I Became the Narrow-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss

That strange bubble. Knemon called it ‘Bubble of Silence’ as it was written in the ancient ruins. How many dangers had he navigated to obtain the Bubble of Silence?

Knemon slowly recounted the stories from the days he wandered the Extra-dimensional Contaminated Zone with Orthes.

“…You knew that Orthes and I only took on Deep Level Requests in the Contaminated Zones, right?”

“Of course. Isn’t that the reason people secretly know you two are Doomsday Cultists?”

“Ha. If that’s the case, what about you, who was always with Orthes wherever he went?”

“I wasn’t following him! He was just dragging me along and using me as a shield!”

“Ha. I guess so.”

Knemon dismissed Lampades’ defense and explained his adventures. It all began with a piece of information left behind in a ruin in the Contaminated Zone. It was about research into extracting the power of Extra-dimensional forces.

“It was a document stating that ancient Mages created something destructive by concentrating the Extra-dimensional power. I was seized by overwhelming excitement.”

He could take revenge on the Apex Towers that had horrifically trampled on his family’s Mage Tower. The power to burn the Mage Society itself was finally within reach.

Knemon believed this, and secretly proposed to Orthes, who, like him, was excited about the destruction that the Extra-dimensional could bring.

Let’s find that Artifact imbued with Extra-dimensional power together.

As Knemon and Orthes continued solving Deep Level Requests in the Extra-dimensional Contaminated Zone, they gradually obtained more clues and ventured deeper.

“We obtained this Bubble of Silence at the end of that journey. If I hadn’t run away, it might not have been the end.”

Knemon boasted of his prominent skills among the Troubleshooters, which were secretly renowned among Doomsday Cultists. After all, he had once been nurtured as a successor of a Mage Tower, and true training methods in magic were rare for Troubleshooters.

With the lost vision of the Mage Tower, Knemon’s magical prowess was exceptional, not just among Doomsday Cultists but the entire Troubleshooter community.

Orthes was an existence that could not be evaluated by magic standards. He was something out of the ordinary.

He could solve any complex code at a glance, and no matter how lethal a trap was, he would never fall for it.

There was no better guide to break through Dungeons and ruins than Orthes. He never even used magic, which was his only flaw.

Knemon believed that with his and Orthes’s combination, there would be no ruins left unexcavated in this world.

And he was right. Even in the space split into dozens of branches from Extra-dimensional contamination, Orthes chose the correct answer without a moment’s hesitation.

Once they gathered clues from dozens of ruins, they finally entered the last ruin where the Bubble of Silence was stored. Knemon felt an unprecedented thrill.

An Artifact created with such care by ancient Mages! Just how far would its power reach?

This power would soon be within his grasp, enough to deliver a final blow to those who had taken everything from his family and brought destruction to the Mage Society.

But when Knemon saw the Bubble of Silence, his expectations returned with the same confusion.

Lampades had reacted in the same way when he saw the Bubble of Silence. Despite its grand name, it looked like something a child would play with.

In the midst of Knemon’s frustration, it was Orthes, quietly observing the Bubble of Silence, who intervened.

“Have you ever seen Orthes speak informally?”

“Ina? Orthes?”

Lampades shook his head. Always wearing that faint smile; his respectful demeanor sent chills down one’s spine. His eyes were so thin that emotions couldn’t be read.

Even if he couldn’t remember the details, that chilling smirk, that smile, and the politeness had etched themselves into his mind, like a burn.

They could be considered the three elements that constituted Orthes.

“…I have.”

Knemon recalled the moment when Orthes had told him to blow a bubble.

“Damn it! Were the ancients insane? They just left something like this in a ruin!”

“Knemon, give it a blow.”

“What?”

“The Bubble. Blow into it.”

Under Orthes’ characteristic half-lidded gaze, his blue eyes shimmered. That eerie glimmer held an overwhelming force that wouldn’t permit any questions.

Hhhuu, as the breath was blown, the bubble swelled. The delicately rainbow-colored bubble looked no different from a toy children played with.

“Damn it!”

He had built up his expectations until the end, yet he felt no extraordinary power from that bubble toy. If he had felt some ominous magical power emanating from it, Knemon might have been put off by its appearance, but he wouldn’t have been disappointed.

Yet, it was just a bubble. He felt no particularity from the soap solution or the ring that makes the bubbles.

Orthes stood behind Knemon, directing him.

“Pop it.”

“What?”

“Pop the Bubble.”

It was an order he couldn’t understand. Would something change if he popped it? Knemon quietly stared at the inside of the bubble.

‘What’s going on? It’s been dozens of seconds since I blew the bubble.’

The bubble neither sank nor burst. It just floated in the air. Knemon, entranced, moved his finger towards the bubble.

The moment his finger touched it, the bubble burst. Silently, but quickly.

And at the moment the bubble burst, the scenery Knemon was viewing through the bubble was also warped.

No, it wasn’t just the image captured in his view that warped. The scenery he was looking at vanished along with the bubble popping.

Like water bubbles.

Anticipation and Hope surged again. Knemon couldn’t help but laugh wildly.

“Ha, haha. Kha hahahahaha!”

The Barrier Wall surrounding the ruins, protected by ancient magic and immune to the storms of Offensive Magic, crumbled without a trace.

The secrecy of having no signs of the mana that should inherently follow all magic. The ease of it all and the destructive power that rendered any defense useless.

A tingling thrill ran through Knemon’s entire body.

