"Damn. Finally a break..." - Garami

"Damn it all..." - Revi

"Young and proper ladies should not use such language, Revi." - Garami

"Lady Garami, you should look into a mirror." - Iron

Shut it, tin can. But I'm too tired after this big day filled with raiding, so I'll let him go with just a glare.

We're currently resting on top of one of the walls separating the castle from the other districts. The "plumbing station" had a secret exit that led up to here, which revealed a little secret regarding these giant fences. They double as aqueducts that lead that weird black water from the lake into drains.

According to the (badly preserved and almost unreadable) blueprints we found, the walls are installed with pumping mechanisms to pump up that weird water from the underground and collect it in the artificial lake in the middle of the island. For what purpose or even what the water is isn't written here. Or maybe it used to, but old man time made sure we wouldn't get to know.

For now, our job is to watch as the lake gets dried. There's nothing left for us to do. The raid is done and the princess is killed. Or so we've deduced based on those sliced buildings near where the map we found says the throne room is. Only Filyn could do something that crazy. Rest in pieces, oh pitiful evil princess.

*Bzzt...*

Hmm? Something is vibrating in my pocket..., no, in my Storage!? This is...that weird "terminal" item I obtained before. I never got it to work, so why now? And how could it warn me even when it should be in something akin to a pocket dimension?

There are some words written on the screen now, sort of like text messages. What is this, some rather fancy magi-tech smartphone? Its quality sucks though. The message is all garbled up and unreadable. Wait, scratch that. There are some words I recognize. Let's see... "gem", "spring", "tentacle", "magma", "skin", and "comfort"...among other more common words, but I can't find any context between them.

Another thing I can find out from this mess of a text is the name of the sender. "A-D". A-D? What or who is that?

THERE'S NO RESPONSE when I try to use the terminal, so maybe the thing's broken? Not that it ever worked in the first place, so no skin off my nose.

While playing with the black water through [Liquid Control] to pass the time, I noticed someone climbing up the wall. There's a ladder on the castle's side of the wall that allows you to climb up here. Let's prepare a water pressure cannon now that I'm first using..., hold it. Put down your water guns. It's just Filyn.

"Garami~, where are...GYAAAAAAA!!" - Filyn

The second Filyn saw us she started to scream in horror. How rude. Ah, she was so shocked (for whatever reason) that she tripped and fell down the ladder. I could hear the sound of multiple impacts and voices that grew dimmer as they fell.

"What is going on?" - Iron

"I know! It is called the domino effect!" - Revi

The girl might be on to something. And now I can hear hasty climbing from the ladder. Maybe we should call this the "yo-yo effect".

"G-G-G-GARAMI!! What in ****ing blazes is this!?" - Filyn

The demon, who had turned Loli in her bewilderment, jumped at me and demanded answers. I can't breathe..., Iron, remove this choker...

"Calm down, Lady Belial." - Iron

Gah-! I can breathe again...

"Then explain!! What's the meaning of all this black gunk?!" - Filyn

"*Cough*, no idea," I replied while massaging my throat. Damn, that ****ing Loli succubus could tear off someone's head if she ever felt like it.

"...You didn't know?" - Filyn

"We believe the former princess was planning on using this strange water for a secret plan." - Iron

"We got no proof of any such plans, but nobody would wanna dig up so much stuff and just have it take up space." - Garai

"Whaaaaaat......?" - Filyn

"Hey, what's that for?" - Garami

"No, nothing. You guys did a good job. Seriously, a damn ****ing good job..." - Filyn

Wait, did we perhaps save the day with this feat? Filyn's attitude is making me reconsider the danger-values of that black muck. Should I look it up in the Kigal-Note? No, let's not. Some stuff is better that you don't know about.

"Then are we receiving another reward...?" - Revi

"And before that, what happened to Mira's team?" - Garami

All the choking and gagging made me lose my chance to ask about it until now. Those three are safe, right?

"Yeah, they're safe. Noire, that idiot, managed to earn the ire of a swarm of ghosts, but the last time I saw them they were still breathing." - Filyn

Am I supposed to be relieved or stressed from that!? I need to go and check on them right now!

...And why is it specifically NOW that someone is trying to teleport here!? You, the magic circle that suddenly appeared close to Filyn, shush! Go away! Don't bring any more problems to my plate!!

"Filyn, I got your message..., oh good. Garami is here too." - Blot

"Not for long!" - Garami

"Hmm? Are you busy?" - Blot

"Blot, you should know by now that people understand that you always bring trouble wherever you go~." - Filyn

Filyn, who had returned from her Loli form to her super-sexy succubi mode, started to mess with Blot the moment she got her chance. As for Blot, his face paled when hearing this, and slumped to the ground. You're taking this more seriously than you need, old man.

"Is it not Filyn who everyone is afraid of?" - Revi

"Wha-!?" - Filyn

"Right, that is right. How foolish of me to forget such an obvious truth." - Blot

And he's recovered, Filyn's acting shocked (literally acting), while Revi is just innocently tilting her head. You don't need to understand these two, little girl. Meanwhile, I signaled to Iron to go ahead and check up on the other three. This seems like it will take a while.

"Filyn, can you never stop being a bother to people... I guess you can not." - Blot

".........I hate it when you insult me in that way." - Filyn

Do you mean the way where you can't refute him? Oh, whatever.

"Can we stop the comedy show already? Tir na Nog is as good as conquered now, so isn't our babysitting assignment complete?" - Garami

"Babysitting!?" - Filyn

"Funny that you should mention that. Garami, once again, thank you for babysitting our boss," said Blot while bowing profoundly and sincerely to me. Oh boy. This can't end well.

