Chapter 28

Epsilon was an interesting girl honestly. Out of all seven of the Seven Shades. she was the most emotive... Maybe it was because she was lacking in the boobs department but she made up for that with her highly expressive and charismatic nature.

"And how is your musical career going in the capital," I asked Epsilon and she preened with her being incapable of helping herself from throwing back one of her light blue long pigtails that her hair was in.

"I have been doing perfectly well of course!" She declared smugly and then her smile deepened as she continued. "In fact, I was commissioned to play at Princess Iris's twentieth birthday a couple of weeks ago and we struck up some conversation there." She said proudly and I realized what she meant. If she was good enough to have the princess's ear in sponsoring her. The other nobility would jump at the chance to be part of her legacy.

"Good work Epsilon, you being able to lead the nobility on when the holy war comes will prove most useful." I congratulated her honestly, I knew the power of music from my old world. Some good music series with a war-like theme being played on every street corner would hype up the people and thus when the Oblivion crisis and the dragons come to visit... They will be in for a potent wake-up call.

The world of Eminence in Shadow was a weird one. It was honestly like some kind of Chinese martial arts novel where people with bottom-of-the-barrel body enhancement just cut each other down for the hell of it and it was well into the industrial era... Well besides the Cult of Diabolus who had pillaged several dozen realms when they reached our realm and somehow had modern technology in their hidden facilities. The rest of the world was at a decent late 1800's in terms of tech.

So Epsilon being able to lead around the people via her music would be a powerful boon in these days without the internet and other forms of mass information sharing.

So with Epsilon's ego stroked to a fervor I looked to the other elf who was riding with us and sensing my gaze she paused before sticking out her hand and my face twitched slightly at seeing what was in her hand.

"Hungry?" She asked softly offering me a burger wrapped up in butcher's paper and I snorted at the blunt way she asked but never the less I accept the burger from her large grocery bag filled with them.

While I ate my food I mentally reviewed my information about the Lindwurm branch of the Cult of Diabolos before groaning as I realized without that weird festival that would call upon the shades of the past which would open a portal once certain people were defeated. I would need to manually dig down to the Cult's facilities that were buried underground.

"Imma take a nap for a bit Epsilon," I said and she smiled lightly as I threw my legs down the bench of the seat we were sitting on so I could just rest my head in her lap and automatically she began brushing her hand through my hair while Beatrix just watched without her cool expression changing beyond a raising of an eyebrow.

But before I could actually get some rest on Epsilon's admittedly nice and soft thighs, I heard the carriage thump over something and then the Shadow Garden Number who was driving the carriage called out. "We ran over a mana beast nothing big." And at that, I just relaxed back into her legs for the rest of the ride besides the odd weak monsters that were killed by the Number driving the carriage.

-

Once we arrived at Lindurm, I knew that the facility was based below the massive man-made lake that acted as the coolant for the fucking nuclear reactors powering the facilities under said lake. So rather then digging into below the lake bed I had us put some enchantments on our clothes so we could breath underwater and then we dove into the surprisingly clear water and found the intake vents into the facility.

Once we got into the massive intake pipes leading into the facility we simply used our mana-enhanced blades to cut out of the system once we reached a massive pool of water and then we were in.

"It seriously cannot be this simple..." Epsilon muttered as she used her mana to dry out her long light blue hair and I shrugged.

"I mean who expects someone to break in through the vents?" I asked rhetorically and her face twitched as Beatrix and the couple Numbers followed us into the facility.

We came out of the water and found ourselves inside a large round room with the water swirling and traveling into another section of the facility but I recognized this large area from the anime. As we came up to the upper levels of the large room I saw several cylindrical pyramids and as I pushed the large green buttons in front of their plates the thick glass cylinder hissed before sliding upwards unveiling the prize within.

The pure Tears of Diabolos... Ingesting it would stop aging for a single year but the production of the Tears of Diabolos required the cult to basically blend up the girls with Demon Possession and they weren't common to begin with and even then the process would commonly fail supposedly.

"I wonder how many people were used in the making of this single tear," I whispered as I held it in my gloved hand and I couldn't help but think of how fucking overly similar it was to the philosopher's stones in Full Metal Alchemists.

"That thing feels... Revolting, what even is that thing?" Beatrice asked with her nose scrunching up and I briefly explained what it was while Epsilon went off to the library and literally looted it down to the ground thanks to our space-expanded bags so unlike canon everything wouldn't be lost when this thing blew up.

My senses rang at me and I straightened up as I smiled towards a shadowed corner of the building. "Hmm? I didn't expect my fellow Pope to come to say hello... But the Divine Teachings Church has always been found of their shadows right, Nelson the Avaricious, 11th Seat of the Knights of Rounds?" I asked cheerily and the fat pope and an important leader of the Cult of Diabolos stood out and my face twitched as I saw who was standing beside him.

One of the damned clones of the elf hero and ancestor of Beatrix and Alpha, Olivier...