But the female caterpillar’s reaction was just as fast. Its lower right arm swung down and intercepted her blade before it could hit flesh.
—No…no blind spots?
The creature used its deceptively high agility and long, flat arms to attack or defend from any angle around the front of its body. A great deal of large-category monsters had a weak point that could be exploited. Not this one.
Aiz continued to collect information on this new species while continuing to hack away.
“…!”
Focusing the power of Airiel’s wind onto her blade, Aiz deflected another round of swipes from its arms.
The addition of the wind allowed her thin blade to repel the beast’s surprisingly strong limbs. With her delicate frame and slender weapon, she would inspire many of the dwarves who fought as part of the wall in battle to faint from anxiety just watching her. But for her, she was using Magic enhancements in tandem with a Durandal. They made up for the obvious gap between her and the monster in terms of physical strength—and as a lone adventurer—to the point that her technique and skill were enough to do much more than just irritate the monster.
Through combat thus far, Aiz deduced that the pale-green front side of the arms had a very high Defense while the brilliantly colored underside was used to deploy spores. Once again, one of its slightly damaged arms blocked Desperate, protecting the softer flesh beneath as another one knocked away the weapon. The arms might have a limited range, but they packed so much punch that she could block only one hit at a time.
The two combatants traded blows over and over in a test of endurance.
The female caterpillar made another move to change the tide of battle.
“?!”
It happened when Aiz tried to get around the main body and strike the torso from behind.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the many tendrils growing out of its head come to life. All of them focused on her before opening wide and spewing more of the corrosive purple liquid.
—Eh, no fair!
A sneak attack from overhead.
The sheer amount of acid raining down on her was too much for the wind to deflect on its own. Slicing upward, she swept it out of the way.
However, she had to step backward to do so. The female caterpillar used this extra space to put its entire weight behind a double-armed swipe at the blond girl.
The lower arm hit the sword at full speed, knocking Aiz backward and off her feet, while the upper arm rotated outward and released a small cloud of spores.
The area around the girl started to sparkle.
The cloud might have been small, but it was denser than any she’d seen up to that point. The creature was trying to finish her off.
Even the tendrils on top of its head were open, ready to shoot their acid in any direction to prevent her escape. Time seemed to stop.
“Go, wind.”
The air currents that had been protecting her body expanded, blowing away the cloud.
The cloud seemed to hover in the air for a moment, a safe distance away from her, before exploding into brilliant red flames. All that reached her was a heat wave and a puff of air strong enough to make her land on the plain.
—The pollen spores explode after three seconds.
She’d seen the attack three times already.
There was a three-second window between the creature’s arms flapping and the explosion. Meaning that she could reduce the amount of damage inflicted by blowing away spores within those three seconds. This was her familia’s first encounter with this new breed of monster; she wasn’t about to neglect her duties to collect information on it.
The wind magic–wielding Aiz was perfectly suited for combating this monster, and quite possibly its only threat.
Its unblockable corrosive acid and wide-range explosive spores were both attacks that would strike fear into the hearts of many adventurers. However, manipulating the wind rendered them both useless. That was why Finn had ordered her to face this monster alone—he’d already seen it in action.
Until finally, there was a pop and a hiss.
Aiz saw a flare travel through the sky, through the cloud of smoke surrounding her.
The retreat was successful. She had permission to slay the beast.
She ignored her body’s complaints and intensified the air currents.
Then, she leaned forward before launching herself toward her target.
“—”
The monster couldn’t react in time.
Completely bypassing the beast’s attempts to shield its right side, she angled her blade at the many little legs on the right side of its body and charged.
“?!”
Every single leg was severed. The female caterpillar fell to that side and tried to use two of its flat arms to stay upright.
Sever a leg and bring them to the ground. It was a popular strategy for taking on large-category monsters and floor bosses.
Aiz didn’t stop there. Slamming down her foot, she reversed direction and used her wind to jump onto the monster’s caterpillar-like back. Dashing to the torso, she separated the tendrils from its head in one clean slash. Then, using the same momentum, she spun like a top and brought down the sword through the creature’s upper shoulder. One of its four flat arms fell to the ground.
Purple acid gushed forth from every wound. All the legs and tendrils instantly turned into deadly geysers of the corrosive liquid.
The severed arm on the ground started convulsing. Its connection to the brain gone, every muscle started firing on its own. That included the trigger mechanism for the spores. The air took on a familiar reddish glimmer.
Three seconds later, detonation.
“—aaaaiiiiiiaaaa?!”
The female caterpillar shrieked as it was enveloped in flames.
Every muscle still connected to the creature’s brain contracted in pain.
Thump. Aiz landed a short distance from the beast caught in the center of the inferno. It was time for her to deliver the final blow.
She jumped and spun high toward the ceiling over and over, carving arcs into the air every time she kicked off the ground as she put some space between her and the monster. She looked like a feather dancing in the wind from a distance. Her skirt fluttered with every movement, thighs flashing.
