A Three-Story Building
A three-story building.
Set against the structures around it, the place was neither especially grand nor particularly large. It didn't even stand out.
And yet Tapagol said Mah was in there.
The barrier really is precise.
Four layers of wards had been laid over one another, all of them meant to keep anyone from noticing a barrier was there at all. Even Yujun might have walked straight past without a second thought. There was no sense of wrongness whatsoever. It was hard to believe Mah was anywhere near the building—hard enough that he almost doubted Tapagol.
Still, I ought to trust him at least once.
This probably wasn't a trap the cult had dug for him. If it had been, they would have made it more obvious, something easy for him to find. And if they had hidden it this thoroughly on purpose, then without Tapagol he would simply have passed it by. He doubted the Demon God Worshippers had any real measure of what Tapagol could do. Even Yujun himself hadn't known the golem could track a path this well.
Of course, he still couldn't be sure. He would know once he went inside.
Without a moment's hesitation, Yujun stepped into the building—or rather, he didn't. He put Tapagol in front. Paranet followed as if that were only natural, and Yujun took the rear.
It wasn't fear. Even after they crossed the threshold, he still needed the guide golem to lead.
……Really.
Common sense says the ones with practically infinite lives should be the ones out front.
Wary of a setup, Yujun followed Tapagol.
From the moment they entered the first floor, a considerable number of mana lamps greeted them. The expensive inn room he had stayed in had only a single light. Here, so many fixtures crowded the ceiling that it bordered on excessive.
That was not the only oddity. Indecipherable characters and pictures covered the walls, and magical implements that might actually prove useful in daily life sat scattered across the furniture. A carpet of fine material ran along the floor, stretching all the way to the end of the corridor as if insisting they proceed in one set direction.
"This is the way?"
"It is."
"We don't need to go up to the second floor?"
"No."
"I'll trust you for now."
A branch head, he would have thought, belonged on the top floor—the third—rather than the first. Tapagol sounded certain even if Yujun couldn't see why, so he decided to follow without another word. He did not, however, lower his guard.
There were barriers that interfered with scouting, and barriers that scrambled the senses. He nullified them with magic in a single stroke. Wards of this irritating caliber were easy enough to suppress. Breaking them, though, was out of the question in the present situation. If the barriers shattered, Mah would notice at once, and that would be no different from handing him a chance to run.
"Tapagol. Let's move quickly."
"Understood."
Before Gigantification, Tapagol was quite short. The way he waddled along—tak, tak—was ridiculous, and somehow cute. For all the absurdity of that gait, the little golem was remarkably fast. Yujun and Paranet hurried after him.
"Open this door, and he is inside."
"Does he know we're here?"
"That, I do not know. I can only tell you that Mah's vital reaction lies directly before us."
Yujun kept in mind the chance that Mah had left a decoy behind. He sent the summons back and opened the door himself.
The door burst inward.
"Wh—what?!"
A massive beastkin was receiving a massage from another of his own kind. A tiger beastkin. The description matched what Dustin had given him. This had to be Mah.
Mah's face darkened as he muttered.
"I don't know that face."
"Of course you don't. I was only just born."
Yujun's eyes stayed on Mah, but his senses swept the room for traps and ambushes.
He hasn't prepared a thing.
Yujun laughed, half in disbelief. Had he overestimated the man? Dustin's Save ability was so absurdly broken that he had assumed whoever trapped him must be competent in his own right. Face to face, though, all he felt was a presence a little stronger than Dustin's. More than anything, that flustered expression made it plain Mah had never imagined a situation like this.
"Sorry to interrupt a pleasant hour, but you're going to have to keep me company."
This time Yujun wore the form of a demon: pale skin, the grave and handsome face of a mature man. Nothing about it stood out beside other demons, and that was precisely why he had chosen it. It was ideal for concealing who he was. He had even unsummoned Tapagol before opening the door.
Mah, still failing to grasp what was happening, suddenly went wide-eyed, as if something had just occurred to him.
Yujun drew his sword.
Mah's eyes narrowed. It was a familiar stance—one he had seen in footage. Yujun had a distinctive motion when he drew.
"You... don't tell me. Shin Yujun."
"So the disguise was pointless?"
Well, thanks to it, Mah hadn't noticed a thing until they arrived. Distorting his appearance with illusion magic had clearly done its work. The Demon God Worshippers would grow desperately anxious from nothing more than not knowing where he was. Even if he never moved and simply stayed in one place, the cult would be under crushing pressure. No matter what plan they tried to carry out, so long as his location could not be pinned down, they would have no choice but to hesitate. Used properly, that alone let him deal with the cult at tremendous efficiency.
Before Mah could so much as move, Yujun cast his spell.
Space Domination
The space itself clamps shut around the target.
What unfolded now, born of will alone, was not the Space Domination he had once woven through Ancient Magic. The power was on an entirely different level. Under Ancient Magic, a target had at least been able to twist and strain against it. Now that was unthinkable. Mah was no exception. When a force he could not endure clamped down on his body, he failed to bear the pressure and vomited blood.
