Several days later, Yin Mei was able to meet the male lead of the plot for the first time. She hadn't really known what to expect, except she only thought that she would probably find him obnoxious - she really had those types of MCs that preached about justice and righteousness, after all.
Kai was a man whose looks, though handsome, were not as outstanding as El's or that of the guard captain that some of the priestesses favored. He had dark brown hair and light brown eyes, with a very heroic, and almost older brother like appearance.
As for Kai, in meeting the high priestess in person, he was naturally filled with the sense of awe that any devoted member of the church would have. He had seen Celestina from afar on multiple occasions, and every time he did so, he felt that they were in different worlds, despite both working for the sake of the church.
He had never expected to be selected for a member of Celestina's personal guard. Although he had some thoughts of rejecting them due to personal reasons, in the end, he knew that becoming the guard of the high priestess was an extremely important and prestigious duty, too much to give up. As a result, he accepted, despite the fact that he would now have to search for the criminal necromancer in his free time, instead of being able to pursue him as freely as he had while working.
When Kai first came into close contact with Yin Mei, the other priestesses kept a close eye on their interactions, to decide whether their ship was about to fall, or perhaps even if this new ship was worthy enough for their considerations. Kai felt that the high priestess was truly different from ordinary people like themselves, her holy aura and appearance making one almost believe her to be more angel than human.
On the other hand, Yin Mei's bad opinion of Kai didn't decrease - yep, after all, he was the type of male lead that she hated. She disliked this type of righteous person the most, especially since she felt that this type of person would go down the wrong path quite easily. Although if it was a side character, she might not say the same about them, since it was the protagonist... Yes, she was fairly biased.
Now that she had bound both the male and female leads to her side, she needed to make sure nothing bad happened. The problem was that the plot somehow had a way of trying to correct itself - at least, that was what she had discovered and experienced in the last world. In the former worlds, she tried to recall, but couldn't quite remember if this was also the case then.
Either way, she needed to stay cautious. With the beloved son and daughter of heaven aura that the two of them had, she had no doubts that they might stumble across some golden finger or another, or some good clue that would lead them to El's identity. With the two of them so close to herself as well, though this would make it easier to keep an eye on them, it would also make it easier for them to notice anything about herself.
Thinking about it like this, Yin Mei felt her head already hurting. She didn't think of herself as a very good schemer, but she had to work hard to balance this delicate situation and manipulate all the parties involved so that things went as she planned.
There was also the matter of releasing the seal.
If the great demon underneath the church was released, it would wreak havoc on the mainland. Yin Mei didn't really care about how many people would die, she was simply concerned with her own survival and that of El's survival in this case. Even with Celestina's ability, going up against an elder demon like that was still pushing it... wait, no, the demon would have been weakened by the skill, so if it was just escaping it was possible.
But Yin Mei had to plan for the future. She couldn't just let the demon destroy the entire main continent, the result being that she would no longer have a place to live.
She didn't know what the next quest would be beyond the unsealing, but she thought that about the quests so far. They had all been for the benefit of the villain. In the case of El, his main desire had been to free Celestina of her duties to the church and the chains that bound her to this location.
In other words, it shouldn't be a problem to reseal the demon using the method that the male lead had employed. But this would require that El not die at the hands of Kai before Kai resealed the demon. In the original story, El had been killed just as he unsealed the demon - of course, Yin Mei couldn't let that happen now that she was here.
Kai felt slightly uncomfortable as Yin Mei studied him, wondering what in the world was going on through the high priestess's head as her slow, unblinking eyes seemed to contain both the all the profundities of the world and the innocence of the world, creating a sort of contrast that still worked together in harmony with each other.
She finally nodded, to herself, and whispered to the little bird beside her in a voice that for some reason not even Kai could pick up with his keen senses. The interesting thing that Yin Mei had found out was that if one got creative, there was a wide variety of ways that they could use their magic. When one thought of light magic, they would normally thing of things like buffs, purification, healing, and etc., right?
That was the case for the residents of this world at least. But, as displayed by the charm and mind control magics, if one was creative enough, they could branch out in areas that one may not think possible at first. Another example were illusion and invisibility magic, which could also be used by both light and dark affinity users (water affinity users could also use it, though the process was slightly more complicated).
Yin Mei wasn't quite sure how this process worked - she just knew that the definition of the light element in this case was actually perhaps a little different from the dictionary definition of it.
