Petal and I get ready to dismiss the sphere and return invisible. I was really an idiot for thinking of "defeating" a puppet of myself and garnering glory for Beowulf.

> Before you go, please do not talk about this conversation with anyone outside. I am sure the enemy is monitoring you whenever he can. I have a proposal for you. I can delay the degradation of your soul vessel if you abandon entirely your hold on the memories of your previous life that are sealed.

I stare at the message from the 'administrator' for a while. "Is there any way to fix my Soul Vessel?"

> You are a very rare type of person. The skill implanted inside yourself would kill most of the other souls. I believe that even before you were selected to be sent here, you had a huge void inside yourself. You probably were a bad person in your past life, given that you also had a big affinity with this monstruous existence. Using [Soul Magic] you can delay or even do minor repairs on your soul vessel, but the skill 'Loot Crate Maniac' keeps growing slowly even if you no longer consume mana cores or activate it. Eventually it will burst out of your soul, killing you in the process.

In laymen terms, I have a terminal condition. Sweet. NOT.

I feel a tug, Petal is looking at me with a half-smile half-grimace expression. "Cheer up. We can try something. We can go far and wide looking for a cure. There must be a solution. Must be!"

I cup the fairy in my hand and pull it near my chest. "Thank you. Yes, I can do the impossible, right?"

"That's the spirit, silly hero!"

>_

The window goes blank. "Hope is the most powerful human emotion after all." I tell to the System message.

> You might be correct. Cling to your hope. Will you agree to the purging of the sealed memories? If the seal is dispelled, one of the burdens on your soul will be lifted.

"Before I make up my mind, do you know anything about my previous life's memories?"

> No. I only became aware of you a when you were christened [Hero]. Breaking the seal is not impossible, but it would require energy I can't spare while enemies about everywhere.

"Will I lose the knowledge from Earth?"

> Some of it. The information you already recalled and used during your life here will remain, along with some other related knowledge. But the rest will be lost.

"I got it. 'Live and learn, die and forget'. Once I died on Earth, losing my memories was meant to happen if I was not picked to be sent here... Go ahead." No, it sucks.

A jolt of pain flares past my [Pain Resistance] skill and I slide down the side of the sphere after losing my footing. Some images from Earth flash before me before I almost lose consciousness. I hold onto them as if watching a movie, trying to bring at least some of them into the memories of this life. It only increases the pain.

I flop, lose footing and slide back and forth at the bottom of the frictionless sphere. I laid there for some time, because Petal had to recast the spell to renew the bubble. She eventually lands on my groaning self.

And it is over.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Memory seal has been dispelled because no memories are being sealed.

The confusion, the nagging feeling of something being amiss now feels like a dream.

I am Grendel the troll. I got glimpses of knowledge from my past life, but that is it. No coming back. I still remember all the plans and cool technological things I wanted to do here, but there those flashes of insight from my past life are probably gone. The pressure on my Soul Vessel is also lowered.

I look down, and find Petal sitting on my chest. "Hey, fairy girl. How are you doing?"

"You know, when you hurt yourself you also hurt the ones that love you, silly." She chides me with moisty eyes.

I need to act fast and retrieve information about the guild attack and their plans.

"Petal, cast invisibility on yourself. We are going out now."

"Okay, boss!"

The bubble is gone and we go to the guild as fast as possible. I have glimpsed the devastation while I was berserking around, but there was nothing left standing. The main building, the warehouse, the hostel, and the training grounds and arena were all thoroughly demolished. The main building collapsed up to the basement.

Some wounded adventurers are crying over their slain comrades. I'm really sorry, but they chose to fight against insurmountable odds.

I use presence detection and find some people buried in the rubble. Seven people. "There are people alive and trapped in the debris. I'll rescue them. Secure the area and prepare to receive the wounded.

"Area Heal! Area Heal!"

We cast in tandem.

Petal, as soon as you see someone, cast Healing Pulse on them." The fairy nods. This will be enough to avoid any critical wounds worsening because we removed the debris. We got some attention.

"Gravity Cylinder!"

I reduce the weight of the debris and everything in the area by about four fifths. They don't float but one can see the gentle breeze picking up more particles than it should only to drop most of them past the cylinder edge. But my next spell should capitalize on this.