"Guhk!"
"You've made a lot of enemies. Not as many as I have, but there's someone who asked me to kill you."
"...Shin Yujun! You son of a bitch!"
"Swearing out of nowhere?"
"You should've come a little later. Impatient bastard, damn you..."
"Our friend Mah has a foul mouth."
"Coordination will be here soon. The only time you get to strut around like that is right now."
"Coordination?"
Yujun tilted his head. Did Mah not know what level Coordination actually was? As far as Yujun was concerned, they could not be his opponents now. Unless every last one of them had outpaced his growth, they weren't even worth a single punch. But Mah was a branch head of the cult.
He shouldn't be able to not know about Coordination.
Of course, Yujun didn't know the squad all that well either. He had only fought a few of its members. Seeing Mah so confident, stronger ones were surely on their way. Even so, he wasn't particularly worried. It might have been different if he had comrades nearby who could be taken as hostages. He didn't.
Better to finish this before Coordination arrives.
There was no point leaving Mah any room to slip away. More than anything, he had to end it here for Dustin and Sertiphs, both of whom had been sacrificed to Mah's people. Sertiphs was the most pitiable of all. After enduring a brutal war and becoming the star of his own coronation, he had died meaninglessly at the hands of a Demon God Worshipper, and everything had come to nothing.
A sword steeped in a vast quantity of Chaos moved.
Shhk—!
Caught in Space Domination, Mah could offer no resistance at all. His head came off.
Mah, who had gone down so helplessly, must have been quite high-level. These days Yujun's level barely rose at all, and yet it had jumped by two at once.
He was not satisfied with the levels alone. Stripping Mah's equipment still remained. That was why he had deliberately refrained from killing the man with Space Domination—so the gear would not be damaged. Slay an enemy that way, and not a single piece of equipment survived.
Among Mah's gear were two items of Mythic grade. The massive iron mace he had only just drawn upon spotting Yujun, and a single gauntlet—both Mythic.
Level requirement, 600... So Mythic equipment above level 700 is rare, even among them.
A branch head of the cult occupied an extremely high position, even to an outsider. And yet the best he carried was Mythic. Transcendent equipment was out of the question. In truth, Mythic itself was extraordinarily difficult to obtain, regardless of its level requirement. He pocketed these as well. He didn't have anyone in particular to give them to, but selling them would turn into points.
Just in case there was more, he searched the office thoroughly. He found a vault sealed under a barrier and forced it open with magic, only for a small explosion to go off—a minor incident. He raised a shield at once and came through unharmed.
"Well, look at that. There was a trap."
"I was fooled completely as well, Master. To think the one and only vault was an explosive trap..."
"Right? It even had a high-quality barrier on it. I was sure there'd be an item inside."
Yujun clicked his tongue. If the device had been meant to ruin his mood, it had succeeded perfectly.
"But, Master. Coordination did not seem all that strong."
"You lost to them."
"Come now. One on one, I fought them well enough. And you know I am not the same as I was then."
"Did I?"
"Your memory is excellent, Master. Do not feign ignorance! You know, do you not? Do you not?"
Paranet's tone was slightly nauseating. Yujun scowled.
"Where do you get off throwing a tantrum? I'll unsummon you."
"...I shall conduct myself with restraint."
"You are stronger than you were then. That's true enough. But Coordination won't be the same either."
"Please. I know precisely how quickly I have grown. And that it is all thanks to you, Master. I do not believe those lot grew any faster than I did."
"I think so too."
Even so, he had no intention of dismissing the Coordination that Mah had trusted so completely. Without accurate information, carelessness was forbidden. Using the Storyteller's parchment here felt a little wasteful, so he decided simply to wait for them. He could judge once he saw them himself.
Yujun looked out the window and activated his senses. He still could not feel Coordination's presence. No matter how desperately Mah had tried to buy time, the man had been destined to die all along.
And Yujun waited five hours.
"Ah... I think I'm about to start swearing."
"Master. It would seem they have no intention of coming here."
"We smashed a branch head, and they still don't show..."
"Either they lost their nerve, or they are very far away. I am certain Coordination is frightened. Cowards. Even back when you were not as strong as you are now, they were no match for you, were they? For mere humans to set their sights on you is not merely reckless. It is foolish."
"Mere humans? I'm human too, you know."
"What? To me, Master, you are a god."
"What are you even saying."
"I told you before, did I not? That you would soon become a god. I am certain of it."
"Can a human become a god?"
"Might it not be so?"
"You're saying that without knowing a thing, aren't you."
"Yes. But there is such a thing as a feeling. And that feeling tells me you will become a god."
"Very convincing, coming from an undead. Anyway, what do we do..."
"I do not think they will come, no matter how long we wait."
"Right?"
While he had been waiting for Coordination, Yujun had also killed the handful of Demon God Worshippers in the building. Had that made the squad take a detour?
No chance. The ones here weren't that strong.
Yujun set recording orbs throughout the place, then left the building with Paranet.