«You have defeated the Sixth Saint. All Azalyths under the Sixth Saint’s jurisdiction have been annihilated.»

«As you have-»

Hold on a moment.

GAME stopped, likely listening to my thoughts.

How many Azalyths did Saniel control?

«The amount of Azalyths under the Sixth Saint’s jurisdiction has never exceeded zero.»

How interesting. Continue.

«As you have defeated the holder of an Aspect, it is your prerogative to decide the Aspect’s fate. Your options are to give it back to its current holder, Goddess of Light, Luciel, to give it to your current goddess, Goddess of Darkness, Entropy, or to return it to its rightful owner, Goddess of Darkness, Entropy.»

«Please state your preference.»

As usual, I did not even need to think about the question to arrive at my answer.

«Preference confirmed. Aspect of Exorcisms turned back into Aspect of Termination and given to Goddess of Darkness, Entropy.»

«Goddess of Darkness, Entropy has bestowed upon you the Aspect of Termination. You will gain three skills.»

«You have gained the skill [Exorcise]. Force a non-physical being inhabiting a physical body to leave that body. What happens afterwards depends on the nature of the non-physical being.»

«You have gained the skill [Lustrate]. Destroy a creature weaker than you affiliated with the darkness attribute.»

«You have gained the skill [Extinguish]. Destroy a creature weaker than you affiliated with the light attribute.»

“So that was that Aspect’s true nature,” I muttered, closing my eyes as I started thinking.

“Mis, mister Astaroth?” Evyna said, cautiously raising a hand and pulling me back from my thoughts.

“Ah, yes.”

I returned my attention to Saniel’s corpse, thought of a specific target and activated [Skill Borrowing].

I felt a strange, surprising sense of resistance, but I kept pulling the skill towards me, and-

«You have gained the skill [Necromancy]. You may use various spells intended to reanimate the dead. Both low-tier and high-tier undead are available.»

I barely had the time to be surprised, given I could feel Saniel’s soul falling apart.

I raised my hand over her corpse and activated the skill, forming a formidably sized magic circle underneath her as Lady Entropy’s chains disappeared.

For what felt like minutes but must have been seconds, I chanted.

The mana that gathered in the circle seemed almost to get amplified by the thick presence of demonic magic in the room, and I spotted a few globs of liquid miasma form at the edges of the circle.

The dark mana in the circle gathered into Saniel’s body, swiftly draining her skin of colour—within ten seconds, her entire body was grey.

At the end of my chant, I finally spoke the spell’s name.

“[Create High-Tier Undead: Dullahan].”

In a grand symbol of power, the mana flowed into her body and permeated its every fibre.

And then, what had briefly been a corpse stirred. With a little difficulty, Saniel made her way up to her feet. The sight of a body without a head standing up and moving around was a little unworldly, perhaps even more so than a moving skeleton wearing a crown of ice.

Unworldly and somewhat amusing as it was, it was also strikingly useless, so I used a bit of magic to toss Saniel’s head in the rough direction of her body.

As though acting by instinct, she caught her head and affixed it to her neck. The affixment did not seem particularly tough, however—I estimated the lightest of blows would cause it to go sailing straight off.

After blinking a few times, she cautiously opened her mouth.

“I’m… Alive? I don’t feel that different… Well, I sure do look different, though…”

After looking at her now-grey skin, she inspected a strand of her hair and, for some reason, seemed rather surprised it was white.

“Your sclera are dark grey now, too,” I said, directing my gaze to my fingers. “But more importantly than that. You say you do not feel different, but… Try feeling around your neck.”

A dubious expression on her face, she did as I said. After a few moments—

Her finger slipped into the wound I had caused earlier and separated her head from her body. In a blind panic, she pulled it back out as quickly as she could, the movement of which almost ended up dropping her head on the ground.

She somehow managed to keep it on her neck.

“My… My head comes off now?” she asked, looking a bit befuddled.

Well, I could not blame her.

