Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 5

by Fujino Omori, Kiyotaka Haimura

  “Gnnh!!”

  The trap monster responded immediately and started moving toward Lefiya, drawn in by the colossal source of magic.

  Their last stand had begun.

  The boy with his ax and the girl with her song.

  “Unleashed beam of light, limbs of the holy tree.”

  The moment Lefiya took off running, chant on her lips, the two tentacles gave chase.

  Bell, however, quickly closed in on the elephantine whips, reading the enemy’s movements and leaping forward to bash them from the side as they came in for their attack.

  He gave it everything he had, gritting his teeth as he chopped away, feet never faltering.

  “You are the master archer.”

  The trap monster had made one grave mistake.

  No, perhaps mistake wasn’t the proper word, for it had only allowed an innate weakness to be exposed.

  Its tendency to react immediately to any and all magic no matter the circumstances.

  Had the creature thought to focus its efforts on Bell, currently barely hanging on for dear life, rather than Lefiya and her chanting, the battle would have been over before it started. And once her human shield, Bell, was gone, Lefiya would be quick to follow.

  By acting as a decoy as she cast her spell, however, she allowed Bell plenty of time to execute his skills in complete safety.

  It was the same defensive method the Sword Princess had hammered into her—that she should deflect the enemy’s attacks to the side.

  Though Bell couldn’t hope to take that creature head-on, what with their difference in potential, he could sneak in some attacks so long as Lefiya distracted its tentacles. Again and again he gave chase, using his lightning-fast feet and mighty ax to forcibly direct the tentacles’ path away from the mage.

  It was a feat made possible only by both his evasive skills and Lefiya’s Concurrent Casting.

  There in that hole in the earth, the labors and toils of those two adventurers both trained by the same girl came together and bore fruit.

  “Loose your arrows, fairy archers—!”

  The words came between the relentless attacks.

  As she neared the end of her chant, her magic power rising sharply, the trap monster increased its efforts, throwing everything it had at the mage to stop her song.

  But Bell held it back, ax flying as he kept the two flailing tentacles in check.

  “Gnnngh!”

  He launched himself at the swinging tendril. Though his attack came from the side, the shock was still enough to send his body flying, mythril ax drawing an arc across the air as it sailed away.

  Still, however, he had managed to protect her.

  The strike that had previously been heading straight toward Lefiya instead grazed her long golden hair, colliding with the fleshy wall behind her.

  As the world shook with a ferocious tremor around her, Lefiya’s voice rose to meet the cacophony head-on.

  “—Pierce, arrow of accuracy!”

  The chant was complete.

  In the center of that great hole, directly below the trap monster, Lefiya thrust her staff to the sky.

  And in that moment, the red world around them shone a brilliant, vivid gold.

  She cried out the name of the spell, magic circle overtaking the entirety of the hole.

  “Arcs Ray!!”

  There was a burst of light.

  Then the gleaming flash shot straight upward at a blinding speed.

  The trap monster attempted to flee, withdrawing its tentacles and wedging itself into the passage above, but it was no use.

  Its fate was sealed.

  The phenomenal Mind built up within that single blast tore through its tentacles before landing a direct hit on the creature’s main body.

  “Gguuwwwwaahhh!!”

  Its lower half, partially assimilated into the wall itself, writhed and squirmed like a snake as the blinding flash propelled its body upward.

  Then, it collided with the lid of the hole, still closed tight above them, with an absolutely deafening crash.

  The pillar of light, however, was brought to a screeching halt.

  “It stopped the attack?!”

  The creature’s upper half remained with the stubs of its arms outstretched. The hole’s red lid was worn down from the incoming magic light but still very much intact. That thing had absorbed the brunt of the attack, keeping it from bursting through the top of the pitfall.

  Lefiya was shocked at what she was seeing.

  A strangely colored monster above their heads and its two-part body, each with its own separate function.

  An “adventurer’s prison” keeping them trapped.

  The lengths it took to keep their sole way out from being opened.

  And the specialized magic resistance it took to do so—

  Her thoughts ran wild at the attributes the creature must have possessed—attributes that made it every bit the “trap monster” it was.

  But Lefiya didn’t care. Lefiya didn’t care one single bit, her eyes flashing with a determined gleam.

  It was a competition between monster and magic—erupting with light.

  The creature’s greenish-yellow skin curled and burned as it absorbed the incoming magic, its scream of anguish swallowed up by the roar of her light blast. The magic stone at the tip of her Forest’s Teardrop glowed with a brilliant pale blue, infusing her spell with more and more of her Mind.

  As Lefiya increased her output, injecting everything she had into that beam of energy, the giant charred eye of the beast turned toward her in incensed fury.

  Not more than an instant later, the entire hole roared.

  “Wha—?!”

  The walls of flesh began to swell.

  Like tumors, almost, one after another, giant lumps began to billow out from the pink surface with a ghastly bubbling hiss, closing in on Lefiya from all four sides. They pushed the pool of acid with them, the liquid forming a wave that yanked and swirled at her feet.

  —It aims to crush us?!

  Knowing its own demise was only a matter of time, it had decided to take them down with it—by setting loose its own body.

