Cecilia with a small bow. Elena continued the conversation with nothing in mind yet.

"I would talk more about her sweets but unfortunately, they are all gone. There are still some at the other tables but I don't think taking them is worth it."

"s-sorry… it's just that they are so delicious."

Elena didn't mind some meaningless topics. The party would last for quite a while longer still, so this was a good time-wasting event.

"Hmm, you can ask my maid later if you want more. She likes making dessert food."

"R-really? I will then! There is something I want to talk about with her too."

"So, you are the future queen? I think we didn't meet at your brother's birthday."

"Haha, ha… I… was there. Just out of sight."

Cecilia was scratching the back of her head awkwardly.

"You said you want to be friends. Tell me honestly, what do you want from me?"

The casual tone and the unchanging expression cast an invisible pressure on Cecilia, making her weak in the knees again.

"I just want to be friends! It's true! We could help each other. Like, I could help you…, you know, with my brother."

"Oh? How so?"

Elena's expression changed for the first time since the conversation started. Her eyes narrowed.

"Huh? Eh, well… Did you, did you have any problem with Finn?"

She asked while taking glances at Emily. It was quite subtle and with her jumpiness, the intention in those glances was just meaningless to others.

"Problem with him? Hmm, what if I say I want to void the engagement?"

“Wha!? Why? Is he having an affair with your maid?”

““What?””

Both Elena and Emily raised their voices at the same time. They had no idea how the problem took such a turn. Well, Emily had some tiny ideas about it but she was surprised nonetheless.

"You have some incredible imagination there."

"Eh? It isn't so? Weird."

"The weird one is you. Your brother has been acting very unlikable. It wasn't like I expected you to stop this engagement or something. So don't bother thinking about it."

"This is… all wrong. You are supposed to be clingy toward Finn. Didn't you love him?"

It was starting to get annoying for Elena. If the topic wasn't changed soon, someone may have a bad time.

Detecting the ominous feeling from her master, Emily rushed in with something else.

"U, um hey… Lady, please don't talk about it. Aren't you like… good at magic or something? Let's talk about that!"

"Urk, okay."

Luckily, Cecilia agreed although a bit confused by the sudden change of topic. A small breath was relieved out of relief from Emily. She was speaking out of turn and above her station but no one pointed it out.

"You see, I am kinda… not good with people. So I just invest most of my time in magical research.”

“Time well spent. Good for you.”

Elena approved her dedication to magic. That alone had scored some points from her.

“On that topic, how about joining my Magi club when you attend the Academy?”

Cecilia asked expectantly. It was one of the few things she had achieved for herself in this world. Although the members were just herself and the retainers of her House.

“I will consider it. What does your club do? Magi is a strange word.”

Even with the ability to understand languages through soul reading, Elena couldn’t grasp the meaning of that word. It was like the girl before her speaking something that she didn’t even know. That word was attached to many blurred visions of magic fightings and weird birds of light surrounded some people. There were more images of people and caves that she couldn’t put together at all.

“Well, it is mainly me who decide things in the club. I like training my spell so I do it most of the time. Otherwise, I research the ancient tomes in the library for fun.”

“Hmm, look good to me. I like that. So, what about the name?”

“I-It’s just an ancient word for mages. Magi sounds cooler than just Magician right?”

Elena sensed the truth. But at the same time, she felt the meaning in her word was not that solid. The meaning of the word in her soul was more inclined with the visions she had glimpsed at. This was the first time something like this happened to her. Cecilia had unknowingly lit the curiosity of the most dangerous person around here.

With a small smile on her lips, Elena talked with the intention to dig up more about the girl.

“A wonderful thing, isn’t it? I also happen to be a bit knowledgeable about the way of magic. Do you want to discuss magical subjects with me?”

“Yes! I’d like to!”

It looked like Cecilia also wanted to ignore the party and do her own thing. Without internet and gaming, magic was the only close thing she could put her all on.

"What do you think about our magic system?"

Elena indulged Cecilia in her expertise. She wanted to measure the depth of this girl's knowledge. She was so simple-minded that nobody would hardly be on guard against her, Elena included.

"Oh, our magic? I guess it's an okay enough system. I like the fact that we could learn different elements outside our main attributes. Imagine how sucked it would be if we could only access the element we were born with."

"You have a weird imagination."

