By the time Escanor and his group returned to Axel, it was already noon the next day.
Seeing the defeated looks on their faces, Meowth and the others, who had successfully sealed a deal with Vanir, thought they had messed up their mission.
However, the gold coins that Kanna casually pulled out quickly denied that assumption.
The mission was indeed completed successfully, but they had endured such a severe mental assault that they had yet to fully recover from it.
"It was terrifying... Truly terrifying, those Axis Cultists," Uta muttered, hanging her head low, clearly unwilling to recall the long and torturous experience.
Even the usually masochistic Darkness was unusually quiet, showing a rare sense of fear.
While she did enjoy the humiliation of being harassed and mistreated, the psychological trauma inflicted by that deranged group was something entirely different from what she desired.
That overwhelming and inescapable "enthusiasm" was more frightening than any nightmare!
Thankfully, she worshiped the goddess Eris…
Hearing that their downcast mood was related to her followers, Aqua, who had been lounging on the couch sucking her fingers, immediately perked up and adjusted her posture.
"Oh? Did you meet my followers? I'm sure they didn't harm you, right? After all, the Axis Cult is one big happy family full of love!"
Her blue eyes sparkled with certainty.
Those familiar words made Escanor and the others' mouths twitch.
It was precisely this kind of over-the-top "love" that had utterly destroyed their spirits!
You, the goddess they worship, what kind of insane doctrines have you been feeding them?!
"I think I can guess what you went through," King chimed in.
"There's no helping it. That's just how Axis Cultists are, meow," Meowth agreed.
As some of the earliest companions, they had witnessed the birth of the Kingdom of the Gods and the peculiar spiritual state of the Alabasta worshipers. They could understand, to some degree.
"By the way, Meowth, how did things go with that weird guy?" Escanor asked, clearly wanting to change the subject from the cultists.
Meowth poured himself a glass of fresh juice, taking a sip before answering with confidence, "It went really well. Mr. Vanir is a great business partner, meow."
"At least we don't have to worry about food and shelter for now. Truly, the great inventor, Meowth, never disappoints. Yohohoho~" Brook added, twirling into a waltz in the spacious living room.
After receiving a huge advance payment from Vanir, they had rented a three-story villa in the city.
They finally had a stable base of operations, allowing them to focus on developing their strength and abilities, fully committing to their plan to defeat the great demon lord Zyhark.
"Aba Aba!"
The miniaturized Endless Dream hopped happily on top of a glass tank.
Curious, Kanna pointed to the tank filled with soil, asking, "What's that?"
Aqua quickly rushed over, reaching in to brush aside the top layer of soil, revealing an egg buried beneath.
"Hmmph, this is the incubation chamber I've carefully prepared for the little one!" the foolish goddess proudly introduced.
"Uh…"
Seeing this, Meowth and King covered their faces, sighing in sympathy.
Remembering the dragon egg they had bought in Loguetown, which had met a tragic end under Aqua's care, even the villainous mastermind and the ultimate gamer felt a pang of sadness.
At the same time, they both mourned for the goddess's nonexistent intelligence stats.
The following week passed peacefully, and their lives settled into a routine.
Aside from the usual monster hunting and leveling up, they frequently visited Wiz's shop to "borrow" supplies.
Meowth, who had learned Wiz's secrets, fully embraced his villainous nature, purchasing magical items at wholesale prices to fuel his new inventions.
With the help of these magical tools, the prototype of the third-generation machine, designed for greater combat adaptability, began to take shape.
After the destruction they caused in the wilderness, Escanor, Kanna, and Uta headed deep into the forest for training.
The abandoned castle they discovered became the perfect place for Kanna's physical training, with her daily destructive white energy blasts becoming a regular occurrence!
King, who disliked going out, spent his days doing strength training in the villa. During his rare breaks, he played Meowth's custom Pokémon battle game with Darkness.
Every time her character was wiped out in a combo, Darkness would let out strange gasps, her face flushed with excitement.
The combination of a hardcore gamer and a masochistic knight was truly a match made in heaven!
Like King, Aqua stayed in the villa, enjoying her lazy lifestyle. With her luck and intelligence stats maxed out, she saw little reason to train further.
Besides, her laid-back personality preferred lounging around, fully indulging in a life of luxury.
As for defeating Zyhark, the great demon lord? The foolish goddess always told herself, I'll deal with that tomorrow.
And so, a week slipped by unnoticed, with Aqua showing no sign of getting off her lazy bum...
While most of them remained relatively unknown, Brook had started to gain some fame in Axel.
His reputation had shifted from being a perverted skeleton to a singing perverted skeleton, thanks to the special concerts he and Uta held nightly, which were spreading throughout the city.
They even had fans traveling from other towns just to see them perform!
And so, their carefree and somewhat absurd lives continued for half a month.
Until one day, Axel's alarm bells rang out urgently, something they hadn't heard in a long time.
"Emergency! All adventurers in the city, please report to the gates immediately! A Demon Lord's officer has appeared!"
"Repeating, all combat-ready adventurers, report to the gates now!"
A Demon Lord's officer?
Zyhark?!
The sudden alarm interrupted Aqua's leisurely tea time.
Fearing that Zyhark might have shown up, the group dropped what they were doing and rushed to gather at the gates.
When they arrived, the area was already packed with adventurers of all kinds.
Looking ahead, they saw a headless death knight atop a black horse, standing menacingly on a boulder outside the city.
The black mist emanating from his body caused the surrounding temperature to plummet, and the biting cold wind made the atmosphere even more oppressive.
As the adventurers stared in horror, Beldia, who held his helmeted head in his hands, dismounted and approached.
