Rumor was going around that part of the army had been obliterated, and their force

had become sparse.

Even though Loren didn’t want to hear about such rumors, he had no means to stop
the talk from reaching his ears.

He was sitting in a corner of a tavern that belonged to the Adventurer Guild, and the
group of adventurers near him were chatting about it; he couldn’t help but overheard
their conversation.

According to the rumor, the soldiers that had participated in the almost-war skirmish
between Vargenburg and Schoembrin had all disappeared. The skirmish hadn’t been
that bad, and the number of killed-in-action hadn’t been that high either. And yet,
soldiers had disappeared, from not just one but both factions, and at about the same
time. The adventurers were quite interested in what on earth could have happened
there.

“*talking gibberish*”

“Swallow! Swallow before you speak!”

Gula, who was sitting opposite to Loren with a grilled chicken drumstick in each hand,
tried to speak around mouthful. Loren couldn’t understand her at all, so he shouted at
her to swallow first.

Gula proceeded to try to chew the meat in her mouth with all her might. Meanwhile,
Lapis, who was sitting next to Loren in her priest robe, rocked the glass of wine in her
hand.

“I think I know the reason somehow.”

“I don’t want to hear it, so you don’t need to tell me.”

To be honest, Loren also knew. It was their previous mission.

It had started with a request from an adventurer named Klaus to escort some goods
to some village. Then one thing had led to another, and in the end, they had encountered
Luxuria, the Evil God of Lust, a macho Loren didn’t really want to think about.

Villagers from the neighboring areas and the soldiers fighting nearby fell under the
influence of that Evil God’s power and had been entranced. Shortly after a sort of
‘festival’ with actions that couldn’t be put into words had unfolded.

The situation had been resolved somehow, but the consequence of it was the platinum
blond girl, who was enthusiastically gnawing on chicken bones in front of Loren: Gula
had decided to accompany them.

Gula was the Evil God of Gluttony, but she had become interested in Loren and Lapis
for some reason, and had followed them to Kapha city.

“They won’t have the heart to fight the men they got laid with yesterday, right?”

Gula said with no reservation after chewing and swallowing the meat in her mouth.

Loren’s and Lapis’ faces noticeably darkened at her remark. Loren gave Gula a disgusting
look and said with a somewhat sullen tone:

“I said I don’t want to hear about it, didn’t I?”

“But you said it to Lapis-chan.”

Gula gave him a glare that meant ‘You didn’t tell me so it’s alright’.

“And who do you think is going to pay for all the meat you’ve just eaten?”

Gula had been sealed as an Evil God for a long time, so of course she didn’t have any
money. Or rather, she didn’t possess anything valuable. Naturally, Loren and Lapis paid
for her lodging expenses in Kapha, and it was not an insignificant amount.

Moreover, as if to live up to her title as the Evil God of Gluttony, Gula really could eat a
lot. She ate so much that others could get heartburns and lose appetite just by watching
her. Any diners that were unlucky enough to have Gula as their customer would have
to close their business for the day, as she could devour enough food to put them out of
stock in a blink on an eye. And she would still look unsatisfied.

She ate like that for exactly three times a day, and it was unbearable for Loren and
Lapis, who paid for her meal.

“We’ll need gold coins to pay for your meals soon, won’t we?”

“Ah, ahahahahaha. I’m probably too hungry after such a long sleep, and human food is
too delicious.”

For a moment, Loren thought that maybe she was not being unreasonable.

A little while ago, Loren had taken up a mission at an adventurers’ training facility in
a certain city that had been the place where the Evil God of Sloth had been sealed. If
the stories he had heard there had been true, then Gula had probably been sealed for
hundreds of years, and hadn’t been able to eat anything during that time. She seemed
to have eaten various common as well as strange things after waking up, but all had
been a far cry from a decent human diet.

When he thought about that, he felt a little pity for her, and wasn’t able to condemn
her too hard.

“I’ll work hard too, so bear with me.”

“We came here today to get ready for that.”

Gula didn’t have any proof of identity to use in a human town. They had questioned
how she could have gotten into any town, but once that problem had been put aside,
the issue of her social status was still hanging above their head. There was no doubt
that it would become troublesome if something happened.

For that reason, they had planned to register Gula as a member of their party at the
Adventurer Guild. She would be able to receive an identification tag and have her
social status established thanks to this.

Gula had suggested filling their stomachs before going though, and they had had no
choice but to come to a diner first. Loren and Lapis had nursed their glasses of wine
while Gula had started attacking a large plate of chicken drumsticks with both hands
as soon as it had been brought out.
“But are we really going to register her as a Copper rank adventurer? What a joke.”

“I feel the same, but we can’t really explain her situation and have her started with a
higher rank.”

Ability-wise, an Evil God like Gula shouldn’t have been a Copper rank adventurer. She
should be a Silver rank at the very least. Well, there would be no questions if she was
actually ranked higher.

However, they couldn’t just naively tell the Adventurer Guild that Gula was an Evil God.
If they didn’t stick to their story and registered her as an ordinary adventurer they had
partnered with by coincidence, there was no telling what kind of uproar would happen.

“But didn’t we report to the Guild about her before?”

Loren had first met Gula in a fairy village. It had been during the fight with the fairies,
who had become ferocious under the influence of her power.

As an adventurer, he had roughly reported the incident to the Guild, and the Guild had
passed on the information to Vargenburg.

“If you register with the name Gula, it will cause a commotion, won’t it?”

“That… But it’s not like there is no one else named Gula.”

Loren didn’t think it was a rare name, but he couldn’t say that it was a common name
either. He thought there would be no other way but for Gula to use a false name, but
she immediately refused.

“Names are important. I am Gluttony exactly because I am Gula. If I use a false name,
even just temporarily…”

“What will happen?”

If she lost her power as Gluttony because of it, then of course she shouldn’t use a false
name. But this explanation wasn’t quite accurate, and Gula’s answer was not what
Loren had expected.

“I won’t be able to control the power of Gluttony.”

“Let’s use your real name then… And pray that we won’t get caught.”

When Gula’s seal had just broken, she had fused with the chief of a fairy village. As a
result, all creatures in the neighborhood had had their appetite increased abnormally,
causing themselves to become ferocious. If such an incident happened in Kapha, what
kind of turmoil could it cause? Not to mention, Loren wasn’t sure if it could even be
resolved.

They just had to take the risk and let Gula register with her real name. And so, they
should think about what to do if she was suspected to be an Evil God.

“Well, she won’t get caught if she only introduces her name.”

Lapis took a small sip from her glass and replied to Loren’s worry.

“The Adventurer Guild doesn’t have any magical instrument to reveal registrants’
identities. They’ll probably find it strange at most, and that I think we can handle.”

Lapis’ words were strangely credible, as she herself still hadn’t been caught yet.

Lapis appeared to be a priest and acted like an ordinary human, but she was actually
a demon coming from a region surrounded by rocky mountains in the center of the
continent. Her race was much more powerful than humans.

She had been half-expelled to the human world by her parents in order to gain life
experiences. To hide her demonic heritage, both of her eyes had been gouged out and
all four of her limbs had been cut off to suppress her power. Moreover, her dismembered
body parts had been hidden throughout the human realm. She had had a rather sad
upbringing.

Lapis had successfully retrieved both arms since she had started working with Loren,
and now she was more powerful than when they had first met, with more demonic
abilities. Even so, the Adventurer Guild still hadn’t suspected anything.

Loren himself was also sheltering the soul of a girl who had been made into the highest
ranking undead, the King of Death, inside his own soul. This had happened during one
of his earlier missions. Strictly speaking, he couldn’t be considered an ordinary human
either. But the Guild also hadn’t seemed to notice anything.

Considering Lapis’ and his own case, Loren thought maybe they would also manage to
make it work with Gula’s case somehow.

“Well, maybe you’re right. Ah, Gula, do something about your eyes.”

Her hair and skin were not that odd, but there was one thing about her that was greatly
different from humans: her eyes.

It was the same for demons. Loren suspected that Evil Gods were actually from the
demon race, but he couldn’t get an answer from Lapis, and hadn’t really talked to Gula
about it.

“What do you mean by something?”

“I mean the color. Can you change the color of your eyes?”

“Loren, please look at Gula’s eyes carefully.”

Following Lapis’ words, Loren looked straight into Gula’s eyes.

Gula looked back at him blankly for a moment. But a short time later, she cupped her
cheeks with her hands and wiggled her body.

“Woaa, now you’re staring at me like that.”

Loren wordlessly touched the greatsword on his back. Seeing his movement, Gula
hurriedly leaned over the table, her expression turned serious.

“I was joking. Well, look at me.”

Taking his hand away from the sword’s handle, Loren looked into Gula’s eyes again.

What set Evil Gods and demons apart from humans were their purple irises. That eye
color didn’t present in humans.

But Gula’s eyes didn’t have that shade of purple now; they were a shade of beautiful,
clear red.

“The color of your eyes…”

“Remove a bit of the blue and they’ll become red.”

“We’re not talking about paints here…”

“Isn’t it all the same?”

Gula spoke about it so simply, but it was not that simple to change one’s eyes color.
Loren wondered if it was one of the powers of Evil Gods.

He wouldn’t know no matter how hard he thought about it though, so for now, Loren
decided to content himself with the relief that Gula wouldn’t be suspected because of
her eyes.
“Oh Loren. What business are you here for today?”

Sitting behind the reception desk at the Adventurer Guild was Ivy, a receptionist Loren
had met multiple times before.

He wanted to go to one of those other counters with capable-looking receptionists; he

had a bad feeling about this one. But if he left now, it would mean to blatantly announce
to everyone that he was avoiding Ivy. So, he put on a forced smile and went to stand in
front of her desk.

Loren had chosen this counter by accident. All the other desks had adventurers
queueing before them, and while he had been waiting for his turn in one of the queues,
this counter had suddenly opened after being closed since he had arrived. He had tried
coming here for no particular reason, but he wondered if Ivy had opened her counter
after seeing him in the other queue. He eyed her warily. Loren considered Ivy as
someone he needed to be cautious around, but he wasn’t sure if she knew his thoughts
or not.

Ivy showed him a smile, either for business or just to be sociable.

“I want to add a member into my party.”

“Oh, you’re finally cancelling your current partnership?”

Ivy sounded a bit surprised, and Loren frowned at her words. He didn’t understand
why she had mentioned partnership cancellation while he had just said he wanted to
add a new party member.

It was Lapis who answered his question.

“So if we add another member to a two-member party, it means we’re cancelling our
partnership?”
“I don’t particularly want to stop our partnership.”

Loren replied, and Lapis broke into an extremely happy smile.

Ivy watched them somewhat jealously then turned her gaze towards Gula, who was
waiting at their back.

“Is that your new member?”

“That’s right. I’m Gula. Nice to meet you, I guess?”

“Gula?”

Ivy asked with a hint of suspicion in her tone, and Loren dreaded that they had been
caught somehow. But after pondering about something for a while, Ivy simply unfolded
a sheet of paper on the desk.

“Well then, please fill in this form. Can you write?”

“No problem. Just leave it to me.”

Gula nodded and borrowed a pen from Ivy, then began to fill in the form. Loren was
watching her and thinking about how he had done exactly the same in the past when
Lapis secretly whispered into his ear.

“Loren, you also did this before?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t everyone register here?”

“Yes, Loren, so you can write.”

The truth was, reading and writing was a skill on its own. There were just a few people
who were educated enough to be able to do it. Loren had been properly educated by
his mercenary company, so he could write by himself. His leader had believed that if
one couldn’t read his own contract or fill in his own form, then he shouldn’t have
worked as a mercenary. Loren had only realized that his idea wasn’t a conventional
one at all after resigning.
“Lapis, you don’t seem to have any problem with it.”

“I’m a priest, so of course I was properly taught to read and write.”

“Gula doesn’t seem to have any trouble either.”

Watching Gula smoothly write down her name, Loren spoke. Noticing that Gula was
about to write her last name after finishing her first name, he lightly poked at her. She
looked at him with a puzzled expression, but when he tapped at the name field on the
form, she realized that she was about to write down her full name, the name of an Evil
God. Smiling wryly, Gula stopped at her first name and moved to the next field.

The next field was place of birth. Gula contemplated for a moment, then began to
write. Just then, Loren asked her in a small voice:

“What are you writing here?”

“Well, my birthplace, of course. Black Magic Kingdom of Nuuna.”

Ivy was watching them whispering to each other with suspicious eyes. To avoid her
finding out, Loren stepped on Gula’s foot under the desk. When she screamed because
of the pain, he used his hand to cover her mouth and pulled her away with a forced
smile.

A distance away from the counter, Loren smacked Gula’s head, who looked like she
was about to complain.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re such an idiot. Don’t tell me you don’t understand what will happen if you write
down the name of that place?”

“Ah right. But that’s really where I came from though?”

“Do you want to have another blow? I can serve you a few punches until your Gluttony
is satisfied.”

Loren clenched his fist this time. Flustered, Gula looked at him. Still she didn’t know
what to write.
But Loren himself didn’t know much about places’ names either, so he looked towards
Lapis, asking for help. Lapis sighed impatiently and whispered something into Gula’s
ears.

A short while later, Gula seemed to have understood whatever Lapis had tried to tell
her. She walked back to the counter looking fully satisfied and continued to fill the
form.

“I told her a more suitable place name to use. It might seem suspicious, but they don’t
have the means to verify it, so it’ll be alright.”

Watching Gula, Lapis said.

If Lapis said that it would be alright, then it would be alright. But Loren still felt a bit
worried, so he asked:

“She’ll have to fill in age and occupation too, right?”

“I told her to write something reasonable; 21 years old magician.”

It was understandable for Gula to lie about her age. If she was to write down her real
age, it would be some crazy number somewhere in the hundreds. Rather than that,
Loren was a little surprised that they had decided for Gula to be over twenty years old
instead of a younger age like eighteen.

“I’m registered as an eighteen years old priest, by the way.”

“It’s a reasonable estimation, I guess?”

According to Lapis, despite the longer lifespan, demons still matured at the same rate
as humans, so that number wasn’t a lie. As Lapis was a priest of the God of Knowledge,
an officially-recognized one at that, she couldn’t lie about a single thing in the form.

“Is it that easy to become a priest?”

“That’s because I’m excellent.”

Lapis nonchalantly said. She was indeed excellent though, so Loren had nothing else
to say.
“What about you, Loren?”

Looking at him with interest, Lapis asked. It took Loren some time to recall what he
had written in the form.

“A twenty-two years old swordsman, I think.”

“That also seems reasonable.”

Loren thought about how he had registered with rather vague information.

He had written down a number that had seemed appropriate for his age; the truth is,
he didn’t actually know how old he is.

He was an orphan that had been picked up by a mercenary company. He didn’t know
his birthday, or how old he had been when they had found him. He had been told to be
around that age by others in the company, so he had registered as such; Loren himself
didn’t even know if he was actually older or younger.

As for his birthplace, he had chosen the Republic of Portaria.

He had heard from his company leader that it was an isolated country in the
northernmost part of the continent with hardly any interaction with other countries.
It seemed to be often picked as the birthplace of people with special circumstances,
since nothing could be verified. That was why saying you were from Portaria was no
different from saying that you had something to hide. In Loren’s case, since he didn’t
know anything about his birthplace, he still had an excuse even if he got caught lying.

“Did you also tell Gula to use Portaria?”

“If she tells people that she’s from the North with that appearance, won’t they think
that she’s not right in the head?”

By appearance, Lapis meant how Gula bared both shoulders and stomach and didn’t
even remotely look like she knew how to dress for the cold. But Kapha was in the
southwest of the continent and enjoyed the warm climate; dressing like Gula wouldn’t
make one shiver in cold unless it was winter.

“She feels the heat more because she comes from the north – it can also be interpreted
that way, can’t it?”
“It’s not like I didn’t think of that, but does Gula even care about heat and cold?”

Loren tried to imagine Evil Gods being affected by weather like heat and cold, but he
immediately gave up – his imaginative power wasn’t high enough for that. If push
comes to shove, all he could conjure up was the image of Gula laughing nonchalantly
standing in a blizzard wearing that skimpy outfit.

“As long as she doesn’t write down the name of a country that perished long ago, then
anything is fine.”

“That’s right. It’s not important information.”

In the end, Loren and Lapis reached the conclusion that whatever country would be
alright. Gula briskly approached them just then. It seemed like she had finished with
the registration; a copper identification tag was dangling on her chest.

“The Adventurer Guild was so stingy. Someone as strong as me should get the iron
rank like Loren at least, don’t you think?”

“It’s the rule, so there’s nothing to do about it. I mean, considering you as an iron rank
still sounds like a joke anyway, so copper or iron doesn’t matter here.”

Ability-wise, it wouldn’t be strange if an Evil God like Gula was given the highest rank
in the Adventurer Guild’s ranking system. But the rule was for all adventurers to start
with copper rank at registration, and there was no exception unless something truly
exceptional happened. Gula being given the copper rank was nothing strange.

In the first place, Loren had thought that Gula couldn’t be sorted into ranks like copper,
iron, or silver anyway, so whatever rank she started with didn’t matter. She still
remained discontent after what he had said though.

“I want to be in the same rank as you guys. This feels like I’m being left out, doesn’t it?”

“You’ll rank up pretty quick anyway. Just bear with it until then.”

“That said, will you be willing to work with us when ranking up, Gula?”

Lapis asked with her tone also being discontent somehow. Gula answered her with a
cheerful smile:
“Until death do us part. Is it ok for me to stick with you guys?”

“It’s a huge trouble. Mainly because of the food expenses.”

Lapis said coldly. Gula made a sad face while snuggling up to her, but the latter pushed
her away, looking truly annoyed.

Loren urged them to leave to discuss their plan from now on. He couldn’t decide
whether they were getting along or not, but he’d hoped that they wouldn’t cause
troubles at least. As they followed him out of the door, trouble arrived.

“Oh?”

“Ah, sorry.”

Gula bumped into another adventurer who was passing by. Gula immediately apologized,
but the other adventurer grinned broadly after seeing her and her companion.

It seemed like the seed of trouble had come from another party instead. Loren had
that hunch, and involuntarily facepalmed.
“Sorry about our member, even though it’s already too late.”

Loren sighed and said. Humans should start interaction with a conversation, at least
so he believed.

The other adventurer laughed scornfully at his words.

“It can’t end with just an apology, you know?”

“Can I ask if you know me, just in case?”

The adventurer stared at Loren for a moment, with a quizzical look on his face. But an
easy smile immediately came back to his face.

“I don’t. Are you someone suspicious?”

“I see. Well, it can’t be helped.”

Loren didn’t think that his face was that well-known either. Just that, he and Lapis had
been in the same situation before, and had almost killed the other adventurer back
then; he had expected to kind of have the reputation of a dangerous character.

If he had had such a reputation, it would have been simple for the other party to
understand how much of a trouble it would be to get involved with him, and they
would have been able to avoid unnecessary quarrels. Unfortunately, things didn’t seem
to work that way.

Loren wondered who would be the best choice to manage this situation with minimum
inconvenience.

First of all, Gula was out of the question. An Evil God like her wouldn’t be able to handle
this without causing troubles; it wasn’t even worth considering her.
As for Lapis, Loren had no doubt that she could handle this well. But she looked like a
delicate girl, and people tended to make light of her because of that. To change that
opinion would need some external factor, or the other party had to realize it themselves.

“Seems like I have to deal with this myself…”

Loren muttered and turned towards the other adventurer.

Being directly stared at by Loren, the adventurer seemed to feel a little intimidated;
he took two, then three steps back from Gula.

Surprisingly, it was neither his height nor the bulging of muscles in his arms and legs
that gave a measure of Loren’s prowess; it was the greatsword on his back. The power
needed to wield such a weapon was a statement on its own, and those who confronted
Loren usually felt intimidated by it. Occasionally, there would be some who didn’t feel
surprised or intimidated or anything though.

The adventurer who was trying to mess with them this time somehow seemed to
understand how powerful Loren was just by facing him, and immediately gained some
distance from him. He seemed capable, and that was a trouble in itself.

Things would be simple if the other party had sensed Loren’s power and backed off.
But this adventurer had sensed Loren’s power and still didn’t leave. Loren wasn’t sure
if it was obstinacy or bravery.

And someone capable like this man shouldn’t have been picking fights with copper
rank adventurers.

The reason for his action immediately became known though.

Loren noticed the man was glancing at Gula. It seemed like this man was harbouring
some ulterior motives after seeing how Gula was dressed and the copper tag hanging
on her chest. Loren guessed what he had been thinking, yet he had chosen himself an
unattainable target this time.

Loren was about to say something when the adventurer suddenly disappeared.

It was so abrupt that Loren actually wondered if Gula had eaten him. He spun around
to look at her, but she was shaking her head frantically, denying that it was her doing.
When Loren was still wondering about what the hell had just happened, he was pulled
back to reality by the voices of people who seemed to be in the same party with the
disappeared man. Looking at the direction of their pointing fingers, Loren saw a
smashed table and some other adventurers. Then he noticed the adventurer who had
just stood in front of him: He was embedded into the wall, his body twisted unnaturally.

It had all happened so abruptly that Loren could only stare at the scene dumbfounded.
Someone clapped his shoulder then, startling Loren.

“Make way. You won’t want to become like that.”

It was the voice of a woman, and the hand on his shoulder wore a rugged metal gauntlet,
painted crimson.

Loren’s instinct told him to make way immediately, and so he did. The owner of the
gauntlet passed by him without so much as a glance, and he was able to catch a glimpse
of her.

The woman didn’t wear a helmet; her long crimson hair flowed freely down her back.
Her eyes were red, and her lips were also vividly so. The plate armour she was wearing
was strangely revealing. Even though it was decorated heavily to the point that one
would wonder if it was too much. The armour had openings all over, exposing her bare
skin here and there. She wasn’t very tall, just about Lapis’ height.

“What? You want to die?”

“No, just thinking that I’ve never seen you before.”

The woman in red glanced at Loren as if sensing his gaze. One wouldn’t be able to
guess from her appearance that she had just blown a muscular adventurer all the way
to the wall. Loren thought that he needed to be very careful with his reply, or he might
meet the same fate.

“It’s the first time I’ve come here, so it’s understandable. If I don’t have any business
here, I would never have come to such a place.”

The woman replied and walked away. But she suddenly stopped for some reason and
turned around to look at Loren, making him wonder if he had done something wrong.

“Have I met you before?”

“I don’t know. I have no recollection of it.”

The woman watched him intensely for a while. Seemingly unable to recall anything
about meeting him, she turned her gaze away from him with a puzzled tilt of the head
and continued walking away.

Another group of adventurers blocked her way this time.

“You! How dare you!”

Pushing Lapis and Gula away from the place, Loren thought it was understandable
what those adventurers shouted. After all, a member of their party had just been
blown away and got embedded into a wall by some stranger. A member of their party
had tried to pick a fight with other adventurers, but still.

That adventurer must have sustained serious injuries, and his party would lack one
member for a while. The party’s power would decrease because of that, and their
earnings would be affected. It was natural that they would want to complain to the
person who had caused all this.

[They might’ve missed one point in this whole situation]

Thought Loren watching them surround the woman in red. And that was – their
opponent was way above them.

The woman in red was powerful enough to completely incapacitate an adventurer in

an instant right in front of Loren’s eyes, using some method that he still hadn’t figured
out. What would happen if someone condemned her? They shouldn’t have even
considered it. Loren wasn’t sure if those adventurers were too stupid to think that far,
or that they themselves were actually powerful enough to handle her.

“He blocked the way, so he was at fault. If he’s injured, then it’s also his fault for being
too fragile.”

Her answer was to the point and easy to understand, but it carried no intention to
appease the adventurers surrounding her.

Having been spoken to like that, of course the adventurers weren’t mollified at all.
Anger was apparent on their faces, and they reached for their weapons.
“He deserved it for picking fights with others, but there was no need to go that far, was
there?”

A man who seemed to be the party leader gestured at the unconscious adventurer
with his thumb and said. The woman’s answer was curt.

“Have you thought about him being unlucky? It’s your bad luck to meet me.”

“Don’t you have any intention to apologize? If you do, we…”

“It’s out of the question. This Tizona, apologizing to someone? What an absurd joke.”

Loren, who was casually listening to their conversation, quickly searched his memory
for the name ‘Tizona’. He had said that he didn’t remember when asked if they had met
before, but there was a chance they had actually met.

His thinking was immediately interrupted.

“Our career is finished if we let ourselves be looked down on. This can’t end here.”

“So, you want to bet on your life? Be prepared to get killed then.”

Tizona replied and stood her ground. From what Loren could see, she carried no
weapons despite wearing a very gaudy armour. The thought of her being a magician
crossed his mind, but he couldn’t understand why she was wearing plate armour if
that was the case.

“Let us give you some painful experience!”

At their leader’s declaration, the adventurers simultaneously picked up their weapons.

This had escalated beyond the usual quarrels between adventurers, and the woman
was outnumbered. Loren reached for his greatsword, wondering if he should back her
up. But Lapis, who was standing beside him, stopped him.

“Hm?”

“I have a feeling that we should stay away from this.”

“I agree with Lapis-chan. What’s with that woman? Such a strong presence, crackling
like electricity.”
“So she’s at that level?”

Loren was flustered; this would be a big trouble then.

Gula was quiet for a short while, then answered:

“On second thought, her presence is more like tingling.”

Gula immediately played it down, but Loren believed that if the woman was worth
Gula’s attention, then it was better to be cautious with her. He gave up the idea of
backing her and took some distance as Lapis had advised.

The smarter adventurers had all stepped away from the scene, and the slower one also
stepped back once they realized that there were no one else around them. A clearing
was soon formed, with the woman at its centre.

“Even now, if you apologize…”

“No. Just come in at once. I’ll roast you all in one go. It’ll be quicker like that.”

Tizona said and extended her hand towards the leader. Seeing a red flame flickered to
life and coiling around her hand like a snake, a name finally came to Loren’s mind.
Loren had heard the stories, but had never witnessed it himself. That was why he hadn’t
been able to call up the memory right away.

He knew that it was already too late to say ‘Run!’, but he did anyway.

“Run!”