“What, you think necromancy is going to reattach your body parts?” I asked, a sneer on my face. “It is not healing magic. It is magic to reanimate the dead, not fix them. You are a Dullahan now. Try not to lose your head, because I am not helping you search for it.”

“A… Dullahan? Then shouldn’t I be carrying my head under my arm, instead?” The confusion had all but disappeared from her face, leaving an expression which all but told me she was completely serious about that question.

“Just… Stop talking. I do not care. In the first place, if you want an authentic Dullahan appearance, you should be wearing armour, you imbecile. And before you ask, I am not giving any of my trainers authorisation to train you for that during work hours, so you would need to find one who is willing to dedicate their spare time to something so asinine.”

I could not imagine I employed any such trainers.

“If it’s just armour, then I’ve been trained already!” she responded, strangely high-spirited, and made a v-sign. Because of her enthusiastic movements, however, her head fell off.

It landed at my feet.

“Saniel, this is exactly what I told you not to do. Do you not listen to people’s warnings? Were you always this… stupid?” I asked, half-joking.

Of course, that also meant my question was half-serious.

“Hey!” she shouted, trying to seem as angry as she could. Given her already diminutive size and the fact that the angry party was currently just a head, that did not work out very well.

It also did not help that her idea of ‘angry’ seemed to be akin to a child throwing a tantrum, what with the body language and the pouting.

After at least ten seconds of densely packed silence, I once more opened my mouth.

“I am leaving.”

Not five seconds later, I was out the door and Lady Entropy had rebuilt her illusion of nonexistence, so a maid was left with the job of showing Saniel around, as best she could in this nonsensical castle.

I ended up stopping my fork halfway on its journey to my mouth, given Evyna and Saniel approached me during dinner.

For at least fifteen seconds, they stood there, side-by-side, with no clear purpose, so I spoke up.

“The two former Heroes, coming to me together… How unusual. Speak. My dinner will get cold. Neither of you needs to eat, so you should have no reason to be here.”

They looked far more taken aback than they should have, considering how obvious my statement was, so I decided to elaborate. First, I stuffed the food on my fork into my mouth.

“You,” I said after finishing my bite and pointing my knife at Evyna, “are a living shadow. I suppose such transformations often come quite naturally, so it would not be weird for you not to have noticed, but you have not eaten anything ever since your transformation. I would be impressed if you did.”

I shifted my hand slightly to point to Saniel, instead.

“And you are an undead. The only thing you need is regular cleansing. Since I am the one who created you, it would be ideal if you could come see me for that every few weeks.”

“Wait, what’s that mean, Arthur?” she asked, canting her head to the side.

“ ‘Astaroth’. It means that either your magic circuits are purged regularly, or you fall apart.”

“... Then what about the ghosts?” she asked, eyeing a nearby Ghostly Trickster Maid—the name I learned the blue maids had. [Appraisal] was a valuable ally.

The maid waved at her, a mischievous smile on her face.

“They are not technically corpse-type undead. The castle makes them. I suppose one could call them artificial. As such, they do not build up stagnant, demonic mana. You, however, were revived. You are a true corpse-type.”

“And I…”

“Your magic circuits will stagnate, and then you will rot away.”

Her grey skin paled further at my harsh words and equally harsh tone. She turned her eyes to Charlotte, who she seemed to have identified as a vampire.

“We Vamp’res can r’fresh our circ’ts in oth’r ways,” Charlotte said, apparently having noticed Saniel’s gaze. “ ‘Tis the reason we drink blood.”

Saniel turned her eyes down, towards Charlotte’s plate, and nodded in comprehension at its bloody contents.

“If that was all, you two can go now,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “I would like to return to my food.”

“Ah, actually, there’s, uhm, one more thing I’d, uh, like to ask!” Evyna said, turning an almost feverish gaze to me.

“Speak,” I said after a few seconds of silent consideration.

“Please let me, uh, t-transcribe some spells from your, uh, your library!”

