Go back? There's no going back.

"Well, that's right."

Su Wei nodded.

At present, in his judgment, the only use of the ability to instantly become a saint... seems to be to instantly enhance the protection level of the magic armor.

In addition, although he has thought of other ideal uses, he has not had time to experiment with them yet.

Didi, didi——

Just then, a clear ringing sound came from the window beside.

It was an owl-shaped communicator that was flapping its wings and flying into the house.

"..."

Raising her hand and letting the owl rest on the palm of her hand, the Queen of the Empire frowned slightly as she stared at the lines of messages projected from the owl's eyes.

——The fourth round of auditions is coming to an end.

According to the process, as the organizer of this assessment, she should now step down from the platform and give a speech, encouraging the candidates who passed the first four rounds of auditions under the watchful eyes of the public.

If it were some time ago, Klenna probably wouldn't have bothered to care about all these red tapes.

But now, she silently glanced back at a little devil she was trying to cheer up.

"Um...please take care?"

The Queen did not shy away from letting Su Wei see the contact message, so after meeting the Queen's gaze, Su Wei spoke like this.

"……Yes."

After a moment of silence, Klenna sighed slightly and stood up from the bed.

A few moments.

At the door of Su Wei's room.

"I will study the purpose of your ability carefully."

Walking out of the room slowly, Klenna said this while looking back at Su Wei: "Don't use that ability recklessly in the audition this afternoon, understand?"

"……Yes, I understand."

Su Wei blinked and nodded.

"Yeah, good boy."

As if satisfied with Su Wei's reaction, the Queen raised her hand and rubbed his head.

Just from the assessment this morning, Krenna could tell that there would be no problem for the little brat in front of her to pass the audition.

Princess Sainton, who was defeated by him before, was already the most troublesome one among the second-level candidates.

Among the remaining candidates of the same level, no one has a quasi-sacred weapon.

In this case, it would be enough for Su Wei to perform at the normal level he performed at in the fourth round of assessment.

"See you later, then?"

Tilting her head, the Queen looked at Su Wei quietly.

"…Come to think of it, should I also go to the venue outside to listen to your speech?"

Facing that gaze, Su Wei was silent for a moment, as if he suddenly thought of something, and spoke tentatively.

In Su Wei's impression, according to the regulations, after the fourth audition in the morning, all candidates who passed the four rounds of assessment seemed to have to go to the venue outside to meet the Queen of the Empire?

"Huh? Why are you, a wounded man, running around?"

However, just as Su Wei finished speaking, he felt the right half of his face being pinched and twisted by cold fingertips: "Stay in the room obediently."

"……OK."

Su Wei nodded and closed his mouth silently.

After a moment, the fragrance lingering on the tip of his nose faded away, and Su Wei just stood at the door of the room, staring at the figure of the Empress of the Empire in a trance until she completely disappeared from his sight.

He didn't know if it was an illusion, but compared to the previous time, after meeting the Queen this time... he always felt that he seemed to be much better than before.

Although Su Wei couldn't really tell what was good about it.

"If you look at it again, your eyes will fall out."

"!?"

At this moment, a cold voice suddenly came from behind Su Wei, which made him shudder all over.

Su Wei turned around subconsciously and saw his mother who had walked behind him at some point... no, the Witch Lady.

Eye contact, looking at the face of the middle-aged woman who looked exactly like his mother, Su Wei was silent for a moment, and asked in a low voice: "Why... did you come here?"

If he remembered correctly, here... only candidates and staff responsible for casting the Emperor's Spirit Blessing could enter?

"..."

Eve took in the reaction of the little ghost in front of her, and looked at Su Wei's gaze, which became pure again after seeing her, and she remained silent.

"I'll be out for a while, and I won't be back until one to two days later."

This time, she originally came here to say goodbye to Su Wei temporarily.

Just recently, a silver-haired woman contacted her. Although their final goals were different, both parties finally decided to cooperate again as before.

The purpose of Eve's trip is the residual soul of a holy spirit dragon.

There are no longer any living holy spirits on this continent, but in Eve's hands, whether it is the skeleton of the holy spirit dragon or the residual soul of the dragon that she will try to capture next, they are among the best fighting forces on this continent.

More importantly, if the remaining soul of the Holy Spirit Dragon can be enslaved this time, then... next, Eve will have a greater possibility of crossing the chasm that stands in front of all the quasi-saints on the continent and directly reaching the Holy Spirit realm.

This is a very good thing.

But at this moment, Eve's mood was gradually getting worse.

Because, on the way here, she suddenly felt that the mark of Pluto that she left on a certain little ghost... suddenly became much fainter.

It was as if most of it had been wiped out by some stronger force in an instant, and even the most basic positioning function became blurred.

Moreover, before coming here, she had never thought that she would actually meet the queen of an empire here.

Even more, for some unknown reason, the other party was alone in the room with a little kid, hiding what he was doing and no one knew what he was doing.

At a time like this, shouldn't that woman be supervising the battle on the platform outside?

