With my hands on the controls, I froze on the spot, admiring at my piece of work. Mooscly was silent with a crater underneath her. My suplex was so strong that it even broke through the magical enchancements the musclemen placed on the floor.

I released Rookie’s grips on Mooscly and flew off, leaving the cow lady’s arch back. With Rookie gone and nothing supporting the cow, the rest of her body crashed onto the floor. Although I wanted to admire my handiwork, I had to find Bricks…I mean Musclella.

Musclella, too, was unconscious. She was still wrapped around the cow’s grip so I had to pry her off. I realized that Rookie’s body was already reaching the limit as his bone modifications started to fall off one by one.

As I pulled Musclella off the giant hands, I saw one of the cow’s fingers twitched. With a sigh, I flew onto Mooscly and poured mana into my electric sword. With a single plunge of my blade, the entire cow screamed as she was electrified.

Of course, I had no intentions of killing her. I also had to loosen her grip on her magic tub of ice cream which had miraculously not yet spilled all over the place.

Perhaps that’s why I was calling it magic the entire time?

By now, most of Rookie’s armor had peeled off and he was almost back to his original state. With Rookie’s mana being depleted, I had to start deactivating most of the enchantments I placed in him. Although I could supply his entire mana requirement to sustain his life, it would only erode his system in the long run.

“We’re starting to lose mobility, Boss.” Satel said as she flicked some buttons. “Looks like we won’t be able to fly soon.”

Using Rookie’s last few mana reserves, I flew to where Musclella was at. Although she looked a bit smaller, she still looked like a brick wall, meaning she was still fine.

“Bricks, you alright?” I shook her up.

“h..Huh? Big man still here? Must run now…” She muttered as she started getting up in the manliest way possible.

“No need. Mooscly’s knocked out.” I pointed behind me.

“Big man…wrestled Mooscly?!”

“Heh, I don’t mean to show off, but I’m good at this.” I flicked Rookie’s nose off, feeling haughty.

“Big man very strong. Uncle says skinny man is strong. Big man strong so maybe all skinny man’s friend strong…” Musclella crouched down to inspect the crater I made.

“Well, enough about me…I mean, Boss. What do we do now?” I almost slipped there, since I forgot I was still controlling Rookie.

“Ok, now work. Make protein!” Musclella excitedly hurried to Mooscly’s ice cream tub and stole it right under her nose.

Following her out of the caged arena after locking Mooscly in her own cage, she started pouring the ice cream into large barrels covered in thin cloth. I inspected the ice cream and grabbed a scoop with Rookie’s hand. I sniffled at the fact that I couldn’t get out of Rookie to eat the ice cream myself.

Then again, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it for long so I would have needed to eat a lot of ice cream just to savor the flavor. After all, food that enters my ‘mouth’ disappears in a bright blue flame.

“Ok. Separate feelings. Must know protein listen to muscle,” Musclella instructed.

“What?”

Musclella demonstrated by posing in front of a barrel of ice cream. Her arms started to glow blue while her legs glowed green. It seemed that to make whey, you would have to use muscle magic itself.

The ice cream in the barrels churned themselves, swirling and slowly melting away. The ice cream conjured by the colossus minotaurs are manifestation of bitterness, sadness, and all other negative emotions. The fact that muscle magic could precisely manipulate such absurd abstraction had only served to fan my curiosity. Slowly, I could feel the loneliness in the ice cream turn into happy thoughts, emotions, and feelings.

The ice cream soon melted and some light yellow goo formed at the top of the melted ice cream. I reached for it and scooped it up with a ladle I picked up from the floor. Inspecting it, I realized that this was the same goo that was splattered all over the place.

“This is protein?”

“Only some. More protein come later. Must wait. Let milk sit. Let happy thoughts take over,” Musclella responded.

“Thanks. I’ll only need a bottle’s worth of it, if you don’t mind.”

“Ok, but big man try help Musclella make protein.”

“Can I even do it? I don’t know much about muscle magic…” I wanted to say that I knew nothing but since Rookie used a few muscle magic earlier, I had to lie through my teeth.

“Doubt not yourself, listen to your biggest muscle,” Musclella said. The sentence was so coherent, I thought I hallucinated that.

