Ch.24Explosion is Art!!

“I don’t think we need to check the other places.”

I stared at the communication sphere I had just smashed.

It was a bowling ball-sized glass orb enchanted with communication magic. Strong traces of magical energy remained, suggesting it had been used for communication just moments ago.

I could easily guess who they had been communicating with without checking.

‘Probably the other Apostles. They must know about the attack now, and the defeat as well.’

With the attacker’s existence clearly revealed, the Apostles wouldn’t allow themselves to be picked off one by one.

The Executioner I just defeated seemed to have quite a reputation, so their vigilance must have increased even more.

By now, they’re probably all gathering at Melun’s Cave.

Getting the Apostles to gather there was my objective anyway, so things were working out well.

‘Still, I was hoping to reduce their numbers while they were separated…’

I was about to face approximately 40-50 Apostles head-on.

Even if 30… no, 40 of them had no real combat ability, I’d still have to fight at least 10 of them.

“This is going to be quite troublesome.”

“Without overwhelming power, it’s not easy to ignore the power of numbers.”

Responding to my comment, Lilly subtly created a small breeze to make her hair flutter, showing off.

“It doesn’t matter since I have Lilly with her overwhelming power~”

“That’s right, that’s right.”

Lilly thumped her tiny chest as if to say I should just rely on her.

Her cute, playful demeanor made me unable to resist teasing her again.

“Well, Lilly is amazing except for the fact that she has no friends~”

“Hey! Why bring that up all of a sudden!”

Lilly immediately retaliated by bonking me on the head.

* * *

Melun’s Cave.

A massive cave with a magical spring, its location itself was treated as a hidden piece.

Perhaps because it was a location-type hidden piece, it appeared in most playthroughs and was listed in community guides as an essential course for mage development.

The magical spring increased a mage’s maximum mana capacity upon first consumption, and afterward served as a good mana potion.

The place itself was perfect as a training room due to its abundant magical energy. It was good enough to use continuously unless you became a high-ranking official at the Magic Tower and received a private room.

However, what I needed to focus on now wasn’t its aspects as a hidden piece.

What I needed to consider were the characteristics of the cave itself.

First, the cave was large and spacious.

I remembered all the main passages, but there were many small side paths and tunnels leading to other holes that I didn’t know about.

Even if I wanted to use chemical warfare like at the tomb, the effect wouldn’t be as powerful since the cave wasn’t completely sealed.

The cave also had excellent durability.

Perhaps due to the magical spring, the entire cave had a naturally formed magical coating that increased its durability.

Because of this, the option of collapsing the entire cave with the magical bombs I currently had was impossible.

So what should I do and how should I do it?

* * *

“Let’s charge in.”

“You want me to just rush in trusting you?”

Lilly looked at me with a slightly worried expression at my sudden statement as we observed the cave entrance from a distance.

That worry included a feeling of whether I had suddenly gone crazy, but I could also see a sense of responsibility, as if she would take care of everything.

“Of course, I don’t mean charging in empty-handed.”

Lilly might be strong, but she doesn’t have the ability to resurrect the dead.

That means I can’t just mindlessly charge in, die, and then blame the jungle difference.

“Then what are you planning?”

“Lilly, did you know? These magical bombs have a chain reaction.”

I looked at Lilly with a sinister smile, and she looked back at me with anxious eyes.

“Hehe… These bombs, you see. If you just detonate them, they’re non-elemental bombs, but if you add magical energy when detonating them, they change.”

There are several ways to add magical energy. You can add it yourself, or you can throw another elemental bomb together with it.

Now, here’s a simple quiz.

Most fire magic can be amplified with wind magic.

So what happens when a fire-attribute magical bomb and a wind-attribute magical bomb detonate together?

We’ll soon find out.

“There’s no point detonating them here. Let’s go deeper first.”

“But first, how do we get in quietly…”

Having formed my plan, I strode forward, and Lilly belatedly flew after me.

I hid my sword at an angle where it wouldn’t be visible, and pushed back the hood of my robe to reveal my face.

Walking like that, I soon spotted the Apostles guarding the entrance ahead.

The Apostles, who had been wearing bored expressions, soon noticed me and looked like they’d found a new toy.

“Hey, you, Succubus.”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah, you. Who else would be a Succubus here? Come over here for a bit.”

