Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 11

by Fujino Omori

  The instant she finished, the werewolf would set upon her without hesitation or mercy. Just before he did so, he clapped his hands.

  “—Grow.”

  Uchide no Kozuchi. Even though Haruhime hadn’t formed a magic circle, golden light beamed out before the spell took effect, signaling its peculiar nature. As the chanting continued, the faint mist of magical power gathered into a cloud of light, announcing the presence of a magic so potent even the goddess Ishtar had groaned under its force.

  A cloud of light and a swirl of golden sparkles rose up above the heads of Haruhime and Bete. Like the black mist spreading through the Labyrinth District’s western region, a faint glittering enveloped the north-northwest area where they were. Anyone who saw it likely recognized it as a sign that the hammerhead made of light was being summoned.

  Just as Haruhime finished chanting and Bete leaned toward her, the one who had heard the girl’s prayers rushed toward them.

  “!!”

  Bete turned to look behind him and saw a beautiful woman with coal-black hair land firmly on the ground.

  It was an Amazon armed with a huge broadsword: Aisha Belka had arrived as backup.

  “Uchide no Kozuchi,” Haruhime pronounced.

  Instantly, the sparks of light flowed over Bete and gathered around Aisha, and the shaftless hammer of light fell onto her.

  “You…”

  Before Bete’s narrowed gaze, the level boost was completed.

  Wrapped in a torrent of light, the Amazon brandished her sword and pointed it at Bete, sparks of light rising from its tip.

  “Hey, asshole. You were about to lay your dirty paws on my little sister, weren’t you? I think you were. In fact, in my eyes, you already did.”

  “Hey now.”

  “—I don’t let anyone mess with my sweet little sister. I just won’t feel right unless I kick your ass right here and now.”

  Aisha was picking a fight with a smile on her face.

  This had nothing to do with the Xenos. Aisha had turned it into a personal grudge. As Haruhime watched her confront Bete and his glare, she shivered with emotion.

  “Lady Aisha…!”

  “Useless little fox, don’t be so reckless. I told you not to use your magic so freely…but I like the look in your eyes today, so I’ll forgive you,” Aisha replied with a shrug. She seemed secretly pleased that Haruhime had called on her for help.

  Bete snorted at the two women.

  “Worthless girl, leaving all your hard work to someone else,” he said, despite smiling in recognition of Haruhime’s tactics.

  He was raring for a fight.

  “Get over here and take me on, crazy woman. I’ll stomp you into the ground, idiotic head and all.”

  “I’m ready for you!!”

  As Haruhime looked on, the two began their battle.

  “Bell, Haruhime will be…!”

  “…!”

  Bell was pulling Wiene through the alleyways, a deeply troubled look on his face.

  Would Bete hurt Haruhime? He didn’t know. But he was willing to bet he wouldn’t kill her. For now, he had to focus on getting as far away as he could before Bete came after them.

  Bell’s mind was a tangle of worries and doubts and things he had to do. Even as he silently apologized to Haruhime for his incompetence, he kept moving forward so her determination wouldn’t go to waste—and for Wiene’s sake.

  “Bell, you don’t have much time…! If you don’t hurry, you won’t be able to meet up with Fels!”

  Spurred on by Hestia’s anxious voice, Bell and Wiene hurried ahead even faster.

  The sparks of light from the level boost were already gone. Bell was wearing the veil and taking care not to draw the attention of adventurers or Loki Familia members, but the streets were so empty there was hardly need for those precautions. Instead of seeing this as good fortune, however, Bell sensed a threat in the air. Glancing from side to side, he headed south toward their destination.

  South, south, ever farther south…eventually, Bell’s feet could move no more.

  “…Bell?” Wiene asked, confused that their progress had stopped.

  “…”

  Gripping her thin hand, Bell was drenched in what seemed like every last drop of sweat in his body. His breath came in ragged gasps, and the deafening sound of his own heartbeat thundered in his ears. He stood in the middle of a backstreet, surrounded by narrow side streets and steps leading up and down. His red eyes stared into the blackness ahead.