"Updraft!"

On the most delicate setting. The wind picks up the debris and pushes them to the top of the cylinder scattering everything around in a dust cloud. Small rocks are tossed around. Soon enough the people become visible.

"Healing Pulse! Prestidigitation!"

Petal heals the trapped people and moves them to the edge of the cylinder and I drag them out of the gravity cylinder before they are too tossed around by the wind. I need to focus entirely on controlling the spells.

We were able to get two receptionists and five adventurers out alive. I remember them Yvonne and Imayne. Or 'bitch secretary' and 'glasses librarian'. We heal them, but they are maimed. Yvonne lost the left arm and left leg, and Imayne both legs above the knee and the right arm. The only ways I have to fix them is with either possession or blood bond. And both are troublesome to use in front of strangers. The adventurers are also crippled but I want information on the guild's plans and I bet they know nothing.

I could try to fish for spells in the restoration tree using SP. I owe them at least this much. I'll pump it to level 10. The first advanced spell was {Restore Status}. Restores lost status due to maladies or drains. Never met such a condition, but fine. The second advanced spell was {Restore Youth}. Not the eternal beauty type. But if cast on the elderly or infirm, it can restore lost body functions. Remove the decrepitude. And the ultimate, as expected, was {Full Restore}.

Ultimate: Full Restore.

Casting time: 1 hour. Instantaneous but restoration takes time.

Restores the body of a creature to its own perfect template. Limbs, senses, appendages, internal wounds are all completely restored and healed. Dying status removed. Drains all the caster's remaining MP and 80% of the Magic Stat. MP can be restored as normal after exhaustion is over, but the Magic stat lost return at a rate of 2.5% per day. The base time to fully restore the creature is 400 days. This time is divided by 1 + (spent MP / 100) + (Magic points drained / 10).

This spell cannot be cast again until the magic debuff is fully recovered. No skill can accelerate the recovery of the magic stat.

If I set my jobs to Magician and Wizard I could fully restore a person in five or six days. But I won't endure forty days of magic sickness to restore the limbs of these girls. And they just woke up. "Beowulf? You, here? Bastard, all of this was your fault!" Yvonne curses. Friggin liabilities. I touch both of them and teleport to the core room of my dungeon. Petal came together using our bond to hitchhike the spell even without touching me.

"Where are we?" Imayne asks. She pans around with only her head before setting her eyes on me. "Beowulf. Did you remove us from the debris?"

I try to put up a friendly smile. The bespectacled receptionist grimaces. I got the social subtlety on par with my troll origins.

"That is correct. And you are in the core room of my dungeon." They shudder at the mention of a dungeon. Probably because it is a word commonly associated with torture.

And speaking of which I should charge it. There goes two thousand MP. I need to dig down two more floors and populate it with some monsters to get more mana income.

Yvonne's bad mouth continues her slur campaign, "You freaking bastard, this is all your fault! You are responsible for destroying the guild!"

"That is also correct. But I did not do that on my own will. I was out of control. Being beheaded causes people to behave erratically."

They look at me like they don't believe me. "Where is Kareena? What did you do to her?" Bitch asks.

"Unfortunately after beheading me, she discovered the truth about me. I was out of control and killed her. She didn't suffer much, if that is a silver lining."

Imayne mumbles, "You went out of control and destroyed the guild. And you also killed Kareena..."

Yvonne on the other hand, is completely out of her mind, shouting like she is possessed, "Why did you take us here. What are you going to do with us?"

"I was thinking of healing you, but I am about to change my mind. I'm pretty sure my monster army could use some Exp from a couple humans."

They stop squirming and pause to consider their limited options.

"I am crippled already, just kill me! End this torture!" Screams Yvonne.

Imayne is more composed, "Wait, wait! You said you would heal us. Can you restore our bodies?"

"Yes. But the fact that I can do such magic cannot become public notice. Of course, I won't heal you for free. I was not going to charge you too much, but you are beyond hope. I changed my mind."

I back away from them, but Imayne's body loses the tension and with a sigh she pleas in a soft voice.

"Beowulf, please heal me. You know me! I won't betray you if we reach an agreement! I'll keep your secrets to myself." Imayne pleas.

