Reborn: I’m a Dragon Girl With An OP System Book 8

I held my tongue. I was going to say it would be fine, but I could not be sure. So I could only nod and agree with what she said. "Then I will leave it to you. Do your best to teach them well. I need at least four people who can use this kind of magic. Concentrate on Adel, Sophie, Sally, Grace, and Sei. And is there a way to heal one's soul?"

I was hoping that if Grace learned how to use healing magic in soul form, it would actually heal the soul as well. "Yes, but it is a lot harder than just normal healing. Soul healing, while it uses the same concept as normal healing magic, requires one to use more mana, so if they have low mana, they could easily fall from mana exhaustion."

"It's fine. Grace can handle it. I can link my mana to hers and everyone else who can cast soul magic. I had planned to link up with everyone in the first place because dungeons are not a place most can easily deal with without lots of mana reserves or ways to replenish it." I explained. I am very much relieved that healing magic can heal souls if cast as soul magic. It makes me feel much more hopeful that our mission will succeed.

"Don't worry, Master. I will also be going with you." Iena suddenly said, causing me to look up at her. Seeing my expression, Iena smiled as she continued: "My guess is that you planned to go in with a team without His Highness because you wanted someone here to defend your home. But now I am here. Although I am weaker than His Highness, I can still hold my own against powerful enemies."

I smiled and nodded. "Then I will be in your care."

I spent the next few days keeping my mother company. I figured I would talk to Diablo about my ancient will when we got back to the capital. I had to mentally prepare myself as well since he might have to enter my sea of consciousness. But after talking with Iena about it, it seems Diablo doesn't react to much of anything.

On the third day, a group of people walked up the side of the mountain while I watched them from above. I was very happy with how quickly they arrived. I guess all the training they had been going through was not for nothing.

"Faith!" Adel was not the first to yell out. It was surprisingly Sophie.

"Wait, Sophie! Don't get ahead of yourself!" Adel yelled out and was chasing behind her.

I was confused as to what was going on when I was suddenly tackled by a fluffy fox girl. "Sophie? What's wrong?"

Sophie nuzzled her nose into my chest, her tail wagging back and forth. I looked up at Adel, who had a defeated smile on her face scratching her head. "This is my fault. Faith, I know how you do not like too many people fawning over you. I mean, you already got me confessing my love to you all the time, but I couldn't sit around and watch Sophie as she was anymore."

"What do you mean? What happened?" I asked as I rubbed the fluffy ears in front of me.

"You know how Sophie likes sleeping with you? Since you have been sharing the same bed for so long?" Adel asked. I nodded. It was not as much as it was before, but she does go on streaks where she can't sleep in her own room and will ask if she can spend the night with me.

"Well, it's because she never realized that she imprinted on you as a mate. Well, to make it make more sense, she is like me." Adel explained.

Only then did I understand. Sophie had been a bit more clingy the past few months, but I never thought much of it. I figured she was just lonely because I had been so busy as of late. But now, this left me feeling a bit awkward. I mean, first, it is Adel and now Sophie. What am I supposed to do? I sighed as I scratched the fluff. It was really addicting.

"Anyway!" Adel suddenly jumped in and joined Sophie, and hugged me. "I missed you, my love!"

"Oh my…. My my! My daughter not only has a handsome son in law but two beauties as my daughter in laws!" I heard my mother cry out from behind me, making my face go black. Why was she always jumping to these kinds of conclusions? No, wait, why would she even jump to this conclusion when it was two girls hugging me!?

"Mother, it is not what you think!" I cried out for the umpteenth time since coming here. I could see Diablo, who was probably dragged here by my mother, slowly making a retreat. I smirked as I called out: "Mother, it seems Diablo wants more of your homemade pastries."

Humph! Trying to escape to leave me with my mother's wild thoughts. You can join me! I only saw Diablo freeze before running as fast as he could. My mother just looked at me strangely before grabbing both Sophie and Adel and dragging them away. "We must talk!"

And with that, the two girls who were latching on to me were now gone, and I could feel Diablo cursing me from wherever he ran off to. Free from my bindings, I looked at Sei and Sally and smiled. "How was your trip?"

"Much quicker than I had expected. Who knew that running three days straight at full speed could get us here so quickly? Leveling up and your training really helped." Sei replied. She was not even sweating.

"Yeah, I was surprised as well. Young Miss, what are we up against? I saw the strange graveyard down below. Is that the dungeon?" Sally asked.

"Yes, and before we enter you all need a bit more training."

Chapter2 Mother’s Mental State

We were all currently in my front yard since my house was not big enough for so many people. I stood in front of everyone in my team and began my run down. "So this dungeon is more troublesome than you would think. The monsters, at least the one I saw, was level 300. The problem is, is that this monster was a wraith, and from the wound, it gave me, it is not an easy monster to deal with. They can not be harmed by normal means. You need to use what is called soul magic to kill them.

"The dungeon we will be diving into is an undead dungeon. It is not a place we can take lightly. I only know of the wraiths. There could also be ghosts who will suck up your energy if they touch you, making it hard to fight. If you mix a wraith into this, we will be at a big disadvantage. Whether there is any other kind of undead, I do not know. But as you have experienced in the last dungeon, what we run into can change at any time. So be extra careful in this dungeon." I explained.

"So this soul magic, will we be learning it?" Grace asked. She seemed quite interested in soul magic.

"Yes. But it is not easy to learn. As an example." I created a soul fire sword, as I like to call it, and showed everyone. "This is soul magic. It is the same as normal magic, but it uses your soul to cast the spell. It will not leave marks on the body and can and will damage other people's souls, so do not use it on your teammates unless it is soul healing magic."

"Now. Boys and girls will be taught separately. The girls will be heading to my room while the boys will follow Diablo. To learn soul magic, Iena will be helping you, but it requires her to enter your sea of consciousness. This means she will see your everything. So to make it comfortable for everyone, we are splitting it all up." I saw many cheeks flush red when I said this and a few disappointed faces on both girls and boys.

With this, I had everyone split up. While Iena was teaching the girls, I spent more time with my mother, who was raving about the three prospects. "So how far have you…."

"Stop!" I quickly stopped my mother, who suddenly seemed like gossiping was her new pastime. "Mother, why are you even thinking along the lines of me even marrying anyone? You know I will outlive most people. I might not even age much either…." I felt like my aging process was slowly slowing down. I had no proof since there was no real way to tell in this world, but it did feel like it was slowing down. And if my dream is right, it will probably stop when I look around eighteen to twenty years old.

"So what!? Isn't Diablo a demon? You can just marry him and have the girls on the side." My mother's words caused me to shake my head as I asked: "So father can have girls on the side?"

"If he wants to die, he can." My mother's answer came swiftly and full of killing intent.

"Then why are you telling me to do the same?" I asked. It was a huge contradiction, but she seemed to be using this situation to get over what was going on. I can understand her wanting to lose herself in her surroundings, so she did not need to think or dwell on my father's well being, but this was also not good for her. It's like she is losing focus on reality.

"I…." My mother's words got caught in her throat. It took her a minute to finally say what she had to say. "I just want you to be happy. I worry about you every day while you are out on your own. I worry that you will be alone forever."

I smiled and hugged her. "I will be fine. Even if I do end up alone, it will be by choice. But as you can see right now that I have many friends at my side. I have people who care about me and wish for me to be happy as well. So as long as I have people next to me, even if I do not end up in a relationship, it will be fine."

"I guess you are right…. But you should still try at least to fall in love once." My mother still would not give up on this, but I guess she is right. Maybe one day I will. I am just not ready yet. Maybe when I am older and out of the academy. But for now, I like how things are.

"Mmm, as long as you are willing to try." My mother smiled as she suddenly stood up. "Now then. I should prepare for when your father comes home."

"Mother?" I looked up at her in confusion. It was as if something had snapped inside her. I was starting to really be worried about her current mental state.

"Don't look at me as if I am crazy. You have made a bunch of plans, right? You plan to find your father and bring him home, right? Even if all you find is his bones, he should still be welcomed home. I just want to be ready for every possibility…." I quickly got up and hugged my mother. She ended up bursting into tears as she felt my arms wrap around her. She was really not holding up well at all.

Eric came in when he heard her crying and joined us in a family hug. Life was not easy. Loved ones will be lost over time. But if I can at least bring my father back alive and allow my mother's heart to finally settle, I am sure she will be able to return to her old self. If he is dead…. Then I will bring her back to the capital with me even if I must put her to sleep.

---

Two days later, about half of my team was able to learn soul magic. Some were close but not there yet. Adel, Sophie, Sally, Sei, and Grace all learned it with ease. Some of the boys were also successful. In total, ten people were able to learn it. The rest would be staying back to continue training. So with me and Iena added to the group, twelve people would be diving into the dungeon.

Chapter3 Ghost!

I did not wish to take so long but to dive deep into a dungeon with so many unknowns. I had to make sure we had a way to fight any monsters. Diving in without proper readiness would just kill us. Even with Iena at my side, there is nothing saying we wouldn't get overwhelmed with just the two of us. Diablo had to stay behind to keep my mother from doing anything stupid. She seemed quite attached to Diablo, which made him the best choice even though Diablo was giving her the eyes of an abandoned puppy as I left.

We stood inside the dungeon, where I had everyone do a last check on their supplies. "Is everyone ready?"

"Yes, Boss!" Everyone shouted at the same time. I nodded, and with me in the lead, I once again set up a multi layered barrier on the tunnel leading to the exit to ensure our escape route.

When we got to the end of the tunnel, I did not exit right away. I turned around and looked at everyone before nodding to Iena. Iena stepped forward and waved her hand. A rope made of magic wrapped around everyone, tethering us all together but with enough flexibility to allow us to move around freely. "This rope will allow us to find you at any time in case we get split up. According to Master, the fog is quite thick, and one could easily get lost. So we will need to ensure we are able to find one another without issue. Also, since this place is probably an undead realm, you need to watch out for a certain kind of flower. It's called a Dream Flower. It is a flower that has an intoxicating scent. The smell alone will draw you towards it and put you into a hypnotic dream. So if anyone goes missing, report it immediately. Do not follow their tether! We do not all want to be caught under the flower's influence. Even we demons must be careful of this flower."

"Alright, you heard her. Let's get going." I yelled before taking a step out into the wet, muddy graveyard looking area ahead of me.

I have no idea if I was even going in the same direction as I was before. But I still moved forward. "Yell if you see any signs of someone passing through the area." This was the most important thing. I knew I had already mentioned it to them many times on the way down to the dungeon from the cliff, but I had to make sure they all understood that this was the most important part of our trip in this dungeon. We were not here to clear this dungeon, just here to find my father.

We made our way past the wooden and stone grave markers to where many broken-down homes were. It looked similar to the place I was at before but slightly different. The first house did not have a broken down door unless it repaired itself, which could be a possibility.

"We will search each house one by one. I will go in first to see if it is clear on the first floor. Any signs of anything, yell out immediately." I gave out one final order before heading to the closest house to us.

When we arrived, the old wooden porch creaked under my weight as I created a flame sword in my hand and walked to the front door. This one was slightly ajar and made a grinding sound as I pushed it open. I did not have to worry about knocking it off its hinges this time. Because Adel and Sophie were behind me to make sure nothing strange happened as I entered. They were not going to enter the house, and I was only checking to see if the front room was clear or not.

When I entered, I was met with a dusty, musty smelling room. I wrinkled my nose as I looked around. Once I saw that it was clear, I waved my hand at the others. Everyone quickly filed in and stood before me. "Work in groups of two. Do not split up for anything. If one of you is in danger, yell out at the top of your lungs. We can not risk anything here. We must be extra careful. I do not want to lose any of you."

"Don't worry, Boss. We will be safe." Steven replied.

"Alright then, Adel and Iena will form a two person group. I will go with Hailey. Sally with…." I made up the teams with the best possible combination. The reason I had Hailey with me was because she was still the weakest in the team, and I did not want to leave her alone. Iena was with Adel due to her status. I basically split up teams to have one strong and one weak person in the team in order to ensure everyone was covered.

With teams set, everyone split up. I had Hailey walking behind me, holding her staff, looking this way and that way. I could tell she was slightly nervous or maybe even scared. Maybe she isn't good with ghost stuff. "Umm…. Boss…." Hailey suddenly spoke up.

"Yeah?" I asked as I looked around the staircase for any signs of anything strange.

"Why did you have to choose the basement of all places!?" Hearing her voice quiver, I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Oh? Where is the valiant girl who was waving spells this way and that way during the last dungeon dive?" I asked in a teasing manner.

"This and that are different! We are talking about ghosts here!" Hailey whined. It seems that she really was not good with ghosts! This was quite interesting. I should tell Amanda.

"While they may be ghosts, they are still monsters, and you already know how to cast soul fireballs, so why are you scared?" I asked.

"Still ghos…. Gh…. Gh…. GHOST!!!!!!!!!!!" Haily suddenly screamed out, causing me to look in the direction he was pointing. When I turned my head, I was met face to face with not a ghost but what looked like a wraith!

Chapter4 A Clue

This one was different and had a face, but its face was half rotted away with an eye falling out of its socket. It was less than an inch from my face. My nose was almost touching the spot where its nose should have been. It looked at me with both eyes, even the one that was dangling down and was just standing there. Even I did not move. I was finding this situation strange.

Hailey, who was behind me, seemed to not even be breathing, but I did not have time to turn to look at her. At such close proximity, it was either me or the wraith. One of us was going to get hurt at this time, and it seemed to be whoever was the quickest, that is, if it even planned to attack.

Luckily I had my sword already in my hand. I did not plan to let it strike first, so I quickly and swiftly swung my sword up in an arc, slicing it diagonally. It didn't even flinch or move as the sword sliced through it. It just began to disappear into particles of light. Once it had completely disappeared, I let out a sigh of relief and turned to Hailey, who seemed frozen stiff. "Hailey!"

"Ah! Huh!? Where is the ghost!?" Hailey came back to her senses and began quickly looking left and right, front and back. I am starting to think I should have brought someone else.

"It's dead. I killed it. Or at least I think I did. It seemed too easy. That may have actually been a ghost…" I was unsure since I did not take the time to use Appraisal on it. It could have been a wraith, a weak one, or it could have been just a ghost. I am unsure.

"Of course, it was a ghost. It was scary and transparent looking and disgusting and…." Hailey kept mumbling her thoughts out loud, but I ignored her. I was thinking about how my sword easily cut through it, and it turned into balls of light. Makes me wonder if it was even really dead.

When we reached the basement, I soon found out my answer. Because just as I was about to take a step off the last step the same thing happened again and it was the same entity as before. As for Hailey, I think she fainted.

This time I did not try to kill it but used Appraisal.

[Apparition: Henry Tolbell]

No other information, but I guess an apparition was different from a normal ghost? "You are Henry TolBell?" I asked.

The apparition suddenly floated backward and turned around, and pointed towards the darkness of the room. "Is there something there?" I asked. But the apparition did nothing. It just stood there and continued pointing towards the darkness.

I sighed and turned towards Hailey, who seemed to have truly fainted. Her eyes were rolled up into the back of her head. I raised my hand and let a bit of lightning fly through the air. "AZabaabaganababa!"

Hailey's whole body twitched from the shock I had just given her, and stood there looking all over the place in confusion. When she spotted the apparition again, she almost fainted once more, but this time I slapped her. "Will you cut it out!? How am I supposed to take you into dungeons if you can not keep your act together!?"

If she continued like this, she was just asking to die. I know people had fears, but ghosts and the like were just a different kind of monster. Hailey lowered her head and slapped her cheeks before raising it again. She looked at me with eyes filled with determination which were the same eyes she had back in the other dungeon. Seeing this made me feel relieved. "I am okay," she said.

I nodded and waved for her to follow. I made a few balls of light to light up the room. As I did, the apparition disappeared, and what was revealed with an empty room. Nothing here except dust and cobwebs. I looked around and walked towards the spot the apparition had been pointing. But it was nothing but a solid stone wall.

"Hmmm… is it because of the light?" I was unsure, but since the apparition disappeared after I used a light spell, maybe the thing it was pointing at also disappeared. With a wave of my hand, I got rid of all light sources except one but dimmed it enough to only give the room minimal light. When I did this, a scene filled my eyes. It was this house we were in, from what I could tell. But what shocked me the most about what I was seeing was the image of the man that had just walked into the house. It was none other than my father!

I did not dare to look away. I watched as my father walked through the upper floors of the house, finding nothing. He then climbed down the stairs and completely ignored the apparition that appeared. He looked around the basement for a few minutes before scratching his head and leaving. But what I did not get was that it seemed more like he was searching for something specific. Not like he was searching for any old treasure. But what was he searching for and why?

The scene only began repeating itself after my father walked out of the house. I watched it quite a few times, but the more I watched it, the fishier things seemed. I turned and looked at the apparition and smiled. "Henry Tolbell, thank you."

At these words, the apparition gave a slight nod before disappearing. It was as if he had only stayed to give me this clue. But it was at least a clue. My father did come through this way, but now things seemed more confusing than ever. I guess I can only progress further into the dungeon in hopes of figuring it out. What the truth may be, I do not know. For all, I know, he could really have been looking for treasure, but for me, it seemed like that was not it.

Chapter5 Theory

--AN) Running late. Another chapter will be up soon!--

When I went back upstairs, everyone else was already gathered. "Any clues?"

"Nothing. Just dust and cobwebs." Adel answered.

"I got one downstairs in the basement. Iena, have you heard of apparitions?" I wanted to confirm everything before I explained anything. I could not be sure if what I saw was real or not.

"An apparition? Those are rare. They are known as guides. They will help those who are seeking things. If you saw one and it was what gave you a clue, then it should be trustworthy." Iena answered. I let out a relieved sigh because this meant I was at least able to find a single clue.

"If that is the case, then my father did come to this house. He seemed to be searching for something. I am not sure what, but he searched the entire house. But what I do not get is the dust factor. The dungeon should not have been reset if someone was inside it. At least, I think…. I could be completely wrong, as dungeons are not really understood yet. But it's a gut feeling. But I wonder if there might be some kind of time dilation going on because this dust is too thick. And you can clearly see our own footprints on the floors, so if my father was here, there should be some kind of sign." I had been wondering this since I saw the images of my father walking around. If he had truly been walking around, then the dust should have been disturbed, but there was no sign of it. Everything looked untouched, as if no one had entered this place for many, many years.

"Boss, don't worry. This is at least a sign. We will figure something out. We just need to head to the next house and hope we find another clue." I smiled, knowing that Amanda was trying to make me feel better. I nodded my head and took a deep breath before slowly letting it out.

"Let's search the next house." I could only hope to find more clues. Maybe a kind of path that would eventually lead me to my father.

But even after searching house after house, no more clues appeared. I even searched each floor myself just in case but still nothing. "The trail ended on the first house…."

"Faith, don't give up hope yet," Sophie said as she came over and hugged me. I was not sure if she was just trying to take advantage of the situation or what, but her fluff was definitely warm.

"Mm… Let's keep searching." I never planned to give up. I promised my mother that I would find him. But I found it strange. We had not run into even a single wraith since coming here, which was making me feel a bit confused. Part of me was yelling at me to test out a theory that was forming in my mind.

"Everyone, we are going back to the entrance." I suddenly started causing everyone to look at me in surprise. "Don't get me wrong, I am not giving up, but I want to test a theory out about this place. I find it strange. Not a single speck of dust or footprint can be found in this place, even though my father should have been here. But no proof can be found. If we leave something as a means of a marker and then leave and come back, I want to see if it is still here. I can't be sure, but I think if we return to this place, the whole area may just change again."

"Alright, let's do that. Your theory might just be sound. Undead realms can be tricky and such things are also possible." Iena seems to think that I might be onto something.

We ended up taking a bunch of broken wood and piling it just at the entrance of the village area. It was right on the main path, so it should be easily seen. We then walked back to the entrance of the dungeon and into the safe room. "Should we exit first?" Steven asked.

"We will exit if we go back out there and find the pile. If we don't then we can just continue as is and try to find more clues. Otherwise, we will exit and try again." The thing that I worried about was the idea that maybe things were timed, like the dungeon changed every twenty four hours or more.

If this was the case, then we would have to split up and have people attempting to enter and exit until the dungeon changed while the other half kept investigating. And the only one powerful enough to lead a second team was Iena.

