121 – Qualifications of a Hero – 6

—Boom!

At the roaring sound echoing from below, Gin’s expression stiffened.

“Is it really alright for us not to go?”

“Because Jun-nim said so.”

Perhaps because Gi-jun was not by her side, Laura replied with a calm expression that made it difficult to read her emotions as she swung her sword.

“Therefore, we just need to eliminate our enemies.”

—Slash.

The distorted face of the magician caught at the end of the coldly shining blade still seemed to be screaming.

Watching that, Gin got goosebumps.

“Let’s hurry. If these guys start to gather their wits, the damage could spread to the outside.”

Scintilla, who was moving ahead of them while whipping a whip made of flames here and there, looked back and said.

Gin raised his pistol to aim at a magician rolling on the hallway floor over there, but stopped and bit his lip.

“Is there really… no way to save them?”

“You heard it all earlier, didn’t you? Even if they were brainwashed, their brains have already been melted by poison and curses. It would be better for them if we ended it now.”

“Still, with the power of the Spirit…”

“If it’s Lucy, it might be possible.”

Nodding, Scintilla shot out flames without hesitation, contrary to her words, burning the magician Gin had failed to kill as she continued.

“But when would we ever finish? It would be a miracle if Jun could heal even one person even if he did his best, so are you going to capture them all and ask them to wait quietly until then? It’s impossible. We have neither the leeway nor the reason to do so.”

“But…!”

“How do you think Frankenstein Junior got into this Magic Tower? Did the magicians of the Magic Tower get brainwashed just because they were fools who sat still, knowing nothing?”

Understanding her point, Gin was at a loss for words and shut his mouth.

Scintilla shot out flames to collapse the ceiling as she spoke firmly.

“Of course, there must be innocent people among them. But Gin, if you act like a spoiled child wanting to have everything, you will end up losing everything. It might sound ironic… but to protect something, you must know how to sacrifice something else.”

“…I’m sorry for saying such foolish things.”

“Yes, let’s hurry.”

While Scintilla was soothing the shaken Gin, Laura had already lightly jumped onto the collapsed ceiling and was running, finding the magicians and slicing their necks one by one.

A faint line drawn in blood remained where she had passed, making it easy to recognize.

Moving to the upper floor with Scintilla, Gin thought as he looked at the traces Laura had left behind and the red stream of blood splashing over there.

‘How can Laura…’

Before being bitten by a vampire, she must have been a priest who respected life more than anyone.

But how could she cut down people so relentlessly like this?

Of course, if the opponent was a monster or an enemy who rushed to kill him, Gin would also put a bullet between their eyes without hesitation.

But the moment he thought there was even a slight possibility that the opponent might die unfairly, his body froze.

“…When you have something to protect, you will understand too. I’ll go ahead.”

Scintilla left those words behind and ran in the opposite direction of Laura.

Left alone, Gin felt like he had been hit where it hurt by those words.

Indeed, there was nothing left for him to protect.

However, he could not forget the fact that his promise with Gi-jun still remained.

‘Scintilla-nim will be fine on her own. In that case…’

He threw his body in the direction Laura had run.

It did not take long to join her.

The fact that her feet had stopped meant, in other words, that a battle was taking place.

“Those damn intruders!”

“Tch…!”

Whether because he had not yet recovered from the shock of Lucy’s flash bomb, a magician held his head with one hand in pain while stretching out his other hand to point at Laura, chanting a spell.

He intended to hold Laura back for a moment with a binding auxiliary magic and, in that gap, activate the intruder repelling traps hidden throughout the Magic Tower.

—Bang!

Of course, before he could do that, his forehead was pierced by a pistol bullet fired by Gin, and he collapsed.

“Gin-ssi?”

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

“No…”

After finishing off the magician, Laura looked at him with an expression of surprise and nodded.

“I wanted to clear them all out before they regained their senses, but that seems difficult now. Let’s hurry.”

“Yes.”

Gin thought blankly as he moved behind Laura.

The reason why he could fire the pistol without any hesitation just now.

