After finally getting some shut-eye the four of them were off once more. They gave their goodbyes to the three undead of the tower before continuing down a nearby river on their boat.
It was midday by now. The river was now surrounded on all sides by a forest, filled with many animals and monster alike. Subaru was just trying to keep Sophia entertained as they ambled along the river. Kazuma was doing nothing, content to just cover his eyes and let the ship slowly sail. Kumoko, though, she was not one to let up the free food around her. She was constantly jumping from the boat too shore, hunting whatever came close, devouring it then jumping back on.
Needless to say, the trip was anything but quiet.
Soon Kazuma sailed the boat to the side and had them all disembark, making sure to tie the boat down and drop their anchor. "Are you sure we should just leave it? That abandoned beach was one thing, but we're close to a populated town." Subaru asked as he slung his bag over his back. "Don't worry, this will be the last time we'll need it." Kazuma replied while hoasting his own bags up.
"Can I join you guys?" Kumoko asked. "No, not only would they attack on sight but they'd probably drive you insane with their religious fervor." Kazuma answered. "They can't be that bad." Kumoko stated. "Just wait and see, from what Wiz told me Hans is staying at one of the inns near the hotsprings." Kazuma said as the group left.
"Wait, hotsprings?' Subaru inquired. "Yep, hotsprings, its the main source of money for the town. Most other foreign business are a little put off by their attitude." Kazuma replied. "Do you think we could get a dip in there?" Kumoko asked. "Only if we break in." Kazuma answered.
'Ok, maybe its a good thing that I'm sticking back.' Kumoko pondered as she and Sophia slumped over some trees. Subaru had left the young girl with her for one reason, the quote "Horrible influence the Axis cult can have on kids." unquote given from Kazuma. Not that Sophia staying was an issue, Kumoko had tackled far worse things. But seeing both Subaru and a disguised Kazuma walk into town and be immediately mobbed by vendors and clergy about the power of 'Aqua Sama' was just plain unnerving.
'Seriously, its like that time your townsfolk started worshipping me, just without all the good things that came with being worshipped.' she thought while staring at Sophia. Sophia, in response, just grumbled before sinking her teeth into her arm. 'I can't become a vampire, you know this.' Kumoko said. Sophia just continued to drink up her blood while glaring at her.
'Anyway, time to see what the boys are up to. Clairvoyance.' she spoke the last part as her vision zoomed into the town. She could see little details like the gathering of crowds and the food being served. Then she saw the inn that Subaru and Kazuma walked into, and the hotsprings not far from it.
'Target aquired.'
When Subaru heard that they had to meet with one of the generals for the demon king's army, he was expecting something terrifying. Say a massive devils with blades nearly as large as himself, or a chimera with intelligence far past that of a human.
He was not expecting a normal looking man with a borderline paranoid expression.
Kazuma quickly approached the man and slapped him. "Oi, you asked me to come right?" he spoke with little care. "Eh... oh yes, I did call for you. I need you to destroy the hotsprings for me." Hans didn't flinch from the slap as he answered Kazuma. "Why?" Kazuma asked. Hans breathed in, then breathed out. "The Demon King sent me here to gauge how much of a threat the Axis cult would truly be. I've been here for two weeks and they've been driving me up the wall. If I have to spend any longer here I'm just going to transform and take as many with me as possible." Hans answered.
Subaru could feel a small prick of pity for the man, having to spend two weeks dealing with these kinds of religious nuts. "Your plan?" Kazuma asked. "Use my body to poison the water, fell apart because some blue haired girl came prancing around and purified it." Hans explained. "Really, any defining features?" Kazuma pressed further. "Never saw her, she got chased out of town since she fully purified the water." Hans replied.
Kazuma just smirked. Subaru let his back rest against the wall, realizing that this might take a while.
"So why stop? While I don't approve of poisoning whole towns, you'd be leaving the hot springs unusable rather than their drinking water." Kazuma pondered. "I've been called back to do something else, but I can't leave a job unfinished. So I need the help from the Lieutenant who holds such a deep hatred for the goddess Aqua, because I know you won't mess this up." Hans said.
"My hatred for the goddess doesn't necessarily extend to her followers, annoying they may be." Kazuma replied. "Mayhaps, but I know you wouldn't hesitate to sack and ruin the church itself and anything they consider holy over Eris." Hans countered. "True, but I don't see how I could ruin the hotsprings without poisoning them." Kazuma pointed out. "I don't care how you do it, I don't even care that you won't kill any of them intentionally, I just need you to get rid of it." Hans replied.
'He's surprisingly tolerant of Kazuma's refusal to kill the common folk.' Subaru summarized in his mind. 'But why would they be so tolerant, I get that he's apparently under the direct command of one of the more valuable generals, but I'm pretty sure the Knights of Lugnica would execute Julius if he acted like that.' Subaru compared. "Can we talk? I wish to dicuss this with him" Subaru asked. Kazuma looked at Hans, expecting an answer. "Fine, just know that I won't let you guys use my teleportation circle unless you do the job." Hans said.
