Rayos greeted the morning after an uninterrupted night, having separated from his Vessel Body.
He quickly prepared breakfast,
and waited for Shifuru and the others to wake up.
“Won!”
A wolf monster, drawn by the smell of breakfast.
It was the same species as yesterday.
Having not learned its lesson, it attacked, only to be defeated by Rayos’s Vessel Body, which had recovered some of its magic power.
The commotion woke Shifuru and the others.
“It’s cleaned up, so let’s have breakfast! ♪”
“Let’s Eat.” “Kyū~ū~♪”
After finishing breakfast,
they set out for the hole in the defensive net that Rayos had opened yesterday, a process that took nine hours.
Was the hole sealed? Were strong enemies filling it?
Putting that aside,
Rayos confidently declared, “Leave any potential problems to me.”
As a result of arriving early,
the personnel tasked with sealing the newly opened hole were on edge, wondering which faction had been responsible for the damage.
“Blow away! ♪”
Rayos unleashed magic from a long distance.
The wary enemy soldiers mitigated the magic with their magic barriers.
The damage was minor. Seeing Rayos and the others in the direction the magic had come from, the enemy soldiers formed ranks and advanced.
“What are you doing all of a sudden!”
“What if you die!”
The enemy soldiers attempted to crush them with a pincer attack.
However, Rayos and his group had other ideas and split into two units to intercept them.
“Their forces are unevenly distributed in a crescent shape.”
The hole was not yet sealed.
He could also tell that the enemy soldiers showed no individual variation in skill.
“There!”
Rayos prioritized attacking the enemy soldiers at the core of their formation.
This disrupted the enemy soldiers’ movements.
“Shaaa!”
“Gyaaa!”
The Rock Lizard also attacked fiercely.
It repeatedly charged into the area where the enemy soldiers were gathered.
Hit and run tactics. The enemy soldiers attacked the Rock Lizard’s back, but their attacks could not penetrate its thick hide.
Pashūū.
The enemy soldiers fired a red light, a signal for reinforcements, high into the sky.
“Let’s finish this quickly!”
“Yes!” “Sha!”
Before enemy reinforcements could pour in from both sides,
Rayos and the others pressed on towards the enemy capital, cutting down enemy soldiers as they advanced.
Small countries did not have vast territories.
After three hours of non-stop running,
they spotted an artificial architectural city, shimmering like a mirage, which appeared to be the capital.
“I see it! Whoa!? That was close…”
“Zagan!?” “Kyū──!? ”
“…Let’s fall back a bit.”
“Yes.”
The enemy unit pursuing them from behind lost its momentum.
There was nothing left to hinder them.
As Rayos attempted to charge directly into the capital,
he was suddenly struck by a magic attack from empty space.
Thanks to his evasive maneuvers, Rayos avoided being hit in his Vessel Body.
“You dodged that? Are you human?”
As the scenery seemed to waver,
a man with an unimpressive face appeared before Rayos.
He questioned if Rayos was human, as only monsters or non-humans could evade such a surprise attack.
“Here’s a taste of my own!
Blade-like gusts of wind flew towards the man.
The man simply smiled and did nothing.
“I’m over here! ♪”
The blade-like gusts of wind hit the man—or so it seemed. The man’s body dissolved into the scenery like mist.
A voice echoed from another location, and the unharmed man reappeared.
The man held a middle management position in the small country.
His responsibilities ranged from operating the defensive net’s soldiers,
to negotiating truce agreements with other countries,
and managing his own country’s policies.
Why did he do all this?
It was because this man was bound by a curse of domination.
The man had been caught up in an otherworldly transfer.
He was sent to this world,
and after struggling with the language barrier,
he stumbled upon a village inhabited by men and women of his age, and became their charge (took care of him) through gestures.
That village, unbeknownst to him, was a honey trap.
They welcomed potential otherworlders with open arms,
and obtained a part of their bodies (hair, blood seeping from scrapes).
These were used as catalysts for curses.
It took several months to several years of patient catalyst collection to reach that stage.
“If you turn back now, I’ll let you go. I’ll overlook this.”
The man had been granted special skills upon arriving in this world.
His strength was world-class.
This was the result of extensive training from the villagers in the honey trap.
“No way! ♪
Rayos caused the surrounding ground to rise, attempting to neutralize the man’s optical camouflage that blended with the scenery.
He intended to guide the man’s appearance.
“
Rayos struck the area where the man was likely hiding,
and surveyed his surroundings with his compound eyes, unseen by Shifuru and the others, searching for any unnatural undulations from explosions or dust clouds.
“There!
A purple beam of light pierced the wavering space.
“Unfortunately, I’m over here.
Black needles flew diagonally behind and in front of him, timed perfectly to be dodged.
A trap! Or was it a bluff!
Rayos dodged them with caution.
A thin wire was attached to the black needles.
The wire dug into his body, and blood visibly welled up on the wire.
“You’re pulling ninja-like tricks, aren’t you? ♪”
“Ninja? I’ve never heard of such a profession.”
The man, still phased into the background,
sent black needles flying at Rayos, immobilizing him.
Shifuru and the others, wary of the unseen wires, could only watch the fight.
The Rock Lizard could not forcibly break through the wire barrier.
Frustrated, it attacked the wire with its teeth and forelegs.