The situation was not very favorable. We could only hope that things would work out and that we would unlock the mystery of this dungeon and how it works. "Let's go back in," I said. We only waited a few minutes, but I was being impatient. I couldn't wait hours to test this out. I already delayed long enough to make sure we wouldn't die right away. Now that we could make our way through the dungeon, I did not want to wait any longer. I may have seemed calm this entire time, but in truth, I was very worried. Worried to the point that my stomach felt sick, but I had to keep it together for those around me. If I began panicking, what would they do? I had to keep myself stable.

We went back into the dungeon, and sadly the pile we made was standing tall as we left it. This meant that we needed to exit completely and then enter again. I stared at the large pile of wood, unsure of what to do. I already had a clue in this dungeon as it was. Should I leave and test my theory or not?

"Everyone but myself will exit the dungeon and try for a new one." I should just have Iena do this on her own, but I can not guarantee that I myself will be able to protect everyone on my own without her help. She was much more powerful than I and could easily wipe out a group of monsters on her own. This meant she was the best fit to protect the others.

"Sorry, but I can not follow that order."

Chapter6 Complex Dungeon

"I can't either."

"Neither can I."

"If Faith is staying here, so am I."

"Mmm… Meto."

I looked at the five girls who had opposed my decision and sighed. I did originally plan to split the group up anyway, so I guess this is okay as well. "Okay, you five can stay then. The rest of you will go with Iena. Iena, test the theory out by doing thirty minute intervals. It might take a while, but I will wait outside for you if I do not see you if I leave the dungeon. And…. if you run into an issue or find my father, send me a message through our contract."

"Don't worry, Master, I will keep everyone safe. You should stay safe as well." Iena's expression showed a bit of worry.

"I will stay safe," I replied before turning to the others. "You all should stay safe as well. If something happens, just stick together and leave the dungeon as quickly as you can."

After giving a few more instructions, the others left the dungeon while Adel and the others stood there waiting for me to make my next move.

"Let's backtrack over every place we have already searched just so we can be sure we did not miss anything." After everyone agreed, we headed back off, searching every house until we reached the area we had yet to investigate yet.

"Ummm?" Adel looked around in confusion. It was not just her but me and everyone else as well. The reason for this confusion was the fact that we were staring at the pile of wood we had set up. We had walked no more than maybe ten feet from the last house we investigated to find ourselves back at the start of the dungeon.

"How is this possible!? We didn't even walk far enough to get lost!" Sei yelled out. She was not panicking but more in such a confused state that her brain seemed to be hurting. She stood there holding her head with her mouth open, staring at the pile of wood in shock.

"For now, let's leave one thing here in case this is some kind of copy. We can't be too careful. We need to figure out how this dungeon truly works." I say this, but I was starting to get worried. This dungeon seemed too strange. Like it was not a dungeon at all but more of a maze…..

I froze in place when this idea came to mind. "I think I might know why my father was searching for something."

"What do you mean?" Sally asked.

"Well. Let's say this place is not a normal dungeon but more like a huge maze with many starting points. If that were the case, then we would be all starting from different areas, and we just happened to reach the starting point my father got when he first entered the dungeon. Some have monsters in them, like the house I checked when I first entered the dungeon before you all arrived had a wraith. So that was just one of the starting points. In order to progress deeper into the dungeon, we will probably need to find out how to pass through the maze.

"And to do this, I think my father had already figured out that we need to find a certain item of some kind, so we need to do a deeper investigation on what that certain item is or if it is an item at all."

"Faith?" I heard my name called, causing me to turn around to see Iena standing there. "How many times have you entered?"

"It's been a day…. And we have come in and out many times but only ended up here."Iena replied, causing me to frown.

"It's been a day?" I sighed as I realized that there seemed to be some kind of time difference between outside and inside.

"Yes, it has already been a day, and we keep ending up here," Iena replied.

"Alright, then you can stay here with me. We will need to work together because we found something else out." I said and then explained what we had figured out.

"I see... I guess a maze is not a bad way to phrase it. That would explain why you ended back at the start as if the dungeon was saying you went the wrong way or made the wrong choice. So what do you plan to do?" Iena asked.

"We will keep the same groups. But this time, one team will go left, and the other will go right. I already know straightforward does not work. We will enter the village and check what happens if we go off track. If you find anything or get reset, meet at the dungeon entrance, and we will go over our findings." This was the only way to really figure this place out. If we can pool our findings together, we may just find more clues. But now that I think about it, what if the clue my father found was the same? But depicted someone else besides himself? I guess I won't know until we find another clue like that.

"Alright, we will take the left side of the village." With things decided, we split up once more.

My group took the right side of the village. We still rechecked the houses here, but there was nothing new. We then made our way between the houses and began checking the backyards and the other surrounding areas. But what we found were more graves and a very eerie feeling. When we reached the backyard of the house that was the furthest on the right, we came upon a large wheat field. "This is?"

"Should we enter it?" Grace asked. As she went to reach out and touch a stalk of wheat, but as her finger touched it, it was like some kind of barrier was blocking her and a liquidy ripple spread out from where she touched the barrier.

"It seems we found something…. We should return and see if anyone else has found anything as well."

Chapter7 Farm House Part 1

A few hours later, Iena and her group arrived with crestfallen faces. "What's wrong?"

"Master! You have no idea! We walked and walked and walked for hours on end, and then suddenly, we found ourselves at the entrance of the dungeon again! I hate this place!" Iena whined and stomped her feet, causing me to chuckle.

"Thank you for the hard work," I said with a smile as I walked up to her and patted her head. "But everything was not in vain. We have found something interesting." I said with a smile. My words caught everyone's interest.

"There is what looks to be a wheatfield in the back of one of the houses. But when Grace went to touch the wheat, we found it seemed more like a barrier of some kind. Let's go investigate what it is." I was hoping this was the key that the dungeon had gimmicks like these that you had to find in order to progress.

With everyone a little more excited now, we made our way back to the wheatfield. We now stood right in front of the barrier. "How should we cross?"

"Hand in hand. Everyone will hold each other's hand to pass through the barrier. If, for some reason, we get split up, try to backtrack if you can. If you can not take a single step backward and return to this point, then do not move. Do not move from where you are unless you are under attack." I had no idea what would happen once we crossed the barrier. I just did not want everyone to get split up.

When I checked to make sure everyone was ready, we locked hands. "On the count of three!"

"One!"

"Two!"

"Three!"

Everyone stepped forward as one and into the barrier. And I must say that the feeling that I was feeling at this time was stomach turning. I never felt so much motion sickness in my life as I reappeared on what looked to be an open field of some kind. The wheat was no longer visible.

"Blergh!" A sound came from my side. Adel was hunched over. It was not just her either. Many of us were doing the same. I reached over and rubbed her back. "Let's hope we do not need to do this more than once."

"Gah! That was horrible! Who the hell made this thing!" Sei yelled out as she held her stomach. She kept dry heaving as well. Luckily I was able to keep my lunch. But I was just as close as the rest of them to puking as well.

We took a small break to allow us time to recuperate. Only when everyone had their wits about them again did we begin looking around. "Looks like a farm, maybe?"

"It does, but there is nothing here but grass and the house off in the distance." Steven and Amanda were chatting with one another while I was sending out my detection magic to see if I could pick up on anything. I tried with both regular magic and soul magic and got nothing, which left me feeling a bit disappointed.

"Let's go to the house. Watch your surroundings." I said as I took the lead once more.

The trip to the only house we could see took almost five hours, give or take. It was hard to tell with a sun that did not seem to move. Not that I should expect a sun like object in a dungeon to move. The house we arrived at was not as run down as the houses on the previous floor, I guess you could call it. There was an old broken down wagon outside with overgrown grass and large dirt patches all over the place.

There were even a few wooden barrels with holes in them that looked very worn, showing that they must have been here a long time. There was no wind, no birds. It was like the whole area was a void where time did not move. But everyone in her team was here, walking around stirring up the dust that had long settled.

We decided to split up into two teams. Iena and her group would search more around the area while I went into the house with my group. The inside of the house was not empty at all. There was a table with a cloth over it with wilted flowers that had dried up a long time ago. Old trinkets covered in dust lay in the cabinets that were against the wall. The old wooden rocking chairs, although dusty, had a rustic feel to them. And this was just the first room of the house as we passed through the entry.

"This place looks much more lived in than the last place," Sophie said as she walked over to the cabinet. She opened it up and pulled out what looked to be an old picture. "A family of four. Two girls and a husband and wife. The girls look around eight and fourteen, maybe?"

"Anything peculiar in the pictures?" I asked.

"Ummm… not really. The husband is hugging his wife's waist with one arm while his other is resting on his oldest daughter's shoulder. The young girl is leaving against her mother with the back of her head. But what I do find strange is the clothing." Sophie said as she brought the picture over to me. What I saw was something more akin to a North American farmer from Earth clothing wise. Something you would have seen back in the 1920s. "Hmmm…."

This was very interesting indeed. I took the picture and put it into my inventory. It was something to think about for the time being after I found my father. Maybe a clue to how these dungeons came to be. If these dungeons have something to do with Earth, then I want to know exactly why they do and what is their true reasoning for being here. But I can not assume much of anything just from a photograph.

Chapter8 Farm House Part 2

"Before we do a full investigation, let's just check for any enemies." I decided this would make things not only faster but safer as well.

We checked the whole house from the second floor to the basement. This time there was no apparition or any clues like that left behind that were easy to find. "The house is empty, so let's split up. If you find anything that looks off, grab it if you can pick it up. Otherwise, call for us to come take a look."

"On it!" Adel said while saluting me for some strange reason, but she had a big smile on her face. The group ran off, all except for Sophie, who lagged behind. "Sophie?"

"Faith…. Can I ask for you to honestly tell me how you feel for Adel and I?" Sophie walked up to me and took my hands. "We have both decided to dedicate our lives to you and only you."

This was coming out of left field, so I felt like I had just been truck kun'd once more. But when I looked into Sophie's upturned eyes that seemed to be full of hope, I could only sigh and pull her into a hug. "I will give it serious thought. But I can not give you a full answer at this time. Can this wait until after I find my father?"

Sophie nodded and hugged me back. "Mmm… Sorry. I know this was not the time for this, but my mind has been a mess since I found out my true feelings for you. I will wait for your answer. But remember, no matter what the answer may be, Adel and I will always be at your side."

Her words made me smile, and a warm feeling began to fill my heart. I now had to give this more thought and really decide what I should be doing with myself. Even my mother is worried about me. I know this world's age to become an adult is only one year away for me, but I still have some misgivings. But…. Maybe… Just maybe I can figure out a way to allow everyone I love and care for to live longer lives like my own.

When I went to let Sophie go, she looked up into my eyes. I could tell her feelings for me were genuine as the gaze she was looking at me with was filled with pure love. And without even a warning, she stood on her tiptoes and pushed her lips against mine before running off, leaving me standing there frozen in place. I am starting to think that I am a bit too defenseless when it comes to these two girls! They both stole kisses from me! Adel stole my first kiss, and Sophie stole my second one!

But…. I touched my lips, which were still slightly warm, and couldn't help but smile. It did not feel bad… To be honest, I am wondering how it would feel to kiss a boy now… Wait! Why am I stuck on kissing now!!? "These girls!" I cried out before slapping my cheeks and going back to investigating.

After getting my mind out of the gutter, I went back to searching the room I was in. Since everyone else ran upstairs, I stayed in the basement and began going through the items here. There was everything from old dolls and old clothes, all very old looking. Dust and cobwebs were covering everything, so I had to use a bit of wind magic to keep myself from gagging.

"Still nothing, but many things do not look like anything that could be found in this world. Earth maybe, but not here…." I sighed as I looked around the room. It was slightly dim in the room, so to make sure I wasn't missing anything, I waved my hand, sending balls of light to every corner of the room.

As the light filled the room, I spotted something shiny out of the corner of my eyes. My shiny senses instantly activated, and I somehow found myself standing in front of it. I knelt down to find a small rock. I lifted it up and used appraisal on it.

[Norite]

[A stone with no actual use other than its shiny surface that can be used as a stone in jewel crafting. The words: "I am safe." Is carved on the bottom of the stone.]

My eyes instantly went wide when I saw the last part of the description. I turned it over, and my eyes began to tear up. It was his handwriting. I would know it even if it was only carved into the stone. "Father…" I couldn't stop my tears as I held the stone to my chest. He was so weird. Why a shiny stone!? I wiped my tears and smiled. He knew my habits well. But why only this?

I was a bit confused as to why he only wrote I am safe. Why not more? Why did he leave this stone in the basement? So many questions and no way to answer them, I do not know what I should do.

"Faith, you okay down here?" Sally's voice came from the first floor. "Yeah…. Get everyone down here. I found a clue!"

I wanted to make sure I checked every inch of this room with everyone's help. I couldn't trust myself not to have skipped anything. So It was best to have all of us check each room together because there might have been something more we might have missed.

"What did you find!?" Adel asked as she walked over to me. I handed out a stone and showed her the back of it. When she saw it, she started laughing. "Hahaha! Definitely your father! Only he would leave a note on a shiny rock!"

"Hey! I am not that bad…." I yelled. But my voice started to grow quieter at the end of my sentence.

"At least we know he has been here, so we are still on the right track," Grace said as she came to stand at my side. "Now we just need to figure out how to get to the next area."

Chapter9 A Connection

We retraced our steps throughout the entire house. But when we still found nothing, we headed outside to see Iena and her group sitting there chatting. "Anything?"

"Mmm…. Come take a look." Iena replied. I nodded, and the group and I followed Iena to an area with tall grass and a fence that barely stuck out above it. "The fence seems to be the same as the wheatfield. It was the only spot that we could find that did not bring us back to the house. It's strange, every time we reached a certain point, we did not reappear at the start of this area but right in the yard at the house. And…. The spots around the fence will also cause us to reappear at the house. Only this section of fence is the entrance to the next area, it seems."

"That's good to know. I found another clue, this time one left behind by my father." I took out the shiny rock causing everyone there to begin giggling. I humphed and ignored them as I put it away without saying what was on it. "Anyway! Let's go. We don't want to waste any more time here."

We gathered together once more and once again held hands as we passed through the barrier, and once again, we all felt sick to our stomachs. But when I lifted my head after almost losing my lunch, I froze. In front of me was not what I was expecting at all. Tall skyscrapers covered in nature that seemed to have reclaimed the land. Cars that should not exist in this world sat motionless in the streets. The entire place looked like some kind of post apocalyptic movie.

"This place looks like a city in one of the novels I read!" Amanda yelled out, causing me to hold my head. I wonder what she would think if I said that this place looked very much like the place I lived in, in my past life.

But seeing a city like this that did not belong to this world in the slightest with the technology that should never have appeared in anything but fantasy tales made me think even more that these dungeons had some connection to Earth or at least a world similar to Earth.

I looked around to see that there were two blocks in total here. Which meant we would be stuck here for a while with how tall these buildings were. "Iena, you take the bloc-street on the right, and I will take the left."

"Yes, Master." Iena replied before motioning for her team to follow her.

I made my way to the left block, where we stood on the street that nature was in full control over. "We shall start in this building. One floor at a time. But we will move in a group. No one is to be alone at any given time."

"Sounds good to me. To be honest, This place gives me the creeps." Sei said as she looked at the tall buildings in front of her. I could see why it might freak her out since it did look spooky, but to me, I have seen many pictures of such places, so it didn't really affect me much.

We walked up the cracked cement steps and made our way into the first building. I once again made sure the door was broken before entering. And just to be safe, I even added a small barrier around the door frame to make sure nothing sealed us in.

The building we entered seemed to be an office building of some kind. The main entrance had vines and even some saplings growing out of the floor. There was a long reception desk on the back wall, which was where I walked over to first while the others inspected the other parts of the room.

When I arrived at the front desk, I saw many papers strewn about. There were computers and many other modern things from when I lived on Earth. I was not going to let these things just sit there and go to waste, so I quickly began to stick them into my inventory. If I could replicate some of this stuff, then I would be able to enhance the technology level of this world by leaps and bounds and maybe even make it better than what Earth originally had.

One thing that stuck out to me was the writing on the papers was something I could read, it was all written in english. Not the language of this world by any means. I stood there staring at the papers that were nothing more than information that one would give to people who came to ask questions. This place was probably some kind of newspaper company. At least, that was what I was getting from the stuff on the desk. It could also be a magazine company.

I shuffled around the desk to see if I could find anything interesting. One thing that did catch my eye while I was moving all the papers was a slim black rectangular device, a cell phone. I was unsure if it would turn on or not, but I still pressed the button on the side and attempted to turn it on. The screen flickered slightly before showing a company name that I was familiar with, which made my eyes widen in surprise.

My heart started racing just thinking of the fact that this world, or at least these dungeons, may be connected to the world I once lived in. As I watched the screen change, I couldn't help but frown when I saw that the phone had no lock set up on it. "Is this person dumb? What if someone stole their phone!?"

As I grumbled, I began swiping the screens and checking the apps on the phone. The battery was basically fully charged, and if I was careful with the output, I could even charge it or find a device of some kind in this dungeon that would allow me to charge it normally. But it would need to be some kind of solar powered charger.

"If I could somehow find a few more of these and try to replicate them…." My mind was spinning on what cell phones would do to this world.

Chapter10 The City Part 1

I continued to search the desk and found another cell phone tucked away to the side. This one was locked and had very little battery life. But it would come in handy for taking apart and seeing how it ticks. I searched the entire desk and found nothing more of interest. I was kinda hoping for a newspaper of some kind but found none. I could only hope to find one up on the top floors. But I did figure out that I was wrong about the building. The company was some kind of technology company, and the things I was reading before were probably some kind of press statement that would be told to reporters who came in. Of course, this was all just my assumptions.

But if this was a tech company, then there might be something on the upper floors of great interest. I mean, any technology that might be replicable through means of magic would be an amazing leap in technology. Like, let's say we could use runic inscription to recreate a computer board and use lightning magic and let's say water magic combined as a processor that could process the information. It would revolutionize this world.

Whether that would be good or not is another question. But I do know that some new advancements would help out the kingdom in a big way. But to keep any of this technology from being used by other kingdoms, some things would need to be done to secure them from falling into the wrong hands.

But I know this is also something that would be hard to do unless I had a runic imprint on the item that would explode if a person not registered to it tried to open the tech they stole to try to see how it worked. I guess this could be plausible, but a new kind of transmission device with a link to the items would need to be made to allow new people to be registered to that device type so they could do repairs if needed. It did not seem very intuitive, but it would secure the technology. New methods to secure the new technology could come at a later time.

After storing what I could, I looked up to find the girls had all moved to the hall next to the room I was in and were inspecting the elevator. "How does it open?"

"I am not sure, but this is definitely a door," Sally replied to Sei's question.

"Should we open it?" Adel asked.

"We probably shouldn't. We should wait for Faith in case there is something behind the door that is too strong for us to handle alone." Sophie seemed to be thinking that some kind of huge monster was hidden behind the elevator door. I do hate to say this, but she will be very disappointed to find out that there is only a small room made of metal behind those doors. Or just the shaft, depending if the elevator is on this floor or not.

"Did you find anything?" I asked as I walked up.

The girls turned to me and shook their heads. "We only found a bunch of things with strange symbols on them, nothing else," Adel answered. I guess they wouldn't be able to read english since they never came across it before.

"I didn't find anything of use either." I decided not to say anything about the computers and phones at this time. I would wait until we got out of this dungeon. If they found it themselves that is different, I would just store it away to be looked at later.

"Faith, should we open this?" Sei asked.

"Yeah, it seems to be a sliding door. So Sei and Sally get on each side and pull towards you at the seam." I instructed. I already knew how to force an elevator door open. So there was no issue with the two whose strength was above normal humans to force the doors open with ease.

When the doors creaked open, everyone else besides me leaned forward to see what was inside. I could see the excitement and curiosity in their eyes. I wanted to tell them not to keep their hopes up, but I couldn't bring myself to disappoint them, and what I saw seconds later was a bunch of pursed lips and eyes filled with a bit of disappointment. But still, it was better for them to find out themselves that not everything was going to be amazing.

"It's just a small sealed room, so boring!" Adel yelled out.

