Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

"Things sure have heated up while we were away." I said. 

"Are you going to the battlefront?" Kanoko asked.

"Yes, just a bit. Do you mind staying at the Imperial Palace for bit? I'm sure that trip wasn't too easy for you."

"I'll look after Smoothie for you."

"Thanks."

I had not been to the war theater west of the Empire. This would be my first time.

Countless forts and fortresses dotted the mountain sides as far as the eyes could see on the Empire's side. Further to the east was a vast graveyard that used to be the battlefield. It wasn't just a graveyard of the living but also a graveyard for machines or magitech. Wreckages of ships and drones were strewn across this expansive land littered with craters as if they were carved by innumerable meteorites.

Below this scorched battlefield were countless tunnels. There too, were wreckages of countless war machines and bodies innumerable.

Now that the main battle was over, remaining backline soldiers and medics were scouring the fields in search of survivors.

I can't believe I missed a battle of this epic proportion...

Why is my luck so bad? I don't get it!

I should have made Arknorl promise to wait for me.

Kanoko and I had overstayed inside the Great Labyrinth.

Well, I guess a commander can't just let opportunities pass when the enemies are down for the count. I'll forgive him.

At the centre of the battlefield was a crate that could easily swallow up a small city. From what I had recently gathered, the Federation had tried a last ditch effort to thwart the major offence by the Empire's forces. However, their own guardian intervened and obstructed it at the last second.

Regardless, none of the guardian and demon fights mattered to me.

Looking to the sky, flying lizards were carrying essential supplies westward to the valorous vanguards stationed in Federation territories.

"I guess I should do a bit of service. How long do you plan to use those flying lizards? It's about time this land be cleansed." I thought aloud with a smug grin.

Just thinking about how much I could gain from this work made my mind giddy.

"Profit! So much profit! Wahahaha!" I laughed, "I'm the real winner here. No service is free!"

Recently, my proficiency at using black cubes had increased significant thanks to cleaning up about a quarter of the continent. Not to mention, volatile mana and mana pollution after being converted to energy provided me with ample levels.

Once night fell, I quickly got to work. Of course, to finish this as quickly as possible, I had |dedicated will| do majority of the work.

Black cubes in the trillions, large and small, sprang forth like a tidal wave in all directions. These cubes as if having minds of their own rapidly devoured the land. Soon enough, what used to be a devastated land, an unending stretch of sea of darkness took its place.

"This scene is eerie enough to give nightmares to the average folks..."

This time, I wasn't only collecting things so the cubes didn't immediately return to me. They were quickly deconstructing and rearranging materials to restore the land.

The whole operation lasted about half an hour. I would say that was quick.

When all the work was finished, the black cubes converged and returned to my hand as if in my palm held a black hole itself.

Surveying the result, I found my work satisfactory.

Certainly, I couldn't restore the floras and faunas that used to be there. What I did was only to remove a majority of the pollutions and wreckages, fill some tunnels, revitalize the land to make it arable again.

There were a few witnesses of this miracle but I let them be. They happened to be nocturnal beastfolk soldiers on duty.

"That was good profit."

Normally, these wreckages left after on the battlefield belonged to the scavengers and the victor of the war. Rare metals and high tech equipments were all up for grabs. It just so happened I detected volatile mana and mana pollution. Yes, that was my rationale for stealing the spoils of war! They were all mine now! And in turn, I could sell them through my business venture in the Empire.

Arknorl probably wouldn't mind, right? I'm sure.

"I wonder if I'll ever have enough money to buy a country? I should have enough to buy a village maybe?"

While random thoughts floated in my mind, I flew eastward while cleaning up smaller messes here and there. Although the main battle had concluded, skirmishes were occurring intermittently.

Fast forward to the next morning, I spotted Haelley in her evolved form. She was dressed as a warrior princess, discussing tactics with her comrades outside makeshift tents.

As much as I'd like to greet her, I thought this was a bad timing. Instead, I decided to fulfill the promise I made to her months ago. By the time I returned from the hunt, her group had already left.

"Well, I guess I'll leave it in her tent with a letter. I'm sure she can read by now."

Seeing that there was nothing else for me to do around here, I returned to my subspace to check on the two troublemakers.

"What a surprise, my house is still standing." I murmured in disbelief.

I honestly thought that Mitasan would have eaten it by now seeing how I permitted them to teleport within my subspace.

The three maids were still around but with no guests to serve. They were simply on standby.

After looking around, I found it odd that there wasn't even a sign that any of those two having entered Ataraxia.

"Did he fail with his experiment? Maybe I should check on him."

The laboratory was dead silent.

"Oortez, are you there?"

There was no reply.

I wonder if he's just too focused on his research... They couldn't have escaped together, could they? I don't think that is possible.

Drip.

"This isn't funny."

Guurr...

A stomach growling sound echoed.

I think I know where Mitasan is now. The location though, why is she inside the soul library?

But wait, she shouldn't be able to make such a sound? She's just a slime girl. What in the world happened?

"Mitasan? Mimi?"

I have a bad feeling about this.

As I made my way through the corridor connecting the laboratory area to the soul library, I readied myself for combat.

There was no visible sign of the slime girl.

I stepped into the one and only soul library.

It was as I had expected. On the shelves where rows of jars kept countless soul fragments holding traits and abilities, they were now all emptied.

I'm still not seeing any signs...?

Nothing was displaying a status. Yet, I could feel a demon's presence around me.

"Mimi, where are you?"

"Mimi, where are you?" A voice echoed from all around me. 

"Stop playing games. Show yourself." I called out, bracing myself for a surprise attack. Sending the strangeness of the situation, I drew Minute, the sword staff into my hands.

This was my first time trying out this weapon after having |dedicate will| analyze it.

"I."