But after some messing around, Yin Mei figured out a few different interesting magics that could be used by light system mages. Anyways, what was the point of all this? It was that Yin Mei was not crazy because she was talking to this bird. This bird was a summoned light familiar that she could use in replacement of Rosella to send messages to El.
No one noticed much as the little white bird flew off, and Yin Mei turned her attention back to Kai. She spoke only a few words to him before motioning for the guard captain to take over.
The guard captain that the priestesses liked to always pit against the professor was a stoic looking man with short cut black hair and dark eyes. He had just the right amount of muscles that if he took off his shirt, it would give something for the girls to drool over, and not too much that it would turn people off. He was a serious looking man that was one of the most desirable bachelors of the church.
If Yin Mei had to say, she didn't think this type of a guy was that bad. In fact, she also thought he was handsome, and preferred him over Kai. But her preference would always remain the demon king. In terms of appearance, no one could best the demon king. Of course, that also meant no one could best his reincarnations either. The zombie emperor, Yao Heyan, and El. All of them had unparalleled looks in her eyes. She preferred a beauty above all else, after all.
On the other side, the priestesses, seeing this gaze full of "love" and "passion" being exchanged between Kai and Yin Mei, couldn't help but feel their ships were at risk. Some began seriously considering whether to change their ship, already coming up with all sorts of imaginative dramas in their heads, as others were looking at the guard captain with pitying gazes as they silently implored him to work harder. As for the absent Sir Kiel, they could only lament that he did not have the same opportunities available to him as these two knights and was at a distinct disadvantage in this battle for Celestina's heart.
If Yin Mei knew what these girls were thinking, she would definitely say that they had too much time on their hands if they could come up with these elaborate and epic dramas all the time.
After a while, the group dispersed as Yin Mei returned to Celestina's room. With Kai and Rosella already tied down here, she had to figure out her next move - she had no clue what to do next.
Perhaps she should help El with his research on the demon's seal?
She knew that this seal was really tricky to undo - of course it would be, after all, their ancestors that had put it down wouldn't want just anyone being able to unseal this demon to wreck havoc on the continent.
It had taken El a great amount of time and study in the forbidden magics to finally figure out the method to unseal the demon. As was mentioned earlier, the information didn't include the details of the method. All Yin Mei knew was that it was a very complex spell that required a lot of ingredients and sacrifices. She did know the ingredients used, so she guessed that she could try mentioning it to El.
In a subtle way, so that El wouldn't find anything off about her. It was different from that time when she had given Ming Wei hints - after all, Ming Wei had never known her from before. But, El was Celestina's childhood friend. If she did something out of character, it would definitely make him suspicious. She was thinking whether or not she should pull the time travel card like she did last time, but then decided against it.
After all, time travel magic was a real thing here and had been researched in depth. First of all, only a mage of the time affinity could perform it - of which, there had been no known time mages in the last several decades. And secondly, it was well known that only the mage who had performed the time travel magic would retain his memories of the time travel. Of course, there had been research into changing this, but with time mages being so rare, there was little progress ever made. In addition, it was extremely difficult to time travel very far back in time. For those with a weaker affinity to the time element, it was already impressive if they could wind time back for even a few seconds.
Apparently, the record amount of time that a mage had claimed to travel back or forward in had been ten years - and it was unknown whether or not this was true, as only he retained his memories. This legendary time mage had already passed away several centuries ago, and there had yet to be a mage who had achieved more than a month of time travel after that.
In other words, because time travel was actually possible in this world, Yin Mei felt it would be difficult to use it as an excuse - after all, with studies done on the matter, it would probably be easy for a knowledgeable mage like El to see through the holes in her explanation. Although El was a dark affinity mage, he had studied quite a bit into the other element systems in his pursuit of forbidden magic.
Thinking like this, Yin Mei decided that she would have to find another way.
After a lot of thinking though, she really found it hard to decide what to do. She felt extremely frustrated that she was trapped in this stupid bird cage. She wanted to go out and wreck some havoc! A peaceful little garden greenhouse was okay, but after a while, it really got boring.
And so, like when Yin Mei had been imprisoned for several centuries, the only thing she could resort to was watch some TV...
This wasn't stalking, okay?
She pulled up the system's surveillance camera, displaying El's current actions, only to be shown a sudden gore filled scene like straight from a horror movie.
Godd*mn, she should have seen that coming.