She launched herself into it full force, unembellished.
A diagonal cut from the shoulder, so fast it was barely perceptible.
“—Tepid.”
“!!”
The boaz deflected her full-powered attack with his large sword as if Desperate were nothing more than a twig.
Her body off-balance from the ricochet, she suppressed her awe, allowing the momentum of her deflected sword to spin her around for another attack.
But once more, it was blocked.
Sparks flew. She gave up on finesse and simply went for speed.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhh—!!”
Her sword struck again and again in a merciless string of attacks.
The boy was in danger. Her mask had been discarded—she was the Sword Princess now, and the rousing flurry of sword slashes elicited a mighty yell from the depths of her throat.
Each and every one of her countless strikes was a killing blow as she bared her fangs at Ottar.
She was a Level 6 now, and she had the Status to prove it.
Pouring every ounce of her top-class strength and speed into her strikes, she showered the man in front of her with silver sparks.
“Those moves—ah, yes. You did recently reach a new level, didn’t you?”
“—”
But still, she was blocked.
Every single one of her attacks was turned aside.
His defense was impenetrable.
Against the onslaught of inescapable strikes, Ottar still shot her down.
Without even taking a step, he summoned pinpoint accuracy and mountain-like fortitude to render each of her attacks useless with naught but the sword in his right hand.
Desperate let out high-pitched screams as it got knocked about. She had to wonder how the soldier even knew about her level-up considering it had never been officially announced, but she quickly suppressed such thoughts.
With a slash that sliced through the very air itself, Ottar’s sword drove her away.
“~~~~~~~~~~~!”
She barely managed to slip Desperate between the other sword and her chest, but it still hurled her backward with the force of a rushing river.
Her feet dug into the ground. When she was finally able to bring herself to a stop, she found herself directly in front of the young prum girl she’d left on the ground. As she let her eyes follow the path she’d taken, her thoughts became a mix of astonishment and terror.
In that single defensive blow, he’d sent her back more than ten meders.
“—Ngh!”
But she didn’t allow herself to remain dazed for long. Taking up her sword once more, she began her attack anew.
There was no time to gawk. No time to delay.
Her enemy was blocking that passage of shadows, and she would give everything it took to reach it.
She attacked from the side, from below, trying every angle she could to get through that impenetrable defense.
“Just how strong will you become, Sword Princess?”
“…?!”
His sword met hers, bigger yet somehow faster than her Desperate. She tried moving, feinting, and attacking from every possible direction, but the impregnable fortress remained unscathed.
Aiz couldn’t contain a shudder at the contrast between his words and attacks.
His sword skills were terrifying enough as it was, but adding to them the pure power of his physical abilities made them all the more so. It was as though she’d changed places with Bell, no longer the teacher but the student.
He really was a megalith.
He didn’t so much as twitch at Aiz’s amped-up speed or the hurricane of sword strikes that came with it.
Like a mighty boulder amid the raging wind, he was calm and composed.
He was a wall, and the wall wouldn’t budge. Guarding the path behind him, he refused to take even a single step, repelling Aiz’s attacks time and time again but never instigating any of his own.
This…This is…!
A Level 7.
No—this is the Warlord.
It had nothing to do with levels, but the brute strength of one well-trained warrior. Aiz bit down on her lip.
“Nngh!”
With a loud noise, she was pushed backward, landing a ways away. Once again, the gap between them had widened.
This happened four times in the span of a single minute.
Her hand was already starting to tingle around the hilt of her sword. Gaze fixated on the expressionless boaz, her eyes flashed.
—I have to get through.
—I need to save him!
—I refuse to let him die!
Without revealing her connection with the boy, she used it as an impetus to kick off from the ground, becoming the wind.
She unleashed the magic she’d sworn to herself never to use against another person.
“Awaken, Tempest!!”
She was on fire.
She would do anything to reach the boy.
Wreathed in the blessing of the wind, halfway into her charge she disappeared into the gale.
The time for hesitation was gone. She lunged toward the soldier in front of her, holding nothing back.
“Nngh!!”
The gale strike screamed from her sword.
Ottar’s rust-colored eyes narrowed sharply, his hand turning into a blur.
The first strike was blocked.
Her eyes widened at the sight of his sword meeting Desperate, but she didn’t stop there.
The current still flowed through her, and her next strike came at him like a literal storm.
They clashed head-on.
“—”
Aiz could barely believe what happened next.
Her enemy followed her every move, her every raging wave, and deflected each and every gale-like strike.
His sword absorbed the shock of her violent tempest. Though his enormous frame trembled slightly at the fury of her raging winds, he refused to retreat or stand down. Even when it seemed he would give in or that she had the upper hand, his incredible maneuvers, gargantuan strength, and even the gauntlet on his left hand all worked in sync to create continuous blocks and attacks.
The extraordinary feat of technique and strategy shut out Aiz’s storm in its entirety.
Their levels of experience were simply too different.
Not even her Airiel, the magic that could put their abilities on the same playing field, the blessed winds that had helped her overcome countless battlefields before, could daunt him.
It was a cultivated mind and body that separated them.
Endless training substantiated with physical ability and combat skill.
—There’s no end to this.
As her flurry of strikes continued, each one punctuated with a tempestuous screech, Aiz found herself in awe of the soldier’s features.
There had never before been an opponent she couldn’t best once she unleashed the power of her wind—save that monster hybrid Levis, whose mere existence surpassed human knowledge.
But even she was paling in comparison to the boaz before Aiz now.
This wasn’t just endless, it was preposterous.
He was practically a god.
This talent, this steadfast exertion, this unwavering determination—he was every bit the modern-day hero.
Ottar the Warlord was, beyond a doubt, the epitome of greatness.
“Hnngh!”
