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CHAPTER 207: STORING AWAY

CHAPTER 207: STORING AWAY

~ Aun’s Point of View ~

— A few minutes ago —

Just before Ruzarc arrived at the throne room, Drake and Cherry had arrived at the Forbidden Library alongside me.

Under Ruzarc’s instructions, the work of dismantling the bomb had been completed up to the point of disabling the wiretap, and they were currently in the middle of the process of removing it from the pillar it was attached to.

It would be extremely difficult to completely defuse the bomb without Ruzarc being present, and there was not that much time left. But if we could just remove it from where it was attached to, the range of our options that we had at our disposal would increase tremendously.

「Boss, do you think we will make it in time?」

「If we don’t manage to remove this thing from the pillar, we will be buried alive along with the entire castle.」

「Aun-sama, isn’t that really dangerous!?」

「Yeah, that’s right. I don’t know exactly how powerful the bomb is, but if this castle collapses, we will all be engulfed in a pretty violent mass. Even if we put up a defensive barrier with all our might, we won’t be able to get out of here scott free.」

「I…… I’m still not good at erecting defensive barriers……」

「In the worst case scenario, Drake can surely protect you, Cherry. I will focus on this bomb.」

「Okay! By the way…… It should be fine to remove this, right? But what are we going to do after that?」

「Hmm, wait a minute, it’s almost……」

As I was carefully removing the last belt connecting the pillar to the bomb, I received a telepathic message from Mare, who was heading towards the throne room alongside Ruzarc.

(Aun-sama…… the assassins hiding in the throne room…… I have dealt with them all.)

(So, it was a trap after all. Well done, Mare!)

(Thank you very much. But, the thing is…… Prince Ferdinand managed to press the bomb’s activation switch.)

(…… Wait, what? Seriously?)

(Yes, unfortunately, it is true. There are thirty seconds left until it explodes.)

Just tThen, a clicking sound started to be heard from the inside of the bomb right in front of me.

「Damn it! Fernando activated the bomb!」

「W-What!? W-Well, isn’t that bad!? It IS really bad, isn’t it?!!???」

「Calm down, Cherry! Just trust our Boss and everything will be fine!」

「R-Right!」

It was impossible to count time calmly in this situation, but I think it was safe to assume that this regular sound was being emitted at one-second intervals.

「Drake! Start counting just how many times you hear this ticking sound!」

「On it! By the way, it’s the fifth time now!」

My impatience was becoming more and more evident in the movements of my fingertips. My fingers were starting to shake a little bit and I could not remove the belt properly, no matter how hard I would try……

Should I have allocated some more Skill Points into stats such as Dexterity Skill if I knew that things were going to become like this!?

「Ten, eleven, twelve……」

I was so grateful that Drake was actually counting properly right now.

However, even though it was me who asked him to do it, it only made me feel more and more impatient.

「Eighteen, nineteen, twenty!」

If the count here was actually accurate, there was only ten seconds left for us!

Ah! Geez!

At this point…… Since the countdown has already started…… It shouldn’t be that much of a problem if I am going to be a little bit rough with it……! At least I think so!

「Twenty one, twenty two……!」

「WHOAAAA THERE!!!!!!」

— BRBRBRBRBRBR!!!!!!

Grabbing the bomb with both of my hands, I tore the belt off from the pillar with all of my might.

Cherry, who was currently glancing sideways, was frozen with her eyes wide open and her mouth wide agape.

But Drake, aren’t you forgetting about something important here!? You forgot to count!

— CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

Alright now! If I had only removed the belt from the pillar, it seemed that it was not nearly enough to make the bomb detonate right away! Now all that was left for us was to actually do something about the bomb itself and……

「B-But this is…… What are you going to do with it, Boss!?」

「Come on, everything is going to be just fine! Trust me!」

The bomb was currently in my right hand and it would continue to make those regular clicking noises.

So I hurriedly procured my Magic Bag and I threw the bomb inside of it without even thinking too much about what I was doing.

「W-What theeeeee!?」

「W-wait a second!! B-Boss!?」

Drake managed to count up to twenty two seconds, and then I heard three clicking noises right after that.

That meant that about twenty five seconds had passed since Fernando pressed the detonation’s switch.

If the bomb would not explode after the remaining five seconds were over, it would mean that my guess here was actually correct. Honestly, it was going to be quite a gamble on our end, but……

Three…….

Two……

One……

Zero!!

「…… Five seconds have already passed, right?」

「Y-Yeah…… And it doesn’t seem as if the bomb was going to explode.」

「Phew! …… Ahhh, geez, give me a break! And I was so worried!」

「W-We are still alive……? Oh gosh, I almost ended up peeing my pants there……」

Taking a deep breath, the tense atmosphere relaxed all at once.

Cherry and Drake sat down on the floor, as if their legs had relaxed and gave out under the weight of their bodies.

「Boss, what did you mean by that?」

「Hmm, where should I even start with the explanation…… You can put anything in a Magic Bag that isn’t a living thing, right? And a while ago when I was sorting through the contents of my own Magic Bag, I noticed that the large amount of orc meat I put in there over six months ago had not aged and rotted away at all.」

「So that means……」

「Yeah, there was good chance that the passage of time actually stops inside of it…… that the inside of the Magic Bag is actually static.」

「Huh? But…… That’s not the case with regular Magic Bags, right?」

「Yeah, you are probably right. My Magic Bag IS kind of special, right? I mean, it’s of the red rarity and all that.」

「Huh?! Your Magic Bag is of red rarity, Boss!? C-Could it be……!?」

「I think it was around the time I became the Dungeon Master of Forenoir. When I first acquired the Skill “Eye for Appraisal”, I appraised it and it turned out to be red.」

「That’s so awesome……」

「But there’s actually a problem with that.」

「Oh, I see! The bomb is going to pretty much explode when you try and take it out of there!」

「Yeah, that’s right. If I was counting the seconds correctly there, then I will have about five seconds to do so, but it’s impossible to dismantle it in five seconds, so…… Hmm, oh well!」

「That doesn’t seem like such a good idea though……」

It’s been about a minute since I put the bomb in the Magic Bag, and it has not exploded yet, so it should be fine! As long as it doesn’t explode, I can just leave it in storage forever!

Anyway, what happened to Ruzarc and Fernando? I will try telepathically communicating with Ruzarc for now.