490
Hearing this, the golden figure appeared once again:
"You have a lead of your own?"
"You don't need to know that."
After looting everything of value in the City of Emerald, Edward returned to the cliff where he had arrived. Standing on high, he admired the catastrophe he had wrought for a while, then began checking the island's condition.
"Roselle probably deliberately left this island to Bernadette. It isn't marked on the World Map, and there are indeed traces of distortion in the surrounding Spirit World. With a few minor changes, it will fully satisfy the True Creator's requirement of being 'sufficiently concealed.'"
The Genie interjected, "Your split personality seems to be getting rather serious."
Edward looked at it tenderly. "It seems I've been far too easygoing. Just how much intelligence did your potion actually give you?"
The Spirit World Creature appeared again, bringing back some mid- and low-Sequence Beyonder Characteristics it had picked up from several hiding places on the island. There had not been many members of the Dawn of Elements on Laxia, but they had all been promising pillars whom Queen Mystic valued and considered worth cultivating. Their leader, Bernadette Gustav, was only Sequence 3 herself. Now that they had been wiped out, the surviving members elsewhere were no longer anything to fear.
"Still, the Red Shoes don't seem to have stopped."
Edward could feel that portion of his spirituality continuing to drain in small amounts. The Red Shoes seemed to have left Laxia for somewhere else, taking the curse along with them.
"Will this fairy-tale magic keep going in the outside world too?"
Edward found this rather novel. The fairy-tale magic he had seen Bernadette use had always taken effect immediately, with its effects and traces disappearing afterward. Yet his Red Shoes had actually persisted