An annoying male voice talking in a strange language, but understandable to Alderam, came from nowhere. “Interesting. Still alive? It seems this prototype needs even more adjustments than I had thought. Boy, do not get me wrong. I hate to kill innocents, however, for science's progress and my wife’s happiness, you will have to fight this prototype based on one mythology of my world, its name is Chimera.

“Good luck!”

With the end of the words from the annoying voice, a giant creature emerged from the shadows and entered the open room, it was so tall that it almost reached the Dungeon’s ceiling.

The creature had a muscular build covered in a dark blue exoskeleton, three enormous green feral legs, four arms with two arms of the right side being paws of wolves and the left side having two forelegs of the blue Natural that Layla failed to kill.

Its head was a jumble of Natural’s parts, being impossible to distinguish what part came from with the exception of its eyes. It had the eyes from feral green Naturals, wolves and the blue insect Naturals.

Its jaw was unnaturally opened with venom dripping from an opening under its chin. And last but not least, the Chimera had a long green segmented tail with a stinger full of Alderam’s blood.

Alderam didn’t see how he would win and fight with something so horrendous coming from a nightmare so he tried to scare it with his [Mana Aura] and discover any kind of opening to him take advantage of.

“Oh! A fear-inducing ability, it looks like the skill of the Devil I made a deal some days earlier, but,” the annoying voice of the man came again while the Chimera dashed to Alderam and punched him using its wolves paws, sending him flying to the Dungeon’s walls, “my prototype is not a living being yet, so your ability is useless.”

From the debris, Alderam appeared unhurt thanks to the power of the remaining Black Elementals instinctively protecting him. He had fear in his heart not because of the imminent danger to his life, but because the Chimera was too near Layla’s dead body and there was a chance the venom dripping from the chin could corrode her corpse.

It was technically possible to him put Layla’s soul in another body later, however, it came with a lot of problems and variables he didn't’ want to deal with.

Like for example, would he one day find a body suitable and compatible with a Devil’s soul? Or what would happen to Layla’s soul is she stays too much time in his SP without a real body?

“Splendid. You are even capable of using the aura as a shield, you are going to bring me a lot of useful data.” The annoying man made a humming sound. “How about a trade? I won’t let the Chimera attack this half-beast and you in exchange will not run from the Chimera and will kill it.”

The Chimera pointed its stinger to Layla’s corpse and before Alderam could bluff, the annoying man continued. “Do you think I didn’t see how much you care about this half-beast? And how you’re capable of reviving her in a way unknown to me?”

At least he didn’t discover she is actually a Devil because of the priest covering her corpse, I can’t understand why he is thinking she is a half-beast though, maybe because he thinks I’m also one with my inhuman eyes?

“Come on, don’t look with such hatred at my prototype. I swear it won’t damage your woman. I’m kind of the villain this time, but I’m a man of word, just accept the deal.” The annoying man said.

“...Okay.” Alderam said through gritted teeth. “Are you inside this creature?”

“No, but I can control it from distance. You don’t need to worry because I won’t cheat and control all its movements in the fight. I want to test its ability to fight alone. I am sure if you try hard enough you would be able to defeat it. The Gift wasn’t able to give it an accurate Rank, however, I think it is lower than Rank E.” The annoying man snickered.

“You said something about a deal with a Devil, what was the deal?” Alderam said as his silvery white eyes began to flood with a different type of hatred.

“Sorry, business secret.”

“Can I ask you one last thing?”

“Yes, but after it, you will fight.”

“The Devil you made a deal was bald and you made this deal in this week?”

“It was two questions, but yes. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, just wanted to confirm something.” Alderam’s hatred began to raise after discovering something related to the reason of the bald Devil attacking his village that wasn’t about Wizcalen’s [Heroine], making his black aura became so baleful and powerful that everything in its radius started to wither and disintegrate.

On the end of Alderam’s conversation with the annoying man, his aura became so defined that was possible to see a symbol with eight arrows being formed at its center and his Mana storage reaching its middle and stopping there.

