「Still nothing?」

「Well .. it seems impossible.」

Melizand nods dejectedly at Aur’s question.

「Don’t ask for the impossible.」

From her mouth, the low voice of a man came out.

「My ability was not enough to rid Melizand of her curse, and the one placed on this Hoseli girl seems to be similar. Lifting it won’t be a walk in the park.」

「Is that so?」

One of the Heroic Spirits serving under Melizand, Zaitreed, groaned unpleasantly.

Zaitreed’s 『Lead』 ability is to invalidate all magic. But it looked like Hoseli’s predicament was too much even for him to handle.

Similar to Melizand’s curse of immortality that did not allow her to die by any means or become defiled, the protection, or curse if you would, that was placed upon Hoseli made her stronger with each revival after her death. With every sunrise, her power was dramatically increasing. That is what Aur managed to confirm so far. Although in Melizand’s case, her curse was in effect for literally thousands of years, showing no signs of weakening whatsoever.

「But this was not a total waste of time, Demon Lord.」

「What do you mean?」

「Just now, I got a response!」

Zaitreed held his tightened hand in the air with a fearless smile. However, since he was possessing Melizand right now, that whole scene looked rather unsettling.

「It’s not a curse that we cannot do anything about like in Lady Melizand’s case, but it’s still incredibly complex. Lifting it right now is beyond even my ability, but with time, I believe we’ll be able to do something about it.」

「I see..」

Aur nodded deeply. It was a shame that they can’t do anything about it right here, right now, but some progress is still better than no progress at all.

「Oh well, if you cannot solve it right now, then I doubt anyone else can. Good job nonetheless.」

At least it was some start. If they tried to forcefully remove the curse now, who knows what might’ve happened. Worst case scenario, they might have even end up killing Hoseli for good.

「But this sure is troubling.」

Aur sights, looking at Hoseli who was lying on the bed, staring into space without even the slightest intent of fighting back. And even if she tried that, her every attempt at escaping would have been in vain.

Talking with her was pointless, and any kind of mind reading proved to be ineffective as well. Hoseli’s body might have been moving, but judging purely by the state of her heart, Aur thought that right now she was more like a walking corpse more than anything else.

He wanted to try putting a Collar of Obedience on her, same as he did with Zana and Eve, but he gave that idea up once Tena told him that she could not see what was going to happen once it would have been put on her.

「Master, I have finished the indexing.」

As Aur was thinking about what to do next, Spina appeared with the bunch of parchments in hand.

「So? How many were there?」

「Ninety-eight in total, scattered across the whole continent.」

「Hmm, the numbers don’t quite add up, so let’s just take it one thing at a time.」

When Aur gently raises the floor stone to make a table, Spina spreads the parchment on it. It was a map. A vast map depicting the Yaegaki Mountains from the Yamato, as well as the ice country Himuro, the sand country Sahara, and the east highlands.

There was a number of spots numbered from one to ninety eight on the entire map. It was also the number of days from the time Hoseli disappeared until now.

「What are those signs?」

「Oh.」

Aur replied to Melizand who questioned the meaning of the conversation between the two.

「Those are the possible places for Hoseli’s revival. And we’re going to destroy all of them one by one.」

* * *

「F*ck yeah!」

A roaring sound filled the air, as Lilu fired her newest creation. The magical bullets released from the cannon had torn the altar on top of the hill apart.

「Work of a God or not, looks like even the objects made by immortals or divines are no much for good old artillery fire.」

Every time she was killed, Hoseli’s body was regenerating at the same spot: an altar near the forest Dungeon. Aur predicted that it was not just a coincidence, and that there was some deeper meaning behind it, so he ordered everyone to investigate whether or not there were more places like this one near their base. And sure they were.

And it wasn’t just this one.

Those altars, the places of Hoseli’s resurrections, were much like checkpoints from which she could continue after being killed.

Those checkpoints were scattered all across the continent, creating a large resurrection net.

「Spina, where is the next one?」

「East from here, about thirty miles.」

Asking her question Lilu gazes at the sparkling pink slime on the palm.