"It should be more than that," I said as I tested the elevator to see how secure it was with my hand by pressing down on it with a bit of my strength. When I found it to be sturdy, I walked inside and floated up to the ceiling, and pushed on the light to open the hatch. "There is a door here."

"Hey, how did you know that was there!?" Sei yelled out in surprise.

"Dragon instinct," I replied while sticking my tongue out at her. Of course, this was a big fat lie but well, whatever.

I poked my head up to see nothing but darkness. Not that I planned to climb up through the elevator, but it was still neat to see the elevator shaft as I had only seen one on tv in my past life. I would not risk everyone trying to climb up the shaft, so we would be taking the stairs.

One thing I did take note of was the numbers on the elevator panel. There were sixty floors and three subfloors. This meant we had a lot of ground to cover just in this one building alone. I do hope we will find something worth wild here. While I wanted to find a clue that maybe my father had left behind, I also wanted to find a newspaper or something that told me the current date and time this city was once a living place, if it ever was.

Chapter11 The City Part 2

We headed upstairs, where we were met with a small reception area by the elevators that had some vending machines and a few places to sit. When the girls saw the vending machines, they looked as if they were looking at some kind of alien artifact. "What is it!? What are the things inside?"

Surprisingly the vending machines had packaged food in them. But this was also good. I was hoping that maybe just maybe, I could get a sell by date. I walked over to the machine and put my fist through the glass, causing the others to stare at me in surprise. "Faith!?" Adel was the first to cry out.

"Just checking something," I said as I grabbed what looked to be a package of cookies. I looked at the back, and even though the print was slightly faded, I was still able to make out a date: Dec. 6, 2022.

Staring at the date, I couldn't help but wonder why what seemed like a city block appeared in a dungeon with so many things from Earth. "Faith? Is something wrong? You have been acting strange."

"Ah… Ummm… Well…." I looked at the girls in front of me, who were all my closest friends, and sighed. "While Adel already probably has some ideas, the rest of you do not know, but before I tell you, what is about to be said needs to be kept to the utmost secrecy. Even the King has forced me to keep my lips sealed, but I can not keep it from the people who are always at my side. And you all have signed a blood seal contract that will keep you from speaking about it anyway. So I will just explain myself."

It seemed that Adel understood what I was getting at. "Faith, these are from the world you lived in, in your past life?"

"Huh? Past life!?" Sophie cried out in confusion.

"To answer your question, Adel. Yes. This machine here is called a vending machine. The items inside are foodstuff, but they are not edible now, or at least I wouldn't eat them. Sei, you can try eating them to see if you get sick." I said in a teasing manner.

"Hey! Don't use me as a test dummy!" Sei yelled out.

I chuckled and held out the package in my hand. "Surprisingly enough, this package comes from the year I died. It is a package of food called cookies. This building is some kind of office building, and the things on the street down there are called cars, which are basically horseless carriages. Everything you see here is something from my past life, and it has been bothering me….. Why is this all here?

"Why did these things appear in a world where they should not belong? What exactly are the dungeons, and why was I born with a system? And now, suddenly, anyone can get one as long as they dive into the dungeon.

"Where I come from, we have a thing called video games. They are a form of entertainment that allows a person to kind of become another person in a story where they are in control of the character's actions to a certain extent which has these kinds of systems in the game. The world I come from is not a world of magic but a world of science, like the novels that are in the library. The so called fantasy world you create is a true reality.

"But the dungeon seems to be mixing the two worlds' ideas of fantasy. First, we had a dungeon full of goblins. They are a fantasy kind of monster from the world I used to live in. Then there is this dungeon that has what this world would see as a fantasy. But at the same time, it is all things from my old world.

"This is why I have been taking objects from the dungeon and storing them in my space. Any clues I can find that will help me figure out why things are the way they are will allow me to understand just what is going on. Although having some of the things here to use as a means to advance our own civilization is also not a bad idea." I explained as I stored away a vending machine.

"So the reason you knew about the hatch in the metal box was…." Sei began putting two and two together.

"Because that is an elevator, and that was an emergency hatch in case it gets stuck," I explained.

"Now I get it…. So they can not work as they are? Is that why we took the stairs?" Grace asked.

"They run on electricity, something similar to lightning magic. But it is generated in a different manner that does not require magic." They then began bombarding me with question after question. I was starting to become overwhelmed with their curiosity. The only one staying out of it was Adel, who was watching things with a warm smile on her face. I guess she liked the idea that everyone was so open to my explanation. In a way, so was I. No one was looking at me in a strange way which made me feel that no matter what I said or did, they would never see me in a different light as long as I did not go too far.

After about thirty minutes, they calmed down. Sei came over to me and put her arm around my shoulder, and asked: "So do you plan to make anything with the stuff you are taking?"

"I can only hope to recreate things with our current power sources and abilities. If we can advance technology to a higher level, our kingdom will never have to worry about being taken over, and we can have many, many years of peace." I answered with a smile.

"You know Faith, I know you love this kingdom, but I think you should think about yourself for once. Do not give up all this technology, as you called it, to the kingdom. Save it and secretly work on it until it is ready and then claim all the benefits for yourself. You keep saying you do not want to be a ruler, then act like it by keeping the things you wish to create for your own well being. This way you can at least be the richest person in the world."

Chapter12 Things Slowly Coming Together… Maybe?

I stared at Adel in amazement. I never thought she would want me to keep my ideas to myself. I figured she would be all for sharing it with the kingdom to develop, but here she was saying that I should keep it for myself. I smiled and shook my head. "I will only be giving some things that will not upset the balance too much. But only after I come up with proper safety measures to keep the technology I hand over from being stolen by others."

"If that is what you want to do…." Adel pursed her lips, but what can I say? If it will benefit the people in some way in a good way and allow them to live easier lives, then why not, right? It's not like I will be taking something like a bomb or laser of some kind and using the idea to make some weapon of mass destruction and distributing it to the public to use as they wish.

"Anyway, let's keep looking. We've got a lot of ground to cover." With this, we began searching the whole floor. One room at a time. Every computer or cell phone I came across, I would store in my space. I also had to stop and explain what everything was.

It was not until we reached the fifth floor that I came across a newspaper, and well, what I saw was not exactly what I was expecting. The front page had in large lettering the Atlantean race had returned to Earth.

Seeing the words Earth was all I needed to know to officially say that the dungeons and Earth were connected. But what really caught my attention was the lines on the faces of the so called Atlanteans. They were very much similar to that man Azengrade.

"Faith, you find something?" Sophie asked as she walked over to me and hugged my arm. "Mmm…" I nodded and lifted my head to look at the others. "Everyone, come here. I want you to hear and see this."

When everyone gathered around, I held up the newspaper in my hand. "Do you see the woman here?" I asked as I pointed to the woman in the photo.

"She is…. Wait, she has the same kind of lines as that man!" Sei yelled out.

"Yes. According to this newspaper, whether it is true or not. She is what is called an Atlantean. A race that was only a myth to the folklores of Earth. They were supposed to be a highly advanced civilization that was long lost. No one knew where they went or how they disappeared. But the place known as Atlantis was something that many lores of old on Earth had spoken about.

"I am not sure if these people were lying or not, but according to these newspapers, they were these so called Atlanteans who had left Earth to travel the stars only to return thousands of years later.

"But this also could be a hoax created by the dungeons as well. I think these dungeons may have been created by these so called Atlanteans, a race from space. But none of it adds up…. This newspaper is dated a few months before I died." I said point at the date, which read: March 16, 2022. And now that I was thinking about it, Jen also lived almost another ten years past 2022. So all my assumptions are thrown out the window.

"Then what is going on?" Grace asked. She looked very confused.

"I don't know….. On Earth, there was a theory of a thing called parallel worlds, or it could also be called a multiverse. Let's say you had one world and then copied it over and over, only changing one thing per time it was copied, giving a slight variation compared to the last, whether it was a point in history or even a single organism that died out before they had a chance to do anything. Or maybe even the chemical composition of the planet itself, creating a world not based on science but based on magic instead.

"This is all just an assumption, but if this was the case. Would Earth still be called Earth? What if it was called Mestea, for example?" I could see the heads swaying back and forth of the others as they tried to understand what I was saying, but if a race of earthlings had mixed science and magic together to create a new, highly advanced civilization, and were these so called Atlanteans that the newspaper was talking about they could probably cross over to different multiverses. Or there could have been some kind of freak accident.

In a way, it kind of made sense since Azengrade was able to control part of the dungeon. But whether my thinking was correct or not was another story. Even I am surprised that I was able to come up with such a hypothesis so quickly with limited information. I guess maybe high intelligence is also a good thing.

But the more I thought about it, the more things kind of clicked together like a jigsaw puzzle. Once the pieces began falling into place, the image would become clearer and clearer. If my train of thought is correct, then the world of Mestea, the planet I am living on, might just be Earth in a new form.

"Wait, stop, my head hurts!" Sei yelled out. Sally was right next to her holding her head as well.

"I think I kind of get it, but at the same time, I do not. So what you are saying is that the world we live in is linked to your old world in some shape or form?" Grace asked.

"Mmm… I think that the multiverse theory that my world's scientists had come up with is actually correct. It's just that not everything is an exact copy. Things change. Like this world's day cycle and year cycle are longer than that of my past life. It has two suns whereas mine only had one. If this is correct and the Atlanteans were able to form some kind of tunnel to this world from their own…. "

Chapter13 The Message On The Wall

"If that is the case and they are all as powerful as Azengrade, wouldn't that mean we are all in serious trouble?" Adel asked.

"To be honest, yes, if that is the case. But we do not have enough to go on. He could be a special case. Someone who fell through a hole and arrived here by accident. For all we know, something could have gone wrong on their planet, and the stories and cities of that world turned into separate dungeons that are now appearing in our world. But this also still leaves a lot of questions and no answers. So we can only speculate for the time being." I answered. "For now, let's just try to find any signs that my father has been to this part of the dungeon."

With this, we continued our search floor after floor and then onto the next building. Because we were searching through everything with a fine tooth comb, we spent four days just searching. And in the end, we found nothing. "Was your father not here?"

"Might be possible…." It might be possible that the dungeon rotated at some point, causing us to end up somewhere else, but I would not know for sure unless I searched the other side.

"Let's go meet up with Iena and the others. We will switch sides and research each other's areas.." I was feeling a bit discouraged. After all, I was hoping to find another easy clue, but it seemed I was not going to be able to do things so easily.

When we made our way over to the other block, I saw that Iena and her team were standing there staring at something. "Iena, what's wrong?"

"Master, look at that. What do you think that means?" I turned and looked at what Iena was talking about, and what I saw made my cheeks turn red.

"That damn old man!" I yelled out. I have no idea what is wrong with his head, but that old bastard actually wrote something so embarrassing on the wall!? And in such big letters. "I am starting not to care about him anymore…."

"Hehe…" I heard Adel giggle from behind me. I turned and gave her an evil eye. "Everyone does it!"

The stupid old man actually wrote: "Faith, I am pretty sure you are in the dungeon looking for me, so I am fine but remember, if you see something scary, don't wet your pants like you did that one time when you were little!"

I could feel my whole face heating up. Everyone was smiling at me knowingly. I glared at them as I said: "If you do not want me to use dragon speak to make you all tell me your most embarrassing moments, then I suggest you leave me alone!"

"Hahahahaa!" Steven suddenly burst out laughing. Causing me to grit my teeth. "Steven! Tell me what your most embarrassing moment is!"

Steven's eyes dulled as he began to speak: "When I was eight, my brother tricked me into running around the town naked, and from that moment on, I was called Little Weewee by all the neighbors."

""Pfft!"" Sophie and Grace both burst out laughing. The two quietest people on the team were now in tears laughing. But I mean, it was funny. I watched as Steven's eyes came back to life as he looked around. He was very confused as to why everyone was staring at him and laughing. "What!?"

"Don't worry…. Pff… Little Weewee. We will not judg… Pff… Judge you… hahahahahahahahahahahaha! I can't, Little Weewee! Hahahaha." I couldn't help but laugh, I mean. To think he would have such a nickname.

"Wha? How did you know my childhood nickname!? Wait!? Faith, you really made me talk!?" Steven's face was bright red. He dropped down and hugged his knees as he buried his face in them.

Amanda walked over to him and patted his shoulder. "Next time, hold it in better when you want to laugh at Faith. She is not our boss for no reason, you know."

"Ahhh! I will one day get revenge!" Steven suddenly stood up and yelled. "Laugh! So what! It was when I was a kid!"

As we all laughed and joked, I was actually quite happy. Luckily my father was able to leave a message behind that I would see. I had worried that I might have lost the trail that would allow me to find him. But he seems to be moving right along with ease.

In the end, I still went through Iena's block and secured anything that was useful for future endeavors. Iena had already found the way to the next area, which was in a parking garage on the top floor at the rear door of a box truck.

When we passed through it, we landed in what now looked like a futuristic version of the same city blocks as before. "This is…." If anything, this was a major find. "Same as before, spread out and search for any clues."

We quickly split up. When I stepped foot onto the street, the first thing I did was walk over to one of the cars that were lying half on the street and the other half on the curb. "A flying car…." I looked it over a few times before storing it away. I did not have time to fully inspect it, but I did check the engine. It was not a normal car engine. I was hoping that these cars were a combination of magic and technology. If it was, it would be a huge find and would help me greatly in my production of new things.

When we entered the first building, we all froze in our tracks and quickly went on the defensive. A human stood in front of us and suddenly bowed. "Welcome to Medfonics. May I ask what you are here for today?"

"You are not human?" I asked. The girls were all looking at me in surprise. But this was a given as I had spoken in english.

Chapter14 X7

"Human? No, I am not. I am X7 serial code 238745. I am nothing more than a humble android." X7 replied. An android…. I walked up to X7 and looked him over, and even poked his face. Everything about him felt real. As I did this, the girls all watched me with great diligence, as if they were waiting for it to attack me at any moment. I could have told them that it was fine, but this was a good chance to let them learn to always be on guard.

"How long have you been in operation?" I asked. Since it was able to tell that we were people, then it may have some valuable information.

"According to my creation date, fifteen million years have passed," X7 replied. But I guess my question was too broad.

"Let me ask you this. When was the last time you saw a human besides us?" If I narrow it down this much, I should be able to get a better date on when this place was once a thriving place.

"Three days ago," X7 replied, causing me to raise an eyebrow.

"Was it a man" I bit my lip, hoping it was my father. If it was, I could see my father trying to communicate with this thing and even asking it to leave a message.

"It was indeed a man. But my language processing unit was unable to understand his language. I did record what was said before the man walked away as protocol stats in my programming." X7 replied.

"Play it for me, please…. That man should have been my father…." I was glad X7 had such a function.

"Replaying now: 'Hey, what is this? Are you an enemy?' My father's voice came out of X7's mouth. 'Not an enemy, huh? What the hell are you? I can not sense any life coming from you. Anyway…. Since you are not an enemy, I will just leave you here. If my daughter comes by, relay a message to her. Keep going, and meet me at the end of the dungeon. We will reunite there. And…. I will leave another message for you at the desk of this building. I know you are probably going crazy and cursing me for being stupid for continuing my dive. But I feel something is strange about this place.

'It all feels off to me as there is some kind of connection to another world or something along those lines. Dungeons may not be what we think they are. But don't worry, I'm fine. Hell, I even leveled up a bit. So the floors you visit should be quite safe. Who would have known the first floor had some texts on how to defeat these white monster things? I even searched the whole damn place for more…. Anyway, I am just rambling now. Faith, always remember to stay strong and believe in your old man. I promise I will not die on you. Anyway, I am off. See you at the dungeon's end. I wonder if you will ever hear this. Can this thing even understand me?'

"End of recording. The man walked to the desk and left a note. But I could not understand what it said, so I left it there." X7 explained.

"Thank you, X7." I looked at the android that seemed to have lost its purpose and decided on something. "X7, I will be storing you away for the time being. Once I leave the dungeon, I will let you back out. Do you have the ability to self learn new languages?" I asked.

"This is part of my programming, yes," X7 replied.

"Then that makes things easier. I will help you learn this world's language when we get back to my home. There is nothing left here for you to do. If anything, you would probably be attacked by the next people that come through here. But before I store you, can you tell me when the last time you saw someone other than the man you just spoke about?"

"To answer your question 7 million years ago," X7 replied. This meant whatever made the city as it is now was probably done at that time. Which is why….

"X7, can you tell me what caused this building and its surroundings to end up like this?" If I could get a better clue, it would really help me out.

"I will replay what happened that day…." X7's eyes began to glow as a small screen appeared in front of us. It showed the building and what was happening outside the window and into the street. Many humans and flying cars were passing by. That was when suddenly something looked strange. The people began to digitize. I mean, this is the only way I could describe it. The humans were turning into strange greenish squares that floated up into the air. The flying cars began to crash into buildings, and then after about a minute, it was silent. The sky above had been gray the entire time as it is now.

"Fast forward at the fastest speed." I wanted to see if anything else happened but did not have time to watch it every second. Soon the screen was moving at a fast pace. The view changed from what looked like an employee lounge to the front door once more. The scene outside turned from a thriving city to a place overrun by nature. But the sky always stayed gray, never any blue to be seen. Millions of years passed in minutes until the view of my father appeared: "Stop! Playback at normal speed."

My father stared at X7 while rubbing his chin and even poked it in the face like I did. Only after a few minutes of inspection did he begin to talk to it and leave a message. He then left the main hall probably to search the building. But he looked in good shape with no wounds or anything. Still the handsome father I remember him as. My eyes began to water up knowing that he was fine and in good health.

Chapter15 [Last Week's Bonus Chapter]Crazy Finds Part 1

"Thank you, X7." I gave my thanks. He had helped some of my worries.

"It is my pleasure to be of assistance. But if I may ask. When you said you would take me from this place, were you telling the truth?" X7 seemed to be more sentient than I had thought. Maybe the many years of loneliness had gotten to him, so he had learned to gain a bit of self awareness.

"Yes, I would not lie. I see no point in you continuing to stay here. I will only store your way in my inventory for a short time, and when I return home, you will be given your own room and can do as you please. If you want a job, I can even find you a job." I replied. I had no idea how its programming worked, but if it was asking me something not in its normal programming, then this was good.

"Then I will take you up on the offer as no humans resided in this place," X7 replied.

I smiled and held out my hand to him: " Then take my hand. I will store you in my inventory now."

X7 reached out and grabbed my hand, and then disappeared. I turned and looked at everyone who was staring at me in shock. "Faith, did you just teleport him someplace?! And what was that strange language you were speaking!?" Adel suddenly bombarded me with questions.

"I was speaking a language from Earth, called english. It was one of the most common tongues spoken on the planet. And no, I did not teleport him anywhere. I just put him in my space as he was not real. But what is called an android or robot? A life form created with technology." I tried to explain, but it was hard when the concept of a robot was not really a thing here.

"Your old world was crazy…." Sally said while holding her head. I guess this was all too much for her.

"This kind of technology was not something the world I came from could produce yet. This whole area is in a future time frame from when I lived there. Or it could come from a different parallel universe. Remember how the Atlanteans had appeared in the same time frame as when I was alive before on the previous floor? But that was not my world. So this world and that were different, and this one and the world with the Atlanteans might be different as well." I explained lightly.

"So, in other words, your old world was crazy!" Sally repeated herself, causing us to chuckle.

"Let's just leave it at that. Anyway, let's begin our search. I want to see what the note says that my father left behind." I walked over to the desk to see many new things that I did not recognize, but they looked like they might be useful, so I stored them into my space. It took a minute, but I did find the note that my father had left for me.

'Faith if you are reading this. Then that means one of two things. You found out about me from the weird non-life form, or you just walked past it and found the note anyway. Either way, we will meet at the end of the dungeon. Stay safe.'

I smiled and kept the note. He seemed determined to investigate this dungeon thoroughly but what I did not understand was if he was clearing all the floors of monsters, then how was he defeating them? Was he hiding some kind of secret? Or was the spell he got from the information he found so powerful that it was able to disregard the level difference? Well, I guess as long as he is okay.

We searched every floor. But I really couldn't find anything like a newspaper to give me any kinds of dates or times, so I could only hope that the devices I had been picking up would have something for me to look at.

