A Commonplace Story Of Overpowered Sorcerer

Rio kept his expression laid back while sensing Ehit's gaze, which was filled with bad intentions, on him. The reason behind the sudden change in Ehit's intention towards Rio, from dismissal to the sudden strong interest, was due to Rio's ability to cast spell effortlessly without a chant.

Rio remembered one important information related to why Yue, or in this case Aletia—since she had yet to be called with that name—was locked in the secret chamber in the fiftieth floor of the true layer of Great Orcus Labyrinth. She was locked here by her uncle, her only close relative left and someone who was a father figure for her, because, at that time, her uncle was fighting off the possession from one of Ehit's lackeys. After knowing Aletia's existence, Ehit became very interested in her and they soon discovered that Aletia was the best vessel for them due to her ability to control mana directly and evoke spells without chants or magic circles. In short, Aletia was the best vessel which makes Ehit able to use the majority of their power in the Tortus.

Rio made up his mind to get Ehit's attention to get a justification to attack Holy Precinct. If Ehit forced him to visit their place, he would have a good reason to destroy the mad self-proclaimed God once and for all.

You might think that Rio is just wasting his time when he could just storm there and start crushing Ehit and their army of fake Angels. Now, hold your horses and think it through properly and calmly. Though Ehit was the true villain in this universe and someone who should be destroyed as soon as possible, they are still living, sentient being in the end.

If you are in Rio's position, would you be able to just kill someone else without a just cause? Could you do it without any hesitation? As long as you are not a psychopath, you would be unable to do it and feel remorse if you killed someone who had never wronged you. Rio was in this similar predicament. He was not a psychopath. He just wanted to have an easygoing and fulfilling life with his future harem. Not becoming a psychopath who did not have empathic and sympathetic senses!

Though he knew that Ehit's continuous survival was not good for anyone, it wasn't enough reason to storm Holy Precinct and kill the disembodied motherf*cker. He would feel remorse after killing Ehit and their fake angels. And if he tried to ignore this remorse, he was afraid that he would become something hideous and evil like Ehit. He did not like to be put in the same place as the body-snatcher. Therefore, Rio carefully laid a trap for Ehit, so they would give him a justification to attack Holy Precinct. He used his knowledge official materials of Arifureta about Ehit's strong d.e.s.i.r.e to obtain a new body.

In the beginning, Rio planned to let Ehit snatches Kouki's body, but he changed his mind after realizing Kouki was still a real, living being just like him. Yesterday, when Rio saw Kouki's internal turmoils from his eyes, he realized this fact and did not want Ehit to get Kouki's body.

All that aside, back to the current situation. Rio ignored the clamor below the stage from the kingdom personnel and Temple's delegations. When he realized that Ehit would not send their messenger, A.K.A Noint, he gave Hajime an okay with his short nod, telling Hajime to start his part.

"Now, I will start! Be ready, Rio!" Hajime shouted that, not for Rio, but for the people below the stage. His loud shout grabbed their attention and he poured a trickle of his mana into the gun.

The gun's handle glowed sky blue. Right after that, Hajime pulled the trigger and shot one of the floating targets above Rio. Everyone below the stage could see a red ball launched at the floating clay disk and hit it off right in the center. There was no loud gunshot sound like the normal gun from Earth. It was so silent, scarily so.

The moment the bullet hit the clay, it exploded and became a hot fireball with 1-meter diameter. The fireball, which had the firepower equal to fireball spell with 5 verse aria at the lowest, burned the clay disk into ash in a few seconds.

There was a loud exclaim from the spectators, but Hajime had yet to finish his show. With a fluid motion that would impress the legendary Billy the Kid, Hajime pulled out the red cartridge from the gun's handle and changed it with blue colored one from the belt with many cartridges around his waist. Hajime then shot for the second time. This time, the bullet froze the floating clay disk in a moment.

Hajime continued on. He skillfully replaced the cartridge and shot. Back and forth. When Hajime used brown cartridge, the bullet turned into a stake made of rock right after it left the gun's muzzle; the green cartridge would turn the bullet into a compressed wind bullet; the yellow cartridge turned the bullet into lightning; the black bullet would decay the target as if it got afflicted by a decaying curse; the pink cartridge would create pink-colored circular barrier with one meter of diameter in front Hajime.

The spectators had become silent. Though the royal family and some officials of the kingdom had witnessed the sight in the previous night, they could not stop their amazement. The others who had not witnessed the sight had their jaw dropped.

What they saw was truly revolutionary. In a war against demons, humans only had their number as an advantage. But, this advantage disappeared after demons found a way to control big numbers of monster. Moreover, demons were far skilled in magic and had bigger mana reserves than humans. They could spend a huge amount of mana to enhance their physical strength and speed to go against humanity's strongest advantage—number.

However, Hajime's artifact gives humans a new advantage. It was the casting speed. Though the cartridge was fixed with a single spell rule, it basically allowed human to launch a spell without chanting aria or creating a magic circle. It cut off the time to cast a spell into the most minimum. Furthermore, they realized something when they saw Hajime's presentation.

It was a well-known fact that Hajime was the only Apostle of God who had similar stats with the regular Tortusians at level 1. The amount of his mana should have not been enough to allow Hajime spamming such a destructive spell with ease. Those who could sense ambiance mana would be able to explain why Hajime could spam destructive spell of all elements, one after another, without a sign of exhaustion or mana depletion.

The secret was the ambient mana in the air was pulled into the gun when it was triggered off. So, instead of using the user's mana, the gun artifact, or to be precise the cartridge, was absorbing the ambient mana in the air. Meanwhile, the user's mana was only needed to activate the artifact. It cut off the mana consumption very significantly.

Of course, some people who could not endure their curiosity asked aloud, but Hajime stopped them and said, "There's going to be the more detailed explanation and question and answer session. You can ask a question at that moment. For now, there will be the last...presentation from us."

The spectators were confused when they saw that Hajime faltered when he mentioned the last presentation. He became paler and had a tight face. Their curiosity was piqued.

Hajime turned at Rio and walked up towards him. After stopping a couple of feet away from Rio, he changed the cartridge with the white one and nodded at Rio with a tight expression.

When Rio saw Hajime's expression, he was amused. It was clear that Hajime was worried about something related to Rio, but he did not see the problem in and of itself.

"Alright. I'll do it."

"Don't force yourself, Rio."

They exchanged a firm nod, Rio had laid back expression while Hajime's was tight. Everyone was on the edge. They could not wait for another shocking presentation from the duo. They would get another shock...in a different sense than their previous shock, though.

Rio then raised his hand between then and tapped his mana, cloaking only his hand and forearm with the majestic platinum mana. The next moment—

*CRACK*

*SPLAT*

"F.U.C.K! THIS IS TOO HARDCORE AS EXPECTED!"

Right after that sickening cracking sound, disturbing splattering sound, and Hajime's loud, unrestrained curse and shout,

"Kyaaaa!"

"Medic! Call medic! Lord Rio needs immediate treatment!"

"Rio!"

There were shocked and terrified screams and wails of unprepared girls, flurried shout for the medic, and several worried and scared call for Rio's name. In fact, if Ehit's soul had a humanoid form, they would do a double-take before turning fl.u.s.tered.

And it was only normal because Rio's hand and forearm turned mangled and snapped to the abnormal direction. Also, it was bleeding heavily.

Rio had inflicted serious self-injury so abruptly.