Mana Aura (Common) is now Lvl 3: [You can now use without problems any kind of Mana you desire to the world be coated with. Increase Mana regeneration and effects of the Mana Aura. + 1 to Constitution. +25 to Mind.]

Race: [Human 2%]

Job: [Novice Water Mage] 100%. +15 to Mind. +10 to Constitution.

Impossible to evolve the [Job] or change it before raising the levels of [Water Ball] and [Water Manipulation].

Rank: [F.]

Alderam imitated Layla’s Black Qi to heal his pierced abdomen while launching five normal [Water Balls] at the arms and exoskeleton of the Chimera to test how hard they are. He felt so powerful right now that his spell didn’t take that much of Mana he thought it did.

The creature used the forelegs of the insect Naturals to slice apart the [Water Balls] while the paws of the wolves only guarded against them and the last [Water Ball] only useless bounced on the dark blue exoskeleton.

If I don’t concentrate the power of the Water Balls, I will only be wasting Mana. The problem is this Chimera won’t give me time to do it.

The Chimera advanced and used its feral green legs to kick Alderam.

He ducked and tried to slice the ankle of the Chimera’s legs with his sword. Unfortunately, it only made a small cut and the long green tail following the spinning movement of the Chimera’s body after kicking, swung to hit Alderam’s abdomen again.

Alderam reinforced the aura together with more Black Elementals still irritated by rest of Divine might in the room, making it sturdier to receive the blow.

Whilst the tail bounced on the black aura, the annoying man made a commentary. “While you concentrate on the property that makes the aura act as a shield, its aspect of withering and disintegration reduces exponentially.

“By the data here, the tail and the wolf paw only lost some hours of life, completely different from the debris you emerged earlier. I can use this data on my super secret weapon! It would be just like the last boss of some old RPG. Today is really a good day, I am burning with excitement!”

Alderam ignored the annoying man’s nonsense and with his [Mana Empowerment] always active on his legs, he kicked the Chimera’s abdomen with the aura on his legs using the effect of withering to try to slowly destroy its exoskeleton.

His strike made the Chimera move some centimeters from its position despite his low Strength and a crack appeared on its dark blue exoskeleton because of Alderam’s withering aura.

The creature looked at the crack and roared in sorrow while the strange man continued chattering. “Strange. I have thought I have destroyed its sense of value and feelings of pain. Actually, could be I only forgot about doing it? But if so… the explication I gave of the fear-inducing ability not working would become contradictory.” He sighed. “I will need to revise the project from the beginning and understand why in this stage it is alive.”

Don’t get distracted during a fight, Alderam using the time the Chimera’s grief gave him, produced and improved seven [Water Balls] launching them principally at the crack he made at the dark blue exoskeleton.

The creature howled in real pain and made its green tail coil around a nearby debris created by the fight, throwing it at Alderam.

Alderam once again strengthened his black aura and called the Black Elementals to endure the throw as the Chimera’s action was too quick to him react with his low Dexterity.

The debris were destroyed and cracks began to appear in the aura.

“Everything in the universe has a limit.” The annoying man said as the Chimera rushed at Alderam and started to shower blows on him coming from the paws of the wolves.

Alderam wasn’t capable of doing anything while the aura endured the strikes and he was thrown all over the place without time to recover to do a counterattack.

Finally, one of the insect’s forelegs made the final blow and shattered Alderam’s aura.

Before the Chimera could kill him, Alderam used the small interval of time of it being delighted of destroying his aura and of not being punched all over the place, to pick his dagger and throw it at one of the creature’s many eyes.

The Chimera screamed and retreated in agony.

“Marvelous, it is even capable of regenerating itself.” The annoying man said as Alderam recovered his breath and the black [Mana Aura] was slowly being repaired.

The Chimera thrashed around until it was able to retire the dagger from its eyes, giving Alderam time enough to rebuild his aura.

“I really need something like this in my super secret weapon, so... sorry. To properly use any kind of power, you first need to know all its weakness before its good points. I already almost discovered everything about your aura, but there is one last thing I need to know to construct one by myself, so I will cheat a little, okay?”

