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「What is it? If it’s about the loot, just take all of it.」
「Ohh, if you say so! You’re so generous! Wait, that’s not it. I’ve been wondering for a while, why did you refrain from using any high level skills earlier?」

They were fighting a powerful enemy, so it made no sense to hold back. Mira felt like she needed to know that before going back to the fight.

「Ahh, that. I’m in a limited state, I can’t use my full power.」

Soul Howl replied with an indifferent voice, almost like it was something without importance.

「What do you mean with limited? How did that even happen?」

That was the first time Mira ever heard of someone being unable to use high level skills due to an external force, so she wanted to know more details. After thinking about it for a bit, he started saying, 「Right, you saw that woman, right?」

The frozen woman in Soul Howl’s stronghold was tied to whatever was impeding him to use his high level skills.

That woman had a carved seal on her back, known as both the curse of hades, and the devil’s blessing. To stop that from having an effect on her, he had used a spell on her to stop her time and cut her off from the laws of nature. That was why she looked frozen to Mira.

The spell that allowed him to do that, Gaol of the Afterlife, was a taboo spell that forcefully twisted reality, so as long as it was active it impeded him from using any high level skill.

「What… then you’ve been in that state ever since you embarked on this quest to create the Brilliant Chalice?」

Medium level skills could be plenty powerful when used by the Nine Wisemen. But according to the decoded recipe for the Brilliant Chalice, he had already fought various other powerful foes similar to Machina Guardian to get this far. Considering his strength that seemed realistic enough, but if he had been limited to medium level skills that entire time then it also seemed quite reckless. Just thinking about it made Mira feel like she was staring into an endless abyss, that condition was too harsh.

「Nah, that’s nothing. It’s just like a challenge run, and I know you love restraints like that, Elder. Just think of it as a long running one.」

That was still an extreme condition, even for a challenge run, but Soul Howl dismissed it like it was nothing. His eyes were filled with so much determination that it did not seem like he regretted all the effort it took.

「I see… so that girl is that important to you. You’ve changed, falling in love with a living girl of blood and flesh. I guess time does that to everyone.」

Hearing about all the hardships Soul Howl was enduring, Mira felt a bit surprised by that change, while also being quite happy he had finally outgrown his strange quirks.

But that did not last long.

「Hold up, hold up, hold up, who fell in love with what? Don’t be ridiculous. I’d need to be crazy to feel attracted to someone like her. She’s just a loudmouthed religionist.」

Soul Howl scowled, detesting just thinking about the idea of feeling such attraction for that woman.

「Huh… what do you mean? Isn’t she your beloved? Haven’t you been working day in and day out because your emotions drive you mad..?」

The devil’s carved seal was said to bring certain death. Knowing that fate awaited the love of his life, Soul Howl embarked on an arduous journey to save her while sacrificing his strongest power in the form of high level skills. That sounded almost like a fairy tale, and Mira assumed it was what happened. Even the absent Solomon thought so.

「That woman? Not in a million years. Even if live women were all I could pick, she’d be the last one I’d consider.」

Soul Howl did not even look embarrassed, he genuinely rejected the idea from the bottom of his heart.

Once Mira asked what he meant, he explained how that woman was part of a sect that firmly believed he should properly bury the female bodies he collected. That group had started gaining momentum around ten years before, and Soul Howl had been unlucky enough to get spotted while he was retrieving the body of a woman.

The woman tailed him to find his stronghold, where she constantly harassed him telling him all the remains should be allowed to rest in peace and other idealistic sermons. In the end she even started trying to forcibly cremate the remains without permission, making things get out of hand.

「They do sound like an annoying cult.」

Soul Howl’s stronghold was located below a C rank dungeon, so that woman must have been a zealous believer to go that far just to try lecturing Soul Howl.

「That’s giving them more credit than they deserve. They’re just a bunch of vandals disguised as a cult.」

Everyone in this world knew how dangerous the wild was, as monsters often spawned in areas outside of cities. There were no laws on how to treat bodies found outside, be it to bury them, loot their belongings, or use them for necromancy, so whatever Soul Howl decided to do with them usually was not frowned upon either.

Former players like Mira had some moral issues with that, but as it was considered common sense in this world there was little they could do. There were not enough people to deal with that issue either way.

But then the sect the frozen woman belonged to appeared. They wanted to promote the proper burial of remains, and get their belongings returned to relatives. They believed that would ease the sorrow of those left behind. Even bodies in remote locations would eventually be found, and eventually buried in their hometown. Those were their core beliefs.

In a way they did that mostly for the living, rather than the dead.

That sect was also aligned quite closely with the moral viewpoints of former players, so Mira did not hold the same disgust Soul Howl had for them. She simply felt like the frozen woman was a bit too obsessed with those ideas.

But to Soul Howl they were nothing but ransackers who wanted to destroy the treasure he had spent years building up.

「It’s rare for you to openly dislike someone that much. Usually you were just apathetic to those you dislike.」
「I have no choice. She’s wrong in the head, I tried staying away but she just kept running after me, and she was always smiling too. It was actually scary.」

Soul Howl looked like he was in pain just thinking back to all of it.

「I can tell she was a mighty foe from your reaction.」

Mira snickered seeing Soul Howl in such a rare state. Then she took a step closer to him.

「And yet here you are, doing everything you can to save that woman you seem to detest so much. I can tell you’ve changed.」

From what Mira gathered, Soul Howl would gain nothing from saving her. There had to be a reason he was going that far to save her too, though maybe he simply could not bring himself to let her be. Or at least that was the main reason Mira could think about.

It was normal wanting to save someone’s life, no matter what their previous relationship was. If the woman was actually evil it would be a different story, but if she was just following her beliefs then it was hard to fault her.

Over the course of their long friendship Mira had noticed that Soul Howl’s moral disposition was in a bit of a gray zone. Life and death had next to no difference to him, and he believed anyone was free to choose whether to be alive or dead. He did not like hearing people trying to change that.

But now he had embarked on a long and arduous journey to save a woman that he did not like, but actively despised. Mira did not feel like that was something he would usually do, but time could change people.

Soul Howl only frowned more hearing that , instantly denying it saying, 「I haven’t changed.」

Then he added, 「It’s just because she was crying.」

The woman had always been really loud and insistent, but with time she became quieter as the devil’s carved seal weakened her further. Some days after that she finally started to show a more vulnerable side.

「She kept crying about her inevitable demise, scared of death. And that’s why I’m doing this. I’m a necromancer she detests, so I’ll rub it in her face that it was me who saved her!」

Soul Howl laughed loudly as he declared that. Assuring Mira that the woman’s tears had not moved him whatsoever.

Then he continued explaining his plan, almost like he was coming up with an excuse. Ultimately it would be the Brilliant Chalice of Divine Decree that would save her life, but he would use plenty of necromancy to obtain the chalice. The spell that had frozen her in time was also necromancy. So it was no exaggeration to claim necromancy had saved her life.

But it sounded too much like an excuse.

「Ahh, I see. I understand, definitely.」

Mira was not deceived and just looked at him with lenient eyes, she knew he had grown a soft spot for the woman. Even though his views on life and death were twisted, if someone in need pleaded in front of him, he would always come up with a ridiculous excuse to use all his power to help.

Seeing her cry while being scared of death was enough to get Soul Howl moving. But at the same time Mira understood that he had really not changed at all.