* * * *

“And so what was that energy wave is actually?”

Shou inquire Myste as they continue their journey.

“That was ” The one who respond was Mao “It’s just a plain magic power that being gathered and then shot out without converting it into any element.”

‘Exactly as Mao said. To be honest, I was just testing out the power of magic I could release. By the way, I also can convert the magic power into elements such as fire, water, thunder, and others. As I found out master seems to be don’t have magic aptitude, I’m the right choice if you want to cover this point.’

Explaining her power to Shou, Myste’s voice become more excited than before. She’s now bragging her own power to Shou. But suddenly, she fell silent.

‘… Master.’

“Huh?”

‘An enemy! Four of them, approaching from behind!’

In alert, Mao and Shou turned around expecting hostile enemy.

Not long after, the sound of something approaching can be heard to Shou’s ear. Clicking his tongue, Shou cursed.

“Another demon?! These things are getting annoying.”

“How dare you lowly things assault me, the demon lord. I’m going to teach you a little lesson.”

Getting tired of encountering demons on their way, Mao also frowned in annoyance.

“Myste!”

Shou lift his left hand and shows the symbol to the demons and called out Myste’s name.

‘What?’

Myste only replies unmotivatedly.

“Don’t ‘What?’ me! Use your magic!”

‘Err… Which one do you want to use, master?’

Myste inquired Shou again, not sure she has to do.

“Just use the one that’s effective against them!”

‘Which variation do you want?’

“ARGH!!! Seriously?!”

‘I’ve told you it is easier to call out the name of magic you want me to use on them.’

“Kuh! Whatever!” Shou takes a deep breath and stopped for a bit. “! !”

Shou’s face is red from embarrassment and anger.

‘Got it!’

On one of the demon’s feet, a fire started encircling it and then burst upwards burning the demon to ashes. And the other one, over its head formed icicles then fall down pierced the demon’s body and limbs. As for the two others, Mao deal with them using .

“… I feels like a full-fledge right now.”

Fingerless glove, clothes torn at his left arm’s side, carrying a western sword, calling out some skill name. Only if one of his eyes is covered with his long hair or using eye-patch, Shou would be a total .

“Why must I…”

‘Like I said before, I need master to said the magic’s name specifically to chose one of the thousands variant. It would be too confusing if you don’t specifically say what I need to use.’

“But Myste sure is useful. To detect the enemy, and even pin-pointing their weakness!”

Mao praised Myste. Before this, they encountered demons 5 times, and Myste without fail detect them. What’s more she could find the enemy’s weak point and elemental weakness, their ability, and other information. She could probably as well as create Mystepedia or become a Mystedex.

‘Ehehe, even if you praised me like that, all I do is just scanning their soul.’

Her voice became bashful after hearing Mao’s praise.

‘Anyway, master, I would like you to meet someone. Once we rest, I will take you to that place again.’

Referring to the place where the contract completed, Shou understand where she meant.

“Can I go there again? I thought without the shop keeper’s help we couldn’t do the ritual.”

‘No worries, I could reproduce the ritual without any problem now.’

Shou accepting Myste’s invitation, and then they continue their travel again.

* * * *

“!!!”

Shou is charging through the enemy with his sword’s tip releasing an ‘X’ mark that almost reaches 2 meters in size.

“UUUUUOOOOO!!!!!”

Demons, rocks, trees, even the ground that touched the ‘X’ mark got cut.

He then stopped in the middle of the demon’s swarm. With the ‘X’ mark still lingers in the tip of his sword, he pointed it upwards.

“Convert into fire property! !!”

He shouted. The mark slowly expands from the tip and starts to glow red. Not just glowing red, the mark then change into flame creating a big ‘X’ mark around 5 meters in radius and then burst, burning the ground and the demons into black ‘X’.

“HEY! Leave some of them for me too!”

Complaining, Mao also slays some of the demon with thunder and ice.

“You’re overly hyped you know.”

Indeed, Shou seems like to be overly hyped that he did an overkill to the demons. The reason as for him to be this overly hyped would be because of how he can channel his magic to the sword now. When they took a break few moment ago, Myste use the chance to teach Shou about herself and gives some information.

