The Unpierceable Phantom Glove

Golden Nest. Artifact testing chamber.

At its center stood a white-haired handsome man with his hands clasped behind his back. The Demon of Greed, Mamon.

Tap. Tap. He lightly tapped the marble floor with the toe of his shoe. It was polished so brightly that the ceiling reflected off its surface. A golden wave rippled outward from the point of impact like a shockwave spreading across water.

“Hmm. The protective magic is functioning perfectly.”

This should be enough to endure even if the Demon of Terror decided to cut loose a little.

‘...It can endure, right?’

When he considered the terrifying rumors—such as the one about Raven half-destroying the White Zone—he wondered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if it might still fall short. Still, they weren’t conducting a genuine sparring match here. It was merely an experiment to test the skill embedded in the artifact. He judged it would be fine.

Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if the testing ground suffered some damage, he could simply nag his contractor, Aurion, who had claimed he was going to wash his face and then proceeded to disappear for a full fifty minutes without showing so much as his nose.

With that slight anxiety lingering in his chest, Mamon lifted his gaze from the golden ripples and looked forward. The figure he had once feared and regarded with caution now made him smile the moment he saw that crow mask.

Mamon spoke kindly to his newly forged friend.

“Raven, are you prepared?”

“I am.”

Raven had already dispersed the black gloves he normally wore into ash and equipped the Phantom Glove in their place. He wriggled his fingers, still unfamiliar with the sensation, and nodded.

“Then let us begin. There is no need for you to moderate your strength… Well. Saying that outright would preserve my dignity, but claiming such bravado in front of you, Raven, would likely result in a rather unsightly outcome. Therefore, I shall refrain from saying it.”

Having finished his request to hold back somewhat, Mamon slowly raised both hands.

Clap, clap!

Clear clapping sounds rang through the wide chamber.

Boom!

In perfect sync, high-output magic lamps blazed to life behind him. The wall of darkness that had stood there crumbled away, revealing two massive silhouettes.

“...That thing.”

“Aren’t those the eyesore statues we saw on the way to the appraisal office, nyang!”

Sion and Yuri both frowned at the statues of Aurion, which scattered dazzling golden light in every direction the moment they touched the glow of the magic lamps. The reflected glare stung their eyes, but the true culprit was the statues’ grotesquely detailed, near-naked musculature. The giant leaf affixed to their lower halves in place of underwear was the final, perfect insult.

Clap, clap!

“Subdue them.”

At Mamon’s firm command and the two additional claps, the golden statues—standing on either side of him in bizarre poses that flaunted their golden muscles—snapped their closed eyes open. Blue pupils crafted from mana stones revealed themselves.

Kiiiiiiing.

The dragon runes engraved within those blue pupils spun rapidly, emitting a sound like an overheating engine.

Thud!

Without any preparatory motion whatsoever, the golden statues shot toward Raven like arrows loosed from a bow.

“Fast.”

But not so fast that he couldn’t respond.

Raven thrust both hands forward toward the golden statues hurtling at him, massive golden ripples still lingering at the spots where they had stood. Then he clenched both fists tightly—one aimed at the statue flying with its hips thrust out unpleasantly, the other at the one soaring with both hands behind its head to showcase its pectorals.

Crunch.

In that instant—

The statues froze.

“They stopped in mid-air, nyang!?”

“Ooh… Incredible. Is this the power of three hundred million? As expected of three hundred million…”

The golems hung suspended in the air, frozen solid roughly ten paces away from reaching Raven.

“...Huh?”

Mamon’s mouth fell slightly open in pure admiration as he witnessed the scene.

‘Did he really just stop those monstrous things using nothing more than a single 4.5-tier artifact?’

Knowing full well how heavy and powerful those suspicious statues were, Mamon’s shock ran deep. Each of the ‘Great (abridged) Aurion’s Golden Golem’ artifacts that Aurion had created possessed combat ability on par with—or rather, excessive for—adventurers between 6-tier and 7-tier.

Their durability was equally absurd. Unless ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one had reached the realm of a Weapon Master capable of infusing mana into weapons, completely destroying them was impossible. On top of that, because of their all-too-beautiful (?) appearance, Aurion had fallen into a paranoid delusion that someone might try to steal them. He had reinforced them with various spells and heavy synthetic steel, making them disgustingly, oppressively heavy.

They were probably comparable to the giant monstrosities found in the dungeon’s Red Zone. To halt such things with a mere three-hundred-million artifact… how could he not be astonished?

In the brief time it took Mamon to process this, Raven had already finished adapting. He juggled the golems through the air with the grace of a clown performing knife tricks. Watching him, Mamon slowly shook his head.

That demon was truly beyond all standard measurements.

And his contractor harbored similarly unimaginable potential.

“This is honestly ridiculous… Just how much mana do you possess?”

As he spoke, Mamon turned to look at Yuri, who stood far away in the safe zone. Her eyes sparkled with such fierce greed and possessiveness that, had Raven not been present, Mamon would have wanted to contract with her himself.

