Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria - Volume 2 - Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 PARCHED SCREAM 

The woman was like the wind. 
Pure, like a child, even more innocent than her own self as a toddler. 
She knew nothing of people’s dark side, and would never know. 
She flowed like the blue sky above, swaying with the clouds. 
Freer than anyone, she was like the wind. 
As for herself, 
She loved her—warm and kind like the breeze. 
She loved the mother who smiled at her with no hidden agenda. 
She remembered the feeling of her hand stroking her head. 
Her cheeks still felt the warmth of her soft fingers’ touch. 
That beautiful voice still lingered in her ears. 
The beautiful stories still replayed in her mind. 
She was being held against her chest as one of the stories came to a close. She looked up and saw that innocent smile. 
Cheeks blushing, she smiled back. 
This woman could use magic; she believed it with all her heart. 
Anyone who saw her smiled. She could make anyone smile. 
She whispered, “I want to be like you,” in her young voice under the woman’s affectionate gaze. 
Become someone like the wind, someone like you. 
“You are you. You know you can’t be me?” 
The woman’s head tilted to the side as she responded in a voice exactly like hers. 
“That’s not what I meant,” said the girl, puffing out her cheeks. 
“Then what did you mean, roly-poly?” The woman laughed. 
Still pouting, the girl couldn’t help but be pulled in by that smile and eventually do the same. 
Holding, being held, the two looked at each other in the eye and laughed together. 
Soon, the girl looked the other way. 
Looking over her shoulder, she saw a young man appear. 
His light armor was accented by a black scarf and a silver longsword tucked away in its sheath. 
The moment the woman saw his face, she put the girl down. The woman stroked the girl’s face one last time before slowly rising to her feet. 
She smiled at the young man, but it was a different kind of smile. The man grinned back and nodded to her. 
He felt the girl’s lonely gaze and clumsily smiled at her, too. 
“Sorry,” her father said apologetically. 
He turned on his heel, and called to her mother. 
“We’re going—Aria.” 
The two left her behind and walked arm in arm toward a bright light. 
 
“…” 
The dreamy fog started to slip away. 
Her consciousness left a white forest, arriving at the darkness created by her closed eyelids. Time had bridged the gap between past and present. 
Her shoulders shifted ever so slightly. The caress of cold air on her cheeks brought her fully awake. 
Aiz slowly opened her eyes. 
“Doing okay, Aiz?” 
“…Yes.” 
A few heartbeats passed between Tiona’s question and her response. 
Looking up, she could feel the Amazon’s gaze on the side of her face. 
“Rest time is almost over. We’ll be leaving any minute.” 
“Okay…” 
A few images of her past lingered, still halfway between her dream and reality as Aiz answered. Tiona gave a crooked smile at the sight. 
The blond girl lightly shook her head to get rid of the last remnants of sleep and looked around with clear eyes for the first time. 
The first thing she noticed was the flickering light of a magic lantern, designed to be carried on long trips. It illuminated the faces of Finn, Riveria, Tione, Tiona, and lastly, herself. Everyone was sitting down, rummaging through backpacks and pouches to make sure weapons and items were in order. She was the only one who had been sleeping up until now. 
They were all in a dim, dead-end room with off-white walls. Lefiya was at the other end of the room serving as a lookout, accompanied by one other member of their familia. 
Aiz’s battle party rested in a corner of the vast Dungeon. 
Six days had already passed since the events in the town of Rivira. 
Aiz and the rest of Loki Familia returned to the surface after the dust settled. At the same time, the girls who had been at the center of it all had to do many things. 
The first was healing the injured and escorting them back to the surface for further treatment. After that, they each gave detailed reports of the incident to the Guild and Loki. As for the red-haired woman who assailed Rivira—the Guild considered letting the public know that she was a Tamer, at least until Loki told them to “Hold their horses.” That piece of information remained secret, but Ganesha Familia insisted that she be known as Hashana’s killer—and be blacklisted by the Guild. 
Since only Aiz’s battle party and Lulune had made direct contact with the woman, the monster’s sudden appearance was recorded as an Irregular—the only other person who knew the truth about the Tamer was Bors, who had heard it directly from Finn. Only upper-class adventurers were privy to the knowledge of what had happened in Rivira, and that Hashana was murdered. The Guild believed that telling the many lower-class adventurers who couldn’t make it into the middle levels would only spread unnecessary fear and confusion. 
Lastly, the Guild demanded that every one of the innumerable brilliantly colored magic stones be turned over to them. 
The fervor surrounding the incident died down as all evidence of it was swept under the rug. 
“The town of Rivira is taking shape again. They really work fast.” 
“It’s really amazing how motivated people get when there’s that much money involved…Just to be clear, I’m not complaining.” 
Tiona and Tione struck up a conversation while everyone else was preparing to continue their Dungeon prowl by the light of the lantern. 
Once they had finished everything that needed to be done on the surface, the group came back down to the eighteenth floor and found people hard at work—the town of Rivira was up and running again. Despite all the damage it had sustained, upper-class adventurers were already in the midst of reopening their businesses in the center of town. 
Bors could be heard walking around town, spewing idealistic banter like, “This is an all-important forward base in the Dungeon! All of it goes to waste unless we bust our asses, got that?” He was very impassioned, tears even rolling down his cheeks. However, just as Tione had said, everyone there knew this performance was just for show. It was money they were after. 
The long arms at the Guild couldn’t reach the town of Rivira, which made it a paradise for those who didn’t want to be found. It was a place where outlawed items like Status Thief could be bought and sold as residents and visitors saw fit, whenever they wanted. All morals aside, many adventurers needed a place like Rivira. 
It wasn’t known as the world’s most beautiful rogue town for nothing. 
Those who chose to do business there were some of the most bold and stubborn adventurers around. 
“Those plant monsters and that Tamer have been keeping a remarkably low profile.” 
“Hmm, I doubt they can do much after pulling that stunt. Gods themselves have their eyes and ears open, so they can’t do anything to draw attention to themselves. Also, it would be next to impossible to tame that many beasts overnight. I doubt we’ll see anything like last week for quite a while.” 
“At least I hope there aren’t many tamed monsters left,” added Finn as he and Riveria joined the conversation. 
There had been no reported sightings of any carnivorous flowers nor any trace of the red-haired woman since the incident. 
The group had visited the Dungeon’s thirtieth floor to investigate the quest Hashana had undertaken before his death. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be found. Where had he found the crystal orb? How did it get into his possession? They still didn’t know. Lulune tried to contact her mysterious client after recovering, but had no luck. 
“Well then, shall we be off? Lefiya, Rakuta, are you ready?” 
“Ah, yes! Let’s go!” 
Now, Aiz and the others had returned to the Dungeon to complete their original objective: to earn money. 
While on the surface, they had decided to add another supporter to their battle party, now seven strong. 
At the moment, they were on floor thirty-seven. 
That required passing through the lower levels and entering the Deep Levels. 
Lefiya nodded as Finn gave the order to move out. The second supporter, a newly ranked-up Level 3 adventurer named Rakuta, looked very nervous. She’d been casually invited to join them in the Deep Levels to “study,” and she looked very tense about it. 
“Aiz, you were out like a light and didn’t eat anything. You hungry? I’ve still got some of mine left.” 
“Thanks, Tiona…but I’m fine.” 
Aiz gently refused Tiona’s kindness as the two of them stood up to gather weapons. 
The previous leg of their journey had lasted more than half the day, so they had found an isolated room in the back corner of the thirty-seventh floor to have a long rest. 
This wasn’t a simple day trip into the Dungeon. Adventurers brought camping supplies when planning to stay underground for long periods of time. It was important for them to regain their strength and get some rest from time to time. 
For that reason, many would choose to set up camp at safe points, but sometimes it would be too much work to go all the way back to the closest one. So, like Aiz’s battle party, they would find a relatively safe place during their journey to recuperate. 
The room they were in now only had one exit and wasn’t very large. They’d sliced up the walls with their weapons upon arrival. Fragments still lay scattered around the floor. 
Whenever the walls or the weaponized landforms were damaged, the Dungeon itself prioritized healing them. In other words, damaging their surroundings prevented monster ambushes. 
Putting the last of their sleeping bags and the lamp into the supporters’ backpacks, the battle party left the room. 
“But it was a real surprise to find adamantite in those walls! A few slashes and something that valuable pops out? What luck!” 
“That adamantite alone should get us quite a bit of money.” 
“For sure! That should put a dent in Urga’s bill!” 
Tiona had been in a great mood ever since they had prepared the room for camp because they’d found the rare metal just beneath the surface of the Dungeon wall. The Amazon excitedly exchanged words with Lefiya, but Aiz stayed quiet, very much in her own little world just beside them. 
The word “Aria.” 
The Tamer’s bloodred hair. 
Each image stormed through her head one after another. 
She was strong… 
“Strong, she was so strong…” 
Aiz whispered that to herself over and over, reliving the fight in her head time and again, remembering each overwhelming strike. 
If only she could have done more, she might have learned something. 
She might have been able to figure out how the woman knew the name “Aria.” 
