As Leran finally reached the village by going the fastest he could, he was already prepared for what place to ask for; there was a problem, though. He tried to ask the first person he saw for the chef's house, but they just avoided his gaze and went away. Leran was confused at that and said to himself: "Not too kind to strangers, are we?" He referred to that single person, but he would soon understand that the entire village didn't want anything to do with him.

It wasn't like they recognized his face that had never been seen, but they just wanted strangers to leave the village of Altea before night. Both because they should be safe, both because they could be the culprit. As Leran realized the intent behind their behaviour, he immediately went to look for a person that could help him, the head of the village.

It didn't take too long of a walk for the demon king to find the green-eyed man out of his house, talking to Zelta and Zey. "Oh, that's the person that tried to hit me once. But there's no time for that, really." Leran thought to himself, seeking a bit of a revenge but being stopped by his common sense. "I need to know where Sae is, right now." The demon king announced his thoughts to himself with a rough tone, then went to talk to Neitar.

As the old man noticed the demon coming towards the group that was talking about their plans to defend the village during the night, he felt threatened at first, but the fact that there were many people, the fact the Ice Mage was on his side and always watching and the fact that it was day made him feel more at ease. As such, he spoke first and asked to the demon: "what brings you here?"

Leran nodded at that question, then said: "I need to know about the whereabouts of the cook in this village. It's important." He showed with his eyes that he was in no mood to play or waste time and Zelta, mindful of that time his anger had made him attack the demon, gulped. Nobody felt like they could do anything if this person really wanted to have it his way, so Neitar just answered the question made by the demon king.

"That house over there." He simply said, then, surprisingly to everyone, the demon shouted a "thanks!" and went ahead to the house that the head of the village had pointed to.

And he had arrived just in time.

As he could immediately sense spells inside the house, he decided to break in from the main door without a care in the world. What he saw surprised him.

There was a girl she knew very well on the opposite side of the room, not disguised at all, who was standing still next to a cauldron that was clearly fuming. Then, there were two very tall people in front of her at a few meters, who looked lost and had a very short boy next to them, who instead was looking wide awake.

That was the person who Sae was initially watching, but as he entered everyone went silent suddenly.

"I'm glad you came." Simply answered the white-haired girl, which made Leran anxious. "Why would she say that?" That was the main thought in his mind, considering that the Ice Mage was not one to usually ask for help or to be grateful for company in such an open way. "Don't attack. He has a bomb and he will detonate it at the first spell. He has a bit of everything prepared, but all in all it's not an impossble task." That was what she said, to which he was immediately confused. Because Leran didn't have any context to what was going on, he had to make guesses and it was very obvious that the culprit of everything, from these guesses, was the short man.

Leran then noticed that behind him there was another door with clones that were standing there, as if waiting for orders. "He knows 'Clone Creator'. He must be a good mage..." Leran rationally thought to himself, but then asked a question to Sae: "is he so good that you feel nervous?" To that, she could only laugh. It wasn't out of disrespect, but simply because, in the mind of the girl that was still a child at heart, that declaration was made with a certain fear. "Oh, so cute." She thought to herself, before checking the situation.

Despite the fact her collaborator had come in, Licone hadn't muttered a single word, meaning that to him nothing had changed. But things suddenly got a lot easier if he had to look at both Sae and Leran -- there was the advantage of reflexes and she was going to play it perfectly to win this battle.

"Alright. 'Telepathic Link'." She muttered and soon enough she could talk to the demon king without having to mutter any word, meaning that Licone, the mad chef, couldn't hear them. "Can you hear me?" She asked, her tone of voice sounding even more angelic when backed up by the telepathy magic.

"Y-yes... what is this?" The demon king asked, confused, when he realized that he was speaking back but no word was actually coming out. "This is a spell. I can tell you what's going on later, now I'll need you to listen. I'm going to multiple-cast. Not once, not twice, it's going to be a lot of casts at a time. This means you'll have to be very clean in doing what I say when I say it. Alright? You'll need fast reflexes. First of all, you're going to have to freeze the guy's mouth so he won't be able to cast a spell to burn this place and make it explode. I'll tell you about the rest later, is that okay?" She asked with an innocent voice, but looked like a war veteran as she planned a battle magic trick.

"Sure." He only answered, then said: "now?" The girl nodded.

And, just as she did, he casted with a smile: "Freeze!" Because Licone's eyes were still all fixated towards the girl who seemed to be in an indecisive spot, he only felt after the spell was casted that he had been successfully stopped from making anything explode for a small while. As such, he immediately cracked open the ice with a punch and prepared to cast his spell, but saw that in that nick of time something crazy had happened.

"Alright. This'll be the easiest way." Sae concluded in her mind, then started casting: "Flame Arrows!" and immediately casted those spells down on the clones just a small amount of time before the ice was cast over the original so that they wouldn't do anything in his stead, coming from above so that they, fixated on the figure of the demon king, wouldn't see it. But she knew that wasn't enough to save the situation. "Fire: expand!" And as soon as she said that, the fire arrows that had killed the clones suddenly expanded and set on fire the entire room. Because the bombs were underground, this still wasn't a big issue.

