Aiz’s saber whipped through the air under the “sky,” which was glowing red with fire.
Cough, cough.
Aiz heard Lefiya coughing and gasping for breath behind her. However, all her attention was focused on the person standing before her.
A male adventurer covered in black armor. As far as she could tell, the only weapon he had was the longsword at his waist. Despite the amount of armor covering his body, it seemed only average in strength. None of it appeared to be extremely high quality.
His unnaturally deep left eye glared back at her, and he clicked his tongue.
“Lefiya, are you okay?”
“F-fine…”
Lefiya’s breathing was slowly but surely returning to normal as she responded to Aiz. Still sitting on the ground, she used one hand to massage her neck while the other wiped the tears away from her eyes. Still, she didn’t look away from the man.
The dying monster had slammed into part of the crystal wall behind the mysterious black figure. One of the pillars had collapsed, shutting off potential exits through Cluster Street. The man in black armor kept his distance. He’d waited for a chance to kill Lefiya as soon as she left Aiz’s side.
The blond knight had used all her might to lay waste to the monster ambush and managed to catch up with the other girls before the man could succeed, but the timing was too perfect not to have been planned out in advance.
“…Are you the one who killed Hashana?”
Echoes of other adventurers fighting not too far away reached their ears as Aiz decided to use the momentary pause to try and get an answer.
All information thus far had said the killer was female. But Aiz just couldn’t shake the feeling that this man was Hashana’s true killer.
The two girls watched closely as the man spoke for the first time.
“What if I am?”
Both of the girls’ eyes went round the moment they heard the voice.
It was high-pitched, unbefitting his appearance—a woman’s voice.
“So, you are not male…?” Lefiya asked in confusion.
The elf couldn’t take her eyes off the masculine body and clearly male face.
The face was nearly devoid of emotion, and half of it was wrapped up in a bandage, but there was no room for doubt. It definitely belonged to a dark-skinned, virile male. Nothing about his appearance was feminine.
The stone-faced figure drily explained:
“I just peeled it off.”
“Eh…?”
“I just peeled the face off the corpse. Now I’m wearing it.”
Words failed Lefiya.
Even Aiz was having difficulty believing what she had just heard.
“Injecting a dead body with ‘Poison Vermis’ prevents skin decay…Didn’t you know?”
He—no, she—spoke in a perfect monotone, which only served to amplify the chill running down Aiz’s and Lefiya’s spines.
In other words, the person in front of them had stolen that face.
After breaking Hashana’s neck, she literally cut his face off.
The reason the body was found without a head wasn’t because of the temper tantrum.
—It was to conceal the fact that his face had been stolen.
“So you mean, that face belonged to Mr. Hashana…?”
Color that was finally returning to Lefiya’s face drained away again with each word. Her hands covered her mouth in shock.
The woman wearing a mask of flesh neither confirmed nor denied her words. At this point, she didn’t need to respond.
Aiz squinted, trying to get a better look at the figure’s face. The purpose of the bandages wasn’t to conceal identity or heal from injury, but to hide the parts that didn’t line up with her real face.
“Ah, screw this, it’s too frickin’ tight.”
The woman ignored the two girls staring at her and started roughly removing her armor in frustration.
She stuck her fingers into the gash in her breastplate and tore it off her body. As pieces of the armor fell to the ground, two breasts, still restrained by an inner shirt, burst forward toward freedom. Tearing away even more of the protective covering, the woman exposed the silky white skin on her neck, arms, and legs.
The powerful impression of the male face had thrown everyone off. She had created the mask in order to stay in Rivira and look for the item Hashana had been carrying. Since the investigation had focused solely on women, she’d found a way to remove herself from the list of suspects from the beginning.
It was a strange sight to behold, a man from the neck up but a woman from the shoulders down. Suddenly, rip.
The anti-deterioration agent must have worn off, because the mask started to flake off her face. White skin appeared around her left eye—a woman’s skin.
At long last, the woman looked up with only her helmet, knee plates, and gauntlets still on her body.
“I’ll be taking the seed now.”
With that, the woman drew the longsword hanging from her waist and charged directly at Aiz.
“!”
“You’re strong, just as I thought.”
Aiz met her at full speed.
Desperate and her opponent’s longsword clashed as Aiz took the fight as far away from Lefiya as possible.
Aiz moved at the same blinding speed as the woman. Eyes narrowing, the blond knight intensified her attack.
“…?!”
Lefiya was speechless as she watched the furious sword fight unfold.
The longsword swung down, and the saber cut to the side. Silver arcs carved through the air, each sword coming in for another pass only to be rejected and come back for more. The two women were a blur as they attacked each other from all possible angles. The narrow street between the pillars didn’t allow much room to maneuver, but the two warriors changed positions constantly as they matched blow for blow.
What’s more, their reflections in the many crystals made it appear as though entire armies were engaging in an all-out brawl in the middle of Cluster Street.
—She’s so strong!!