The power a demon could wield in the middle world was limited by the world’s laws to merely one-tenth of their original strength. Therefore, demons constantly worked in their own ways to increase their contractor’s mana capacity. A contractor’s mana was, after all, essentially the demon’s reserve fighting force.

This was why the few demon contractors who descended into the dungeon always carried excessive amounts of tasteless mana-recovery potions or liquid mana extracts mixed with sugar. From a demon’s perspective, an excellent contractor was either a human with vast usable mana, one with rapid mana recovery, or one wealthy enough to drink potions and elixirs like water.

‘...To think that small body contains enough mana to draw out the Demon of Terror’s power to this degree. It’s unbelievable.’

He could sense an unfathomably deep flow of mana emanating from the skin beneath her black robe.

‘Hehe. It has been a very long time since I’ve seen an adventurer with such promising growth.’

Even by Mamon’s standards—standards that included a contractor who was an off-the-charts servant of the gods—Yuri was an exceptionally fine demon contractor. At her young age, her mana already rivaled that of a lower arch-wizard.

In truth, he was mistakenly sensing Kkachi’s mana, which had half-mixed with Yuri’s, but that was beside the point.

“Aah, it really is beautiful. The more I look at it, the more entranced I become. The barrel, the cylinder… Haah. Perhaps I should have proposed trading it for the artifacts in my display case after all? What a shame.”

Mamon leaned against the counter of the artifact appraisal office, gazing at the life-sized replica of the Injector he had instantly molded from pure gold, and let out a small sigh. No matter how he thought about it, simply touching it had not satisfied his lust. If anything, it had only made his body burn hotter.

As he buried his face in the greed surging within his chest and groaned, a familiar—and extremely irritating—beautiful voice drifted down from above his head.

“Oho, my friend! What in the world happened to leave you looking so dejected?”

Mamon answered without even raising his head.

“Aurion. Did you enjoy your bath?”

“Khhm. Well, yes. Haha! I washed up most refreshingly! I also took the opportunity to groom myself a bit. Haha. After all, I am essentially the face of this Golden Nest. I can hardly walk around looking unkempt, can I? Indeed, quite so.”

“Haah… I see.”

Aurion flinched at the cold sigh Mamon released without even meeting his eyes. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. His dazzling golden hair swayed at the tips of his pure white, delicate hands.

‘Ugh, my friend, please forgive me. This time there really was a legitimate reason I had to avoid the situation.’

Since he hadn’t been slacking off this time, Aurion felt slightly wronged.

A few hours earlier. Golden Nest staff bathroom.

-Ding.

“...Yes? Wait, Lady Sith? What is this sudden nonsense? Lady Sith? Administrator? Goddess? Hello!?”

While fixing his disheveled clothes and hair after rolling around on the bathroom floor, Aurion had received this abrupt, incomprehensible order from the administrator. Because of it, he had truly, unavoidably, been forced to spend a leisurely moment in the staff lounge enjoying warm milk and boiled eggs!

When the boss explicitly told you to rest instead of work, how could a subordinate possibly disobey?

For that very reason, Aurion had cried that evening.

“Ugh…! Uuuuugh!”

(Aaah…! My friend!)

All while holding in his mouth the spicy soup Mamon had made while furious at Aurion’s rotten work ethic.

A vast space composed of countless window interfaces. It looked as though the world itself had been shattered and scattered across the void.

The floor was made of some unidentified transparent liquid. In its center, a small figure crouched, sending out faint ripples.

The woman wearing an oversized white hoodie that reached her knees diligently tapped at the air, sending a warning message to her precious worker. Then she let out a small sigh.

“Huu. Now I can finally breathe.”

Of all possible appearances, why did the sub-administrator have to resemble the ‘Doctor’ from Terraforming? This level of bad luck was practically harassment. If Raven had encountered him, something truly terrible would have happened inside the Golden Nest. After all, he was a hu—man with zero mercy toward anything even remotely connected to Terraforming.

Fortunately, this genius administrator had prevented that future, so everyone could relax!

“Hnggggggh…!”

Having hunched over for so long, the administrator pushed aside the translucent keyboard resting on her lap and stretched luxuriously toward the ceiling. The red letters “SIS” printed across the chest of her wrinkled white hoodie were revealed to the world.

“I’m going to die…”

It might honestly be better if she just died.

“What can I do when I’m simply too talented? Hehe.”

To kill her, one would probably have to destroy the world itself. If there were no worlds left to manage, she could finally resign from her position.

Come to think of it, the administrator of Terraforming had been quite fortunate. They had managed to drive out that insane survivor—who might have lived forever—after encountering a kind administrator like herself.

Terraforming, now that its last survivor had vanished, would likely shut down on its own after another ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thousand years or so. How enviable.

-Contractor. If that is what you desire….

“…Sigh.”

She had only been lamenting a little because living was hard. Yet one stupid demon had immediately floored the accelerator.

Sith let out a powerless sigh, placed the translucent keyboard back on her lap, and began moving her fingers busily once more. She intended to crush the disaster she herself had summoned beneath another disaster imported from a different world.

“Raven. I’m sorry, but please endure just a little longer.”

So that ‘we’ could regain the happiness we had lost (laugh).