I furrowed my brows as I read over the reports that Tsubaki handed me. It was somewhat unnerving that there had been such a problem within Lorek and Spica without us noticing earlier, but it was a relief that Terra had managed to get it cleared up within the means available to her. Well… relief is a strong word, given the casualties involved, but I knew that it could have been far worse if she hadn’t acted as she did.
“How is everything else coming along?” I asked, setting down the pages that she had handed me and looking at Tsubaki directly.
“Dana has since returned to Olympus and resumed work on the Sky Chariot project. Aznod has requested purchase of multiple high-level restricted ingredients from the market, and Lifre is…”
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“It should be somewhere around here, right?” Lifre asked herself, standing above a black canyon that seemed to descend into an infinite darkness below. Well, not strictly herself, as the one she was talking to was a clone standing next to her.
“Should be, it feels like the right place.” The clone nodded her head. “Want me to take the lead to search, dispensable avatar and all that?”
“What?!” Lifre looked at her clone in shock. “And let you have the thrill of exploration without me?!” The clone gave a knowing grin, both of them jumping into the giant crack at the same time.
The wind rustled against their bodies as they fell, far beyond what should have been reasonable, long past hitting terminal velocity. They were on the fifty-fifth floor of Fyor, the highest level that was currently available, so any canyon or mountain was at least thousands of times larger than its counterpart in other worlds.
The two let out joyful laughs as they descended, until they saw glittering blue stones below. Realizing that this was likely to be what they were looking for, white wings spread out from their backs, catching the wind and slowing them enough for their ki to allow them to stop in midair.
“This thing should have some special properties, right?” The clone asked as Lifre went over to harvest the glowing gems.
“Think so! My adventure led me here, after all.” One of Lifre’s arms transformed into a curved spike, crashing down against the wall to dislodge the gem. “Oh, I can’t wait to get back and let Tubby examine this!”
“Just don’t let him hear you call him that.” The clone said with a knowing grin, before her ears perked up, and she looked down below. “It looks like our adventure comes with a bit of danger this time.”
“Oh?” Lifre’s grin stretched across her face, looking down into the darkness. After a moment, she could hear the sounds of claws scraping across stone, heavy steps bringing a giant beast up higher at a rapid pace. “You play healer, this time. I want to do the fight myself.”
The clone rolled her eyes with a nod, moving to stand back. Lifre held her hand high in the air, golden armor forming over her body. A glistening sword appeared in her hand, which she aimed down below. “Start the adventure.”
“Background music!” The clone called out, a harp appearing in her hands. She began to strum a tune, the sound echoing out and causing Lifre’s body to glow.
Lifre could feel the enhancement from her clone, eyes narrowed as she slashed her sword. The sword’s light condensed along its edge, traveling down the canyon and illuminating it. Soon, it struck a massive, black-scaled and winged serpent, its claws digging into the cliff face as it climbed. Lifre’s eyes went wide when she saw the sheer size of the opponent.
The draconic beast below had to be at least a hundred kilometers wide, judging by the brief illumination. “Oh boy, we’re fighting a real boss this time!” Lifre called out, her wings flapping and carrying her higher into the air. Her clone naturally followed suit, the two of them knowing that they would need quite a lot of space if they wanted to fight freely. Although the canyon would make the enemy more cramped due to its size, it also gave them nowhere to dodge.
“Enter, the wicked army, those who serve as the goal of heroes. Without a villain, no story may be complete.” Lifre’s hand went above her head, conjuring her library. The gates of the library slowly opened as the beast’s figure shot up from the canyon. If this were Desbar, its body would block out the sky, covering smaller countries.
Lifre glanced back towards the library as the giant black dragon rose overhead, anxiously awaiting to see what would be pulled this time. Previously, she had been fortunate enough to welcome the King of Beasts. This time, black chains began to slowly drop from the mouth of the library.
“Oh no… it’s him.” Lifre’s expression darkened as a shrill laugh echoed from the library. Admittedly, this was one of the strongest existences that she had written. However, there was a price to pay when it came to calling upon this strength.
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A feminine figure wrapped entirely in black chains floated out of the library, its arms and legs bound to its sides. One eye was covered by its black hair, the other staring straight at Lifre. “The storyteller calls us! She greets us! She wants our power, our strength! But is she willing to barter? Is she willing to unbind the shackles?”
The woman’s voice was high-pitched, like nails on a chalkboard. Lifre glanced between the giant dragon and the Cackling Demon, not sure which of the two was more difficult to deal with. “What would it take for you to help me kill that?” She asked, pointing her sword at the dragon above.