“My biggest muscle?”

“The heart.” Musclella cheerfully poked Rookie’s chest with a finger.

Huh.

“Well, let’s just copy what Musclella did,” Satel suggested.

Since I didn’t have anything to lose, I decided to try it even though I don’t have a heart. I walked in front of a barrel and stared at the ice cream. I wish I could just eat it instead of making weird goo out of it…

Alright, listen to your heart…

I can do this…

The heart…Emotions…

I must let go of reason, the one that binds magic. Simply accept and trust that it would work…

I don’t have muscles so who should I listen to?

You can listen to me!

Or me!

Funny smell.

Skeletons don’t have smell.

Stupid voice.

No, you stupid.

“So annoying…” Satel complained.

“You can hear them, too?” I asked.

“They’re one of the reasons why the fairies went insane, you know?” Satel rolled her eyes.

“I did recall that, but I thought you couldn’t hear the voices.”

“I couldn’t hear them until I left Sayitsi. I guess my influence was cut off once my prison lost hold of me. The damned voices slowly started to come back once I reached this city,” Satel explained.

“I see…” I stared at the barrel while I thought over this. Could it be possible to cut these damned voices off for good?

I’d like a strictly professional relationship with mana. I ask for something, they give me what I want, and we don’t talk more than necessary. Something like buying a chicken sandwich.

“You said someone imprisoned you and forced you to be the so-called ‘Mother of All Elves’, right?”

“Not exactly, but yes. Why?” Satel responded with a question.

“…Who is that someone?”

“Her? She’s…” Satel abruptly stopped. I switched my view from the barrel of ice cream to the internal cockpit. Satel had a puzzled face as she was unable to spit out an answer.

“I think she’s the original mother,” Satel gave me an answer, unsure if it’s even an answer at all.

“Yes, but who is she? She can’t just pop out of nowhere.”

Or can she?

The Abyss exists because she is the meaning of the opposite of existence: Non-existence. A spectrum must have two points, and The Abyss is on one end of the extreme. Who was in the other end?

Satel remained silent as she gripped onto her controls. We didn’t say anything else as we decided to put this topic off for now while we focus on making whey out of ice cream.

“Sorry, Musclella. I can’t help you right now. You see, tackling down a giant cow has drained me of my strength,” I excused.

“Ah, yes. Me understand. Here. Take bottle and go. Uncle come soon. Me say I did this myself,” Musclella handed me the bottle and waved me off.

“Won’t you get into trouble?”

“Is ok. Muscles say this is good. Give this to funny fat boy.” Musclella handed me a flask.

I turned the flask around to examine it. It was filled with protein as well but the flask had an interest detail.

“Aaah…damned bastard better treasure her,” I grumbled as I looked at the flask with a terrible drawing of a heart.

*

*

*

I returned to the tavern I was staying at and left Rookie in Maven’s capable hands. She struggled to make spoiled food but ended up making world-class meals so it took her a while to fix him up. Luckily for me, he had no recollection of me turning him into a Gundead since if Maven finds out I turned her kid into a mobile suit, she would murder me.

I went into my room with Satel to study the protein that was graciously given to us by Bricks. As much as I wanted to steal Lard’s share of protein, I didn’t have the heart to interrupt such a beautiful love story between a walking circle and a walking square.

I started with a few experiments such as buying ordinary milk and making whey out of that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as I thought and any dairy product produced wasn’t magical.

…I wasn’t using this excuse to make ice cream. I swear.

Satel was out of her body, using her real fairy body to eat a tiny bowl of ice cream. I clicked my tongue since it was basically cheating. Since her body was small, a tub of ice cream was like a pool of sweetness to her.

“We’re supposed to be studying muscle magic, not fat magic,” Satel commented.

“Yeah, well, I can’t get fat so this isn’t my problem-…” My door suddenly slammed opened, causing Satel to dive into her dryad body. I put on my mask in haste and realized too late that my mask was upside down.

“Relax, Boss. It’s me, Thyros and co,” A voice said, calming me down. By calm as in, I decided to disperse the mana I was gathering to create a cataclysm-level spell to annihilate this city.