“But as I thought, calling out the skill name is… a little embarrassing…”

As for how did he become like this, let’s take a look a few moments ago while they were taking a break.

-Few moments ago-

“Shou…” Mao begged with pleading eyes.

“Guh…”

Seeing this, Shou couldn’t bear to refuse Mao’s advances. He could only just submit himself to Mao. And thus, the old ritual between those two start again.

‘Master and Mao sure are close huh?’

Myste brought up the subject after Mao done with him.

The two could only respond with a blush towards Myste’s word. Then Shou coughed to straighten the mood and start trying to explains the situation.

“Well, it is necessary for Mao. After all she needs magic power.”

‘Eh? Huh? She only needs magic power right? Then why did she..?’

Towards the confused Myste, Shou could only explain the circumstance.

‘No, like I said is there any need to do that? I mean she could take it from the surrounding air or absorb it when we killed the demons.’

“HUH?” that’s the only response from Shou hearing what Myste said.

‘Eh? Shouldn’t she be able to do that?’

“Mao… may you explain what does this mean?”

Menacing aura could be felt from Shou as he ask.

When he turns away and looked at Mao, his eyes seemed to glowed red and black mist could be seen. Mao who usually gives of collected and also strong confidence auras, seemed shrunk and panicked.

“T-that’s… well… uh…”

“M-A-O.”

“Y-yes! Sorry!” Panicked, Mao explains to Shou. “Well you see… actually, the air here is filled with magic so I could take it from the air and…”

“’And’?”

“When we kill demon’s they release magic power so I could also absorb magic from them.”

Mao bow downs in regret. Probably reflecting about what she has done.

“And why are you still taking magic from *Cough* ‘mine’..?”

“It’s…”

Mao muttered in an inaudible voice.

“HUH?!”

“IT’S BECAUSE… Because… b’cause…” She starts shouting but her voice keeps getting quieter. “I want to… with…” some of what she said is almost inaudible but Shou still hear what she says.

“…”

He fell silent. Not moving for about 5 seconds, Shou suddenly blushed. Then, seeing Shou, Mao also blushed and looked away in embarrassment.

“I-I need to walk around for a bit!!”

Probably trying to calming her own self, Mao walks away. Shou then slowly sits down, leaning on a wall and looked upwards to the sky.

“That’s just… if you said that... that's not good you know… I’ll just become unable to complain.”

Moving his hand, he covers his face that is beet red from blushing when hearing what Mao said.

‘Hyuuuh~ so hot~~~’

Suddenly a voice interrupted Shou. It was such a mischievous voice just like an elementary school kid teasing their friend who is close to one member of the opposite gender.

“My-Myste… what do you want?”

‘No, it’s nothing. I just want to remind master about the promise we made.’

“Ah that.”

Remembering his promise, Shou answer flatly.

“So? How can I go there again? I don’t have the material nor the knowledge required.”

‘Leave it to me!’

Myste’s symbol glows again. Then a magic formation formed on the ground where Shou is sitting. The magic formation slowly changed, forming the same formation as Myste’s again.

-Shou’s Perspectives-

This is… the second time I’m here. As I thought, I still can’t get used to this.

‘At last, you’re here master.’

Myste welcomes me again this time. This place really has no gravity at all. The human Myste is standing upside-down over my head.

“This place sure is-- whatever, so who do you want to introduce to me?”

‘Oh yeah, first is her.’ “First”, does that mean there is more than one? ‘This is Eltain’

‘I believe this is the first time we met like this. Nice to meet you, master.’

Another girl, she’s almost identical to Myste. She has the same hair length as her. While Myste hair is black, she has a silver colored hair. And Myste tied her hair to her left, but Eltain tied her to the right side of her head. And her eyes, it’s crimson red almost the same color as Mao’s.

‘The name is Eltain. I’m actually the sword that you’ve been using for a while.’

Hearing her introduction, I widen my eyes.

“He?! You’re the sword? The sword I’ve been using is actually a contracted soul?! So that’s why I felt like I’ve heard your voice before! So you're the one who talk to me that time.”

