You obtained 1.569.982 coins.

"Phew… that was close," Femradiel felt shivers when she saw the mana in her Soul Eater reaching the four-digit mark.

After she stopped using her mana and deactivated Chronos' Ring, Femradiel found Echidna's statue a few meters away from there. She was an enemy much more troublesome than Belphegor, but she had more confidence in her skills than Thanatos. She probably would have won against Ryan due to the nature of their skills, but that was one of the reasons as well as to why she was defeated. In any case, right in front of her, Femradiel found a dark crystal that she could hold with a single hand.

Soul Trapper Stone

Effect: it grants you the power to trap the souls of all kinds of creatures in here, and it also gives the power to summon copies of them. The more high-leveled the beast is, the less mana you will have to spend to summon them. This item also gives you the power to combine the skills of different monsters and summon them. Still, the cost of summoning will be higher according to the level of the skills transferred.

Durability: 500/500

"It is a pretty frail item… and there is no statuses bonus," Femradiel muttered.

That was only obvious since the item was stupidly useful. In any case, Femradiel finished her job, and she did so much faster than anyone had expected. It was quite weird that she pulled that off considering that she wasn't feeling that confident in the beginning, but gained confidence later after recalling a certain tactic and even more considered the fact that her arm was…

"Ah… my left arm is finally back to normal," Femradiel realized, a bit surprised. "Hmm… I guess Femradiel gave that power to Cerberus and because her mana still existed, the effect of his fangs didn't disappear until now."

Putting those thoughts aside, Femradiel still had another job to do… find the domain crystal.

----- -----

"She is late…" Ryan furrowed his eyebrows during a pause of his training. "I wonder if something happened."

Ryan could tell that something was on Femradiel's mind the last time he saw her, but he more or less knew that it wasn't due to the next battle. Regardless, he was only taking a break because Belphegor never stops complaining. Another reason Ryan was missing Femradiel was because he wanted another training partner. As if she had been waiting for the perfect moment to show up, Femradiel appeared. However, Ryan changed his mind and that was the case since he looked pretty exhausted.

"Hey… it seems you already got tired of Belphegor," Femradiel forced a smile.

"Yes, and you, who caused you so much trouble?" Ryan asked.

"I bumped into some old friends of yours," Femradiel said and then decided to rest her back against the grass of the island. "Cerberus and Echidna."

"Bumped?" Ryan frowned.

"Not now, Ryan, I want to rest for a while," Femradiel said and then closed her eyes.

"Hmm… why don't you turn around? I will give you a massage," Ryan said.

"Why are you being nice all of a sudden?" Femradiel frowned. "Or is that an excuse just to look at my ass?"

"Yes, that is just an excuse," Ryan replied. "I can't say any other things without causing a lot of damage to your confidence. Anyway, my mom taught me how to apply a massage that relieves some stress. If you don't do that, then it is fine."

"I guess I will ask for one," Femradiel said and then turned around while trying to hide a smile.

Although that was expected since he was an archer, Ryan was pretty good with his hands. He made the tension escape from Femradiel's muscles in the blink of an eye. After that, he put some pressure on her bones, and that hurt a little.

"Ouch, that hurts!" Femradiel said.

"Relax, it will only hurt in the beginning… what the hell am I saying?" Ryan frowned.

In the end, what Ryan said was true, it only hurt in the beginning, and then Femradiel suddenly felt a lot more relaxed. One of those messages every day would be like a heavenly reward for her.

"Now, spit it out what happened," Ryan said.

"I guess it is fine…" Femradiel said and then sighed. "We figured out that we would need another card up our sleeve, and Echidna had that card, so I attacked her base and defeated her."

"You are skipping a few steps there," Ryan said.

"Not really, it wasn't that hard to defeat her, I just had to use a lot of mana to create a sure-fire way to kill her," Femradiel said. "That is kind of weird considering how much trouble Cerberus caused at first, but then I was able to defeat ten of them at the same time. Speaking of which, I created another crossbow and upgraded."

"Again, you are skipping a few steps there," Ryan said and then sighed.

After that, Femradiel gave more details of the fight. While she had to use a lot more mana than expected, she indeed defeated a troublesome enemy that had one heck of a useful power. Ryan could also imagine himself struggling against that kind of enemy. Knowing himself, Ryan would try to kill as many monsters as possible before fighting Echidna, just to level up his skills and gain coins.

While Ryan was thinking about that, Femradiel fell asleep. It seemed that he didn't lose those skills even though he didn't use them for a long while. In the end, Ryan also laid on the grass and decided to relax a little. The sound of Femradiel's breathing made him feel quite relaxed and made him wonder why he just didn't choose to take the next step in their relationship. It wasn't like he had an aversion due to the fact that she was a dragon before. It was just because Ryan couldn't see a reason to take the next step. After Mia, deep down, Ryan decided to only love someone if he had a good reason to do so, but was that actually necessary? Besides, he already had a reason. He trusted Femradiel more than anyone else.

"Can I go back now?" Belphegor asked.

"… Just shut up," Ryan replied after a long sigh.