Perhaps it was…

‘When you have something to protect.’

Recalling what Scintilla had said, he realized something and let out a chuckle.

Fortunately, he encountered the next enemy before his foolish thoughts could continue—he emptied his mind again and fired the pistols in both hands rapidly.

—Rumble

However, before they could eliminate all the enemies, a heavy shock ran through the entire Magic Tower.

The Magic Tower, which had stood in the same place and developed for over hundreds of years, and the countless spells it had accumulated over those long years.

The spells that blocked anyone attacking the Magic Tower and repelled the intruders who had already entered were activated at the same time.

“Kh! The pressure…!”

“Miss Laura!”

The Magic Tower was a small kingdom built by magicians over hundreds of years, and it was also a completed world where everything moved according to their will.

The air that the magicians registered in the Magic Tower could breathe comfortably became heavy pressure or poison to the intruders, and the floor that firmly supported their feet became a swamp that pulled the intruders down.

The beautiful paintings that were merely decorated on each wall cast hallucinations on the intruders, and the comfortable magical lighting burned with the intensity to scorch the intruders’ eyeballs.

To define it—this could be called a kind of degraded Unique Territory.

“O Ishtar, the goddess who governs destiny…! Personally break the pride of those who reject you!”

Laura created a barrier of divine power on the spot and wrapped it around herself and Gin.

As it negated the magic of the Magic Tower that arrogantly claimed to be an independent world, the external pressure that seemed about to crush them at any moment decreased in an instant.

“Kh!”

Gritting his teeth, Gin pulled his legs out from where they were stuck in the floor, enveloped himself in moonlight magic, and kicked off the ground.

He intended to help Laura, but she had already cut through the floor and even the air in the area with her sword, recovering her physical freedom.

“The center of this magic formula… is probably above.”

Raising her head, Laura muttered as her eyes glowed red.

Perhaps she was annoyed by the current situation; the thick bloodlust emanating from her was enough to make even Gin hesitate.

“Since we know the location of the core, let’s break through in a straight line.”

“I will break through.”

He aimed the triple-barrel shotgun at the ceiling and pulled the three triggers all at once.

—Boom!

The three shotgun shells, heavily infused with mana and strengthened, exploded into tens of thousands of iron balls, collapsing the ceiling.

The impact was so massive that the defense magic active throughout the entire Magic Tower was temporarily neutralized.

“Let’s go!”

Reloading the bullets with swift hand movements, Gin leaped onto the collapsed ceiling.

Laura also threw herself after him, tightening her grip on her sword.

Surprisingly, they were able to reunite with someone they had never expected there.

“Ah, you’re finally here, nya!”

Nabinya, who was running along the wall on all fours despite wearing flats, dodged a magic lamp shooting flames at her and threw herself toward them.

Unusually, she held a rapier in her mouth, and the blade being stained bright red suggested she had achieved quite a few feats.

“Nabinya!”

“It took me some time to gather evidence, nya. They said that if a hole is made in the Magic Tower, the intruder defense system activates and actually weakens the barrier applied to the inside, and that was true, nya.”

Landing smoothly on Laura’s shoulder, Nabinya led them while saying things that were hard to understand.

“There are three cores that need to be destroyed, but it seems Scintilla took care of one, nya. There is another one on this floor, but people are gathered there, so it was impossible on my own, nya! Ah, it’s over there, nya!”

“I see it too…! Gin-ssi, please snipe it right away!”

Gin also did not hesitate any longer, raising his shotgun to aim forward and pulling the trigger.

Loading slug rounds instead of buckshot was a wise choice.

The slug, slower than normal bullets but loaded with a heavy destructive power, tore through all the defensive magic the enemies had layered the moment they spotted them, crushing the head of one of them.

The two bullets that followed, of course, achieved their goal even more easily.

“A-A mere math or bullet breaking magic manifested by the Magic Tower’s mana…?! Keuhak!”

Seizing the gap when their ranks were disrupted, Laura and Nabinya cut down all the remaining magicians.