  Southeast Orario.

  In a corner of an alleyway where the ongoing chaos and shouts of the adventurers did not reach, a form lay twitching.

  An arm moved slightly in the dim light as the figure peeled its back from the cracked brick wall and coughed weakly.

  “Five years, is it? She’s left me in the dust…”

  Three minutes.

  That’s how long the fight had lasted.

  As consciousness returned, the figure sluggishly lifted its head and looked up at the sky.

  Forgetting to wipe the blood from her lip, she pressed her hands against her stomach, where she’d been hit with the back of her opponent’s sword.

  “I’m sorry, Bell Cranell…” Lyu Leon whispered.

  “—”

  The ruffled clouds covering the sky had dissipated, and the moonlight chased away the darkness below.

  Its beams illuminated long hair that shone like gold dust, glinting faintly off silver-and-blue clothing and the hilt of a sheathed sword. Bell and Wiene blinked at the brilliance.

  To Wiene, time seemed to stand still as the girl stared down on them.

  “Miss…Aiz…”

  Golden hair and golden eyes.

  At the sight of the swordswoman standing in the middle of the backstreet, Bell gasped out a single cough.

  “…So the vouivre is alive.”

  The word vouivre—there was no doubt Aiz had said that word—shot through Bell like a shock wave. In the same moment, he realized belatedly that Aiz had probably gotten past Lyu with ease and started following him again quite a while ago.

  He hadn’t noticed her because she hadn’t actually been looking at him. She knew he was unusually sensitive to gazes directed his way, so she had avoided looking straight at him; instead, she had followed not so much his physical form as his presence, so skillfully he hadn’t detected her.

  After losing track of him once because of Lyu’s interference, she had picked up the trail again when he crossed from the southeast to the southwest. She’d watched as he met up with Haruhime and again when he was reunited with Wiene. She’d been watching the whole time.

  In other words, Bell hadn’t succeeded in shaking off Aiz. Bete had shown up first only because she’d been unable to make up her mind.

  “Come out…”

  With a trace of sadness, Aiz ordered Bell to take off the Reverse Veil.

  Silently, he pushed aside the veil.

  “…”

  “…”

  Aiz lowered her eyes as Bell and Wiene, with her single new wing, appeared.

  “I’ve been thinking about…why you asked me that,” Aiz said.

  Five days earlier, immediately before the mission had been issued to the entire city, Bell had asked Aiz a question.

  If the monsters had a reason for living…had feelings just like you or me, what would you do? If you met monsters who could smile just like people, worry about things, shed tears just like people—could you still draw your sword against them?

  “So this is what you meant…” she said, slowly raising her gaze from the ground to look at Wiene.

  Bell saw something dangerous in that gaze.

  Her expression was as emotionless as always, yet something in her eyes was distinctly different from the Aiz he knew. His heart trembled at those eyes.

  Why here? How could she? Stop looking at us like that!

  Desperately pushing down the grief that was rising up from his chest, Bell shielded Wiene from that gaze and ple
aded with Aiz.

  “Miss Aiz!! This girl—”

  “My answer,” Aiz said, interrupting him emphatically, “has not changed.”

  With that, she brought her hand to the hilt of her sword.

  “If anyone is crying because of a monster—then I will kill that monster.”

  Bell froze at the words of the Sword Princess—and the sight of her silver blade.

  Aiz’s boot came down with a resounding thud as she took one step forward.

  “Wait…please wait, Miss Aiz! This girl hasn’t done any harm! She would never hurt anyone!! This girl—Wiene—is different!!” Bell shouted.

  His voice was ragged and tinged with tears as he hid the terrified Wiene behind his back.

  “Will you be able to say the same thing if she goes on another rampage?” Aiz asked.

  “—”

  The ruby embedded in Wiene’s forehead glittered as if it were shaking.

  “I would not be able to, myself,” Aiz said.

