Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 10

by Fujino Omori

  He’d go along with the ulterior motives of the god. For the sake of his people, he would throw away his pride. He would return to take the role of a hero.

  After all, he was a created hero, a hypocritical hero who’d weighed everything in the balance as he moved.

  “Loki…sorry, but there’s nothing to see through here.”

  This was a stage brought forward by a god. Everything was moving according to the script. There was nothing left to discover.

  And this was Finn’s response to the goddess’s advice.

  The monsters are pathetic, too…They were setting out to return to the Dungeon but became manipulated by a god.

  Finn didn’t feel any pity for the monsters, but just this once, he looked on with compassion at the gargoyle rampaging wildly on the ground.

  “Captain, everything is in order!”

  “All right, give the signal.”

  The familia member had reported that everyone was in position.

  With a brief order, Finn readied himself to throw his Fortia Spear.

  He wouldn’t try to destroy Hermes’s stage. It was quite the opposite. Finn would use it against him to suppress the monsters. And the vindication of the boy was incidental, a bonus. It wasn’t as if he had no desire to knock down the Little Rookie. As he’d told the orphans, Finn acknowledged the boy himself.

  —Or it was because he wanted to see what conclusion Bell Cranell would reach.

  Would he be unable to decide anything and be torn to shreds by the monster’s claws, committing the worst possible folly?

  Or would he go along with the divine will, kill the monster, and reclaim the title of hero?

  Which of those two choices would he pick?

  Finn’s blue eyes observed the boy, along with those of the people in the crowd, to see his decision.

  “Loki Familia has come!!”

  The squad on the ground broke into the plaza.

  The adventurers and residents cheered, and the winged monsters roared, ready to die.

  “—Hng!” The fiendish gargoyle spread its wings wide, flapping, making a suicidal charge along the ground.

  It was a desperate attack that didn’t give the half-elf in shock or Bell Cranell any opportunity to avoid or defend.

  The finale was fast approaching.

  “Get ready.” Finn equipped himself with his own spear, ordering the familia members to prepare to pierce the winged monsters with their arrows.

  As he steadied his long spear, Finn looked at the monster and the boy and nothing else.

  People screamed.

  Monsters howled.

  Everything was being yanked around by the strings of divine will held by a smiling puppeteer.

  While his surroundings closed in around him, the whole world condensing into an instant, the boy’s eyes flashed.

  The claws of the monster were about to skewer him.

  In the face of them, Bell took action.

  To believe.

  “” Finn froze.

  The boy had spread his arms, waiting, as the monster’s stone eyes filled with shock at his defenseless stance.

  In the next instant, the gargoyle stopped his charge, dodging out of the way.

  “—Wait!” Above the plaza, Finn reacted faster than anyone, shouting for his familia to halt, shocking them all.

  His bugged-out blue eyes were glued to the gargoyle that’d stopped its attack.

  Did it stop? Could it stop? Did a monster stop its attack? And not just by breaking free of brainwashing—but of its own will?!

  Finn didn’t miss the monster’s behavior, recognizing that it hadn’t stopped its attack because it’d returned to its senses. When it was confronted by Bell, it’d stopped its charge of its own volition.

  At the same time, Finn realized his deduction had been wrong.

  Wasn’t the monster controlled from the start?

  Then did it choose to sacrifice itself for Bell Cranell from the beginning?

  Did it make a deal with a god to repay the boy who’d protected the vouivre with his own body?

  Was a monster acting…for the sake of a person…?!

  In the span of a second, these questions and answers swirled in his mind. Finn was rocked by the shock with as much impact as a lightning strike.

  Say it was an intelligent creature. A genuine monster had protected a person without any ulterior motives or calculations.

  It had responded to the trust of a boy.

  More than that—Bell Cranell!

  He’d chosen the most foolish of alternatives, a third choice where he neither killed the monster nor sacrificed the half-elf.

  A third choice that surpassed Finn’s predictions. He’d believed there were only two options available.

  But the boy had destroyed the scales.

  He’d shredded the absolute will of the gods.

  He’d kicked aside the seat of a hero set before him and roared in rebellion against the world. It was an unprecedented foolishness, but Finn saw it as dazzling—almost blinding.

  “”

  At that moment, as Finn was caught in a dizzying swirl of emotions, his thumb ached with a pain sharp enough to shut off his thoughts.

  The strongest warning bell that something was approaching.

  Finn was the only one who looked up.

  “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  A loud roar resounded, crushing all doubts, conflicts, and plots.

  “Thousand Elf?! What are you doing out of the Dungeon?!”

  “I’m sorry! I’ll explain later!” she shouted, breaking away from the Ganesha Familia guards in shock as she flew out of Babel.

  Lefiya was running.

  With her declaration that she’d return in an hour, she’d broken through the Dungeon at a blinding speed, dashed up Babel’s underground stairway, and arrived aboveground.

  “Quickly…to the captain and the others…!”

