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The angel muttered, looking downcast. After a while it was clear that the angel was feeling a strong emotion. It was something that weighed heavily on her mind, making her disappointed at herself for believing her project was infallible. But her slight pout looked cute in its own way, giving Mira and Kagura a complex and confusing emotion.

「Maybe… it was love?」

After a moment of silence, Kagura blurted out her idea.

「…Love?」

The angel looked stunned, tilting her head to the side. Kagura looked ecstatic, rushing in to hold her hands as she spoke quickly. The angel had given her life and body to save the world, and maybe there was someone who was in love with her.

He understood that there was no other option, and at first accepted her sacrifice. But as time passed, his feelings became stronger, eventually outweighing his sense of duty.

His feelings became erratic, making him question whether he should respect her sacrifice, or follow his heart and go stay next to the one he loved.

「A turmoil of regret and affection. Worry and longing. After falling down such a spiral of emotions, he chose love!」

Kagura’s voice was loud now, shouting how he brought back the prison where his beloved was sealed, and opened the coffin. Apparently Kagura also had a thing for romance stories of unfulfilled love. The angel just listened in a daze though, not knowing how to react or reply.

「Stop it with your senseless delusions. If that’s what happened, where is he now? If he truly loved her, why isn’t he next to her now? Did the ghost scare him so much he just ran away?」

Mira mercilessly tore through Kagura’s fantasies. Kagura tried to argue back, saying, 「He tried to fight for his love, but wasn’t strong enough,」 then Mira answered with, 「Are you sure you want the story to end with such a tragedy?」 which was met with a 「Not really…」 as Kagura slowly gave up her idea.

「Enough joking around. Are you certain that there’s no other way the coffin could’ve been opened? Maybe it was something done by devils? They’re like the other side of angels, aren’t they?」

Devils were usually called the evil counterpart of angels. Everything that happened had involved pretty much the entire world, so it would not be strange if devils had also been involved somehow. But somehow the angel looked even less convinced than with Kagura’s love story.

「Devils? No, that wouldn’t be possible. Even they should know just how much destruction the curse would bring forth if released.」
「What… was that?」
「Huh, what do you mean?」

Mira and Kagura thought that devils’ whole reason to exist was to cause humans grief and sorrow. So they had not expected that answer from the angel.

She had said something that opposed what the two knew. The devils would not open the coffin because it would cause too much destruction. It would make more sense for them to open it knowing that, yet the angel vehemently argued against that, sounding resolute in her position. It was clear she thought that from the bottom of her heart.

『You don’t know how the curse looked back then, so I don’t blame you for thinking that, Mira. I’ll take the conversation from here on out. Do you mind holding hands with Kagura and the angel?』

While Mira tried to sort her confused thoughts, she heard the Spirit King’s voice inside her head.

「You two, give me your hands.」

The Spirit King had been eavesdropping to her conversation once again, but this time Mira appreciated the help. If the Spirit King was going to explain everything better, she had no reason to refuse his help.

「Huh, why though?」
「Sure.」

The two held their hands out and Mira grasped them, though Kagura still sounded confused until she heard a voice in her head. She quickly understood then, and muttered, 「This is amazing,」 before falling silent.

The story the Spirit King told them left the three surprised.

According to the Spirit King, once upon a time the devils worked hand-in-hand with angels to lead humanity to a better future. But a few thousand years prior, they were tainted with evil and turned into the entities they were known as now.

The Spirit King had used a forbidden spell to exterminate the demons, but that also weakened his connection to the human realm, so he had not been able to investigate what caused that change in devils. But he confirmed what the angel said, and back then devils were not the enemy of humanity. Quite the opposite, they even collaborated with angels.

「What a shocking revelation…」
「I would’ve never thought they had such a past.」

Mira and Kagura had seen the heinous acts done by devils before, so they were thoroughly shocked hearing what the Spirit King said. That was the logical explanation, as all that history had been lost to time in the human realm.

「No… how could they…」

On the other hand, the angel looked shaken and saddened hearing what had happened to the devils. In her mind, she still saw them as reliable comrades, who desired a better future with the angels. Now the Spirit King had told her they had turned into the opposite of that. It was hard for anyone to understand how the angel felt.

『That’s the current state of affairs. So angel… Tiriel, was it? Let me answer Mira’s question in your stead. I believe her supposition might be correct.』

The angel looked even more saddened now, her name was Tiriel. Covering her outdated knowledge, he supported Mira’s theory. Devils and angels once shared the same power, so it was possible that they would know how to open the coffin.

『But I was there when that seal was created, some of my power was used for it. To undo the seal, one would need my power, or that of the Three Gods. But now that devils have turned evil, they can no longer channel divine power like angels. And I don’t remember my power being used for that either. So the mystery remains as to how they cracked the seal.』

According to the Spirit King, the devils could only find the location of the coffin, but breaking the seal was impossible for them. It was impossible to say how they had accomplished that last part.

「Somehow the devils got access to a key that was discarded, somehow… Maybe they captured an angel to forcibly open the seal?」
『That would be next to impossible. The angel would need to channel power from a god to accomplish that, yet I can’t imagine a god doing that no matter the circumstances an angel is in.』

Kagura frowned as she tried to think of a way a devil would have managed to undo the seal. But the Spirit King refuted it, a god would not do that even if an angel was held hostage.

「What if they said it wasn’t to open the coffin, but for something else? Say to defeat a devil, or to save someone.」
『No god would fall for such a pitiful excuse. Even more so if it counted as treason. We all know how dangerous the coffin’s contents were, so no one would risk opening it. The devils must have done it through other means.』

Kagura tried to come up with even more ideas, but the Spirit King still shot them down. Kagura grunted and grumbled displeased, glaring at Mira urging her to come up with something else.

「What about this then… What if your power was stolen? Just like that man did in the Ancient Circular Gate?」

The Ancient Circular Gate was connected to the Spirit King’s Palace. Mira had gotten there in time to avoid it, but Gregorius, one of Chimera’s heads, was there trying to steal the power of the Spirit King. Mira asked if it would have been possible for someone to do something similar in the past.

『I can’t rule out that possibility. But very specific preparations and locations would be needed for that. The location being the most important part. No matter what they prepared, it would be for naught if they could not establish a proper connection.』

The Spirit King gave an answer to Mira’s idea, explaining what he meant in a bit more detail.

Once they heard everything, they both grimaced understanding that it would be impossible as well. Such a plan would require the assailants to be in a place with ties to the Three Gods, which happened to be located under the castle in the capital of the Three Gods’ Countries, also known as the Oracle Site.

The Oracle Site. That was the place where once three heroes, now known as the 『Three Godly Generals』 fended off the 『Nameless 48 Generals』 from Atlantis, the biggest player country. They still protected that place, and it was considered the safest location in the entire continent.

The Nameless 48 Generals were each as strong as any of the Nine Wisemen like Mira and Kagura. That 48 of them lost to just three people became a legend amongst players. So even a Duke devil would be unable to stay there for long, not to mention that it was considered a sacred location, so it would be impossible for a devil to even get close to it.

The only alternative was that someone stole the Spirit King’s power, but he proudly claimed that Chimera’s head had been the only one to ever attempt that. In the end, they could not reach a conclusion.