“That girl seemed kinda anxious, huh?” Dema mused when they finally left the small town. “Wonder what we’ll find there. Maybe he’s a big meanie.”

“Probably is,” Theora confirmed.

“What if he isn’t?” Dema grinned. “What if he offers us a cup of coffee and says sorry? You gonna add him to our party if he begs?” She raised her eyebrows playfully, the non-verbal ‘Like me?’ lingering in the air.

“Unlikely.”

“Why, come on! You’re such a big softie! Can you even really kill anything? I ain’t ever seen you actually do that.”

Theora shifted her head slightly to lose Dema from her field of view. They were walking side by side through high grass, the demoness engulfed in it up to her hip.

Ever since the attack, the surroundings of the incident’s location had been uninhabited. It was pure wilderness, no path leading where they were meant to go. A small village by the countryside, rich with its local herbal flora, featuring some of the cleanest water and air in Callarand.

Back then, it had been a sanctuary offering respite, before the Devil of Truth had warped it to a venue of horror.

Not that any of that horror was yet apparent. The bees hummed through the air. Bunches of lavender patches swayed in the soft breeze under evening sunlight that was only briefly interrupted by the occasional fluffy cloud passing along.

If it truly was a time seal, then the evidence of Truth’s deeds would become immediately apparent once they entered.

This would not be similar at all to Dema’s situation. Time had washed away all reliable accounts, all evidence of evils she may have once committed, and the myths and legends had biases implanted that turned Theora unwilling to rely on them.

But for the Devil of Truth, they would know what he did, and was going to continue to do if left to his own devices.

“Not like I wanna team up with him or anything, but, how do you feel about travelling with more than just us? What if we found someone cool one day and decided to let them tag along?”

Dema’s smoky voice rang over the buzzing of the insects and the soft breeze shifting the leaves, and let the question it carried linger. Theora tried to turn it over in her head. Another companion? How would that even work?

During the last century, how much time had Theora actually spent awake? Maybe five or six years? And most of that, she’d spent putting one foot after the other, walking mindlessly along long roads, unsecured paths, or simple plains. 

They’d not actually met many people on their way. Himaeya was an incredibly large planet with a very low population density. Or rather, the population was low at the moment. There had been times Theora lived through when it’d been much more lively, and others when it had been yet emptier.

But, even if they found someone to travel with, how would that turn out? Being trapped in that cage in the chasm with a human would have potentially ended very differently. Theora would have had much less time to analyse the Skill and wait for its energy to run out, which could have made breaking out riskier in various ways.

But, looking at this in a different way, this was a rather selfish thing to think. Another companion would have perhaps known a way to break out of that seal that didn’t occur to her or may have been outside her capabilities.

Though, that still didn’t address the fact that they’d just spent 100 years travelling, and not a single human would have survived that long a journey.

Of course, other humanoid peoples lived in the world too. Some had longer lifespans, even going up to a millennium. But currently, their numbers were sparse, and they mostly lived in far off regions.

But even disregarding all that, just in principle — would Theora want to travel with more people, if it was possible? She’d never done so before. She’d never even travelled with others before meeting Dema, and so far, travelling with Dema had done nothing but plunge her into the most desperate sleeping fit she’d ever had. Using sleep as a coping mechanism had never occurred to her before, but in these special circumstances, having Dema right there, there was really no other way to avoid the things she was trying to deny needed to happen.

Would she continue sleeping even after completing the side quest? She really didn’t know. She was still tired, and she still wanted to just lie down, though her sense of duty and the urgency of the remaining time dwindling down gave her mind the necessary impetus to stay awake for now.

What would the world look like once she’d faced the Devil of Truth? How would the System react to her clearing the quest? Would it grant another one, or would it argue that it had shown all possible goodwill and that now, it was finally time?

Was Theora just moments away from ending Dema?

As her thoughts kept circling, and without her ever giving a proper answer to Dema’s question, they eventually reached the village. All its houses had fallen into a grave disrepair only a century of untouched nature could cause. 

There were no signs of a struggle. Because the village specifically had not been the Devil’s target. The target had been a large building outside, placed here amid healing nature to provide whatever boon possible to its former residents.

And at long last, it came into view. The final destination of their journey.

The place of the attack. The place of the gigantic prison.

It was a large, crystallised structure like an uncut diamond, glittering in the setting sun in sparkles of all possible colours. A fabrication of such tremendous and oppressive beauty and power that it could have only possibly been brought forth by a Skill of Legendary rank.

Something that, much like the Cube of Solitude, could hold virtually anything.

This enormous diamond had long since outlived its creator, lying here in wait for Theora’s arrival, for one hundred years. Maybe even the greatest feat that hero had ever achieved, the incredible triumph that would carry his legacy through history — having succeeded in sealing away the Devil of Truth, and living to tell the tale. A tale that Hannah had now relayed to them.

Theora stepped in front of the structure, taller than a cathedral, not a single scratch or sign of weathering on its incandescent surface.

She drew her sword.

[Obliterate].