Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 11

by Fujino Omori

  Freya’s robe covered everything except her face. She must have been planning to depart early in the morning, considering that if the Goddess of Beauty went out into the city without any disguise, it would cause a commotion. When Aiz glanced behind her, she could see a carriage waiting beside the gate. That might have been another reason why the response to her visit had been so dramatic.

  “I’m sorry for allowing you to see this eyesore, Lady Freya. I’ll have it cleaned up in no time.”

  “It’s fine, Allen. Lower your spear.”

  “There’s no need for that. I’ll just cut her throat right now.”

  “Allen.”

  “…”

  Freya smiled as she spoke his name. That was all it took for the rabid dog—er, cat to slowly lower his spear. Possessing incredible charisma, Freya was revered by her followers as though she were a queen—an idol that must be protected at all costs. Her orders were absolute. Freya turned her gaze to Aiz, ignoring the cat person who was clearly venting his displeasure, though he obediently lowered his spear.

  “And what do you want, Sword Princess?”

  “…I’d like…to ask a favor.”

  “You have a favor to ask? Of us? Oh-ho, that’s odd. And just what might that be?”

  Freya looked genuinely curious. The smile of a child crossed her face. At the goddess’s urging, Aiz looked away from Freya, fixing her eyes on someone behind her—at the solitary boaz standing back, attending to her. At the one who had desired the title of the city’s strongest while, at the same time, standing at its pinnacle.

  The Warlord, Ottar. As the warrior’s rust-colored eyes watched her intently, Aiz lowered her head.

  “Please train with me.”

  The wind whistled, an invisible breeze passing through the beautiful field.

  Ottar opened his eyes wide. Allen’s movements ground to a halt. Even Freya’s silver eyes flickered with surprise. Every other familia member was astonished. Blowing away all of Freya Familia , Aiz continued to gaze fixedly at the grass at her feet, keeping her head down.

  “Heh…hee-hee-hee!” Freya was the first to make a sound, of course.

  Though she covered her mouth, a giggle slipped past her fingers, sounding like a songbird’s chirps. The next to speak was Allen, who could not keep his annoyance under wraps anymore.

  “Just how stupid are you? Who the hell would be dumb enough to train an asshole from an enemy familia? Argh! Screw it all! Die!”

  His scathing response was entirely on point.

  Aiz raised her head. Rather than trying to explain herself, she was forthcoming, spilling the feelings in her heart—not to Allen or to Freya but to the warrior.

  “I…can’t lose anymore. No. I don’t want to lose. Not to that person, that creature…If I lose against them, I might lose everything.”

  “…”

  “That’s why…I want to become stronger.”

  But that wasn’t enough of an explanation for someone who did not know about the existence of Knossos or the creature she referred to. It could have been a complete non sequitur.

  But there was a tenacity in her voice permeating each word, and that was very real.

  “Even Finn and the others couldn’t win against them.”

  “…”

  “I don’t know anyone stronger than me—stronger than them…except you. That’s why I want to learn from you.”

  Allen’s cheek twitched. Even Aiz could tell he was itching to kill her. She knew full well that she was shamelessly asking for a huge favor. And that by doing this, she might be betraying Finn and the others. But when Aiz had heard Bell say that he wanted to become stronger, she decided to throw away all concern about appearances or obligations.

  In order to beat Knossos. In order to defeat the creature Levis.

  I want to become stronger, too… Lifting her head, she repeated that to herself.

  She had returned to her starting point, embracing the pure original intent she’d had when she first took up her sword. As expected, she could not tell what the city’s strongest adventurer was thinking as she looked at him. But unlike the other familia members, he accepted Aiz’s resolve with a tranquil face—as if he was the only person in the world who understood her.

  “—Very well. I’ll allow it.”

  But there was another one who acknowledged her: the goddess watching Aiz.

  “Lady Freya.”