Loren didn’t know if the adventurers facing Tizona realized that it was directed at
them or not. Because the moment he had recalled Tizona’s identity and shouted out
the warning to them, he had also picked Lapis up and ran away.

Gula also had set off after them just one moment later, and at almost the same time,
Tizona had opened her mouth.

“Burn. Ashes to ashes. Trashes to ashes.”

The words were spoken as if sung. As soon as they left her mouth, the adventurers
burst into flames.

The red flames enveloped their whole bodies and, without a single scream or a single
whiff of smoke or smell of burning flesh, the adventurers became piles of ash in the
blink of an eye. Despite how violent the flames were, it didn’t spread.

The massacre was over too soon, and it had happened so seamlessly that no one was
able to utter anything. Those presented could only turn their gazes towards the piles
of ash lying on the floor.

The sole perpetrator, Tizona, slowly lowered her arms and looked around. After
confirming that no one had anything to say, she slowly walked towards the wall, where
Loren had escaped to with Lapis. Her expression was so indifferent that it was
impossible to imagine she had just burned several people to death.

“You seem to know about me, don’t you?”

Tizona was coming closer and closer with a clacking of heels, and Loren found himself
unable to answer her. He had the experience of imagining scenes after hearing stories
about this before, but it was probably the first time that he saw the actual scene. It was
so shocking that he was at a loss for words.

“Wha… what was just now?”

Gula, who had run to the wall like Loren, asked with dumbfounded words. Hearing her
questions, Loren’s stiffened lips finally moved to say the following:

“Hellfire Sword”

“That means you know me, don’t you? I also feel like I know you. Maybe we’ve met
somewhere before?”

“I don’t know. At least, this should be the first time I’ve met you.”

“Then maybe it was on a battlefield. In that case, it’s very likely that only I saw you…
Have you always used that greatsword?”

Tizona glanced at the greatsword on Loren’s back and asked.

Loren had used a similar sword during his mercenary days, but it had been a very
ordinary steel sword, not entirely black like this one. That sword broke when he
became an adventurer, so he bought this one as a replacement as per Lapis’ advice.
Loren suspected that this sword was the reason why Tizona felt like she had met him
before.

“No, I’ve just bought this one recently. The sword I used to use was… broken.”

“Was it similar to this one? A steel greatsword?”

“Yeah, you can say so.”

Loren had considered lying, but he wasn’t sure what Tizona would do if she knew she
had been lied to. Rather than taking that risk, he believed it was better to just tell the
truth.

“Is that so? Are you the mercenary called ‘Decapitating Wind’?”
“No, I’m not. Isn’t he the one said to be able to turn the tide of a battle by himself, and
thus have a nickname, just like you? I’m not such a big shot.”

It felt like Loren already had a similar conversation before. Still being carried by Loren,
Lapis watched him and Tizona. Loren looked very earnest, his face saying ‘I’m not
lying’. Meanwhile, Tizona nodded multiple times as if she was satisfied.

“You really are ‘Decapitating Wind’. What are you doing here? I heard the mercenary
company you belonged to was annihilated. Did you quit working as a mercenary?”

“That’s why I said I’m not him. My company was indeed annihilated, and I did quit
being a mercenary, but I don’t have a nickname. I was just an ordinary mercenary.”

Loren kept insisting that it was not him. But Tizona already made conclusion and
looked at him with an expression of understanding his need to deny the ‘truth’.

“Uhm, excuse me, but is it alright for me to say something?”

Feeling that the conversation was going nowhere, Lapis timidly said to Tizona from
within Loren’s arms.

It seemed like Tizona hadn’t noticed Lapis’ existence until then. She turned towards
her and nodded after a brief consideration.

“If Loren keeps insisting that he is not that mercenary, then maybe there really is some
misunderstanding here?”

“That’s right… But he really is ‘Decapitating Wind’. I have no doubt about it.”

Tizona said with such confidence that Lapis wondered if it really was the truth. Loren
didn’t look like he was lying, but it was possible that he himself didn’t know. Whatever
the truth was, there was something Lapis felt like she had to say.

“Anyway, I’m not saying that those adventurers weren’t at fault since they did take up
arms themselves, but I can’t help but think that there will be a lot of trouble if you kill
people that easily.”

Hearing Lapis’ words, Tizona’s face stiffened at once. Just as Loren realized that she
had killed them without much thought about consequences, Tizona turned her eyes
towards the piles of ash on the floor and murmured:
“Is that bad?”

“Well, for adventurers, there’s a term about killing someone during quarrels… I myself
did get quite serious in quarrels sometimes, but to kill others is… Have you done that,
Loren?”

“I haven’t. Probably.”

Loren recalled having done rather terrible things during quarrels, like hurling his
opponents away or strangling them. They might be unable to recover, but they
probably hadn’t died, or so he thought.

“But I’m not an adventurer.”

If Tizona really was Hellfire Sword as Loren said, then she was a mercenary and not an
adventurer. What Lapis had mentioned only applied for quarrels between adventurers;
no one here knew what it would be like for quarrels with non-adventurers.

“In that case, would you mind coming with me? I’d like to have a talk with you.”

It was Ivy who suddenly cut in. The receptionist had a smile on her face, but her aura
was terrifying somehow. She was keeping a tight hold on Tizona’s shoulder from
behind.

Meanwhile, Tizona, who could easily resist Ivy if she wanted to, looked to have frozen.
She looked towards Loren for help, but he immediately averted his eyes. Getting
involved with Tizona or Ivy? Thanks, but no thanks. Loren didn’t want to get involved
with either of them.

“Well then, let us go to the back. It won’t take too much of your time; it’ll end quickly
and it won’t be painful at all, so please follow me obediently.”

“Follow you? Wait, Decapitating Wind! Help a fellow mercenary, will you?! Wait!”

“But didn’t I tell you?”

Tizona hadn’t lost a fight here, but she was letting Ivy drag her away by the shoulder.
Lapis’ face indicated very clearly that she didn’t want to get involved, and Loren’s
answer was very blunt:
“I don’t know you. I’ve already told you, I’m not the mercenary called ‘Decapitating
Wind’, and I only know the name of ‘Hellfire Sword’ by rumors.”

Lapis felt like Loren wasn’t lying or trying to trick Tizona. She couldn’t tell if Tizona
had told the truth or not, but rather than reflecting on it, distance themselves from her
was a higher priority.

“Well then, let’s pretend that we didn’t see anything here. First of all, let’s look for
some jobs to pay for Gula’s food expenses, shall we? Otherwise, at this rate we’ll end
up on the street.”

“Does she really eat that much…?”

Loren looked dazed at Gula, to which she shyly scratched her head.

“Eh, there was a long period when I couldn’t eat anything, you know? And right after
that I was eating a lot of strange stuff… So to stop eating an ordinary meal for a change
became irresistible”

“I know how you feel, but it’s still no excuse to make us go bankrupt.”

“I know it’s rare, but it’ll be nice if we can find some high-paying jobs. It’s even better
if Gula can take them on her own.”

“Lapis-chan, that’s too cruel…”

Gula began to butter up Lapis, who had just told her to earn the money for her food
herself. Loren, who had never heard of any parties getting bankrupt due to food
expenses, began to thoroughly investigate the jobs still left at the reception. The Tizona
incident had completely vanished from his mind.

In the end, they couldn’t find any jobs with decent pay that day, so they decided to
return to their inn and come back later for a fresh start. But the next day, when they
came back only to have Ivy suddenly drag them into a backroom, and Loren was
reminded of Tizona once more.
“Truth is, there’s a job that Guild would like you to take on.”

Ivy got straight to the business. She had led them to one of the backrooms behind the
counters at the Adventurer Guild, a plain room with no furniture except for the table
they were sitting at. Lapis and Gula sat on both sides of Loren, and opposite them was
Ivy and Tizona. Ivy was in her Guild receptionist uniform, and Tizona somehow seemed
to be shrinking in on herself as if in shame. The atmosphere was rather awkward
somehow.

Loren answered Ivy:

“Is it coming directly from the Guild? It doesn’t seem like a simple job.”

A designated job coming directly from the Adventurer Guild reeked of trouble. Loren
didn’t want to accept it, and he frankly let his feelings seep through his voice while
answering Ivy.

Ivy should have noticed, but she simply continued without a change in neither
expression nor complexion.

“The job is to investigate the unexplored mountain region south of Kapha. It’s to be
done within eleven days, with eight for the two trips to and from the area, and three
for the investigation itself. You’ll receive one gold coin for each person, and expenses
for necessities will be paid separately.”

Loren didn’t know much about geography, so he looked at Lapis for help. Lapis, who
was looking back at Ivy with the same poker face expression, replied:

“You mean the large mountain range to the south, or southwest of Kapha. Its name is…
It’s not named, I believe. There are a number of mountains in that area. Is there an
unexplored ruin there?”

The question was meant for Ivy, but it was Tizona who answered.
“I discovered it. It’s a disguised, fort-like ruin halfway up one of the mountains. I
couldn’t get close to it, but I’ve never heard of any ruins in the area, so I dare say it’s
unexplored.”

“I have another question. Why is Tizona here?”

“The truth is… My mercenary company is in financial trouble.”

Tizona said with a blush and a bowed head, as if it was something embarrassing.

Loren wondered whether the company’s falling into financial trouble bothered her.
Mercenary companies always scrambled for funds, and getting low on cash due to
failing a job was not a rare sight, so he didn’t find this something to be embarrassed
about.

But listening further, Tizona appeared to be the cause of the financial trouble herself.
And so the reasons of her embarrassment started to get clearer.

“What did you do?”

“I… burned down our employer’s troops.”

According to Tizona, it had been a job they had taken just a little while ago. The battle
ended up in a stalemate, so Tizona decided to use her extraordinary power to
incinerate the enemy troops, yet went overboard and caused huge collateral damage.
And in her case it was no exaggeration, since the number of casualties had quickly
escalated to several hundreds.

They had won, so their employer hadn’t been able to charge them. Instead, her company
had faced an enormous claim of compensation. Since then their business was going
downhill day by day, Tizona haltingly finished her story.

“Are you a moron?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“You’re a fool, aren’t you?”

All three members of Loren’s party said in reply. Tizona blushed bright red and
answered with minimal objections:
“It couldn’t be helped! They outnumbered us, so I couldn’t use <<Roast>>!”

“<<Roast>>?”

“It’s my blessing. It’s why I’m called ‘Hellfire Sword’ amongst the mercenaries.”

Loren wondered if it was alright to just speak about one’s blessing like that, but Tizona
didn’t look particularly concerned; she began to explain what <<Roast>> was.

According to Tizona, it was a skill that could literally roast every single person within
a designated range. No defense would be effective against Roast – it would thoroughly
burn down everything, inflammable or not. However, it wouldn’t affect anything
outside its range.

It sounded almost too powerful, but it had some drawbacks: the burning range wasn’t
too large, and it wasn’t possible to create multiple zones at once.

“I had no choice but used another method to burn them down… My company noticed
me using my powers and put some distance to come out unharmed. Employer’s
soldiers, on the other hand, were jumbled up with the enemy troops. I knew that over
time it would get more dangerous, so I thought the sooner I burn all down, the better
it would be.”

“What a troublesome character…”

The method she used was still unknown, but it must have been powerful enough to be
able to burn down three hundred-odd people in one go. Just as expected of a
mercenary with such a nickname. Moreover, being able to burn down both friends and
foes alike, further escalated her troublesomeness. For her to still use her powers
despite knowing that it would affect her allies, her way of thinking was also dangerous.
In short, Loren decided that she was a moron. He looked at Ivy, who had been listening
in silence.

“I understand the situation, but why are we nominated?”

Smelling troubles, Loren asked. Ivy shrugged and told him the reason as if it was
nothing important:

“Because it seems like you know each other.”

Seemed like the Adventurer Guild had also decided that Tizona’s story was very
disturbing. And since they couldn’t get unrelated people involved, Loren’s party
became an obvious choice.

“We don’t know her.”

“Well, it’s because you’re originally in the same trade as her then.”

“I used to be one. Unlike her, who is still one, right?”

Loren wondered if this meant Tizona was considering becoming an adventurer, but
she suddenly nodded.

“I still want to be a mercenary. I’m indebted to our leader. If our leader resigns, I’ll
follow. But that’s still a long way off.”

“Don’t tell me that the reason your leader might be forced to quit is a certain ‘glorious’
victory of yours.”

A mercenary company couldn’t operate without funds. Even if her company didn’t
disband, in case they couldn’t pay the compensation to their employer, there were only
two ways to go forward: either the company could sell themselves to the said employer,
or it could ignore the compensation claim entirely and goes rogue.

“Actually, I’ve received an offer that, if I sell myself to our employer, our debt will be
annulled.”

Loren thought that it was not a bad deal. To fill up a gap of a few hundred soldiers, a
twice-named mercenary with powerful skills like Tizona was ideal.

Also, personality aside, Tizona was a beautiful woman. There was a lot of use for her
aside from fighting, so trading couple hundreds of soldiers with her was a fair
exchange. A beneficial one, even.

“I think in the worst-case scenario I’ll take up that offer. As I’ve just said, I’m indebted
to our leader. If this can be settled with just me, then I’m willing to.”

“You don’t think that you’ll be treated nicely, do you?”

“I was told I’ll be treated as a slave. But if it can save our leader from trouble, then so
be it. I was about to take up the offer when I suddenly remembered the ruins I’ve
encountered during a previous job. So I decided to give it a try, as my final option.”
It was a simple story after that. Tizona had asked for a short vacation from her company,
collected all the money she had been saving and used it all to put in a request at the
Adventurer Guild. She was asking for some adventurers to accompany her to explore
the ruin. Some of her fellow mercenaries feared that she could run away, but the leader
had let her go willingly.

“To repay my debt to our leader, I want money, no matter what it takes. For that reason,
I need to explore that ruin. Would you help me?”

Tizona placed both hands on the table and bowed so low that her forehead touched
the tabletop. Loren watched her and considered her offer.

Getting rich by exploring unexplored ruins strongly resembled a gamble. If she won,
everything would be solved in one shot.

It wasn’t a bad idea.

Tizona herself was more than a capable fighter, so she wasn’t recruiting adventurers
for battles. She was smart enough to understand that no matter how potent her
offensive power was, it would be useless for exploration and appraisal of the ruins.
And so adventurers’ skills were required.

About the reward, Loren couldn’t decide if it was high or low. One gold coin would be
too cheap if there was something in the ruin valuable enough to pay off the huge
compensation. But if there was nothing inside, it would be quite an expensive gambling
fee.

“Are you sure it’s unexplored?”

“The Adventurer Guild guarantees it.”

Ivy answered him and continued:

“I’ve researched it and couldn’t find any records of ruin discoveries in the given region.
I can’t be sure about illegal explorations, but I think it’s very likely that the ruin is
unexplored.”

The Adventurer Guild tried to keep its adventurers from going on a fool’s errand, and
thus kept detailed records of all explorations. Of course, if the exploration was illegal
there would be no records. However, the stolen goods still had to be sold off somewhere
with information about their origins, and the Guild also possessed an abundance of
such.

“What do you think? Doesn’t seem too bad to me.”

If they were to take on this job, Lapis’ and Gula’s opinions also needed to be taken into
consideration. As a start, Loren asked for Gula’s.

“If we can earn money, then I have no particular objection.”

“Me neither… But if this exploration is successful, I’d like to have more regarding the
reward.”

What Lapis meant was, one gold coin would be enough if they found nothing, but if
they did find something valuable enough to pay off Tizona’s compensation, she would
want more.

Loren thought it was a bit too greedy, but he was also curious about what Tizona
would say. So he said nothing and just watched her instead.

“I see. It’s fine for me as long as I can pay off the compensation. I promise to increase
the reward in accordance with what we find.”

Tizona decided quickly.

Loren didn’t particularly care about this quest, but noticing Lapis lightly clenching her
fists, he understood that she wanted to take it. That was a good enough reason for him.

“Then, we would like to officially accept this job.”

Ivy answered Loren with a nod of confirmation, and a small smile of relief appeared
on Tizona’s face.
“I want to ask you something, Miss Human Flint.”

“What an ill-bred, impolite person…”

Early next morning found Lapis and Tizona at the south gate of Kapha city.

After accepting Tizona’s job yesterday, they had talked for a while, and it was decided
that they would start preparing for departure now. Thus, Lapis and Tizona were
watching their luggage while Loren and Gula went to rent a donkey to carry them.

Lapis found it to be too boring to wait for them in silence, so she tried to start a
conversation. But Tizona grimaced as if she had been stabbed with a knife:

“Miss Indiscriminate Pyromaniac?”

“Name, call me by name. You can skip the honorific. So, what do you want to ask?”

Having a strong feeling that she would be stuck with this nickname forever if she let it
slide now, Tizona bluntly opposed Lapis with just a bit of annoyance.

Lapis looked at her blankly for a moment and, after a brief consideration, called her
again:

“Miss Indiscriminate Pyromaniac?”

“Do you want to get burned?”

Wondering if some threatening would be needed, Tizona lit up a flame on her fingertip
and glared hard at Lapis. But Lapis just nonchalantly replied without any hesitation:

“If you burn me, you won’t get Loren to help you. And I wonder if there will be any
other adventurer who would want to work with you after that fight in the tavern?”
“Just ask what you want to ask. Are all priests as disagreeable as you?”

Lapis was right though, so Tizona sighed and put out the flame on her fingertip. She
now realized what a bad move it was to burn down those adventurers during the
tavern fight the day before yesterday.

After that incident, her name and face had become well-known amongst adventurers,
along with the rumor that she would burn people to ashes just because of minor
disputes. No adventurers would dare take her job. She also knew that they were
looking at Loren’s party with pity after hearing about them accepting it. But it had
already been too late, so nothing could be done now.

Tizona started to regret incinerating those adventures in the guild hall. Scorching
them a bit would be a more prudent option. But for that she had to rely on conventional
magic, instead of <<Roast>>. The issue, however, was that conventional magic had
never given a satisfactory sensation of burning…

While Tizona was musing this, Lapis thought that the conversation would go nowhere
if she kept fooling around with her, so she went straight to be business:

“It’s about Loren.”

“About whether he really is ‘Decapitating Wind’ or not? If that’s the case then yes,
there’s no doubt about it. I guarantee that.”

Lapis thought so too, but Loren denied it so vehemently that she had to wonder if there
was some misunderstanding. She was thinking about confirming it with a currently-
active mercenary and by chance this was when Tizona had shown up, so she took this
chance.

Tizona’s answer came right away, and the indifferent tone she used bewildered Lapis:

“His appearance and weapon are the same, but the biggest tell is how strongly he
denies to be Decapitating Wind. That guy is known to stubbornly refuse to acknowledge
his nickname.”

“Why is that?”

Becoming a feared figure on the battlefield and being given a nickname was not a bad
thing for a mercenary. On the contrary, it would increase the mercenary’s value,
leading to more high-profile jobs and creating a positive impact on the whole
company. At least, that was what Lapis thought.

But Tizona spoke of a different reality while turning her gaze to the direction where
Loren should have come back with the donkey.

“The biggest reason is – it would have brought troubles to his company.”

“Brought troubles to his company? Why?”

“A company that has an outstanding member easily attracts attention from other
companies. Not only that, but it will also attract a different kind of attention from the
government. Such attention can sometimes be good, but they are more often bad.”

People would think that a mercenary company with such an excellent member would
be very capable, and as a result the company would be forced into life-and-death
situations more and more often. Tizona said with a wry smile:

“I was also happy with the nickname ‘Hellfire Sword’ at first, but now I’m regretting
having ever acknowledged that name. Of course, my company has been treated better
thanks to it, but I can’t help the feeling that danger has also increased.”

“Loren denies his nickname because he’s afraid of that.”

“If the person himself does not acknowledge his nickname, others can’t use it in their
narratives. That’s why I find it amazing that the nickname still continues to be used
even though he keeps denying it.”

Normally, the talk would die down if the person denied his nickname. But in Loren’s
case, the nickname still pointed to Loren and even spread.

“Other than that, I think he keeps denying it also because Decapitating Wind tends to
lose consciousness after a battle. Have you seen it?”

Lapis silently nodded at Tizona’s question.

Loren sometimes could exert unusual strength during battles, which she herself had
witnessed multiple times. He could reach that state not by gradually gaining strength
but by mental conditioning, and he seemed to have been able to control it himself
recently. However, the backlash Loren’s body receives after is severe.
Lapis had been secretly racking her brain trying to find a solution, but she hadn’t had
any breakthrough so far. What Loren did was essentially forcibly drawing out his
latent strength, so it was unreasonable to expect no recoil on the body.

“People often forget things after serious injuries. Loren might have forgotten about
himself being Decapitating Wind because of this.”

Lapis had difficulties believing this, he still could have guessed something from the
stories. After all, this wasn’t a matter that could be forgotten just like that… On the
other hand, Loren’s tendency to avoid negative attention had to be playing a bigger
role in his stubborn denial of the nickname.

“Loren is really strong, isn’t he?”

Since there was still no sign of Loren coming back, Lapis decided to ask another
question that she was curious about. Tizona unfolded her arms, placed a hand under
her chin and answered after a short while in a wondering tone:

“I haven’t fought against him, so it’s difficult to evaluate.”

“Were you his enemy or ally?”

“There are no friends or foes between mercenaries – our positions change together
with our employers. It is not uncommon that the one with whom you fought on the
same side yesterday, to be on the side of your enemy tomorrow. “

It was a characteristic of mercenaries, who worked just for money. It was

understandable on a professional level, but Lapis wondered if it was acceptable on an
emotional level.

“If you can’t accept it, you can’t be a mercenary. I probably killed quite a lot of Loren’s
comrades, as he probably did mine. If we bear grudges for that, we can’t be
mercenaries.”

“Is that how it is?”

“You have to accept the basic givens of our profession.”

Taking her hand from her chin, Tizona answered and folded her arms again.
“About your earlier question, I consider him to be a rare fighter.”

“I don’t really understand?”

“Before we talk about strength, I acknowledge him to be an opponent one can’t be

careless with. This might sound like boasting, but he is the only one to ever be able to
see through <<Roast>> at first sight and dodged it.”

<<Roast>>, Tizona’s powerful ability, was a horrible one, almost like a foul play:
simply by watching it was impossible to tell how many burning ranges she created, or
how big the ranges were. The targets wouldn’t be able to know they were targeted
until they started burning and when they did, they would turn into ashes with no time
to run.

And Loren had been able to dodge it.

“How did he do it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot, but… I have no idea at all.”

Tizona looked at Lapis with an earnest expression and added:

“Could you ask him for me if you have the chance? How did he evade my ability on the
first encounter? Even now I still find it strange.”

It didn’t seem difficult to ask, but Lapis couldn’t help but feel that the chance to get a
direct answer from Loren would be extremely low. Considering his words and actions
so far, she believed Loren would somehow manage to dodge the question, either by
himself or by chance. If that happened, maybe it would be better to not tell Tizona at
all.

Just when Lapis started to ponder about this, Loren and Gula finally came back. Loren
was empty-handed except for his usual equipment but Gula, who followed behind him,
was pulling two donkeys along. Lapis and Tizona looked at their luggage, but for some
reasons the donkeys were already packed.

“Welcome back, Loren. What’s with those sacks on the donkeys?”

Lapis ran up to him and asked in confusion. He just scratched his head hopelessly
while Gula smiled embarrassingly.
“It’s some food. Gula estimated that our provisions won’t be enough.”

“Wait a minute. From my point of view, the food we prepared will be more than enough
for four people during the intended period, won’t it?”

Actually, Lapis believed that the prepared provisions were already a bit too much. She
couldn’t really explain it to Tizona, but she’d reserved additional food for Gula.
However, it seemed like Gula had found even that to be insufficient.

“So it’s for Gula. How much do you plan to eat with that body of yours? Honestly, I don’t
even have the slightest idea where the hell all that foods go.”

“Mainly to my breasts, I guess? Right, Loren?”

She thrust her chest forward to show off her tube-tope-clad breasts. Loren simply
dropped a fist on the crown of her head. It made quite a loud sound, and Gula crouched
down holding her head. Loren bluntly told her in an exasperated tone:

“I’ll let it go this time since it’s Tizona who pays for all this. But for the next time be
prepared and reduce your portions.”

“If possible, please be a bit considerate… My purse is not bottomless.”

Tizona said in a ‘I-know-it-is-useless-to-tell-them’ tone, and Lapis dealt her the

finishing blow:

“It’s a bit too late by now, isn’t it? I bought two top-quality sleeping bags and pillows
and counted them into necessity expenses.”

“What?! No, rather than that, why two?”

Tizona’s eyes widened at Lapis’ confession, and Lapis said matter-of-factly with no
hint of embarrassment:

“They’re for Loren and me. Ah, don’t worry, I bought the normal ones for you two.”

“Lapis-chan?! Aren’t they for us?!”

“Your food expenses cost the most, so please just bear with it.”
Lapis coldly replied to Gula. With a troubled expression, Gula thought hard about what
should be prioritized, first-class sleeping bag or food. She finally came to a conclusion
and heart-brokenly hang her head:

“Can’t be helped then. I can endure low-quality sleeping bags, but not lack of food.”

“If things continue like this and the exploration ends up a failure, I might have to sell
myself even before it’s time to pay for the compensation…”

Just as Tizona’s face darkened at the image of her unwelcoming future, Loren clapped
her on the back:

“Talk with Lapis then. The interest rate will be high, but she’ll help you.”

“I’ll be looking forward to discussing it with you!”

Lapis energetically replied after Loren’s introduction. Tizona just stared at her with
slump shoulders and an even gloomier expression.
The party left Kapha city, and their journey so far was a little better than expected,
though they didn’t manage to get far on the first day. All they did during the day was
following the main road and exchanging greetings with the occasionally passing
travelers.

Since they couldn’t go farther than planned, they decided to set up a camp on the plain
along the main road and called it a day.

“Is it just me, or we’re going a little slow?”

“No, everyone feels the same, except for one person.”

“The reason is… surely that.”

Lapis said, as she was looking at two exhausted donkeys. Everyone could see that they
were a bit overloaded and, Gula, the reason of this increased baggage load, showed a
weak, apologetic smile:

“Sorry. I eat a lot.”

“It’s alright for us, but the donkeys are pitiful. Apologize to them.”

