"Information?"
Hel smacked her forehead lightly, looking a bit embarrassed.
"Right, I almost forgot. I've been too busy lately. Which one are you talking about?"
She rummaged through her spatial ring, pulling out a stack of parchment and spreading them out on the table, scanning quickly through the pages.
"It's on the second page—the one about the captain of Selevius's Second Knight Order falling into corruption and turning into a devil."
"Falling into a devil?"
"Yes. Ever since the Great Cataclysm, many powerful individuals within the Selevius Kingdom have been affected by the aura of corruption, showing demonic features on their bodies.
And among them, the Second Knight Order's Captain, Malachi, was the one most severely affected."
"In the beginning, the kingdom's upper ranks adopted a policy of monitoring and appeasement toward those with demonic mutations.
After all, many of them held high positions within various factions—some even members of the royal family."
"But because of Malachi, that attitude changed, didn't it?"
"Exactly. At first, Malachi showed no visible demonic traits, so no one suspected or monitored him.
It wasn't until a recent tragedy claiming hundreds of lives was investigated that people realized he wasn't untainted—his corruption had already completed. He had become a full-fledged devil.
And devils… they are experts at hiding themselves, yet they possess an obsessive hunger for souls.
By day, Malachi was the diligent commander of the Knight Order.
By night, he became a butcher who hunted children.
If not for a few unexpected clues exposing him, the case might never have been solved.
Later, to kill him, the kingdom sent out several Tier Five powerhouses to besiege him.
The details of the battle were sealed by the kingdom, so I couldn't uncover much.
But the aftermath was telling—a massive crater appeared in Selevius's northern district.
Officially, the kingdom claimed that only one Tier Five knight had been dragged to hell by Malachi's final counterattack.
But from what I observed on site, at least three Tier Five powerhouses died there.
There was something else strange, too. Malachi was a wind-attribute knight, always training and fighting with wind energy.
Yet the elemental crystal extracted from his body afterward was of corruption attribute.
Thanks to the reputation of the SkOll Academy, I managed to catch a brief glimpse of that crystal and even scanned it with my mental power.
It contained no trace of wind energy at all."
"No wind attribute, yet he could still use wind-attribute battle aura?" Hel stroked her chin, frowning.
"That's… odd."
After all, since Sebas and the others had become undead, they had completely lost the ability to use their original aura attributes.
If she could uncover how Malachi managed it, perhaps Sebas and the others could refine their disguises even further.
"The Selevius royal family gathered scholars from surrounding nations to study it," Witt continued.
"At present, there are two prevailing theories.
The first is that Malachi possessed some kind of devilish secret art that allowed him to retain his previous powers despite his elemental conversion.
The second—and more widely accepted—theory is that the corruption attribute itself distorts perception.
That is, his attacks only appeared to be wind-attribute to observers, while their true nature remained corruption-based."
"I see…" Hel nodded slowly. "Send me your memory of what you saw."
"O–of course." Witt froze for a second, then realized what she meant. Under her guidance, he awkwardly transmitted the relevant memory through the soul network.
After scanning through the memory, Hel didn't notice any immediate problems.
Once Witt was dismissed, she fell into deep thought again.
Hel knew why Witt had brought up this report.
He was worried—worried that someone among her own subordinates might one day fall into corruption and become a devil.
He hoped she could prepare preventive measures in advance.
But Hel wasn't particularly concerned.
Thanks to her Word System, she could instantly scan anyone's status or condition at any time.
What truly worried her was something else entirely—
that the devils from the Snowmelt Principality, north of the Mandrake Principality, might one day invade Mandrake without warning.
North—devils.
East—beastmen and orcs.
South—remnants of the undead legions.
When she thought about it like that, Mandrake Principality really was a "perfect disaster zone."
Honestly, Hel was beginning to think about abandoning this cursed territory altogether and relocating to safer lands within human civilization.
If things kept spiraling like this, she would eventually be forced to expose her true strength just to protect herself.
But leaving wasn't simple.
One obstacle was the Noble Council's restrictions.
The other—the entrance to the goblin ruins was located right here in Heim's domain.
Perhaps once she finished exploring the A-rank main city connected to those ruins,
she would need to start planning how to relocate her territory under a plausible excuse.
For now, though, to avoid being caught off guard due to lack of information from any of these three directions,
it was time for Morrigan—her alternate persona—to make a return.
Over the past two weeks, Hel hadn't devoted all her attention to building mecha puppets.
She had also been controlling a secondary clone—her "little magus"—to gather and rally the remaining undead within Mandrake territory.
Although the population of undead had been drastically reduced after the Ring of Corruption and National Alchemy Array events,
there were still enough left to construct a Soul Network reaching all the way to the Snowmelt Principality.