An alarming warning siren blared loudly.
Zion, who was attending the ‘Monster Ecology’ lecture with Professor-level Mage Jeren in charge of guidance, was startled and glanced around.
The quiet lecture hall buzzed with murmurs and unrest.
The professor-level mage standing at the podium, delivering the lecture in a dull voice, was frowning in embarrassment.
“…H-Hahaha. Well, it seems there’s been an accident somewhere in one of the research labs.”
Jeren tried to downplay the situation, but the atmosphere suggested otherwise.
The trainees, who had been at the tower for only a few years, looked uneasy and restless.
“The lecture is suspended. Trainees, please follow evacuation protocols and return to your dormitories.”
“Visitor, it’s also best for you to return to your dormitory. Wandering around could get you caught up in the incident.”
Zion nodded obediently at Jeren’s words, but inwardly, he felt the opposite.
It was unlikely that such a commotion would arise from a mere laboratory experiment accident.
An emergency severe enough to trigger an alarm throughout the entire tower and evacuate trainees meant only a few possibilities.
[I’ve waited a long time. Finally, the timing has come.] At Frey’s voice, Zion barely nodded.
Judging that merely wandering inside the tower to gather information had its limits, their group had changed plans to wait until monsters overflowed from the labyrinth.
And right now, this was most likely the situation they’d been waiting for.
“Visitor, there’s no need to worry too much. Incidents like this happen several times a day. This time, it’s just bad luck that the accident occurred nearby.”
[—The number of monsters is too high! The frontline defense will be breached within 5 minutes!]
Though Jeren kept trying to reassure Zion as if it were nothing, an urgent voice was coming from his communication device.
Normally, communication magic could only be heard by the participants, but Zion had learned a few days ago from Frey how to eavesdrop on these communications with a spell.
“To prepare for any unforeseen dangers, visitor, please stay inside your dormitory until the situation is resolved.”
[I should get out of here soon. Get ready, Zion. Wait a bit… Yes, now.]
Tracing a magical activation rune in the air with his left hand, Zion cast a spell.
At a forked corridor, with no one else around except Jeren and Zion, a spell that dulled the five senses struck the defenseless Jeren.
Jeren’s eyes glazed over, and Zion slipped away from him, running toward the other path of the split corridor.
[Well done! For your first time using interference magic, that was excellent.]
“I was so nervous it might fail.”
[Don’t worry. The mages here can’t resist magic that uses MP. Unless they’re demons, there’s no need to fear human mages.]
A group of mages appeared ahead of Zion as he ran down the corridor.
Startled, they took defensive stances, but Zion passed by them like the wind.
“Tch. My face will be recognized now.”
[That doesn’t matter anymore.]
“True.”
The past three days had also been spent assessing how much of a threat the tower’s mages posed.
Frey’s final assessment was, [They’re as threatening as goblins.]
It was a very rude way to put it, but Zion couldn’t really argue.
The enemies they had faced so far, especially demons, were not nearly as threatening in comparison.
“Do you know where the labyrinth is?”
[Not exactly. But if you blindly go underground, you’ll encounter monsters anyway.]
If the mages couldn’t handle the overflow of monsters from the labyrinth, the village outside would suffer damage.
Finding monsters wouldn’t be difficult at all.
[But there are about a thousand mages living in the tower, including trainees. Isn’t it strange that with so many mages, they still can’t handle the overflowing monsters in the labyrinth, letting them leak outside?]
[Well… I don’t know. Without seeing it for myself, I can’t say.]
“Crooks, do you mean to say the tower is deliberately neglecting the monsters?”
[That’s just a possibility. Rather than deliberately neglecting them… hmm, considering the tendencies of these mages, it’s more accurate to say they’re efficiently managing the situation by letting some monsters leak outside and dealing with them later.]
Zion groaned involuntarily at the unthinkable possibility.
Was it saying that innocent civilians outside were being sacrificed for that “efficient management”?
“If that’s true… I don’t think I could forgive these people.”
[Why don’t you just say you absolutely won’t forgive them?]
[Not yet, not yet… It’s not even certain. Maybe there are unavoidable circumstances. But perhaps…]
Zion’s conflicted eyes glinted with firm resolve.
“You’re right, Uncle. If that’s the truth, no matter the circumstances, I won’t forgive them.”
How many mages had he passed by heading downward?
His sharpened senses caught the sounds of explosions, roaring, and monster howls.
MP surged through Zion’s entire body, accelerating him even further.
With shockwaves that nearly demolished the corridors and stairs, Zion reached the front lines.
“Wow. More than I thought.”
[But most are low-ranking monsters. The Jewel Tower wouldn’t have been pushed back this far by this level of monsters.]
[Yeah. Crooks, your guess seems right. Too few mages have formed the defensive line. And the old ones… what did you call them? Elder professor level? It seems there aren’t any mages of that caliber here.]
“Move aside!”
