Chapter 214

PHA – Chapter 214 – Times Have Changed, Andusia

Today was quite a fulfilling day for Alice.

First, Alice visited Rosa early in the morning and learned about Elodie’s situation. Then, she visited Elodie’s house and spent several hours trying to lift the curse on Elodie’s mother, only completing the treatment in the afternoon. Afterward, she had found Andusia, the Ninth Demon King, hiding as a figurine in Marion’s living room, fought against Andusia, and eventually captured Andusia. Finally, after arriving back in her dorm in the evening, she had spent four hours watching Magical Girl Hikari with Andusia until it was late at night.

Of course, today was a day of disasters for Andusia. Just when the curse she had placed on Marion was about to ripen, it had gotten destroyed by Alice. Then, she got beaten in a fight, captured, and forced to endure a four-hour-long mental torture.

Now, Andusia’s only hope was to satisfy Alice’s curiosity as soon as possible and pray that the perverse Hero would stop forcing her to watch Magical Girl Hikari. For a Demon King with high self-esteem like herself, just the thought of herself doing all those silly poses made her feel like dying.

“Living Wood can take over low-intelligence creatures? It had such an effect?”

After Andusia was finally willing to cooperate, the first question Alice asked was why Andusia had chosen to use a ruthless taboo like the Sunset Bug Erosion on Marion. This question had plagued her the entire day now. However, after hearing Andusia’s answer, Alice couldn’t help but be a little surprised.

According to Andusia, Living Wood wasn’t just capable of housing souls and birthing treants. It still had several other functions, and one of those functions was to invade low-intelligence creatures and take over their bodies.

In other words, the reason Andusia had cursed Marion, her own descendant, was so that she could turn Marion into a dumb Sunset Bug. Then, she would utilize the Living Wood’s invasive properties to erase Marion’s consciousness and occupy Marion’s body with her soul.

Andusia had also long since researched the way to undo the Sunset Bug Erosion’s effects. So, after occupying Marion’s body, Andusia would reverse the taboo’s effects and complete her resurrection in Marion’s body.

The reason Andusia chose Marion as her target was also simple. Marion was her descendant, so they were related by blood. This meant that once she took over Marion’s body, she would have a much easier time adapting to her new body.

“How ruthless of you to strike at even your own descendant,” Alice commented as she looked at Andusia with narrowed eyes. She had to admit that Andusia was truly a Demon King. Not only was she ruthless toward the human race, but she was also ruthless toward her own blood-related descendants.

It should be known that the Sunset Bug Erosion taboo would twist the target’s soul into the soul of a Sunset Bug during its final phase. If Andusia successfully carried out her plan, Marion would have to suffer the taboo’s torture even with her soul. So, it was truly vicious of Andusia to take such action against Marion.

“I have no need for descendants that choose to mingle with humans,” Andusia said, sneering. She showed not the slightest bit of guilt even after hearing Alice’s evaluation of her actions. “Also, I am merely replicating normal human behavior. Humans are vile creatures who show no mercy to those weaker than them. From how I look at it, demons are much better than humans. At the very least, they only use strength to steal resources from others. On the other hand, humans use authority to persecute the weak.”

“Don’t you think you are too biased against humans?” Alice sighed helplessly. Then, she pointed at the computer before her and said, “The Magical Girl Hikari you watched just now is an animation work produced in the past few decades. Didn’t you notice some of the ideas promoted in the show?”

Magical Girl Hikari didn’t become a national-level animation simply due to luck. Although it was a children’s anime on the surface, it conveyed many of the production crew’s ideas deep inside.

One example would be in episode seven. There was a scene in the episode that depicted people eliminating the hatred between them by sitting down and holding a rational discussion. The scene also secretly degraded some of the old class systems that were considered rigid in modern times. Children watching the show might not notice these underlying concepts, but Alice was certain that Andusia could notice them with her past experiences.

“Can you stop bringing up that animation?”

Andusia couldn’t help but shudder out of reflex when she heard the words “Magical Girl Hikari.” Even her complexion had paled a little. However, she also couldn’t help but grow silent and ponder over Alice’s words.

Just like Alice surmised, Andusia had indeed noticed many of the concepts the anime’s producers were secretly trying to convey. Meanwhile, these concepts were completely different from the human concepts she remembered.

A couple of thousand years ago, slavery still prevailed, and humans didn’t even bother making it a secret that they condoned the act of enslaving others. Andusia still remembered the vile and ugly faces of those humans even until this day. At the time, humans were even comparing the slaves they owned with each other, and they treated the persecution of slaves for granted. Hardly anybody would ever show compassion toward slaves, either.

Yet, now, even though the producers of Magical Girl Hikari had clearly expressed their dissatisfaction with slavery, the show had still managed to become a national-level animation work.

This showed that the humans of this era were vastly different from the humans a couple of thousand years ago. After all, if someone dared to express such ideals during her era, that person would definitely be ridiculed by others. Angry slave owners might even oppress them.

“Take some time to think about it,” Alice said when she saw Andusia falling into thought.

Alice had originally wanted to ask a few more questions, but she felt that it’d be best if she didn’t interrupt Andusia’s thoughts. Instead, she put the Demon King on her bookcase and returned her focus to her computer to continue watching Magical Girl Hikari. The anime might have a cliché plot, but it was surprisingly interesting. It was indeed deserving of being regarded as a national-level animation.

“I’m back~”

“Pardon the intrusion~!”

Just when Alice had started playing Season 2’s first episode, the door to the dorm suddenly opened. Then, Zauna’s voice came in, followed by Lalu’s voice.

Zauna and Alice lived in the same dorm, so it was natural that she’d return to the room. As for Lalu, Alice didn’t even need to think to know why the loli elf was here. Immediately, she smiled at Lalu and jokingly said, “Here to scrounge a free meal again? Aren’t you worried you’ll grow fat if you keep coming to our place for supper?”

“It’s Luna’s cooking’s fault for being so tasty,” Lalu said, licking her lips. “Also, don’t you worry. We elves get most of our nutrients from photosynthesis, so our bodies hardly ever absorb nutrients from our food. We’ll only be satisfying our appetites even if we eat a lot, so we won’t get fat.”

“How enviable,” Zauna said in an envious tone. However, she quickly switched to a mischievous tone as she said, “Unfortunately for you, Luna isn’t in the dorm today!!!”

“What?!”

Lalu’s wail promptly spread throughout the entire room.

Meanwhile, sitting on Alice’s bookcase, Andusia remained silent as she watched Alice, Zauna, and Lalu’s merrymaking. She recalled that the elves were also one of the races badly persecuted by humans during her era. Although the two races had signed a peace treaty, humans still captured and sold elves as slaves in secret regardless.

The elves would frequently conduct census activities and find that many of their people had gone missing. Meanwhile, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who was secretly targeting them. So, Andusia remembered that the elves always wore cold expressions when dealing with humans. Some of the more extreme elves would even try to assassinate the humans they came across.

Yet, Lalu now faced Alice and Zauna while wearing a smile free of impurities. If it were a couple of thousand years ago, no elf would show such a smile to humans.

After a while, Andusia let out a long sigh.