Also while Myste has a mischievous attitude, Eltain seems to have more mature calm and collected air around her.

‘Ah right, master! Now I could work together with Eltain!’

“And that means..?”

‘When you use me before, I could throw out some sword wave to cut down enemy right? Now I couldn’t do it because I don’t have magic power.’

‘Yes, yes. So, as I could gather magic easily, I propose that I gather magic and then transfer it to Eltain for her to perform it. But we need a little thing’

Hearing their proposal I couldn’t hide my interest. I mean, that was quiet powerful and helpful. To be able to do it in short interval would be great.

“Yeah and so what do you want?”

‘Actually, we can do whatever we want with the magic power.’

‘But there’s a little problem.’

Hearing that “little problem” I could sense vaguely what it is…

“And that is…”

I gather my courage and ask. This is bad… this must be very bad…

‘We could plan what kind of thing you want us to do but…’

‘You need to call out the so we could know what you want us to perform.’

… I knew it.

“You mean… like calling out a certain skill name..?”

‘Yeah!’

‘True.’

This is despairing… I guess acting like a is unavoidable in this fantasy-like story. Hanging my head, I let my left hand supports my forehead.

“Oh well whatever. So who is the other one that you want to introduce? You said ‘First’ that means there’s at least another one.”

‘Yeah. Come here!’

That moment, I saw an unbelievable figure coming. What do you call it, nostalgic? No we haven’t separated that long but… I guess it is nostalgic.

“Blaze…”

‘Yo kid.’

It’s Blaze.

“Why are you..?”

‘You see, it seems that master somehow kept part of his souls so that now he is inside of master. And you know what surprising?! It seems master can use some of his ability!’

So that explains how I suddenly use back then. But…

“Is there some way to release his soul?”

‘Well… there is but…’

“!” there is a hope to send Blaze back to his body! He may revive! “Then--”

‘Stop it.’

Blaze cuts in

‘The method to do it is… to stab Eltain to master heart. Eltain is a soul ripping sword that could severe one soul from the body, but there is a chance that it’s master’s own soul that got released and caused death.’

“But!!!” I raised my voice unintentionally.

‘No, kid you better stop. My body has already belongs to the dead. And at least I could help you here by lending some of my power to you.’

“… I understand.”

I think I could revive Blaze for real... but it was just a glimmer or hope. I was forced to accept the reality.

‘…’

Me, Eltain, and Myste fell silent.

‘Hey come on kid. Cheer up. Oh it seems like it’s time for you to go back. Don’t worry. I’m alive, right here within you. I'll help you go through anything from here.’

“...Got it.”

At the end Blaze, cheered me up. I could only offer a small smile in the end. Then my vision blurred again. Seems like I’ll go back outside.

-Mao’s Perspective-

I’m running away again.

I lost to embarrassment again.

I run away again…

“Why am I..?”

I guess I need to reflect for a bit. It’s my fault that I didn’t tell Shou. But it’s embarrassing to just say that I…

Such a dilemma…

I’m sure my face is total red even now. I wonder how red it was when I looked at Shou?

“I need to go back…”

‘Mao?’ an unidentified voice can be heard

“!”

I turned my back facing the source of the voice. To think that is here-- why? Since when? What does want?!

‘Now, now. Don’t glare me like that. I’m just passing by. And to think that I meet you here is just a coincidence.’

“Why are you here?”

Unconsciously I raised my voice aggressively.

Hate. Hate. Hate. I hate even more than anyone in the world.

‘Nah. I don’t have any interest to fight with you. I mean I just found someone interesting and all.’

’s smirk is more sinister than any demon. Even more warped than me. I could never forgive him…

‘Anyway, I need to go away again. I wonder which world shall I go next.’

“!” … “You… you know how to get back or travelling away?!”

‘Hahaha! Don’t be so stiff there like I would give you the method. I mean the castle without you is a heaven to me, not that I’ve been there recently as I busy travel away. Now then, until we meet again. If we have the chance that’s it.’

I gritted my teeth… I clenched my palm as hard as I can. As I thought, I really hate .

* * * *