Almost everyone in the demon lord’s castle heard the loud explosion and had their attention drawn to it. The demon lord and Claude also heard the explosion and a bit of tracking magic revealed that the source of the explosion was somewhere they were very familiar with, Marcel's room. Upon realizing where the explosion came from, the two quickly made their way to Marcel's room, and on their way, met Allan who'd also come to the same realization as them. They headed to Marcel's room in a hurry.

The three arrived in front of Marcel’s room, entering it to find it in shambles. Marcel was lying on the ground, groaning in pain and a little out of it. He didn't look well. Beside him lied a sword that Claude and Allan hadn’t seen before, leading to them concluding that it was probably the cause of the explosion. Claude then analyzed the sword with a few of his abilities and looked so shocked afterward.

Claude then questioned the demon lord why Marcel had such a relic with him and here’s what the demon lord said, “You remember when I said that I'd make a sword for Marcel? Well, this sword is it. I sort of went overboard and ended up with an SS-grade sword. I thought that Marcel would need a bit more time before he learns how to use it, but it looks like I was wrong.” He said with an awkward laugh.

“What?!!!” Claude exclaimed in surprise, “Don’t you know that you aren’t supposed to give an untrained person, even if they’re your fiancé a priceless gift as their first. You are supposed to take it slow and probably give him something like an A-grade sword instead of this priceless treasure as his first personal gift from you. This is just overkill and increases the amount of effort required for the next gift. You know where I’m going with this, right?” Claude said without any regard for the demon lord’s position and lectured him like he was a little child. The demon lord looked like he was being bullied. As expected of the demon lord’s secretary and the only one close enough to him to be allowed to do so.

“But, but... I got so excited thinking about it and making it. It’s not my fault that I'm too gifted and ended up turning Frostbite’s single scale into guardian essence metal”. Ok, now Claude didn’t know if the demon lord was bragging or just being his usual nonchalant self, making him becoming annoyed. He seemed even more irate when the demon lord mentioned guardian essence metal.

“What?!!! You created guardian essence metal and you didn’t tell me?! Do you know the amount of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into?! If the others find out about it, they’ll make sure you spill everything and it’s going to take months and even years to finish dealing with all of them. Just my luck.” Claude looked quite panicked and angry, but the demon lord didn’t seem to show any sign of remorse even after hearing all that.

Claude walked up to Marcel’s side and picked up Sigurd then began analyzing it with a few of his abilities. After doing so, he resumed talking to the demon lord again.

“Um, your majesty! Shouldn’t it be impossible for Marcel to trigger the additional abilities of this sword as he isn’t fully grown yet? Analyzing most of the abilities of this sword right now revealed that they all require an immense amount of magic power to use them. Marcel shouldn’t be able to use them until he’s fully grown and capable of utilizing immense amounts of mana, unless... he already has the required magic power to trigger and activate them.” Claude looked a bit doubting although he didn’t ignore the possibility of it happening either. After all, the hero race is the most unpredictable race in the demon realms. They surprise people all the time by accomplishing weird and almost impossible feats.

After thinking deeply about it, Claude went to the out-of-it Marcel and passed his magic into Marcel to take a glimpse at his magic pool, but then when he did it, he could see no end. The magic within Marcel's magic pool was much denser and purer than the ones of others he’d worked with, and at some point, while still staring into Marcel’s magic pool, his magic just vanished and he was forcibly cast out of Marcel's realm of magic. He then told the demon lord of his findings, and the demon lord tried to pry into Marcel's soul for some answers, but just as he began, his magic disappeared almost instantly and a tremendous force kicked him out of Marcel’s soul.

After having been forcibly kicked out of Marcel’s soul the way he had, he began feeling a slight headache. The headache that came with entering another soul only happened before one’s own soul was damaged. A second longer than the force inside of Marcel had permitted him to and he’d have suffered major soul damage. The demon lord learned the hard way that a hero’s soul, even on its weakest level is nothing to be messed with. Marcel’s soul is nowhere as strong as his, but the fact that he was forcibly kicked out was nothing short of marvelous. This also meant something else to the demon lord. It was that Marcel had the potential to grow so much stronger in the future, both physically and mentally, and he was somewhat delighted by this fact, although he should be feeling the exact opposite. After all, Marcel growing means that he gains the power to slay him and his life is over, but at that moment, the thought of how he'd made such a good choice when he chose an excellent bud with so much potential like Marcel as his wife was the main thought in his mind.

Marcel, after his soul had been meddled with by Claude and the demon lord, woke up and suddenly screamed, “I gained soul attack resistance!!” with a forming elated expression on his face. The three looked startled when Marcel suddenly got up as he had. Marcel, however, wondered why the three were there in front of him, with the demon lord kneeling beside him and the two standing behind the demon lord.