“... Ask Tempest after dinner. Now get lost.”

After dinner, I turned my attention to the closest maid. A Ghostly Trickster Maid—exactly the type I wanted to speak to.

“You,” I said, addressing her before she could grab the plate she was going to grab. “Stop that for a minute.”

“Oh my, Master Astaroth wants my attention? I’m truly honoured~,” she said, giggling cheekily to herself.

“Spare me your laughter. You and a few others have evolved, yes?”

“That is correct, Master Astaroth. Are you perhaps inquiring as to our new abilities~?”

She did not spare me her laughter.

“There is that, yes. In addition, I want to know why you have evolved, and why the rest have not.”

“Kyahaha… For a master to be asking questions like this to his maid…”

“Shut up and answer me, you imbecile.”

“Understood~!”

She displayed a splendid curtsy which showed not a trace of serious respect, and I was starting to question the effect the evolution had on the maids’ value as servants.

“About our improvements… We can make minor illusions now!”

She snapped her fingers, and a miniature version of me appeared, complete with dramatic cape and disapproving scowl. It spun around a few times. This must have been the effect of the [Illusion] skill I had seen on their statuses.

“Sadly, though, we can’t make them physical yet.”

To demonstrate, she poked her finger right through the illusion’s chest.

“I see. What of the conditions?”

“A desire to serve you, and a desire to have fun above all else~!”

“A desire to have fun… Perhaps, the band of morons which was feeding Alpine…?”

“Yup! And a few others around the castle, too.”

“... Right… You can go now. Dismissed.”

I could swear she was going to drop the plate she was holding several times as she left.

I found myself in the void of inaction as I sat on my bed, not tired enough to sleep but with no particular productive action to perform.

A few seconds after I closed my eyes and contemplated my possible actions, I heard the door open and felt a comforting presence glide into the room.

“Good evening, Lady Entropy,” I said, not bothering to open my eyes.

In lieu of a reply, she wrapped her soft arms around my middle from behind. I could not prevent myself from letting out a small chuckle.

“I know what I want you to do next,” she mumbled into my back.

“Oh? Anything for you, Lady Entropy. How may I be of assistance?” I asked, not hiding the smirk on my face.

“A little while ago, two of the elemental goddesses descended at basically the same time. In the same place, too.”

“Oh?”

“Up north. Most of them get along, so it usually wouldn’t be a problem… But these two are like cats and dogs. I want you to check it out, and keep them from fighting if needed.”

“You wish for me to reign in someone on the level of a goddess, Lady Entropy? Even if I am me, I do not think I could fight a rank ten opponent…”

“You couldn’t win in a fight, I know. But I trust you’ll figure something out. You’ve met them before, right? All four of them seemed to like you. And if it comes down to it, you could flaunt my influence…”

“I will not let you down, Lady Entropy,” I conceded after a few seconds of silence. When she put it like that, there was no way I could refuse.

“And, there’s something else.”

“Hm? What would that be?”

She removed her arms, and I could feel her remove herself from the bed, so I opened my eyes. She floated right in front of me and stared at me for several seconds.

“I, uh. Lied to you about something, Astaroth.”

“I do believe I would have noticed such a thing,” I said, lightly shaking my head.

“Well, ‘lie’ isn’t the right word… I didn’t tell the whole truth without thinking about it.”

“Please, elaborate.”

“I said I don’t sleep, but… That’s a conscious decision.”

“Given Lady Sylph’s disposition, I had figured as much.”

The image of a green-haired goddess, sleeping as she stood with a smug look on her face, came to mind, but I quickly refocused my thoughts on the girl in front of me.

“So, are you going anywhere specific with this, Lady Entropy?”

“That’s, uh…”

She averted her eyes, her ears fluttering to and fro, but soon seemed to make up her mind and faced me once again.

“For my reward this time, please let me sleep together with you?”

When she asked such a cute thing with upturned eyes, there was no way I could refuse.