“Sorry guys. I just eat a lot.”

Gula said and repeatedly bowed to the donkeys. Tizona just smiled wryly but Lapis,
who knew Gula’s true identity, watched the unbelievable scene with a perplexed
expression. Lapis didn’t know who called them Evil Gods for the first time, but she
wondered how that person would feel seeing such a being bowing to a pair of donkeys.

Lapis’ expression became even more perplexed when Loren stacked up the huge
amount of branches he had cut and picked from their surroundings into a pile.

“Tizona, light these up.”

Loren thought that as someone nicknamed ‘Hellfire Sword’, Tizona would be a master
in using fire. But she protested with a merciless expression:

“Wait a minute, I’m not a tinderbox. Besides, there’s green wood mixed in this, isn’t
there?”

“Can’t you dry them?”

“It’s not that I can’t, but… Well, you know my nickname, don’t you? Should my ability
be used for things like this?”

Tizona asked with a rather pitiful expression. Surely this was a too lowly work to ask
of a twice-named mercenary, wasn’t it?

Loren calmly replied:

“I don’t care. If you don’t want to do it, then buy firewood in the next town. Of course,
this will be added to our expenses, and given that we will be camping a lot due to the
round trip, you need to buy enough for future use. Alright?”

“…Just let me do it.”

Buying firewood would further increase the expenses, and so Tizona reluctantly
changed her mind. She then lifted her hand over the tottering pile of wood gathered
by Loren.

“Can you dry the green wood?”

“It’s alright if I just heat them up and do not burn them, right? In the worst case, I can
force them to burn.”

“Isn’t that magic?”

Asked a priest of the God of Knowledge, who suddenly became curious about the
process.

It didn’t look like Tizona intended to hide anything, so she answered while scowling
at the pile of wood:

“It’s my blessing. Another one aside from <<Roast>>.”

“That’s really convenient, isn’t it? To be able to use magic to dry things…”

“I’m not sure, but it’s not supposed to be used like this. Rather, you should be more
surprised about me having two blessings.”

“Now that you mention it…”

Aside from Tizona, Lapis hadn’t met any other person with a blessing… except for a
certain adventurer named Klaus. He had a blessing called <<Boost>>, which allowed
him to increase his own power and the power of those he touched. Klaus had never
mentioned having another blessing, so Lapis wasn’t sure if he was hiding it or if Boost
was the only one he had. However, judging by the way Tizona spoke, it seemed that for
one person to receive two blessings was extremely rare.

“I have not only one, but two rare blessings. And now I’m using one of them to dry
your firewood…”

“You’re using it for a peaceful purpose though?”

“Why does it sound like you are trying to give a noble purpose to my blessing here?
Isn’t it strange?!”

“What blessing is it, by the way?”

“It’s called <<Heat>>. I’m using it to dry firewood now, but this is what I used to burn
our employer’s troops. And it’s where my nickname comes from.”

Said Tizona and her left hand twitched by a small spark that immediately turned into
the fire. As she clenched her hand into a fist, the fire started to grow and took a shape
similar to a sword.

“This is how <<Heat>> is originally used.”

Tizona opened her left fist, and the sword disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
There was no actual need to draw a sword, she simply wanted to show it to them.

Lapis exclaimed, truly impressed:

“You really don’t need a burner at all.”

“You’re the first one ever to have that kind of reaction after seeing <<Heat>>.”

Tizona continued silently drying the firewood, but her shoulders now had slumped in
disappointment.

After solving the issue with fire, Loren and Lapis managed to somehow prepare Gula’s
dinner. But when Tizona checked the amount of wood left, she became utterly
surprised:

“Wait, how could you use up almost all the firewood?”

Tizona dried up quite a lot of firewood, but the amount left was barely enough for a
bonfire. She was even unsure if it could keep fire going throughout the night.

To answer her astonishment, Loren wearily pointed at Gula:

“We used more than half of it to cook… Complain to the big eater over there.”

“I’m not even half full.”

Gula said sadly while rubbing her stomach. Tizona saw her devouring enormous
amount of food, yet could not fire out where the hell did all go. Even more strange was
that fact that her stomach didn’t even look bloated.

“I have a feel that we’ll need to stock up once more before reaching our destination.”

Lapis muttered in dismay while opening her map. The donkeys’ load was quite heavy,
but it lightened up considerably after just one camping and the donkeys now looked
somewhat happier. However, if this continued already after the second camping they
would run out of food. It wouldn’t be possible to reach their destination if they do not
stock up at a village or a town along the main road.

“Physical activities increase appetite, huh.”

“Loren, is this really okay?”

Lapis pointed at Gula, who procured a toothpick from somewhere and was chewing
on it. Loren was unable to give her an answer.

Saying it was not alright would mean throwing Gula out. What bothered him about
doing so was not her being indispensable but the prospect of her actions afterwards.
Rather than dumping a dangerous crate of combustibles without knowing where it
would end up, it was better to spend some money and keep it within sight.

“It can’t be helped. We won’t find any solutions even if we try to. Rather than that, let’s
decide the order to keep watch, then go to sleep.”

“Well, let Gula keep watch for the whole night then.”

“Wait a minute! I want to sleep too.”

Gula spat out the toothpick and protested, to which Loren and Lapis looked back at
her dumbfounded. Unsure if she said something strange again, she faltered a bit.

Lapis asked her, sounding rather confused:

“Do you even need to sleep?”

“I do?! I’m still a living being, you know?!”

“Haven’t you had enough sleep to rot your brains off? Not sleeping for a few days is
still alright for you, isn’t it?”

“You don’t even intend to let me sleep even just once?”

“Please work as much as you eat.”

Lapis said matter-of-factly, and Gula’s expression turned sad.

Thinking that she couldn’t let things progress like this, Tizona intervened:

“I’m not sure how serious you are, but she’ll die if she doesn’t sleep for four days.”

“But she won’t. At most, she’ll just have some hallucinations.”

“Why don’t you just let it go? The one whose pocket hurts the most is me, isn’t it?”

Gula hung her head at the poison secretly hidden behind those words.

Seeing that Lapis had no objections, Tizona took out an hourglass from her luggage:
“The sand will run out in exactly two hours. Since there are about eight hours left until
morning, let’s take turns and keep watch for two hours each.”

“Should we draw a lottery?”

“No, I proposed it, so I’ll go first.”

And so the order of keeping watch was decided like this: Tizona ⇾ Gula ⇾ Loren ⇾
Lapis.

Hearing this, Gula energetically leapt at Loren as if her dejected expression earlier had
been all a lie. Loren didn’t have any time to dodge her advance and ended up having
her clinging tightly to his arm. He tried to shake her off, but she held on firmly with
both arms, making it impossible for him to push her away.

“In that case, sleep with me, Loren.”

“Why should I?”

“Cause our sleeping bags are the normal type, while yours are high-quality. It’ll surely
feel different, right?”

It was true, but that didn’t mean he should comply with her wish. Gula embraced him
in bed just recently, and the situation back then was really dangerous. If she did that
within the tight confines of a sleeping bag, he would simply burst.

However, he didn’t think that Gula would accept a refusal. Thinking that he was just
human, Loren proposed a compromise:

“You can use my sleeping bag then. The normal one is fine for me.”

“But that’ll be meaningless. Two people will be warmer, right Loren? Right?”

Gula rubbed her body against Loren. At this very moment, Lapis approached her from
behind and covered her from head to toe with her sleeping bag. She even neatly tied
Gula up with a rope while Loren watched on in astonishment. Like this Gula wouldn’t
be able to come out when her turn arrives. While Loren was wondering about such
things, Lapis tossed a tightly-packed Gula into her tent and turned to look at him.

“What?”
“You don’t feel regret or anything, do you?”

“Thank you for saving me.”

Hearing his thanks Lapis looked relieved. She then bade Loren and Tizona goodnight
and crawled into her own tent.

“Sorry, it’s quite a trouble but when it’s Gula’s turn, can you take her out of the sleeping
bag? I think she won’t be able to get out on her own.”

“I-I understand…”

“Well, I’ll leave it to you then.”

Loren waved lightly at a nodding Tizona and slipped into his tent. A day of walking
had worn him out, though not as much as the matter of Gula’s appetite, and sleep came
soon after he crawled into his own sleeping bag.
It was the morning of their second day on the journey. Lapis was watching the sunrise
and got totally mesmerized by it. In front of her was the bonfire, which surprisingly
had not gone out and was still blazing brightly, beneath her buttocks was a tightly-
wrapped Gula.

“The morning feels so refreshing…”

“I don’t feel refreshed at all…”

“Please consider this a lesson. I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually Lust and not
Gluttony…”

Of course, there was a reason for Gula’s current state. The Evil God had sneakily slipped
into Loren’s tent just before his watch shift was about to end, yet was caught by Lapis.
She said she wanted to see how comfortable a high-quality sleeping bag was, but Lapis
was certain that her goals were somewhat different. She then immediately properly
tied her up with a rope, so that she couldn’t move.

“Don’t lump me with that guy…”

“Aren’t you two the same?”

“Not at all?! I’m being like that with Loren, not with anyone else! But Luxuria is
indiscriminate!”

The one Gula mentioned was the Evil Gold of Lust, whom they had encountered in a
previous job. Recalling what she had witnessed back then, Lapis could feel the
refreshing effect of the morning disappearing, and a spectacular frown appeared on
her face. Despite his title, the Evil God of Lust was, for some reason, a macho queen.
He had betrayed a lot of Lapis’ expectations for Lust, and the trauma, he had burned
deep into her mind, was still present.

“Is that so?”

As long as Gula’s target was Loren, Lapis didn’t care if she was indiscriminate in her
taste or not. Lapis could never overlook such a thing, and she would stop whoever
went after Loren, be it Gula or Luxuria. Just that in Luxuria’s case, Loren probably
would also receive some mental damage, so she guessed Gula was somewhat better.

Loren and Tizona woke up a short while later, and after exchanging morning greetings
with them, Lapis immediately started to prepare both breakfast and lunch. It’d be
troublesome to get the cookware and such ready on the road, so it was better to make
lunch now. They could munch on it later while walking.

Lapis first made a simple stew with salted meat and vegetables. She served it with
some bread and with this breakfast was done. After that, she lightly toasted some bacon
and vegetables, and sandwiched them between two slices of hard, crunchy bread for
lunch.

When Lapis was wrapping the sandwiches in cloth and putting them into her luggage,
Gula, who was still tightly tied up, spoke unhappily:

“Lapis-chan, that much is not enough at all.”

“You really want to eat up all of our supply, don’t you?!”

Lapis had made ten sandwiches. Loren, Tizona and her would have two each, and the
rest was for Gula. But from Gula’s point of view, even if all of them were for her, it still
wouldn’t be enough.

Lapis wanted to save some of the food considering what was left of their supply, but
she had a hunch that Gula wouldn’t listen if she told her to tolerate her hunger. With
no other choices, she prepared the remaining ingredients and made twice the amount
of sandwiches she had planned. Gula was still unsatisfied, but reluctantly gave in after
being told there was nothing left.

“I feel like I’ll have heartburn right from the morning.”

“There’s no other way but to get used to it, I think.”

Lapis gave Loren and Tizona their servings of stew and bread, got her own and then
shoving the rest to Gula, who had been untied by now. Gula greedily wolfed it all down
directly from the pot. Manner wise, it was an appalling sight, enough to make one lose
their appetite. The other three ate while trying to avoid seeing her as much as possible,
and breakfast ended like that.

They broke camp and started the second day of their journey.

From this point on, security on the highway began to worsen little by little. There
weren’t any big towns nearby, and the place their party was heading to was on the
very edge of Vargenburg’s territory. Naturally, there were not many patrols or workers
in this area, and so the chance of encountering thieves, bandits or monsters increased.

“Normally, we should proceed with caution.”

Lapis muttered in an exasperated tone when a man burst into flames in front of her
eyes.

A startling scream rose up, and people tremblingly watched the burning figure. But
the flame continued to lick at its victim with no concerns, until the man became ashes
and scattered in the wind.

“You thought your number would be enough for an ordinary group of four travelers,
didn’t you?”

Loren swung his greatsword with a roar. The blade cleanly cut into a man’s torso,
leaving his lower-half body standing on the ground while sending his upper body
flying into the sky. Looking up at the shabbily-dressed body, Lapis sent out some magic
bullets. They pierced the heads of the men surrounding her, leaving red, white and
pink pieces of flesh and bone scattered magnificently in the air. Lapis looked at them
with pity.

“Tizona, can you do something about how you kill them? If everything is burned to
ashes, I won’t be able to scavenge their pockets.”

They were attacked by ten or so bandits, at a spot where the trees along the road were
thick enough to hide in. They had noticed the bandits beforehand, but everyone
believed finishing them off would be better than taking a detour. Right now, the bandits
were having the bitter experience of being demolished right during their attack.

“Scavenging these bandits? You must really need money.”

“Whatever sum I found will lessen the burden on your own pocket, won’t it?”
“…How about this?”

Tizona seemed to agree with Lapis’ argument. She waved her hand lightly, and the
flame enveloped a bandit’s head. The fire didn’t spread to his body, and only his head
turned into ashes. The headless corpse fell to the ground, the cross-section at the neck
burned black. Compared to the corpses slashed by Loren and head-blown by Gula’s
magic, it looked much prettier.

“You really can do it if you want to, don’t you?”

She should have done this right from the beginning if she could. There was no need to
burn everything down: what could be used should be used, Lapis believed.

Tizona looked at her with a slightly disgusted expression.

“It’s a hassle to aim.”

Tizona replied and continued to turn another bandit into a headless corpse.

It was easier to scavenge like this. Lapis fished around the corpse’s pocket and found
some copper and silver coins, which she gave to Tizona.

“Is it alright to give them to me?”

Tizona looked at the coins and then back to Lapis, who answered in a light tone:

“I think the employer should have the first right to whatever found during a job.”

Actually, what she found wasn’t much, and she thought she should just give it to Tizona,
who bore the heaviest financial burden in this job.

“When we fight against monsters, could you please use the same trick? We can’t sell
their body parts as raw materials if they’re burned to ashes.”

Tizona, who had been fighting as a mercenary, had never thought about scavenging
money from her fallen opponents or selling monsters’ bodies as raw materials.

“That reminds me, you don’t have any weapons, Tizona.”

Right at that moment, another body was sent flying to the sky. It had been roughly cut
off diagonally from the shoulder and was now whirling in the air, scattering blood
everywhere. It was a common sight since she had partnered with Loren, and she had
gotten used to it by now. Still it was not a pleasant sight to behold, Lapis thought and
turned her gaze to Tizona’s waist.

Tizona’s armor was surely splendid, but she didn’t carry any weapons from what Lapis
could see. Seeing as Tizona worked as a mercenary, she wondered why.

Noticing Lapis’ gaze, Tizona slapped at her own waist:

“If I’m in a serious fight, it’s better to not carry any weapons.”

Tizona answered laughingly.

Her reply made Lapis feel uneasy. Even magicians carried staff – it was just common
sense to carry some sort of weapon. Tizona seemed to expect her to understand
underlying reasoning, but Lapis just couldn’t.

“Aren’t you a swordsman?”

She looked like a swordsman, she just couldn’t be a magician with that heavily-
decorated armor.

Tizona held out both hands, and two swords of flame appeared in her palms.

“There’s no need to carry around something I can conjure myself, right?”

“But you can’t parry with them, can you?”

Lapis asked. A bandit charged at her from behind but was destroyed by fire, leaving
behind only four limbs and a head, which were falling to the ground. Looking back
over her shoulders, Lapis noticed something like tooth marks on the severed body
parts. She frowned and glared at Gula, who had just used <<Predator>>, her Evil God
power. Noticing Lapis’ stare, Gula bowed repeatedly. She probably couldn’t endure her
hunger anymore. It would be a serious problem if Tizona noticed though.

“They can burn off my opponents’ weapons in battles.”

As if to prove her words, Tizona used her flaming blade to parry the axe another bandit
was swinging at her. The steel blade and the flame blade passed through each other
without any resistance at all, but the steel blade was cut into two pieces and fell to the
ground.

The bandit looked at his axe in disbelief, and Tizona turned her blade around and cut
off his head. The flame burned and sealed off the wound, and the bandit quietly
became a corpse without a single drop of blood spilled.

“This is absurd. I feel bad for your opponents.”

Lapis thought it would be too much if what she had seen today happened on a
battlefield. If you kept a distance from Tizona, you would be burned by a high-
temperature flame with no way to defend yourself. But if you got closed, you would be
done by a sword of fire that you couldn’t even parry.

Lapis believed she could fight against Tizona using demonic abilities. But if she were
to fight her with the power of a priest only, she would have no choice but to surrender
immediately.

“You’re kind, Lapis, to feel bad for bandits.”

Lapis tilted her head in a puzzlement. Was it strange to feel pity for those who got
trampled on with no decent chance to fight back? But the bandits, the object of her
pity, had been completely annihilated by then, and Lapis could only offer the corpses
scattering on the ground an offhand, silent prayer.
It was just before nightfall, when Loren’s party reached the post-town.

They had been attacked by demons and bandits multiple times that day, but they only
drove their attackers back instead of killing them. Lapis said they were too pitiful, as
they couldn’t even harm the party.

It was understandable though: after all, their party did consist of two twice-named
mercenaries (even though one kept denying it), an Evil God and a deamonkin. Though
Lapis didn’t even have to use her demonic powers, and she had nothing to do as a
priest seeing that no one was injured.

“The sun has completely set.”

Just as Loren grumbled, the sun had completely set by the time they reached the town,
and it was so dark that they couldn’t see a thing. The lights from the town gave the
party a sense of security: finally, they would be able to sleep in an inn tonight.

But Loren voiced his worry:

“Can we still find an inn at this hour?”

If they couldn’t find lodging, they would have to camp near the town. Stores had also
closed by now, and they had used up almost all of their food supply to satiate Gula’s
hunger. So they would have to make do with the remaining meagre portions until
morning.

“That depends on how much we’re willing to pay, doesn’t it?”

Lapis didn’t believe that money could buy everything, but in truth – it could buy almost
anything. This town wasn’t that big and normal rooms were likely filled already, but it
wouldn’t be strange for the pricier ones to be still vacant. The question was whether
there was an inn with such rooms here, and if yes, whether they could pay for them.
“In the worst-case scenario, we can ask some travellers to pass on their rooms to us.”

If they were willing to pay, they could find someone to arrange it. In short, as long as
you have money, getting some rooms wasn’t a difficult thing.

“I don’t really have any troubles with sleeping outdoors, but food is the problem. All
thanks to a certain Miss Big Eater.”

In response to Lapis’ dripping-with-sarcasm remark, Gula said:

“I can still get food for us if we camp though?”

The town was small, but it did have almost all facilities of a post-town. Lapis was
curious about what the hell Gula was planning to fetch and use as food, but they would
be in trouble if she did something outrageous. They really should secure some rooms
in an inn by all means.

So, Lapis picked an inn, told the others to wait outside, and went in to speak with its
owner.

“Not sure if you guys are lucky or unlucky, but we do have rooms.”

Was what the innkeeper, an elderly man, who had already passed middle-aged, told
Lapis. She told him about the number of people in their group and asked if he had
rooms for one night. She thought that being able to find vacancies would be lucky
enough, but the innkeeper’s way of speaking made her feel a bit uneasy.

“What do you mean by ‘unlucky’?”

Lapis called the others in and observed the first floor of the inn, which also functioned
as a dining hall. The business seemed to be thriving, and the place was full of travellers
coming for a meal or a pint. But when she looked closer, she could spot some empty
chairs here and there in the gloomy hall.

Lapis was thinking that they really do have rooms available when Gula whispered into
her ears. She had just come back from putting their donkeys into the stable.

“The stable is quite empty.”

Could it be that she had picked an inn with terrible service? Lapis was worried about
that when the innkeeper grumbled:

“A rather big gang of bandits has just emerged south of this town. That’s why there are
fewer people coming or leaving here.”

South was where their party was heading to.

“Are they really that big?”

Lapis slid some coins across the counter to secure their rooms and asked. The
innkeeper answered while counting them:

“Ah, they’ve wrecked a couple of villages already. Done a number to the guards
stationed in the region too. The soldiers in this town are fearing that they’ll come here
next.”

“That’s awful. Have you appealed to the kingdom?”

“Of course we did. But it’s rumoured that the kingdom will just look on and won’t lift
a finger.”

“And why is it again?”

“Didn’t we just have a skirmish with our neighbour a little while ago? There are
rumours that we’ve lost quite a lot of troops in that and still can’t regroup.”

What he just mentioned was not unrelated to their party. Actually, right now the
member who was the culprit’s ‘friend’ was looking in a different direction and
whistling while feigning ignorance.

And among the ‘lost’ soldiers the innkeeper had just mentioned, not that many were
actually killed. The true story was, many of them weren’t able to continue their
soldering career after a certain event, but Lapis couldn’t tell the innkeeper that. She
offered some harmless and inoffensive opinion instead.

“That’s war for you. Scary, isn’t it?”

The innkeeper nodded with a troubled expression:

“Definitely. The bandits are acting up thanks to that, so it’s a big loss for us too.”
“But how the hell did they manage to gather enough men to form such a big gang?”

Bandits didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere, they must have come from somewhere.
Gathering here in such numbers was also strange.

“The Kingdom basically considers the south from here to be an outback region.
Runaway criminals, broke mercenaries and soldiers, and failed pioneers, all gathered
and formed a bandit gang.”

Loren’s face slightly stiffened hearing the words ‘broke mercenaries’ and Lapis knew
quite well why is that: he was one of them, but was lucky enough to be able to enter
the adventurer business. His debts were still there, but at least he was still able to put
food on the table.

However, not all mercenaries were as lucky and some strayed, becoming bandits and
forming gangs with others in similar circumstances. Just one mistake, and Loren would
have ended up like those guys. No wonder he had mixed feelings being reminded of
that again.

“It’s said that the Kingdom is forming a unit to deal with these bandits, but how real
can that be? And even if they did form a unit, it’ll all be meaningless if they can’t
eradicate the gang.”

“Are they really that big?”

This time Tizona asked, joining the conversation. She was a mercenary much like one
Loren used to be, but unlike Loren, her mercenary company was still going strong,
save for a huge compensation claim they had to pay. If they failed to, Tizona would be
forced to pull out, and Lapis believed it would put her company in a dangerous situation.
Losing one member would always lower the whole company’s fighting power, not to
mention, one with exceptional combat ability thanks to her blessings like Tizona. Her
resignation would create a quite big power vacuum, and it would be very difficult for
the company to regroup.

“I don’t know the details, but it seems so. It’s said that they even acquired and merged
with other gangs in the region.”

“Do they have someone capable of pulling that off?”

An average person wouldn’t be able to command such a large group. Loren and Tizona,
who had been close to leaders of such groups, understood that very well. If the leader
didn’t have true ability and personal charm, the group would be divided and collapsed
in no time. However, from what they heard so far, it seemed to be the case here. The
unknown leader managed to properly organize a group formidable enough to force
the Kingdom to take action.

“But the base of such a large group must have become known by now, right?”

“Well, I’ve heard that the location of their base is still unknown. To be able to hide it in
this area, their leader must be quite smart.”

A mob, no matter how big their number was, was not really a threat. But if it was
properly commanded by someone, then it was another story.

“This is no good.”

Lapis said. She received their room keys after the innkeeper finished counting her
coins.

Loren nodded in agreement:

“This story reeks of trouble. It’ll be nice if we don’t run into them.”

“If we do, we just need to kill them off right away, don’t we?”

Loren and Lapis smiled wryly at Gula’s nonchalant words. Of course, some bandits
wouldn’t hinder her, no matter how many of them there were.

However, given Tizona’s presence in their party, if they were to go all out against the
bandits, there was a possibility of receiving undue injuries by some strange accident.

“Just count on my power, ok?”

“We’ll be counting on it.”

With the proper precautions Tizona could utilize all of her powers. Loren wondered
about the extent of their fighting force, with Tizona becoming their main damage
dealer. But then he noticed that he was already somehow thinking about a strategy for
the case they encounter those bandits, and smiled wryly:
“Anyway, it’s better to not meet them at all. Let’s worry about what to do when we
actually do run into them. We can’t turn back now.”

“Yeah, we need to reach our destination, no matter what it takes. That fact still doesn’t
change.”

“So, no change in plan. Just stop thinking about things we can do nothing about, and
quickly get some rest.”

“How about praying to some Gods then? Maybe one will hear you.”

Gula suggested jokingly, and Loren laughed with scorn as if hearing a bad joke.

“Don’t you believe in Gods, Loren?”

Tizona asked. Due to the nature of their trade, many mercenaries were superstitious.
They might not necessarily pray, but the number of mercenaries who believed in Gods
was not low.

“I believe that Gods do exist, but… I don’t really want to pray to them. It won’t bring
anything good. I started thinking that way after becoming an adventurer.”

Loren answered and directed a somewhat meaningful glance towards Lapis, a priest
who mentioned the God of Knowledge at every chance possible and Gula, an Evil God.
Both of them looked somewhat displeased.
With a gang of bandits looming ahead, Loren believed it would be better if they just
turned back. However, Tizona didn’t have the luxury to make that decision. She wanted
to depart as soon as she got out of bed the next day, but Gula and Lapis stopped her.

“We haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

Gula said. Last night, the innkeeper told the party that he hadn’t stocked up much food
because he didn’t have many customers these days. Moreover, their party had arrived
late, and most of the food had already been used for earlier customers. He exhausted
his remaining stock to make them supper, but of course it was nowhere near enough
for Gula. She made a fuss about it, but calmed down after the innkeeper said he would
go to the market first thing in the morning and buy something especially for her. So,
she was quite determined to have breakfast, and until she did, she wouldn’t budge no
matter what.

“Breakfast aside, we still haven’t restocked at all. It’ll be another two days until we
reach our destination, right?”

Lapis added. They had used up almost all the supplies they prepared at Kapha before
reaching this town. Therefore, Lapis told Tizona that if they didn’t restock now, their
travel condition would become very difficult.

“Can’t we just hunt for food on the way?”

“I’m fine with that too.”

