"Kōichi-san! Now's our chance! Its movements have slowed!!"
Wiz shouted anxiously.
And it was not just Wiz. The adventurers who had been scared out of their wits earlier finally erupted with fighting spirit, along with their obsession with the Succubus Vouchers, after seeing the Destroyer take damage and even the usually gentle shopkeeper fighting with everything she had.
"Brothers! That giant tin can is bleeding! And by bleeding, I mean leaking oil! It's not invincible!!" Dust waved his longsword and led the charge toward the Destroyer's leg joints. "For the Full-Service Package! For Axel! Tear it apart and sell it for scrap!!"
"OOOOOOH! Tear it apart!!"
In an instant, countless low-level spells and arrows rained down on the Destroyer's damaged parts.
Each attack barely scratched it on its own, but with hundreds of people attacking at once, the Destroyer's autonomous defense system fell into brief chaos.
Kōichi stared at the exposed crimson core as the self-destruct program Wiz had mentioned earlier flashed through his mind.
"It's not over yet... If we can't get inside and stop the power reactor, the whole town is still finished once it overloads and self-destructs!"
Kōichi yanked the staff from his waist, his eyes locking onto the jagged breach Megumin had blown open.
"Darkness! Can you still move? Clear a path for me! I'm going inside that thing!!"
"No problem, Kōichi! A weight of this magnitude... is exactly the glory I bear as a Knight!"
Darkness let out a shout close to a roar. Her already cracked shield slammed hard against the Destroyer's lowered defensive cannon, and through the frenzied suppressive fire, she forced open a gap just wide enough for one person.
Kōichi glanced back at the others, who were still standing there in a daze, and snapped.
"Kazuma! Stop hugging Megumin and playing hero rescuing the damsel. Put her on your back! Aqua, stop sprinkling Holy Water at the air and get over here! Wiz, we need your teleportation magic and mana sensing!"
"W-Wait, wait, wait! I have to go in too? Into that dark, greasy place?!"
Aqua shrieked. She complained with all her might, but when she saw the Destroyer's cannon barrel about to spit fire, she scrambled and crawled behind Kōichi anyway.
Kazuma fastened the limp Megumin onto his back with a look of bitter resentment.
"Damn it! I knew nothing good would come from taking that black card! Are we going in there to die? We're definitely going in there to die, aren't we?!"
"Everyone, hold on to my hands!"
Wiz's expression grew grave as a vortex of dark purple magic swirled around her.
Kōichi leaped up and, with Darkness's shield giving him a boost, charged first toward the brutal fissure torn open by Explosion.
Immediately after that, Wiz activated a short-range [Teleport]. With a faint sensation of space twisting around them, the five of them, plus Megumin as extra baggage, vanished from the smoke-filled battlefield and plunged headfirst into the complicated steel labyrinth inside the Destroyer.
The space inside was far larger than expected, with pipes flickering in eerie red light and gears spinning wildly everywhere.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of scorched metal and the humming of overloaded magic.
"Cough, cough! This place is basically a giant microwave!" Kazuma complained while coughing. "Kōichi, which way now? If we don't hurry, we'll turn into fireworks over Axel along with this pile of scrap metal!"
Kōichi did not bother wiping the oil from his face. A faint light glowed at the tip of his staff.
"Wiz, sense the location of the power source! Aqua, be ready to purify any out-of-control magic conduits! Darkness, you're in charge of smashing through every automatic defense door in our way!"
"Leave it to me! This pressure of being surrounded by steel... Mm, I mean, this sense of duty is wonderful!"
Darkness's eyes shone as she charged toward the thick inner gate ahead like an out-of-control rhinoceros.
"The power source is at the end of this passage! But... the mana fluctuations there are extremely unstable!"
Wiz shouted while pointing toward the door deep ahead, which was glowing with blinding red light.
The group sprinted through the violently shaking steel passage as the Destroyer's self-defense machine guns swept wildly overhead. Amid flying sparks, this bizarre Party made up of a deadbeat, a Goddess, a pervert, a Lich, and a sadist charged toward the heart of the war machine at an unprecedented speed.
A thick ancient alloy door blocked their path. Its surface was densely etched with geometric patterns flowing with red light, and at the center sat an input panel that kept flashing and giving off rapid beeps.
The massive ancient alloy door did not budge in front of them, while the red warning lights reflected across everyone's tense, or completely broken, faces.
The geometric patterns on the door grew more glaring as the self-destruct countdown approached its end. The frantic beeping sounded like a death sentence.
"Damn it! It's an encrypted lock from ancient magical civilization!" Kazuma adjusted Megumin on his back and leaned closer to the panel. His usually nimble hands, the same hands he used to steal panties, were trembling slightly. "This thing is a hundred times more complicated than the Adventurers Guild mission board! Kōichi, I need time. At least ten minutes!"
"We don't even have ten seconds! Move. Let a professional handle this!"
Kōichi shoved Kazuma aside, then turned to Aqua, who was trying to curl up and hide behind him.
"Huh? Me? I can't do it! Just getting close to something that reeks of machine oil and evil machinery gives me goosebumps! Kōichi, you sadist! You're trying to get me electrocuted, aren't you?!"
Aqua shook her head desperately, tears gathering in her eyes.
"Aqua, listen to me." Kōichi put on an incredibly tender expression and placed both hands on her shoulders. "Who are you? You are Aqua-sama, the Goddess of Water, admired by countless people, blessed with both beauty and wisdom! How could some little ancient toy possibly stump you? With one flick of your finger, this door will open for you like it just saw its first love!"
"Huh? Really? Am I really that amazing?"
Aqua instantly stopped crying, and an extremely gullible look of smug satisfaction spread across her face.
"Hmph. Since you're begging me that much, I'll reluctantly show you a miracle! Watch closely! God Blow!!"
Aqua threw out a completely unrefined sacred punch. The panel gave a dull bang, sparks burst out, and smoke billowed up.
"Oh no! She short-circuited the control system!!"
Kazuma cried out in despair.
However, just as the door began shaking violently and giving off a piercing metallic screech, dozens of mechanical tentacles crackling with electricity suddenly extended from the ceiling of the passage. Clearly, they had triggered the highest-level self-defense system.
"Aaaah! They're here! It's one of those traps that ties people up and does this and that to them!"
Darkness let out a warped cry of alarm. Not only did she fail to dodge, she stepped straight to the front, spread her arms wide, and an unsettling blush rose across her face.
"Come! Direct every attack at me! Electric shocks, Bind, or some strange liquid... I-I can take it all!!"
"Hey! Could you be a little serious at a time like this?!"
Kōichi could not help kicking the passage wall.
"Wiz, forget the tentacles. Use your magic to forcibly interfere with the core! We're going in!!"
"Y-Yes! Kōichi-san!"
Wiz endured the tentacles' interference and released a dense purple-black light from both hands, pressing them directly against the cracked door.
"Open... up!!!"
With a screeching sound that set their teeth on edge, the alloy door, sturdy enough to withstand the aftershock of Explosion, was forcibly torn open into a huge hole.
The group tumbled into the core chamber like dumplings dropped into a pot. What appeared before them was an enormous Coronatite core, glowing red-hot, spinning wildly, and radiating an aura of destruction.