Thanks for the Praise

[Is this… what you call infiltration?]

Selis had sent the message, and it carried more than a hint of exasperation. But Caric stood unashamed.

Killing the enemy before the alarm goes off counts as infiltration.

"What is the meaning of this?!"

The shop owner came bursting out. "Get out right now, or I'll call the guards!"

"Guards? Go ahead. Call them if you can."

At those words, the owner's expression shifted slightly. The cultists couldn't afford to draw eyes right now — and besides, he had belatedly recognized Caric. An unpredictable, dangerous man and close confidant of the imperial princess. If they could tie him up, everything would become far easier.

The owner changed his tune. "Well, calling the guards on you straight away would be rather cold of me. So then — what brings you here?"

"I came looking for something I lost."

"We don't deal in stolen goods. But fine, come in anyway. I'll hear you out."

"Good."

And Caric marched boldly inside. Selis, taking the hint, slipped into his shadow.

Then, thud — the door slammed shut behind them. He turned to find armed guards baring yellowed teeth in a grin.

"Right this way, guest."

The man locked the door. At once, the magic circle that had been split in half completed itself and activated — probably ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a locking spell layered with some kind of soundproofing.

"Much obliged for doing my job for me."

Caric turned toward the shop owner — and noticed, one beat too late, a magic wand trained on him.

"That's right, barbarian. Now, what was your business here?"

The owner spoke in a leisurely drawl. "Listen well, since it'll be your last words."

"I told you. I came to find something I lost."

Caric took a step toward the owner.

"Stop right there. Speak from where you stand."

The owner warned him with strained patience. Caric felt something off.

"Hmm. Trying to stall for time, are you?"

It was a probing jab, but the man's face hardened instantly. He'd hit the mark.

"You've already started sealing the place from below, haven't you?"

"So you knew everything."

The man gritted his teeth. He'd apparently judged that stalling with words was no longer an option.

"Damn those sharp eyes of yours!"

Ziiing! The wand flashed and a beam of light shot out — but Caric's shadow surged up and blocked it. Fsss. The beam died pathetically against the darkness, and the owner's eyes went wide.

"You can use magic?"

"The spell's called Friend Shield."

Caric's form blurred. In the instant the owner blinked, the back of his skull was already locked in Caric's enormous hand.

"By the way, that 'something I came to find' is—"

Caric slammed the owner's face into the counter. BOOOOM!

"—justice."

BOOOM!

"—and truth."

Two strikes. That was all it took to turn the owner's face into a bloody pulp. Caric dropped him onto the floor without a second glance.

"You barbarian bastard!"

The armed guards went straight for their blades — but—

WHACK!

Caric's shadow stretched out and cracked the man's wrist like a blunt weapon, then coiled around the disarmed guard's neck like a serpent.

"Kk—ghak!"

The guard's eyes rolled back and he collapsed unconscious almost immediately.

Selis slid smoothly out from behind Caric. Murderous intent ran vividly across her bone-white face — the memory of opening that box and finding the demon's heart still burning in her mind. To her, the cultists were now her teacher's mortal enemies.

"Well done holding back and not killing them."

"Thanks for the praise. I'd be even more grateful if you left the interrogation to me later."

Selis shaped manacles from shadow and bound the two fallen men tight.

"Did you find the secret passage?"

She pointed toward the back of the shop. "Behind the closet wall in the back. But there's a barrier over it."

A blade of shadow smashed a few ceramic pieces off the display shelf. Out spilled human finger bones, a pelvis, teeth, flayed skin, and worse.

They've killed a terrible number of innocent people.

The moment the remains were exposed, the sigils carved into the bone fragments dimmed and faded. The cult's curses had been broken.

"Shadow magic, as expected. Ridiculously good reconnaissance."

Caric hadn't needed to close his eyes and strain his senses at all. He strode briskly toward the back, issuing orders as he went.

"Leave a shadow down here to relay word to the surface and watch our rear. And keep the prisoners alive."

"Got it."

A portion of Selis's shadow seeped into the floor. The two exchanged a brief look.

"Then let's go."

Caric tore the closet off its wall and plunged into the underground passage without hesitation. Inside, the stonework was unexpectedly neat and clean.

"These people are decent builders."

Caric let out a groan. "That's inconvenient."

"No. I mean it's a shame I can't keep pretending this is an infiltration."

Huh?

"Selis. Wrap my body in shadow."

She obeyed the order without question. Shaaaa—! A suit of shadow armor enveloped Caric's frame.

Caric opened his mouth as if to answer. Then he bellowed:

"UOOOOOLBAAAAARAAAAA!"

And charged down the trap-riddled corridor at full sprint.

CRASH! KA-BOOM! KABOOOOM!

Every step he took split the stone floor apart. The walls, the ceiling, the floor — the whole passage went to war. Arrows, flames, poison, everything imaginable came spewing out at him.

"It can't kill me!" Caric roared back. "It's hurryin' and—"

Before the word finished, a massive log came hurtling at him. Far from dodging, Caric squared his shoulder into it. WHAM! The log exploded into splinters flying every which way.

A sheet of azure flame crashed over him next. Fsssss! The shadow armor held it back — but even that had its limits. After soaking up a dozen more traps, the armor finally dissolved.

It didn't slow Caric's charge one bit.

"Feels like a car wash in here!"

Ordinary blades couldn't so much as scratch him. He only dodged the poison that came at his head — the magic, meanwhile—

Bzzzzzz!

His curse-tattoos dispersed it on contact. Come to think of it, this is the first time I've used these since arriving in the Empire!

The tattoos had two effects: magic resistance, and a weak regenerative ability. Of course, that didn't make Caric invincible. Several blunt strikes landed as effective hits, and the accumulating damage outpaced his regeneration. By the time he'd plowed through the corridor, Caric was looking rather battered.

