by Fujino Omori
The large group of monsters lost its edge—there was no escaping from a first-tier adventurer. They were just about to be captured.
At least if it hadn’t been for that divine wind.
“I thought they were hiding and shooting off ice when all of a sudden that weird-ass wind started blowing! Don’t screw with me!”
“Amazing! We flew through the sky, Tione! That must be what birds feel like!”
“Shut the hell up!” Tione snapped at her sister’s easygoing observation and subconsciously smashed a wall with her fist.
There was an invisible defense around the armed monsters. Two of them. They were invisible with one ability or another, hitting the Amazons with their ice and obstructing their movements. The sisters quickly saw through the invisible enemies and the ice attack without too much difficulty, but they’d been removed from the battlefield by the enemies’ hidden trick.
An unbelievable typhoon.
It was unlike anything they’d experienced before, a wind cannon that Aiz’s Airiel couldn’t even have matched. They’d literally been blown away by it. While they were high up, soaring through the starry night sky, they witnessed the monsters moving farther away, just as the two sisters had managed to catch up with them.
The first-tier adventurers’ hot pursuit was reversed at the last minute.
Outmaneuvered, Tione roared in a furious voice that shook the sky, frightening the people in the city, who could have taken it to be a monster.
“Looking down on us…!”
After they were grandly blown away, they finally landed near the outer edge of the western part of the Labyrinth District. In her rage, Tione had taken the tone of a villain as she punched the wall one more time.
The trick up the enemy’s sleeve, her quick temper that caught her off guard, and, more than anything, her inability to fulfill her beloved Finn’s order caused her anger to well up. She devoted her remaining patience to thinking about the enemy.
Was this invisibility a skill of the tamer who Finn had mentioned?
If the invisible things were part of Hestia Familia, would that mean it was the effect of a magic blade? The scenes of the siege in the War Game with Apollo Familia were burned into her mind.
Was it the work of the legendary Crozzo’s Magic Swords—of Welf Crozzo?
Shithead. Tione burned with rage. If my guess is right, I’m gonna beat his ass when I catch him or give him a good knee to the stomach, at the very least, she decided with bloodshot eyes.
At about the same time, a certain young man with red hair felt a tremendous chill.
“We’re gonna catch right back up! Tiona!”
“Okay!”
As she continued to be consumed by fury, Tione ran for the central part of the district, where the enemies were heading. As she rushed off driven by anger, she smashed the black-bricked buildings and pavement wherever her feet landed.
She was inhuman in her pursuit to the extent that the monsters seemed pitiful. The pair would be able to catch up to the enemy’s back lines within three minutes.
If they could pull that off and catch the monsters in a pincer with the defensive squad, the monsters would be out of luck.
But it wasn’t to be.
“!”
“Tiona?!”
The other half of her party suddenly turned down a different route. Tione almost telepathically guessed what her stupid sister was thinking, though she was shocked.
A pitch-black fog was released from near the central area where the defensive squad and the monsters were clashing.
That suspicious fog permeated the surroundings, stretching to the northwest.
It would have been fine if it was the southern side of the district, since there were only adventurers searching for monsters there. But Tione had heard there were still residents evacuating in the north.
If the monsters moving around in that fog headed for the northwestern end of the district, it would be bad. That was what Tiona had to be thinking.
“That idiot! Is she trying to disobey the captain?! Hey! Wait for me!”
Because the two of them had been told to move together, Tione chased after her little sister, heading northwest.
“A smoke screen!”
Gareth was fighting in the middle of the area of the black mist that Tione and Tiona had seen.
Near the central area of Daedalus Street, Gareth had moved from his station underground up to the surface to assault the armed monsters who’d escaped the sisters. As he used his Level-6 strength to corner the monsters, the pitch-black mist spread around in futile resistance.
At the hands of the mage leading the monsters, the battlefield descended into a chaotic mess of human and monster screams intermingling.
“Get them—!”
“Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
More and more of the reinforcements for Loki Familia piled into the part of the Labyrinth District that’d become the main battlefield. The sounds of weapons and claws clashing wildly rang out.
Amid that, Gareth dashed unhesitatingly in a straight line. His target was the person who’d released the dark mist, the black-robed mage.
“Grr!”
“Guh?!”
The mage was toppled by the force of the ax swing. Gareth paid no heed to the other monsters, focusing only on their leader.
If I can just take out this mage—!
The monsters would no longer be able to use any further schemes and Loki Familia would have a significant advantage. Gareth had seen through the level of detestable danger the mage posed, locking onto its presence in the awful visual conditions and preparing to smash his war ax into its black robes.
“Hmm?!”
An ice blast interrupted him.
Gareth hadn’t heard a chant. It had been an ice-type magic blade, without a doubt.
Frozen in an unnatural position, he managed to break the ice and swing down his blade, but the mage used the split-second pause to escape.
As he saw that black robe disappear into the mist, Gareth made to follow it, annoyed, when a second blast of similar force came at him.