A sharp, urgent command struck the ears of the mages.
As a few turned around in surprise, Zion leapt into the air, flipping to press his feet against the ceiling of the corridor, then plunged to the ground like a bomb.
The Spectrum blade, transformed into a greatsword, ruthlessly sliced three frontline monsters diagonally.
“Visitor?! This place is dangerous! Please return to your dormitory at once!”
One mage recognized the epaulet on Zion’s shoulder and shouted in panic, but before he could finish, Zion’s attack had literally crushed a group of monsters in an instant.
It was a sight more magical than any magic.
“You there! How many have you let escape alive so far?!”
“W-What? Suddenly, what are you talking about…?”
“How many have you deliberately let outside the tower?!”
With a fierce shout, Zion charged into the midst of the monsters, swinging his greatsword violently again.
His movements, driven by emotion, weren’t as refined as before but were all the more destructive.
No self-respecting mage dared answer—saying the wrong thing could make them the next victim of that greatsword.
“You all stay right there! I have things to discuss later!”
Ruthlessly cutting down monsters, Zion pressed inward.
As Frey and Crooks had said, the monsters were mostly low-ranking, just more numerous than usual.
The occasional stronger monster was an orc, hobgoblin, or gnoll chieftain.
[That gnoll chieftain is at least middle rank 2 class… but wow, its lower body was blown off without a trace. Poor thing.]
[Is this the time for jokes? There are way too many of them! Someone’s going to get hurt if this continues…]
[Why? We’re just here watching, after all. And those monsters can’t even scratch him. Do you know how many massacres he’s been through? So Yuria, don’t worry and just eat some popcorn.]
[Where did you even get that?]
[I made it myself with magic. Arcs even praised it highly.]
The farther inward he went, the corridor’s appearance gradually changed.
What was once an entirely man-made corridor eventually turned into a natural cave, carved enough to walk comfortably.
This was clear proof that he had entered the labyrinth proper.
“There are an awful lot of monsters. All coming from the labyrinth, huh? As long as I’m here, I won’t have to worry about running out of MP.”
However, as time passed, the endless flood of monsters began to subside.
Zion’s fervor softened around that time, as he swept through the monsters in a daze, surrounded by his halo.
[Kind of feel sorry for those guys earlier. They must have been risking their lives fighting too.]
Frey absentmindedly rubbed his forehead at Zion’s words.
Yumin looked on with a face that said she found that hard to believe.
Unexpectedly, Crooks agreed with that sentiment.
[Those mages might have been following orders without knowing anything. In any country or company, when problems arise in an organization of normal people, the upper management is usually to blame, not the lower ranks.]
His words were advice to make sure Zion knew who to consider the enemy.
Zion took those words to heart and returned to where the mages had formed their defensive line.
“Bring me the person in charge.”
“W-Wha?”
“All the monsters overflowing from the labyrinth are dealt with. Not one escaped—all by myself. I may be a visitor, but surely I deserve to meet the person in charge, don’t I?”
“Well, that… yes, that is correct.”
“Then bring the person in charge immediately. If you can’t…”
[Alright, Zion. Don’t just glare here with a grim face—smile instead. It suits your personality better, and it will scare the other side more.]
“You know what I mean, right?”
The mage before him started nodding frantically, watching Zion hold the greatsword he’d been slaughtering monsters with in one hand, smiling brightly.
***
Even running barehanded without a word, it took less than three days to reach the Solerion Theocracy.
As the head of the Royal Guard Division, Soares was confident in her stamina, but since traveling with Zion, her physical condition had improved noticeably.
‘Maybe I’m going through the same process as Yuria.’
Yuria, who had been a commoner, became Awakened after traveling with Zion and killing monsters together.
Zion had traveled with her, personally killed maim, and had even once tried Yuria’s handmade MP Booster.
The odious liquid, which completely denied the concept of taste, was something he vowed never to touch again.
‘Should I start drinking the MP Booster regularly from now on? No, if I keep taking that, my sense of taste will be ruined, and cooking might become a problem…’
Thanks to the constant praise from Yuria and Zion, Soares took pride in her cooking.
Cooking or awakening—torn between the two, she put aside the unsolvable dilemma and infiltrated the Theocracy to begin full-fledged intelligence gathering.
Though she intended a long-term stay, she surprisingly made progress in less than a day.
However, the feeling she experienced wasn’t one of accomplishment but rather embarrassment and dread.
“Kill them all! Don’t leave a single one alive! Make sure the destruction and burning of the buildings looks like the mages’ doing!”
‘The Order of Holy Knights is attacking a civilian village…?’
Soares rubbed her eyes involuntarily, doubting reality, but the scene before her did not change.
Disguised as bandits but wielding swords bearing the Order of Holy Knights’ emblem, they were assaulting a border village of the Theocracy, slaughtering the inhabitants and setting fires.
The situation in the Solerion Theocracy was even more chaotic than expected.