  She was fundamentally different from the naive Amazonian girl who poked fun at herself and others in equal measure. Her expression was cold, her daggerlike words final. Bell did not know what made her so cold-blooded. He did not want to know.

  All he knew was that negotiations had broken down.

  He understood at that moment that the girl he admired and yearned for was now his opponent.

  “Uh, ah…”

  Finally, the despair and resignation raging within him led his hand to the hilt of his knife.

  Like the swordswoman he faced, Bell had already arrived at an answer he could never reverse.

  He’d do it for the monster girl he’d promised to protect.

  As Aiz narrowed her eyes at him sadly, he pulled two knives—one black and one crimson—from their hilts.

  “Bell…” Wiene whispered, sounding like she was about to cry.

  “…”

  Hestia, on her side of the crystal, was at a loss for words.

  “…Why?” Bell whispered, his lips trembling uncontrollably. “Why…?”

  Aiz leaned forward and lunged toward him.

  “—Crap!!”

  Bell, too, lunged forward, swinging his black knife at the silver sword that bore down on him.

  The first clash of blades threw off a shower of countless sparks.

  Aiz was of course overwhelmingly stronger than Bell. But he knew that from the start and compensated by turning the brunt of her blow into centrifugal force that sent him spinning.

  “Wiene, run!!” he screamed as he slashed the Hestia Knife in a reverse grip in his right hand toward Aiz once again.

  The dragon girl hugged the veil to her chest and swayed before Bell’s ghastly expression and voice. Then, still on the verge of tears, she obeyed his order.

  Bell had no time to look back as Wiene ran down the road they’d come by. Since Aiz had blocked the Divine Knife, he thrust the crimson knife in his left hand toward her.

  But the golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman unceremoniously flicked it away with a single blow of her sword.

  “Oof!!”

  Bell gritted his teeth as Aiz facilely parried his blow. Somehow, he had to keep her pinned here. He raised both blades in preparation for a twin strike, but—

  “—”

  The instant after he felt something deflect his black knife, a golden curtain descended in front of his eyes.

  His mind went blank. It was only a moment later that he understood what had happened.

  After her defensive move, Aiz had leaped into the air and flown like a butterfly over his head. Bell’s red blade found only air as she landed behind his back, their positions reversed.

  “Huh?!”

  Every nerve strung taut, Bell spun around. Aiz was already racing after Wiene. He followed the direction of her gaze.

  She’s not looking at me!

  The sorrow that had filled his chest transformed into something else—something that set the pit of his stomach on fire.

  Was it anger? No, not that. It was frustration that the adventurer he admired so much would not even deign to fight him.

  His whole body radiating heat, Bell ran after Wiene and Aiz.

  “B-Bell?”

  Hestia’s sob crackled through the oculus. She must have figured out what had happened by watching their movements on the magic map. As she feared, Bell was not drawing closer to Aiz. It seemed that Aiz’s sword would reach Wiene’s back before he caught up with them.

  It’s hopeless! I’ll never make it in time. Wiene will—!

  As Aiz’s gaze pierced the dragon girl’s back, Bell squeezed his hands into tight fists, as if he were wringing out his anguish.

  Wiene glanced backward as Aiz closed in on her. But the instant before the Sword Princess made contact with her quarry, Bell let out a heartrending roar.

  “Firebolt!!”

  A scarlet streak of fire plunged through the air.

  The Swift-Strike Magic shot like a flash of lightning toward Aiz, crossing the hopeless distance between her and Bell in an instant and blocking her progress. As it collided with a wall and sent stone fragments in every direction, the surprised Wiene disappeared behind a cloud of dust.

  He’d taken a shot. Once again, he’d gone and taken a shot.

  Last time it was at an adventurer.

  This time it was at his idol.

  What was he doing? He had no idea, and that confusion practically drove him to tears. All he knew was that he could no longer reverse course.

  Bell kept running, his face twisted into a frown. As the stunned Aiz jumped back to avoid the bolt, he flew at her with knife raised.