With Gin throwing away his shotgun and drawing his dual pistols to support the two, the enemies could not even cast a single spell and simply disintegrated into blood.

“Hoo, hooo…”

“Now we only have to destroy one more, nya! Then this Magic Tower will be completely—”

However, as always, a problem arose just before the end of the operation.

The pressure, which had been reduced to less than half by Laura’s divine barrier, suddenly surged and slammed the three of them onto the floor all at once.

“Gah!”

“What…?! Ishtar!”

[I deny God.]

The voice came from far above.

The ceiling opened, then the space above it opened, and the space above that opened yet again.

As this was repeated several times, a passage leading straight to the top floor of the Magic Tower was created in the blink of eye.

It was not something to be happy about.

“While the master was away for a moment… you have made a complete mess of the Magic Tower.”

The presence of the old magician looking down at them quietly from there proved that.

He was extremely exhausted and covered in wounds all over his body, but the energy he harbored was absolute nonetheless.

“Even if you follow the will of God, I, the Tower Master, will condemn it.”

“Y-You…!”

Laura gritted her teeth as she struggled to lift herself from the floor that pulled her down like a swamp.

How could he deny the destiny established by Ishtar so easily?

Although it was difficult to verify with her own eyes due to her restricted vision, the overwhelming mana sensed from the old magician gave her the answer.

The last remaining core of the formula—he was holding it himself!

[The tower will repay the intruders exactly what was done to it.]

Unlike when the formula was applied to the entire interior of the tower, once it was focused solely on them, its destructive power was truly horrific.

Not only did the pressure surging from all sides, making it impossible to distinguish up from down, attempt to crush the three of them to death,

but the loaded bullets exploded all at once, injuring Gin, while Laura was torn and cut all over her body, bleeding profusely.

In the meantime, Nabinya was nowhere to be found, and only her shoes rolled on the floor.

“O Goddess who overcomes even death…!”

As Laura, who had healed herself by drawing up all the remaining divine power within her, barely raised her head, she saw the old man glaring at them fiercely through the hole pierced above their heads.

As he had declared himself, the man’s identity was none other than the Tower Master.

Just as Nabinya had said, the moment the Hero’s party made a hole in the tower and entered, the defense system that manifested actually made the internal barrier vulnerable,

and the Tower Master, who had been battered and imprisoned by Frankenstein Junior until now, was finally able to come outside.

“What…?!”

The moment she saw the opponent’s figure with her own eyes,

Laura, realizing that he was completely sane and not consumed by black magic, cried out in shock.

“You, this is no time for us to be fighting like this—!”

“If you want to say this is no time for this, you are wrong. Right now, the most important thing for me is to annihilate the intruders.”

The horrific amount of mana condensed in the air was soon shaped into the form of a single giant spear.

If hit by that, they would surely be disintegrated without even a corpse remaining.

The old magician glared at them with hateful eyes, arguing for the justification of his actions.

“There may be conflicts within the Magic Tower. However, we can never allow the Magic Tower to be taken down by lowlifes who aren’t even magicians. Of course, after killing you bastards, I will have to kill that damn monster as well—but even so, the ones who must die first are you!”

His logic was incoherent, but unfortunately, justice was always established by those with power.

The core of the formula held in the Tower Master’s hand emitted a brilliant light, and the giant spear plunged vertically, aiming at Laura.

“Laura—!”

At that moment, Gin, who should have had no strength to move, opened his eyes wide and blocked the front of Laura.

Even with the transcendent recovery rate unique to werewolves, it would be impossible to block that great magic.

—Crackle

However, before the spear could pierce his chest, it lost its power and dispersed into the air.

“…Eh?”

“Hoo.”

Feeling the terrible pressure that had bound her entire body dissipate as well, Laura let out a sigh of relief and narrowed her eyes.

The Tower Master, who had been floating above and glaring at them, was already falling down as a charred corpse.

Of course, the core he was holding had also vanished along with him.

“You’re late!”

“Sorry.”

