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Eve and Lapiz froze at the horrifying sight before them. Those were their hearts—why had they turned into that?
"The Demon Lord was just a pawn," Takumi said flatly. "And the moment you were chosen as Demon Lord Candidates, someone had already planted their hand on you."
He paused, eyes narrowing. "Judging by the method, this feels like the work of a World Incarnation—something on the same level as the Divine Bird itself."
If that was true, then whoever hid behind the scenes possessed a power that rivaled divinity. Finding them would not be easy.
Eve and Lapiz couldn't fully follow his explanation; all they gathered was that they had somehow been used. When they tried to ask more, Takumi only shook his head. He didn't yet understand how deep this conspiracy ran himself.
"Forget that for now. There's still one rat hiding in the dark—I'd better drag him out first."
Turning toward the distance, Takumi's gaze locked on a man sprinting toward the forest, coat flapping behind him. The instant the Demon Lord fell, this burly man had turned and fled without hesitation.
"Gun Hero… Bullet."
Murmuring the name, Takumi's tone turned cold.
Meanwhile, the fleeing Bullet looked utterly grim. After being corrupted by the old king's dark power and turned into a puppet, he'd somehow kept a shred of reason. But he was still forced to obey his master's orders—to come scout the Demon Lord's castle in advance.
When he finally arrived, he saw the impossible: the Demon Lord slain, the castle in ruins. The gulf between himself and Takumi was laughably vast.
As a seasoned agent of the Intelligence Division, he knew instantly—he didn't stand a chance. So he'd run. Fast.
But when his instincts screamed danger, he stopped dead. Looking up, he saw Takumi already standing in his path.
Bullet's expression twisted—half madness, half obsession. His lips curled in a sick smile.
"Hero of Healing… at last, we meet. You really are—"
"Die, you freak!"
Before he could finish, Takumi clenched his hand. A crushing gravitational field twisted the air, collapsing reality around Bullet—in an instant his body was reduced to pulp, mashed into a writhing sphere of meat.
Disgust flashed across Takumi's face. He'd already noticed the way that pervert's eyes lingered on him.
Even pulverized, Bullet didn't die. Crimson tendrils of flesh sprouted from the meatball, squirming to rebuild his body. Takumi simply deepened the gravity field, pulverizing him again and again until the mass turned to soup.
During this, he plucked the small firearm from amid the gore—Taslam, the Gun Hero's Sacred Gear. A palm-sized pistol that used mana as bullets, capable of ultra-precise homing shots with a four-hundred-meter range.
The moment Takumi grasped it, the Boosted Gear manifested. The green jewel gleamed—and swallowed Taslam whole.
[Boosted Gear (Gold)] Trait update detected—new sub-abilities acquired:
Auto-Tracking – All released attacks and spells gain automatic target-seeking and homing capabilities.
Mana Reservoir – The Gear absorbs ambient mana and can store a total equivalent to a Main-God-class reserve.
"This mana capacity… might outlive me."
Takumi couldn't help but laugh. Even if he poured his magic into it for a hundred years, it would never fill completely. This was a massive gain!
His smile faded as his gaze returned to the twitching meat lump. "Enough wasting time. Die."
"[Infernal Flame]!"
The roaring fire engulfed the mass, burning Bullet completely out of existence.
[Ding! Randomly Looted Trait: Intelligence Veteran (Green)]
[Intelligence Veteran (Green): Your logical reasoning and information-gathering skills surpass ordinary people, allowing you to notice finer details.]
"Useless trait. Even Bread's brute strength was better."
He muttered in exasperation, but still chose to fuse it—better perception never hurt. As the trait settled, his mind seemed sharper; blurry memories turned vivid. A minor change, but noticeable.
Piecing the clues together, Takumi's thoughts raced. "If the old king sent Bullet here to scout, it means he's at least partially aware of my movements… That info must've come from the one pulling strings behind him. In other words—the old king has already made his move."
He opened the Master-Servant Channel, contacting Kureha's group who had gone ahead.
"Kureha, where are you now?"
"Takumi-sama!"
Kureha's delighted cry echoed in his mind, followed by her steady voice. "You won't believe what I've seen. The King of Jioral has gone insane—he's turned all his soldiers into undead monsters! Entire cities have fallen. He's trying to conquer the world."
Her eyes blazed with fury as she spoke. The king's atrocities were pure evil—and now, Takumi's warnings had all come true.
At the same time, Freya joined the channel. "Takumi-sama, we've already reached the capital."
"It's crawling with undead soldiers. Even Setsuna can't get through!"
"Rrrgh, they won't die no matter how many times I rip them apart!" Setsuna's frustrated voice growled.
Monsters that resurrected endlessly—it was enough to make anyone sick. She and Kureha were both revolted beyond words. Only Freya's cleansing fire could reduce them to ash permanently.
So they'd spent the whole journey avoiding fights rather than wasting time killing the unkillable.
"They're troublesome, I get it," Takumi said with a chuckle. Setsuna's tone alone told him how pissed she was.
Meanwhile, Freya unrolled a glowing scroll etched with a teleportation sigil. "Takumi-sama, you can come through now."
"Good. Wait there—I'll bring Eve and Lapiz."
He clasped the two girls' hands and activated the spell. The sigil on the parchment blazed with light, and the three vanished—
"Ehehe!"
Lapiz landed first, her white rabbit ears flicking with delight at the strange sensation.
The novelty of teleportation had her eyes sparkling, but she quickly composed herself and faced Takumi.
"Hero-sama, what should I do next?"
That question was on everyone's mind. All eyes turned toward him as Takumi looked up at the familiar royal palace ahead—
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