But when we reached the tenth basement floor, I finally found something very interesting. "It's huge!"

It was indeed huge. To me, it looked like a spaceship, but I could be wrong. But I knew one thing and that was I wanted to investigate it and see how it ticked. "Gather everything in this room. I will store it away. If we can replicate this ship at some point, the security of the kingdom will be safe for many many years."

The ship in question was at least one thousand feet in length and at least four hundred feet tall. It was a huge machine that had a width of at least another five hundred feet. If such a thing was replicated with magic and had magic based weapons and defenses, it would be basically unstoppable. If my dreams were true and war was eventually coming with people like Azengrade, then I wanted to make sure that I could easily defend my homeland. And technology like this was going to be needed, because I was only one person. Even if I summoned every high ranking demon, there was no telling if we would still win, so the more things we had to fight with, the better.

It took many hours, but we finally collected everything and stored it away. What was left was nothing but a barren room and a bunch of cables leading to some kind of power source. And this power source was next on my list of things to find. "Everyone, let's search for the power source in this place. But do not go near it until I have used Appraisal on it."

"You plan to take the power source as well?" Sophie asked.

"Mmm... I mean, why not, right? A power source that may not use mana, or if it does use mana, it is a power source that is magic and technology combined. And one that seems infinite to be powering the place for so long." I never expected that I would be diving into a dungeon and walking out with advanced technology. It was better for me to take it now than having someone else get their hands on it. Like, let's say Azengrade.

Chapter16 Crazy Finds Part 2

We searched the whole room from top to bottom but still found no way to access the power source that was powering this basement floor. The other floors did not have power at all, and this one floor alone was enough to take up the two city blocks. I was not sure about the other buildings, but I did not see any stairs leading down to this basement level from another building.

"I think I found something!" Sei yelled out from across the room. Everyone was split up on each side of the room, so it took us all a few minutes just to get to her.

Sei was standing on top of a section of the floor, stamping her foot. She then pointed at the ground and said: "This section sounds different from the others."

I looked down at where she was talking about and scanned the floor. A few inches away from where she was standing, I could see a thin hairline crack in the floor. "So easily missed….." I said while pursing my lips. "Alright, let's try to get it open."

We searched the entire area and found no means of opening it. As we searched, I started to feel that maybe sending everything into my space was not such a good idea. There was probably some equipment of some kind that had a button that would open this hatch.

"Hmmm…" I transformed my hand just enough to create my claws on my hand the same size as my finger and stabbed at the spot that should be the hatch to the power source, only to have my hand deflected at the last second. "Ouch!" I cried out. My poor fingers! It was no different than stubbing one's toe!

"Faith, are you okay!?" Sophie cried out as I shook my hand. It really stung!

"Yeah, but it seems there is some kind of barrier on this thing," I replied. "I guess not everything will be easy. Everyone back up."

On my command, everyone quickly backed up as I took my dragon form. I raised my claw and smashed down at the small hatch with everything I had!

*Bang!*

A loud bang echoed through the room, causing the other girls to cover their ears while I clutched the floor with my claws and ripped up a huge chunk of the floor. What was revealed was a large area under the floor that had a huge machine of some kind with a blue, glowing orb set in the middle. This orb had blue arcs of lightning coming off of it. I could feel that this was indeed a massive ball of mana. "Jackpot!"

I transformed back into my human form and floated down into the room with the power source, and used appraisal.

[Mana Capacitor]

[A power core to generate the same amount of power as a small sun.]

Reading the information, I couldn't help but be stunned. So much power could easily power an entire solar system. I couldn't help but shake in excitement, knowing that I was going to be getting my hands on such a thing. For something like this, I would need to take the entire room, cables and all, to be sure nothing was out of place. I did not dare to just take the machine itself in case there was some kind of special setup with the room that kept it all contained. I used detection magic to check how deep the entire place went before placing my hand on the wall, and in an instant, the entire place was nothing more than a large dirt hole in the ground that was so deep that it looked like a black abyss from where I was floating.

I flew back up top and landed in the previous room with a big smile on my face. "We really struck gold this time. Come on, we got more buildings to explore and things to take!"

The girls all looked at me with stunned expressions before bursting out in laughter. "Faith, you sound like a bandit."

"I can only be a bandit in dungeons, so let me enjoy myself!" I said with a bright smile.

We went building to building, and I scooped up whatever technology I saw. If Azengrade decided to come here, I did not want him to be able to take anything. Or anyone for that matter. When we met up with Iena, I once more ran through every building at top speed and grabbed everything from her side as well. Even the cars in the street were not safe from my plundering.

As for the entrance to the next area, it was quite difficult to find as we had to climb to the top of the tallest building and up a pole at the tip top to find the entrance. This time I tethered everyone together with magic and jumped through the entrance pulling everyone along. Luckily it worked, and no one was separated. This was my biggest fear.

But now, what stood before us was no longer cities of any kind but a barren desert that had three suns shining down on us. The temperature was so high that even I was starting to sweat. "Cooling…."

"Faith, you are a goddess!" Steven cried out as he felt the cool air wash over him.

"And you are Little Weewee," I replied with a smile, causing Steven's cheeks to blush and the others to laugh.

"Let me send my detection magic out. I want to see if there is anything out there." I sent my detection magic in all directions. I penetrated the sand dunes to see if anything was underneath them, and to my surprise, there was a very familiar site under the city. "The same city but…. This one is covered in sand…. And the sky is blue with three suns….."

It makes me wonder just what happened. This was probably another variation of the previous world, but some disaster happened on this version, or at least I think...

Chapter17 The Dungeon Kingdom

"Stay back. I am going to move all this sand," I yelled out as I stood a hundred feet or so away from the entrance of the city blocks. If I could gain two of these free of charge, then I was not going to let it go. I also wanted to take all the technology here as well. I closed my eyes and stretched out my hands before opening them again. The ground shook as the sand in front of us, over a thousand feet in all directions, was lifted into the sky. It was then wrapped in a barrier and moved to the side. I had also created a barrier around the city blocks to keep the surrounding sand from falling into it again.

"Faith, are you sure you should have done that?" Adel asked. I know what she was worried about. "It's fine. The last message told me to meet him at the bottom of the dungeon. And he is not dumb enough to try to leave a message here of all places. To him, this was probably just a desert area that might have had some monsters in it. Even if he detected the city, he would not be able to move all this sand at once."

"I see… You know your father well." Adel said with a smile.

"Of course! He is a man worthy of being looked up to. And he is my father, after all." I couldn't help but smile, thinking back to all the father daughter moments we had while I was growing up. He is a silly man and a great father.

The only thing different about this place was that the X7 of this floor was not functioning when I found him. But I still stored this X7 away in case he ever needed spare parts. We cleaned out all the buildings, and I also got my hands on a second mana capacitor. Surprisingly it was still very much functional.

We checked around quite a bit but found nothing out of the ordinary. I figured maybe, X7 could tap into his other world counterpart to shed some insight on what happened to this world. In the end, we found the portal to the left of the city in the middle of the desert. When we passed through the barrier, we came out to what seemed to be a thriving kingdom.

"Oh? Residents?" I looked around from the mountain top we were on and found that the place was very much alive. From my point of view, there were many towns and villages and even a city off in the distance.

"What should we do here?" Iena asked. I was also unsure as this floor was unlike the other dead floors.

"I am not sure. We can only try to find the barrier wall. However, this place looks more like a medieval Earth era than a place with magic. Speaking of which, everyone, check your ability to move your mana." I had a strange feeling that something was different about this floor of the dungeon.

"I can, but it's very minimal." Grace was not the only one, everyone else was too. And as for me…. "I am still the same… I wonder if it has to do with my system…"

"Isn't that a little unfair!" Sei whined as she created a dinky fireball.

"My magic is fine as well…." Iena said as she created a large fireball with ease.

"Is it because you are connected to me? Hmmm…." I decided to try tethering everyone to my mana pool, and surprisingly this did work quite well… "I see... So this is due to how much mana a person has. Since Iena feeds off my mana, she would naturally have her normal powers, but you all do not, which restricts your power. So being connected to my mana fixes this issue. It's like finding an exploit in the dungeon system. Alright, we will be moving as one anyway, so this works out well."

We climbed down the mountain and found a dirt road that looked to be well traveled. I had no idea if we were heading east, west, north, or south, but we were definitely turned right onto the road. We were not in too much of a hurry since this place was much different than the other floors.

When we arrived at the first town, we noticed the tall log style wall surrounding it. Outside were guards with spears and metal armor standing there as they inspected the carts and the people entering. And this was when the first problem arose.

"Ahh, demon!" Someone yelled out in my current worlds language while looking straight at me. I frowned as I looked at the person who screamed but they seemed to be truly terrified. Not more than a few seconds later, the entire line of people began to react and scream out in horror. Adel and Sophie came over and held my hands. They knew the things I had been through since young, so I guess they were worried about me.

"Stand down, demon!" One of the guards yelled out, causing me to frown once more.

"Who are you calling a demon!?" Adel yelled out. "Can you not see all the humans in our group too!? If she was a demon, would we be next to her!?"

"Humph! For all I know, you are all demons! You will all come with us!" The guard yelled. I sighed and pulled Adel back.

"Since we are unwelcomed, we will leave," I said with a smile and bowed my head.

"Faith! Why are you…." I stopped Adel once more and shook my head.

"They might not be used to demi humans or why might not exist in this world. So they are only scared of what they do not understand." I replied. I did not want to cause a scene when we did not need to. If they let us leave on our own, that would be the best outcome. The worst case outcome is that we would be put in jail, which was also fine. Either way, it was not like they could keep us here if we truly wished to leave.

Chapter18 Taming Nobels! Gotta Catch Them All! Not!

"Halt! Who said you could leave!?" The guard yelled out. I knew he wouldn't let us leave, but it was still worth a try.

"So you are forcing us all to stay?" I asked as I turned around and looked at the guard. An idea started to form in my mind. "As long as we can stay together in the same cell, we will go with you."

"You! Do you think you have the right to make demands!?" The guard yelled out.

To his question, I only smiled and nodded: "You say I am a demon, but you act all high and mighty. What is stopping me from destroying this town? Don't think just because I am not causing trouble that you can walk all over me because if you do…."

Since they wish to call me a demon, I will just make it so I can be seen as a demon. My hand grew to twice the size of my body, causing everyone to scream out in fright while the guards who came over, faces' paled and began to shake in fear. "So, do we get to stay together in the same cell?"

The guard quickly nodded. I think he was very much confused as to why I was willing to go with him without making a fuss. "Fo-Follow me…"

I nodded and turned to everyone else, and motioned for them to follow. We followed the guard through the gates to a guard house that was stationed just inside. He then brought us to a back room that had metal bars but was actually well furnished. My guess is this was more of a noble holding cell than a criminal one. "Please stay here for the time being. I will need to contact my superiors."

"Thank you." I gave my thanks before entering the spacious cell with everyone else. Of course, they were all staring at me in confusion.

"Faith…" Adel was the first to speak up. She seemed to always be the group's representative.

"You are all wondering why I did what I did, right?" I asked, and everyone nodded in response. Except for Iena, she seemed to understand my plan.

"It's simple, really. Think about it. If I were to show that I am indeed a demon yet am willing to follow the rules, they would show less hostility towards us out of fear, but on top of that, they will contact the higher ups. They will then treat us as guests because any smart nobleman will try to gain our favor in order to use our power to benefit them. But…. for us, this makes things easier to handle. We need to find the entrance to the next floor, right? We need freedom of movement within the kingdom which means we will need to work our way to the top using the small noble who rules this town and then gain the attention of a higher noble. Adel, you should know this more than anyone." I explained.

"I see…. So we are basically using anyone and everyone of power until we reach the top." Adel fully understood.

"Yep! And it won't take long to do. We just need to find out what rank the person is in the next town, and if they are too low or the same rank as the one ruling this town, we can ask about the town after that. Maids and servants will be very much open to telling you such things with a bit of coin. This is a place without magic, from the looks of things, so it will be easy to do. No magic means no magic contracts on servants. We can easily loosen their lips." It was the same in the novels I read and even in history. A servant was not always loyal to their master, and this caused the death of many masters and nobles in ancient times and in stories.

"I see. I see. Faith, you are brilliant!" Adel smiled as she hugged me.

"Anyway, do not take offense to anything that is said. And most importantly, display your power only when they think they have the status to suppress you. A noble values their life more than anything after all." It may be different for those in my team since most of them come from noble houses, but most nobles would always value their lives over others. Even going so far as to sacrifice their own family members to keep their lives.

"Anyway, let's enjoy this small break and rest," I said as I walked over to a corner of the room and sat down on the plush carpet. I then leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Not even a few seconds later, I had two soft bodies leaning against me. One fluffy, one princess.

Three hours later I awoke when I heard a shout: "Lord Julius is here!"

"These are the demons? Hmmm…." A rich, plump man walked in with gold practically covering his entire body. I always hated that about the rich nobles. They really did things in such a gaudy way.

"Yes, My Lord! I saw it with my own eyes. The girl's arm transformed into a monster's claw." The guard replied.

"Oh?" The noble looked over at me with a strange gaze as he ordered: "Show me!"

"Huh? Is that how you ask someone to do something!? Do not think I am in this cell because you can keep me here. I came here voluntarily. Even if you sent your entire kingdom's army after me, you would not be able to hurt me. So show some respect when asking me to do something. Say, please show me." I was not going to listen to any demands. I was only here to use them, not to become their pet.

"You! You dare defy this lord!?" The noble yelled out. "Drag her out here!"

"My Lord, please calm down! She is not someone we can really handle!" The guard was smart, it seems. He had seen me transform, after all.

"You dare go against my command!? Someone, drag him away!" The noble yelled out, causing me to frown.

*Bang!*

The cell door hit the ground with a flick of my finger. "I already said I was not in here because I was captured but that I was in here willingly. Lord, whatever your name is. You can either work with me or against me, pick."

Chapter19 Becoming A Demon Lord!

"You! Do you not know who I am!? I am the lord of this town! I make the rules! If I tell you to show me, you will show me!" The lord seemed to have lost his mind.

"Geh…. This man is useless. Steven, smack him for me." I decided that maybe the nice route was not the best route.

"Yes, Boss!" Steven happily walked over to the so called lord, raised his hand, and smacked him, sending the noble flying to the ground. "Boss, shouldn't you become the new city lord? Since they called us demons, let's just act like it."

"Are you saying demons are all uncivilized as this bastard!?" Iena yelled out, causing Steven to flinch and shrink down.

"Miss Iena, that is not what I meant!" I couldn't help but chuckle. Steven was all over the place.

"Iena, what he said was not a bad idea. Earth where I come from foretold stories of demon lords who would take over the lands. His idea actually makes things easier and quicker for us. I wanted to go the nice route and just work up through the ranks, but that could also take a long time. But if we just march from town to town and city to city and take them all over as we make our way to the capital, we should be able to find the entrance to the next floor quickly." I also wonder if this will help the people that are living here if we change the leadership. Well, it really depends on the noble ruling the town at the time.

"Any nobles who act like this one throw them out and dispose of them, then find someone with a head on their shoulder to take their place. Mmm… yes, let's have this guard here take his place." I pointed to the guard, who seemed to have some reason in him.

"Huh? Me?" The guard's eyes went wide.

"Yes, you. Are you up to the job of keeping this town in order?" I asked.

"Huh? Yes!" The guard suddenly saluted me. I nodded and told him to go ahead and deal with the old lord as he saw fit and to clean out the lord's manor as it would now be his new home. The guard dragged the old lord off in a daze. But after he turned the corner, I heard a yell of happiness which caused me to smile.

"Now then!" I said as I turned to the other guards who were standing there in confusion. "Let us search the town. You and you will be our escort. But when talking to the citizens, be nice about it. Just tell them we are searching for a criminal."

"Yes! Please follow us!" The two guards quickly snapped out of their daze and saluted me. They then motioned for me to follow them, so me and the others in my group began searching the town.

The town itself, with how it was set up, reminded me very much of the movies I saw of the middle ages back on Earth. Although I did find it strange that the language this time was the same as in my new home world. I wonder if this is because it was a variation of that world that did not have magic? All I know is it made things much easier since I would not need to translate everything being said. This probably made it easier for my father as well. And since he looked human, he would not be suspected of being a demon. In other words, he got a free ride!

We searched the entire guardhouse from the top floor down to every inch of the dungeon. From there, we went to the next building, which was a pub. It was quite lively until I entered with the guards. The place went dead silent. "We are only here to search the building for a criminal. We are not here to disturb your fun." The guard yelled out. This seemed to soothe the people's worries a little, but they still looked at me with a bit of fear. I was not offended. I mean, it was not like they had seen demi humans before.

But I couldn't just search the walls and things either. I walked over to the counter where an older burly man stood washing his cups. "Master, can I ask you a question?"

The older burly man turned around and looked at me but did not seem to be startled by my appearance. "Little Miss, you need something from this old man?"

"Mm… I was wondering if you saw a man that came here not long ago." I went ahead and began describing my father's features to the older burly man.

"Hmm… Now that you mention it, about two days ago, such a man stopped by here. He was doing what your group is doing as well. However, he was not doing it as openly. He didn't say much. He bought a drink and some food and left." The older burly man replied.

"Okay, thank you. If he stops in again, tell him Faith is looking for him and to head to the capital." I then passed the older burly man a gold coin. "This is for the trouble I am causing."

The old burly man laughed and shook his head. "You must be related to that man because he did the same thing."

I let out a laugh as I stood up. "That I am. He is my father."

The old burly man smiled as he said: "I hope you find him, Little Miss."

"Me too!" With that, I left the pub with everyone in tow. I at least now know that my father had been there. And there is a good chance he was still in this kingdom, especially if he had only been here two days ago.

Once I find him, though, I will give him a big piece of my mind! I mean, he left my mother without telling her he would be diving deep into the dungeon! She is going crazy because of it!

--AN) I edited this fast as I had to run out the door, but if you find any mistakes, please let me know in the comments I will fix them. Thanks!--

Chapter20 Acting The Part!

"So what's the plan?" Steven asked as we all gathered in the street.

"That lousy father of mine has been here. He is not like me and has full human features, so he is probably moving around with ease. We will stick to the plan and split up. We will move from town and city one after the other across the floor and just take over everything we come across. But try to do so without bloodshed. If the one in charge of the place you are in is a good person, let them stay as the head as long as they come under your command. We will meet at the capital. If you run into an enemy that is powerful, just run away. Do not fight them. After all the training you have endured, you should be able to move quickly enough to escape most enemies."

"Alright! Let's crown Boss as the next demon queen!" Steven cheered, but his excitement only lasted a second because I promptly smacked him in the head. "Little Weewee, don't get ahead of yourself."

"Boss, can we not call me that anymore!?" Steven asked as he rubbed the back of his head.

"I will stop calling you that once you stop acting like one," I said teasingly, causing everyone else to burst out laughing. "Alright, let's do a full sweep of the town before heading out."

We swept through all the houses and buildings within the town and did so in a fashion that was not an invasion of privacy to a certain extent. Like we did not go through closets or dressers or anything and only checked the walls, floors, and ceilings of each house and nothing more. Each person was also given a gold coin for their troubles which made them happy.

After that, we split up into teams of two. Sally and Sei teamed up while I had Sophie, Adel and Iena form a group of three. Grace wanted to go with me, but because I had one group of three, one person had to go solo, and I was the best choice. So Grace ended up teaming up with Steven, which was not a bad pairing since, under Sophie and the others, Steven was the next strongest in the group.

After saying our goodbyes, I looked at the long road ahead and sighed. It has been a long time since I have been alone like this. I walked down the dirt path in front of me and made my way to the next town. This time I did not plan to be nice from the start. Nor did they plan to be nice to me. "Stop, demon!"

Well, I guess if I am playing the role of a demon lord, then I should act it, no? "Muahahaha! So you figured out that I was a demon! But too bad puny human! Either take me to your leader, or I will destroy this entire town!"

While I was putting on my best demon lord act, I transformed my arms to threaten the guards, one of which peed his pants. I felt bad, but a demon lord must keep up their image and be demon lordish!

And so now I was sitting in a rather expensive house on a soft cushioned chair looking at the man in front of me that was kneeling on the floor with his head lowered as I sipped some okay tea. "So will you take me as your lord?" I asked in my most menacing voice.

