As soon as John and Fate left the bar, Draco lost it, flipping the table in front of him.

"Those trash!" Draco yelled, punching a wall. "They have the nerve to stand up to me? Me?!"

"My lord, calm down-"

"Calm down?" Draco yelled. "They stood up to me! They dared to insult me! Do they even know who I am?"

"Sir-"

"And what did you do?" Draco growled. "Why did you let them get away? You should've broken a bone or two at the very least!"

The knight bowed his head, but he didn't back down. "With all due respect, we cannot do that for no good reason. You must keep your family's honour in mind. Your father asked us to protect you, not to take part in street brawls."

Draco's expression was truly disgusting as he walked up to his knight. Despite being considerably shorter, he was somehow still looking down on the only reason he was alive.

"Listen. If I am insulted, my family is insulted. We must send a message that I am not to be messed with! When I tell you to do something, you do it, understood?"

"...understood."

Draco sat back down. "Fine. Contact the mercenary guild. Tell them I have a request."

The mage took a notepad out. She, too, disapproved of the young lord's actions, but what could they do?

"What is the request, sir?"

"Make sure those three are dead." A cruel light entered Draco's eyes. "Actually, not dead. Capture them. Alive. And have them brought back to me."

"...as you command."

~~~

The party didn't go straight into clearing the mansion. Instead, they opted to train for another two weeks to feel fully prepared. Even after two weeks, they weren't sure if they were ready for a quest that felt so threatening, but they couldn't put it off.

From the get-go, it wasn't looking too hot.

The mansion was worn down and broken, with the doors falling off the hinges and dust coating the windows. It was a perfect horror setting.

"A dingy mansion, a cloudy day… there's no way this ends well." John shook his head. "So, what do they want us to do?"

Fate sighed. "Did you even read the request?"

"No."

Fate had been half expecting that answer. "What would've happened if I weren't here?"

"You're here. No need for theoretical questions," John shrugged.

"Seriously, this guy," Fate grumbled as he took out a sheet of paper.

Despite the aged parchment, the request was still as legible as the day it'd been made..

"Enter the mansion and subjugate the living armour. You will know that your job is done if the walls start crumbling. That being said, please destroy the building once you are done."

John peered over Fate's shoulder and frowned.

"This sounds like a trap, doesn't it? And what's up with destroying the building? What are we, a demolition crew?"

"You're the one who chose to take this request," Fate reminded him.

"Hey, it wasn't me."

"You could've taken anything else, no?"

"What? Did we forget the part about the shortcut and everything? Besides, Draco took everything, remember?"

Fate was about to say something in return, but was cut off as Prota spoke up.

"Can we… go in?"

Fate stared at her, stunned. She rarely spoke, and even then, it was mainly to John. After all, he did more than enough talking for the two of them. For her to say something meant that she really wanted to go in. He was about to question her, but then thought the better of it and shook his head.

"Yeah, sure. Let's go in."

John was about to follow when Prota tugged on his arm. He looked back, confused.

[There is someone following us]

John's eyes shot open in surprise. Prota had used the messaging system. Why had she tugged on his arm if she was going to use the messaging system? No, this wasn't the time to think about that.

[Are you sure?]

[Strong mana in the forest. Waiting for us.]

John rubbed his chin. What was he supposed to do with something like this? Was this something that was supposed to happen? If they were after Fate, it was better to leave it alone, but if this mysterious person was after him, or worse, Prota…

[Do you want to tell Fate?]

Prota shook her head.

[Why not?]

[Because Fate and John will fight]

[Fight? What?]

[John will kill the bad guy. Fate doesn't want to kill bad guys]

Prota wasn't naive. It was clear that the two would butt heads whenever it came to dealing with enemies. It was baffling how they'd become companions in the first place, especially given how they'd met, but that wasn't really important.

This wasn't the time or place for them to be fighting. Something about this place made Prota uncomfortable, and it wasn't just how the place looked. They knew someone was watching them. That was enough. If they had to deal with it, they would do so.

~~~

About three hours later, the party was still hunting monsters. It wasn't that there was an abundance of them. There were only twenty living armours they had to deal with, and they weren't the hardest of monsters to fight.

"Phew… this really sucks," John said, wiping sweat from his brow. "Am I missing something here?"

"I'm just as confused as you are."

Fate just sighed as he pulled his sword out from a pile of cut-up armour. They'd tried everything. Melting, freezing, cutting, dispersing, crushing, but no matter what they did, the metal would remould and reform back into the shape of armour. At least they took an hour or so to reform. An unrelenting barrage of attacks would've killed them ages ago.

