It's the day after their memorable wedding, as Saint Rumia and Alicia are ready to depart with the help of Holy Beast of Light and Goddess Achalasia, I actually stop them, at least just for a while as I need to tell them two important things, the first being

"An imperfect homunculus?" [Old lion duke]

"Mother is a Homunculus!?" [Singa]

"Kinda, it's much more complicated than that. I would even go as far as to say that she isn't the current text book definition of Homunculus" [Ash]

""True. Different from Mahsuri and us"" [Lara, Nara]

Those two were having the most confusing face when I first mentioned the word Homunculus, but now, they're somewhat showing less confusion in their face. They still didn't grasp what I would like to say, which is fine. Second thing I will do is

"You can do that?" [Charlotte]

"Yes. I believe I can offer you the solution for the Sea Serpent Project. It's a good project and I am sure it will bring benefits both on a short term and long term" [Ash]

Both Singa and Charlotte come straight to me after the confession to discuss their problems with me, and magically enough for them, I can offer the solution to their problems. The first to take priority is of course

"Let us get back to Mrs Sachmis over here" [Ash]

As I said that, I begin to scan her lifeless body, and what do you know

"Yup. As expected" [Ash]

"What? What happen?" [Old lion duke]

"Please tell us she's fine!" [King Leogris]

"The best description that I can give now is that she's akin to Linda, and yet different from her" [Ash]

"Like Big Sis?" [Liyana]

"You mean, she can become a minion of God of Death like I am?" [Linda]

"That she could, or I could just fix and place her soul properly back inside her body" [Ash]

"!" [All]

""But we can't detect her soul!?"" [Lara, Nara]

"True. If we can, the problem will be long solve" [Linda]

"Plus, you said just now she's an imperfect homunculus, even though she didn't fit perfectly into the definition" [Diana]

"Care to explain?" [Titania]

"Gladly" [Ash]

Of course, the case of Singa's mother, Sachmis is a complicated one, so let just break it down one by one, as simple as possible to them

Let start with the area I am most confident with, that's regarding her soul

1. Regarding the soul, it's there, that much I can tell, or else the body will begin show sign of decay. It's further supported by the fact that my scan magic using the power from God of Death did in fact, show her status as alive

2. For a lack of better word, her soul is... Misaligned. That's the best description that I could give to them. Kinda like the feeling when you can fit something into an empty box, but you know it shouldn't be place that way

"But she's rather..." [Farhah]

"I won't deny it, but it's there. Not only her soul, but also, you can actually makes out a bit of her vital, however impossibly low the vitals are" [Ash]

"Is it?" [Rafiah]

Rafiah try to inspect her once more, and as expected

"There isn't any sign of life though? Just like how Yefefiah and I inspected it few weeks ago" [Rafiah]

"Like I said, it's impossibly low. She might breath one or twice... who knows in a day? Even her heart rate follow the same pattern" [Ash]

"How is that even possible?" [Zerolith]

"Unless... But how!? Even if she knew of Dwarf racial magic, she couldn't possibly!?" [Karon]

"That's a bit puzzling for me as well" [Ash]

Karon did told me regarding his dad and his racial magic yesterday, so it's either a pure coincidence or there is some sort of connection

Which bring me to my not as solid as the first point

"Her body, it somehow behave like that of an imperfect homunculus. Naturally, she, just like any other imperfect homunculus should die without proper maintenance, but she doesn't. Either it's due to the powerful life force from the Holy Beast of Fire or because she's afflicted with Puppet magic of the dwarf, just like how Karon's dad was like" [Ash]

That's the simplest way for me to tell them, and understandably

"So, can you cure her?" [Singa]

"Yes, and no. Rather, sorry once again, for the of better word, I will said I can only patch her up" [Ash]

"Why?" [Old lion duke]

"Her soul misalignment is not only due to "misplacements", but also part of it still inside the Holy Beast of Fire. Plus, her body shouldn't be possible to support life without her relying on some sort of mana supplement" [Ash]

""Just like us back then..."" [Lara, Nara]

"Hence, why I used the word imperfect homunculus" [Ash]

Well, that's the gist of it

"So, we should start searching for Simba the..." [Savel]

"That won't be necessary" [Ash]

"Why is that?" [Aries]

"I can just heal her up, and let her lead the way" [Ash]

"Is that even possible?" [King Druser]

"It is. Soul will yearn for part of their soul should it gone astray. We can definitely take advantage of that" [Ash]

"I see! That's good news indeed!" [Mara]

"Can you start right away? I feel bad just leaving her like this when we could let her join the conversation" [Rumia]

"Saintess Rumia right, I also feel bad" [Rean]

"I will. Diana, do you manage get it?" [Ash]

"The A rank fire magic core? I even made several copies of it with The Goddess Treasure Chest" [Diana]

"Really! That's great" [Ash]

At least there's more to spare, which I can use as a backup should something gone wrong

"Did you buy the magic core?" [King Leogris]

"That I did, from the merchant guild itself" [Diana]

"Please, let us pay the cost back" [Old lion duke]

"Don't worry, consider it my way of helping my little sibling" [Diana]

"Sis Diana..." [Singa]

That's rather heartwarming... I should start right away and give them more reason to smile!