"Sister, that day a thousand years ago.
Why didn't you resist?"
His question was vague, but Pride understood exactly what he was talking about. Her slow steps stopped and she turned towards him before asking.
"You know what I'm talking about.
I'm asking why you didn't use your second Series skill when that bastard Ginaroad backstabbed us.
The soul poison was something we didn't expect and it prevented us from using our skills temporarily. Removing it with the ambient law energies would have also taken us quite a while given its potency.
But it was different for you.
You were strong enough to still be able to use your skills, and if you had done so, I bet we would have had enough time to deal with the soul poison.
At the very least, we would not have fallen to the seal of those damned heroes."
Greed casually revealed the fact that he was aware of Pride possessing a second series skill, something that the high demon had kept a secret from all her siblings.
However, even though she just learned that Greed had discovered this, she wasn't too surprised as she never expected to keep it hidden forever.
"There's no big scheme or mind-blowing reason behind it.
Alvey's son simply caught us at a bad time. At a time when I was under a geass, one with a restriction that prevented me from using that skill and my idiosyncrasy for a particular period of time.
I was supposed to gain a power boost afterwards, but sadly, we were sealed before that could happen.
That's all."
As soon as she was done speaking, the ground began trembling, as if an earthquake was occurring. However, Greed was 90% sure that this was no natural earthquake.
"Collapse? Your contractor actually pushed him that far?"
He spoke with slight surprise as he had not expected Terence to be forced to use Collapse. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, right before the trembling intensified by two times.
"Huh?"
While Greed was surprised at the sudden increase in the earthquake's magnitude, Pride facepalmed and spoke.
"The damn copycat is at it again."
◇ ◇ ◇
Crossing the distance between the two battlefields was something that took the two sin demon siblings no less than five minutes.
And upon arriving, the sight they were met with was something that left them speechless for a moment.
A new hill had been formed, one that consisted of chunks of rocks, sand and dozens of trees. Said hill was surrounded by a three-hundred-metre-wide depression in the ground on all sides, one deep enough to result in a lake forming the moment rain fell.
Seated atop said hill, with his weapon stabbed into the ground beside him, was the young hero contracted to one of the two sin demons, Evan.
At his feet, was the body of the contractor of the other sin demon, Terence.
When Pride and Greed arrived, they saw Evan sprinkling the contents of what they believed to be a healing potion on Terence's badly damaged shoulder.
Despite sensing their presence, Evan carried on with his actions, only stopping when he had half emptied the bottle.
He then tossed it into his inventory and looked up at the two demons.
However, since his mystic eye crest was still active, Greed naturally noticed this, and his reaction was...not as explosive as Evan had expected.
"...What is the meaning of this, sister?"
Instead, he calmly turned to his sister and asked, all while withholding the anger he felt upon seeing Evan's eyes.
Thinking about it rationally, he knew that there was no way in the universe that his sister would agree to a contract with the same person that sealed her away, so Evan was just someone with the same mystic eye skill as him.
However, Evan possessing said skill meant he was a 'Hero', an existence that was fated to be against the demons who were the 'invaders' of Aidos.
"You didn't tell him about that?"
"...I forgot."
"...?!"
Evan could have sworn he saw Pride's cheeks redden in embarrassment; an expression the boy was sure he would never see on the woman.
But looking at the red-eyed man next to her, he instantly figured out the reason.
'It's because her brother is here, she probably feels more at ease with him so more of her true feelings are showing, huh?'
Although he felt a bit sad that the demon didn't feel that much at ease with him, he realised that it was simply impossible for her to feel like that around Evan whom she had only known for a year, when compared to Greed who she had spent more than 300 years of her life with.
Putting trivial issues at the back of their minds, the trio returned to the city of Osto and were met with a group of knights at the gates, along with Viscount Perhorn and Eliza who was seated atop the city walls.
Upon seeing Evan walking back with Terence's unconscious body, she sighed in exasperation before jumping down from the city walls and summoning the radiant codex.
"Hey, Liz. Can you-"
"I know.
Breath of Life."
She cut Evan off, before activating her unique skill on the four of them, draining close to half her maximum magic power and healing their bodies completely.
The girl's control over her skill had improved in the past few months, so she was capable of healing multiple targets with her skill, without the individual healing effectiveness decreasing.
The radiant codex also helped with that too, making her able to deal with their wounds in mere minutes.
However, a frown appeared on her face when she looked at Terence's damaged shoulder, before turning to glare at Evan.
"This guy.
I thought we agreed not to kill him, so please tell me why you used a skill that could potentially erase his existence?"
"Blame Pride, not me."
Evan was quick to toss the blame on Pride's head, hiding behind the high demon who just facepalmed.
Eliza didn't even bother to deal with his antics, only pushing the unconscious Terence towards Evan and saying.
"I can't heal his shoulder. That wound there is a physical manifestation of the injury on his soul and it can't be healed unless his soul is healed first.
Sadly, I am not capable of healing souls."
After saying her piece, she turned towards the Viscount and apologized for the delay, before gesturing towards the knights who were waiting with shackles.
They chained the unconscious Terence and dragged him through the city, with Pride and Greed making themselves scarce while Evan and Eliza discussed a few things with the Viscount.
Naturally, this procession was witnessed by the citizens of Osto, allowing them to see that Terence had indeed been captured.
Evan noticed the bartender of the bar among the crowd, a grin appearing on the boy's face before he walked towards the man and spoke.
"Remember when I said that there was no way that I, Evan Bourne Eris would be scared by a mere thug calling himself 'Greedy Red'?
Guess what?
I also beat the shit out of him too."
He then put his hand in his inventory and pulled out his adventurer guild card, along with a small cloth pouch of coins and tossed it towards the man who reflexively caught it.
"Tack a few strawberry-flavoured drinks atop my previous order. I'd be coming back for it."
He then waved the man off and re-joined the procession, inadvertently showing the C-Rank that was on the adventurer's guild card in his hand.
◇ ◇ ◇
Viscount Perhorn's Estate
Dungeon City Osto
Hobha
March 19th
Year 1052
It was four days after the battle that resulted in Terence's defeat and consequently, the defeat of all the gangs that Terence had been controlling.
Since Greed had withdrawn his power during the battle with Pride and had only let Terence use it against Evan, the thralls lost their number one means of weakening the knights of Perhorn.
And when the knight captain joined the fray, all of Terence's subordinates were defeated by the knights with renewed morale.
By the time Evan's group returned, the knights were rounding up the last group of goons that Terence had sent out into the city to make trouble.
Naturally, a great number of them had escaped to the back alleys of the city, however, they were bound to lay low for more than just a while, considering that the knights were currently cracking down on all of them.
The identity of the source of their power, the Demon Greed, was kept secret, so only the top authorities of Osto like the Viscount, the adventurer's vice guild master and the merchant guild master.
Other smaller guilds existed in Osto, but it was deemed unnecessary for them to know about Greed's existence and were told that Terence's strange 'power' was something that originated from the man himself.
Evan did suggest that they revealed that his power came from an artifact that he had destroyed during the battle, indirectly telling the people that Terence's strange power was no more.
As for the riches and other valuables he had acquired during his short rule, the ones that could be identified were given back to their owners, while the rest were kept in the viscount's custody.
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