As Rei finished chanting the spell, a red dome enveloped the building wrapped in the pale blue membrane of light, and inside it, fire spirits shaped like lizards were born one after another.
He had poured in far more magical power than usual, and the number of lizards created reached into the tens of thousands... no, the hundreds of thousands.
It wouldn't have been surprising if they'd even topped a million.
The fire spirits themselves were small, but with that many gathered together, the dome naturally became filled with them.
It was like the sensation of countless tiny ants swarming.
If someone who knew nothing saw it, it wouldn't have been strange for them to find it repulsive.
...Lazaria, watching the scene from beside Rei, was turning pale for an entirely different reason.
The firepower that had destroyed the Clown hideout had already been tremendous.
And yet, the scene Lazaria was watching through the hole in the earthen wall was filled with fire spirits in quantities that couldn't even compare to that.
What would happen when the magic activated?
No, not when the magic activated—what would happen if the magic couldn't be properly controlled?
The possibility she could think of was that it would become powerful enough to annihilate the entire Slum District, and that wouldn't even be surprising.
"I-It'll be okay, right?"
Rei nodded without any particular concern at Lazaria's anxious question... and activated the magic.
Wild Dance of the Fire Spirits.
In an instant, one fire spirit exploded, and that explosion triggered the next, then the next... one after another, the fire spirits detonated in a chain.
Each explosion alone was part of a countless barrage of blasts that one could be certain would inflict massive—far too massive—damage on the surroundings.
But where the true value of this spell lay, Lazaria—having just witnessed it—already knew.
Hidden among the countless explosions, Lazaria couldn't tell exactly what was happening, but finally the last fire spirit burst... and the next moment, a flame that could only be called an Explosive Flame was born inside the red dome.
The pale blue dome of light that had covered the Heaven's Light hideout initially managed to hold off the flames' assault, but eventually, cracks began to spread across its surface.
From outside, absolutely no sound from within the red dome could be heard, but Rei felt as though he could hear a crackle, crackle, crackle in his ears.
Of course, Rei understood that it was probably just his imagination.
Regardless, the pale blue dome of light—what amounted to a barrier protecting the Heaven's Light hideout—simply lacked the defensive strength to withstand it.
(Ah.)
For just a moment, truly just a moment, through a gap in the raging flames inside the red dome, he caught a glimpse of a man's face wearing an expression of despair right on the inner side of the blue dome.
But because it was truly just an instant, Lazaria probably hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of him.
If she hadn't seen it, then it was better that she didn't.
Making that judgment, Rei said nothing about it to Lazaria and simply gazed at the pale blue dome of light, which was rapidly deteriorating under the flames.
And then... the limit was reached.
As if a dropped piece of glass shattered, or the thin ice on the surface of a puddle cracked in winter, the pale blue dome of light was destroyed.
Just like before, Rei felt as though he heard a sharp crack, but he dismissed it as his imagination.
But even if the sound was his imagination, there was no mistaking that the pale blue dome of light had shattered... and the Explosive Flame that had been raging inside the red dome thrust its tongue of fire toward the Heaven's Light hideout.
With the defense that had been protecting the Heaven's Light hideout gone, there was no way to stop it... and the flames, at heaven knows what temperature, began burning the building the instant they touched it.
Whether out of that terror, or because as an organization that handled drugs they were using the drugs themselves, several people fled from the building—but before they could take more than a few steps away, flames attacked from nowhere, swallowed them whole, and turned them into corpses in an instant.
By chance... truly by chance, even as their companions were burned to ash, some managed to survive.
But that person too, trying to flee even a few steps from the terror of seeing their companions killed, was consumed by the flames and burned to ash the next moment.
"..."
Lazaria stared at the scene with an expression that seemed to say she couldn't even put it into words.
They were detestable foes who had brought drugs into the Slum District, but the drugs themselves had existed on a small scale before.
Watching those who had spread the drugs on such a massive scale being burned to death one after another was, for Lazaria as well, an indescribable... it was a sensation that was difficult to put into words.
Regardless, once the single pale blue dome of light protecting the Heaven's Light hideout vanished, there was nothing the people of Heaven's Light could do.
Fortunately, the sound of the flames raging inside the dome of light didn't reach them, so even if voices of resentment arose, they wouldn't carry to Rei or Lazaria.
(Still, I may have poured a little too much magical power into this.)
Watching the blazing flames before his eyes, Rei suddenly had that thought.
He had definitely poured a considerable amount of magical power into completely burning the building to ash.
But even so, he harbored a slight doubt—had he poured in a little too much?
That was how intense the flames burning the building were.
Even the expression "roaring flames" felt like it might not be enough.
But to completely erase the drugs inside the building, to burn even the smoke produced when those drugs burned, and furthermore, if there were underground passages of any kind, to burn to death—no, in this case, steam to death—anyone trying to escape through them, this level of flame was only natural.
"Ah..."
Lazaria murmured softly as she watched the Heaven's Light building burning and collapsing within the red dome.
That said, that wasn't the end of the scene inside the red dome.
Even though it had crumbled, the building still retained some of its form.
The flames inside the red dome, born from Rei's magic, seemed to refuse to even allow the existence of the building's remains, and the intensity of the fire grew even stronger.
The building's wreckage... and the Heaven's Light members inside, as well as the drugs that had been in the building—the flames Rei had created turned everything to ash, one after the next.
Among them, there were some who possessed strong resistance to heat and flames through some means or another, but for those people, having "good luck"... was something that could only be called anything but.
Whether it was a skill, a Magic Item, or perhaps their equipment—the reason was unknown, but if this were an ordinary fire, they probably could have endured it with that resistance.
