"Shiro! Tag out!"
Using telekinesis, C.C. dropped another massive boulder, reserving just enough MP for emergencies.
Then, with a quick backstep, she turned and raised her left hand in a fake-out gesture toward the spider girl.
"Oho~ My turn!" With a playful slap of her front leg against the outstretched hand, Shiraori launched herself down from the ledge, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
The already cramped and blocked passage was littered with the mangled remains of vengeance apes, yet the flow of monsters from deeper within didn't slow down.
"Try my Web Bind!"
A blazing boulder crashed into the front lines of the ape army, scattering them.
Shiraori unleashed her pre-laid, poison-soaked webs over the survivors.
Occasionally, magic circles lit up, spewing purple-black venom in every direction.
"This is starting to feel like a tower defense game. And not a hard one, either."
Effortlessly repelling the current wave and awaiting the next, Shiraori pumped her tiny fists in triumph, a smug grin spreading across her face.
"That's only because we were lucky enough to find terrain this easy to defend," C.C. replied, casually lounging on a bed of silk spun over the damp ground.
"Plus, we did a lot of prep beforehand. If we had to face this horde head-on in the open, we wouldn't stand a chance."
Nagami lay with his head resting on the girl's taut, black-silk-wrapped thighs, enjoying the knee pillow as she leaned lazily against the rock wall, focusing all her attention on spell maintenance.
Honestly… it's a little bony.
Thanks to Nagami's meticulous planning, the two of them had managed to block off an army even larger than the one that attacked Shiraori in the anime, using the terrain to their full advantage.
Just as Nagami was starting to relax and close his eyes—
A shiver ran through him.
Both his physical and magical senses screamed danger.
The source: a pair of crimson eyes glowing with murderous intent.
He shot upright and looked up.
Lit by the flickering firelight, a creature clearly different from the other apes was leading the charge.
With uncanny speed, it dodged flaming web-wrapped rocks, using the corpses of its fallen kin as stepping stones to nimbly evade Shiraori's webs and poison.
"I told you not to jinx it with that 'easy' comment!"
Nagami immediately cast an Appraisal spell. The result was… absurd.
———————————————————————
Bagulagulachi
HP: 589 / 600
MP: 97 / 100
SP: 567 / 588
———————————————————————
A massive ape-like monster with a crocodile's maw—clearly an evolved form of the vengeance apes.
Oddly, though, it had lost the "Vengeance" skill after evolving, along with any rage-based abilities.
That meant defeating its allies wouldn't trigger a full-scale retaliation.
These creatures occasionally appeared among the vengeance ape hordes, but they didn't coordinate.
Still, its stats were off the charts.
For Nagami and Shiraori at their current level, this thing was a boss-tier threat.
There was no time to strategize.
A humanoid shadow dropped from the void above.
With a deafening roar, it smashed into the ground, sending spiderweb-like cracks spreading through the stone and kicking up a foul-smelling gust of decay and blood.
The monster opened its gaping, bloodstained jaws, razor-sharp fangs gleaming with menace.
Its glowing, spectral blue eyes radiated pure bloodlust.
"Tch... Looks like we're actually gonna die this time."
Magic flared around Nagami like fireworks.
Under his control, the near-solid aura of mana crystallized into skill runes—physical enhancement, accelerated thought, strength boost, sensory amplification—everything was activated.
Brilliant red light burst from his palm as flames sprang to life.
He grabbed the nearby blade with his right hand.
Without hesitation, he dashed toward the giant ape at full speed, palm glowing as he struck at close range.
The explosion of fire that followed was massive.
"Shiro! Run with me—now!" At that moment, C.C. looked up and shouted at Shiraori, who was mid-air, swinging from a thread.
"Nigerunda yo!"
("We're getting the hell outta here!")
Because the spell hit from point-blank range, the ape couldn't dodge.
The fireball slammed into its chest, blasting it backward with a roar of rage so loud it shook the atmosphere.
Its clawed feet tore through the stone as it launched itself—this beast, easily twice the size of a normal ape, moved with terrifying speed.
The air ripped as its claws slashed forward, creating a high-pitched shockwave.
'CLANG!'
Sparks exploded from the collision—a claw strike at lightning speed met cold steel.
A surge of force jolted through Nagami's wrist as the giant ape's power clashed against his blade.
He felt himself about to be flung away. Twisting with the momentum mid-air, he spun around and landed a solid kick to the monster's gut, using the recoil to create distance.
"Try this!"
As he shouted, a slowly rotating purple hexagram began to glow with crimson light.