As I approached them with a defenseless expression and behavior, they seemed to forget how to be suspicious and just smiled lewdly.

“Heh, killer looks.”

“The body’s a bit lacking, but with a face like that, who cares.”

The Apostles looked at me and talked among themselves, not hiding their obvious desires.

It really made me wonder if these guys waiting on alert for an attack were being too careless.

‘Well, I guess that just means my charm is high.’

Of course, regardless of my charm, it felt like their brains were located in their lower bodies rather than their heads.

“You probably know why we called you over?”

“You called me to kill you, obviously.”

“Yeah, that’s ri… huh? What?”

The Apostle sensed something was wrong at my blunt response, but it was already too late.

Slash-

A single swing.

By the time it was over, the Apostles’ heads had long been rolling on the ground.

“You should never let your guard down.”

Though they could no longer hear, I gave them a final lesson as if it were their last.

“Well, the door is open, so let’s go in.”

“Yeah…”

Lilly looked back and forth between me and the corpses with a slightly dumbfounded expression at my nonchalant behavior, but what could I do?

This was the easiest and simplest way to infiltrate quietly.

Afterward, Lilly and I continued deeper into the cave.

Thanks to quietly disposing of the gatekeepers, moving inside was also smooth.

“Gak.”

Perhaps because the gatekeepers were on guard duty.

Basically, the Apostles had very low vigilance. Even though they knew another place had already been attacked.

“You, what… urk…”

And the Apostles didn’t seem to know each other well. With Lilly hidden and my face covered by the robe, no one was suspicious.

“Wh-what… guk…”

Thanks to this, I was still advancing without being detected.

Then suddenly, I realized that humans are creatures of adaptation.

They too were probably ordinary modern people like me.

I too was once someone who had never killed even an animal, let alone a human.

When I first killed the slave trader, I felt such an unpleasant sensation, but now I’ve become accustomed to it.

‘Maybe it’s thanks to my mental stat.’

Or perhaps this was my inherent nature. Maybe I just never had the opportunity to realize it due to environmental factors.

As I continued forward silently, Lilly, sensing something, spoke to me from inside the robe.

“What are you thinking so deeply about?”

“Just that I’ve already gotten used to this.”

“You don’t need to get used to it. If you want to retire to the countryside, I can find you a suitable place.”

Lilly’s response was quite unexpected, as I had thought she might encourage or comfort me.

“You’re not thinking something like ‘I’m the hero who will save this world,’ are you? Our world isn’t weak, so you don’t need to feel any strange sense of responsibility.”

“It’s okay, I never had… any sense of responsibility anyway. I’m just surprised at myself. And if I don’t kill that damn Evil God with my own hands, I’ll be too angry to focus on anything else.”

Still, her words helped alleviate some of the fatigue that had accumulated without me realizing it.

With a somewhat lighter heart, I quickened my pace, and finally encountered what could be called a fortress inside the cave.

“This is quite large. Looks solid too.”

“That’s what the bombs are for.”

The fortress built inside the cave looked very large and sturdy.

It showed how serious the Evil God was about the traits I had chosen, and I could sense that they were preparing for war.

After briefly observing the fortress.

Not wanting to waste time in case something happened, I prepared the bombs without further delay.

“Then, please throw them with magical energy at the right timing.”

Half for me, half for Lilly.

Having divided the bombs, Lilly and I finished preparing to add attributes to them.

Now we just needed to throw them.

I looked at Lilly with the same sinister smile as before.

“Lilly, there’s a saying from the world I used to live in.”

“What’s with the sudden quote?”

Lilly looked at me with the same anxious eyes as before.

I shared a line from a certain anime with her.

“Explosion is. Art.”

“Seriously, consider retiring to the countryside.”

With Lilly’s concerned words, we threw all the bombs we had in sequence.

My bombs were thrown first.

BOOM-!!

The bombs thrown together with the fire bottles became explosions of flame rather than just energy explosions, emitting intense heat.

But it would have ended there.

If Lilly’s bombs hadn’t been thrown.

Lilly’s slightly delayed bombs exploded in mid-air and combined with the earlier explosion, creating a firestorm that melted and destroyed everything.

“That’s about… Fire Storm level, a high-tier magic?”