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Having said that, Mylenne stopped stirring the liquid. As it was left to sit, it slowly began hardening until it all turned to stone. Mylenne took it out and said with a smile 「It can be thrown out together with the trash in this form.」

「Also, my coat is a Spirit Arm, but it was washed in a special liquid made with Life Stones, so it remains unaffected.」

Saying that, Mylenne proudly held her coat for everyone to see. That was the same coat she said was a present from Johann.

「It can be used that way too? Amazing.」
「This is certainly valuable information.」

In short, Mylenne had just provided them with a way to fight Chimera Clauzen’s weapons. The Fifty Bells, a group banded together to protect spirits. Many of their members used Spirit Arms to fight, which were obviously acquired legitimately. Chimera Clauzen’s black mist weapons were a serious threat to them though. But now they had a chance to fight against that, so Sasori and Hebi looked happy.

「Hmm, interesting.」

Mira shuffled in her chair and placed her fingertips on her chin, nodding convinced of something while thinking things through. Manipulating the black mist stones required a large area without any spiritual power in it, and it was easy to assume there was no such place near Chimera Clauzen’s main base.

There was a method of stopping the effect from spreading, but that was something developed privately by Johann and it was unlikely he would let Chimera Clauzen know about it. In simpler terms, Johann was not in their main base, instead he had been taken to some place where there was no spiritual power being used at all.

「I guess we could hit the different facilities of Melville that haven’t been connected to Spirit Arms before.」
「Good idea, that would be a nice starting place.」

After thinking about it, Sasori offered one course of action, and Mira was in agreement.

That was also far easier than trying to sniff out Chimera’s hiding places. Then again, Melville had the most facilities in Roseline out of all corporations there, so including buildings that were still under construction there were a multitude of places to search.

But there were three of them searching, so there was little reason not to thoroughly investigate each place. Not like they had other clues.

「Other than that I guess we can keep watch and see if we find telltales of the process somewhere. If the black ripples extend up to one kilometer from the source, I assume they go through walls, yes? If we notice one of them, we can easily search for the source. The only issue is knowing when he’ll start the process and-」
「Wait, wait, wait, hold on Mira.」

Mira spoke her thoughts aloud, and before she could finish Sasori hurried to interrupt her, looking confused.

「Hm? What is it?」
「I don’t get what you’re mumbling about, but what do you mean with black ripples? How is that connected to the manufacture of black mist stones?」

Looking around, Mira noticed that Hebi and Mylenne were just as confused. Seeing her like that, she also cocked her head in puzzlement. It took her a while to realize that maybe they had not seen those black ripples when Mylenne demonstrated earlier.

「I mean, I don’t know what to tell you. You saw it earlier, yes? When Mylene was doing her thing on the table.」

Mira said while pointing to the white clumps left from Mylenne’s demonstration, and trying to recreate it with exaggerated movements and gestures. The black ripples had begun pulsating the moment she mixed the chunks into the water with diluted powder. And they stopped the moment she put in the fragment of Life Stone.

Considering the timing, Mira had assumed that those ripples were the spirit-devouring effect. And if they spread past walls, then it would be easy enough to spot it from a distance and figure out where someone was working with black mist. So considering that, it would not be too difficult to figure out where Johann was being kept.

「I didn’t see that though…」
「Me neither.」
「Umm, same here, I never saw any black ripples.」

Sasori, Hebi, and Mylenne looked at each other, seeing they all agreed and then answered that way to Mira. They really could not understand what Mira was talking about.

「Wait… does that mean I was the only one able to see that?」

Muttering to herself, Mira sighed loudly and crossed her arms while looking up towards the ceiling. But regardless of what the other three saw or not, she knew what she had seen, so she decided that at least she would be their lookout.

「Hmmm, maybe that was also because of the Spirit King’s blessing.」

Thinking why she had seen something the others did not, she could reach only one conclusion. She had been told that with the power obtained from the Spirit King and the holy sword Sanctia, she could cleanse the demon’s curse. It made sense that such a power would have other effects on her as well, like making her able to see the curse’s effects.

Thinking of all that, she began to feel like she had grown accustomed to the Spirit King’s power, making her snicker to herself as she stared at the ceiling. She still was unsure what kind of power that was, so she was really looking forward to finding out.
There were two main ways to strengthen a bond like that, one was to spend a lot of time in the place where the spirit lived, and the other was to use the spirit’s element.

The longer one spent doing either of those things, the stronger the bond would grow. Since Mira had only recently acquired the Spirit King’s blessing, any time she was free she would try to strengthen that bond. There was an easy method for her, Sanctia had the strongest elemental connection with the Spirit King, so whenever there was nothing else to do, she would play with the sword… or train, as she liked to call it.

「Well, I guess there’s little else we can do. I’ll just try to scout the place. I’m sure we’ll know soon after he starts the process again.」

Mira finally concluded that her training had made her able to see the waves from the demon’s curse, so her eyes were brimming with confidence as she assigned herself a role.

「Alright, I guess you can keep watch for that then, and we will search every Melville facility in case the manufacture hasn’t restarted yet.」
「Good plan.」
「Mhm, sounds sensible to me. Let’s go with that.」

Sasori then briefly detailed their future plan, Hebi and Mira both agreeing to it. At least they all knew what to do now.

「Oh right, one last thing, Mylenne. May I ask something?」

Everyone began preparations for their next movements while Mira studied a map of Irene, when she thought of something and looked up towards Mylenne.

「What is it?」

She was storing her alchemy tools and equipment, but stopped when Mira spoke to her.

「Do you know where that mask you wore was made?」