Chapter 173 – Corridor of Remembrance

Trying to defuse the sudden heavy mood, Kairos laughed merrily. The way he speaks might be a bit frank, but he’s a good guy.

[My bad. Fate, I have something else to take care of.]

As he continued to walk, Kairos put his hand on my shoulder when he walked by.

[After this, we are going to infiltrate the facility. I heard from an insider that this will be the only chance to do it.]

[That sounds good, but why are you telling that to a stranger like me?]

I’m after all, just someone who popped out of nowhere.

[After all this time we spend together, surely we don’t count as strangers anymore, right?]

[Then, why?]

[I just have a hunch that we have a similar goal. And it has something to do with Gallia. Your eyes briefly changed color when I mentioned about infiltrating the facility. That sign alone is enough for me.]

[Isn’t that a bit too easy?]

[Is it? I’ve lived like this my whole life. For me, it’s good if you are a trustworthy person. But of course, reality won’t be that convenient.]

Kairos turned away afterward, talking to Myne this time.

[I will return Sloth to you, as promised.]

[Alright. With this, I’m free to do what I want.]

Myne said as she received the black axe from Kairos and stashed it on her back.

[Oi oi, don’t tell me you want a rematch?]

[Of course. I’ll bring your head back home.]

[This is really hopeless…]

Turning his face up to the sky, Kairos sighed in defeat.
But it wasn’t for long, as he immediately broke into a laugh.

[Fine. Next time you really should go all out against me. Well, the winner will still be me though.]

[I will win next time.]

Despite saying all that to Kairos, Myne’s tone sounded soft to me.
I felt uncomfortable to be stuck between these two weirdos.
The two just declared their intention so openly to each other.

Turned out Myne always had some screws loose in weird places.
But well, that’s exactly how I knew her.
When I unintentionally laughed,

[What’s so funny?]

She stared at me with such pressure. Nothing less from the Wrath skill holder.
But anyways, the atmosphere was no longer as heavy as when we first left Babylon. And it’s all thanks to Kairos.

But Greed who had been watching us silently suddenly rang an alarm.

[You guys, stop playing pretend friends. Incoming enemies ahead.]

[As expected from Greed-sama ey?]

[Enough with the flattery. Kairos…don’t overdo it.]

A huge flock of monsters visibly spread in the distance. Several machine angels were mixed in among them.
According to Kairos, this was just a patrol force regularly sent by the empire.

[Guess we’ll have a bit of a warm up before we arrive at our destination. Myne, Fate, can you keep up?]

[ [ Of course ] ]

I had Kairos to lend me a greatsword.
Even then, I’m still worried whether the weapon could withstand my power or not. Well, the weapon I’m used to wielding is in Kairos’ hand right now. As it is now, this greatsword was the only weapon tough enough for me to use.
Grave tension ran through my spine.
I never thought that battling without Greed… would be this uneasy…
This made me realize that I’ve been relying on him way too much.

[We must crush them all in here. Otherwise, the survivors will attack Babylon.]

After drawing out the black sword, Kairos immediately switched to bow form.
He then allowed Greed to consume his status, causing the bow to grow larger.
With a fluent, natural movement, he released《Bloody Ptarmigan》.

The power was way greater than what I knew of. Not to mention that from his countenance, Kairos didn’t seem to expend a lot of status for that shot.
In other words, I hadn’t utilized Greed to his maximum capacity.

Kairos who pretty much deleted half of the enemy forces with that shot started to show signs of enjoyment from consuming that many.

[Kuuu~! It’s nice to eat that many all at once after all. This is why Bloody Ptarmigan is soo good.]

[Don’t get lax! There are still half of them.]

[Yeah, yeah, Greed is always such a worrywart.]

[Tsk.]

It was only the first strike. But the result was already very devastating.
The flock fell into chaos and began to disperse

[Alright, here is our chance!]

Both me and Myne ran following Kairos.
It’s such a great occasion. Just when I was thinking to test whether my gluttony skill could work in this world.

Firstly, let’s try killing something that I could afford.
An orc immediately lost its head to my slash.
It certainly had fallen over and died. But I didn’t feel anything, nor I heard the familiar voice informing me that the gluttony skill had been activated.

I tried killing more monsters, but the result was still the same.
Also, experience spheres flew to me, but it didn’t increase my level either.
Well, what was I thinking? This wasn’t the real world after all.

[Fate, why are you dozing off like that? If you have something to think about, do it after we’re done.]

Kairos reprimanded me while squaring off with a machine angel.
Looking at Myne, she was fighting like usual.
I suppose this flock wasn’t even enough to be considered as a warm up for her.
Despite the fact that they filled the horizon when they appeared before us, we still wiped them out pretty quickly.

[Yosh, that’s the last one. Fate, Myne, thanks for the hard work.]

Kairos praised the both of us as he beheaded a monster that I had never seen before.

[That’s… Just what kind of monster that is?]

[Beats me. This is probably a new breed. I keep seeing them among the flock recently. They’re pretty tough.]

He added a quiet [for now] at the end.

[When I first encountered them, they’re at most as strong as orcs. But nowadays they’re as bad as the machine angels.

[Is it really that bad?]

[But they’re really delicious for me. After all, for those with gluttony skill, the stronger the food, the better, right?]

I’m having trouble replying to that.
But Kairos didn’t really care about that, as he’s busy rampaging around.
Did he get affected by the influence of Gluttony skill?
The more I think about it, the more clear to me that Kairos was willingly eating the soul of those he defeated.

[Alright. It’s just a little more walk, and we should be able to see it.]

He said a little walk, but Kairos and Myne’s walking speed weren’t actually normal to begin with.
Soon we arrived at the depths of Gallia.

I was expecting valleys of greenery and meadows. But there was no such thing here.
All I could see was black research facility.

The scale was very large. Comparable to the underground city below Hauzen.
It was so huge I couldn’t exactly consider it just a research facility.

[Are we going to infiltrate that place?]

[Yep.]

Again he showed me how cool of a person he was. Kairos apparently had no such thing called nervousness.
I turned my sight toward Myne.

She would be our biggest problem. I simply couldn’t believe that she’s capable of any form of stealth.
She’d just broken through the front gate and entered. It was always like that when we travelled together.
But I actually found her looking anxious. It was all over her face in fact.

[What are you looking at? I can certainly do better than you.]

[Really? Looks like you’re not up for it though.]

[Even if I look like this, I’m still the one handpicked to assassinate Kairos.]

Myne replied proudly.
But looking sideways, I saw Kairos smirked.
If I had to make a guess, it’s either she challenged him head on, or that she flopped her stealth ambush and thus was forced to fight him directly.

[Well, it’ll be fine as long as we stay quiet. The stage has been set up in advance for us. You two just need to keep silent.]

He alternated between me and Myne.

[Where’s your answer!]

[ [ Yessir! ] ]

[Yosh, good answer. Okay, let’s go]

With Kairos leading us, we went to infiltrate the research facility.]