The problem was, it didn't look like the attacks would stop any time soon. This wasn't just a battle.

It was now a war of attrition.

According to Prota, the armour was being constantly powered by mana, although she couldn't figure out where from. While this meant that she, too, had an infinite mana source, her body was flesh, unlike the tireless metal monsters.

"Hey, wanna make a bet?" John said as he sat down heavily.

He was the least hurt out of everyone, but that was only because he couldn't fight. His gun was useless here; tiny holes did nothing to stop the advance of these immortal monsters. He could pick up large rocks and make do with that, but with no mana reinforcement, it was safer for him to stay back and take care of strays.

"What kind of bet?" Fate said, lifting his mask a little to take a sip of water.

"We've gotta find this source of mana or whatever, right? I'd be willing to bet that, once we do that, some giant armour is going to rise up and be some kind of final boss battle."

"Seriously? That's a little…"

John shrugged. "I dunno. It just feels like that kind of area. The boss might be something different, but… ah, it's just a hunch. I don't have a way to explain it."

Fate just stared at John. "Seriously, what kind of prediction is that?"

"Hey, I just said I can't explain it. It's just a hunch."

"Fine. Alright, let's say you're correct. What are we gonna do about this boss when it appears?"

John frowned. "Huh? We kill it."

"You wanna elaborate? Maybe come up with a strategy, a plan of attack, anything like that?"

"Um… I don't know. Seriously. Why're you asking me?"

"You don't know?"

John sighed, clearly annoyed, which was fascinating given that he was the source of annoyance for everyone else.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Dude, this is a really loose guess, ok? I'm almost half kidding right now. Oh, by the way, you've got mana to spare, right? I might be wrong about the giant armour, but there's definitely some kind of boss at the end of all this."

Fate nodded. "I've learned mana breathing and mana circulation. I think Kit would've taught it to you, but… well, I don't think it'd be of any use."

John shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. All that matters is everyone has stamina to spare for when the big guy comes. Hopefully nothing goes wrong."

[You should really avoid saying that.]

John's expression didn't change, but he felt a little bit of himself die on the inside.

[Really? Are you kidding me?]

[I'm just saying. You should avoid saying that.]

[What, is this the equivalent of asking if the enemy's right behind me?]

[I mean, you're just raising unnecessary flags, no? Really, I thought you'd know better.]

[You can't tell me these things before they happen?]

[:D]