“This magic blade…Is this one of Tsubaki’s?!”
Its output couldn’t be matched by an average smith. It brought to mind the master smith with whom he had a direct contract. Plus, he thought he heard the words test fire from the fog.
I don’t know what you’re thinking, you asshole. Gareth’s lips twisted.
I’m gonna get her good once this is over…That said, Tsubaki’s a fool’s fool, but she knows the time and place for her tomfoolery. She wouldn’t come attackin’ just to test the strength of a magic blade. In which case—
Was her patron goddess, Hephaistos, on the side of the armed monsters?
Or could she be motivated by her friendship with Hestia? Or because she’d judged that the heretical beasts shouldn’t be killed?
Gareth was trying to think it over for a second, but the rain of ice didn’t end. Without giving him any time to think, it was precisely targeting him and him alone.
“Mr. Gareth!”
Noticing that Gareth was being hammered with attack after attack, the other familia members dashed over to him, but that just made things worse.
“”
Of all times, an ice blast incomparable to the previous ones came flying toward them. A stream of blue ice shot through the black mist. The blizzard blew past, leaving Gareth no way to evade its effects as it froze over the pavement in an instant.
As he tried to cover the members of the familia, he took out the shield beneath his mantle on his back to absorb the full brunt of the blow.
“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?!”
The crackling chill sound was so loud that everyone on the battlefield stopped moving.
“M-Mr. Gareth?!”
“…I’m guessing it’s on the same level as Riveria’s magic, huh? That’s got a wee bite to it.”
The shield, and the hand holding it, and all of Gareth’s lower body were frozen over. H
e was frozen up to his beard, and his face looked frostbitten, as if he’d been outdoors in a blizzard in an icy country.
If she put everything into it, Riveria’s Wynn Fimbulvetr was stronger. But that didn’t make this assault any less scary. After all, this one had been unleashed by a magic blade that could cast spells quickly.
“All of you, fall back!”
Gareth couldn’t help but grin, despite the fact that he was in a position where he needed to chase after the monsters, and his blood boiled as he took a second cannon blast.
“Shiiiiiii!”
“Wh—…Vividly colored monsters?!” The astonished cry of a familia member rang out.
Gareth had seen it as he was blocking the ice blast: the outline of a water spider emerging from the shimmering black mist.
What at first seemed to be one turned into many, indiscriminately attacking both Loki Familia and the armed monsters.
“Tch, those bastards…Tryin’ to take advantage of the chaos, huh?!”
Upon realizing that Gareth’s squad had withdrawn from the underground in the southwest, the Evils had sent them up. Shrouded in dense fog, it was a perfect battlefield for them. They’d come to take advantage of the chaos and steal the armed monsters’ key.
The plan had originally been to use them as bait to lure out the Evils, but the current situation was not good at all.
“Narfi, hold back the Evils! Don’t let them engage the monsters!” boomed Gareth.
The familia members responded valiantly to his command. It’d turned into a three-sided fight with no way of telling apart friend from foe. Loki Familia was chasing after the monsters while facing off against the Evils’ forces to secure the key before them.
The main battlefield had gone past the point of disorder, transitioning into full-blown chaos.
“The key! Steal the key! Find the monsters and—”
“Shut up!”
“—Geh?!”
During a moment of relative peace, Gareth sent the offensive forces of the cloaked Evils flying as they wildly swung their swords. These deployed soldiers were sacrificial pawns, no doubt, and wouldn’t have a key to get back into Knossos.
Gareth wanted to chase after the armed monsters already, but his situation wouldn’t allow it.
“It’s Elgarm! Crush him!”
“Hiyo!”
“If we just beat this dwaaaaaaaarf!”
“Hiyo!”
“H-he’s a monster! Surround hiiiiiiiim!”
“Hiyo!”
“I-I’m sorry for the sneak attack!”
“Hiyo!”
“Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Hiyo!”
“This friggin’ dwarf won’t die! All of you! Get him!”
“““Uooooooooooooooooooh!”””
Between ice volleys, the Evils’ Remnants swarmed in. He shouted a name that resembled one of a magic blade. The Far Eastern girl launched the surprise attack. The vividly colored monsters charged. A rotten master smith’s cackling laughter at the chaos echoed.
Everything centered around Gareth. They were desperately trying to hold him down.
They all viewed Elgarm as a threat and swarmed him.
Bathed in ice, Gareth kept wreaking havoc, his roar ringing in the wind.
“Each! And every! One a ya! Go easy on an old man!”
“““As if!””” Shooting ice blasts wildly, the smiths and even the Evils’ subordinates all shouted back in unison.
If they let the dwarf go, he would wipe out his target, the monsters. And the rest of them.
They were absolutely convinced this was the case, which was precisely why the minor-league players on the side of the Evils fought back as their sweat and tears blended together and the smiths struggled desperately to hold him back.
The two-front plan left Gareth between a rock and a hard place. He was undoubtedly bearing the brunt of the three-sided fight, howling as the veins on his forehead rippled.
