Sophia Demiurge

The sun started to show itself as dawn approached, birds started to chirp and stalls started to prepare for another day of raking in the gold. In the Royal palace, in a dark room devoid of any light, a paper is in the hands of a certain lady who is looking at it intently, in the paper is a magic circle that soon lit up, giving a momentary brightness to the room before it turned extremely dark once more.

Yet, despite this somehow horrifying darkness, the lady can still see the face that emerged out of the paper, the face has a handsome appearance that not even the pure white color of his face that was mimicked by the paper can hide. The lady, Hebi Tsukaiza looked at the man for a few seconds to make sure that the "connection" was stable, Hebi then spoke as she smiled.

"Good day, Sir Loki."

The face then shook his head, seemingly a little hurt.

"Too stiff Hebi, too stiff."

Hebi smiled slightly as she held the paper up, she was wearing a see-through nightie causing Loki to look down his brazenly.

"I am not your spouse now, but your strongest soldier."

Loki sighed and smiled as Hebi reminded him of their current standing, he then made his smile vanish as he immediately asked the crux of his sudden call, he doesn't have a lot of time, after all.

"So, how's the situation over there? Is Sophia in the capital already?"

Hebi nodded as she once again placed the paper on the pillow at the top of her lap, she replied.

"Yes, around yesterday, she had already entered the palace and had a meeting with the King, however, because the meeting room is rather heavily guarded with seals and magic traps for anyone unauthorized, I am not able to enter or any of my subordinates, so I cannot gather the details of the conversation."

"But considering the situation and Urduja's presence, they probably talked about me... and it seems like Sophia has some hunches as to where I am, but is yet to confirm them, also, I cannot spy on her room because she has protected it herself."

Previously, she had reported Bakunawa's early arrival in the palace, which made her conclude that Urduja and Sophia realized her appearance in the capital, this made her go in quite a hurry, however, she is once again confused as to why Sophia seems to not do anything at all despite her early warning towards the king of Gjallarhorn, but she believe that it was just the Queen of Kamatayan's current inability to do an aggressive search, this made her think it was unnecessary to inquire for such matters.

"... Oh my, that was faster than you have reported, then you probably have to hurry."

At this remark, Hebi frowned a little as she tilted her head in confusion and asked.

"...Did the god of the undead give her clues or the exact location of the gem itself?"

Hebi inquired to which Loki gave her an answer, the slight chuckle on his part was evident.

"She doesn't need a clue if the thing she is finding is letting her find itself."

Hebi's eyes widened as she heard her husband's remark, after all, no matter how strong, mysterious, and influential Loki is, he still doesn't have any idea where part of the palace is the core of the undead located, he even has to ask for her help to identify the magic circle seals of the palace's secret seal so that he can counter the effect and neutralize them. The good thing is that their wait has finally come to an end as Loki gave them the good news.

"At this moment, I am not sure if she has found it already or not, but we can just proceed as quickly as possible, here is the magic circle that can neutralize the spell that seals the palace... after this, you have to make haste because I am quite sure that Sophia will be able to detect the magic."

Loki's face then disappeared and alongside it, the magic circle that was originally in the paper was quickly replaced by a black colored magic circle with the same design as the seal of the palace, except that, the 4 small circles are not in the four primary directions but in the intersections between two primary directions ( A/N: northeast, northwest etc.) as it was ordered to her, Hebi immediately poured mana into it, causing the black colored magic circle to lit up as it burst into the room alongside the paper.

Outside the palace, a black-colored halo enveloped the whole palace and unceremoniously disappeared as if nothing happened and only a slight shattering sound was barely audible, hearing this, Hebi grinned.

"See, I told you, we still have the edge"

After saying such, Hebi started to hurl orders to her subordinates hidden in different parts of the palace and found the only place neglected from the start, was the place being sealed by the magic circle before. Even though she is confident of their advantage, she still does not dare underestimate the warning of Loki.

[Sophia's POV]

After an hour or two, a maid knocked on the door of our room and announced that the bath was ready, so we immediately used the magical properties of our clothes to change into bathrobes, and because it is quite unsightly to enter the bath with all the hustle and bustle of the maids caused by the brother of Roselle who almost got frozen to death, we used the 4th dimension to arrive at the entrance of the bath almost instantly.

Anyway, because they used the bath to defrost the prince, it was quite steamy, though I can tell that they did their best to remove as much steam as physically possible, we entered the bath and soaked ourselves in the hot water after we washed ourselves, and as we did so, Eleanor and I looked at each other with shocked gazes, I cannot help but question her.

"Did you hear that?"

Eleanor frowned and then nodded.

"Yes."

It's like a small shattering sound, like a glass or a vase being dropped to the floor, normally that is nothing serious if you can replace it before your mom comes home, but there is a problem, there is no glass or vase here! Furthermore, after we heard that sound, Eleanor and I immediately looked at each other as we felt a wave course through the whole palace.

"Let's get out of here."

I immediately suggested in which Eleanor immediately agreed, we grabbed our bathrobes changed it back to our normal attire, and used the 4th dimension to re-enter our room, as a frown appeared on my face.