"Yes! Of course! My lord, I am willing to swear allegiance to you!" The plump man who was the lord of this town replied.

"Good! Then I will hold you to your words. I will need two guards who will follow me through the town as I inspect the houses and buildings here." And so, just like that, I was once again checking walls. When I left the town, I told the lord of the town to be good to his citizens, or I would make his life a living hell. He shivered in fear and repeatedly told me he would do as I said.

This time I did not get any information about my father. I am unsure if he did not do what he did before and just passed on through or what, but no one seemed to know who he was. When I arrived at my next destination, I noticed that this place was no town. It was a legit city. And as I walked up to the gates, the same scenario began to play out.

It was just that this time it was… "Die demon! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I kind of reacted on instinct and slapped him into a wall.

"Ah…. Well… Ahem…. Muahahahahaha! You dare attack this demon lord! Bow before me, puny humans! Today is the day that this city too shall fall under my rule!" I did as before and transformed my hands into giant claws and waved them in the air, but sadly, it seemed these people were more willing to fight. Sighed as I said: "Sleep…."

All the soldiers who came out of the city fell to the ground in an instant. I stepped over them and entered the city, making my way towards the small castle. It seemed this city lord knew how to live extravagantly. Although his citizens…. As I looked around, I noticed many of the people here were suffering. I stopped and pointed to a young man who was trying to protect his family from me. "You there!" I still kept my demon lord act. I mean, I was in the groove.

"Please don't harm my family!" The young man yelled out while stretching his arms out in front of his wife and kid.

"I have no intentions of harming people who will become citizens under my rule. I just wanted to ask a question." I softened my voice as I dropped my act. I did not wish to scare these people. "Just tell me. Is your city lord mistreating his people?"

"Miss…" The woman behind the young man called out to me. "Are you really going to rule over this city? Will you protect us from the city lord and his guards!?"

"Milly! Shhhh! You will die!" The young man quickly covered his wife's mouth.

"Mm… I will make sure none of you suffer from now on. So don't worry." I replied.

Chapter21 Scum To The Very Last One

"Can you tell me more about this city lord of yours?" I asked. I figured I might as well know exactly what this city lord and his guards have been doing.

"Not here. Follow us." The young man said after a moment of hesitation as he waved me over. I nodded and followed them down a side alley to a small run down house. The house was only one room which also had a kitchen and the bathroom (a small pot) in the same place.

"I am sorry for our home. It is not the best of places to be." The young man said as he quickly cleaned a spot on the floor for me. I smiled and sat down.

"It is a cozy place. I can see that you have spent a good amount of time in setting things up with what little you have." I said with a smile.

"We are only living on a few copper per day. The ones who live lavishly in this town are those who are part of the city lord's men. They are unruly and even forcefully snatch daughters of the people they are supposed to protect. If anyone goes against them, they will kill them. The city lord is no better. He has a thing for both girls and pretty boys. If the guards spot one, they will drag them off to the city lord's castle. Taxes are high, and wages are low. We are lucky to be able to survive." The young man began talking about the hardships of the people.

"I see…. Why did you not take your family and leave the town?" I asked. If things were this bad most would just get up and move.

"It's not like we do not want to, but we can't. To leave the city, you need a pass which costs one gold. Only merchants can afford it! Us citizens are stuck here. If we try to leave, we will be killed." After hearing what the young man said, my eyes turned cold. He was basically keeping the people here hostage and forcing them to live in poverty so they couldn't leave.

"Don't worry. I will fix this city up in an hour, so for now, stay here and do not leave the house. I will be setting up a barrier here to protect you from anyone trying to harm you while I take care of things." I took out a few bits of food and placed them in the young man's hands before standing up and walking to the door. "I will change this city for you."

After saying this, I walked out of the house and set up a barrier around it to protect it. It was a barrier that blocked people from leaving and entering. I could hear the young man calling after me, but I did not turn around. I flapped my wings and flew off towards the castle. I hovered above it just in time to see a group of guards dragging some girls through the castle gates. I snorted and landed in front of the guards. "Who are you!?"

"Your worst nightmare!" I said in a cold voice as I slapped the three men to the ground, knocking them out cold. The girls were close to my age, maybe a year or two older. Their eyes were red with tears. They looked at me in surprise and shock and a bit of hope. "Go. Go back to your families."

"Thank you!" One of the girls mustered up before grabbing the hand of a girl that closely resembled her and running back through the gates. I waved my hands, causing the guards in the area to fall asleep. I did not wish for them to be harmed after being rescued.

I turned and looked up at the six floor castle and raised my hand. The whole castle began to shake as I used earth magic to rip off the entire outer wall and roof of the castle and turned it into dust before setting it to the side. I could hear the screams and yells of the guards.

I then flapped my wings and stood in the air in front of the castle near the one room that looked the gaudiest and yelled out: "City Lord! Show yourself!"

"Who are you!?" A man wrapped in a blanket made his way to the opening of the wall and glared at me with hatred in his eyes.

"I am the one who will soon rule this entire kingdom. I am here to dispose of those who abuse their status and power. City lord, you are deemed unfit to rule under my new reign. You will be imprisoned for your crimes against the people of this city and sentenced to death three days later. The same goes for each one of your guards. But only if you surrender now. Otherwise, face death." I answered in a commanding voice. I was once more back in my demon lord role!

"Do you really think you can do as you please!? Men kill this demon! Whoever kills the demon will get ten women and one thousand gold!" The city lord yelled out but sadly for him, no one dared to move. I mean, who would? I just ripped the walls and roof off the castle. And there were only like ten guards inside the castle while the rest were passed out on the ground.

"It looks like no one is willing to risk their lives for a bastard like you. Now then. Let's deal with you properly." I raised my hand, causing the city lord to be wrapped in wind magic.

"You!? How are you doing this!? Let go of me! Do you know who I am!?" The city lord yelled out as he tried to struggle to escape my wind magic, but this expression soon changed to that of fear when he arrived in front of me and was forced to look me in the eye.

"You abused the people you are supposed to protect. You snatched their children from their homes for your own sick tendencies. For this, I hereby sentence you to death." I did not care who this man was, but from what I was seeing, the things he was doing to the people of this city were already worthy of him dying. I waved my hand and set his body ablaze, causing him to scream out in pain before dropping him to the ground.

"Awake!" I yelled out using my dragon speak. All the guards stood up in a dazed fashion. I planned to deal with everything in one single easy swoop. "Anyone here who has killed innocent civilians, abducted and forced themselves onto innocent girls and boys need to take their own life now."

I was hoping for one or two good people…. But sadly…. Every guard that I could see in front of me took their own life. They were all scum to the very last one.

Chapter22 Returning What Was Once Taken

As I gazed at the scene in front of me, I shook my head before burning all the bodies. I then sent out my detection magic to check the castle, and I kinda wish I didn't. In one of the dungeon cells in the basement was just a pile of dead bodies. But I did find one cell and one room within the castle that had people in it. I flew over to the room on the second floor that was situated in the middle of the castle.

When I opened the door, a group of girls wearing servant clothes that were skimpier than what the girls at the brothel wore were all huddled together. Each one was around twenty years of age, and some even had wounds on their body. "Please don't kill us! We will do anything!"

I sighed when I saw the fear in their eyes. "I won't be hurting any of you. Can you tell me how long you have been here for?" I asked. I was unsure if it was possible or not, but if I could break the limits of cosmic magic, I might be able to return these girls their youth.

"We all came here in the first few batches when the city lord took over." Said the oldest of the group. "Miss. We can cook and clean. Please allow us to live…."

"I already said you will be fine. I just want to know how many years have you been here for?" I asked once more. I know they were scared, but please answer my question!

"Six…. Six years…" The oldest of the group answered.

"Six years, huh? Let's see if I can do this." I took a deep breath as I looked at the group of girls. "I am going to be casting magic on you all. But do not worry. It will not harm you. I am just reversing time on your bodies back to a state from six years ago. Then you can return back to your parents as pure as the day you were forcefully brought here."

"Really? You can return my innocence!?" One of the girls asked with tears in her eyes. She looked to be the youngest in the group and only twenty at that.

"I am going to try. So do not panic." My eyes lit up as a bright light enveloped the group of girls. "Rewind…."

Before my eyes, the group of girls' bodies slowly started to grow younger. The youngest girl's height gradually began to lower. Within a matter of minutes, I had rewound time to a point seven years ago. I gave them an extra year just in case. The girls all looked at each other, then at themselves before suddenly bursting out crying. Getting your youth back after it had been taken from you was not something anyone would think was possible, but here they were, back to their past selves before they had been forced into this place.

I had the girls wait until I got a chance to check the basement floor. But what I found there almost made me lose my lunch. A cell where women over their thirties were shoved into. Instead of killing them or anything like that, they shoved over fifty girls into a cell and left them there to starve.

Luckily they were still alive, even if it was only barely. I once more reversed time for these girls bringing them back to their teens. Once more, cries filled the air, and the girls thanked me from the bottom of their hearts.

I sent the girls to the front yard of the castle as I did not plan to send them home just yet. There was no telling if they had a home to go to. So instead, I decided to have the girls stay in this castle and help take over the leadership of the city. I burnt all the rooms besides the study to get rid of any filth. This included the cell with the dead bodies. Of course, I made sure to give a proper send off.

While I could reverse time, I did not know how it would work on dead bodies since I have yet to really have a chance to test it out. In fact, I was slightly scared too. With how Jen and I were able to reincarnate, what if the person I brought back was living happily? What if they came back but were not the same person? Many things felt off to me when thinking about resurrecting the dead.

When everything was taken care of, I used earth magic to rebuild the walls of the castle. Only then did I rejoin the group of girls. "Young Miss!" One of the girls yelled out as she bowed to me, then continued: "We can not thank you enough. You not only recused us but gave us back the thing we cherished the most. Your kindness is something we will never forget."

"You don't need to worry about such things. I just did what should have been done since I have the power to do it. Even if you were all men, I would have still helped you if you were innocent. From this moment on, I will be assigning someone here to take over the position of city lord. I hope you can help him out. While I reversed your age, I did not reverse your minds. I wanted you all to learn from this experience. Learn and take what you can from it, and from now on, grow stronger so no one can do this to you ever again.

"Grow stronger and become someone no one can look down on but still be compassionate to never look down on others. " I wanted these girls to become strong and use their past few years of terror to grow even stronger. I could easily make them forget everything, but I think it was better this way. They would not be naive anymore.

"Young Miss, we are glad you did not erase our memories. While yes, it is something we would rather forget but at the same time, it is something we should not forget. We will do as you say and grow stronger." One of the girls stood forward and said. The others behind her all had determined expressions. If I was not in a hurry, I would want to stay and train these girls. But the most I can do is give them a daily routine to follow and then let them go from there.

"I will be back."

Chapter23 Cleaning Up A Kingdom

I landed in front of a small house with a barrier around it. Sitting on the doorstep was a young man. When he looked up and saw me, I noticed him let out a sigh of relief. I guess he was worried something might have happened to me. I waved my hand and removed the barrier, and bowed my head: "I apologize for locking you in I was doing it to…."

"We know. And we thank you." The young man cut me off. I raised my head and smiled.

"I never got your name. My name is Faith Cyrilia." This man would be perfect for someone to be the city lord. I figured with the help of the girls who had resided in the castle all these years. They could help him along. This was the other reason why I did not erase their memories. Although I am sure, they will figure this out over time.

"My name is Thomas Higgins," Thomas replied.

"Thomas, you own a stall on the street, if I am correct?" I had noticed his wife and him setting up when I was walking towards them before.

"Yes, it is just a small shop, but it gives us just enough to get by," Thomas replied.

"Then Thomas, you are your wife will follow me. This city needs a sensible person who understands the plight of the people. A city lord who will not use his status to do wrong but to help those in need. As such, I would like you to take charge of the city." I said with a smile, causing the young man's face to go blank.

"No! Wait, I am not fit…." I raised my hand, cutting him off. "You know basic math, or else you couldn't run a stall. You know how to read from the books I saw stashed in the corner of your house. And you know how to write as your name is written above your door. These are all the skills you need. And I have many people who can help you along. But just be warned, while they may look young most of them are older than you. I just reversed their age a little."

An hour later, I walked back through the castle gates that now had a crowd forming around them. Inside were the sixty or so girls from early swinging swords. It really seems they took my words to heart. Some barely had any strength to lift the sword, but from the expressions on their faces, they were so determined that even though they were covered in sweat and their arms were shaking, they still forced the sword into the air and swung it down.

"This is?" Thomas looked at the scene in confusion. He had no idea why so many girls were practicing swordsmanship in the front yard of the castle. "They will be your new guards. While they are just starting out, so are you. Plus, as I said, while they look young, they are actually much older. They have all suffered under the hands of the previous city lord. Some actually worked inside the castle, so they would know a few things and should be able to assist you. But do not get any funny ideas. If you cheat on your wife, she will kill you."

"I would never!" Thomas yelled out, causing me to laugh. Even his wife, who was at his side, chuckled.

"Everyone gather up!" I yelled out. The girls all turned and stopped what they were doing. They hurried over to me and bowed. "Young Miss, your orders?"

"I have no orders. From this moment on, Thomas Higgins is your new city lord. I hope you all will support him mentally. Help guide him on the things you know about the city. Those who know math and know how to read will assist him so that he is not overburdened. You will all be learning how to run things together. I want you all to make this city into a place you all have dreamed of. A place where every citizen is able to live fulfilling lives. But always remember, never leave the city short. Keep taxes low but not so low that you can not pay the fees needed to sustain the city.

"A city needs, or even a kingdom for that matter, needs two things to keep it sustained. First is happy citizens! The second is a stable and competent government that is doing its best for the people and not itself. Do not pad your own pockets but do not leave yourself hungry either. There is a fine line that needs to be met, and it is up to you all to figure out where that fine line is. You might make mistakes, but this does not mean you will not learn anything in the process of things. I tomorrow we will address the people of this city. For now, everyone should settle in. I will supply a bit of funds for you all to go out and get necessary items for the castle since I burnt it all except for what is in the library." After finishing my speech, I left the castle and found a spot nearby on a tree branch to lay down. I was actually quite tired. Today was a long day, and many things have happened. But tomorrow, I hope once the sun rises, a new hope will be brought to this city and the people within it.

"I guess I am not really being very demon lordish anymore…." I sighed as I cast a barrier around me and fell asleep…..

The next day things went rather smoothly, and celebrations filled the streets. The citizens were told they could either leave the city if they so wished or stay and try to make a place for everyone. I have no idea how many left, but the city has many citizens who were offering up services. I knew Thomas and the girls had a long road ahead of them.

After leaving the city, I ran into many more incidents like this and cleared them up at the same time. After almost what felt like a month of travel, I arrived at the capital's entrance. I did not go into the city since I needed to wait for the others. My mana was tethered to them, so I knew they had not arrived yet. I am sure they had it just as hard as I did. On the third day, Sophie, Adel, and Iena appeared. They looked very tired.

When Adel saw me, her eyes lit up as she yelled out: "Faith! My love!"

--AN) If you find mistakes in the past two chapters, please let me know. Something came up and did not allow me to edit these chapters very well. I will fix any all mistakes later today.--

Chapter24 Found

As I sat under the tree to wait for the others, Adel and Sophie both snuggled up next to me, hugging my arms. "So, how was it?" I asked. I was curious as to what they had to deal with.

"Ugh…. This kingdom has so many issues. We ended up killing almost all the city and town lords. They were so corrupted and sick…." Adel's beautiful face scrunched up. I reached up and pressed my finger to smooth out her brow wrinkles.

"At least we helped as much as we could. Doing what you can is the only way around things. Our next target is the capital city in front of us. We will see just how this kingdom's king or queen truly is and hopefully find the path to the next floor." I said as I leaned my head on her shoulder, I closed my eyes. I was also tired. It has been busy the past few weeks.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep. I awoke to Sophie drooling on my chest as she hugged my waist, sound asleep, and Adel still hugging my arm while she slept as well. I looked around to see a few more groups had returned. They, too, were resting and looked very much exhausted. Iena was standing in front of me, looking out towards the capital. "Iena, what is it?"

"I feel a faint magic power coming from the castle in the distance, but it seems to be below ground," Iena replied, causing my eyes to open wide. I quickly sent out my detection magic to the spot Iena was talking about to see a very familiar person chained to the wall by some very thick chains. Using my dragon speak, I sent a message over my detection magic: "Father! Are you alive? Say something!"

The man raised his head. He looked ragged, but I would still recognize him. My tears began to well up, seeing how he was okay. "Faith?" His eyes looked dull, and his cheeks were sunken in, which meant he had probably not been fed for a while now.

I stood up, accidentally throwing both girls off me. "You all stay here. I will be back." Without another word, I flapped my wings and flew off towards the city. I am sure everyone was confused because I heard both Sophie and Adel cry out my name, but I had to go. I finally found him. I could not let him suffer anymore!

As I flew over the city, I felt a strong suction force pulling at my mana. I snorted and continued forward. It seemed this city had some kind of defense barrier against people with mana. I wanted to destroy the barrier, but if this barrier was blocking the powerful figures of this floor from being able to cast magic, it was best not to disturb things and make more trouble for myself. There are times when you have to trust your gut instinct.

As I flew over the city, I saw that it was thriving. There were still poor people from what I could see but nothing like the other cities and towns I had been to. This makes me wonder if this ruler is just negligent in checking up on their subordinates. Well, in any case, I could care less. I was going to get my father out of this place and head home. I do not care to finish this dungeon at this time. We have already spent well over three months in this place. I do not wish to continue being here any longer.

When I reached the castle and landed in the area by the dungeon entrance, the first thing that I ran into was a group of guards rushing at me. "Halt! How dare you enter the castle grounds!"

"Out of my way!" I yelled in dragon speak, causing all the guards to stop in their tracks and make a path for me. Dragons are, after all, the rulers of all, or at least this is how I see it.

I entered the dungeon and held my nose after smelling the putrid smell coming from below. It seemed they never cleaned this place. I formed a barrier around my nose to block the smell of the place out as I hovered in the air and flew towards where my father was. He was on the fourth floor of the dungeon in a cell surrounded by darkness.

Anyone who got in my way was controlled with dragon speak and was very obedient in getting out of my way. When I reached the cell where my father was, I smashed the door open to see his figure chained to the wall. I could tell his mana was just about to be depleted. I quickly tethered him to my mana to keep it from being drained away and flew over to his side.

"Father…." My tears began to well up. If I knew this was happening to him, I would have ignored the people and flown directly here….

"Faith?" My father looked up at me. His eyes were slightly dull. I ripped the chains up off the wall and shattered the cuffs on his hands and feet. My anger began to rise. These people….. I took a deep breath…. And forced a smile: "Father…. We will go home now, okay?"

"Mmmm…" My father nodded before passing out in my arms.

I flew out of the dungeon and up into the air. I wanted to destroy this castle, but I knew getting my father out of this place was my top priority. I flew out of the city without issue and landed down on the ground in front of everyone. "Faith this…."

"We are leaving. Our task here is done." I said as I adjusted my father and began walking towards running towards the exit.

"Faith, Steven, and Grace have yet to return," Sally shouted behind me. I turned and looked at Iena. Iena nodded and disappeared: "Let's go."

The others all stared at me in confusion but still followed behind me. We ran at full speed towards the exit. By the time we reached the spot we entered from, both Steven and Grace were being carried in Iena's arms. "What happened?"

Chapter25 Did Not Mind

"One of the towns was filled with wraiths. I found the two struggling to ward them off. There were too many of them, and Grace does not have many attack options." Iena reported. I frowned and decided to try to figure out some attack spells for her.

"Alright. We will head back now." The two were only exhausted from continuous fighting. So they will be fine. But I will be scolding them later because they could have sent a signal on the mana tether that they were in danger.

We were able to leave the dungeon in four days' time. We ran nonstop towards the exit of each room until we finally exited the dungeon. I turned and made a thirty layer barrier over the dungeon so no one could enter it or leave. "I want a bath…." Amanda complained. I could agree with her. I also wanted a bath.