The little kid that he once raised is now not only connected to the first princess of this empire, but even knows the queen...?

If Eve hadn't suddenly felt something was wrong shortly after she left and turned back, she wouldn't even know about this.

In addition, the most important thing is that although it was also a farewell, and she would even be away for a longer time, but she did not see the same expression on the face of the little kid in front of her as he had when he was seeing off a certain queen just now.

"I understand. Please be careful."

At this moment, Su Wei's voice also rang in her ears: "If there is anything I can help with, please feel free to let me know."

"…Is this what you want to say?"

Her slender eyebrows frowned inadvertently. At this moment, Eve even subconsciously confirmed the use of the "mask".

The middle-aged woman's Thousand-Faced Talisman Stone has been repaired and there are no problems with it. It is still in use.

In other words, the way she appeared in front of a certain little ghost now should be the same as it was in the morning.

But... why is this little kid reacting like this now?

While Eve was wondering, she suddenly noticed that the little ghost in front of her, after hearing her kind question just now... suddenly became hesitant to speak.

"Go ahead."

Seeing this, Eve held her breath for a moment and said calmly, "If you have anything to say, just say it."

"…Uh, so, what did I say?"

After hearing this, Su Wei was silent for a moment, and then he looked at the face of his "mother" carefully: "Can I change the agreement we made this morning?"

After saying this, Su Wei suddenly felt his heartbeat quicken, but he still mustered up the courage to add: "If I make it to the finals, can you give me the mask you are using now? No, I can exchange it for something else..."

As of now, Su Wei has confirmed that this witch occasionally behaves similarly to her mother, but in fact, she does not remember the time she spent with him before.

Even putting on this mask was probably just a spur of the moment decision.

So, even if he makes this request now, there shouldn't be any problem, right?

"..."

Hearing these words which were completely different from what she had expected, Eve's expression froze.

Her dark eyes blinked, and at this moment, she frowned even more, and instinctively felt uneasy in her heart. She asked in a calm tone: "Why... do you want this thing?"

"Because... that's my mother's mask..."

After a moment of silence, Su Wei whispered, "Although you feel a little similar, you are not actually my mother...are you?"

"……what?"

As these words rang in her ears, the expression on Eve's face became completely stiff.

***

after a while.

The crowd is surging.

The witch of the nation, with her pupils somewhat dilated and her whole body somewhat dazed, slowly walked out of the first venue against the flow of people.

Soon, she saw the silver-haired woman on the street not far from the venue.

At the same time, there were two men standing guard on the left and right of the silver-haired woman.

One is a knight wrapped in light armor.

The other one is the silver-haired woman's younger brother.

Just as Eve looked at the three people, the other party also noticed her.

"Miss Eve!"

After seeing Eve, the silver-haired young man who was waiting bored on the street suddenly brightened up and ran to Eve quickly, saying enthusiastically: "Ms. Eve, I finally see you again. I miss you all the time..."

However, before the silver-haired young man could finish his words, he froze up at the unusually cold gaze of the witch in front of him and subconsciously fell silent.

"...Ms. Eve."

At the side, the silver-haired woman who appeared in front of Eve in a short breath frowned when she saw this: "For the time being, this child is here to help you, but she has this attitude as soon as we meet?"

"..."

Listening to the silver-haired woman's words, Eve did not speak, but just swept the silver-haired woman's face with the same depressing eyes.

It was not until several seconds had passed that she seemed to remember something and glanced at the silver-haired young man beside her: "Well, shouldn't we be at the venue now? There are auditions in the afternoon. Aren't you going to let him be the fire starter?"

"Well... well, that place is still a bit difficult for him now. Originally... I didn't plan to take him away."

"However, he violated the rules a little bit before and was eliminated from the auditions. He has to wait for the subsequent revival match, which happens to be plenty of time."

At this point, the silver-haired woman paused for a moment, as if she had thought of something, and became a little dissatisfied: "This time, I have put in a lot of effort for that woman Klenna's plan, but... now they are not willing to make concessions even for such a small matter, and that woman Klenna has been out of contact since just now--"

"..."

Eve did not speak again as she listened to the silver-haired woman's complaints.

Before leaving, she reviewed her plans for the trip as usual.

This time, the two sides cooperated, one reason being that she was interested in the residual soul of the Holy Spirit Dragon.

The other reason was that the Space Queen in front of him was interested in the things that the giant dragon was obsessively guarding.

Although the two have different goals, their interests are consistent.

Moreover, not long ago, after taking the holy spirit medicine for healing, Eve's condition has obviously recovered a lot. At least... it is not a problem for her to deeply use the power of the Pluto body in a short period of time.

Eve also attaches great importance to this cooperation.

Everything is ready, just waiting to set off.

However, even though it had reached the last step, Eve at this moment did not have the sense of reality she had in the past.

—You are not my mother, are you?

Now in her mind, the previous scene and the words that the little ghost had said to her in person kept emerging.