by Fujino Omori
“Hmm? Fine by me, but…will they be okay against the armed monsters?”
“Yeah, Bete’s group should be enough.”
Finn tacked on more instructions to the pile for Riveria and Gareth specifically. Aiz was feeling impatient about being left to her own devices, looking out over the battlefield with him. Honestly, it was difficult for her to stay still.
“…Finn.”
“Yeah. Sorry, Aiz, but you stay here just in case,” Finn responded when she finally looked at him to complain.
He had on a vague strained smile that didn’t betray whether he could understand her feelings. And his face tensed as he quickly looked over the street.
“…Is there…something coming?”
“My thumb is a bit…you know…” His blue eyes narrowed as he licked his thumb.
Moments later, the adventurers clashed with the armed monsters.
The battle had begun.
The sound of weapons clanging against one another and the violent screeching of the monsters was deafening. At every turn on the wide street, there were adventurers working together to intercept the monsters with the most potential to inflict damage. The battle progressed as Finn anticipated—with Loki Familia’s forces superior from start to finish.
“…This doesn’t seem like your regular lizardman,” Tione murmured as she distanced herself from the monster that had broken free of its shackles.
The lizardman had taken significant damage from her haphazard attacks, stumbling unstably as it gripped a longsword and scimitar, but she could see that the will to fight was burning strong in its deep-orange eyes.
“Groooaaa!” It roared wildly, obstinately, and attacked with a precise slash.
It possessed unmistakable skill and command of tactics, though its sword techniques evoked the image of a self-taught warrior. As an Amazon, Tione could tell it was a style that had been nurtured through frequent combat. At the same time, she had never run across a monster that possessed learned techniques before. And to take it a step further, such a monster shouldn’t even exist.
Tione licked her lips at the thought of fighting this monster. It unleashed various techniques one after another—instead of relying on instinct alone. That said, her beloved’s orders needed to be carried out, and she dispassionately battered the enemy in front of her eyes.
“Quite the looker for a monster, aren’t you?”
Meanwhile, there was a single siren collapsed at Bete’s feet. He’d won in an instant.
A portion of unsightly blood fell away from its face, revealing one beautiful enough to rival an elf.
But Bete mercilessly stomped down on the siren’s stomach.
“…Argh?!”
“Monsters can go to hell.”
His smile stretched and twisted the tattoo on his cheek, which was dyed red with a mix of scorn and rage. Bete couldn’t accept monsters walking around aboveground like they owned the place—or flying around in the sky or swimming around lazily in the seas.
It was unforgivable.
He would never say it out loud, and he wouldn’t think back on his past, but the cold hard truth was that Bete’s family—the people who were most important to him—had almost all been slaughtered by monsters.
Bete stamped his foot down, unleashing the full extent of his wrath on behalf of all the people in the world. Even if it was female, even if its face looked vaguely human, it wouldn’t stop him. He had no mercy for any type of monster.
You bastards deserve to be destroyed, he thought as he beat the siren that had dared to come aboveground.
“OOOooooooooo!” A gargoyle swooped in as Bete continued to punt the monster.
“One pain in the ass after another.” He met it without any difficulty, easily brushing it aside.
“GOOAGH?!”
“You dumbasses are a long way from home.”
Bete ripped off the stone claws of the enemy, slamming his metal boots into its body. The expression on the werewolf’s face remained contorted.
Bete realized the feeling filling his chest: This is pissing me off.
That was because their howls sounded as if they were protecting something. He couldn’t shake the feeling that these monsters crying out and thinking of their comrades closely resembled his family on the plains. They were despicable, loathsome, detestable.
“Just stay down already!”
“Gaagh?!”
He slammed a brutal kick into the gargoyle to avoid confronting his feelings.
“Come at me!”
“Grugh?!”
As Bete vented his frustrations in a violent rampage, Tiona knocked back a goblin. By using hand-to-hand techniques from her studies in Telskyura, she rendered it incapable of fighting back.
“I’m not Bete or anything, but it’s hard to hold back using Urga.”
She was dragging her feet to her job, working her way around the intense battlefield with the other familia members. She knew there wasn’t a weapon more unsuited to the task of capturing monsters alive than Urga. And above all else, she was hesitant to use it on them.
It’s kinda…hard to fight these guys. What’s with this horde of monsters…?
She neutralized the al-miraj, sending it flying with a flick to the forehead as she frowned slightly. This horde was different from the beasts they usually killed in the Dungeon. She couldn’t put it into words, but it felt bad. She was finding it difficult to fight.
If Tione heard her line of thought, Tiona would probably catch a slap to the back of the head. But she couldn’t explain it, and it wasn’t based on anything, seeing as she was an idiot. Despite being an airhead, Tiona was struggling to resolve it when the ground shook.
“Waaah?! What’s that?!”
The stone pavement welled up, and a lump of metal appeared from underground—a kind of metallic monster resembling a giant flame rock. She hadn’t seen anything like it before. The others fighting nearby paused to look on in shock.
