CHAPTER 122: A VILLAGE-CONSUMING WEAPON

*

Three adventurers had come out to the dangerous Hades Border to find some Darkiods: precious and normally rare ores which were made from rocks and minerals absorbing curse energy and magic power in an absurd amount of time.

Their distance from the nearby city was about 4 miles.

Ordinarily, it should be in the region of 2 miles—for safety reasons—but these three folks decided to be bold: the deeper into Hades Border, the surer you are you’ll find Darkiods.

"Iyaaa," one of them, with a small ponytail, stretched, "I’m already this tired and we’ve not seen even some shards of Darkiods."

"The patient dog ear the fattest meat, I hear," a round-faced chubby man announced, "Nothing good comes easy, too. I assure you, when we find the ore, we’ll forget all about the struggles we had."

"Yeah, like we’ll forget about the Spider Devil who robbed us some days ago," a blonde woman with a staff pouted. "We were lucky she wasn’t hungry!"

They were sitting on the ground, finding respite underneath the shadow of a tall rock.

"So, do we really keep going?" Ponytail asked.

"I want to go home and take a shower, please." The blonde woman sobbed.

"No!" The chubby man stood up, pointing north, "My senses are tingling! North; if we go north, I bet we’ll find the ore and get filthy ric—"

KABOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!

The vibration rattled the skin and bones of the adventurers, instilling primal fear of death into their souls.

They stood still, despite wanting to run faster than their feet could carry them.

About 300 meters north, a great dark smoke, debris, and fire had swum in, creating a channel of death in its wake, going as far as the eyes could see.

The sounds passed and everything went silent.

"This... is Hades Border for sure..." Ponytail had sweated so much, he was drenched.

"I told you guys this was a bad idea!" Blonde yelled, quietly. "Let’s take this as a warning and turn back immediately!"

Ponytail nodded and tried to stand with shaky legs, he and Blonde seeming like newborn lambs.

"Hm?" Blonde turned to Chubby, who was frozen. "Hey, this is no time to freeze over! The next hit might take our heads!!"

Chubby was still standing still.

The other two got visibly worried, glancing at each other.

"Chubby, are you alright?" Blonde voiced, concerned.

"Hey, look," Ponytail began, "I know you really want us to hit it big and all, and that’s nice but... we can’t go risking our lives for it, you know..."

Blonde interjected, "Besides, what better treasure would beat having us together like this?"

Chubby pointed at the destruction caused by the sudden explosion. "That..."

Blonde snapped, "Say what now?! Are you really going that way?!"

Ponytail calmed her down as Chubby explained, turning to them with his now extended eyes, like a telescope.

It retracted inward. "There’s darkiods... in that trench..."

After some moments of debate, they finally walked towards north, to the newly formed trench...

Lo and behold, the trench was actually filled with sheening darkiods. So much they wouldn’t even be able to carry all of them.

Chubby hugged the both of them...

"...We’re rich, guys... We did it..."

Ponytail and Blonde began to shed tear.

"Yeah... we did it..." Blonde smiled, "now we can all get married."

"You were serious about that?!"

*

Ahem. So now there’s a deep carve in the middle of nowhere, extending as far as, I don’t know, half a mile or so!

The gun’s outlet had completely damaged and splintered, then faded to ashes in the next moment.

I could see some idiots celebrating at the mouth of the trench far off.

Shouldn’t they be running in case another blast should come?

"Oh God..." Vil’s eyes said it all. "Just how much magic did you pour into it, Sir Trigger?"

Oh, it’s "Sir" Trigger now!

"Sigh." Trigger seemed sad. "It didn’t nearly provide me with the result I desired."

What?!

"Only about 30% of the intended destruction emerged," he turned to Vil and put a hand on his shoulder.

Vil visibly started trembling.

"On the contrary, lad, this craft is quite amusing still. Just some slight modification here and there, and we shall have a village-consuming weapon at the palm of the hand!"

First, Trigger, I’m older than you. And Vil is older than me by thousands, so don’t call him "Lad."

And don’t say "village-consuming" when we’ll likely be heading to HIS village soon!

Despite what seemed like a threat, Vil still laughed it off and was challenged—saying he’d make something even Trigger wouldn’t be able to destroy.

Well, if a lot of magic enters an object, it would be rendered to ash, so said object needs to have a lot of magic capacity.

Yes, but that gun has just enough—no, more than enough!

Trigger is just evidently anomalous!

And he still has a lot of magic to spare! Inconceivable!

Hmmm, let’s check his PV again. It must’ve grown a bit—

WOAH!!

Was he fighting Pantheons behind my back?!

{Name: Trigger

Species: Supreme Specter

Class: Supreme-level Principality

Title: Void Shooter

Blessing: Banner of Ruben

Prime Value: 1,000,000.}

Jolting!

And now he has a title!

But he used to be just 780k, just a volume ago.

Only I cannot handle the burden; I need to hurt someone!

"Ah, Vil," I asked him sweetly as we walked back to the village.

"Yes?"

"You’re ancient enough, so you should know about Prime Value, right?"

"Ah, of course!" He beamed, smug. "I do know about that. In fact, I’m 560,000 Prime Valued, myself!"

"Good. So it’d hit harder when I say... Trigger is one milli—"

*

"Huh? Master Ruben," Bina waved at us as we came down into the village.

Vil had taught us the entry spell (when Levi threatened him).

"Why is Vilskapa limp?" Levi asked, poking the unconscious man I was carrying. "Did he attempt something perverted and got put in his place?"

"No..." I smiled at her. "He heard the truth, but the truth was too loud and heavy."

Later on, I found that even Hachiman had made friends with the dwarves, helping them test-run their blades on trees and targets.

Wait a second, how are these guys leaving the Shadow Realm?!

It was wholesome, somewhat—everyone happy and playing around, getting ready for the festival which was starting tomorrow.

It should be fun to look forward to... but Levi was just pulling everyone’s strings, it’s hard to discern if they really like what they were doing.

But... I can at least tell that they’re happy right now.

I tried my best to stay away from my room the entire day, to not run into Valhugr (I’ll be now calling him Hugr).

It was getting somewhat late, so I decided to give the village a walk.

Unfortunately, when I got near an alleyway—

"Hello there, my beautiful prince."

Oh heavens...

I was found out!

I awkwardly turned back to escape, but immediately, arms wrapped around my waist.

Ugh, my skin is crawling with total cringe!

"Uhm..." I looked away. "I’m a guy too, you know?"

"It matters not," Hugr put his lips on my ear, his beard tickling it. "What I love is your form—I mean, your soul."

"Yeah right! Go deceive someone else!"

He then pressed me to the wall, holding my two slender arms with one of his burly ones, his other hand tracing my lips.

God Damnit!! I’m being ridiculed!!

A regal and majestic beast I am! I refuse to be reduced to a damsel in distress!

"Hey," my eyes glowed with killing intent, "let go off me, and I’ll forget all abo— Hngh!"

The bastard groped my behind!!

Ah, and I made a weird noise...