Dianthus fell silent after that. Not because he had nothing to say, but because he was thinking.

  Thinking about the Unnamed Forest of the Mergifari.

  He knew what it was, despite never having entered. According to the Mergifari’s laws, only family heads could enter alone. Official mages had to enter in groups of five, and novice mages were banned from taking a single step in.

  Not like they tried to. In the mage’s world, idiots died fast. Unless a mage was completely and rightfully aware of their chances, reckless actions tended to end in tragedy. Dianthus was the most reckless mage for a reason, and that reason was that he was shielded from most consequences, if not every single one.

  Something not shared by anyone else. That’s why he never considered Velvet’s approach. And yet…

  For him, the Unnamed Forest wasn’t a place of interest. Not the forest, at least, for the Queen of Arhontissa was investigating the barrier dividing it from the rest of the Mergifari, the habitable zone.

  He knew the reason, and so did Igern, as much as he disliked that fact.

  Igern wouldn’t be rushing his death in exchange from power had he simply remained ignorant.

  Some things were predestined to happen. If everything depended on chance, the need for prophets wouldn’t exist.

  Igern and Velvet were prime examples of that, both of them advancing with the options fate had dealt them. He knew Igern’s, but Velvet’s were still a mystery.

  Yes, Lothrigern had helped her, but, His actions were a consequence of whatever happened with Velvet, not the reason nor the cause. What they had was a mutually beneficial accord.

  Back to the Unnamed Forest, unlike the Queen, Velvet was interested in the forest, not the barrier. But, the barrier was there for a reason, for the Unnamed Forest was the most dangerous place in the world barring the depths of Permafrost, both for very different yet similar reasons.

  If one was devoid of any kind of life, the other was far too filled with it. And, the more life inhabited a place, the more death accompanied it, something both of those places shared, next to no one going deep enough into them to reach their ending.

  As what awaited on the depths of Permafrost was a mystery, so was the hearth of the Unnamed Forest.

  Even so, the Queen believes that the Director reached the Unnamed Forest’s heart back then, together with the founders of the Mergifari. But, she also believes that, whatever power lies there, it never would be compatible with the blessing of Arhontissa, and so she has no interest in chasing after it. Dianthus recalled. But, Velvet… does she know? Or is she only chasing down that cure?

  Chasing different goals or having an end in sight? Thoughts were a messy, confusing thing, and Velvet, as a knowledge mage, had several trains of thoughts at any moment, most of which he couldn’t keep track of. With her, he needed to nudge the one he wanted to read, either with questions or getting lucky.

  And Dianthus was not exactly a lucky person. Frenese intending to take a bite out of him was not how he wanted his day to end.

  Speaking of the Devil, or Devils, they were as powerful as family heads, maybe even more, in the cases where they had the buff from being the rulers of a Hell Realm. Currently, Frenese was weaker after being sealed for thousands of years, losing his status as a Realm Ruler.

  It didn’t matter if he was eating everything with flesh on the pocket dimension, since the living beings there weren’t satiating nor powerful enough, since, if that were the case, Frenese wouldn’t be haunting him. And it wasn’t like he could leave in search of more lively places.

  If he were to leave on his own in his current state the Director would crush him in a blink. The Prophet wouldn’t let a threat like him run wild around the Mergifari, and neither would Udulluay, the Devil Realm Ruler of the Mergifari.

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  But, with Velvet’s plan on letting him access the Unnamed Forest, he would recover his original power faster, without the danger of becoming Udulluay on the way. So, he depended on Velvet to take him back into the book, and let him out to eat.

  With that decision, Velvet wanted to kill two birds with one stone. No, not two. Using her Devil’s Deal she could map the Unnamed Forest without personally entering, not to say to make Frenese bring her materials from there.

  After all, he would show some gratitude for the free food, right?

  “All the power in the world is nothing when the brain doesn’t catch up as fast, hm?” Now it was Velvet’s turn for mockery, her expression becoming the truest depiction of the Smug Face of Triumph, as she took a step closer to him, raising a hand towards his face and pushing his chin up with a finger, closing Dianthus’ mouth.

  Then, she laughed, sidestepping around Dianthus and continuing walking, leaving him behind.

  “You know? Things like these are why most mage families raise their own knowledge mages, and don’t take any outsider ones!” He shouted at her back. “Gaslighting ass Paradigm, I fucking swear.”

  “You’re still putting that soul inside my mermaid, am I wrong?”

  “Technically, it’s Doireann’s, my friend and companion whom you stole from by force.” Not like he really cared about who kept the thing, and, knowing Velvet, Doireann was better off buying another mermaid.

  “It was a theft in self defense, she can buy it back if she needs it so badly. And, if it bothers you that much, you can even be the intermediary.”

  Yes, Doireann was definitely better off buying a different one!

  …

  The soul transfer process went smoothly. Since the mermaid was just an empty husk, there wasn’t any sort of opposition from the original soul.

  Kneeling next to the flesh pool, Velvet held the mermaid’s face, staring at her. The nictitating membrane works, and she follows my movements… Blue scaled fingers with razor sharp claws reached for her face, grabbing one of her locks of hair. She shows curiosity, and can follow up with movements, so her brain is working.

  Then, the mermaid opened her mouth, slurring a mixture of melodic notes, broken segments of a song. A faint sleepiness caressed Velvet, not accomplishing anything. She can access magic, but has no understanding of how. The original souls’ memories might be damaged, or be too complicated for the new soul to understand yet.

  Magical and mythological beasts were almost impossible to keep captive in adulthood, unless they had somehow agreed to it, like demons did. Dragon keepers like Irsen Kartal were more unusual than dragons themselves, and even he was raising one from infancy.

  That’s why they picked a young soul.

  Since mages left no soul after death, it was a human one, and, since humans didn’t enter the Mergifari, it probably didn’t come in willingly. It was simply the end result of a failed mage’s experiment.

  She had seen Dianthus trying to get the mage’s identity through the ghost, and, by his expression after, he had obtained it. He also had made sure that Velvet explicitly promised to not harm the mermaid, or the new soul.

  … Really, why would she bother to make the mermaid conscious just to kill her again? But she agreed, at least to reassure him.

  Once she finished doing the check up on the mermaid, she got up, dusting off her clothes. “Well, with this, we’re even.” She then said, sending him off with a wave from her hand.

  Since a while ago, Velvet had been sensing Frenese getting closer, probably hunting down Dianthus. She had not done anything about it, since, in the end, she did very much want Dianthus to leave the pocket dimension. So, in a way, the Devil’s appetite was helping her in nudging the Chosen One towards leaving.

  But, when she didn’t get any response, or heard the steps of Dianthus leaving, she turned around, meeting him eye to eye, as he looked back at her with a hand resting on his chin, raising her suspicions.

  Not missing how he didn’t look at her at first.

  “I’ve been thinking, and… you don’t really have that much experience in mage combats, don’t you?”

  “That’s not completely true.” Velvet squinted at him, pondering how many explosions were needed to force Dianthus out. One too many. “Plus, I’m a support mage, no amount of weight lifting is gonna give me a combat mage’s strength.”

  “All your losses were saved because your opponent wanted something from you.” Dianthus continued, confirming to Velvet that the Corruption of Fate had just finished telling him something. “And I happen to know a lot about exercises for support mages to get combat experience, with Creftalia’s Seal of Approval.”

  “No, get out!”