by Fujino Omori
Black jacket rustling in the wind, Welf came to a stop a stone’s throw away from Daphne —THUD.
The tip of his sword on the floor, Welf looked Daphne in the eyes just over the hilt of his weapon.
“Real adventurers settle things with blades, don’cha think?”
The young woman’s eyes trembled as she looked at the smith’s fearless grin.
Welf’s and Daphne’s blades flashed in what little sunlight came through the sky-bridge windows.
Loki watched the two battle on her own mirror, a playful grin growing on her lips as she watched the red-haired man force Daphne away from the main tower.
“Fei-fei, that kiddo’s somethin’ else!”
“Why, thank you.”
The main table inside Babel Tower. Loki sat next to Hephaistos, who had just allowed Welf to join Hestia Familia. This was the trickster’s chance to have a little fun.
“Those flashy magic swords—forged by him, right? Regrettin’ lettin’ him go?”
“Who knows.”
Loki’s pearly white teeth glistened as her grin grew even deeper. Hephaistos looked at her with a warm smile, as if happy about something.
Elsewhere, the conversations taking place just outside Babel Tower were nowhere near as high-spirited as the two goddesses’.
“I’m screwed at this rate…”
“There’s still a chance, there’s still a chance…”
The atmosphere inside the bars had become thick with tension, adventurers restless.
Many eyes twitched as they watched Bell run on one of the many mirrors floating in the air. “Give up already!” one shouted as he stood up, shaking his fist at the boy. “Like hell you can lose!” yelled another, cheering on Apollo Familia with all of his might. Every adventurer who had bet money on Apollo’s victory was suddenly extremely vocal. Their shouts could be heard all around the city.
“Go, Whitey! Make ’em cry, meow!”
“Did she place a bet behind our backs…?”
“Be glad she didn’t bet on Apollo Familia, meow…”
West Main Street, The Benevolent Mistress.
There wasn’t a single empty seat at the bar. Chloe screamed at the mirrors along with the adventurers while carrying jugs of ale in her arms. Runoa and Ahnya watched her in disbelief.
“…”
Syr stood next to the two girls, unable to focus on her job in the slightest as she watched Bell on the mirror.
Her silver-gray eyes traced the boy’s every step, as if pleading for him to make it out alive.
“—Wow, just wow, Aiz! Look at him go!”
“Yes.”
On the northern edge of the city…
Loki Familia’s home was also brimming with excitement despite being far away from the bars.
Tiona’s eyes sparkled as she watched Hestia Familia’s carefully crafted attack unfold on another mirror.
Aiz stood next to her, golden gaze nailed to the boy reflected inside.
“Yes, they’re doing very well…But even without all the tricks, couldn’t they have just sent that hooded adventurer with the magic swords straight in and let the cards fall as they may? That would’ve been so much easier.”
Tione stood behind the two girls, watching the action over their heads as she asked her own question.
“Amazonian to the bone, thinkin’ like that…”
“Hmm, simply put, would a Goliath stand a chance charging into a battle party of one hundred?”
“…Impossible.”
“Additionally, those two magic swords alone would have been unable to destroy the entire structure. There is no doubt that Apollo’s forces are much better organized. Hestia’s group couldn’t afford to have a wide-scale battle, chaotically mixing friend and foe.”
Gareth, Finn, and Reveria rolled their eyes at Tione’s proposition and each explained their reasoning in turn.
A battle party composed of only Apollo Familia members led by the Level 3 Hyacinthus was already powerful enough to take down a Goliath on their own.
The three started calmly breaking down the group’s tactics for her when—
“Doesn’t mean shit.”
Bete entered the conversation.
“Rabbit Boy wants to settle the score with the perv himself.”
Many members of Loki Familia had gathered in the common room of their home. Loki had set up many Divine Mirrors before leaving earlier that morning. The young werewolf was watching a different one from the girls, one that showed the side of Bell’s face as he ran.
“He’s a man, that one.”
Talking loud enough to be heard by everyone, his amber-colored eyes didn’t leave the mirror.
“Do you know something?”
“…Nope.”
Bete spat out a response to Reveria’s question.
“This’ll work, this’ll work! They’ve already come this far!”
Completely ignoring what was going on behind her, Tiona started running around Aiz and pumping her fist in the air. Tione, Bete, and the others watched in annoyance as the young Amazonian girl started jumping up and down as well. Tiona didn’t care as her cheering became even more acrobatic.
Her face beet-red, the girl came to a stop and punched toward the mirror with each word.
“Fight! Win—! Argonaut!”
Bell made it through the sky bridge and into the main tower by following the instructions that Lilly had given him.
The tower containing the throne room was expansive. Old rugs covered the stone floor and the walls were decorated with dust-covered artwork. Bell felt like he’d walked into a mansion that had been abandoned by its owner.
“SHAA!”
“!”
An animal person jumped out at him from the shadows. Bell calmly moved to engage.
