Grabbing the robes of a cultist trying to run away, I pulled them back, spinning them around before striking the monster with a chop of my hand right in the mouth, splitting their cheeks apart and grinding their teeth to dust.

  The cultist stumbled backwards, choking on their own blood as I casually walked up.

  “Y–You guys are a FUCKING dis–appoin–tment!”

  I berated the creature before decking it right in the head, knocking it to the ground, unmoving.

  They are just so weak and pathetic! They are worse mages than the graveyard annoyance! Each and every one of them is feeble and incapable of casting more than two spells! They either cast a mana bullet or a freaking bubble! Both are just spells woven from basic mana!

  These cultists are so awful that none of them even had a slight elemental affinity… This is ridiculous, not to mention that when they cast their only offensive spell, it is so weak that I doubt it could mortally wound a regular person even if it hit them in the forehead!

  It is pointless to use them to train my energy resistance upgrade. It’s even less effective than filling a bathtub one drop by drop… They left me no other choice but to massacre them all as quickly as possible.

  On the bright side, though, their flesh is quite nourishing. Enough for me to gladly make several back and forths to carry it all to my closest cabin. Rather than eating everything on the spot as I used to do, I now make some stocks, as eating flesh and steel is mostly useful for sped-up regeneration.

  Unlike negative emotions and negative energy, there is nothing for me to spend ‘flesh’ or ‘steel’ on… At least not yet.

  Even after I extinguished the flames, smoke remained in the underground, but ‘Forward Shine’, my beloved, was capable of peering through the remnant smoke without problem, allowing me to carry my spoils until there was only one corpse left for me to gather.

  This one, I had killed by snapping… I think it would be his neck for that one. In any case, he had died right in front of the statue they seemingly worshipped, and indeed, Poppy had been correct in her description of this thing. It was horrendous. The stone carving was on point, but whatever had served as a model would never be winning any beauty contest–Unlike me.

  The statue loomed over the room, watching like a silent predator awaiting a moment of inattention to strike its prey… Admittedly, the creature depicted was quite threatening, although, if the proportions were accurate, this serpentine beast’s head was as tall as I am, its eyes were at my level.

  Its body was something of the order of ten meters in length, and it had what looked like a dozen, emaciated humanoid arms and hands sticking out of the size of its body, like some sort of nightmarish centipede.

  Its ursine-like face was stuck in a constant snarl or roar, as though always mad about something.

  Mmh… I’ll try to add you to my urban legend’s lore, you have a good mug for that sort of activity…

  Why is it called an urban legend when we are in the countryside? Shouldn’t it be a rural legend?

  You always ask difficult questions, don’t you, Nara? I have no clue, I always heard it spoken that way. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I will become folklore?

  As I discussed with my adorable little sister, I pulled the corpse off the ground, and a single drop of blood, presumably from a wound earned during his fall to the ground, fell onto the floor, and the floor lit up with crimson red, revealing an intricate ritualistic array of sorts.

  The entire place shook, and the stone beneath my feet began to twist and turn.

  Before I could even comment on the situation, it stopped.

  I am in trouble, aren’t I?

  I looked up, and the statue was revealing cracks on its surface.

  Shit.

  The stone was peeled away, revealing a living, breathing being. Its expression finally changed, demonstrating facial movements so intricate that they were as easy to read as those of a person, despite the fact that they were occurring upon a bear-like face fused onto a snake’s body.

  I casually tried to hide the corpse behind my back.

  Foolish One… How dare you slaughter my believers?

  It was simultaneously speaking aloud and talking directly into my mind.

  “I was just a bit hu-hungry”

  Gluttony… I am The Judge, The Adjudicator, I am The Bringer of Justice… And you… Foolish One, you have committed countless sins. I can feel the souls of your victims crying out

  “Li-Listen, Your Honour, I am just doing what my nature tells me to! I am like a tiger, I just kill and eat when my instincts tell me to… Surely, you wou–wouldn’t go and condemn the wolves for eating a de–deer, right? It is just nature at work!”

  I don’t think you can weasel your way out of here like this, Mara… I doubt he can be swindled like a regular judge…

  Nonsense, do you have any idea how many times I talked my way out of bad situations? I am a virtuoso of argumentation!

  Are you sure it wasn’t because of your status?

  You dare attempt to trick me, Foolish One? You are no beast. You are a fully sapient human controlling a lump of cursed steel. I sense no delusions. I sense no true madness. You are merely scum

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  “Hoi… Let’s no–not start insulting, a–a–alright? You li–live in a glass house, Buddy”

  The abomination growled as though it could already sense the insults I was going to throw its way.

  Understand, Foolish one. I am divine. My believers prayed so that I would descend upon them and grant them vengeance… But you slaughtered them all… For what? Your sick enjoyment of violence and death

  “Des–cend? Are you s–u–u–ure you didn’t ascend from hell or some other nasty place?”

