Modern World Warlock

It had been almost a week since Dante left for the Siberian Forest, and after his group told Camille that they were on their way back with a visitor, the handler said that they had extra guests at the Jade Palace waiting for the warlock.

Dante couldn't have imagined that his old party would make it all the way there, so he thought that the guests must have been someone from the Golden Twilight Syndicate.

As the warlock rested his head on the private plane's seat, he gazed at the witch, Baba Yaga, sitting in front of him with an uninterested expression.

"So, you traveled to the future… Or, I suppose it's the present now," Dante commented, wanting to make small talk with the witch.

"Uh, huh…" Yaga replied without gazing at him.

"It must've been lonely," Dante continued, looking out the plane's window as he empathized with Yaga's situation.

When Dante placed himself in her shoes, he thought life would be miserable—having to live for such a long time while everyone you loved and cared for had been forgotten from the face of the Earth.

Even if the witch didn't show it, Dante understood how that loneliness felt.

"I've managed to meet lots of interesting people, so it's not as miserable as you might think…" Yaga replied, a slight smile on her face.

Her words felt reassuring to the warlock. If Yaga could still keep her head high and continue forward after literally losing her world, then there were things that Dante could learn from her.

"How about you?" Yaga asked, prompting Dante to get confused by the vague question.

"You have a massive fragment of someone else's soul inside of you…" Yaga continued, and her words caught the attention of Megan and Vesnia, who were sitting on the adjacent seats.

"Oh, you can see it?" Dante pondered aloud.

Yaga nodded. "I can see it's not malicious, so I ignored it," she replied.

"Yeah, well… It's a long story," Dante muttered, placing a hand on his chest.

"It's a long flight. We've got time," Yaga said with a slight smirk.

Dante nodded and recognized that it wouldn't be a problem to tell the witch about the story of how his beloved Beatrice's soul fragment fused with his body. Considering that the woman seemed way more experienced than he was with anything related to magic.

Megan had already heard the whole anecdote from Dante, and while Vesnia was aware of Beatrice's disappearance, she never got to listen to the whole story.

Vesnia had only met Beatrice once in Terra, when the combat priestess visited the Shadow-Blade Assassins in secret to heal the young girl from an illness.

Even though Vesnia always wanted to meet her savior again, the news of her disappearance completely crushed her dream, and shortly after, the assassins were targeted by Netherius, where she became a Death Knight.

The reason Vesnia felt a weird connection with Megan when they first met was that she looked almost exactly like a copy of Beatrice. She even thought they were the same person at first, but after a few exchanges of words, Vesnia could easily tell the difference in manners.

As Dante recounted his sorrowful tale of how Beatrice was kidnapped by Satan and how he traveled the entirety of hell just to look for her dead body, the cyborg's lips quivered and her eyes got watery.

Megan noticed Vesnia's sadness, and she pondered why the engineers had given cyborgs the ability to cry, though it made Vesnia look more human, so she thought it wasn't too bad.

When Dante tried to keep Beatrice's soul intact, the only way he could make it happen was by absorbing a large fragment of it.

It wasn't a skill that anyone could pull off, as having more than one soul inhabiting one's body could make him go into a deadly shock. However, Beatrice's soul peacefully assimilated with his, though he never knew why.

"I see…" Yaga muttered as she digested the story, closing her eyes while deep in thought.

"Impressive. The love she had for you must've been quite deep to be able to ingrain itself in her soul. A bond so strong that it not only kept you alive after absorbing the fragment, but you are also able to harness her power…" Yaga explained, a slight smirk of admiration on her face.

"Well, to some extent. I can't really pull off all of her abilities…" Dante replied with a humble air.

"Still, it's also impressive that you managed to kill Satan," Yaga continued her praise, something she hadn't done in many years.

The witch only knew basic and outdated information about Dante from her old peers, but now that she was getting to know him more, she felt a bit more confident in her decision to accompany them.

Vesnia had to blow her nose from crying, and Megan couldn't believe that the engineers also added mucus to the cyborg's functions.

Dante had more questions for the witch as well, but considering that Yaga would probably have to retell everything to the people at the Jade Palace, he decided to wait so as not to make her tell the same story twice.

Gazing at the clock on the top of his seat and realizing that they still had a little over five hours of flying, Dante reclined back and took a nap for the rest of the flight.

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Meanwhile, at the Jade Palace, the warlock's party had spent their entire day playing video games after Paige successfully made a larger and sturdier controller for Soren.

They knew that Dante would arrive later in the day, and they all had come up with their own way to greet their friend. However, unable to hold back the feeling of anticipation, playing video games was the only way they could keep their heads busy.

Even Gabriel felt nervous about Dante's arrival, as the few interactions they had in the past weren't exactly in the friendliest of terms.

Still, the angel could see the amount of trust and concern that Camille had for the warlock, so he believed he should at least try to get along with Dante when he returned.