The female soldiers were highly responsive to my orders. They did everything I told them to without hesitation, exactly the way I told them to do it.
It was great.
They had also cleaned and organized our room a great deal. Not a speck of dust remained on anything when I arrived.
It was nice to have such loyal servants, but...
One of them in particular seemed much more zealous.
That would be Stella, of course.
She had a very similar disposition to Cassandra, except that she revered me like some sort of god as well.
Regardless...
I also learned all of their names.
They were as followed: Stella, Nagisa, Soire, Edel, Mina, Astarte, Nemari, Olivia, Mikoto, and Claire.
I would do my absolute best to remember, but I made no promises.
The male soldiers arrived as well.
I wasn't sure what to expect at first...but Alwen assured me they were an especially zealous lot who believed that the Emerald Demon would save the world.
It was about that time that I realized I had been named a demon for the second time since coming to Delvandal. And both times were related to the color of my eyes.
Regardless, I was stuck with the name and I would live up to it.
After all, it reminded me of my father. In his honor, I would gladly accept the title.
These men had actually seen me fight up close and were beyond impressed. They were a group who wished to devote their entire lives to learning how to fight as I did.
That wasn't enough.
Once I explained the Corruption to them, the fact that it was the ultimate evil, needed to be eradicated from all of creation, and also what it did to people, they were sold.
They wanted to be hailed as heroes. Celebrated for all time for their valiance against The Dark Army.
Their names were as followed: Sato, Brian, Logan, Takeru, Risaad, Joshua, Sung Lo, Gin, Vald, and Daniel.
Each one of them was an elite soldier from the higher ranks of the Elysium military.
And thankfully, they got along well with the girls.
I was very happy with the selection.
As happy as I could be with this damned curse on me.
After that, Vakra put me to work learning alchemy. It was harder than the things Bronan originally taught me, but still understandable.
Over a period of three months, I would continue training with the female soldiers and learning advanced alchemy.
Vakra wanted me to understand it as a means of getting even stronger. I didn't think drugs were the answer, but he mentioned that he had been to worlds where it helped.
Worlds where people had discovered ways of making potions of immense power to enhance themselves.
The potion Vakra created using these methods was referred to as Blood of the gods.
It sought to temporarily mimic the effects of being filled with divine energy and having nearly unlimited power.
On top of that, there were potions to increase the energy output of the Heart of the World. This was done by making my body better at absorbing the energy.
I had a long talk with Vakra about the things I learned from Bronan.
Isabella helped me fill in the gaps of my memory.
I didn't think we would teach Vakra something, but we did. He didn't know of the tricks Bronan used in alchemy. The type of magic he used to refine chemicals in the brewing process and extracting magical essence from ingredients as they were being mixed...
...then putting it back after twisting it.
In short, our combined knowledge bore fruit very quickly.
An extreme variant of the 'Blood of the gods' potion was made called Overdrive.
I chose the name because it mimicked the extreme power of Difar's sword and its ability of the same name.
Through some testing, it was found to place my body in a state of extreme energy overload for a few minutes.
It tasted pretty good, too. Like a refreshing drink with a light sweetness.
It placed a mild strain on my body, but Vakra said that was normal for such a thing. Lastly, he mentioned that if he actually helped me build the ship, in his spare time, he would assist me in learning more alchemy. Although, he expected me to modify the Overdrive potion in the future to better suit my own body and power limits.
I was given extensive copies of the documentation and alchemical processes Vakra had acquired throughout the years. I planned to bring it to Carlos' attention as well.
In that time, all of the soldiers were outfitted with their heart devices as well. I used my spell to complete the process.
The female soldiers were very polite and respectful during the process. Although...Stella was still very suspect...
Next, Vakra made a lot of progress in understanding the Corruption.
The way he described it was simple.
Every world possess a substance called Animus energy at its core. This was what gave the world life.
That energy could become far more dense in worlds that possessed magic. For a world like Delvandal, it was exceptionally dense. Animus energy would also form a barrier around the world's core.
Corruption did not react well to Animus energy and was repelled by it. Mixing the two did not cause any negative effects, but created an unusable slag that had no magical or alchemical attributes. A completely useless substance.