“How strong is it, Marcel?” Allan who’d been there the whole time asked.

“It’s just the beginner stage, not that impressive or anything,” Marcel answered a bit boastfully, not trying to hide his happiness about it. You could see the long nose just itching to grow on Marcel.

“Well, I don’t like to brag, but I’ve leveled up completely on mine. After all, I’m a witch who must deal with many dangers every day. If I didn’t, I’d probably already be dead by now.” Allan said smugly as to bring Marcel down a notch. Marcel laughed awkwardly, feeling a bit like a loser after hearing Allan state his level. He genuinely agreed with Allan while wondering what it is that witches deal with that require them to have such high soul resistance. Compared to Allan, he was but a beginner at everything in the demon realm, so bragging in front of Allan probably isn't the best thing. Come to think of it, Allan mentioned once that the cube leading to the illusory dungeon was made by witches. That’s probably one of the reasons why they need such high soul attack resistance. After all, how are they going to imprison monsters inside of the cube if they don't have the ability to suppress them?

"Marcel~, please try to exercise caution when you use Sigurd in the future. Sigurd is very powerful and you're nowhere near being able to control its full might, so you've got to learn to synchronize and control its power output to your level or else you might kill yourself. Remember that although you might have a second chance at life if you lose your current one, you might never completely remember this life if you lose it when you haven't even gone through the first stage just yet. You've already activated one of Sigurd's abilities and I'll tell you which one later. I plan to give you information about all of Sigurd's abilities after we figure out your magic power capacity and you learn to control the power output of Sigurd. Please try not to make it like when you showed me your abilities with Frostbite, okay?" The demon lord said the last part jokingly. Marcel blushed in embarrassment and nodded to his words. He'd already planned to never embarrass himself in front of the demon lord like he had that day since that incident, so he was planning on training hard enough to reach his predecessors level at least before he challenged the demon lord again.

While Marcel was still building up his determination to train, he noticed his friend holding something in his hand, paper maybe?

“What’s that in your hand, Allan?” He asked, but then Allan got all fidgety.

“Oh, um, it’s a surprise! You’ll have to wait for a while to find out. I'm glad you’re fine. I’ll leave now since I have something to do.” Allan answered, then hurriedly left the room. Claude followed after Allan when he left. The demon lord though, stayed behind and in the blink of an eye, repaired everything and left as well, but not before telling Marcel again, “Be careful, okay. You don’t know everything about Sigurd yet, so I suggest taking your time to get familiar with it. Call me if you have any problems. You know how don’t you?” He said with a smile.

“Yes, of course. I’ll call via telepathy, scream or something if I need your help. I’ll try to be careful as well, as not to inconvenience and disturb you while you do your work. You’re a ruler after all”. It seems like Marcel is getting used to the fact that the demon lord is a good person way too quickly than the humans would want him to, but it can also be said to be good for both him and everyone in the demon realms as well. Besides, there's no way he can do anything to the person who managed to defeat all of his predecessors so much that they gave up and left to pursue something else, Marcel thought. 

It looks like the time for him to completely give up on ending the demon lord for the sake of something he had never done is close at hand. Soon, he’ll say his final goodbyes to those thoughts and just find something else too, just like the demon lord said all heroes do, but what exactly he’ll find to occupy his thoughts of slaying the demon lord, who knows? He had begun putting so much effort and time into training himself and getting used to the new environment that he was in, that honestly, the demon lord is perfectly safe for the unforeseeable future.

After what happened, Marcel kept on training, although this time, outside in the courtyard behind the back that nobody visits and with extra caution as to not hurt himself too much. He kept on training his physical strength and swordsmanship skills he’d received as a gift from Frostbite, but then a whole month passed soon enough and he got bored. 

After a month of following the routine of training, eating and sleeping, he tried doing his current favorite thing in the world; learning new magic spells. It fulfilled him for a while but then another month passed and he found himself bored again. [Adept Comprehension], his innate skill's negative effect struck when he got bored, thus leaving him incapable of learning any of the complicated spells anymore, leaving him with only plain spells that were so easy to learn that his boredom grew even more. For someone like Marcel who always had to figure out complicated magic all on his own, to suddenly be presented with easy spells that he could learn in a heartbeat wasn't challenging enough.

Just as Marcel thought that he’d die from boredom as he had before discovering the cube and Sigurd, an explosion almost twice as big as the one he caused about two months ago happened in a separate part of the castle that he hadn’t been to yet. He figured that something big had happened and so, he made his way to the location of the explosion. When he got to the site of the explosion, he found Allan. Allan covered in wounds and on the floor, the room was in bad shape as well and Claude was nowhere to be found.

“Are you okay?!” He asked, quite panicked after walking to Allan and inspecting his condition.