"Haha, ha… a-anyway, the way our magic works is both a direct and indirect way."

"Hoh, you seem to know a lot of things. Perhaps you know about the nature of the magic system we use?"

Their small discussion was not as small as they had thought. A lot of people nearby were quietly eavesdropping on them. Of course, they would. If it were just two young ladies talking about their magic study, no one would be interested.

But this was different. One was a prodigy of the Duke House who stood at the top of the Academy with extraordinary power. The other was the rumor powerhouse from Count Heuser's territory, the young lady that had crushed an army of undead with terrifying magic. Information that people could get from their discussion was doubtful but they would try nonetheless.

"No one has asked this question ever, I swear. Anyway, I know that the magic we use is actually not our magic. It is the spirits'. So, this is something that is not widespread but getting a spirit familiar helps your magic a lot."

Cecilia was a bit surprised because of the question of which the denizens of this world wouldn't even think. And toward Elena, she whispered some tidbits of info that wasn't in this era anymore, hoping to gain some favor points for herself.

“Hmm, magic is magic. But you are right, it would be more appropriate to call this spirit magic. You mention familiar. I haven’t seen any yet but aren’t familiars supposed to be animals?”

It was the familiars in this world that Elena was talking about. Borrowing foreign power was not a strange thing in her old world. Making the target of power into a familiar was not necessary but she wouldn’t argue, she was often the one lending power than the one borrowing anyway.

“Well yes, but they are not actually familiars. We need a ritual to create a contract to make a familiar. No one is doing it, they just tame some animals with various means and live with them like pets. But this is a secret, so don’t tell anyone, yeah?”

Cecilia elaborated some more about the real familiars that had been lost since the Hero era. Elena just listened quietly while reassembling the picture of the current magic world in her mind.

The function of familiars was still the same in principle between worlds it seemed. The magical link that connected the master and the familiar provided many shared benefits. It was not essential but it looked like many more magic arts had been forgotten somehow through time. Things were bleak to the human but peace had been worldwide for a long time so no problem arose.

I bet someone had been going around erasing knowledge to push back the humans. Who would benefit from this? Heh, no need to guess, it’s probably the demons.

Talking about almost everything the girl could pull up, they spent quite a lot of time without notice. There was nothing new for Elena. But she also didn't expect groundbreaking things from a student-level mage. Well, there were some mysterious arts that a student somehow knew of but she attributed it to being the daughter of a Duke.

The party ended without her doing anything to it. The hostess, Marchioness Ophelia, was busy with the other ladies and left the young girls to themselves.

Except for Cecilia, no one else had come near their table. Elena was half expecting an obnoxious girl would come by and pick a fight but well, she was the scariest young Lady in this place and everyone knew it through this or that rumor.

"Elena? Are you enjoying yourself? Oh my? Lady Cecilia De Dovantine, I hope my daughter is getting along well with you."

Filianore came over to their place with a subtly unamused face. Elena looked at her mother and understood that her business didn't go very well.

"Ah, Countess! We are doing fine! We talked about a lot of things!"

"It's all good then. By the way, her Highness, the Duchess is looking for you."

"Gah! I have to go then. Bye-bye Elena! Bye-bye Countess!"

Her mother smoothly sent the young girl away. Cecilia was so childish that Filianore didn't even mind her mannerisms. In a way, it was an incredible ability to have.

Elena went over to her mother to inquire about the thing they had come for.

“Mother, do they give us what we want?”

Filianore was a bit concern by looking at Elena’s face. She worried her girl may do something extreme if she heard about the negotiation. With how powerful she had become and the edge from the recent battle, she had no doubt Elena wouldn’t hesitate to kill anymore.

“It was not as we had wanted. The Marchioness wants us to stay for another day to discuss this again. The Duchess also stay. This would be very political so please stay vigilant, my dear. I will handle this the way our House operates.”

As expected, Elena was not very pleased with it. The corners of her mouth turned down as she frowned at what she heard.

“Just what I hate. Please rest assured, mother. With the perils the kingdom is having, it wouldn’t be strange to see a castle disappear overnight.”

“Oh no, my daughter, don’t! I can still get this under our control. We have what they need.”

“Hmm, fine then. You know you always have me as an option. Mari, tell Lionel to stealthily survey the castle and noting anything that looks important.”