  It would destroy itself, and the hole around them, crushing them in the process.

  Lefiya’s body grew hot. Blazingly hot. All the magic power she’d accumulated inside her in her attempt to blast the creature (and the lid) out of the way was now, all of a sudden, getting forced back onto her as the thing overhead let out a crazed roar of cataclysmic obliteration.

  The walls quickly swallowed up the carcasses of the other adventurers around them.

  Lefiya’s features contorted into something unrecognizable.

  When suddenly…

  Ching ching.

  “—Huh?”

  …an entirely out-of-place chime tickled her eardrums.

  Unable to resist, she turned around, only to see the boy, wounds and all, rising to his feet.

  His right hand glowed with a pale-white light, building and building as he summoned the particles to him.

  “…Gngh!”

  He was limping toward her, dragging his battered body as he waded through the pool of acid, already up to his knees.

  He didn’t stop until he was right next to her. Lefiya was still directing her magic skyward even through her shock, and then he extended his hand, glowing white ball joining her staff, still raised high.

  “I’ll…join you…!” He gritted his teeth, left hand coming up to support his wrist.

  His cannon was primed and ready, and Lefiya’s eyes widened before she turned her gaze upward.

  Together with the boy, she directed a glare of death at the enemy overhead—We’re not going down here!—before calling forth her magic power with everything she had.

  Her light gleamed brighter.

  Before being joined by the pure-white brilliance of the boy’s collected particles.

  A bell chimed.

  Then, twenty seconds later, he pulled the trigger.

&
nbsp; “Firebolt!!”

  The brilliant white light burst from his hand.

  “”

  The massive, crackling fire tore through the white particles.

  Above them, the trap monster’s body went white, bathed in the radiance of this second attack.

  And this time, as the two gleams overlapped, as the fiery lightning tore into the creature’s body, the imprisoning lid of the hole overhead shattered.

  The trap monster dissolved into the blinding flash, leaving no trace behind.

  “Gnh!!”

  As the monster’s agonizing death cry melded noiselessly into the din, the pillar of lightning shot all the way up toward the sky.

  It blasted through the crust of the earth, through the roof of trees, filling Lefiya’s eyes with the breathtaking view of the crystalline night sky overhead. The path had been opened.

  At the same time, the sheet of rock that made up the Dungeon’s floor convulsed with a mighty jolt as it began to collapse without the monster that had been parasitizing it.

  Lefiya picked up the spent boy’s body from the ground, bent her knees as far as they would bend, then leaped out of the hole.

  Her Level-3 leg strength propelling her up the great height, she sprang off the falling rocks to send her the rest of the way, escaping back into the Under Resort above.

  “What the hell was that—?!”

  “Is that magic?!”

  The two Amazons shouted as all of Loki Familia sprang to its feet.

  The sudden beacon of light that shot out of the forest quickly drew the attention of everyone on the eighteenth floor.

  The single column of radiant light was visible from the great tree in the center of the plains, from Rivira on its island in the lake, and even from Loki Familia’s camp.

  The group was just finishing up their dinner when the spectacle unfolded, Tiona’s and Tione’s shouts leading them to leap into the trees for a better view.

  As the brilliant white flash of entangled beams struck the crystal-coated ceiling, the resulting explosion sent the monsters below it into a frenzy. The cacophonous array of frightened squawks echoed all throughout the eighteenth floor.

  “It came from the forest…to the east? What’s over there?” Tione murmured beneath her breath.

  “You don’t think it could be Lefiya…do you?” Tiona posed as her eyes scanned the scene from above. She saw Finn and the other elites emerge from their tent, eyes narrowing at the giant column of light; she saw Loki Familia’s lower-level members bustling and clamoring; and she even saw Hestia and the others in her group, dumbfounded as to what was going on, but nowhere in all that commotion did she see Lefiya.

  And certainly, that kind of magic power did seem compatible with the elven mage.

  In fact, she was the first person who came to mind, especially given how they hadn’t seen her since she’d run off chasing that white-haired boy not too long ago.

  “Ngh!”

  All these thoughts flying around her mind, Aiz suddenly took off, dashing from the camp without warning.

  “Huh? Aiz!!”

  But Tiona’s voice fell on deaf ears. The swordswoman was already well out of sight.

  The pillar of light had faded. In its place, giant chunks of crystal fell from the ceiling like glimmering blue rain.

  It was toward the source of that crystal rain that Aiz ran—her sword at the ready.

  Smoke billowed upward in great, heavy clouds.

  Deep within that mighty forest, it looked almost as though lightning had struck.

  Many of the crystal pillars that had made up the stone circle were cracked or toppled to the side, evidence of the terrific shock that had shaken the earth around them. Directly above the scene, hidden by the forest’s mesh of trees and branches, a giant round hole had formed in the ceiling, one crystalline chunk after another dropping to the ground below and shattering like glass.

  “Haah…haah…Hey, are you all right?!”

  “…Y-yeah…”

  They were pressed shoulder to shoulder, breath haggard as the blue-crystal snow fell down around them.

