"……Ah, the Magic Stone."
Rei had been watching the massive dragon head vanish when the realization suddenly struck him, and he murmured it aloud.
Setting Gaiska aside, the Magic Stone of the entity they presumed to be the sealed monster—the very one Celestan had been trying to unseal—had been swallowed along with Gaiska by the dragon head Elena had summoned through Dragon Language Magic. It was no longer here.
Rei had only just realized this, but there had been no other means of attack available in that situation. Accepting it couldn't be helped, he let go of the Magic Stone.
Given that it belonged to an entity that could only be sealed rather than defeated, Rei had harbored slight…… no, considerable expectations for it. That much was certain.
"I apologize. However, I could not fire Light Breath indoors."
"Yeah…… you're right. No, don't worry about it. If I'd thoroughly burned that Flesh Cocoon to ashes with Deep Flame, I wouldn't have needed to trouble you at all."
Rei had no intention of blaming Elena. He understood full well that his own carelessness had caused this incident.
……To be precise, it wasn't so much Rei's carelessness as it was being outmaneuvered by Gaiska's unforeseen vitality.
"More importantly, how is the Misty Ring?"
"Hm? Ah…… no problems."
Prompted by Elena, Rei withdrew the Death Scythe from the Misty Ring.
If he'd had this during the battle against Deotres, things would have been considerably easier…… but the fact that he couldn't use it at the crucial moment was troubling. What kind of abilities that Flesh Cocoon possessed was something that still concerned him.
(I never expected it would seal the Misty Ring's effects. No—maybe it was precisely because it could do something like that that it was sealed in the first place?)
Thinking that far, Rei suddenly recalled something.
The ability to manipulate space.
And this space itself had been created by that very ability.
Now that the one who had created it was dead, there was no guarantee this space would remain intact forever.
"Elena, let's get out of here and back to that house. If that Flesh Cocoon was what formed this space……"
That was all he needed to say. Elena seemed to understand exactly what Rei was getting at.
She gave a quick nod and turned her gaze toward the passage they had used to enter this space.
In that instant—as if it had been waiting for precisely that timing—a sharp crack echoed through the air around them.
It was a small sound, yet there was no way Rei and Elena would have missed it.
"Let's go!"
With that shout, Rei broke into a run without waiting for Elena's response.
Naturally, Elena followed right behind him.
It was a fairly spacious area, but with Rei and Elena's physical abilities, that distance posed no problem at all.
Listening to the crackling sounds of the space breaking apart—pishiri, pishiri—Rei and Elena plunged into the passage.
Naturally, since that passage had also been spatially expanded by the Flesh Cocoon's influence, there was no reason to assume it would be safe.
Rei and Elena ran through the passage at full speed.
The passage was narrow, so running at full speed came with various inconveniences, but given that being too slow could mean getting caught in the spatial collapse, they had no choice but to push forward.
Parin, pishipishi, bikki—such sounds came one after another.
It seemed certain that this space would be destroyed before long, but they made escaping their top priority above all else.
What was fortunate was that both Rei and Elena possessed physical abilities that could only be described as beyond human.
The speed at which they ran through the passage was one an ordinary person could never have achieved.
But Rei and Elena continued running without the slightest concern for that…… and eventually caught sight of the place where they had entered the passage—the spot with the hidden door leading to what appeared to be a study.
The hidden door had been left open, so they could run straight through without needing to open it again.
"!? ……Eh? Lady Elena? Lord Rei?"
Ara, who had been reading documents at the desk, half-reflexively raised her Power Axe against Rei and Elena as they burst from the hidden passage. But she quickly recognized the two of them and lowered her guard.
However, Rei and Elena desperately shouted at her.
"Ara, get outside! This house is about to collapse!"
"Rei's right! Just grab whatever documents you can! Let's go!"
With that, Rei and Elena grabbed as many documents as they could from the desk and dashed out of the study.
……Normally, being told something like this so suddenly, a person wouldn't be able to believe it right away.
But for Ara, the option of not believing Elena's words simply did not exist. She immediately scooped up her Power Axe and whatever documents she could reach, then chased after Rei and the others out of the study.
Neither Rei nor Elena stayed to confirm Ara's reaction—presumably because they understood that Ara would not hesitate at a time like this.
Taking the lead for Ara and Elena, Rei ran at the front.
His plan was to deal with any traps himself the moment they triggered in this house……
(The traps…… are gone?)
Running through the hallway, Rei found himself questioning this.
Reaching that study hadn't been a particularly long distance, but there had been numerous traps set along the way.
Given that, he had assumed that escaping the house would similarly trigger countless traps…… but in reality, no traps activated at all. They were running without any issues.
Stowing the documents in his hand into the Misty Ring as he ran, Rei thought it over…… and eventually reached a single conclusion.
Most likely, some kind of key item—one that controlled this house, a Magic Item that generated traps one after another—had been in Celestan's possession.
But Celestan had been completely drained of everything he had by Gaiska, who harbored fierce hatred toward him.
