The atmosphere was tense for the Church priests. They had just watched one of their comrades die so fast it felt like a blink of an eye.
Under the rubble, Freed also saw everything. He knew he should've been dead too, so he quickly went silent and acted like a corpse, his tongue hanging out a little to sell the performance. His acting was surprisingly convincing.
Out of the five priests, one was dead, and Freed was playing dead, leaving four still standing. For a moment they froze, unsure of what to do. But in every group, there's always one brave—or stupid—person who doesn't read the situation and jumps straight into death.
One of the priests rushed toward Sho with his light weapon raised, trying to strike him. And then, in the blink of an eye, his entire head vanished—erased by a single heat-vision shot from Sho.
But the priest's body didn't stop. It kept running headless for a few steps before crashing into rubble and collapsing lifelessly.
The remaining three were horrified. They realized instantly that this wasn't a battle between equals. This human-shaped being was like a literal god who could erase them in a heartbeat.
The same thought flashed through all three minds. They dropped to their knees at once and bowed deeply.
"W-We greet the great being… please spare us! We don't know how we offended you, but please give us a chance for forgiveness!"
"Stop the nonsense and run," Sho said bluntly.
The three priests looked up at him.
"What are you staring at? Run. Try to escape. Maybe you'll get lucky. Go… gooo fast." Sho's eyes began glowing bright red.
All three immediately understood—Sho wasn't going to spare them. He never intended to. Panic hit them as they scrambled to run. One of the priests slipped on the rubble and debris, sliding helplessly.
Sho smirked as he slowly levitated into the air. The fallen priest looked terrified, scrambling his hands and legs, trying to climb out of the crater. But fear completely overwhelmed him—he couldn't even stand properly.
"Bye," Sho said, and fired his heat vision.
"AHHHHHHHHH—!"
The priest was split from head to toe in an instant. Only his hands and legs remained; everything else in-between was burned and charred.
The other two priests saw the horror and panicked even more, desperately jumping and clawing their way up the crater walls, each running in opposite directions to escape.
Both priests managed to climb out of the crater and immediately ran as fast as they could, while Sho floated higher, slowly rising above the edge of the crater.
One of the priests quickly rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a flyer with a magic teleportation circle on it. He pushed some energy into it, activating the circle. A faint glow appeared—teleportation beginning.
Sho noticed the shine.
Another burst of heat vision flashed.
The priest's body vanished with the teleport, but not fully—Sho's beam struck him mid-transfer, obliterating his torso. Wherever he teleported to, the chance of survival was zero… unless he somehow got resurrected.
The other priest kept running through the forest, dodging trees, breathing hard, and constantly glancing back. Every time he looked, Sho's glowing figure was still floating above the crater.
Then he looked back again—Sho was gone.
He whipped his head forward—
—and instantly slid to a stop, his entire body trembling.
Sho was standing right in front of him.
Priests : How?
The priest looked back to confirm he wasn't hallucinating. Sho was no longer in the sky. His heartbeat pounded louder as he slowly turned his head forward.
Shock.
Sho had vanished from in front of him.
The priest blinked rapidly, confused. He checked every direction, but couldn't find him.
Then he noticed something—
his own shadow stretching forward on the ground.
Priest (thinking): He's behind me… isn't he…
He slowly turned his head—
Sho wasn't there either.
"What's going on? Is he some kind of ghost…?" the priest thought, panic rising.
Then a faint glow appeared above him.
Sho was floating silently, his toes just an inch above the priest's head.
"You tried your best to escape," Sho said, voice calm and cold. "But it seems luck isn't on your side."
"P-Please spare me! I swear to God I will never come to Japan again!" the priest begged, looking up—
And Sho wasn't there.
But Suddenly
Gah—!
Sho's kick slammed into the priest's abdomen appearing out of nowhere, the force of the kick broke his spinal cord and his body flew back into the crater and falled inside.
"Did you spare your targets when they begged you…? The answer is absolutely no." Sho muttered.
Meanwhile, inside the crater, Freed had already crawled out from under the rubble. As he dusted off his clothes and prepared to escape, the dying priest fell right in front of him.
Freed instantly dove back into the rubble, burying himself and acting dead again.