“And co? How rude, Thyros. The shield brothers deserve some credit.” One of my companions came in carrying a body.

“I don’t know what you all did, but do not drag me into your murder, murderers,” I complained as I pointed at the dead body.

“Ah, he’s not dead, Boss. You told us to find the ones who killed Gardener and we did. The only problem is that he’s pretty beaten up badly and we can’t use magic to heal him,” My lieutenant explained as he ordered Gardener to place the body down.

It was a middle-aged man wearing a bloodied dark blue coat. Both of his arms were charred black and it seemed that his skin around the charred areas was slowly turning purple.

“Can you remove the corruption?” Thyros asked me.

“Wait this is…cosmic corruption?” Satel, in her dryad form, approached the half-dead man.

“You’ve seen this before?” I asked.

“It’s like that guy…he…he had the same thing,” Satel replied.

“What? What guy?”

“I don’t know who he was, but he imprisoned me when I was almost ready to break free, causing me to stay longer than I anticipated.”

“Why do you know a lot of people that imprison you but don’t know their names?”

“That’s what you’re concerned about?” Satel sighed as she tried to grab the man’s arms. Almost immediately, she had to pull her hand off as she felt an intense pain, causing her to back off.

“So his arms are screwed, huh? I think I could remove the corruption,” I said as I picked up the man’s arm without problem.

“Whoa, you can resist the influence of The Abyss?” Satel asked with a surprised face.

“One time, I literally took a black hole and swatted her with it.” I started to peel the black parts of his arm like a snake shedding off its skin. The black flakes squirmed like it had a life of its own, struggling for a few seconds before turning white, and crumbling into ash.

After cleansing his arm, all there was left were some burn marks and purple bruises all over his body. “I thought you guys can’t use magic against him?” I asked. “Why are there burn marks? Did you light a bunch of torches and used them as maces?”

“We asked for Lady Sarjay II’s help,” My lieutenant answered.

“Heh. Good to see that Cass is starting to get used to using Phollician Fire. I bet Sarjay would be so disappointed that a giant monster bird is better at using his magic than his descendants. Hell, I’m sure he would adopt Cass as his daughter in a beat.”

“Boss, can you heal him? He might have answers. I think he’s a high ranking officer of the organization we’re hunting,” Gardener asked.

“Really, now? Who does he work for?” I rubbed my hands and started to use healing magic.

“It seems that they belong to a group of knights called the Order of the Returned Knights. Their objective is to rid of all the irregularities of this world.”

“Irregularities?”

“Such as the undead.”

Why is it that they are immune to magic? Is magic an… irregularity?

“…I can’t use magic on him either,” I concluded after a few failed attempts of healing him. “Satel, come over here and heal him.”

“I only know some basic ones.”

“That’s fine. Just try to heal him.”

Satel crouched and pressed her palms against the man’s chest. Her hands glowed with a green hue but nothing happened.

“Huh? This has never happened before…” Satel muttered.

“Is your magic being blocked?” Gardener asked.

“No, it’s not that we’re being blocked. It’s just that we can’t. Any magic we pour into him disappears,” Satel explained.

After thinking for a moment, I ordered Satel to produce an anti-magic barrier in the room. I told my companions to lock the door and guard it. Thyros crouched and placed his head against the floor, listening for any incoming intruders.

Once I was sure that this place was secure, I activated a series of spells which formed a cumulative divine-tier spell. I removed my mask to reduce the chance of obscuring my vision.

In my eye sockets, two balls of light started to form until it looked like I had two shiny transparent glass eye balls. My vision was flooded with a myriad of colors, senses and otherworldly things. I could even ‘see’ smell itself.

Although everything was a vomit of colors, the man’s body was pure black. No, not even black. There was nothing in his outline at all. I looked deeper into the heart of nothingness until I realized that I was gazing into the abyss.

…I was gazing into The Abyss herself.

Shutting my vision at once and dispersing the divine-tier spell, I backed off from the man. I clutched my chest and checked my breathing, forgetting that I had no lungs at all.

“What did you see?” Satel asked.

“This guy… is a god damn portal to The Abyss.”