It was possible that at that point, the key item controlling the countless traps in this house had been with Gaiska…… or rather, inside that mass of charcoal.
However, the mass of charcoal that retained Gaiska's consciousness had been devoured by the dragon head summoned through Elena's Dragon Language Magic.
In other words, that key item—whatever it was—no longer existed in this world.
To begin with, when something was devoured by that dragon head, Rei had no idea where it even went.
(Even if I ask Elena…… she probably doesn't know either.)
At any rate, Rei concluded that the key item had been lost along with Celestan, and that was why the traps in this house had stopped activating.
That was merely his own assumption, and there was a possibility he was wrong.
But for the time being, he judged it would be easier to understand it that way.
"We're going outside!"
Originally, the house where Celestan had lived did not have the scale of a mansion.
That was precisely why, if Rei and the others ran at full speed, they could get outside in under a minute.
However…… just as they were about to exit, as if waiting for that exact timing, the door opened and several soldiers appeared.
For a moment, Rei thought that perhaps the soldiers of Duke Kerebel's House that Elena had brought had arrived…… but the ones who actually entered were soldiers of Marquis Seisole's House.
Thinking about it, it was only natural. The soldiers of Marquis Seisole's House had been trying to break through the traps and enter this house even before Rei and the others had gone in.
Under those circumstances, if they noticed that the traps had stopped activating because Celestan had died…… the scene unfolding before Rei and the others was the answer to what would happen.
"!? Get out of the way! Don't come inside! This house is about to give way!"
What would actually happen, even Rei didn't know. He didn't know, but…… from behind, he could hear crackling, groaning, and other sounds that were hard to describe.
Moreover, the sounds kept coming without fading or growing distant, as if they were chasing after Rei and the others.
Despite this, the soldiers who had entered the house showed no sign of responding to Rei's shout—perhaps elated by the fact that they were the first among Marquis Seisole's House's soldiers to get inside.
……To be precise, there had been soldiers who entered the house before these men, but every one of them had been caught in traps and forced to retreat.
But Rei could feel the sounds of destruction from behind growing steadily louder. Judging that staying here would be absolutely disastrous, he decided there was no point saying anything more to the soldiers and chose to force his way through.
"Get out of the wayyy!"
Shouting once more, Rei charged straight toward the soldiers gathered in front of the door.
Naturally, seeing Rei and the others barreling toward them, the soldiers had to respond.
Though he carried no weapon, Rei was charging right at them.
Given that, they judged they would collide if nothing changed…… but with several soldiers pushing in from behind, they couldn't exit through the door.
That left them with no choice but to do something. Some who had entered the house tried to dodge out of Rei's path…… while others, for whatever reason, judged his charge as a hostile act and tried to draw their longswords.
Of course, in a situation where people were packed together with barely any room to move, drawing a longsword from a waist sheath was impossible. In the end, they couldn't draw their swords no matter how they tried.
Into those soldiers, Rei charged.
He slammed straight into them, inflicting various injuries, but there was no other way.
(No time to break through a wall…… and given that this house is full of traps, it wouldn't be surprising if the walls were sturdier than they look. ……And is this phenomenon—this apparent spatial collapse—really going to stop at the boundaries of this house?)
Rei had fought the Flesh Cocoon in the space within this house, but that was no guarantee the apparent spatial collapse would be confined to the house.
Given that, they needed to get out of this house as quickly as possible…… then off the grounds as well, and if possible, even out of the Slum District. Depending on how far it spread, evacuating from Anesis entirely was an option that couldn't be ruled out.
If this house were larger—on a scale that could properly be called a mansion—the door leading outside would also be wider, and they could have used the Sleipnir boots or some other method to run right over the soldiers' heads.
……In that case, Elena, who also had Sleipnir boots like Rei, would be fine, but there would still be the problem of how to get Ara, who didn't have a pair, out safely.
At any rate, if it were a mansion, they could have pulled off something like that. But this house, while somewhat larger than ordinary, was far from anything that could be called a mansion.
That was why the entrance was no different from an ordinary home's, and they couldn't use the method of running over the soldiers' heads to escape.
(Can't be helped. Don't hold it against me. Besides, if I blow you outside, you'll end up out of the house—which means you'll survive.)
With that resolve…… Rei lowered his shoulder and charged into the crowd of soldiers.
Looking at Rei's stance, it wasn't difficult to realize what he was about to do.
Naturally, the expression of the soldier who would be the first to collide with Rei contorted violently.
Adding to the misfortune, that man knew exactly what kind of person was charging at him.
Despite his small stature, he was about to collide head-on with an Alias Holder adventurer.
Taking a body check from someone like that…… and considering the fellow soldiers packed behind him, how much damage he would take being sandwiched between them…… it went without saying.
But…… Rei was already right in front of him. There was nothing he could do about it now.
All the man could do was brace himself so that even when Rei sent him flying, he would avoid injury as much as possible—no, so that he wouldn't die.
And in the next instant, the soldier's consciousness—his resolve proving entirely useless, as if to mock him for even trying—fell effortlessly into darkness.