“Yes, master.”

Filianore looked at the way Elena deal with this with anxiety but also a bit of happiness. Her daughter could handle the nobility’s malice with her own malice. That was not ideal but also not bad at all.

They were escorted to their quarter shortly after the other noblewomen left. Tonight would be a night of brainstorming up the strategy for the continuation the next day. Of course, this would only apply to the Ladies of the Houses. Young people like Elena and Cecilia were not required to do anything, really.

After the tiresome greeting and talking with the Marchioness, Elena was in the garden with her maids and bodyguard. She was receiving the report of the survey and overseeing her maid’s magic training. This was nighttime and rest time for everyone so formality was not required if the noble allowed it. So they were all wearing casual clothes except Elena. Her casual clothes were also not very casual, they were all expensive dresses.

“... All valuables of this place are just normal decoration, there is no artifact out in plain sight. The guards are not very strong either. I and Mari alone can take down this castle.”

“Good.”

Elena’s mood indicated that she was thinking about something that was not very pleasing to other people, especially her targets.

“I will return to my room, Emily can keep practicing if you want.”

“Okay, sleep well, master.”

With that done, she went to her room and retired for the night. Lionel and Mari stood guard outside the door in a relaxing mood. The other knights were guarding her mother’s room. All should be good. This place had a low threat to all of them.

---

Cecilia couldn’t sleep.

She walked out of her room for a walk. The night wind was cool and pleasant to the skin so she went straight for the garden. There were many soldiers patrolling the castle as well as outside of it so she was pretty sure she would be safe to walk around as she pleased.

There was a sweet smell in the air.

It was faint but she knew this smell. She followed it unhesitantly with some expectation in mind. The sweet aroma led her to a corner of the garden on the other side of the building.

The small gazebo was the source of her excitement and anxiety. She saw the Heroine was there alone playing with some light magic. The plate of cookies on the table nearby was too delicious to pass up so she hid behind the building and peeked for a while.

The Heroine was doing some incredible things with magic. Light gathered around her hand from a spinning pillar of mana from above. A vortex of mana formed into a small ball above her hand. It moved in a random pattern around her hands faster and faster until it shot off and dissipated harmlessly on one of the pillars. Then she repeated the process again.

She can do magic already!? What is that she was doing? It looks so hard to do? If she knows magic before going to the Academy, how strong would she get!? I stand no chance!

She was panicked, amazed, and scared at the same time. She felt completely baffled at the training. Mana would emit light when heavily concentrated. At least that was what happened when she had done it. Controlling mana was not easy even with her cheat knowledge so seeing the Heroine do it repeatedly was shocking. It showed how out of league she was.

*Growl~*

“Who is it?”

“Ack!”

Her stomach betrayed her and revealed her hiding place. Cecilia didn’t know what to do so she just stood there frozen.

“Oh, it was the Duke’s daughter. Ah no! Lady Cecilia, please forgive me!”

Two people were panicking at each other in the night. It took them a while to calm down and pretended the event didn’t happen.

“S-So, you come here often?”

“N-No, this is the first time I was here.”

“...”

“...”

So much for a conversation starter. The both of them stealthily took deep breaths to calm down. Their anxieties were different but they expressed alike.

Cecilia was suspecting the Heroine being a reincarnated person like herself but she wasn’t sure. The only thing that stood out was the delicious cakes and cookies. If anything, Elena would be more of a reincarnator due to her drastic change. But that change could be attributed to the near-death incident.

Honestly, she didn’t know at all, and detective work was not something she could do. Still, she would try to find out about the Heroine. At least, she could tell her that she wouldn’t be an enemy and befriend her if possible.

“Do you- Do you know about Earth?”

“...”

That was so subtle that only a special person wouldn’t notice.

“... Well, no. I have only learned magic recently so elemental spells are still out of my scope.”

“Oh, ah right. Yeah, earth magic is hard too ha-haha.”

“By the way, do you want some sweets I had made, Milady?”

Cecilia nodded to the invitation and followed the Heroine to the gazebo. Her heart was beating very fast and thinking was not very effective right at the moment for her.

“I-I didn’t ask before but, what’s your name?”

“I am just a lowly maid, Milady shouldn’t bother with me too much. My name is Emily. Please have some tea too.”

“Ah, thank you.”