If only I was stronger… 
Weak. 
Still weak. 
Aiz Wallenstein, such a weakling. 
Aiz mumbled under her breath, cursing herself. If she’d been stronger than that woman, if she’d had more power in her hands, if her mind and body hadn’t been so weak…More words arose from the dark, muddy place in the back of her head. 
She’d lost her edge at some point. 
Her one and only desire had become nothing more than a memory. 
Without realizing it, Aiz had let her motivation slip. 
That forgotten scene now quietly burned with indignation within her soul. 
“…Umm, Miss Aiz?” 
It took all the courage Lefiya had to speak up. 
Aiz’s response didn’t make it past her lips. 
At that moment, a group of monsters appeared at the other end of the long pathway. 
Aiz drew Desperate from its sheath and stepped forward with purpose. 
This swarm of monsters knew the presence of the adventurers and moved to attack. Aiz strode out in front of the group and moved like the wind to engage them alone. 
As the monster howls made her skin crawl, Aiz could feel Lefiya’s gaze on her back. 
However, the blond knight’s expression seemed frozen as she whipped her blade through the air and kicked off the ground. 
 
The thirty-seventh floor of the Dungeon was known as the White Palace. 
That name was based on two things: the pale-white color of the walls and its extremely complex layout that made it a labyrinth in its own right. The scale was completely different from any of the floors leading down to it. All the rooms and hallways were spacious and wide. There were a few exceptions, like where Aiz’s battle party had camped. However, most of the rooms exceeded ten meders in width. 
The circular floor was like a fortress, standing five stories tall and wrapped in five massive round walls, with stairs leading to the next floor located at the very center. Adventurers needed to traverse many wide-open, exposed hallways as well as go up and down numerous stairwells in order to reach the center. Its size rivaled that of Orario itself. Although a route through the floor had been discovered and mapped, getting lost in this multileveled maze meant never seeing the light of day again. 
The ceilings were so high that even top-class adventurers with their enhanced vision had difficulty seeing them. This gave the White Palace a gloomy atmosphere in every dimly lit hallway. The few lights present in the walls were barely strong enough to illuminate the adventurers’ faces as they passed. 
“You know, Aiz has been pretty scary since that day in Rivira. Just watching her is making my blood run cold. Was that Tamer woman really that strong?” 
“Ngah~! No clue! But I’m going to the front, too!” 
“Ah, hey! Take care of the ones around us first!” 
Tiona swung Urga with all her might, forcing her way through the oncoming swarm of more than twenty monsters to catch up with Aiz on the front line. Tione kicked it into high gear, covering her sister while yelling at her back. 
Apart from the expansive terrain, the thirty-seventh floor also had more types of enemies than some levels beyond the fortieth floor. What’s worse, their respawning interval was extremely short. The one saving grace was that the same monsters consistently appeared at the same places. However, even a top-class adventurer would suffer the consequences if they decided to charge straight in unprepared. 
Monsters kept barreling forward from the other end of the wide hallway. Tione, Finn, and Riveria worked in tandem to repel their attack and protect their two supporters. 
“UUGGHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” 
“!” 
Aiz was already far out in front of the party, taking on a group by herself. A tall and thick creature called a barbarian swung a natural weapon at her, but she deftly avoided the attack and brought her saber forward. Her counter landed at the same moment the long club slammed into the ground. The barbarian dissolved into ash amid the echoes. 
Many warrior-type monsters appeared on this floor: the barbarian, which boasted a body on par with a Minotaur; an upgraded form of the lizardman monster known as the lizardman elite, which first appeared on the nineteenth floor; a dark-black rock monster known as an obsidian soldier. Humanoid fiends filled the hallways of the White Palace. 
Since all of them specialized in hand-to-hand combat, this floor was absolute torture for magic users. Without time to conjure their spells, they were extremely vulnerable to close-range attacks. Even worse was the fact that some of the monsters, especially the obsidian soldier, had natural protection against magic, thanks to the stones present in their bodies. A pure magic user like Lefiya could do little more than watch the battle unfold as Finn and Riveria set to work. 
“HAAaaa!” 
“!” 
A barbarian opened its massive chin, lashing his long tongue through the air. 
Spinning out of the path of the attack, Aiz slashed it into oblivion as it uttered its dying scream. Wasting no time, she charged forward to engage a stout obsidian soldier and sliced the animated pile of rocks in half. 
Another corpse joined the pile building at her feet, ash falling in her wake. Every slash of her silver saber cut through multiple targets and sent streams of blood spurting into the air. 
Desire burned in her golden eyes as they searched for the next enemy. Gaze focused, she cut through monsters coming at her from all directions, tracing circles with her feet as though she was a hurricane of saber slices. 
A ring of dying breaths sounded in the hallway. 
“Yeah, might want to keep a little bit of distance…Riveria, hasn’t she told you anything? The pain of a single failure wouldn’t drive someone this close to the deep end.” 
“She would not tell. She simply says, ‘It’s nothing,’ and does not utter another word.” 
Finn looked uncomfortable, frowning. Riveria sighed, her frustration coming to the surface. 
The monsters in their area slain, the two had nothing left to do but watch Aiz’s battle from afar. Tiona had finally reached the blond-haired, golden-eyed girl, and the two of them wiped out the remaining monsters in no time flat. 
“Looks like there’s no point in trying to get to the bottom of this right now…Yeesh.” 
“Um, General, Lady Riveria…Is Miss Aiz all right?” 
“Usually an empty stomach will slow her down when she gets like this…We know she has not eaten a thing, so we should offer some food. That might calm her.” 
“Y-yes.” 
A bead of sweat trickled down Lefiya’s cheek as she was taken aback by Riveria’s surprisingly knowledgeable tone. 
Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya had watched Aiz with obvious concern over the past few days, but Finn and Riveria had told them to let her be. They seemed to know something the other girls didn’t, so all three of them chose to put their faith in their leaders. After all, Finn and Riveria had spent more time with Aiz than they. 
The two supporters quickly collected all the loot, and the party moved on. Traveling toward the center of the floor in a single-file line, they cleared the last wall and continued their journey in the innermost section of the White Palace. 
There was a place on the thirty-seventh floor of the Dungeon where monsters consistently spawned at alarming rate; it was known as the Dungeon’s Coliseum. Naturally, Aiz wanted to charge right in, but of course, her allies stopped her this time. They pressed on, encountering swarms at every turn. 
While Aiz didn’t stop her aggressive fighting style, she also didn’t do anything that put her allies at risk. She never lost sight of the fact she was a member of the battle party and acted accordingly. Her aloof expression returned the moment each battle ended, and she even participated in the Amazonian twins’ banter while giving clear answers to their questions. 
Only when she drew her saber did she take on a different demeanor. 
“We’ve already slain a ton of monsters, so it probably gets us a crap-ton of money, right? This is, what, our fifth day in the Dungeon?” 
“Yeah, I guess……” 
“I mean, if we took all this stuff back to the surface, we’ve got to have three million valis, easy. Lefiya, how much do we have in contracts?” 
“Please wait a moment, I shall check…Just from the quests we took in Rivira, we have a little less than a million valis, I believe.” 
Looking for an interesting topic, Tiona engaged Aiz in conversation. The original reason that the two of them had come to the Dungeon in the first place was to repay the loan for Urga the Second and to replace the rapier Aiz had used while Desperate was being repaired. Remembering their earlier goal sent Aiz’s mind in a different direction, bringing up images of the boy who reminded her of a white rabbit, and the fact she still had to apologize to him. 
Aiz shook her head and chased the images away. She didn’t have time for that. At the same time, the thought of standing before him, the way she was now…seemed like tarnishing a precious jewel. It was somehow scary. 
Aiz looked away from Tiona. Meanwhile, Tione helped Lefiya get a better estimate on their loot. 
Whenever the party couldn’t carry any more stones or items, they would return to the town of Rivira and trade the items for deeds to make more room. 
Since they could never get full price while still underground, they kept the truly valuable items to sell once they got back to the surface. They unloaded everything else in Rivira. Trading the items in for quests was much more efficient than dragging everything up to the surface and coming back down. 
“Ah, this room.” 
Fighting their way through waves of level-three and level-four monsters, the battle party finally arrived at a room that was noticeably larger than the rest. 
This is… 
Aiz took time to study their surroundings even while engaged in combat with the cluster of enemies already inside the wide area. 
The rooms in the White Palace steadily increased in length and width closer to the center. This particular room was overwhelmingly huge, so adventurers who had passed through the White Palace never forgot it. The blond knight’s vigilance paid off when her gaze swept over the floor. 
That’s when she caught a glimpse of it. 
Crack! 
“You hear that? Where’d it come from?” 
“Not the walls. The floor.” 
Several lizardman elites went flying, courtesy of Urga’s blades, as Tiona sprang into action. Tione’s Kukri were nothing more than silver flashes as she answered her sister’s question. 
The cracking echoes weren’t coming from all around them, but from beneath their feet. The fissures spread out like a spiderweb in a matter of seconds. No less than ten monsters emerged from the floor in the blink of an eye. 
