Death Mage 204 – Towards a temporary registration

Vandalieu looked happily at the him that was slowly taking shape through being reconstructed and broken down repeatedly, and the sight of everyone taking part in the process.

He had the feeling that they had increased in number without him realizing it, but he was more interested in how fun it all was rather than worrying about that.

“Van, this sticky black stuff won’t come off,” said Pauvina.

Vandalieu noticed that she and some others had discovered something mixed with the blocks… the fragments of Vandalieu.

“Some of the fragments have a black, strongly adhesive substance mixed among them… Danna-sama, what could this be?” asked Bellmond.

“We do know that it’s not a good thing; it’s somehow not Vandalieu-sama-like,” said Eleanora, looking perplexed.

Vandalieu looked at the fragments that they were pointing to through the eyeballs and compound eyes around him and saw that there were black muscle-like things between the fragments.

There was something black in between the fragments, similar to the white striations found in high-quality meat. For some reason, Vandalieu felt a sense of repulsion the moment he saw it.

Every human and conscious person had a part of them inside that they didn’t want to believe existed, but Vandalieu felt a different kind of presence from it. However, he could not remember what it was.

“Okay, time for an encore,” said Vandalieu, deciding that he couldn’t remember so he would have Kanako dance some more in the dome that was his own skull.

Every movement of her legs caused grooves to be carved into the gray flesh-mass fragments, providing moderate stimulation for Vandalieu.

“Hmph, I must not lose!” said Bone Man as he began to make cuts in the fragments in front of him. This stimulation was perhaps a little strong.

But before long, Vandalieu remembered what that black substance was. It was the three curses that Rodcorte had placed on him.

Rodcorte had placed three curses on Vandalieu – ‘Experience gained in previous life not carried over,’ ‘Cannot learn existing Jobs’ and ‘Unable to gain Experience Points independently.’

These were still in effect, but… they caused almost no hindrance to Vandalieu now.

In fact, it was possible that these curses were why his Mana pool had increased to this point.

“So, what shall we do, boy? It will be quite the task, but should we try removing all of it?” asked Zadiris.

Vandalieu wasn’t sure whether to put a pause on the rebuilding to try and remove the curses or ignore them and continue the rebuilding.

It had already been over ten years since Vandalieu was reincarnated in Lambda, so the ‘Experience gained in previous life not carried over’ curse was almost entirely meaningless now. As for ‘Cannot learn existing Jobs,’ there were many undiscovered Jobs, so it did not cause any significant inconvenience for Vandalieu.

The only curse that was still actively hindering Vandalieu was ‘Unable to gain Experience Points independently,’ but this also caused him no problems as long as he was a little careful, as he had his Dead Spirit Magic and his Demon King Familiars.

Was it worth it for Vandalieu to delay the reconstruction of his soul to remove these curses?

And even if he did choose to delay his soul’s reconstruction to remove them, would it actually be possible?

Using one of his hands that had been completely built, Vandalieu took one of the fragments nearby and opened it up to find its cross-section filled with black specks.

“… It seems impossible to remove all of this,” said Princess Levia, sounding disheartened.

In order to remove all of the black substance, every single fragment of Vandalieu’s soul would need to be opened up and checked before being used. But the fragments varied greatly in size, from small fragments that would fit in the palm of a hand to large fragments that would need all four of Vigaro’s arms to hold.

The total volume of the fragments was roughly equivalent to an entire skyscraper’s worth. There were more people working on the task than there were at the beginning, but even so, there weren’t enough.

“And there’s definitely got to be some negative effects to breaking down the fragments even smaller than they are now, even for you. You’re in a bit of trouble even now, aren’t you?” said Borkus.

As he said, there was no guarantee that Vandalieu would be completely fine after having the fragments of his soul, which was already in pieces, broken down even smaller.

On top of that, it would be problematic for Vandalieu to be unable to move his arms and legs for too long. After all, he had entered the city of Morksi in order to draw Murakami and Birkyne out.

“So, should we just take off the stuff on the surface of the fragments? That should at least do something,” said Schneider, who had joined the task without Vandalieu noticing.

Even if it was impossible to remove all of the black substance, it could be assumed that the curses’ effect would decrease if some of it was removed.

It was small consolation, but it would be unpleasant to simply leave the black substance as is.

“Alright, let’s just take the stuff off the surface of the fragments and gather it up. If you’re struggling to get it off, work with the person next to you!” said Schneider.

Everyone obeyed his instructions… and began moving with rather dull movements. It seemed that their consciousnesses were sluggish because they were dreaming.

Some time later, Knochen brought the black masses of curse that had been gathered together to Vandalieu.