He'd taken no serious wounds — no broken bones, no flesh gouged to the bone. But his clothes were shredded and part of his tattoos had been burned away. Both would repair themselves given time.

Not that we have time to wait for that!

At the corridor's end stood a massive door, and Caric greeted it with a full-body shoulder charge. KAAABOOOOM!

And so the Flying Barbarian arrived in the cultists' underground chamber. Out of consideration for his poor knee joints, he forwent the superhero ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠landing — dropping to the ground on both feet, bending his knees to absorb the impact with a heavy whump. As dust swirled, Caric rose to his full two meters of solid muscle.

"You absolute madman! You monster!"

Someone screamed.

"Glowing praise — much appreciated."

Caric smiled and looked around. A spacious underground chamber spread out before him. From every direction came the clatter-clack of armor as heavily armed shield-bearers closed in to surround him.

They were on standby, listening for the noise. I really did jump straight into the heart of enemy territory.

There was something wrong with every one of their eyes, though. They looked like men drugged and brainwashed.

Beyond the shield-bearers stood a woman in a red robe — a priestess of the Evil God.

The priestess erupted in fury. "Do you have any idea how many YEARS it took to build that corridor?!"

"Don't play the innocent game developer who got his cheat-code run. You're a lunatic who does human sacrifice."

"You talk as strange as they said you would. But you've made a mistake. So what if it's a bit earlier than expected — you actually made it all the way down here!"

The priestess let out a laugh that curdled the air. "Do you know what I mixed into the corridor traps, just for you? Holy water!"

Holy water?

"So what am I supposed to do about that? You poisoned me and now you want forgiveness?"

He had no idea what she wanted him to say. "Besides, hasn't your god said anything? You people just helped yourselves to the Goddess's holy water like it was free samples."

"…You're not… you're not a demon beast that took human form. Fuhuhu… you bathed in holy water and you're perfectly fine."

The priestess didn't seem to care one bit what Caric said. "Then where did that freakish strength and durability of yours come from? There's only one answer! You don't lack aura — it's just spread so thin through your body that no one could sense it!"

She snapped her fingers, and the magic circle painted on the floor began to glow.

"It's thin, so it went undetected — but all that monstrous strength of yours comes from aura."

The mana concentration in the air began to drop.

"You came from the Demon Realm, didn't you? That explains it. The mana there is violent — it would never gather quietly in one place. So it seeped evenly through your whole body instead."

And the mana's thinning didn't stop there. It was being severed outright — vanishing from the chamber entirely. Even Selis's shadow, in the middle of rising, sagged back down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the floor. Her concealment had been stripped away without her noticing.

"Caric, this is dangerous."

She whispered anxiously. "We should break through the encirclement now, while we can."

"Just hold on a moment. I have a plan for everything."

Caric's voice was perfectly calm, and Selis had no choice but to trust him.

Around that time, the priestess noticed her too. "Oh? There was a little rat hiding there. Well, no matter."

By now, every trace of mana around the magic circle had been completely sealed off. Inside that circle, neither aura nor mana could be used. It was a technique the cult could manage only once even after pouring astronomical resources into it as an organization. Extraordinarily inefficient — but precisely because of that, its effect was certain. No variable could arise.

The priestess raised a hand, holding back the shield-bearers who looked ready to charge at any moment.

"So? How does it feel?"

Mad, euphoric triumph swirled in her eyes. "Descending from superhuman back down to mere mortal?"

"Hmmm."

Caric furrowed his brow. Something did feel distinctly strange.

When he failed to answer, the priestess burst into wild cackling. "Fuhuhuhu… Hahaha! Now, with you in my grasp, I will become the youngest bishop in history. Ahh, to His Eminence the cardinal, who believed in me and invested in me… I can finally repay him."

By any measure, she looked several degrees off from sane. But Caric was a mature man who knew how to wholeheartedly celebrate another person's achievements.

"Well, congratulations. You did take the risk, and you did get results."

Caric clapped his hands. "Granted, that cardinal fellow was almost certainly using you as a discard piece in his experiment… but still, you contributed to uncovering part of the truth. Good for you."

"What nonsense are you spouting?"

"Muscle soreness."

Caric nodded. "I can feel muscle soreness."

"Wh-what?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. With aura and mana cut off, soreness I didn't have before has appeared. So your hypothesis was partly correct."

Caric raised Wisdom. "For ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that, I award you the Caric Young Scholar Prize. A reward for your keen powers of observation."

"Lies! Your bluffs won't work on me!"

"Tsk. I am, at all times, an honest barbarian."

As if to prove it, he swung Wisdom in a wide arc. KAAABOOOM!

One shield-bearer's helm crumpled like paper. The man toppled over backward, dead on the spot. No ordinary human strength could do such a thing.

"Sh-shit! That's impossible! It can't be!"

The priestess clawed at her own hair like a madwoman, her eyes trembling with fear. "Not aura… it wasn't aura?!"

"Tsk tsk. Your scientific literacy as a suspect is lacking. When a hypothesis is refuted, you should be glad — it means scholarship has advanced."

Caric swept Wisdom wide.

A 0.3-sincerity strike.

KWAAAAABOOOOM!

The swing came with a shockwave, and the hunk of iron skewered the heavily armored shield-bearers. Shields buckled, soldiers spat blood and rolled across the floor. A single horizontal blow. That alone was enough to sweep away the men barring his path like they were garbage — a scene of devastation like they'd been caught in an artillery barrage.

And from the very center of it, Caric walked calmly out of the magic circle, step by unhurried step.

"Now then."

His colossal frame cast its shadow over the priestess.

"Shall we begin the awards ceremony?"