[I hate you, you know that?]

~~~

"Behind you!" John yelled, smashing a helmet in with a boulder he'd found.

Four hours into the job, John started doing what he could. It wasn't very effective, but it helped the others conserve on what little stamina they could save. They'd been going through each room systematically, checking for anything that looked off or strange.

"Whoah!" John yelled as a sword nearly cleaved his head off.

The armour was frozen just in time, the tip of the sword stopped right at his neck. John looked over at Prota, who had both hands extended.

"John," she said.

Her meaning was clear. She didn't want him fighting.

"You're the one getting tired, not me. Look, you're gonna be much more useful than I am for the boss. Just go get some rest."

Prota wouldn't budge. The two had a sort of stare down, but in this regard, Prota would always be the victor. John sighed and sat down.

"...just don't overdo it, ok?"

Prota nodded and raised her hand. A pillar of fire erupted from the ground and melted another monster to slag. They'd cleared almost all of the mansion at this point.

"I think that's all," Fate panted as his sword took down another armour piece. "This is the last room, right?"

"The basement? Looks like it," John said, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

He looked around, but it was too dark to see anything.

"Can someone give me a light?"

Fate lit up a fireball in his hand. John hadn't had time to get a good look during the fight, but now that everything was visible, it should be easy. The basement was pretty open, with no pieces of furniture to obscure vision. In fact, the lack of anything was jarringly unusual, seeing as how the rest of the place was filled with decaying and broken items. Fate sat down, catching his breath when John called out.

"Hey, Fate. Have you ever seen a button in this world?"

"Like, for clothing?"

"No. Like, a comically large red button."

It was well hidden, but buried under the staircase was a large red button that was practically begging to be pushed.

"...hey, you didn't put that there, right?"

"Me? How would I do something like that?" John frowned. "Is the fatigue getting to you or something?"

"John, that's not normal!" Fate protested. "Even if someone put a button here, why would it be so large? What the hell is going on here?"

"The [Author] thinks they're funny," John muttered, but just shook his head and carried on. "Should we press it?"

"It has to be a trap," Fate said, eying the button suspiciously. "There's no way no one else found this."

While the two were talking, Prota walked over and stared at the button with a fascinated look in her eyes. Kit hopped off of Fate and joined her. Together, the two stared at the item they'd never seen before.

It just looked so pushable…

"Oop."

Prota covered her mouth as she accidentally pressed it. In her defence, it was a very appealing button. Even John had been strongly drawn to pressing it, so for someone who'd never seen a button in their life, it must've been irresistible. After all, why leave a good button unpressed? The sounds of grinding gears could be heard as the wall opened up before their eyes, revealing a large set of doors.

"Huh. Would you look at that?" John peered into the darkness. "That has to be what we're looking for, right?"

"Are you sure?" Fate said, his hand on his sword. He got up, slowly getting closer. "I mean, it does look suspicious, but we need to be careful. Something might pop out from there. The fact that the button didn't kill us in the first place is astounding."

"Hm… yeah, that's true, but also consider that being careful is for nerds."

"Wh- are you stupid?"

"Yes."

Fate just looked away.

The doors slowly opened with a loud creaking sound. The hinges sounded rusted, as if they hadn't been used in a long time. Dust billowed as the pressure between the rooms equalized, giving an even more ominous feeling.

"Everyone! Get ready!" Fate yelled, drawing his sword.

Everyone waited with bated breaths for… nothing? The room seemed empty. There was no monster, no guard, and it didn't look like there were any traps.

"...there could be something," Fate said. "Wait."

"Nah, I'll go in first."

Before Fate could say anything, John waltzed in as if he were taking a pleasant stroll. Prota was about to reach out and stop him, but it was too late. He was already in the room. However, as she saw the calm look on his face, something clicked. She understood why he was so comfortable with going in first.

He couldn't die. He wasn't worried about a consequence that meant nothing to him. On the other hand, though, he should've been equally fine with Fate dying as well. She shook her head. There was no point in trying to reason out John's line of thought.

"No traps," John called out. "It's safe, I think, unless there are mana-sensitive traps. That would suck."

"...don't do something like that again," Fate growled as he sheathed his sword.

Prota gave John a worried look, but John just gave her a thumbs up. Prota reconsidered her line of thought. Maybe it wasn't as deep as she'd thought. Maybe John was just a special kind of stupid. The other three went in carefully, watching their backs, but nothing was happening. It truly was just an empty room, save for one thing.

"Hey. There's something over here," John called out.

"What is it?"

"Looks like… marbles? There's a small machine, too. It kinda looks like a blender. Damn, I could go for a smoothie about now."

"A blender?"

"Yeah, like a kitchen appliance. You know what a blender is, right? I've never seen anything like it during my time here. Small glass cylinder with a bunch of marbles inside, and some weird thing at the bottom. There's even a cord connecting it to the wall."

Fate ran over to see it for himself, and it was exactly as John said. There were three small marbles in a cylinder of sorts, with a cord connected from the machine to the wall.

"What the hell is this?" he frowned.

John shrugged. "Dunno. Probably the thing powering those monsters."

Fate nodded. "Makes sense. You don't have any other ideas?"

"No? Not really."

"Alright."

They all stared at the small machine for a while. It was weird to think that this insignificant thing was what'd been causing them so much trouble.

"So? Let's just break it."

"Not yet," Fate said. "There might be something else. Let's look around a bit longer."

John sighed. "You want to look for what? There's nothing in this room except for that. Surely that's the thing powering the armour, right? Prota, can you see anything?"

Prota closed her eyes and focused, and sure enough, there was an intense concentration of mana emitting from the machine. However, it felt strange, as if it were being controlled. It felt like a person casting magic rather than mana flowing randomly.