The Heroine, Emily looked at her with neutral and innocent eyes. Cecilia felt the likability and cuteness from her even without fancy clothes or make-up. Her thought spewed out under her breaths accidentally again.

“You are so cute and friendly. No wonder the prince would have a heart attack seeing you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Huh? No no. I have wanted to ask but did you learn to make sweets from someone?”

“No? I just like sweets so I try to improve the cakes the bakery makes. Their taste is too awful.”

“That’s right, isn’t it? Eating it is like eating fried sugar.”

Somehow she successfully steered the topic away. Cecilia felt a bit relieved knowing that the Heroine was not a reincarnator.

That means her personality would still be super good. I can make her into a friend, right?

Trying to channel all the social abilities from her memories of the girls in her high school she saw, she attempted to pull some incredible maneuvers in steering the conversation. Still a better plan than awkwardly sitting there.

“You are… How did you come to serve under Elena?”

Emily looked at her face searching for a while. It made her reflexively avert her eyes.

“I was picked up by chance when my Lady went to the city for some business. Since then, I was assigned as one of her personal maids. It’s as simple as that.”

“Wait! Not the Count? Have you gone to the church yet?”

Cecilia widened her eyes and leaned over the table. The tea was nearly spilled with her sudden movement.

“Well, why would I go to the Church? My family doesn’t have enough money to afford the donation and we are not that much of a believer. Earning a living is all we think about really.”

“Ah, sorry for asking such a thing.”

“Milady doesn’t need to worry about a mundane thing like starvation so it’s alright for you to ask such a thing. No need to say sorry to someone like me.”

Cecilia flinched as the answer she got was unexpectedly barbed. Now that she thought about it, she had never considered how the Heroine had lived before the game started.

This is so medieval-era-ish. Being poor here must have been terrible. I remember children died all the time in that era.

“D-Do you plan on attending the Academy?”

She flinched again as Emily looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She felt like today was really not her day.

“I am sorry but I am a maid. I will go to the Academy but it is to serve my master, not to study there.”

“Right… so things have changed a bit but she will still be on the stage huh.”

She looked absently at the table and put some cookies in her mouth. Many things would go different now that the Heroine was a maid, Cecilia seriously didn’t know how to plan around this.

I need to stack up on some magic items from the dungeons.

“By the way, what were you doing a while ago?”

Things are getting hard. Let tomorrow me deal with it. For now, I should focus on being friends with her.

“Oh, I am training my mana control. My Lady won’t tolerate laziness in her servants.”

“That looked super advanced! Who is your teacher?”

“It’s My Lady. She is an amazing magician.”

“W-Wow, she sure is amazing huh, haha, ha.”

The result of the analysis resurfaced in her mind. The crazy situation was starting to sink in. The rumors about the slum, the battle defending the city, the grand spell at the end.

There must be something very special about her that my artifact couldn’t measure. Even that maid crazy amount of mana could be seen, so what is happening here?

She had known the amount of mana could be a measurement of power since long ago. It was not that accurate when comparing it between a fighter and a mage since one was a close-quarters combatant and the other was a long-range hitter. But generally, it was quite accurate about firepower and toughness.

She still didn’t know why a strong fighter had a high amount of mana though. What was mana even be? Could a knight also become a wizard with that much mana? The game didn’t mention such details. Mages had a long mana bar while warriors had a long stamina bar. She didn’t see any relation between these two stats at all.

Well, I could research this as a side project in the club. It isn’t like Elena would be my enemy anyway. And she agreed to join my club so we could do this together too!

She started to get excited by her own thought. All this time, her conversation with Emily wasn’t that bad. But the barrier between classes prevented Emily to truly talk freely. Cecilia knew this since she was the only one asking here. She couldn’t fix this with her abysmal ability either so she just rolled with it.

“Hey, do you mind doing it while I am watching? I am interested.”

“Well, sure. Haa… please don’t be scared. It can bounce off and hit you but it won’t hurt.”

“Great!”

Her eagerness was not rewarded. As soon as mana was gathering around Emily’s hands and beginning to spin, something exploded in the distance. It wasn’t loud but they could hear it clearly in the quiet night.

“What was that?”

They stood up. Some confusion appeared on Cecilia’s face but Emily sprinted off immediately in that direction.

“H-Hey! Wait for me!”