Kazuma nodded before Subaru dragged him to the private room of Hans' room. He calmly removed his hood and stared Kazuma down. "Are you really going through with this?" he asked. "Yes, just need to think of the best way to prevent it." Kazuma replied. "Prevent it?" Subaru inquired. "Yeah, find the best way that it can be stopped and-" Kazuma leaned in closer. "-Make sure that it is stopped, but only after we've left." Kazuma answered.
"Would such a plan even work?" Subaru asked. "Of course, its not the first time I've had to do this kind of thing for one of the Generals. We just need to make sure that they don't know about the intentional sabotage." Kazuma laid it out for him.
Subaru breathed in, and considered his choices. He could try to stop Kazuma and lose their only way out that didn't involve walking. He could go with it and betray his better morales like Kazuma and Kumoko have. Or, he could be the one to set in motion the counter measure. "So the plan?" he asked. "Will be explained after we agree to his deal." Kazuma cut him off.
The two left the room, Subaru making sure to put his hood back up, and Kazuma agreed to Hans' offer. "Alright, just get it done in three days. If you need me, I'll be in here." Hans said. "Wait, we do need something for it." Kazuma said. Hans paused; "What?" he asked.
"I need your arm, or at least a decently sized piece of you." Kazuma said. Subaru raised a brow at this. "Do you have something to hold it in?" Hans asked. Kazuna nodded before grabbing a large glass jar from his bag, one of their old food containers that Kumoko had emptied. "That'll work." Hans said before reaching his arm over the now open jar.
Subaru just watched as his arm slowly turned to a viscous substance and dripped into the jar. Hans continued until the jar was almost full and his arm turned back to normal. Kazuma sealed it as Hans nodded. "Best of luck." he said to the duo as they left.
"What is he?" Subaru asked. "A Poison Slime, though if he were to touch something organic it's more like an acid rather than a poison." Kazuma answered. "So how are you going to do this, and how am I going to stop it?" Subaru asked. "We have a day to discuss that, now let's get out of here." Kazuma said while putting the jar back into his bag. Subaru agreed, seeing as a small group of Axis Cult members were already approaching them.
Humming the mission impossible theme song to herself, Kumoko stalked through the hills towards the hotsprings. 'See Vampy, I told you it would all go swimmingly. Now we can just enjoy a quick dip.' Kumoko thought as she looked at Sophia. Sophia just huffed before looking over at the strewn bodies of many Axis cult members that had crossed their path.
'Oh come on, it's not like I killed them, well not most of them.' Kumoko retorted. Sophia stared blankly at her. 'Besides, you need a bath.' Kumoko pointed out. 'Now, onto the fun times ahead.' she shouted in her head as the hotsprings grew closer.
"So we use Kumoko to get the adventurers away, then we put a bit of poison in the water to get people away from the hotsprings, before blasting it into rubble." Subaru summarized the plan. "Pretty much, just got to make sure we don't use too much poison or go overboard with explosives." Kazuma replied. "Don't want the water to kill, just bring discomfort." Subaru said. "Yep, and we don't want to destroy the springs, just bury them for a year or two." Kazuma said.
"So, how much poison should we use then?" Subaru asked. "All of this." Kazuma replied while holding up the jar of poison slime. "Doesn't that seem a bit much?" Subaru pointed out. "We have to divide it between several large pools in even measurements to ensure that none are toxic enough to kill, but enough so that the water doesn't fully dilute it." Kazuma explained. "Where are we going to get the explosives?" Subaru asked.
"Simple, we have Kumoko use controlled amounts of magic to blast the surrounding stone into rubble and we bury the springs with that." Kazuma answered. "Ok, and we ensure that no one dies." Subadu inquired. "Can't say that no one will die, at least not permanently. There's a cleric office where people can pay to have their friends brought back to life." Kazuma pointed out. "Fine, let's do this then get out of here as soon as soon as possible." Subaru said.
Kazuma nodded as the two of them stood up and got to looking for Kumoko.
'Ah, see Vampy, it's nice.' Kumoko said to Sophia as the two relaxed in one of the more remote hotsprings. Sophia was kept afloat by holding onto two of Kumoko's front legs. Kumoko herself was just wading her way through the water. It was just the right temp, not hot enough to set off her resistances, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable.
To the edge was their bags and a pile of their clothing. Sophia was trying to stay close to them, hoping that if guards did show up then they could just grab them and bolt. Kumoko was trying to get closer to the centre.
"Oh, you guys here that? Is anyone in here?" A voice shouted from one of the walls. Sophia froze for a moment, having spent the past day listening to horror stories from Kazuma about the eccentrics and fanaticism of the Axis Cult. Who knows what they'd do to a little vampire like her.