"We can take turns when we get to my house, for now, let's just head there…." I said as I adjusted my grip on the father once more. He had yet to awaken even once since I found him. I could see his mana pool was filling up, but his body was still weak. I do not know what they did to him, but I have tried using rewind on him, but it doesn't seem to do anything, and there is no status effect on him.

I talked with Iena about it, but she also did not see anything wrong with him. Grace even cast her healing magic on him a few times, but nothing came out of it. My only guess was that he was exhausted. I will also have Diablo take a look, just in case.

"Faith!" A cry came out as soon as I walked towards the door of my house. My mother came running outside with tears in her eyes. She ran right up to me and hugged me tightly. "Faith… You found him…."

"Mmm…. Currently, he is asleep. I do not know what happened, but he has been asleep for a few days. Let's take him inside." I used one arm to pat her back. I looked up to see my brother and Rachel standing there. My brother's eyes were watering up. I could see he was happy that we returned.

A few hours later, inside my room, I had just finished taking a bath and was now currently talking with Diablo. "So anything?"

"Just exhaustion. From what I can see, he has not slept for many nights. On top of having his mana forcefully sucked out of him, it took a large toll on his body. Rewind wouldn't be able to return him to a better state due to the mana being forced out of his body. It seems the spell is unable to rewind mana itself.

"He will need a few years of having mana nourishing his bones and muscles before he will return to his previous state. But one good thing is that his mana pool has expanded quite a bit. I do not know how he did it, but he was able to successfully safeguard the last bit of mana he had in his mana pool, allowing him to draw in what little mana was in the air around him. I think the dungeon helped him greatly in this aspect." Diablo explained, causing me to relax a bit. He was still passed out. But with a bit of mana therapy which was just infusing his body with a bit of mana, his complexion looked much better.

"Thank you for suffering during this time, Diablo. I know I put a heavy burden on you. But my mother trusted you, and I needed someone strong here in case anything happened." I was really thankful to Diablo for what he had done.

"You are my master, and your command is something I have to follow. But please, I beg you not to force me to do this again! Your mother kept pestering me on when our wedding would be and when we would bring home grandbabies." Diablo's expressions as making it hard to laugh, but at the same time, the way he was speaking made me feel a little irked. I mean, am I that bad!?

"So you are saying I am not marriageable material!?" I asked with a huff. Having a handsome man say such things was just a blow to my womanly pride!

"No, Master, it is not like that. It is just that…." Diablo scratched his head, causing me to smile and laugh. Seeing him flustered was quite amusing. It kinda made me want to kiss him to see just how it would feel to kiss a man and to also make him even more flustered.

Now that I was thinking about it, I realized I really needed to figure this out, if kissing a man was any different from the kisses I got from Sophie and Adel… I looked up at Diablo again and stared at his lips. I bit my lip and leaned forward and pressed mine against his before quickly pulling back. I touched my lips with my hand feeling the lingering warmth. Just like when Sophie and Adel kissed me, it was warm and soft…. I turned to look at Diablo, who seemed to have frozen in place with pink cheeks. It was only then that things really hit me. "Ahh! Sorry, I just…."

"Master, if you will excuse me!" Diablo stood straight up and dashed out of the room. I couldn't help but chuckle. To be honest, his actions were quite cute. However, I do wonder how he will act around me from now on. But I did kind of do that out of the blue. It will probably be awkward for a while. But I would rather kiss Diablo than someone else. At least with Diablo, it would be safe since he will always be around me and has a contract with me. But I did come to the conclusion that I did not mind kissing boys or girls. I guess that would make me bi? I sighed as I laid back on my bed. "I need to really figure this all out. I promised Sophie and Adel, and now... Diablo...."

Chapter26 Making A Decision Part 1

"Faith! Your father!" Adel burst into my room and yelled.

I quickly jumped up from my bed with a worried expression as I hurriedly asked: "What happened?"

"He woke up. He is asking for you." Adel replied while grabbing my hand and dragging me to my parents' room.

I walked in to see my mother at his side, hugging his waist. My father was sitting up, but he still looked very weak. "Father!"

"Faith…." My father looked at me and smiled. "Thank you…."

"You idiot!" I yelled out. "How could you dive into a dungeon by yourself!? What if you died!? What if…."

I couldn't hold back my tears as I joined my mother in hugging him. I was just so happy he was awake and that he was alive and well. But it still did not mean I was done scolding him. "Ahem… Master, I know you are happy, but I suggest you ask him what happened." Diablo's voice entered my ears. I looked up and blushed slightly as I remembered what I had done before. Diablo also seemed to have blushed as he averted his eyes. But I still nodded and sat up.

"Father, what happened? How did you end up in the dungeon?" I asked.

"It was strange. I was perfectly fine until I stepped into the city. As I did, the mana in my body began to be sucked out without any resistance. I had to employ a technique my grandfather taught me to protect what little I had left. But I ended up collapsing. The next time I came too, I was chained to a wall. I have no idea why." My father answered. But I had a few guesses.

"I think they thought you were a demon. Anyone with mana seems to be a demon to those people. If I am correct, the planet that that kingdom comes from probably had two or more races. Demons and humans, at the minimum. And the human population set up such a barrier to keep the capital safe in case of a demon invasion. Of course, this is just an assumption, and that could have just been the final floor, and the king is like the final boss." I replied. Everything I said was just speculation. There can be many number of reasons why that barrier was in place. But these reasons seemed the most sound.

"No more dungeon talk. Your father will never enter a dungeon again!" My mother's voice was strict, with no room for argument.

"You are right…. We will give you two time alone. Father, you need to rest for the next year and take in the mana around you to regain your strength." I said as I stood up and grabbed Diablo's arm before he could run away.

"Alright, I will listen to you." My father replied with a smile. I nodded and dragged Diablo out of the room to mine once more and closed the door on the two girls who were following.

"Master…." Diablo's voice sounded behind me.

I turned and bowed my head. "I am sorry about earlier. I should not have done that out of the blue like that. I wanted to know how it felt to kiss a guy, and you were the only one who came to mind when I thought about kissing someone. Not to mention you're handsome, so my first kiss with a guy was with you...."

I scratched my head. I felt like I was kind of making excuses even though it was the truth. "So anyway, I am sorry…."

"Master, it is fine. It was just unexpected, and it was also my first…. It's not like I hated it either…. It's just... Never mind... Just know it is fine." Diablo replied, his ears going red. I couldn't help but blush as well.

"Ahem…." I cleared my throat and smiled at Diablo. "We got people listening in, so if you do not want to be bombarded with questions, it's best if you escape first. But just know, I also did not hate it. It felt nice...."

Diablo scratched his head before patting me on the top of mine and disappearing. I smiled and turned and opened the door to have three girls fall on the floor, looking up at me with aggrieved expressions. "Faith, you said you would help me!" Iena was the first to speak.

I sighed and knelt down, and wiped the tears from her eyes. "You heard everything?"

"Mm…." Iena replied, nodding her head.

"It was just something that happened." I really did not know my own feelings, and I was just doing it out of wanting to know how it felt. I guess I should have thought it through more, but to be honest, if it was not Diablo, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

"But…" Iena looked really sad. I pulled her close and looked her in the eye before pushing my lips against hers. "There now, I kissed you too. So it's like you had an indirect kiss with Diablo."

Iena's eyes went wide, and her cheeks turned red. Adel and Sophie both looked at me with wide eyes. "Faith… You! You!"

"Hmmm? Didn't you two do the same to me? You two were the ones who turned me into a kissing monster!" I said jokingly as I helped Iena up. Iena was blushing like crazy as she kept looking at me and looking away. Is it just me, or are all demons cute when you kiss them?

"You!" Adel stomped her feet and jumped on me, knocking me over, with Sophie following right after her. They both took a cheek and kissed it.

"Alright, let me up!" I said as I pried them both off. "I am not one hundred percent sure about my own feelings. But... I already promised Sophie I would really think about it now. And I also do not wish to worry my mother."

"You really mean it!?" Both Sophie and Adel asked at the same time. Their eyes were beginning to brim with tears.

I smiled and reached out to the girls, taking one of their hands into mine, and nodded my head. "I am still young and am not the best at relationship things, but I think as we slowly walk down this path, we will probably all end up as one big happy family. But I promise you I will not make you wait long before I give you my final answer. The same for you, Iena. " I turned to Iena and looked at her. She lowered her head and gave a slight nod. If something really did form between Diablo and me, then I would feel bad for Iena as I know she likes him. So the only way to rectify it would be to bring her into the family? Wait, why does this sound like something a harem protagonist would do!?

--AN) Please give me feedback on this chapter and the next one. I have been having a hard time deciding how I wanted the romance to flow, so please give me your input after reading the next chapter. Thank you.--

Chapter27 Making A Decision Part 2

"Ahhh! When did I become such a gigolo!?" I cried out. Adel and Sophie giggled while Iena blushed.

"Alright. So, for now, we will just take things slow. But Iena…. About Diablo…." I probably shouldn't continue this conversation, but I still felt like I should say something.

"It's okay…. Master…." Iena took my hand and knelt down and kissed the top of it, flipped it over, and then kissed the palm. I tilted my head to the side since I did not understand this gesture. I knew it was something similar to what a knight would do, but this was different, and I was not sure what it meant for a demon. "A kiss is like a proposal and seals the deal between a demon couple for marriage. What I just did is a symbol of devotion. It means my body and heart are for you to do as you please with. It's the final step in a demon marriag.... "

"Iena!" Diablo's voice roared out, causing Iena to grow stiff. "Why did you go and tell her!?"

"I…." Iena lowered her head. I sighed as I pulled her behind me and looked at Diablo. "Don't yell at her."

Diablo's lips pursed, but he stopped glaring at her. He then bent down on one knee as well and took my hand and kissed it just like Iena did. "Even though we are bound by a contract, this is different. This means you own our everything. Including our hearts."

Diablo stood up and turned around, took two steps before pausing: "What you decided to do is now up to you. Whether you keep things as they are or go a step further, we will both abide by your decision."

I watched as Diablo walked out of the room with a blank expression. I think I really just did something irreversible. Did he not want me to know because it would put a heavy burden on my shoulders? Did he not want me to think I was forced to be with them? While I was lost in thought, both my hands were taken by Adel and Sophie, who kissed them the same way as Diablo and Iena. What the hell! You are not even demons!

"You two!" I yelled out, only for them to stick their tongues out at me. I sighed and turned to look at Iena. "Don't worry about it. He doesn't really blame you. He was probably hiding it for my sake."

"Mmm… He can be very strict at times but also very soft, especially towards you." Iena had a depressed look, but that was not much I could do about that. I had no idea such a thing was part of demon culture, never mind it being a marriage thing. But why did Diablo seal the deal? Did that mean he liked me in such a way?

"I am sorry, Iena, I really didn't know…." I felt like I should apologize.

"It's fine. I know you didn't know, but I decided, since I actually did not hate it, that it was fine, and I felt that since you are my master that if I was with you, everything would work out. While I do like His Highness, I also know my chances of being with him are also very slim. I also could have dodged your kiss, but I kind of blanked out and allowed it to happen. So this is also my fault as well. I also could have kept quiet about it all as well. But I still made my decision as sudden as it was.

But do not worry. Even if you only wish for us to be master and servant as we are now, I do not mind. I will always follow by your side. Demon culture is strange, but this is just how we are. I even hesitated to follow through with the last part just now because I was unsure of what to do. But I did not dislike the kiss or you, so I decided to go through with the final step. I should be the one to apologize to you." Iena explained as she blushed. I smiled and reached up and patted the top of her head. This girl was quite strange indeed. She is too spontaneous. Marriage is not something you just jump into! But I guess demon culture is like this... At least, it is not something you can formally say is legitimate in this world.

"While I did wish I knew about all of this beforehand, it has made me understand one thing...." I looked at the other girls and continued: "All of you listen. I will say this once. Love is not something that can be easily acquired in a day or two. It may take time, but this just means I will need to try to foster this feeling from now on."

"Faith, you mean?" Adel's eyes showed a bit of expectation.

"From this moment on, we can all be considered to be in a relationship. Every one of you, including Diablo. Whether or not I can fully fall in love is another story. This is because I have never fallen in love with anyone. I only know what familial love is but not love between two people who wish to start a family together. This is all new to me, so let me take things slowly…." This was the answer I have finally decided upon. Now knowing that demons had some weird cultural habit where kissing someone was sealing the deal in a proposal, I might as well give it a try and see where this all leads. Maybe…. Maybe this will change the futures I have seen in my dreams. But really... how come my first relationship is starting off with four people?

---

With my father now rescued, it was time to head back to the capital. We had already been gone for a few months, and I needed to catch up on my classes. I missed a lot which means I will need to get notes from someone so I can catch up. Before I left, I did set up a teleport in my bedroom in a corner with a barrier around it that would only allow my family to use it. It was the best place in the house since it was the only room not used. My brother had already built an addition for Leo, my baby nephew, for his bedroom.

Now I just needed to set up a connection point in my house so that my family could come and visit me at any time or would have a place to escape to if things went wrong. I also changed the runic equation a bit to have a method of destroying the other access point if something does happen. But this was for emergency use only.

We did not rush back. While we did travel faster than most, we still took another three months to return. We had a long journey this time. But luckily, everything turned out okay. My father just needed to rest, and he would be back to his top form within a year. My family will now be only a teleport away, so I can see them anytime I want, and they can come see me at any time. Things were much better than before.

But as soon as I stepped foot through the door of my estate, Jen was there to greet me with a message: "Faith, the Dean asked me to tell you to see him right away. Something has happened."

Chapter28 New Movements

"Don't tell me my sister's brother's mother's ex-husband dived into a dungeon." I know I was being a wiseass, but I couldn't help it. I just dived into a dungeon, and now I am here. Which reminds me, I didn't even get to let X7 out yet.

"What? No! The Prime Minister, along with a few lower noble families, have disappeared." The Dean replied, which caused me to be very much confused.

"Diablo!" I called out. We had a shadow following that stupid man, so how did he just disappear!?

"Yes, master." Diablo appeared in front of me.

"Is the shadow you summoned still following the Prime Minister?" I asked.

"It hasn't moved for a long time. And is looking at the Prime Minister…. Wait… something feels off." Diablo waved his hand, causing an image of what the shadow was seeing to appear in front of us in the middle of the room. "If I am not wrong, this is an illusion."

"It is an illusion," I said after watching the same motions happening over and over. "My guess is that the Prime Minister noticed the shadow a long time ago or someone close to him noticed it, and this was why he laid low. But when I left the capital to save my father, he took this chance to escape leaving this illusion that seems to be able to confuse the shadow's senses. I think there is a person backing the Prime Minister…."

I did not like the thought that there might be someone lying in the shadows that we did not know about. If it is Azengrade, then we might be in trouble, but I do not think it would be him. I at least hope it is not.

"You can call the shadow back. There is no need for it to still be there. The Prime Minister, as far as I can tell, is no longer in the capital either. So we will need to wait to see what his next move is. Dean, have you talked with the King?" I asked. I was unsure if it was the Dean who was the first to find out or if it was the King.

"It was the King who told me to talk with you. He did not wish for anyone else to know of this except for you and those close to you and his own trusted people." The Dean replied.

I nodded and turned to Adel. "Adel, we are going to the castle. To be safe, those of the royal family living in the castle will be staying at my house. Court will be held in the meeting hall of my house as well. Diablo, you and Iena are to stay by the King's side. Right now, protecting his life is something we must ensure. Everyone who passes through my barrier will be scanned by it, not allowing those in with bad intentions. Right now, we are putting everyone on high alert."

"Faith, is it necessary to go so far?" Adel asked. She looked confused and worried.

"Mmm… If I am not wrong. A civil war may break out at any time." I answered. "I do hope I am wrong, but…." Just thinking of the dreams I have had, I think this is the most probable scenario. Whether it happens tomorrow or a few years from now. To keep those in power who care for the people, it is better to take them under my roof and protect them at all costs.

"I see… But I do not think my father will do as you ask…. Can't you just set up barriers and stuff in the castle itself?" Adel asked. It was true that I could, but I still felt insecure. If I am not in close proximity and someone breaks my barriers, then what? I would rather him be under the continuous watch of Diablo and Iena, who can protect him around the clock under my roof where I can reach him faster.

"While what you say is true, the fact still remains that my estate is the safest place for him. This would mean all the heirs to the throne are under one roof, and unless it is Azengrade himself, no one can even get close to them. It is better to cluster together where the strongest in the kingdom reside, than be separated during this time." I explained.

"I see… You will need to persuade him then because he will not listen to me." Adel replied with a sigh.

"Hehe… I will just kidnap the King then!" I said with a bright smile. It would be very much amusing to princess carry the King for the entire capital to see.

Adel held her head as she gazed up at me. "Are you trying to take revenge for him appointing you as an heir to the throne!?"

"No!" I quickly looked away. That thought never crossed my mind. Well, maybe just a little…. "Let's go!" I said as I grabbed Adel's and Sohpie's hands and walked out of the Dean's office. Since I said I was going to do this, I was going to do it!

"Both of you hold on tight," I said as I wrapped my hand around the two girl's waists. I didn't plan to walk to the castle since flying was easier. The two girls hugged me as I flapped my wings and flew through the air towards the castle. "When we get to the throne room, let me do the talking."

"I didn't plan to say anything anyway since I know he would ignore my opinion on it anyways. Only you can make him change his mind. Sometimes I wonder just who his real daughter is." Adel replied with a bit of bitterness in her voice.

"I already have a father, so you can keep him," I replied and stuck my tongue out.

"I don't want him either!" Adel replied with pursed lips. "Ah, right. Sophie and I will move into your room. My father can take my old room."

"Alright. It's not like we haven't all shared a room before anyways. Just know that Grace is strict. When the sun comes up, she will yank you out of bed whether you want to get up or not…."

Chapter29 Preparing For Everything

When we arrived at the castle, we walked unimpeded directly to the throne room. The servants and guards in the castle now all knew who I was, so even without Adel at my side, I could still pass by them without a problem.

The guard at the door to her throne room quickly opened it and announced our arrival. "Princess Adel, Princess Cyrilia, and Miss Sophie have arrived!"

We walked through the door to see many more knights than usual in the room, as well as many nobles. "Adel. Faith, I heard you were successful in finding your father."

"Yes, thankfully. But this is not why we have arrived." I said as I stepped forward and bowed slightly to show my respect. Adel and Sophie did the same. "I am here to have you moved to my estate for safety."

"Thank the gods you are here, Princess Cyrilia. Please talk some sense into His Majesty!" A noble cried out. I turned to look at him feeling a bit confused. "What happened?"

"We thought the same thing. I am sure you are here because you have spoken to the Dean. We can only rely on you to protect the royal family. Only you have the capabilities. But His Majesty is being too stubborn! We asked him to talk to you about it, but he rejected it!" The noble looked very much worried about the king, which gave me a good feeling about him.

"You! You traitor! Who rules this kingdom, her or me!?" The king yelled out.

"It would be best if it was her, but she doesn't want it!" The noble retorted while the other nobles all nodded their heads.

"Oi! You're going to give him ideas!" I quickly shouted out to stop this train of events.

"Tch!" I could have sworn I heard someone click their tongue. I looked up at the King, who was now looking out the window as if the clouds were absolutely amazing, but sadly, there were no damn clouds!

"You old fox! Listen here, stop trying to trap me!" I yelled while stomping my feet.

"Haha!" Adel burst out laughing. I ignored her and tried to bring things back on track. "Anyway! I am here to bring you to my estate. It is the safest place now that things have turned out like this. And I am not taking no for an answer. I do not care if I have to use dragon speak or even put you to sleep while I princess carry you out of here. You are going to my house one way or another."

"Faith, if I do recall, I am the king here." The king looked at me with firm eyes. I rolled mine as I replied: "Then act like one! Plus, I am stronger than you. What can you do to me?"

"Fine, I will go! But spare me the princess carry." The king replied with a furrowed brow. Whether he was happy or not didn't matter. This was something that had to be done.

"This is not only just for you. Every one of you nobles and your families will be settling into my estate in ten days' time. I will be creating new places for you all to stay. We can not have those who manage the kingdom either turn traitor or be killed while things are up in the air on what is going on. But be warned, if you have ill intentions and you pass through my barrier, you will die." The last part I said coldly because I wanted these people to understand that this was a do or die moment. If they refused, they would be deemed traitors as well. If they agreed, they would be brought to my estate to be protected. I could only hope that the people still at the king's side were still good people.