Tiona quickly realized its body was made of adamantite—just like her Urga. As if to prove her right, it deflected the attacks of Tione and Bete. Its movements were slow and efficient, knocking away the vanguard wall, shields and all.
“—Yeah, yeah, thaaat’s what I was looking for!”
Tiona’s eyes sparkled as she swung her sword. A sudden rush of enthusiasm bubbled up within her—if for no other reason than the hunk of metal not causing the same lump in her throat as the other monsters.
With this thing, I don’t have to think about anything when I’m swinging my sword.
To push past her doubts, Tiona split the golem in a single slash.
Interest, annoyance, and delay.
Each holding their own thoughts, Loki Familia proceeded to neutralize the armed monsters.
“…What is this?” Aiz whispered amid the chaos.
Her whisper went unheard as she watched the battle unfold before her eyes. She was standing above it all, overlooking the battlefield. Because of that, it was easy for her to understand—much more clearly and distinctly than Tiona and the others fighting.
The monsters were covering one another. They were working together to fight—as if they were adventurers.
What’s going on? That’s impossible.
There were monsters with enough intelligence that had been known to cooperate with one another for the purposes of attacking mankind—but protecting one another? That was unheard of. To devour people, they didn’t care whether others of their species or anything else got killed in the process. That was what a monster was: a beast.
And yet.
Aiz hid her bewilderment and agitation behind her emotionless expression.
Is there anyone else who’s noticed it? Tiona? Tione? Bete? Anyone else?
What are you thinking, Finn?
The prum leader beside her was wearing a commander’s mask, hiding his feelings.
Her mind was a mess.
Her heart was filled with confusion.
She couldn’t get the image
of that boy protecting the vouivre out of her head. Aiz realized her palms were sweaty as she looked out over the battlefield.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”
That’s why Aiz was relieved when she heard that overwhelming roar, when she saw that pitch-black body, the very image of fear and menace.
And even though the piercing howl immediately rendered the residents unconscious, even though its arms as thick as logs blew away several of her comrades, even though its brutal Labrys battle-ax was glinting in the sunlight, sowing destruction in its path, in the corner of her heart roiled by shock, Aiz felt reassured.
Because this was the kind of monster she knew.
“Uooooooo!”
It was a pitch-black minotaur.
Tiona, Tione, and Bete barely managed to hold their ground, while the other members were cornered by its restraint and unable to intervene. Just as the Level 6s were about to take control of the battle by leveraging their numbers, the titanic monster unsheathed a second ax from behind its back.
“““?!”””
The colossal weapon ripped through the ground, kicking up a storm of electrical discharges and scattering the dried clots of blood on its blade to reveal its golden color. It was a magic blade with the lightning attribute.
Bathed in a net of thunder, the first-tier adventurers couldn’t help but freeze for an instant.
The black minotaur swung the ax upward, piercing the heavens as it flipped into position to mercilessly attack them.
“Riveria, the barrier!” Finn shouted, abandoning all pretenses of composure.
“Via Shilheim!” rang out a resonant voice, casting the spell to form a magic barrier in the shape of a dome.
It protected the unconscious residents at the same time as the minotaur unleashed its next blast.
“—OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Lightning flooded the area like a crashing wave.
Bete stuck out his Frosvirt to absorb the impact, but the thunderous explosion of lightning couldn’t be contained. Bete, Tiona, and Tione bore the brunt of the attack and were sent flying back as the other members were swallowed up in a whirlpool of light.
The undulating rays of light ripped up the cobblestones, leaving rows of houses obliterated in their wake. Other than Riveria’s barrier, nothing escaped destruction.
This was the largest amount of damage that had been dealt since the start of the battle against the monsters. Once the thunderous bombardment passed through, the smoke cleared to reveal a demolished street with the members of Loki Familia collapsed on the ground.
Everyone had been wiped out—except for Bete and the two sisters.
“No more trying to catch them alive—”
The black minotaur stood in the center of the street pulverized from that location onward to the western end. Everything had been turned to rubble, save the eastern end of the street where the defeated armed monsters lay in a crumpled heap.
Finn’s eyes narrowed at the scene of destruction—and Aiz dashed out, unseen, alone, without saying a word or making a sound.
She moved as though compelled by something, welcoming something, as she kicked the roof and whirled through the sky, landing behind the monster.
“—Do it, Aiz!”
Tap.
The beast’s back stiffened at the sound of her boots lightly striking the ground as she drew her trusted sword.
“Understood.”
Aiz didn’t take notice of the tone of her voice. There was a quality of serenity to it. And her gaze was calm as she stood before the roaring minotaur spinning around to smash its ax down onto her.
“Tempest,” she chanted in a sonorous voice, signaling an intent to kill.
“Airiel.”
The wind whined.
A tremendous flow of air rushed up, and her sword flashed.
And in the next moment, the monster’s right arm flew through the sky.
“”
Her comrades, Hestia Familia, the armed monsters, and the black minotaur were silent.
The flash of steel stole all their breaths away. A gentle breeze blew by, and the severed arm crashed to the ground.