It was the ability of this slime to determine the position of the checkpoints.

「All right, Sophia, please do it.」

「Roger!」

When Lilu calls out, the ground rises and surrounds Aur, forming a small room. When the room collapsed, the outside scene changed to a completely different place. It was the method of traveling through the dungeon of Sofia which spreads to cover the majority of the continent that allowed for covering of large distances within the span of seconds.

「Well, where is it..?」

「That old tree.」

At the point where Spina was pointing, the old tree was rising steadily. A strand of rope is wrapped around the trunk, adorned with an image of green bird.

「Since it’s so big I will make the next shot a bit stronger, so close your ears!」

Lilu declares so and releases a magical bullet for God-knows-which time today. The roaring sounded with a flash of light, rocking the earth, and in the next moment the old tree was breaking apart.

「Can I have a short break, please?」

Lilu suggested that as he stopped firing and breathed a rough breath. Originally it is not necessary for the demons to replenish their supplies of magical energy, but if they consume too much it becomes a necessary action. They usually do it by slowly absorbing the magic particles scattered in the air by breathing them in.

「I will replenish your magical power now.」

「Thank you very much.」

Hugging Aur, Lilu mercilessly extracted his magical energy from him by deep kissing. Now that he’s made the contract with Misha that allowed him to manipulate the boundaries around him a little bit, Aur could pass his magical power on to pretty much everyone, everywhere.

In the past Aur used Lilu as his personal magical power tank, but acting as such tank himself now felt quite strange.

「Hnnn, chuu.. fu, haaaaa ..」

Even after sucking off his magical power, Lilu didn’t stop kissing him, fully wrapping her tongue around his and enjoying every second of it. This continued for quite some time, up to the point there Aur needed to take a break himself to recover his lost magical energy.

「Uhm, Spina, what .. what are you doing?」

Looking quite perplexed, Lilu pointed her finger towards where Spina was standing. When Aur looked in that direction as well, he saw her stretching her arms towards him, as if she wanted to hug him herself.

「......」

She wanted to retreat shyly, but Aur caught her in her arms and gently hugged her closely to his chest, and a smile bloomed on her usually stoic face. It was a smile that only Aur, Lilu and Yunis knew about, since they were in her company for the longest time. Spina might have looked cold and uncaring to the rest of the world, but she had an unexpectedly cute side to her once you got to know her properly.

「So, like.. how were you able to find all of those checkpoints ..?」

Enjoying a kiss with Aur for plenty of minutes, Lilu asked Spina again, licking her lips lewdly.

「Because I have created a slime specifically for that purpose.」

Saying that, Spina takes out the peachy slime that Lilu used earlier.

「It is a slime made by using parts of Hoseli by using the assumption that even when detached, the things that were originally whole want to become whole even after separation.. this is the way of thinking that I used to create it. When Hoseli comes back to the checkpoint, the slime that uses parts of her as its core will automatically try to reunite with her, making it possible to track the places of revival down.」

「In other words, this is..」

Lilu looked at the slime on Spina’s palm. Try as hard as she could, she saw nothing attractive about this peach-colored atrocity anymore, but she had to know nevertheless.

「Yes, it’s a slime that used Hoseli’s melted limbs.」

「So this color is actually the color of meat?!」

「A mixture of blood and body fat, to be exact.」

Hearing that, Lilu was about to throw up. Just a short while ago, she was holding it on her palm!

「This is the best I could think of on such a short notice. I know it’s extremely unrefined..」

「Don’t worry, your work was splendid as always.」

Receiving such a praise from her master, spina panicked a little.

「M-master, y-y-you used it too?!」

「Yes, and I must say that I’m very pleased with the results. As expected from my number one disciple.」

Spina turned red with embarrassment, and then white with frustration, burying her face deeper into Aur’s chest.

「I-In that case I’m glad that I did it!」

She said so with a muffled voice.

Sighing, Aur gently caresses Spina’s head.

「Don’t worry, I will be sure to give you a proper reward for your achievement later.」