If You Only Had One Life
If they only had one life, they would never charge in like this.
"We're going in."
"Entering!"
"Keep it down!"
"Scatter, grab only what you need, and get out fast. No getting greedy."
"Got it~"
Heurisk and roughly twenty other users slipped through the entrance of the treasure warehouse. The advance team that had already entered the nest would draw Lea's attention; they needed to strip the place bare and vanish before she came back. Fail, and there was no telling when she might return and slaughter every last one of them.
Heurisk reconstructed the warehouse's layout from what the informant had told him and from a post written by the player who had first looted the place—a user called Mountain Spirit.
The treasure warehouse is divided into three main zones.
The first was the gold-and-jewels zone: mountains of coin and gemstones piled high. Nothing particularly extraordinary, but cleaning out that section alone would make a person unimaginably rich. Mountain Spirit had been caught wandering the first zone and killed. Technically one of his party members had made it as far as the threshold of the second zone, but they hadn't managed to take a single thing, so it hardly counted.
The second was the equipment zone—Legendary-grade weapons, accessories, and armor stacked in heaps. Securing even one piece could flip the entire balance of power. That zone was non-negotiable. No amount of money could buy a Legendary item right now.
The third is… an unknown zone. But for now, focus on the second.
Heurisk shook his head firmly. The deeper you went, the more nested the zones became. Push too far and fail to escape, and you lost every scrap of loot you had stolen. For Heurisk, that was the worst possible outcome.
I do have a trump card, though.
"All right! Everyone scatter and loot as much as you—"
THOOM.
A deep, resonant hum rolled through the air.
"Huh?"
Something enormous settled in front of the users who had only just begun preparing to steal. A gray golem, a little over three meters tall. A mysterious crystal orb was set into its head in place of eyes, and a high-purity magic stone was embedded in its chest.
The users stirred, staring at the construct blocking their path.
"A golem?"
"What? Wasn't it supposed to be outside?"
"Did the informant feed us garbage?"
"How did it get here so fast?"
The golem's unscheduled appearance rattled them, but none of them were truly afraid. These were elites who had raided an Ogre Lord over ten meters tall. No one among them was green enough to flinch at a golem used for training newbies. The guild members who styled themselves rankers actually seemed to welcome the fight, drawing their Unique weapons.
"Nice! We'll handle this tin can. Guildmaster and the rest of you, start looting."
"Make sure you grab plenty for us too!"
"Wait. We should assess it before we attack—"
"You said we were in a hurry. Better to finish it quick and move on."
"Yeah. From the looks of it, all it can do is throw punches."
The golem hummed low in its chest.
"If we take this thing down, do we get to become the dragon's disciples too?"
"Oh! I like that. If we get caught, let's say that."
They roared with laughter. The three guild members in the lead charged in, grinning with absolute confidence.
And then—
A deep, building drone filled the chamber.
They had no idea.
"…! Get clear!"
They didn't know the golem was holding back—calibrating its power for the training of heroes.
Heurisk threw up a shield spell as fast as he could, but the magic erupting from the golem's eyes was faster.
Rank 4 Magic
⟨ Reverse Lightning ⟩
Lightning surged up from the ground and swallowed them whole.
A crackling hiss of residual electricity filled the air.
"Are you kidding me—the golem uses magic?"
Heurisk dumped a high-grade potion over his half-charred arm and ran. The golem that supposedly did nothing but throw punches had cast a spell. Even the informant who had half-lived in the nest hadn't known about that.
"Idiots. I told them to assess it first."
He clicked his tongue at his guild members' incompetence and ran harder. Half the guild members who had entered the warehouse were already dead—casualties of underestimating the golem. They had performed well enough in the Ogre Lord raid, and a single spell had wiped them out on the spot. Heurisk was appalled, but it wasn't hard to understand. They had let their guard down, and even to a mage of his caliber, that had been high-tier magic. Hit by a spell with no shield up, of course they died.
What was done was done. He needed to salvage the situation fast. The remaining ten had barely escaped and scattered in every direction, but there was no telling when the golem—or Lea—might come after them.
No idea when they'll show. Loot and get out. Now.
Heurisk swallowed hard at the heaps of gold coins and jewels carpeting the floor, but he never slowed. What he wanted wasn't money. It was a Legendary-grade weapon. Get the weapon, and the money would follow on its own.
"Aaaargh!!"
"Please, spare me! Oh my god—"
"I'm leaving! I'll leave, okay?!"
One by one, the sounds of guild members being caught by the golem echoed from the surrounding corridors. No matter how they ran, they were rats in a jar. Capture was only a matter of time—but Heurisk still didn't stop.
If I just get there… if I just make it…!
There was a way.
A grinding scrape of metal on stone.
"Here!"
Legendary equipment piled into mountains. Heurisk reached the second zone and frantically swept weapons into his subspace storage. There was no time to sort good from bad. Scoop everything first; sell or use it later. He could even hand some out to the guild members who, however stupidly, had bought him time—and shore up his forces that way.