"What happens if we refuse to go to your estate?" One of the noble men asked. This was a normal question, so I did not think of him as someone who was a traitor or not, so I have no issues answering this question. In fact, I was happy he asked such a question because it meant that I could instill more fear into these people.

"You and your family will all be wiped out just like during the trial. No blood relatives above a certain age will be allowed to live, and those too young to have anything to do with anything as long as they are clean will have their memory wiped and will work for one of my companies." I looked at everyone there, but not a single person averted their eyes from me. "I will say this now. Right now, we are in dangerous times. Civil war could break out at any moment if the Prime Minister decides to make a move. We do not know if he has built up a massive army or not. We do not know what he has planned or who his backer is. Just know that we need to be ready for anything, and anyone not complying with orders at this time will be deemed a traitor.

"I hate doing things this way. It is a tyrant's path of action, but we have no other path we can take. We must first try to protect our citizens. After I settle things here, I will be putting a barrier up around the capital. With Little Bell's help, I will be able to pinpoint every town and city in the kingdom and stick a barrier around them as well. I will do my utmost to protect the citizens of this kingdom. But let me tell you, I do not have time to play games. I still need to take classes at the academy after all." I still wanted to continue my daily life. If civil war were to break out, I could be sure the citizens of the towns, villages, and cities were all protected. A barrier will be put around each of them. But this will only keep those from the outside from harming anyone. If they leave and try to come back, they will be checked if they have ill intentions towards the kingdom. If they do, they will die. But I have a feeling that we will not be attacked from within the population of the kingdom. But outside it from the neighboring kingdoms.

Chapter30 As The World Comes Down Part 1

After a long day, I finally got home. I asked Diablo to use his magic to create a new building for the nobles. They were not too happy with the simple apartments, but they had no choice but to deal with it.

All of the royals were also here in another building that was much fancier. Adel had planned to give her father her room, but he rejected it and said he would make due with an apartment style residence. This did not stop Adel and Sophie from moving into my room, though. Which I was fine with. I am quite used to sleeping with these two anyway.

I do wonder if my future will change now that I have decided to date these two. Would I still be lonely with only Grace at my side in the future? Or will I have little Adels and Sophie's running around? As for Diablo and Iena…. Well, I am not sure how I feel about them. I did not mind kissing either of them, but I did not have any feelings that remotely resembled love towards either of them. So while I did say they were part of the relationship, it is only for now while I try to work out my own feelings.

It was a long day with many things happening. Some of the nobles have huge families! The buildings we made are almost like skyscrapers to the point that I had to extend the original barrier I set up to be much taller. I even had to long distance cast more barriers around the city and towns in the kingdom.

But now, after much hard work, I can finally relax. I was currently in my bathroom in the large bath sitting back, soaking in the hot water. Next to me, leaning their heads on my shoulders, were Sophie and Adel. Each interlocking their fingers with mine. "It's strange I will be fifteen soon, and I feel like I just turned fourteen the other day."

"We have been busy, and diving into the dungeon took a lot longer than we had expected," Adel said as she played with my fingers.

"Mmm… You will soon be an adult as well, which means we can get married and have many foxkin!" Sophie, who has been much more forward as of late, said with a big grin.

"Sophie, we are all girls. We can't have babies as of yet." I replied, causing her to look at me with a blank expression. I do wonder if Sophie knows how babies are made but probably not from the way she is looking at me.

"What? Don't we just need to do a deep kiss to make a baby?" Sophie asked, causing me to wish I had a third hand so I could hold my head.

"Ummm… Ask Adel. She will explain it to you later." I was not going to try to explain this to her. I leave it to you, Adel, my sacrifice!

"Faith!" Adel cried out. I looked up at the ceiling of the bath, not daring to make eye contact with her, but I soon felt a sharp pinch in my side: "Ouch!"

"Humph!" Adel snorted as she leaned over and whispered into Sophie's ear. Sophie's face blushed as she suddenly cried out: "Then how can we start a family!?"

"We will figure something out if we ever get to that point. Right now, we are only dating." I said as I raised my hand that she was holding and poked her forehead. "You shouldn't get too far ahead of yourself just yet. First of all, we are on the brink of civil war if the Prime Minister decides to make a move. We should worry about bettering ourselves and making new spells just in case."

"Oh…. Mmm… Sorry." Sophie lowered her head, her ears dropping to the side. I know she was depressed, but this was just how it was.

"Faith is right. We have all the time in the world. We need to work on leveling up after this crisis is over. We need larger mana pools so we can live as long as Faith does. We do not want to have her feel regret for being with us if we die of old age." Adel seemed to understand some of my worries. I guess I should have guessed this since she has been watching me this entire time.

After our bath, Adel and I both fluffed Sophie's fluffy tail since it was so soft and fluffy. But on this night, since it was our first time alone after we started dating, both Adel and Sophie took turns giving me a deep kiss. It was my first time ever kissing anyone like that, and to be honest, I liked it. We did not go any further than that, but we did end up kissing a few times before we finally decided to sleep.

I never thought I would be in a relationship. I was very much against it from the start due to probably living forever because of my infinite mana. But now that I was in one, I did not mind it. Both girls have been at my side for years. They have always put me first before everything, and I hope one day I can truly return their feelings with my entire heart. I just wish I knew what true love was. Because even now, while these two girls cuddled up next to me with content smiles on their faces, I still did not know if I loved them or not.

But one thing I do know is that I do not wish to make them sad. So I will do my best to try to figure out where my heart lies no matter what. I just wish things would stop cropping up and allow me more time to really figure out my own feelings.

Sadly things never seem to go the way I want…. Because the next day, while having breakfast with everyone, a loud explosion was heard across the entire kingdom. At the same time, the teleport array in my house went off, and my brother's voice could be heard from the other room. "Faith!"

Chapter31 As The World Comes Down Part 2

"Faith, where are you? You need to heal, Mother!" Hearing my brother's panicked voice, I rushed into the teleporter room to see my mother's body half burnt and that she was missing a leg. My eyes went wide seeing such a scene. My father was also in serious condition as well. I ran over and quickly began using rewind on the both of them. "What the hell happened!?"

"We don't know. We were suddenly attacked with a strange spell that ignored the barrier that you set up. It destroyed the entire village. We only survived long enough to get out due to the barrier you put around the village and house that slowed the spell. But everyone else…." My brother's lip trembled. He held my nephew in one of his arms, while Rachel stood there shivering in the other.

I waved my hand, erasing the teleportation runic inscription on the floor so no one else could make use of it. If they could ignore the barriers to the point that it only slowed the attack down, then there is a mage with great power out there. "There… they should be okay now…." I said as I looked at the leg that reappeared on my mother. Her wounds and my father's wounds also were fully restored but they were still passed out. Luckily they would wake up soon.

"Little Bell!" I called out.

"Yes?" Little Bell appeared in front of me, rubbing her eyes.

"Can you tell me the status of the cities and towns in the kingdom? Have any of them been attacked?" I asked. If I could get a grasp of the extent of the damage, I could figure out the next plan of action.

"Only your village was attacked, but there is a massive army entering the Kingdom with strange machines on carts being pulled by monsters. They are coming in from the Norian Kingdom." Little Bell replied, causing me to bite my lip. Strange machines? Did they actually find them in a dungeon, or was this something else?

"Alright…. Annie, can you get some of the maids to prepare Adel's and Sophi's old rooms for my family?" I asked. I had no time to spare because a meeting needed to be held right away.

"Yes, Boss!" Annie quickly ran off.

"Brother, you will be led to a room in a bit to settle everyone down. If Mother and Father wake up, tell them to stay put." I said before standing up and turning around. I looked at the King, who nodded at me and quickly left the room.

In a newly built meeting room, myself, everyone on my team, The king and the nobles of the court, along with the generals of the army, were all sitting around a long table. I was standing at the head of it as I waved my hand, revealing the destruction of my home village. "This is what is left of my home, Cyrilia Village."

Gasps filled the room. Even I couldn't help but grit my teeth. Only my family was able to get out. Everyone who was kind to me was now dead. I was already doing my best to hold my anger in. My ancient will was begging to come out, but I repressed her. But this did not mean I did not plan to avenge everyone who died for no reason. So many kind people…. Auntie Finna, who used to give me cookies…. They will all be avenged.

"As you can see, the village was attacked, and now a massive army has entered our kingdom from the Norian Kingdom. They have strange mounted weapons which I believe were used to attack my home village. But on top of a massive army of soldiers…." I switched the view. The magic I was using was a combination of my detection magic and illusion magic which allowed everyone to see what I was seeing.

"The army is not just humans or demi humans but also monsters. They number in the hundreds of millions, maybe even a billion. Our world is big and vast, and the number of people living in any kingdom can be hundreds of millions to tens of billions, depending on the kingdom. So it is not strange to see this, but the force they built is something we will need to face head on. While watching our backs since we do not know if any other kingdom will attack in union with them. General Briggs…." I called out one of the generals.

"Can you secure our rear borders with your men?" I asked.

"Princess Cyrilia, you can count on me and my men to hold the line." General Briggs replied with a salute. One may ask why I was the one giving the orders, and that is because the King pushed all the responsibility onto me.

"I thank you. I will have part of Mr. Blob's subordinates join you as well. Keep one at your side at all times to give me updates since they can send me the information through my mana link." This was basically an army of slimes that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. While they may seem weak, they were actually all over level one hundred now.

"That would be a big help." General Briggs replied with a funny expression, but well, whatever, he will understand their worth when the time comes.

"General Hanson, you will take the north, and General Harris, you will take the south. You will each get a part of Mr. Blob's subordinates, and as I said to General Brigg, keep one on you at all times so you can relay messages back and forth." After appointing the generals to their locations, I looked at the king and said: "I will go to the front lines with the rest of our forces."

"Are you going to be able to handle it?" The king asked as he gave me a deep look.

"We are fighting the unknown. How am I supposed to know if I can handle it? All I know is I need to do what I can to protect the kingdom I have come to love. Protect the people who only wish to live out their lives in peace. The one behind this attack was probably the Prime Minister and the nobles who followed him. Even if I must destroy the entire Norian Kingdom, I will drag that bastard out from under his rug and cut off his head. If it isn't him, then I will find out who is and still do the same."

Chapter32 As The World Comes Down Part 3

"Just be careful. I know Adel will be going with you, so I hope you can try to protect her. I know it is asking a lot because the battlefield has many unforeseen events, but I still hope for not only her but you as well to return alive." I could understand where the king was coming from. His only daughter was going off to battle. Even if I tried to keep Adel from going, she would still sneak out.

But I do have one thing to say about this. "I will protect her no matter what, even if it means going against the gods themselves and bringing her back from the dead." Adel and I still have not tested it, but I am pretty sure rewind can do just that. I would snatch Adel back from the dead even if it meant going against the gods doing so.

"I will hold you to that…." The King replied while closing his eyes and continuing: "This kingdom will once again be under your protection. I wish you luck and hope we can reduce casualties as much as possible. "

"We can only hope…." Yes, we can only hope.

---

I set up a one hundred layer spinning barrier around the capital. Now knowing the enemy has a weapon that can ignore my barriers, I do hope I can reduce its power at the very least. I wish I had more time to come up with a different spell that could be used to ward it off, but at this time, I do not have any time to waste. I had just finished creating a massive teleport runic inscription that was going to begin transporting troops to the front lines.

This war was going to be unlike any war this continent had ever seen. The number of people that were involved was no small number. Sadly though, we were outnumbered by a lot. And I mean a lot. Diablo and Iena were being left in the capital to protect it. Over ten million soldiers were stationed around the Spirits' domain. We have sixty percent of our forces stationed in different directions of the kingdom, all so we do not leave any side open.

This means an army of a little under a hundred million would be facing an army that was hundreds of millions to maybe even a billion large. Such an army is unthinkable. It seems fake, but if you include all the monsters they have that outnumber the number of humans and demi humans in their group, then it really becomes believable. No country on Earth during my past life could have such an army. The size and scale of such a battle is something one could only see in fantasy stories.

And right now, I was currently flying at top speed, making my way to the front line to create a teleportation circle to allow our small army to arrive quickly. I was about a hundred miles away from the actual enemy army. I had to make sure our front line could dig in before they fully arrived. While I felt bad for the people that were about to suffer in the towns and cities in their path, there was nothing I could do about it.

Right now, some had to be sacrificed. I could only hope that they could hide and stay safe until we could push the enemy back. It pains me to think that many will suffer, but there is no other choice.

I worked quickly and created a large teleportation magic circle in the ground and quickly used it to return to the others. Only then did we start moving our military to our front lines. No one wasted time. An underground camp was quickly created by those good in earth magic, and trenches were being dug as all. Magic was quite handy in times of war. Things were almost fully set up in just under two hours. From the time of the initial attack until now, it has been a total of five hours.

I turned and looked up at the uniformly standing groups of soldiers and sighed because they were all waiting for me to make a motivational speech. In such a war that we were about to run head first into, a speech would be needed. "I will say this now. I can't promise that you will all make it back. But we will do our damnedest to push the enemy back out of our country and make them pay. So this way, if you do die, your lives and the effort you all put in will not be in vain. We are the Kingdom of Gravos! A place where people of all races can come and live with our discrimination! We hold ideals that many hate, but it is those same ideals that have allowed us to unite under one banner. Let's show these Norian bastards or whoever they are that our Gravos Kingdom is not a place they can just walk into and do as they please!"

A loud roar filled the air, but I raised my hand to quiet them down. "We are currently dealing with an unknown weapon or spell. It can pass right through the barriers I myself have created. My own parents almost fell victim to this weapon or spell. Whatever it is, we will still need to march forth into the unknown. So, please... Keep on your toes. Stay alive and keep fighting. I will be there on the front lines leading the way. I will not retreat until I am dead. Let's begin our death march!"

Another loud roar filled the air. Death march. This is the right term for it because we are walking into the unknown. We do not know what lies ahead of us. But we do know that we will be fighting for our lives and for the people who can only hope and pray that we will succeed. I hope that whoever the enemy is this time that they are not as powerful as Azengrade. Or that it is not him behind it all. But I do know one thing. I will take out all my enemies to the very last one of them this time around. I have already steeled myself to an understanding that the Norian Kingdom can be no more.

Chapter33 War Rages

"Watch your heads! We got incoming!" The war had already started. I still do not know who was the one who started this whole thing, but when I find them, I will definitely kill them.

There are three things that I have realized about this current battle. First is that barriers are basically useless against the enemy's strange weapons. Second, they have a group of mages who are creating mutli layered barriers around the weapons, which is keeping long ranged attacks from hitting the weapons. Third is that we can stop the attacks from the weapons if we use fire magic on them and blow up whatever is benign shot at us before it reaches us. I have a squad of fire mages whose only duty is to stop any of those new weapons from harming our people.

But besides these few things, I still have not determined what they are using for ammo or if it is some kind of mana infused cannon. It could be anything at this rate. We currently can't get close enough to do anything. I really want to move forward myself, but I have to command this army. They are all counting on me to give them proper directions.

"Another volley! Barriers up!" I yelled out. "Melee, focus on monsters and foot soldiers! Mages, keep barriers up and ignore the enemy mages! Just keep the spinning barriers up that I taught you all!" One good thing about this army is that our mages are very capable. I only taught two people how to do the spinning barrier that I created, and each one of them is now able to cast it, and it is all we need to protect our people. In other words, we can ignore the enemy mages' attacks making our advancement easier.

We have only gained a few miles of ground, but that is still a few miles when we are already this outnumbered. I have not been slacking, either. I have about one hundred grand falls smashing into the barriers they are keeping up around the strange weapons. If things work out, I will be able to keep their barrier mages busy long enough to wipe out the rest of their army. Because along with the grand falls, I have a barrage of fireballs and gates of faithylon raining down on the enemy as well.

One thing I am happy about is that I do not see anyone with lines on their faces. But I have made sure of one thing. Both Adel and Sophie are at my side. If I am correct, according to my dreams, this is the war that Sophie….

"Faith, are you going to be okay? You are using a lot of magic, and on top of that, you have tethered the entire army supplying them with your mana." Sally asked. Sally, Sei, and Grace were on defensive duty to protect Adel and me. This was not my choice but theirs. They refused to listen to any orders besides protecting us.

"Mana is the last thing I need to worry about running out of. Just pay attention to any stray attacks coming our way. Grace, you keep everyone healed. You can spam your aoe heals as much as you wish." I gave out orders to Sally and Grace while Sei looked at me expectantly. I grinned and whispered: "You could always use that special skill of yours to you know…. Entice the entire ...."

"No! Not happening!" Sei blushed and quickly shook her head back and forth, causing me to chuckle.

I shrugged and continued monitoring the situation. I had multiple water screens hovering in front of me, and one of them caught my eye, causing me to frown. "Steven's side is being overrun by high level monsters. Those monsters are not from our world either." I bit my lip as I watched Steven fighting with everything he had. He was cutting them down with no issue, but the others were just normal humans and demi humans so they were having trouble holding their ground.

"Squad 132, form five man cells to fight the monsters. Do not fight them one on one. Those are dungeon monsters that they must have dragged out of whatever dungeon they entered, so they will be a bit stronger than normal monsters, but they will go down easy if you work together." I relayed my message through the slimes that were spread out over the battlefield. By using them as a speaker in a way, I am able to relay orders without issue. This was a result of Mr. Blob's evolving after he ate quite a few of the enemy monsters. It was quite the nice timing, too, since it made things much easier than using our normal connection.

"Squad 345, you are moving too far forward! Keep a steady line. Take cover, do not fight directly unless you have to. The days of running down the line are over. Fight smart and not stupid. Rushing in will only get you killed." I gave out this order before looking out over the battlefield once more. I took a deep breath and looked at the girls. "I am sending you all to the back line. I need to try to end this quickly. While giving orders is easy to do, we can not allow our enemy to gain an understanding of our tactics."

"We want to rush into the enemy line and leave us here doing nothing!?" Adel shouted at me, but what can I say? I would do more good right now on the front line than sitting in the back.

"Adel, I know you want to fight beside me, but right now, we can not do that. Sophie as well. I need you two girls to just behave for me and stay put and protect Grace. She is what is keeping our forces alive!" My words seemed to have made them reluctant, but they still nodded their heads without saying anything. "Then please protect Grace. I am moving out. Keep an eye on the mirages. If you see anything strange, contact me through the slime. You girls are my ears and eyes on the battlefield while I am fighting."

"You can leave it to us!" Adel replied with a salute. I could see that she was still mad, but unfortunately, I could not allow her to move any further on the battlefield.

Chapter34 Stealing Things Because They Look Cool!

My main priorities were to keep those close to me safe as well as my men. If she moved any closer to the front line, they would prioritize her safety over their own and might end up getting themselves killed. The last thing I want is for them to sacrifice themselves for someone else when they could have been able to move out of the way because she would become the number one target on their enemy side to break morale. Nothing says killing a princess of the enemy kingdom to drop the enemy's morale and boost their own.

I flew through the sky while keeping my massive attacks going. My current goal was the back line. While we could keep these strange weapons at bay, I still needed to take them out once and for all so we could do a major push, and to do that, someone needed to go to the back line and create havoc.

I stayed clear of the main part of the battlefield and landed on the side near the first weapon. This weapon was quite amazing. It looked like a futuristic ballistic weapon, and I could feel a strong source of mana as well as another type of energy mixed within. what that energy source was, I did not know, but I did know one thing…. I licked my lips as I looked at the weapons. "These will become mine!"

I don't think the enemy will mind If I steal some of these weapons from them, right? I mean not steal, just borrow indefinitely. At any rate, what is the best way to keep an enemy from firing a fancy weapon at you? Borrow it and test it out yourself!

I made my way the long way around towards where the enemy was surrounding the large weapon. They had about a hundred guards surrounding it, along with fifty mages casting barriers around the weapon and holding off the grand fall that was bearing down on it. I thought for a moment before snickering as I yelled out in dragon speak: "Dance!" At the same time, I dispelled the barrier they had created and cast my own to block my grand fall. I still had a use for it, so I was not going to let it crash into my main prize.