  Allen’s eyes flashed, as did those of the other familia members. Of course they did. Their faction and Aiz’s were the two heads of the city, the most powerful familias and each other’s greatest rivals. And Freya was allowing them to train that rival. There was no reason to give Aiz that.

  Allen had raised his voice not in simple agitation—but in open anger. It was enough that Aiz started to feel extraordinarily embarrassed. But Freya paid his pointed glare no mind as she looked into Aiz’s eyes.

  “Sword Princess, just to confirm, your goal has to do with the assault on Knossos, right?”

  “…Yes.” She was flustered when she heard Freya say the word Knossos , but she managed to nod.

  The goddess could see in her eyes that Aiz wasn’t lying. Freya’s smile deepened before she looked back at Allen, who was the lone voice of dissent.

  “Like Loki said. If I act like everything’s fine, we might end up at a point that’s beyond salvation. There’s no sense regretting it all if I only do it after Orario disappears,” Freya capriciously continued. “Allen? I don’t want to become the kind of queen who would act the way Loki described. Or would you all rather fight alongside Loki’s children?”

  “…I’d rather die.”

  “Then wouldn’t it be easier to cooperate?”

  That shut him up, though he was visibly angry, showing the signs of an ill-tempered cat who might someday turn his claws on his master.

  However, in the end, Allen did not say anything.

  “Ottar, do you mind?”

  “If you allow it, Lady Freya, then…I’m willing to accept it as an adventurer.”

  Freya seemed satisfied by his response as she nodded. Aiz watched with bated breath as she waited to see how it would go.

  Just as she was nervously starting to think that she might have somehow succeeded, Freya suddenly leaned in.

  “But! I can’t just let this happen for free.”

  “…!”

  “Allen made a fair point. We have to be sufficiently compensated…”

  Aiz was shaken by the unexpected response as Freya’s face loomed closer to hers. The goddess’s eyes narrowed as she placed a finger on Aiz’s chin, lifting her head.

  “Let’s make a contract, Sword Princess.”

  “A…contract…?”

  “Yes. I’ll lend you Ottar and let him train you. In exchange, you’ll owe us a favor.”

  “…”

  “No need to eye me so suspiciously. The debt will be repaid whenever, however, and with whatever I decide. But I won’t demand anything unreasonable. Or at least nothing more unreasonable than what you are asking for now. I swear on my name,” Freya added sweetly into Aiz’s ear.

  With a gaze that could entrance even a deity, she trained her eyes on Aiz, who was transfixed.

  Aiz did not know what the goddess was thinking. And she couldn’t think of any way she could pay back a debt to someone who had everything. However, it was an acceptable trade. Or at least, it should have been.

  Aiz gritted her teeth as she returned Freya’s gaze, as if resisting her allure.

  “…As long as it’s only a personal debt…and does not involve my familia…”

  Aiz somehow managed to wring out that last condition. Freya smiled and nodded, her dainty finger letting go of Aiz’s chin, standing back up to meet her gaze. Aiz instinctively clasped her hand to her neck. For some reason, she felt like a collar had just been slipped around it, even though there was nothing there.

  Without realizing it, the girl with golden hair and golden eyes and the goddess with silver hai
r and silver eyes had finalized a contract.

  “Oh my, look at the time. I have to get going. Ottar, I’ll leave the rest to you.”

  “Yes, my lady. But…for your attendant…”

  “I’ll take Helen.”

  Accompanied by a single female familia member, Freya climbed into the waiting carriage. As though she’d already lost interest in Aiz, the goddess disappeared through the open gate without a single glance back.

  Once Freya had left and he was freed of his obligations as her attendant, Ottar walked up to Aiz and peered down at her.

  “…As you requested, I’ll cross swords with you. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” With her beloved sword Desperate at her hip, Aiz nodded without a trace of doubt in her eyes.

  “All of you are forbidden to speak of this. This is a secret agreement forged between our lady and the Sword Princess. I will not tolerate it becoming fodder for vulgar rumors. What happens in Folkvangr stays in Folkvangr.”

