The mansion, by all accounts, was the very definition of extravagant. The first thing you were met with was a beautiful foyer, complete with dual-hanging chandeliers made of maple and oak. A twin set of curved stairs led to the second and third floors, and both had their own foyer. 

Perhaps it was fitting for someone who was the most powerful Soul Warrior of their time, but I thought such exquisite lavishness would be in character for a High Elf. We started by checking out the first floor, which had the living room, kitchen, and two dining rooms. Like the outside, everything—down to the tiniest cup and fork—was entirely created from non-metal materials. The lushness of the pine tables and cherry oak chairs activate tingling sensations left over from where I’d assimilated the mansion's former owner. 

Sekh was awestruck as well. She once owned a castle, but I doubt it was even anywhere as close to this. I felt kinda bad for Niva, though. I wanted her to see it all, but the most I could do was explain to her in a way that transferred what I felt.  

But the first floor had something like a training room located in the very middle of the house. Instead of being a room, it was an atrium. The second and third floors had balconies for those above to look down and observe. But an armory was in a room nearby that held training weapons, shields, and armor. We checked it out for a few minutes before returning to the foyer and ascending to the second floor. 

Or we wanted to. There was an invisible wall preventing us from going up the steps. As I talked to Tilde and Sekh about what to do, words began appearing in my vision. 

Only those with the soul of Vredi may pass. 

“On my status as the Princess of Vredi, the first chosen Soul Warrior of Holy Lord Amos, I demand you grant me access,” I said. I pressed my hand to the invisible wall and tried to guide only Susize’s mana through my palm and fingertips. 

Access granted. 

The invisible wall preventing us from making progress shattered like glass, breaking into a thousand pieces.  

“What a stroke of luck,” Tilde said, the only one speaking. I just looked down at my hands and realized assimilating Susize was an exceptional blessing.  

“If Susize has more mansions like this, they probably have similar locks. But she had more power and status than I thought possible,” I said.   

“Yep. You didn’t have much to worry about before because we were in Ria. They wouldn’t know a High Elf if one smacked them in the face with their cock. But here? In a bound field created from one of Susize’s closest aviary companions? Yeah. It’s no wonder they didn’t see you as her, but I chalk that up to no one knowing what she looked like. It also helps that [Status Cloak] prevents your mana’s identifying signatures from leaking out. You would have to consciously want that, which is what you just did, but situations in which you’d want to do that are rare and few in between. Still, you have to be on your a-game. You’re a High Elf, remember?”  

I nodded, then asked if breaking this lock was a bad thing. Tilde didn’t think so because all Elves –High or otherwise—were granted a last or middle name matching the name of the forest they were born in. If they were born outside of one, they were given the name of their parents. In such cases where the parents moved to a different forest, they could have the last name of Aetos, while their offspring had the last name of Vredi. This tradition wasn’t exclusive to elves alone—some dwarves were said to practice it.   

“So, yeah. It’s a rare shot, but just say you’re from Vredi. You might have to answer some questions and such, but say you don’t remember it that much because of the little lie we came up with. Sure, you’d think you’d be more in touch with your High Elven side after a thousand years, but we can blame it on your trauma. That won’t necessarily be a lie, either. And for your last name? Well, your middle name could be Vredi. Lyudmila Vredi Springfield. Eh, that sounds good to me.”   

After Tilde’s explanation, I quickly adjusted my Status Menu name to read ‘Lyudmila Vredi Springfield.’ I changed my age for it to work together, so now I was a healthy 1,015 years old. I doubt it would matter all that much since I could theoretically change my age and name every second for the rest of my life. If I ran into problems, I could change it back to what I had before.   

The second floor was where the bedrooms were, and there were five. Upon first glance at one that reminded me of the arid, sere desert plains, I realized Susize had designed these rooms with her fellow Soul Warriors in mind. It all made sense that they’d all stay together. And if Susize had this much room and space, it was natural to put it to good use. Likewise, Yaekira’s room focused on her childhood in the desert. Reina’s was all black and moody, with spider motifs with a closet full of black lingerie.  

I was almost positive that this wasn’t a mere replica. It was Susize's actual mansion. Was it moved here before Sekh's imprisonment at the bottom of that dungeon? Why else would Reina’s clothes be here? We doubled back to Yaekira’s room to examine it more closely, and yes.  

