CH 522

Despite the powerful explosion, the huge basement under the Marschel residence remained intact.

This was likely due to the fact that the gems explosion radius was designed to be focused on a smaller area.

Rei had only chosen to detonate the gems because he had seen Pree to it. If the range of the explosion had not been preset and instead had no limit, it wouldn’t have just obliterated the room where Rei and the others were, but also the Marschel residence……or potentially the entire western district of Exil, where the Marschel residence was located. ……The explosion might even have annihilated more than half of Exil, if not worse

An explosion of that magnitude occurred within the restricted range of Oricule’s body……

Although the basement itself was intact, the inside was totally wrecked as everyone was forced to endure the explosion as best they could.

In the midst of all this……

「Mm……」

Rei, who had fallen unconscious, felt something soft moving in his arms and hugged it on reflex.

「Ahn~」

Then he heard a seductive voice.

The moment he heard that, Rei’s consciousness rapidly recovered.

When Rei opened his eyes, the first thing that entered his eyes was something white.

At the same time, it gave off the scent of a mature woman.

His hands sunk into something smooth and soft.

The things he saw, smelled, and touched. The moment Rei realised what he was hugging, he immediately looked behind him, remembering the events that had occurred before he passed out.

There was nothing there. ……Yes, Oricule’s corpse wasn’t there, not a part of his body or a scrap of his leather armour remained, everything had been obliterated from their attack.

Not even a single piece of Oricule’s blue skin, which could nullify magic, was left.

Gone, everything was gone.

Any proof that the transformed Oricule had every existed was gone.

「……We won, huh?」

The voice he heard was from Vihera, who was in his arms.

Rei had used his magic alongside the detonation of the gems to destroy Oricule’s body from the inside.

In order to protect himself and Vihera from the impact, he remembered hugging Vihera and absorbing the impact with his Dragon Robe as he nodded slightly.

「Yeah. ……He was annoying to deal with, with his ability to nullify magic. But I guess he couldn’t do anything about an attack from the inside of his body.」

「I guess so. I’d have liked to fight him properly if I were in perfect condition, but……」

Speaking that far, Vihera, whose cheeks were blushing slightly, continued embarrassedly.

「Hey, Rei. By the way……uh, I think it’s time you let go of me?」

「……Eh?」

Hearing Vihera’s embarrassed voice, Rei finally realised his current situation.

His current situation was that he was hugging Vihera, who was taller than him, from behind.

Above all, he could feel something big and soft in his right hand.

It was clear what he was grabbing when he saw Vihera’s white back in front of him.

They were larger than his hands, a large bulge comparable to Elena or Marina, the Dark Elf who worked as Gilm’s guild master, who had the biggest ones Rei had seen so far. He was grabbing the right of Vihera’s twin hills as if it were all he could do.

「……I’m very sorry.」

Rei hurriedly let go, but even then, a soft feeling remained in his palm. At the same time, an embarrassed voice leaked out from Vihera.

「Ahh~, hey Rei. No matter how much you want to do that here……」

「No, don’t say anything so misleading.」

Hearing those words, Rei let go of Vihera entirely and replied hurriedly as his cheeks also blushed……more so than Vihera’s.

「Oh? Do you mind if I ask what the misunderstanding is?」

A familiar voice from behind Rei made him tense up.

Turning to look behind him with a creaking sound, he saw the figure of Elena smiling at him.

However, her smile was very cold as she held her sword whip in her hand.

Beside Elena, Vosk seemed to be doing his best to hold back his laughter while Byune just stared at him expressionlessly. Set and Yellow, who landed on Set’s back after judging the battle was over, both just tilted their heads.

「Kukuku~. You lot, you’ve just finished a fight to the death and are already spreading this sweet and sour atmosphere.」

Rei stood up in a panic and looked around as Vosk stifled his laughter.

「Everyone is safe……right?」

「Yeah, it’s as you can see. Speaking of injuries, the only injury seems to have been Vihera after what you did to her.」

「Wait. Aren’t those the wrong words to use?」

Rei replied to Elena’s murmurs without thinking.

However, Elena replied without any change in her expression.

「Is that so? I think that messing around with someone’s body without her permission should be called sexual assault.」

「I said to wait a moment.」

「That’s right, you should wait. In general, that’s only the case if the other person dislikes them, no? In that case, there’s no problem at all.」

Vihera said that to Elena in a provocative way, even as her cheeks turned red.

Elena twitched at Vihera’s words as she redirected her freezing gaze from Vihera to Rei.

「Is that so? I’d really like to hear more. It should be necessary to clarify each other’s relationships.」

「Yes, it should be done properly……」

「Wait, wait. What are you two doing here?」

Seeing Elena ready her sword whip and Vihera her gauntlets, Rei, who had finally recollected himself, hurried spoke up.

Vosk looked around while laughing at the three of them before suddenly noticing something.

Something in the middle of the room. Until earlier, Tivia had been trapped inside a barrier of sorts that was created by the magic circle was in. But now, it seemed like the barrier wasn’t there anymore.

「……Hey.」

Vosk called out to Elena and Vihera, who were about to start fighting, and Rei, who was trying to stop them, but the three didn’t seem to be listening as they continued to kick up a fuss.

Letting out a sigh, Vosk started walking over to Tivia, who was lying in the center of the magic circle.

Since Sonic Blades were now an adventurer party that belonged to the Silva family, Tivia was someone who was also under his care. However, he then suddenly stopped.