Monsters with no muscles or skin, only bones. 
Parts of their exposed skeletons were thicker to make sharp pieces of armor all around their bodies. Each one of them was born carrying a bone sword or bone ax in one hand and a bone shield in the other. 
Spartoi. 
Another warrior-class monster of the thirty-seventh floor, like the barbarian. 
“Finn, I’m going.” 
“Wait, Aiz!” 
Spartois were the most physically dangerous monsters on this floor. 
Despite their appearance, they were extremely strong and fast. Wielding several different types of weapons, facing off against one of these was similar to fighting against a skilled adventurer. 
Aiz jumped in front of the battle party to take her level-four-category opponents from the front; she left the rest to Tiona and the others. Desperate hummed as it came out of its sheath. The blond knight couldn’t care less that she was outnumbered as she charged into the group of spartois. 
“!” 
“GAHH!” 
The closest skeleton led with its shield, sword high above his head, ready to strike. Aiz took it head-on, sweeping her saber forward. 
The shield couldn’t repel Desperate, and Aiz charged through the collapsing skeleton to dodge an oncoming bone lance from the side. The lancer stepped past her as Aiz avoided a bone ax that came down right where her head had been a moment earlier and knocked a sword wielded by the largest monster of the bunch to the side. A flash of silver went through each enemy as she passed. Several severed torsos fell to the ground at her feet. 
“OOO-OOHHH!” 
“?!!” 
“…!” 
Black, eyeless sockets focused on Aiz, and Aiz alone. 
Bones rattled as the monsters quickly glanced at each other, setting up a plan like a pack of wolves hunting their prey. 
Aiz glared back at the monsters, who had not only mastered their individual weapons but advanced teamwork as well. But that wasn’t about to stop her. She charged forward, silver saber flashing. 
 
Five minutes of intense combat passed in which Aiz couldn’t overlook a single detail and even felt a little anxious in the middle of it all. 
Now there was only one left, and Aiz went airborne with Desperate coming straight down. 
“GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” 
The blade sliced through the top of its head all the way down to the base of its hip. The monster’s dying scream faded along with its broken magic stone as its body turned to ash. 
Swish! All the spartois dispatched, Aiz whipped her blade through the air before pointing its cutting edge toward the ground. 
It was impossible to count all the cleanly sliced bones scattered about the floor. The few stones that were intact sparkled inside their bony cages, dark purple speckles in the dim light. 
The blond knight stood in the middle of the remains of at least ten monsters, letting the sounds of battle dissipate around her as the dust settled. 
“…And she did it all herself.” 
“She’d be a lot cuter if she pretended to be in trouble every now and then…” 
The Amazonian twins sighed, one criticizing and the other pointing out the irony of the situation. They watched as Aiz left the now-tranquil battlefield and headed back to the group. 
She returned Desperate to its sheath and acknowledged Lefiya and the other supporter as they passed. 
“…Very well done, Miss Aiz.” 
“Thanks…I leave the rest to you, Lefiya.” 
The elf smiled back at her, the muscles in her face relaxing, before she began to collect the loot still on the floor. 
With a wave and a nod to the second supporter, Aiz watched Rakuta set to work as well. 
“Nice, nice! Good work, Aiz! Need a potion? Or an elixir? How about one of your favorite sweet-bean-flavored potato puffs?” 
“Why would she need a potion anyway? There isn’t a scratch on her.” 
Tiona regained some of her usual cheer and walked out to greet Aiz with a big smile. 
Ignoring the dig from her older sister, the Amazon knew that the perfect time to bring up Jyaga Maru Kun was when Aiz was tired and hungry after battle. 
Aiz’s soft voice was a little bit higher than usual when she responded. 
“Thanks, Tiona. I’m fine…but I want the last one.” 
Grumble. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t eaten anything since before they took the rest, but the noises from Aiz’s stomach betrayed her. 
However, the potato puff hadn’t been preserved all that well in their traveling supplies and looked to be on the verge of going bad. Her shoulders sank in disappointment. 
“In any case, the monsters have been taken care of…What should we do now, Finn?” 
The difficult battle behind them, Riveria cast her gaze down at the prum. 
While they might not have explored every nook and cranny of the thirty-seventh floor, they had reached the entrance to the next floor at its center. Pressing onward meant going down to the thirty-eighth. 
Danger and the unknown increased with every floor in the Dungeon. Considering their unsteady supply of items and the weapons they had used up, she sought the leader’s opinion. 
“Hmm…Should we head home? This trip was more for fun anyway, so staying here long enough that we run out of food and have to go back home with empty stomachs would defeat the purpose. What are your thoughts, Riveria?” 
She looked at him in agreement. The time to pull back had come. 
The elf nodded when Finn continued by saying this was not an expedition with an overarching goal, so they had no reason to needlessly hang around. 
“I will follow your orders, General…All of you, we’re returning to the surface!” 
““Coming!”” 
Tiona and Tione responded in unison, and both supporters chimed in with a “Yes, ma’am!” and “Understood!” 
With orders to go back to the surface, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that they didn’t have to worry about Aiz’s unusual disposition for much longer. 
Tiona wanted to lighten the mood—and have a little fun—so she changed the topic. 
“But, you know, if Bete were here he’d be putting up quite a fuss right about now. He always tries to act like a big shot in front of Aiz!” 
“After that night at the bar, we told him that Aiz flat-out rejected him once he sobered up. He was on the verge of tears, so depressed.” 
“Ohhh?! I would’ve loved to see that! Why didn’t you tell me, Tione?!” 
Tione had a serious look in her eyes for a moment as she looked to her younger sister, but she couldn’t hold back a small grin. 
The two of them started having a bit of fun at Bete’s expense. On a side note, he hadn’t been invited to join the second journey due to Tiona’s cunning plan to keep him in the dark. 
Tension was leaving the air around the battle party as the supporters collected the last of the loot. 
But then, out of the blue… 
“…Finn, Riveria. I’d like to stay behind, alone.” 
Aiz spoke up. 
Tiona’s and Tione’s heads whipped around in surprise. 
She could feel their gazes, but her aloof expression remained unchanged. The only exception: her eyes looked more determined with each passing moment. 
Normally, Aiz went with the flow. But now she was asserting herself—much more strongly than any of her allies had anticipated. Finn quietly looked up at her. 
As for Riveria, she closed one eye and narrowed the other as she studied the human girl’s face. 
“I don’t need any rations. I don’t want to cause problems for anyone. So, please.” 
Aiz’s voice slowly but surely took on a pleading tone as she almost begged her allies to let her stay behind. 
“H-hold on a sec! Aiz, you’re causing us problems just by asking! If you stay behind, I’ll be too worried to think straight!” 
“I agree with Tiona. No matter how low-level these monsters are, I refuse to leave an ally alone down here. Too dangerous.” 
Tiona couldn’t stay still after hearing Aiz’s desire and rushed right up to her. Tione cocked an eyebrow and added her opinion to the mix. Their words showed just how much they cared for the blond girl. 
Aiz couldn’t say anything to alleviate the sisters’ concern. 
“Why do you want to fight so much?” 
The human didn’t have an answer for Tiona, who considered her a friend. All Aiz could do was quietly look at the floor the moment she saw Tiona’s sad expression. 
Tiona’s concern was coming from the heart, and Aiz couldn’t reject that. A long silence fell. 
Tiona, figuring out that the girl wouldn’t say anything, started stretching her body so that she could drag Aiz back to the surface by force if she had to. But first, she unloaded her thoughts like a verbal firing squad. 
“It’s such a waste, Aiz! You’re so cute and lovely, why don’t you try acting more like a lady? How can you be losing to me, an Amazon, in fashion sense?” 
“I…don’t care about that kind of thing.” 
“Why not? Don’t you want a good, strong male…or at least some fellow you like, at least? Is that pretty face of yours only for show?” 
“Stop telling others to do things that you don’t do yourself.” 
Losing patience with her overreacting, Tione took another dig at her sister. Riveria sighed just a few paces away from them. 
Then she turned back to Finn. 
“Finn, I shall ask you as well. Please respect Aiz’s wishes.” 
““Riveria?!”” 
The Amazonian twins couldn’t believe their ears. 
Even Aiz was surprised, although she didn’t show it. 
She had fully expected Riveria to refuse her request outright and possibly scold her for asking. 
“Hmm…?” 
Even Finn was intrigued by this turn of events and looked up at the elf’s beautiful face. 
“This girl hardly ever makes a selfish request. I would like you to consider it.” 
“The request of a parent looking after their child won’t sway me, Riveria. Tiona and Tione are correct. As long as the safety of this battle party is in my hands, I won’t allow it.” 
“I realize that I am spoiling her…Well, then.” 
Sighing again, Riveria turned to face Aiz. 
She knew that the girl was making the others worry and couldn’t say another word in her defense. 
While she didn’t know what was really unfolding in the human girl’s heart, she let her shoulders and face relax as she beheld her. 
“I shall remain as well.” 
The elf declared that she would serve as a supporter for Aiz. 