  ““Sir!””

  With the air of a brusque commander, Ottar gave the familia members a strict order. Though they were in a disorderly array after their patron goddess had left, they all acknowledged his order as one.

  In the midst of that, only one, just Allen, turned his back to the others with visible rage.

  Ottar called out to him as he started to return to the manor. “Allen, you help, too.”

  “Don’t go ordering me around, asshole. You two can just do whatever the hell you want.”

  Ottar silently watched as the cat person made no attempt to hide his distaste, walking away.

  As for Aiz, it was brought to her attention again that she’d made an absurd request, which was making her feel slightly uncomfortable.

  “Nonetheless…” Ottar’s voice suddenly had a different tone to it. “I’m surprised Finn and his crew are letting you do this.”

  “………”

  Ottar was genuinely impressed. Aiz quietly averted her eyes as she struggled to control the sweat forming on her brow.

  —What do I do? I didn’t tell them anything.

  “Apparently, Aiz has started going off to train by herself,” Riveria said as she looked down at the unfurled scroll—a letter addressed to her.

  The location was Loki Familia ’s home, Twilight Manor. Two days had passed since the leaders had announced the deal they had made with the Xenos. Thanks to the work done by Raul, Anakity, and the other second-string team members, the familia was finally in the process of reaching a consensus when Aiz had suddenly disappeared without a trace. The letter in Riveria’s hands had just come in, providing an explanation.

  “She was in bad spirits, and I was starting to think we might have to leave her out of the plan as Riveria proposed, but…seems she was able to right herself,” Finn commented.

  “And training at this time means she must be back to herself. Ga-ha-ha-ha!” Gareth added.

  “That’s Mama Riveria for ya!” Loki chimed in.

  “I certainly did talk to her…but I’ve no idea how she got the idea of going to train into her mind.”

  Ignoring their responses, Riveria looked conflicted as she gazed down at the letter in her hands, which said: please don’t look for me i’m traning in secret , written in a very shaky hand. That misspelling. The scattered inkblots. It all spoke to the intensity of the special training, given the fact that she didn’t even have the energy to properly hold a quill.

  Riveria’s shapely brows furrowed, but…she had heard from the receptionist Misha Frot that Aiz had delivered it to Guild Headquarters herself. Plus, she’d added that “she looked super beat-up and uber-tired!” But Riveria imagined she was fine, taking that account as evidence of a vigorous training session. She decided the young adventurer had to be holed up somewhere in the Dungeon.

  “In any case, the last bit of concern has been cleared up,” Finn said as he looked down at the desk set up in the middle of the room.

  Riveria, Gareth, and Loki followed suit, directing their attention to the maps and a strategic document with an array of information enumerated on it sprawled across the desk.

  Since they had announced the deal with the Xenos, no one had withdrawn from the mission. Loki Familia had mustered the resolve to swallow that pill and take on the assault of Knossos.

  “It helps that we managed to get a map from Riveria’s surprise attack. You knocked out one of the monster plants, too, right?”

  “Still, the map only covers a small piece of the enormous labyrinth. And there’s no way that plant was the last of them. We should assume the enemy still has extant forces ready to fight and keep in mind that they hold a significant territorial advantage.”

  “You’re right, Riveria, but we also have information from when Gareth and I went in. I’ll summarize the basic outline of the plan, including all of that.”

  In the strategy meeting for the leadership, there was an energetic exchange of opinions and confirmation of information. But Finn was still the mainstay of the strategic efforts.

  “First of all, we have multiple keys in our possession. Counting the ones the Xenos have—which should be considered Ouranos’s side—we have five of them. We need to make the most of all five in order to advance the attack.”

  The first was the Daedalus Orb that Anakity had stolen with Lilly’s help. The second was the one Riveria had managed to capture inside Knossos. The third was the one that Hermes had exchanged with Cruz and his squad in the underground passage—the one that Freya had secretly been keeping. And the remaining two were the ones the Xenos had in their possession.

