A Mother's Heart
Einblad, the city where the Pureblood Demons made their home.
Far in the distance, the Demon King's Castle Kutranux rose faintly against the sky, and the roads paved in pale-violet magic stone left a striking impression. I was walking behind Ludmila, the queen who ruled Einblad.
From the woman with horns like a mountain goat's, I could feel a formidable aura of mana. With every step she took, a blue haze bloomed around her, as if to display the staggering quantity of power she possessed.
Shari, who had called Ludmila here, clung quietly to the top of my head. Had she lived in this place, too, when she was still alive? What must she be feeling now, a ghost returned to her hometown? I couldn't even begin to imagine.
It was a fairly large city, but the Demon King himself existed not far from here—and yet she still used the title of Queen. I had always assumed the demons had only one sovereign: the Demon King. Once again, I was reminded of how little I actually knew about their kind.
Demons who looked like guards bowed their heads in respect the moment they saw her. Then they turned sharp, hostile eyes on me as I followed behind. It felt as though the entire city regarded me as an enemy.
Was this what it felt like to become something the world itself despised? Then again, for demons, this kind of reaction toward a human was probably only natural. The Karia Tribe I had met underground had been the unusually understanding ones, I supposed. I hadn't expected them to keep attacking even after I had shown them Shari, though.
The room I entered behind Ludmila was decorated throughout with floating purple magic stones. The overall impression was expensive and lavish, but it felt far more like a mage's chamber than a queen's residence.
"It is exceedingly rare for a deceased demon to linger in this world as a ghost. Rarer still is a human visiting this place with such a ghost in tow. So do not misunderstand, human. I am merely postponing your execution."
Queen Ludmila spoke those words to me. There was no bluster in them, no empty threat—only sincerity. The pressure rolling off her was so immense I could have believed she was the Demon King herself.
Yunoa marveled at the power radiating from Ludmila, Queen of the Pureblood Demons, who stood before him.
She possessed enough mana that, should she truly set her mind to it, she could reduce Yunoa to dust.
Narration drove the point home, and I swallowed dryly.
"I only wanted to let this child meet her mother."
Ludmila's gaze lifted to the top of my head, where Shari was currently clinging.
"Humans are a vile and cruel race. I have spared you only because I found myself curious at the way that child trusts and follows you."
So Shari had saved my life yet again. She was the reason I had come here in the first place, after all. And as for humans being a vile and cruel race—I was a human myself, and I had to laugh, because I agreed. People wouldn't say that humans are the scariest thing of all if it weren't true. Hearing it from a demon, though, left a strange taste in my mouth.
"Anyway, once we find Shari's mother, I will leave at once. I truly have no other intentions."
"I understand what you desire. Even so, I cannot allow a human to go rummaging through Einblad as he pleases."
"Then..."
"I shall have my people search for the child's mother. Until then, you..."
Ludmila's eyes began to glow. At a flick of her hand, several large, translucent violet plates materialized in the air—and in the next instant they came flying in, closing around me from every side.
"...Huh?"
Clack. Clack.
In the blink of an eye, I found myself sealed inside a massive, translucent cube.
A massive crystalline cube of dense, high-potency mana sealed shut.
Ludmila looked down at me, trapped inside the violet cube, and spoke.
Sealed by Ludmila's magic, I was moved to what seemed to be a warehouse. The walls of the Magic Stone Prison looked like purple glass, but they were far sturdier than they appeared. I was a human, yes—but locking me up in a place like this without so much as a word of warning still felt excessive.
Queen Ludmila genuinely seemed intent on keeping me here until she found Shari's mother. Given that she had enough mana to grind me to powder if she felt like it, I supposed I ought to count myself lucky it had only come to this. Considering the hostility the demons of this city showed toward humans, it wasn't as if I couldn't understand.
That didn't mean I wasn't anxious, trapped inside this prison. Anyone who claimed otherwise would have been lying.
Shari slipped down from my head and looked at me with apologetic eyes.
You don't have to feel sorry. I'm the one who decided to help you meet your mother.
She could have passed through the walls of the Magic Stone Prison whenever she wanted, but she refused to leave my side. She seemed to feel responsible, as if I had ended up like this because of her.
"Well, anyway—now that it's come to this, I hope they find your mom soon."
I forced a smile as I said it. Would they actually let me out once they found Shari's mother? I was a little worried, but there was nothing I could do right now except wait.
Queen Ludmila's Magic Stone Prison was, in itself, a crystallization of mana, dense with formidable power.
Inside this mighty prison—one that could not be easily broken by physical force or by magic—Yunoa felt his own powerlessness.
What Yunoa did not know, however, was that this Magic Stone Prison also held the potential to be used as a catalyst for Mana Conversion.
I was sitting in the prison, waiting with nothing else to do, when Narration let slip something that snagged my attention. This prison could be used as a catalyst for Mana Conversion?
