Chapter 186

“We can just kill them all as they come.”

“……Pardon?”

“It means once about a thousand of them die, he’ll naturally figure out his place, so stop giving a crap about it, receptionist lady.”

“W-What kind of nonsense… Sword God! Sword God, say something to stop them! I know you all hold immense confidence in your skill, but what’s impossible is impossible!”

“Mmm, do I explicitly have to?”

“Of course you have to!”

So, I turned to press the other women on the matter.

“That’s what she says… would there be a problem?”

“Why ask about a problem at this late hour? In the first place, compared to the atrocities you committed on the Western Continent, what could possibly qualify as a problem?”

This was Shia.

“Ah, but I would slightly despise it if our current residence grew noisy…”

This was Ailet.

“Old man. Why don’t we just lop off the head of that Kesra piece of trash or whatever and smoothly migrate over to the Western Continent for good?”

This was Elizabeth.

“What a ridiculous suggestion. From what I’ve heard, Sword God, your face was completely exposed to the public while you were playing the part of a Demon King, wasn’t it?”

This was Sodin.

And following that, total chaos itself unfolded.

“Aang. Just cross over to the Western Continent!”

“If both the Northern and Western Continents are no-gos… then how about living on Bordeaux Island…?”

“Disis, you wretched bitch. Where do you think you’re wagging your tail?”

“Whatever, you flat-chest.”

“Disis. You have given me a sense of deep insult. How dare you mouthing the exact same statement as that bitch Yuribel…”

“Yuribel? Who the hell is that? Ouch! Don’t pinch! Don’t bite! Hey! If you’re a Demon King, fight like one!!”

I shrugged my shoulders as I watched them engage in their boisterous bickering.

“They say there’s no problem?”

“Wh-What a crowd of absolute psychos…”

“Well, since Manager Kate says it’s fine too…”

“When did I ever say that!?”

I snapped my fingers cleanly at Kelly, who was looking up at me with sparkling eyes like a puppy waiting for a treat.

“Kill them all.”

“Just as Orabeoni commands.”

Craaaaaaaaash!!

And then, a storm erupted. A steel storm where limbs scattered through the air.

Good grief, how brutal. They genuinely don’t give a crap about other people’s eyes watching, do they?

Well, it was fine. In the past, I would have dragged them to some secluded spot to process them subtly…

‘Lately, I feel like I don’t need to give a crap about things like that anymore.’

“Gah!”

“Kuaaaak!”

“Holy shit, this is insane…! A Blaster! And an ultimate top-tier one at that!!”

“Bobi! Darabe! You two help me choke that bitch first! As long as we process that crazy Elf bitch, the rest are nothing major!!”

At the blond bastard’s urgent shouts, the rest of our party burst into a flurry of laughter.

“What an idiot. That girl is strictly the weakest link among us.”

“Uh, that’s explicitly not true. Barring Orabeoni, I am number one, and she is number two.”

“Has this Western Continent rustic bitch lost her mind? With a mage like me standing right here, where do you think a muscle-brained ignoramus piece of trash gets off bragging about being number one?”

“Hah… This Noina Elf bitch whose lips are the only part of her alive is explicitly begging for a severe beating for the first time in a while…”

“Yep. You guys are all just leftovers compared to Leo.”

“A brat who can’t even run properly without her pet needs to sit out.”

“…What kind of absolute garbage are you creatures saying right in front of the West Demon King?”

“Tsk, tsk. A corpse talking. With that fake shell of a body, you’re neck and neck with those guys anyway.”

I raised my hands to calm down the party, which had degenerated into a loud ruckus once more.

“No, seriously. Why do you guys fight every single time a spare moment surfaces?”

At my words, the eight bickering women—no, including Kate, all nine of them—snapped their heads toward me simultaneously with expressions that explicitly screamed, ‘Does this bastard genuinely not know? Is he a literal airhead?’

“““…….”””

“Whoa! You startled me. What is this, a horror movie? Whatever, putting that aside, it looks like it’ll take a bit of time for Kelly to finish alone, so someone lend a hand. Who wants to go do some blade work?”

“Me! I’ll do it!!”

Leaping down from the back of the Saber-toothed Tiger, Elizabeth shouted vigorously before my permission could even be handed down.