Trapped in the flames, Licone was now ready to act. He had predicted such a thing could happen and was just waiting for an ounce of sweat to fall in the cauldron, but he looked crazier than ever when he realized that wasn't going to be a thing. After all, the fact that the room was burning should've made it easier in normal circumstances due to the room's temperature going up, but the extreme heat coming nearby had made it so that any water would be evaporated.

As such, Licone prepared himself to use the last trick at his disposal.

"Explo--" but before he could cast it, something was immediately thrown in his mouth. As that happened he slowly fell back into the fire that was expanding towards him, but before he could be burnt to a crisp by reaching the ground the room was suddenly back to normal, the floor not burnt and the demon king amazed.

What had been thrown towards the boy was what the cauldron contained. Because there still was no Annaryttisia formed, it was simply... a disgusting liquid. Licone tried to spit it all out, but he still felt like nothing of it had left his tongue and looked desperate.

"Good riddance. Oh, I almost forgot to say. I used my entire mana pool, I will collapse in a bit. Don't worry, it'll be filled in two hours and I'll be back. Keep me... alive, I guess. And tell the villagers what's happened and who the real culprit was. And tell his parents, when they wake up, what happened. And--" The girl tried to say more, but immediately collapsed. Before she could hit the ground, Leran caught her with perfect precision.

"What did I just watch?" He thought to himself. The sheer force of improvisation, the knowledge of magic and the ability to make it all work flawlessly had definitely impressed him. He imagined she was already low on mana because she hadn't used so many spells to deal with Licone, but they were all necessary and minimal. Like the way she created magic. At some point he'd even ask himself if she used 'Fire: Expand' just as a psychological weapon to give false hope to Licone and avoid that he blew up the bomb, but he thought that maybe was a stretch. But not when talking about her -- that was for sure.

Still, Leran stopped his train of praise soon enough and threw a punch to the chef for good measure, so he'd not wake up before the bomb was detonated. "I won't kill you just because she'd not want me to." He told to an unconscious short boy who, if he was to hear him, would probably curse his heart out.

"Head of the village!" Ungraciously screamed the demon king to the head of the village, who soon arrived where called. His face wasn't too happy but that fact was soon to change. "We've caught the culprit." Exclaimed Leran with a happy tone of voice and immediately brought about happiness to the face of the old man, the first person to know about this. "But you've got to talk to those people when they wake up, explain the situation." He said, pointing to the parents of Licone, still lost. "Yes, of course. You and your partner... you have my thanks." The green-eyed man said with his eyes full of resolve, letting go of a tear, then went inside the house where the fighting had happened.

Zey and Zelta, who had understood the news from what had been said quite loudly by Leran and Neitar, arrived soon enough.

The first to talk was the latter. "I'm sorry for doubting you." Those were the only words he said, feeling full of shame.
"It's fine, really. If you can do me a favour, though -- there's a bomb under this house. Can you detonate it?" As he watched the trainee mage nod, he felt happy that he had successfully passed down all that he was told to do by Sae to others and could now use his full time waiting for her to wake up. As Zey passed him and thanked him Leran thought of how lucky he was to have met such an amazing and strong person.

And that she had to trust him. Otherwise, she'd have not made that risky play with knowledge she'd run out of mana with him near. That made him happier than anything else.

As he carried the girl bridal style and admired her features as she slept, Leran looked for a place to put her so that he'd stop moving and making her uncomfortable. He soon found a bench and on it, leaving the small sorcerer he was carrying bridal-style in a supine position with her head on his legs so that she'd be more comfortable. He soon found out that the place chosen wasn't anything great, being near the cemetery, a place that now was full of bad memories for Altea.

Still, he chose not to leave, feeling like Sae might want to be here when she'd wake up. 

It didn't take her too long to, waking up before refilling her mana was something common for the girl who had been living for long and had used her mana to its brim a lot more than she'd like to remember.

As she woke up and saw the pretty red eyes of the demon king, she smiled and yawned. "Alright. I do feel better now." She immediately muttered as she got up. "Thanks, it was hard to trust you but it was worth it." Those were the last words that the girl said before pointing at the demon to follow her, which he did immediately.

As he had predicted, the Ice Mage led him towards the cemetery, exactly to Elia's tomb. For one last memory, before going away from the village.

"I'm sorry I was part of the reason why you died. Rest in peace." The girl muttered, before trying to use some of the mana she had regained to make the place more beautiful for him.

"Flowery Bed." She muttered and all sorts of flowers started appearing on the spot, making what was just a gray, dirt-filled but well-kept tomb full of bouquets a place where those things of beauty actually grew in a raimbow pattern, showing this place was blessed with magic. Sae was satisfied with what she had done, despite the death she couldn't do anything about.

But as she pointed at the demon king to follow her, she noticed he had stopped dead in his tracks.

And his mouth was agape, all because of what she had said.

Because of who she was.