The Cackling Demon’s head tilted upwards with an unnatural crack, before she began to giggle. “The arm that welcomes death, the eye that sees the end.”
“Two shackles… the arm and the eye.” Lifre’s expression twisted at that. The cackling demon accepted various forms of payment, but each shackle had a level that the price must reach. In the story Lifre wrote, the most simple form of payment was a blood sacrifice, but obviously Lifre wasn’t going to do that. The next best payment was treasure.
“You can keep the materials from the enemy!” Lifre shouted as the dragon twisted its body, swooping down towards Lifre and opening its giant jaws.
There was the clicking of metal, and a dark giggle that filled the air. “The payment is accepted.” The sky blackened as chains spread out across the horizon, thick shackles binding the neck and limbs of the draconic beast.
The Cackling Demon was a Goddess of Contracts, Shackles, and Chains. If a deal was proposed and measured to be of equal value to the service requested, she could unbind various body parts that had been sealed with extraordinary powers. Lifre looked over at the woman, her eye no longer obscured by her hair. Instead, it revealed an endless abyss, from which countless chains seemed to emerge.
Her right arm had similarly been released from the chains, reaching up towards the draconic figure. Her hand seemed infinitely small compared to the body of the dragon, and yet Lifre’s eyes widened, rushing back away from the duo.
Black chains surged from the woman’s palm, stretching out and attaching to the various teeth and spikes along the dragon’s head. She slowly pulled her hand back, the chains tightening as the dragon struggled. “Oh? It is about to break free…” The Cackling Demon let out a shrill laugh. “Is it stronger than I thought? No, the eye that measures worth won’t make such a mistake. It’s just too big. In that case…”
Her right arm exploded, an unfathomable number of chains filling the air between her and the dragon. The chains binding its arms began to creak and snap one by one, but these new chains were more powerful, having been condensed from the ‘sacrifice’ of her arm.
“Is it really a good idea to let her out?” Lifre’s clone whispered after flying near the original. “She’s not as bad as some of the others in terms of morality, but…”
“I know.” Lifre nodded her head with a grim expression. The Cackling Demon had her own brand of insanity. As long as someone offered a suitable price, it didn’t matter what she was asked to do. She would even turn on Lifre herself if someone paid her enough. “Thankfully, there’s nobody else around for her to make a deal with.”
It was somewhat harsh to call the Cackling Demon a villain in the first place. In fact, the reason that she had become the antagonist in the first place was that someone had made a deal with her to destroy the world. The price for that deal was almost unimaginable, his own death being nothing more than a down payment. Still, it was enough to fully unshackle the woman.
Lifre could see through the dense cluster of chains, dozens more were surging into the dragon’s mouth, through its throat and latching onto its internals with black hooks. “I’m collecting my payment.” The Cackling Demon said, the chains suddenly contracting and drawing the dragon towards her body. As it approached, it seemed to shrink down, sucked in by the chains holding it in place.
There appeared to be some kind of vortex in the Cackling Demon’s shoulder, and the dragon vanished into it. A moment later, a new arm burst forth, this one covered in black scales and with sharp claws on the end. “Mmm, this will do nicely!” She said with a shrill laugh, her chains retracting back into her arm and eye, shackles binding her once more. “Do call me out again some time. I do love our little chats.”
Lifre’s eyes widened at that, watching the chains pull the Cackling Demon back into the library. Before anything else, Lifre rushed into the library, scouring the shelves to look for the book that the villainess was pulled from. Once she found the Cackling Demon’s Tale, she opened it up and began to rifle through the pages.
“What… how…” Lifre looked down at the description of the dark goddess. In her introduction to the story, it now mentioned her black, draconic arm.
“She can change her own story?” The clone asked from next to Lifre, her eyes trembling. They had suspected as much when the Cackling Demon referenced their past talks. Normally, the creatures that Lifre summoned wouldn’t be able to remember the previous events when they appeared, each time being their first meeting in the outside world.
Lifre bit her lips softly, realizing that she would have to be a lot more careful when making deals with this particular villainess in the future.
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“In short, she’s being Lifre.” I summarized with a nod of my head, letting out a light sigh. “Was the gem at least worth the trouble?”
“Apparently, it is suitable as a high tier crafting material.” Tsubaki confirmed. “Lady Ryone says that she can use it to make an enchanted staff on par with a divine relic.”
My eyes twitched a bit when I heard that, but I wasn’t too surprised. This was Lifre that we were talking about, after all. “Ask her to mark down the location of the gems, and we can collect more of them in the future if we need to. Otherwise… just make sure that she’s more careful with any villains that she writes up in the future. The last thing that we need is some monster that isn’t bound by the rules she sets.”