The annoying man finishing his talk, the Chimera jumped and in the air it spun its long tail to strike the ground with all its Strength, making a gigantic cloud of crumbled Dungeon’s stones and debris be sent at Alderam.

Alderam used the aura as a shield to defend himself from the large debris, but no matter what he did he couldn’t stop the dirt and tiny debris from entering the aura’s radius.

A lot of particles of dirt began to enter into his eyes and lungs, making him temporarily blind and have problems to breathe. Why? I have thought I had protected myself.

Alderam couldn’t move away from the cloud because the Chimera would be waiting for him to leave, so he changed the aspect of the aura to withering to try to disintegrate all the dirt and used [Water Manipulation] to clean his eyes.

Unfortunately, the withering didn’t destroy any dirt and before he could use [Water Manipulation], an enormous feral leg appeared and kicked him. Sending him flying and making him lose another good part of his healed health because he wasn’t using the aura as a shield.

“You know, I was thinking how you would be capable to breathe while using the aura as something to repel the attacks and principally when using the aspect of withering.”

The annoying man made the Chimera stop. ”Your aura circulates you just like a ball, so I wanted to know what it let pass through to reach you, be it on the shield or withering state. In this little experiment, it was made clear its weakness and all characteristics.”

Alderam raised his body, coughing blood and not understanding how the Chimera found him in the midst of the cloud of dirt.

“By your face, you still haven’t understood, then let’s do a basic science lesson!” The creature clapped its wolf paws despite being on the same side of the body.

Alderam tried [Water Manipulation] again to clean his eyes and to expel the dirt inside of his lungs.

“Even though this world has this strange thing known as Mana to sustain our bodies, it can not escape from some basic rules. I won’t use more accurate and technical terms to you be able to understand better what I am saying.

“To live, you need of ‘air’ to breathe and this ‘air’ is around us. So when you create a circle that repels or disintegrate everything on its radius, it would make this ‘air’ be repulsed or disintegrated too…”

There was so much dirt in Alderam’s lungs that he couldn’t expel everything through normal means, therefore he used [Water Manipulation] to fill his lung with water to retire the dirt.

“So how would you be normal after using this aura? I then thought, your aura uses some kind of criterion to decide what would be affected by its powers…”

Filling his lungs with water made him throw up everything.

“That was the reason dirt was allowed inside of your aura, did you listen to everything I have said? In short, we can say your aura is incapable of affecting anything that is necessary for you to live, even if such things are contaminated. Following this line of thought, things like temperature, carbon-”

Alderam laughed looking to the water he threw up, I see the only way to win this fight!

There is no other way I can think of to kill this creature that is stronger, quicker and harder than me, with it being capable to in some intelligent way bypass my aura and I being so weak that I do not know any spell different of [Water Ball].

“Hey! Do not interrupt the teacher when he is talking. I’ll tell you, these children of today… if it was on my parent's time you would be carrying buckets outside of the classroom.”

Alderam neglected all the ‘lesson’ of the annoying man, he only got that his aura has limits and he shouldn’t trust on it too much when dealing with things too small.

He put his left hand behind his body and deactivated his aura and empowerment.

Alderam used [Water Manipulation] on its maximum to create the largest amount of water possible on his hand, but without completely manifesting and releasing it, making the Mana be accumulated to it in one moment liberate all the water in one go.

“We are fighting for some time already, but I still don’t know your name, can you tell me?” Alderam talked to the annoying man to have time to complete his plan with [Water Manipulation].

“My name? It is Shiro Mallory Stein.”

“Oh, you have quite a long name. Why?” Alderam’s Mana dropped to his new forty percent while the paralyzation of the venom continued to go through his body.

“Ah, it is because I am a half, my mother is from Japan and my father is from Hungary.”

“What are the words Japan and Hungary?”

“They are countries from my world.” The annoying man said with a tinge of pride perceptible in his tone of voice.

“Then… are you a summoned [Hero]?”

“Yes. I am the hero of the elves. My wife is an elf, her personality is flat but she is a glorious woman.” Shiro’s voice had an even higher distinguishable pride when talking about his woman.

