Brawl

——Near the border of the City States.

While the Demon Lord sowed chaos in the slums of Euritheis, Hearts had begun his operation to tear up a portion of Gorgon territory, starting a full-scale riot with a thousand of his fighters.

“Let’s get this show on the road!” Hearts cracked his BDSM whip to commence the infiltration. The cross-dressing dominatrix, despite his complex characteristics, was one of the top four of the Jack of All Trades and more than a competent fighter as such.

The news of their infiltration and disruption of Gorgon’s territory rapidly reached its leader.

“Jack, huh?”

The City States was a unique nation composed of several sovereign cities, each with their own laws, culture, palate, and more. Complex hierarchies and business arrangements formed a system among the City States where countless trading companies competed day in and day out. One of them was the Gorgon Company, AKA the City States Alpha.

“I had expected something like this from him...” Gorgon chuckled. His eyes shone as sharply and coldly as a blade of ice behind a pair of sophisticated glasses, which did nothing to mask the cruel, calculated nature he showed in his gaze. He had inherited the Gorgon Company at the young age of twenty-three, his slender stature clad in a pinstripe suit. In short, he was a racketeer. In fact, the Gorgon Company had begun as a mercenary group; they had always had a place in the underground, which they used in combination with their legitimate business to become the syndicate they were today.

“He’s earlier than expected. It seems the fall of the bishop did the trick...”

Gorgon was not surprised by his company clashing with Jack’s. That much was a result of natural progression; he simply regretted the change in his intricately designed timetable that, unbeknownst to him, had been caused by the Demon Lord.

“The Jack of All Trades...” An elderly woman sitting beside Gorgon leisurely set down her cup of tea. “How frightening.”

Gorgon’s mansion was occupied exclusively by elderly women. Although Gorgon’s appearance was striking even for men, he was a severe gerontophile, so much so that any young men or women in his vicinity would cause him anxiety and nausea.

“No need to be frightened, Catherine. The rabid dog had nowhere to run but here.” Gorgon went on to patiently explain, his ruthless demeanor completely replaced with what appeared to be kindness. “To the north of Ruri lies Milk and its vast pastures. The mad dog holds no infrastructure to sneak dairy and leather products into circulation and provide merchants with them.”

Such a process required passing through numerous customs checks, multiple different routes to deliver the product with access to many land and sea routes, extensive knowledge about the products, and years of experience. Even then, it would have been all wasted without trust from powerful individuals all around, in addition to the merchants. And the merchants on this continent were not so gullible as to trust the likes of Jack, who only gained his position through his fists.

“Westward lies Tartarus and warfare.”

“There was a country with a weird name to the south...”

“Edogawa, you mean? Not much to be gained there other than the resorts. Not to mention the risk of sharing a border with Animania.”

Raising his teacup, Gorgon pondered. East was the only direction to go. Considering all things about the other City States, their only logical course to chart was into Euritheis. With two opposing forces charging at each other, it was only a matter of time until they collided. What complicated the matter was the Demon Lord.

“But Don...”

“I told you to call me by my name when we’re alone, Catherine.”

Catherine blushed as the air in the room changed. Gorgon was not interested in any woman under the age of sixty and saw any women under that threshold as revolting.

However, more news came flooding into their intimate playroom.

“King...? From Heaven’s Ward?” A document provided by another elderly woman was inscribed with a name that had no reason to be there.

It seemed that Hearts and his men were vengefully mentioning the name as they rioted, starting rumors that members of Heaven’s Ward were participating in the attack.

“Why are they in our territory...” Gorgon muttered. They were a mercenary company working in the far west of the City States; they had no business meddling in a conflict here. Gorgon would have considered it too risky to attack the City States if he had been in their shoes. “They chose publicity over profit...” Gorgon’s eyes glimmered. With the shared origin as a mercenary between Gorgon’s clan and Heaven’s Ward, he felt a powerful disgust for them. “Arrogant fools...” A newly founded group had taken a swing at them, one of the best-established and long-standing mercenary companies on the continent, and this was an unbearable insult to Gorgon. “Catherine, will you tell Jake to swallow the rat whole, please?”

“I-I will...”

The cat and mouse game between the Gorgon Company and Hearts’s guerrilla team. This, of course, was only the opening act to a much larger conflict.

Meanwhile, Spades and his men had returned to Jack in a pathetic state: bones mysteriously smashed all over their bodies, as well as stripped and dumped out onto the streets naked.

Jack shouted, red with rage. “What the hell happened?!” He lifted Spades by his hair and pried his mouth open.

Spades panted, “Some...spell... Never...seen it...”

His men confirmed this, groaning in pain.

