The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Chapter 326: From Instruction To Report (2)

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Proofreader: Xemul

“Leave it to the professionals when it comes to handling this thing, shall we?”

Gula, without showing any particular sense of caution, jogged to the gate with the suspicious light that Loren had discovered.

Loren wondered for a moment whether he should stop her, but then decided to watch from the side, thinking that if Gula was acting so confidently, there should be no problem.

While Loren and the others watched, Gula jogged up to the gate, casually reached out her hand and began to run her fingers along the surrounding walls and the surface of the gate itself.

“Let’s see… a little bit here, a little bit there, and that should do it.”

After working on something for a while, Gula looked back at the others with a smile on her face. It seemed that the gate leading to the den of the Evil Gods had been set up or something, but as far as the eyes could see, there was no noticeable change in the gate or the suspicious light inside it.

Loren was worried about whether it was really safe, but when he saw Gula beckoning him to go through the gate, he decided to be brave and plunged his hand into the mysterious light inside it without letting his feelings known. 

Behind the gate should have been a wall, but when Loren’s hand was swallowed by the light, it easily slipped through without any sign of resistance.

Realizing that it was not a dead end, Loren continued forward and went through the gate to the other side.

“What the hell?”

Beyond the light was a rather large space.

But the reason why Loren could not help uttering such words, however, was because the pallet of everything in the space was so far from what he was used to.

It was a space that was not very easy on the eyes.

The walls as far as the eye could see were painted in light pinks and purples, and the floor was covered with countless cushions of similar colours.

In between the cushions were a number of white tables, which were packed with cakes and cookies in colours Loren had never seen in his life, as well as a number of other things he did not know the names of, which were probably confectionaries.

Moreover, on top of the cushions, there were so many deformed but adorable stuffed animals that he almost got tired of counting them. The whole place had a soft and fluffy atmosphere. 

It did not resemble the scene one would imagine from the description ‘the den of the Evil Gods’. More like, the atmosphere here was too girly to be the home of the Evil God of Sloth.

Loren, who had stopped and looked around as soon as he entered, then heard the voice of Gula behind him; she seemed to have followed him in.

“So? How does it feel to set foot into the den of Evil Gods… Eh, eeeehhh?!”

“Hey, Gula, is Sloth really here-?”

“No! Don’t look!!”

As Loren was about to turn around to check with Gula to see if this was indeed their destination, he suddenly felt a tremendous force pulling him backward, and with a strange floating sensation, he realized that he had been thrown into the air.

Loren wondered how he could be thrown so lightly, considering he must have been quite heavy, including the weight of his greatsword. Caught by that out-of-place thought, he realized after a short time that Lapis had apparently caught him with a slight impact to his back and the feel of thin arms around his stomach.

“Welcome back, Loren. That was fast.”

“What happened?”

With Lapis still holding him from behind, Loren I saw a red-faced Gula, who had come back from the other side of the gate in a panic, and Luxuria, who had been slammed into the wall so hard that he was stuck there spread-eagle.

[‘I can clearly see the footprints around Luxuria’s waist.’]

Loren somehow understood what had happened after hearing Shayna’s words.

Perhaps it was Luxuria who had first tried to catch Loren as he was flung back from the other side of the gate. In order to move the Evil God, who was trying to catch Loren with his arms outstretched, Lapis had kicked him with considerable force and caught Loren in place of him.

“It was so close, Loren. If I hadn’t caught you, you might have ended up making a red stain all over the wall or floor.”

“What… Did something happen?”

Loren thought that it was Gula who threw him out of the gate.

Regardless of why, she had probably done it without thinking about how much force she should use, and Loren’s body, thrown by the power of the Evil God, would have been slammed into a wall or rolled around on the floor with considerable impact if no one had caught it.

“You saved me. Thank you, Lapis.”

“If you want to thank me, you can stay like this for a while longer.”

Lapis hugged Loren from behind and began to rub her cheeks against his back. Although he thought his greatsword would be in the way, he figured it would be fine if Lapis was happy with it. So, Loren left her alone for the time being and turned his attention to Gula, whose face was still red.

“What was that?”

“No-nothing! It was a small mistake… Yes, just a mistake!”

Gula babbled in a fluster. Loren was looking at her as if he was seeing something unusual when Luxuria, who had peeled himself off the wall, said in a low whisper. 

“She was probably too used to operating the mechanism that she accidentally connected it to where she lives.”