Loren was also worried about Tizona’s pocket, but if they let Lapis and Gula go hunting,
he had no idea what they might bring back. Hunting would be their best option if they
could get normal human food. Tizona probably wasn’t aware of that other prospect
though.

But Tizona reluctantly nodded:

“It can’t be helped. Just stop saying you’re hungry.”

Tizona made her decision quickly. Even though it would add to her financial burden,
she didn’t say they should save money at all. Loren thought she didn’t seem to care at
all, and he respected her a little for that.

“Gula, your tendency of overeating is really too much.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll work hard instead.”

She didn’t sound to be very sorry. Tizona sighed heavily, but Loren couldn’t do anything
but pray for her to not get bankrupt.

The innkeeper really kept his promise. He came back from the morning market with a
large amount of food and immediately started preparing breakfast. The scene was so
unsettling that the other guests began feeling suspicious, but Gula just waited for her
meal with a smile on her face. Lapis turned away as if she didn’t care about breakfast
at all, while Tizona held her head in her hands as if bearing a headache.

Loren believed that Gula really needed to think about how to manage her eating habit
if she wanted to continue travelling with them.

Gula made short work of her breakfast, which was so huge that it even attracted
attention from other customers, whereas Loren and the other two had normal helpings.
Then, they left the donkeys at the inn and went to the town center.

The post-town, despite being small, did have a proper town center. Several stores were
opened for travelers, so they went to the grocery store and set about tossing goods
into their shopping baskets.

“Uhm, don’t you want to choose what to buy?”

Tizona asked, seeing that Loren and Lapis were just picking up a multitude of goods
casually, and rather irresponsibly. Lapis nonchalantly answered:

“It’s all good as long as we get enough food. We can choose what we like from the pile
later, and shove the rest to Gula.”

“Is that alright?”

“It is. Anything is fine for her as long as it’s edible.”

Lapis’ remark was harsh but true, so Loren couldn’t object to that. He just continued
to help her in silence.

“Still, the food selection here is not very good.”

Lapis grumbled while inspecting the vegetable she had picked from one side then the
other. Loren had no idea if that vegetable was of good quality or bad, but seemed like
Lapis had deemed it to be bad. He reached for another one, and the store owner
apologized:

“We don’t have that much choice, since our supply is limited.”

“Does it have anything to do with the bandits we’ve heard about at the inn?”

Typically, farm produce like vegetables would be transported to large towns via
multiple relay points. Loren didn’t know how many towns there were near Kapha or
how big they might be, but products from nearby villages must go through a few
connecting points before reaching places about the size of this town. If the product
selection here was not of good quality, then something must be going on at the villages.

“Yeah, they’ve been quite brazen. Even worse, they seem to be expanding their range.
If the Kingdom doesn’t act soon, they’ll reach this place sooner or later.”

“What about the soldiers stationed here?”

“There are some, but not that many. If the stories are true then, when the bandits
come, they’ll all be killed before they can do anything.”

Soldiers dispatched to remote areas of course didn’t have much of combat abilities.
And seeing that there weren’t many here, Loren couldn’t think of any defense measure
that would be effective against a bandit attack that relied on numbers.

“I really want to close the store and run away, but I don’t have the luxury to do so. I can
only pray that they won’t come.”

“That’s terrible.”

Lapis gave up on choosing better quality vegetables – all of them were about the same
anyway. She

tossed the one she was holding into the basket and bargained with the store owner:

“If I buy all this, will you give me some discount?”

“Sorry, but I can’t afford to.”

The owner replied with a wry smile. But Lapis didn’t give up, of course, and continued
to haggle. Tizona watched them in surprise while Gula, who was leaning against the
wall, looked on with no interest, as long as she got the food, she didn’t care about price
or quality at all.

The restocking issue seemed to have been solved for now, so Loren left the haggling
to Lapis and went out. He looked up at the sky, the weather was good, and it seemed
like today’s journey would also go well.

A girl’s voice rang up in his mind just then:

[‘Onii-san, do you know the saying, ‘Speaking of the devil’?’]

It came from a girl who was temporarily residing within Loren’s body. After a certain
incident, she had become the King of Death, the highest-ranked undead, and lost her
own body.

Shayna’s words gave Loren a bad hunch.

[‘I don’t. Sorry, but I’m uneducated.’]

[‘Onii-san, look behind you to the right. It’s probably from the south of here.’]

Loren looked over his shoulders in the direction Shayna had told him. There was a
grocery store that had just opened, next to it was another store, the type of which
Loren couldn’t determine. There was nothing particularly unusual though.

[What has Shayna sensed?]

Loren titled his head in puzzle, wondering if he had overlooked something. He

observed the ground, then the stores again, but he only understood Shayna’s warning
when he looked up at the sky.
In the clear blue sky there was a thin column of gray smoke. It couldn’t be mistaken
for clouds at all.

“Something is burning, but not in this town.”

Gula looked at the sky and said. She had followed him out of the store, and seemed to
have noticed the smoke immediately.

If something happened in this post-town, there would surely be an uproar by now. But
if it happened somewhere else, it wouldn’t be strange if no one noticed.

However, some townsfolk did take notice of the smoke. They came out to the street
and started pointing at the sky, which began to attract the attention of others.

“It seems to be close by.”

The smoke would be thicker if it came from within the town, but considering the
clarity of the thin smoke column, it couldn’t be from too far away.

“Right. From my feeling, it’s the neighboring village.”

Gula’s guess was not good news.

From the current states of affairs, if something happened at the neighboring village,
which resulted in something burning, then it was very likely that there had been a
bandit attack. It depended on how big the raid was, but if the earnings at the village
wasn’t good enough, it wouldn’t be strange if bandits continued on to this town. Realizing
that, a group of armed personnel, probably the town’s guards, rushed towards the
direction of the smoke.

“How does it look?”

Lapis looked at the sky and asked. She had immediately stopped the haggling after
noticing something unusual was going on, paid a reasonable amount for the food and
took some out. Behind her was Tizona, who seemed to carry most of the food they had
bought in a large sack on her back. The sack got caught at the door, and she couldn’t
get out no matter how much she struggled.

“Can’t say anything from here.”

It hadn’t been confirmed to be a bandit attack yet, but from Lapis’ way of speaking, it
seemed like she had already decided it to be one. If she was acting while expecting the
worst-case scenario, Loren thought he probably should do the same. He worked the
gears in his brain:
“If we go back to the inn, take the donkeys and leave now, we’ll probably make it, don’t
you think?”

“Depending on how those bandits operate.”

Loren believed it was better to run if they could. If the bandits came, they should
protect themselves from any possible dangers, if not, they should leave things in the
hands of people who had been prepared to deal with such situations. Their party
should just leave as soon as possible.

Whether the bandits would let them leave was another question though. It was
extremely unlikely that the bandits would distinguish townsfolk from travelers.

“Let’s just hurry back to the inn and pack for now.”

When the situation was still unclear, it wouldn’t help to panic. The only preparation
they could do now was putting their things in order as soon as possible.

The other three members of their party nodded at Lapis’ suggestion.

Loren’s party hurriedly left the store and got back to their inn. They headed for the
stable, where their donkeys were kept, as soon as they arrived. Sensing something had
happened, the innkeeper asked them about the current situation, but they had no time
to answer him. They packed and loaded the donkeys, but before they could take them
out of the stable, the situation had changed.

“Ah, this is no good, ain’t it?”

Gula, who was pulling the donkeys’ reins, said the moment she left the small hut. In
front of them rose a thick, billowing column of black smoke, completely different from
the wispy one they had seen at the grocery.

Apparently, some people weren’t satisfied with the havoc they had wrecked somewhere
else, and had stretched their hand to this town. Or maybe it had been their intention
from the very beginning.

“Are we too late?”

“Seems so.”

If the town had already been under attack, it was unlikely that the bandits would let
their party leave so easily. Not to mention that the smoke was rising from the south,
where they were heading to. They couldn’t leave town without passing the area where
something was surely happening.

“We have no other choice but to leave through another exit and take a detour later.”

“If only our opponents were stupid enough to let that happen.”

Their opponents were large in number, and if their operation method was good, they
would never leave a gap for townsfolk to escape.

If the town was larger, the bandits wouldn’t have enough men to keep watch and even
if they did, the crew would be spread thin. But in not-so-large towns like this one, that
was too good to hope for.

“Even if they are stupid, we still won’t be able to move fast in the current situation.
They’ll discover and surround us sooner or later.”

Lapis said when looking at the donkeys’ loads, which had become huge again after
food restocking. The two creatures looked somewhat tired. Donkeys weren’t fast
animals even at their prime, and considering the amounts of luggage currently on
their backs, they could barely walk, let alone be able to run away from anything.

“I’ll take responsibility and deal with this…”

“Don’t talk about things you can’t do.”

Gula tried to say, but Loren held her back.

Tizona probably thought Gula was feeling responsible and tried to solve the situation
alone even though she couldn’t, and Loren was dissuading her from doing so. But the
truth was, Gula really could solve all this by herself, but Loren had no idea what Tizona
would think after witnessing that, so he had to rein her back. His ‘can’t do’ carried the
nuance of ‘can’t show Tizona’.

“Then lemme check the situation first.”

“What do you plan to do?”

Gula didn’t answer Loren, she just threw the donkeys’ reins to Tizona, then placed
both hands on the stable’s wall and smoothly climbed up to the roof.

Loren and Lapis just watched her climb while Tizona asked in amazement:

“Isn’t she a magician?”

“…If you think all magicians are delicate, then you’ve made a big mistake.”

“Is that so?”

Loren couldn’t answer that. To his knowledge, amongst the small population of
magicians in this world, none could climb a wall with almost no foothold or support
using only hands and feet like Gula did. But if he was asked how she did it, he wouldn’t
be able to answer, so he had no other choice but to keep his silence.

“Loren, this is bad! I can see fire coming from the south!”

Gula, who was standing on the rooftop with one hand shading her eyes, looked at the
direction of the flames and said. From her position, she could see things they couldn’t
down here.

“Then it’s truly a raid, and we have no choice but to act accordingly.”

“There should be a limit to our bad luck. Is there anyone with ties to the God of
Pestilence here?”

“I-it’s not me, I think.”

Tizona was the only one to get flustered by Lapis’ question and Loren didn’t think it
could be him at all. The only one who seemed likely to have links with the God of
Pestilence was the one currently on the rooftop. But, since he didn’t know the difference
between the God of Pestilence and an Evil God, he couldn’t consider the two entities
to be the same.

“What do we do now, exactly?”

“There’s no other way but to repel the raiders. I’m not sure how many of them are
there, but they should withdraw if we kill about thirty, right?”

“Does it mean there are almost a hundred of them in total?”

Lapis sounded shocked, but Loren thought it was not that bad. On the battlefield,
killing thirty men wouldn’t make any impact on the war outcome, unlike here.

“So, who should do it?”

“Shouldn’t we all go?”

Tizona asked. Loren looked at the reins in her hands then at the loaded donkeys
behind her and wondered if she planned to go in battle like this.

“We need someone to guard the luggage, don’t we?”

“I can fight like this though?”

If Tizona used her blessings, she could indeed still fight without letting go of the
donkeys’ reins or leaving this place. That didn’t mean the donkeys would be safe
though. She might burn them down along with the luggage.

“It won’t do. If you burn our luggage, and we lose our stocks, the one up there will get
hungry.”

Loren pointed at the rooftop, from where Gula was watching the discussion.

After this raid was over, the stores probably wouldn’t be able to resume business as
usual. If they lost their luggage, they would be stuck in this town, and completing
Tizona’s mission would become difficult. If the payment terms of Tizona’s reparation
claim was lax enough, they could wait until the town resumed its normal operations,
but no one knew when that would be.

“So, what’s your plan?”

“Tizona will guard the luggage. Lapis too. Gula and I will manage somehow.”

“That sounds good.”

Lapis voiced her agreement before Tizona could object. Bringing Lapis, who was a
priest, to a chaotic area might be a rather dangerous act. That didn’t mean they could
let her watch the luggage alone though. They would need someone else, and from
Loren’s point of view, Tizona was suitable for that role: she could handle multiple
enemies by herself after all.

“I have no problem with that, but…”

“So it’s decided. Gula! Memorize the location and come down quickly. We’ll take care
of this.”

“Alright. I should work as much as I eat, shouldn’t I?”

Gula jumped down from the rooftop, and Tizona’s eyes slightly widened at her agility.
Her movements weren’t something Tizona would associate with the word ‘magician’
at all. Her landing was as soundless and lithe as cat’s. She doubted that Gula was truly
a magician, but there was no time to confirm it now.
“So, we’re going. We’ll leave this to you.”

“Come back safely. We’ll stay put here like good girls.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll heal you right up if you’re injured but still, be careful, both of you.”

Lapis’ words were said to their backs. Loren already had his hand on the hilt of his
greatsword, whereas Gula ran towards the flame barehanded as always. Tizona
followed their backs with her eyes, then turned her gaze back to their surroundings.
She believed that the bandits split up their forces.

“Do you think they’ll be alright?”

It was hard for Tizona to imagine a mercenary nicknamed ‘Decapitating Wind’ would
be hindered by some bandits. And it was not bragging, but the same could be said
about herself, who had the nickname ”Hellfire Sword’. Still, she felt a touch of anxiety
to have only two people dealing with a group of bandits in a town raid.

“They will, won’t they? The soldiers stationed here won’t be suddenly wiped out either.”

Even if only a few of the guards survived, they would still be able to lessen Loren’s and
Gula’s burden. Also, Lapis couldn’t imagine those two being defeated by the bandits at
all. To be honest, she wondered if it was overkill to send a twice-named mercenary
and an Evil God to deal with a hundred or so bandits.

“Rather than them, I’m worried about us bumping into bandits.”

“It’s alright, I’ll do my guard duty properly.”

Or so Tizona said, but Lapis was worried exactly because of her. Tizona’s blessings
were a bit different from normal fire manipulation, but fundamentally she could only
attack by using fire to burn. On the battlefields or empty plains, her skills were indeed
very powerful. But in an enclosed area like a town, even though <<Roast>> wouldn’t
cause collateral damage to the surroundings, <<Heat>>, which Tizona tended to use
when facing a large number of enemies, surely would.

Loren left Lapis here because they told Tizona that she was a priest, which meant she
should have been useless in a fight to repel raiders. But there must be a reason why
he took Gula instead of Tizona.

“Anyway, just leave it to those two and standby here quietly, shall we?”

Lapis said, slightly stressed the ‘quietly’ part. Tizona found her way of speaking a bit
dubious, but still nodded earnestly.
Leaving the luggage to Lapis and Tizona, Loren and Gula rushed towards the location,
from which smoke was rising.

“Is’t alright for me to fight a lil more seriously this time?”

Gula asked Loren as she followed him closely from behind. Still running, Loren spared
her a half-glance and replied:

“Not a good idea. Play it safe, play it safe.”

“Why’d you leave Tizona-chan behind then?”

If Gula could fight in earnest, it would surely be easy. But no matter how strong the
bandits were, there was still the possibility that not all of the town guards are killed
off by the time Loren and Gula reached them. Loren couldn’t let Gula eat the bandits
when there were witnesses around.

“To keep her eyes off us.”

As long as Tizona wasn’t there to see it, if they could sufficiently feign ignorance about
the whole thing later, Loren did plan to let Gula loose a little. Even if there were
witnesses.

“I wonder if I can secretly eat somethin’ then…”

They reached the south district of the town while talking. There were fires here and
there, as well as guard corpses lying on the ground, probably killed by the bandits.
They could also see the bandits that had invaded the town moving about. The scene
made Loren stop and rub his eyes.

“This is rather amazing, isn’t it?”

There was a reason why Loren had to stop. What was happening was completely
different from the image of a ‘bandit attack’ Loren had in his mind.

“Don’t care about the guards! Just take the goods!”

“And don’t go after the residents! If you have that much free time at hand, go move the
bags!”

“Don’t go burn everything like idiots! Only burn the buildings!”

From the look of it, the bandits were moving their loot out one by one in a well-
organized manner. Several of them seemed to be in charge of supervising the process
and under their orders, the other bandits were packing their loot, loading them onto
wagons, and the fully-loaded wagons were leaving the town one after another.

“Seems like they’ve already wrapped up everythin’.”

From behind Loren’s back, Gula peeked at the scene and voiced her impression. But
watching the way-too-well trained bandits working gave Loren a very bad feeling.

“Aren’t they behaving too well?”

Gula put his bad feeling into words.

Attack, kill, loot, burn, then run; bandits’ MO could be summed up by those words. But
the behaviors of the bandits raiding this town are very different from those lawless
acts; they moved as if they had been trained.

“So… wha do we do now?”

“What do we do, you ask… No matter how well-behaved they are, they’re still carrying
this town’s supplies away, aren’t they?”

If Loren was asked whether well-behaved bandits should be let off, then the answer
was no. Still, the too-strangely-behaving bandits made it difficult for him to just kill
them. He wondered what was up with them.

“Then I can eat some, right?”

“Only if you take care to not get found out.”

As if having received a permission, Gula licked her lips, as she passed Loren, then
jumped right into the midst of bandits carrying supplies out of town.

To the bandits, who had finished their raid and were now wholly engaged in transporting
loot, Gula’s assault was a great surprise. In an instant, more than half of them had
fallen prey to the invisible fangs and disappeared.

“What?! What’s going on?!”

“Are there still some guards left?”

The bandits burst into an uproar like a nest of ants being poked at. Watching from the
shadow of a building, Loren couldn’t decide who was the villain here, them or Gula. The
bandits were surely in the wrong, as they did attack the town – that was an undeniable
fact, but Gula, who lunged at them like a dog off leash and immediately started an
indiscriminate slaughter, certainly didn’t look like someone who was working to help
the town.

“Damn! What’s with this woman?!”

“It’s just like there are many teeth around here!”

“Run! Let the wagons go first! Dump the leftovers!”

Even in the midst of considerable chaos, the bandits still acted fast. Except for those
fighting Gula, all others immediately gathered their loot bags, got on the remaining
wagons and made off at full speed. Loren admired their quick reaction, but it was not
like Gula would let her opponent get away.

“Wha?! You even don’t leave any food behind?!”

Light spheres shot out at the same time of her shout, accurately destroyed the axles of
the wagons. Losing their wheels, the wagons bounced on the ground and tumbled
over. Loren watched the display while casually twisting the neck of a bandit who had
noticed him and had come to attack.

The lucky bandits who fell out from the driver’s seat immediately got up and readied
their weapons. The unlucky ones stayed still with broken or twisted bodies. But in no
time, the ones who could get up had their bodies torn off, chewed off, and swallowed
into thin air by Gula.
Before long, Loren and Gula were the only ones who were still moving at the place.
Gula wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, relaxed her body, then turned
towards Loren, who was watching everything from a distance like some sports game.

“All done?”

“Thanks. Any witnesses?”

“Some residents survived, but I’ve sent them to have a nap beforehand. As for the
bandits, all except the ones who ran off were killed.”

‘Just as expected’, Loren thought and looked down at his feet. When Gula was fighting,
some bandits had also come to attack him here. He had killed almost all of them
barehanded, but an idea suddenly came to his mind, and he decided to keep one alive.
So instead of killing he knocked him out, and was currently keeping him under his feet.

“Hey Loren, are we takin’ those bags?”

“Is there any reason to? Let’s just return it to the residents.”

There was no problem for one to claim the stolen goods one had recovered, but Loren
was not thick-skinned enough to do that, even if the goods were recovered directly
from the bandit’s hideout.

“Why? Don’t work for free!”

“We can also demand some rewards from the town. Just leave it to Lapis, she’ll work
out a good deal.”

Having said that, it looked like the guards who came to intercept the bandits had been
almost completely wiped out, and he had no idea who to negotiate rewards with.
Loren decided to also leave that to Lapis and turned his attention back to the bandit
he was currently stepping on.

The bandit was a man who looked to be near thirty years old. He seemed to have been
a bandit for quite a while: he was covered in scars, and his face was vicious even in his
unconscious state.

Even if he looked scary enough to frighten children, there was nothing he could do
while unconscious. Before he woke up, Loren decided to do what needed to be done:
he picked up a rope used to tie loot bags, and properly tied the bandit up, then threw
him over his shoulder.

“Eh? Is that an emergency ration?”

Having realized that they were about to bring that man somewhere, Gula asked.

“Emergency ration for whom… Ah, you mean you?”

“You also eat people?”

“Cannibalism is not my hobby. And I’ve heard that people don’t taste good.”

Gula’s face stiffened at Loren’s smooth comeback. She hadn’t expected that reply at all.

“From whom did you hear it?”

“A fellow mercenary who once got caught in a siege. The enemy was using starvation
tactics, so they had to eat whatever seemed to be edible… Well it’s nothing important.”

The odor coming from the bandit made Loren grimace. He smelled of sweat, filth, and
dirt. ‘Maintain personal hygiene, won’t you!’, Loren thought. But a hygienic bandit
probably didn’t exist anywhere in this world, so he just resigned himself to it.

“Is there any place where we can avoid public eyes? We don’t have much time.”

“How‘bout under the shadow of that ruined warehouse?”

Gula gestured at the place with her chin, and Loren headed there with slightly-
quickened steps, the bandit still on his shoulder, and Gula followed him. She seemed
to be interested in what he was planning to do. When Loren dropped the man to the
ground, leaned against the wall of the warehouse and unhurriedly opened his jacket
to pull out something, Gula generally understood his plan.

What Loren pulled out from his jacket was a knife. He held it in his right hand, blade
naked, and slapped the bandit with his left. Gula asked.

“You wanna to hack him? It’s a bit dirty, isn’t it?”

“Well, that depends on his endurance.”

The bandit’s eyes opened just a slit. Loren knelt down behind him, flickering the knife
in front of his eyes so that he could see it better.

The bandit looked around with slightly-opened eyes. His awareness seemed to still be
hazy, and he couldn’t grasp what kind of situation he was in. When he finally realized
that he was being tied and couldn’t move, and noticed Loren waving a naked knife in
front of him, he let out a short, small shriek.

“Don’t make a sound. If someone comes, I’ll have to deal with you real quick.”

Loren pushed the blade close to the man’s cheek and said. The cold steel blade seemed
to fully wake him up, and he paled.

Loren seemed pleased with that. He leaned in just a bit closer and whispered:

<“Well, I don’t have much time, and I don’t want to get my hands dirty.”>

‘What the hell are you planning to do?’, the bandit stared at Loren as if seeking for an
answer. He actually could guess, but just couldn’t make himself believe it.

Loren paid it no mind and continued:

“First of all, I’ll give you a quick demonstration about what will happen from now on
if you don’t answer my question.”

“P-please stop. Just ask what you want to ask!”

“For the sake of both of us, I hope you’ll tell the truth. I don’t have time for you to lie to
me. So, it’s better if you experience once what will happen if you lie or keep silence.
Easy to understand, isn’t it?”

Loren unhurriedly dragged the blade on the bandit’s cheek down to his lips. Tears
came out from the bandit’s eyes, and he even seemed to want to shake his head to beg
Loren to stop, Loren’s firm grip only allowed him to move his neck. A stiff, broken
whine leaked out from his mouth.

“I’m not an expert, so I’m not very good at this. Well, it’s probably enough though, so
enjoy it.”

The bandit let out a muffled scream and flailed his feet wildly. But as Loren was
straddling him, he was almost immobile, and he could only let Loren do whatever he
wanted without being able to resist.

“Uwah… So Loren even knows of these nasty things.”

Gula exclaimed. She was covering her face with her hands, but still peeked out from
behind her fingers to watch the scene. Meanwhile, Loren just continued his knife work
without a change in expression.
“In conclusion, interrogating an underling is not that worthwhile.”

Loren washed his blood-stained hands at a well by the road, dried them with a piece
of cloth torn off from the bandits’ clothes, and said. Gula frowned at him a little.

They had successfully intercepted the raid, but since the bandits were too efficient, it
didn’t make much of a difference. Half of the stolen goods were left behind, and Gula
killing off tens-odd bandits by herself were the only successes they could claim if they
had to.

As for the bandit Loren had captured, he was handed to the town officials while still
breathing. He was made to talk, of course, but after getting the information he thought
he needed from him, Loren could only let out a hollow laugh. Loren didn’t think the
surviving soldiers and town officials would be able to get anything out of him, but he
didn’t know of the bandit’s ultimate fate.

“He did have some useful information though. Well, if he didn’t lie.”

“I’d be impressed if he had balls to bullshit us after all that.”

Gula, who had been present at the scene, said with a shudder. Loren wondered why
an Evil God like her would say that, but there was fear in her eyes when she looked at
him, and her body did tremble. He couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.

“Was it really that nasty?”

It was Tizona who asked that question.

They were at a dining hall in the northern area of the town, which wasn’t damaged by
the raid. They were staying at a different inn this time, since they got evicted from the
previous one even after explaining about their circumstances.

Lapis had left to talk with the surviving town guards and officials, as Gula hated
troublesome things and Loren and Tizona weren’t confident about being able to
provide a good explanation. They were currently waiting for her to come back.

“I don’t think of it as something nasty anymore.”

“Isn’t it a common practice on the battlefield? It’s just a mean to extract intel from
captured enemies.”

Hearing Loren saying so, Gula turned her attention to Tizona, who was also a mercenary.
Tizona became flustered and waved her hand.

“I, that…”

“Is it not a common practice?”

“I’m basically just in charge of fighting. Dealing with prisoners is someone else’s
responsibility… I don’t know what they do.”

“Well, it’s surely not something for <Hellfire Sword> to do.”

That said, Tizona also wondered why the hell would they leave interrogations to
<Decapitating Wind>, but since she knew Loren would deny being that person if she
asked him, she only smiled vaguely at his remark.

“So, what’d you get from him?”

Gula seemed to be watching Tizona’s reactions still, but she changed the topic
nevertheless. Loren also found the topic of prisoner treatment annoying, so he jumped
at the chance.

“It’s not very useful.”

“That’s fine too. Just tell me.”

“First of all, the one I caught was on the lowest level of their gang, so he didn’t know
anything about their HQ.”

This was a common thing in large organizations. It was also an evidence of how big
this gang of bandits was.
“The ones attacking this time are based in one of the depots scattering in this area. All
the loot they get will be gathered there, and only the valuable ones are sent to HQ.”

