Hearing Feidric's words, Aria immediately pouted, her cheeks puffing up in indignation. "It's not an ice cube! It's an egg! Sister Castorice already proved it to me—it's really an egg!"
Feidric looked puzzled, but with Castorice's confirmation, he frowned slightly and examined the "egg" closely. After scrutinizing it for a long time, however, he still couldn't discern anything special about it.
In any case, after the battle concluded, the group of five and their dragon began their return journey. They soon reached the collapsed fissure where they had initially fallen. Looking up, they noticed that the thick blue mist that had once enveloped the area had completely dissipated, revealing a clear, sunny sky above.
Indeed, even the relentless snowfall, which had persisted for what seemed like an eternity, had finally ceased. But the fissure was at least thirty or forty meters deep, making their ascent a problem.
Castorice could use her Styx Sphere to pull herself up, and Cipher could simply run up the sheer cliff face. But what about the others?
As Castorice pondered this, she turned to Pollux, who had yet to return to the Underworld and was still trailing behind them in dainty steps. "Pollux," she suggested, "why don't you pull us up?"
Hearing this utterly absurd command, Pollux refused to obey this time, instead adopting a pitiful expression. The gap was too narrow, only five or six meters wide. Pollux could barely squeeze her head through; any further and she would get stuck.
However, as Feidric listened to Castorice and Pollux's conversation, he was completely stunned. Dragons were notoriously proud creatures—this was practically common knowledge.
Yet here was this massive dragon, wearing a pitiful, slightly aggrieved expression that left Feidric speechless. He couldn't quite explain how he could discern such emotions from a dragon's face, but he could.
After a moment's pause, Feidric asked, "Miss Castorice, what... what's your relationship with this dragon?"
This was a difficult question to answer. Castorice pondered briefly before replying, "Pollux and I? She's my Other Half, and you could say she's also an incarnation of my younger sister."
Whether this explanation was entirely accurate, Castorice wasn't sure herself. After all, her bond with the Death Dragon was far too complex to be easily defined.
"Death's Other Half... Incarnation?" Feidric murmured to himself. He had initially assumed their relationship was one of "raising her from childhood" or a "slave contract"—the most predictable scenarios. But the reality turned out to be completely different from what he had imagined.
As Feidric pondered, Castorice, finding Pollux useless at the moment, waved her away. "You can return to the Underworld now."
Pollux nodded and slowly faded away before their eyes. The instant she vanished, a tiny, adorable Round Sparrow burst from Castorice's chest and fluttered onto her head.
Castorice pointed at the sparrow. "By the way, she's actually Pollux... in another form."
"Huh?" Douglas blurted out, the first to voice his confusion. "She's a Druid too?!"
Douglas glanced at the spot where the dragon had vanished, recalling Pollux's awe-inspiring might, then back at the tiny bird perched on Castorice's head.
Earlier, the Death Priest Kaia had first encountered the Round Sparrow before witnessing Pollux's true form, his face a mask of shock and disbelief. Now, Douglas experienced the opposite: first seeing Pollux's true form and then the sparrow, his expression a mixture of bewilderment and confusion.
Is this... is this right?
Castorice explained, "Pollux cannot exist on the Material Plane for long. This Little Round Sparrow is merely a Clone I created to stay by my side at all times. She's not a Druid at all."
In contrast, Aria's reaction was perfectly ordinary. "She's so cute! Can I pet her? Oh... but I don't have a free hand right now. Sister Cipher, could you hold this Ice Egg for me?"
"Ah? Er..." Cipher's first instinct upon seeing the Ice Egg offered by Aria was to reach out and take it. But the moment her finger brushed against its surface, she instantly bristled, her tail shooting straight up.
"Meow~!"
Cipher swiftly retreated half a step. "It's so, so cold!"
The bone-chilling cold was identical to the sensation she'd felt near the Blue Mist. Cipher couldn't help but wonder if the Blue Mist had truly vanished into thin air. Could it have condensed and coalesced into this thing?
"Eh? Cold?" Aria tilted her head in confusion. She even pressed her cheek against the Ice Egg to feel for herself. "No, it just feels like a normal ice cube's temperature."
"Alright, alright, enough chatting. Let's get everyone up first," Feidric said, casting Fly, a Third-Level Transmutation School spell, on each of them in turn.
As the name suggests, this spell grants the ability to fly through the air, moving slightly faster than a normal person's walking pace. It's a concentration spell—as long as mana is continuously supplied, the effect persists.
Under Feidric's guidance, everyone soon floated into the air, slowly flew out of the gap, and successfully returned to the surface of Chaos City. Castorice immediately spotted Aisha and a group of Death Priests hurrying toward them. "It's over now," she murmured. "Let's go back."
Moments later, the group returned to the Death Priests' camp. Castorice went straight to the main hall on the ground floor, knelt on the ground, placed her hands on her white-stockinged thighs, closed her eyes, and began to concentrate.
Simultaneously, wisps of Styx Water materialized around her, swirling around her in flowing currents.
Seeing this, Feidric couldn't help but wonder, "What is she...?"
Aria replied, "Reviving that half-elf Druid Hero who just died? Oh, right, we forgot to tell you about that."
Feidric's face went blank. "Huh?"
Seeing his reaction, Douglas felt an inexplicable surge of satisfaction. He clapped Feidric on the shoulder and said with the air of someone who'd been there and done that, "Ah, it's nothing to worry about! Small potatoes, small potatoes!"
Aisha, standing nearby, overheard the conversation. She was momentarily taken aback. While the Death Church strictly separated the living and the dead—the living living their lives, the dead departing to their realm—reviving the deceased was not inherently forbidden, as long as the resurrected being was not an undead creature.
Still curious, Aisha asked, "Holy Maiden, who are you planning to resurrect?"