Knowing that it would be terrible if it were to stick to anyone else, Vandalieu decided to use Soul Devour to break it. He didn’t devour it; he simply extinguished it from existence by breaking it down.

Vandalieu easily broke a part of his curses to pieces.

Immediately after returning to his Divine Realm, Rodcorte began devoting all of his effort into the work on the soul of the ‘Ash Blade’ Edgar, one of the members of the Five-colored Blades.

“… I wonder how much meaning there is to this task?” he wondered.

Ordinarily, Rodcorte would not repair… heal, damaged souls. This was because there was no meaning to it.

Rodcorte being in possession of a soul meant, under ordinary circumstances, that the body that the soul belonged to was already dead. In other words, its life had already ended.

With that being the case, Rodcorte could simply place the soul in his circle of transmigration system, which would take it to its next life no matter how damaged it was. The damage to the soul would be largely repaired in the process.

If such a soul was born as a human, it might perhaps behave and react to things more strangely than a baby with a healthy soul, but that would be the extent of the effects. The damage would heal completely over the next few years, and the soul would enter a new, ordinary life.

If the soul was born as something other than a human, even these small effects would not be seen.

The reason that Rodcorte was repairing Edgar’s soul despite all of this was because he had been requested to do so by Alda, the god of law and fate. If Edgar were to be lost, the Five-colored Blades would become greatly weakened, so Alda had asked Rodcorte to do anything that he could.

“Indeed, the Five-colored Blades were able to corner Vandalieu a great deal. I must admit that they performed the best in battle against him out of all of those who have faced him,” Rodcorte murmured to himself.

At the very least, they had done far better than the reincarnated individuals utilized by Rodcorte… the ‘Gungnir’ Kaidou Kanata and the ‘Death Scythe’ Konoe Miyaji.

Having seen records of the series of battles fought by Heinz and his companions, he felt that they had a chance of defeating Vandalieu… at least a one in ten-thousand chance.

Vandalieu’s powers had been greatly limited in that Dungeon. Perhaps not reduced by as much as half, but Rodcorte doubted that he had been able to exert even two-thirds of his original strength.

And there was no doubt that if weren’t for the intervention of Curatos, the god of records, not only Edgar’s, but Delizah and the all-important Heinz’s souls would have been devoured as well.

On top of that, the Dungeon was largely destroyed during the battle, so it was uncertain as to whether Heinz and his companions could become any stronger.

“To insist on occupying me with the task of restoring a man who does not even possess any cheat-like abilities… and even demand that I ‘do nothing unnecessary’ other than repair his soul. I was certain that Alda would have requested me to add cheat-like abilities like those of the reincarnated individuals,” Rodcorte muttered.

“… I’m pretty sure that this Alda god has made some good decisions. Warning you not to do anything unnecessary is absolutely on the mark, and the same goes for the other decisions he’s made,” said Aran, his eyes fixated on Edgar’s soul with an expression of pity on his face.

Aran had ascended to become a familiar spirit, a spiritual life-form. It couldn’t be pleasant for him to see a deeply-damaged soul.

What Rodcorte was doing was equivalent to transplanting an Edgar whose body surface was missing over 90% of its skin into the empty skin of Niltark’s destroyed heroic spirit Luke, then performing plastic surgery based on previous records of Edgar’s appearance.

But perhaps fascinated by the task of restoring a soul, Aran showed no sign of wanting to avert his eyes.

Rodcorte had no problem with his work being observed, so he made no attempt to stop Aran from watching.

“Other decisions, you say?” he asked Aran.

“The fact that he’s not expecting anything from us reincarnated individuals,” Aran replied. “Excluding Murakami’s group, everyone you’ve sent so far has failed, right? With that being the case, from Alda’s point of view, he just doesn’t want to lose the strongest cards in his hand, the ones that he’s been raising himself.”

Now that Aran mentioned it, this was indeed the case. ‘Gungnir’ and ‘Death Scythe’ had been pitifully defeated, while ‘Venus’ and two others had betrayed Rodcorte. ‘Noah’ had refused to take part and fled the Bahn Gaia continent, and ‘Super Sense’ was attempting to do the same.

The rest had yet to produce any results.

It wasn’t surprising that Alda had no trust in the reincarnated individuals who had accomplished nothing.

“Well, considering that, his choice of leaving one of his strong cards in your hands is incomprehensible,” Aran added. “Couldn’t the other gods have done something? They grant divine protections and have their familiar spirits descend on their followers; they probably do some work with souls.”

This seemed to be the thought process of Aran, who only had knowledge of gods other than Rodcorte and didn’t know them personally.

It was true that gods granting divine protections and responding to the a