“King cast a spell...?” From what Jack had heard, King was a great warrior in combat, but no Spellcaster. What mercenary, who made their living through their reputation, would not brag about such a remarkable spell? One that could crumble two hundred elite fighters in a single swoop...

The thought of it gave Jack doubt for the first time: should he send more men to take on King? Especially after hearing that the residents of the slums had been the ones to dump Spades and his men onto the streets.

“King’s got the filth from the slums on his side...” Jack snarled.

“B-But, Boss, that riffraff won’t make a dent in the Company no matter how many King’s got on his side,” Diamond said.

Jack shook his head, exasperated by Diamond’s lack of imagination. His higher-ups were all formidable fighters, but few had much of a brain. Strategizing and decision-making were left to him alone.

“Won’t make a dent, huh...? How many do you think live in that dump, Diamonds?”

“Huh...? L-Like five hundred, probably...”

“How many years ago was that, dumbass?! Two thousand’s a low guess, their brats included.”

“B-But we could take out those skin-and-bone bastards anytime we—”

“Shut up.” Jack puffed out some cigar smoke and waved Diamonds off as if he couldn’t be bothered to explain. Jack was concerned with the large population of potential enemies within the city walls, regardless of their current threat level.

He feared no size of foreign invasion, but a potential terrorist group of two thousand lying dormant within his territory was another story. The iron defense of the capital wouldn’t help one bit when they started pillaging and destroying the city from the inside.

“Thought it was weird when he went straight for the slums... This was his plan all along.” Jack growled at the unexpected use of strategy from whom he had considered a meathead on the battlefield. King had come alone, not out of brazen recklessness, but with a plan to make an ally out of the lowest class. You’re making it more interesting than I thought you would, King... As Jack realized the formidability of his foe, he was also relieved. He could understand someone capable of that kind of calculation more than he could a madman ready to charge into enemy territory solo without a thought. As a ruler, he feared an outlier: someone without rhyme or reason, who exerted senseless violence without a cause. That description more closely matched a monster than a human.

“Surround the slums, Diamonds. Don’t let a single rat out. If anyone tries to break through, kill them on the spot.”

“Aye, Boss!”

“We’ll corner King in the slums. The Five Stars will take care of him.”

With that, Jack threw on his tiger-skin gown. Shortly, he was expected to attend a ceremony at the colosseum. As a former gladiator, he was partial to attending these events, but pulling a no-show could be seen as him cowering from the attack.

“Don’t you worry, King... I’ll send what’s left of you to Heaven’s Ward.” Jack stomped out of the room and regained his composure as dictator.

With a flashy battalion as his entourage, he made his way towards the colosseum as if he was paying no mind to his conflict with Gorgon. While the citizens of the capital had mixed emotions about Jack’s appearance, none had the strength to defy him. Going against the Company would earn them a one-way ticket to the slums.

They haven’t made a crazy stir yet... Jack scoffed at the sheep who groveled to him with their eyes. When he had first arrived at the city as a slave, he was met with eyes of disdain. People had thrown rocks at him and spit in his face, as if he was an untouchable; now, the people of the city bowed down to him, chanting his name, fawning. Stupid sheep... I’ll wring you all dry until you die.

This was Jack’s method of revenge against Euritheis as a whole, where he had spent days of wretched hardship. As a world-class villain, his revenge had reached an enormous scale.

The colosseum... It all started from here... As dusk approached, the colosseum came into view. He had spent his formative years here, fighting off opponents of all shapes and sizes, including humans, beasts, and even monsters, as he scrambled to survive. He often fought covered in his own blood as the audience laughed and wagered on his life. These were days of torture he didn’t want to remember.

And now, every fighter and spectator is under my thumb... Jack entered the colosseum to a resplendent fanfare and was met with the particular heat of the arena, attended by gamblers and the upper class with too much time on their hands.

Fighting had always been a spectator sport throughout history with dedicated fans. In the colosseum, bets were openly made as to who would survive, expensive wine bottles being opened left and right. As fighters killed to survive, the rich and their professional escorts discussed the fighters and their predictions as if they were master fighters themselves, drinking bottles of wine each priced around the average salary of a commoner in the city. The platters of food spread before them were also strikingly lavish. It was hard to believe that the colosseum resided in the same city as the slums. The audience section of the colosseum was separated by class, and Jack made his way up to the royal box.

“Are you having fun, you dumb motherfuckers?!” His arms spread wide, Jack shouted into a microphone made from a Wind Spell Stone.

The spectators answered with fists in the air, whistling and hooting.

“What matchups you got for us today, Jack?!”

