“Well?”

Melakios was astonished that someone besides him could sense souls so well. At Nesune’s words, he was roused back into the conversation.

“I was born without one.”

“Preposterous. Well, you are human. Maybe your soul was traded?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Mr. Alkelios! What’s wrong?”

Alkelios had forcefully materialized before the both of them.

“Oh? You have a Spirit Guide?”

“No, I am but a normal soul absorbed by this child.”

“Right. And how did he absorb you?”

Alkelios was visibly debating whether or not to speak. He looked towards Melakios and sighed.

“Never mind. Just know that I don’t think his soul was traded.”

“It could have been ages ago. Someone might have thought they were funny and said something like, ‘you can have my descendant 33 generations from now!’ but this actually helps the human as the Demons would help the human’s family survive long enough to last that many generations. And also the person in question would actually be the soul of the original human reincarnated. Don’t make deals with Demons.”

Alkelios began to understand and decided to go back into Melakios to think.

“Got it.”

“Hehe, good boy. So even though you have no soul, you are alive. That shouldn’t have happened, but it did. So what brings you here today?”

“I wish to learn how to make Soul Stones.”

“Pbbt!”

Nesune was sipping on the bottle with questionable contents when she heard Melakios’ words. Because of how crazy the boy sounded, she ended up spitting her Liquid Spirit out.

“You idiot! You think just because you have a special situation it means you can just pop in here and start claiming to be a Soul Mason?! Stupid!”

‘Hmm…it seems she doesn’t believe me. Maybe I should show her some of my Soul Cores?’

Melakios reached into the jaws of one of the pack rats and soon the room was filled with a dazzling red light.

“What…is…that? How did you get that?!”

“I don’t know what it’s called, but I made it.”

“Made it?! How?! This Core has no leftover residue to indicate the intricate network of runes! This is more like a thousand year old Core, or a pure Beast Core of at least the Demon Lord Level!”

“Well, I also made these, but what made them was just normal beasts, animals, and monsters.”

Melakios pulled out more of his Pseudo Cores that he made using the lizards, bugs, and other such creatures. The higher leveled beasts were saved for later. Can’t be showing all the cards up his sleeve. Although some Demons made a habit of just pulling cards endlessly from their sleeves. Alkelios told him this was disrespectful to the other players.

If you’re going to cheat or take others by surprise, don’t do it often.

“Whew, I thought you had more. Although, these Cores are made the exact same way! Look, don’t show anyone that Core from earlier.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Heh, you are a really good kid, aren’t you? Fine, I will teach you a bit. But you have to tell me how you do things, first.”

“Yes, ma’am! What I can do is absorb souls of my enemies. Anything from which I have taken their soul, dies. Their souls remain within me waiting to be used. Alkelios is one such soul, although he never tells me how he came to be here. But I realized that in order for souls to form these Pseudo Cores, they need to be the same, if not similar. For example, here. A handful of monstrous lizard souls.”

“Use ten.”

“Uhh, okay. Ten monstrous lizard souls.”

Melakios began to collect the souls together in his palm as a large ball of light, the size of a globe he saw in Eligor’s personal study, appeared above it. He compressed the ball until it began to shine. Melakios started to feel strange, as if the energy used was more than usual. He would usually try four or five souls, not ten.

“Oho?!”

At least Nesune was enjoying this. This was more trouble than the Dying Sorrow Core! But these were just lizards!

“Urgh! Almost…there!”

“Hmm? Is something the matter?”

Nesune, who was actually smiling before, began to draw a frown. She didn’t know this would cause trouble for the poor lad. She was about to make him stop when all of a sudden, the white light turned into a murky brown.

In Melakios’ extended hand was a rough looking brown ball the size of a children’s candy.

“It worked!”

“What? I thought you did this before?”

“But I never used ten souls before. Even the Dying Sorrow Core used only nine Demons.”

“Excuse me? Demons?”

“Yes, nine Demons at the peak of the Mortal Stage were collected, by me, and put into my self where they duked it out with Alkelios from earlier. Alkelios won and took the positive and neutral energies, while only the negative energies remained. I gathered these energies and compressed them like I did just a second ago.”

“You…ah…we…do…”

“Miss Nesune, are you okay?”

“I…I think I’m fine…”

The orange lady who had nothing but her lab coat on was shaking on the outside and swimming on the inside. She had gone into a state where she ignored all the things around her, even Melakios. She sat at her table in the corner and began murmuring to herself. Melakios overheard the word ‘clean’ and decided to organize the room a little.

He began by sorting the papers. If they had soul energy, he put them off to the side and made sure none of it wore off or got smudged. He stacked the notes of diagrams and strange writing into separate piles for different types. He noticed the pages had words and read some as he worked. With this, if papers had many related words, they were piled together.

He gathered the rubbish from around the room and sorted that as well, since some of it still had soul residue. After making sure stuff was out of the way, he began sweeping, scrubbing, and mopping. All those years helping Ash with her chores were not a waste.

Although to him, the time he spent with Ash would never be considered waste. To Melakios, she was like his sister, his first and best friend. They were family.

As Melakios finished and began to reminisce of Eligor’s mansion, Nesune called out,

“You asshole! What did you do to my room?!”