  Enough wittiness, Foolish One. I am going to enact judgment upon you for your sins, but fret not… I am justice, I allow freedom in the mode of punishment

  Its voice was a strange mix of growling and hissing, making listening to this ugly creature a most annoying experience, especially since it did not seem to understand that the inside of my head was not a place to just start rambling in.

  “Oh, really? I think my punishment should–should be for a thou–thousand spirits to come here carrying curses for me to eat–devour”

  You are not the first to respond in such a manner

  The creature’s body rose, and it outstretched its arms.

  In an instant, all the smoke was cleared. Its eyes shone with a golden glow as it smiled.

  You will get to choose the manner in which you are tortured and killed for your sins

  I looked up at him and tapped my chin.

  “I’ll th–ink about it. Don’t move from he–here, and I’ll come back once-”

  The way out was blocked by rocks.

  “Alright then…”

  Make your choice. You do not have unlimited time. Pick the way in which you shall face punishment for your countless, heinous sins

  “I ca–can pick anything, r-right?”

  Yes, that is the freedom of justice

  I stared the bear-snake-bastard in the eyes. From what I gathered, it couldn’t read my mind despite speaking into it. Otherwise, it probably would have reacted to me speaking with Nara… One last test.

  I imagined the most awful thing I could think of, and as I thought, the so-called ‘Judge’ was utterly unresponsive.

  Heheheh…

  I brought both of my hands together.

  “Mister Adjudicator~ I wish for my punishment for being a very bad girl to be a witch burning~ And because I am an especially bad girl, the strength of the flames will slowly increase over time, and also, to make sure that they eventually do kill me, they should be made from energy, like mana~”

  I sang a beautiful few words, and the ugly–Supposedly divine–Creature did not seem to notice any discrepancy.

  Very well, a fitting fate for a woman of your nature

  Is it actually stupid enough to give me exactly what I asked for?

  A dome of sorts surrounded me in an instant, and flames ignited all around me, crawling over my body, seemingly inextinguishable.

  Whether it was truly about idiocy, or if the nature of this creature was to always give the correct punishment asked for, I couldn’t know, but I was already wondering what it would think once it realised what I had just done…

  I had already sent my three assistants to patrol the woods again, so it was just me and Nara inside this fiery dome.

  Seems like the flames change what type of energy they are made out of every minute. Usually, this would ensure that even those with fire resistance would be burned eventually, as each energy has its quirks

  Once it would get to pure fire essence, even flame-aligned species would struggle to resist… But since the flames are only slowly increasing in strength, even such potent energies can’t show their worth… It would appear that the so-called divine being was either fooled or couldn’t refuse your idea

  I lean more toward this thing just being stupid.

  In any case, I am going to be enjoying this extra-long fire bath for now… My girls will keep things running on the surface. This is the greatest part of having assistants, they can work in my stead whilst I do absolutely nothing.

  My clothes are going to get ruined again… Guess I’ll try the goat horns next as headwear. What do you think, Nara, what do you think I look cuter with?

  I think the headwear only makes you look fiercer instead of cute, Mara. Perhaps you could try wearing one of those frilly headbands instead

  Frilly headband? I am not going to disguise myself as a maid. I doubt my current stature would work very well in that regard… Unless I can get a form that would be more fitting for such attire?

  I spent my time casually discussing with Nara and checking the progress of my two resistance abilities as time dragged on longer and longer. Due to having asked for a slow progression of the strength of the flames, and already having a certain level of resistance to what was being thrown at me, the flames were barely tickling me for a long while.

  Especially since my resistances got higher as time went on, nullifying the subtle increase in the strength of the fire, each additional level of… Mastery, I suppose, each level of that brought greater resilience than the last.

  And that was without even factoring in the fact that, by default, my physical body was tough and resilient to basically all forms of damage.

  So for an unknown period of time, I burned.

  I could have asked the time through my connection to my loyal spectres, but I didn’t bother.

  Eventually, the inferno turned into the sort of stuff that would make people sweat without even being directly close, the sort of flames that could probably eat through a good chunk of the forest above.

  And eventually, the flames became capable of burning my non-physical body as well. Leading me to discover that resistance upgrades also applied to things beyond my steel form, which was neat.

  Another good point for the resilience upgrades, they truly had many more advantages than I had imagined at first.

  I guess I could pick up the general physical resilience one if I have the occasion to… Or maybe a mana resilience one? I’ll have to see whether or not the other options are interesting. I still need to be on the lookout for something that allows me to actually use the lightning stored inside the Faraday Box…

  After another long while, Nara spoke.

  You seem close to melting, Mara… Are you alright?

  I would say yes because I am alive, but strangely, it doesn’t hurt as much as it should? I was expecting a torrent of sweet agony, you know? But where is it? It feels like something else is happening…

  I think…

  Conditions fulfilled

  Flame Resistance (General) has reached the ‘Advanced’ stage

  Mara Nebulo is experiencing overwhelming fire damage

  Mara Nebulo is melting

  Physical body melting

  Soul melting

  Mind melting

  Spirit melting

  …

  …

  You have acquired a new form!

  Oh boy…