Bell blinked once, twice, then gave her a somewhat awkward, somewhat sheepish grin.
Lefiya, in turn, jerked her head away with a harrumph, attempting to disguise her own embarrassment.
“…”
Aiz stared at them in silence, jaw slack.
“You two…are getting along now?”
“What?!” Lefiya practically screamed, whirling around. “Y-you have it all wrong, Miss Aiz! Truly! T-to think something like that would ever happen in the history of the entire world would…would…!”
“Ha-ha-ha…” Bell laughed, a smile rising to his face.
“Yooooooooooooooou! Stop that right now! Tell her! Tell Miss Aiz that she is utterly incorrect in her assumption!!”
“Yep, you’re getting along now…”
“No, it’s—Miss Aiz! Listen to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”
But Lefiya could only wail in vain as Bell feigned laughter at her beloved swordswoman’s entirely off-base observation, the swordswoman herself nodding in her own self-directed affirmation.
Far up above them, the crystalline night sky glittered as it watched over their return.
INTERLUDE
FLIP SIDE OF THE STAGE
The crystals growing from the Dungeon floor glimmered with a hazy, surreal blue glow.
Deep, deep in the forest, they shed their light at the floor’s easternmost tip.
And from within those mighty crystals, towering among the trees, a cry of anguish reverberated against their glistening surfaces.
There were two of them, gasping for breath. Above them, a figure stood with small tachi unsheathed, shrouded in darkness as their long cape fluttered in a nonexistent breeze.
Blood dripped from the silver blade’s gleaming edge.
“Now then, there are a few things I’d like to ask the both of you,” the adventurer began in a low voice, her face hidden deep within her hood as she looked down upon the two figures on the ground.
The two men were currently lying crumpled at her feet.
It was the same two Evils associates who had sicced the swarm of violas on Lefiya and Bell earlier.
The young human and elf, now laid bare of their forehead protectors and hoods, trembled with fear as the cerulean eyes of the masked adventurer cut into them with an icy glare.
“Were you the ones who released that monster here? And if so, what are you trying to attain?” The girl’s voice was cold, calculating, entirely unbefitting the adventurer who’d only a short while ago been healing her fellow elf and white-haired companion.
Bright-red splatters of blood dotted the surrounding greenery. Her weapon had cut them down to the bone, slicing through muscle and sinew and rendering them incapable of movement.
She’d gone after them the moment she’d left Lefiya and Bell, mostly due to her concern regarding the new monster species she’d fought earlier but also due to the twinge of doubt she just couldn’t shake off.
This grand forest was like her playground, after all.
She knew where the white flowers grew, flowers she offered to the graves of her fallen comrades. She even knew where the wild fruit grew. She knew the forest so well, in fact, that the moment she’d given chase after the two men below her, their fate had already been sealed.
“Gwahh…!” the man on the ground groaned, his robes wide open to reveal the countless crimson pellets lining his body—firestones, to be used for his own self-destruction.
Neither one of them had been granted poison capsules in their teeth. Even if they were to attempt to cut their own lives short, the only way out was fire—otherwise, the hieroglyphics on their backs, the Falna that would reveal both their true names and the name of their patron deity, could be revealed with a Status Thief.
Knowing all this, the masked adventurer made no attempt to stuff their mouths.
She held their lives—and their deaths—firmly in the grip of her hand, words callous as they hissed between her teeth. “I’ve seen these…self-immolation tools of yours before.” Her eyes narrowed, voice lowering further still. “They stole the lives of one of my comrades,” she spit out. “You’re survivors of that…familia, then? The ‘Evils,’ as they call themselves?”
The air ran thick with her hatred.
Down on the ground, the two men could do nothing but tremble, the elf’s pure, unadulterated contempt pressing down on them from all sides.
They cowered like frightened rats, sweat pouring off them in rivers, and the thickset human, at least, seemed to have lost control of his bowels.
“If you don’t start talking, I’ll have to defile those backs of yours. And if I find you’re colluding with some kind of nefarious deity, I’ll have no choice but to wipe you off the face of this earth.”
“P-please, no! I-I’m begging you!!” the human suddenly screamed, no longer able to hold it in. He desperately attempted to put distance between himself and the demon in elf’s clothing staring murderously down at him, but she quickly put a stop to his retreat.
The male elf, on the other hand…simply watched his companion struggle and writhe with a tight-lipped laugh.
“Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha…”
“Is something funny?”
“Y-your eyes. I can tell from your eyes. You seek revenge…and you won’t stop until you’ve achieved it.” Another laugh. “You’re just like me.”
It was a laugh of scorn. Of pity. And as the masked adventurer looked down at the elf and his derisive gaze, her eyes narrowed to slits.
“Nameless kin of mine, do you not, too, wish to lay your eyes once more upon those whom you’ve loved…those whom you’ve lost to the cruel reality of death?”
“You cannot bring back the dead.”
“And yet such a meeting exists within the realms of possibility.”
“What are you talking about?”