Finally, she landed on the remains of the rock hill.
Knees bent and feet locked onto a particularly strong boulder, her golden eyes focused on the massive cloud of smoke in the plains.
Blastoff.
Aligning the hurricane-type winds around her body, Aiz held her sword at shoulder level. She was focusing all of her magic onto one spot, becoming divine wind.
“—Aiz, come on! Yellin’ out a skill’s name makes it stronger, y’know?!” Loki had been trying to make a joke at the time, but Aiz had taken her seriously.
Quietly, her lips formed the words.
“Lil Rafaga.”
Calling out the name of her finishing move, as instructed by her goddess, Aiz became the sharp point of the wind arrow.
“!!”
Air currents spiraled around her as she flashed toward her target faster than the eye could see. Sensing an imminent threat, the caterpillar folded its remaining three arms into a shield over its torso in a last-ditch effort to defend.
However, the silver-bladed tip of the wind arrow would not be stopped.
It pierced right through.
“—”
Shield and body couldn’t even slow down the arrow.
A gaping hole in its chest, the monster’s body began to pulsate.
The female torso fell to pieces, its remaining limbs crashing to the ground. Enormous amounts of the corrosive acid mixed with the rising spore cloud for a few moments—a multicolored explosion the likes of which had never been seen before in this world erupted on the fiftieth floor of the Dungeon.
“Miss Aiz?!”
Lefiya screamed at the top of her lungs.
A dome like a
mushroom cloud hovered over the ash forest, blocking out the natural lights in the ceiling. Debris riding the shock wave landed at her feet a moment later.
Following Finn’s orders, everyone had grabbed only the necessities from camp and put as much space as possible between them and the monster to avoid the inevitable explosion. Loki Familia had watched the battle from afar, hoping with all their might that Aiz could pull it off. Every set of eyes was wide open as the heat from the detonation reached their skin.
Everything under the mushroom cloud was cast in red light from the flames.
The center of the blaze was thick and showed no signs of slowing down.
The ash forest caught fire in the blink of an eye. New pyres of flame erupted every second, reaching toward the ceiling like the arms of demons trying to escape hell.
“Aiz…”
Tiona stared out at the burning wasteland, orange and red light dancing on her face.
The next moment, she saw a flicker.
The wall of fire bent, warping outward as if being pushed from the inside. The bright, healthy flames swished from side to side like a candle that refused to go out.
Then the sea of flames parted. A human figure emerged. A feminine form with heavily damaged armor and a silver sword glimmering at her side.
The blond, golden-eyed girl slowly and steadily made her way out of the flames.
There was a round of joyful cheers.
CHAPTER 3
WHITE RABBIT
The Dungeon layout changed dramatically on certain floors.
The standard design started on level one and then became steadily more complex with new topography including forests, ponds, deserts, and many other areas. It was hard for anyone to believe that such landscapes existed so far underground as they traveled farther and wider. The environments became more remarkable in the Dungeon’s Deep Levels.
The terrain that Loki Familia was currently making their way through was a cave-like tunnel. Rocks jutted from the walls that were filled with large holes leading to other passageways. What’s more, there were holes in the ground to watch out for. If a person had just woken up in here, they would think they were trapped in a cave rather than in the Dungeon. Their only clue would be the small lights flickering like candles on the distant ceiling. The lights were just strong enough to illuminate the edges of the walls, casting everything else in shadow.
They had traveled from the Deep Levels all the way to the middle levels, the seventeenth floor.
“We could have pressed on. There was still so much fun to be had.”
“Enough already. You’re testing my patience.”
“But to call it quits at floor fifty—”
Loki Familia decided to give up their expedition’s original goal and return to the surface after the battle on the fiftieth floor. To put it simply, their mission had ended in failure.
Tione scolded her sister for the repetitive complaints. Tiona hadn’t stopped voicing her opinion the entire way up.
“How many times did the general explain it to you? Those monsters destroyed almost all of our weapons and food. There wasn’t enough to continue.”
“But there’s food everywhere down here. We could’ve figured it out…”
“Without weapons or items? They don’t grow down here. Especially weapons—all we have left are pieces of junk.”
Tione continued her small rant, adding that Tiona didn’t have anything left at all.
Everyone was forced to wear badly damaged armor and carry weapons that could break at any moment. The edges had become dull without any smiths or artisans around to sharpen them—their armor had holes or large gashes in the plating, drastically reducing their Defense; one big hit and everything could fall apart. With the exception of a few Superiors, all equipment, no matter how well made, was doomed to this fate during long missions like this one.
An adventurer’s individual strengths made no difference if their equipment couldn’t hold up against monsters in battle.
“Uwahhh! This sucks. Just getting to floor fifty was so hard…”
Six days had already passed since Finn gave the order to return to the surface.