Her clothes were here too. 

The modest closet in Murag’s room was full of the brown robes he was buried in. And he had nothing but bookshelves upon bookshelves upon bookshelves. If I had to wager, I’d guess they were tomes he’d had personally written or bought when he was alive. The AI said there were 496 books in this room.  

Next was Beccy’s room, which reminded me of her former status as a queen. Everything was a shade of royalness, from the crimson bed sheets to the violet curtains drawled over the window that stretched from floor to ceiling. I was granted a breathtaking view of the backyard flower fields. Nearby sat a chair with a dresser and a ballroom-like mirror. A door to the closet was passed that, which turned out to be a whole room. She had everything from dresses to shirts to underwear to active wear. Her undergarments ranged from extremely conservative to excessively revealing and arousing. From the visual alone, I spotted seventeen different kinds of make-up foundation. She was a woman who cared about her appearance.  

The last, and most extravagant and lavish bedroom, had to belong to Susize Vredi herself. The first thing I saw when walking in wasn’t the reddish-brown cocobolo wood used for the flooring. Nor was it the oversized canopy bed with crimson silk curtains sizable enough to fit a particular Ashen Orc and his four lovers.  

It was the giant painting of Susize, her fellow Soul Warriors, and Holy Lord Amos, who was the very image of an aged caster with styled white hair and a neatly trimmed full beard with a mustache. Dignified. Respected. Elegant. That was what I felt from looking at this regal painting. Sekh, however, bared her teeth and growled at seeing them together. I calmed her down with a few head pats, and we were free to explore this room.  

Much like Beccy, Susize took pride in her appearance. Thus, her wardrobe was just as overwhelming. However, all her clothes were made from the very nature High Elves felt the most comfortable in. Since they were still around a thousand years after her demise, the quality was seriously impeccable. Even when I grabbed a bra made of vines and knots, I couldn’t break it without resorting to Yaekira’s daggers.  

We explored a little bit more and returned to the primary bedroom. Sekh walked over to the drawn curtains and pulled them back, and what she saw was something none of us expected.   

The other rooms all had master bathrooms, of course, and all were meticulously designed to fit the exact aesthetics of its assigned Soul Warrior. Each one with a faucet to fill the in-floor tub. I didn’t rightly know how a pipe made of wood and leaves survived a thousand years of water damage, but this world was full of magic and wonder. 

But the bath in Susize’s room? 

It wasn’t a bath. 

The entire ground was a grassy wonderland, and I was instantly met with a bout of déjà vu because I was staring at almost an exact replica of where I first woke up as Lyudmila Springfield. The one difference was the open room that allowed me to take a gander at the heavenly sky. I could only imagine how it would look at night when the stars were shining bright. I walked through the open window and onto the grass, looking at the familiar waterfall, pond, and fruit-bearing trees. 

Instantly, my heart began to both ache and feel pride and joy, and I believed it was Susize’s feelings using my existence as a conduit. The former for not being alive to see this paradise because it was created without any water at all. Vivid, hasty flashes of her memories flowed through me, and the last time she was here, Susize just left her seeds in a potted plant of soil. Neither rain, sun, nor outside nutrients had any effect on the seeds, and it took a millennium, but here it was. In Sekh’s dungeon, Susize’s own blood was the catalyst, but that wasn’t the case here. 

That was where the pride came in.  

“My lord,” the AI said as it materialized in midair. “Susize’s mana controls this area. As such, it is possible to alter the amount of bioluminescence and temperature and flow of the pond and waterfall.” 

“Put the controls in my vision,” I replied. 

“It will be done, my lord.” The multicolored stone jiggled, and I had access via a small control panel that appeared with the AI’s AR feature. 

I messed around with the settings a little bit, choosing to stop the waterfall while reducing the brightness of the artificial sun overhead. Since it was daylight, there was really no use for it right now. 

“And now,” I said, turning back to Sekh. “It’s time to have a little talk.” 

---

Sekh and I sat on the bed, Niva was in her wheelchair, and Tilde was in her lap, which meant it was time to solve one small mystery.  