“I’ve never heard of something like that before.”

Loren agreed with Tizona. Even though it was also a rather strange practice in itself,
the bandits in this world usually brought all their loot to their HQ. To have designated
depots for loot would require them to break up their force and base accordingly.

“And isn’t it strange to transport only valuable items to HQ? Bandits normally take all
they can, don’t they?”

“I think so too, but it seems credible since that guy did confess so. There will be people
coming from the HQ to appraise the loot and take some of the valuable ones back to
HQ. The rest will be left as the depot for those based there to do as they like.”

“That’s quite fair.”

“Are bandits supposed to be fair though?”

As Gula and Loren argued with each other, Tizona sat in silence with her head tilted in
puzzle.

Lapis returned just then. She seemed tired, so after spotting the group, she ordered
some drinks and joined them.

“You’ve worked hard. How was it?”

Loren asked, but Lapis raised her hand to signal him to stop and wait until their drinks
arrived. Tizona and Gula thought the report should come first, but since Loren left all
the troublesome decision-making to Lapis, he didn’t rush her.

Before long, the owner came carrying their drinks. Lapis drained her glass in one gulp,
exhaled heavily, turned toward the other waiting members, and finally started
speaking.

“Well, I was helped by understanding people.”

According to Lapis, handing over the captured bandit was also considered a big deal.
The town officials and guards believed that their party had repelled the bandits more
readily than expected, and so they thanked them, and easily accepted their demand
for reward.

Loren found their response a bit too lighthearted and got suspicious, but Lapis had a
different opinion:

“I think it’s better to just accept their gratitude quietly and get their cooperation,
instead of going against them and losing their goodwill.”

“Even if we’re asked to work with them on the town defense, we can’t. We’re in the
middle of a job ourselves.”

Tizona’s quest for the ruin expedition must take priority, thus repelling bandits was
just a side job. From Loren’s point of view, even if they were asked to work with the
town, they must reject it.

“That’s true. So, I think we should let Tizona make the decision.”

“Me?”

Tizona pointed at herself, and Lapis nodded.

“Yes. You’re currently our client, so no one, but you should decide our course of actions.”

“What decision should I make?”

Tizona seemed to think that what Lapis said was not incorrect, so she calmly turned
towards Lapis and asked.

Lapis held the cup with both hands, raised it as if she was praying, and looked at Tizona:

“The town officials request, or rather expressed their wish, that we somehow deal
with the bandits attacking them this time.”

“What do you mean by ‘deal with’?”

“It means ‘deal with’. Obliterate them if possible. If not, deal enough damages to them
so that they cannot attack the town again.”

“Hm…”
Tizona folded her arms and considered this. The other three watched her, Loren with
an unchanged expression, Lapis with a frown, and Gula with a bit of astonishment on
her face.

“A quick question: it’s not like we can’t do it, right?”

“We’re still not sure about their force, but… no, it’s not like we can’t.”

From Tizona’s question, Gula wondered if she had known about her own and Lapis’
true power. But a short while later, Gula remembered that just Tizona’s power alone
would be enough to deal with the bandits.

“Loren and Gula have killed a number of them already, and we know about their
depot’s location from the captured bandit.”

“Ah, that’s right.”

“I’ll be troubled if we’re asked to tackle their HQ. But just a depot won’t take us much
time, will it?”

“Tizona, you’re amazing!”

Lapis said with no hint of exaggeration, and Loren choked a little hearing her exclaim.
Lapis and Gula turned to look at him as if asking what was wrong, but he waved his
hands at them to indicate that he was alright.

The truth was, he was surprised to hear the word ‘amazing’ coming from Lapis, but it
was difficult to explain that to them. The two girls didn’t seem to notice his predicament,
and didn’t ask more questions.

“But I think you also know that I’m not in a position to waste time here.”

“Then, let me tell you one good thing.”

Putting her glass down on the table and raising one finger, Lapis told them another
piece of

information:

“If we can complete their request, aside from the reward, the town will let us do what
we like with the loot found at the depot.”

“That’s very generous of them.”

If it wasn’t related to a specific job, the goods found at a bandits’ place would belong
to whoever attacked them. However, if the attack was done due to a request from a
client, the client normally claimed the stolen goods.

Since the town offered to reward them for dealing with the bandits’ depot, it would be
normal for them to claim the goods found there. But the town proposed to waive their
claim this time, meaning their party could take whatever they wanted once the job is
done.

If one didn’t consider the risk of dealing with an overwhelming number of bandits,
then this was an extremely good job. The biggest problem was getting rid of the bandits.

“If I say I want to take on their request, what will your answer be?”

“That depends on your remuneration, of course.”

Client decided the course of actions, but the contractor had the right to accept or
refuse it. Tizona also agreed with this point.

“One more gold coin for each then. How is it?”

Tizona asked Lapis, but she didn’t answer, instead she looked at Loren. She considered
him their party’s leader, and thus he should be the one to decide what to do.

“Do we have time for this?”

“It’ll be a problem if it takes seven or eight days.”

“It probably won’t take that long.”

“Then there’s no problem. So, do we accept this job?”

“Well, what should we do, I wonder?”

Lapis had already left the decision to him. As for Gula, when he glanced at her to check
her reaction, he saw her yawning. Apparently she wasn’t interested in the discussion
at all.

After a while, Gula finally finished yawning and noticed that Loren was staring at her.
She jumped in surprise, but immediately realized he was asking for her opinion and
nodded twice. It seemed like Gula had also left the decision-making to him.

Loren turned back to Tizona and answered:

“Alright. We’ll attack the bandits’ depot.”

“Good. We need a map of the place and its surroundings. Then we need to come up
with a plan.”

At Tizona’s words, Lapis started unfolding a map of the area around the post-town she
had procured somewhere on the table they were sitting at.
Comparing the information Loren got from the bandit with Lapis’ map, they found out
that the bandits’ depot was on a mountain. It would take them a day to get there on
foot, but they could arrive in no time on horseback.

Wanting to save as much time as possible, the party decided to borrow some horses
from the town. However, the town didn’t have enough horses for all of them, so they
had to make do with one fast horse and a sturdy carriage instead.

“It’ll be very simple if I burn them all down.”

Tizona said from inside the dangerously jolting carriage. Loren did agree with her, so
he had no objections to that.

However, the cost for a simple closure would be much less profit. As getting the loot
was also their aim, they should avoid burning techniques as much as possible.
Otherwise, it was very likely that the goods would be burned to ashes together with
the bandits and become useless.

“Can’t eat them if they become ashes…”

“Yes, so can you shut up?”

As Gula was about to say something stupid in front of Tizona, Loren used his hand to
block her mouth. Tizona watched them wrestling each other with a tilted head, while
Lapis looked back from the driver seat with a reproachful expression.

They needed a coachman to drive the carriage, but of course, the city would not allow
one to accompany them in an assault of a bandit hideout. Lapis had no choice but to
take on the job, but she seemed to be already regretting it.

“You look to be having fun…”

Lapis grumbled, and Gula answered sincerely:

“Yeah, it’s unexpectedly fun.”

Lapis not expecting such an answer got so surprised that she lost control of the carriage
for a moment, making it jolt violently. Gula found even that to be funny, and Loren had
to acknowledge that she was a kind of good travel company.

Their carriage reached the mountain range at last. Even though it was slower than
riding, it was still much faster than walking, as they managed to reach their destination
before sunset.

They parked the carriage at some distance from the depot. Loren got down and
muttered while looking in the depot’s direction:

“Isn’t it just the right time to attack?”

The sun was setting, the light was changing colors, and darkness would soon come.
Just like Loren said, it was the perfect time for an attack. They could move under the
cover of night.

“Do we have any attack plan?”

Lapis asked while tying the carriage to a tree. From the intel they had gathered, there
were about a hundred bandits at this depot. She thought it was a bit too many for four
people, but Tizona answered with no regards to her worry:

“I will charge in from the front.”

“That’s… Well, alright, let’s hear it all first.”

Number-wise, they were overwhelmed, and yet Tizona wanted to charge in head on?
Lapis wanted to complain, but it looked like she had a plan, so Lapis decided to hear
her out first.

“While I make a show to attract their attention, you sneak in and cause disorder from
the inside. If we attack from both inside and outside, they will fall into chaos, don’t
they?”

The plan was unexpectedly decent, so Lapis told Tizona:

“You really did think it through, didn’t you?”

Tizona snorted at her words with just a bit of annoyance. Lapis didn’t say anything,
but told her clearly through facial expression: ‘If you don’t want others to think of you
like that, then stop mentioning burning things at every chance possible’.

She then looked at Loren for his opinion:

“It’s not bad, right? Do you have any problems with the plan…?”

“Just that we suck at sneakin’ in.”

“Also, unlike you guys, I’ll die if I face a group of bandits alone.”

“Eh?”

Gula scowled at Loren as if asking what kind of stupid thing he was saying.

Loren was speaking his true thoughts, but from Gula’s point of view, what he said was
just an incomprehensible joke. Tizona seemed to have the same opinion, and was
looking at him with the same expression.

The truth was, Loren believed that if he were to face the group of bandits alone, he
would use up his strength sooner or later and die. Even when they intercepted the
town raid earlier, he was able to make it because he could entrust his back to Gula,
who, as an Evil God, was a being existing beyond common knowledge.

But the people around him didn’t seem to think so. Feeling troubled to be so
overestimated, Loren cleared his throat:

“Well, if Tizona can attract their attention with her flashy display, it’ll be alright, I
guess?”

“That’s right. And if we mess up, we simply have to crush’em.”

Lapis then concluded:

“We’re absolutely horrible at things like stealth and subtlety.”

They looked at each other and, except for Loren, everyone laughed at almost the same
time, even though the laughter was somewhat forced. It could be said they were all
feeling self-conscious because of Lapis’ words, and could only laugh to gloss it over.

“So, I’ll go in from the front and make a show.”

“And we’ll detour and sneak in as stealthily as possible from the rear.”

Tizona snapped her fingers and walked straight to the entrance of the depot. Loren
watched her go, then tried to move as silently as possible towards the back of the depot.

“Hey, someone’s coming.”

A short while later, a gaudily-dressed, redheaded woman appeared in front of the

bandits’ depot.

The depot was a fort-like structure surrounded by wooden fences, with two bandits
guarding the gate. The guard who noticed the woman picked up his bow while
wondering why would she come alone. He watched the other guard to also pick up his
own bow while knocking an arrow in his bow.

“An attack from the town?”

“If so, isn’t it strange that she’s alone?”

Even the guards knew that after they had their ways with almost all of the villages in
the surrounding area, they decided to touch the post-town a bit, but had failed. The
survivors scurried back and told them that they had been done in by only one or two
opponents, but everyone at the depot was half-suspicious of how absurd the story
sounded.

The sight of a woman unhurriedly walking towards them alone was a vivid reminder
of that story, but doubt was still dominating their hearts.

“Whatever. Just shoot first.”

“That’s right!”

The guards chose acting over thinking and released their arrows at the woman, who
still didn’t change her speed despite knowing that she had been spotted. They were
quite accurate for bandits, and their arrows went straight on a trajectory to pierce the
woman. They smiled, imagining the woman being dyed in blood and collapsing to the
ground. However, their faces immediately stiffened.

The woman didn’t put up any defenses or dodge the arrows, just continued walking
forward, but the arrows suddenly and violently burst into flames before they could
reach her and turned into ashes, which was then scattered by the wind.

“Ha?”

“What’s that just now?”

They exclaimed like idiots. What happened before their eyes was so incomprehensible
and unbelievable. Tizona just stopped, smiled daringly at them and beckoned them
over in an act of provocation.

Having no patience whatsoever, the guards’ blood rushed to their heads at Tizona’s
gesture, and they shouted:

“I don’t know what she did, but she’s making fun of us!”

“Hey guys come out here and shoot her down!”

Other bandits burst out at their shouts, knocking arrows and firing at Tizona one after
another. Quite a large number of arrows rained down on Tizona’s head, but none
touched her; they were all burned to dust in a blink of an eye.

By the time the bandits realized that their attacks were futile, they shot almost all of
the arrows they had.

“Wh-what in the world is that woman?!”

“Hey, let’s call for reinforcement…”

Realizing that their arrows were useless and decided to call for backup, but their
decision came a bit late. Noticing that the rain of arrows had stopped, Tizona charged
at them.

The bandits were surprised to see the woman charging at them barehanded, but they
all had some experience in actual combat. Just as they dropped their bows and picked
up their swords and axes, one of them was suddenly engulfed in flames with no
warning. He burned into ashes right in front of their dumbfounded eyes, but things
didn’t end there. Another one was immediately covered in flames and burned out
without even the time to scream. Then yet another caught fire.

The bandits’ morale, which hadn’t been that high, collapsed.

“What the?! What’s happening?!”

“Don’t know, but that woman is no good!”

“Isn’t it magic?!”

They shouted while running inside and shut the gate. They unconsciously thought that
she wouldn’t be able to do anything if they closed the gate, but to Tizona, wooden gates
were no different from no gates.

“Let’s burn it a bit more flashy!”

As she spoke, Tizona changed from <<Roast>> to <<Heat>>, raised her hand high and
brought it down, and a wave of flame surged out. The bandits weren’t even aware of
her attack – they were burned down together with the gate by the deep red fire. The
flame spread to the wooden fence surrounding the depot and cast a brilliantly red light
in the darkness of the night.

“It’s begun.”

Loren watched the fire on the opposite side and muttered.

Believing it to be the signal to start their attack, Lapis began to walk into the depot,
but Loren grasped her shoulders to stop her.

“Aren’t we going in?”

“Let’s go in from the side. Not all of them went to the front.”

“That’s true, but… Isn’t coming from the side the same as coming from the back?”

“Well, that’s why we won’t go in from the back.”

Loren answered and tapped Gula’s shoulder, who was watching the situation beside
him, and pointed to the gate on the opposite site of where Tizona was attacking:

“Go eat and mess them up.”

“Leave it to me!”

Having obtained permission, Gula immediately charged at the gate without giving
Lapis time to stop her. The guards’ eyes widened as she jumped at them with way too
much energy, but their upper bodies immediately vanished as if being bitten off by
some gigantic beast. Their lower bodies also disappeared soon after as if being dug
out from the ground they had fallen on.

Loren watched the gate being grandly scooped out from where it was standing and
tapped at Lapis’ back, who had been watching Gula with her mouth wide-open:

“With this much uproar, the flank will be rather sparse. Let’s go.”

“This can only be called a tragedy… I have no sympathy for them, but still.”
Gula seemed to be unsatisfied with just the gate, so she began dismantling the fences.
Which was better, being burned to death or being eaten alive? Lapis was caught by
such thought while watching the fire burning yet higher and the fences being gouged
out.
In the end, Loren wondered if they used more force than necessary to deal with the
bandits.

Attacked from the front and the rear by Tizona’s fire and Gula’s Gluttony power, the
bandits weren’t able to regroup for a retaliation. They fell into disorder with no need
for interference from Loren and Lapis, couldn’t properly fight back, and ended up
either being burned to ashes or becoming food to some invisible stomach.

“Don’t kill them all, alright? Leave some that look high-ranked.”

Loren reminded. Tizona was worried about the fire spreading and had been fighting
as carefully as possible, but Gula was in high spirit and without his warning, she might
had eaten them all.

“I’ve no clue what high-ranked people look like though?”

“Those that look fatter, or have better equipment, or similar.”

“They al’ look the same to me.”

“The ones who don’t come out to intercept us and draw back inside.”

“Is that so?”

Choosing some better-looking bandits, Gula made them lose consciousness without
even touching them. Loren was concerned about how much of this could be explained
by the magician ruse, but Lapis didn’t seem to care, and Tizona was too preoccupied
with her own battle to even look in Gula’s direction, so they could probably feign
ignorance when asked.

Loren himself didn’t have to use his sword at all. Even though some bandits attacked
Lapis and him, all could be handled barehanded. Lapis never left his side, and didn’t
engage in the fights.
The sounds of battles began to calm down and before long, they completely stopped.
All that remained were piles of charred corpses and countless gouged marks on the
ground. Only one part of the structure left almost untouched.

There should have been nearly a hundred bandits at this depot, but only about ten
were still alive after the battle. The others had all been burned or eaten. Loren looked
around the battlefield and believed that none had escaped. Even if some had been able
to, their number would be too few to form a group, and they probably would return to
their HQ or end up dead on the road somewhere.

“I’ve left some alive like you said. What do we do with them?”

Gula asked while lighting up the magic lights. She had eaten some of their spirit, causing
them to lose consciousness. They would not wake up until Gula gave back what she
had eaten, or until they had recovered the loss by themselves. She had done the same
to him before, so Loren understood its effect very well.

“Let’s interrogate them, shall we?”

There was no other answer to Gula’s question. The town asked them to deal some
damages to this depot, and what they had done was more than enough. They could
end their job here and go back, but Loren thought that if they had gone through all the
trouble to destroy one depot, they might as well get some intel about the bandits’ HQ.

“You plan to do that again?”

Gula asked with a frown and shivered, but Loren shook his head. When they
intercepted the town raid earlier, Loren had captured and interrogated one of the
bandits to acquire intel about this depot. However, he was just an ex-mercenary
turned adventurer and torturing wasn’t his job.

Generally, only the tortured was subjected to pain during a torture session, but the act
also took a toll on the torturer’s physical and mental strength. It wouldn’t be the case
if the torturer liked it, but unfortunately Loren didn’t. In short, he was not very willing
to torture someone either.

Loren picked one amongst the surviving bandits and tied him up. After checking
multiple times to make sure he couldn’t move, Loren told Gula to wake him.

“Dun want to, y’know.”

Gula grumbled while returning what she had nibbled from the bandit. He regained
consciousness, but seemed unable to grasp the situation he was in at first: he looked
around with vacant eyes and squirmed on the ground. When he finally caught on, he
struggled like a worm and shouted:

“You! If you think you can just walk away doing this to me…”

“I am thinking exactly that. Why don’t you look around yourself?”

Loren kicked at the bandit’s stomach, making him cough violently. He pulled him up
by the head so that he could see his surroundings more clearly. Seeing how his base
had been changed, the bandit lost his words and stopped making a fuss.

“You seem to have understood the situation now.”

“How the hell did you…”

“We are the ones to ask questions, not you.”

Loren replied curtly and lightly (from his own point of view) slammed the bandit’s
head to the ground. Bone and meat hit the ground with a dull sound, and the bandit’s
head bled. The wound wasn’t deep, but head wounds always tended to bleed more.
The blood started drippomh down the bandit’s face, and he groaned in pain.

“Well, I only want to know one thing. Where is your HQ?”

“And what will you do when you know?”

Loren slammed his head again, this time with a bit more force. Being hit once more,
the shallow wound opened again and blood flowed more profusely.

“I don’t accept questions. Just obediently tell me what I want to hear.”

“I can’t. I’ll be killed.”

The bandit’s resolution seemed to start breaking after tasting Loren’s violence twice.
He slammed the trembling bandit’s head to the ground once more.

“That’s not an answer. Keep talking like that if you want to die. I don’t really have to
get the answer from you, you know. If you die, I’ll just show your corpse to another
guy and ask him.”

The wound had opened even more, and the bandit’s face was smeared in blood. His
nose seemed to have been broken by the impact: it was crooked, and wheezing breaths
were coming from his swollen lips. Loren asked him again:

“Talk. Where is your HQ?”

This bandit had said he would die if he told them and that was a proof he knew where
their HQ was.

If he didn’t know, he would just have said so. That would be a good enough answer for
Loren whether it was true or not, and he wouldn’t use unnecessary violence.

But as the bandit seemed to know, Loren wouldn’t stop his questioning.

“If you talk, this will end with you in the town officials’ hands. If you don’t, be prepared
to make friends with the ground a few more times. Let’s see how much you can
endure.”

“I’ll die either way! Please help me!”

Bandits who formed gangs to attack towns and villages usually received capital
punishment once caught. Some might be turned into slaves and sold to work in mines,
but they would have to work until death there, so their ultimate fates would be the
same. In short, being handed to the post-town officials also meant death. The only
difference was an easy death or a difficult one after a harsh interrogation.

Either way, Loren had a hand in his fate. Cornered, the bandit begged Loren with a
pitiful voice, but Loren was unshakable:

“Isn’t it your fault, choosing to be a bandit? Just give up. Well, if you tell me about your
HQ, I’ll put in some good words to the officials for you. How about that? If you
cooperate that is.”

It probably wouldn’t change the bandit’s fate though. At least Loren had never heard
about any bandits being spared for giving intel, but he wasn’t obliged to tell this bandit
that.

“R-really?!”
“Yeah. But the officials will be the ones who make decisions, and I don’t know what
they’ll decide.”

“I’ll talk. If I do, can you let me go?”

The bandit smiled slyly, and Loren considered his options. They would get some rewards
for turning in the bandits, but the amount was insignificant. If he disregarded the
rewards and let this bandit go, he would get the information more easily, so it didn’t
seem such a bad deal.

But Loren immediately shook that idea off.

“No, just give up already. Haven’t you been doing whatever you want? It’s time to pay
back.”

“Damn…”

The bandit cursed. He realized that with him being tied and Loren’s grip, he wouldn’t
be able to escape.

“So, what do you choose?”

Loren asked. The bandit desperately searched for a way to get out of this alive, but no
convenient option came up.

A while later, after getting the intel he wanted, Loren asked Gula to make the bandit
lose consciousness, and began tying up another bandit.

“What are you doing?”

Thinking that the interrogation had ended, Lapis watched Loren bringing out another
bandit and asked.

The first bandit’s face was smeared with blood. Loren pulled him to the second bandit
and asked Gula to wake the second one up.

“I need to double-check what he’s said.”

Woken up by Gula, the second bandit also looked around with vacant eyes. He began
to struggle once he noticed the bloody form of his comrade, but of course he couldn’t
move.

“Are you awake? I want to ask you something. Where is your HQ? Answer right away.”

Loren grabbed the first bandit’s head and pulled it closer to warn that if he didn’t
speak, he would end up like him. The first bandit, unconscious and bloody, looked like
a corpse. It was easy to see from his crooked nose and swollen lips that he was treated
roughly. The second bandit immediately turned pale, thinking about how he might go
through the same treatment.
“This has become a kind of odd story, don’t you think?”

Loren muttered after finishing his interrogations, and the others all nodded to show
their agreement.

After Loren had questioned all the surviving bandits, they had checked the information
with Lapis’ map, and had found the approximate location of the bandits’ base. And that
was what Loren mentioned as ‘odd’.

“No matter how you look at it, this place is…”

“It’s where Tizona-chan’s ruin is.”

Lapis and Gula, who were huddling over and checking the map, pointed to the same
spot at the same time. That spot was at almost the same location as the unexplored
ruin Tizona told them.

The bandits Loren interrogated didn’t know what the HQ looked like, so they couldn’t
get any information about that. There were three possible reasons why the bandits’
HQ was at almost the same location as Tizona’s ruin.

“It’s possible that the bandits’ HQ and the ruin are at different locations.”

Lapis raised her index finger and said as if to organize her thoughts.

“If there really is an unexplored ruin at this place, it won’t be strange to set up a
bandits’ base next to it. They can do illegal diggings as a side job.”

People would only need one look to recognize an unexplored ruin even if they hadn’t
known of its existence before. If one had even just a little knowledge of how much
fortune an unexplored ruin could hide, they wouldn’t be able to leave it alone, even
considering the danger of illegal digging.
“In that case, the bandits won’t let the treasures be taken out of the ruin.”

Ruins were dangerous places by themselves. Aside from the guardians, all kinds of
monsters might settle in there. Adding bandits to that mix, and the level of danger and
troublesomeness just skyrocketed. Loren felt sickened just thought about it.

“Another possibility is that the bandits have settled in the ruin.”

Lapis raised her middle finger and said.

Tizona found it questionable:

“Is it even possible?”

“It’s unlikely for a ruin to be in pristine condition. If one part of it is damaged, monsters
usually come in through that and settle inside. If monsters can live there, then so do
bandits. Probably.”

Everyone wondered how she could equate bandits with monsters, but considering
how very annoying both were, it could indeed be said that they were similar.

Ruins’ guardians only attacked if you entered certain areas, so if you were careful, you
could still live there.

“But there are lots and lots of bandits, right? Can they all fit in one ruin?”

“Yea, so der’s another possibility.”

Lapis raised her ring finger and answered Gula’s question:

“The third possibility is, the bandits set their HQ up around the ruin.”

Lapis believed this to be the most troublesome of all possibilities. It was a fusion of
the first two possibilities, and it would take twice as much time to deal with.

This third theory would be unlikely to happen if the number of bandits at HQ was low.
However, from what they gathered, there were quite a lot of them, so this theory was
the most likely.

“Are there really a few hundreds of them at their HQ?”

“I think it’s a lie.”

All the interrogated bandits said the same, so its credibility was actually high. Loren
just didn’t want to believe it. Their HQ must be on the same scale as a town or a fort if
they really had a few hundred there. A bandit gang that big was so unexpected that it
was unbelievable.

And there was still another question: Where the hell did they gather that many people
from? Assimilating other bandit gangs in the region wouldn’t be enough. For this to be
possible they had to assimilate some remote villages.

“At this stage, it’ll be a big trouble if the kingdom doesn’t step up, won’t it?”

Multiple depots with a hundred at each, and a few hundred at the HQ, in total, the
member count of this bandit gang must have reached a thousand. The person who
could command that many people must be quite a character, and it was difficult to
imagine them as a nameless bandit.

“If I’m told that the head of this bandit gang is a spy from another country, I’ll believe
it.”

“It’s actually the most desired scenario, isn’t it?”

Loren sighed. Rather than the act of some character that suddenly appeared out of
nowhere, this being linked to subversive activities of another country was much more
comprehensible.

“Well, whether it’s an unnamed great man or a spy, what we have to do is still the same.”

“Do we rly have to? It’s too troublesome.”

“We can’t complete Tizona’s job if we don’t.”

Lapis chided at displeased Gula and clapped her hand to gather everyone’s attention.
When everyone had turned to her, she smiled like a blooming flower and said:

“Alright, it’s time for a long-awaited house search.”

