Darkness…
Hey, your name is Kazuma, right?
Pitch black darkness…
We can be together forever if we want. We can just get married.
That's all I can see…
Hey, look at that loser.
Where am I?
I heard she dumped him.
What happened?
Unfortunately, you've died. It might've been short, but your life's now over.
We were on a quest?
My name is Megumin.
"...ma."
We went ahead?
Sacred break spell.
"Ka…ma."
Aqua casted her spell at the Destroyer.
Wahh, Kazuma, it didn't work!
"Kazuma!"
I bolted upright as I heard someone shout my name.
I opened my eyes, only to shut them again due to the sudden change in brightness.
I felt numb.
Feeling something running down my head, I raised my hand and touched my head.
It hurt to touch and the liquid felt warm.
"Kazuma! Thank god you're okay, we thought you were done for."
Huh? What are they talking about?
"I think Wiz has a concussion."
Who… me… I am fine Megu, I think I just have a hangover… or something…
"Where is Aqua when you need her?!" Megumin said to the other Megumin, or was it Darkness.
Nah, Darkness has bigger boobs.
"Kazuma, do you have the heal skill?"
"Oh, of course I do, I learned it from Chris, here, let me show you guys."
"Steal."
I looked in my hands and found a black panty sitting there.
I guess I won the jackpot.
This has to belong to Wiz.
"Kazuma, I said heal, not steal. And could you hand those back? It's a bit drafty down there." Megumin said, lowering her head.
Huh, I guess I was wrong…
I used heal on myself thrice and felt my mind getting in order a bit.
The blood had stopped flowing, but the gash on my forehead remained as I was just an adventurer and not a priest.
And it was just the heal skill, and not the spell.
"Umm… where are we? And how did we get here? I just know bits and pieces and my head hurts if I try to think back." I said to Wiz and Megumin.
I noticed that Aqua and Darkness weren't here.
The room we were in looked strange, like a weird mix between ancient and advanced.
"Ahh… yeah, that is normal, don't worry. It will take a while but your memory should be fine." Wiz said with a smile.
"We made a plan to take down the Destroyer and we thought it would be better to fight it before it reached the village." Megumin said as she kept giving me the stinky eye.
"The plan was simple: Lady Aqua would take down the anti-magic barrier, then Megumin and I would use explosion on its legs, thus rendering it immobile." Wiz continued.
"Well that's great! So I guess it went all well?" I said excitedly.
"Except for the fact that the self-proclaimed goddess's spell didn't work, 'cause it's an anti-magic barrier, and what she used was a spell, i.e. magic. When she saw that the plan didn't work, Aqua ran away towards the village saying she would notify them about what happened. If it wasn't for Wiz, we would both be dead. Also, we are currently inside the Destroyer." Megumin said before she went back to cursing about everything that is the Archpriest Aqua.
I think I am a bad influence on her.
"Wait, how did Wiz save us?" I asked.
"I have the teleport skill, it allows me to teleport to any location I can see, but it has a huge cooldown of about a day." Wiz told me.
Huh… that's pretty convenient.
"Well, if we are in here then let's go and find a way to stop it. We have what, 3 hours? 2 hours?" I asked while casting Create Water to clean my face.
And it didn't work.
Huh?
"We have about 1 and a half hours before it reaches the village." Wiz said as she moved towards the door and put up another barricade.
Seeing I was still trying to use magic, Megumin snapped at me, "We are inside an anti-magic barrier and you are wondering why your magic isn't working!"
Ohhh, that's why.
But why was she so angry about this whole thing? She only has one spell… wait, she only has one spell and she can't even use it right now…
They said that there were golems inside the Destroyer to deal with intruders, so I reached for my axe on my back.
Only to find nothing…
I looked around me in a panic, but I couldn't see it so I summoned it and waited.
And waited…
Then there was a clanking sound outside the wall.
When I summoned it again, I felt it was stuck somewhere.
"Fan fucking tastic. I have with me 2 mages who can't use any magic, I don't have my only weapon, and we have 1 hour and 28 minutes to take down this ancient gargantuan machine." I ranted and raved, only stopping when there was a loud noise from outside the door.
We all turned towards it, to see the door kicked off its hinges by a big golem who moved inside the room.
