Chapter 142

PHA – Chapter 142 – Please Spare the Hero’s Sword

“There’s a reason for this.”

Abel looked incredibly embarrassed when speaking of this topic. She, too, knew that it didn’t look good for her to be hiding her remnant soul in her girlfriend’s panties. Then, she asked, “You are aware of how I became a Hero, right?”

Alice nodded. She naturally knew about the Seventh Hero’s history. After all, she was currently pretending to be a Hero, so she naturally had to look into the history of past Heroes to use as reference.

Meanwhile, the Seventh Hero’s designation fell into the classic category of “being entrusted with an important duty during a critical moment.”

At the time, the Demon King and his army were already fast approaching the Elven Forest, intending to occupy the forest and open a clear path leading to the human realm. Although the elves and humans had dispatched their armies to resist the Demon King’s army together, their armies were powerless against the Demon King.

Meanwhile, Abel had become the Hero under such circumstances. As the Demon King had already reached maturity when she became the Hero, she didn’t have much time to enrich herself with knowledge. As a result, she had to constantly gamble with her life to fight and delay the Demon King’s advance while learning all sorts of taboos.

Fortunately, the Seventh Demon King was a cowardly person, and he was always reluctant to let himself get hurt when fighting Abel. Because of this, Abel, despite becoming the Hero for only a short period, was able to repeatedly push the Demon King back. In the final battle, she had even succeeded in killing the Demon King.

However, Abel had also died soon after killing the Demon King because she had exhausted all of her life force during her many fights with the Demon King.

Honestly, if Alice didn’t catch Abel hiding in her girlfriend’s panties, she would’ve considered Abel to be the ideal Hero—brave, decisive, and selfless.

“In that case, you should also know that Heroes of every generation typically wouldn’t use their real names after becoming the Hero, but a fictitious name instead. In fact, these fictitious names would often become their real names in the end,” Abel said. “The reason they do so is because they are afraid that the demons would trace their names after the war and retaliate against them by harming their loved ones. After all, the life expectancy of demons is almost twice that of humans. No matter how powerful Heroes are, there is no way they can protect their offspring forever.”

Indeed, most Heroes recorded in history books weren’t actually using their real names. This was a preventive measure taken to avoid retaliation from the demons. Moreover, as time passed, people would forget the fact that the Heroes they knew were actually using pseudonyms, and they would eventually celebrate these Heroes’ false names as real. Take Kristine, for example. After so many years of using her fake name, Kristine had probably forgotten the name she used before she became a Hero already.

“But what does this have to do with you leaving your remnant soul in underwear?”

Although Alice had heard of Heroes using pseudonyms, she couldn’t understand what that had to do with Abel hiding her remnant soul inside her girlfriend’s underwear. Thus, she still looked at Abel with wary eyes.

“As you know, my situation was rather special. When I became the Hero, the Demon King’s army had already begun its invasion of the Elven Forest,” Abel said with a bitter smile. “I had to fight as soon as I awakened as the Hero, so I didn’t have time to come up with a fake name for myself. As a result, my real information quickly reached the demons, so they knew who was closest to me and who they should go after if they wanted to retaliate against me.”

“I see…”

Realization dawned on Alice. Then, she looked down at the unconscious elf on the floor.

Elves did not reproduce like the average mammal. Instead, they were born from an altar inside a tree hole of the Tree of Nature. However, the birth rate was incredibly low, which was why the elven population was pathetically small.

Because of this, elves didn’t really have parents, and Abel’s relatives…could be said to be the entire elven race. However, it evidently wasn’t practical for the demons to annihilate the elven race just to retaliate against Abel.

Thus, if the demons were to try and take revenge against Abel, the object of their revenge would have to be Abel’s lover, Filia.

“When I concluded my final battle with the Demon King, I could feel that my body was already near the brink of collapse. After barely driving the rest of the demon army away, I realized that I might not make it back home,” Abel said, sighing ruefully. “But if I died just like that, Filia would definitely face the demons’ assassination in the future… Although Filia is by no means weak, it is still tough for her to be on guard against assassination attempts all the time. If the demons chose to assassinate Filia during her sleep, there is a high chance they would succeed.”

