My airway suddenly opened.
I inhaled sharply like someone dragged up from beneath the water.
“Ghh...... Haaah.”
“B-Behind you!”
SWISH!
A sound that had now grown tiresomely familiar to my ears.
It was the sign of the calamity’s vines persistently hunting their prey.
I threw myself aside without thinking.
Even taking time to complain was a luxury.
I hurriedly raised my head.
“Yoanes!”
Yoanes quickly pressed her back against mine.
I could feel the heat radiating through her shirt.
“R-Ritak. Sorry I’m late.”
“No. You came at the perfect time.”
She must have run here with all her strength.
She was the one who had handled the fighting throughout our dungeon runs.
Her presence felt reassuring in a way unlike any other.
“The money I asked for?”
To be honest, I did not have great expectations on the financial side.
If her funds had been comfortable, she would not have struggled so much over her sister’s debt.
However, as they said, small grains of dust gathered into a mountain.
I had sent word for her to bring as much cash as possible.
She might even have received support from the guild.
‘If I can endure just a little longer with that......’
The boss fight had entered Phase 2.
If I backed down here, I would give it time to recover.
In the end, I would have no choice but to tackle it again from Phase 1.
Considering the money I had spent so far, I had to keep pushing.
“I-I brought it.”
“About how much?”
“50,000 vanus.”
“What?”
My eyes nearly popped out.
Her sister, Jacqueline, had lost 5,000 vanus through gambling.
That was money an ordinary adventurer would have to earn steadily for ten whole years.
Unless one took on dangerous work, shortening that period would be difficult.
And yet she had brought ten times that amount?
“......That woman lent it to me.”
One mountain after another.
Still, anything was better than suffocating to death right now.
“She said we’d probably need it!”
WHUMP!
Yoanes thrust out her fist.
A vine curving in flexibly burst apart.
“Yeah. Let’s focus for now!”
The calamity writhed viciously.
-Everything is mine. Everything on this land!
No.
I had no intention of handing anything over easily, no matter how trivial it was.
Of course, the Confiscation effect that had begun upon entering Phase 2 was quite troublesome.
I opened the bag.
“Lord Wer, could you stay outside?”
“I cannot possibly......!”
There were no shields left now.
In truth, the part Wer could help with had vanished as well.
We had replenished our vanus, but 50,000 would only last barely ten minutes.
If split between two people, it was five.
“Hah!”
Yoanes’s fist landed sharply.
The calamity staggered, flowerpot and all.
‘If one of us stays, it should be her.’
Wer was looking at Yoanes too.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only for a moment.
In the end, he pressed his lips shut.
“......I wish you fortune in battle.”
His voice was grave.
Still, there was no helping it.
It was difficult to bear the taxes for three people.
Even 50,000 vanus would melt away in an instant.
“Yeah. There won’t be a problem.”
There was no answer.
Wer quickly left the domain.
In an instant, the bag grew lighter.
‘There isn’t much medicine left either.’
I had been distracted preparing for the auction.
I had not even properly prepared the money absolutely necessary for the boss fight.
Naturally, I had also lacked time to replenish ingredients.
‘It’s best to use everything here.’
The calamity’s vines writhed greedily.
If I was caught wrongly by Confiscation, the domain effect of Phase 2, my items would be stolen.
It would be like cooking porridge only to throw it to the calamity.
Crunch, crunch!
I chewed and swallowed a Strength Increase Stick.
I had no intention of easily handing my medicine over to anyone.
All the less if it was a calamity.
Strength spread out from my fingertips.
“Yoanes! You go right!”
“O-Okay.”
Yoanes ran.
At the same time, I kicked off the ground and dug in from the opposite direction.
-You fly-like bastards!
The vines staggered for a moment, unable to decide where to go.
In the end, the calamity split its vines in half.
The attacks flying at me became duller than before.
“Ha! Is it tough for you too, paying attention to both sides?”
It could hardly call this cowardly.
It was the one who had tried to overwhelm me with numbers first.
SLASH!
Fibrous strands were cut without resistance.
The vine that fell to the floor writhed greatly.
Sssssss!
The weapon effect happened to activate too.
The flow was good.
But I could not relax.
-Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over!
The vines of greed stretched out viciously.
They seemed to be aiming to pierce Yoanes’s shoulder.
“......It’s obvious where you’re aiming.”
Yoanes was not someone who would easily let her torso be taken.
She quickly raised her arm and put up her guard.
At that moment, the vine changed its target.
WHRRRK!
The vine wound around Yoanes’s arm, then lifted her high into the air.
“L-Let go of me......!”
Yoanes struggled to escape the vine.
Then a gold coin she had lost slipped free and flew into the air.
“Ah! Th-The money!”
“Grab it!”
With Collection, at least there was a fixed amount.
However, Confiscation was completely arbitrary.
Yoanes reached out, but the one that touched the gold coin first was the calamity’s vine.
-I need more!
As the calamity laughed loudly, the money melted away so quickly it felt empty.
Yoanes tore off the vine in frustration.
“Ghh!”
“Yoanes, how much money do you have left?”
“This one......!”
The instant Yoanes held up a single gold coin.
The calamity chattered without pause.
-Pay your taxes. This is my land!
Srrrrk.......
In the end, even the final vanus she held was swept away.
One minute until the next tax payment.
“Wait. I’ll come to you.”
I could not throw the money to Yoanes.
The money left in my hand was not abundant either, and if the calamity snatched the thrown money midway, it would be over.
SWISH!
When I tried to approach, all the vines turned their heads toward Yoanes.
It seemed they planned to focus their fire before I could join her.
“Playing dirty, are you......!”
It must be planning to dry Yoanes up like this.
I swung the kukri at anything that came near.