“Leo! Kill them!!”

Every single day, she had only received trash-tier commands—like being told to steal a different avatar (and getting heavily beaten down by the avatar himself in the process), or being told to learn how to make coin from a summon so she could double her wealth in a week (and failing, which earned her the criticism of being worse than a dog). Now, thoroughly thrilled to finally receive a proper piece of work, the lion puffed out his chest and let out a savage roar.

Roaaaaaaar!!

Following that, he began to joyfully swing his bare fists without even drawing a weapon.

Boom! Craaaaash!!

With a mere two charges, he cleanly crumpled the orcs acting as main tanks along with their shields, reducing them to literal lumps of meat.

Crunch! Snap!!!

Immediately after, he moved through the remaining thugs who were cloaked in aura, turning them into bloody paste at a timeline of one breath per person.

Thwack! Crunch!

The three Blasters who had been grappling with Kelly turned stark white at that horrific sight.

“M-Madness…!”

“Shit…!!”

“W-What is that thing!? Mage! Mamoyel!! Magic! Q-Quick, escape!!”

At the leader’s desperate shout, a small, slender rabbit beastkin mage with silver hair (a male) who had been positioned in the rear quickly pulled out a scroll and screamed.

“Understood! Mass Telepor–!”

However, there was an individual who held absolutely zero intention of letting that slide.

“Absolute Command. Anti-Scroll.”

Frizzle! Whoosh!!

At Sodin’s single spoken phrase, the scroll the man had pulled out instantly ignited, turning completely into ash and dust.

The mage, who had been attempting to vacate the spot alongside the survivors using the scroll, realized belatedly exactly what had transpired, and his hands trembled violently.

“G-Goodness gracious! Absolute Command, and an Anti-Scroll at that! J-Just who on earth are you?”

Sodin flashed a gentle smile toward the mage.

“Purple Magic Tower. Professor. Sodin Cross.”

“Sodin… Sh-Sodin the Heavenly Flower!? The legendary Study Mage whom only the chosen elites within the Purple Magic Tower are permitted to grant an audience with? The exact one for whom a person must sell their entire house just to offer as a tribute for a single glimpse of her face? Y-You are her!?”

“…Since I’m a literal hermit who strictly stays dead inside the research lab, I didn’t know it had been distorted to that extent while I refrained from stepping outside for a few years. At any rate, judging by your somatic signs, it seems you, my junior, belong to the Amber lineage.”

“…Can you explicitly deduce that much just from the way I form my hand seals?”

“Whatever. Judging by your caliber, you don’t seem to belong to the main Amber branch… which sector are you from?”

“Th-The Amber Magic Tower.”

“Ah. The one located in Feldrand?”

“Y-Yes, ma’am.”

“If it’s Amber… ah, ‘Cheddar’ was stationed there. Is that bastard doing well?”

At her query, a clumsy smile surfaced on the mage’s face, his expression explicitly shifting into something that said, ‘Wait, I thought she was an enemy, but is she actually on our side!? Could I perhaps survive this?’

“…Are you well-acquainted with Professor Cheddar?”

“Mmm. Well, we share a rather special connection, so to speak. But professor? He’s a Professor? That moron is a Professor?”

“Y-Yes! It has been about fifteen years now! That very individual was my guiding professor back when I was a Cardinal!”

“Is that so? It feels like just yesterday that he was hitting on me during a Magic Tower exchange and I beat him down until he was at death’s door… For a complete half-wit like that to be instructing anyone. Truly, time is a magnificent thing.”

The mage’s smile stiffened completely.

“That half-wit Cheddar always walks around with long hair despite it not suiting him at all, right? That’s because he lacks both of his ears. I sheared them off to help him figure out his place, you see.”

“……!”

“If he unravels the curse, he could regenerate them… but with that dim-witted head of his, it will remain impossible until the day he dies.”

“……!!”

“What? Do you think I was too cruel?”

“N-No, not at all! I-If it were me, I wouldn’t have stopped at just slicing his ears; I would have turned him completely bald! Indubitably! Your actions were overtly c-c-merciful, ma’am!!”

“Turn him bald? Wow, you are a multiple times worse bastard than I anticipated, aren’t you? Even if you are a mage, how could you come up with such a horrific notion? And toward someone who served as your guiding professor, at that. Have you never heard the proverb, ‘It is better to have no head at all than to have no hair’?”

