After entering, Hans and his companions started searching for the Brushel System. Although this was their first time, there was no hesitation in their steps, as Zich had thoroughly prepared them for the ruin’s structure beforehand. Though it was a bit of an exaggeration, this place almost felt like their second hometown at this point. After walking speedily across the area, they stopped in front of a gigantic, sophisticated-looking device that invoked a sense of wonder at first glance.

“Is this the...Brushel device?” Hans said in awe. Although Hans had wandered around all sorts of ruins while following Zich, the device in front of him had a mystical quality incomparable to anything he had seen until now.

“Look, Nowem. This must be the device Sir Zich talked about. It’s amazing.”

Koo.

Both Snoc and Nowem looked up at the device like Hans.

“Hans, look over there.” Lara pulled on Hans’ sleeves and pointed. Hans turned around and saw a large hole in the wall. Zich had also informed them about this hole. Thus, Hans and his companions approached the hole and stared inside it.

“...”

All of them simultaneously closed their mouths. Beyond the hole, there was a large pit. The bright red lava flowing down from the walls was falling into the pit into a giant pool of lava, and there was a humongous tree with its roots at the center of this pool of lava.

“...The World Tree.” This was what Zich told them. While traveling around, they had seen several unique trees with great and mysterious powers. Yet, Zich told them that all the trees they had seen until now were nothing more than clones of the World Tree. Giving a tree the title of ‘World-something’ sounded pretty dramatic, but once Hans and his companions saw the World Tree, all they thought was that the name was perfectly suitable. That was the sort of aura and presence it exuded.

After being mesmerized by the World Tree for a few moments, Hans quickly regained his senses.

“Everyone, get it together!” Hans reeled in everyone else’s attention. “We don’t have much time. We must quickly fulfill the tasks that have been given to us.”

Hans skillfully led his companions. There was no need for him to give specific orders—everyone got to their roles without being told anything. Hans handed the Key That Distorts Destiny to Elena.

“Please, I leave it to you.”

“Yes, sir!” In some ways, Elena was given the most important role in this mission. Knowing this, Elena gripped the key tightly with a serious look on her face. While Elena walked up to the device, Hans took Snoc and Lara and headed to another point. Everyone left, except for one being.

“Nowem.”

Koo! Nowem jumped down from his usual seat, Snoc’s shoulder, and sat next to Elena. He was staying behind to protect her in case of sudden dangers.

Eventually, the others arrived at a large room. The room’s floor had complicated magic circles all over the ground and gave off an eerie atmosphere.

“As expected, it seems like there was a considerable number of people here.” Lara swiped the floor with her feet. The floor was full of people’s footprints.

“Probably not everyone who was here will return, but I’m sure a good number of them will. Let’s prepare ourselves.”

“Yes!”

“I will be on my guard!”

Snoc took out all sorts of metals from his magic box and scattered them around him while Lara took out her sword. Hans also unsheathed his sword from his waist. The sword’s guard wasn’t Estellade’s, which he was used to, nor did its blade sparkle like the legendary sword. However, even though he was now carrying an ordinary sword, Hans had accumulated his skills through Zich’s tough training until now and was still as strong as ever.

Wiiiing! The magic circles began to emit light, and as the mana in the surroundings fluctuated, a great tremor arose.

“They are coming!” As soon as Hans said these words, a group of figures appeared from the magic circles. One group met eyes with the other group. It wasn’t clear who made the first strike, but an instant later, the two groups clashed.

While Hans and the others tried to block those trying to return to the ruin, Elena placed one hand on the Brushel System’s control device and clutched onto the Key That Distorts Destiny with the other hand.

Wiing! The sound of the device activating rang across the area. Elena gulped and poured her mana more deeply into the device.

‘What...!’ Her face filled with shock. Elena was well-versed in magical devices. During the period of time when she couldn’t use magic, she acquired all sorts of miscellaneous knowledge about magic and made mana artifacts. Thus, she usually had no difficulties when dealing with most magical devices. Yet, the device currently in front of her was on a whole other level. The flow of its mana was powerful, and its complexity was frightening. It didn’t seem like she could influence it with the slight amount of mana in her tiny mana pool, and she had no inkling as to how she would be able to move this device. Yet, the memories that flowed from the key she was holding calmed her down.

‘Teacher...’ With this item, her strong and beautiful teacher was guiding her. This was her master who always appeared as if she could do anything in this world when she was together with Zich. With her help, it was possible.

‘I can do it!’ She had also practiced a lot for this.

Elena focused her attention and began to manipulate the device again.

***

Bam! Bam!

A fierce battle was commencing in the tower once again. Although the Bellid forces, including Ultel, were fiercely fighting Zich’s party, they were slowly getting pushed back. This was the effect of dividing up some of their forces to send to the World Tree island. Moreover, this didn’t mean that they had sent a satisfactory number of forces to the island either.

