A Reincarnated Demon’s Life of Wonder

"It's done!" - Black Baron

"What took you so long?!" I asked while carefully receiving the glowing, rumbling red sphere from the Baron... "Hey, how is this thing glowing? Not to forget about the massage function."

"Blame that dynamite you brought with you. Even if I'm partly responsible for preparing that stuff, I'd say the sanity of the one who purchased it is several miles into the realm of insanity than me!" - Black Baron

"Those were chili peppers, not TNT!  And they didn't glow or act like a volcano about to erupt!" - Zaria

"We had to prepare them to be useable for the chili bomb. And with 'we', I refer to Scarecrow." - Breaker

"That was fun! I want to do more cooking like that when we go home. Hey, is that prototype-Crow 002 waving at the other side of the oil river?" - Scarecrow

......The strawman robot looks like he had his hands halfway melted by acid. Is that fine?

"Hey...is that guy going to be alright?" - Flint

"Eh, no brain, no pain, only gain. He'll be fine." - Black Baron

That is NOT reassuring at all! And it's me who has to throw this hell-in-a-ball!

"Anyway, Batty, I didn't have the chance to add a remote detonator or have it react to being stolen by that machine's powers. I did manage to slap together a timer, but you'll have to time it right when you throw it into the air so that copycat-****er steals and transports it into his machine." - Black Baron

"A timer was the best thing you could make?!" - Zaria

"Batty, stop whisper-screaming and get out there! I am starting to hear some nasty sounds in the distance. The Blot VS King Loitan-controlled-by-the-Scamming-Lord battle is starting to heat up and I'd like to leave these caverns before that happens." - Flint

Flint, when did you catch on to the habit of nicknaming people!? Is it from this stupid Baron? Miss Garami won't be glad to hear you did that! She hates this guy with a vengeance. 

"Stop stalling and get going!" said the Baron as he kicked me with enough force to send me flying out from our cover behind the trash heap. Ouch! Now I have a vengeance against that jerk! And just how strong is this guy?! 

Composing myself while midair, I looked down at the battlefield. Team Akai is struggling against the Inventor Lord's mecha-gorilla, but they don't seem to have taken any fatal damage yet. And this is against a machine that can replicate the effects of 2 Seven Sin/Virtue skills. Isn't that crazy? 

"Ogre girl! Are you still living?" - Zaria

"Zaria? What is it!? Can't you see I'm busy-whoa?!" - Akai

Busy trying not to get turned to sashimi. Ogre sashimi...yuck. 

"In that case, here's a cheat code!" I shouted to her so that both she and the Inventor Lord could hear before throwing the "chili bomb" with my transformed, clawed feet.

"Wha-, idiot!" - Akai

Seeing me give the bomb a large curve when throwing it, Akai disengaged from her deadly dance with the gorilla machine's sawblades, one that Artemis stepped in to take over for her, and ran to catch the "cheat code" (no idea what that is. Garami mentioned them a few times, with spite in her voice) before it hit the ground. 

"BO-HOHOHOHO! Naive, you bumbling idiots are too naive! Did you think I could not react if you used Migrant lingo? How foolish!! BO-HOHOHOH...why is this thing ticking?" - Inventor Lord

*Boom!*

With a small sound, the inside of the robot gorilla's glass dome was painted red..., it's not gore, right? It's just the chili powder...RIGHT!?

My fears were for nothing, as the glass dome opened up with the Inventor Lord, now covered in chili paste, jumped out screaming in a language as strange as those weird chants Ciara uses when she is Warlock-ing. 

Akai and her two teammates (where did that Sara catgirl sneak off to?) got their powers back as copy-[Humility]'s effects were canceled when the Inventor Lord fled the machine and went into combat positions...and didn't move a muscle. The Inventor Lord's screaming and wailing made them pause. And I don't blame 'em for it! Nobody wants to touch that dwarf now. What if we get chili into our eyes?