Tizona and Gula had destroyed the depot quite splendidly, but they had been careful
to not damage what shouldn’t be damaged: the warehouses.
Valuable loot would be separated and transported to HQ, but they should be stored in
the warehouses before sorting, along with less-valuable goods.

Cash should be at the main building where the bandits lived, but Loren didn’t have
much expectation for it. When it came to ‘collecting valuable goods’, the first things
that came to mind would be jewelries and cash. Not to mention that they weren’t
bulky, so they should have been transported to HQ already. Even so, with about a
hundred bandits living at this depot, there should still be something left. They had
gone through the trouble of destroying the depot, so might as well take as much as
they can.

“In the worst case, we can recruit some people from the town to help us with
transporting.”

Loren knew from the beginning that they wouldn’t be able to carry everything out by
themselves. He was considering following the bandits’ method: carrying only the
valuable goods, and asked the townsfolk to help with the rest in exchange for some
cash.

“Lapis and I will check the warehouses. Gula and Tizona, you two search the main
building.”

“Aighty, leav’it to me.”

“Understood. Let’s do that.”

Under Loren’s command, Gula and Tizona jogged towards the half-destroyed main
building. Loren watched them go, then walked towards the warehouses with Lapis.

Lapis promptly ran around the heap of goods in the warehouse as soon as she entered.
She returned to Loren after a while and said:

“I’ve guessed as much, but there’s really not many good things here.”

Loren hadn’t looked very carefully himself, but it seemed like all that remained in this
warehouse was food and the bandits’ equipment. All were bulky, and not very valuable.

Loren was beginning to think that this was a letdown when Lapis came back bringing
a longsword and some daggers, together with a pair of gauntlets and a helmet.
“These are the most valuable.”

“What on Earth are these?”

From the first glance, they looked just like ordinary stuff sold at the stores around here.
Loren picked them up, believing that they must be special if Lapis had brought them
back, but he couldn’t see anything outstanding in particular. They also didn’t look very
well-maintained. Loren looked closely at the conspicuous dirt marks.

Lapis answered with both hands on her waist:

“These are infused with magic.”

“All of them?”

Lapis hadn’t found many, but these arms still made a decent number. A longsword cost
10 silver coins, and the price would be higher if it was infused with magic. The gauntlets
and helmet were only parts of an armor, but they could still be sold for a reasonable
amount. If they could find the complete set, they could earn gold coins selling them.

“What are these doing in a bandits’ warehouse?”

“Well, maybe they found them in Tizona’s ruin, and decided to use them.”

Many treasures slept in a ruin. There were ancient currencies, jewels, objects made
from rare materials, and magic-infused arms like the ones Lapis had found. If the
bandits had entered one part of Tizona’s ruin, then they were likely to scavenge it. The
items Lapis had found might have come from that.

“Or maybe they got them from attacking some caravans? We can’t know for sure.”

“How much will these cost?”

Even magic-infused items were varied in performance, so it wouldn’t be strange if

their values could be as different as heaven and earth. A dingy sword might be worth
dozens of gold coins, while a dazzlingly decorated armor could be as valuable as an
ordinary item. The ones found in this warehouse were plain and dingy, and they didn’t
look to be that valuable. Loren asked just in case, and Lapis folded her arms and looked
at the items with a pondering expression:
“Probably not that much, I think. They’re just a bit sharper or tougher than ordinary
items.”

Lapis said while picking up two daggers from the pile. They were sheathed in plain
leather scabbard, and looked just like ordinary daggers. Lapis gave the two seemingly-
average daggers to Loren:

“Only these two are a bit special. This is <Dragon Slayer>, and this is <Painful Addition>.”

Loren took the two daggers, thinking how amazing Lapis was to be able to appraise
items by her own eyes without having to visit an appraiser in some big city.

Both daggers looked very average, but Dragon Slayer had its pommel inset with a blue
gem, while a red gem adorned Painful Addition at the same spot.

“What did the person who made Dragon Slayer think when giving a dagger such a
specification? I don’t think there’s anyone who can come close enough to use it.”

“The person probably did it as a hobby? These look interesting, so maybe you should
keep them.”

Dragons were the highest-ranked amongst the monsters in this world. The highest-
ranked amongst the Dragon, the Ancient Dragons, which were said to have power
rivaled to the Gods. No one knew whether the story was true or not though. Facing the
Ancient Dragon generally meant death, and even a much lower ranked dragon would
require several parties of silver-ranked adventurers working together to subjugate,
but not before claiming multiple victims.

Using a dagger to fight such creatures was really a bad joke, but the name “Dragon
Slayer” did have a nice ring to it. Loren planned to add the two daggers to his equipment
if Tizona allowed it.
“Oh it’s alright, isn’t it? Weapons should be used… But, a dagger called <Dragon Slayer>?
Do we use it by throwing? The dragon’s breath has a longer range tough.”

Loren brought the valuable items back from the warehouses just as Tizona and Gula
returned from searching the main building. As Tizona was in the situation where every
single dime mattered, he was worried what she would say when he asked to keep
some items for his personal use, but she agreed so easily that it was a bit anti-climax.

“I’ll be thankful if you can consider them as part of the reward.”

“It’s fine for me. Can you discuss with Lapis about their worth?”

Loren answered without hesitation, and Tizona looked disappointed towards a smiling
Lapis, who was standing beside Loren. As Loren didn’t know much about goods
appraisal, Tizona was hoping to make a good deal out of the two daggers. However,
her plan fell to pieces when she was asked to discuss with Lapis.

Anyway, Tizona herself didn’t know that much about the value of magic-infused items,
so it was unclear who might have come out with a better deal should she negotiate
directly with Loren…

“So, what have you found?”

“Rather meh for a gang this size. But considering their territory being around the
borderlands, it’s not that bad I guess.”

Gula dropped the rather heavy bag she was carrying on her shoulder to the ground.
The clinking sound of coins coming from the bag let everyone know what it was
stuffed with.

“There are a few gold coins, some silver coins, and a lot of copper coins. There are
some gems too, but they don’t look to be very valuable.”
Gula wasn’t very satisfied, but Loren thought Tizona seemed relieved. The cash would
be enough to pay for their remuneration, and the rest Tizona could claim as her own.
They would go to pay the debt she was carrying, but just one look at her face let him
know whether it was enough or not.

“This is not enough, right?”

“Did I let it show? Sorry. Of course, it is not, but this is not our target anyway.”

Tizona’s target was the ruin, this depot was just a detour. Loren, however, believed
that to be able to earn a rather decent sum from just a detour was a success already.

“Then, do you want to take these goods and the captured bandits back to the post-
town?”

They had got what they needed, so there was no need to remain at this place anymore.
They needed to return to the town and let the officials know they had completed their
request. Furthermore, they also needed to deal with the loot they had salvaged: the
sum wasn’t that much, but they couldn’t travel carrying that many coins. There had to
be some way to store it.

And, the ten captured bandits also had to be delivered to the town officials.

“Taking these guys back to the town is so troublesome…”

They could be stuffed into the carriage if there were only one or two of them, but ten
would break the carriage. Ten people would also be too heavy to drag along, even with
everyone properly tied up. Loren also considered waking them up and made them
walk on their own, but then the party would have to match their speed, and it would
take longer to return to town.

“How about getting rid of half of them here?”

They might be able to manage with five of them by stuffing some into the carriage and
dragging the others along, but Loren couldn’t consent to Gula’s suggestion.

“We told them that we would hand them over to the officials during interrogation. It
doesn’t sit right with me to break a promise, so no.”

“You’re way too honest.”

Gula was shocked to see Loren keeping his promises even to bandits, but Lapis said:

“It’s what’s good about him.”

Since Loren didn’t consent to getting rid of half the bandits, Gula also didn’t force it.
But the problem of how to deal with them still remained.

“Seems like we have no choice but to make them walk back.”

“Won’t it take too much time? Will it be alright?”

“We didn’t expect the raid to end this early anyway. It’ll take about a day to walk back,
so it probably won’t be a problem time-wise.”

“So, should we tie them to the carriage?”

“Then if all of them cooperate to pull the carriage back, we won’t be able to move
forward, will we?”

What Lapis said was quite reasonable. There was no reason for the bandits to
obediently walk behind the carriage at all. They might also risk being killed by Loren
for doing it, but if all of them pulled at once, the carriage might stop or even overturn.
And if the carriage overturned, they might be able to escape if they were lucky.
Considering all this, they probably wouldn’t quietly walk behind the carriage to let
themselves be handed over.

“What should we do then?”

“Let’s wake them all up, then kill one in the most gruesome way possible.”

Lapis made that very unexpected statement with a very serious face. Loren looked
troubled, while Tizona looked at her with a startled expression.

“The last one in the line will be a good choice. Then Loren will say something like this:
‘If you think of something funny, you’ll become like him. So that you don’t forget, we’ll
pull him along together with you’.”

“I see. The corpse will get worse and worse being dragged, making the fear
unforgettable. It’s a good example.”
Gula nodded in agreement.

Tizona walked up to Loren, who was still scowling, and whispered into his ears:

“Loren, you… You should choose your party member more carefully.”

“Sometimes I think so too.”

Loren answered, then turned towards Lapis and Gula, who were eagerly waiting for
his approval, and shook his head to refuse that proposal.

“No. I said I’ll hand them all to the officials. No matter what, I won’t agree with killing
one to make an example.”

“Is that so? What do we do then?”

Lapis immediately asked, surprisingly she didn’t look to be very disappointed.

First of all, Loren asked Gula to wake up the bandits. After Gula returned their stolen
stamina, the bandits regained consciousness. Once they noticed Loren standing nearby,
their faces stiffened, and they began to try distancing themselves from him by any
means possible.

Loren watched them struggling for a while. He finally spoke, unhurriedly and clearly:

“Listen. Just obediently run after the carriage. You may find it harsh, but resign to it as
this is just reaping what you’ve sown. Don’t try anything funny. Just so you know, my
party wants to cull you, so that it’s easier to get back to town. I promised to hand you
over to the officials, so I’ve stopped them for now. But if anything happens, then that’s
it. And I can ensure you that if something happens, then what I did to you would
appear as a massage in comparison.”

Loren believed that rather than threatening, telling them the truth would be enough
to make them understand.

But the content of his speech was definitely threatening. The bandits stopped moving,
and looked at him with fear. He watched them and titled his head in puzzle:

“What’s this? I’ve just told you the truth due to kindness.”
The bandits’ teeth began chattering, and Loren scratched his head. He thought it’d be
kinder to let them know right from the beginning what might happen instead of letting
them have rebellious thoughts due to lack of understanding, but it seemed like the
result was somewhat different from expected. Loren wondered if he had done
something wrong. To worsen his worry, Lapis and Gula were, for some reason, smiling
especially bright at him and giving him thumbs up.

Thanks to Loren’s act, the bandits followed after the carriage exceptionally meekly. As
expected, they couldn’t let the bandits run continuously, so they took several breaks
throughout the night. As a result, when they returned to the post-town the next day,
the sun was already high in the sky.

Without even time for a rest, the party immediately handed over the bandits, who
were covered in wounds, then reported to the top officials about completing their
request.

An unexpected trouble occurred then: Since they had returned too soon, the officials
were questioning if they had just caught the bandits on the way and returned. Gula
took offense at their doubts, flew into a rage and wanted to eat them all. It resulted in
Loren frantically trying to calm her down while Lapis negotiated with the officials.

After Lapis told them to question the captured bandits and dispatched some people to
check the depot to verify their story, the town officials requested some time to do that.
For the time of questioning the bandits, Loren’s party was grounded.

The room they were forced to stay in was a first-class guest room. When Tizona and
Gula were relaxing on the sofa, Loren secretly asked Lapis

“About the depot, is it alright to leave it like that?”

They had left the depot as-is after taking what they needed, and Loren wondered if
they should have done some cleaning up.

Lapis answered after thinking for some time:

“It’s fine, isn’t it? There’s nothing left at that place.”

“Nothing… What if there’s something left?”

“There’s nothing left. The only things remaining are half-destroyed buildings.”
Normally, there should be corpses at the scene of the battle. But this time, it had been
Tizona and Gula who did the killing. Loren and Lapis barely had to lift a finger. Tizona
killed by burning, so the corpses were reduced to ashes and Gula devoured her
opponents, so nothing of them remained in this world.

If there had been corpses, they would need to deal with them somehow, so that they
didn’t attract beasts and monsters or got possessed by spirits and became undead. But
since there was none this time, Lapis believed they didn’t need to do anything.

“Doesn’t that also mean there’s no proof of us destroying the depot?”

“There are the ruined buildings and the captured bandits, so it’s alright.”

It would take some time, but Lapis believed everything would be alright. She didn’t
worry at all. The town officials had said they needed some time to verify their story,
and even though they were grounded, it didn’t seem as if they were being suspected:
their treatment was good. Watching Tizona and Gula relaxing on the soft sofa, Lapis
thought that there were no problems at all.

“We’ve already expected them to doubt our report. We’re not that pressed about time,
so resting here for a bit is not such a bad idea.”

“Well, maybe I should sleep for a bit.”

There was nothing they could do while being grounded, so Loren thought it would be
better to take some sleep to cure some fatigue. He sank into one of the sofas in the
room and closed his eyes. His breathing immediately became even.

“I should sleep too, I guess.”

“So will I, next to Loren… eh?!”

Gula said and stood up to walk towards Loren, but Lapis cast her a look, sharp enough
to kill a man on the spot. Noticing this Gula changed her mind and somewhat flustered
went back to her seat.

Lapis continued staring at her for a while to keep her in check. Once Gula had given
up and curled up on her sofa, Lapis went to sit next to Loren, leaned her head on his
shoulder and slowly closed her eyes.
Before long, the room grew quiet with no other sound but the breathing of four people.
Just as Lapis said, the post-town officials didn’t need that much time to verify their
story. They started interrogating the captured bandits and dispatching riders on fast
horses to the depot location right away. Loren’s party was proved to have raided and
destroyed the depot, and earned much gratitude from the town.

“Why’s it feel like they change their attitude wey too easily?”

Gula wondered. At first, she was still holding a grudge over the town’s earlier distrust,
but the sentiment immediately disappeared from her mind once she saw the meals
they had prepared to show their gratitude. She began to systematically and thoroughly
clear up the dishes with a great joy. Loren kept half an eye on her while talking to the
town’s top official, thinking that they were quite shrewd in dealing with this matter.

They were talking about the treatment of the captured bandits. He had made a
promise, so he was letting the officials know about the bandits’ cooperative attitude.

Loren was also refusing the remuneration from the town. The amount was not that
much, and they needed to repair the raided southern districts.

The refusal was actually to lay the groundwork for a request for aid.

“We would like to ask for your help instead.”

Loren told the fat man who was acting as the representative of the town officials.

The first thing he asked of them was to take the items scavenged from the bandits’
depot. Their party couldn’t carry them around, and they wouldn’t sell for much money.
He wanted the town to keep these items, and gave the parties some cashes for them.
When Loren said the town could decide the value of the items, Lapis looked a bit
unhappy, but the delegate immediately started appraising the items.

From the town officials’ perspective, the remuneration for Loren’s party was a done
deal: They had already decided how much to reward them, and it was unexpected that
the party refused the reward. This proposal of exchanging the items found in the
bandits’ depot for cash would actually be more profitable for the town, so there would
be no reason to reject it. They offered Loren’s party a sum slightly higher than the
intended remuneration and received a quick acceptance.

“If you’ve left the appraisal to me, we would have gotten 20% more.”

Lapis absentmindedly whispered to Loren, and he patted her head with a wry smile.
If he left the negotiation to Lapis, they would come out with a better deal as Lapis had
said. However, to Loren, this deal was just a bonus. Thus, he wanted to avoid wasting
time just to make the other party feel a bit of loss.

“Is this really alright? We can still discuss the reward now.”

“No, this is good enough. We have another request to ask, if you please.”

The second request was for the town to continue lending them the carriage they had
been using. Horses were expensive by themselves, and caring for them was also costly.
Renting a carriage was expensive, but Loren was asking the town to let them use one
free of charge, just like they had for the depot raid.

“We originally came here on a different job. We’re now a bit pressed on time after
completing your job.”

If they returned the carriage now, they would have to walk to their original
destination, and that would take two days. If they used the carriage, they could arrive
in half a day, or one day at most.

Loren wanted to use the carriage no matter what. Tizona was still alright with their
current schedule, but it was best to have some time to spare in case something
happened.

“We’re going to a rather dangerous place, so we might not be able to return the
carriage. What do you think?”

Loren wasn’t sure they could return the carriage at all, and he properly cautioned the
delegate about it beforehand.

The official thought about it, then replied with a smile:

“I see. Please feel free to use it.”

“We are the one asking for it, but is this really alright for you?”

Loren asked for a confirmation. A carriage was a valuable asset of a town. And yet, the
town delegate was willing to let them borrow it for free, even after being told that they
might not be able to return it.

“Yes. It’s not a problem. Even if you don’t return it, we won’t regret it. This town has
already received something much more valuable.”

With this job, the town had been able to remove the bandit threat while expending
almost nothing. They didn’t have to send out soldiers, and Loren’s party had refused
the reward. Even though they had to spit out some cash in exchange for the scavenged
items, it wouldn’t be difficult to earn back almost the same amount if they sold those
items.

Moreover, once the rumors about a hundred-odd bandits based near the town being
practically annihilated in one-day spread, no other bandit gangs would think about
coming to this region for a while. It wouldn’t be forever, but they would be able to
enjoy safety for a time. This was a nice bonus.

Loren had already considered all these benefits before proposing the request. The
town official also seemed to understand, and thus willingly accepted it.

Regardless of the actual context, Loren was thankful that they were able to borrow the
carriage. After enjoying the town’s hospitality, the party immediately loaded their
luggage into the carriage and left.

***

“I’m always the driver…”

Horse’s rein in hands, Lapis muttered with the tiniest bit of resentment.

“Because you’re the best at it.”

“Loren, at least come and sit with me please.”

“Me? But this will get in the way.”

The greatsword on Loren’s back was already a hindrance inside the carriage car, and
it would be even more troublesome at a narrow space like the driver coach. But if he
left it inside the car, he wouldn’t be able to react on time if something happened.

“This feels a bit like I’m being excluded, doesn’t it?”

“We don’t mean it… Well, it can’t be helped then.”

Loren decided to move and sit down next to Lapis. Even if his sword got in the way
and he had to put up with some discomfort, if it could help Lapis concentrate on
driving, then it had to be done.

Behind him, Gula was grinning and Tizona was watching them with great interest. He
tried his best to ignore both of them.

“The stares at my back is making me uncomfortable.”

“Do you want me to put them down?”

Lapis said, totally unlike a priest. Tizona turned her eyes away in panic, while Gula
immediately pretended to be asleep.

And so, after a smooth journey, the party reached their destination. The sun had
already set by then, and it was pitch dark. They stopped near the ruin.

“It went surprisingly well.”

“This gang assimilated all other gangs in the region, didn’t they? And we’ve just
destroyed one of their depots. There are probably no other bandits in this area.”

“No monsters have appeared either.”

“Monsters are typically more sensitive than humans.”

If humans could sense the presence of a being like Gula in the carriage, no one would
dare to meddle with them. Monsters were surely superior to humans in that regard.
As long as Gula didn’t try to hide her presence, they wouldn’t be attacked by monsters
unless something exceptional happened. In Loren’s opinion, while they were on the
move, there was nothing to be more thankful about than this.
On the other hand, if they needed to hunt monsters to earn money, Gula would need
to hide her presence – that was something they needed to pay attention to.

“So, what do we do now?”

To reach Tizona’s ruin, they needed to leave the main road and go a short distance
towards the mountain region.

Even though Loren knew it was best to attack at night, charging in without a plan and
no knowledge of the enemies’ numbers or organization couldn’t be considered a good
idea at all.

“To avoid being sticking out a mile, let’s spend the night here and scout the place by
eye. It’s troublesome, but our opponent is a large bandit gang. It won’t be strange if
they’re hiding something.”

In reply to Loren’s opinion, Lapis said:

“That’s quite a cautious move. I feel like we can just charge in with this party. If things
don’t go well, Gula and Tizona can finish it off by themselves, right?”

“I huh… Not really.”

“I’ll go if you tell me to. That said, Gula, are you really a magician? I’ve seen the leftover
marks at the depot. Just what kind of magic are you using?”

“It’s a secret. Only third-rate magicians reveal their skills, don’t they?”

Magicians could only use a limited number of spells. Even though each of their attacks
was very powerful, they normally didn’t fight alone like Gula had done at the depot.
The basic battling formation would involve a vanguard, who intercepted incoming
attacks to some extent in the magician’s place, while the magician himself commenced
a high-powered attack to bring down the enemies. But the marks Gula left at the depot
just didn’t look like what a magician’s attacks would cause.

“So you’re a rather high ranking magician? In that case, I think you should be more
well-known.”

“If’ya don’t wanna be known, ya’won’t. Der’re a lot of hidden geniuses in dis world,
right?”
“That… But if she is that powerful, she should have gained some fame, whether as a
magician or as an adventurer, right?”

“I’ve got nu interest in such things. I can’t eat fame.”

“This talk is fun and all, but don’t forget that we’re quite close to the enemies’ base.
It’ll be trouble if they discover us and strike first.”

Loren cut in and forcefully ended Tizona’s and Gula’s conversation, as he was feeling
a bit impatient. Gula seemed to understand that something bad would happen if her
true identity was revealed, so she was thoroughly dodging the topic. But the longer
this conversation dragged on, the chance of her slipping would become higher, so he
thought it was best to stop it right now.

“Rather than that, let’s hide our carriage asap. We also can’t cook, since there’ll be
smoke. If we can’t find any pit nearby, we’ll have to dig a hole to hide the carriage
ourselves.”

There were no bushes to hide the carriage in sight. If there was a gouge somewhere,
they could put the carriage there and camouflaged it with some plants to avoid the
bandits’ detection. But if they couldn’t find anything like that, they would have to dig
a hole as Loren had said.

“We’ll have to dig non-stop, without even time to sleep.”

“I’d hate that. Tizona-chan, let’s search with all our might, heh?”

“Understood. Let’s search.”

Tizona and Gula finally understood that this was not time for chatting and obediently
followed Loren’s instruction, immediately starting to search the area.

Deciding that he had successfully diverted Tizona’s attention, Loren quietly stroked
his own chest in relief while Lapis patted him on the back.
After a not-very-satisfying sleep, they had a similarly, not-very-satisfying breakfast,
after which the party closed in on the vicinity of the ruin. Their carriage was well-
hidden.

The sight made Loren feel sick.

Rather than being built on the mountain, the ruin was carved into the mountain itself.
The enormous entrance appeared as if it was stuck to the mountain surface, and could
be seen from a distance, giving it quite an unnatural look. Loren wondered why such
a construction hadn’t been discovered until now. But according to Tizona’s story, this
area was originally covered with tall trees, so maybe it wasn’t visible from afar back
then.

So, the reason why this ruin became noticeable now was the changes in its surrounding.

“It’s been turned into a splendid fortress.”

They hadn’t just cleared out the trees, there was a rather large fort-like building, and
a number of smaller buildings around. They were surrounded by a tall fence, which in
turn was surrounded by a deep moat. There were also some watchtowers, and human
figures could be seen both atop and below them. The fence gate was admirably thick,
and was also manned by several gatekeepers. Moreover, archers could be seen
everywhere, and there were even large catapults installed on the ground. Lapis hadn’t
exaggerated saying it had been turned into a fortress.

“The difficulty level of attacking this place would be comparable to attacking a castle,
right?”

Lapis asked Loren and Tizona, the professional soldiers. Loren groaned with a gloomy
look on his face, while Tizona scratched at her own cheek with a troubled expression.
The depot they attacked last time was also rather large in scale, but in comparison to
this fort, there was still a very big difference in numbers and armament.
This was far beyond the scale that mere for four people could handle. Even if asked,
Loren and Tizona couldn’t give any estimation about their chances.

“If it’s just bows, I’m confident I can use <<Heat>> to burn them, but… Targeting
something as big as a catapult is a different matter. <<Roast>> might work, but I need
to concentrate to aim. With such numbers, I might not be able to burn them all.”

(Xem: Some details for Nerds

<<Heat>> – can provide Tizona with a stable shielding against all incoming projectiles
of a small scale, arrows and axe alike. However, the payload of catapults is too massive
to be incinerated by <<Heat>> on contact and to counter that she has to use <<Roast>>,
which in turn requires careful aiming. With increasing number of incoming fire, the
task to focus and burn each payload becomes more and more challenging and there is
a risk that some of those would penetrate her defenses.)

“The moat is a nuisance. If they lift the bridge, we won’t be able to cross.”

Hiding in the forest surrounding the bandits’ HQ, Loren looked at the moat around it
with worry. It was probably too deep to wade through, and too wide to jump over. With
no equipment used in castle attacks, they had no means to cross it. Of course, there
was a bridge – the bandits also needed to go in and out – but it was the kind of bridge
that could be pulled up by ropes. In times of emergency, the bandits could pull the
bridge up to prevent anyone from crossing the moat. Swimming across was possible,
but if one really did have the chance to do so, they would just become easy targets for
the archers.

“I’m asking this just in case, but can you use your skills underwater, Tizona?”

“What a bad joke, Loren.”

Loren had thought that if Tizona could use her skills underwater, maybe she could pull
some stunt like burning the coming arrows while swimming. But it seemed like her
skills were not at the level of absurdity to allow fire to burn underwater.

“The ruin is behind that fence. To get to it, we must go past the bandits’ base, which is
very well-defended.”

“Gula, do you have any plan?”

Lapis asked. Gula hadn’t joined in their conversation at all. She was staring intently at
the ruin inside the bandits’ HQ, and looked to be thinking hard about something. After
hearing Lapis’ question, she finally realized that everyone was looking at her and
blinked.

“Eh? Ah… Plan? Can’t we just charge in from’der front?”

“Haven’t you listened to us talking?”

“Eh? We can’t? Then wat about climbing the mounti’n at the back of the ruin and
getting down frum der?”

The fence didn’t form a full circle, it stopped at the mountain where the ruin was
carved into. In short, the fence was U-shaped and attached to the mountain at the back.
What Gula proposed was to ignore the bandits’ base completely and get to the ruin via
the mountain instead.