Charge "[///////////////// ] 140/150%
Sho slowly descended back into the crater. Through the settling dust, he saw Freed half-buried under the rubble, still pretending to be dead. But Sho could hear his heartbeat—fast, panicked. He could also feel a faint ripple of magic gathering.
Freed was silently trying to cast a teleportation circle.
But he wasn't skilled enough. Unlike the teleportation flyer that activates instantly with a bit of magic, forming a full spell circle from scratch instantly required proficiency and good knowledge —neither of which Freed had.
Sho grabbed a fistful of Freed's hair and yanked him out of the rubble.
Freed's body lifted into the air, hanging limply by the hair. His acting was flawless—no sound, no flinch, his body slack like a corpse.
"Your acting is really good," Sho said flatly. "If you'd chosen to be an actor instead of an exorcist, you might've won an Oscar."
Freed kept his dead act going, refusing to react.
Sho's eyes brightened—pure, blistering red. The heat pouring off them washed over Freed's face. It felt like his skin was about to peel.
Freed's eyelids twitched. Finally, unable to bear it, he cracked one eye open—
And saw a face inches from his own.
A face with two burning, monstrous red eyes staring straight into him.
Freed's eyes snapped wide in terror.
"W-Wait… wait—don't kill me!" Freed screamed, shaking Sho's wrist desperately. But it felt like trying to move a mountain. Sho's arm didn't budge an inch.
"Why are you doing this?! I don't even know you!" Freed shouted, panic breaking through his voice.
Sho's glowing eyes slowly dimmed back to normal.
"Oh… right," Sho said calmly. "You can't recognize me like this."
He reached into his inventory and pulled out his Specs-D Spectacles.
He slipped them on.
Freed blinked—then his face twisted in disbelief.
The only people knew who knows sho identity without glasses are only his parents and his sister.
"You—YOU!? The kid!?"
He never imagined the boy he mocked and dismissed was actually a monster wearing human skin.
"Look, kid… we have a great relationship, right? I'm your prisoner!" Freed said quickly, forcing a smile. "So just lock me up again. I swear— I SWEAR on God—I'll never escape again!"
Sho stared at him silently, expression unreadable.
"You really think I'm going to repeat the same mistake?" Sho said. His voice was calm, but anger threaded through every word. "No, Freed. Not again. Keeping you alive was the stupidest thing I've ever done… and today, I'm fixing that mistake."
"W–Wait! WAIT! Kid, listen—I know I messed up, but I don't deserve to be killed! All I did was escape from you! That's it! I don't think that—"
His plea was cut off.
Sho released Freed's hair—
And in the very same instant grabbed his face with one hand, fingers digging in and squeezing hard.
"Mmmhhfff—mmfff!"
Freed choked, struggling against the iron grip.
"Die, Freed," Sho said quietly. "You taught me a valuable lesson… never leave your enemies alive."
Sho's eyes hardened.
"And I swear—I will kill anyone who even thinks of hurting my family.
Not in reality.
Not in someone's mouth.
Not even in their imagination."
Freed's eyes widened.
He realized Sho had heard everything he said about torturing Sho's family.
And now there was no escape.
Sho's grip tightened—hard enough that Freed's head felt like it could explode like an overripe fruit at any moment.
But then Sho stopped.
"That's too easy," he muttered.
Before Freed could even process those words, Sho ignited flames directly onto his face.
In an instant, fire crawled across Freed's entire body.
He thrashed violently, twisting like a burning snake, screaming in pure agony as the flames consumed him.
His shrieks echoed through the crater—
Then something completely unexpected happened.
Sho's energy suit reacted on its own. A layer of glowing energy from his suit wrapped around Freed's burning body, and in the blink of an eye… Freed's form melted, slipping out of Sho's hand like molten jelly and dropping onto the ground with a wet plop.
A bright yellow-and-red mass sizzled on the floor, bubbling like lava.
"…What just happened?" Sho muttered, completely thrown off.
He crouched and examined the melted form. It radiated intense heat—so hot it scorched the ground beneath it, smoke rising in thin white streams.
Sho pulled back, touched his own suit—
It didn't feel hot at all.
Curious, he decided to release his energy outward for the first time just like how It Consumed freed.
The moment he did, a shockwave of power burst out from him, spreading across the entire crater uncontrollably.