“I don’t mind that, but why did she throw me?”

“For that child to live in such a place while having such looks? She’s probably too embarrassed about the gap between her appearance and her inner-“

Luxuria’s words were cut off in the middle.

As Loren watched on in amazement, Gula came rushing in at an incredible speed and, seemingly also having forgotten how to control her strength this time, she slammed her right fist into Luxuria’s somewhat-smug face.

Loren’s eyes followed Luxuria’s huge body as he was blown away and slammed into the wall without even a scream. He then slowly turned his gaze to Gula, who was still breathing heavily with fist raised in front of her.

“If you make any further comment about this matter… I’ll be prepared to do the same.”

“I understand. I understand, so please connect us to Sloth before any more damage is done.”

Loren raised his hands in surrender, trying to sound as calm as possible. Gula then slowly turned to face him with a determined look in her eyes, her fists clenched and her shoulders shaking. Lapis, who had been hugging Loren from behind, also pulled her hands away from Loren’s stomach and waved them in the air while still hiding behind his back.

Gula stared at them for a while with steady eyes, but when she saw that they really did not seem to be asking or talking any more about the matter, she approached the gate again while regulating her breath.

And as he watched her begin to operate the gate, Loren spoke to Lapis, who suddenly came out from behind him.

“This topic is dangerous.”

“That’s right. Let’s keep that in mind.”

“What are we going to do about that, though?”

Loren gestured with his chin in the direction of Luxuria, who was still stuck slammed into the wall. Lapis glanced in that direction, quickly averted her gaze, and shook her head quietly.

“I think it would be just fine to leave it alone.”

“He’ll probably come back sooner or later.”

Loren and Lapis agreed to leave Luxuria alone as if the choice to help had never existed in the first place, and quietly watched Gula work.

Perhaps because she had failed once before, Gula did not perform the operation with the same familiarity as she had done earlier, but checked the procedure again and again. After that, she first poked her head inside the gate to see the state of affairs on the other side.

“Alright, it’s good now. You can pass.”

Having Gula’s permission, Loren and Lapis timidly went through the gate after Gula had stepped aside.

Praying that they would not find anything outrageous beyond the gate, they were met by a space furnished with nothing but stone tatami mats and stone walls, and the figure of a man sprawled out in the middle of it.

“It’s dreadful.”

Loren said, swallowing down the words, ‘It’s so different from the room I was in a few minutes ago’. Gula gave him a scary look for a moment, then walked up to the man lying in the middle of the space.

“Hey, Sloth, wake up!”

Gula called out and began to kick the man lightly in his side. But the man did not respond at all, and did not move an inch.

After continuing her light kicks for a while, Gula, who had probably become fed up with the lack of response, suddenly swung her leg back and dug her toe into the man’s side with force.

“Ouchhhh!!”

Normally, this single blow would have caused the one being kicked to thrash around in pain. However, this time it was the kicker, Gula, who screamed in pain and jumped around on one foot, holding her toes.

Loren and Lapis watched on, not knowing what was going on. After bouncing around for a while, Gula, with tears in her eyes, eventually decided to stomp on the sleeping man from above. Although this resulted with a somewhat quiet boom, the man still did not show any reaction at all. Eventually, a tired Gula gave up and sat down on the spot.

“Damn… We probably have to burn the place down.”

As Gula got up and lit a red flame on her fingertip, Lapis interjected: 

“Isn’t this a closed space? We’ll be suffocated if we use fire magic here.”

Gula ground her teeth in frustration, but quelled the flame.

Loren, who had guessed from the look on Gula’s face that she had no other effective means of waking the Evil God of Sloth, thought for a moment and then muttered.

“Should we release Luxuria on him?”

“Hey, hey, isn’t that too cruel?”

Perhaps hearing Loren’s murmur, the Evil God of Sloth, who had shown no reaction so far, turned his head toward him, albeit slightly.

If he had been in Sloth’s position, he would have run away at once.  But seeing that the guy’s reaction was limited to that, Loren was unintentionally impressed.

“Is lying around more important than personal safety?”

“Worst case scenario, if I really use my powers, I might be able to do something about it. So, what the hell do you want with me?”

“Remember me?”

Loren thought it would not be surprising if the guy had completely forgotten about it, but he brought it up anyway. 

The Evil God of Sloth suddenly rose up and turned to Loren, sitting cross-legged.

“It’s been a long time, isn’t it? I said I had a feeling we would see each other again. So, you still remember.”

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