Episode 88: The Saint with the Eyes of Death and Destruction

"Isn't this a little too fast!?"

We were currently sprinting on Sol’s back. Senka-san let the words slip through gritted teeth, clearly doing her best not to accidentally bite her tongue at the speeds we were reaching.

"Hold on, Reima-kun, wait! Seriously, stop! There’s a monster right in front of us!"

"It’s fine! We’re just going to plow right through!" I shouted back. "Balor, you’re up!"

"I am not used to this, but if it is only a matter of looking... could you please allow this to end?"

From behind me, the bandages binding her face unraveled with a dry rustle. Freed from the bindings that served to seal her sight, her eyes were revealed. I couldn’t see them from my position, but I knew her amethyst pupils were now exposed to the world.

Then, it happened.

"As I thought, things here are fragile compared to Mythologia. The mana consumption seems negligible."

The moment she spoke, the several monsters blocking our path shattered into magic stones. Senka-san, sitting behind me, gasped. She leaned in, her voice dropping into a serious register.

"Reima-kun... was that a Magic Eye just now?"

"Yeah. That’s [Balor’s Eye]. It’s a bit of a special case. It can instantly kill anything up to a certain level."

It was one of Balor’s many ways of forcing 'death' upon an opponent. It was a power that inflicted immediate expiration on any living thing with low mana or insufficient resistance. Judging by the way they had collapsed and the state of the shattered stones on the ground, the phenomenon effectively crushed the magic core inside the target instantly.

"That’s incredible... Did you get that when you awakened, too?"

"...Something like that. It even caught me off guard when I first woke up."

Yamato-san had warned me when I first mentioned Mythologia—information regarding the world I had come from was a top-tier secret. He had told me to keep it hidden at all costs. An [Awakened One] with a record was already a high-value asset to be protected; there was no telling what would happen if the details of someone who had actually survived that other world got out.

Yamato had instructed me to use the term [Awakened One] as a catch-all excuse whenever I needed to deflect. In this modern era, the nature of an [Awakened One] was still poorly understood, giving the title enough weight to shut down further questioning.

"Well, it's certainly fast," Senka-san noted. "The distress signal came from somewhere around the middle layer. Let's keep moving."

We continued our descent, Balor deleting monsters as they appeared. We didn't stop for breaks. In a situation where every second counted, I didn't have the luxury of worrying about picking up magic stones. We simply dove deeper until we reached the fifth floor.

The descent opened up into a massive, hollow space. In the center lay a magic circle glowing with a deep, heavy hue. I couldn't feel a single presence in the room. It was a type of circle I hadn't seen before, but I could tell it was a summoning type. Maybe it was my intuition as a [Summoner] talking.

"Reima-kun, stop! The boss is coming!"

The moment Luna landed with Ayane and the others, mana began to flood the room, and the magic circle roared to life. A brilliant blue light filled the chamber, momentarily blinding us. When my vision finally cleared, I saw it.

"Is that... a statue?"

Before us stood a stone figure, a chimera-like fusion of an angel and a beast. It radiated pure hostility.

"Everyone, battle stations!" Ayane barked. "Its class is [Virtues]!"

It was a monster I didn't recognize. I began cross-referencing my memories to figure out how to take it down, but the members of [Valsia] were already leaping off Luna’s back, falling into combat stances.

[Virtues]... That’s one of the higher angelic ranks, isn’t it? I observed the creature, relying on my knowledge of the other world to analyze the threat.

"Oh, an angel? I despise angels—save for that one girl. Please, break quickly."

I recalled then that Balor had a deep-seated loathing for anything angelic in Mythologia. She used to hunt the angel-type monsters there with a singular, obsessive focus. Her tone was gentle, yet it carried a weight of absolute, cold wrath. When I looked at her, her Magic Eye had shifted from amethyst to a deep raspberry, glowing like a polished rubellite.

"[Balor Discurse]."

That was her eye of destruction. It was a different variation of her power; where the first forced 'death,' this one forced the physical phenomenon of 'destruction' upon the target. The [Virtues] caught in her gaze didn't just break; its very existence was unmade. It shattered—no, it turned into fine dust.

"Could you tell me one thing? Is there some kind of price for using that?"

In the silence that followed the monster’s erasure, a man who hadn't spoken to me yet finally stepped forward. He was a blond man—given he was on this mission, his strength was likely a given. His voice held concern for me, but I could hear the underlying dread he felt toward Balor.

"None that I've noticed so far. I haven't felt any recoil since awakening," I replied.

"I see. That’s good, then. Just don't overdo it. You have a habit of taking everything on yourself... Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Makoto Nagura. My [Job] is [Holy Knight]. I’m the [Tank] for this group."

"...So you've heard about me, then."

"Well, yeah. I am a core member, after all. I heard the stories from Ayane-chan and Chizuru. If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask. We’re comrades in the same guild. That’s never going to change."

I gave him a brief handshake, but my attention shifted to Senka-san and Chizuru. They weren't moving; they were huddled together, looking pensive.

"Hey, Chizuru-chan... the mission briefing said the [Middle Layer], right? Specifically from the eighth floor down?"

"That was the intel. But if that’s the case, this is definitely wrong."

"What’s the matter?" I asked.

"If the previous team had already cleared this far, the floor boss shouldn't have respawned yet," Chizuru explained. "Given this is a government-sanctioned request, we should keep moving, but there's a high chance some kind of irregularity is occurring."

"So it's a gamble, but we have to hurry," Senka-san added. "With this party, we should be able to handle most things. Reima-kun, can we hitch a ride on the wolves again?"

Sol and the others looked a bit disgruntled, but they nodded, understanding the urgency. I’d have to find a way to make it up to them later. I climbed back onto Sol with Senka-san and Balor, while Luna took Ayane’s group.

"I’m going to apply some buffs to you both since we’re in a rush," I said.

"Oh, right. You are a [Summoner], after all."

"Yeah. But a fair warning: don't try to talk while we’re moving. You'll bite your tongue off."

"Point taken. Understood."

With that, we let the Sol sisters loose once more, plunging deeper into the darkness of the [Dungeon].