"You might want to get used to this thing, Kuronto," familiar voice from familiar female angel.

"Am I really this important?"

"We have people more important and bold people than you... But you managed to get quite the attention of others."

"Others?"

"We, angels, are mere messengers. There are other higher-up beings that have a little bit more control over various things. The whole maintainence though is being managed by a neutral side to avoid any bias or favour towards demons or angels."

"The very fact I'm here is kind of bias, is it not?"

"You aren't a cultist. If you were one, you'd be met with a demon."

"But you got me curious about the entire maintainence thing."

"I guess we can answer each other's questions at this point."

"So a question for a question."

"You're quick-witted for situations like these. First things first, how do you think you can make sure Luntra joins our side? Even our higher-ups are interested."

"I mean, I can learn her better, show that the demons are baddies and so on."

"You're foolish indeed. That proposal alone got enough attention to get her bounty cancelled and if you mess up, you'll also be classified as cultist. And you know where that will bring you."

"Don't forget that I likely have more a lot of..."

"Time? Don't treat it like that. You'll eventually quit caring about her and deliver her to demons."

"I will make sure it doesn't happen. But it's time for my question now."

"Fine, go ahead."

There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask them, but I still needed to choose wisely to not regret such an opportunity later on. And I knew maintainence was not eternal, so I picked a question quite carefully:

"In my bestiary there was a certain boss appearing and..."

"Why was there no healthbar? It was one of the bugs. Now it's..."

"That wasn't my question though."

"What are you talking... Oh. I understood."

"Why was he doing such miserable damage despite being ranked XXS?"

"Firstly, his actual rank is SSS. Secondly, he was limited by his own level due a balance magic barrier."

So, now I knew the demon's rank and some good information. But that balance magic must be pretty strong to limit even such strong thing to some level. I might want to ask more about balance magic.

"Alright, now it's your turn to ask, I guess."

"Don't forget me, please," the good old friend, a male angel appeared.

"Man, it must've been tiring."

"Not that tiring. I've just dealt with some guy who jumped off a cliff seconds prior to maintainence while thinking it would nullify his fall damage. But honestly, even a fun bunch of people like that don't give a lot of motivation to keep dealing with that space."

"Well, my greatest friend, you can go ahead and ask me a question so I will ask you a question too."

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"And you will answer it honestly, right?"

"We both will."

"You're keen in stuff like this. Honestly though, I am curious about little something..."

"Hey, don't forget that I'm the one asking the questions!"

"It's a personal deal between us, not him taking your role."

"God, I can't let my guard down around you, all right."

"Anyways, go ahead."

"Why would you want to come up with that deal in the first place?"

"I just don't want Luntra to die that way."

"Sounds like you."

"Yeah, as idiotic as usual."

It was really hard to believe I was considered this retarded. The reality was the existance of ulterior motive but I did not want to think about it this much. After all, I could ask a question I really wanted to ask:

"Anyways, what exactly is that balance barrier spell?"

That question seemed to bother the female angel. Though the male one simply shrugged and said:

"I have no real knowledge of it honestly. If you don't have any question besides that one, I can tell you about advanced magic."

"Advanced magic?"

"Yep. There are even 2 types of it. The first one is a result of mixing almost any of 2 existing magical elements. The second type is a result of deeper studying of one of the four basic elements. Which one would you want to learn about?"

"I guess the second."

"Fine. Basically deeper studying of one of the four elements allows you to enhance your magic through using your HP points. For water it's blood magic, iron magic for earth, crimson flames for fire and bloody mist for wind."

So it was mostly related to blood, specifically red cells. I could understand blood mostly consisting of water and somehow being easier liquid to control than just water. I could understand iron magic because red cells themselves consist of iron. But the last 2 seem to trouble me: since blood not only mostly consists of water but red cells themselves consist of iron which does not give red color to the flame when being melted. Bloody mist really confused me for some time but then I remembered that red cells carry oxygen so you could potentially make it carry some poison and make the victim inhale it. I will try to figure this all out later.

"When will maintainance be over?" I wondered.

"Soon enough actually," answered the female angel. "Although it won't fix your precious Luntra knowing the hidden dark magic so you still have the task to handle," her voice sounded half sadistic as if she was enjoying my sufferings.

The whole maintainence really did not take this much time here at the very least. I saw the exact same blank space but that time around I had some really interesting piece of information with me. Advanced magic also can form via mixing elements. That made me think more of the element I wanted to mix with water. Well, I could consider thinking about it later. After all, there were still some things that need to be handled.