  For the sake of those still in Knossos, Lefiya set out to cross Central Park for Daedalus Street. She leaped over five meders to the roof of a shop, jumping from building to building in a straight line to the city’s southwest region.

  Even as she struggled for breath, Lefiya resolutely sprinted to call for reinforcements.

  “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  “—Gh?!”

  Her sprint lost its momentum as that bellowing roar rocketed into the night sky.

  “That roar…Is that the black minotaur?!”

  Lefiya was sure that fearsome bellow on par with the howl of a floor boss belonged to the black minotaur for which they were on their utmost guard.

  It was a cry with enough strength that she could tell she wasn’t the only one who cowed upon hearing it, that people all throughout the city quivered at it.

  Lefiya had stopped moving in shock. As she nervously ignored the residents of the city and subconsciously opened the windows on the upper floors of the building to gaze to the city’s southeast, she steeled herself.

  She kicked off with enough force that a piece of the roof broke away when she flew, and she accelerated toward the Labyrinth District.

  Where are they in Daedalus Street?! Are they rushing to the minotaur?!

  Lefiya tried to narrow down where the black minotaur had emerged in the giant labyrinthine district, but in the end, it would prove unnecessary.

  Because after she crossed Central Park and set foot in Daedalus Street, she saw the battlefield at the northwestern edge of the district unfold before her.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Bell Cranell and the black minotaur were fighting one-on-one.

  “Wh-whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!” Lefiya let out a bloodcurdling scream at the sight when she landed in the plaza.

  It was a howl of rage.

  —Weren’t you protecting an armed monster, that vouivre?!

  Then why are you trying to kill ano
ther one now?!

  Lefiya was on the verge of exploding.

  I pressed him hard to explain himself, and he refused to give me the slightest answer—only to take a contradictory action now of all times, resulting in this mortal combat. I don’t get it at all. What was the fighting with the monsters on Daedalus Street for then?!

  Lefiya could only imagine that the boy who seemed to do incomprehensible things was either an egotistical piece of trash or an insane rabbit.

  She completely forgot her mission as her face turned bright red, ready to start ranting and raving at a moment’s notice.

  “—Ah.”

  That was when she realized something.

  That it wasn’t contradictory at all.

  The boy was fighting to respond to the minotaur that wished for a battle to the death—for a rematch.

  He was fulfilling the wish of the monsters that desired to return to the Dungeon, accepting its determination to fight.

  It was a setup to draw the attention of the adventurers and Loki Familia and to stall for time to let the main group of armed monsters escape. If she thought about it, she would have found plenty of meaning in the fight. But all of that was trivial.

  Lefiya realized something frustrating when she saw the face of the adventurer taking on a terrifying enemy with nothing but a knife. Even without understanding the situation, there was something she could understand.

  That the boy was on an adventure at that very moment.

  “That’s…”

  There was no calculation in it at all—and no desire, either.

  It was determination. That and nothing else. It was a lust for victory.

  The other adventurers in the plaza and the residents could understand that.

  That boy was betting his all at this moment.

  “That’s…what Miss Aiz and the others said…”

  A battered plaza for a stage.

  And in the center of it all, surrounded by a throng of people, a minotaur and a single boy engaged in a seesawing struggle. A battle between one beast and one person who’d destroyed the script of divine will and shone all the brighter for it.

  It was a battle as they were in fairy tales, one that held everyone’s eyes, that took everyone’s breath away.

  Lefiya realized something.

  “This is…the one who fought the minotaur…Bell Cranell’s adventure.”

  It’d been a battle that had even stirred the first-tier adventurers in Loki Familia.

  “Uuuuuuooooooooooooooooooooooooo—!”

  Look.

  Gaze at the single ferocious strike from the minotaur that split the air and shattered the ground.

  Stare at the gallant figure of the boy avoiding it and decisively stepping in.

  Feast your eyes on the dazzling sparks following the clashes of the Labrys and knife.

  “Go for it, Bell!”

  “Bell!”

  “Fight…!”

  Listen.

  Hear the voices of one, then two children, their cries rising into the sky.

  Concentrate on the praise for the boy soaring upward.

  Lend your ears to the voices of the people enthralled by his adventure, erasing all their malice and hostility.

  Lefiya’s chest trembled. Her navy-blue eyes were on the verge of tears.

  Before they realized it, a handful of adventurers opened their mouths at the shock of the battle igniting in the depths of their heart.

  “Go…”

  “Do it—”

  Someone murmured, coming from the crowd rooted in place and from the adventurers.

  Lefiya forgot everything and screamed, “Don’t lose!”

  That was the trigger. Lefiya’s voice catalyzed in a loud roar.

  At the center of the plaza, voices called out to the boy fighting the terrifying and ferocious beast.

  A single word turned into countless shouts before transforming into a billowing wave that came crashing down.

  “Gh!”

  In response to the mortal combat, the wild roar and scream intertwining, the frightened residents shouted until their voices cracked. A Guild member was at a loss for words, and that turned into cheers of support as adventurers raised their fists above their heads.

  Everyone raised their voices for the boy.