"Am."

"Here."

The soul library instantly collapsed onto me from all sides.

Absolute Stasis.

A single thought was transmitted to Minute.

Just like that, the world froze.

Although light might have stopped moving, the world seen with my celestial eyes wasn't affected in suspended time.

I didn't need to use Minute because this was my subspace. However, it was important for me to be able to wield this weapon effectively outside of this subspace.

"It works just fine. The mana usage is minimum. Let's try another one."

I pointed at one part of the library wall.

Dimensional Ripple.

There was a subtle vibration from the weapon followed by a fluctuation in that direction. The fabric of space rippled with radial waves, stretching and compressing symmetrically.

I could adjust the shapes of the ripples to cause different effects but that would require more mana. Anyway, if its time was to flow again, that chunk of distorted space would shred apart whatever was contained in there.

"Works just as simulated. Great! Next part, let's see if I can cut into space itself with it?"

It had the [absolute severance] ability associated with the |void| trait. But, having it installed on a weapon had a different feel to it. Moreover, this ability was supposed to be more deadly when utilized in a time stopped instance.

Absolute Severance.

I sliced open another section of the library wall before I tried ripping it open with my hands.

"I knew it'd work like this but this is such a disappointment. Maybe I should try something else."

Using my copied ability [rewind], I returned back to where I was physically a moment ago. It wasn't a true time ability despite the ability name indicating so. This one only worked on the user and couldn't affect the world. Regardless, if an ordinary person had it, this would be a superb ability.

"Hmm... Let's try rewinding the world."

|Tick tock| trait allowed me to move time forward and backward. Of course, those inside a singularity field wouldn't be affected. However, if this trait was used before singularity field could be erected, then it would effectively be game over that instant. |Tick tock| also couldn't fix cracks and distortions in time or space by shifting time. To mend distortions in space, I would have to rely on |immemorial one|. As for distortions in time and such, nothing could be done about them. The world naturally corrected temporal errors when left alone.

This weapon would be the most deadly against mortal races. I could speed up, slow down, move forward, and move backward in time specific body parts. Against immortals, none of that would work because the mana required to shift someone's time a couple hundred years was tremendously outrageous.

Unfortunately, this weapon didn't seem to be complete. I couldn't access different timelines, or cut and paste chunks of time. Even the ability to loop time would have been nice which it didn't possess.

"I guess this is the extent of its power. It's still good. As long as this weapon isn't used along with immortal killing techniques... Right, I better find a countermeasure. There's no way I can constantly have singularity field up at all times."

Since this time stop was still draining my mana, I decided to quickly finish things up. To test one more thing, I decided to crunch as much distorted time as I could into one tiny box of space. Naturally, the distorted time would try to fix itself so I had to put in quite a bit of effort by tearing apart space and wrapping it up like a gift box.

The mana cost was worth it.

I teleported outside of the library and ended [absolute stasis], erecting a singularity field on myself. When the distorted space snapped back together, a silent explosion of epic proportion tear through my subspace.

The result was the destruction of the emptied soul library, the laboratory, and surprisingly, a good chunk of Ataraxia was torn into pieces. That was how powerful the shockwaves were, shearing apart the fabric of space and shifting the flow of time.

"Fun, fun."

After that, I played around a bit more before cleaning up the remnants of Mitasan, the slime demon.

Apparently, after I left her alone with Oortez, the demon girl got fed up with Oortez. According to demon hierarchy, Mitasan was above Oortez, at least before I significantly reduced her level. To make matters worse, Mitasan's gluttonous desires had completely overshadowed the |servant| trait.

"Maybe I should have prepared more food for her. She didn't have to eat that lizard. He was annoying and quite an interesting one. If he had lived a bit longer, I'd have released him."

Eating the lizard demon wasn't enough so she went after the soul library. The soul library contained her original traits and countless other dangerous traits, abilities and knowledge that Oortez and I had isolated. Fortunately, eating soul fragments didn't exactly mean gaining what was stored in there.

Anyway, all of those soul fragments went to waste when she munched on them. I was supposed to be her dessert or something but she ended becoming my play thing and nutrient.

I had to handed it to her though for setting up such a simple yet effective trap. She somehow managed to enclose the library from the outside. If it was anyone else, they'd probably be swallowed whole along with the library.

After having subdued this tenacious slime demon, I isolated her in a few little pudding jars and stuffed them in a special fridge. Honestly, I loved her uniqueness so perhaps she might come in handy in the future.

With all the soul energy I had accumulated recently, I finally broke through to level 90.

[Level 90 Celestial;
Species: N/A;
Physical: 912/912;
<Health: 912>
<Force: 901 (enhanced)>
<Speed: 900 (enhanced)>
<Agility: 892 (enhanced)>
<Sense: 914 (enhanced)>
<Resistance: 963 (enhanced)>
Spiritual: 290/942;
<Mana: 290>
<Mass: 939 (enhanced)>
<Mastery: 917 (enhanced)>
<Detection: 903 (enhanced)>
<Luck: 902 (enhanced)>
Traits: Grace, Cautious Tactician, Demon Slayer, Multiple Existences, Creator, Enhancements, Singularity, Celestial Eyes, Limit Breaker;
Abilities: Hypnosis, Division, Rewind, Lull, Subspace, Genesis, Infinite Dreams;
Blessings: Enchanted Fate, Forced Destiny;
Description: A divine being.]

I somehow lost my species name. At this point, it didn't matter anymore.

Once any of the stats passed 900 numerically, the difference between 900 and 901 was no longer insignificant. I could feel notable difference albeit only a slight difference, especially stats like <force>.

Likewise, raising levels past 90 had become incredibly more challenging as if it wasn't challenging already. Well, someone like me who started at level 1 only months ago had no right to complain about any of this.