Finn pretentiously put his hand to his chin as he stared deep into the elf’s jade-green eyes and nodded. 
“Okay, I’ll allow it.” 
“Ehhh, Finn~. Talk some sense into her~.” 
Tiona was at a loss and objected. 
Finn gave a half-smile before continuing. 
“We won’t have to worry about the unexpected as long as Riveria is with her. Actually, we’re the ones that’ll have to stay on our toes on the way back up.” 
“That’s only because I can’t attack and heal, General.” 
There was a bit of a prickling in Tione’s tone, but she didn’t attempt to go against orders. She didn’t try to blame him, either; she just wasn’t happy about the decision. 
Finn shrugged it off. The matter was settled—Aiz and Riveria would stay on this floor. 
Lefiya and Rakuta must have sensed that something unusual was happening and quickly returned to the group with their bags full of loot. 
“Miss Aiz, you are not coming back with us?” 
“Yes…Sorry for being so selfish, Lefiya.” 
“Then, um, ehh…I-I shall remain as well! I promise I will not hold you back! Please allow me to be your supporter!” 
“Ah, in that case I’ll stay, too! See, isn’t that simple?” 
“Didn’t the general say we’re low on food? Splitting with two people is doable, but splitting up enough food and water for four people? All of us will go hungry.” 
““Awhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”” 
Lefiya’s and Tiona’s heads drooped in disappointment the moment Tione pointed out that very important fact. 
It would be difficult for three people to remain on this floor considering the amount of food and healing items still in their possession. Aiz’s Desperate might still be in good shape, but the rest of their weapons had seen better days. It wouldn’t be a surprise if one of the blades cracked in the next battle. 
A tearful Lefiya and Tiona said their good-byes. 
Riveria watched the three girls’ conversation unfold from outside the group. 
Finn slid up next to her. 
“So, what was the real reason behind that suggestion?” 
Riveria heard his quiet voice and glanced down to meet his gaze. 
“You don’t expect me to believe you meant exactly what you said?” 
“…Even if we were to stop the girl now, it would only delay the inevitable. No matter what action we take, something will happen. If she’s going to erupt one way or another…I’d rather have her explode under my supervision.” 
“Now I got you.” 
Finn laughed and closed his eyes for a moment. Upon reopening them, he looked sidelong at Riveria. 
He seemed like he wanted to say something to the woman acting like a stern parent toward Aiz, but he just couldn’t find the words. 
“While I doubt that that Tamer will show up, please be careful. I’ll leave all my magic potions with you…You’re the one that agreed to Aiz’s decision, so you’re responsible for whatever happens just as much is she is.” 
“I am aware…And, my apologies. Thank you.” 
She held the position of second-in-command in their familia and was one of the most experienced members, as Finn had alluded to. She thanked him and gave a deep nod. The prum pulled several vials of red liquid from his pouch and handed them to Riveria before she walked over to Aiz. 
The two women watched the others prepare to leave. The group stepped away from them after a few minutes. 
There was only one entrance to this room. They stood in the off-white archway and saw the rest of the party off as Tiona and Lefiya repeatedly yelled words of encouragement to Aiz. 
“…Thank you, Riveria.” 
Now alone in the room, Aiz spoke. 
Riveria was standing next to the girl, but didn’t look at her. Instead, she gave a short but impassioned lecture. 
“I do hope this is the last time, but what is done is done. Allow me to just say this: Do not force me to do too much.” 
“…Sorry.” 
Aiz felt exposed on so many levels when in Riveria’s presence. 
It was completely different from how she felt in front of Finn or Loki, and also not the same as when she was with Tiona and the others. She couldn’t hide anything, close to being naked. 
The elf’s small rebuke, as well as her own apology, made clear the bond between the two. 
Although she couldn’t put it into words, Aiz felt a warmth with her that was different from the trust and camaraderie she had with other members of the familia. 
“…” 
The two stood in the dim room, not doing much of anything in the heavy silence. 
Even the roars of roaming monsters were distant. None of them seem to be getting closer. An eerie, unnatural stillness descended around Aiz and Riveria. 
The air enveloping their light armor and battle cloth was brisk. With the dim lights far above on the thirty-seventh floor’s high ceiling, the atmosphere was bone-chillingly cold. 
The icy breath of the Dungeon swept past their necks. 
“…?” 
Thinking it strange that they were staying in one place, Riveria cast her jade eyes toward the human girl. 
Aiz felt her gaze, but showed no signs of moving. 
Just like before, the girl had no intention of exploring every corner of the thirty-seventh floor. Nor was she lying in wait for monsters to come to her. 
She had a different reason for wanting to be in this room on this floor. 
If she was right, then— 
Aiz was deep in thought, breathing as slowly and quietly as possible. The time crawled by, with nothing happing, until… 
A small, minute shake under the floor made its way through the soles of her boots. 
—I knew it. 
“It’s here.” 
“What is?” 
Aiz’s eyebrows fell as she took a defensive stance and scanned the center of the room. Even though Riveria had asked for confirmation, she felt it, too. 
The ground shook again and again, even stronger than before. 
“It could not be…” 
The floor dipped in the middle of the chamber the moment those words escaped Riveria’s lips. 
Then—CRACK! 
The rock seemed to scream out in pain as a gigantic fissure opened in the floor. 
The space shook even harder as the crevice expanded. New cracks shot out in all directions as far as they could see. A massive pitch-black body so large that they couldn’t believe their eyes rose from the crevice and stretched far above their heads. 
Pieces of rock fell off the body one after the other, crumbling down in an avalanche of dust and soil. The room wouldn’t stop shaking. The noise was deafening, each echo a crushing blow to the ears until finally its emergence was complete. 
Aiz watched the pitch-black monster rear back to face the ceiling hidden in darkness. 
“—OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” 
The enormous being, so big that even the female-figured monster that appeared in Rivira couldn’t hold a candle to it, announced its birth with an equally tremendous roar. The overwhelmingly intimidating aura emanating from its body put that octopus-like creature to shame. 
It could be nothing else but a floor boss. 
The Monster Rex that resided on the thirty-seventh floor of the Dungeon. 
Level Six, Udaeus. 
“So then, three months have already passed…” 
Monster Rex all had a predetermined respawn time. Once one of them was defeated, it would not reappear in the Dungeon until the allotted time had passed. At this moment, almost exactly three months ago, none other than Loki Familia had defeated this monster using its full combat strength. Now, Riveria looked up at it half in awe as the words slipped out of her mouth. 
Physically, Udaeus was a skeleton monster, a spartoi that had just kept on growing. Every bone that composed its body was jet black. Just looking was enough to make an adventurer fear being sucked in. At the same time, they gave off an eerie and ominous sheen. 
The beast itself was over ten meders tall despite its lower body remaining underground. The bones that made up its spine leaned forward, each of its many vertebrae swaying to and fro like they had a mind of their own. Its skull was adorned with two horns similar to an ogre’s and small crimson flames flickering like eyes in deep sockets that were otherwise pitch black. 
An unusually large and thick magic stone sat protected by its sternum and rib cage in the middle of its chest. 
The dark purple crystal sparkled exactly were the heart should be, but there were no organs to be seen in this floor boss. 
“Riveria, don’t help me.” 
Aiz stared down the monster she had known would appear and withdrew Desperate from the sheath at her waist. 
It was the perfect chance for her to advance to the next stage. 
She’d hit a wall in her growth and needed a bigger “container” for her excelia. To do that, she needed to defeat a tough enemy like a Monster Rex alone. It would be a grand accomplishment the gods themselves couldn’t ignore. Aiz would go beyond her own limit. 
To become stronger, far stronger, so that she would never lose to anyone. 
To leave her weak self in the past, to obtain even more power. 
Aiz’s golden eyes looked up to her opponent’s face, overlapping her memories of the woman with bloodred hair onto the enemy before her. 
“Aiz, do you seriously intend to do this by yourself?” 
Riveria watched the girl advance and called out to her. 
A vertical wave passed through Udaeus’s many vertebrae and ended in another ear-crushing howl. However, Aiz was unfazed. She kept advancing with her silver saber shimmering quietly in the darkness. 
“I’ll be fine.” 
Then she said with absolute confidence: 
“I’ll end this quickly.” 
The mountainous skeleton started to waver. 
The presence of an adventurer within its striking distance unleashed its killer instincts. 
All its bones rasped against each other as the girl faced down her incredibly strong enemy on what would soon become their battlefield. 
The knight kicked off the ground and charged headlong into the ill-advised battle. 
 
Aiz dashed straight toward the enemy. 
Desperate, a weapon that had seen her through too many battles to count, was firmly in the grip of her right hand. Her eyes focused on the spartoi’s chest in a full-frontal attack. 
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” 
Udaeus’s tremendous howl shook the chamber as she closed the distance in a flash. 
Its burning, crimson eyes found the golden shadow. The long bones of its distorted left arm rose above its shoulder, preparing to bring them down on its foe. 
The small shape was locked in its sights as it prepared to swipe her from the side. 
“Awaken, Tempest!!” 
