Kaito opened his eyes and, as if everything were made of vectors, everything within a kilometer around him seemed to have arrows indicating its acceleration, direction, and every other aspect of its movement.
With a single thought, a nearby stone shot off into the distance while another flew straight into his hand.
After closing his fist and crushing it into dust, Kaito smiled.
"Good. Instead of extending the domain that much, if I only extend my senses using a bit of the power of Original Demon: Motion to understand it, and then use the power directly on the target, like an ability rather than a domain, it takes far less effort.
This... could have far more potential than I originally thought" Kaito muttered with a satisfied smile.
"I've already been here for a while. Let's start looking for a way out" he said after setting those thoughts aside, standing up and beginning to walk toward the frozen island he had seen earlier.
Compared to an island so normal that it was suspicious, and another whose death energy was so overwhelming that an ordinary person would die just by entering it, one whose danger was as obvious and visible as the frozen island seemed much simpler.
"I haven't eaten in hours. I wonder if there's any food around here" he muttered.
...
"So, are you going to show yourselves already, or are you going to keep hiding?"
Only a few minutes, or perhaps hours later, Kaito stopped after sensing that someone was following him. At first he pretended not to notice in order to get a look at his pursuer, but after a while, when they still refused to reveal themselves, Kaito realized they had no intention of doing so and simply stopped to confront them directly.
"Oh wow, he noticed us" a voice sounded through the air.
"Should we kill him?"
"Marco, can you stop being such a psychopath? Why would we kill someone for no reason?"
"If it's not Star, I don't care."
"Yeah, yeah, you and your obsession with your princess."
An orange portal, similar to a swirling vortex in the air, opened in front of Kaito, and two people stepped out.
One was a young man, perhaps only slightly past his teenage years, wearing a black suit taken straight from traditional Mexican clothing. More precisely, it consisted of a black blazer with golden trim, a white shirt, a red tie, black pants, and dark shoes.
The most striking thing about him was the skull mask decorated with green and red flower-like patterns around the eyes, leaving the lower half of his face exposed, along with a red hat adorned with elaborate golden ornaments.
"A mariachi?" Kaito raised an eyebrow.
"Pffft, Marco, he called you a mariachi" the other person laughed upon hearing him.
Kaito shifted his gaze toward her.
She was, or at least looked, unmistakably like a demon. Her skin was pale gray, with yellow slit-pupiled eyes and long pointed ears. Her vivid red hair was tied back, adorned with curved golden horns and a small dark crown between them.
She wore a yellow dress that reached up to her chest, exposing her shoulders and cleavage, while the lower part ended in jagged points as though it were a torn piece of cloth.
"Mariachi is... pretty accurate" the boy identified as Marco by his companion said without taking offense.
"It is? Tsk, then it's not fun" the girl complained before turning toward Kaito.
"So you defeated the Jester? Not bad. And I see you made an incredible mess while doing it" the girl whistled in admiration as she looked over the surrounding landscape.
Even though they had already moved quite a distance away, the area was still devastated. Even Kaito had to admit he might have gone a little overboard.
"The Jester? You mean that corrupted thing? And who exactly are you?" Kaito asked, remembering that the thing he had killed earlier had seemed to be wearing something similar to a jester's outfit, though he had never confirmed it before killing it.
"You've probably already heard it, but this guy here is Marco, Marco Diaz" she said, pointing at her companion. "And I'm Hekapoo, member of the council and guardian of all the magic in Mewni."
Kaito looked at both of them. He recognized them, but while Hekapoo looked normal, he didn't remember Marco looking like this, with such an obvious demonic aura around him.
'Is this what the system meant by "errors"?' he wondered.
"I'm Kaito" Kaito introduced himself. "So, why were you following me?"
"Don't take it personally, kid" Hekapoo said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "One of the four main islands suddenly changed completely, so we came to see what happened. A lot of others will probably come too. We just got here first thanks to my methods."
"Methods?"
"I can teleport anywhere with my magic."
"Then..."
"Except outside this place" Hekapoo interrupted before Kaito could ask. She had been asked that question many times before.
"So it's useless" Kaito muttered in disappointment.
"Hey, hey, don't make that face. I actually have a way to get out of here if you want to join us."
"You do?"
"That's right. I told you I'm the guardian of Mewni's magic, right? Well, my specialty is spatial magic. I even developed a method to travel through the space between dimensions."
