”…?”

After glaring at Zoemi for a few seconds, the frown turned into a worried furrow and she blinked before glancing at the open wounds from which the darkness was escaping in form of a thick smoke too heavy to float high into the sky.

”Go on. Do something.”

”…!”

Zoemi leaned forward and motioned at her with his chin, causing the already pale woman to become even paler.

”You can’t contact anyone, you can’t use your spells. How does it feel to be this helpless? If I could torment you just like you and Kiroterell tortured my mother – I would… But even though I cannot do the exact same thing because like you said, you are no longer made of flesh and blood, does not mean that something similar enough can’t be done…”

”!!!!!”

Zoemi added as his face twisted with a bloodthirsty grin.

”You liked the feathers, right? How about I give you more of them?”

The boy’s already harrowing expression turned even more terrifying, as he raised his left hand, and every feather that he released flew up to it and started coiling around each other like a feathery fireball.

”Here~”

”GH-UGH…?!”

Zoemi cheered out and stepped back before taking a swing and punching the feathery ball right into Rethaq’s chest.

To make things scarier and more traumatizing, the entry wound closed u in an instant, but the razor-like feathers spread through Rethaq’s insides.

It honestly should not have much of an effect.

After all, just as it was with Raseriat, Rethaq’s body was composed of perfect silky darkness.

There should be no organs that the murky-black feathers could damage – and certainly, there should be no nerves that would transfer the pain signals into her brain…

”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…!”

But somehow none of the common sense applied in the situation as the excruciating, harrowing pain threw Rethaq on her back as she flailed and trembled like a partially crushed worm thrown into the sun.

”…not enough…”

Zoemi scoffed to himself and clenched his fists.

AS he did a house-sized clock appeared behind his back.

The thinnest hand moved, counting down one second, then another, and then…

Stopping completely.

This was the very first time that Zoemi even tried to use the time attribute spell as he remembered Aspakeony’s warning about the insane amount of mana that it requires.

Still, this was supposed to be both

a test and a very efficient method of properly repaying Rethaq for what she did to Zoemi’s mother.

The black-haired boy was ready to stop the spell immediately – he was actually even ready for it to completely empty out his mana reservoir.

Although he had no idea that he will meet any of the Ghosts, he had prepared the sentinels that carried a massive amount of mana that would refill his mana reservoir just in case.

But the problem was, the lack of mana wasn’t the real problem that he experienced…

”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

As the hand of the shadowy clock stopped in place so did the world around him – but instead of just staying still as the boy expected it to, he himself experienced his consciousness being torn out of his body as the space around him got torn apart like an old film tape getting burnt and everything turned into a blinding light before fading away into complete darkness.

And…

*click*

The hand of the shadowy clock moved backward.

———

”Hey there, handsome~!”

|Huh…?!|

The first sight that Zoemi saw after the world returned to normal was a close-up of Aspakeony’s face.

”Ahaha~! You are so cute! Her little highness will love you for sure~!”

The dark-skinned necromancer laughed refreshingly and reached out to pat Zoemi’s head.

|Wait…! Aspy?! You are alright! Thank goodness! I learned that you were being captured by Evorietto – I tried to find you but those bastards are impossible to find! My sentinels stumbled onto Rethaq and Kiroterell by pure luck – and they were apparently right under my…!|

Zoemi breathed out and started explaining – but suddenly Aspakeony grabbed and lifted him up effortlessly as if he weighed nothing!

”I really outdid myself with this one. Ah, the eyes are looking a bit dead though… must be a side effect of my attribute – I probably put too much mana in…”

The gray-haired girl tilted her head and sighed to herself looking into Zoemi’s lifeless eyes…

|Whoa, there! Hey! You overly attractive headmaster, why are you so strong all of a sudden?! I thought that your attribute have no physical augmentation…! Huh…?|

The boy gasped in annoyance and tried to wiggle his way out…

….but then he realized something…

|Hold on… What is going on…?!|

Zoemi gasped, doing his best to get regain even a little bit of control over his body, only to find out that he had NO CONTROL whatsoever.

Far from it – he couldn’t even properly feel his own body, it was all numb and powerless no matter how much he tried…!

”Eh, who cares – they add to the character! Ahaha~! Who is a royal protector? Who is going to save the little princess from all the bad bad nightmares?”

To make the entire situation all the more surreal the gray-haired necromancer started spinning around the room while holding onto the increasingly disturbed boy, and even ended up hugging him tightly – which would definitely feel amazing IF HE COULD ACTUALLY FEEL ANYTHING AT ALL!

|Aspy! Aspy, please listen to me! Could you explain to me what is going on here – I am extremely close to freaking out here…!|

Zoemi gasped, extremely worried, as the panic was slowly setting in his wildly beating heart…

|…huh…?|

Except that his heart wasn’t beating.

At all.

”Aww, so soft~! And you are at a perfect huggable size too! I almost don’t want to give you away~!”

Aspakeony smiled at him while hugging him close to her chest, and even ended up rubbing her face against the top of his head.

|…I can’t feel any mana in me…|

After realizing that there was more wrong with his body than he originally assumed, Zoemi began to test out some things – first of which was the ability to see spells – any spells.

…all of which had failed…

|Aspy. You aren’t ignoring me, are you? I am not actually talking out loud either, am I…?|

The second realization was even more worrisome – but after an absolute lack of reaction from the dark-skinned girl, even someone as dense as Zoemi had to connect the dots.

|…what even happened to…|

Zoemi thought to himself as Aspakeony continued fawning over him – at one point she turned around and stepped in front of the mirror to admire herself with the boy in her arms – and that was the moment in which Zoemi’s mind blanked out.

|…me…?|

He mumbled as he saw their reflection.

Aspakeony was just as he was seeing her – a beautiful young girl with skin like dark chocolate, unevenly cut gray hair and captivating gray eyes.

She was wearing more clothes than what Zoemi usually saw her in – instead of a skimpy nightgown she was sporting a rather breezy but elegant dress that added to her youthful charm.

The millennia-old necromancer sure didn’t look a day older than eighteen.

Yes, there was absolutely nothing wrong with her appearance.

But the problem was with what she was holding in her arms.

Because where Zoemi knew he was, and where he should be – he the sixteen-year-old black haired boy…

….there was a big black teddy bear with a nose even darker than his soft fur and two obsidian-like eyes that seemed to be absorbing light instead of reflecting them…