_I was enjoying the floating breasts of Eleanor..._

At the same time, I immediately conversed with my unique skill, [Guide], and inquired what happened that caused such ethereal sounds.

[It seems like Loki already detected your presence in Heimdall and decided to do a little intervention, the seal enveloping the whole palace is already broken.]

A bout of silence immediately emerged in my brain, after a little while, I replied.

Why didn't you crack it?

[You did not order me to, besides it will take another day to find all of the small circles that support the whole seal, so it is not time-efficient. I instead bypassed the seal.]

What are you, ChatGPT? That is all I can say with [Guide]'s answer, however at the same time I cannot help but squint my eyes.

_They are as efficient as a unique skill._

[Look who's talking.]

Don't patronize me, in any case, this only means one thing, I and Hebi learned of the gem's location at the same time and my only advantage is that when [Guide] told me earlier that the scan was complete, I already made him guide Bakunawa to the crown chamber, looking at it, it is just the place in the whole blueprint shown to me by the King that is not drawn.

_The seal is so powerful that even the King did not realize he was not wearing a crown for almost the entirety of his reign, how interesting._

I smirked as such, looking at Eleanor who was looking worried, maybe given the fact that Loki finally intervened on something, but it is just some minor stuff so it's not that serious, actually if you think about it, the discovery of the gem by Hebi is just a matter of time and given the fact that Hebi is most definitely hiding from me, Philo and Lyra can most probably repeal the advance of her subordinates for the time being, it's fine as long as she did not enter the scene.

_For a second, I want to push forward all of my conjecture about this matter, but on second thought, let's continue with delaying it._

I smirked as I thought as such, I immediately decided to go out of the palace to "investigate" Hebi's matter, so that I could commit corporate espionage in the medicine industry of this place. Just as I was thinking of that, a bunch of servants knocked on our door, I permitted them to enter as I saw a lot of dishes being presented in front of us, it had slices of bacon, eggs, and fried rice, unusually simple for royalties, but I am not to complain, because what is puzzling to me is the fact that the food entered our room in the first place.

The good thing is that I did not need to ask such a question because a ready-made explanation immediately entered my ears.

"Like you, Queen Sophia, King Roselle wishes to investigate outside the palace personally, thus he went and had an early breakfast and cannot wait for you, he is now outside making his efforts to resolve the threat in Heimdall."

I immediately nodded as I made an: "I see."

Eleanor and I then went and started to eat the rather sumptuous breakfast, when we finished, the sun was already high up in the sky, Eleanor also recovered from her previous worry as I went out of my room after I bid her goodbye, I then used dark magic to cast an illusion upon myself and went on a little disguise, my stature (at least to other people) became relatively taller as I donned a coat and a hat, again, that is what other people sees.

After that, I went outside whilst also commanding Kabuto to tail the King and tell me his discoveries. I already memorized the map given to me by the King, so I was quite confident that I would not lost, after shuttling through the streets, I found the nearest apothecary shop from the palace, there were a lot of men and women who had different bodily attributes, from burly to slim and then skin and bones.

If you consider the genre of the story, you will immediately realize that they are adventurers, but they are not in a guild.

[This world doesn't have a guild that organizes adventurers you know, only merchant guilds, so they typically go and loiter around bars or other shops that allow their accommodation.]

Isn't that a little dangerous to not have an organizing body of people who can legally wield weapons? In my world, they will easily be suspected as terrorists.

[Well, you can organize them. And even if they are not organized, they still look for criminals or hunt overpopulated beasts and most of all, participate in wars, so they are more advantageous without a proper representative.]

Nah, creating and letting adventurers in my nation will not do me well, I will easily lose control of my people who can potentially become my soldiers, that is not a very ideal situation for a nation that is not even a year old. I will let them realize the danger over time. Also, taking advantage of the adventurers not having a proper leader is an asshole move.

[Oh yeah?]

... Anyway.

I went straight to the apothecary at the front desk and requested to inspect the product they had, it looks like a bong without the other tube.

_I wonder how potent it is..._

[3rd Person POV]

As Sophia does her best to "investigate", the King is also not slacking off, he is now in front of the forest which his wife usually comes to during her escapes from the palace, he walks around with suspicion evident in his eyes.

_There is something wrong with this forest... but what..._

He continuously ventured as he also questioned himself repeatedly, he has been in this place again and again, however, no matter how many times he looked around, he failed to see any abnormalities. Or at least, that is what he is thinking.

Suddenly, with a black flash, Prince Noire, his younger brother appeared without warning and as an instinctive response, Roselle hid himself as his brother looked around the surroundings with great caution. Of course, this can be translated as the prince also investigating the Hebi Tsukaiza matter, but with how his attitude towards the assistance they have acquired, King Roselle got a bad premonition.

_I hope I am wrong._

The King waited for about 5 minutes and when Noire finally continued forward, he started to tail his brother, of course, he did not notice that his shadow had a thicker part, evidence of Kabuto's masterful concealment.

_____

Inside the Crown chamber, Bakunawa has a shock-filled gaze, realizing the potency of the seal placed in the palace.

"The seal was so strong that the King did not even enter this hallway when touring us?"