  With Loki looking on as an adviser, the prum leader put into words the strategy he had sketched out in his head.

  “In order to plan an assault, we need a complete map of the interior of Knossos,” he said as he tapped the map Rakuta had created, which was spread out across the desk. “All passages, as well as an escape route in the worst case. And most importantly, the optimal path to sneak in directly to our target. If we can’t get at least that much, then eradicating the demi-spirit will be very difficult.”

  Next to the map were rough sketches that Finn had drawn: the demi-spirit they had faced on the fifty-ninth floor of the Dungeon and the one Gareth had fought with the others during their first venture into Knossos. They were a plant-type monster and a bull-type monster. They looked just like what Riveria and Gareth remembered. Next to the pictures were means of attack, weak points, and other detailed characteristics.

  Their highest priority was killing the demi-spirit that could invoke the destruction of Orario.

  “Knossos has dangerous traps. If at all possible, I’d like to neutralize those, too.”

  “The more I hear, the more time and work it sounds like it’s going to take…”

  “Don’t forget people, too. Knossos reaches all the way down to the Dungeon’s middle levels. I thought I was ready for it, but…”

  Gareth and Riveria groaned at the scale of the enemy’s base, which precluded ordinary methods of assault. Based on what they had learned from Ouranos’s allies and from Ikelos, who had been cast out of the city, it was confirmed that Knossos reached all the way to the eighteenth floor. It would be impossible for Loki Familia to clear it by themselves. That was exactly why they were planning to fight alongside the Xenos.

  Ignoring their complaints, Finn touched upon the core of his strategy. “That’s why—I’ve split the operation into two stages.”

  Riveria and Gareth were thunderstruck. Loki whistled in amusement.

  “The first attack is to get a comprehensive understanding of the layout of Knossos. And the second is to eliminate our targets after determining the optimal route. You could call the former a reconnaissance in force, which would make the latter an all-out, decisive battle.”

  Finn laid out the theory behind the strategy and its objectives. The former would eliminate the enemy forces and any other impediments while concurrently mapping the lay of the land. The latter would be just as described: breachin
g the enemy’s bastion and destroying the demi-spirit using everything they had gleaned from the first probing attack.

  The dwarf and high elf felt the weight of their objectives.

  “A bold method you picked there. If the enemy can finish their preparations, or rather, if they can finish summoning the demi-spirit aboveground, then that’s basically it for us…Isn’t this a race against time?”

  “No. During the fight on Daedalus Street, Aki gathered some information from the enemy’s detached force when she took the key. They didn’t know details of the plan, but even in the worst case, it seems like the beginning of their plan for the demi-spirit won’t be ready for at least twenty days. Which means we still have a bit of leeway.”

  “I see…What ended up happening to the captured prisoners?”

  “Committed suicide. Apparently, one of them was a curse user…He sacrificed his body in exchange for creating a powerful curse that killed the others right in front of our familia members’ eyes. These enemies aren’t afraid of death…No, they’re true believers who trust in their covenant with Thanatos, completely willing to die…These are some extremely twisted people.”

  Riveria could not contain her disgust as she explained the fate of the prisoners who had been captured. Gareth grimaced as Finn decided to get the conversation back on track.

  “In any event, while we have some wiggle room, we don’t have time to take it easy. Depending on when we can complete the first assault, we need to be ready to quickly shift gears and launch the second.”

  “Fiiiinn? Are you sure you want the first attack to just be the initial setup and the second plan to be when we take care of the targets?” Loki drawled.

  “Yeah. If we get a chance to take out one of the targets during the first one, then we should try. We’ll play it by ear, but…if something equivalent to the demi-spirit on the fifty-ninth floor has already emerged, then normal adventurers won’t be able to deal with it. To be absolutely sure, I want to preserve as much of our forces as possible for the second attack,” Finn responded as he met Loki’s vermilion eyes. “Which is why, if at all possible, I’d like to use the Guild to recruit troops.”