  Everyone quivered as he embarked on his adventure.

  Everyone saw a hero.

  “…You did it, Ottar.”

  Finn sighed for appearances’ sake, glancing sidelong at the tremendous stage.

  “…” The boaz warrior standing before him said nothing.

  All members of the Loki Familia squad had gathered in the northwest area, where they’d run into Freya Familia. Finn’s group was held back by Warlord and their other first-tier adventurers, preventing them from interfering with the battle between the boy and the minotaur.

  Finn realized that they hadn’t been able to catch the black minotaur on Daedalus Street because of these adventurers. Everything Ottar and his allies had done was for the sake of setting up this battle. They had beaten back other adventurers just to guide the black minotaur to this place.

  “As my lady wishes,” Ottar commented, shifting his body weight to throw his great sword.

  The large hunk of metal split the wind as it rotated, landing in the middle of the central plaza, right between Bell and the minotaur.

  The boy sprinted, grabbing the hilt and drawing the sword.

  The beast’s body shook, as if it was rejoicing.

  “Hu!”

  “UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  The great sword and Labrys flashed, sparks flying.

  As their battle accelerated, the throng of people roared again.

  I was wrong about this, too…Upon witnessing the fight, Finn realized his error.

  He’d judged that the black minotaur was an Irregular, that it randomly sowed destruction with its violence unlike the other self-aware monsters. That was why he’d told the familia members to be the wariest of it as the thing that needed to be dealt with above all else.

  But he’d been wrong.

  The minotaur was self-aware—it had a goal.

  It desired single mortal combat, a battle with the boy. That was all.

  “…”

  Finn watched the scene that birthed a maelstrom of wild enthusiasm, the battle that ignited the hearts of all—young and old, man and woman, even gods.

  “…Argonaut.”

  Tiona had called him that once. Or perhaps she meant to bring up one who was a heretical hero, like Bell Cranell. Everyone had pointed and ridiculed his foolish behavior. And everyone was in awe when he finally achieved great work in the end.

  There had been interesting scholarly research on it that said the age of heroes in the Ancient Times had begun with Argonaut. A weak, pitiful, flourishing kingdom at the center of the world had roared as the next generation of heroes was born one after the other, guided by the back of that pseudo-hero. The ferryman of heroes. The one who pulled a multitude of heroes—the Argonaut.

  “Ottar…” Finn had begun to speak somewhere in the middle of all this.

  “…What?”

  “You know, I’d set out to match Phiana. For the glory that had brought my race hope.”

  “I know…that’s the only reason you’re fighting.”

  “Yeah. But I’m going to stop that now.”

  Ottar’s eyes opened wide at Finn’s declaration. It was genuine shock, which he usually never showed.

  Phiana’s knights. In the Ancient Times, she’d killed multitudes of monsters and rescued countless people, demonstrating the bravery and embodying the first and last symbol of glory of the prums. Deified in posterity and worshipped as a goddess, she was the hero of his race and the person Finn held in highest regard, the one who’d stood tall before even Argonaut.

  Finn had been struggling to become the next Phiana, to become the light of the prums in the stead of their great ancestor.

  However, Phiana wasn’t enough. H
is race had lost its foundation, fallen further than it had been in Ancient Times.

  That was why—

  “I have to surpass her.”

  Ottar’s expression changed from one of surprise to understanding.

  “Watching him…even has an effect on me,” Finn noted.

  As the battle continued to unfold, he thought about having to transcend the part of him that had come to just accept casting things aside.

  That he had to become a hero who obliterated the scales, too.

  “‘Or is following in the steps of Bell Cranell too much for you to handle?’…Heh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  Finn laughed out loud as his own motivational speech boomeranged back at himself, giggling like a child, causing the familia members nearby to get flustered and Ottar to look at him dubiously.

  Bell Cranell had continued on the path of the fool to the very end, eventually finding his way back to the path of the hero in the process. He’d struggled and strived without casting aside anything. Even if it was a miraculous walk on a tightrope, a paper-thin margin, it was something he had reached with his own strength—without yielding to the world to cast aside divine will.

  This is the type of hero the gods…and the world wants to see, I think.

  In that case, Finn would remove his facade, start anew in a way that wouldn’t lose to the heretical hero.

  He was being shaped. He was changing. He knew it. And that was fine.

  Someone who could stand still after being enthralled by this boy’s adventure wasn’t a true adventurer.

  I…should bury Deimne.

  Bury the hatred for monsters in the depths of his heart for the time being.

  Loki’s advice had been good. He’d made his decision when he saw that gargoyle.

  Whether for the sake of its comrades or the boy.

  Because the monster offering up its life either way—that was the bravery Finn had been seeking all along.

  “…Arcus. Pull back the squad.”

  “What?!”

  “As long as Ottar and the others are here, we won’t be able to do anything. It’s a waste of time. We should start on another matter.”

  Finn shifted his gaze. He saw Lefiya reluctantly turning away from Bell’s battle with the minotaur and heading back toward the rest of her familia.