"Greetings, residents of this newbie village. I am Beldia, an officer of the Demon Lord's army and an undead knight."
He introduced himself with a polite and gentlemanly tone.
Before the adventurers could make sense of the situation, Beldia's head suddenly began to glow red with rage.
What followed was a furious roar, bordering on madness.
"Every single day! EVERY DAY!! Who is the lunatic that keeps firing electromagnetic blasts at my castle?!"
"All I want is to live peacefully in my castle! Who hates me so much to do this to me?!"
Boom!
As if words alone weren't enough to convey his despair over the endless cycle of repairing his castle only to have it blasted apart again, Beldia hurled his head to the ground in frustration.
"Aaah! My head!"
He scrambled to pick it up, hastily dusting off the dirt and debris.
'Is this really a Demon Lord officer? Or is this some kind of joke?'
The adventurers were confused, and if not for the terrifying aura surrounding Beldia, they would have assumed this was some kind of prank.
"So... who's been blowing up a Demon Lord officer's base?" someone from the crowd asked.
The atmosphere grew tense as all eyes turned to each other, wondering which brave soul was responsible.
Axel, after all, was a newbie village. There shouldn't be anyone here capable of such a feat.
Unless it was a newly arrived hero?
Even Aqua and Meowth were confused, unsure if this officer was sent by Zyhark or had genuinely been on the receiving end of some satisfying sabotage.
"Um, excuse me, Mr. Headless Knight, are you talking about that abandoned castle deep in the woods?" a soft, childlike voice asked, breaking the silence.
Kanna stepped forward, her small frame approaching the furious knight. "I'm sorry if that's the case... It was me."
Despite knowing from the start that the Demon Lord's army led by Kobayashi was their enemy, she still felt it necessary to apologize for blowing up their base.
"Huh? Kanna-chan did it?" Aqua exclaimed in surprise.
Once she realized it was true, she burst out laughing. "Well done!"
After all, Zyhark was the new Demon Lord, and even if he wasn't, Aqua had zero sympathy for undead like Beldia.
Rather than feeling bad about wrecking his home, she regretted not taking the headless knight out along with it!
"That place was actually a Demon Lord officer's hideout? No wonder I didn't sense any living creatures inside," Escanor remarked, deep in thought as the hot wind swirled around him.
When he had decided to use the abandoned castle as Kanna's training ground, he had checked for any living beings inside to avoid accidentally harming anyone—using the Observation Haki he had just learned.
The headless knight's appearance finally solved the mystery of why the castle never fully collapsed.
It wasn't because the materials were especially sturdy, but because the demons were repairing it every day...
"Quite the unexpected discovery, meow," Meowth smirked slyly.
Blowing up a Demon Lord officer's base by accident? That was definitely worth celebrating.
"You bastards! Pushing a little girl to take the blame?! Don't you have any sense of responsibility?!"
Beldia's rage exploded as he looked at Kanna's innocent, wide-eyed face. "If you're going to lie, at least have the decency to admit it! Stop using this child as a scapegoat!"
There was no way he believed that a little girl could wield such devastating electromagnetic magic.
Even the adventurers watching felt the same way.
Kanna was so cute and soft, how could she possibly command the power to destroy a castle?
"Oh dear, it seems Kanna's been underestimated," Uta teased, giving a playful wink.
"I did destroy your castle!"
Frustrated by the knight's and the adventurers' doubts, Kanna furrowed her tiny brows and repeated herself with a determined tone.
"Enough of this! The real culprits need to step forward now, or else I won't be so forgiving!"
Beldia ignored her words, drawing his black sword from the void and pointing it at the adventurers.
"If you keep hiding behind this child, I'll take it out on the entire city!"
"I'll show no mercy, even if it goes against my knight's honor to bully the weak!"
His declaration was met with open laughter from Aqua and the others.
"He really is stupid. No wonder he can't even keep his head on."
"He's probably as dumb as he looks. Maybe he really did die from his own stupidity, meow."
"Yohohoho, is this really a Demon Lord officer? Doesn't seem like much to me."
"Should we pity him for his ignorance, or for his lack of awareness?"
Beldia's face darkened in silence.
No more words were needed. With a wave of his arm, countless demon soldiers emerged from the black mist.
"If you won't confess, I'll take the whole city of adventurers as prisoners!" he roared.
At his command, the blackened demon warriors charged toward the adventurers.
Most of the city's newbie adventurers had never seen such a sight before and started to back away in terror.
But soon, they realized something was off.
For some reason, the demon soldiers all seemed to have the same target…
They were all rushing toward Aqua, who had been laughing just moments before.
"Wait, huh?! What's going on?!"
Aqua's face contorted in fear, her expression shifting wildly as she turned and bolted, tears streaming from her eyes.
As a goddess, Aqua had a unique ability: she attracted undead and evil spirits like a magnet.
But, unfortunately for her, her purification magic only worked on single targets. With no crowd-control abilities, all she could do was run and scream for help.
"I already told you, I was the one who blew up your castle! Stop bullying Aqua-chan!"
Seeing her friend in danger, Kanna lost all patience.
Boom!
With a powerful surge of wind, the air around them erupted into a violent sandstorm.
Under the astonished gazes of the adventurers, Kanna's dragon wings unfurled, her massive white form soaring into the sky, casting a shadow over everything below.
Her draconic eyes locked onto the headless knight, glowing with intense energy as purple lightning crackled within her jaws.
With all her strength, Kanna unleashed a destructive beam that tore through the sky and landed directly on Beldia.
BOOM!
A small mushroom cloud rose from the explosion.
Demon Lord Officer, Headless Knight, defeated.
(End of Chapter)