Maria immediately explained to Paimon why she had come back to Planet Eur even though she knew that she might be faced with a lot of adversity. Upon hearing the reason for her coming back was to take a class advancement quest from High Priestess Hella, Paimon immediately flew up and smacked Maria on the back of the head for her stupidity.
“OW!”
“Idiot!”
“Don’t call me an idiot!!!”
“I will and I shall! How much of an idiot could you be that you’d plunge yourself into danger just for something as simple as a class advancement quest?!”
Maria rubbed the back of her head with tears in her eyes and replied, “I-I’m still in my first class but others have already advanced...If I didn’t take the risk, then I’d be left behind by everyone else!”
Paimon rubbed his forehead and said, “Kid, listen...you don’t need to go to Hella for your class advancement…”
Maria turned towards Paimon and dumbly replied, “...Huh?”
“You really didn’t know...did you?”
“Know what?”
“...Maria, as Death’s Envoy, the Dark Priestess, you can directly pray to Death and his incarnation will descend and give you the quest...You don't need to trouble yourself like this…”
“I-Is that so? I didn’t know…”
“Argh, you really are a baboon! Seriously, if you went to Hella right now, do you think she’ll welcome you with open arms?”
“Uh...maybe?”
“She’s the High Priestess of a Church! All of the churches of Eur put that bounty on your head! If you met with her, she’d immediately attack you and try to capture you before sealing you in the church’s dungeons!”
“...”
Paimon sighed and tugged on her sleeve before saying, “Follow me. I have to get you out of here before the factions find you―Ah, crap! It’s too late.”
Paimon let out a curse before he began waving his hand in the air and conjuring a few spell formations.
“Hurry, we don’t have any time now!”
Maria could feel the large presence of an army moving towards them. She also saw on her mini-map that a mass of red markers was closing in on the Mage Tower.
“S-Sorry, Paipai…”
“Nevermind, the worst they can do is incarcerate me if they drop all formality and wish to offend me but I fear they’ll try to seal you if they catch you and that’s a fate far worse than death...”
“Ugh…”
“Hurry up and follow me. We have to get to the top of the tower, I’ll need to borrow the power of the Daemon’s Heart if I want to conjure an interdimensional portal that can send you off of the planet.”
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“Okay.”
Paimon had teleported all of the servants, workers, and other living organisms inside of his tower out of it so there was no one else in the tower except for them. He didn’t want anyone else besides him to be implicated with the crime of fostering and aiding a criminal. The two arrived at the top floor of the Mage Tower where a large, boulder-sized Magic Crystal which was known as the Daemon’s Heart was located. It was this magic crystal that powered all of the magic formations inside of Paimon’s Mage Tower.
The amount of energy it outputted was akin to 3 Nuclear reactors, or even more. Maria didn’t know but that was what’s written in a fan-made description of her mentor’s mage tower. If such a magic crystal was to have a malfunction and explode...Maria shivered in fear at the thought of it. The city that was built around the mage tower, Enoch, would be completely wiped off the map.
Paimon approached the Daemon’s Heart and placed a hand on it before kneeling on the ground and placing his other hand on the floor. Maria could see that Paimon was channeling mana from the magic crystal into his body before using it to create a magic circle on the floor. The intricate magic circle was slowly forming when suddenly, a large quake shook the magic tower.
“Maria, they know that I’m aiding you! They’re dropping all courtesies with me and are trying to forcefully break into the magic tower! Stop them for me until I complete the magic spell!”
“O-Okay!”
*DING*
Emergency Quest generated: Planetary Escape!
Quest Name: Planetary Escape Rank: A~EX Description: You have been named a criminal on planet Eur and everyone is out for your head! Your master, Paimon, has willingly decided to sacrifice himself to save you, his most prized disciple from the horrible fate of being sealed for eternity! Objective 1: Buy time for Paimon to finish his magic spell! (0/120 minutes)
Objective 2: Escape from the planet! (0/1) Reward: Skillbook: Blink Failure: Imprisonment and erasure of all upgrades acquired from consuming the Sin Devil souls! Time Limit: 11 hours 59 minutes 45 seconds
“Maria, I need 2 hours to complete the spell! Don’t let anyone disrupt me or else I’ll have to restart the entire process!”
“Got it!”
Paimon’s Mage Tower was structured so that each floor had its own separate shield outside of the shield that protected the entirety of the mage tower. These shields were used to prevent intruders from moving up the floors and the closer it was to the Daemon’s Heart, the stronger the shield became so each floor of the mage tower would have a shield stronger than the one on the previous floor. There were also golems protecting the floors and just like the shields, they were stronger on the higher floors. These and a few other things would help Maria defend the tower until Paimon finished his spell.
Maria quickly moved to the lowest floor and already saw the gates being knocked on by the army waiting outside.
“Archmage Paimon of the North! Open your gates and hand over the fugitive in your hands!”
“If you do not comply within the next 5 minutes, you will be branded a traitor for aiding and harboring a criminal!”
The commanders of the Dark and Neutral Faction that had chased Maria all the way here were very demanding of Paimon and had even threatened him but they were the ones that were already aggressively knocking on his mage tower. Paimon didn’t use the intercom magic he had installed in his mage tower to reply to them because he was too focused on completing the magic spell but even if he could, he would’ve told them to buzz off.
Maria got ready and began installing magic traps all over the first floor of the mage tower. This place was the reception hall so other than a few simple magic formations to prevent anyone from causing any chaos, there weren’t any lethal ones that Maria could make use of so she had to create her own. Only the golems that were used to patrol the first floor which was now under her command and waiting for orders could cause lethal damage to the intruders so she had to make do with only them for now on this floor.
As the enemy continued to knock furiously on the gates, Maria couldn’t help but grow excited with every knock that threatened to break down the gates. After a few more knocks, the gate to Paimon’s Mage Tower finally came crashing down and a few soldiers stepped into the room. Once the gates came down, the commander of the Dark Faction army immediately announced, “Everyone, the Archmage of the North is conspiring with the enemy! Treat him like a criminal!”
The declaration was heard loud and clear by both Maria and Paimon so with things developing to this stage, it was far too late for either of them to turn back now, especially Paimon. He could have just saved his skin and tossed Maria over to them but he hadn’t. Instead, he sided with his disciple and was now trying to help her by sending her off the planet despite knowing the consequences that would follow. The soldiers that walked into the room soon noticed Maria and were quite surprised to see their target waiting for them on the first floor.
“Sir, we’ve found the fugiti―”
Before the soldier could finish his sentence, a flash of red light cut through his neck and his head was lopped off immediately. The headless body began spewing up a fountain of blood in the air and the soldiers widened their eyes in horror before turning to Maria and seeing that she had one of her hands raised towards them.
“You fools shouldn’t have trespassed into my teacher’s home~”
Maria fired her [Angel’s Rage] at the other soldiers by the doorway and lopped off their heads as well. The power of her [Angel’s Rage] had increased with her level rising and after her wings had been transformed into Bahamut’s Wings. With the NPCs appearing before her only being at level 50-60, it was quite easy to kill them with only a few of her feathers. Maria’s brutal way of killing the soldiers didn’t deter the ones behind them from stepping into the tower but that was their mistake as a large number of magic traps were waiting for them.
“Come and meet your deaths, fools!”
Maria hadn’t even pulled out her weapons yet and was only using her long-range skills and spells to kill the intruders. Paimon was concentrating on completing the spells but he still had enough leeway to watch what his disciple was doing on the first floor through a scrying screen he conjured.
“...Was my disciple always that violent?”