He stopped because Byune had come over to him.

『……』

For a few seconds the two of them stared silently at each other.

Vosk and Byune had had the opportunity to meet several times before, but there current gazes were completely different from before.

Byune’s expression hadn’t changed much, but the light in her eyes seemed to have softened.

「What’s wrong?」

Vosk asked bluntly, but Byune didn’t say anything and just nodded.

「……Tch, do what you want.」

After hesitating for a few seconds, Vosk continued heading over to Tivia after saying those words.

Byune followed in silence.

As they continued walking, Vosk suddenly spoke again.

「I’m sorry.」

「Mm?」

Byune involuntarily lifted her head at Vosk’s sudden apology.

Vosk continued speaking as he matched his pace to Byunes.

「I know it’s too late to say this now, but I’m sorry I couldn’t protect your mother and father and I’m sorry for all you’ve had to go through.」

「……」

What are you talking about? Byune looked at Vosk with such an expression.

There was no longer any negative feelings towards Vosk in her eyes.

Originally, Byune’s negative feelings towards Vosk and Schaffner stemmed from her belief that one of the three families was responsible for the deaths of her parents. Since it turned out that Pree was the culprit, Byune naturally no longer felt antagonistic towards the other two families.

But……Vosk still apologised as he walked.

「Right now……even though I act like this, when I was younger, I was pretty reckless.」

「……」

Byune’s gaze told him she thought he was still reckless, but Vosk didn’t seem to notice.

「So, one of those reckless things I did was to enter the dungeon solo. As a matter of course, I activated a trap and was hit by a poisoned arrow.」

A bitter, self depreciating smile appeared on Vosk’s face.

「What’s more, those poisoned arrows contained a sort of paralysis poison, and on top of that, there were monsters in the area targeting me.」

「……Mm.」

Really reckless, Byune seemed to say in her brief reply.

Vosk glanced at her from the side before shrugging his shoulders and continuing.

「Well, it goes without saying. Your parents passed by and helped me out. In other words, I am indebted to your parents for saving my life. But in the end, I couldn’t repay the help they gave me.」

Speaking that far, Vosk let out a small, regretful sigh.

「To protect you and your family and repay the favour, I tried to do something about the debt you had incurred. But……that merchant who had made you borrow money had a lot of shady rumors surrounding them and was supported by the Marschel family. It was like a shield that protected them. In the end, I couldn’t do anything up until now. Moreover, it seemed that you were wary of me.」

「Mm.」

Byune averted her eyes slightly at Vosk’s joking words.

After all, since she hadn’t known who the enemy of her parents had been, she hadn’t been able to trust the man currently walking next to her.

「Well, as long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters. You don’t need to worry about it. As I said before……the debt you owed that merchant was a nasty one. Perhaps the Marschels had a hand in it.」

「……」

Responding silently to Vosk’s words, the two eventually reached the magic circle.

There, as Vosk had seen, the barrier had disappeared and Tivia, still missing her arm, was still unconscious.

「She’s breathing well and has a pulse. It looks like she’s fine.」

Vosk gave an involuntary sigh of relief.

He did want to help Essetus and Nakuto, who had been relying on him. For Vosk, the fact that Tivia was safe was the best result.

Putting his claymore on his back, Vosk picked up Tivia in a carry and looked over at Elena and Vihera, who were still glaring at each other with grim expressions, before looking back at Byune.

「I don’t think we should head back there.」

「……Mm.」

Even Byune didn’t want to get involved in that quarrel and nodded back at Vosk as they headed for the door they had come in through.

『……』

The two of them didn’t say anything in particular as they walked.

Even so, the atmosphere between them wasn’t bad.

As they approached the door, Vosk broke the silence.

「Byune, you……what do you plan to do now?」

「Mm?」

What? Seeing Byune tilt her head as if to ask, Vosk looked at Tivia……who he was carrying it what was commonly called a princess carry, as he thought of what to say.

「As you can tell, this incident will be quite fatal for the Marschel family in various ways. The case of the abnormal species, kidnapping adventurers and sacrificing them, and above all, working with the Church of Holy Light, who were doing dirty work behind the scenes. Any one of these things would have been enough to do in a family head, but for all of them to have happened at the same time……that’s.」

Vosk was already certain of the the downfall of the Marschel family.

No, in fact, the downfall of the family was a good thing.

The three big incidents they had been involved in was too big a sin.

(Besides……even though their family had already fallen, killing the former head of the Fraut family and his wife is an even bigger incident. With that in mind, it will be my Silva family and the Levisor family, which is almost a puppet at this point, who will run Exil. No matter how I look at it, this will be troublesome.

However, Vosk didn’t have the option of giving up his rule of Exil.

After all, this labyrinth city was Vosk’s beloved hometown.

「Mm……」

Hearing Vosk’s words, Byune also tilted her head with some concern.

If she carried on, she would be able to protect the mansion which held the memories of her parents.

But, what would she do after completing that task?

Thinking about it, Byune couldn’t come up with an answer.

「Well, things for later can be dealt with later. If you talk to Sanctions, you might learn some good wisdom. ……Even so, it really is peaceful……」

Byune looked back at Vosk’s words, which made it seem like he hadn’t been fighting to the death just a little while ago.

In her eyes, she could see Elena and Vihera about to throw down with their respective weapons while Rei, who was nearby, seemed to have given up and was trying to escape from reality as stroked Set.