Loren eyed the mountain. It was quite steep and rocky, rather difficult to climb or
descend. But at least, it looked possible to scale up and down to his untrained eyes.

“It’s our last resort, I guess.”

If all else failed, they would try it out.

Gula didn’t seem keen on pushing her plan, instead she just turned her eyes back to
the ruin. Bothered by her gaze and expression, Loren glanced at Lapis to send a silent
signal.

“Tizona, let’s get a bit closer. I want to look closer at their equipment and skills.”

“M-me?”

“Yes, please. Gula is bad at such things, and both Loren’s weapon and stature are large,
so he has more chance to be spotted.”

“Is that so? I see. Loren, is it alright for me to go?”

“Yes, please.”

At Loren’s nod, Tizona and Lapis slowly drew closer to the base while hiding under
the trees’ shadows.

Loren watched them go. Once they seemed to get far away enough, he whispered to
Gula, who still hadn’t taken her eyes off the ruin.

“What is it?”

“Probably… Someone is in there. Someone of my kind.”

The combination of the content and the serious tone of Gula’s answer gave Loren a
spectacular grimace. Needless to say that “Gula’s kind” meant Evil Gods. If anyone
heard that there was such a being at the place of their destination, they would surely
have a similar expression.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t know exactly who though – just know that they’re there. Best to be careful.”

“What good does this ‘be careful’ do when facing someone of your kind?”

The three Evil Gods Loren had encountered so far were Gluttony, Sloth, and Lust. All
were such powerful beings that they greatly affect all those in their vicinity, and they
also possessed great abilities. Gula was restraining her Evil God power as much as
possible while travelling with them, so Loren and Lapis sometimes forgot that she was
one of such beings. But the truth was, if she was to wield her power to its utmost, no
human would be able to stand against her. Loren knew that very well, so her warning
sounded shameless to his ears.

“I think there’s nothing better than being careful though?”

Gula looked at Loren and replied. She appeared somewhat hurt, but in Loren’s opinion,
if being careful or not being careful resulted in the same thing, then there was no use
in being careful.

“Do you know which Evil God that is?”

“I don’t know that much yet. But if it was Lust, I’d have known it right away.”

That reminded Loren of the being called the Evil God of Lust. Just the memory gave
him mental damage and slight nausea, but it was nothing strange. It made sense if the
only Evil God with a distinguishable aura was Lust.

“I think they’re related, these bandits and the Evil God.”

“All right. It’s probably either Greed or Pride.”

From Gula’s guess, if they manipulated the bandits to collect wealth, then it was Greed.
But if it was simply to stand above those bandits and used them at will, then it would
be Pride.

“Both are equally troublesome.”

“What are they like?”

Believing that it was best to have as much info as possible beforehand, Loren asked.
But Gula’s answer was ambiguous:

“No… It’s no good to have preconception, I think. Also, we were sealed hundreds of
years ago. Something won’t be the same anymore, so I would feel sorry if I give you
the wrong info.”

“Is that so…”

If the Evil God turned out to be different from the image Loren had instilled in his head
beforehand, the shock might be quite big. Gula was of the opinion that in case the
difference was severe enough to be fatal, it was better to not have too much information.
And Loren did agree.

“Rather than that, about a plan to attack that base. How about I use a bit of my power
to drink up the moat and eat the fence?”

Loren looked at the bandits’ base again. Water filled the moat to the brim with water;
it was not a normal amount. And the fence behind the moat was tall and sturdy. Loren
wondered where the hell Gula’s stomach was and how big it must be to be able to store
such things.

“It’s a nice idea, but only if Tizona is not with us.”

“Then, how about telling Tizona-chan to sneak into the ruin by herself?”
“That is…”

“We’ll cause a distraction at the front while Tizona-chan uses the opportunity to cross
the moat and secretly enter the ruin.”

“What do we do then?”

“After Tizona-chan has gotten in, we’ll go at them in one go.”

Gula said that once they met up, they could just lie to Tizona about how they had
broken through the defense.

“The enemies are bandits, so it won’t be strange if the damage is a bit more severe and
all of them are obliterated, right? In that case, I’ll stuff the runaways into my stomach
too. Won’t make much of a difference.”

Some bandits on their way back to base might flee once they saw the defense broken.
With this proposal, they wouldn’t be a problem.

This plan might be a bit too aggressive, but if there were no survivors, even if Tizona
doubted their explanation, she wouldn’t be able to confirm what had actually happened
when she wasn’t present. Therefore, they wouldn’t need to worry about being exposed
or so was what Gula’s plan.

“Tizona will say that she should come out if it’s a group battle, won’t she?”

“When it comes to fighting alone, Tizona-chan is the most powerful, isn’t she? If she
causes disturbance within the ruin, the bandits’ attention will be split between us and
her, right? Isn’t that a good reason to split up?”

Loren believed that this was not a bad plan. The only problem remained, if there could
be one, was how Tizona was going to cross the moat without a bridge. But if she could
swim, she could swim across while their group caused a big uproar.

“Let’s propose it to them then.”

If there were no other good plans, they might just follow through with this.

For now, they would wait for Lapis and Tizona to return. If they had no good ideas,
Loren and Gula would propose this plan.
Lapis and Tizona came back after some time. Loren told them about Gula’s idea, and
they readily accepted it. Loren was worried about Tizona crossing the moat, but
Tizona herself didn’t seem to care much.

The cause of Loren’s worry was Tizona’ over-the-top armor. He wondered if she really
could swim in it. He had been taught the technique to swim in armor during his
mercenary days as it was a necessary skill, but it was only for light ones made from
leather and such. Likewise, he just couldn’t imagine swimming in plate armor like
Tizona’s.

“It’s not that wide, so it’ll be fine even if I go underwater.”

The moat was too wide to leap over, but it seemed like Tizona believed that if one was
resolved to go underwater, it wasn’t impossible to hold one’s breath and cross over it.

“I can use <<Roast>> to create a slope while you guys cause an uproar.”

“That skill of yours is surely convenient.”

<<Roast>>, Tizona’s ability that could burn down everything within a designated range,
seemed to be able to reduce anything in its range into ashes, regardless of where it
was combustible or not. She could use it to turn part of the moat into a gentle slope;
then she just had to hold her breath and ran through.

“Is it alright if I cause a commotion after getting past the fence?”

“No, just try to get into the ruin. Going in first will be difficult, but some bandits will
follow you inside, relieving the pressure on our side.”

“Understood. Leave it to me.”

Tizona slapped at her own chest and said. Loren believed that with her skills, the likes
of these bandits wouldn’t be able to hinder her. But there was one thing he had to
clearly explain to her:

“Once you’ve entered the ruin, please don’t go overboard until we’ve joined you. The
leader is quite capable, being able to organize this many people.”

“That’s right. It’ll be a difficult feast for anyone who is not at the level of the rumored
<<Sword Demon>>. Even you and me won’t stand a chance fighting him alone.”

“No, I won’t stand a chance at all.”

Loren still stubbornly refused to be considered in the same rank as Tizona. Aside from
that, the course of action was decided, and Tizona began to move away from the gate
of the bandits’ HQ. The other three waited until it was safe to assume that she had
reached the designated location before commencing a flashy attack to attract the
bandits’ attention.

“I’m itching to put my skills to use.”

“No, Lapis, you can’t go all out in front of Tizona, right?’

They couldn’t afford to let Tizona, who would return to her mercenary company at
any given moment, witness anything abnormal. And Lapis using magic despite being
a priest was one of the most abnormal things. Such a sight would be so beyond common
sense and shocking enough that it would make Tizona question Lapis’ lineage.

In Gula’s case, they could actually make do by insisting that her power came from her
being a superior magician. Magicians normally didn’t join mercenary companies, so if
Tizona asked around after returning to her company, she wouldn’t be able to confirm
anything. Even if she happened to talk to another magician about Gula, they still had a
lot of excuses to use, like she was using unidentified spells excavated from ruins or
some kind magic-infused items.

“Well then, shall we start now?”

Lapis urged a short while later, in a tone that made everyone wonder if she did feel
anything about Loren’s jab earlier.

They needed to make a show to attract the bandits‘ attention, so hiding themselves
had become unnecessary at this point.
“Let’s make the most flashy ruckus we can!”

Loren gave a cry to raise everyone’s spirit and charged out from his hiding place under
the trees. Gula and Lapis followed after, but even though they had leapt out of the grove
with great force, they immediately slowed down and got back behind Loren for some
reason.

Without slowing down, Loren ran towards the bandits’ base while wondering if he
should act as a vanguard to support a “magician” called Gula and a “priest” called Lapis.

Some bandits appeared, weapons at the ready, to intercept the party.

[‘Onii-san, so we’re going to attack as flashy as possible. Got it!’]

Shayna suddenly spoke in Loren’s mind. He had no time to ask her what she was
planning to do. He ran to the moat and crossed swords with one of the bandits who
were coming out to meet them.

The difference in their skill level was glaringly obvious. Fire sparked when their swords
met, and the bandit’s sword shattered. Loren’s greatsword continued on without
losing momentum and cut the bandit into half diagonally from the shoulder.

Loren pulled the sword back to hack down at a spearhead thrusting at him. The head
of the spear-wielding bandit flew high into the sky with a splash of red, its eyes still
staring dumbfounded at the broken spear.

“What?!”

“A raid?! How many… three?!”

“Raise the bridge! Cut off their path and shoot at them with bows… uwaaah?!”

From this side of the moat, they could hear the bandits at the gate shouting. If the
bridge is pulled up, Loren wouldn’t be able to commence attacks, but they could let
Gula use her magic from this side. He was puzzled by the shrieks mixed in with the
bandits’ conversation though. Nevertheless, Loren wondered if he could manage to
cross the moat before the bridge was completely raised and ran through the bridge
with all his might.

“The bridge… doesn’t move?”

Loren was sure that he had heard orders about raising the bridge. But the bridge,
which was about 10m long, showed no signs of being lifted, and he was able to run
through it in one go. Crossing the moat was disappointingly easy to the point of being
anticlimactic, but the reason of this being the case was waiting for Loren on the other
side.

“Wh-what?! Hey, stop! I don’t understa… gyaaa!?”

“Don’t bite! Don’t eat me! Please don’t eat me!”

“What all of a sudden all these undead?!”

Running past the gate, he saw the bandits falling into chaos. The source of the turmoil
could be traced to the unexpected change in behavior of some individuals within the
fort. Loren noticed that some bandits were looking extremely ill and exhausted, and it
to his surprise they suddenly started attacking their more healthy counterparts. The
former had bloodless, bluish white skin and their eyes were blank, showing no signs
of life left within. They launched themselves at their fellows with unnatural speed,
clung on with both arms, and bit their bodies with white teeth. And these weren’t
isolated cases – from what Loren could see, they were everywhere.

The bandits weren’t going down without a fight either. Weapons in hands, they fought
back with determination. But the undead still reached out even with their arms or
head cut off, and the bandits at the gate fell into a state of panic.

“What on Earth is this?”

[‘I tried making some corpses using Energy Drain, then used the power of the King of
Death to raise them!’]

Shayna answered in Loren’s mind, her tone so bright that it was impossible to think
she was the culprit of this gruesome scene.

Loren was so distracted by trying to hide Gula’s Evil God origin and Lapis’ demonic
lineage that he had almost forgotten there was another existence inside himself, which
also needed to be concealed. Once the shackles called Tizona had come off, there was
no reason for Shayna to restrain herself anymore. Loren should have expected that
Shayna, who was relying on his soul to exist, would be enthusiastic to lend her power
to help him. He had really been too concerned about Gula and Lapis, really too much…
“Ah… so this is how it turns out.”

Seemed like Lapis had somehow perceived what was happening. Gula too. That was
why they had slowed down midway and let Loren take the lead.

“It’s gotten quite nasty, huh? I’ve kinda expected this, but still…”

“There are too many of them to fight honestly, not to mention that with their skill level,
we wouldn’t be able to ignore them… To Shayna, they’re just a large group of prey.”

Shayna was the highest-ranked undead, King of Death. Even though her power wasn’t
complete, it was still hopelessly strong to humans. Enough to turn a part of a couple
hundreds of soldiers into corpses and spread the damage. The average soldiers and
bandits were no match for the King of Death.

Loren idly mused about all that while cutting down two bandits with one swing of his
sword. He wiped the blood off the blade, then put it back to its scabbard. Dust was
blowing up at one corner of the base as if there had been an explosion, and underneath
the column of dust, a smallish dragon made of bones made its appearance. Not taking
time to consider, it just began to strike indiscriminately at the surrounding people and
buildings.
“Is that a… bone dragon? It must be.”

“I don’t think there’s a dragon corpse around here, so it can’t be a zombie dragon.”

“It’s small because there’s not enough materials, isn’t it?”

“Ye think? I’ve got no idea.”

Even iron-ranked adventurers would have no choice but to run away from such a
powerful monster like a bone dragon. The likes of bandits had no chance against it. No
matter how many of them were there, it would be just like insects to a human.

Not to mention, this bone dragon didn’t just look like a real dragon; the intimidating
air it was emitting didn’t feel half fake. No one would be able to hold their weapon
ready before it.

“Tizona has already gotten inside the ruin, right?”

“Probably? Even if she sees this, we can just tell her that an undead outbreak happened
here by coincidence and pretend to know nothing.”

“A bone dragon, appearing by coincidence?”

“No matter how persuasive we are, it won’t be enough to convince her, right?”

One of the horrible things about undead damage was that the victim would become
an undead themselves. In short, the damage would multiply endlessly.

Realizing this, Loren hurriedly turned towards Shayna mentally, but she casually
replied in an unconcerned tone:

[‘It’s alright, onii-san. I will properly put everyone down after a while.’]

They had come to raid a bandits’ base, but ended up causing an undead outbreak
instead. This was much less severe in terms of scale and damage. Shayna seemed to
have considered this much, and Loren was relieved at her words.

“Won’t they attack us?”

[‘It’s not normal to attack the king, right?’]

“It’s alright then… But isn’t this a bit too flashy?”

Things had gone out of control with this outbreak. This wasn’t about attracting bandits’
attention anymore. Of course, the chance of Tizona noticing this had decreased, but it
simply was because the undead had started wreaking havoc inside the base.

“Can’t be helped now… We can’t do anything about this.”

“Broken items are unsalvageable, but most cash and jewels can still be retrieved from
under the rubble.”

“Hmm… Can I go get myself something to eat?”

Gula, who had been very dissatisfied with the breakfast, said while looking longingly
at the bandits being crushed under collapsed buildings and eaten by their zombie
colleagues.

Normally, Loren would tell her to have her way with it. But he was worried about
Tizona, who had gone in first by herself. Also, there seemed to be an Evil God in there,
and facing them with Gula gave him a very different sense of security. So, he asked her
to hold on for now.

“Later. We need to follow Tizona first. It’ll be terrible if she gets into some troublesome
fight.”

“That’s harsh… You’ll have to let me eat delicious things when we return to Kapha.”

“…As long as you don’t make me go bankrupt.”

If he refused her, Gula wouldn’t budge. So Loren took a while to find an appropriate
way to answer her. And if she did eat without reservation later on and made a mess of
it, he thought he would have to rethink how to deal with her.

It was unclear if Gula could guess what Loren was thinking or not, but after looking at
the base a bit regretfully for the last time, she followed them and walked towards the
entrance of the ruin.
Walking through the bandits’ base wasn’t difficult at all.

After all, they didn’t have the luxury to care about Loren’s party right now. They were
busy trying to form groups to deal with the sudden attack of the undead, but parts of
the groups kept becoming undead themselves and attacking the rest. Thus, they just
couldn’t get the situation under control.

The only way to solve this was to deal with its source, Shayna the King of Death, but
she was currently wielding her power to cause this magnificent chaos from within
Loren. So no one could even come up with the idea that this human swordsman was
the source of this undead outbreak.

[‘Sucking out their life, killing them, then controlling their corpses… It’s a simple task
for me.’]

Shayna said. One could see the triumphant look on her face just from her tone, but
only Loren could hear her voice. Watching the horrible spectacle unfolding around
him while jogging towards the ruin’s entrance, Loren thought that it was surely a
power worth boasting about.

The smart ones among the bandits had already started to run away at this point. The
not-so-smart ones were still trying to intercept the undead’s attacks, but unless this
outbreak ended, they only had two options: running away or becoming undead
themselves. The base’s destruction was just a matter of time now.

Loren’s group passed through such chaos with no trouble, and before long, they
reached their originally intended destination: the ruin.

Its door was gigantic. It was several meters high, made of metal, and looked to be very
solid and very difficult to move. Loren looked at the closed door and wondered hard
about how the hell Tizona managed to get past it to go inside.

As if to answer him, Lapis pulled at his sleeve:

“What is it?”

“There’s another path.”

Lapis pointed to a normal wooden door installed directly into the mountain a little
distance away from the metal door. In front of the door there were two piles of ash
being scattered by the wind, the door itself had a burned hole, big enough for one
person to comfortably pass through.

“Why is there a door here?”

“Maybe… That door doesn’t open, so they had to dig into the wall and make this door?”

Ruin doors were normally locked, and the sealing methods varied: It could be via
physical locks, or via magical seals. It seemed like the bandits weren’t able to open the
door of this ruin, but still determined to make use of it. So, they destroyed a side wall
and inserted a regular door there to make an entrance.

“What the… such a brute force…”

“It looks like the walls weren’t strong enough to prevent being brocken through.”

“So it means this huge door won’t open.”

Loren touched the metal door, thinking it was such a waste of such a majestic door.
Feeling the cool sensation of metal under his palm, he gave it a little push, wondering
if it really wouldn’t open. The door was lighter than its size and thickness suggested,
and it opened inward a little.

“Hey, has it just opened?”

“Eh? Why do you open it?”

“You ask me why?”

Things meant to be opened should be open, right? Loren pushed at the door with a
little more strength. He felt no weight, and it easily opened further inside.

“Maybe Tizona opened it from inside?”

“Then what did she burn that big hole in the wooden door for?”

Loren peeked inside and took a look at the wall next to the metal door. The wooden
door with the big burned hole was there. Whichever doors one picked, he would end
up at the same place.

“Looks like there’s no one here.”

Loren said while slipping inside the ruin. Lapis and Gula followed him.

On the other side of the door there was a spacious entrance hall. Wide staircases fixed
to both the right side and the left sides of the walls were leading to the upper level.
They met at a landing of the first floor, then continued to rise and joined at the third
floor. The third floor looked to be a hall with handrails.

Several chandeliers hung down from the ceiling. They probably once served to
illuminate this large space, but now none of them were casting light. Instead, there
now were tallow candles erected here and there on the stairs’ railing and at each of
three floors, casting faint light. The walls looked to be coated with something, but after
centuries and years, they were all peeling now, revealing the stones. Still, the place
overall was very spacious, and gave off the ambiance of a noble’s mansion.

The party had originally expected that numerous bandits would enter the ruin, and
that they would have to start fighting as soon as they entered. However, thanks to
Shayna, the bandits had all become characters in the picture of Hell outside, and there
was no sign of anyone coming to meet them now.

“Tizona is deeper inside, I guess?”

Everyone strained their ears, but all they could hear were the shrieks and sounds of
the battle outside. Nothing could be detected coming from deep inside the ruin. If
Tizona was engaging in battle with enemies inside, they should have heard something.

Then all of a sudden, a shrill scream of a woman sounded.

“What?!”

“That sounded like Tizona.”

“It seems to come from the third floor.”

Tizona herself was an extremely powerful mercenary. At the very least, she wasn’t the
type to be hindered by or scream because of some bandits.

But when Loren thought about this, he remembered that there was one thing he forgot
to tell Lapis.

“That reminds me, there’s another being like Gula in this ruin.”

“Telling me that now is a bit…”

“Maybe she’s met it? Her scream sounded like she was in pain.”

“Anyway, let’s go to the third floor.”

Regardless of the cause of the scream, Loren believed that something must have
happened, and this was no time to speculate about the reason. They needed to get to
Tizona as soon as possible instead. He took the lead and began to run forward, leaping
over the stairs to reach the third floor, then looked around. The space was large, and
there were numerous doors on both the left side and the right side walls, but the
double door opposite the stairway was bigger than any of them. That door was
cracked open, so the scream might have come out through that.

Loren charged forward while unsheathing his greatsword. There was no time to open
the door, so he just smashed the sword into the door. A loud sound boomed, wood
chips flew, and Loren rushed in through the shattered door. Just when he realized that
he had stepped into a big room, he noticed Tizona sitting on the floor a little distance
ahead. He hurriedly got to her just to immediately turn away.

Tizona was sitting with her legs closed, and was hugging herself tightly. The armor she
had been wearing before entering the ruin was nowhere to be seen. Even the underwear
she should be wearing underneath it was now also gone.

In short, she was completely naked.

“I’ll follow after!”

Lapis rushed in after him. When she passed by, he gave her the piece of cloth he used to
wrap his greatsword and said. It’d be better if he had a cloak to give her, but
unfortunately he didn’t wear cloaks. His jacket was doubled as his armor, so he couldn’t
give it to her either. The cloth wrapping his greatsword was the only thing he could
give. The sword was unconventionally big, so the cloth was also quite large. It probably
wouldn’t be sufficient to cover a woman’s body, but it should help to some extent.

As if understanding Loren’s thought, Lapis took the cloth from him and wrapped it
around Tizona’s shoulders, partially covering her naked body. Tizona was still sitting
down unable to move, her head hung in shame.

“Oh? Who might this be? Is it another mouse?”

Still carefully avoiding looking at Tizona, Loren warily held his sword ready and
looked around. The room was vast with a tall ceiling, and deep inside it was a slightly
elevated platform, on which there was a throne-like, heavily and gaudily decorated
thing.

The figure sitting on the throne spoke, while Gula stood on guard beside Loren:

“Eh? Wouldn’t this be Gula? Why might you be here? And with humans at that. Isn’t
this preposterous?”

“I’m also finding this ridiculous. I’m sorry, but gathering bandits at such a place and
playing king? We haven’t met for a long time, have you leveled up on stupidity since?”

There was a bit of disgust on Gula’s face as well as in her tone. That surprised Loren,
but what made him even more surprised was the voice coming from the throne deep
inside the room. It was a male voice, but a bit high in pitch. It sounded almost like a
child’s voice to Loren.

“You’re still as sharp-tounged as ever, Gula. I’m not playing king. I AM a real king here.
They just gathered here without me even doing anything. It’s quite convenient to be
honest.”

“From the look of things here, I already know what you’ll answer if I ask you to quietly
come with me.”
“Gula? Are you gathering us? Should I obediently come with you? But too baaad, I think
I’ll do what suits me this time around.”

The owner of the voice stood up from his throne. He wasn’t very big, and with just
candlelight illuminating such a large room, Loren couldn’t see his face from this
distance. But then, the figure snapped his fingers rather dramatically, and a magic light
appeared right above him. With it, Loren could see him clearly.

“Loren, he’s Mammon Avarice, the one called Evil God of Greed.”

Loren gazed at this Evil God as Gula spoke. He was quite short and wouldn’t even reach
Loren’s stomach. He had fluffy curly brown hair, and his purple eyes, the characteristic
of Evil Gods, seemed to look down on Loren. Just as Loren had guessed from his voice,
he appeared to be a young boy. He also dressed like a kid from a well-off family, which
made the thing he was holding look even stranger.

“I should say ‘Nice to meet you’, should I? By the way, who is this human to you, Gula?
Bait, or portable snack?”

The boy called Mammon smiled. In his right hand was Tizona’s armor, and he was
twirling some small piece of cloth on the finger of his left hand.

“I’m just wondering, but is that the underwear of the naked lady over there?”

“You want it? You really want it don’t you, onii-san. But I won’t give it to you. Because
I’m Greed.”

The smile turned into a somehow murky laugh. Alert by the change, Loren turned the
sword in his hands towards Mammon, ready to strike at any time.
Seeing Loren’s sword pointed at him, Mammon made his move. He casually threw
Tizona’s armor and underwear behind his back and, without moving from his place,
turned his palm towards Loren.

Loren had been expecting him to use magic at any time, so he immediately jumped to
the side. But he began to wonder if he had misunderstood something.

One beat later, Mammon clenched the hand he was turning towards Loren, but nothing
seemed to happen in particular.

Loren kept his sword ready, but the feeling that he had guessed something incorrectly
still stuck in his head. Meanwhile, Mammon unclutched his fist and looked at Loren
with an impressed look on his face. He then turned towards Gula, who was glaring at
him with a rather grim expression:

“Hey Gula, your pawn is quite perceptive. I was a bit surprised. He could dodge my
<<Greedy Robbery>> on first sight.”

“Can I consider that as being attacked?”

Loren’s brain knew that his opponent was an Evil God, the same kind of being as Gula.
But in addition to Mammon having the appearance of a boy, his move earlier didn’t
cause any perceptible changes in Loren, so he wasn’t sure if he had been attacked or
not.

“Hm? What do you think, onii-chan?”

An innocent smile once again appeared on Mammon’s face, and he immediately turned
his palm towards Loren again.

Loren knew something was coming and leapt to the side, but he kicked at the ground
twice this time instead of once, and moved away a bigger distance than the last time.
“Heh, you’re amazing, onii-chan.”

Mammon said in an impressed tone and clenched his hand, which was turning in the
direction of Loren’s old location. Loren had now prepared to dodge as soon as
Mammon moved his hand, and he had also understood many things thanks to it.

“Gula, that was an Evil God’s power, wasn’t it?”

Loren asked without taking his eyes off Mammon. Gula nodded.

“Yeah. It’s <<Greedy Robbery>>, the power to forcibly take whatever he’s aware of.
You know when it’s activated, right?”

If Mammon’s movements weren’t faked, then Loren believed his power was activated
whenever he clenched his hand. From Loren’s impression, this power might seem to
be not that big of a deal compared to Gula’s or Luxuria’s at first glance, but it actually
was a rather nasty power.

No matter how powerful Gula’s and Luxuria’s powers were, it was still possible to
defend against them. But there was no way to defend against Mammon’s power.

The only thing he could do was moving away before Mammon clenched his hand. But
if it was during a serious battle where he wouldn’t know when Mammon would
activate it, it would be difficult to dodge.

