Chapter 101

“Wow, holy shit. Even Big Sis Chel or Kelly couldn’t do that. That’s insane.”

“Is it for real that he hasn’t even used mana yet?”

“They said he’s Master-level. Of course he’s a step above those two.”

“…This isn’t going to work.”

“But hey, doesn’t this mean our guild might finally hit the big time?”

“Right? There aren’t many guilds with a Master-level on their roster.”

“…I better stay on his good side.”

“How are old farts like us supposed to do that? Maybe if it were those pretty demi-human kids like Hinel.”

“Hinel? He’s a boy, though?”

“Exactly. Isn’t that better?”

“…What the hell is wrong with you?”

Anyway… once the atmosphere shifted and the Steel Body users and melee-focused Chosen Vocation combatants threw in the towel, the mages stepped forward.

“Do we get ten million mill if we succeed too?”

“Of course.”

“Heh… A mage is quite different from those empty-headed melee fighters, you know.”

“If you’re confident, you’re welcome to raise the stakes.”

“Fine. Ten million mill it is.”

The mages wore expressions full of confidence. Well, I could understand why.
Unlimited casting time. A stationary target. And to top it off, they didn’t even have to destroy the target—just push me back a little. To a mage, this was mouth-watering prey.

“Here I come.”

“Bring it.”

And then, the spells began to pour down.

“Flame.”

I swung Astraphe toward the oncoming fire.

Ching!

The flame, sliced by the blade, dissipated helplessly into the air.

“…Huh? It went out? He cut through fire?”

To be precise, I didn’t cut the fire itself, but the ‘Mystery’ of the magic. Most long-range magic can be dealt with this way.

The exceptions are secondary phenomena caused by the magic—for instance, a fire spread by a fire bolt, or rock fragments flying from the explosion of a fireball.

Since those are pure physical phenomena, they can’t be countered by cutting the Mystery within the spell.

Fortunately, they didn’t seem to realize the difference. They attacked me with magic itself instead of inducing secondary physical effects.

“Flame Bolt!”

“Fireball!”

“Flame Wall!”

“Ice Wall!”

“Blazing Earth!”

“Frozen Ground!”

“Flame Summoning!”

“Muspelheim!”

“Niflheim!”

I deflected the flying Flame Bolts and Fireballs with my sword without even needing to cut their Mystery. For area-of-effect spells like Flame Wall or Frozen Ground, I thrust and slashed at the Mystery itself to neutralize them.

Once I had nullified most of the basic spells, the incoming magic began to grow increasingly diverse.

They tried slamming me with physical-attribute magic layered with multiple reinforcements that had incredibly long casting times.

“Reinforce ×5, Focused Telekinesis—12-fold!”

They even threw in obscure, high-tier spells that were barely known.

“Annihilation Glory Ray!!”

Slash!

“Even that gets sliced!?”

“No, first of all, how is he cutting magic with a sword that isn’t even imbued with mana!?”

As I continued to cut, block, and deflect every single one, the mages’ expressions twisted further. Soon, bizarre and suspicious things started pouring out.

“Monofilament Cutter!”

“Plasma Cutter!”

“Laser Cutter!”

“Ultrasonic Cutter!”

“No, shit! How the hell do you block things like that!?”

It seemed they eventually decided that standardized level magic wasn’t enough. Two, then three, then five mages gathered together. Under the incredible assurance that ‘this has been researched enough to ensure stability,’ they began to combine and mesh composite spells.

These were the kinds of things that were powerful but utterly useless in real combat due to their horrific coordination and casting times.

“Charged Particle Cannon!”

Even a technique you’d expect from a giant robot made an appearance.

“Vibration of Void!”

“Resonance of Void!”

Then there were spells I couldn’t even begin to guess the nature of, and…

“Howling of Evil Soul!”

Things that felt downright unpleasant started crawling out as well.

Slice!!

“My god… that’s just the concept of ‘malice.’ How exactly do you cut a concept?”

“Dammit. There’s only one thing left. Shall we?”

“…Let’s do it.”

The absolute highlight was the final attempt, prepared and coordinated by seven mages who had been agonizing over it for over an hour…

“This is a Linear Cannon with an estimated output of 350 million joules. If this doesn’t work, we’ll at least admit that our magic can’t do anything to you.”

Right. It was what’s commonly known as a railgun.

Good grief. How do they even know about this? Wasn’t this world a fantasy medieval setting?

Well, sure, this place was a bit more advanced than the Northern Continent, feeling more like steampunk than medieval—but this isn’t something that can be explained away by steampunk.

A railgun. A railgun! Isn’t this jumping too far ahead of the times!?

The sky was already dark.

Under the moonlight of Kace (the moon) visible in the distance, six mages cast Flight and Physical Barrier.

The sight of them reaching out their hands while bright sparks crackled and hissed high in the air was quite a spectacle in its own right.

That is, if I ignored the sound of Chel grinding her teeth beside me, muttering, “I scraped together what little money we had and told them to make something useful for actual combat, and they were researching that crap?”

And then,

“Improved Linear Cannon!”

K-BOOOOOOOM!!!

Well, to cut to the conclusion,

I sliced through the railgun projectile, moving exactly one step in the process. It was the only achievement the guild combatants managed to pull off during the entire day’s test.

So, that makes sixty million mill. Not a bad haul.

“Aaargh! Overflow! My remaining mana is rampaging! Everyone, get back!”

K-boom! Rumble!

Well, I’m sure someone will take care of the cleanup.

And just like that, a month and a half passed.

Chel, Kelly, and I grew quite close during that time.

Kelly, who had been fond of me from the start, was a given, but even Chel reached a point where she started calling me ‘Orabeoni’ and showing her favor.

“Sword God Orabeoni. I have good news and bad news… which do you want to hear first?”