Vrrrrr.......
Bad luck always came all at once.
The blade, which had been shining white, grew dull.
The effect of the absorbed Solvent had ended.
“This is driving me insane!”
My teeth ground together on their own.
I only had to go a little farther, so did this really have to be so difficult?
The world must have been determined to mess with me.
Even so, it seemed people were not meant to die that easily.
Whirrrrr!
There was a sharp sound cutting through the wind.
A golden flash stretched out in a straight line.
CLACK!
At the same time, a crisp striking sound followed.
The Primordial Snapdragon’s flowerpot staggered.
“That was a hit!”
A gold coin rolled across the floor.
I turned my head toward the direction the sudden attack had come from.
“Creed!”
At the passage stood the face I had expected—no, the mask.
Creed waved her hand gently.
Beside her stood a group of masked people I had not expected at all.
“......Why did you come all the way here?”
The bear mask.
Besides him, several other masked people entered the common space together.
“You had a reason to be so confident!”
“Look at how wilted that monster is.”
Did they have a hobby of watching fights?
It would be difficult to call that refined.
I was not sure whether they were that sort of people to begin with, though.
Creed smiled softly.
“Did you make good use of the bag?”
“Well, more or less.”
“You need money to face that monster, don’t you?”
“That’s true, but......”
While I was answering awkwardly, the calamity happened to shout as if struggling desperately.
-This place is my private property, and all of you have an obligation to pay taxes!
I had stepped forward saying I would face that thing, then suddenly borrowed money.
Up to this point, anyone with a little sense could easily guess.
However, the amount Creed had readily lent me had been precariously close by coincidence.
‘This woman must have a clear grasp of my budget......’
As an information broker who held every piece of information in the city, it would be perfectly possible.
Perhaps she was even calculating backward how much money had to be spent on the calamity.
Clink!
The bear mask set down the sack he had been carrying on his back.
It was a sack as large as his build.
‘I could probably fit inside it if I tried.’
His thick hands untied the cord tightly binding the mouth of the sack.
The inside gleamed with a brilliant golden color.
Thud! Thud!
Each of them set down a sack as large as their own body.
“Use it. I scraped my vault clean.”
“Use this money as much as you like too!”
“The bank is closed, so I could not add much, but this as well......”
The other sacks were the same.
Even at a glance, they contained a tremendous amount of vanus.
“......I’m grateful, but!”
SLASH!
I cut down the vine that still flew in with a vicious momentum.
Compared to the completely unexpected actions of these people, it was far easier to deal with.
‘Still, isn’t it hard for most people to even think of coming close?’
The masks had witnessed the calamity’s sprouting.
Had dozens of people not lost their lives in an instant?
‘And yet they came all the way down here.’
They had even come saying they would give me money, while carrying a sickening weight of gold coins.
It was hard to even guess what they were scheming.
“......Why are you going this far?”
At my question, the masks exchanged glances.
The bear mask spoke first in a firm voice.
“We should at least have the decency to ask you to save the city.”
Suddenly, I remembered the bear mask worrying about the people in the plaza.
Did he mean he would spend his wealth for the city and its citizens?
Another mask hesitantly opened his mouth.
“The truth is, this social club does not have only one exit.”
I had already expected that much.
It made no sense for a waterway as complicated as a maze to have only one exit.
There had to be several paths leading to the surface.
One by one, the masks added their words.
“The path we took following you down was cleanly cleared.”
“But the other paths are a mess! The monster has reached the streets.”
I pressed hard between my brows.
‘So that’s why there were so few.’
The corpses controlled by the calamity had clearly decreased.
If they had gone outside, the situation was not good.
-This is private property, pay taxes......
It meant that tyranny was being inflicted on ordinary passersby.
A thousand vanus was not money just anyone could pay easily.
In other words, the majority would suffocate before they could pay taxes or anything else.
To prevent victims, I had to quickly destroy the calamity’s main body.
“I’m in a hurry, so I’ll use some of this.”
It was money I did not need to doubt.
They had carried it here asking me to protect their own neighborhood.
Slaaaash!
I slid beneath the vines as if gliding and seized a handful of gold coins.
At the same time, I kicked one of the sacks with all my strength.
“Fall back. Its aggro will be drawn this way.”
Clatterrrrr.......
Gold coins spilled out in heaps.
A vast fortune rolled across the floor.
SWISH!
The sound of the calamity turning its head wrapped around my ears.
-Gold...... It is gold!
The vines stretched out all at once, aiming for the sacks.
Just as expected.
“Yoanes!”
Before I even called her, Yoanes had already started running toward the people.
She probably meant to leave the calamity to me and protect the group of masks.
I did not need to worry about that side either.
I looked ahead.
‘It’s empty.’
The troublesome vines were distracted by the spilled gold coins.
Thanks to that, a straight path toward the calamity’s main body had opened before me.
Tap, tap, tap!
I lowered my stance and ran forward.
The stage was only a few meters away, and the flowerpot was right before my eyes.
I raised the kukri in my reverse grip high.
‘I’ve got you.’
The instant I was certain.
As if mocking my judgment, something blocked my path.
Srrrk.
My vision was covered in green.
‘The vines definitely all went for the sack, didn’t they?’
I swung the kukri sideways without thinking, but I merely floundered as if caught in a curtain.
What had suddenly fallen from above was none other than a corpse.
It was the hem of Lady Detra’s dress.
-Huhu, huhuhu......
The flower of the Primordial Snapdragon had faded white and withered, making it look like a skull.
Beneath the face devoured by the flower, the corners of the mouth rose grotesquely all the way to the cheekbones.
Gleam.
A small dagger shone in Lady Detra’s hand.
Its tip was aimed precisely at my eye.