"However, I am afraid you cannot fulfill the other assignment you were forcefully given. Once again, I apologize for our leader's selfishness." - Blot

"Hmm?" - Garami

"Who are you calling selfish!? ...Ah, who am I trying to kid." - Filyn

Ignoring his all-powerful and hedonistic leader, Blot kept his attention on me and said:

"Your assassination assignment of Royferd Springwood, the loyal servant of the Demon King who infiltrated our organization, has been reported MIA while exploring Isla de Mina. Therefore, we wish to request your group for an investigation of that man's fate." - Blot

---

1 week later:

"This is...bliiiiss..." - Garami

I stretched my limbs as I enjoyed the local specialty of the Isla de Mina, the natural and aether-rich hot springs.

To recap, after Blot came after Tir na Nog got all destroyed, he told us to fly over to this island and look for the remains of some big shot who had forcefully entered Nequitas "undercover". Well, everyone and their mother knew he worked for the Demon King of Solomar, but Blot decided they could make use of that man's hardheadedness. Which worked, believe it or not.

According to the files, that man, Royferd Springwood or whatever, possesses one of the Seven Virtues skill, namely [Humility]. One good thing is that he hasn't "mastered" the skill, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous.

In short, [Humility]'s power is to cancel out all other skill effects. And it's AoE. Only skills from the Seven Virtues and Seven Sins skills are excluded, but other than those, if you face [Humility], you have to expect to fight skillless against a guy who still has access to all of his skills.

What kinda crappy game is this!? Is Filyn crazy?! How did she expect me to assassinate a guy with that kinda power!? Wait, or maybe it's BECAUSE he has that sort of skill that assassination is the only way to kill him? Seven Virtues or not, nobody would have the mental capability needed to keep an active skill online all that time.

Hmm? Then why didn't Filyn already try that? A self-proclaimed evil organization should have at least a few assassins on their payroll. Are they so short-staffed that they couldn't afford it?

"Garami, are you getting light-headed over there?" - Mira

"I'm fine, no worries. But could you fish up Revi before she turns into a boiled lobster?" - Garami

In any case, there's no need to worry about it now. The last time that [Humility] guy was seen was when he was trying to defeat a certain snake monster that had recently appeared here on Isla de Mina and hasn't been seen since then. Guess three times who the rumored snake might be.

It's almost certain that the old man died from fighting that B-rank monstrosity. Even if skills are negated with [Humility], status values and gigantic bodies are not affected by it. That giant snake from the Water-Knot has a decent chance of killing the [Humility] user. But Blot wants details, therefore he asked us to look into it.

And that is why we're here on Isla de Mina. The Adventurers' Union has a nice little HQ that adventurers can use as a base while exploring this volcanic wasteland, one with one of the biggest hot springs one can find here.

There's still a lot of stuff to do to return Velantas to its former glory from before Glavras dried up the region, so there are currently no other adventurers using the HQ other than us. Even the Union members who used to keep an eye on the place have returned to assist with the restoration of the seven-pillar city, essentially giving us a monopoly for this hot spring resort-like location!

Of course, we're still doing our job. These last few days, we've been looking for Springwood or the giant Glavras-snake boss, but all that we've found are destroyed patches of land.

Not to mention that the volcanic rivers that sometimes flow through the island are messing up with our search, so we're doing this thing in relaxation mode. The whole event with Tir na Nog has exhausted everyone beyond our limits.

Okay, it wasn't that bad. We did recruit Iron and Revi, and the latter even obtained the [Daywalker] skill from a Skill Orb that the treasure group discovered after defeating a gigantic ghost in the castle. There were a ton of those things! I'm getting shivers down my spine despite sitting in the hot spring when I imagine what that crazy princess may have been thinking about using those Orbs for. She was even preparing to make another tunnel to escape the island thanks to the Black Baron's mega drill robot. I wonder what happened to him and his gang of robotic sidekicks. I hope they crashed and burned so much that we'll never see them again.

Argh, let's forget about those jokers. There's still a lot of land to look over before we can say we did a good enough job and report back to Blot. After that, we can finally look into the last Magic Stone I need before I can create my Dungeon!!

Right now I have the demon-type Stone I got as payment from Blot, the spider-type Stone from the giant spider in the sewers, and now they are joined with the undead-type Magic Stone that was located inside the junk dragon that guarded the pumping station controls.

Hmm, but who would want to use a perfectly good Magic Stone on a simple guardian? It wasn't that strong either, so couldn't the princess just have placed another ghost to guard that place? Oh well, that's not my problem. I'll leave that, along with keeping that night dome to protect the undead still living on Tir na Nog, to Blot. It was pretty nice of him to not kick out the Villiage District residents from the island. I guess you could call him the so-called evil organization's conscience.

For now, I should get out of the bath and prepare. I'm on today's search crew shift after all. Well, I'm always on that shift, and for good reasons. Two, to be exact.

The first reason is what the former snake boss that's living on Tree Sea Isle told me, that it would be beneficial for me to visit this place. The second is that buggy message I got on my mystery terminal.

The two keywords "magma" and "spring" give me the feeling it was talking about Isla de Mina. And while I'm not the type to trust mysterious advice from people I don't know, since I'm first here, why not look into it? And I have to admit, that "tentacle"-part caught my attention. Kuh, if this is a trap, then the other side is a real deviant of a mastermind!!