"What's your job anyway?" I asked the woman.

"I worked for a newspaper company named Daily Bugle. I'm a journalist there, and I urgently need an assistant." Lynn said with the sincerest smile she could muster.

I squinted my eyes. "Your real motives?"

"I'm a failure as a journalist so I tried to find superheroes in hopes of saving my job! Please help me!"

I turned around with the intention to leave.

"W-wait, wait, wait! Hear me out first, partner!"

She already started calling me partner.

"Wait a second, okay?"

I stopped and faced her again. I sighed and said: "Please make it quick. I still have to walk my dog."

Relieved, she quickly organized herself. After a while, she started her introduction.

"As you can see, my name is Lynn Walsh. And like I said, I'm on the verge of being fired if I still can't produce any results by the end of this month. So in order to save my job, I started finding other superheroes like Iron Man."

Up till here, she still had a normal expression. But in the next moment, she sighed in disappointment while shaking her head.

"And as expected, my leading clues never got me anywhere."

Lynn then raised her head, showing me a wide smile.

"I almost gave up hope, until I met you."

"Don't make it sound romantical."

"Now, here's the offer."

Ignoring my statement, she loudly declared as she straightened her body with her arms akimbo.

"Since you don't want to become a superhero and I can't get a scoop out of your pictures, you're gonna help me find these superheroes instead. This is gonna be a long time deal so make up your mind. Please accept it! I'm begging youuuu!"

Staying silent after I heard her, I pondered. Though I don't want to get involved in this superhero business, I'm not against the idea of having a lax job with adequate pay. Sure, I do think it's bothersome, and I hate the fact that I'm being threatened, but it's also true that I was careless earlier when using magic. More importantly...

After debating with my self, I secretly activated a magic spell. My round pupils became a slit for a second before going back to normal after I blinked. Lynn failed to notice the abrupt change.

With that, I confirmed my suspicions.

This woman, Lynn Walsh, is about to die a few days from now.

How did I manage to notice? Being a Demon Lord for two millenniums, I naturally developed a strong connection with death. After observing the mana in her body with the unique tier magic [Death Aura Perception: Demonic], I finally confirmed the strong death aura lingering around her.

So that's why she gave a familiar feeling when I first saw her. And I guess this is the reason why mind magic doesn't work on her. The death elements surrounding her are so condensed that you could say that nothing would pass through it. It means it somehow interferes with my mind magic.

I couldn't care less about the death of other humans, but this woman's death aura was several folds thicker than a normal dying person.

There are two cases that I thought of first: 1. She contacted a strong curse that will surely cause her death, or 2. She offended a divine being that took her blessing upon birth and caused the death elements to surround her until she met her end.

The first case is the best logical explanation and also the easiest to solve. I already discovered many abnormalities in this world that I was unaware of before, so it's not strange if a strong curse like this exists. The only mystery was how she managed to contact a curse this strong. I mean, a curse like this can almost compete with my tier 6 curse magic, both with potent and deadliness. If this is the case, I can just replace it with a much stronger curse and remove my curse, effectively removing the current curse in her body.

The second case, while it appeared simple, is the hardest to solve. Even in my long lifespan, I can only count on one hand the number of divine beings I encountered, including Demon God bro. Moreover, managing to anger that God to the point of condemnation is just absurd for a human like her. If she really encountered and angered a divine being, I would immediately start calling her Big Sis and acknowledge her as my senior. Also, I don't have any immediate solution to this case.

And while I do have a third case in mind, it was even more absurd than the second case so I immediately discarded that notion.

I tried putting my strongest curse on her body with the first case in my mind, but after I removed it, the death aura surrounding her didn't even budge in the least. That leaves me to case 2, or possibly 3.

Deactivating my tier 5 magic [Parallel Thoughts: Human] which made my brain process data much faster, I murmured to myself. "It was so long ago that I felt this curious..."

And that, kids, is how I met your mother. Just kidding.