It made a creaking noise as it started to raise its hand to squish us all.
Suddenly I had an epiphany.
This is a goddamn machine.
If you take out an important part from it, it will stop functioning and fall down.
Steal uses luck.
Something that I have an abundance of.
I used steal on the golem just before it was about to squish Megumin and I.
The golem stopped moving and fell backwards.
I looked into my hands and found a circuit board.
Megumin and Wiz were looking at me with eyes filled with amazement.
Well, I did just take out a golem with a non-attack skill.
But I was thinking more about the fact that a circuit board existed in this world… Wait, that means there must be a program to run this whole machine too.
Because its creator is said to have built it a long time ago.
Maybe I can do something.
I did take classes in software development.
While I was musing, several golems had moved into the room.
Seeing them, a maniac-like grin spread across my face.
"Well hello boys." I said before I started to spam out steal.
- Aqua -
Aqua didn't know why this was happening to her.
She was sure her spell would work on the Destroyer.
She was a goddess! What can a barrier do against her holy magic?!
But somehow it didn't work.
It had to be that lichs fault, she must've done something.
'This might even be her plan all along', she thought.
When her spell didn't work, she didn't know what to do but run.
If Kazuma or Megumin were to die, she could resurrect them.
But if she died… she doesn't even know what would happen.
Would she go back to her domain or just simply cease to exist…
But it was not the time to think about that stuff.
Right now she needed to reach the Crimson Demon Village.
Because they might be the only ones who can beat the Destroyer.
And if she survived, she could try and find Megumin and Kazuma and try to resurrect them. Eris would know they are her companions and won't send their souls to somewhere else, right?
… Right?
- Kazuma -
"Hah… that was… amazing… but… I am kinda… spent now." I said as I slid down the now closed door.
We had been running around for an hour.
We were trying to find the control room of this machine, using steal on golems if we saw one.
I had gained 4 new levels by taking down so many golems.
"Too bad your steal is useless against females, it would've been your ultimate weapon." Wiz commented as she moved some stuff in front of the door.
There was an old man's skeleton in the corner.
Probably the creator of this machine.
Megumin was looking through the area, trying to find something, when she shouted: "Here!"
I walked up to her and saw she was holding an old keyboard. It was attached to a blank computer screen that was attached to the wall.
Finally I thought.
Wait.
"How did you know what to look for?" I asked Megumin.
She struck a pose and said, "We Crimson Demons have knowledge known to none, it is simply- Ah! Kashuma! I'm sowwy, please stop pinching my cheek."
"Only if you tell me how you knew what this was."
"Ah, we have a lot of old relics stored in our village, it looked similar so I thought it was important."
"Oh believe me, it is!" I said as I sat down on the floor while facing the screen.
Let's see…
I pressed space… nothing.
Okay then, enter key… still nothing.
I tried a lot of keys and combinations, and then the screen finally started up.
With fucking alt F4, who designed this?!
The computer didn't have anything but different programs on it.
It didn't have a single firewall, it was almost like its creator didn't think anyone else would ever use it.
"Wait, Kazuma, you understand the ancient language?!" Megumin said to me in awe.
Yeah, it was showing everything in Japanese, which to everybody else here was an ancient language.
I wanted to tell that to Megumin, but seeing the look of awe she was giving me…
My morals were kinda waning.
It really is a moral dilemma, isn't it?
Should I tell the truth and let go of my new found mystique?
Or keep my mouth shut and keep lapping up the attention…
Of course I did the right thing… like it's a no brainer.
I turned back to the screen with my serious face, trying to look cooler.
Let's see, what do we have here…
Guns
Open windows
Anti-magic barrier
Pacman
Guns(big one)
Tetris
Homework
Self-destruct
Milkshake
Contra
Golems
How to make your own destroyer at home
Lights
Homework (crimson demon edition)
Power
I really want to open the homework folders, but with Megumin and Wiz with me, I didn't want to test the extent of my luck.
First thing I did was shut down the barrier and delete the self-destruct files.
"Now you two should be able to use magic." I said to Wiz and Megumin.
"Good job Kazuma, you looked disgusting with that look on your face, but I guess you pulled through!" Megumin commented.
