"It was the Laneford Quest!"
His sudden shout made Eliza flinch for more reasons than just being startled but the young hero did not notice as he continued monologuing.
"The main quest to take out the 'Eighth Finger', we had to find out the location of the skill that was most effective against his undead, the Child of Life skill.
It was this quest that triggered the flashback Event where we saw the past of the skill and discovered that the previous owner of the skill was the wife of the Laneford clan's master. She possessed the exact same title that Eliza has."
Each time the word 'Laneford' came out of Evan's mouth, Eliza flinched involuntarily but the young hero was too caught up in his thoughts to notice.
He then abruptly turned to Eliza and grabbed her shoulders before speaking with excitement.
"When we're done with this dungeon and retrieve Pride's brother from Hobha, we're going to search for someone to teach you how to use your skull to full potential.
He's the head of this hidden clan called the 'Laneford Clan' and he also has another 'Child Series Skill' like you.
His wife, the madam of the 'Laneford Clan', was the previous owner of your skill and he was the one who taught her how to use the skill, so he'd be suited to teach you too."
He took his hands off the surprised girl and rubbed his chin with his fingers as he continued talking.
"The only issue is finding the Laneford Clan in the first place. It was a lot of work to find them in the game too.
Maybe I'd ask Artemisia for help with tha-OW!!"
Evan's monologue was cut short when Pride suddenly flicked his forehead, causing him to scream in pain as he held his sore forehead with teary eyes.
"You're scaring Eliza, in more ways than one."
"Huh?"
He turned towards Eliza only to see her face as pale as a sheet of paper, the fear in her eyes evident as she stared at Evan.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?"
Evan who realized she was very obviously not okay, began to panic but the teenage girl recovered her wits and prevented him from doing so.
On the side, Pride heaved a sigh of exasperation as she stared at the duo, before turning her gaze back to the small altar at the centre of the room.
'Sometimes Evan can be really smart but other times he can be outrageously dense. How has he really not figured out the reason for her reaction?'
She shook her head as she turned back to the two kids who had somehow begun engaging in a conversation about power levelling.
"You want to 'power level' me?"
"Yep.
To be honest, you are very crucial to my plans and the higher level you are, the higher the chance of my plan succeeding.
That's also why I wanted you to learn how to use your skill to its full potential. After all, without it, fighting a certain necromancer is going to be hell.
? But first, we have to increase the daily charges of your skill and upgrade the skill's abilities so you can mark someone and make them a carrier of your blessing, it's similar to the 'Blessing of Life's' ability but a little bit different."
Eliza who had returned to her normal state, held up her palm to stop Evan from talking as she pressed her forehead with her fingers and heaved an exhausted sigh.
"Firstly, why do you know more about my skill than I do?"
"Girl, if I start explaining, we're not gonna leave here today. You should already know that I have a close connection with the goddess and that is the reason she descended to meet me a few weeks ago.
Just take it that I know about a lot of skills and their effects thanks to her."
Deciding not to take his words for a grain of salt, Eliza asked her next question, one that Evan promptly answered.
"Who's this necromancer you're talking about fighting?"
"A guy who's unhesitant to cause the deaths of a few million people, wiping out the entire northern part of the Great Western empire."
"What the actual fuck?!"
"I know, right?"
Evan nodded as he concurred with Eliza's words, before going on to talk more about what the 'Eight Finger' had done in the past, painting him as some sort of grand Villain.
'The guy overran nearly a dozen cities with undead two decades ago, he IS a grand villain.
Although he got killed by one of 'The Five', he's been revived thanks to the 'First Finger'. Even if he's weaker than before, fighting him is gonna be tough
If he deploys his death domain, then anyone who dies there would become his undead servant.
I'm gonna need Laurene's help with this matter, Artemisia's too. Since it's a matter of undead, it should be enough justification to get the church to move in earnest.
It would also be really nice if that bishop from Bonas city helps out too, the Blessing of Light series skill would go a long way in weakening his undead and making it easier to kill him.'
Sinking into his thoughts, Evan began to remodel his plans for countering the second of the eight disasters that he planned to combat, the Dullahan Attack on the Cheverton Duchy.
'The problem is when the 'Eighth finger' himself joins the fray.'
Evan's greatest fear was not the hundreds of thousands of undead creatures under the Eighth finger's control, nor the death knights and the bone dragon.
'It's his demonic possession, or rather, demonic fusion.'
All the high-ranking members of the 'Demonic Hand' were all contracted with demons!
It was precisely because of this that Evan could even think about contracting with Pride in the first place.
He was already aware that it was possible to contract with demons due to the existence of the demonic hand.
And if the high-ranking members of the demonic hand were all contracted with demons, then the same would obviously be the case for the executives of the demonic hand, the 'Ten Fingers'.
Each of them was contracted with a powerful demon and much like Evan's demonic possession with Pride, it was possible for them to fuse with their contracted demons.
In that state, not only were they far more powerful, but they could also combine their abilities with that of their contracted demons.