Just as everyone was scared out of their wits by the "Final Stroll" command, and Aqua had already started carving her will into the wall, Darkness, who had been stuck in a strange flushed state, suddenly staggered to her feet.
Her once gorgeous silver armor was now covered in scorch marks from electric shocks and twisted cracks, yet her eyes shone with terrifying intensity. It was a kind of fervor that had gone beyond life and death and reached the very peak of perversion.
"Kōichi... that researcher said just now... all the exits are locked, right?" Darkness's voice trembled with excitement she could barely suppress. "Which means, if we want to get out, we have to use our bodies... to smash through thick armor strong enough to withstand a battering ram... Ngh... Being rejected by steel, surrounded by despair, and forced to carve open a path with nothing but my own body... This is... this is a stage prepared just for me!!"
"Hey! Darkness! What are you doing?! Calm down! That armor is ancient alloy..."
Before Kazuma could finish trying to stop her, his warning turned into a terrified scream.
Darkness let out a roar loud enough to shatter eardrums, then threw herself like a golden meteor, or rather, a runaway lump of solid iron, straight into the locked side wall of the core chamber.
"BOOM!!!"
A teeth grinding screech of tearing metal rang out. Under everyone's dumbfounded stares, the alloy wall, which was tough enough to withstand intermediate magic, was actually smashed into a huge dent by Darkness's shoulder. Immediately after, the entire armor plate let out a wail, as if it could not bear such heavy love, and was blasted clean away.
A gale instantly rushed into the core chamber. Outside, the wilderness scenery flew backward at incredible speed, and the familiar walls of Axel were already terrifyingly close.
"We... got out? She smashed us out with her head?!" Kazuma's mouth hung open, his jaw nearly hitting the floor. "Is this girl's head made of Coronatite, or has her defense been raised so high even the laws of physics are scared of her?!"
"Ngh... It hurts... It feels like half the bones in my body are broken... This feeling... It's the best..."
Darkness collapsed near the broken opening. Although her soul seemed ready to leave her mouth, her face wore an expression of extreme satisfaction.
Kōichi had no time to comment on the masochistic Knight's monstrous strength. He pulled up the still-dazed Aqua and the magic-drained Wiz, then helped Kazuma steady Megumin on his back. The group scrambled through the hole and leaped out of the still rampaging Destroyer.
They rolled across the grass several times in a miserable heap before finally coming to a stop.
Kōichi looked up. The Destroyer had lost its core and was relying only on backup power, so its movements had slowed a little, but its enormous body still carried unstoppable momentum. Like a moving iron mountain, it was charging straight toward Axel's West Gate.
"Kōichi-san! It isn't over yet!" Wiz did not even stop to wipe the mud from her face. She pointed anxiously toward the Destroyer's rear. "Its core is gone, but the backup power source is starting a chain reaction. If it crashes into the city wall like this, the remaining magic will still trigger a massive explosion that engulfs the entire town! We have to... we have to use another powerful Explosion spell to completely destroy its structural support before it reaches the wall!"
"Then what are we waiting for?! Megumin! Wake up! It's your turn to perform!"
Kazuma frantically shook the Crimson Demon girl on his back.
Megumin opened her eyes in a daze, a glistening trail still hanging from the corner of her mouth.
"Mmm... Explosion... I already used it... Today's share... has all been fired... Right now, I'm just... a cute decoration..."
"I... I'm out of magic too..." Wiz collapsed weakly onto the ground, her face pale. "Suppressing the core and casting the teleportation spell drained my mana pool completely... I can't even cast a basic Fireball spell now..."
The air instantly went dead silent. Only the Destroyer's heavy footsteps could be heard drawing closer and closer in the distance.
"It's over. Axel's done for." Kazuma stared blankly at the distant city wall. "Kōichi, let's run while we still can. Maybe we can get out of the blast radius before it explodes. Sure, we'll have to spend the rest of our lives as wanted criminals who destroyed a town, but that's better than turning into ash, right?"
"What are you saying?! Stop being so depressing! I'm a Goddess! If the town is gone, all my followers will die!" Aqua stomped her feet in panic. Then, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she whipped her head toward Kōichi. "Hey! Kōichi! Those two might be out of magic, but we still have power banks!"
Kōichi looked into Aqua's big eyes, which were glittering with ill intent, and his heart skipped a beat.
"Power banks? You don't mean..."