Unfortunately for them, the flames generated by Rei's magic couldn't possibly be called ordinary.
...Rather, precisely because they had high resistance, instead of being burned to death in an instant, their endurance was gradually whittled away, meaning that in a sense, they were able to clearly comprehend the sight of their own death right up until the moment it happened.
Whether unable to bear that terror any longer—some cut their own throats with daggers. Others used the very drugs that were their merchandise to paralyze their fear... and then there were those who, affected by the building's destruction, had the drugs burned as well, and inhaled the smoke, becoming euphoric—each person met their own respective fate.
"If it's too hard for you, you don't have to watch until the end."
"No, I asked for this. ...Besides, what can be seen through the hole in the wall isn't everything."
Rei said nothing more in response to Lazaria's words.
What she meant by the scene visible through the hole not being "everything"—what specific meaning that held, Rei didn't know.
But looking at Lazaria's serious expression, he could at least guess that it carried some significant meaning.
He, who was ignorant of the circumstances involved, had no business saying anything here.
That was the judgment he made.
(Now that I think about it, the Heaven's Light hideout is burning and all, but what happened to the junkies?)
Rei, suddenly curious about this, looked around through the hole in the earthen wall.
There, he saw the junkies watching the burning Heaven's Light hideout with expressions that rendered them speechless in a different sense than Lazaria.
The hole in the wall itself wasn't very large, so he couldn't see clearly.
But what was in the junkies' gazes seemed to be despair, or perhaps a sense of emptiness.
Or maybe, still tripping on the drugs' effects, they were unable to comprehend the scene before them.
(For now, they should probably get out of here as quickly as possible.)
The annihilation of the Heaven's Light hideout naturally meant they would no longer be able to obtain drugs as they had before.
If so, for those dependent on the drugs, what lay ahead would be hell.
...Though, if they continued using the drugs, they would ultimately face ruin anyway, so in that sense, perhaps having despair arrive sooner was the lesser evil.
"Lazaria, what are you going to do about the people who are addicted to the drugs? If it were only a few, that'd be one thing, but from what I can see, there seem to be quite a number of them. If they all run out of drugs and start rioting at once, it'll be a serious problem."
The destruction of Heaven's Light and the fact that no more junkies would be created was good news for everyone.
But it was also a fact that mishandling those who were already junkies could lead to a major disturbance in the Slum District.
What would they do about the people who would lash out violently from withdrawal symptoms?
Rei didn't really understand the circumstances involved, but there must be some kind of treatment to purge the drugs from the body.
The problem was whether there were people in the Slum District who could provide that.
Rei wondered about this, but Lazaria, still watching the Heaven's Light hideout as it continued to burn, opened her mouth.
"You don't need to worry about that. I can't say Black Dog is fully prepared... but we'll manage somehow. I have skills in that area as well."
Rei was slightly surprised at how straightforwardly Lazaria stated this.
No, he had expected as much, but even so, he hadn't thought she would say it so plainly.
"I see. ...Then that's not something for me to meddle in."
If Black Dog could handle it, there was nothing Rei needed to do.
No, if an amateur meddled clumsily in something like this, it could bring about the worst possible result.
(Ah, but Marina or someone like her could probably manage something with Spirit Magic.)
He thought this, but considering the person leading Black Dog, he could predict that they wouldn't do anything that would require troubling Marina.
"Ah."
Lazaria suddenly murmured softly.
When Rei turned his gaze toward the Heaven's Light hideout at her voice, the building that had been burning and half-collapsed had now—not half, but almost perfectly—crumbled to the ground.
But naturally, the flames inside the red dome showed no sign of weakening at all.
If anything, the flames seemed even more intense to Rei than they had been a moment ago.
If one considered that the smoke produced by the burned drugs was itself being set ablaze, then that was perhaps only natural.
"Probably just a little longer."
At Rei's murmur, Lazaria nodded in agreement.
Lazaria, of course, had no way of knowing specifically how much longer the fire would continue.
But even so, watching it like this, the scene—what could be called a stage of fire—seemed to have reached its climax.
(It would be nice if the Slime's fire could somehow settle down soon, too.)
Rei thought this, but the flames that continued to burn by the lake showed absolutely no sign of burning out for now.
"U... uooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!"
Rei had been thinking about the Slime burning near the lake, but at that voice that suddenly reached his ears, he immediately snapped back to reality.
Wondering what on earth had happened, he looked through the hole in the earthen wall at the scene outside, and the reason for the shout became immediately clear.
It was the voice of one of the junkies who had been outside the red dome, shouting as they looked at the collapsed Heaven's Light building.
(So one of them snapped out of it. ...Which means...)
With a bad feeling, Rei once again looked through the hole in the earthen wall at the situation outside.
There, the very event Rei had been hoping wouldn't happen if at all possible was occurring.
One of the junkies, wearing an expression of despair, was approaching the red dome.
Seeing that one person's actions, the others likewise began moving toward the red dome.
They must have understood that with the Heaven's Light hideout burned down, they could no longer obtain the drugs.
In truth, that was by no means a mistaken assumption.
There might be a member of Heaven's Light who happened to be outside the building, but even if there were, it would only be a very small number.
Moreover, with the building that surely housed the bulk of the drug inventory burned, distributing the drugs would become difficult.
Or, since what was burning was ultimately a branch office, perhaps drugs and personnel might be dispatched again from headquarters... but even that couldn't happen immediately.
Thinking this, Rei listened to the voices of despair from the junkies causing a commotion around him, and continued gazing at the red dome until the building had completely burned to ash.