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Enlightened One – Aquido
There was a frightening thud as Aquido slammed into the green floor of the castle.
“How reckless” Sylphy chided.
He got up, pat his hips and began to scan his surroundings.
They saw was a green floor, probably made from sewn plants, and wooden pillars which were concealed by several strange doors.
“Do we pull this?”
Aquido opened a door and found himself before a wooden corridor that seemed to stretch infinitely.
What an unbelievable feat of architecture.
“So Kama and I were blown here.”
Kama was kneeling on the green floor with his hands wrapped around his head.
“Kama?”
“Tatami and Fusuma [1] ……ugh,” Kama moaned, having seemingly not heard Aquido.
“Kama?”
Kama shook his head back and forth. “It’s nothing., more importantly, they’re coming.” He stood up and lowered his point of gravity, pointing his sword towards the corridor.
“Grrrrr……” A large object dragged itself towards them.
“Oh, can you hear me? It’s Sylphy.”
“Sylphy, you—”
“This is one way only, so you can’t respond. I’ll just give you a rundown,” she continued, “Our Master has just given you a certain ability. You must use this ability to annihilate all the monsters inside this castle and reach Blue-Beard. But don’t worry, your ability is almost a cheat. I’ll give you the details with a visual.”
“Eh!?”
Words began to appear before their eyes.
〇 “Enlightened One – Duke of Flames”
〇 Explanation: A title that allows those with a human soul to attain enlightenment through flames, allowing them to reach the true meaning of life.
〇 Passive Effect – “Crushing Evil and Spreading Truth”: Gain superiority against monsters, ghosts, and other evils. Additionally, growth rate is remarkably increased due to ‘Crushing Evil’.
〇 Special Effect – “Domination of Flames”: Gain the rights over flames.
“‘Enlightened One – Duke of Flames?’ ‘Crushing Evil and Spreading Truth?’ ‘Domination of Flames?’ I don’t get a thing.”
“The details of ‘Enlightened One’ probably differs for each of you,” Sylphy continued. “Well, use it all you want. Also, it seems like you’ll have to kill the four boss monsters in the castle if you want to reach Blue-Beard. I’ll kill one and leave the remaining for you.”
Then with a snap, the transmission was severed. Geez, what a selfish person.
She had long blue hair and pale, almost transparent skin. Truly the form of a beautiful goddess. In fact, several members of  the Scarlet Phoenix already looked up to her.
But that was only on the outside. At first, Aquido thought all she did was drink every day, but now she goes off and threateningly pushes everything onto them. She was always looking down at them as well, so there was no way for him to have a favorable impression of her. On the flip side though, she was overwhelmingly powerful.
While Aquido was having such thoughts, the door burst open and with a growl, red colored dissolving organisms which looked like giant slimes appeared from all directions.
“What the hell is that?”
They had giant mouths, sharp fangs, and dozens of eyes. Aquido had never heard of a monster like that, let alone having seen one.
“Don’t space out, they’re coming!” Kama warned.
In that moment, countless thorns protruded from their bodies’ which they shot towards Aquido and Kama all at once.
“Woah!?” Aquido yelped as he raised his sword to parry the thorns.
Boom!!
His vision turned white, and an intense heat swept over him.
Right in front of his eyes, a perfectly circular portion of the ground began to heat and bubble up fiercely. The monsters there were nowhere to be seen.
“Are you trying to kill me too!!” Kama shouted.
“Sorry……”
He hadn’t expected it to be this powerful.
Aquido had tried to imagine burning down a door. The next instant, a pillar of white flame burst up and incinerated the door, not even leaving a speck of dust behind.
“A…haha……”
Next, he tried drawing a small flame on his palm. A white flame burst out from his palm and it took all he could to muster a simple, “Seriously?”
◇◆◇◆◇◆
“What’s wrong!? Is that all!?” Kama shouted.
Kama’s wrists blurred and several lines formed on the monsters’ bodies before they were sliced into pieces and fell to the ground.
He shouldn’t have been able to reach them, but the monsters had been sliced up into small blocks. That was probably his new ability.
“Aha! Aha! Ahaha!!”
Kama was really getting into it. For a while now, he had been slicing up the monsters and using that weird speech style of his.
Pieces of meat flew away like petals dancing in the wind as he kept stabbing the monsters over and over. No matter how hard he tried, Aquido could only see Kama as a serial killer going on a rampage.
“Kama, I’m worried about Grey. Let’s go!”
