Save Eve from her fated end.
Find and save Betty wherever she was in this world.
And survive.
Those were my three objectives.
It was kind of funny. Ironic... or maybe poetic?
Like how there were Three Disasters in 3D-ED, I had three objectives to resolve in this world.
The first was the most urgent. December 21st was the deadline. When that time came and went, one way or another, Eve's fate would be set in stone.
I had to make sure that it ended with her surviving. Thankfully, with recent events, as well as my recent status update, which included the equipment I made, it was doable.
Plus, I had the trump card I left with her, even though she hadn't realized it just yet.
The second, finding and saving Betty, was urgent too. The quest objective had said the end of Act 3 OR the demon god's descent.
Now, thankfully, there were really only a few ways that Demon God Umbrel could be summoned early, and all of those involved the sacrifice of around a million lives or an ancient artifact buried in the depths of the Eternal Empire's palace.
...But the problem was that it said 'Act 3' too. Which implied to me that the time limit was uncertain. After all, I wanted to say we were on 'Act 1' but this was reality, not a story or a game.
So to boil it down, as soon as I was certain Eve was safe, I needed to find Betty.
And the first step to that was to head to the real location of Edelweiss and figure out what had happened.
As for surviving...
Well, I wasn't too concerned about that. There were more important things at hand, and betting your life was always the fastest return in terms of improvement.
Anyway, priority one: saving Eve.
It was November 2nd. Early morning, right after we got back from
Eve wouldn't be having a mental breakdown anytime soon, but she was still vulnerable to the demonic energy left inside of her. Especially since her
But I'd just recently obtained something that could fix that issue.
"...This should work, right?" I stared at the description of
===
[Clear Star of Intuition]
A masterful work of magical engineering centuries ahead of the current era. Forged from gold and a many times refined amethyst. Has the appearance of a golden pendant with a gold star wrapped around a deep violet amethyst.
Linked to Alexander Smith. Can be loaned to one other person.
Grants
Wearer becomes immune to mental status conditions.
Wearer becomes immune to abnormal status effects.
===
...I was a bit concerned about the fact that it said it was 'centuries' ahead of current magical engineering. But what was important was that it should make Eve immune to abnormal status effects.
Trying to separate out the demonic energy was futile. It was like trying to unbake a cake. Or more specifically, to retrieve some food dye from a baked cake.
Unless I wanted Eve to die, that wasn't possible. And even then, odds were likely that a small trace would be left. And when it came to that demon god, a trace was enough.
No, instead of trying to reverse it, negating the downsides would be better.
I had it so that 'Demonification' was a process where Demon God Umbrel granted his power to someone and made them a 'vessel of power.'
Normally, that meant whoever became a vessel was erased and overwritten. But there were exceptions.
One example was Isaac, who came from a bloodline of magical swordsmen that could externalize their mana system into a blade and wield it...
Which reminded me that odds were high he would show up around the Winter Solstice Ball as a sort of story boss wielding a demonic sword of sorts considering I hadn't seen or heard much from that guy.
But anyway, the main danger that Eve faced was being overtaken by Umbrel. Especially since
"So this should fix that." I clutched the golden pendant in my hand and then walked through the front doors of the dorm building, marching towards Eve's dorm in the nobles' section of campus.
The system didn't lie.
And even if it did, I was certain the logic behind this was sound.
So-
*bump*
I blinked and looked up to see who I bumped into.
"My, my." An old man with a flowing black robe embroidered with gold. An infinity symbol emblazoned across the front of that robe. His long gray hair... no, his very light green hair, shifted from the impact. Even so, the old man himself didn't move at all, just smiling.
I instinctively stored
The old man noticed and his green eyes twinkled.
Even so, I remained calm and said, "To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting The Boundless Gale?"
...Yes. The Boundless Gale. Marzin Sagewind. Marisa's grandfather who SHOULD be too busy to visit considering he was working on the Skymend project that was studying how to forcibly close Gates.
But that guy was also an old man who loved his granddaughter more than life itself. So considering how Marisa had just passed the major milestone of reaching Rank 7, I wasn't too surprised to see him.
...I was just now forced to improvise since I wasn't expecting him.
"Hoh?" Marzin walked around me and said, "Interesting. To link together mana stars and mana circles like this... and to still be alive to tell the tale." He nodded and said, "If it's you, no wonder my bookworm of a granddaughter became interested in men..."
"The fuck- I mean, what?"