Tiona walked with her arms crossed behind her head. No matter how many times she heard the explanation, it didn’t sit well with her. Indeed, she had no weapons or armor on her body at all. She glanced over at Aiz with a hint of jealousy in her eyes.
Even the sheath of her sword glinted in the dim light. The blond girl noticed Tiona’s gaze and tilted her head in confusion.
“All because of that monster…So what was it, exactly?”
A few moments passed before an annoyed Tione answered with, “How should I know?”
“All we can say is it was an undiscovered species…But it was strange.”
Tione brought her hand up to her chest as she spoke. Wedging her fingers between her shapely bosom, she pulled out a monster’s magic stone.
Tiona looked down at her own flat chest before looking back at her sister, mouth twitching with envy.
“Hang on, is that one of their magic stones? Tione, how did you get one of those?”
“I ripped it out of one of them with my hands.”
All of the caterpillar monsters spewed the purple acid out of their wounds, causing their own bodies to dissolve or explode. No magic stones had survived. Despite fighting against more of those creatures than they could count, the rest of Loki Familia hadn’t found a single magic stone.
Only Tione had been reckless enough to not care about the acid, and had managed to retrieve one with her barbaric methods.
“Wait, what’s with that color?”
“Yeah…It’s a little different from the usual ones.”
The magic stones hidden within monsters came in many different shapes and sizes, but if they all had one thing in common, it was their dark purple color.
The stone in Tione’s hand, however, had a brilliantly colored core surrounded by a dark purple layer and an extremely unusual shiny covering.
Tione held it up to the light, with her sister peering over her shoulder. The two of them squinted as it reflected the light like a glinting jewel back into their faces.
Their group arrived at a wide room.
The passageways up here were much narrower than in the Deep Levels, so Loki Familia had split into two groups before arriving on level seventeen. It was much more difficult to coordinate a large group in close quarters should they get swarmed by monsters. Riveria was at the helm of the forward group. Including the Amazonian twins and Aiz, there were almost twenty adventurers traveling together. Finn and Gareth were with the second group.
They were on their way home and everyone was tired, but none more so than the lower-level supporters who had been tasked with carrying the surviving baggage.
“…Linne, want some help?”
“Huh? N-no no. I’m fine?!”
Aiz approached another human girl and offered her assistance. The supporter rejected the offer immediately. She couldn’t allow a top-class adventurer to do something as mundane as carrying the bags.
Aiz’s strength and reputation were very well known already—not to mention her detached mannerisms—so many members of the familia were at a loss as to how to interact with her.
“Don’t bother with ’em, Aiz. The runts ain’t worth it.”
An animal person, the werewolf Bete, had witnessed their brief conversation.
Standing over 180 celch tall, Bete had long, muscular legs and a blue lightning-bolt tattoo on the left side of his face. A wild aura emanated from him, making his very presence intimidating.
He kicked the supporter lightly on the side of her hip as a way to shoo her away before coming up next to Aiz.
“Even as strong as ya are, ya don’t know squat, yeah? Just talkin’ with weaklings is a waste’a time, much less helpin’ them out.”
“…”
“Look down on ’em. It’s yer right as someone who’s strong.”
Aiz listened quie
tly as Bete cocked his head back and laughed drily through his nose.
Bete Loga.
One of Loki Familia’s top-class adventurers, he was just as strong as would be expected —perhaps even more—for someone with that title. That being said, he did acknowledge the female knight Aiz to be slightly superior to himself.
He was not a bad person…or at least Aiz seemed to think so.
Riveria, who often had a difference of opinion with the werewolf, had described him ironically as a “man who wanted to be misunderstood.”
His arguments with Tiona were almost a daily occurrence. A lone wolf by nature, perhaps his instincts interfered with his social skills.
“No, Aiz, don’t listen to a word Bete says. That’s the real waste of time!”
“Go to hell, woman. You should be helpin’ the runts! Yet there ya are, empty-handed! Move yer ass!”
“Shut up already!”
Throwing even more verbal jabs, the werewolf and the Amazon glared at each other. A heartbeat later…
Their argument didn’t matter.
“—UoOOoo!”
An anxious air filled the room as far-off howls started to echo. It wasn’t long before the unmistakable grunts of heavy breathing joined them.
This particular room might have had many exits, but monsters were being born just outside each one of them.
“UUOooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Roars that were strong enough to shake the rock under their feet.
There was enough power behind the howls to make the average adventurer run out of their boots in fright. The monsters started to appear. First, their incredibly thick arms and meaty shoulders were illuminated by the lights far above. Then, sturdy, hoofed feet emerged from under their own shadows, cracking the ground as they came closer.
Rusty brown fur–covered bodies built like brick walls.
It was a herd of Minotaurs: massive man-shaped beasts with bull-like heads that embodied the term monster.
“See, Bete! These Minotaurs came here to shut you up!”
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 1 Page 8