Handily dodging two swings of the attacker’s white blade, Bell knocked the sword out of the way on the third swipe and swung his left leg out and high. “Gah!” His left foot buried itself in the attacker’s cheek, sending him crashing to the floor. The animal person’s body rolled two or three times before lying still.
—Mr. Cranell. I am only lending you my strength.
As more enemies appeared from the shadows, Bell’s mind flashed back to the conversation he had last night.
They’d spent the night before the War Game in the forest to the west of the old castle. The experienced elvish warrior had pulled him aside under the moonlight.
—This conflict must be resolved by your Familia—no, by your hand.
Thanks to the hastily forged magic swords, Bell and the others wouldn’t have to worry about directly assaulting the castle. Considering the defensive advantage given to an already powerful enemy, a plan to have the “Gale Wind” spearhead an attack was also scrapped.
But that was all just a premise.
Without a doubt, everyone was hoping for a defining moment.
Hestia, Lilly, Welf, Mikoto, the audience, and most likely every god—but most of all, Bell himself.
Everyone wanted to see the boy bring an end to this War Game.
—I want to beat him.
Determination burned within him.
He wanted to roar out with the pain of not being good enough, the tears he’d shed.
The bar, in the middle of the city, and today. Bell swore that he would surpass that man on their third encounter.
To regain his honor, to claim victory for his goddess, and to reach that next plateau.
Today, Bell would settle everything with his own hands.
I think that’s the last one…
Leaving the bodies of his assailants on the floor, Bell advanced to a circular hallway where he couldn’t sense anyone else.
The last of his enemies were in the throne room. The general, Hyacinthus, and his personal guards were waiting for him there.
Returning all weapons to their sheaths, Bell looked at the palm of his right hand.
Clenching his fist, the boy looked up—ring, ring, ring. A chiming so
und echoed around him.
“We’re under attack! The Little Rookie is here!”
The messenger elf flew through the main doors and instantly sent a wave of panic through the throne room.
The fact that Bell had penetrated this far into the inner defenses of the castle left all of them in shock. Word that reinforcements were needed below made all of them draw their weapons and dash toward the door. That is, all but one.
“Denied. What is running through your heads?!”
Hyacinthus was seated on the throne at the back of the room. He slammed his fist down on the armrest.
Cape swishing behind him as he stood up, veins in his head pulsing with anger, he looked around the room. Everyone present recoiled in fear.
“Displaying this much cowardice is beyond shameful. How can we face our Lord Apollo in such dishonor…?”
His normally charming and beautiful face wrinkled into a horrifying expression.
Hyacinthus couldn’t hide his annoyance at the fact that his own forces had allowed the enemy to come this far, as well as the anger he felt toward himself.
“General? General, sir! I beg you, please leave this place at once!”
“Cassandra, enough already!”
The girl shouting from beside his throne had provided Hyacinthus with an outlet for his anger.
The girl, wearing a dress-style battle cloth, her long hair tied back, had been pleading with Hyacinthus to vacate to the throne room since early that morning. Everything about the desperation in her cowardly message made his skin crawl.
“Please, please believe what I’m telling you…!”
“Silence! Keep your nonsense believable!”
Hyacinthus waved her off in anger.
Apollo had appointed him as general of his forces. A leader could never abandon his post without reason. A loss was still unthinkable, even with the current conditions.
“Can you not see?! I’m here along with several other warriors. Bell Cranell coming in here alone would spell his own demise!”
The man gestured to the other adventurers in the room. They had been hand selected by Hyacinthus for their skills in battle. Ten in all, they would be more than enough to handle a Level 2 rookie. Victory was all but guaranteed with their Level 3 general leading the charge.
Every person in the room stared at Cassandra as her eyes started to well up with tears. She looked down at her feet in terror.
She held her quivering body, her line of vision jumping from stone to stone on the throne room floor.
“Ah…ahhh.”
The long-haired girl started to moan, her face losing color every second.
Hyacinthus’s cheeks twitched out of annoyance as he turned to face her. That’s when the girl looked up and whispered:
“Lightning…”
Ring, ring.
Bell kept moving, chimes echoing around him until he found a staircase leading higher up the tower.
There wasn’t a soul in his way. His ruby-red eyes traced the path of the spiral stairwell before focusing on the specks of light circling around his right arm.
The Grand Bell had not been heard since the battle on the eighteenth floor of the Dungeon.
There must be some kind of trigger because Bell was sure this was exactly the way he charged his attack before. Scouring his memory, he got the feeling that the voice of a divine being came to him at that time.
It revived him, provided vision, filled him with a burning desire—that was all Bell could remember. Something had just suddenly come to him during that battle. At the same time, Bell realized that the power he wielded that day was not something he could conjure up each time.
But he didn’t need it right now.
“…!”
Argonaut’s trigger, a clear vision of a hero. This time, he saw the warrior Argis.
The seemingly immortal hero had fought to his dying breath, slaying monster after monster in order to take back a stronghold that had been overrun by a horde. His courageous deeds were legendary.