"Do you know where can I learn magic to repair soul damage? Soul magic?"

Imayne turns her head away, "I don't know. Sorry. But I guess I could search about it for you. Is that enough?"

"Fine. It is time to replay the scene." I erase their memories of this meeting and replay the scene three more times. In all of them, the same outcome happens.

I decided that three times was enough to move the scene forward. "Imayne, I am going to heal you, but I am going to kill Yvonne. She is beyond redemption now. How do you feel about it?"

She returns to that analytical demeanor she portraied when we were doing quests at the guild.

"I don't like it, but I can see your point of view. Indeed her hatred runs too deep. I think in your position I would also kill her."

And the person in the spotlight proves that she is really beyond redemption, "You fucking traitor!"

The librarian does not give a reply. After some more screaming and cursing, I resume my conversation with her after knocking out the other receptionist.

"Good enough to me. Can I have your promise that you won't tell anyone what happened here?"

"Of course."

"Hold my hand and surrender your being to me if you trust me this deep."

"I didn't know you had that kind of perversion. But if my maimed body is what it takes to get me healed, please help yourself."

"Eww. Beowulf, you are disgusting." Petal shields her tiny body with her hands and flies backwards away from me.

C'mon. Airhead fairy should know better, but she is one to go with the mood too easily.

"I don't have that kind of perversion, and I am not having sex with you, forced or not.

"Possession. Vitality Booster."

Even so, Imayne is almost going off on her own, "Haa, haa, I can feel my body growing back! It is like there are ants walking all over me. What is this? I can't move!"

"I am currently possessing your body and using my troll powers to heal it."

Twenty minutes later, her body is brand new. Not even scars are left. I dismiss the possession, recover from the exhaustion, knock her out, wipe out her memories of the day, and teleport back to the Colchester warehouse with the unconscious girl. I possess her, walk to an inn that is almost empty, hire a room, bar the door and windows, wipe her memories, and leave her there with two gold coins on the table. Sorry library girl, but you failed your job interview.

I'll return now to put Yvonne in jail. She will be Ranna's cellmate for a while. I ran into a problem of not enough limbs to embed in the walls, but whatever. I should heal the soreness in the demoness' body too.

And any way I can't handle recruitment now. I need to go elsewhere. The secret is out and I need to convince Helen's family that I am not a man-eating bad monster. I'm a hipocrite though. No more lies. After destroying a good part of the town. It is just a little past noon right now and my world has already gone upside down and tilted sideways in five different directions. All of them non-euclidean.

And here we are. In front of the house where it all started. The pavement is all broken because some dunno-how-many tons of monster did some bad stuff around here. Maybe I should fix it. Just whip up some MP and cast the right spells and there you go. If you know where to look you can see the damage, but it is functionally like new.

I knock on the door. I think I would be freaking out just like when we interviewed at the guild if it were not for the support of mental skills.

Helen: Is that you? Why don't you just enter instead of knocking on the door? 😡

Because I don't feel like I belong there anymore. I have this knot in my throat and I know I'll cry if something mildly upsetting happens. Oh, wait. I'm doing it again. That self-loathing 'run away' kind of thing. How is she able to put emojis in the party chat?

"I am here with you for whatever comes. I am your guide, I'll never abandon or betray you," Petal gives me some pep talk. She is sitting on my shoulder. The sentry ward is still active. Twilight and Snail have gone a few hours ago.

I'll hate Petal renew the twilight totem in a very stealthy place.

The door opens, and Hilde is on the other side. She is not happy. "Tell me just one thing, boy. When were you intending to tell us you are a monster in disguise?"

"I don't know. Soon, I guess, but the baby comes first. I had no intention of stealing the spotlight from Bertramus and Bredda."

"I see. It seems there is some decency beneath all that falsehood. If you really have any decency beneath that murderous monster you are, then please leave and never come back. I won't let you near any of the girls any more."

"I understand. I shall do as you ask, Mrs. Hildegard. I'm sorry for barging into your lives. You won't see me ever again. You tell the girls that if they want to go to Mirfield or elsewhere, I'll have Petal stay by the backdoor of the warehouse every day by dusk starting tomorrow."

Beowulf: Farewell. I think this is for the best.

You have left the party.