“Viva Euritheis! Get those City States bastards over here and beat them to death!”

The crowd seemed to be in support of Jack’s appearance despite the rumors of conflict with the Gorgon Company. They were in a mecca of contest, after all, where only the strong were rewarded.

After sufficiently greeting the crowd, Jack gave the minister (who had already been seated) a sharp look. The minister leapt up like a grasshopper and gave a deep bow, clearly signifying their power dynamic.

“Th-There was some commotion in—”

“None of your business. It’s taken care of.”

“B-But there are rumors of the Gorgon—”

“You’re making me repeat myself?” Jack glowered at the minister, who promptly sat back down, facing forward with his back straight and his hands on his knees. He was the only one in the entire colosseum to be seated like this.

“The dumbass is trapped in the slums. I’m taking Gorgon down in the same breath.”

“U-Understood...” The timid-looking minister agreed, pleading to the Angels and the Great Light to get him away from the rabid man as soon as possible. Perhaps it was human nature to pray to anything one could think of in times of strife, even if they had no faith in these deities in their day-to-day lives.

Seeing that Jack was seated, the master of ceremonies took over, boisterously announcing the highlight matches and tournaments for the day. At each announcement, the audience was fired up hotter and hotter, their cheers growing louder and louder.

Soon, combat commenced in every corner of the arena, filling the colosseum with bloodshed and betting. The life-or-death contest provided unparalleled entertainment for the guests.

Night fell as the matches progressed and the audience became more intoxicated. Jeers were becoming more common, and some spectators in the first-class boxes had even begun engaging in lascivious acts, making for a bloodstained festival.

Jack let out a low chuckle as he imagined his profits for the night. Now, where to drop that Krack...? That’ll be a huge pile of gold. The drugs left in the bishop’s cargo would prove to be a test of his business-making abilities: to circulate them in small batches or sell the entire stock at once. Maybe I’ll just shake down Suneo for the money in exchange for handing over the cargo. As a delicious payback for turning to Heaven’s Ward and Gorgon, he could demand they pay a hefty sum for the stolen goods. King should be taken care of by now... I wonder what state his body’ll be in. Imagining King slaughtered like a sewer rat in the corner of the slums, Jack raised his glass in a mocking salute.

The king himself had awakened just about the time Jack had arrived at the colosseum. Dusk had come, and dangerous tension surrounded the slums as it was locked down tight to not let a single soul out. A full-scale street war seemed imminent.

I got some sleep at least... The source of the catastrophic misunderstanding and the firestarter for all of today’s events had just completed a full course of douchebaggery: eating and drinking all over someone else’s house before sleeping in a lady’s bed without her permission.

“Good morning, Master.”

“Hm? I slept until morning...?”

“The time is five in the evening, but morning begins whenever you wake, Master.”

That’s ridiculous! The Demon Lord simply ordered Ren to call the sisters and closed his eyes again. He was ready to pursue his initial objective of asking questions about the dungeon.

The sisters entered. They were almost unrecognizable, with even a healthy sheen on their hair and skin. The overpowered Stamina recovery had revitalized them from head to toe.

“Mister King, thank you so much for providing my mother with such a valuable medicine... Thank you!”

“Thank you for the delicious meal, Mister King!”

“No need to thank me, but my name is not King. It’s Hakuto Kunai. Remember it well.” The Demon Lord looked relieved to have finally gotten this out.

The sisters shared a look before showing confident agreement.

“Yes, King Kunai!”

“King Kunai!”

“Wait! Get away from King, for the love of everything! You just want to call me that, don’t you?! You know what you’re doing!” The Demon Lord rambled on, but his title had already been instilled too deep in the sisters for him to correct them in any way. The sisters even seemed to feel pride in the glamorous title. “Nevermind... I’ll deal with that later. What can you tell me about the dungeon in this city?”

“The dungeon?” The older sister began to relay facts she knew about the capital’s dungeon. She mentioned there was loot to be gained from monsters, but the dungeon was not run in a very fair manner.

“Blue Bricks, huh...? Doesn’t really sound like a dungeon.”

“I used to fall for it too, but they plant rare items. Everyone loses their mind over them.”

“A plant... It’s a time-tested method, for sure.”

At this point, the Demon Lord was informed of the names of the family: Warin, the older sister; Urin, the younger sister; and Marin, the mother. These names evoked a certain pachinko machine in the Demon Lord’s mind, but he scrubbed the image from his thoughts. However, it led to an idea. “If dungeon crawling is a form of gambling, they would need to show off big wins every now and then.”