"Yes!"
He looked at his stuffed subspace and felt a deep, satisfying rush. This was enough. Now he just had to get ou—
"Well, well."
"…Huh?"
"It really is that guy from back then."
At the very peak of the equipment mountain sat the nest's master, the lord of the treasure mountain, the supreme dragon who carried flame in her breast. Lea perched at the summit, staring straight down at Heurisk.
He swallowed hard and yanked a staff from his subspace. A yellow staff shaped uncannily like a finger. He had no idea what it actually did. All he knew was that it was a Legendary staff with some kind of active skill. That was the full extent of his knowledge.
Tap. Tap.
Lea's legs swung, kicking lightly against the treasure mountain. Heurisk broke out in a cold sweat. It was a similar pose to the one he'd seen during her fight with Nya-nya, but something about it sent a chill crawling up his spine.
My body…
He couldn't move.
"Because of you, Golemie is one-armed again."
"……"
"I never let it use magic 'cause I was worried it'd break. And look—it actually broke."
"……"
"Hmm? Reattaching that arm is a real pain, you know. You gonna take responsibility?"
"…Just reattach it yourself."
"Reattach it? With what?"
"That's—you figure it out… yourself!"
A deep thrum of power.
Heurisk's staff blazed with light. The strange yellow radiance pouring from it nullified the Dragon Fear that had been binding every living thing in place. Free again, Heurisk scrambled backward, trying to put enough distance between them to use his trump card.
"Ohh?"
Interest kindled in Lea's eyes.
"I guess a hero really is a hero, huh? Guys who use the Sixth Finger aren't exactly common, y'know."
"Fortunately, this one has no usage limit."
"Yeah. But the more you use it, the more lifespan it eats."
"!"
"Well, if the old hag picks you, your lifespan goes up a bit, so it's not that big a penalty—but still…"
Heurisk hastily stowed the staff and pulled out a new one: a bizarre piece with six purple magic stones set into it.
"…Boring."
Lea's eyes went cold again.
"Your life doesn't matter, but your lifespan does?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
"No. It's not."
"……"
"Even for heroes chosen by the Goddess, you lot have way too little fear."
"……"
"If you only had one life, you would never charge in like this."
Tap.
Lea went still.
"I've been thinking it over for a while, and looking at you, I'm sure of it now."
A hero who had taken a hit from Frost's End and come back perfectly fine. Heurisk looked even healthier than Nya-nya, the one who had cast the spell—not a trace of cold clung to him. That meant only one thing.
"You don't die. Do you?"
"……"
"More precisely, even if you die, you've got a way to come back good as new. That's why you can throw your lives away like they mean nothing."
"……"
"Did the old hag give you that ability? But does that even work?"
If something like that existed, why not hand it out from the start? Why wait until after the Demon King was dead…
Lea propped her chin on her hand and muttered to herself. Heurisk edged slowly backward.
This is dangerous.
He could feel how dangerous this conversation had become. There was no predicting how a high-ranking NPC would react once she grasped the truth. Even under normal circumstances their trust rating was rock bottom—and now he'd been caught red-handed mid-theft? A permanent kill-on-sight order wouldn't be surprising.
Heurisk decided it was time for the trump card he'd been saving.
"Think whatever you like about that. Well then—"
"?"
Designated Return.
Hidden Skill
⟨ Designated Return ⟩
Once per 24 hours
A rush of power tore through the air.
One of Heurisk's hidden abilities activated. Once every twenty-four hours—an active skill that transported him to a pre-designated location. Not a mere spell or ordinary skill but a Hidden Piece; as long as he had enough open space, he could move anytime, anywhere.
In an instant, Heurisk dropped into the middle of the northern region, a long way from Red Mountain. He patted himself down with shaking hands, then clenched the Legendary staff still gripped in his fist. The luxurious texture was unmistakable.
He had done it.
"…Hahahaha!!!"
Yes! It worked!
So what if his immortality had been exposed? So what if a dragon might put a permanent kill order on him?
What did any of that matter?
"I just never go near Red Mountain again, even if it kills me!"
Heurisk resolved that no matter what happened from now on, he would never set foot near Red Mountain.
"I'm the strongest now—"
He had spoken too soon.
A rush of power—and a crimson magic circle bloomed beneath his feet, hauling him back before he could finish the thought.
"…Huh?"
Heurisk opened his eyes in the exact same spot where he had used Designated Return.
"What a curious way to use teleportation magic. So that's how they do it these days?"
"What the hell just—"
"Anti-Teleport. Mixed with a reverse-summon formula."
Clack. Clack.
Lea bounced around him on light feet, as if a delightful idea had just occurred to her.
"So you really do come back even if you die."
In that case…
She grinned.
"What happens if I don't kill you—and just keep you locked up forever?"