Aiz activated the short trigger spell of her Magic with the monster’s attack bearing down on her. 
Air currents instantly surrounded her body and armor. Her speed now dramatically increased, Aiz extended her right leg and kicked off the ground, leaving a small explosion of stone shards in her wake. 
Jumping forward, she twisted her body out of the way before Udaeus’s arm could make contact and arrived at the creature’s base. Not only was she too close to be hit by another swing, she’d made it into her opponent’s blind spot. The monster couldn’t see her. 
Aiz looked up at the hollow cavity just overhead and jumped straight up. 
The floor boss’s left flank was completely exposed with its arm still out of position. This was her chance. She leaped through the air with her saber ready to strike. Gathering wind around the blade, her magic increased its cutting power as well as its reach. 
Twisting her back like a spring, she swung Desperate behind her left shoulder and saw the perfect opportunity to strike. Her blade tore through the air in a horizontal slash before the monster could react. 

“UUUHH!” 
“!” 
Her target was the large magic stone located in the middle of its ribs. Seeing her opening to attack between the exposed bones of its chest, she went for it. Unfortunately, the fifth rib shifted up and blocked just enough of her blade to skew the attack. The assault had gone directly for Udaeus’s heart, and the spartois was swift to respond, focusing its attention on defense. 
—So close. 
Aiz glanced at the black bone that had blocked her attack with her usual aloof expression, genuinely surprised she hadn’t cut it in half. In fact, there wasn’t even a scratch on it. She lamented the lost chance under her breath. 
If she’d been able to put even one crack into the stone, Udaeus’s movements would have become clumsier. Chances like this didn’t present themselves very often, but she couldn’t afford not to take advantage of them. 
Aiz’s momentum carried her past Udaeus’s rib cage and down to the floor behind it. A quick spin and she charged again. 
There was nothing to protect the boss’s spine, another opportunity—until… 
A black, harpoon-like pillar shot out of the ground and forced Aiz to break stride. 
“!” 
It was just about to hit her chin, but she bent back at the waist in time to dodge it. 
Her golden hair flung forward as the black column whizzed by her ear. Suddenly, another five pierced through the ground like halberds. Aiz quickly spun to the side to get out of the way. 
The pillars shattered the floor on their way through, and pursued Aiz wherever she went with unyielding tenacity, attacking from beneath her line of sight. 
—That was why. 
Udaeus itself was a sitting duck, unable to dodge much of anything. This was the reason why even a large battle party couldn’t charge onto this floor without a plan. 
They wouldn’t get close to it without finding a way to deal with the pikes that burst from the ground without warning. Anyone who threw caution to the wind would become an instant pincushion, falling victim to Udaeus’s greatest attack and defense. 
The Monster Rex didn’t keep its lower body buried under the floor without reason. In truth, Udaeus didn’t have a lower body to begin with. 
Instead, its upper body stood like a massive tree with a vast network of roots spreading out onto the floor. In other words, there was a minefield of innumerable black spears just beneath the floor under Aiz’s feet. 
The entire room could be considered part of the monster’s body at this point—the entire battlefield was within its range. 
As soon as adventurers were forced back into Udaeus’s line of vision, the black pillars would block their only route of escape. The king of the skeletons never allowed anything to leave its chamber until the massacre was over. 
“RUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” 
“Kah!” 
The incredibly fast and unpredictable attacks from below perfectly complemented the looming, lumbering, yet incredibly strong upper body as both relentlessly attacked their target: Aiz. She was already in danger of being surrounded by the line of harpoons. 
But their appearances were coordinated, almost as if telling her “come this way” and restricting Aiz’s freedom of movement. Forced to continuously dodge their relentless assault, Aiz had been led back in front of Udaeus before she realized it. 
The flames burning deep in its eye sockets flashed menacingly as the floor boss unleashed the merciless onslaught, slamming both of its arms onto the floor over and over. Aiz was trapped in a pincer—the pikes from below and the bones from above. Her face distorted in distress as the air currents surrounding her body pushed her to safety by the narrowest of margins. 
“Aiz!” 
Riveria, whom Aiz had pleaded with to stay out of the battle, called out to her from the other side of the pillars. 
The elf was still close to the entrance to the room. Udaeus had yet to notice her presence. Riveria’s entire body was tense, her feet restless like the calm before the storm as she watched the battle unfold from afar. 
Under normal circumstances, a battle party exceeding thirty upper-class adventurers would coordinate their attacks to slay this beast. Normally, the pikes would be distributed among the many targets, but Aiz was facing all of them on her own. Her Magic allowed her to move at a speed far beyond a normal human, but it was only a matter of time before they caught up to her. 
Riveria had made up her mind. Staff in hand, she was a heartbeat away from stepping onto the battlefield. That’s when she felt Aiz’s gaze. 
“I’m fine,” the human girl seemed to convey through her golden-eyed stare. Riveria grimaced, trying to impart her own thoughts through her expression. 
“…!” 
Aiz broke eye contact almost as quickly as she had made it, then faced forward just in time to dodge another spear from the floor under her chin. 
The pikes came in different sizes. Some were only one meder or so long and meant to break her stride with their sharp points. Others were long, thick pillars over three meders tall and completely changed the landscape of the battlefield. The combinations of width and length were endless. 
It went without saying that they hit hard. However, Udaeus’s attacks from overhead were far more destructive. Everything that happened to be beneath one of it strikes was shattered on impact. Pikes became nothing but flat rubble in their wake. Aiz might be protected by wind armor, but even that couldn’t absorb a direct hit. The female-figured monsters she had fought on the fiftieth and eighteenth floors seemed weak by comparison. This creature’s strength and abilities made it worthy of being a floor boss. 
Aiz was in danger of losing her footing. She sliced through each pike as she went past while keeping an eye on Udaeus’s body. 
Aim for the joints…! 
Indeed, the massive skeleton looming overhead had several weak points to choose from. What’s more, the spaces between its shoulders, elbows, and all the way down to the smaller joints flickered with a violet light similar to a magic stone’s. 
It was this power that allowed the skinless and muscle-less Udaeus to move in any direction it pleased. The Magic energy center between each of its bones also acted like the glue that kept the beast from falling apart. Spartois also had them—although they didn’t glow anywhere near as bright—so a common strategy to cripple them was to strike those areas. The purple glow of Aiz’s many possible targets flickered in the darkness. 
Her opponent’s stamina would never run out, so she had to land a decisive blow before hers reached its limit. Aiz shifted her battle strategy from defense and evasion to offense and attack. 
Focusing her Mind, she yelled: 
“Wind!” 
Her spell was at full power. 
The streams of air surrounding her body grew thicker and more intense, turning Aiz into the eye of a small hurricane. The aches and pains throughout her body screamed in protest as Aiz used the air currents to her advantage and achieved her fastest speed yet that day. 
“?!” 
The flaming pupils of Udaeus’s eyes wavered as Aiz once again disappeared from its line of sight. 
She approached the monster from the left, going around the outside toward its back. The crimson flames once again caught a glimpse of the blond shadow. Each of the vertebrae in his neck undulated into a deafening howl as more pikes erupted from the floor. 
However, none of them found their target. Not even close. 
They were too slow; Aiz was too fast. 
Her movements were quick enough to surpass and overwhelm the attacks from below. She was already gone by the time each one burst from the floor, striking nothing but empty air. They traced Aiz’s approach like a mountain range desperate to keep up with the sun. 
The blond knight paid no attention to the “landmines” going off in her wake. Her gaze was locked on to one thing, the creature’s spine, specifically the lowest joint in its back. 
She rushed forward in a straight line, Desperate ready to strike. A thin tornado wrapped itself around the silver blade of her saber. Aiz then timed her swing perfectly as she dashed past the monster’s base. 
“GOHH!!” 
Udaeus’s entire upper body tilted right as the blow connected with incredible force just above the bone that served as its foundation. Aiz also appeared on the right side of the beast, its spine bending over her head. Slamming her feet into the ground and putting her left hand on the floor for balance, Aiz abruptly flipped the direction of the air coursing around her. 
Centrifugal force wrecked its way through her body, but she managed to kill her momentum in the blink of an eye. The girl then kicked off the ground without missing a beat. She left a divot in the floor and a trail of debris in her wake as she shot toward Udaeus’s spine like a bullet of wind. 
The same attack, but from the other side—toward the now fully exposed joint in its lower back. Her saber sliced forward in a blur. 
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” 
The vertebrae shattered. Its foundation gone, Udaeus lost his balance and fell facedown onto the floor. 
It looked as though the floor boss was prostrating itself. Aiz was following the prevailing theory for adventurers when facing a Monster Rex or any other large beast: get them to the ground. She wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste and looped around to attack. 
“GUUUUOOOOOOoo!” 
Udaeus flailed around to prevent her from getting close. Hundreds of pikes rose all around its body in a desperate attempt to keep its unseen enemy at bay. 
But that didn’t stop Aiz. She sliced her way through and made her way on top of the beast’s right shoulder. The tip of her saber pointed down, she found an opening just above its shoulder blade and thrust Desperate straight into the violet glow beneath her feet. 