Douglas chimed in, "A Hero who died three hundred years ago."
Aisha gasped, "A... a Hero?!"
Though she had anticipated that someone Castorice could resurrect wouldn't be ordinary, this revelation was still utterly explosive.
In the center of the hall, as Castorice manipulated the Styx Water, it gradually coalesced into the form of a half-elf young girl before her. She felt like she was sculpting a figurine out of clay.
As Castorice continued to mold the figure, a serious problem suddenly occurred to her: she knew what the half-elf young girl looked like from the waist up, but what about her lower body?
After a moment's hesitation, she had no choice but to improvise.
As time passed, the crowd of onlookers grew larger and larger, all watching Castorice intently as they witnessed a miracle: life emerging from death. Even Nathaniel and Black Hand, who had inexplicably joined the crowd, stood nearby.
Feidric couldn't fathom what others were thinking, but he couldn't help wondering: if Castorice, the Death Demigod, could resurrect the dead, could she also revive his sister?
Yet their relationship wasn't close. Would it be inappropriate to ask her directly?
While Feidric was lost in thought, Castorice finally finished molding the figure. A petite, green-haired half-elf young girl, barely five feet tall, lay peacefully on the ground. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically, as if she were merely asleep.
In reality, this was merely an empty shell. Castorice hadn't yet placed the Soul inside. After carefully examining her creation several times to ensure no parts were missing, she slowly inserted the 'Soul' into the body.
One second, five seconds, a minute passed, and nothing happened. Castorice frowned, perplexed. This shouldn't be happening. Why isn't there any reaction?
After a moment, something suddenly occurred to her. She reached out with her right hand and gently pinched the half-elf young girl's nose. Visibly, the girl's cheeks slowly flushed red. Then, her eyes snapped open, and she sat up abruptly, gasping for breath.
As if she hadn't just pinched the girl's nose herself, Castorice asked gently, "How are you feeling?"
"Ugh~" the half-elf young girl groaned softly, then looked around in confusion. "I... I don't know..."
Castorice asked, "Do you remember your name?"
To her surprise, the very first, simplest question stumped the half-elf young girl. "Name... Name?" she murmured. "I... I don't know..."
And she wants to ask about the Demon Lord and the Hero? Castorice thought. If she can't even remember her own name, how could she possibly know anything else?
A puzzled expression crossed Castorice's face. Could something have gone wrong during the resurrection process? But that shouldn't be possible! All I did was create a body and insert her soul. There was nothing in the process that could affect her memory!
The problem must lie with the half-elf young girl herself. Though she had lived as a human for less than a century, she had spent three centuries as a dragon, with a dragon's mind.
This meant that most of the half-elf young girl's memories from her human life had been forgotten or dissipated. Furthermore, the Demon Lord's Extreme Cold, capable of freezing souls, might have inflicted some kind of damage on her soul.
The conclusion was inescapable: the half-elf young girl had most likely lost her memory.
Castorice paused, then asked, "Do you remember anything else? Anything at all."
Originally, Castorice's question was merely a probe. But upon hearing it, the half-elf young girl let out another anguished cry. "Ugh~ I remember... Benitez is coming! The Demon Lord is coming! Run, run!"
In the blink of an eye, the half-elf young girl curled into a tight ball. While other Druids inevitably made crackling and popping sounds during their transformations, she remained silent. Her body rapidly shrank, transforming in an instant into a small, brown squirrel, which immediately darted away, vanishing past Castorice in a blur.
"Wait!" Castorice called out urgently.
When Castorice resurrected the half-elf young girl, a large crowd had gathered around them. Naturally, these people now wanted to help catch the squirrel, but the creature was remarkably agile and swift. She leaped and darted through the gaps in the crowd, evading every attempt to catch her. Instead, the frantic pursuit caused people to collide with each other, tripping and falling to the ground.
"Ouch! Who stepped on my foot?!"
"Stop shoving! I almost had her!"
"Ah! Who elbowed me just now?!"
"Fuck! Who's groping my ass?! Get the fuck away from me, you pervert!"
Kaia shouted the last remark at Nathaniel. In short, the entire hall erupted into chaos. Amidst the pandemonium, the little squirrel darted successfully through the crowd, her tiny head swiveling wildly as she frantically scanned her surroundings before bolting toward the exit.
But just as she reached the doorway, her scruff was suddenly grabbed, and she was lifted into the air by Cipher.
The squirrel flailed her limbs in mid-air for a moment, but when that proved futile, she abruptly transformed back into her human form. Previously held by the scruff, she was now being gripped by the collar of her tunic. She blinked, her gaze darting back and forth between Cipher's tail and cat ears several times before lunging at her with desperate strength, clinging tightly to her waist.
"S... Save me!"
Cipher stared blankly, her expression one of utter bewilderment. "???"
As the others gradually approached, the half-elf young girl clung even tighter to Cipher, shrinking behind her without daring to move. Seeing this, Feidric suddenly had an idea. "In the Legend of the Demon King and the Hero story, the half-elf Druid and the Catfolk Ranger are very, very close friends. Could she be mistaking you for that Catfolk Ranger?"
Although most of her memories were gone, the half-elf young girl's primal fear of the Demon Lord "Benitez" and her instinctive reliance on her companion, the Catfolk Ranger, remained.
Feidric explained the character settings from the novel. Due to the half-elf young girl's extreme shyness, most of the group had to leave, leaving only Aria, Castorice, Aisha, and Cipher behind.
This time, they let Cipher guide the questioning, but the results were no different from when Castorice had asked the questions. The half-elf young girl truly remembered nothing, not even her own name.
In the end, resurrecting the Hero yielded only one seemingly insignificant piece of information: the Demon Lord's name was Benitez.