Kumoko wasn't scared in the slightest. A small ring of magic having been set on the edge. She simply picked Sophia up, left the water, grabbed their stuff, and teleported out.
When they came out they were back at their base camp.
Greeted by the annoyed face of Kazuma and the disappointed look Subaru was shooting them.
"You're going to follow this plan, right?" Kazuma asked. Kumoko just nodded and smiled. 'Oh course, with my teleportation spot set up I can easily slip between basecamp and the Hotsprings. It won't be to much trouble to Run amok then disappear.' Kumoko explained with telepathy. "Just remember, Adventurers are free game but keep civilians out of it." Subaru chimed in.
"You've gotten over your qualms." Kazuma surmised. "I haven't, I just know that Kumoko won't bother with the no killing rule. Might as well just set some ground rules." Subaru replied. Kumoko huffed, before shrugging her shoulders. "Fine then, So we use Kumoko to pull away the attention of the adventurerers and priests. Then I'll sneak in and start pouring in Hans' poison-" "Which I shall stumble upon and attempt to stop you using my magic, only-" "Only for this to cause a chain reaction which pushed the civilians out of the blast range. By which point Kumoko will have joined back up with us and we can bury the Hotsprings under a mountain of rubble." Kazuma finished as he and Subaru interrupted one another's explanation.
'Can't we just, blow it up straight away?' Kumoko raised a brow as she took it in. "No, we don't want anyone to be caught in the blast. You can teleport us back to base camp but if there's still people around then it would be chaos." Kazuma clarified. 'We could also check to see when it closes, then just sneak in from there.' Kumoko suggested. "Because it's never fully closed, they just rotate which bathes are available at any given time. If we don't get the people away then we may be stepping right into a trap." Kazuma answered.
"Alright, so everyone's clear?" Kazuma asked. "Crystal." Subaru nodded his head. Kumoko held her thumb and pointer in a circle to show she understood it. "Then we strike right at midnight." Kazuma said.
'This is just plain easy. I've seen what, like six people throughout the Hotsprings. And it's just been Clerics and Priests, the weirdos.' Kumoko thought as she crawled upon the mountains around the Hotsprings. There was a small group of caretakers below her who hadn't seen her lower half; shouting about either leaving the premises, joining the Axis cult, or just going for a dip. 'And these people are desperate.' She thought before a large explosion of obsidian mist rocketed one of the central pools.
People began to flee and panic as the mist spread. 'So, that's what a larger Shamak spell does. I honestly expected it to do more.' She observed. 'Welp, time to join them.' She teleported to the same pool she had been in earlier.
She also made sure to grab a small gift from the pool before she went to reach the two boys.
"Man am I glad I got this all set up before you did that." Kazuma said as he finished setting up the last of the 'explosives'. Subaru just groaned, his body floating aimlessly in the nearby spring. "It feels so good." he slurred out as Kazuma turned to him. "Yeah yeah, supposed holy water to bathe in, can't set foot in it myself though." Kazuma ranted as he left the device and neared the edge of the pool.
"Can you even stand?" he asked. Subaru just limply levitated out, ten tendrils... arms? arms visible in the water. His body flopped onto the edge as Kumoko teleported in. She seemed startled by Subaru's current method of locomotion, but only for a moment.
"Ready?" Kazuma asked. Kumoko nodded as a magic circle appeared in front of her. 'Good bye Hotspring, oh how I'll miss you so.' She lamented before firing the bolt of magic. It tore into the nearby mountain and set off a chain reaction. At the same time Kazuma set off the fuse of his own set up and ran to Kumoko.
"We hold until it's lit." He said. Kumoko just draped Subaru over her back and tilted her head. "Got to make sure this goes off as well." Kazuma said while pointing back at his own fuse. The rubble from the mountain grew closer, the destruction paving it's way through the rocks all around.
Then Kazuma's own set went off.
Kumoko grabbed a hold of him and teleported the group out as a massive wave of heat began to wash over them.
The Hotsprings would he buried under rubble, they would find no one within. The Town of Alcanretia was left unharmed, but it would take a decade for them to unearth their hotspeings once again.
They sworn to their last breaths that they would get revenge, no matter how long it may take.
"Well you guys did it, didn't know you had that kind of muscle with ya." Hans said as he activated the magic circle. "Yeah, couldn't really bring her into the town. Though she did grab a parting gift." Kazuma replied as he held up a large jar. Hans raised a brow before shrugging. "What ever, not gonna complain about it. Just tell Wiz that I said Hi when you see her." Hans said as the group stepped onto the circle. "Will do." Subaru replied.
They were soon bathed in a strange light, before landing in the centre of a well lit labyrinth.
Greeted by- 'Holy Titties, she has a mountain on her chest.'...
Greeted by Wiz the lich. "Welcome to my home, make yourselves as comfortable as possible. My name is Wiz and I want to hear about everything you saw." She said with a smile on her face.