I've Turned Into A Fox Girl?

Chapter 352: Desperation

<Shaman POV>

"Found an anti-mana collar and some restraints." After scavenging through Freja's assortment of unique items, I finally found what we were after. It felt disgusting to go through such things, but it was necessary.

"Quick before she wakes up." Elysia positioned Freja's head and cut her blonde hair so I could easily put on the collar.

With a loud 'clink', the collar locked into place, denying Freja from using any of her magic. Considering it was literally sucking away my mana as I was bringing it over, I didn't doubt its effectiveness. Next, I had Elanor pull away her roots so I could put on the cuffs, yet as I was about to put them on, time stopped.

Everything resumed and Freja was now on the floor with Alice on top, holding her blades to her throat.

"HOW!?! IT SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO MOVE!" Freja screamed, still unable to fathom that Alice could still move. Even I was confused, as I have not yet had the time to inquire about this subject.

"Are you sure you don't want me to kill her?" Alice was inching her blades closer, annoyed that we still wanted her alive.

"No point, it looks like whatever she did to activate her time magic came at a cost." Himeko approached Freja and raised her arm, which began to deteriorate into dust.

"She bypassed her requirement at the sacrifice of her own body?" Silver quickly used his shadows to strap Freja down, allowing Alice to get off. She was reluctant to move from the screaming and flailing Freja, but it was clear enough she could hardly move her body anymore.

"Seems so. Since she has connections to the gods, I'm not surprised a condition like this exists." Himeko had a sad look in her eyes when looking at the sorry state of Freja. They were old friends, so it couldn't have been easy to see her in such a sorry state.

"DON'T IGNORE ME!"

"Looks like she has turned all bark and no bite." Luna, not knowing who Freja is, somehow chose the right words to make fun of Freja. Her anger only grew, yet still she was unable to act on it creating a self-fueling loop of anger,

"We should quickly get our answers before her body deteriorates too much, we don't know how much time she has left to live." I still wanted answers about my parents. If Freja is disappearing, then we need to hurry.

"I'm not going to tell you shit unless you tell me how the fuck this little twerp of a fake was able to bypass my time magic." Freja glared at Alice, the main culprit behind her undoing. Understandably so, as if she didn't exist we would have to do some crazy manoeuvres, like stabbing ourselves just to circuNovelFireent the damage reversal.

"I don't know." However, Alice shrugged her shoulders, having no clue.

"Huh?!" Freja looked in disbelief, not wanting to take that for an answer.

"How about you tell us how you know Alice? Tell me and I might know the answer as to why." Elysia, with the tip of her spear, forced Freja to look up. There was a moment of silence, but with her arm half missing and her legs now deteriorating, she had nothing to lose.

"She trained me when I was a kid, that's all." Freja didn't elaborate much, but she gave enough for us to infer their relationship.

"I see. Alice was captured by the Pope and sealed away until I found her. The Alice you see is actually from a dungeon. I made her my familiar so that I could bring her out after I inherited the original Alice's will. As to why time magic didn't work on her, I believe it's due to her technically not belonging to this world, so you could not freeze her time."

"What? The Pope captured Alice?" Freja couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Yes, he was using Alice to power a magic circle of his creation."

"Tch, that fucking bastard." It wasn't a surprise that Freja wasn't told, but it was still sad to see how ignorant she was about everything.

"Now tell me why and what you did to my parents." Now that Freja had her answers, I wanted mine.

"Ha, just what I was ordered. I was honestly surprised that you weren't captured, but it didn't matter since you were just a normal fox girl. Your father was best friends with the Pope in their past life, before the two reincarnated here. However, The Pope lost his wife and turned crazy trying to revive her.

You can guess the rest of the story from there." Freja's body was deteriorating faster, with half of her body already gone.

"Why did you fight?" The history of my father came as a bit of a shock, but I will soon hear from him myself once we break the seal and get to the truth.

"Eyes are always watching, dear." Freja looked at me with a smug grin while a small ball rolled out of her body, which must be the artefact Himeko mentioned.

Her words prompted me to look up into the sky, as I suspected she was referring to the gods.

"Even if there are, they can just fuck themselves for all I care." My faith in any higher power was zero as I believed they were just watching for their own entertainment. If they wanted the best for us then why haven't they done anything about the pope?

"Good answer." Freja's last words came out just before the last of her body turned into dust. I leaned down, picking up the ball that she dropped and inspected it.

[Eden of TIme]

[An ancient artifact that allows the stopping of time when user life is in danger, reflecting all damage to a desired person. However, any damage already on the target will be reflected onto the user]

[User may also sacrifice a life to activate time stop, but must then take the life of another. Otherwise, the user will be used as the sacrifice.]

Reading the description, it explained how Freja was able to stop time once more, and it surprised me that she risked using the sacrifice option.

"Are we all okay?" Everything had turned silent, worrying Elanor about our well-being.

"Mhm." I nodded my head, still processing what Freja had told me about my father, as well as the fact that she was no longer here. Although we became enemies in the end, it still felt like we could have talked things out if she only gave it a chance.

'Hmm, but those damn gods… If Freja was referring to them, then perhaps she did this on purpose.' I glared back at the sky, thinking that the battle may be far from over even once the Pope had been dealt with.

"So um Elysia, is that your wife over there that you talked so much about?" Alice, feeling awkward and just floating, decided to figure out who everyone was. Elysia couldn't help but facepalm, as now wasn't exactly the most appropriate time.

"Wife? We haven't had a wedding yet, let alone a ring." However, I feel like I needed a bit of light-hearted conversation, as we can mourn Freja later.

"Ehhh? Hasn't she sucked your blood directly from the neck?" Alice elaborated, crossing wires between her vampire traditions and regular ones.

"Alice! I told you things are different!" Elysia's face flushed red, as it was something she didn't want to admit just yet.

"Yeah? What about me? I haven't gotten my ring yet or my blood sucked from the neck." Clara came limping over with the help of Silver.

"ENOUGH! This isn't the place for it, guys. Please have some tact in your life." Himeko yelled, not wanting any love troubles right now.

"Oops hehe~." Alice quickly retreated, indicating this was a calculated move on her part.

"I agree with Himeko, what's next?" Luna was in the same camp and just wanted to move on.

"First, we need to sort out this mess and get some rest. After that, we will head to the Fox Relam's royal palace. Speaking of clean-up, did you end up sparing Kiruya?" I didn't know what the outcome of that battle was, but the uncomfortable looks I received gave away the unfortunate outcome.

"Unfortunately, Kiruya pulled a similar move to Freja, so in the end, I killed her." Clara trembled slightly as she delivered the news, not that I could blame her. I considered Kiruya to be a close friend and I wished she could still be around.

"It is what it is. Once we are finished here, we will give them a funeral. Things may have turned sour, but we can't forget they helped us." Although I'm still angry at Freja, I still respected her as a mentor and guardian.

"Sounds good." Himeko smiled in approval. I'm sure it's something Himeko would want for Freja as well.

"What about her harem members and maids? Frankly, they were really weak so we easily knocked them out." Luna pointed to the bodies that lay across the floor of the ruined mansion.

"For now, we lock them up as we have no idea how they will react." It was too dangerous to leave them be. If we were going to borrow the mansion to rest, we should first make the place safe.