  Having barely escaped with their lives, they were now kneeling down in the grass a short distance from the collapsed hole. Though both appeared considerably worse for wear, the boy’s body was more visibly fatigued than Lefiya’s, the mage still having some fight left in her despite her ragged breathing.

  That final attack had seemingly consumed the last of Bell’s strength, and his wounds were many—the reopened gash on the back of his head, as well as the burns all over his skin from its exposure to the acid. In fact, the only part of him not charred was his salamander-wool linens, still remarkably unscathed.

  Lefiya had left her pouch of potions back at camp—an apparent lapse of judgment on her part—so she had no choice but to simply hoist the boy up by his shoulder and attempt to drag him away.

  “What’s going on here?!”

  It was then that the voice called out from behind her.

  She turned around with a start, only to see a pair of men racing out of the forest toward her from the direction of the Dungeon’s easternmost wall. They wore large robes, head protectors adorning their foreheads, and hoods covering the better part of their faces. It was the very same Evils associates Lefiya and Bell had been trailing before they’d gotten into this mess.

  As they caught sight of Lefiya and Bell in the middle of the crumbling Crystal Grove, their surprise was evident.

  “Thousand Elf? Then you’re…Loki Familia?!”

  “You defeated Venenthes?!”

  It didn’t take more than a single look for them to ascertain the situation—that the two adventurers had followed them, fallen into their trap, and then taken down the trap monster waiting for them inside.

  Their surprise turned quickly to irritation, scowls tangible even from within their heavy robes.

  “Damn you…! Quickly! Release the violas!” the more emphatic of the two shouted, and his partner dived into the nearby brush.

  The situation could not have gotten any worse. Someone somewhere was laughing at them. Even Bell had tensed next to her. The dire turn their escape had taken was obvious.

  As if on cue, one greenish tentacle after another began poking itself out of the surrounding greenery, crawling toward them fast.

  “Hngh…?!”

  Lefiya heard the metallic sound of first one cage, then another, then another being opened, and soon, she and Bell were completely surrounded. Their faces paled at the circle of carnivorous flowers caging them in.

  There were so many of them. Ten, at least.

  They lifted their great crooked necks, tentacles writhing and squirming like snakes and effectively cutting off their every escape route.

  “This is where you die, adventurer scum!” shouted the robed figures as they quickly vacated the premises to keep from getting caught up in the mix. The moment they left, the violas opened their buds in sync, revealing their vibrantly colored petals and ghastly jaws.

  Heaping gobs of saliva dripped from their fangs onto the scattered bits of crystal littering the grass below.

  “Gnngh…?!”

  Lefiya was already well past spent from their earlier fight against the trap monster, and she still had Bell to worry about. The boy was scarcely able to move next to her.

  The situation was truly dire, to the point where her own life was starting to flash before her eyes.

  If she could just get Bell away from here. Somehow. She was the one who’d gotten him mixed up in this, after all.

  She made the decision right then and there that she wasn’t going to go down quietly.

  As the ring of man-eating flowers slowly closed in on her, liable to pounce at a moment’s notice, she tightened her grip on her beloved staff, still holding Bell aloft to her side.

  “—Uuuuuuoooooooooooowwwwwwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!”

  One of the flowers roared, preparing to launch itself upon them.

  Until a sudden whirling storm howl
ed its way onto the battlefield.

  “Gwwuooogh?!”

  “—What?!”

  The flower was cut off mid-leap, quickly mowed down by the gale and flying sideways into the surrounding flowers.

  One thunderous boom after another shook the environs. Lefiya and Bell could only look on in stupefied wonder, still primed and ready for their own attacks, as this new assailant landed on the ground in front of them.

  —Miss Aiz?

  But no, the figure that appeared before them was not Lefiya’s beloved swordswoman—but a long-caped figure, fabric rustling in the storm’s wake.

  “I thought I heard something…Are these the new species?”

  The figure wore lightweight battle clothes, a long wooden sword readied in their right hand.

  Their face was completely obscured within the deep recesses of their hood.

  As this lone adventurer stood with their back to them, protecting them from the bright green threat, Lefiya’s pupils dilated in surprise.

  Lefiya was sure she’d seen this person before. Last night. Among those in the rescue party—

  “—The masked…adventurer?”

  Her lips parted with the words just as Bell, next to her, spoke up with a raspy voice.

  “Miss Lyu…”

  Their reinforcement, who’d dashed in gallantly to save them, now stood facing the swarm of carnivorous flowers head-on, an impenetrable fortress.

  She flourished her wooden sword, the same one that had sent the mighty creatures flying only moments earlier, with a warrior’s will.

  “Don’t move, elf. Stay there with Mister Cranell.” The voice that called out to her was authoritative, awe-inspiring, and Lefiya quickly nodded.

  “O-okay!”

  No sooner had the words left her lips than the wind picked up with a sudden whoosh.

  The figure was gone in an instant, kicking off the ground with an audible slash that cut through the grass—the flower that had been in front of her bucked.

  With that single wooden sword, she sent the colossal beast flying, the same as she had earlier. Lefiya didn’t even have time to act surprised. The masked adventurer drew a giant circle with her sword that uprooted every single one of the flowers in her immediate surroundings. The resulting crystal-clear sheeeen rang in her ears.