Chapter 165: Encountering the Evil God in the Ruin (2/2)

“What?!”

“That sounded like Tizona.”

“It seems to come from the third floor.”

Tizona herself was an extremely powerful mercenary. At the very least, she wasn’t the type to be hindered by or scream because of some bandits.

But when Loren thought about this, he remembered that there was one thing he forgot to tell Lapis.

“That reminds me, there’s another being like Gula in this ruin.”

“Telling me that now is a bit…”

“Maybe she’s met it? Her scream sounded like she was in pain.”

“Anyway, let’s go to the third floor.”

Regardless of the cause of the scream, Loren believed that something must have happened, and this was no time to speculate about the reason. They needed to get to Tizona as soon as possible instead. He took the lead and began to run forward, leaping over the stairs to reach the third floor, then looked around. The space was large, and there were numerous doors on both the left side and the right side walls, but the double door opposite the stairway was bigger than any of them. That door was cracked open, so the scream might have come out through that.

Loren charged forward while unsheathing his greatsword. There was no time to open the door, so he just smashed the sword into the door. A loud sound boomed, wood chips flew, and Loren rushed in through the shattered door. Just when he realized that he had stepped into a big room, he noticed Tizona sitting on the floor a little distance ahead. He hurriedly got to her just to immediately turn away.

Tizona was sitting with her legs closed, and was hugging herself tightly. The armor she had been wearing before entering the ruin was nowhere to be seen. Even the underwear she should be wearing underneath it was now also gone.

In short, she was completely naked.

“I’ll follow after!”

Lapis rushed in after him. When she passed by, he gave her the piece of cloth he used to wrap his greatsword and said. It’d be better if he had a cloak to give her, but unfortunately he didn’t wear cloaks. His jacket was doubled as his armor, so he couldn’t give it to her either. The cloth wrapping his greatsword was the only thing he could give. The sword was unconventionally big, so the cloth was also quite large. It probably wouldn’t be sufficient to cover a woman’s body, but it should help to some extent.

As if understanding Loren’s thought, Lapis took the cloth from him and wrapped it around Tizona’s shoulders, partially covering her naked body. Tizona was still sitting down unable to move, her head hung in shame.

“Oh? Who might this be? Is it another mouse?”

Still carefully avoiding looking at Tizona, Loren warily held his sword ready and looked around. The room was vast with a tall ceiling, and deep inside it was a slightly elevated platform, on which there was a throne-like, heavily and gaudily decorated thing.

The figure sitting on the throne spoke, while Gula stood on guard beside Loren:

“Eh? Wouldn’t this be Gula? Why might you be here? And with humans at that. Isn’t this preposterous?”

“I’m also finding this ridiculous. I’m sorry, but gathering bandits at such a place and playing king? We haven’t met for a long time, have you leveled up on stupidity since?”

There was a bit of disgust on Gula’s face as well as in her tone. That surprised Loren, but what made him even more surprised was the voice coming from the throne deep inside the room. It was a male voice, but a bit high in pitch. It sounded almost like a child’s voice to Loren.

“You’re still as sharp-tounged as ever, Gula. I’m not playing king. I AM a real king here. They just gathered here without me even doing anything. It’s quite convenient to be honest.”

“From the look of things here, I already know what you’ll answer if I ask you to quietly come with me.”

“Gula? Are you gathering us? Should I obediently come with you? But too baaad, I think I’ll do what suits me this time around.”

The owner of the voice stood up from his throne. He wasn’t very big, and with just candlelight illuminating such a large room, Loren couldn’t see his face from this distance. But then, the figure snapped his fingers rather dramatically, and a magic light appeared right above him. With it, Loren could see him clearly.

“Loren, he’s Mammon Avarice, the one called Evil God of Greed.”

Loren gazed at this Evil God as Gula spoke. He was quite short and wouldn’t even reach Loren’s stomach. He had fluffy curly brown hair, and his purple eyes, the characteristic of Evil Gods, seemed to look down on Loren. Just as Loren had guessed from his voice, he appeared to be a young boy. He also dressed like a kid from a well-off family, which made the thing he was holding look even stranger.

“I should say ‘Nice to meet you’, should I? By the way, who is this human to you, Gula? Bait, or portable snack?”

The boy called Mammon smiled. In his right hand was Tizona’s armor, and he was twirling some small piece of cloth on the finger of his left hand.

“I’m just wondering, but is that the underwear of the naked lady over there?”

“You want it? You really want it don’t you, onii-san. But I won’t give it to you. Because I’m Greed.”

The smile turned into a somehow murky laugh. Alert by the change, Loren turned the sword in his hands towards Mammon, ready to strike at any time.