The elf continued to laugh, his gleeful snickering forming a network of creases in the girl’s brow. His human companion, on the other hand, remained crouched in terror, staring at the elf with a look of sheer disbelief.
Perhaps he took pity on her—an elf like himself, with a similar history. Whatever the reason, he continued in a tremulous whisper as he spoke of the unspeakable.
“Swear your allegiance to our master. Then you, too, shall—”
Suddenly—
—a brilliant flash of silver light shot toward them from straight overhead.
In a show of breathtaking quickness, the masked adventurer leaped out of the way, dodging the attack meant for her. The same could not be said for the two men, however, the knives plunging deep into their necks.
“Ghu…ah…?”
“Wha?”
The girl’s eyes widened as blood sprayed from their lips.
One after another, the dark projectiles came hurtling through the air. Quickly distancing herself from the two men, she waited and watched for the second wave that was sure to come.
She watched for a further moment as blood gurgled out from the fresh holes in the men’s necks—they wouldn’t be telling her anything else, that was for sure—then checked behind her to see the source of the incoming blades.
Her eyes caught sight of a hooded purplish-blue robe among the rustling upper branches.
But she couldn’t identify its owner, a strangely patterned mask obscuring the figure’s face.
“Evils scum…Nothing but incompetent fools keen on making nuisances of themselves.”
The voice from beneath its mask was spine-tingingly disquieting, almost as though multiple people were speaking at the same time.
One metal-gloved hand disappeared into the robes before reemerging with a brilliant red magic sword.
“—”
All of a sudden, time slowed down to a crawl.
The figure’s sword moved. It was so fast, she could barely see it let alone react to it.
The glowing ball of flames it launched swallowed up the two Evils associates, dying breaths and all.
“Gnngh—?!”
S
he leaped back just in time, cape fluttering, before the resulting explosion lit up the sky.
The fireball had set off the firestones lining the two men’s robes.
Barely managing to escape the blast zone, she stood back and scrutinized the scene of carnage in front of her. The gouged earth; the blazing grasses; and the charred, shredded bodies of the two men in its midst. All around her, the nauseating stench of burned flesh saturated the air.
She looked toward the branches above, but the masked figure was already gone.
“…”
So much for getting any information. Her one source had been effectively snuffed out.
They got me good, she thought with frustration.
A sigh passing her lips, she quickly scanned the perimeter. Fortunately, the massive crystals surrounding the area were keeping the flames fairly well contained, stopping the fire from spreading farther into the forest. She made her way toward the center of the blast, smoke and embers whirling around her.
It would be of no use to search the men’s bodies. The firestones had done their job well—one could barely tell the flaming remains were even human. Various body parts lay strewn about, crackling and smoking and entirely unrecognizable.
With one last pitying glance, she prepared to make herself scarce.
“…?”
Until a sudden glint stopped her in her tracks.
Walking over to a nearby bit of brush, she stooped down to pick up the source of the tiny light.
“What’s this…?”
It had belonged to the two men, no doubt. Though that would mean it was considerably resilient. Had it been tossed over here during the explosion?
Bits of it were, indeed, charred, but its general shape and structure remained intact.
It was an ingot of human construction, big enough to rest comfortably in her palm.
A strange red orb, like an eye, almost, was inlaid within its body, and what appeared to be a letter D had been carved into its surface, resembling neither Koine script nor the hieroglyphics of the gods.
“…Some kind of magic item?” she murmured to herself, voice heavy with doubt.
Then, tucking the stone away inside her robes, she disappeared into the night.
“We couldn’t find anything, Lefiya.”
Finn spoke as the white crystalline light of “morning” shone down across the eighteenth floor. Most of Loki Familia’s members were scouring the forest in search of clues when he approached the young mage, his words earning him a look of bewilderment.
“But that’s…”
It had been less than twenty-four hours since their battle in that pit.
Upon Lefiya’s relay of the events, Finn had ordered a large-scale search of the eastern part of the forest. He’d had faith in her theory—that the two Evils associates must have been protecting something, hiding something, if it justified going so far as to install that trap monster, the “Guardian of the Forest.”
And yet, the results were just as Finn had said.
No matter how much they combed the massive forest in increasingly larger circles, they discovered absolutely nothing—not a stone out of place nor a trace of questionable goings-on.
Lefiya, now recovered after a night’s rest, could only look out across the surrounding forest and at her weary companions in confusion.
“B-but…but Captain, we…we truly did fight for our lives against that brightly colored monster!”
“I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. I actually believe your theory is correct. You don’t need to produce the hole itself for you to persuade me,” the prum commander responded as he surveyed the ground in front of them, where traces of Lefiya’s and Bell’s magic scarred the land. The mess made it look almost as if the very stone itself had split and crumbled.
All around them, large pieces of crystal lay scattered about, broken off from their toppled pillars. Already, however, new crystal columns were poking out of the ground to take their place, the stone circle regenerating itself. It would seem the Dungeon’s restorative properties were especially swift in this region.
