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Ervas and Veronica spent the next few hours interrogating all of the prisoners, where they learned several things about the church of Bestellen, their extremist faction, the High Pope that governs the Empire of Bestellen behind the scenes, and from the Emperor itself, the Five Constellations, and the Nine Shadow Eyes, a secret organization of incredibly strong individuals that worked behind the scenes for the Empire and the Extremist Faction.
?
Although all of the info they got was still rather limited, as they could only extract what they knew and could not dig deeper.
Albert and the popes and templars were also forced to spit out the information they had, but even Albert who had been rather close to Graham did not know about the true identities of the rest of the Five Constellations and the Nine Shadow Eyes.
He only knew of one of the Shadow Eyes, an Elven Woman who was the Eye of Vision, her special ability gave her the power to predict certain events of the future, her name was Amanda, and she was the one that confirmed that Ervas and Veronica were still within the Devil Forest to the church.
They also got to know about Graham's strength and position, being one of the weakest within the Five Constellations, whose strength was comparable to an A-Rank Adventurer on his peak…
Although Ervas would like to differ in that, as Graham felt clearly way stronger than that even before becoming a Familiar Spirit…
"And… there is also someone named the Eye of Shadows, who is… well, believe to be one of the strongest spies within the entire Empire of Bestellen… I do not know his name, but Graham-sama- I mean, Graham mentioned it one time… He said that he is always observing all of us… Which really gave me the creeps…" said Percy.
"The Eye of Shadows… He might prove to be a difficult enemy… Well, not like we are staying in here any time soon, in around a few more days we are getting out of here," said Veronica.
"Yeah, although… I guess that presence we sometimes felt within the battlefield, must have been him. However, he never acted, not even when Graham was killed two times in front of his eyes… He really fulfills his role as a spy that does not intervene but only… well, spy," said Ervas.
"Oh, so that must be him… If he were to show up to attack us, he would be quite the tricky enemy. Good thing he was rather far away and never ended up attacking," said Veronica.
"What?! You actually sensed that man?!" asked Percy in disbelief.
"Yeah, he's a good spy though, we had to put a bit of effort," said Veronica.
"Through my awakened Special Five Senses Skill, Spiritual Five Senses, nothing can run away from my perception," said Ervas.
Percy was terrified to even more now.
To begin with, he had never heard of a Skill named 'Special Five Senses', nor that it could awaken to another weird-sounding Skill such as Spiritual Five Senses!
It seemed that humans did not normally learn Skills that enhanced their senses such as Special Five Senses, as such a Skill seemed to be more for monsters who lacked normal bodies such as Undead or Plant-type monsters than for normal people.
Ervas and Veronica possessed this Skill since they were reincarnated as the Demon Queen of their previous lives, alongside the Soul Form Skill.
Despite that, it seemed that such Skills were not normal even amongst Demons or Beast-kin, who were believed to be monstrous, and it could be theorized that such Skills were given to them because they were once pure souls within Hekaton's Divine Realm, and needed things such as those Skills to see, hear, and touch things while being just souls.
For Ervas to have an even more powerful version of it, alongside his normal, augmented five senses as a demi-human made of his perception almost flawless.
"I guess we are done in here, let's quickly insert the Soul Parasites, reeducation shall take place later… Ah, some people will come here later with fresh food and clothes… Err, what food do you like?" asked Veronica.
"F-Food?" asked Percy.
"Yeah, do you prefer veggies, meat, or sweets?" asked Veronica.
"A-Ah… A-Anything is fine…" said Percy, baffled over such a question asked to him by a being capable of killing a Familiar Spirit…
"Alright but you better eat it all though," said Veronica.
"Y-Yes…" said Percy.
"Percy, don't eat the food, you will get poisoned!" said Albert.
"Why would we poison him when we can kill him whenever we want? Wouldn't it be pointless to go as far as to poison his food if I can simply cut off his head right now?" asked Veronica.
Over such simple yet terrifying logic, Albert and Percy fell into deathly silence.
