They crossed the threshold of the stone archway, and the muddy, emerald-green field instantly vanished. They were now standing on a polished stone floor inside a massive, dimly lit subterranean cavern. The air was cool and smelled of ancient dust and a faint, sweet perfume.
In the center of the cavern, guarding a massive, ornate exit door, stood a figure of imposing, yet somehow tragic, elegance.
It was a Dullahan. A headless knight in gleaming black armor, mounted atop a coal-black warhorse. He held his own severed head under his arm, his brilliant red eyes fixed upon the newcomers.
Kazuma, seeing the familiar figure from his world, immediately groaned and slapped his forehead. "Oh, it's her. Of course it's her. This is why I hate my life!"
"A headless knight, a high-grade undead," Jin-Woo assessed, his hands already hovering over his shadows. "A single, powerful target. This is much better than the horde. Igris, prepare for interception."
"Wait! Don't attack!" Kazuma shrieked, scrambling forward and holding his hands up. "She's immune to all physical attacks below a certain threshold, and high-level holy magic! Jin-Woo-san, your shadows will just turn into ash! Gojo-san, your Cursed Energy will just make her angrier!"
"Immunity? To all my Cursed Energy?" Gojo was insulted. "That's a ridiculous concept! Let me test it." He aimed a controlled, non-lethal pulse of Cursed Energy at the Dullahan's foot.
The energy struck the black armor and dissipated instantly, having zero effect.
The Dullahan, however, let out a deep, sonorous sigh. Its voice was rich and female, echoing slightly in the chamber.
"I am the General of the Demon King's Army, Verdia. And I am tired of this petty world's rules. I am sick of being immune to powerful attacks only to be instantly destroyed by a single, low-level purification spell. Now, if you are adventurers, I must inform you that this land... will be my castle! Leave at once!"
"See! She talks! You can't just kill her!" Kazuma hissed to his teammates. "She's also obsessed with drama and giving long speeches! That's her weakness! Boring her to death!"
Saitama, who had been leaning against the cave wall, stepped forward. "Hey, lady. We don't care about your castle. We just need to go through that door."
Verdia, taken aback by the casual bluntness, adjusted the head under her arm. "Hmph. You... you lack decorum. Very well. If you refuse to leave, I shall use my ultimate ability! My ultimate, dramatic challenge! You have twenty-four hours to find my only known weakness: a powerful purification spell! Fail, and I will unleash a fearsome, debilitating Curse on this town!"
"Curse?" Gojo instantly regained his focus. "She can cast a genuine Curse? That's interesting. I'll analyze it."
"No, no, no!" Kazuma groaned, grabbing Gojo's arm. "It's a countdown! She always gives a dramatic countdown! It's just long enough for us to accidentally find a high-level Priest to defeat her! This is the most frustrating, predictable thing in the entire universe!"
"And why would she do that?" Tanjiro asked, confused by the strange logic.
"Because she's obsessed with the idea of a long, drawn-out battle against a powerful hero! She hates being instantly defeated, so she gives the hero time to train!" Kazuma explained, tears of exasperation welling up.
Jin-Woo stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the Dullahan's head. "Her ability is a powerful, persistent, area-of-effect Curse. The damage is real, regardless of her self-imposed rules."
"Precisely!" Verdia declared, pleased to be taken seriously. "And since you are not leaving, I shall demonstrate my power! Observe, pitiful adventurers!"
Verdia lifted her head, and a wave of purple, noxious mist rolled out, blanketing the cavern.
"This is the Curse of the General! Bane of the Living! Now, you will all know true despair!"
The reaction to the curse was immediate, and deeply confusing.
Gojo, protected by his Infinity, felt nothing. "It's a nasty curse, highly saturated Cursed Energy. But it's easily bypassed."
Jin-Woo, protected by the Shadow Monarch's Authority, also felt nothing. He dismissed the mist with a cold wave of his hand. "Pathetic."
Tanjiro gasped, dropping into a protective crouch. "The scent! It's vile! It's pure malice! But... my body is fighting it! Total Concentration, Constant!" His enhanced metabolism was already burning the toxins away.
Okarun, terrified but shielded by the high-speed movements of his possession, felt a dizzying headache. "It's... it's like a really bad alien fever! I hate this!"
But the worst reaction came from Saitama. The hero stood in the center of the mist, rubbing his elbow.
"Huh? I think my skin got a little dry. Is that it?" Saitama asked, looking mildly disappointed. "I was expecting something big. Like maybe it would turn me into a frog. But my skin just feels kinda itchy."
And then, there was Kazuma.
"M-my Luck skill... it's doing something terrible!" Kazuma whimpered, clutching his stomach. He didn't feel pain. He felt wrong. "I'm not dying... I'm just... feeling really, really unlucky!"
Suddenly, the strap of his knapsack snapped, scattering his precious collection of Giant Toad Tongues across the dusty floor. He slipped on a tongue, fell backward, and landed directly in a pile of Verdia's horse's waste.
"AIEEE! IT'S WORKING! IT'S THE LOW-CONCEPT CURSE! IT DOESN'T KILL YOU, IT JUST MAKES YOUR DAY WORSE!" Kazuma wailed, trying to scrub the manure off his face.
Verdia, watching the spectacle—her powerful Curse of Despair causing the Bald One to itch, the Shadow Monarch to scoff, and the Weakest Entity to slip on a toad tongue and land in dung—was utterly baffled.
"What... what manner of hero are you?!" Verdia cried, mortified. "You mocked my dignity! You are immune to the grand scale of my despair, yet suffer the pettiest of inconveniences! This is an outrage!"
Saitama walked toward the Dullahan, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the entire performance. "We don't have twenty-four hours. We have about four minutes until the Arbiter gets bored. Can you just open the door?"
Verdia, enraged by the lack of respect for her dramatic timing, lifted her head high. "Silence! I will not be dismissed by such a base hero! If you will not accept my twenty-four hour duel, then face this! The True Power of the General!"
Verdia aimed her hand at Saitama and unleashed the full power of her magical attack: a concentrated blast of pure, low-level magical energy. "General's Blast!"
The blast was powerful enough to level a small house and kill any normal human. Saitama didn't bother dodging. He merely stood there.
The General's Blast hit Saitama directly in the chest.
It did not hurt him. It did not move him. It did, however, completely vaporize the yellow cape of his Hero suit, leaving the back of his outfit scorched black.
Saitama looked down at his ruined cape, then slowly, very slowly, back up at the Dullahan.
"That was a nice cape," Saitama said, his voice flat. His eyes, usually dead and bored, held a dangerous flicker of genuine anger. "I only have three of them."
Verdia, the powerful General, saw the sudden shift in the bald man's demeanor. The overwhelming, crushing presence of his power—the infinite potential he'd been carefully holding back—suddenly burst forth. It was not anger, not malice, but the sheer, absolute gravity of a being that could crush worlds.
She didn't run. She didn't fight. She was a General obsessed with the rules of battle, and she had just committed a fashion crime against the universe's ultimate power source.
Verdia immediately lowered her head in a full, panicked bow, the horse following suit.