“Strange... no, it feels somewhat familiar.”

  A young girl opened her eyes and saw a wooden ceiling above her.

  Uhe warm feeling of the little wooden house from before, this room exuded a sense of tranquility.

  “You’re awake! The operation was a success,” said a cat-eared girl with chestnut hair, peering at her from the er of the girl's vision.

  “Meow!”

  “What are you saying? It was just a simple bandage job, nothing like a real operation,” remarked anirl, this oh white hair and fox ears, who gently pressed dow-eared girl’s ears and pced her on a nearby chair.

  “Are you alright?”

  “...How long have I been asleep?”

  “Hmm... Not too long, probably just a few days,” came the reply.

  “...Is that so…”

  The girl recalled wandering through the Abyss long ago. Without the clear cycle of day and night, she had little sense of time, and she was pletely unaware of how much time had passed.

  Now that she thought about it, her sense of time must have dulled and numbed over this period, with the years slipping away unnoticed until a staggeriy thousand years had passed.

  “Your lo stay was in that desert, wasn’t it?”

  A soft, childlike voice, with a hint of disdain upon closer listening, came from the doorway.

  “Lady Misako.”

  “There’s no need for formalities, Shirone. I’m just here to see her,” Misako said, looking at the girl who had no in bed.

  “Uood. We’ll excuse ourselves for now. Haru, e with me,” Shirone said, pig up Haru, who was still in a state of weakness, perfectly embodying the saying that ‘cats are liquid’ with her exceptionally pliable form, ahe room.

  “Now, let’s discuss what happened in that desert. You’ve probably heard most of it from your inner demo devil.”

  “Simply put, you were trapped in the desert due to the illusions of the Mother of Swarms, whom we call the ‘Dreamworm Mother’. You fought and grew stronger day after day, year after year. In the end, during your battle with the Dreamworm Mother, you lost sciousness due to her self-detonation and fell into a a until we found you.”

  This at matched the girl’s owions almost exactly.

  “By the way, Farkonia mentiohat you entered aroyed several fragments of the Dark Gods.”

  “Oh, just two, not many.”

  “Two? No, it was at least three.”

  Misako promptly tradicted the girl’s statement.

  “Think carefully about the characteristics of the so-called ‘Dark Gments’ you entered.”

  The girl began to recall the traits of those ‘pnt-like Cthulhu’ and ‘big-eyed tentacle’ creatures—tentacles, streive abilities, mental corruption, and inprehensible sounds...

  “That’s right. The Dreamworm Mother was one such fragment. The reason you could somewhat uand their voices is because you absorbed the power of these Dark Gments.”

  “Well, I’ll leave the rest to her. I’ll take my leave now.”

  Misako vanished from the room with a swifthat suggested she was esg. Behind the open door stood a beautiful woman.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Hmm... I should be fine.”

  The girl moved her arms, especially the newly regrht hand. Although it still felt a bit unfamiliar, it was funal.

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Farkonia fully ehe room, revealing the bandages on her own body, though fewer than those on the girl.

  “...What happened back then?”

  “You’re referring to that time, aren’t you?”

  The girl quickly uood what Farkonia was asking.

  “It was all thanks to my inner demo devil.”

  “Heart Devil?”

  Farkonia, being a powerful being herself, knew about the cept of ‘inner demons’ or 'heart devils', which were ive emotions that tended with the self, representing the dark side of every being.

  “When I went berserk, it was she whht me back. I couldn’t give up until I firmed whether I could exact my revenge.”

  “This…”

  Even Farkonia, who had lived for aended period, had never seen a situatiohe inner demon pulled the self back from the brink of losing reason. The sheer iy of the girl’s hatred and anger made Farkonia feel as though the roles of self and inner demon had reversed.

  Perhaps the heart devil 't help but to save both itself and Yverantheia.

  “In the Mezon, her inner demon has now bee something simir but somewhat different.”

  Suddenly, a pink-haired fox-eared loli peeked her head around the door, expining the current state of the girl’s inner demon.

  “Misako? What are you…”

  “I came t this little one here,” Misako said, holding a bag in which Pupu’s half-visible body was revealed.

  “Puff puff!”

  “This little fellow has been w about you ever since you fell unscious.”

  Pupu immediately leapt from Misako’s hands, boung over to the girl’s side.

  Meanwhile, a green-haired loli hid in the shadows, the se silently, though no one aowledged her presence.

  “By the way, what happened after the battle?”

  The girl patted Pupu and asked the question that had been on her mind.

  “As you see, I felt the dragons could no longer tinue as they were. So I decided to lead them to the bck demoory, and the damage ton Valley was also a factor.”

  Most of the dragons now resided oskirts of the bck demoory, stabilising into their human forms he shrine, such as Veridith and Farkonia outside the room.

  “Speaking of which, the dragons were quite astonished by the development of the bck demoory. It wasn’t a waste to have stayed at home for so long.”

  “And you wereher, were you?”

  At that moment, time seemed to stand still.

  “...I wasn’t staying at home; I did at least leave the room! But you, after staying in the subspace for so long…”

  “Alright, we’re evenly matched.”

  After this brief interlude, the versatiouro its inal focus.

  “I’ll tell you the result of the battle now.”

  “I lost, didn’t I?”

  The girl vaguely remembered being struck by the aftermath and spatial turbulence of the final blow, bined with the massive ption of magic, leading her into a a. She recalled Farkonia being awake just before she lost sciousness.

  “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  From Farkonia’s perspective, although she had stayed awake until the end, it was merely because the girl had been merciful.

  Farkonia had always viewed the battle as one of moderation, never intending to kill. Had she believed it was a fight to the death, even if she had been knocked unscious, the oute for Farkonia would have beeh.

  And Farkonia, she was not fident she could kill the girl.

  “As the former Dragon King, I decre that the dragons will join your ranks.”