The flashing jackpot signs, the lotto winners on the news, and all of the hullabaloo for big winners at casinos were all designed to make people dream of themselves in their shoes, drawing them into the dangerous vice. Of course, those big winners had beaten astronomical odds, and most people’s gambling experiences were in the red. It simply would not be called gambling if one could keep winning without cheating.

“They’ve demanded I enter the colosseum to repay my debt... People die in there every day and they think it’s a game! My father is still imprisoned there...”

“A game...” Lying down on the bed, the Demon Lord scowled at the ceiling. If the colosseum had been mere child’s play, he wouldn’t have paid it any mind. But a game of life or death... He had some expertise in that; he even felt a tinge of outrage that they would dare host a life or death game without him. Half of his life, after all, had been spent with a battle royale that encroached upon the real world. “What do you think, Ren?”

“I can’t imagine it’s anything good if it’s run by the Jack of All Trades.”

“Hm. Let’s go take a look, then.”

Ren held the Demon Lord’s hands in hers, picking up that he was going to Quick Travel, a method of transportation that seemed ordinary to them, but would be an unbelievable nightmare for Diamonds, who had the slums surrounded so tightly he could prevent a single bug from escaping.

“I’ll be out for a bit,” the Demon Lord announced. “Make yourselves at home.”

In the blink of an eye, Ren and the Demon Lord vanished, their presence and all. The sisters exclaimed in surprise, but there was no one left on the bed.

“Mister King is an incredible mage!”

“Mister King’s king magic!”

The sisters cried.

The simple act of entering Stealth Stance followed by a Quick Travel appeared nothing short of a spectacular magic spell. This decision would soon lead to another bizarre misunderstanding in the slums, which, in all fairness, was entirely the fault of the Demon Lord.

Once they were out on the main street, the Demon Lord and Ren walked along the road, remaining comfortably undetectable among bustling foot traffic. Speaking to each other via Communication as they went, they enjoyed the dazzling cityscape of the capital, illuminated with countless Light Spell Stones.

The city seems more prosperous out here, the Demon Lord communicated.

A drastic change from the slums. It’s like... Ren trailed off, uncharacteristically.

Of course, the Demon Lord caught on to the words that would have followed. A life or death colosseum, glory to the rich, and misery to the poor. You see the Empire in this city.

I wouldn’t have...

You’re not wrong to think so. There’s one definitive difference, however.

What is it, Master?

It’s not nearly enough... the Demon Lord answered mysteriously, and they went further into the city until they reached the entrance of Blue Bricks, which led out into a large plaza that was congested with pedestrians.

According to Warin, the dungeon was built from literal blue bricks that could withstand any impact, physical or magical.

“Hey, there were three Blue Mirrors today!”

“For real?!”

“Six gold coins a pop!”

“Why can’t I ever get one?! You could party for months!”

“It will be me, next time! I’m going to do it!”

The adventurers all reacted to the news in their own, dramatic way. The Demon Lord immediately saw through this, however: a plant, like Warin had mentioned, produced into a grand spectacle by Jack and served up as cheese on a trap to lure adventurers into the dungeon.

All scripted. It’s almost adorable how hard they’re working to keep this up...

This is a place full of deceit.

The Demon Lord cackled when a pair of men fell back onto the ground.

“How... How is he here?! He’s supposed to be tr-tr-tr-tr-tr-trapped in the slums...!”

“Oh, no, no, no, no... Eyze, it’s that guy!”

The Demon Lord’s and Ren’s expressions changed, knowing that seeing past Stealth Stance required a certain threshold of skill.

“D-Don’t say my name, you idiot! What if he remembers it?!”

“W-Wait, don’t choke me, Eyze! Please, Eyze!”

“Shut up!”

The pair revealed themselves fully. As soon as the Demon Lord put a cigarette in his mouth, Ren lit it.

“City guards, by the look of it,” the Demon Lord said. “Good eye...Eyze.”

“Th-That’s not my name! This newbie right here, h-he’s a serial liar, born and raised—”

“That’s horrible, Eyze! Don’t call me a liar, Eyze! Why would you say something like that, Eyze?!”

“Stop calling my name! You know what you’re doing, don’t you?! Huh?!”

Watching Eyze and his partner wrestle, the Demon Lord chuckled. He felt a strange sense of sympathy after being relentlessly addressed as King. A patrol unit, composed of Lilus and his men, overheard them and came over.

“What’s going on— Damn it, Eyze.” Lilus scowled at Eyze from atop of his horse, reminded of the numerous times when one of Eyze’s outbursts halted their mission or travels. Then, he spotted the Demon Lord in his suit and discerned him to be King. “Going to suck up to Heaven’s Ward now, Eyze?”