The cutting edge of the blade hit something hard. It couldn’t proceed any farther despite the incredible magic boost. 
Aiz yelled. 
“Rage, Tempest!” 
The full power of Airiel rushed down the sword. 
An additional blade of wind carved its way into the joint in the blink of an eye—and severed it. 
“?!” 
An earsplitting roar blasted its way out from Udaeus’s spine. 
The explosion of wind separated the arm at the shoulder. The appendage drifted away as if in slow motion as the rest of the arm bones crashed to the floor in deafening impacts. 
Udaeus had lost his entire right arm. 
“What power…!” 
Riveria could hardly believe her eyes. The words rolled off her tongue in disbelief. 
It wasn’t powerful Magic that had inflicted this much damage on the floor boss, but a single sword. The elf was shocked at Aiz’s display of might. 
“!” 
The uncontrolled explosion of wind also knocked the girl into the air. Aiz quickly recovered, landing on her feet and continuing the assault. 
She fully intended to repeat the process and take the monster apart piece by piece. Udaeus continued to howl in pain and anger as the floor boss glared in Aiz’s direction with burning contempt. 
The next series of pillars to burst forth from the ground weren’t aimed at Aiz, but to protect its joints. 
“!” 
More and more pikes emerged, providing a layer of armor where there had been none before. 
Her enemy wasn’t stupid. Udaeus had figured out Aiz’s strategy and quickly increased its defense. More than likely, it needed to buy time to recover. 
It wouldn’t take much time for her to divert the energy radiating from its core to revitalize its damaged lower back. However, no amount of magic would bring back its severed arm at this point. 
Udaeus was attempting to pull its upper body upright by healing from its wounds. 
Of course Aiz wasn’t going to let that happen. She ran up the pikes, jumped, and aimed her blade at the closest joint. However… 
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” 
Udaeus, still facedown on the floor, roared once again. 
This time, the howl was like a request to its mother, the Dungeon. Then a mass of spartois surfaced from the floor, like loyal knights come to protect their king. 
“?!” 
The white-boned warriors rushed into Aiz’s path with weapons at the ready. Aiz tried to use her airborne momentum to fly past them, but they gathered to her like moths to a flame. Aiz was forced into battle. 
At the same time, several more spartois appeared in front of Riveria. 
“Keh?!” 
A swarm of monsters approached the unprotected magic user, who was used to being in the rear of the battle formation. 
Almost twenty of the monsters had been born. Cursing herself for allowing their ambush to make it this far, Riveria took evasive measures as she met the skeleton monsters in combat. 
Despite not being suited to handle this type of battle, the elf combined defensive staff strikes with Concurrent Casting to buy herself enough time to conjure Magic. 
“UUUOGH…” 
With Aiz and Riveria occupied, Udaeus finished its recovery in no time flat. 
The blond knight bit her lip and watched the beast shatter through its pike armor and “stand” tall once again. 
Its eyes burned deep in their sockets as the floor boss loomed over the battlefield without its right arm. Without warning, it summoned the biggest shaft yet from beneath the floor at its base. 
The joints of its black fingers curled around the tip of the black bone and yanked it free—a sword. 
The weapon was at least six meders long. 
From Aiz’s point of view, it was a thick, jet-black longsword. And yet, it was not much more than a long dagger to Udaeus. Similar to the Nature Weapons used by other monsters in the Dungeon, but in the shape of a black greatsword. 
The monster looked down at Aiz, the girl clutching Desperate in her right hand. It was as though the girl was looking up at an opponent armed with a harpoon, while all she carried was a toothpick. 
—What’s this? 
Aiz, and even Riveria, were caught off guard by Udaeus’s unexpected change in strategy. The floor boss armed itself similar to a spartoi, and slowly lifted the weapon in its left hand high into the air. 
Aiz cleaned up the remaining monsters around her and kept an eye on this new form of attack. She was in the process of deciding whether to gain some distance or press the attack—when another surprise reflected in her golden eyes. 
Shoulder, elbow, wrist. 
Each of the monster’s joints began to pulsate like shooting stars burning in the night sky. Zip! Seeing the ominous violet light emanating from Udaeus’s left arm sent a jolt up Aiz’s spine. 
The towering monster froze for a moment, its left arm held high. Switching gears, Aiz ran with all her might to gain as much distance as possible. 
The surviving spartois’ attacks bouncing off her wind armor, the blond human forced every bit of strength out of her muscles to be anywhere but within the monster’s range. 
It was at that moment that Udaeus’s arm became a blur. 
“?” 
The black greatsword came down faster than the eye could see. 
The violet light from the joints in its arm flashed as the floor boss moved with a speed that Monster Rexes weren’t believed to possess. 
Aiz could see a black shadow approaching out of the corner of her eye. An enormous blast of wind caught her the moment it was out of sight. 
“—?!” 
The pikes sticking out of the ground and the spartois were wiped out instantaneously. 
Even Aiz, who had managed to get out of range, was overtaken by the shock wave and thrown into the air, hitting the ground with a hard thud. 
The floor that absorbed the blow was burned to a crisp, smoke rising from a tremendous gash that cut right through it. Aiz couldn’t hide the shock on her face as she quickly jumped to her feet, eyes focused on the floor boss. 
She reasoned that it was a slicing technique that Udaeus made possible by charging the joints with extreme amounts of magic energy. Its incredible strength, combined with Magic, had produced an incredible explosion that destroyed everything around the black greatsword, with a force that even she couldn’t completely escape despite the assistance of her wind magic. 
The only good news was that the monster couldn’t do it twice in a row. Her golden eyes narrowed as Udaeus held its left arm back and started to charge the attack once again. 
Severing the monster’s right arm must have hit a nerve. Against a large battle party, the floor boss had likely never had a chance to draw its weapon, but Aiz attacking by herself had given Udaeus the time it needed to summon the black greatsword. Using that much magic energy without a conduit like the sword would probably have blasted it into pieces. 
Udaeus’s ace in the hole—a trump card that had never been seen before. 
Revealing a hidden power like this was like a piece of a mask flaking off to reveal its wearer’s true identity. 
Warning bells were blaring in Aiz’s mind; beads of sweat rolled down her face. 
“Aiz, fall back! The weapon is useless if it cannot reach you!” 
An arctic wind swirled at the entrance to the room. Riveria’s words rode the cool breeze out to Aiz. 
The elf’s voice was finally free from her incantation and she shouted a warning to her ally, but the human had no intention of obeying. 
Gripping the hilt of her saber with even more force, Aiz’s body tensed as she charged toward Udaeus. 
“You fool…!” 
Aiz could hear Riveria chastising her as she chose to go on the offensive. 
The monster was already aware of the elf, sending some pikes to bar her path and even more spartois in her direction. Physically separated from Riveria, Aiz engaged Udaeus head-on. 
The greatsword came down at an angle. 
She could tell by the position of the sword and the monster’s stance where the attack was coming from and quickly moved to evade, but she was still caught in its wake, the sharp air biting at her skin. She winced in pain. The weapon made contact with the ground at that same moment, showering her with debris and filling her ears with a deafening BOOM. 
Every time she charged closer, a new wave of pikes barred her path. They weren’t intended to attack her directly, but to create a five-meder wall to cut off her offense. Aiz couldn’t break through the many rows with only one slash, and she was forced to break off each of her assaults as well as dodge Udaeus’s follow-ups. Wind whistled by her ears as the floor boss destroyed the pillars in its attempts to hit Aiz with its overwhelming power. 
The enemy could attack with pikes and explosions of magic energy. Saying it was difficult to overcome would be an understatement. 
Aiz moved all around as fast as the wind would allow, managing to get behind Udaeus many times, but the obstacles and newly spawned spartois wouldn’t allow her to get as close as before. The beast’s black bones bore many scars inflicted by her saber, but it wouldn’t allow her to get close enough to strike its joints or any other vital areas. In fact, it gave up defending everywhere else altogether. 
Udaeus swung again; Aiz had lost count of how many she’d dodged. All that mattered was she keep moving at full speed. 
Finally, she found a window of attack and moved in to strike. 
Crick! 
She heard the muscles in her body physically give out. 
“?” 
She’d been using Airiel at full power for too long. 
However, it wasn’t her Mind that broke under the incredible strain, it was her body that had reached its limit first. 
A red pain flooded her entire body in an instant, setting off even more alarms in her head. Strength left her body like the cut strings of a puppet. Her movements became meek, visibly losing their edge and vitality. 
Udaeus saw its chance and brought another wave of columns out of the ground with ferocity. 
“!” 
One, sharp and thin like a black spear, was aimed for her temple. Though she twisted away at the last moment, the strike disrupted the air current protecting her. 
Another round of pikes ascended at Aiz in succession. They came from left and right, front and back, each cutting deeper into the wind armor, and delivering blow after blow directly to her body. 
Off balance, Aiz had no way to escape from the onslaught. In the midst of her desperate flips and spins—her golden eyes saw it. 
Udaeus, with its left arm high in the air. 