Even as the screech of the monster reached a fever pitch and its blood spattered onto its surroundings, the wind shielded the girl’s body from it all, functioning as her armor. Her heart was calm.
There was no doubt—straightforward to the point that it surprised her.
As her long blond locks rippled in the wind, Aiz held the beauty of a goddess on the battlefield, swinging her sword at the giant monster before her—mercilessly, even cruelly.
“Here I come,” she warned.
The dark minotaur sent spittle flying as it furiously started to counterattack, but Aiz kept her composure, playing a melody by slicing her sword through the wind.
“Argh?!”
She unleashed seemingly thousands of slashes from all angles. Sheathed in the wind, Desperate cut through the armored enemy’s body, sending splashes of blood flying. But her sword didn’t stop. Aiz’s whole body flitted around, slicing up a storm into the enemy standing before her.
“UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
In the blink of an eye, it was covered in blood, but its eyes flared, ready to fight back—as a monster that surpassed human intellect. It pushed forward, abandoning its defenses. With one arm and one foot in its grave, it forced itself to launch a counterattack. Unloading a single strike with enough force to turn everything to dust, it knocked back her stream of slashes. Her field of vision quivering, Aiz was shocked for a moment but regained her fighting spirit—and awe.
Ah.
How strong.
How terrifying.
How dreadful.
Yes, this is—
“Th-that’s…”
Her sword growled as she accelerated, and the world around her seemed to freeze in time. As her eyes lost sight of everything but the black monster before her, Aiz was no longer capable of noticing someone murmuring.
As the person witnessed the frozen features of the Sword Princess and the furious slashes filled with black flames, their voice quivered.
“That’s…the War Princess.”
Someone had called her that long ago: the War Princess, monster slayer in a girl’s skin, the one who’d built untold mountains of monster corpses, the reckless fighter who never tired of descending into the depths of the Dungeon over and over.
As her sword danced, she reverted to her appearance as the Doll Princess, one she’d long ago left behind—all the more beautiful for the perilousness of it. She inspired fear and terror in the monsters and Loki Familia.
But Aiz didn’t notice that she was unconsciously using the skill she’d forbidden herself from using on others.
“…Aiz.”
She didn’t process the murmur of a high elf watching as she became possessed by the battle.
Good—
Aiz felt relieved before the pitch-black minotaur, the incarnation of violence.
This is a monster.
This is a beast.
I’m not in the wrong.
The image of the boy protecting the vouivre faded from her mind.
I knew I wasn’t wrong.
Monsters must be killed.
As the minotaur joyously roared for more combat, Aiz danced, unleashing a loud hum with the wind.
The young version of Aiz in a corner of her heart was peering at her, lonely, but she pretended not to see her as she tore into the pitch-black minotaur.
INTERLUDE
THE FAIRY’S RAGE
“Lefiya, get a move on!”
“O-okay!”
While Loki Familia’s main group was clashing with the black minotaur, Lefiya and the others were headed to the southern end of Daedalus Street. Following Finn’s orders, they had formed a four-man cell to hound the fleeing vouivre.
“Little Rookie, you bastard. Showing your true colors!”
“Thinking abo
ut making money at a time like this…Can you believe this crap?!”
“…”
The human and elf familia members voiced their irritation as they sprinted. They had endless insults for an adventurer who would invite unnecessary chaos by protecting a monster.
How greedy did an adventurer have to be to aim for a rare monster’s high-value drop item at a time like this? That’s how Bell Cranell appeared to them. That was the only way they could rationalize his actions.
Their incandescent rage took the form of open disdain. It was an obvious conclusion.
Lefiya alone kept quiet, lips pursed, face unreadable.
What was that human thinking?!
Lefiya wasn’t feeling the same anger as the others. She was perplexed.
She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but compared to the others, she’d had more interactions with Bell Cranell and, at the very least, understood his nature.
A selfish desire. A vision clouded by riches. Those words could never be used to describe him.
A greedy adventurer? It was so uncharacteristic that instead of bursting with rage, she was more likely to look to the heavens for some explanation. If he was that kind of adventurer, he could have gotten through life a lot easier.
That was why she couldn’t figure it out.
Why would he go this far to protect a monster? Even if it resulted in him being reviled as a greedy adventurer?
Lefiya was trying to process a comparable feeling of shock to Aiz and Tiona when she saw him protect the vouivre. Instead of criticizing him, she was unsure how to respond even now.
Why do I have to be worrying myself over you…?!
That was why she was so unhappy with him—acting in a way that would invite misunderstanding.
Or maybe she was actually feeling anger.
“Other adventurers are…!”
The light from the setting sun shone on Lefiya’s face as a bunch of adventurers from all different familias started appearing on the scene upon hearing the uproar on Daedalus Street. They’d gathered to get the situation under control: If they were going to take out the monster, they needed to act now. Lefiya and the other members from Loki Familia split up and jumped into the forest of interlocking buildings, rushing in the direction from where the cries and dust clouds were originating.