Not long after, the two began to separate small, worm-like pieces of their combined souls, which were named Soul Parasites, produced through the Soul Parasite Skill.
Through this Skill, they could create something akin to a 'contract' in anyone they desired, as long as they would not resist, of course.
The Soul Parasite would rest in silence within their souls and would not cause any problem in their growth or whatsoever, but whenever the subject was to try to betray or do something to harm the one who created the Soul Parasite or his allies and so on, they would have their souls slowly eaten.
If they do not stop immediately, they might be eaten from the inside out and left as soulless husks within seconds.
It was even more terrifying as each Soul Parasite came with the will of Ervas and Veronica, so they knew exactly when to act or not…
There were a few symptoms at first, such as a lot of pain in the soul, but the soul would naturally rengeite the wound where the Soul Parasite entered after a few hours or days, and the pain would fade away, making the subject seem as if there was nothing in their souls, to begin with.
Although Ervas and Veronica had considered the possibility to teach Skills through their Soul Parasites to those parasitized such as Phantom Form and Phantom Materialization, they didn't see any need to do so for the moment, although perhaps Daniel could use such Skills as he was now an active ally that participated in the war.
Talking about Daniel, he was recently 'tamed' by Veronica, and became one of her tamed monsters, where he even gained a title of Tamed Monster, he was rather content about it, and had become a loyal dog at this point- I mean, loyal Ant.
Although Veronica thought about giving him a new name, Daniel was better, as it would remind her that he was still the same bastard of her previous life, now being a pathetic ant monster pet for her…
Yes, that was quite the sadistic thought, but Daniel did not seem to mind.
Like any of Veronica's tamed monsters, Daniel felt an immediate increase in his stats and even felt like he was now capable of growing even faster than before, his battle in the war had brought him a lot of Experience Points and even a Rank Up.
The party, having finished their parasitizing of the soul of the prisoners, walked away from the dungeon until they were stopped by an annoying old geezer.
"W-Wait! Oh, please… great beings!" he cried.
The rest of the prisoners that were still struggling with the pain in their souls glanced at the old man, he was Abraham Gespudo, one of the strongest and most respected Wizards within Sapphira's Duchy Mages Guild…
"Hm? Who is this old geezer?" wondered Kireina.
"I am… but a humble servant…! My name is Abraham Gespudo, and I used to be one of the Wizards within the Mages Guild of the Sapphira Duchy," said the old man.
"Oh yeah, we kind of already interrogated you… And you also got the soul parasite, why are you not whining in pain?" wondered Veronica.
"This pain is nothing compared to my fervent admiration to you, the pinnacles of magic!" said Abraham, his eyes shining wickedly, as he grew more and more fascinated to Veronica and Ervas… it seems that their Charm was working on this old man, which was weird and bizarre in many levels.
"Pinnacle of Magic?" asked Ervas.
"Yes, my lord…! The power you used, the wonderful magic attributes that I have never seen…! Your amazing… quantity of Mana! Are you a God?! You are surely a God! A God of Magic!" said Abraham.
"Well I do have the God of Mana Job- But that doesn't have anything to do with that, we are not Gods," said Ervas.
"Yeah, but he seems to be a bit cray-cray, so I don't think we can really reason with him," said Veronica.
"I am sure that I can be of great use for you… I have noticed that you lack an experienced alchemist… I am not only a wizard, but a talented and wise alchemist, investigating and experimenting is my passion, and seeing such an amazing diversity of people here has made me realize how little I was in my previous position…! There is so much to investigate…!" said Abraham.
Ervas and Veronica considered it for a moment, as they glanced at each other.
"He really seems devoted," said Ervas.
"And by seeing his stats with Appraisal, he is not lying, his Alchemy Skill is at Level 9, he is really experienced," said Veronica.
"Most of his magic-related Skills are also around Level 7 to 9…" said Ervas.
"Oh, and he seems to be already following us…" said Veronica.
"Hm, perhaps we could put him to a test later," said Ervas.
"Yeah… I guess. Maybe?" wondered Veronica, as Abraham's eyes seemed to be filled with hope.
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