A screen flashed in his vision:
Charge "[//////// ] 100 / 150%
"…What the hell? It used up forty percent instantly?"
But something else caught his attention.
The whole crater glowed bright yellow, the ground beneath him cracking and smoking.
Debris and rubble from earlier began melting, turning into slow-moving streams of lava.
Sho slowly levitated above the ground as molten rock clung briefly to his feet before dripping back down.
From above, the entire crater looked like a glowing pool of liquid gold.
"…This won't cause any problems, right?" Sho thought, staring down at the unnatural heat and destruction he had just created.
Sho hovered there for a moment, wondering if he should just fly away and let the devils deal with this mess.
Kouh was devil territory, after all—they probably fixed unnatural phenomena all the time.
But the sight of lava churning and bubbling in the crater gave him a bad feeling.
What if this turns into an actual volcano or something?
That would definitely be a problem.
"…Maybe I should try cooling it down," Sho muttered.
He summoned Sacred Gear X, forming a massive orb of water above the crater and dropping it.
The moment the water touched the molten ground—
SZZZHHHH—!
It evaporated instantly.
Sho tried again.
And again.
Ten attempts later, the result was the same—steam explosions and no cooling at all.
But Sho didn't give up.
He kept forming water, draining his mana reserves completely.
He downed mana potion after potion to refill himself and continued pouring more water in.
After nearly a hundred attempts, the molten crater finally stopped glowing and settled.
But now the entire pit was filled with boiling water, bubbling aggressively.
Sho exhaled, exhausted.
"It'll cool down on its own… eventually," he decided, turning and flying away from the scene.
> Mission Completed
Rewarded : 10 Gacha Tickets
...
The sun was just rising when a bearded man with a rough, tired face climbed the steps leading up to the old shrine.
"This'll be the last time I visit… after this, I'll have to sell the land," he muttered to himself.
"I really didn't want to, but I need the money. I'll sell it and open some business… something."
This shrine was his property, full of childhood memories—but financiall desperation had left him no choice.
As he reached the top, he stopped dead in his tracks.
A massive smoking lake had replaced the shrine.
"Where are my childhood memories… my SHRRRIIIINEEE?!" the man screamed, looking around frantically.
Then he froze.
Slowly, he walked toward the water, crouched, and dipped a hand in.
"…It's hot."
He dipped again.
"Hot water… hehehe…"
His lips trembled as a grin formed.
"Don't tell me… this is HOT SPRING WATER."
The man's eyes began sparkling like he'd just discovered the answer to life.
"Forget the damn shrine! If this is what I think it is, I can open a hot spring resort! People paying ME to relax?!"
He instantly scooped some water into a bottle and sprinted downhill to get it tested.
And the results?
Positive. Natural hot spring water.
The man returned, looked at the destroyed shrine foundations and kicked a broken pillar aside.
"Sorry, childhood memories—you're getting replaced by MONEY."
Ring… ring… ring…
"Which bastard is calling so early on a Sunday…" Sho muttered, eyes half-closed as he fumbled around the bed searching for his phone.
"…Hello," Sho said in a sleepy voice.
"Sorry for calling so early, Yamato-san."
Sho instantly recognized the voice and sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"It's fine, Mr. Baldy. But calling this early—did something happen?" Sho asked.
"No, no, Yamato-san, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to invite you to a birthday party."
"Oh,Wish you a very happy birthday, Mr. Baldy," Sho said casually.
"Hahaha, no no, Yamato-san. It's not my birthday. I'm inviting you to the birthday party of the Heiress of the Sitri Territory. Tomorrow is her eighteenth birthday, and there's a grand celebration tonight. I received an invitation, so I thought you might join me. Lots of big-money people will be there—good chance to make an appearance and get connections. Will you come, Yamato-san?"
"Sure," Sho replied. He was free anyway, and eating free royal food didn't sound bad at all.
"Good, then. I'll ask Alfred to fill you in on the details," Mr. Baldy said before cutting the call.
Sho dropped the phone on the bed and muttered,
"Birthday of the Heiress of Sitri.... shouldn't that be Sona? So is it Sona Sitri's birthday? But I don't remember any such scene in the anime…"
Still half-asleep, Sho stopped thinking and fell back onto the bed, drifting off again.
...