“Ah, th-th-that is…

Sodin raised her hand, cleanly cutting off the rabbit beastkin mage’s words.

“At any rate, I believe that is more than sufficient for an ice-breaking conversation… so why don’t you slowly accompany me over there to perform a minor piece of work? Your active cooperation is strictly essential for this.”

At the sudden proposal of a joint venture, the mage flinched and trembled violently.

“W-Work? And one that necessitates my cooperation, no less? This is far too sudden a proposal, so I am at a total loss as to how to react…”

“Ah, it’s nothing major. I just intend to open up the lid of your head and moderately remodel the contents inside. Since it is an exceptionally delicate piece of work, the level of difficulty fluctuates quite a bit depending on whether the subject actively cooperates or not, you see.”

“Pardon? What did you just say…?”

“I said I’m going to open the lid of your head. Are you hard of hearing?”

“……!!!!!!”

“Ah, there’s no necessity to worry so much. I’ll ensure you keep your life in exchange. I’m not a person who just massacres people recklessly like that. I’m simply going to plant a few implants inside your brain to help you become a good boy (?). It’s fine, right?”

“H-H-Hold on a moment. P-Professor. Th-That is far too horrific a treatment. I-I would conversely prefer that you just kill me.”

“Is that so? You figure dying is the better option? Well, if that is your wish.”

“Let’s see… you’re around the 6th level, correct? In that case, I’ll extract your eyes and heart to utilize as raw material for artifacts… and perhaps I’ll entrust your blood to a professor of alchemy to structure a homunculus medium?”

“The muscles, bones, and organs can be utilized as materials for a mana golem… and since your brain will be harvested, it can serve as a processing unit. I might as well seize this opportunity to craft an ego staff for myself with it.”

“Wow, since you’re a 6th-level mage, there is genuinely not a single part of you to throw away, is there?”

“H-H-H-Hold on a moment! Hold on a moment, Professor!!”

“Hmm?”

“The implants! I will take the implants!!”

“Good grief. What a bothersome person, shifting back and forth like this. Didn’t you mouth about wishing to die? Why did you alter your mind yet again?”

“But that option! That is not truly living even if I survive, is it?!”

“Naturally. You didn’t honestly figure I would simply let a piece of trash like you off the hook with a single clean slice to the neck, did you?”

“……!!!”

“I heard your party has been acting as hyenas inside the mid floors. The deeds of guys like you are always clear as day. After stripping your targets of every single thing they possessed, you probably raped the men and raped the women. Following that, you must have tormented them to the absolute threshold of human endurance before murdering and burying them. Or perhaps you tossed them out as monster food. Am I wrong?”

“…….”

“In fact, I heard your notoriety was quite high not just inside the labyrinth, but on the outside as well. I can see it clearly without even looking. You moderately targeted commoners to execute your psychotic whims, and whenever you were caught, you simply put on a show of receiving punishment before slipping away on bail. Since you possessed the skill and concurrently held the backing, the magistrates likely turned a blind eye because they didn’t wish to court inconvenience over a few commoners.”

“…….”

“To be perfectly frank… I am explicitly not a righteous Elf who goes out of her way to seek out and break bastards like you, but I am concurrently not a generous bitch who will turn a blind eye when one falls right into my lap like this, you see? Therefore, obediently allow yourself to be dismantled into raw materials so you can finally be of help to the world.”

At her final death sentence, the mage bit his lip forcefully and screamed as if he had been deeply wronged.

“Most of those unhinged atrocities were committed by those guys! All I executed was stepping to the rear to keep watch!”

“What distinction is there between that and executing it directly? Above all, the word ‘most’ strictly implies that you did not refrain from participating entirely, does it not?”

“Th-Then at the very least, allow me to meet a clean (?) death just like those guys! Why must I be the singular one subjected to such a horrific fate?!”

Sodin shrugged her shoulders as she looked over the corpses that had been cleanly sliced, torn, and shattered by the hands of Kelly and Leo.

“That’s because those creatures are merely ignorant ruffians who know nothing but blade work… whereas you are a mage walking the path of the magical arts, are you not?”

“What kind of forced logic is that…?”