“Cough! Cough! I’m fine. I just made a mistake.” Allan said in his weak state, trying to laugh to show Marcel that he was okay, although Marcel wasn't at all convinced. He went to Allan and began helping him up. Allan was badly injured and groaned in pain as Marcel helped that Marcel got even more worried after hearing him talk in a groaning tone, and he asked once again, “Are you sure you’re fine?!”

“Mm-hmm. I’m fine, or I’ll be fine in about a minute, you’ll see.” Allan smiled again, although Marcel was still very worried about him. Just as Allan had promised him, it didn't take more than a few minutes before his wounds began closing and disappearing, akin to when one is being healed with healing magic. Marcel sighed in relief after Allan’s wounds began closing, “Wow, you really will be alright. Looks like I don’t need to worry too much then.”

“Yes. I’m a witch after all. How do you think I’m still alive after doing countless experiments? Alchemic-type witches like me have a special body constitution which automatically activates whenever we’re injured from an experiment or witch-related stuff. It's very convenient since we do stuff like this, or else we would've already vanished from this world. That’s the gift the Supreme Administrator gave our witch species after all.” Allan answered proudly. Marcel still didn’t seem to get what he was trying to say. He just nodded, glad that Allan was fine.

"Oh, speaking of experiments, what were you working on?" Marcel asked curiously.

"Um, nothing big or anything. I'm making a magic item for someone." Allan said avoiding eye contact with Marcel.

"Who's it for? I'm guessing for a customer of yours." Marcel said.

"No~, I'm making it for a friend of mine. He's pretty weak, so it'll come in handy for those times when his own strength isn't enough. Aren't I pretty cool?" Allan answered with an embarrassed, almost bashful expression on his face. Marcel nodded and told Allan that he was amazing.

"Anyway, please try to be cautious when you're doing your experiments. You might not die from it now but who's saying that you won't someday." Marcel said with a laugh. Allan seemed to find it funny and laughed as well.

The two talked for a while, then Allan sensed someone coming, although, it seems like Marcel couldn’t. Yeah, speaking of which, Marcel seems to be pretty bad at sensing the presence of others, especially his hubby. The demon lord has an overwhelming and bright presence that makes it impossible to stay with him for long, but Marcel doesn't seem at all affected by it even if he's with him. Claude, although his presence isn't at all as overwhelming or bright, but rather sharp and graceful, isn't that easy to approach either, but Marcel doesn't seem to have any problems on that front either. It's like he's blind to the immense presence. Allan guessed that Claude would enter the room and Marcel would ask something like, 'When did you enter the room?' when Claude did, and that's exactly what happened.

Claude after he entered the room and when Marcel noticed him, he seemed a bit startled at Claude's sudden appearance that was out of nowhere, at least according to Marcel.

Claude asked what had happened and Marcel explained what he came to see, then Allan explained everything about how he was trying to finish the thing he and Claude discussed earlier, but then he suddenly he lost control of his magic and then everything exploded. Allan apologized and Claude said it was nothing, then used unfamiliar magic, just like the demon lord did a month ago to fix everything. It was like time itself was turning back for the room.

Claude, after fixing the room, began questioning Allan what had gone wrong. Allan, in turn, began answering him and here’s how the explosion happened.

[Flashback]

Allan had drawn up a magic circle to create a black hole and was going to go look for Claude to help make it, but then he may or may not have accidentally injected some magic into the drawn circle. It should normally be impossible for one normal person such as him to activate a black hole spell, but then again, I wouldn’t call him normally either. So, the spell activated and he was very surprised, but that wasn’t the main matter at that moment. The more important thing was the impact of that black hole if it went out of control and started swallowing everything. Allan immediately tried erasing the black hole’s magic circle from the book he’d drawn it in and it was very hard, but he managed to do it, leading to the damaged magic circle slowly losing power and trying to deactivate itself. The process of the magic circle losing power and deactivating the spell wasn’t happening fast enough since the black hole spell didn’t show any signs of decreasing in size. At least, the black hole was about the size of a fist, so it wouldn’t cause too much damage before someone brought it under control. The most it could do was swallow the demon lord’s castle whole and then some, but that would still be considered a happy ending if this thing went out of control. His father had always told him to be extra careful when drawing magic circles for black holes but he didn’t listen and at that moment, he was regretting it.

He tried erasing more of the magic circle from the book, but it was happening very slowly as a spell that had already being cast was harder to erase than making it. He gave up on the idea that erasing the magic circle would help him control the situation and locked the black hole in a pressurized cube, but that wasn’t doing much good either. As Allan was panicking over what to do, he heard a ding~ from his Informer and looked at what could possibly be more important than grasping the situation he was in at the moment, and the answer to that was what saved him.

When he looked at his Informer, he noticed a new skill called [Ruler of Spells] had appeared in on his skill list. He wanted to have more time to study what the spell does exactly, but time was the one thing he didn’t have at that moment. He used it without any regard for what it does or what was going to happen to him if he did. All he cared about was stopping a disaster from happening.

