Before leaving the place, the Otherworlder and Vera walked up to the giant sculpture sitting in the center of the wide area. Parts of its base had dented in and fallen off from the Otherworlder’s attack, but the grotesqueness oozing out of it did not decrease by a shred.

“If they are talking about revival... this must be a part of their god’s body.”

“Definitely. This gross flesh thing is too realistic to be a sculpture.”

They circled the structure, scrutinizing it in all directions. The more they gazed at the pulsed muscles and the graphic appendages, the more real it seemed.

Judging from the structure alone, it was like a middle piece of a long creature. It was hard to judge what it belonged to, so the Otherworlder put his hand on it.

“Hey, hey! Won’t it be cursed or something?”

The thought hadn’t exactly entered the Otherworlder’s mind before touching the sculpture. He was scared of a curse, but being embarrassed like this scared him more, so he tried to act tough.

“Hmph. It won’t be a problem.”

The Otherworlder rubbed his hand over the sculpture, its texture was strangely smooth and scaly...

-DRRRR!!!

A loud sound rang out as a white glow covered the sculpture. The ground quaked as dust fell off from high up the stone figure.

“Aaaah!! What’d you do bastard!!”

“N-no fucking way! It was really cursed?!”

The Otherworlder and Vera stepped back with widened eyes. A moment of carelessness had suddenly landed them in deep peril. The fleshy mass was waking back up!

“What should we do now!? At this rate, we might as well have not killed those bastards at all!”

“J-just bombard it!”

“Good idea!” Vera gave the Otherworlder a thumbs up and pointed both her hands towards the sculpture that seemed to keep becoming less of a sculpture by the second.

“Conceptio.” The mana in the air trembled as glowing red strands of it gathered around her hands to form magic circles.

“Interitus.” Waves of heat blasted out from her hand as the magic circles rotated at terrifyingly inane speeds.

“Flammae de profundis inferni.” The preparations were complete.

“[Flame Magic: Vocate Ad Ignem]”

-BOOOM!!

Like the expunging flames of a gigantic bomb, a cataclysmic explosion swallowed the moving sculpture whole. Bursts of smoke and soot gushed forth from the fire, its effects settling deeper and deeper.

As the smoke dissipated, the burnt figure of the gigantic sculpture came into view. Half of it still sealed in stone, had broken off and shredded to the ground while the bits that had come back to life swayed around intensely, their pain reflecting in their movements.

“W-wow... this thing is alive even without a head...”

“You should be more concerned about it being alive at all! You attack it too.”

The Otherworlder sighed and averted his at Vera’s words. “I can’t... I already used up all my mana...”

“Already? With just that fight!?” Vera shook her head and turned back to the flesh monster. “I guess I can manage one more...”

“[Flame Magic: Vocate Ad Ignem]"

.

.

.

After a long and arduous session of blasting away, the fleshy mass finally fell limp to the ground, its stone parts being no better than dust now.

Vera let out long breaths from the fatigue, and her hair was messed up again. “Man, that was tiring...”

“G-good job, you saved us,” the Otherworlder awkwardly said as he fixed her hair for her. He didn’t want her to remember that he caused all this. “Well, though, if someone was coming, they must have been really alerted by the explosions.”

“Fuck, you’re right. Let’s just get out of here. Our mana will recover soon.”

“Yup.” It seemed the Otherworlder was in a safe spot.

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

“But like, why do you laugh like that? How come your eyes and nose do not move at all?”

“Are you really going to make fun of my laugh? Then, what are you doing, cleaning up the sewers, O’, Heiress of Blume?”

“Tsk. Getting cheeky now?”

The Otherworlder and Vera engaged in such banter as they walked through the tunnels in the underground channels. The map they had memorized was essentially useless because of the many new routes made inside, but they managed somehow by flipping coins and choosing their path.

Whenever they came across a split or a turn, they would just flip a coin to decide if they would take it or not.

They were passing through right next to the sewers like was in the original design of the place when they came across a split in the paths ahead.

The Otherworlder stopped and eyed the split for a few seconds before he reached into his coat and pulled out a coin. Placing it on his thumb, he flicked the coin upward and shot it into the sky. The coin soared over his hand, spinning like the stars in the distant skies as it gained height.

It peaked at the top, as if stopping midair. The coin flipped again and slowly started its descent.

Forming a great arc above, the coin dropped back down gracefully when a hand appeared and...

... smacked it away.

The coin was pushed from its path and fell to the ground. Landing on its rim, it started rolling away.

“Ah.”

The Otherworlder had missed his grab.

Unstopping, the coin rolled speedily towards the edge of the pavements and performed a ten-on-ten dive right into the sewers.

“Oh.”

Vera noticed too late as well.

“Your coin’s gone,” she muttered. Then, the realization of what had just happened hit her as her eyes widened for the third time in the last hour. “HEY!! YOUR COIN!!”

“Shit!”

“W-w-what are you gonna do now!!” Vera stuttered over her words as she turned towards the Otherworlder, almost panicking. She had never imagined the day when the Otherworlder would lose his coin! He had been using it to make all important decisions since the day she had met him! “What will you do without your special coin!?”

“C-calm down...” the Otherworlder said. “It’s just a coin. I don’t mind losing that much money...”

“Huh? Money!? I mean, isn’t that your special coin? What will you flip now?”

“Special coin?” the Otherworlder tilted his head. “Did you enchant it or something? It was just a coin. I have more...”

“What? You mean you weren’t using any special coin to do all that?”

“Why would I... More importantly, about what we should do.”

Vera was slightly exasperated at the Otherworlder’s disinterest. She had always thought he used a special coin, but it was really all just random. She let out a defeated sigh and turned back to him.

“Yeah, what? Take out another coin.”

“No, that flip counted,” the Otherworlder said. “It landed on neither heads nor tails.”

Placing a hand on her shoulder, the Otherworlder continued. “Vera, we should split up and go separate ways.”