“Those guys are mere beasts swayed by emotion and desire, but you explicitly moved only after rational contemplation. Meaning, you thought, you calculated, and you committed crimes simply because you figured you could get away with it. In that sense, you are multiple times more beyond redemption than those creatures. Therefore, you cannot simply go die. Absolutely not.”

“……!!”

She carried on with her words in a flat, tranquil manner, exactly as if she were delivering an explanation to a student… before finally letting her raw emotions surface for the first time.

“Phew. Genuinely, what a load of complete garbage. The Demon Kings descended precisely because of bastards like you. You goddamn sons of bitches.”

“……Ugh.”

“Therefore, let us use your fragmented physical shell to widely benefit the world, shall we? Do you understand? My shameful junior in the magical arts.”

Sensing the thick contempt and absolute loathing embedded within her words, the mage ultimately abandoned all hopes of begging for her mercy. And out of the choice between hell and an even more horrific hell, he selected the option that was relatively better.

“…I-I will go with the implants. Please, I beg of you…”

“Mmm…”

After maintaining her silence for a brief moment, a soft smile finally surfaced on her face.

At that calm smile, the rabbit beastkin mage began to sweat buckets, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.

“…Well, fine. Let’s proceed with that.”

“Y-Yes. Th-Th-Thank you. P-P-Professor.”

“Ah, but as you are well aware, this is a rather difficult piece of work to execute. If an error occurs, it results in a major catastrophe. Instead of becoming a ‘good boy,’ you’ll turn into a ‘half-wit,’ you see? Then what happens next?”

“M-My brain will be extracted, and the rest of my body will concurrently be utilized in a highly efficient manner.”

“Exactly. Therefore, you must assist me well.”

“A-Assist you…?”

“You have to act as my assistant, obviously. Adjust the angle of your head to make the procedure comfortable for me, and whenever I call out a specific implant number, you’ll pick it up and hand it over to my palm.”

“A-An assistant, you say? M-Meaning, I, the patient receiving the operation, must assist in the procedure of opening the lid of my own head and planting the implants while entirely maintaining my conscious awareness?”

“Huh? You despise the idea? Then we shall proceed with the dismantling after all…”

“I-I’ll do it! I shall execute my absolute best!!”

“Splendid attitude.”

She traced a clean circle around the base of the mage’s rabbit ears.

“You can feel it, right? I’m going to cut along this exact line. Now, let’s head over there. There is far too much dust flying around here, so executing the procedure will be difficult. Ah, right. Ailet.”

“Pardon? Me?”

“Yeah. Would you care to come and assist me for a bit?”

“Ah… yes. Gladly. In fact, I harbor a decent amount of curiosity regarding implant procedures myself.”

“Perfect. And… junior? What are you doing standing there? Follow us rapidly. I have already blocked Blink and Teleport, so do not even dream of executing any foolish stunts.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am… Uaaah…”

Ten minutes later.

The one-sided violence that went by the name of a battle concluded…

While Kelly and Chel were busy incinerating the corpses—or rather, the remnants of what used to be corpses—of the blond bastard’s party that lay scattered across the entire area, the door to the labyrinth guard post (which we had temporarily borrowed) swung open, and Sodin and Ailet made their appearance. Judging by the blood coating their gloves and attire, the ‘work’ had explicitly been rather rough.

“Are you finished?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

And following directly behind the two of them was the rabbit beastkin mage from before.

Outwardly, his height was short and his body build was incredibly fragile, making him appear infinitely gentle and weak, yet for a fellow like that to be a part of a party like this… Seriously, you can truly never judge a person strictly by their outward appearance.

Well, setting that aside.

“Didn’t you say you were going to make him good (?) to utilize him? I don’t see any part of him that looks particularly altered from before, though?”

“What I altered wasn’t his exterior, but his contents, after all.”

Saying those words, Sodin tightly gripped the fellow’s rabbit ears for all to see and yanked them upward with a swift motion.

At that exact moment, with a pop~ sound (the exact sound explicitly echoed out), a sound precisely like popping a cap off a beverage bottle resounded, and the lid of his head swung open exactly like the lid of a pot.

“Look.”

I scratched my head as a hollow chuckle escaped my lips.

“Well, that is certainly a refreshing sound.”