Before anyone could escape their weirdness-induced stupor, the Inventor Lord ran around as if possessed, crashing into one pile of trash after the other. And then into the lamp poles that lighten up these dark and gloomy underground sea caverns. And then into the buildings. All while speeding up with each crash. Is each impact smearing the chili further in? Ugh, that's a nasty idea. 

*CRASH!*

Finally, the Inventor Lord stopped. After going head-first into the biggest and toughest building left on the island. The one that even the rampage between Akai's group, the Black Baron, and Flint, VS the two Knights(?) and the Inventor Lord wasn't able to take down—the Treasure Tower. 

"...Okay, should we tie him up or something...?" asked Shiro the vampire, as if trying to break the weird atmosphere that had taken hold of us all. 

"Oh, oh, OH! Let me, let me, pleasepleaseplease, pleaaaase!" - Scarecrow

"...Sure, whatever..." I replied with a voice that betrayed my wonder over the scarecrow machine's weird interest in binding people. 

Leaving the trapping to the Baron group and the retrieval of the two Knights to Akai's group (I overheard them saying something about they left Sara behind back there), it was up to me to look into the gorilla robot for clues. Flint turned his attention to a strange vehicle. Probably his brainchild, considering the lack of maturity in the car's design. It's so cooooool!

...? Hold on, is that machine so cool that it's turning the temperature colder? I'm getting goosebumps and shivers all of a sudden... Nah. Must just be the coolness. 

Inside the gorilla robot's "cockpit" (that vampire Shiro said it was called such when she voiced her wish of wanting to pilot the big thing) I didn't find anything of value. There is this weird compass, but it's not pointing to the north. Trash~.

...Hold on. Aren't all compasses useless in the Demonic Seas? Something about the "space-time continuum around the Sea is warped and twisted due to the grudges that make up the sea, making navigation close to impossible except for walking on foot and using one's own eyes"... I think. Let's have Flint take a look at it later. 

Other than that, there are only...buttons in this cockpit. Lots of buttons. And no manual. Maybe we could control the robot ourselves...!

I just got an amazing idea! What if the gorilla could cancel out the mind-controlled Dragon King's skills? Even that "Scamming Lord" icy medal-thingy might have its effects negated!! Oh, boy! I think I just saved the day twice!

......Manual, where is the manual!? I don't wanna give up the chance to ride this thing into battle and become the hero of Loitan! Where is that stupid-!

"*BEEP*! 'FINAL MEASURE' SYSTEM COUNTDOWN INITIATED. 20, 19, 18..." - Mechanical voice

Err...I shouldn't have pushed that button... IT WASN'T ON PURPOSE! I want a retake! A do-over! Someone, HAND ME A TIME MACHINE!!

"7, 6, 5..." - Mechanical voice

"Gotta fly!!" - Zaria

I jumped out of the gorilla's cockpit right before the counter hit 0. The gorilla went up in smoke and flames, almost taking me with it. 

What "final measure" was that supposed to be!? A measure against industry espionage!? For some reason, my sharp bat ears can hear slight explosions from the distance. The weird part is that they are not all from the same direction as where the battle between the Dragon King and Blot's army is taking place.

Eh? My KV¹Karma Value..., why did it go up? Usually, shouldn't vandalism cause it to go into the red zone instead? I'm speaking from experience here. A LOT of experience.

And now that I'm on the subject of "experience", didn't something similar to this happen to me before? That was..., yes, it was when I accidentally crushed the wheels of a carriage. Though said vehicle was transporting dangerous drugs for one of the yakuza families in Wakoku. My KV crawled up a few numbers.

Not that it was able to compensate for my huge "debt" due to my mistakes. And I mean it when I say "debt". The guys wouldn't let me on a single assignment after the event when we had to transport those bulls but ended up wreaking that ancient vase shop. Even Tinkletop wouldn't look me in the eyes for months. Boo-hoo...