“N-No, I—”

“That’s why you’ll always be a loser. The only thing on your mind’s to ride on the coattails of someone else who has what it takes... You disgust me.” Lilus spat in Eyze’s face.

Eyze wiped it off with a filthy piece of fabric that could barely be called a handkerchief. No matter how miserable he was, he couldn’t make a retort.

“And sucks for you,” Lilus added, “he doesn’t have what it takes. Just a loser about to be executed.” He raised his arm, which called a hundred mercenaries to come in formation, all pointing their weapons at the Demon Lord and Ren, almost happy that they were spared the hassle of cornering them in the slums.

“What’s up, King? First time seeing you without your armor.”

“You are mistaken. My name isn’t King, and we’ve never met before.”

“So that’s how you sound. You’re a quiet man on the battlefield, but you’ve got a good bass voice.”

“I’m—”

“Come off it, man! None of this you’re-not-King bull. You think no one would know who you are with your armor off?” With an exasperated laugh, he moved his men forward.

Ren took a step forward as if to stand between them and the Demon Lord. “They are hostile, Master.”

“Come on, King, you’re going to hide behind this cutie? Kind of disappointed, if I’m being real here. Pathetic without your armor on...”

The Demon Lord had been quietly enjoying a smoke but decided to ask, “Just to confirm, you are trying to kill me?” Just like the thugs at the slums, it seemed evident that they were specifically after his life.

“Huh? What are you... You came swinging at Euritheis. At the Jack of All Trades. You think you can make it out of the capital alive? Your head belongs to the Five Stars now.”

“I see... Then I’d best fight back.”

“You screwed up, King. You let a bit of infamy get to your head. Puffed your chest at the wrong guy. You two losers would have gotten along.” Lilus’s lips curled.

The Demon Lord, too, wore a bitter grin as he was reminded of his younger self in Eyze.

When the world of Akira Ono was crushed by the flood of social media craze. A section of the internet had been populated by heartless comments:

Ono’s site crashed and burned, LOL. What a loser.

He’s toast.

His games were so dated.

At the time, Akira plunged himself into the depths of drink and debauchery, spending his days at rock bottom. With his savings drained, he had begun working at a video game company only to find no fulfillment there. Rinse and repeat. Of course, Akira had not given up. He bided his time for a long, long time, before throwing his heart and soul into the fires of one last retry...

Reminiscing about old times, the Demon Lord muttered to himself, “From the market crash and the jobless era to my temp and contractor days, people like you have always preached about victors and losers. Every single one of them was as paper-thin as you.”

“Huh?”

“Winning... Losing... What it all means... Those are only inside each of us. Nothing is as comical as a complete stranger giving a lecture on what it means to win at life.”

“Cool story... But you’re still coming out the loser.” Lilus had discreetly called for his teammates as he kept the Demon Lord busy, and now there were three other Five Star higher-ups leading their own teams of a hundred mercenaries to the plaza. “You thought I was listening to you drone on for my entertainment? Losers only keep their eyes on what’s in front of them in the moment.”

Even in the face of the Five Star mercenary company, the Demon Lord and Ren remained still.

“No need to kill them, Ren.”

“Pardon me, Master, but they have clear intentions to kill you.”

“No need to dirty your hands with these punks,” the Demon Lord said to further quell Ren’s wrath.

“Master...” With teary eyes, Ren wrapped her arms around his waist. “If it is your will, Master, I am ready to cut down and impale a billion foes.”

“Hold on, don’t say things like that with your arms around me!”

The higher-ups of the Five Stars shared an exasperated look at this. They each had their thoughts about King, whom they had met on the battlefield a few times.

“That’s King’s face... Looks even more intense than I thought,” said Giuliani, known as the Berserker, a large man with an even larger war hammer that turned all who came near him to ground meat. The hammer was so heavy that no ordinary man could have lifted it at all.

“I thought he’d be a bit younger... Too bad,” said Warden of Hell Marietta. She was a serpentine woman who had become a warden of slaves in the renowned gold mines of Goldstone during her time off from mercenary work. There, she left behind a pile of bodies. Her scimitar was all golden from its handle to the edge of its blade.

“Age is but a number in our business... King should not be viewed lightly,” spoke the famed sage Aerios, the Fire of Sotta. He had become a sort of local hero after burning down an entire goblins’ nest in the Sotta mountains to the north.

“Hmph. With all of us here, we could take out a Firebrand.” Lastly, there was Lilus the Illusionary Sword, who had gained his fame as a monster hunter after solo-hunting a Unicorn Bug.

Every one of the higher-ups was a top-notch fighter, and the rest of their battalion was better trained than most armies around. It was only natural that they grew to become one of the most popular mercenary companies on the continent. Considering that, Eyze had it bad in more ways than one when he was working alongside them.

