The Hero Who Became a Monster Girl Will Never Fall to Evil

Vieya immediately opened her mouth.

World Tree, what kind of threat could a three-day-old dragon hatchling possibly pose? If you were worried, you might as well have handed her over for me to raise back then.

To be honest, I’m a dragon tamer too. I was born to ride on the heads of evil dragons and lord it over them.

Oh, right. I hadn’t come to this world yet at that time.

Then never mind.

“Back to the main point. So what were you trying to say just now? That there’s another way to revive Flaviel—right now, right here?” Vieya asked.

“Yes. If you want to revive her now, it’s like trying to plant a tree, but you don’t have a sapling (Flaviel’s well-preserved body). All you have is a decayed dead branch (the broken dragon horn that has lost all spiritual energy). How could a dead branch ever take root, sprout, blossom, and bear fruit?”

The World Tree’s information transmission stalled for a moment, then continued to synchronize.

“But that isn’t a big problem.”

The frequency of the World Tree’s information pulsed. “According to my deduction, it’s not that we don’t have a sapling. Rather, that sapling has developed into another form—your current body. Souls cannot be shared, but bodies can. However, accomplishing this does come with some difficulty.”

“That difficulty isn’t insurmountable. I can find a way to make up for it.”

Hearing this, Vieya’s expression instantly turned strange. “You mean... turning her into a permanent accessory I carry around?”

“You could put it that way.”

The World Tree continued outputting information. “Using your body as the mother stock, cultivating a new branch isn’t difficult. Just simulate the process of flowering, fruiting, falling to the ground, sprouting, and growing. For this purpose, I have just created a targeted secret technique.”

You just invented a secret technique on the spot? Is that reliable?

As expected, Flaviel learned this kind of thing from you, didn’t she?!

As if recalling something, Vieya fell silent.

“Oh, right. There’s one more thing...”

At this moment, the World Tree’s output voice suddenly lowered. “When I was absorbing the liquid time just now, I sensed the presence of a residual spirit.”

Vieya froze. “A residual spirit?”

Could it be referring to the bad thing she had sealed inside the painting? But there were two of those. With the World Tree’s ability, it shouldn’t miscount something like that. But... if the World Tree’s perception wasn’t wrong, then it wasn’t the painting?

Could it be Flaviel’s residual spirit?

That didn’t fit either. If it really were her, the World Tree would have grabbed it instantly, refined it on the spot, and helped her reincarnate and revive. Why would it still be chatting with her now?

So now, the question was—

“May I ask, which one did you sense?”

“Can’t you sense it?” the World Tree asked back.

“......”

That brief exchange left Vieya silent again for a moment. Then, as if the World Tree had suddenly realized something, it grabbed the slime again and injected energy into her, helping to enhance her perception.

“Wuuuh—my body feels so swollen, I’m going to burst...”

Vieya gritted her teeth and endured it. The energy the World Tree poured in exceeded her carrying limit in an instant, making it almost impossible for her to restrain the urge deep inside to grow larger.

“Alright. I’ve projected my own perception ability onto you, and optimized your physical qualities as well, increasing the acuity of all your senses. In terms you can understand, I optimized the underlying code of your body. Now, try again and see if you can sense it.”

Vieya: “......”

Although the World Tree’s words were filled with a level of care worthy of prenatal education, Vieya still felt a kind of formalized insult—but she quickly stopped caring.

My talent really is unprecedented!

In just a breath, Vieya detected the source of the anomaly—it was inside the Golden City! At the bottom of the golden pool that had previously stored the liquid time!

In an instant, she understood what was going on.

‘Damn it, that old thing actually screwed me over! What is it trying to do, hiding inside my stuff?!’

But—

The very next second, Vieya sensed an ancient, primordial consciousness awakening at the bottom of the golden pool, as if something terrifying were reviving inside the Golden City within her body.

This can’t cause trouble inside my body!

The little slime girl was terrified, her face turning deathly pale. She immediately expelled the Golden City from her body, overcame her greed for gold with sheer willpower, and decisively tossed it aside.

Rumble—!

A magnificent city forged entirely of gold rose up from within the World Tree, dazzling and resplendent. Fortunately, this place was large enough to fully accommodate such a city.

At the same time, a great power that spanned the ages also began to descend. After the optimization just now, Vieya was able to confirm the source of that aura once again in an instant.

It was the one she had encountered at the bottom of the dungeon—the one who called himself the first Demon King, Tartaros!

Could it be that ever since she left the dungeon, she had been under this thing’s surveillance the entire time, acting beneath its very gaze?

Vieya felt a chill spread through her entire body.

“There’s no need to worry. Immersed beneath the liquid time, in order to preserve the residual spirit for longer, it couldn’t maintain observation of the outside world. If you hadn’t stimulated it just now, it would have remained asleep and dormant indefinitely,” the World Tree explained.

Hearing this, Vieya finally let out a sigh of relief.

“But if you keep allowing it to sleep at the bottom of your pool, one day it will recover. From being able only to sleep and observe nothing, to being able to observe within a certain range, then to condensing an illusory form, and later to communicating with and interfering with the outside world...”

After hearing this, the breath Vieya had just let out caught in her throat again, her small face turning ugly.

If she hadn’t met Aislin, that elf princess willing to vouch for her, and as a result had been unable to reach the Elven Royal Court for a long time, then perhaps one day Tartaros would have quietly revived inside her body, secretly guiding and manipulating her life as it slid toward the abyss...

‘That innately evil old ghost! Throwing all that stuff at me back then was just to distract me, so I’d overlook the backdoor it left at the bottom of the Golden City!’

Vieya admitted it—she had panicked for a second.

But in the next moment, she regained her composure. If it had gone undiscovered, it would indeed have been terrifying. But now that it had been dragged out into the open, Tartaros was nothing more than fish on her chopping block.

By all my understanding! By the martial virtue of my entire life! By my heaven-reaching wisdom! By my invincible talent!

[Soul-Sundering]!

Vieya always acted fast. It was practically instinct honed during her Hero days. The moment she moved, she unleashed the Eighth Authority she currently controlled—the one with the greatest lethality against soul entities, an Authority that could separate and directly attack souls.

Without a sound, danger descended!

The residual soul fragment that had prematurely awakened inside the Golden City realized it had been exposed and immediately activated all its power, splitting into a thousand pieces that scattered in all directions like fireworks, trying to flee.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

One clone after another was instantly killed by Vieya.

At just this moment, Dorothy returned once more, bringing three elven clan heads with her. They took one look and decisively joined the battlefield.

Cooperation required no words.

In the blink of an eye, the fragments were completely surrounded, with no path of escape, on the verge of being wiped out.

“Ah...”

The next second, beside Vieya, a soft sigh suddenly sounded, as if it had been standing behind her from the very beginning.

“Why must it come to this? I am merely one of the tens of thousands of fragments left after his disintegration. Doing this was nothing more than trying to secure a path to survival for myself.”

“Why insist on exterminating everything to the last?”

Vieya stiffly turned her head, only to see a familiar-looking figure standing behind her—the very same ‘first Demon King’ she had met in ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) the dungeon. He was smiling gently now, a pair of pitch-black eyes without whites reflecting her figure.

“Can you give each other a way to live?”

‘A way to live?’

You played dirty tricks on me over this, scheming in the shadows, and you think you still deserve a way to live?!!

An enemy must be eradicated down to the roots!

Vieya’s eyes turned cold as she struck out again!

[Soul-Sundering]!