"Then why are you still here?" Kaito asked skeptically.
"Well, it's not possible to do it directly with magic. Teleportation within the same dimension is the limit. But... I developed a device capable of doing it. I called them dimensional scissors..."
"And you don't have any with you, right?" Kaito guessed.
"You're quick to catch on. I like you. But just because I don't have them doesn't mean no one does. There's someone here who has them" Hekapoo smiled.
"And who is..."
"Star" Marco interrupted. "The most beautiful woman in existence. A princess to Mewni, but the queen of my heart."
"Ignore the way he talks. His soul is a fusion between Star's biggest simp and one of her suitors, so he's a little obsessed" Hekapoo said, pointing at Marco before nodding in agreement. "But yes, Star Butterfly is the princess of Mewni, the place where I used to be the guardian, so of course she has a pair of dimensional scissors. As long as we get them, we'll be able to leave this place."
"And we're sure Star has those scissors? Then why hasn't she used them? Also, if you know there's a Star here, why haven't you already talked to her?" Kaito asked.
"Star is here. I've seen her, like a beautiful butterfly searching for her freedom, soaring through the skies like a fairy and leaving a trail of her love behind" Marco confirmed.
"What?" Kaito raised an eyebrow, completely confused.
"What my friend here meant is that we've seen Star flying around here, so we know she's definitely here.
As for why we haven't talked to her, and why she hasn't used the scissors herself? Let's just say she's not entirely herself at the moment. Maybe, well, maybe she's become some kind of mindless butterfly monster" Hekapoo explained.
"I see" Kaito said, more or less understanding the situation by combining it with his own memories. As far as he remembered, there had been one state Star entered during puberty and another during the awakening of her magic where she lost control, although those had happened in the original story, so they couldn't really be considered an "Error"
"Then we catch the monster, kill it, and take her scissors, right? Where is she?"
"We're not killing Star. Once she sees me, she'll return to normal thanks to our powerful feelings. We'll start a family and have three..."
"Shut up, Marco" Hekapoo interrupted. "The problem is that Star can also teleport, so she just appears here and there without any pattern. We've been searching for her for quite a while. And yes, if possible, we'd rather not kill her."
"How long have you been chasing her?"
"Who knows? Maybe a few years, maybe a few centuries? Time passes strangely here" Hekapoo shrugged.
"But speaking of killing, Hekapoo, aren't we going to kill him?" Marco suddenly asked.
"What?"
"Cough, cough, Marco, what the hell are you talking about?" Hekapoo asked, opening her eyes in panic.
"Didn't you say you sensed magical power on the island for the first time in a long while, and wanted to come here to kill him and steal his magical power?"
"Hahaha, Marco, what nonsense are you talking about? I've told you before to stop thinking about killing everyone who isn't Star, hahaha" Hekapoo laughed exaggeratedly while looking at Kaito.
Then she leaned closer to Marco and whispered into his ear.
"Hey, Marco, are you crazy? He defeated the Jester, and did you see the devastation around here? Do you want him to kill us?"
"I thought it was your idea."
"It was, before I saw how strong he was."
"If it's not Star, I don't ca..."
"He's strong. He can help us find Star" she interrupted.
"I see. You're right" Marco said after hearing that. "Just this once, I'll accept another person into our Star search party."
When they finished their "secret" discussion, both of them straightened up and smiled with the most business-like smiles Kaito had seen in a long time.
"So, your name was Kaito, right? If you help us find Star, we'll help you get out of this place. What do you think? It's a good deal."
'They do know I heard all of that, right?' Kaito wondered.
But in the end, he let it slide. Right now, he genuinely had no clues about how to escape this place.
"Alright, it's a deal" Kaito nodded, extending his hand.
"It's a deal!" Hekapoo grabbed his hand cheerfully and shook it up and down energetically. "So, where are we going?"
"Where are we going?" Kaito repeated.
"We don't know where Star is, so we'll just keep wandering around and hope we get lucky" Hekapoo explained casually. "It looked like you were already heading somewhere, so we'll just follow you."
"I was heading to the frozen island, but I was looking for clues. Now that doesn't really matter anymore."
"The frozen island, huh? It's the closest one, so we can head there. Star could be anywhere anyway" Hekapoo nodded.
With their plans decided, the trio that had formed surprisingly quickly set off toward the frozen island.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)