Backing Out

With Sylvia dealt with, the only thing left for the Crimson Demon Clan to do was clean up the lesser demons that'd been milling around in hopes of Sylvia returning for a third time. A barrage of stupidly high-level spells shot like machine-gun fire swayed them from this however, leaving the village more peaceful than it'd ever been before...

This had actually disappointed a few clan members due to the absence of their usual target dummies, but winners couldn't be choosers, as the saying probably went?

Michael and his group spent the next week vacationing in the village, Megumin spending most of her time with her family which'd found themselves remarkably richer with the things Megumin had given them to sell, not to mention the bit of gold Michael had leant so that they could keep Komekko well-fed and happy... What? That girl was too cute to be eating the slop they served him earlier. Plus, his generosity had been reciprocated by Tiffania who'd found it 'Incredibly hot' that he'd support her Familiar's family...

Kazuma and his group also stayed around, the neet actually asking Michael for some lessons, which he eagerly accepted, mostly to get revenge for the guy staring at Tiff's chest...

He didn't forget to use [Spell Steal] on Aqua's resurrection ability either, though, there were some problems with it once he'd begun testing it.

First, it took was absolutely ridiculous amount of mana to cast. Like, a hundred Laguna Blades combined into one. He could cast it only if he sat and channelled it while sipping many Mana Potions for a couple hours...

Second, it actually took percentage points from his [Spark of Divinity] every time he cast it... He'd only resurrected a rabbit with it thankfully, but it'd drained him by 0.0001%, which was an eighth of his total. This unfortunately meant that he couldn't go around resurrecting folks willy-nilly, not unless he wanted to radically reduce his chances of stepping into godhood.

He was pretty sure the reason for this was Aqua's status as a goddess. She'd use part of her divinity to cast the spell, which explained how she could use it despite having less mana capacity than Michael.

Regardless, he was happy enough that it worked as intended... It also gave him a couple ideas on how to deal with Charlotte if everything fell through... Could he kill her and resurrect her to steal back her soul? There wasn't really any way to test if this would work without actually trying it..l.

There were some other problems with the spell he hadn't mentioned, including the fact you required a piece of the person's body to revive them. Also, you couldn't revive any undead or 'evil' person, whatever that meant.

While touring around the village they took the time to access the 'Adventurers Guild', specifically the place where you acquired an Adventurers Card which acted as a status board you'd see in video games.

Megumin accessed it and was amazed to see that all her abilities had updated, it listed all the spells and skills she'd learned in Tamriel, also recording the increase in her magical strength and mana levels...

There was also a new skill that surprised some and confirmed some things for Michael...

[Boon of the Source : Aetherius] : Grants the ability to learn and use the mystical arts. Passively increases the efficiency and effectiveness of magic...

There were more listed, like the passive effects that caused fire to deal more damage, frost to drain stamina, and shock to drain magicka. This skill was the thing that gave people in Tamriel to use magic, the link through Magnus to Aetherius passively bathing everyone in Magicka from the ascendant realm.

When Michael and the others tried to gain an Adventurers Card however, it failed completely, only producing a fully inked-out card. It wasn't like it didn't detect them, as they'd just produce a blank card instead of a completely black one.

Michael suspected the cause was their foreign nature to the gods that were involved in the skill process... He wasn't really interested in fixing this either, to him it wasn't all that valuable to those already competent.

A week later and it was time to leave this world. They had been asked to assist in dealing with the Demon King but Michael refused, it was simply just something he didn't want to get involved with, plus he couldn't really justify it to himself after hearing some stories about the 'Antagonist'.

The Crimson Demon Clan made it out like he was evil, but anyone who took five minutes to look through the basic history made it readily apparent who was at fault... The Demon King only declared war after the clan began using his castle and territory as target practice... Which sounded kinda familiar now that he thought about it... Deja vu?

Anyway, after saying their goodbyes to everyone and taking some souvenirs, Michael, Tiffania, Megumin, and Saya stepped through the next Dimension Gate, leading them to a wartorn-looking modern street that was both familiar and not to Michael and Saya.

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Black congealed blood covered much of the scuffed-up street, and the nearby buildings composing the Business District of the city had all been heavily fortified with wood, metal, and other random things being used to barricade doors, windows and even parts of the street.

There weren't any corpses, aside from the occasional body part that'd been ignored and left in the street, but the signs of 'civilisation' were visible despite the carnage.

Atop the business district's buildings were large makeshift scrap windmills that looked half ready to fall apart. They slowly spun, creating a whirring noise which meant they were either being used in the traditional sense to grind grain, saw wood, etc. Or the more modern way, to generate electricity.