“Yeah, let’s go!!”
Aquido could barely hold in his excitement at his new almighty power.
Just by simply wishing, he could freely control the flame’s heat, scope, and where it manifested. In addition, his senses could tap into the flames, so if he spread them around himself, it could even work like detection threads. Maybe these flames weren’t magic, but a part of Aquido.
“Hey, what are these things?”
Human-shaped monsters with horns on their heads suddenly appeared alongside some bear and crab monsters. They all had horns sticking out of their head, sharp fangs, and strength incomparable to normal monsters.
Without the powers they had received from Grey, they would have been inside the monsters’ stinky bellies.
“They’re probably demons,” Kama replied.
“Like ogres?”
“Not quite, they’re monsters from a different world,” Kama explained in a tone different from his usual mysterious and revenant one.
“A different world! Do you know something about the mastermind?”
Now that he thought about it, Kama had been moved by the scenery when he first came to the castle.
“……It’s nothing, forget about it.”
He once again returned to his cheerful mood and began racing along the floor.
Aquido sighed before deploying his flames and destroying the demons.
◇◆◇◆◇◆
Before long, they reached a spacious room.
Once inside, they found a room taller than the others. There, a man whose head’s front half was completely shaven was proudly sitting cross-legged. The man wore clothing different from anything in this world—it somewhat resembled what Kama’s attire.
In all likelihood, he was one of the four bosses Sylphy spoke about.
“Now what do we have here, some unsavory humans. I said I like women! Damn you Blue-Beard, can’t you even listen to a single request!” said the strange man as he stood up.
“Aren’t you one of Blue-Beard’s subordinates?”
According to Theo, Blue-Beard had created this domain. So, shouldn’t this guy have been one of Blue-Beard’s subordinates or maybe even his puppet?
In any case, the man showed absolutely no respect when he mentioned Blue-Beard’s name. In fact, it was more like hatred or scorn.
“Me, a subordinate of that failure? Kuku! Gwahahaha!” He burst out into laughter. Then, just as it started, his laughter died down immediately and his face was replaced with one of pure anger.
“Well said, brats! That’s the greatest insult towards a man like me. Don’t think you’ll die a painless death.”
He spat out a thick black fog that covered his entire body.
His muscles began to twitch and his skin dyed red. Then two horns sprouted from his forehead and his canines transformed into long fangs. His two eyes began to draw together, fusing into one. It was a one-eyed human-shaped monster.
“I am Rashomon’s fourth boss—One-Eyed Demon! Carve my name into your pitiful souls and become my meal!!”
“What happened to the owner of that body?” asked Kama.
One-Eyed Demon grinned. “Ah, him? His soul vanished when I incarnated.”
“I see…….so……. the same,” Kama said without a hint of warmth. He nodded over and over to himself before glancing towards Aquido.
“I’ll kill him. Stay out of it.”
What an unreasonable request.
“A mere human wants to face me alone? You’ll regret this arrogance in hell!”
The One-Eyed Demon grabbed a giant iron axe that laid beside him. Then, a red mist enveloped him.
“……”
On the other side, Kama took a step forward quietly gripping his longsword, and closed his eyes.
“What is he doing?”
He looked completely different than he had just a few minutes ago.
“Would you look at that. I thought you were conceited when you challenged me alone, but it looks like you just had a death wish,” the One-Eyed Demon mocked.
Kama didn’t budge an inch and kept his stance.
“Well, whatever. I’ll remember you as an admirable primitive life form.”
“Hey, Kama!” Aquido shouted.
“Dieee!!”
Once the One-Eyed Demon had gotten close enough, he swung his battle-axe down towards Kama’s head.
“Wha?”
Instead, his right arm flew in the air. He stared at his lost arm for a moment before breaking into a scream.
In an instant, his two legs were severed.
“M-my legs—”
And those were his last words. Several lines ran down his body before it slowly fell apart into pieces.
Kama remained in his stance, not moving an inch.
“K-Kama?”
“Sorry, but I’m not a human. I’m an insect person created by Master.”
He sheathed his sword before returning to his usual jovial smile. Good, he was back to his usual silly self.
“Seems like this disgusting thing is a key.”
Aquido grabbed a pulsing red key from within the One-Eyed Demon’s puddle of blood.
The key itself meant that there was a door that required it. So onward he would go.
Aquido hastened Kama, who was in the middle of his explanation about chivalry, and the two of them set off.
[1] A type of Japanese sliding door.