Also, it was easy to imagine what kind of danger he would be in if his possession was
suddenly snatched during a battle. If it was his weapon or armor, his combat ability
would seriously decrease. If it was his boots, he might not even be able to move
depending on the ground’s condition.

Thinking that there was no choice but to land a swift attack before the Evil God could
use his power, Loren got his sword ready.

Mammon turned his palm towards Loren again then.

Loren immediately moved away, but Mammon didn’t pursue him. He aimed at Gula,
who was standing a bit away instead.

“Ah, not good!”

Gula received her death sentence as soon as she realized Mammon was aiming for her.
She reflexively raised her arms to defend herself, but it was meaningless before
Mammon’s power. He quickly clenched his hand, and Gula screamed and sat down.

“Has your taste in clothes changed, Gula? Have you always worn such showy things?”

Twirling on Mammon’s index finger was Gula’s hot pants, which she had been wearing
just a moment ago. The thing had already been lascivious enough when Gula was
wearing it, but seeing it twirling on the finger of an underage boy was an indescribable
scene, even if the boy was only appearing to be one. Loren continued to keep a steady
grip on his sword and keen eyes on Mammon, but his expression had turned wary.

But Gula, who had her clothes snatched away, couldn’t have the same reaction as
Loren. Blushing, she was trying to conceal her lower body as much as possible with
her hands while glaring at a grinning Mammon with murderous eyes.

“Mammon, you… Do you think you can get off scot-free, doing something that shouldn’t
be done…?”

“If I can’t get off scot-free, will you give me something?”

“Yes, a lot!!”

As if Mammon’s laugh made her snap, Gula screamed. A group of Predators, Gula’s
own Evil God power, appeared at the same time. These things ate everything in their
way, animate objects or not, and Gula had unleashed a large number of them in her
anger. Face twitching, Loren turned towards her, but what happened next made his
face twitch even more.

“Aren’t you hot-tempered, Gula? Is it age?”

While Mammon continued to twirl Gula’s hot pants with his left hand, he lightly swung
his right arm. Thanks to the power of the King of Death, Shayna, inside him, Gula’s
Predators were visible to him, and he witnessed an unbelievable scene: Mammon only
swung his right arm lightly, truly lightly, but all the mouths rushed in to bite him were
smashed in one strike. Loren was taken aback. He could only watch dumbfounded as
countless were smashed into pieces and disappeared.

“Not yet!”
It seemed that smashing the mouths didn’t cause any damage to Gula. As soon as one
mouth was smashed, another appeared, and they all rushed at Mammon. But even
with their number and speed, not even one could reach Mammon’s body. They were
all smashed and vanished into thin air with just a swing of his arm.

“You’ve gotten weaker, haven’t you, Gula? This… Ah, you’re quite full now, aren’t you?”

Mammon had come to some understanding by himself. No more mouths were coming
at him. Gula was still sitting on the ground, but her breathing had become laborious.
Grin still on his face, Mammon continued:

“The Evil God of Gluttony’s power is very strong, but it comes from hunger. Once you’re
full enough, you’ll become weak.”

“Gngh…”

Gula gritted her teeth, but was unable to make any comeback. She just silently glared
at Mammon.

“So you’re stronger if you are fast?”

Come to think of it, even Gluttony couldn’t continuously eat without stopping. It was
only natural that once her stomach was full, her power would calm down until she
became hungry again. In short, even though Gula wasn’t completely full now, her
stomach was quite full, and so she had become weaker compared to other Evil Gods –
At least this was what Loren guessed from Mammon’s words.

“Th-that’s one way to look at it, I guess?”

“I don’t fight kids.”

“Even if he’s a kid, he’s still an Evil God… But Mammon really is a kid, both in looks
and thinking.”

Gula said and looked at Mammon. He was playing with the hot pants he had snatched
from her, stretching and twirling it. Unthinkingly, she half rose up to attack him again,
but Mammon beat her to it. He carelessly threw the pants at Gula, and her attention
went after it.

“I’ll get the top next.”

As Gula thought she was over, Mammon turned his palm towards her. He just needed
to clench that hand, and her top would be peeled away this time. But before he could,
someone kicked at him from the flank with all their might.

“Lapis-chan?!”

Lapis, who should have been staying with Tizona, had moved to right beside Mammon
before anyone noticed. When he was preoccupied with Gula, she kicked at him with
no reservation. The impact should be quite big, but Mammon still held his ground
somehow. He immediately turned his palm from Gula to Lapis. Still in kicking stance,
Lapis was unable to dodge. Mammon clenched his hand, and she jumped back while
covering her chest with both arms, her cheeks lightly dyed in scarlet.

“What a surprise attack. And with such strength. Onee-san, are you human?”

Mammon asked, a piece of white cloth in his hand. He was about to spread it out to let
everyone know what it was, but he immediately threw the cloth away to dodge the
greatsword coming from the opposite side of Lapis’ kick. He turned to confront Loren.

“Another surprise attack? Isn’t this getting boring?”

“Shut up. You’re a bit too young to be taking off women’s clothes.”

“I’m older than you though, onii-san?”

“Then don’t call me onii-san!”

Loren slashed at Mammon with ferocious force. Mammon deftly repelled it with both
hands. Loren paid it no mind and slashed again, and Mammon showed discomfort for
the first time.

“You know it won’t work, don’t you?”

“Well, if one strike is not enough, then I’ll make ten or twenty strikes!”

Loren swung his swords, paying no mind about whether his strike would be received
or repelled. Even if it didn’t work, it would turn Mammon’s attention to himself, and
his attacks wouldn’t allow Mammon to use his power. With the greatsword coming at
him like thunder tearing through air, he wouldn’t be able to turn his attention to
anywhere else.
“Even if you slash at me a hundred times, you still won’t hit me… Gah?!”

Mammon was handling Loren’s attack with an easy smile, but a kick coming from
behind sent him flying. Loren shifted to avoid colliding with him. He bounced off the
ground once, then immediately got up.

“It’s the one-san with bad foot habit!”

The one that kicked him was Lapis, who had temporarily withdrawn from the frontline.
When his attention was on Loren, she had given him a kick as a return gift for earlier.

But even though Mammon had been sent flying a good distance away, he didn’t seem
to sustain any injuries. He immediately turned his palm towards Lapis again, but was
interrupted by a flurry of sword strikes from Loren, forcing him to turn to defense
again.

“You’re such a trouble, onii-san. That greatsword is in the way!”

In between defending himself, Mammon turned his palm towards Loren. Loren
immediately realized that he was trying to use his power to snatch his sword, but he
kept attacking without care. He had resolved to hit him with his bare hands if his
sword was snatched. Mammon looked at him with a mocking expression and clenched
his hand.

“Eh?”

Mammon’s dumbfounded exclaim reached Loren’s ears. He didn’t feel the sword
vanishing from his hands. He could still feel its solid weight. He swung it directly at
Mammon’s side.

Mammon belatedly rose his arm in defense, but his small body was blown to the side
as it had been earlier. Loren gave chase, thinking that even if he had defended against
that slash, he might have taken some damage due to the impact. But Mammon
immediately got up and flicked off Loren’s new strike.

“Why? Why?! Why can’t I get it?!”

Mammon sounded flustered. Without stopping his attacks, Loren looked down at his
hands. His greatsword, the target of Greed’s power, was still in his hands. It was an
unbelievable thing, not only for Loren but also for Mammon and Gula.
“How? No way!”

“Does it mean you’re opposing my power?”

“I don’t know! Whatever, just be silent and let me beat you up!”

The fact that he was unable to use his power sent Mammon into turmoil. Not missing
that chance, Loren began to invoke self-boost while continuing slashing at him with
even higher speed.
“Eh? What? That power is resistible?”

Gula was as confused as Mammon. Unlike the powers of other Evil Gods, Mammon’s
power wasn’t the offensive type, so she had always thought that it couldn’t be resisted.
Yet Loren’s greatsword wasn’t snatched away, and he was able to continue attacking
Mammon. This completely overturned her belief that the only way to fight against
Mammon’s power was to dodge.

After failing the first time, Mammon tried using his power on Loren again. But his
power continued to fail without showing any effect for the second, then the third time.

“The atmosphere is kinda strange.”

Gula folded her arms and turned to Lapis, who was hopping over. Her face was still red
because of whatever Mammon had snatched from her, but Gula couldn’t afford to tease
her right now. She had her own pants snatched away and if she made fun of Lapis, the
counterattack would be very harsh.

“Isn’t that power too unfair? Even if he can’t see it, as long as he knows it’s there, he
can snatch it. It’s just absurd.”

“Well, aren’t we Evil Gods? Our very own existence is absurd to begin with, isn’t it?”

Losing before Lapis’ threatening attitude, Gula uttered those excuse-like words while
wondering why she had to give excuses.

But as Lapis reached Gula’s place, she decided to bury the hatchet.

“But why wasn’t Loren’s greatsword snatched?”

“I wonder why? Even if it’s a magical equipment, as long as it’s a sword, it shouldn’t
escape Mammon’s recognition, and his power shouldn’t fail.”
Lapis nodded in agreement at Gula’s reply, but she suddenly recalled something and
asked again:

“Is it correct to say that if Mammon can’t recognize something, he can’t steal it?”

“Yeah, that’s correct. For example, if he thinks your jacket is your breast cover and
exercises his power on it, he won’t be able to snatch your breast cover.”

“You feel like attacking me while talking about examples?”

“Let’s stop here, Lapis-chan. I don’t think I can handle your attacks right now.”

She was dead serious. Gula, who had her hotpants snatched away and had nothing but
her arms to cover her fully exposed lower body, was in no state to respond to Lapi’s
attacks. If Lapis went serious, she might even send her flying in her half-naked state.
Gula wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

“Leaving that aside, according to your explanation, it’s very likely that Loren’s
greatsword isn’t actually a sword.”

“Eh that’s stupid. No matter how you look at it, it’s a sword, right?”

Even Lapis had the same opinion. But from the fact that Mammon’s power failed to
work on the sword, the most probable explanation Lapis could think of was that it
wasn’t a sword.

“What the hell is it then?”

“I took it from my parents’ warehouse. I don’t know its true form either.”

Loren’s greatsword looked like any other greatsword that could be found in any
weapon store in Kapha, but it was an open secret that it came from Lapis. Loren knew
it, but still continued to use it. If even Lapis, who brought that sword here, didn’t know
its true form, then no one did.

“What’s your appraisal of it?”

“It’s expensive.”

The truth was, Lapis, despite being able to appraise all kinds of goods, didn’t really
know much about Loren’s swords. She had given it to Loren knowing only that it must
be a very good item to be carefully stored in the deeper part of her parents’ warehouse.
She had never truly tried to get information about it.

While Lapis and Gula were talking, Loren continued to attack Mammon to prevent him
from directing his attention elsewhere.

“Even though my power doesn’t work, the lack of progress on your end is irritating.
Don’t you think so, onii-san?”

“I do not notice you injuring me either!”

In return for Mammon’s provocation, Loren provoked him right back. Even though he
was the one who started it, Mammon’s face still twisted in anger. Loren was amazed
at his lack of patience. He found a small opening in his storm of attacks, probably
caused by anger, and threw a kick to take advantage of it. It hit Mammon, who had
been focusing on repelling his sword, on the side.

Being a magical being, Mammon didn’t sustain much damage despite Loren putting
his strength into the kick. In fact, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect at all, except
for inciting a grunt from the Evil God. But the kick did halt his movements for a
moment, and Loren seized it to strike with his sword.

Unable to put up a defense on time, the sword struck Mammon’s shoulder, but the
blade wasn’t able to cut into his flesh. The Evil God had quite a high toughness, which
made Loren reflexively click his tongue, but Mammon let out a painful groan at the
first strike he received since the battle started.

“So it does hurt when you get hit!”

“This… Don’t make fun of me!”

Without losing his pace, Loren swung his sword, trying to give Mammon a follow up
strike. Mammon, who had received a clean hit, looked at him with eyes full of anger.
Aiming for the top of the Evil God’s head, Loren slashed with all his strength. Mammon
met the blade with his fist, which was trembling with power. It was the first time he
had used that much strength in this battle.

When the fist met the blade, both of them recoiled at almost the same time.
In that moment, Loren heard a small but ominous crack coming from his greatsword.
The blade couldn’t withstand the force of his slash and Mammon’s fist anymore. Loren
understood that, but he had no other means to attack the Evil God.

Hoping to at least be able to somehow finish Mammon off, Loren fixed his stance and
struck again. Meanwhile, Mammon’s fist started to bleed a little from the impact of
crashing against the blade, and the pain seemed to have made him tear up. But he still
clenched his fist to meet Loren’s sword.

Just like the first time, the impact of the crash sent both of them flying backwards. The
difference was the wound on Mammon’s fist had gaped open wider.

And then, Loren’s greatsword broke with a dull sound. Tiny fragments of the black
blade scattered in the air, and Mammon smiled widely despite the freely-flowing tears
caused by even more intense pain, a feeling of his certain victory prevailed.

However, Loren continued on to his next move with no care about the broken
fragments of his blade. The reason was, even though the blade had seemingly broken,
the weight of the sword in his hand hadn’t changed. It made Loren believe that the
blade was still there, and he swung the sword for a third strike without confirming the
state of the blade.

Mammon’s eyes widened at the seemingly bladeless sword coming at him. The sword
swung down coldly in a white flash of light and hit the left arm directly, which
Mammon had raised to defend himself. No attack had ever touched Mammon’s body
before, but this strike cut deeply into Mammon’s arm and even reached his shoulder.

The Evil God screamed in intense pain, and Loren knew this was the deciding moment.
Leaving the sword still biting into Mammon’s body, Loren let go of its handle and
reached into his jacket to pull out a dagger with a red gem inset in the pommel.

“I’ll give you this too! Savor the rich taste of pain!”

Even though Mammon’s body was protected by some kind of force, Loren reckoned
that since his greatsword was able to injure him, it would probably work if he struck
him again at the same places. He rushed at the Evil God, pulled his head towards
himself with his left hand and thrust the dagger into his flank.

Loren felt a strong force pushing at his chest just then, and was sent flying backwards.
He bounced on the ground a couple of times while hearing his ribs and sternum
creaking painfully and ominously, and even rolled on the ground a few times before
finally coming to a stop. The shock and the tumbling disoriented him, but he placed
both hands on the ground and pushed himself up. When he lifted his head to check the
result of his attacks, he saw Mammon writhing on the ground and shrieking in agony,
the dagger stuck deeply into his side. The greatsword that was biting into Mammon’s
shoulder was lying on the ground near him. It seemed to have come off due to some
impact.

“So, does it hurt? It’s a magic weapon that can amplify pain. Feel it to your heart’s
content.”

The dagger was one of the magic-infused items they had salvaged from the depot. It
could amplify the pain of the stabbed person by a couple magnitudes. Injured by both
the greatsword and the dagger, Mammon was bearing unimaginable pain, and was
writhing about on the ground.

It seemed like Evil Gods’ appearances did reflect their mentality. Loren had guessed
from Mammon’s words and behavior that he had the mentality of a child, and should
be extremely weak at pain. He had planned to take advantage of this weakness when
the timing was right, and the effect was immediate.

Still, it might not be the decisive blow. With that thought in mind, Loren creeped on
the ground, got near to Mammon, and grabbed the handle of his greatsword. The
sword originally had a black blade, which should have been broken. But there was
another white blade there in its place, slightly thinner but almost as long.
Loren put off thinking about the true form of his sword, which was able to cut through
the protection force of an Evil God and injured his body. Instead, he stood up, intending
to finish off Mammon. But when he turned around to face him, he saw Gula kneeling
on the floor as if protecting Mammon, who was sobbing due to the pain on his shoulders
and side.

“I’m sorry, but can you let him off? I’ll take responsibility, and will take him away, so I
want you to spare his life.”

“Keeping him alive gives me no benefit, doesn’t it?”

“Just make it work somehow.”

Gula prostrated herself before him. Loren’s expression turned troubled, and he looked
at Mammon behind her. He was still crying from the pain of his wounds even now, and
was looking at Loren with frightened eyes. But he endured the pain, sat up, then
kneeled down like Gula.

“S… Sorry.”

No matter what Mammon really was, Mammon’s appearance was still that of a child
and of one covered in blood, at that. The sight of such a child kneeling before him and
apologizing… It somehow felt like he was the bad guy here. Loren lowered his sword.

But Lapis and Tizona also had their feelings hurt because of this. Loren turned
towards them, but Lapis just shrugged without saying anything in particular. And
Tizona, who was wrapping herself in the cloth Loren had given her, gave him a single
nod. It seemed like they had let him make the decision. Loren looked down at the Evil
Gods prostrating before him.

“Can you promise that you will break up the bandit gang, and will not be hostile
towards us?”

“I understand…”

“Apologize to those you stripped too. Then let them hit you a few times, alright?”

To Loren, it was unforgivable to strip someone naked or steal someone’s pants.

Mammon nodded multiple times at the punishment Loren had issued for him.
“And we’ll confiscate the goods and treasures you’ve collected. I really thought this
was a ploy from some countries… I’ll report that you’ve escaped.”

Their purpose was to obtain the treasures inside the ruin, not to subjugate the bandits
or to hand their head over to the kingdom. Loren believed that it was good enough to
get the money and goods to fulfill Tizona’s purpose. Anything else was just extra, and
thus inconsequential.

The bandits wouldn’t be able to cause much damage by themselves. Their leader, an
Evil God, was now Gula’s responsibility, and would be under her supervision. Loren
thought that it should be safe.

“If we hand defeated Evil Gods over to the kingdom, they’ll either destroy the kingdom
or will be used by it, which could turn out to be even more troublesome.”

“It’s alright, isn’t it? As for hitting him, let’s wait until his wounds are healed. If we go
at it now, he might die.”

Lapis declared with an ice-cold smile. It seemed like she was still holding a grudge
over her stolen chest cover. Mammon looked at her with a tear-stained face, his eyes
were as frightened as when he looked at Loren.
And so, the story about the big bandit gang causing trouble at one corner of the
Wargenburg Kingdom came to an end.

Loren reported to the Adventurer Guild that the bandits had been dealt with. In his
report, the bandits were annihilated by an outburst of the undead. Even though they
had also fought some of the bandits themselves, there was no one else around by the
time they finished with them, and so the party assumed all other bandits had either
died or ran away.

This report would sound rather dubious coming from the party contracted to wipe
out the bandits, but Loren’s party hadn’t sign up for such a quest. They were
contracted to explore the ruin, so there were no issues. On the contrary, they actually
complained to the Guild instead. After all, the Guild hadn’t informed them about such
a large bandit base being near the ruin. They had received some money as an apology.

As for their original purpose in this adventure: the ruin had turned out to be just a
disappointment to Tizona.

When they entered the ruin, Loren and Lapis thought that it must had been a holiday
house of some noble or rich person from ancient times. There seemed to be several
other constructions in the surrounding, but only the main house was left standing
after all this time. In short, it was a rarely used building, and nothing of much value
was left inside. Moreover, the bandits had carried most of them out, selling some for
cash and storing the rest at their depots. The magic-infused items they had found
before were a part of these.

If the story ended on this, Tizona wouldn’t get the amount she needed and would have
to become some noble’s property. But luckily they successfully found some amounts
of bandits’ treasure.

This treasure included a large number of goods the bandits had gathered before
getting big, and things they had plundered after, all stored inside the ruin. They gave
a part of it to the citizens that had suffered because of the bandits, but were still left
with a rather large sum of money.

“Well, no matter how much we have left, it’s all Tizona’s.”

“Is it alright like that? I feel like she required a lot of rescuing. Nevertheless…”

“We don’t need to sell ourselves if we don’t have money. But if Tizona doesn’t have
money, she’ll have to sell herself, right? So for it to not end up like that, we’ll only take
our remuneration. The rest is yours, Tizona.”

“I’m sorry. I’m indebted to you. And… about what I saw back then.”

Tizona looked hesitant, and Loren scratched his head in trouble. Aside from Gula and
Mammon being Evil Gods, there was also Lapis sending an Evil God flying with a kick.
Furthermore, Tizona had seen Loren’s fighting style when he was battling the Evil God.
Of course, it was impossible to regard these matters as nothing, but it also didn’t mean
that they had to honestly explain everything to her.

While Loren was wondering what should be done, Tizona told him:

“If it’s not something you want to be asked about, then let’s decide that I haven’t seen
anything at all. I swear on my pride as a mercenary that if you don’t want to talk about
this, I will bring this story to my grave.”

“We appreciate that, but… Is that alright?”

“To be honest, I have the feeling that even if you tell me the truth, I won’t know how to
deal with it. So it’s easier and simpler to decide that I haven’t seen anything.”

“That’s quite smart of you.”

Tizona wasn’t sure how much she could believe in their story, and she thought that
such a story would be too absurd for a third party to believe in should she try to tell
them. And so, they parted ways without Loren having to do anything in particular to
muzzle her. Tizona, feeling grateful for their help this time, also promised that if they
needed her, they only needed to contact her, and she would come to their aids. But
Loren didn’t care much about this promise, since Tizona was returning to the
wandering life of a mercenary, and it would be difficult to contact her.

It ended here for Loren, but not for others. As if afraid that the runaway bandits would
rise up again, the Kingdom belatedly dispatched a team to chase and subjugate them.
They wouldn’t find any, but it wasn’t Loren’s duty to tell them that. Aside from the base
and the depot they had destroyed, there were several other depots. According to Lapis,
things would come back to normal once those depots were discovered and destroyed.

“On the other hand, is it really alright to leave Mammon to you?”

Mammon, who had the mentality of a kid but the power of an Evil God, was especially
troublesome. He was put under Gula’s custody, and she had led him somewhere no
one knew. Loren found it a bit questionable, and he stated this to Gula as such. She just
looked at him meekly and bowed deeply:

“At least he can’t do mischief at a place I don’t know.”

“Why does it sound like you think it’s ok for him to do bad things as long as it’s at a
place you know?”

“It’s alright, I make Lust watch him.”

Loren imagined the Evil God of Greed being watched over by the Evil God of Lust, and
hurriedly stopped his train of thoughts. Even though this reeked of crime, both of them
were beings beyond humans age-wise, and maybe humans’ ways of thinking and
standards shouldn’t be applied to them. It was better for Loren’s mental health to
think that way, so he hurriedly stopped elaboration on this matter.

“But what do you want to do, gathering other Evil Gods like this? Or should I say, why
do Evil Gods keep resurrecting here and there?”

“Don’t ask me why. Probably our seals had loosened, or someone had deliberately
untied them. I asked Mammon, but couldn’t really find out anything either. The reason
why I’m gathering them because it’s easier that way? Do you want to leave them
unchecked?”

Gula’s reasoning was quite persuasive. If left alone, no one knew what kind of havoc
they would wreck. And rounding them up was definitely not something humans could
do. In that case, having Gula, one of the Evil Gods, set out to gather them was much
better than other alternatives. There seemed to be no reason to stop her.

“How many more are there?”

“Well, we’ve had Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Greed, so there are 3 left. Envy, Pride, and
Rage.”

“Just hearing the names makes me not want to meet them. Why do you all haunt
Wargenburg and its vicinity to begin with?”

“Well, because the ancient kingdom’s capital is around here. Unless someone looks
into this thoroughly, I think appearing here is more probable?”

Just as the actual name of the ancient kingdom wasn’t known, there were no records
about the location of its cities, or what they were like. Lapis added that it wasn’t even
known if its capital was on the continent or not.

“Do you know the exact location?”

“The topography has changed a bit, so I can’t say for sure where it is. But I know it’s
somewhere around here.”

“If we can excavate it, we’ll discover unimaginable things.”

“Talking about unimaginable things, isn’t that ‘thing’ of Loren one of them?”

Gula pointed at the sword on Loren’s back. The black greatsword had been broken
during the fight with Mammon, revealing a white greatsword inside it. Being able to
cut through the protection of an Evil God like Mammon and injured him, the sword
was definitely not an average magic-infused weapon, but its true character was still
unknown. Its sharpness was far beyond common knowledge, and if it was dropped
down point-first, its weight was heavy enough to break stone and make it sink into the
earth. It would even sink deeper before halting due to its sharpness. The strange thing
was, if it was wrapped in cloth, the sharpness seemed to ‘lay low’: if Loren used it to
slash at something in this state, the cloth wouldn’t be cut. This was why Loren could
carry it around on his back. It would have been too dangerous to walk with otherwise.

“It’s too sharp for a greatsword.”

“I think so too. Its sharpness was too dangerous, so it was wrapped in magic-infused
iron to be concealed.”

“Greed’s power didn’t work probably because the magic-infused iron layer acted as its
scabbard. He acknowledged the scabbard as the sword, so his power didn’t work.”
“In short, I’ve been fighting with a sword’s scabbard up until now? I’ve never heard of
a scabbard with an edge before though.”

“Probably because this sword is something meant to be hidden.”

If the outer layer hadn’t been broken, Loren was sure he would have never noticed it.
Lapis guessed that the outer blade had probably been used to hide the inner blade,
but as it had been shattered, there was no way to confirm her guess now.

“It seems to be a rather valuable item, doesn’t it?”

“It is. Is it alright to give it to me?”

Loren knew that magic-infused iron blade was very rare. If it was used as just a cover,
there was no question about how valuable the inner blade was. He wondered if it was
alright for him to possess such a valuable item, but Lapis looked at him blankly:

“Hah? What do you mean? Isn’t it something you bought at a store?”

“Yeah, but it seems like only you know of its true character, Lapis.”

“Are you relying on me?”

Lapis looked at Loren with some kind of expectations in her eyes. Loren wondered for
a moment what the correct answer to her question would be, but in the end he decided
to tell her what he felt safe to say. Lapis was looking up at him, as Loren patted her
head and said:

“I am, and always will.”

“I’m very happy to hear that.”

Lapis looked a bit shy, but she smiled happily just as she had said she was.

“Yeah, he really relies on you a lot, financially… Ah, no, nothing.”

Gula blurted out one word too many, and received a freezing glance that was totally
opposite of the one she was giving Loren.

Loren watched them with some shock and reached into his trousers’ pocket. He
fiddled with the two gold coins he had received from Tizona as remuneration, and
thought that this job could be considered as a successful one.