Every nerve in Bell’s body came to life as he visualized the hero storming the castle on his own. Light started to flicker in the palm of his right hand.
“Lightning—really?”
Hyacinthus slowly exhaled through his nose, his voice laced with sarcasm as he responded to Cassandra.
The man looked outside each of the windows that surrounded the throne room. Still facing away, he looked at the girl out of the corner of his eye.
“The sky is an azure blue, white puffy clouds here and there. And you’re telling me lightning will fall?!”
With no hint of a storm on the horizon, Hyacinthus laughed at the prospect.
However…
“Not fall…”
Cassandra’s rebuttal barely squeaked out of her lips.
Grasping her pale face between her hands, Cassandra made eye contact with the man and whispered:
“Lightning…will rise.”
Once again, her gaze fell to the stone floor.
“What?”
The base of the stairwell directly beneath the throne room.
The massive spiral spread out to his left and right. Bell stood directly in the middle, looking straight up like an archer sighting a target.
The footsteps of an adventurer trying to descend echoed down the wide tube and reached his ears.
Bell reached skyward as if he were trying to grab hold of the sun.
—One minute.
A sixty-second charge. Pulsing white light had come together around him.
Next, one voice.
“Firebolt.”
A white inferno of electricity burst forth.
“____”
Cracks ran through the bulging stone floor, light leaking through.
All words left Hyacinthus the moment he saw the first blast break through and continue into the ceiling.
A deafening explosion.
“What was that, did you see that______?!”
Babel was full of screaming deities.
“No trigger spell?!”
“That kind of power without casting___?!”
“I want that human sooooooooooooooo bad!”
Not a single deity in the chamber kept their seat as they roared with excitement.
Most of the gods and goddesses were filled with a mix of shock and admiration for Bell’s trigger-less spell.
“…,…?!”
Separated from the gods enjoying the moment, Apollo stood frozen in place with his mouth wide open.
“…!”
Hestia didn’t move, either, eyes not budging from her mirror.
She watched as the enemy general emerged from a pile of rubble on its surface.
“Haa—, ghaa—…?!”
Bits and pieces of stone fell off of Hyacinthus as he sat up, writhing in pain.
The upper half of the main tower was gone. The throne room itself had been completely destroyed by a blast that came from directly beneath it. Even now, the last of the electrical blasts were carving their way through clouds high in the sky, on their way toward the shining sun.
“What…what just happened?!”
Hyacinthus climbed to his feet. The once perfectly set and clean cape around his shoulders was torn and badly damaged. His normally stylish hair was ragged and filled with dirt.
—Cassandra had tackled him just as the first electrical burst came through the floor, knocking him out the window.
He could vaguely remember hearing the glass break as everything went white and his body was pelted with thousands of stone fragments. He must have lost consciousness during the fall, because he couldn’t remember how he’d ended up on the ground outside the castle. Looking around, all he could see were small mountains of debris and thick clouds of smoke obscuring his vision.
“Cassandra?! Ron?!”
He called out to his allies in confusion, anger, and an emotion he couldn’t recognize that was welling up inside of him. There was no response.
The smoke lift
ed enough for him to get a better view of the pile of stones a few meders away from him. A chill ran up Hyacinthus’s spine when he realized there was a human body buried in the rubble.
—Wiped out.
He was the only one left. His normally calm and refined demeanor crumbled.
Eyes flashing in fury, Hyacinthus drew his sword as the sky bridge fell apart, collapsing onto the castle below.
“Where are you?!”
Flamberge firmly in his grasp, Hyacinthus roared into the smoke.
His enemy was still alive—he knew it. The urge to tear that boy into pieces consumed him.
His heart was racing; sweat continually poured down his face. The enemy was hiding in the smoke, blade trained on his throat.
Hyacinthus spun to the left, looked back to the right, and then turned all the way around. The coolheaded warrior was gone. He couldn’t stand still, watching every single twist of the rising smoke in all directions.
At last, the sun’s rays started to pierce the smoky clouds. He could see deeper and deeper—until…
“____”
The air seemed to shiver.
Two dots of ruby-red light flickered deep in the smoke behind him.
Hyacinthus could sense it: the beast covered in blood. It made his skin crawl.
A heartbeat later, Bell burst through the smoke cover. Hyacinthus spun to meet him.
Two red knives and one long, rouge blade collided in an explosion of sparks.
“UWHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Orario shook.
Adventurers, commentators, and gods alike.
A duel between enemy generals. This highly unexpected turn of events sent the city into a frenzy.
Thousands of sweaty palms were clenched into fists as unblinking eyes watched the mirrors with the utmost intensity.
None of the onlookers could form actual words, only make as much noise as possible as the duel of the century unfolded before them.
“…?!”
A forward thrust. Two whirling crimson blades.
Their attacks were too fast to follow. As soon as the mirror reflected one successfully blocked attack, the echoes of the next three came through loud and clear. The moment that Hyacinthus squared his shoulders, the white-haired boy darted away, rolling to his side, then to a blind spot, always staying out of the flamberge’s path.