‘Damn it!’ Ultel gritted his teeth. Although he had managed to send some monsters and the undead over to the top of the tower, Zich’s party blocked most of them. Furthermore, Zich’s party wasn’t the only pressing issue he had to consider. The forces Ultel sent out to Zich’s party automatically became corpses, and although the tower was quite wide, there came a limit as the corpses kept piling up. If the piled-up corpses blocked their paths, Ultel couldn’t attack them as he wanted. He had placed some monsters, undead, and shadow forces in charge of cleaning up the corpses since he didn’t want to give Zich’s party time to recover and heal. Yet, after sending some forces to the island and fighting Zich’s companions, Ultel didn’t even have enough numbers to clean up the mess. Thus, corpses and remains soon piled up high as the walls and blocked the troops from climbing up.

“Damn it! Clean that pile up right away!” Monsters, the undead, and shadows simultaneously began to clean under Ultel’s orders. Since there were many of them, the area was cleaned instantly. Yet, this very action gave Zich’s party an opportunity to land a critical hit.

Baaam! Ultel hurriedly backed away. A light struck the spot he used to be in. His sleeves were swept into the light and were cleanly cut off.

“Why do you keep backing away? If you keep doing that, it forces me to go up to the top of the tower. Shouldn’t you block me with all your might?”

“Shut up!” Ultel swung his staff and a water pillar shot out, but the attack missed and stole away some innocent monster lives instead.

“Why do you keep killing those on your side? Were they an eyesore to you? From what I can tell, those guys are superior to you in appearance and character and cause less harm to the world than you do. Shouldn’t you kill yourself instead of killing them?”

“...”

“Why aren’t you answering? Is it because you know I’m right? What was the point of killing those pitiful guys in the first place then? I suppose you are suffering from a deep sense of guilt now. Is the tiny bit of conscience that you have left eating at you? If that’s the case, I suggest you just follow after those subordinates you killed!”

“...”

“Oh man, I missed again. This is my advice, but why don’t you stay back and have your subordinates protect you? Or did you just come out to the front in a hurry because your plan is going awry? No way! I believe in you, Ultel! There’s no way the cool guy who boasted about his ambitions and all that would do such a shameless thing!”

“I told you to shut up!”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to~” It was amazing how well Zich could blabber while swinging his sword. His pronunciation was infuriatingly clear, and even Zich’s companions shook their heads against his provocations.

“I never want to fight that man in my life.”

“Didn’t I say it before? If it wasn’t for the kind deeds he’s done, I would’ve thought he was a Demon Lord.”

“...Hm.”

Yet, like before, Lubella supported Zich this time too. “As I thought, you can’t expect to have a proper conversation with fishhead worshippers! See how they can’t make sense with Sir Zich’s perfect logic?!”

“Perfect?”

“Don’t even bother. The Saintess is not much different from Zich when it comes to the Bellids.”

“...Hm.”

Ultel thought he was going mad. The issue with the island immensely stressed him out and he wanted to drop everything to run there. Yet, Zich was continually mocking him on top of that. He wanted to shred apart Zich’s throat, and it angered him that he couldn’t.

Booom!

The tower shook. It lasted for a single moment, but no one missed it. Everyone’s eyes naturally turned to the floor.

“What was that?” Ultel asked in surprise. He had never experienced the tower shaking before. Was there an earthquake? However, from what he knew, there had never been an earthquake in this vicinity before. That meant the tremor was the result of an external action, but since the tower was protected by the World Tree’s mana, the structure nullified almost all external interventions. Even Zich at his strongest couldn’t so much as scratch the wall of this tower. Thus, damningly, and unfortunately, Ultel had an inkling of what might’ve happened.

“Did the guys who trespassed perhaps....!”

“Isn’t it exciting?” Zich laughed. His snide smile had a very effective ability to gnaw at his opponent’s very core.

“I was annoyed from the moment I heard you guys laid your nest at this place. How dare you Bellids live on such a high tower when you should be crawling on the floor? Isn’t it as nonsensical as fire burning on water and rocks hanging in the air?”

Lubella nodded at Zich’s words.

“Of course, I didn’t do all this just for the purpose of destroying this tower. That's just a side thing. The main point is that I will be able to fulfill my goal of screwing you over!”

“Y-You...!” Ultel couldn’t even speak properly. All sorts of curses and criticisms swirled inside his mind, but they were mashed so heavily that he didn’t know which one to spit out first. If he could, he wanted to pour them all out at once, but unfortunately, he only had one mouth.

Booom! The tower shook again. The strength and length of the vibrations were clearly greater than last time.

“Whether it’s in a novel or in reality, it’s always the best part when the evil guys’ base crumbles!” Zich’s cheery voice broke through the chaos as he added, “That’s why I asked you if you can deal with the aftermath.”

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