The Demon King and the Death God

Aboveground.

The scene was chaos.

After Knight and the others pursued their target into the cavern, the mess aboveground fell entirely to Ranger and Celestial Star.

To be honest, the commotion had been enormous.

A bottomless hole had been blasted through the center of the workshop. The alarm had been cut off, but the series of magical surges and deafening crashes could have been felt for miles.

And Love had hardly been quiet when she first made her move.

Fortunately, the Association's operatives responded quickly. They entered the factory grounds after the others broke in, set up a cordon, and evacuated the civilians.

If Ranger and Celestial Star had been left to handle all this alone, they would have been in serious trouble.

Even with the Association's help, the two worked for over an hour. Only when they had nearly brought the scene under control could they finally catch their breath.

"Phew... I'm exhausted."

Ranger dropped onto the curb and tipped back half a bottle of water.

"Why do they get to fight the boss down there while we're stuck directing things up here...?"

"Stop complaining."

Celestial Star did not look up.

"Someone has to do it. Besides, this is part of the mission too."

"And Knight had a point. We're still too weak. If we went somewhere that dangerous, we'd only get in everyone's way."

Hearing Celestial Star bring it up again, Ranger fell silent.

She was not being unreasonable.

But watching her companions face danger while she could only stand by and wait felt awful.

It was not as though she wanted to be weak...

She trained hard every time and took every mission seriously.

So why could she not take the next step?

If she could, she would not have to wait here helplessly...

"Take it easy,