“Wait, I’ve been thinking about this for a while… Chel, aren’t you older than me even if we convert our ages? Why do you call me Orabeoni?”

For a split second, I saw an illusion of Chel’s smiling face cracking with a sharp snap.

“Sword God Orabeoni. This cute sworn sister of yours has good news and bad news… which do you want to hear first?”

“No, I mean…”

“…Sword God Orabeoni. This cute sworn sister of yours, who is also younger than you, has good news and bad news… which do you want to hear first?”

“Uh, yeah. Let’s, uh, go with the bad news first?”

She’s scary. Not even joking—she’s genuinely terrifying.

“The Grand Fleet departure scheduled for five months from now has been canceled.”

“…Why?”

“Monsters launched a simultaneous raid on the port cities of the Western Continent.”

“…Damn.”

“The strange thing is, they usually target people, but this time they didn’t even look at them. They only went after the large vessels docked in the harbors. Everyone’s in an uproar. They’re saying it was a raid specifically intended to stop the Grand Fleet. It’s the first time monsters have moved with such clear intent.”

“…Then can you sail in eleven months?”

“No. They’re saying it’ll take at least a year and a half. That’s how long they need to build new ships.”

“Blast it. The Grand Fleet was our last resort. Does that mean the Sanctuary is all that’s left?”

“In that sense, here’s the good news. I’ve managed to knock the cost of using Merina’s Sanctuary down to twenty-five billion mill.”

My eyes widened.

“That’s almost a quarter of the original price. That’s incredible.”

“Royalty and high-ranking nobles don’t visit Merina’s Sanctuary, so there’s no premium attached to it.”

“Even considering that, twenty-five billion is incredibly cheap.”

“Ahem. I exerted a little influence, you see.”

“Excellent. Truly excellent. Thanks, Chel.”

Chel flashed a giddy, helpless smile, clearly pleased by the praise, but she quickly turned serious again.

“Orabeoni. How much have you saved up so far?”

“Let’s see, probably around 4.2 billion mill?”

“Wow, 4.2 billion in a month and a half. That’s impressive.”

“Well, I’ve been working day and night. Still, I’ve got a long way to go.”

“A long way, huh… In that regard, Orabeoni, you want to do a job with me?”

“A job?”

“Yeah. It’s a request the Tubilan Empire’s Imperial Palace has been putting out since last year… a request to conquer a labyrinth. If we pull this off, you’ll walk away with ten to fifteen billion mill. How about it? Tempting?”

“I’m in. Absolutely.”

“The Lily Labyrinth?”

“Yeah. It appeared in Elkanpa (the Imperial Capital) two years ago… but it hasn’t been conquered at all in those two years. You know what happens if a labyrinth is just left alone, right?”

“A Monster Wave?”

“Bingo. That’s why there’s a lot of talk even in the capital.”

“If it’s the capital of the Empire, they should have plenty of power. Why has it been left alone until now?”

“It’s a powerful mental-type labyrinth.”

“Ah…”

“You just go crazy once you step inside. According to the survivors, some voice keeps trying to flip your brain inside out, telling you to ‘obey the Queen’ or whatever. The Empire sent in one Archmage and two Master-rank Steel Body users, but all three of them barely escaped with their lives before even clearing the first floor.”

“Whoa… that’s intense. But what’s this ‘Queen’?”

“It probably refers to the boss there, a Succubus Queen.”

“I see…”

“Plus, the problem is that there’s a limit on the number of people who can enter. Five. No more than five can enter at once.”

“So the gist is, to conquer the labyrinth, you need five hunters who have both strong resistance to mental attacks and the martial prowess to defeat high-tier monsters like a Succubus Queen, right?”

“Exactly.”

“No wonder it hasn’t been conquered.”

“That’s also why the Imperial Capital has been constantly sending requests to us. Merina Elves aren’t very susceptible to mental magic because of the ‘Blessing of Madness and Ferocity.’ Since madness has already taken up residence, there’s no room for anything else to get in.”

“Ah…”

“And I heard that you’re also immune to mental attacks, Orabeoni. That makes three of us already. Two high-tier Blasters and one Master.”

“I see….”

“Plus, I recently obtained an artifact that blocks mental magic. We’ll be taking Ailet, our guild’s chief mage, with that.”

Ailet… I recalled she was a mage who had just entered the 7th Circle. Not quite at Sodin’s level, but she had reached a considerable height.

“Then that’s four. Are we going in with four?”

“No. We need a full party of five.”

“Where are you going to find the last one?”

“I happen to know of a good talent. So, I’m planning on kidnapping them this time.”

Wait. What did she just say?

“Kidnapping? Not a request?”

“No. Kidnapping is right. That’s the only way we can make use of her.”

“Hmm… I guess there are circumstances I’m not aware of.”

“That’s why I was hoping you could help, Orabeoni.”

“With the kidnapping?”

“Yes. With the kidnapping.”

And so, two days later.

We were standing in front of one crazy bitch.

“Ah, don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I hate other races. I just hate the females of other races.”

I interjected without realizing it and asked the girl, “And why is that?”

At that, the girl glanced at my face, spread her arms, and did a little pirouette.

“This Oppa is handsome, isn’t he? Fine. I’ll tell you. As the saying goes, ‘A flower does not stay red for ten days; beauty is fleeting’. This beautiful face of mine will be finished in ten years just because I’m a human. Isn’t that too unfair? That they get to maintain their youth for hundreds of years just because they’re female demi-humans? That’s why I want to balance things out a bit.”

“……”

“So, whenever I get the chance, I’m going to kill every single female demi-human. Every last one of them. Without exception.”

…Right. Well, I figured she wouldn’t be normal.

It’s always like this with the women who show up around me.