Giuliani moved his horse forward, his war hammer on one shoulder. “We’re both mercenaries. Choose an honorable death and I won’t make it painful.”

“Don’t interrupt my time with my master,” Ren quietly said, her arms still embracing the Demon Lord.

Giuliani brushed his clean-shaven head, looking a bit troubled. “Come on, little girl. We’re not here to play.”

“I’m not playing. My love for my master is as real as it can be.”

“H-Hey, little girl... Could it be you’re...using me to confess your love to this guy?! Is that what’s going on?!” Giuliani shouted, his face beet-red from anger and jealousy.

The Demon Lord decided to play off this reaction and said, “A request for you, Ren. Entertain them for a bit.”

After a long silence, Ren regrettably relinquished her hold on the Demon Lord. “Yes, Master.” She faced her foe.

The Demon Lord took his cue to scuttle off to one of the chairs in the plaza, where he situated his ashtray and a bottle of shochu he had taken from the casino, ready to become a perfect spectator. “Go easy on them, Ren.”

At his command, Ren produced a long lance from a dark void that materialized in the air. Her weapon of choice, Ningen Mukotsu, had sent countless players to their graves. The point was formed by a spiral of several blades that emanated an ominous red glow, its length longer than she was tall.

“Resistance is futile. Surrender now...”

Ren’s masterful stance and the eerie presence of the lance froze the members of the Five Stars, even despite their exceptional prowess. It was precisely because of their talent that they felt in their bones how dangerous the lance was. By their estimation, it was at least a Legendary and almost certainly an Ancient Fragment.

Overcome with fear, Lilus cried out, “N-Not fair, King! Y-You got a lance l-like...that?!”

“Hm? You were just boasting up and down how successful you are. What do you have to fear in anything a loser like me has up his sleeve? Go big or go home. You won’t be going home after this, though.”

“Are you kidding me?! This is like cheating! And you call yourself a mercenary?! You crossed the line, man!”

“You’re afraid of a little girl with a lance? Is that what it means to be victors? Man up. Go big or go home. You won’t be going home after this, though. That was important enough to bear repeating,” the Demon Lord tore them to shreds with his words as he sipped his shochu on the rocks. Such a professional scumbag he was that he didn’t forget to goad his enemies even after resigning himself to spectate.

Giuliani whirled his war hammer as if to blow this miasma of fear away. “It’s a bluff! The hell are you scared of that girl for?!” He triggered his Weightlifter and Bodybuilder skills to drastically power himself up. These skills each raised his Attack and Defense, and he continued to buff himself by activating his Revitalize skill, which negated any exhaustion, as well as the Numb skill, which prevented him from feeling pain. In this state, Giuliani was truly an unstoppable berserker.

“Time to grind you to a pulp... No more games!” He charged at a speed that betrayed his size, raising his war hammer, delivering his coup de grâce that reduced his foes to mincemeat, armor, shield, and all. “Eat this! Meat Grinder!”

The earth-shattering blow struck Ren straight on the head, but she didn’t budge an inch. She simply waved her left hand as if to swat away a fly, which caused Giuliani’s massive frame to fly and tumble through the lines of mercenaries behind him, leaving a glaring gap in their previously flawless formation. Giuliani was motionless, bones shattered throughout his body.

As the Five Stars company fell silent, Ren’s deadly voice echoed, “For daring to challenge my master with such laughable skill... Death will be a merciful punishment.”

“Wh-What are you...coming at me for?!” Marietta, who had abused and killed many slaves in her time, let out the first feminine scream she had in years as Ren slowly approached. “I-I won’t die here! I have so much more gold to—”

With the silent swing of her lance, Ren slammed the Warden of Hell off of her horse. She had sensed some darkness about the woman that reminded her of Yu; Ren even considered executing her here and now.

“Are you trying to seduce my master with that outfit?”

“I-I would never! I have no interest in him whatsoever! Really!” Marietta frantically denied the charge, pierced by Ren’s soul-freezing gaze.

Ren silently swung the blunt end of her lance beside Marietta’s face.

“Agghhhh!”

“No interest? How dare you say my master has no allure.”

“N-No, I didn’t— It’s a misunderstanding! H-He’s a very alluring gentleman!”

“Every sentient being knows that.”

“Y-Yes, they dooo!” Marietta broke into sobs.

As if she was trying to break Marietta’s spirit in lieu of killing her outright, Ren was uncharacteristically turning to verbal assault. It was becoming difficult to see who was more fitting of the title of Warden of Hell.