She opened her eyes and nodded at John.

"Strange," she said, pointing to the machine.

"Huh? What's strange?"

"Flow," Prota explained. "It's being controlled."

John and Fate looked at each other.

"This is it, then."

Fate started gathering energy, preparing to destroy the machine, but then Prota noticed something. It was faint, but she could feel it.

A familiar feeling.

She walked over to a wall and put her hand against it. Visually, it was no different than any other wall in the room, but something felt off.

"What's she doing?" John frowned. "Prota? You good?"

She continued to touch sections of the wall as the feeling got stronger and stronger. Eventually, she reached what she felt was the closest area and blew the wall wide open. Everyone stared. Behind the wall, there had been a hidden area filled with glass test tubes. Each tube contained a marble similar to the ones in the machine.

Three marbles had created an immortal army of monsters. What in the world was this?

"Supply source? Who would need this many? Just three marbles are keeping those monsters alive," Fate said quietly. "Then what are all of these for?"

"Take over a country, maybe?" John said.

His brain started spinning. Was that the end goal? World domination? Surely not something as boring as that, right? The stakes of this situation had just been raised tenfold. This had gone from a simple quest to something far, far more sinister. An uneasy sensation washed over him.

However, the person most shaken up of them all was Prota. She slowly turned around, terror in her eyes. John was the first to notice.

"Hey, what's going-"

"S-souls," Prota stammered. "Those feel like… souls…"

Souls. Even Fate froze when he heard that word. It seemed he knew what was going on as well. John was curious. How did Fate know about souls? Was this common knowledge? No, that didn't matter right now. What mattered were the implications.

"Hey. Are- are you sure?"

Prota nodded.

"These… maybe they're not souls," Fate offered weakly.

"That's copium," John muttered, staring at the marbles. "Those are definitely souls."

They all stared.

"Where did these come from?" Fate said quietly, breaking the silence.

John shrugged. "Extracted. Probably."

"Ex… tracted? From what? People? You're telling me people were-"

"Fate," John said.

Just one word, but Fate went silent. John's usual tone was nowhere to be found.

"I get that it's upsetting, but ignore the fact that people died for a second. Let's think on a larger scale."

The ability to extract souls. How? Why?

So many questions running through his head. What was this for? Was this just an obstacle, or was this a connection to the demon king? Was this part of the [Plot], or was this a result of his interference with the world? How did Fate know about souls? And Prota. Soul Steal, Soul Copy, both the abilities of dragons, being copied by demons. Was this a dragonic facility? A demonic facility?

Or something else?

Too many coincidences combined with too many possibilities. There were too many paths to go down, too many theories to explore, but he had to consider the worst possible outcome. What if… what if souls were never meant to be extracted? What if this scenario had been created because of his existence?

"Hey," Fate said cautiously. "By the way. How do you… know about souls?"

"Don't worry about it. Souls don't exist in this world alone."

Fate nodded, too preoccupied by the thing in front of him to ask more questions.

"Disgusting," he whispered.

His sword came down, smashing the device. Surprisingly, the marbles remained intact, and Fate picked them up, revolted by their existence.

John, however, was too busy thinking about the implications to be horrified.

This quest. It was too suspicious. Why would a mansion like this have a facility like this? What was the purpose of the mansion? The room they'd been in was the only one. So why power haunted armour- no, not haunted armour, mana-controlled armour- what was the point? It didn't look like research was being done. And why was this a request?

Besides, the only reason they'd found this room was because of Prota. According to Fate, they were on the weak side of B-rank adventurers, if they could even be called that. Surely others who took this request were stronger than the party they had right now, right? Then how had so many people died?

Request. Souls. No one had returned alive. Something clicked.

"Fate. We need to get out of here, now." John's tone was nervous now.

"Well, yeah-"

"No, you don't get it. This quest wasn't meant to be completed. This is a bait, it's a bait to collect people! This is a harvesting operation!"

"What do you mean?"

"Think!," John yelled. "No one's ever returned alive from this quest. Where did they go? Why this mansion? If you don't find this room, you end up fighting the armour until you make a mistake and die. Why keep going at a quest you can't complete? If they know the mansion will crumble when the armour is defeated, and the armour can't be defeated until this thing is broken, then they know it exists! It's one massive trap!"

Fate looked at John. A trap. This was the trap. It wasn't the room. It wasn't the button. The moment they'd stepped into the building- no, the moment they'd accepted the quest, they'd been ensnared.

"The requester. They must've known about the armour, this room, this indestructible building, and yet they requested for it to be taken down anyways. If someone has the ability to extract souls, then what do they need?"

"...souls to extract," Fate said quietly.

John was worried. That presence Prota had felt before they'd gone in. Who was that? Should he have brought it up after all?

"The armour might not be the biggest of our concerns. We need to-"

"John! Dodge!" Fate yelled as the ceiling came crumbling down.

A giant metal hand smashed through, causing rubble to fall everywhere. John dove just in time to avoid most of the mess but was still battered with debris. Prota managed to throw up a ceiling of ice in time to stop his head from getting smashed in, but he wasn't uninjured.

John looked at Fate as a giant haunted armour rose from the now ruined mansion. They'd completed that part of the request, at least. John let out a light chuckle as dust rained down on them.

"Hey. Remember that thing I said about the giant armour earlier?"

"You're bringing that up now?!" Fate yelled as he unsheathed his sword. "Seriously, you focus on the weirdest things!"

They stared with grim expressions as the giant haunted armour raised its sword.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.