Aiz was taken aback by her opponent’s display.
The techniques that she polished through countless hours of training and combat weren’t enough to match the woman’s skills. The mysterious fighter didn’t just rely on swordsmanship; she mixed in a flurry of punches and kicks, the likes of which Aiz had never seen. She was forced onto the defensive. Her arms were already covered in bruises from her opponent’s gauntlets. Every impact from the longsword or one of her slicing kicks sent waves of pain through her entire body. Even though she was finding small windows to counterattack with her saber, her opponent’s blade was coming close enough to cut strands of her blond hair every time she dodged.
She couldn’t believe she didn’t know the name of an adventurer with such skill and prowess.
Whose face was hidden behind the mask? Aiz kept trying to get a closer look.
“—Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree. You are the master archer.”
Suddenly, the words of an enchantment filled the air from behind Aiz.
Lefiya had picked up her staff. There was no time for her to climb back to her feet. A golden magic circle appeared around her as she sat on the stone surface.
Ranged support was inbound. The mysterious woman’s gaze fell on Lefiya. Aiz jumped in the way in an attempt to distract her.
“Loose your arrows, fairy archers. Pierce, arrow of accuracy!”
The amount of sparks from the fight drastically increased in that instant. Lefiya completed her trigger spell as quickly as possible.
Their opponent was unable to break away from the wall Aiz had created with her saber.
A beautiful yet powerful voice echoed through the air as a pillar of light erupted from the magic circle.
“Arcs Ray!”
An arrow of light barreled forward.
It was a single-target spell that was designed for speed. However, Lefiya had poured a large amount of Mind into
the attack. Compounded with her high Magic ability, the spell looked less like an arrow and more like a beam.
Additionally, the light was like a homing missile. Once launched, the energy of the spell took on a life of its own and would not dissipate until it hit its target.
The brilliant light illuminated the crystals of Cluster Street. Aiz quickly sidestepped the oncoming spell as the female adventurer squinted her left eye—and stuck out her arm.
“Eh?!”
“?!”
Lefiya and Aiz watched on in disbelief as the woman stopped the beam with the palm of her hand.
Thunderous roars echoed through the street as a spray of light particles diffused from the main arrow. The gauntlet couldn’t handle the energy and shattered, but the woman’s skin was unaffected. Instead of backing down, she was pushing back.
Swinging her arm with all her might, she sent the beam off its course and hurtling into the wall diagonally in front of her.
“~~~~~~~~~~~?!”
Crystal debris rode the shock wave that blasted its way through Cluster Street.
Lefiya’s scream and Lulune’s unconscious body were swept up into it as well. At the same time, Lefiya lost her grip on the pouch in her hand and the cover flap fell open. The blue-green crystal orb rolled out onto the ground.
It took a moment for Aiz to recover her balance after the impact, and the woman saw her chance to attack.
“?!”
The longsword grazed the surface of Aiz’s skin. The merciless attack signaled the start of the next round.
The knight’s blond hair swished as she jumped back into combat. She couldn’t believe it—her opponent was moving even faster than before. Her already immense power had increased exponentially, with a boost in speed, making Aiz’s arms go numb every time Desperate collided with the longsword.
She couldn’t see the depth of her opponent’s strength.
The emotionless eye staring back at her made chills run down her spine.
“Keh—!”
She struggled to hold a downward swing at bay, her body bending backward underneath its force.
Aiz’s face showed a trace of fear for the first time since the fight began. She knew she couldn’t afford to hesitate. Lefiya and Lulune would be in danger if she didn’t give her all immediately.
She had never used her magic in a fight against another person because she felt it was unfair to her opponent, too strong for a duel. It was time to abandon that way of thinking.
“Awaken, Tempest!!”
The trigger spell flowed from her lips.
“Airiel” was triggered by Aiz’s call. Air currents enveloped her sword and body in the blink of an eye.
Aiz reengaged her opponent with the explosion of speed granted to her by her magic.
“Wha-?”
Genuine surprise appeared in the woman’s left eye.
The impact nearly knocked the longsword from the killer’s grasp, and it threw her opposite shoulder forward. Although she had managed to block the blade in time, she couldn’t keep her feet and stumbled backward under the incredible force of Aiz’s magically enhanced saber.
Wind roared through the battlefield on the next strike. The torrent of air was strong enough to knock the murderess’s helmet off her head, taking most of the flesh mask with it. Crack, crack, crack! The stone pavement beneath her feet crumbled as the woman desperately tried to maintain her balance as the gale blew her backward. As soon as she came to a stop, the now-uncovered woman looked up.
Hair the color of blood danced in the breeze.
Most of the short, fine strands were held together in a small knot at the top of her neck. Her hair was cut roughly, as if it had been much longer before.
Her green eyes sparkled like gems.
Half of the woman’s true face was visible beneath the heavily damaged bandages that managed to still cling to her head. Her pure white skin and symmetric features twisted as her long left eye went wide.