“Yer! In! My! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!”
In the end, Loki Familia was forced to let the armed monsters escape while Gareth was pinned down on the main battlefield.
“Yeah, not sure why I came here, but…I can’t help it if I found something.”
With her bare brown feet stepping firmly on the building’s roof, Tiona looked down at something.
As she’d checked out the black fog, she’d gotten separated from Tione. She’d made it all the way to the northwest part of the district, and in her sight was a single vouivre that’d slipped out of the mist roaming around.
It was a humanoid monster wearing a robe, its red stone shining from inside its deep hood.
“Guess I’ll kill it,” Tiona commented, wielding Urga one-handed as she jumped from the roof.
When the Amazon’s shadow danced through the air, the vouivre dashed in the opposite direction, as if spooked.
“Miss Tiona!”
“Arcus! And everyone else! Are you following that vouivre?”
“We are! One managed to get away from Mr. Gareth’s squad…”
“Then let’s go after it together!”
“Okay!”
Joining up with the others chasing the vouivre, she dashed through the street, steadily accelerating and closing the gap.
Tiona uncharacteristically had something on her mind.
The humanoid monster is a vouivre…but it’s different from the others…This is definitely the one that showed up in the city the first time…Yeah. She pondered as she chased after the vouivre that resembled a lamia—a half snake, half human—desperately fleeing.
When she looked at its back, she couldn’t help but think it looked like a scared young girl.
But it was the humanoid monster that appeared in the city a week ago, the winged monster that attacked a child.
It’d been the first impetus for the commotion in the city, the starting point of this whole problem.
Anyway, that’s what kicked this whole thing off, right? That was about as much as Tiona understood, defining the beast before her eyes with a simple judgment.
That means—if I somehow understand it, everything’ll make sense!
Tiona was a raging idiot.
In fact, she was so stupid that Bete, her mortal rival who did nothing but hurl abuse at her, would look at her pitifully if he heard her internal thought.
She was seriously thinking she could get to the bottom of the complex incident, the one troubling Finn and the others, just by probing a single monster.
She believed that the uncertain feeling in her heart ever since their first encounter with the armed monsters would clear up.
To repeat: Tiona was a real idiot.
“Miss Tiona?!”
“Oh snap?!”
But that was why she was able to see that scene without hatred or loathing or any preconceptions toward monsters.
As they approached an intersection, a half-elf child appeared. The child froze as the vouivre pushed toward them. At the same time, a decrepit building started to tremble violently above the child’s head, unable to withstand the impact of the nearby battles. It started to crumble.
Just as Tiona got ready to swing Urga to try to save the child—the vouivre sprinted to the rescue.
“”
The monster turned into a silvery-blue arrow, darting forward to push the child down as its wings burst out of its robe and spread to cover both of them from the rain of rubble.
“Ruu!” screamed the other orphans who chased after the half-elf.
The members of Loki Familia gasped.
As the avalanche of rubble fell, Tiona murmured, “—Protected.”
But it was drowned out by the noise of the building falling.
How did the orphans view this sequence of events? What did it look like to Arcus and the others?
It must have looked like a monster spreading its fiendish wings and attempting to assault a child when a pile of rubble fell on its head b
y chance.
But it was different for Tiona, whose dynamic vision was far superior.
Only she was able to correctly piece together the movements that transpired in that split second. She knew the vouivre noticed the falling building and pushed the child down to protect them.
And because she was a stupid girl, the plain truth of the situation was etched into her eyes.
“—Loose!”
As the dust cleared, the familia members saw the monster in the middle of the rubble, looking furious as they shot their arrows. The monster’s scales deflected the arrowheads as it withdrew from atop the child before dashing away.
“I’m going by myself! You guys protect those kids!”
“Got it!”
With Urga in her hand, Tiona ordered the others to stay behind and chased the vouivre herself, staring intently at the monster’s back. She had arrived at an answer.
Finn…Tione…Sorry…
She thought back to the stories from a week before about the monster attacking a child. But wasn’t it just protecting someone like it did now?
When Argonaut tried to protect it, wasn’t it the same sort of thing?
Tiona could feel her questions start to dispel, sense the uncertainty in her heart melting away.
As she apologized to the leader of the faction and her sister, the stupidly instinctual girl squinted.
“I…don’t want to fight these monsters, I think.”
In the end, just as Tiona cornered the girl in an alleyway, she lost track of her movements.
“!!”
When he heard that noise, Bete kicked the ground.
“Wai—Mr. Bete?!!!”
He leaped off the building, leaving the others who’d been ordered to stand by to deal with the black minotaur. His wolf ears pricked up, perceiving the source of the noise and sprinting after it. It was cutting vertically from the southwest of Daedalus Street north. Bete wasn’t nice enough to overlook these obvious movements. If it was supposed to be a trap, he’d just crush it.
It would normally be a breach of command, but Bete’s anger was pent-up from being ordered to wait even though the western side had become the main battlefield, and his howl rippled through the night sky.