Meanwhile, the Demon Lord was turning a blind eye, sitting within his cloud of cigarette smoke. I didn’t come, I didn’t see, and I didn’t conquer... Nothing happened here today. In a display of peak laziness, the Demon Lord turned to his drink as if it was a beautiful Sunday in the park with nothing amiss.

Seeing Ren preoccupied with Marietta, the sage Aerios, the Fire of Sotta, began casting spells at incredible speeds. He made a judgment call: move now or die.

“Terribly sorry, but I’m not holding back! Multiplied: Flame Bird!”

Aerios cast this Flame (an elevation of Fire) spell, and a class-3 at that, considered to be the zenith of human magery. While a talented few like Luna and Yukikaze were able to cast spells in rapid succession through Chain Incantation, Aerios had cast two iterations of the spell at once. Living up to his title of sage, he had annihilated the Sotta goblins and their nest through casting explosive Multiplied spells. Twin inferno birds swooped in on Ren from either side.

“This is the end!” Aerios uttered.

The birds that were poised to incinerate their target evaporated in the blink of an eye thanks to Ren’s World Queller.

“It didn’t— Bragh!”

Ren leapt behind Aerios with blinding speed and struck him on the back of the head, making the sage crumble to the ground, her eyes now set on Lilus.

“What the...?! What’s going on?!” he shouted. They had overcome battlefield after battlefield, with abuse and degradation from clients and nobles to make it this far. We’d finally made it... We’re victors! How did this happen?!

Single-handedly taken out by a young girl, and in the lavish capital of Euri no less. Bad news traveled fast, so this could very well tank the reputation of the mercenary company.

“Surround her, the lot of you! No holding back!”

At Lilus’s command, the mercenaries jumped into action as if they had been woken from a nightmare.

Their movement was swift and refined, but the Demon Lord had a comment to make. “Surround Ren? Like moths to a lamp...”

Final bosses of the game, like Ren and the Demon Lord, were expected to be outnumbered and surrounded by players, so they were equipped with several ways to escape this very situation.

With a quick inhale, Ren activated one of her Combat Skills, Self Restraint. This skill ensured that her enemies were left with at least 1 HP no matter how much damage she dealt to them. On the surface, this skill may have seemed counterintuitive to the point of Kunai’s Game, but it had its alternative uses. A player could have used this skill to keep a particular enemy alive for some time as they repeatedly attacked them to grind EXP and loot. In a way, this skill was an indicator of the severity of the game.

With Ren completely surrounded, Lilus had just finished a lengthy incantation to cast the best attack in his arsenal, right off the bat. He had the special talent of combining the incongruent Light and Dark elements to warp space around him. In the art of Magical Mixology, he was an irrefutable genius.

—Holy Mist, Dark Vision

“You can’t run now, you little punk!”

—Prison of Darkness

Two opposing forces collided, distorting the world around them so that most would have lost their sense of balance. Lilus multiplied into eight copies of himself and turned to the offensive with the rest of his battalion. Even monsters were disoriented in this space, attacking at nothingness. He always won his battles as he watched his foes scramble fruitlessly in his prison. This time, however, he was facing Ren Miyaoji—an entity that far surpassed any human or monster he had previously encountered.

—First Skill: Flicker

Ren swung Ningen Mukotsu in a circular motion at a godly speed. The next instant, all four hundred of the Five Stars, the Prison of Darkness, and Lilus himself fell. If not for Ren’s Self Restraint, all of their torsos would have been severed in half.

Ren lowered her lance. Masterful arts of combat are often described as dance-like, and this was a stunning performance. Illuminated by the Light Spell Stones of the dusk-fallen capital, Ren even appeared mystical.

It was then that jarring applause pierced the silence of the plaza, coming from Ignatio, leader of the Five Stars, and his team of a hundred men standing behind him, frozen with fear.

“I’ve been watching from a safe distance for a bit, but you’re out of this world. Total cheat, if you ask me. Are you even human?”

“Keep it short. You’re wasting time I could spend with my master.”

“I wish I could just walk away, but we’re on the verge of collapse here.” A smile plastered on his face, Ignatio drew his sword and approached Ren head-on.

Ren had a strange feeling about this but decided to let things play out.

Soon, Ignatio leapt far above Ren’s head. “Sorry! I’m not going to touch a monster like you with a ten-foot pole!” Ignatio’s cape was enchanted with the power of High Jump, which allowed him to reach far higher in the air than any wingless man could reach. “Here we go, Aerial Drive!” Controlling the wind and ignoring Ren altogether, Ignatio freely flew through the air and targeted the Demon Lord from behind, dive-bombing towards the back of his head.