This was it. This was the power. The power to achieve the revenge he had sought all along was finally in his hands!

“Can I try it out too?”

“Ah, of course. It’s an Artifact we obtained thanks to you. Thank you, Orthes. You’re truly the best comrade.”

Orthes accepted the Bubble-blowing Ring with that enigmatic smile of his. Slowly, he lifted the tube to examine it.

“Knemon.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to run a little test. Let’s head up.”

It didn’t take long to retrace their steps through the ruins. Since he had dismantled all the traps on the way in. Even if a trap that activates after a time existed, they could erase it using that Artifact.

Once they reached the surface, Orthes boldly blew a bubble. A bubble the size of a palm floated up into the sky.

“How about targeting that mountain peak, Knemon?”

The mountain peak, dimly shining in the bizarre hues of Extra-dimensional contamination, could be faintly seen in the distance. Knemon carefully bent his body, took aim at the mountain peak, and popped the bubble.

A storm blew.

Everything occupying the space around the mountain peak vanished at once. The air could not escape from the Bubble’s target, causing the flow of air to become wildly entangled. The rush of air seeking to fill the void transformed into a violent whirlwind.

When the storm crashing against the mountain peak subsided, the results finally came into view for Knemon.

The mountain was deeply hollowed in a circular shape.

It resembled a crater. But it was too smooth to have been caused by a meteorite impact.

Knemon felt moved beyond shivering thrill.

This Artifact seemed limitless. Just illuminating and popping it from a distance could create an unprecedented calamity!

A massive joy surged through his body. Knemon turned to Orthes, expressing his unrestrained joy.

Surely, he too must be feeling the fulfillment of holding power that could overturn the world, right? Power to completely uproot the magic society that has been stagnant!

However, Orthes remained astonishingly cold. It didn’t mean that he had lost his smile.

A sneer filled with disdain and disgust. Although the corners of his mouth were still raised, the atmosphere emanating from him was chilling to the core.

Orthes silently extended his hand. It was a gesture for the Artifact.

Once Orthes grasped the Bubble-blowing Ring, he spoke.

“Step back.”

“Back more.”

“More.”

Just when Orthes’ silhouette almost looked like a mere shadow, Knemon’s movement finally stopped. He couldn’t even begin to guess what Orthes was trying to do.

Knemon’s Magic Power amplified. In the magnified view, he could see Orthes blowing a bubble.

It wasn’t that big. Just enough to cover one eye.

And then Orthes opened his eyes.

A chilling blue light pierced through Knemon’s retina as the bubble burst.

Crack, a sound that shouldn’t have been heard resonated. Up until now, the only sound heard during the destructive experiments of the bubble had been the wind from the aftershock.

Such a sound of collapse wasn’t something that should have been heard.

Where in the world did it start? What was collapsing?

Knemon looked up at the sky.

And then, he looked back down at the ground.

Something was off.

Everything flipped.

The order of earth and sky crumbled. The Boundary between dimensions shattered, and the bizarre theology of the Extra-dimensional began to pour into the world. The truth that the sky is above and the earth is below collapsed, and the world became a jumble.

Deep within the Extra-dimensional Contaminated Zone, the unstable boundary between dimensions broke down.

It was a sight that looked like the entire world was thrown into a colossal grinder. Witnessing the cataclysm from outside the line that Orthes drew, Knemon trembled in ecstasy.

Knemon glimpsed the end of the magical world from this horrifying yet beautiful Destruction. He didn’t know how Orthes implemented such calamity, but with this kind of power, he could truly bring the world to its knees.

It wasn’t until long after Knemon had thought about Orthes’s safety in the midst of the Destruction that the crumbled Boundary had restored itself, and the ground returned to its position below, while the sky returned above.

The spot where the ruins had been was transformed into an empty plain. The remnants of what was once a ruin were scattered like pieces of a mosaic across the land.

Fortunately, Orthes was calmly standing in the middle of the flattened ground, holding that very Bubble of Silence.

Knemon rushed over with a look of joy. It was the ultimate reward for his long struggles since losing his family’s Mage Tower.

And Knemon heard Orthes casually spat out a line.

“I didn’t come here to see this garbage.”

His voice was sharp and chilling, as if it could cut through everything approaching it.

Knemon couldn’t bring himself to get any closer.

Suddenly, Orthes lifted his head.

“Oh. Knemon. You did well.”

Orthes nonchalantly tossed the Bubble of Silence. Knemon hurriedly dashed to catch it.

“I ended up using more of what was inside than I expected, but there’s still over half left. I used my share, so you take it.”

“T-take it?”

“Yes. It’s useless to me.”

Orthes stretched leisurely, as if he had just returned from a walk.

“Well then, shall we look for the next Artifact?”

“…What?”

Knemon couldn’t understand Orthes’s words.

“I’m talking about the next Extra-dimensional Artifact. Not such a thing, but something more─”

Knemon’s vision went white. He couldn’t grasp what Orthes was saying, what plan he was talking about.

Even with an Artifact that could create calamities like the previous one, was there more?

He wanted even greater Destruction, a more thorough annihilation?

Knemon grew fearful of Orthes. A hunger that knew no bounds. A madness that wouldn’t be satisfied.

If his revenge was a flame, then the something Orthes held was like a wildfire. A fire that couldn’t be extinguished even by rain; it would only die down once there was nothing left to burn.

The conflagration that would turn the world to ashes.

When he snapped back to reality, Knemon had already fled from the Extra-dimensional Boundary Zone.

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