After what Rose talked about, I felt slightly worried. If this happened around here, there might be a monster or… somebody dangerous walking around. I felt the urge of going into a patrolling session, and after talking about this with Mark and everyone else, we allowed ourselves to go inspect the surrounding blocks around my house at night, before returning to play BNLO.

However, as much as we explored the place, the only thing we could find were a few roaming Hollows, although they were mostly the small and weak types. We couldn’t find anything else, sadly. Looks like whoever did this was long gone from this place.

“No good…” Mark sighed. “Though I’m worried… If those girls were attacked out of nowhere, this might as well happen again in the future if we don’t do anything over the perpetrator…”

“Hmmm, if it’s a person and not a monster, then it might get a bit more troublesome…” Rita sighed. “Ugh, I feel like I don’t want to do this… If it’s not a monster.”

“Dealing with a real person is… Well, yeah, it is quite different than just a monster.” Lily sighed. “It might be really dangerous…”

“For now, I’ll place several Inspection Charms around the blocks.” I nodded. “These are special Charms built out of Spells that can detect aggressive fluctuations of Mana, provoked when beings that possess Mana and other energies fight, or attack someone.”

“Good idea.” Mark nodded.

Like that, we walked back to our homes. I made sure everyone got back safely before returning to my own. Blackie was with me through the entire thing, watching around, but he couldn’t find anything either, even with his heightened senses as a magical beast.

After giving one last glance at the outside from the window, I quickly reinforced my house’s magical protections, and then went to take a warm bath to relax a little bit.

“Well, looks like we’ve got some dangerous thugs around.” The Great Spirit said. “I hadn’t thought about it, but you humans are quite nasty people sometimes, so I guess people with powers that’ll do nasty stuff is natural.”

“Ugh… I guess so.” I sighed. “I just didn’t wanted to think about it too much. It worries me to no end, and when I am worried my stomach hurts and I can’t sleep.”

“Sigh, you’re such a troublesome girl.” The Great Spirit’s voice sighed. “Though, you’ve still got a quest in the other world. Two more Great Dragons to go before you can complete that super overpowered Sword! With that, slaying that evil dragon guy will not be an issue.”

“I suppose.” I nodded. “Though, I am quite tired, I might leave it for tomorrow… Yawn.”

“Oh well, I guess you should take a rest.” She nodded.

“Hmm… I’ve been worried about a lot of things. Ah, remember when the Dwarf King explained the Evil Dragon King Fafnir and Sigurd, the hero? He also spoke about the “Kingdom of Sorrow” where the King was named Thanatos, the same name of the Demon King.” I sighed.

“Oh yeah, sorry but I don’t have any ideas regarding this stuff either.” The Great Spirit shrugged; she sighed a bit.

“Figures, you’re a clueless carrot.” I sighed. “Anyways, this is different if that King was really the same Thanatos we know… Then he’s much different than the Demon King of Miasma.”

“You’re right.” The Great Spirit nodded. “While the original Demon King was a being created by the Ancient Gods whose body was divided into fragments sealed across the world of Arcadia, the previous Demon Kings all surged more like monsters. The Demon King of Miasma just popped up on his own continent and began doing mischief as a monstrous, amorphous creature.”

“With many tentacles and eyes, if I say so myself…” I sighed. “But the Demon King of Death is different, he’s a huge skeleton, and he commands generals that are clearly intelligent people, not just mindless monsters or manipulated cultists like the Demon King of Miasma did. Although he does employ mindless undead monsters to his army, of course.”

“Yeah, although they don’t seem to remember their lives clearly, all these Death Generals seemed to have clear personalities, and might had been important people. That Gustaf skeleton guy was a powerful mercenary, right? I remember the skellies said he became the King’s knight, or guard?” Wondered the Great Spirit.

“And Phantasmos mentioned he was the King’s Advisor…” I sighed. “If the Demon King of Death is truly the same King of the Kingdom of Sorrow from the past Arcadia… Then he might be the first original Demon King Fragment that instead of just becoming a huge monster, reincarnated as a living person, a human, no less.”

“And that human was doing some really nasty things. Giving the King of Dwarves the power to turn into a giant huge dragon no less!” Said the Great Spirit. “Also, didn’t he killed Sigurd’s father? And then the kid was just handed to the dwarf king, who later turned into an evil dragon that terrorized his own people…”

“Y-Yeah, quite awful indeed.” I sighed. “I just want to know what his past was… And what made him become the monster he is now. But we don’t know yet if he’s really that old king though.”

“Things connect well, but we can’t make complete assumptions yet.” The Great Spirit floated over the warm water. “I think we might find more answers when we fight that big black lizard.”

“I guess so.” I nodded. “We’ve learned bit and pieces for now, Phantasmos and Gustaf were certainly not into the mood of talking too much though, and I am guessing Fafnir is not really any different.”

“And that’s without mentioning how they’re still trying to get into this world… We don’t know what might happen in the near future, you’ve gotta prepare well.” Said the Great Spirit.

“Hmm…” I nodded.

After taking a relaxing bath, I logged back in only to have a meal with everyone at a local bar, and explain we’ll be moving tomorrow for the next dragon slaying sessions, which they agreed on.