I couldn't fully grasp what she meant—but having heard it, I couldn't just sit still. I had nothing else to do in here anyway. Might as well look into it.
I closed my eyes and tried to sense the surrounding mana the way I did during Mana Conversion. There was certainly a great deal of it here—no surprise, given how many magic stones there were. And the prison holding me was, just as Narration had said, a crystallization of mana.
"This is seriously incredible."
It was an enormous quantity of mana, but the quality felt different. The mana I had been absorbing and accumulating in my body had always had a faintly bluish character to it. Strictly speaking, assigning colors to mana wasn't a precise method—and yet that was genuinely how it felt. Call it a sixth sense.
The mana flowing through the Magic Stone Prison—Ludmila's mana—felt like an entirely different kind from what I had stored in my body. If I had to put a color to it, it was a deeper, more intense red.
I still didn't understand what Narration had meant by using it as a catalyst for Mana Conversion. For now, I focused my mind and tried to take this alien mana directly into my body.
"Nngh..."
I did what I always did: drew in the surrounding mana, filled my body with it, and let it flow back out, over and over. But the mana running through the prison that held me didn't so much as twitch, as if it existed in another world entirely. The sensation of mana accumulating through Mana Conversion didn't change either. Even with this other kind of mana saturating the air around me, only the type I had always been able to take in moved according to my will.
If you're going to tell me something, you could at least explain it properly. Narration always had a way of handing me information with a few screws missing.
I focused again, trying to feel the surrounding mana in as much detail as I could. If the mana I normally used was blue, then the powerful mana flowing through this prison was red. No matter how hard I tried, my will couldn't reach mana of a different color.
In that case—what if I moved the blue mana my will could reach, and sent it flowing into that alien mana instead?
I put the idea into practice at once, trying to send the blue mana around me into the walls of the Magic Stone Prison rather than drawing it into my body. It wasn't easy. Until atmospheric mana entered my body, it wasn't fully mine. Moving it through the air and directing it to flow where I wanted, without passing it through myself first, was difficult in itself.
"Huh. This is actually kind of fun."
I had plenty of time, anyway. It felt like I'd found a decent way to kill it inside this prison. Unlike ordinary Mana Conversion or the techniques I used with the mana already in my body, this was about moving atmospheric mana as it was. It demanded intense concentration, but the more I kept at it, the more it felt like I was getting the hang of it.
Narration had clearly said that the powerful mana flowing through this Magic Stone Prison could serve as a catalyst for Mana Conversion. In that case, I'd just research this until Queen Ludmila found Shari's mother. And if I never did find a way to use the prison's mana, that was fine too. Practicing my control over mana itself couldn't possibly hurt.
I lost all track of time inside Ludmila's Magic Stone Prison, absorbed in practicing mana control. And as a result, I finally figured out how to use the vast mana flowing through the prison as a catalyst for Mana Conversion.
The mana I could move by my own will, I would call blue mana for convenience; the mana flowing through the Magic Stone Prison, Red Mana.
The blue mana drifting in the air could be absorbed into my body or directed elsewhere simply by concentrating. I couldn't control the prison's Red Mana directly—but when I moved blue mana and sent it rapidly through the prison walls where the Red Mana flowed, the nature of the mana itself changed.
The transformed mana felt far more powerful than it had as blue mana. And I could still control it with my will. It was as if it had taken half the nature of the Red Mana—powerful but immovable—and half the nature of the blue: weaker, but obedient.
"So that's what she meant by a catalyst for Mana Conversion..."
To think I could dramatically amplify my existing mana just by passing it through the prison walls. It was serving as a catalyst for amplifying mana, exactly as advertised.
Of course, the process wasn't easy. The amplification only worked on atmospheric mana that hadn't yet passed through my body. Mana I had already taken in once didn't change at all, no matter how many times I sent it through the walls.
I moved as much of the surrounding blue mana as I could, amplifying it through the prison walls. It was work that demanded so much concentration that cold sweat broke out and my temples started to ache—but it was worth every bit of it.
Then I slowly drew that amplified mana into my body and took it in. It was like performing the Mana Conversion I had done to death every day, except with a far higher concentration of mana. I could feel a new color of mana filling my body.
Mana Conversion was the process of filling the body with mana and emptying it again, over and over. The principle was to use the body as a filter, straining the mana again and again until only what could be permanently accumulated remained. How well would this new mana take root in my body?
I was repeating this enhanced Mana Conversion using the Magic Stone Prison when, suddenly, the warehouse door burst open. Two grim-faced demons strode in and started lifting the prison I was trapped in.
"The Queen is calling for you."
The demon carrying the prison said it bluntly. Had Ludmila found Shari's mother?
Ah, wait a second. Could I stay locked up just one more day?