“
Rayos retreated into the shadows after a blinding flash.
The man was caught off guard by the strong light, but he seemed accustomed to fighting opponents who hid in shadows or underground, and calmly began to search for Rayos’s hiding place.
He ceded the initiative. The second move had the advantage in surprise attacks.
This was how the man had always completed unreasonable orders.
(If only we had met under different circumstances. We could have shared so much unknown information over drinks.)
He thought it was too late now, as he had been ordered to kill the intruder with
“Zagan!”
“Win!”
“Shaaa!”
Shifuru, Tar, and the Rock Lizard cheered Rayos on.
Aiz, Shiers, and Sharz kept their distance from Shifuru and the others.
They maintained a distance from which they could escape at any moment…
Aiz could sense the enemy man’s abilities.
She could estimate them roughly without using her skills.
“The man is strong.
He is strong enough to reveal his hand.
He could probably win if he used his two escorts as disposable shields, but
they still have their uses. It would be a shame to lose them now.
Aiz pondered whether to separate from Rayos and the others, waiting for the outcome of the battle.
A black snake emerged from a part of the wall.
“There.”
The man threw a hidden weapon at the emerging shadow.
“Shadow Movement.”
He moved from shadow to shadow, evading the man’s attack,
and lurked in the shadow of one of the several black snakes slithering on the ground.
The sight of multiple black snakes slithering across the ground was viscerally unsettling.
Tar endured it, lamenting the loss of her femininity.
Shifuru, having gained resistance to such physiological phenomena during her martial arts training, was unaffected.
“Hmph,” she said, with a victor’s smile towards Tar.
“It’s useless to hide in the shadows of snakes.
The man, without revealing himself,
activated his assassin sword techniques.
He sliced the black snakes that Rayos had created with magic into pieces.
Only a few remained.
Rayos burst out of the shadows, spreading his magic around.
Magic detection.
“Intercepting unit—”
“Too late. ♪”
The man was incredibly close.
Before Rayos could prepare a counter, the man moved first.
Rayos felt a heat in his side, and by the time he realized his Vessel Body’s possessed magic power had been disrupted,
*Boom!!*
He exploded from within, and his Vessel Body lost its human form.
“Zagan!?” “Kyā!”
“We will withdraw from this location.”
“Yes!”
The victory was decided. They had lost.
If so, they would flee from this place. They could not afford to lose their escorts.
“That man… I’d like to recruit him as one of my pawns.”
He is quite usable.
Assessing the man’s worth, Aiz thought of sending an envoy to recruit him later.
She then dashed towards the border line of another small country.
Physical Enhancement. A furious sprint, layering physical enhancements with magic.
Shifuru and the others were dumbfounded.
The man watched their retreating backs and mused, “Wouldn’t it have been easier if you had done that from the start…”
“Gyaaaaaaa!”
The Rock Lizard, digging into the ground, attempted to attack, trying to burrow through the wire barrier the man had set up.
“I won’t let you pass!”
“Gyau! Sha!”
The man blended into the scenery and slashed at the Rock Lizard, immobilizing it.
He wanted to finish it in one blow, but
due to the thickness of the fat and skin around its throat, he gave up on that. He decided to cripple its mobility
and take his time to finish it off.
“Reptiles are so troublesome!”
“Gwaa…”
“Lizard!?”
Shifuru and Tar shouted at the man to stop his attack.
“That bastard…”
Rayos, now reduced to an Astral Body floating in the air,
was irritated not only by the destruction of his Vessel Body but also by the dissipation of his possessed magic power, rendering him unable to use it. He glared at the man’s unchecked brutality with regret and murderous intent.
He could possess other bodies, but
none of them contained enough possessed magic power to kill the man.
Therefore, he could not use them. He considered letting the man continue his harassment while he helped the other three escape, but
it was impossible. He did not know the man’s capabilities.
If the man had several movement-type skills, it would be meaningless. No matter how much he interfered, the three would be killed.
“Rather than be killed by that bastard… *sniffle*…”
He remembered his harem in the dungeon where he slept,
and tears welled up, blurring his vision.
To ensure that Shifuru and the others would not suffer, he would kill them!
Gogog…
“?” “…Q?”
“Huh?”
Aiz and the others had been led to surrender.
He manifested on the ground and, leaving the wall exposed, moved it to crush Shifuru and the others between them.
“Whoa!? Was that the signal that the caster had died?”
The man assumed it was a magic spell activated by death and dodged and destroyed the approaching walls, emerging from the swirl of debris.
“Kyaaa?! Why are the walls…?”
“Help me?!” “Zagan!”
“Guh, Gyūū… Kyūū…”
The man rejoiced at being spared the effort of killing them, but he felt disgusted by the indiscriminately set spell formula.
“…My work here is done. I’m heading back to report. Ah… I’ll probably be told to do something about the border personnel. Such an unreasonable demand…”
Because of the curse, he could not lie or ask for leave.
He was absolutely obedient to orders. As long as the unreasonable reality had a non-zero possibility of being achieved, he could not escape the curse’s compulsion.
He regretted not having had more survival skills when he was first transported to this world, completely unaware of the language barrier and differences in common sense.
Unbeknownst to the grumbling man,
Rayos was clinging to his back, determined to kill him.
“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you…”
Now then, how will Rayos kill the man in the capital?
