Act 1: Chapter 30: A Certain Immortal's Slump (Side : Lunaire)
――Around the same time as when Kanata was led by Satan to the transfer magic circle that will send him out of 《Cocytus》, in a certain place within the UG 90th floor of 《Cocytus》…
Lunaire was exploring the 90th floor.
《Cocytus》was a place where a demon or item that has never appeared before suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
According to the story that was handed down by the devil, this place was a place where the gods dumped items or demons that were beyond their control. But there was no evidence to support that theory.
But one thing was true for the humans who visited this place because of such an absurd theory, 《Cocytus》 was the den of wicked beings.
It was by no means a safe living place for humans.
But then, this 《Cocytus》 was also nothing more than a place to stroll around for Lunaire, who has been living in this place for thousand years.
She would never get bored of a place in which new items or unknown demons appeared on a daily basis.
Lunaire’s hobby, aside from magic training, was strolling around this area.
No matter what kind of demon popped out, Lunaire wouldn’t lose to them.
If one were to ask for the reason, it was simply because she could one-sidedly beat the crap out of Satan, the strongest devil in Rookroa, who was tasked by the gods to guard the final floor of 《Cocytus》.
At the very least, that was something normal for her.
But, the current Lunaire just walked along the passages with a blank expression, as if her soul was leaving her body.
From the outside perspective, it was as if nothing had changed on the exterior, she kept doing her training and exploration by herself, she was already getting used to this.
There was nothing like a big event, nor did she have some sort of goal, her days just passed by like that without any form of turbulence.
And yet, she never questioned her lifestyle.
Originally, the reason Lunaire, who was abandoned by the world, visited this 《Cocytus》 was to look for someone who can kill her.
But, she came to understand that in the last one month and a half that she spent training the young man called Kanata, in a rather questionable training regime, her days were painted with a new color.
It took only two days for her to fall into her second biggest despair after she returned to her usual daily life.
Lunaire placed her hands on the wall to support her staggering body.
「…. Kanata.」
When she was alone, she said that young man’s name with a tinge of regret in her voice.
「… As I thought, it would’ve been for the best if Kanata didn’t leave 《Cocytus》. I should’ve turned him into a lich like me….」
She then shook her head as soon as she realized what she had said just now.
That was the one thing that she absolutely won’t do.
Even now, Lunaire kept blaming herself for turning herself into a lich.
Lunaire shut her eyes as she hugged herself.
She recalled the moment when Kanata ignored the effects of Hades’s Impurity to embrace her in the last moments before their parting.
She released herself from her own embrace after she calmed down.
（It seemed that I made Noble worry for nothing, I guess it was time to go back soo—）
When Lunaire was about to go back, she saw Kanata’s silhouette from afar.
Her expression loosened up slightly as she felt the warm feeling surging from her chest.
She tightened her expression as she headed towards Kanata’s direction.
「K-Kanata, what are you doing here?!… Even though I went that far to send you out of this place! You think I’m going to allow you to stay, go back to the surfa—!」
After Lunaire got closer to him, Kanata finally turned around towards Lunaire’s direction.
There was an un-Kanata-like eerie smile pasted on his face.
「Kana—-」
Kanata embraced Lunaire immediately.
His hand caught Lunaire’s thin clothes and ripped it apart.
Lunaire’s eyes opened wide when she saw Kanata’s arms suddenly swelling and his hands turned into sharp talons.
At the same time, his abdomen tore open, sharp root-like things came out of it and pierced Lunaire’s abdomen.
It easily lifted Lunaire’s petite frame.
Both of his hands that turned into sharp talons seized her petite frame.
「Gaha! You are… not Kanata…. A Phantasma huh!」
Fake-Kanata’s face then gradually lost its color as it turned into an eerie human-shaped face that was covered with a white cloth.
Phantasma was an atrocious demon who was also known as an illusion demon.
It had the ability to mimic the appearance of the most dearest person of its prey.
The usual Lunaire wouldn’t be tricked by that cheap magic trick.
But her current mental fluctuation affected her more than she expected.
「KETAKETAKA, KETAKETA」
The Phantasma raised such an eerie laugh.
「I… let my guard down huh.」
Lunaire heaved a long sigh despite the big hole in her abdomen.
Right after that, Lunaire forcefully broke through the Phantasma’s binding and then walked up until her face was an inch away from Phantasma’s eerie face.
A magic circle appeared right in front of her face.
「Time-Space Magic, 18th Rank; 《Drilling [Space Digger]》」
The Phantasma’s head vanished right at the next moment and then its body crumbled down into dust.
《Drilling》 was a magic that was designed to send a sliced object from this world to fly towards another dimension.
Though its range of attack wasn’t that big, its forte was instant activation without any pre-move.
Lunaire wiped the blue colored blood from her lips.
The next moment, her torn clothes restored in a blink of an eye and the hole in her stomach closed up.
「… To think that a weakling demon managed to hurt me.」
It was true that the demon managed to catch Lunaire off guard and draw the first blood, but that alone wasn’t enough to defeat Lunaire.
「Time-Space Magic, 22nd Rank;《Retrograde》」
That was the spell that healed Lunaire’s wound and fixed her clothes.
《Retrograde》was a magic that belonged to the Time-Space type magic, it was not white magic that healed wounds and illness on one’s body.
Its effects aren’t used to heal wounds but to return the target’s condition in the present time to its chosen past condition.
Thus, it was not only targeting the flesh but also her clothes.
Though it could be said that 《Retrograde》 consumed too much mana compared to the other Time-Space magic that had the same function to repair something, that amount was nothing compared to Lunaire’s total mana reservoir.
「Noble will laugh at me if he ever witnesses how I ended up in these situations…」
Lunaire muttered as she walked back to her own hut.