Finn narrowed his pool-like green eyes, long Durandal spear in hand. “There was something here…and perhaps it yet remains.”
“…”
“If it’s the latter, however, it’s not anything we’ll be able to find as we are now.” Finn gave his thumb a lick, muttering in self-assurance. “Regardless, it wouldn’t do us any good to continue our search. That’s my guess, anyway.”
“Then we’re just going to…?”
“Yes, it’s time we put this place behind us. Gareth and the others back at camp will undoubtedly have finished packing, as well.”
Riveria, Gareth, Aiz, and the rest of the party were currently back at the base camp, readying the group for their return to the surface.
Everyone was tired. There had been far too many incidents already on this expedition, and they weren’t about to miss their day of departure.
It was crucial that they meet with Loki and relay everything they’d learned.
Lefiya had no choice but to hold her tongue at Finn’s decision.
“Still, I can’t deny the very distinct stench permeating this place. We’ll be back to investigate again once we’ve gotten everything in order.”
“…Understood, sir…”
“Then we head out. Raul! Let’s bring it in! Call everyone back!”
“Roger that!”
The scattered members of the search party began to make their way back toward Finn.
Lefiya could only stare at the remains of the hole where she’d fought the trap monster, staff gripped tightly in her hands.
Knowing nothing of the masked adventurer’s meeting with the two Evils associates, Loki Familia left the eastern edge of the forest behind them.
EPILOGUE
HOMEWARD BOUND
“What the hell is all this about that rabbit brat bein’ here, huh? Why does no one tell me anything?!”
“’Cause we knew you’d throw a fit, just like you’re doin’ now! Come on, already! Get ready to go!”
“I’ll show you a fit, you stupid Amazon!”
The day had finally arrived for Loki Familia’s expedition party to return to the surface.
And the camp was already abuzz with morning activity.
Everyone was preparing for the departure. All around Aiz, her companions were folding up their tents and packing everything away in large cargo bins for easy transport. It had been in the midst of all this bustling activity that Bete had first been made aware of Bell’s presence in the camp, a fact he didn’t take to calmly, and about which he was currently interrogating Tiona and Tione.
Indeed, given the werewolf’s recent trip up to the surface, everything that had happened with Bell would come as a great surprise. Even last night, when Bete had finally returned, he’d been too tired to even notice the additional guests they’d picked up, having gone straight into the nearest tent and promptly passed out.
Tiona and Tione had known all too well what effect the news would have on Bete, so they’d done what they always did and simply told him nothing.
“Hey! Aiz! Is it true? About the rabbit brat?” Bete turned toward Aiz, clearly not trusting anything the two Amazonian sisters might have told him, as a very obvious vein started to bulge atop his forehead.
“It’s…true, yes,” she responded frankly, nodding.
“The hell!” Bete stuck out his tongue in disgust…before slowly clamping his mouth shut.
All of a sudden, a very strange, awkward silence washed over him.
Aiz cocked her head to the side in confusion before Bete leaned forward, his voice no more than a hissed whisper.
“Th-then…then is it true?”
“Is what true…?”
“You know. That! That, uh…you know…about him peekin’ in on all you girls durin’ a bath!”
And here the Sword Princess Protection Unit had sworn everyone to secrecy! The normally impassive Aiz f
elt a flush rise to her cheeks as her eyes widened in surprise.
Her gaze dropped to her feet as she began rubbing her hands together, the same way she had last night, before finally, not saying a word, she nodded. There was no way to hide her embarrassment.
Bete stopped short in shock upon the confirmation of his fears.
“That…that bastard! So easily accomplishing what I never could!” His entire body trembled with unadulterated rage at the (albeit misunderstood) image in his head.
“…Aiz.”
Just as Aiz was about to explain that Hermes had lured Bell in, Bete pulled an about-face, suddenly impossible to read, almost as though his earlier outburst had never happened.
His amber eyes stared at her with a kind of wild glint.
“If he made it here…to the middle levels…then that means he’s a Level Two now?”
Aiz nodded a second time.
“That bastard…” Bete repeated with a curse. “Where is he, huh?”
“…”
It was the question she’d been dreading.
Aiz’s expression hardened—looking not altogether dissimilar to her normal expression—as her mouth clamped shut.
Where was Bell? In his tent, no doubt. She’d seen him and Hestia slip inside there not more than a short while ago.
But Aiz wasn’t about to tell Bete this. In fact, Aiz was hoping to keep Bell and Bete from meeting altogether.
It had happened almost two weeks ago now—on the first day of their expedition. They’d been winding through the seventh floor when, for whatever reason, Aiz had incurred the greatest shock of all time—the realization that the goal Bell aspired to might be none other than Bete. Even now, she hadn’t quite been able to shake away this thought. And though she’d had many chances to ask him about it now, she’d gotten cold feet every time.
What if it was true, and it was actually Bete who was spurring the boy on?
—Mister Bete! All of this has been for you! I’d do anything for you to accept me!
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 5 Page 19
