I Became the Narrow-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss – Chapter 145

Chapter 145: Turbulence  (7)

Carisia pondered.

What was the best course of action she could take right now?

She regretted not following Orthes when he vanished, chasing a suspicious figure. A sigh, tinged with regret, slipped from her lips.

Had it been a mistake to remain on the front lines against the parasite to fill the void left by Orthes’ disappearance?

Dismissing her optical camouflage, Carisia approached Kine.

“Uh, boss?”

Kine was startled by her sudden appearance, while Kynemon, standing nearby, cast a troubled glance her way. Without any preamble, Carisia stated,

“Withdraw. Everyone.”

“Why…?”

Kine’s question was reasonable. The mages she had politically maneuvered into assembling represented nearly all the magicians gathered in Algoth City. To retreat now, despite this formidable force, seemed like a foolish choice.

After all, even with just Blasphemia and Carisia, the parasite was already in a disadvantaged position. If everyone charged in together, they could likely clinch victory in one swift stroke, couldn’t they?

Carisia shook her head calmly.

“You’ll get caught up in it.”

Kynemon was the first to grasp the weight behind her soft-spoken warning. While Kine, still debating the parasite’s strength, faltered, Kynemon recognized that Carisia had something far more overwhelming in store—something he could scarcely comprehend.

“What are you planning to do?”

Kynemon’s voice betrayed no tremor; he had already steeled himself. Whatever measures Orthes’ superior might employ, they were sure to far exceed his imagination.

“Just an ordinary method,” Carisia replied, her tone indifferent. “A byproduct of research one might dabble in if they’ve worked in large-scale construction.”

Leaving those words, Carisia once again donned her optical camouflage. As Kynemon convinced Kine to withdraw with the other magicians, they began to retreat.

***

Niobe, leading the battle against the Amimone Tower mutant, sensed a shift. It wasn’t just the parasite’s accelerating transformations.

“Where’s the firepower?”

Orthes’ large-scale offensive magic had ceased. It seemed his artifact had run out of energy.

This turn of events put Blasphemia’s forces at a disadvantage in the battle of attrition. Niobe recalled Orthes’ prior response during the extra-dimensional storm in Algoth City:

Inform the main Blasphemia force while I cover your escape.

Orthes was nowhere to be seen now, but Niobe knew he would give the same directive in this situation.

“Abandon Amimone Tower! Pull the front line back! I’ll hold off the mutant while everyone retreats! Relay the situation to the main force immediately and await further orders!”

The Panoptes operatives outside Blasphemia quickly withdrew. As a commander, Niobe had done her part.

Resigned to her fate, she prepared to meet her end. Activating the implanted mana stone within her body—enhanced through Blasphemia’s augmentation—she planned to unleash its full explosive potential.

The blast would be enough to wound the mutant severely, forcing it to focus on regeneration. As she mouthed the detonation code, however—

The mutant’s assault ceased.

It hadn’t died. Its form distorted space around it as it exhaled extra-dimensional energy like breathing, fixating its gaze on something.

This wasn’t a figurative gaze. Spatial distortions rearranged into a massive face-like structure, with two enormous eyes locked on a single point.

Niobe turned her attention toward the direction of the gaze—the same area where magic spells had been firing moments earlier.

She felt a massive surge of magical energy emanating from that location, a pulse so overwhelming it threw her off balance.

“Orthes?”

Clearly, he had recharged his artifact’s power.

***

Carisia poured out her mana without restraint. Dispelling all auxiliary magic like her optical camouflage, she concentrated her mana into a single point in the void.

The parasite, halfway through its evolution, couldn’t ignore the massive energy that would inevitably be refined into Grand Magic to strike it down.

Carisia herself was gambling with this technique. Her mana reserves were far too vast for any individual to control, and she remained bound by the limits of her own humanity.

Thus, she focused only on gathering mana, refraining from shaping it into a specific spell. Any attempt to form a ritual might backfire catastrophically, potentially vaporizing both herself and everything around Amimone Tower.

If the parasite realized that no spell was being prepared, it might disregard her entirely.

Fortunately, it lacked such discernment—or perhaps Orthes’ honed art of deception had effectively set the stage.

「You…」

The parasite couldn’t decide what to make of her. Initially, she had seemed like the perfect sacrifice. Then, briefly, she was a creation of its “Creator.” Now, with Orthes’ deception exposed, the parasite refused to think of her at all.

Yet now, face-to-face with her, questions abounded. The Creator’s boundless authority churned within her fragile mortal frame.

Orthes’ lies couldn’t possibly be true. The Creator would remain distant, observing their struggles with incomprehensible silence from the heavens above.

But that power…

It was undeniable. The parasite, now confused, chose the most efficient form of defense: overwhelming offense.

Recognizing the preparation of Grand Magic, it instinctively began constructing an equally devastating spell to counteract and cancel her attack.

Carisia, having spent a long time alongside someone as inscrutable as Orthes, had developed an acute sense for reading even the most cryptic of behaviors.

The parasite’s confusion, by contrast, was painfully obvious.

All of its resources were devoted to countering her magic. Carisia, meanwhile, analyzed its ritual and smiled.

She had won.

***

I felt a sudden, bone-deep dread. Not the ordinary kind of unease, but the kind that promised catastrophe if I failed to act.

Yet there was no time to ponder the cause of this foreboding. The silvery spiderweb trailing me was nearly upon my back.

Then—

My ‘eyes’ flared in a panicked warning. The world turned crimson, as if bathed in blood-red text.

Disoriented, I glanced at the letters:

Detonation in 10 seconds.

“Carisia!”

I instinctively called out her name. What the hell have you done?!

***

Since her arrival in Algoth City, Carisia had been engaging in steady destruction. Aware that her actions would draw Panoptes’ attention, she had pressed on, undeterred.

Parallel to her search for Argyrion, she had continuously set the stage for destruction—even when she couldn’t locate her true target by the final day of the Tower Lord Selection.

Her reason? Simple.

To lay the groundwork for a bomb.

While Kaicle and the other directors were preoccupied with crafting the Artificial Commandments, the discarded remnants of reliquaries—drained of divine power but still functional for storing abilities—piled up.

Orthes might have sold them off as antiques. Bertrand, head of the Miners’ Guild, would’ve argued for preserving them as historical artifacts.

Carisia thought differently.

Before weaponizing the Artificial Commandments, wouldn’t a prototype be prudent?

Gathering the drained reliquaries, she began constructing mana bombs.

Initially, there was no plan to plant these bombs in Algoth City. They were meant to be thrown through portals should Argyrion escape via spatial magic.

But her plans shifted upon hearing of the parasite’s intentions to seize Amimone Tower’s mana core. If it succeeded, this would serve as her trump card.

The timing was fortuitous. As soon as the Tower Lord Selection began, Carisia attacked the other candidates, prompting them to retaliate. The escalating conflicts played to her advantage.

Panoptes, stretched thin policing the chaos, turned a blind eye, rationalizing that “only survivors would be evaluated anyway.”

This leniency allowed her to discreetly plant explosives at key locations.

The trigger? A specific wavelength of light transmitted in a coded pattern. High-precision optical sensors, a collaboration between the dwarf Bertrand and Lamphades, completed the mechanism.

Carisia sent the light signal, timing it perfectly while the parasite fixated its detection abilities on her massive mana output.

And then—

There was light.