Ch.6969. Inventory Unlocked

After successfully rescuing Alkine, a rather relaxed atmosphere continued.

Diggers was still sitting in front of the cage, sobbing and pleading for them not to leave… but ignoring him, they chatted for quite some time.

“…Let’s stop the small talk. We still have work to do.”

Alkine cut the conversation short with those words.

Though she had pretended to be fine after escaping, she had seemed somewhat unstable, but now she appeared to be regaining her composure.

As she said, the situation wasn’t over yet.

Diggers might look like he had lost his will, but that didn’t mean they could forgive him.

From the moment one becomes a demon, there’s no option for reflection or repentance.

Forgiveness isn’t even a consideration—they’re simply targets for elimination.

It wasn’t complicated. They just needed to deal with Diggers, who had become a demon, and escape the Rift.

Of course, it would be nice if they could interrogate him and find out who helped him become a demon… but he probably wouldn’t tell them.

More precisely, he probably couldn’t tell them. It’s that typical scenario—a contract that kills you if you try to reveal secrets. Something like that must be in place.

I had my suspicions, but it didn’t really matter.

They were people I’d meet eventually anyway, so I had no intention of avoiding them.

For now, I decided to focus on resolving the immediate situation.

As I moved toward Diggers, who was sitting on the ground, the sniffling guy stood up and looked in our direction.

Then he started with the same old plea.

“President. Please reconsider just once. Being swayed by someone like him isn’t like you.”

“Not like me? I don’t understand what you’re saying. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of image you have of me.”

“Well, of course…”

“Enough. I don’t want to hear it.”

Slash—

Just when it seemed they were having a conversation, Alkine suddenly swung her sword.

There was no hesitation in her movement as she cut him down.

However, the attack aimed at his neck only managed to cut off one of his arms.

It wasn’t that Alkine had shown mercy; rather, he had raised his arm to block at the last moment.

“Aaaaargh!”

Even after becoming a demon, he’s no match for Alkine.

Though Diggers isn’t weak by any means, I’m reminded once again of Alkine’s superior combat prowess.

The cut surface seemed to be wriggling and attempting to regenerate, as demons do, but perhaps because he hadn’t been a demon for long, there was no sign of a new arm growing.

By the way, didn’t she just cut through that really smoothly?

The clean cut surface suggested she hadn’t struggled much to slice through it.

Despite appearances, his body was tough enough to withstand Celia’s magic. If she could cut through it so easily, it seemed she had grown stronger than before.

‘At this rate, she could probably overcome the wall soon too?’

Originally, that was a wall she should have overcome much later… but I’d given up on tracking growth timing long ago, so I decided not to worry about it.

No matter how quickly she grew, it was still nothing compared to Celia standing next to her.

I’m glad everyone seems to be getting stronger so quickly.

They’ll be reliable allies in the chaos to come.

With Celia and Alkine’s impressive growth, they should be able to handle most upcoming incidents without much trouble, right?

“President… please…”

I erased such thoughts as I watched Diggers slowly approaching.

I just experienced a situation I’d never seen before—Alkine being kidnapped—so it would be very foolish to think that only events I’m familiar with will happen from now on.

Alkine swung her sword again at Diggers as he approached.

This time he couldn’t block, and she cleanly cut off his head.

Slash—

Diggers’ head rolled pathetically on the floor, and his body collapsed beside it.

As if to confirm his death as a demon, his body lost its form and disappeared into black mist.

And in its place, a single jewel remained.

‘Oh, what’s this? Why did an item drop?’

Of course, I’m joking. I knew from the beginning that he had a Rift Stone.

I’d have to be blind not to recognize that overflowing red energy.

I quickly approached it and asked:

“President. May I break it?”

“I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with breaking the Rift Stones yourself. Do as you please.”

With Alkine’s permission, I stepped on the Rift Stone rolling on the floor and crushed it without hesitation.

Then a system window appeared before my eyes.

[Unlock Condition: Clear 5 Rifts with contribution rate of 40% or higher (5/5)]

[Congratulations! You have met the unlock conditions!]

[Unlocked: Inventory]

Finally, I unlocked the inventory.

Achieving over 40% contribution in all five Rifts is quite an accomplishment.

But well… it wasn’t as difficult or tight as I initially thought when I first saw the conditions.

Originally, achieving over 40% contribution is indeed difficult, but unlike the in-game where party actions are enforced, individual actions are possible here, making it easier to meet the conditions than expected.