“It’s as you believe, my liege. Aetos was slain 1,000 years ago when we fought in this region. Back then, it wasn’t a forest. It was just a wide open plain where one of the coalition armies made their last stand,” Sekh said, speaking from a mind filled with war-torn memories and uncountable slaughter.   

She was in the prime of her power at the time, which meant the curse was out in full blast. From the back of an Ancient Elder Dragon, Sekh relayed orders to her hundreds of thousands of slaves as she watched the battlefield from way up high. She saw the many lives being lost as something to smile about, and she cared not to send in a unit of children to fight against veteran warriors. Simply because there was a chance the enemies would falter because of their opponents’ ages. She claimed things like that happened all the time.  

“When you get down into the nitty gritty of war, most people often lose their sense of self and refuse to see their allies and comrades as ‘people.’ Instead, everyone becomes an enemy. When morale is especially low, discomfort and discourse often contaminate the ranks like a nasty cancer, and what better poison than the lives of children? Especially if those children were related to the enemies they were forced to fight? Like a flame that spreads amongst a field soaked with oil, it only takes a few turned heads for an army to devolve into terrified cowards.”  

“Then why did you pray to Aetos?” I asked, holding her hand.  

“Because...” she started to pensively say. “As much as I want to blame my actions on the curse, I cannot say the fault solely lies with it. But without it to cloud my judgement, I was free to decide my actions, and I wanted to pray to my fallen foe. I...think that was the least I could do.”  

“What did you pray for?”  

“For you, my liege. For you to accomplish your revenge... For you to end this world so it could start anew without curses or Dark Lords of Tyranny to cast it downwards into a spiral of death.” Sekh squeezed my hand, and I pulled her into a hug.  

“How does it feel to see the results of your actions?” I asked. 

“This village is peaceful and wonderful. Spirits and Beastfolk live and work together in harmony... My liege, if this is the consequence of my actions, should I feel regret? Were the lives of so many worth this slice of comfort? Do I even belong here? I slew their great eagle without remorse or care for the world. Even now... If he challenged me, I’d kill him without a second thought.” Sekh’s voice simmered off to a cold whisper. “My liege... I'm so confused.”  

“It’s fine to be confused,” Tilde said. “You have to be with those tits. But like you said, you can’t blame the curse for everything. At the end of the day, death came from your hands and your hands alone. But I will say this. I quite like this village. If I hadn’t found my Master, I think I’d like to spend the rest of this reincarnation here. But you can’t measure the ‘worthiness’ of deaths that happened 1,000 years ago to now. You can look to the past all you want, but you must focus on the present and future to decide who you want to be. People can help you, but you’re the one who decides your own fate. You obtained a life you really didn’t deserve. Be sure to make the most of it.”  

“If I...” The words I wanted to ask danced atop the tip of my tongue, afraid to burrow out from my mouth. But I had to know. Because it was a possibility... “If I gave the order to burn this village, would you do it?”  

“Yes,” she whispered without a doubt.  

“If I asked you to scorch Ria, would you do it?”  

“Yes,” she whispered a second time without a doubt. When asked why, she replied with this. “Because you must’ve seen something you either disliked or wanted to get rid of. You wouldn’t give that order without a good reason, and I wouldn’t have any problem following it.”  

“Even if it meant killing Irisa? Ichiha? Kokan?”  

Sekh nodded once more. “Yes. Remember what you said, my liege? After we destroy Cridia, we turn our sights to the world. It doesn’t matter how I feel about them since they’ll die in the end. Every man, woman, child, animal, monster, beast... All will meet their end at the hand of the Transcendent Dark Lord.”  

“Yes,” I whispered, holding her even tighter. Tilde said I’d have dominion over all Dark Lords once I graduated from the training system and became the Transcendent Dark Lord. After destroying Cridia, my only goal was to rid Sekh of the awful fate she’d been cursed with. If becoming the Transcendent Dark Lord is the way to achieve that, the chances I would destroy the world lessened dramatically.  

If the curse was even beyond that power?  

Well...  

It just meant this world was going to die.  

Niva would die.  

Irisa would die.  

Ichiha would die.  

Kokan would die.  

Billions of creatures would die.  

Everything would just...die. Perish. Ceased to exist. This world would return to the fathomless void it sprouted from, and Sekh would finally feel true relief.