“That wind…So then, you must be Aria.”
The blond knight’s eyes widened at the mention of that word.
Ba-dum. Aiz’s heart beat so hard it was almost deafening. The shock was so intense that she couldn’t speak, the word “why” threatening to overload her mind.
Her thin neck quivered.
For one moment, both warriors stared at each other in shock. The silence was eerie.
“—AaaaaaaAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”
It came out of nowhere.
Inside the crystal orb on the ground—the female fetus screamed.
“?!”
Aiz spun around to find the source of the earsplitting pitch.
Of course, the red-haired woman heard it, too. But before she could react…
The fetus inside the orb started to thrash about, slamming its tiny hands and head with eyes much too big for his body size against the green shell until it cracked.
“AaaaAAAHHHH!!”
Aiz’s magic seemed to have triggered this frenzy. It was unclear where its tiny body got the strength, but a moment later the creature launched the crystal orb, two or three times bigger than itself, flying through the air like a rogue cannonball.
Aiz could see the thing’s unnervingly large eyes hurtling toward her as she quickly jumped out of the way. The orb kept flying through the air, leaking liquid on the way past.
It collided with the dead monster halfway buried in the crystal wall. The sphere shattered and the fetus seeped into the monster’s body like a parasite.
“Wha—”
“OOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOOoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
The should-have-been-dead monster behind Aiz and the red-haired woman howled.
The fetus was sealing itself into the monster’s hide and causing other changes to its body in the process.
A series of red veins worked their way around its body like thick spiderwebs under its skin. The monster’s howls coincided with each new blood vessel.
Thrash! The beast flinched as if it had been shot with electricity before rearing up.
Muscles pulsed.
Lefiya froze at the other end of Cluster Street. Every twist, every painful howl, every jolt the creature experienced as it slowly transformed was reflected in her dark blue eyes.
One transformation was leading to another.
It was an unnatural change, perhaps a sort of forced evolution.
The thing that had resided within the orb was changing the monster into something else. Was the sphere a kind of forbidden fruit, perhaps?
Aiz watched in horror as something started to emerge with an unbearable sound from the place where the fetus had sealed itself to the monster.
Something that looked human. Like a moth breaking free from a pupa, the shape was becoming more and more defined with each passing moment.
“OOOOOoOHHHHH!”
The writhing monster, still in the middle of transformation, suddenly attacked without warning.
Aiz saw the creature coming, its thrashing body smashing its way toward her with no rhyme or reason. Picking up Lefiya and Lulune’s unconscious body, she immediately started to retreat. She carried the injured girls away, as the monster repeatedly crashed its body into the crystalline path while it chased after them.
“Awww! This ruins everything…!”
The red-haired woman couldn’t hide her frustration as she, too, withdrew from the scene.
The thick crimson veins had worked their way through the creature’s entire body. However, it was focused solely on pursuing Aiz. Plowing through groups of crystals rather than going around them, it roared with such ferocity that each one was physically painful to the girls’ ears. Aiz used a combination of dead sprints and leaping bounds to lead
the creature on a wild chase through Cluster Street. She knew full well she couldn’t fight like this and had decided to change course.
Meanwhile, the monster was nearing the end of its evolution when it happened to encounter other flowered beasts—and devoured them on sight.
A gruesome scene greeted Aiz’s gaze when she looked over her shoulder. Bits and pieces of broken monsters were merging together.
The next thing that Aiz’s golden eyes saw was—
—A human female shape emerging from the back of the parasite-infected monster, stretching its arms the same way a moth would spread its wings for the first time.
“What’s that, an octopus?”
“Isn’t that what we fought on floor fifty…?!”
Many battles raged throughout Rivira. Tiona and Tione paused to take note of the sudden appearance of the massive new foe.
Tiona’s comparison was fairly accurate. The beast was transforming itself into something resembling an octopus. The main difference was that it had well over ten legs, each limb slithering and howling like it had a mind of its own and ending in the head of a flower monster. Above the area where the legs attached was a vibrantly colored, remarkably human female figure that was large enough to identify from a good distance away. It was very similar to the legendary half-human/half-octopus beast that was said to once roam the coastlines, Scylla.
It was that female shape that reminded Tione of the monster they had encountered on the fiftieth floor of the Dungeon not too long ago during their previous expedition. The one Aiz slew had had a lower body shape like a caterpillar, but the similarities were too obvious to ignore.
The figure on top of the monster finally stopped twisting and turning, settling down now that its metamorphosis was complete. Slowly, very slowly, its featureless head rose to its full height, and the beast started to move.
The monster set its course for the center of town, Crystal Square. Tiona and Tione gave chase.
“No one around here’s under attack by monsters anymore, right?”
“Everyone that’s safe should have been sent back to the square! We’re going, now!”
Tiona called out to her older sister as she ran. Tione yelled back, kicking up loose rocks and crystal shards in her wake as she zipped by.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 2 Page 13