Ignatio’s sword was a One-of-a-Kind designed to absorb the impacts on the blade and store up the accumulated damage. He preferred to strike like a bird of prey, leaping high into the air and swooping down from the natural blind spot of many creatures, ready to escape back up into the air for another swoop should the first fail.

“Sword Impact!” he spoke as he unleashed all of the damage stored up in his blade.

An incredible impact rang through the air as the earth rumbled and dust clouds rose in the plaza. No matter how powerful a monster or hellbeast, the stronger the opponent, the more destruction his sword wrought.

As the air cleared, Ignatio saw, despite feeling the kill in his swing, that the Demon Lord’s Assault Queller had entirely blocked Ignatio’s attack.

The Demon Lord set his glass on the table. “You thought this circus trick would work against the Demon Lord of the Empire?”

“Wait— Huh? What’s th— Hgragh!”

The Demon Lord threw a light uppercut at Ignatio who was floating in the air above him, sending him back upwards much higher than he had jumped on his own. On Ignatio’s way down, Ren snagged his collar with her lance to catch him before impact. Out of context, he almost looked like a piece of laundry caught on a drying rack.

Ren discarded Ignatio with a flick of her lance and opened her pocket watch.

“Five minutes and four seconds, Master.”

“And if you had pulled out all the stops?”

“Eight seconds would have sufficed to eliminate them all.”

“I see,” the Demon Lord acknowledged as if he was training an Olympian. He approached Ignatio, who remained sprawled on the ground in complete shock. “I have a question for you. Where’s the cargo you stole?”

“Way to k-kick a horse when it’s down... Who do you work for anyway...?” With a weak shake of his head and a chuckle, he pointed to a ship that was docked over by the harbor: the very one Jack was planning to use to ship the goods off by sea.

“A ship, I see.”

“Sell those off and you could rule the place for a while... It’s not fair out here, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re on about, but I don’t need that.”

“What do you mean—”

Without bothering to answer, the Demon Lord jumped high onto a roof, then jumped from house to house. Ren followed suit.

“Come on, they’re better at using Wind than I am?! Give me a break...” Ignatio collapsed, soul crushed.

Soon, the Demon Lord arrived at the port, where many fishing and trading boats were docked. The one Ignatio had pointed at was a carrack anchored off shore.

“No one’s on board either. Perfect.”

“What cargo is on the ship, Master?”

“Some sort of crack or cocaine or whatever.” The Demon Lord threw Sodom’s Fire at the vessel without hesitation.

The dagger triggered Expert Chain Attacks, shaking the carrack with a deafening boom before a black fire emerged from the blade, quickly engulfing the entire ship. Sodom’s Fire lapped up the flammable wood, rope, and sail in no time. The roaring flame reduced everything to ash: the Trance, the valuable artifacts and art pieces, and even the mountain of Krack that could have funded the entire treasury of a small nation for a year.

The black fire flickering in his eyes, the Demon Lord cackled. “That’s one mess off the list! Burn! Burn!” The Demon Lord was ecstatic to have this seed of trouble taken care of, never mind that he had just set the ship of a foreign nation ablaze. The violence and cackling were becoming of the Demon Lord’s title; Ren watched him with fondness, knowing the cargo on board had been some sort of dangerous narcotics.

“I hate to intrude on your celebration, Master, but people are beginning to notice.”

“Let us get going, then.”

Using Stealth Stance, the pair vanished into thin air.

The wake left by these two final bosses passing through the dungeon plaza was quite disastrous, the piles upon piles of incapacitated Five Stars mercenaries strewn about the place. Eyze, who had watched the encounter from start to finish, still couldn’t believe his eyes. His exceptionally talented ex-teammates were littered about like scattered debris.

“What the hell...? How did you guys lose...?”

“Eyze...”

Despite those who had degraded him, insulted him, and abused him lying on the ground in defeat, Eyze felt no vindication, but an overwhelming feeling of outrage. The talents he had so revered in his teammates had been crushed by raw strength. Evidence of this cruel reality was sprawled before him. Eyze didn’t know how to handle it.

“E-Eyze, we have to call for the medical team...”

“Right...” Eyze began trudging away.

The defeat of the Five Stars, however, was only the prologue to the devastation that the pair of final bosses would wreak in Euritheis. The sound of a great explosion reached the plaza, drawing all eyes of the crowd towards the docks, only for them to find a roaring flame that painted the port crimson.

“No...”

“It’s b-b-b-b-burning, Eyze! The ship’s on fire!”

“I can see that!”

The flame seemed to foretell the end of an era, as if the ship sinking in the blaze was the Jack of All Trades company itself.