Cecilia didn’t what was happening but she also ran after the Heroine with all her might.

---

Elena was soundly slumbering on her bed. She didn’t really need sleep but just like eating, sleeping felt great.

That was when a loud noise disturbed her beauty sleep and woke her up. She groggily opened her eyes and sat up. Her bed was gone. In fact, she wasn’t even in her room anymore.

“Chain her quick! Apply the seal!”

“Huh?”

Her guard was completely down as she sensed no danger from the people around her. People that she had no idea who. She was bound with glittering chains that were as big as her pinky finger. The ground she was on was covered by a big magic circle that was currently shining.

She was still feeling a bit half-asleep as the people around her busily running around with the chains binding her body. Being woken like this was a rare thing to her as a Demon King so she felt the full grogginess while being confused by the situation.

“Finally! This has been going on for long enough. Our reputation has been downhill since we accepted this job, dammit! Good work, Mai.”

There was a man with a hood covered his head. His whole attire was black and dark brown. Now that she noticed the man, her mind had been clear and fully functional.

Ignored the man and his monologue about her and his job, she looked around her surrounding. She was in a big brick chamber. There were various types of mosses on the walls and ceiling, plus the air was damp and stale so she assumed they had brought her to an underground complex.

“I say we kill her now!”

“Step down, Mai! If we bring her to our client, we will have a big bonus.”

“You are being greedy! How many of us have lost our lives because of her? My sisters are dead because of her! Kill her!”

“I am your superior! Stand the fuck down or I will execute you too!”

Elena was watching their argument with interest. Well, not that much but she now knew who they were at least. There were about twenty people in this room. A bit too cramp if she had to comment.

Ugh! They ruin my sleepwear. The chains are making my one-piece dress distorted damaged.

She noted that the chains were made with something that absorbed mana and with this many, any mage would be sucked dry in a moment. The circle she was sitting on had the function of isolating and burdening after she had analyzed it a bit. It prevented mana from entering its area by absorbing and directing the mana away. The second effect was to weigh down anything inside and block sound transmission. Any mage would be helpless inside this magic circle for certain. Well, she was the wrong target for them.

Her attention returned to the people in black around her. They were all covered up so she couldn’t differentiate any of them without them speaking. Even if they spoke she wouldn’t know who was who anyway. There were mages that were stationed around the circle to keep a close eye on it.

The two who were noisily chattering about her had already left the place to continue their talk. In their mind she was as good as dead, it seemed.

Well, even though I was kidnapped like I had wanted but this is not enjoyable at all. I was sleeping, keh!

The irrigation of a rudely woken-up person had built up enough inside her.

"Watch out! She's moving!"

"That's right. Watch closely."

She stood up with chains still bound her tightly. Her voice carried power as the gravity in the room became even heavier than inside the magic circle. Her eyes lit up a red color like the inferno flame of hell. It may not be hot but it was a soul-damaging fire.

She quickly swept the room with her gaze. All the people with no exception turned into a brown decomposing goo and disintegrated into fine dust.

Her [Evil Eyes] was unlike when she was first descended onto this world. She had been weakened to an unimaginable degree back then. Now all her demonic abilities had reclaimed their full might, mortals should feel terror! Well, it was still a spell that was useless against the Heroes nonetheless.

The bindings they used on her weren't defective, they worked as they should. It was just that she was outside of their scope. The chains were full of mana and could no longer absorb anything. They had become regular metallic chains.

One of the rules of the world was simple, equivalence. Things that emitted would deplete themselves. And things that absorbed others would be full and reach their ideal state, whatever that was.

The circle below her was… amateurish at best. Or perhaps not. It was just that the magnitude of the effects was lackluster. Clearly, it wasn't meant to contain monsters of such monstrosity like her. If it could then there would be no need for Heroes in the face of the Demon Lord in this world.

Untangling herself out of the metal chains, she walked out of the circle casually without any hindrance. She didn't dispel it because there was an alarm trigger that would go off if the magic circle stopped working. The trigger was not in the room so she couldn't disable it either.

But she didn't need to.

She used her trusty [Vision] spell again to count the number of people here and estimate the size of this place.

More than a hundred armed hooded people… too many tunnels, and I can’t sense the surface. Is this place that deep? How did they bring me here? Teleportation? Even I can’t do it correctly.

