“Hmm, I’ll have to think carefully about this. Getting the Patron Wish Ticket from the lady herself is no small feat.”
“Right. You only get one chance in life for sothing like this, so you should think long and hard about it before you decide.”
“Oh dear, this might just be the biggest dilemma of my life.”
“Hehe, well then, I’ll really be off now.”
“See you later, milady.”
“Yeah.”
Cyrill waved at .
I turned away after taking one last look at him.
Even as I climbed into the carriage, Cyrill was still waving enthusiastically. I mouthed, “Go on now.”
At last, the carriage began to move.
When would I see him again?
As I thought about our next eting, an unsettling idea struck : what if I couldn’t et him again?
After all, the Duke of Dinsions could show up at any mont and kill .
Sigh.
I still had to attend teor’s engagent ceremony and grant Cyrillote’s wish. And above all else, there was no way I’d let myself fall to a demon—not when my dad was counting on .
The montary despair weighing on lifted as determination surged through .
Thinking of the people I cared about gave strength.
That’s right. Sure, a top-ranking archdemon from the Demon Realm is coming to kill , but at least it’s not the Demon King himself. I’m not going down easily.
Yeah, that’s the spirit.
With renewed resolve, I blinked once, absentmindedly.
When I opened my eyes again, I thought I’d gone blind.
Suddenly, the lights in the carriage seed to have gone out.
But my vision soon adjusted, and instead of the carriage, a strange scene unfolded before .
“What is this place…?”
It was a dim, vast room.
Dark shelves lined the walls, packed tightly with books and tools of mysterious origin.
Old flasks of varying sizes, thick tos, and enigmatic minerals filled the room.
In tanks, bizarre creatures wriggled and squird.
Sandwiched between the intricate machinery, countless hourglasses of various sizes ticked away, their sand flowing relentlessly.
What kind of place was this?
Had I sohow ended up in the Demon Realm?
I noticed a small window among the towering shelves. Through it, a crimson crescent moon cast its eerie glow.
As I suspected, I must have been swept up by so advanced Magi.
“Is anyone there…?”
Cautiously, I surveyed my surroundings.
It looked like a laboratory, but I couldn’t guess which demon it might belong to.
The system window still hadn’t appeared.
I waited for the notification sound, all the while examining the shelves.
Everything here was ancient and coated in thick layers of dust.
Had this place been abandoned?
After thoroughly inspecting the shelves, I moved down a narrow passageway.
Beyond it stood a large wooden table, weathered with age. It looked like it had been in use for hundreds of years.
On it sat countless vials.
It seed to be a workbench used for experints.
Is the owner of this place so kind of deranged scientist?
This dungeon felt fresh and intriguing in its own way.
I found myself growing curious about who its master might be.
A ssy stack of papers filled with dense writing caught my eye. Carefully, I picked up the top sheet.
After brushing off the dust, I saw that it was covered in complex numbers and equations. I couldn’t make any sense of it.
Sigh. Once again, I apologize for being a liberal arts major…
Feeling a pang of defeat at the hands of an unseen demon, I rifled through more sheets.
In addition to formulas, there were plenty of what looked like magical circle designs.
This demon seed impossibly distant from .
Could the Duke of Dinsions have brought here?
Maybe they brewed so sort of potion to impersonate teor’s appearance.
But why wasn’t the system window showing up?
Saints, could you kindly inform where I am?
Being in a dungeon without a system prompt felt unnervingly off. Were the saints asleep or sothing?
Ding!
“What?”
I nearly bit my tongue.
Not officially sanctioned?
Did this an I had arrived in the Demon Realm through an entirely different route than usual?
What does that even an…?
A different chanism? As if it weren’t bad enough to be dragged into Magi regularly, now there’s yet another way to be pulled into the Demon Realm?
This was news to .
What could have caused this “other chanism” to bring here?
I was baffled. Saints, just tell everything you know!
Not allowed?
Why not?
Are you seriously not going to tell ?
They really weren’t going to tell .
I decided not to press them further. If the saints couldn’t speak, they probably had a good reason for it.
“Well, I’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Muttering under my breath, I shifted my gaze to the vials.
By now, I felt like I could morize every piece of furniture in this place. Why hadn’t the owner of this lab shown up yet?
I had no intention of staying here long.
Still, I needed to explore. Carefully, I inspected each vial one by one.
What were all these potions for?
What was the owner of this lab trying to create?
I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with potions and herbs. After all, my dad had consud a mysterious potion that turned him into the Demon King.
During the tutorial phase, I had poured over countless ancient texts and books on herbology, trying to learn what that potion was made of.
I had managed to identify so of the herbs used in it, but I could never determine its exact effects.
But what use was knowing more about that potion now?
Dad had already beco one with the Demon King.
Unless there was an antidote that could separate him from the Demon King…
My gaze fell on a particular set of vials.
Among the various bottles, one stood out for its exquisite craftsmanship.
It was shaped like a slender flask, its color a deep, earthy hue. Intricate patterns were engraved in relief on its surface.
It looked eerily familiar.
“Impossible…”
Why was that here?
My heart sank.
I could be wrong. Maybe my mory was playing tricks on .
But how could I be mistaken about sothing I had spent years glaring at in resentnt?
The potion that turned my dad into the Demon King…
Quickly, I opened my inventory.
It had been a long ti since I’d looked at that potion.
Even though it had been years, it was as familiar to as if I’d seen it yesterday.
I placed the potion on the table.
The patterns matched perfectly. The craftsmanship and color were identical too.
Even after scrutinizing it several tis, it was undeniably the sa.
It’s identical.
So the potion had been made here? In the Demon Realm?
My heart pounded in my chest.
Could the liquid inside be the sa? If so, the person who owned this lab must have been the one who created the potion my father drank.
With trembling hands, I examined the contents of the vials on the table.
To my astonishnt, they contained the sa clear liquid.
The sa as what Dad drank.
But what about its ingredients?
I quickly opened the system nu. There had to be a skill for analyzing potion ingredients.
Frantically, I searched for a skill that could help.
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