Essentially, they cancelled each other out. Which lead us to believe that Corruption might be a form of dark Animus energy.
Vakra said that this theory was mostly irrelevant. The knowledge wouldn't help us because of the existence of purified divine energy. Which was used to completely obliterate Corruption much more effectively.
Still, Vakra had the idea that I could use my new power to nullify the Corruption in worlds before striking it down.
Vakra explained that heart stones were actually crystallized fragments of Animus energy that radiated and produced magic particles. Meaning heart soldiers would be able to resist infection naturally.
It would still do them great harm to come into direct contact, however. My solution to this was Carlos.
Using a concoction of the blood from all three Enforcers, Rune, my magical power, and some heart stone dust, we made a miracle elixir.
It granted anyone who drank it a sort of invisible barrier made from purified divine energy.
We tested it on one of the soldiers. He was eager to be the one who faced the Corruption head-on, first. Luckily, it was a success. He became immune to infection.
Some of his powers also managed to repel and destroy the Corruption as well.
It seemed as though Cain was just mocking us when he said we wouldn't learn anything.
On Avernia, we tried to fight it and lost... We ran away in terror from its unlimited power. On Ignitus, we learned how it functioned. We faced the Source and were soundly defeated. On Delvandal, we learned how to destroy it.
And in the future...we would save this world.
It seemed like everything was finally coming together.
* * *
In the months that followed our experiments and findings, Alwen managed to hire another Advisor. One who learned from Isabella as well and had a great deal of knowledge on political issues. He was good with kids, having two of his own. He and his wife would help to continue raising Alwen as he grew up.
Alwen recovered from the trauma that Isabella caused him and became mostly normal again... Except he wasn't a little bastard this time.
He began to slowly work towards fixing everything that Jarbold had done.
Eventually, he offered aid to the people affected by the war in Lokan. Elysium began to help them rebuild and relations slowly improved.
Vakra worked hard on placing communications systems as far and wide across the world of Delvandal as possible. The goal was to have Elysium notified as soon as the Corruption began appearing for real.
Also, to spread the description of Cain. To ensure that he would find no safe place to stay anywhere.
A tall man with pale skin. Medium length blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, very tall, with a shit-eating grin on his stupid face. His name was Cain Difar. A false Source of the Corruption. A copy of the original made to control and spread the plague in his absence.
Cassandra used illusions in order to have pictures taken...to print wanted posters and the like.
There were also rumors of Aldaril being sighted in another country's magic guild.
I decided to leave him alone for now... He would likely still be mourning the loss of Hikari.
And then there was the subject of Akari.
She had been spotted in several countries across the world. She was apparently trying to start a world war to get back at me...
Vakra made sure to put a bounty on her head.
A gigantic bounty. One so large that if someone managed to catch her, they would be set for life as a result.
The person who caught her would receive a huge sum of money. Additionally, Elysium would allow them and their family to move to this country with full citizenship, rights, and anything else they might need.
It was an immensely attractive offer.
As a result, reports of Akari's activities rapidly began to disappear once the information of her bounty was spread around.
People tried to lie about it and say that they had done the deed, but without proof, they would not receive a reward.
Lastly, was the issue of Kronos.
That guy was absurdly strong. He managed to save my life from Novak. I hadn't seen or heard anything about him or someone matching his description.
It was like he completely vanished from this world.
At one point, I pulled out the small token he had given me and looked at it.
I could see a strange magic surrounding it, but it seemed fairly harmless.
I placed it in my inventory and decided to just leave it there.
A few months later, Vakra received a report that some kind of lab based in another country had been broken into and destroyed. Supposedly, it was Aldaril who sent the report...and he was the one who did it.
They were trying to create super soldiers with powers that mimicked otherworlders to bring down Elysium.
Aldaril wouldn't accept any gratitude, but mentioned being aware of the Corruption.
He promised to help as much as he could once he had finished mourning.
This was good. I wanted Aldaril to be part of my crew as much as possible. Hopefully, I could fully recruit him at some point...
I still needed to have a talk with him about the things that happened in the mansion, but that would have to wait.
These were the things that happened in the months after the Corruption first appeared on Delvandal.