Anyway, it’s a noteworthy achievement. With the inventory unlocked, everything from simple convenience to countless possibilities opens up.

Though I want to try many things right away, let’s postpone testing the newly unlocked inventory’s capabilities for later.

Right now, the Rift should be disappearing since we’ve completed the challenge.

Having destroyed all the Rift Stones, the Rift should soon disappear and we’ll be outside…

“…It’s not disappearing.”

“Could there be more Rift Stones left?”

“That’s probably not it.”

If that were the case, Grain would have mentioned it already.

Even in her normal state, Grain is an expert at analyzing Rifts.

With my help enhancing her abilities, there’s no way she could have miscounted the Rift Stones.

Then this must mean another special event is occurring… Just like last time, why can’t things end peacefully after clearing a challenge?

Complaining won’t change anything.

For now, I needed to stay alert to understand what was happening so we could respond appropriately.

Something was definitely happening. The red energy that burst from the Rift Stone I just crushed began filling the room.

Celia and Alkine probably couldn’t see it… but they must have sensed something, as they all began to assume combat stances.

And shortly after, the red energy coalesced into the form of a massive monster large enough to fill the entire room.

Seeing its appearance—a mix between a wild boar and a hippopotamus—I could only express amazement. The amazement of disbelief.

‘Wow, this thing appears here? This is really something else.’

As soon as it took form, Celia unleashed magic, and Alkine swung her sword to release blades of mana, but they couldn’t even scratch the creature.

Then the two women began to glance at me… as if they believed I would do something.

They think I’m some kind of all-purpose solution! I’m just experienced, not the strongest being in this world.

Even the strongest in this world couldn’t defeat this thing. That’s how it was designed.

The strategy is simply to stall for time until the Rift disappears.

Its name is something generic like “Remnant of the Dispersing Rift,” with no proper information available anywhere.

No matter how much they looked at me, there was no method other than running away under normal circumstances.

…Yes, under normal circumstances.

‘When two beautiful ladies look at me like that, I must live up to their expectations.’

I casually pulled out something I had kept in my pocket.

A mysterious purple gem about the size of a Go stone. I had picked it up from the imperial secret chamber earlier.

[When you receive an opponent’s attack while holding this item, “Grudge” accumulates. You can consume all accumulated Grudge to activate “Revenge,” dealing fixed damage equal to the accumulated Grudge value.]

A special item that accumulates stacks and releases them all at once.

The unique aspect of this item was the “fixed damage” part.

It would take too long to explain everything… but to summarize in one line: “Fixed damage is calculated with highest priority in any situation, unconditionally inflicting damage.”

In other words, no matter what powerful defensive magic the opponent uses, or even if they enter an invincible state that ignores all attacks, you can still force damage through.

Of course, it’s incredibly difficult to use, and even when used, the damage is designed to be rather small, so it was rarely used in the game.

At most, speedrun players might use it to skip bosses with invincible rage patterns?

It was useful but not particularly practical—that was the general perception.

However, in a situation like this, it’s an easy win. This monster is simply invincible, but its HP is set at just 1.

How do I know that? If I didn’t know such things, I couldn’t call myself experienced.

When you scrape the bottom of the barrel, you end up learning all sorts of strange things.

I casually raised the gem toward the monster that was about to charge at us. Glancing at it, I could see some energy-like substance sloshing inside the gem. It seemed to be about 15% full.

After fighting all sorts of enemies in the imperial secret chamber, demons, and even Diggers here… I thought I’d taken quite a few hits, but only 15%? It really does fill up painfully slowly.

But I had no intention of saving it now.

If I keep thinking, “What if I need it more later?” and keep saving it, it might end up being worthless in the end.

The principle of “saving poop” is truth. You can trust me on this—I’m the one who kept an elixir I luckily obtained early on until the ending without using it.

‘I got this for moments like this, so what’s the point of saving it?’

Of course, if it had been more than half full, I might have hesitated, but at just 15%…

And I was confident that using it now would be most efficient.

As I focused on the gem in my hand, I felt some energy being drawn from my body into the gem.

Then the gem glowed and shot a purple light bullet toward the monster before us.

It only made a small hole in the monster’s large body, but that was enough.

Hissss—

As the monster’s body turned to dust and scattered, the Rift that had been holding up also began to collapse.

A trivial and anticlimactic ending. But it was definitely over.

Knowing this, I spoke to the two people staring blankly at me.

“Let’s go home.”

Even though it’s just the dormitory. But for us, that’s home.