“Can you really not talk about the deal you made with the Devil? Two days ago, a bald Devil appeared in my village and killed everyone I cared for.” Alderam made a false tear appear while the pressure on his hand started to hurt when his Mana arrived at twenty percent.

“What?! No. I was certain that bitch has killed Bashaag. It can not be. Are you not mistaken?” Shiro’s voice entered in disarray and perhaps because he was controlling the Chimera, it started to do strange poses and movements.

”For science, my wife and daughter, I am capable of killing innocents, but what I will tell my daughter when she grows up, ’because of a miscalculation of my part, innocents were killed without a proper reason’, she doesn't deserve this kind of father!”

“Hey. Did you know you are really annoying?” Alderam dropped the pretense when he only had ten percent of Mana and dashed to the Chimera.

“Well, actually people tend to tell me this and that I use ‘actually’ too much, but what is it related-” Shiro became silent after Alderam began to climb the Chimera and put his left hand into its open mouth.

Alderam with his left hand as far as possible inside the mouth of the Chimera and the venom of the Chimera corroding his hand, shouted. "Be flooded.”

All the water accumulated on his hand was released inside of the Chimera. It completely filled the Chimera, making the creature because of the weight drop to the ground.

The amount of water made the Chimera increase in height in a way that became impossible for its arms reach Alderam to get him out of its mouth.

Clicking his tongue in annoyance he thought. One was not enough… why am I feeling a déjà vu? Nevermind, let’s go with plan S (Sacrifice). Alderam charged his hand with water once again with the rest of his Mana.

“What are you doing?! Where did-”

“Shiro, you like lessons, right?” Alderam picked his sword with the right hand and used it to pierce under the soft chin of the Chimera, reaching his arm and then penetrating the roof of the mouth of the Chimera while the sword was slowly being decomposed.

“I will give you a lesson today!” Alderam with his arm inside of the Chimera, using the sword and his body, he was capable of completely seal the mouth of it and cover its many noses.

“You are crazy. It couldn’t be, are you trying to- Chimera chew-”

“Too late! What do you think will happen when you fill something with a liquid and it has not a way to escape? Let me give you the answer, it explodes!” Alderam laughed hysterically.

Alderam released once again with the rest of his Mana a great amount of water.

The Chimera’s body was already at the limit with the first time he did that, so with Alderam covering its mouth, nose and even sacrificing his arm do it. The Chimera finally exploded with its insides being splattered through all the Dungeon.

The pressure and the explosion made Alderam fly without his left arm, but he couldn’t care for it or the pain he was feeling before nearly going unconscious.

He slowly stood up with Shiro absolutely stunned by what happened, Alderam dragged his feet towards Layla, only Willpower moved his body full of venom and with his lost left arm endlessly spouting blood.

Why with this amount of pain I’m enduring and almost going unconscious, the first thing I think is to revive Layla? Self-preservation? To her arrange a way to save me albeit knowing it is impossible with this injuries?

Alderam reached into the special place he made into his SP and placed his right hand on the mirror created by the two serpents to bring Layla’s soul and put it on her body without a heart and a broken neck.

Since mother died everything is so strange for me, I don’t have anyone more to give me orders or really quench my search for affection. Free will isn’t great as I had thought, I’ve been just making stupid decisions or being slowed down by-

Alderam coughed more blood and his face became whiter than ashes as his Essence and the little of Mana that was regenerated poured on Layla to reconstruct her dead body, with his Essence being more poured more than normal since he didn’t have Mana enough. Layla, my only hope now is to you having the perk of never aging to gather strength to kill Alastor for me.

I’ve so many regrets, and principal one aside not killing Alastor, is to not become a painter like Grandmother tried before being thrown in Ironcrest.

I don’t want to die, however, this seems the deadline for me.

Goodbye, my fellow caged friend, ‘our flight together ended’ just like in that Jester book, although I never regretted setting you free or corrupting my soul just for our [Familiar Bond].

Race: [Human 1%]

Alderam fell down unconscious without caring why his [Race] got lower for only one percent instead of the normal twelve percent.