Simply annihilating them was easy and she was kind of pissed so she continued to kill any who got in her sight while moving along the stone corridor. For now, she sought out the man who could be responsible for bringing her here. She would ask him nicely about their method then explored this place a bit before heading back.

On her way, she noticed there were many cells, or rooms, like the one she had been just a while ago. She stepped near one door to take a look inside.

A pair of sharp cold eyes gazed back at her. There was a tattered man that was nailed on the wall. His hair was long and black, it obscured his skinny body and reached all over the floor. The room was bloody and dark. She could smell the strong scene of blood in the air like her battlefields with the human.

“Little girl. Free me. I will give you power.”

“Kneel down and beg. Then, I may perhaps listen to your rambling.”

Elena looked at him with equally cold eyes. The lock broke when she opened the door to have an easier view. With her barefoot on the damp and bloody stone floor, she walked closer to the man and looked up at him without saying anything.

“Insolent! You have no idea who you are talking to, have you?”

“Hmph. Very well. I have some business to do. Farewell.”

“Stop! Free me! You will have power! You will have all the wealth in the world!”

She was already at the exit of the room, losing all interest in him. Still, she turned her head to answer to keep his mouth shut up for a while.

“Tsk! Look here. You are a vampire, aren’t you? It had been a while since I saw a vampire so I will let you live, so don’t push your luck. Power and wealth? Why are you so quick to offer power? You just plan to bite me and turn me into your thrall, don’t you? Get real, I am way out of your league.”

"You will regret this. Once I am outside, I will track you down and-"

She slammed the door, cutting off his cursing. There was no way she would take him seriously. Elena lost her interest in the other cells as well. They would just hold more freaks anyway and she didn’t need to entertain those losers by looking at them.

But she had a sudden revelation. Looking again at all the closed doors she didn’t know how many were there and why the freaks needed to be contained. Her idea was simple. If the people who brought her here used so many sealing methods on everyone here, those freaks had to be a pain in the ass.

Well, accidents do happen sometimes. Oops.

She jumped up and stood upside down on the ceiling as a wide area wave of mana dispelled everything it touched. A moment later all the doors were busted open by hordes of monsters inside. All the cells except the one holding the vampire. She instead reinforce the whole room with her own Demon King-class seal so that no one could open it. Her pettiness was no joke.

*Howling*

*Crash*

Walls and doors, nothing could contain the monsters as they remade the hallway into a giant cavern of stone and metal. The earth was rumbling as the subterranean mega structure became unstable and signaled the inevitable collapse.

While observing the inhabitants wreaking havoc in the immediate vicinity, she noticed there were quite a lot of demons. But those demons were not the demons she had created or spawned naturally in the abyss. Their essences felt different but she had the feeling she could still dominate them with her power still.

But she wouldn’t do it now. She wanted to observe more of this world demons and the Demon Lord too if possible. A small smile returned on her face as the battle between the monsters and the organization happened explosively. To make things worse for them, she cast a barrier with her as the center and imprisoned all of them inside with her. The scope of the barrier was gigantic, its radius grew several times her [Vision] spell. She increase its size until she felt most of the structure was within it. There were some tunnels that reach far into the distance so she stopped trying to contain them.

Every monster and human that was fighting looked up as her monstrous wave of mana passing through their bodies. Some humans died instantly because their hearts exploded but most were just stunned. That alone indicated the level of power this organization possessed.

She made herself invisible and jumped to another location on the ceiling. Her one-piece sleepwear was fortunately not rolled up to her neck, it stuck around her hip as she almost forgot about it. But now she was invisible so it was fine. The fighting resume shortly as the death brawl was not going to disband just because of her presence.

In the beginning, Elena planned to grab the most likely leader of her kidnapping to torture a bit and then asked about their method to teleport her here. As her experience with teleportation was not very practical. To make a jump through space and time like that the caster needed to anchor the coordination of the jumping point themselves, or the spell would fail and mutilate everything in the reach of the mana that the caster had provided. It was not a problem for her but when she teleported, she usually found herself outside the world.

With some discussion with the Heroes when she had been in their party, she found some conclusion. Apparently, the world, or planet in their saying, was constantly moving through the void very fast so by anchoring a point in space, she would not be on the planet anymore by a few seconds. So unless she could stop time before teleport she would not ever go to where she wanted. She could control time within a tiny area but tamper with time on the whole material realm was impossible.

