Something had caught at her feet as she let out a small sigh while putting on her robe. As she looked down, she could see the blood-soaked bandages—all torn up in a mess—lying on the floor. Julia proceeded to pick them up silently.

‘It must have hurt……’

She had already seen every time Bael ran out of control just because he couldn’t overcome the overflowing power.

Even though he was in utter pain that his whole body was trembling, he still didn’t show any hint of it whenever she looked at his face. Even then, he would become unconsciously drawn to her, who had the resistance against mana, at night. Sometimes, when she were to wake up in the middle of the night, she would find herself being held tightly in his arms.

She thought that deep down, he was just like an immature child. And it was until she saw that he had collapsed horribly from the magic stone……

‘There’s no way that he was the one who’d like to suffer such a terrible situation like that.’

As she thought of the mana that had grievously dug into his open wound, Julia’s shoulders shuddered before she quickly shrugged the goosebumps off from her arms.

She couldn’t help but to realize that Bael must have had a compelling reason to fight against the magic stone in the first place. He had never backed down and he would definitely repeat that of whatever was tantamount to self-injury whenever he felt better.

No matter how cold-hearted she was, it had only been natural that she would still be bothered and worried once she saw that. She tidied up the bed along with the sleeping Demon King who had a comfortable face for the first time after a while and rationalized her own actions.

As she moved busily while removing the blood-soaked bandages, towels and toiletries, the sight of the quietly asleep tower soon came into her eyes. Only then did Julia remember the quest which she had received just the day before.

[SYSTEM

Main Quest. Secret of the Tower.]

[SYSTEM

– Conditions to unlock: Enter the base, ‘Demon God’s Tower’ together with Bael and Legion.

– Mission: To investigate the inside of the tower. The time limit is 6 days.

– Reward: Activation of the command system.

– Failure Penalty: Permanent inability to enter the base, ‘Demon God’s Tower’.]

[SYSTEM

Player level is too low. The probability of failure has increased. This event is not allowed to be attempted again.]

Nothing had really changed from yesterday. However, the time limit was reduced by one day—from 7 to 6 days left.

‘Unable to permanently enter the Demon God’s Tower……’

Julia checked the penalty of failure first. Whether it was because of the given circumstances or due to her own cautious nature, she naturally went for failure rather than the reward before anything else.

The Demon God’s Tower was a key theme of the main story of the game itself. Both the key and the infinite magic resistance had ultimately existed for the ‘magic stone’ that was essentially sleeping in the tower. Therefore, being unable to enter it meant that her usefulness would also disappear.

She would go back to being useless once again—at the moment when she had just barely started to get along with everyone.

‘No, no.’

Julia bit her lips and shook her head. As soon as she thought of a future where she would be abandoned, she instantly felt insecure. Nevertheless, she tried to think that everything might never come to that point. All she had to do now was to look inside the tower while finding out what the system wanted and everything would turn out fine.

‘And only then can I keep on pretending to be the key.’

She slowly took a deep breath to calm her throbbing heart.

Just then, she could hear the familiar sound of such mechanical footsteps right outside the door. Apparently, Barbatos had come over to see Bael’s condition. As soon as Julia had quickly tied the belt of her robe, the door burst open.

[ Barbatos

Hmm, you were already awake. The talk will be done fast then.]

Julia was standing in one place as she only blinked her eyes blankly. On the other hand, Agares and Bottis had stood right behind Barbatos. They pointed their fingers curiously at Barbatos, who had fearlessly entered the King’s nest, before trailing after him quietly.

Barbatos sat down on the sofa first and proceeded to gesture in the opposite direction.

“Take a seat for now.”

“Um, what happened…”

“I have something to ask of you. Master feels safe when you are by his side, so let’s just have a talk here instead.”

He spat out words that could easily be mistaken for some other meanings with such a calm face.

In the meantime, Agares took a seat down next to Julia and Bottis, for some reason, had curled up behind her as if to protect her while holding its head upright. It didn’t feel very refreshing to see a huge snake hissing its tongue right behind her back, but she eventually decided to respect Bottis’s own choice of seat for now.

“Little key, we’ve come here to listen more about what had happened back in the tower before.”

“The tower? But at that time, you two were there as well.”

“I was on my way back from the inspection, so I don’t exactly know what really happened. Plus, Barbatos isn’t opening his mouth at all.”

“Anyway, tell me everything that you’ve seen. Everything that had happened before we arrived there.”

[ Barbatos

If my feelings aren’t wrong, then there must be something strange going on with the magic stone itself. And the cause of it all is the key, Julia Vestra……]

She avoided Barbatos’s gaze. It actually helped a lot to make sure it didn’t seem awkward since Agares was already licking her lips as if she was going to devour her right away.

Julia confided in as much detail as possible, including the fact that she had suffered from the waves and what really transpired right after entering the tower.