Sylvia's slime-coated tentacle, whose stiffness was growing more suspicious by the second, was probing wildly at Kōichi and Kazuma Satou's mouths. The pressure, mixed with that sickly sweet, fishy smell, nearly sent both their souls flying out of their bodies.
"We'll talk! We'll talk! Get that thing away from us!"
Kōichi and Kazuma Satou screamed almost at the same time, their survival instincts crushing every last scrap of dignity they had as Reincarnators.
With tears streaming down his face, Kazuma shouted as fast as he could.
"Listen carefully! That's the ancient Dance of Life! The button sequence is: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A! Hurry up and press it! Please, just press it already!"
Sylvia paused. The command sequence sounded utterly lacking in grandeur, but seeing the two of them terrified out of their minds, she half-believed it anyway. Extending her slender and deadly fingers, she quickly tapped the stone slab according to their instructions.
[↑] [↑] [↓] [↓] [←] [→] [←] [→] [B] [A]
"Ding!"
A crisp, pleasant electronic chime, somehow even carrying a hint of 8-bit charm, rang through the quiet back mountain.
Then the impossibly heavy metal gate, which could even reflect high-level magic, slowly slid open on both sides to the sound of cheerful standby music.
"Hahahaha! It worked! As expected, only Reincarnators would know this forbidden incantation!"
Sylvia laughed wildly, then snapped her tentacles and flung Kōichi and Kazuma into the nearby bushes like trash.
Standing before the gate, she looked back and gave them a cruel, seductive smile.
"You two stay right there and don't move! Once I get the Magic Killer and turn all those Crimson Demon Clan lunatics into useless wrecks, I'll come back and take you to the Demon King's Castle… Then I'll use this perfect body of mine, fused with the finest traits of a hundred Monsters, to pamper you properly, deeply, day and night!"
With that, Sylvia swayed her blood-stirring and spine-chilling lower body, then charged straight into the pitch-black depths of the ruins without looking back.
One second.
Two seconds.
Once they were sure Sylvia had completely disappeared around the bend in the passage, Kōichi and Kazuma Satou, who had been sprawled on the ground pretending to be dead, sprang up at the exact same time.
They exchanged a look. Not a word passed between them, yet their teamwork surpassed even twins.
"Quick, quick, quick! Close the door!"
Kōichi and Kazuma rushed to the gate with every ounce of strength they had and started mashing the stone slab like mad.
With a chime announcing that the system was rebooting, the metal gate gave a heavy rumble and sealed itself shut again, fitting perfectly back into place.
"Hah… hah… We did it…" Kōichi leaned against the cold gate, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and suddenly burst into an extremely villainous laugh. "Hahahaha! That idiot! Doesn't she know that with old ruins like this, once the door is locked from the outside, nobody inside can get out unless they have a dimensional array?!"
Kazuma broke into his signature scummy grin and thrust a middle finger at the gate.
"Go to hell, you perverted Chimera! Spend the rest of your life in there hugging your Magic Killer! Once you're starving and skin and bones, let's see whether that perfect body of yours can still poke anyone! Kōichi, we're geniuses! This is what high-IQ players call crushing a brain-dead General from a higher dimension!"
"Exactly! This is what they call shutting the door to beat the dog. No, trapping the beast behind closed doors!" Kōichi excitedly high-fived Kazuma. "Let's go, Kazuma! While the Demon King's Army is still getting bullied by the old guys and old ladies at the village entrance, let's hurry back and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, we'll come collect her corpse… or just weld the door shut and turn this into Crimson Demon Village's newest tourist spot!"
Just as the two were praising each other and basking in the belief that they had saved the world, Sylvia's confused shout faintly came from deep inside the ruins.
"Hey! Why are there plugs and wires everywhere in here? Is that thing that looks like a giant microwave the Magic Killer?! Why does it have a warning label saying 'Do Not Overload'?!"
Kōichi and Kazuma Satou had not even taken ten steps before the ground beneath their feet began shaking violently without warning.
It did not feel like an earthquake. It felt more like some ancient beast that had slept for a thousand years had been forcibly plugged in, roaring in furious low frequencies.
"H-hey, hey! Kōichi! Did that busty girl in there just say plugs and microwave?"
Kazuma Satou's face instantly shifted from a scummy cackle to the deathly pallor of someone who had realized disaster was coming. He whipped around to look at the ruin gate, which was now leaking an eerie blue light.
"In a place like Crimson Demon Village, doesn't the word microwave usually mean some kind of black technology that can blow everything within ten li to ash?!"
"Run! That isn't a microwave at all! It's a magic absorption device running beyond capacity!"
Kōichi screamed and dragged Kazuma down the mountain at full speed.
At that moment, a metallic screech loud enough to pierce their eardrums erupted from the ruins behind them.
"You bastards… you lying little cheats! How dare you lock me inside this flimsy metal shell! Since you want the Magic Killer so badly, I'll give you both myself and it!"
Sylvia's voice, filled with rage and twisted pleasure, rang across the sky.
With an earth-shaking crash, the entire ancient ruin, built from special alloy, was forcibly blown apart from the inside.
Countless metal fragments scattered like meteors, and an enormous figure rose slowly from the rubble, so huge it inspired pure despair.
It was Sylvia.
But now, she was no longer just a Chimera.
Her body had completely fused with the enormous Magic Killer device, which was covered in cables and antennas.
Huge heat sinks flashing red had sprouted from her back. Her hands had transformed into heavy magic cannon barrels, and her serpentine lower body was coiled around countless humming gear mechanisms.
"Mommy! It's a Gundam! A fleshy pervert Gundam!"
Kazuma Satou wailed from the depths of his soul as he ran.
The two ran for their lives toward the village entrance and happened to crash into Aqua's group, who had rushed over with lanterns, along with several Crimson Demon Clan villagers in pajamas, still holding half-eaten roasted sweet potatoes.
"Kōichi! Kazuma! Are you two okay?!" Yunyun shouted anxiously. Then her gaze landed on the sky-blocking steel monster behind them, and she froze completely. "Th-that… Could that be the complete form of the Magic Killer sealed by our ancestors?!"
"This is not the time for exposition! Save us already!" Kazuma pointed behind him with a trembling finger. "That busty girl evolved into the final boss! She's coming back to pamper us!"
Aqua stared at the steel demon god radiating a forbidden aura. She was so frightened that she dropped her staff and burst into tears.
"Waaah! What is that thing?! It looks so hard! Will Purification Magic even work on it? Kōichi, let's go back to Axel! Crimson Demon Village is doomed! We're going to be turned into specimens!"
Megumin, however, stared at Sylvia with feverish eyes. Her right hand trembled as she held her eye patch, and her voice carried a sickly excitement.
"O-ohhh… Is this the greatest masterpiece of our ancestors? That metallic texture filled with destruction, those waves that devour all magic… Kazuma, let go of me. I must carve my strongest strike into the heart of that giant thing!"