Scintilla, poking her head out from the top floor, apologized honestly.

“There were too many things getting in the way, so it took a little time. Hup.”

Jumping down to their floor on the back of the flame fox, Rodim, who had grown large, Scintilla landed lightly and smiled bitterly.

“I’m sorry for making you act as bait unintentionally. Still, thanks to the tower’s mana concentrating only on you, I finished the job easily. Nabinya, are you okay?”

“I hid in time, so I’m fine, nya.”

Nabinya, poking her head out from the shoe rolling on the floor, replied with a grin.

The second secret technique that only a Cait Sith who had received shoes could show: ‘Hiding in the Shoe’.

Compared to Laura and Gin, who had reached the brink of death after being hit by the Tower Master’s rainbow reflection, her being perfectly fine was beyond ridiculous.

“I’m glad everyone is safe… Then rest here, I’ll go help Jun.”

“No, I will also help Jun-nim… Kyaak?!”

“Kuehk?!”

A heavy shock struck the entire tower.

At that moment, Scintilla, whose body was at least intact, held onto the rest of the party in panic.

[Abnormal death of the Tower Master has been confirmed. Reporting the current situation to the Main Tower. Absence of the Deputy Tower Master has been confirmed. Destruction of the tower’s defense system has been confirmed.]

[Activating Final Code ‘Judgment’. Defining all unauthorized targets currently remaining inside the tower as enemies, and eliminating them.]

[Abnormal death of the Tower Master has been confirmed. Reporting the current situation to the Main Tower. Absence of the Deputy Tower Master has been confirmed. Destruction of the tower’s defense system has been confirmed.]

[Activating Final Code ‘Judgment’. Defining all unauthorized targets currently remaining inside the tower as enemies, and eliminating them.]

A mechanical voice shook the entire tower.

Following that, feeling the space fill up with mana whose source was unknown, the party understood why Frankenstein Junior had kept the Tower Master alive until now.

However, that realization did not seem like it would protect the party.

If there was a saving grace, it was that there was not much mana left in the tower thanks to the Tower Master wasting it by directly manipulating it until just a moment ago,

but the problem was that the party was also extremely exhausted.

“What should we do?”

When Gin asked, Scintilla closed her eyes and opened them before replying calmly.

“Jun will definitely arrive in time.”

Or they would die.

Scintilla smiled comfortably after saying those words.

Catching a glimpse of her absolute trust in Gi-jun, the party could not help but laugh as well.

At that moment, a bright light flared up,

and the tower began to collapse.

* * *

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Rift): These things really pop out endlessly. I feel like they’re cockroaches. Ha, I’m exhausted.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Rift): What is Jjun doing now? Are you looking at your phone?]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Rift): Of course, I knew you wouldn’t be looking at it at a time like this.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Rift): I really wish you could grow enough to hunt together with me here—the faces I run into occasionally are all so obnoxious, seriously, ugh.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Ah, Jjun is here? I had such a hard time today, so act cute for me quickly. Hurry.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Saying I sound like an uncle is forbidden. How dare you say that to a pretty big sister, I’ll…]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): …I told you we’ll meet soon? You know I don’t lie about things like this, right?]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Yeah, the hunting rewards are slowly increasing lately, so maybe we can meet sooner than expected. So, just hang in there until then.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): No, it’s not that difficult. No matter how strong bugs are, they’re still just bugs.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): I’m telling you, you’ve still got a long way to go. The things here are just that—failed monsters. You know it’s a rule that failed works are stronger instead of just being disgusting, right?]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Frankenstein Junior? Wow, you caught him? That’s an achievement. Frankenstein was famous even back when I was active…]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): No, pretend you didn’t see this. You forgot, right?]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Manipulating the status window? Ah, he only changed numbers and letters? Then it’s just a disguise.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Still, it’s impressive, since that’s interfering with the system. For a mere mortal to achieve such a feat… It’s a shame; if he had grown up to be good, he would have been helpful to Jun.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Interfering with the system, huh…]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): But if interference was possible, would he really have done only that?]