With that said, she saw the supposed leader got vaporized by a humanoid demon just now so the plan failed, again. Looking around to find the other high-ranking girl Elena had seen but she could be found. She used [Vision] to look at the other area but also didn’t found her. That meant she had left the base, in another word, she held the teleportation method. Elena smiled with satisfaction as all was not lost. There was also no meaning in her staying here so she prepared to go back.

Elena revealed herself as she levitated above the carnage below. Her appearance once again made everyone stopped in their track to look at her. Ignoring them, she raised her hands and formed a shiny sphere in between. It growled as large as her body and violent orange flame could be seen swirling inside, the whole thing was shrouded with a yellow flame that didn’t emit any heat.

“Do you like the sun? Let’s me show you a little something. [Grand Fireball].”

She dropped the fission ball of extreme heavy metal that was her fireball onto the ground. Everyone’s eyes followed the dropping death with all their sense as time seemed to slow down for them even when they didn’t comprehend the meaning of it.

And then everything turned white.

---

The young executive of the no-name dark organization, Mai was sitting on the roof of a church of a small village about ten kilometers from the hidden facility. She was very angry at her superior for his greed but couldn’t change the outcome so she ran here to cool down.

Her sisters had disappeared without any trace and were marked as missing but she knew they were dead. She investigated their last job and came to the conclusion that the noble girl Elena and her Count House were responsible. She helped the higher-up in capturing Elena with the artifact she inherited from her mother. Her first step of revenge was almost completed until her superior decided he wanted more merit than just presenting a corpse to the high council.

She pulled her hood closer to her face as she brooded over the next step. It was then that the sky brightened up. It was a strange phenomenon that she had never witness before.

Over the horizon, it was as if the sun had decided to rise in the middle of the night. Light cast over the terrain like dawn had arrived. But it was just for a moment as the flash died down. A column of fire bright enough to still be seen shot up to the sky and forming a weirdly shaped mushroom with smoke and dust. Lightning was running up and down the gigantic pillar of fire and smoke. The clouds were all blasted away on the sky which was still as bright as day leaving an emptiness that made her stomach churn.

She recognized the place where that took place was her base so she was about to teleport back but she detected a wave of incredible force was coming her way. In a split moment of decision, she burry herself deep underground with the assistant of her artifact.

She felt the terrifying tremor in the earth pass over the village. Her skin felt kind of itchy and her body became somewhat hotter than normal but she was still fine with her powerful body.

When everything calmed down, she crawled back up to the ground only to witness a ruined hellscape. All the buildings in the village were broken down and collapsed, people and things were set on fire everywhere. Deaths and injuries were all over the place and the few healers in the church tried their best to attend to. There were many people that were somehow looked like they were the target of a vicious curse as blood oozed out from every hole in their bodies. But it was none of her business. She rushed off toward the base, her artifact became inactive and refused to teleport her back.

Forests were charred black and everything that was a bit tall had crumbled down. The whole landscape to the hidden facility was blasted almost flat to the ground. Firestorms appeared all around devastated what little that was left after the big destruction.

The closer she got to the base the more irritated her skin became. Her vision started to blur and it got harder to breathe. She ignored it but she soon fell down unconscious as her body couldn’t take the environment anymore.

...

..

.

She woke up with an unbearable headache. It was noon and the gigantic mushroom cloud was gone. Her highly resistant clothes were burnt slightly by the firestorms while she was out cold.

*Cough**Cough*

Blood splashed out from her mouth. It scared her because she didn’t know what happened to her body. But she would leave it at that, she could have the facility look at her once she was there. Muster all the strength in her body, she cast [Reinforcement] on herself and ran toward the base.

What awaited her was an utter absurdity. The whole region was gone. The whole mountain disappeared. She thought she went the wrong way because there was nothing in sight, but the enormous crater that was at least two kilometers by her estimation had some debris she recognized.

She sat down on her knees as exhaustion and exasperation at something that could cause this much destruction weighed on her. Then suddenly a stinging feeling appeared on her neck.

“Finally, fresh blood!”

A ghastly man with very long black hair grabbed her head and bit her neck. She couldn’t resist the supernatural strength of this monster and succumbed to darkness once again.

---

End of chapter 12

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