The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

The impossibly vast underground research facility was packed with all sorts of equipment.

Of course, none of them were actually functional. There was dust everywhere, caked in every nook and crevice from lack of use.

“Looks like you've been here a few times,” Davey said to Evanov.

“Yes, well... yes. I heard there were important research materials here. Even if the experiments weren't humane, the sacrificed people shouldn't have died in vain. It’s important to collect the materials.”

Evanov pulled out a tattered map, laid it on a dusty table, and gave a brief rundown.

“We're in the central lobby right now. Even though the power's completely cut, getting in...” Evanov trailed off and looked at Davey. “That won't be a problem, right?”

“Where’s that thing we’re looking for?”

“The place we’re headed to is right here.” Evanov, who had been tracing his finger along the dense, maze-like passages of the underground facility, stopped at a place that seemed to be a massive chamber.

He shivered slightly, as if recalling something. “I thought I'd seen everything in the world, but I've never seen a creature like that. I mean, can we even call it a creature?”

His voice held more pity than fear. “The place I want to go is the underground archive hidden beneath this hole. I can get important data there.”

“Then you act as the guide, and I take care of the monster?” Davey summarized.

“Ideally, that's what we should do, but... Honestly, I don't know if anyone can kill that monster.”

“Is it that strong?”

“No, I don't know if it's strong, per se. I can't really get a clear read on it either. But... you know what? Seeing it for yourself will be faster.”

With that said, he led the way. The interior was one big messy maze. Nonetheless, Evanov moved through it effortlessly, as if it were his own backyard.

However, his route seemed to be taking longer than expected.

“We're taking quite the detour. Move over, I'll save us some time,” Davey said.

“What? What are you going to do?!”

“I’ll just cut through the floor and drop down.”

When Davey drew Red Ribbon, Evanov screamed and tried to stop him, “W-Wait a minute! The foundation’s already weak since this place is a ruin! If you cut through the floor, it might all collapse, and then we won’t be able to find what we're looking for!”

Considering his desperate plea, Davey lowered his sword and started walking again. “Let's hurry then.”

“Umm. Is something wrong?” Evanov stopped dead in his tracks and remarked, “You look really desperate right now. Much different from before.”

As expected, the sharp-eyed Evanov seemed to have noticed something about his struggles

Evanov hesitantly asked, “A-are you okay?”

“No, I'm not okay. So let's hurry.”

Evanov's expression darkened slightly at the answer. “I'll go as fast as I can. I don't know what you're looking for, but... I just hope you find what you want.”

Normally, Davey would’ve just said thanks or something equivalent. Yet, this time, the words wouldn't come out easily.

“Is this place related to the RC virus after all?” Perserque asked Evanov in a questioning tone. The design was slightly different from the facilities they had seen in Yurgian so far.

“No, I thought it was an RC virus research facility as well at first, but turns out it's a bit different. They clearly researched something else here. I haven't confirmed it yet, but based on the elements I've checked so far...” Evanov stopped mid-explanation as he was leading the way.

“Wait a minute. There's an access control system here, and only authorized personnel can get through.” He led the two to a metallic passage with an impossibly high ceiling.

The entire facility was completely dark, yet the area in front of them alone glowed brightly in white.

The passage was about a hundred meters long. However, other than the massive features, nothing seemed particularly strange.

“Evanov, what's in here?”

“Ah! Hold on, don't just walk around carelessly! This place is seriously dangerous. I don't know which maniacs designed it, but if you carelessly step on the pressure sensor—”

Click.

Screeeeech!

“The walls start closing in...” he mumbled, his face pale with terror. The passage they had entered had already been sealed by the time he finished talking, and the walls began contracting.

They were about to be crushed into beef jerky if they didn’t find a way out.

“Why’d you just step on that!?” Evanov shouted in desperation.

Davey nonchalantly responded, “Keep it down. Why all the noise?”

“Does it look like I can stay quiet?! Can't you see the walls closing in?! Those walls carry a force of tens of thousands of tons! No ordinary human, or even most hydraulic presses, can squeeze that hard!”

His frantic shouts were true. A tremendous force was indeed pressing in on them. The only saving grace was that the closing speed was quite slow.

“Aaaah. We're screwed. I'm going to die now...”

Seeing him in despair, Davey spoke up and asked, “What happens if I force it to stop?”

“What happens? What do you mean ‘what happens?’ Stopping it is impossible, and even if we could stop it... well... maybe it actually won’t cause a big problem to this part of the facility.”

“In that case, it’s my turn to take action,” Perserque said as she lightly jumped down from Davey’s shoulder and returned to her original size.

“Huh?” Evanov looked at her with a confused expression, then gave Davey a look that asked if it was really okay for her to be doing it.

“It'll be fine,” Davey assured him.

He tried to tell Perserque. “Excuse my meddling and doubt, but tens of thousands of tons of pressure is a truly insane amount of force, you know?”

“I don’t enjoy fighting with brute force,” she calmly replied.

She then placed one hand on the ground and began to draw up her demonic force, expression relaxed even as the walls slowly closed in.

Perserque had rarely shown any considerable power until then, but she was once a Demon King. As such, even if her mastery of magic wasn't at the highest level, her precise control was quite formidable.

Crack!

Suddenly, a blue aura flickered in her red eyes like a trailing tail. At the same time, starting from her hand on the floor, the entire area began to freeze.

“Ugh. Argh!” Evanov, surprised by the immense cold that’d suddenly spread, rushed over to Davey.

He reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, channeling mana to shield him from Perserque’s magical effect.