When he used it, a black book materialized out of nowhere. The book floated and looked at the black hole, then entered Allan’s body. After the book had entered Allan’s body, he knew exactly out to stop the rampaging black hole, so convenient, although, the method still involved him having to cancel the spell, which he didn’t know how to. The book forcibly moved Allan’s body without permission and when his hand touched the book, the black hole’s magic circle disappeared or more like shattered, but that still wasn’t enough to stop the black hole. The book inside Allan, as if sensing his worry, pointed at the spell and then these binds appeared, constricting the spell. The book then had Allan forcibly grab the spell as if it were a ball, and the weird part was that nothing happened to him when he did. Black holes can’t be touched as its suction force is enough to make you disappear into wherever black holes made people disappear, but thanks to this book, he was touching this mystery of a phenomenon with his bare hands. From his bare hands grew these chains that grabbed the already bound black hole and made it disappear. What happened after was the big explosion that everyone saw, and that’s the gist of what happened inside of Allan’s study.

[End of Flashback]

After Allan had explained what had happened to Claude and Marcel, Claude said to Allan, “That’s great! You managed to create a black hole and also managed to control its force as well. If you aren’t a genius, then I don’t know what you are.” He said with a smile on his face as he ruffled Allan’s hair. Marcel was so astonished by how bright he looked unlike his usual poker face that he couldn’t stop staring at him.

After a while of watching Claude’s smile, there was still something Marcel didn’t get, so he asked, “Um, what’s so amazing about being able to create a black hole all on your own, and isn’t it dangerous to create something like that?” He asked, oozing off naivety and childishness. The other two laughed without meaning to when he asked the question.

“Marcel, for witches like Allan, being able to create black holes is something that should be celebrated. Normally, creating a black hole requires at least five high-level spatial magic users trying to compress space with magic. The process requires a lot of magic power and time. We don’t really have any problem with time since incredibly long lifespans. What Allan did was something only a few witches have ever done all on their own. There are different kinds of witches. Witches like Allan are known as Alchemic-type witches and they usually use their power to create items that some would gladly die for. Just like heroes, Alchemic witches also have access to all the elements if they borrow the power of the spirits and so, making items that are spatial magic-based is one of the most wanted items, but these are incredibly hard to make as they require the compression of space into a separate space, which most witches can’t on their own. Witches like Lord Lancel, Allan’s dad, can do it on their own, but that’s because he has already been blessed by the guardian of all witches, thus obtaining a lot of knowledge from her. He’s the pride and joy of the blue dove witches. You understand now, Marcel?”

“Yes, it means that Allan is awesome, but how did all of this happen? I know that you don’t suddenly get the power to make black holes and some book with great power out of nowhere.” Marcel asked. The other two silently stared at him with eyes that said, ‘you’re the one to blame for this’. Marcel didn’t understand why they were staring at him so intensely, so he just thought that they were just blindly staring off into space and not at him.

Claude thought, “Allan is technically also a Chosen One like him, although he was chosen by this oddity of a hero. I don’t know how that’s possible but maybe Allan gets the same advantages as I do by being a Chosen One as well. Being able to conjure up a black hole without assistance for a witch who’s also a Chosen One isn’t like the weirdest thing that has happened so far, and who’s the one given Allan the magic power to do so anyway? Allan reacted to Marcel’s touch on the first day than the demon lord’s so it’s probably him, but I haven’t heard of another that has an unrankable magic capacity like the demon lord before. It’s not possible, but then again if it is, the demon lord has brought upon himself a similar or far worse monster than himself.” Claude looked a bit worried for the demon lord. The prophecy he told him about might just be true. This infant monster by the name of Marcel might really be the one to end him in the future. Sure, every new choice comes with a new possibility for the future, but then again, the future can’t be so easily altered. He himself knows that very clearly.

What monster has the demon lord bound himself to? What monster will he become in the future? The only way to find out is to leave the future to play out as it should and hope that nothing bad befalls the two of them.

“Oh~, I have an idea! I might know how to measure Marcel’s magic now. Would you guys care to listen?” Allan asked with a smile. The two nodded eagerly to Allan's question.  

[A/N: I'm sorry for not being able to update as regularly as I had promised. You'd think that since I'm in quarantine, I'd have a lot of free time to write my story, but quarantine itself has made my source of inspiration take a dive into the ground. I just realized that I'm one of the people who work diligently under pressure, one of the many things I've learned about myself during this big world crisis and so, I apologize. I promise to put myself in a trance and do what I promised to do and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm a very lazy loser. I'll set this as one of my main goals to accomplish during this world crisis. I hope everyone also finds their own personal goals to work on during this crisis and like me, come out as a better person. Bye~]