Preparation for Exploration

"Little Sig~"

"Little Sig~"

"Feixi!"

In the darkness, a pair of scarlet pupils lit up.

Sigismund woke with a start and pressed a hand to his forehead, listening in silence, but he heard nothing.

"An aftereffect of my damaged soul?" he murmured.

A week had passed since that annoying roommate had been destroyed by the Demon King.

Afterward, the Demon King had carefully examined his soul and confirmed that everything left was his own soul. Not a single trace of those foreign soul fragments remained.

The Demon King had handled it very well. So well that Sigismund almost ought to have been grateful.

But he was not.

During the battle of souls, he had lain there, allowing the Demon King's consciousness to probe deep into his soul.

It had felt like someone had split open his chest, taken his heart into their palm, and turned it over to inspect it.

The Demon King might not have borne him any malice, but that feeling of being powerless to resist, of being able only to let someone else do as they pleased, reminded him of the self he had been long ago... reminded him of chains, of whips, of those days when he knelt on the ground and did not even dare raise his head.

He loathed this feeling of having life and death beyond his control, whether it was his life being held in his roommate's hands or his soul being examined at the Demon King's whim...

As the one who had provided the battlefield for the battle of souls, although the Demon King had done everything he could to avoid injuring him, his soul had still suffered some damage. Fortunately, it was not serious. According to the Demon King, he would recover completely in about two months.

So, although he