Accompanied by a sharp cry, a bird with blazing wings emerged from the center and took flight.
Under the eerie red glow, the giant ape froze for just a second.
That same red luminescence began to creep into its spectral blue eyes.
Just as the red was about to flood its pupils—
"ROAAAAAAR!!!"
A thunderous roar echoed through the cavern, shattering the eerie control.
The beast's ghostly green gaze tore through the crimson haze like a deathly flame.
Enraged beyond reason, the giant ape exploded into action.
In the blink of an eye, it closed the distance, its jaws stretched wide, fangs jagged and bloodstained.
It looked like it could bite Nagami in half in the very next moment.
"Geass didn't work, huh?" Nagami wasn't surprised. If anything, he expected it.
Though evolved monsters like this still lagged behind humans in intelligence, this one was clearly elite—far more powerful than its kind.
And frankly, Nagami's own mental state wasn't at its best.
Worse yet, the ever-approaching swarm of vengeance apes was backing him into a corner.
A shimmering purple six-pointed star lit up in his eyes—a sign that he had activated the Rewrite Eye at full power.
Dodging a hurled stone by mere inches, he slipped past a charging ape and slammed his right leg into its joint.
The creature buckled, collapsing to its knees. Raising his blood-streaked sword, Nagami drove the blade straight through its chest.
The lesser ape didn't even get a chance to struggle.
But the giant ape wasn't about to let Nagami off the hook.
Sensing a window, it lunged at him with a muscular fist aimed straight for his skull—its speed now even more terrifying than before.
Yet Nagami had a reason for risking everything to clear out the small fry.
He was about to level up.
Warm light surged across his wounded body, healing him almost instantly.
Unlike native inhabitants of this world, reincarnators like Nagami were granted full restoration upon leveling up.
His pale complexion brightened.
Leaping back with renewed strength and restored mana, Nagami abandoned any thoughts of melee combat.
At the speed this beast moved, normal magic wouldn't land a hit.
But his only large-scale spell—despite his unusually high MP pool—could be cast just once.
And that spell wasn't even from his own skill set.
It was a high-level magic he'd copied by chance after encountering an Earth Dragon-type monster.
The Earth Dragon race revered strength above all, much like how Shiraori in the anime had defeated Araba head-on.
Some dragons had even sacrificed themselves to stop those who tried to kill her.
They were noble in their way.
They didn't slaughter the weak without cause. Nagami had merely observed one from afar—he hadn't been in real danger.
Now, dodging yet another savage blow by a hair's breadth, Nagami activated his Accelerated Thought skill.
He began constructing the spell formula at full speed, drawing every drop of magic power from within.
The raw energy shimmered across his body like flickering fireworks, forming an intricate lattice of spell circles.
Dodging a heavy punch with a low crouch, he leapt upward using Shiraori's remaining spider silk as a springboard.
Instantly, red energy particles bloomed around him, glowing like embers, swarming and swirling.
The hexagram in his eyes turned slowly, ominously.
The crimson particles danced around him, weaving radiant streamers of magic through the air.
The intelligent ape sensed the incoming danger.
After failing to bite Nagami, it didn't pursue.
Instead, it turned and sprinted toward the tunnel it had come from.
But it was too late—the tunnel entrance was already sealed off by the endless tide of vengeance apes.
Nagami's lips curled into a smirk, interrupted only by a trickle of blood.
He adjusted the spell's firing angle.
"Fire in the hole!!"
In a place this cramped, casting such a high-level spell was practically suicide.
Tugging on the spider silk, Nagami soared to the highest point in the chamber—and screamed the invocation with all his might.
'Flash.'
A blinding light burst forth.
A searing inferno swallowed the darkness, tearing through the air like a dawn breaking over a cursed abyss.
It struck dead center in the monster horde, a force powerful enough to rip everything apart.
Nagami hadn't aimed directly at the giant ape.
With its speed and cunning, there was no guarantee he could kill it.
He might as well clear the field instead.
The superheated fireball exploded among the monsters, sending fissures spiderwebbing across the ground from the blast point.
Waves of fire surged in all directions like a tsunami.
The shockwave and heat rattled the confined space—stones began to crack, walls buckling under the strain.
With his last remaining MP, Nagami used telekinesis to strike a load-bearing column in the tunnel.
The structure gave way. Walls crumbled, raining massive boulders down from above.
The sound of bones shattering echoed through the chaos.
Smoke and dust surged in all directions, and Nagami's silhouette vanished beneath a storm of falling debris.