  “Miss Aiz, please listen to me!” he shouted across his knife, which she had blocked with her sword.

  An absurd emptiness filled him as he recognized the contrast between his words and the urgent need to swing his knife at her. Their blades clanged together as they parried each other’s blows.

  “…I don’t have anything to talk about with you,” Aiz said, refusing to meet his eyes. Her cheeks flamed red.

  “Well, I do!!” Bell retorted, like a petulant little boy spurned by his playmate.

  He stepped toward her and jabbed his knife forward, but the scowling Aiz repelled his blow. After she easily sent Bell tottering back, she once again took off after Wiene.

  “…Goddess!”

  “Yes!”

  The oculus on his gauntlet sparkled as Hestia guided him through the streets.

  He’d never be able to catch up simply by following Aiz, so she searched for a shortcut to reach Wiene’s location on the magic map.

  The vouivre had turned down a backstreet into a network of alleyways as tangled as a spider’s web. Bell climbed above the cloud of dust from the Firebolt and sped across the rooftops, hoping to reach the dragon girl—and Aiz—by the shortest route possible. From high above, the buildings of Daedalus Street looked like rafts floating in a calm ocean. His footsteps firm amid the waves of this imaginary ocean, Bell sped through the neighborhoods. After a few moments, he caught sight of Aiz’s long golden hair flying down a narrow street.

  Leaping down from the rooftops, he landed directly in front of her.

  “!”

  “Miss Aiz!”

  Aiz stood frozen, staring at him in astonishment.

  They were in a cramped alley with no side streets nearby. Her golden eyes swiftly scanned their surroundings. As she tilted her slender neck back to look upward, Bell closed in.

  Oh no you don’t!

  He was one step ahead of Aiz, who was searching for an escape route via the rooftops. He lunged toward her.

  “…!”

  Left with no other choice, she returned his attack.

  For the second time, his two knives clashed against her single sword.

  “I don’t want to fight you…” Aiz whispered, as if she were struggling to get the words out.

  “Neither do I!” Bell shouted back.

  Just a few months earlier, they’d train
ed together on the city walls until the sun rose, but this fight bore little resemblance to those. This was no drill.

  Pushing down the pain and burning with anguish over his horrible situation, Bell pleaded with Aiz for a third time.

  “Miss Aiz, I’m begging you, please listen to me! That girl and the other Xenos are—!”

  “My answer…is the same.”

  “Ergh!”

  Why?!

  Bell glared at Aiz, silently screaming at her refusal to even listen.

  He gripped his knives.

  Channeling all the thoughts and feelings he couldn’t communicate through words into the blades, he slashed at her with all his might.

  “Yahh!”

  “?!”

  The black and crimson blades flashed in front of her eyes.

  It was the Rabbit Rush, a series of extremely quick attacks. The fight was on again.

  The black and red knives cut tracks through the air, and Aiz’s sword flashed in all directions to defend. As if to mirror her astonishment, an extraordinary fountain of sparks danced to the tune of clashing metal. Bell’s physical instincts kicked into high gear, leaving conscious thought behind.

  He was moving faster than he ever had before.

  Bell threw everything he had at his idol, moving even faster than he had in his past fights against first-tier adventurers like Phryne and Dix.

  “…!”

  The shape of the alleyway put the silver sword at a further disadvantage. It was difficult to move the long blade in the narrow street, and Aiz was unable to take advantage of its full reach. Bell’s knife, on the other hand, was especially effective.

  Pressed hard from start to end, Aiz gulped and looked into Bell’s face. She blocked his final slash and jumped back.

  “Huff, puff…!”

  The sound of Bell’s breath echoed through the dim alley.

  “…”

  Aiz looked down at her tingling hand.

  “…You’ve improved, I see,” she said.

  “!”

  Bell looked back at her, surprised that she had acknowledged his skill. But the praise had a downside.

  “I can no longer make any allowances for you.”

  She was giving him notice of the fierce onslaught that was about to begin.

  “—”