"Hey, what's with the fireworks?" asked Shiro, who had returned already with the rest of her group. I know I took my sweet time ransacking the gorilla cockpit, but man they are fast. But...

"Err, just the Inventor Lord's final act of resistance. No need to worry." - Zaria

The other group seems to have bought it, but I can see Flint shaking his head in the distance. Hey, it's already blown up. It won't cause any more problems!

"More importantly, weren't you guys supposed to bring the so-called 'knights'?" - Zaria

"We have," replied Artemis while showing me a strange bottle. Inside I could see the shadows of a small worm and a tin figure...

"NO WAY! You shrunk them!" - Zaria

"Yes, way. It's thanks to a valuable magic item we had. And we wish to be compensated for it." - Akai

"Huh? Wasn't that thing a gift from-MMHHMM!?" - Shiro

"What was that?" - Zaria

"Nothing! It's nothing!" - Akai

...Eh, whatever. They have to bring that up with Blot, not me. And that is a fight impossible to win. 

"I'd rather...know when we leave..." asked Sara, who was half-asleep on Artemis' back. Oi, don't come and tell me we did indeed leave her behind with the knights before? 

"The sleepyhead's got a point. Any moment longer that we stay here is a moment too many," came a voice from the Black Baron. 

"What, you got somewhere else to be?" - Zaria

"Yeah, I do! Or did you forget who is fighting just a few miles away from this island?" - Black Baron

"...The Dragon King?" - Shiro

"Bingo. And I'm not planning on staying here when the stray shots from his majesty start destroying everything in this underground sea!!" - Black Baron

"I think 'destroying' is the wrong word here." - Akai

"Try 'freezing' instead." - Artemis

"Freezing"? Confused by their words, I took to the sky to try and spy on the Dragon King's battle......? Hmm?? HMMMMM??? 

Cursed sea and grudges be damned, the Demonic Sea over at where a gigantic, draconic figure is, right at the same location where our floatships teleported into the Sea's airspace. And a new North Pole. Or is it a South Pole? Maybe an Invidia Pole??

"...Yeah," I said after landing again, "that's bad."

"How bad?" - Shiro

"Ice Age." - Zaria

"Brr. Too cold. Let's leave," said Sara in a miraculous moment of wakefulness. Artemis nodded hard and fast in agreement to her fellow feline, despite her being a user of the Ice attribute. 

"In that case, pack your..., our stuff and prepare to board on the floatship when it arrives." - Flint

"Floatship?" I asked looking at Flint as he pushed his fancy vehicle toward us. 

"Flamel promised he would send one to this location after he had dropped off the End of Civilization potion. As a way to allow the non-combatants to escape the Sea." - Flint

"Great idea! Oh, and I hurt my arm in that last fight, so is it fine to call me a non-combatant?" - Shiro

"No, it is not. ...But we could act as bodyguards to make sure everyone escapes without any harm." - Akai

The idiot party is making stupid excuses, but I'm not going to speak up. I did leave Wakoku with the idea of helping the rest of the Guild in this war, but fighting a Dragon King is above my pay grade. Besides, not only do we have the Metal Treasure in our hands now, but I'm the girl who was chosen to carry the Wind Treasure we obtained from the Mystic Mountains.

Fleeing and securing the two Treasures is a strategic maneuver that nobody can blame me for doing. The only problem..., problems is that we have to drag around a certain Inventor Lord, a pair of knights from a hostile country, and the "worst guy who ever wielded a wrench", according to our honorable Guild Master. 

...*Sigh*. Who said that the Mountains and Loitan would be the least eventful locations in this war? We're up to our ears with enemies and problems. If this is this war's "easy mode", I am fearing for the others. Especially the guys over in the Invidia Marshlands. They don't have any cheat-level characters such as our boss Garami or the big boss Filyn. 

Those three over there, if they're facing even a percentage of what's going on in this Sea, we might not meet each other again after this war is concluded...

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