Shoulder, elbow, wrist. All three joints glowing violet, and the arm about to come down. 
Aiz was easily within range. Her blood ran cold as the crimson flames mercilessly stared down at her. 
Her mind went blank. She didn’t even feel the strikes pelting her body. 
Then she summoned everything she had left and jumped into the air using sheer willpower. 
A moment later… 
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” 
“Ugh!” 
It connected. 
The last traces of her wind armor shattered as the blade slid past her body. Even though she had avoided a direct hit by jumping wildly into the air, it had left her wide open to a shock wave that accompanied the impact. That was more than enough to launch her into the air. 
The angle was shallow, so she hit the ground rather quickly. However, Aiz kept rolling for dozens of meders, bouncing off of shattered pillars and debris as if caught in raging rapids. Wind armor long since broken, the last traces of Airiel came to an abrupt end. 
Her smoking body finally came to a stop, leaving her on her back. She was in too much pain to fully comprehend the extent of her injuries, but even so, she forced her eyes open. 
Her vision was tinted deep red. 
“Aiz!” 
Riveria’s scream. 
The girl’s body shook softly as she tried to sit up. Riveria’s face contorted, seeing her in so much pain. 
“—MOVE!!” 
“Geh?!” 
Riveria wildly swung her staff forward, knocking the spartoi out of her path and putting a major dent in its head in the process. 
The last of the monsters that had surrounded her dispatched, the elf started to run toward her battered and bloodied friend. 
“OOOOOOOOOooooooo!!” 
“!” 
However, new columns rose at her feet. Riveria acrobatically dodged the threat and looked up toward the monster. Udaeus was a great distance away, but she could tell that the two crimson flames deep in his eye sockets were focused directly on her. 
It must have identified her as the greater threat. Riveria’s eyes narrowed as she dodged another round of the black pikes. 
“Harbinger of the end, white snow. Gust with the wind before twilight.” 
She would blast the thing into oblivion. 
The mage’s beautiful face took on the extremely rare expression of rage as she ran at full speed while Concurrent Casting. Her jade eyes were burning in their own right as she glared back at Udaeus. The one-hundred-meder distance between the two didn’t mean a thing. More and more pikes burst from the floor as a magic circle appeared under Riveria’s feet. 
The monster could sense an unusually large amount of energy gathering; its shoulders started to tremble. As for Aiz… 
Her eyes wide open, she shouted at the top of her lungs: 
“Riveria!!” 
The girl’s voice broke Riveria’s concentration and the magic circle disappeared. 
“Don’t interfere…!” 
Sitting up, the girl grabbed Desperate from the spot where it lay at her side and used it as a cane to pull herself up. 
The cut on her cheek still leaking fresh blood, she sounded as if she was about to cry. 
“Please, don’t…!” 
Drip, drip. The wound on her face showed no signs of clotting as red trickled down her chin. 
Aiz climbed back to her feet while standing in pools of her own blood. 
Riveria stared at her in disbelief as Aiz cried out her trigger spell: 
“Awaken, Tempest…!” 
Air currents enveloped her body. 
She once again turned to face the monster with the blessings of the wind assisting her movements. 
The crimson flames shook once again, this time in disbelief that the girl still had the will to fight. 
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” 
“!!” 
She kicked off the ground at the same moment the monster howled into the air. 
She ignored her body’s groans of pain and forced it forward out of sheer willpower, pouring all her Mind into the wind. 
She didn’t care about later. The only thing that mattered to her now was settling the score with Udaeus once and for all. She charged forward, saber at the ready. 
“Aiz…?” 
Riveria stood in awe of what she was seeing. 
All spartois in the girl’s path fell by a single stroke; all the pikes missed her in her up-tempo dance. The silver blade left deep gashes in the floor boss’s black bones. 
The wind howled as Aiz put her life on the line. 
More…More! 
Each strike, each movement was filled with passion, desire. 
Each kick off the ground was filled with the yearning to be faster than anything else. 
Her heart screamed out, placing all her faith in the wind that embraced her. 
I want more!! 
Each limb was heavy as lead; her throat was parched and lungs were dry; streams of red blood flowed down her cheeks. 
She burned with anger at the body they wanted to collapse to its knees. Why are you so frail, so fleeting? 
How could she turn this mind and body… 
…Turn this mind and body into something like the sword in her grasp—a sword that would never break, a sword that could become as fast as the wind? How? 
More—I need more power! I have to be stronger!! 
Her vision flared white before becoming black. 
Her consciousness left the battlefield, all while her body fought against the gigantic monster, finding its blind spots. 
Into her soul, into the very deepest parts of her being. 
Down, down even farther. 
More, I want—!! 
She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t. 
Aiz couldn’t allow this weakness. 
More than anyone else, she refused to let this frail girl exist. 
I will— 
Aiz knew too well. 
Up to this point, and from this point on… 
She knew that the path she walked would always be littered with the corpses of countless monsters. 
Slice, cut, and slash. 
She would climb the mountain of bones to go even farther beyond. 
And toward what waited for her there. 
On that distant height— 
—I will take it back!! 
Her desire. 
Her craving. 
Her earnest wish. 
“—UUAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” 
Noise escaped from the throat that had forgotten how to express emotion. 
The parched scream led her hands, feet, entire body past their limits. 
Faster, sharper, more instantaneous strikes overwhelmed Udaeus, breaking its bones. 
And where their two weapons collided, the cutting edge of the black sword started to crack. 
“GUUUuuuuu!” 
Udaeus felt a twinge of fear. 
Fear of the girl. Fear of the superior knight of wind. 
Fear of the figure charging this way, slashing down all the spartois in the blink of an eye and weaving her way through the pikes. 
Losing blood, her bones on the verge of cracking, her body was as stable as a candle’s flame in a strong breeze. But all that paled in comparison to the rage that consumed her, increasing her strength further still. The Kenki’s mighty strikes were terrifying. 
Her still-pristine silver saber flashed as if it was expressing the power of her will—a power that went beyond the floor boss’s ability to suppress. 
“—OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” 
Udaeus howled in an attempt to purge its trembling black body of the fear threatening to take hold. 
Aiz’s craving for more had driven her speed to godly levels. The monster tried to charge its magic for another slash, but Aiz attacked its joints like a divine wind. Udaeus had no choice but to cease charging and defend itself. Now that they were both at the upper limits of their power, the decision Udaeus had to reach was clear. No matter what obstacles it sent in Aiz’s direction, sharp spears or high walls, she saw them coming, dodged, and landed a hit that was too strong for the beast to repel. Spartois were being struck down faster than they could be born from the Dungeon floor. 

 

But above all, her strikes were heavy. 
Her blows were cracking its ribs, instilling fear in its core, and even its sturdiest component, the black greatsword, had been damaged. 
There was no limit to the power of the wind. 
“UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” 
“!” 
Udaeus had to take a chance. 
Looking out over the vast field of broken bones in front of it, the floor boss summoned row upon row of extremely large pikes only in front of itself. 
Thousands of sharp points weren’t aimed at a single target, but instead at everything on the surface of the floor that it could see. Aiz was forced to break off her attack and gain some distance. 
Then, Udaeus used the last of its pillars to form a circular barrier around and behind the girl while pumping energy into its joints. 
“!” 
The spikes were humongous, jutting ten meders into the air and standing so close together that there was no space between them, a perfect wall. Aiz was caught in the middle of a crescent moon. 
The only way open to her was forward, trapped in a cul-de-sac of death. 
The beast had prevented her from getting close, forced her to retreat, and still managed to trap her within striking distance. Udaeus had run out of pikes, so it raised the damaged black greatsword high into the air. Rotating his shoulders, it got into position to unleash a strike that combined all its destructive power and speed at once. 
The only direction that Aiz could go was toward the beast, and the sword would come down long before she could escape from the ring. 
Shoulder, elbow, and finally wrist. Aiz looked on as violet light emanated from the joints of the monster’s left arm—and made her decision, frowning. 
She squatted low to the ground, gathering as much power into her knees as possible, before jumping and flipping backward high into the air. 
Higher and higher she went, until she reached the top of the crescent-moon wall at the end of the cul-de-sac and landed on her feet. 
She made eye contact with the crimson flames that were shaking in surprise before launching her painful and protesting body into a full-blast air current. 
Udaeus’s howl accompanied a flash of magic as it brought the black greatsword straight down. 
By contrast, Aiz focused her divine wind on a singular point. 
“Lil Rafaga!!” 
The massive black blade collided with the spiraling arrow of wind. 
Finishing move versus finishing move in a head-to-head test of strength. Udaeus’s three joints pulsed like supernovas of violet light. The gale whipping around Aiz cut through the air faster than any natural storm could hope to achieve. 
Wave upon wave of air fought against the purple glow, like two rivals trying to determine which was ultimately strongest. 
“Wind, wind, wind!!” 
Her voice was heard and the wind pushed itself even faster in response. 
Udaeus’s burning eyes flickered as it felt the force against its blade. It howled even louder, forcing more energy into its joints. The violet glow grew into a blinding light, and this time it was Aiz who grimaced as the rival met her challenge. 