"That's right! Exactly that! The process might look a little like draining someone's life force, but we don't have time to worry about that now!"
Aqua pointed at Kazuma and shouted.
Kazuma wiped the blood from his nose and flashed an extremely sinister, sadistic grin. His hand, faintly glowing purple, slowly reached toward Aqua.
"Hehehe, Aqua, you were acting pretty smug when you called me a deadbeat earlier, weren't you? As a useless Goddess, that bottomless mana pool of yours is finally good for something. Come on, for Axel's sake, become my human battery! Drain Touch!!"
"Yaaaaah! Kazuma, what is that look on your face?! Gross! Don't touch me! I'm not giving my sacred mana to scum like you, aaaaah!!"
Aqua let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered, but before Kazuma's "divine hand," her weak resistance meant nothing.
As Kazuma's hand pressed against Aqua's shoulder, a dazzling stream of blue light began flowing endlessly from Aqua into Kazuma, then from Kazuma into Megumin, who lay on the ground with her eyes shining.
"Oh... Ohhh... Mana... It's overflowing... Is this... what it feels like to be filled to the brim...?"
Megumin's small body trembled slightly. Her pale face quickly flushed with color, and even the ahoge on her head stood straight up from the excess charge.
"Kōichi, Kazuma, look! My explosion soul is blazing!!"
However, Kōichi watched the "iron mountain" still steadily advancing in the distance, his brows tightly furrowed.
One Explosion might not be enough. After all, that thing was the greatest masterpiece of ancient civilization. Even running only on backup power, its armor was thick enough to drive an ordinary Arch Wizard to despair.
Kōichi turned toward Wiz beside him. The gentle shopkeeper was twisting her fingers, her eyes darting away as she murmured, "Um... I do want to help, but if I use that kind of magic here, my identity will definitely... And my mana really is..."
"Wiz!"
Kōichi suddenly gripped Wiz by the shoulders and cut off her muttering with a grave expression.
"Now is not the time to worry about your identity! If Axel is gone, that mountain of unsold magic items of yours will really end up being fed to Slimes! Besides, you don't want to see the adventurers who slack off in your shop every day turned to ash, do you?"
"Uuu... Kōichi-san, but I..."
"No time to explain! Suck me dry!"
Kōichi struck a pose of noble self-sacrifice, even tugging at his collar with a sadistic expression that seemed to say she could do whatever she wanted.
"That deadbeat Kazuma is draining a Goddess, so I'll let you, a former Demon King's General, take as much as you want! Come on, take all my mana and stamina, then give that hunk of iron the final blow!!"
"E-Ehhh?! S-Suck Kōichi-san dry? In front of everyone like this..."
Wiz's face instantly turned red all the way to her ears, but when she saw Kōichi's determined, somewhat perverted eyes, she finally gritted her teeth as if steeling herself.
"I-I understand! Forgive me, Kōichi-san! I'll... I'll be gentle!"
Wiz's cool, jade-like little hand tightly clasped Kōichi's.
In an instant, Kōichi felt a powerful suction coming from her palm. It was not an ordinary loss of mana, but a shuddering sensation, as if even his soul was being drawn out.
Wiz's true nature as a Lich was fully revealed in that moment. A faint dusky purple light flashed through her normally gentle brown eyes.
"Ngh... Oooh..."
Kōichi could not help letting out a strange muffled groan as his body went limp. Having his mana forcibly drained by a beautiful girl, a Lich, somehow felt... damn it... kind of good?
"Kōichi! What the hell is that look on your face?! That's so unfair! I want Wiz-san to drain me too!"
Kazuma, who was being scratched wildly by Aqua, saw this and let out a jealous roar.
"Shut up! Focus on charging your battery!"
Kōichi snapped through gritted teeth.
At that moment, the Destroyer was less than two hundred meters from the city wall.
Its massive black shadow had already blocked out the sunlight, and the guards on the wall had begun screaming in despair.
"Mana... fully charged!"
Megumin staggered to her feet and raised her staff high. The Destroyer's enormous figure was reflected in her crimson pupils.
"I'm ready too, Kōichi-san!"
Wiz released Kōichi's hand. A suffocating magical pressure radiated from her body, the aura of a top-tier Wizard capable of standing against a dragon.
Kōichi lay weakly on the grass, looking at the backs of the two women standing at the very front, and smiled in relief.
"Go... Send off that bastard who wanted tonkatsu donburi... Use two Explosions to end this once and for all!!"