I charged forward and touched the weapon causing it to disappear before flashing away and releasing my barrier. The soldiers that had been dancing could only keep dancing as my grand fall fell on top of them.

My eyes were now set on the next weapon. There were a lot of them, and I planned to take all five. I continued forward using the same method as before. With each grand fall hitting the ground, the cheers from my men filled the area, causing an obvious disturbance in the enemy's front line. No one was able to tell what was going on. I raced across the battlefield as if I was on some kind of one hundred meter dash, and I was doing my best to get first place. But instead, I was just busy stealing weapons of mass destruction.

With each weapon and each grand fall that fell, I felt our victory coming at hand. But even though I did try not to jinx myself about a total victory coming our way, a strange sound could be heard coming straight at me.

*Boooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Myself as well as the weapon I was about to pocket, the ten grand falls that were in the process of being held back by the barriers, and all the people that were guarding the weapons were blown to bits. Well, I was just flung through the air, but I can say that the weapon that just hit me was not the same as the weapons I just stole. "What the hell was that!?"

I crawled up from the dirt and mud, as well as what looked to be bits of flesh and body parts, to see a huge crater in the ground where I once stood. I shook my body off of what I could before flying into the air. I squinted my eyes and focused on the direction I was shot at from and off in the horizon, there looked to be a large cannon similar to what I had just been stealing but on a much larger scale. "Hmmm… Do you really think that will stop me?"

I sneered as I turned towards the enemy forces. I was currently in the back line, which means I can cut the back line off and destroy them all in one go now. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I waved my hand. "Earth wall!" I created a massive earth wall the entire length of the battle that reached up towards the clouds. The enemy began to panic as I slowly began to merge fire and lighting together. I have gotten the current progress of this spell down to a two minute cast time, which so far is my limit.

But this time, I was not creating two tiny little balls of each element but massive balls that were a hundred times the size of my own body. I slowly began to fuse the two spells together, and in a matter of seconds, I had a massive lightning flame that looked like it was ready to explode at any moment. With such a large battlefield, I had no choice but to use such a spell.

"Child of Dragons…. I can not allow you to cast that…." An old voice entered my head. It was a very familiar voice. One I have heard before. The spell in my hand began to diminish, causing me to frown.

"Why not!?" I shouted out but got no answer. "I will need to visit the spirit domain once this is all over. Anyway, Let's just do it this way. Since I now have a wall blocking my men, I can use dragon speak in a wide area."

"Stop!" My voice echoed across the sky. Every enemy soldier and monster stopped in their tracks. "Kill yourselves….."

Chapter35 Heavy Artillery

Every person below me in the entire length of the battlefield on my side of the wall suddenly collapsed to the ground. Some used magic to blow themselves up, some just used a knife or sword to slice their own throats, and the monsters seemed to have all snapped their own necks. "More effective than I thought it would be. I was scared that if used in such a wide area that my own people would end up killing themselves but now that it is tested and foolproof, only I need to go out to the battlefield in the future. That Earth Wall made a for a good soundproofing material."

I once more heard something being fired off in the distance, causing me to turn around. As I did, I saw a huge beam of light heading right at me. I waved my hand, sending out a massive fireball which collided with the beam of light, causing a huge explosion that almost knocked me out of the air but still sent me flying back into the earth wall I created. At the same time, I heard two more shots being fired, heading directly at me.

Waving my hand, I sent out another two fireballs out causing the same thing to happen, but this time I was embedded into the wall. Repeated shots could be heard off in the distance as I tried to pull myself out from the wall. But these shots were fast, too fast for me to be able to unstick myself as they smashed into me, exploding on contact. My earth wall began to crumble as another five shots were heard in the distance. "Damn it! Let me breathe!"

They were firing that large cannon like a damn machine gun! I quickly smashed the wall behind me and waved my hand, creating thousands of fireballs and sending them flying towards the cannon thing. For some reason, I felt like the final boss of some really bad RPG! I mean, who makes the final boss as cute as me!?

Loud explosions were going off in front of me. I turned and fixed the wall that was damaged from earlier before flying forwards while keeping a steady barrage of fireballs on the enemy in front of me. I had a feeling something was off, so my detection magic was on full blast. I was ready for anything. Anything that moved had a fireball sent flying at it and would explode. I didn't even care if it was a fly because, on a battlefield with so many unknowns, I did not know what to expect.

The dreams I have had up until this point are all different from the current events to a point. In my dreams, the war that happened did not have these kinds of weapons. So dungeons might not have existed at that time. Unless maybe I had changed things just enough to change the future that should have been. Or maybe I was seeing a future of another me in a parallel universe.

For all I know, the current weapons could have existed, but since the war was supposed to start at a later time, things changed greatly. But none of that matters now because I just ran into an army even bigger than the last. "What the hell is with this kingdom!? Where do you get all these soldiers!?"

With my detection magic beyond the massive cannon that was still firing at me and only me was another massive army. It was like the first wave was to draw me out. If they really did, then it is because they fear me and were using the first wave as a means to check my abilities.

If this was the case, I royally screwed up! How am I supposed to deal with a situation where the enemy has seen my tricks and can now adapt? If they saw me using dragon speak and now insulating their men with soundproofing magic, I can not kill an entire army in a single command. They seem to understand the strength of Grand fall as well since their barriers around the weapons I stole held up well.

Dragon speak's only weakness was that it needed to be heard, so if they couldn't hear anything, then it would be useless. "Now what!?" I halted my advance and waved my hand, creating a massive rain of grand falls before continuing my advance. I decided it would be best to let the massive army in the back, that I know they are there. Even if it does nothing, it will at least keep them busy long enough for me to figure out what to do with this massive cannon. They seem to be firing at me no matter which way I go and only seem to have a single one of these weapons. If I can get close enough, I can steal it. I really do not want to give up such a nice defensive weapon.

If it can be replicated, we can outfit our borders with them and really secure the kingdom. As long as no one actually fires them by accident, things will be fine, which would mean needing some kind of safety lock and also a theft lock, so people like me don't show up and steal them all.

I flew in circles around the cannon and realized that they would not fire in the direction that pointed inland. Which meant…. "Looks like if I land on the east side of it, I can make it stop firing, but then I am sure to be attacked. So maybe a sleep spell to get in quickly and then get out? Or should I charge forward and attack the next wave of soldiers after I take the weapon?"

"I should probably charge towards the enemy line. If such an army also makes its way into the Gravos Kingdom, more lives will be lost. But if they have defenses in place to counter me, then I guess the best solution is to go full dragon mode. But I still wonder why I can't use fusion magic. This would be the perfect time to use it. While I do wish to use it, since the leader of the spirits stopped me from using it before, my guess is that it would have serious consequences. What consequences, I do not know. Ahhh!" I scratched my head and landed softly on the ground. "One thing at a time, weapon first."

Chapter36 Understanding The Situation Part 1

Yes, the weapon first. I had so much to do but was only one person. I do wonder why I take on so much responsibility. Why do I always see it as my responsibility to handle what is to come? But at the same time, I do not trust others to handle an issue that might just harm those I love.

But I guess after coming this far, I shouldn't really question my own instincts. I do love the kingdom I live in. So wanting to protect it is natural. While it is not my responsibility to do so, I still will take it upon myself to protect it. I do not wish for the people of this kingdom to die. I do not wish to see any of them suffer. And now that I am in the enemy's territory over the border into the Norian kingdom, I can only think of one thing. Destroy the enemy at the roots. Do not let those in power cause problems for my kingdom anymore. Take control of the land that has caused so much pain and suffering and killed those I cared about.

The people of Cyrilia Village did not deserve to die. They were all innocents, but the people of this kingdom or whoever it was that instigated them had actually attacked my home, the place my family worked so hard to build up. I will never let that slide. So I guess this makes this war pretty personal now that I think about it.

I wonder if this is how people felt during times of war back on Earth. The lives of their loved ones dying at the hands of an invading army. Cities and towns destroyed as the people suffered at the hands of the enemy. Lives snuffed out for no reason, even though they played no part in anything.

I do not see any of this as a means of fighting an enemy. Any military that attacks unarmed civilians are nothing more than murders. This was why I had no problem ordering millions of soldiers to kill themselves. I had already seen what they were doing to the citizens of my kingdom. There were no innocents in that army.

As I stand in the air looking at the massive cannon that is pointed at me but not firing, I couldn't help but smile. They dared not fire in the direction their military was coming from. Yet they do nothing about the massive grand falls falling on top of their main forces. With a mana barrier surrounding me, I slowly flew over to the massive canon. And the closer I got to it, the bigger it got. It was as tall as a castle and just as wide. It was massive. And the amount of mana and strange power it took to power the thing was also enormous.

I landed in front of the massive ten thousand man force that was guarding the weapon and slowly walked towards it. On this day, this weapon will become mine. Then I will replicate it and station them at every border of my kingdom to keep those with ideas from even thinking of invading ever again.

"Demon Princess, I suggest you put your hands up!!" An old man on the back of a scaled horse yelled out as he rode towards me. I guess they think I am here to surrender. Did they think their weapon scared me into submission? Well, whatever the case, I will just let them believe what they want for now.

But something really bothers me. What is this demon princess crap? Well, I guess it is actually not all that wrong since I am also part demon, and I am officially a princess as well but still! Everyone keeps coming up with names for me! And none of them are any good!

"It's good to see you are willing to surrender." The old man on the scaled horse said as he arrived in front of me with a sword pointing right at me.

I tilted my head, looking at him in confusion as I asked: "What makes you think I came here to surrender?"

"Why else would you willingly land and walk towards a massive army of fifteen thousand? If you are not here to surrender, then what are you here…. Not good! Fall back!" The old man was quick. He was not as dumb as many would think. But sadly, he did not get far before his head caught on fire, and he fell off his scaled horse. Which I kindly climbed onto the back of and, before charging forward. I made sure to kindly repay the old man by kingly setting his men on fire as well.

"Stop here! She killed the general!" Wait, that was a general? Did he think he was going to gain all the glory for himself by riding out alone to meet me? Just how much of an idiot is he? But one thing I did notice was that not all these people are in the same military. It looks like the army this time is not only just a mix of monsters and soldiers but different kingdom soldiers as well.

Since this is the case, it seems more than one kingdom needs to be taken care of. It looks like I have a big job ahead of me, but that works out just fine. I rode over and grabbed one of the men not in a Norian army uniform and asked: "What Kingdom are you from!?"

"I won tell…."

"I said, what kingdom are you from!?" This time I used dragon speak, he had no spells blocking sound, so this meant he would be vulnerable to it. His eyes dulled as he slowly spoke: "The Kingdom of Gesland."

"How many kingdoms are involved in this war? Who instigated this?" I asked. Instead of interrogating them all one at a time, I can get this man to spit it out for me.

"The Kingdom of Geseland, The Norian Kingdom, The Kingdom of Retolne, and the Kingdom of Hearth. I do not know who instigated this. Only captains and above would know." The man replied before I burnt him to ash.

Chapter37 Understanding The Situation Part 2

From the information I got, it explained two things to me. First, the kingdoms the man told me about were all north of the Norian Kingdom. They were like city states instead of a massive kingdoms, but they still had billions of people in each kingdom. And they had been conquered by the Norian Kingdom a long time ago. This was where they were getting their human forces from. As for the monsters, the Kingdom of Hearth is mainly a beast tamer kingdom. Their culture is heavily oriented around beast taming. This was probably how they were able to capture monsters. But the level of the monsters was also pretty high, which means many of these people probably have system stones.

This much I had already expected, but still, I would have hoped to have gotten a bit higher in level before others began to catch up. I do wonder, though, what dungeons they entered to get these monsters. There are even cyclopses mixed in as well as werewolves. Anyway, none of that matters. I just need to figure out one thing.

I grabbed the person nearest to me and used dragon speak on him: "Where is your captain?"

"Next to me…." The dulled eyes soldier replied, causing the man next to him's eyes to grow wide. "You damn traitor!"

I turned to look at the other man who was turning to run away but quickly grabbed him with a wind spell and forced him to face me before using dragon speak on him as well. "Why have you all invaded the Gravos Kingdom!?"

"Pholin Sergi promised half the kingdom to the Norain King in exchange for their help. He is currently in the Norian Kingdom's capital, Norsen. He planned it all out so that he could kill the King of gravos and his family. But he seemed warier of you: Demon Princess Cyrilia. Our orders were to draw you to the front line while a small force invaded the capital." The captain's eyes went dull. I sneered and lit the captain on fire as well. I looked at all the soldiers who were just dumbly staring at me, not daring to go near me, and snorted.

"You people are fools!" I yelled out and then used dragon speak once more. "Kill yourselves!" I sat on my scaled horse as the ten thousand or so soldiers all collapsed around me. They blindly followed that damn idiot Prime Minister, and he dared to attack my family first!? "Hehe…. I will slaughter them all…." I could feel the blood lust welling up inside me. My ancient will was trying to surface, but I was still keeping it at bay. But I did not mind borrowing a stand of it to handle the situation in front of me. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You are part of me, and I am the one in control." I muttered to myself. I still haven't forgotten what the ancient will said about me. But I will not let it get to me. I am me and only me. If the ancient will wants to come out, it will be on my terms.

With the forces around me dead, I walked right up to the cannon and stored it away. I turned to look at the barriers blocking my grand falls and sneered. I set my scaled horse free as I rose up into the air. And looked out towards the capital of the Norian Kingdom. "Diablo, can you hear me?"

"I can, Master." Diablo's voice rang out in my head.

"There is a small force headed your way. I want you to destroy it and behead every man in the force. Then bring the heads to me. I wish to bring a present to the man in charge." I was mad, very mad. My parents almost lost their lives. My brother, my nephew, and my sister in law as well. They all could have died. Auntie Finna lost her life along with the other villagers all because of me. I will bring that bastard back to Cyrillia Village and use his blood to send off those who died for no reason.

My thoughts may be disgusting. My thoughts may be violent. They may even sound like the thoughts of a mad person, but I do not care. As of this moment and time, those who dared to harm those and the places I care about will vanish from this world after they are drained of every drop of blood in their body.

"Yes, Master…." Diablo replied. He did not question my orders. He would always bow and do as I asked.

"Mm… Thanks, Diablo…. I will now destroy our enemies." I said as I waved my hand once more, creating a massive fireball in one hand and a massive lightning ball in another. I was no longer on the Gravos kingdom's land so I should be able to use this attack now. But just as I was about to combine the two forces, Little Bella suddenly appeared and pulled my hand back. "Little Bell?"

"You can't! It's bad!" Little Bell looked up at me with pleading eyes. I sighed and got rid of the spell. I wanted to ask why once more, but now was not the time. "Then I will refrain from using it."

"Mmm! Faith is good!" Little Bell flew up and kissed my cheek before disappearing back inside my body. I still have no idea why they stopped me, but they don't seem to want to see me using fusion magic on a large scale, I guess….

It's not like I will need it. I will just do things in an even easier way. Let's see if they can block my dragon speak. I flew towards the massive army that was doing its best to keep the grand falls from falling to the ground and stopped when I was halfway there. "Let's play a small trick, shall we?"

I sent my detection magic out all over the enemies' four kingdoms. Once I spotted my target, I turned towards the border between the Gravos Kingdom and the Norian Kingdom and waved my hand, creating a massive wall of stone and metal. It rose up three miles into the sky, casting a massive shadow on the lands below. But I did not stop there. It was not just the boarded between my country and this one but every border that surrounded the entire four kingdoms borders based on the maps I remembered. After which, I pleased a massive rotating barrier that covered the skies of the four kingdoms. "Since you want to harm me, I will make sure you can not escape!"

Chapter38 When Dreams Become Reality Part 1

The walls I created were just for show, while the real show stopper is the barrier. This barrier not only reflects spells used against it back at its attacker, but it also makes the attacks homing attacks. These attacks only reflect back at those within the barrier. On the outside, they just get spun away. But there is another thing that this barrier does. If someone tries to touch it, they will not only be shredded to pieces, but they will feel the pain tenfold as they do.

I am being quite vicious, but I do not care. The current situation does not allow for niceties. Everyone in these lands can be considered my enemy. And because my detection magic is now locked on to him, I can see that Mr. Prime Minister is not having a good time at all. He is currently yelling at the king of Norian. Oh? It seems he is being arrested. This makes things easier on me. I bet the king of Norian wants to use him as a bargaining chip to be let off but sadly for him, his entire family has already been marked for dead by me. While I will keep to my normal rules of extermination, I will be wiping out the military, nobles, and royal families of all four kingdoms.

"Hehehe…." I bit the tip of my finger, drawing blood. Just thinking about it was starting to make me excited….

I took a deep breath as I felt the pain in my finger. The taste of iron filled my mouth. "Even just a little bit of the ancient will is able to corrupt my mind. But it's fine. A little craziness is what I need right now."

I flew off to the Norian Kingdom's capital. I was not here to kill civilians, only the nobles and military officials who okayed this war. I wasn't planning to harm any innocents, but this did not mean I was not going to have an easy time picking who is who. I would need to gather them all in one place and use dragon speak on them. But to be sure it works, I will need to do it in another way. Since soul magic is unaffected by normal magic, I can use my soul to cast dragon speak on the nobles. This will allow me to truly know who is evil and who is good.

My travel time took five days. The Norian Kingdom was much bigger than the Gravos kingdom due to its continuous expansion. When I arrived at the capital, I found myself being welcomed by a group of knights on flying monsters. The lead knight flew in front of me and bowed his head: "Princess Cyrilia. His Majesty is waiting for you at the palace."

"Oh? Not going to call me Demon Princess Cyrilia? Or any of the other names you have for me?" I asked in a mocking tone. The Knight's eyebrow twitched, but he kept himself composed.

"Of crouse not, such names are…." The knight stopped speaking when a figure suddenly appeared next to me with a large bloody sack.

"Diablo. You took care of it?" I asked with a smile.

"Master, there were four teams altogether, adding up to over one hundred heads," Diablo replied. He looked at me and looked slightly shocked at first, but I guess that is the given with how my eyes were wide with excitement. The smell of blood was really making my blood boil. This was what I had to deal with when dealing with the ancient will. If I want to be more imposing and clear my mind of kindness, I need to use it, but even this little sliver of it is enough to cause issues. "Master you…."

"I will have to have you take a look another time, Diablo. For now, return to the capital just in case anything serious happens. And…. Thank you." I replied with a smile. Although I think it might have been a bit of a crazed smile. There was nothing I could do at this time, though. Diablo nodded and disappeared. I took a deep breath before returning my gaze to the knight in front of me.

"Now then, shall we make our way to your king?" I asked, still smiling, but the knight now had a look of fear on his face. I guess my bloodlust was quite strong at this time. "You all call me the Demon Princess now, do you not? Would you like to join the men in this bag, or will you bring me to your king like you said you would?"

"Ahem… Please, this way…." The knight cleared his throat, and motioned for me to follow him. I nodded and allowed him to lead the way. The supposed men who were probably supposed to be my guard escorts were not flying at quite the distance away from me. My guess is that they want to be able to fly at any second in case I go crazy. Maybe the ancient will is not so bad after all. No! It is not something I should use lightly.

I took a deep breath and tried to clear my mind. I must never let my thoughts control me. This is what it wants.

When we arrived at the so called palace, which was nothing but a castle in my eyes, we walked right to the throne room unimpeded. On a throne sitting high above the rest of the room, was a young man who looked to be in his late twenties. He was muscular and burly and wore armor instead of kingly robes, as many kings wear. "So you are Demon Princess Cyrilia. I am the King of the Norian Kingdom, King Greth. I wish to make a deal with you."

"Oh? A deal? What kind of deal can you make with me when you attacked and destroyed my home village? Killing my loved ones? Are you okay in the head? You want to make a deal with me!? I think you need to understand something right now, Mr. King. In this kingdom, including your three vassal states, you are all my hostages. The only one making deals is me, and only I am to be asking questions so…." I took a step forward and appeared right in front of the king and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and tossed him to the bottom of the stairs leading to the throne. "In this place here and now, I am the only one who makes all decisions. My word is like god's words."

I turned and sat on the throne and looked down at the king, who was struggling to get up. "You are the ones who dared to invade my homeland and kill my kingdom's people and those close to me. You started this. Now I will make you and all those involved pay."

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Reborn: I’m a Dragon Girl With An OP System Book 8

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