[Permafrost]

Crunch!

As if the cold were alive, it spread in all directions from the floor and began freezing everything in its path. The machine soon began making strange noises.

Since she was dealing with a machine rather than magic, once its operating parts froze, it’d collapse on the spot.

Crack!! Snap!!

As the walls were exposed to the obscene cold, beginning to vibrate violently, Evanov made an even more terrified face. However, once the walls completely froze and could no longer advance, his expression turned to astonishment.

“Umm. How... how’s this even possible?”

“What are you waiting for? Let's go.” Perserque, having casually shrunk her body after freezing the entire surrounding area with immense cold, hopped back onto Davey's shoulder.

“Ah. Oh... Right.”

It seemed that the pressure sensor's circuit had also been frozen by her, as they faced no more obstacles in the area.

Evanov blankly followed behind Davey, anxiously looking around before rushing to catch up.

* * *

Afterward, it didn't take long to reach the underground hole where Evanov had mentioned first seeing the monstrous creature.

The diameter of the hole looked well over two hundred meters, as well as unfathomably deep.

“There's nothing here?” Davey asked as he looked into the bottomless black abyss.

“It's hidden by the darkness, so you can't see it,” Evanov replied as if he was asking the obvious.

“No. I'm looking, and there's nothing.”

“What? No way. It was definitely here when I came a little while ago!” Taken aback, he pulled a glow stick from his body-sized bag and snapped it. He then threw several more of them into the dark pit.

The glow sticks fell for quite a while.

Thud. Thud.

Not seeing anything, just as Davey mentioned, Evanov was clearly confused. “N-no way. I definitely saw it.”

The monster was nowhere to be seen in the deep abyss.

“W-Wait! It must be hiding somewhere!”

“It's fine.”

“Wait a minute! I'm really not lying! I swear! I really saw it!” Evanov desperately tried to defend the situation, perhaps thinking Davey was disappointed that he had lied.

Yet, the two who’d followed him said nothing and prepared to leap down the hole.

“W-wait for me! I'm coming too!”

As Davey was about to jump, Evanov urgently grabbed his leg, so he used telekinesis to lift him and descended straight down.

Of course, there were stairs that led down, but he didn’t have time for that.

Whum. Thud!!

They found themselves in a level of darkness where not even a sliver of light penetrated.

However, the scene that unfolded before the two powerhouses’ vision was perfectly clear.

“Is that it?”

“Huh? What do you see...”

Evanov couldn't see well in the dark like the other two could.

Once Davey cast dozens of light spells, the bottom of the giant pit began to glow brightly.

“Woah...” At the same moment, Evanov turned pale as he spotted something slumped in one corner. “It wasn't that small when I saw it before.”

What they saw was a mass of flesh two or three times the size of a human being.

However, it was covered with something like villi, and grotesque eyeballs were attached to the tips. It had a form so hideous, it’d easily rank among the most disgusting sights.

The creature, which resembled a newborn baby, writhed under the sudden light and began to make a bizarre noise. “Waaaah! Waaaah!”

It was the horrible sound of an infant crying.

“Davey, is that the one?” Perserque asked.

“It is,” he confirmed. “It has remnants of Willow inside. Hey, Evanov.”

“Yes... Yes?!”

“You said this thing was quiet until recently and suddenly appeared, right?”

“Yes.”

‘Then it checks out. This creature woke up once the remnants of Willow seeped into it.’

However, watching the creature keep screaming like a baby and begin to grow larger, it was clear that it hadn’t consumed remnants that held good memories.

The creature rapidly swelled to an enormous size. Only about two to three meters previously, it instantly grew to tens of meters.

As it grew, the villi on its body multiplied, and soon the hideous eyes were revealed attached to their tips.

Then a mouth, resembling a human's, began to gape open in what was presumed to be its face.

“What the hell did the humans of Yurgian make?”

“To find that out, we have to go into the hole that this thing is guarding. But I couldn't go in at all because of... you know...” Evanov mumbled, his face deathly pale. “I said it didn't seem like a living creature, didn't I? You can tell just by looking, but...”

“Yeah. It's missing all the basic elements of a living being.”

Evanov had sensed that the creature wasn't a normal living being through his previous investigation.

Davey, however, could even tell that its insides were completely empty. It was like a grotesque being driven only by endless greed.

‘Wait, what was that monster called a long time ago? Greed?’

He quickly snapped out of his thoughts, knowing that it wasn't important right now.

Perserque turned so pale she looked like she was about to pass out. She was strong in other areas, yet noticeably weak against tentacled creatures.

He’d often teased her about it, but he wasn't in the mood for it.

“Anyways, it's the thing I'm looking for, so step aside,” Davey told Evanov. “I’ll deal with it quickly.”

“W-Wait a minute! You're going to take care of that monster? Oh... never mind. I guess there’s someone who can freeze walls like that here, so...” Evanov sighed and slowly backed away. “Still, be careful! That thing uses a bizarre power!”

Right after he said that, the monster opened its mouth, and a strange wail erupted. An ordinary human facing it in the dark would likely pass out from the grotesque wailing when combined with its terrifying appearance.

Davey took a step toward the horribly shaped creature. He summoned Red Ribbon in one hand, and Blue Ribbon in the other. They were quickly engulfed in light, transforming into a single sword.

The long, blue-red sword glittered with different colors every time Davey swung it.

The monster extended its horrific villi toward him, as if to swallow him whole.

“N-no! If it touches you directly, it’ll be over!” Evanov shouted at him.