Chapter 73: Golza!
Just then, the figure in his arms stirred.
Urushihara Michiyo groggily opened her eyes.
First came confusion. Then, upon seeing Kazama's completely unfamiliar face, her social anxiety instincts exploded instantly. She recoiled like a startled rabbit.
"Ah—!"
Her social anxiety radar activated immediately.
For Michiyo, waking up in a strange man's arms was a scenario with a terror level second only to being called on by a teacher to give a presentation in front of the class.
"Don't move."
Kazama's hands shot out to hold her shoulders in place, preventing her from burning herself.
"Your teacher asked me to rescue you. You're Urushihara Michiyo, right?"
He didn't mention what the teacher's name was (because he didn't know it himself), so to avoid misunderstandings, he directly called out the girl's full name.
Sure enough, hearing her own name, Michiyo froze. The muscles tensed from fear relaxed slightly.
For someone with social anxiety, having a complete stranger accurately call out your full name felt as shameful and terrifying as being stripped naked and thrown into the street.
She carefully raised her head. Those beautiful large eyes still contained tears as she examined this big brother who knew her name, like a frightened fawn.
The teacher... called for him?
"Where's the teacher?"
"She took the others and ran ahead."
Michiyo reached out and gently tugged at the corner of Kazama's shirt, like grasping the only lifeline available.
"Then, big brother... let's leave quickly too..."
"Wait a moment. I still have something I need to retrieve."
Kazama kept his spiritual vision active, staring at the center of that lava lake.
That enormous magic source was right beneath this—but the problem was how to get his hands on it.
Just as Kazama was formulating a plan...
Michiyo's voice suddenly became urgent, as if sensing something. Her expression changed drastically.
"Um... big brother... we need to run..."
Kazama was somewhat puzzled. Thinking she was afraid the villagers would chase them, he reassured her that those people had already been dealt with.
"What's wrong? You don't need to be afraid. Those villagers won't dare chase us here."
"No! Not from outside!"
Michiyo was so anxious that tears fell. She shook her head desperately, that pink ahoge hair wildly swinging about. She pointed toward what appeared to be the calm darkness ahead.
"Here... there's something here... really big... something really scary... it's watching us..."
"Something? Where?"
Kazama frowned.
He'd just scanned with spiritual vision. Aside from the absurdly strong magic reaction, there was no sign of any living creature in this lava.
Besides, this was just a massive underground lava lake. What could possibly be here?
Had the heat made her delirious and caused hallucinations?
"No... there really is..."
Tears immediately streamed down Michiyo's face.
She desperately shrank backward against Kazama, as if sensing some extreme terror.
"It woke up... it's watching us..."
"Watching us?"
Kazama paused for a moment and followed Michiyo's horrified gaze.
That massive lava lake was eerily calm.
But at this very moment, a large chunk of rock in the lake's center suddenly moved.
The rock slowly floated upward, bringing with it cascading waterfalls of lava.
That wasn't a rock at all!
It was a thick, armor-like eyelid.
The next second, the eyelid opened.
A gigantic yellow eyeball the size of a swimming pool was exposed to Kazama's vision without any warning whatsoever.
The pupil was vertical. Fire reflected within it, along with the tiny figures of Kazama and Michiyo.
Kazama Chiba stared at that eye larger than his entire body, along with the massive form hidden beneath the lava that was slowly rising to its feet. The muscles in his face twitched violently.
He finally understood why this place was so unbearably hot.
"Son of a—Golza! So this bastard didn't get killed by Tiga after all?!"
The newly awakened Golza clearly had severe waking-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed syndrome. Without any warning whatsoever, it raised its hand in a devastating smash.
Kazama's reaction was also extremely fast. He instantly activated The Time card to stop time.
"Za Warudo (The World)!"
A gray domain exploded outward with him at the center.
Golza, who'd been raising its giant claw to swat them like mosquitoes, froze mid-motion in the air.
Splashing lava hung suspended in midair like countless frozen rubies.
But this time stop came at a price—it completely drained what little magic power he had remaining.
Kazama felt like someone had driven an awl viciously into his brain.
"Out of mana."
He didn't even have time to complain. He grabbed Urushihara Michiyo and shot toward the nearest rocky depression like a cannonball being fired.
Just as they rolled out of that death radius in the next second...
Time resumed its flow.
"BOOM—!!"
That mountain-sized giant claw slammed down viciously on the platform where they'd just been standing.
The hard obsidian shattered like a fragile cookie into powder.
The terrifying shockwave mixed with scorching heat waves turned the already small underground space completely upside down.
If they'd still been standing there, they'd probably have become two-dimensional beings by now.
But this was only the beginning.
"ROOOAAR—!!"
Having missed with one strike, Golza apparently didn't have the patience to hunt down those two escaped little insects.
Those murky eyes looked upward. There was the scent of fresh air there, along with the presence of more living flesh and blood.
It roared and drove both claws like two heavy excavators viciously into the rock layer above its head.
"RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—"
Mountains collapsed and the earth split apart. The ground shook violently.
The entire underground cavern collapsed along with it. Stones weighing tons fell like rain.
Kazama squeezed out the last bit of magic power and used wind to prop up an airflow shield, blocking the cascading debris.
His vision rapidly darkened.
When the last massive boulder fell and sealed off all escape routes, this cramped space had completely become a living tomb.
...
Above ground.
The shrine's cave entrance completely collapsed with a deafening roar.
Smoke and dust shot skyward, obscuring what had been a clear autumn afternoon.
"Drive! Now!!"
The female teacher on the bus, seeing the collapsing mountainside, couldn't afford to grieve. She could only order the driver to immediately flee.
The driver, already scared out of his wits, slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The bus roared like a startled buffalo and charged up the mountain road.
Just as they'd driven several hundred meters away...
A massive head covered in hard armor burst through the thick mountain surface and slowly emerged.
This behemoth standing over sixty meters tall bathed in sunlight, shaking off the dirt and rubble from its body.
Golza looked down at the tiny village at its feet and released a roar declaring its freedom toward the prison that had confined it for hundreds of years.
The sonic waves shattered the windows of all surrounding buildings.
"God... Mountain God-sama..."