Hey, that was my cool face!
After a few seconds of our celebration, we noticed that the room we were in was starting to heat up.
I opened up to check what was wrong, and found out that…
I kinda fucked up.
That barrier was running on a lot of magical power.
Power which was now not being used and building up.
Shit!
"H-Hey, does anybody know what coronatite is?" I asked them as I read about it in the power file.
"It's a special type of manatite, it absorbs magic from the surrounding area and then releases it over time. The amount of magic it absorbs is based on its size." Wiz told me as Megumin nodded in the background.
"There is no way to stop this from here, I guess we will need to destroy the coronatite." I told Wiz.
"But destroying it would just cause a massive explosion, I don't think we can even teleport out of here before it would explode." Wiz said.
"Wait, Kazuma, can you put those anti-magic barriers up again?" Megumin asked me.
"Yes, I can do that, but why?"
"Just do it and you'll see what I'm talking about." Megumin said with a grin.
Huh, I guess this loli has finally lost it. Well it wouldn't harm me to entertain her.
I started it up and felt the heat in the room start to dissipate.
"Now what?"
"Don't you understand? Coronatite works by absorbing magic from its surroundings, and the barrier prevents magic, so that means the room in which the coronatite is, doesn't have any anti-magic barrier." Megumin said with a smug tone.
Wait, she can't mean…
"You want me to-"
"Yes."
That's genius.
I went back to the anti-magic program and made it so that the barrier was now activated in the one room which was previously untouched by it.
This also told us where the coronatite was.
We waited for 10 minutes for the coronatite to use up all its stored magic and then felt the system slow down and stop.
"Wooohooo! We did it!" Megumin and I shouted as Wiz sighed in relief.
Our celebration was short lived though, as about a minute later, the Destroyer started to move again.
"Wait, what?! What is happening? I was sure it had stopped, did we raise a flag again?!" I said while looking up towards the ceiling.
"I think when the coronatite stopped, so did the barrier, hence giving the coronatite magic again." Wiz said while in a thinking pose.
Hmmm… that means it would just keep powering up and down rather than stop…
"Wait, if we were to destroy the coronatite when it uses up all its magic, what will happen then?" I asked Wiz.
"Hmm… for something like this core to work, it had to have been crafted with a special type of magic and must have a lot of runes on it to amplify its process. So if we were to say, cut it in half, we would render it useless."
But how do we cut it, magic would just get absorbed and we don't have any weapons.
Wait…
I went back to the control panel and opened up the windows and then summoned my axe.
There were a lot of noises from outside the door, which kept growing louder and louder each second, only to stop at the door.
I opened the door and saw the axe embedded into the door.
"Well, we have about 10 minutes before this coronatite uses up all its magic, and about 15 minutes before we reach the village, so I guess we all better hurry up." I said as I gripped my axe tightly and started running down the hall with Megumin and Wiz hot on my heels.
- A few miles outside the Crimson Demon Village -
We can see several arch-mages and an archpriest standing, facing the machine that was moving towards them.
Several of them had grim faces.
They were here to buy time so the young and elderly can safely get away.
Seeing that his people were in a grim mood, the chief stood forward.
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take my heart."
The dust cloud was now on the horizon.
"A day may come when the magic of our mages fail, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but today is not that day."
The dust cloud was getting bigger and bigger each second.
"An hour of wolves and shattered staffs, when the age of magic comes crashing down! But it is not this day!"
The Destroyer can now be seen approaching.
"Today, we fight! By all that you hold dear in this world, I bid you stand, mages of the Crimson Demon Clan!"
The Destroyer started to stop and toppled over as the chief finished his totally original speech.
The mages kept looking without blinking an eye, as the Destroyer lay there unmoving.
Then three figures started to walk out of it, all of them looking towards, and the male of the group shouted:
"Hey guys, it's-"
"Hey, now's your chance everybody! Cast your strongest spell while it's immobile!" Aqua shouted, getting an enthusiastic "Yeah!" from the gathered mages.
"Wait, it's already-"
"Light of saber!"
"Energy ignition!"
"Inferno!"
"Cursed lightning!"
"Lightning strike!"
"AHHH! Wiz, do something!"
"Teleport!"