Each increase in the wind speed brought her body closer to the verge of being ripped apart. With each passing moment, there was a feeling that the two great powers would destroy each other. Footsteps of impending doom crept up in the back of her mind—when suddenly… 
“Gather, breath of the earth—my name is Alf!” 
The tones of the radiant voice reached Aiz’s ears. 
“Veil Breath!” 
A jade light descended onto the girl’s body, its warmth enveloping her like a glove. 
Glancing to the side, she could clearly see Riveria standing relatively close to the area between her and Udaeus with her staff raised. 
Veil Breath was Riveria’s support magic. 
It took the form of a deep green light that sat on a single target like cloth, adding a layer of protection from both physical and magical attacks. Similar to an enchantment, its effects continued for a set amount of time, and also, however slightly, healed the recipient. 
Riveria’s assistance granted Aiz’s body a small amount of relief, giving it a chance to reclaim some of its strength. The elf’s sharp, jade eyes met the human’s golden ones, wordlessly conveying, “At least allow me to do this much!” They only maintained eye contact for a few fleeting seconds before the human turned her head forward, back toward her enemy. 
Thanks to the layer of light surrounding her body, the pressure of the boss’s blade felt lighter. With this—Aiz thought to herself as she gathered energy in her revitalized muscles and unleashed Airiel’s full power. 
“?!!” 
In that moment, the shaft of the black greatsword fractured as Aiz’s arrow of wind claimed victory. 
The blade of Desperate carved its way to the crumbling sword, breaking it down to half its original size. Aiz emerged from the falling rubble and tore through the air toward her opponent. 
The torrent of wind wrapped itself around Udaeus’s left arm, and tore it apart at the joints. 
“?!” 
The pieces of Udaeus’s left arm fell to the ground with thundering crashes. 
Aiz could hear the beast howling behind her after taking his other arm off at the shoulder. But her body had reached its limit, every bit of strength leaving her muscles as her magic faded. 
She fell out of the air, hitting the ground with a dull thud. 
“Ah…!” 
She lay on the ground like a masterless puppet. 
She closed her eyes for a moment, the red spots in her vision turning to black. However, they were open again in a flash. 
From the vibrations reaching her through the floor, she knew the monster was in pain. Despite being covered with wounds from head to toe, Aiz slowly climbed to her feet, the green glow still enveloping her body. 
…I’m fine. 
Riveria’s magic was still with her. 
So. 
One more time, she could squeeze out more strength. 
Just a little more, and she would use the last of her power. 
To defeat the enemy. To surpass it. 
To become strong. 
To rid herself of weakness forever. 
“…Awaken, Tempest.” 
Her voice might have been weak, but her words were clear and determined. 
Wind armor returning, she looked over her shoulder toward the enemy behind her. 
She watched the armless floor boss howl and wail for a moment, and she tightened her grip on the hilt of her saber. 
Aiz took a step forward. 
 
The fight continued for close to an hour after that. 
Riveria took care of the spartois while keeping a close eye on the battle. The two combatants took turns inflicting damage on each other, with neither able to claim a clear advantage as their duel showed no signs of slowing down. 
Then. 
One silver arc sliced through the air and connected with its target. Aiz inflicted a decisive blow. 
“OOOOOooooooooooooooo?…” 
A broken lower jaw, many fractured bones, part of its head crushed. 
Udaeus was already riddled with gashes all over its body. A weakening roar escaped from the exposed bones inside of its mouth and echoed throughout the room at the same time the beast’s body fell to the floor. 
Its lower back had been sliced clean through, causing Udaeus to fall backward. Puffs of smoke ballooned into the air as each of its remaining bones hit the ground. 
“…” 
Dried blood covering her face, Aiz approached her fallen enemy with the silent calm of a still night. 
Without its connection to the ground, it was impossible for Udaeus to summon any more pikes. Pieces of its black bones stuck out of the ground like grave markers given to the countless white-boned warriors that had been slain during the ferocious battle. Aiz wove her way through all of them before jumping on top of the monster’s chest. 
Without its arms, all Udaeus could do was eye Aiz with the weakly flickering crimson flames in its eye sockets. They watched powerlessly as the girl walked onto its sternum. The solid bones beneath her feet were already breaking apart, the brilliant sheen of the magic stone beneath her a distant memory. The faint light emerging from it was so weak that it seemed it could be snuffed out at any moment. 
Aiz said nothing as she lifted Desperate with both hands, the blade pointed toward the heavens. 
She whirled around with the saber, then she sliced straight down from high above her head to her feet, making nary a sound. 
“?” 
The crumbling bones fell apart as the wind blade connected with the magic stone. 
A web of fissures raced across the stone surface. A high-pitched crack! filled the air. 
Udaeus’s entire body collapsed inward a moment later with a whoosh. The black bones dissolved into ash and diffused into the remaining wind. 
The black gravestones dissipated along with them, echoes whirling around the room as they crumbled. 
“…” 
Aiz stood in the middle of the quiet battlefield, saber hanging loosely in the limp grip of her right hand. It was all over. 
Her blond hair faintly twinkled in the dim light; the still-pristine silver saber glinted at her feet. 
A mountain of ash and monster corpses beneath her, she slowly looked up. 
Blood still dripped from the open wound on her cheek and ran down onto an already bloodied breastplate. 
There were no words. She simply looked up at the ceiling as though her soul was being drawn out of her body under the cover of darkness. 
“…” 
“…Riveria.” 
Sheathing her saber and walking down to the floor, Aiz caught a glimpse of her companion walking toward her. 
The human girl’s shoulders shrank like a child expecting to be scolded by her parents. Riveria came to a stop right in front of her and placed the palm of her hand on the girl’s bloody cheek without saying a word. 
“Be still.” 
Aiz had been on the verge of breaking the silence, but Riveria placed a finger over her lips and began casting. 
It was full-fledged healing magic this time. Warm green light emerged from the palm of her hand on the girl’s face and worked its way around her body, healing her wounds as it went. Aiz closed her eyes, feeling the touch of Riveria’s fingers and the warmth of her magic. 
Once all Aiz’s wounds had closed, Riveria ripped off a piece of her own top-class battle cloth and wiped the blood off of Aiz’s skin, like a mother wiping dirt off her child. 
Likewise, Aiz wasn’t happy about having the extremely expensive, and abrasive, cloth rubbed against her skin. She closed an eye and bore it as her plump cheeks got pushed from side to side. 
“…” 
“…” 
The girl’s face clean, Riveria lowered the cloth and looked her in the eyes. 
Aiz stayed silent and looked up to meet the gaze of the elf who stood taller than she did. 
“What is troubling you?” 
Not a scolding, not a criticism, but a simple question. The girl’s golden eyes went wide. 
Riveria looked as though she were trying to say something in her clear gaze. The muscles in Aiz’s chest tightened as her gaze fell to her feet before she worked up the courage to start talking. 
She started with the incident in the town of Rivira, and what she had refused to divulge. 
The red-haired Tamer. Everything. 
“She…she called me…Aria.” 
Riveria’s eyes opened as wide as they could go the moment those words escaped Aiz’s lips. 
Words failed her. Covering her mouth with her hand to hide her surprise, she clearly understood the meaning. 
A few moments passed and Riveria put her hand down. At last she knew what had driven Aiz to such a degree of recklessness, and she quietly sighed. 
She cast her gaze on the girl once again. 
“Aiz, will you not rely on me?” 
“!” 
The girl’s face shot up. Riveria took another step forward and stroked Aiz’s blond hair. 
The two made eye contact, Aiz basking in Riveria’s motherly gaze and warmth. But she couldn’t take it and looked away. 
“I…and Tiona, and Lefiya, and everyone else…we consider you to be a member of our own family.” 
Her warmth seeped its way all the way into Aiz’s heart. 
It penetrated the wall that she had put up around herself and embraced her soul. The black flames that had been burning within her finally started to die out. 
The fingers that stroked her hair tapped her breastplate. 
“You are not alone anymore. Do not forget that.” 
“…Yes.” 
Touched by something close to love in Riveria’s words, Aiz hid her eyes behind her bangs and nodded. 
Blushing, the girl finally looked up again. 
“Riveria…” 
“What is it?” 
“…I’m sorry.” 
She saw the elf’s cheeks pull back. Riveria was smiling. 
“Huh?” mumbled Aiz, using both hands to support her tilted head. 
Riveria had scolded her many times, and raised her with an iron fist. Never once had Aiz seen this woman do this in her life. 
Eyes widening, Riveria couldn’t help but smile again. 
“Not only are there many magic stones, but there is also a large number of items to collect. Aiz, give me a hand.” 
“…Understood.” 
Aiz followed Riveria toward the shimmering rocks buried under the ashes of Udaeus. 
It took a lot of effort, but the two of them collected all the loot and put it into the backpacks that Lefiya and Rakuta had left for them. 
Riveria swung the bags over her shoulders, and the two of them left the room behind. 
Two women, jade and blond hair waving from side to side as they walked. 
Moving side by side like mother and daughter, the two returned to the surface.