“So, you chose to attach your soul onto an object on Filia’s body to protect her?” Looking at Abel curiously, Alice asked, “Why her panties, then? Wouldn’t her ring be better? Also, there’s one big problem… Almost two thousand years have passed since your era. Don’t tell me she has never changed her panties even once this entire time?”

“Since you’ve already come here to read the elven taboos, I guess it doesn’t matter even if I tell it to you now.” Smiling, Abel said, “Among those taboos, you will find a rather unique taboo called Aspect Separation. Its function is to attach an object, or even a concept, to another ‘concept.'”

“I don’t get it.”

Alice shook her head. Although she had finished learning the basic knowledge of magic already, she still didn’t understand many profound magic terms. For the sake of understanding the taboo magic books she read, she had even downloaded an app called “Magic Dictionary” and used it to interpret key terms in the books she read.

“You look rather young, so I guess it’s normal that you don’t understand. Based on human standards, you’ll learn about these things in your postgraduate studies,” Abel said, nodding in understanding. “I’ll give you an example, then. Take my remnant soul, for example. I used a special magic to separate it from my main soul and transformed it into an object. Then, I attached my remnant soul to a ‘concept.’ By doing so, my ‘remnant soul’ and that ‘concept’ would forever be tied together.”

Seeing that Alice still wore a confused look on her face, Abel explained in greater depth:

“For example, if the ‘concept’ I chose is a ‘fan,’ then after I attached my remnant soul with the ‘fan,’ all fans in the world would be host to my remnant soul in the future. Then, my remnant soul will be able to look around through all the fans that exist in the world. Do you get it now?”

“I get it. In other words, so long as I try to influence a ‘concept,’ all objects in this world that match this specific ‘concept’ will be similarly influenced, right?” Alice asked as she looked at Abel. Then, realization suddenly hit her as she exclaimed, “Isn’t this taboo a little too powerful? If I chose to attach my soul to the ‘plant’ concept, doesn’t that mean my soul can appear in every plant that exists in this world?”

“That is possible, in theory. However, it is simply impossible to accomplish such a thing in reality,” Abel said, chuckling. “There are limits to what a taboo can accomplish. In theory, it is possible to attach things to broad concepts such as plants, creatures, and rocks. However, the problem is that even us Heroes don’t have the mana required to fuel such feats.”

“I guess that makes sense. This taboo would be ridiculously powerful if it could influence such widespread concepts,” Alice said after giving the matter some thought. “In that case, does that mean the concept you chose is ‘the underwear Filia is wearing?'”

Smiling awkwardly, Abel said, “I didn’t have a better choice. Firstly, ‘the underwear Filia is wearing’ is a very small concept, and the mana I had was just barely enough to influence it. Secondly, I needed to attach myself to something Filia will constantly carry on her person to ensure she is safe at all times.”

Alice felt that Abel’s words made sense. If she had to point out something that a person would almost always carry on their person under normal circumstances…it would probably have to be their underwear. The only time when a person would have their underwear removed was when they were bathing.

Of course, Filia’s ring would’ve also worked in this situation. However, Abel had probably been worried that Filia might store the ring away for the sake of “preserving Abel’s gift.”

“Wait, did you say that other than objects, you can also attach ‘concepts’ to ‘concepts?'”

At this point, Alice had already understood that Abel didn’t attach her remnant soul to her girlfriend’s panties for the sake of satisfying her perverse desires. However, after listening to Abel’s explanation, she couldn’t help but grow curious about Aspect Separation’s effects.

After moving Filia’s panties to her left hand and picking up the Hero’s Sword with her right hand, Alice curiously asked, “If I use Aspect Separation to attach the ‘underwear’ concept to the Hero’s Sword, does it mean that the Hero’s Sword will be considered underwear in the future?”

“???” (Insert Confused Nick Young.jpg)

Abel was momentarily rendered speechless by Alice’s question. Then, after snapping out of her daze, she took a second to formulate her thoughts before she replied in a somewhat confused tone, “T-Theoretically…that is correct.”