“Guhh—!”
Not missing a beat, the flash of Ottar’s sword caught her armor of wind.
With one direct attack, he overcame her current and Desperate, cleaving all the way to Aiz herself.
The staggering force carved Aiz’s thin frame into the Dungeon floor. Once more, she was propelled backward, fists clawing at the ground, hurtling over the top of the downed prum girl until finally—she hit the wall.
Stepping away from the edge of the room, she set aside her sword.
The current was with her. Her golden eyes pierced the soldier on the other side of the room, the man himself bewildered by her response.
She would use it. She would finally use it. Her secret weapon.
The voices—?
From deep, deep within that passageway of darkness…
The voices had stopped.
The constant roar of the mad bull, the desperate cries of the boy fighting for his life—all of it.
Aiz’s face contorted like a child on the verge of tears. She found the hilt of her sword once more, gripping it tightly.
—Out of my WAY!
Heart screaming, she cast her trump card.
“—Li’l Rafaga!!”
The wind flashed.
A divine wind shot forward, making a beeline toward Ottar, so massive that it could never be used outside the Dungeon walls.
The speed at which that leviathan wind sliced through the room made Ottar’s eyes widen.
Muscles protruding from his massive shoulders, he gripped his sword in both hands.
The boaz soldier swung his great silver weapon down diagonally at the incoming strike.
“Huuurrrrrraaaaaaaaaaahh—!”
He roared.
Voice exploding from his throat like the crazed call of a monster, he met the cyclone head-on.
It was the first time the soldier was forced to use both hands, to rely on his full strength.
Aiz’s vision became a blur of wind, and she saw Ottar’s armor get torn from his frame.
The impact was incredible. As the air current raged and the ground sank beneath his feet, a tremendous explosion rocked the room.
The recoil from the resulting shock wave sent both of them flying.
The two attacks had neutralized each other.
“…”
Aiz looked up in a daze from where she’d landed on her rear end in the middle of the room.
The control she’d been able to keep over her strength for so long, the promise she’d made to herself never to use it against another person—
—She’d broken it.
She’d used her finishing move.
Her pure, unfiltered strength.
“…”
Ottar silently peeled himself off the passageway wall before returning to his place in front of the entrance.
He’d lost his armor, a section of his battle clothes was ripped, and scrapes littered his cheeks and shoulders, but that was it.
Tossing aside his sword, now heavily damaged, he grabbed a new one from its place poking out of the ground.
The wall towered over them, calm and composed.
The single path behind him was still so far, far away.
“…Ngh!”
She didn’t let the shock afflict her for more than a moment.
Grabbing Desperate from where it had stabbed into the floor, she renewed her charge.
Ottar responded in kind, his sword at the ready.
“Let me through!”
Sweat flying, she cut at him ruthlessly with unrelenting strikes of her blade.
Ottar didn’t respond. It was only through his continued ripostes that he made his resolve known.
The armor-less, injured soldier versus the unscathed yet single-mindedly slashing girl.
Step after step, their violent dance continued in an attempt to see who would yield first—when suddenly…
“—?!”
Thunk! There was the sound of someone leaping, and Aiz saw a shadow fly over her head, straight toward Ottar.
Down came the double-edge blade with a ferocious, air-splitting slice. The boaz responded in surprise, raising his sword to meet it.
“What in the world is goin’ on here?!” Tiona cried out in surprise after landing back on the ground, her attack deflected. She wasted no time setting her sights on her companion’s opponent.
Aiz could do nothing but stare in shock at the Amazonian girl who’d caught up with her, flourishing her oversize weapon.
“The Amazon…!”
Aiz took off at once, as the berserker immediately prepared her next attack, and for the first time a crease formed between Ottar’s brows. His defense was already shaken by the sheer destructive power of the Amazon’s Urga, and he was late in responding to the incoming rain of sword strikes.
His endurance waned. He grabbed for his third sword—a long one, this time—and wielded it in his left hand as he used it to push back the leaping Tiona.
Only…
As soon as she was gone, he was met with another shadow, this one speeding toward him along the ground. Ottar gritted his teeth.
“Boar bastard—!”
It was Bete this time, delivering a full-bodied kick to the man he’d always considered his rival.
Ottar raced to defend himself. No sooner had he blocked the kick than he was met by a pair of whirling Kukri knives.
“Gnngh…!”
“What in the world is going on here?!” demanded Tione in a voice identical to her sister’s as she joined the fray.
It was four against one now. A trio of first-tier reinforcements.
It reminded Aiz of her moonlit battle against the black-clad attackers, only now it was time for the city’s strongest adventurer to experience the relentless waves of attacks from Loki Familia.
From Urga’s wild swinging to Frosvirt’s incessant thrusts to the quick, intersecting slashes of the Kukri knives.
Even the impenetrable defense of the unshakable Level 7 was liable to start coming apart at the seams.
“Nngh!”
Aiz took advantage of that split-second opening and dashed forward.
She dived toward that single gap behind the boaz’s mighty frame.
“—Oooaaaarrrggh!!” With lightning-fast reflexes, Ottar steered his longsword toward the side of Aiz’s head—
Only to find a pair of fang-like silver boots digging into his steely arm.
“Just try and look away from me, porky!”
“Vanargand…?!”
Bete’s kick effectively put a stop to Ottar’s attack.
Riding on the assistance of her companions, Aiz charged, disappearing down the passage the boaz had been so adamantly guarding.
—I’m through!
Scraping together every last ounce of strength she could muster, she raced down the path.
“…!”
Ottar’s features distorted upon witnessing the golden-haired, golden-eyed girl rush past him.
As he staved off the incoming attacks of Tiona and her friends, the natural-born soldier could tell already that even if he were to follow in immediate pursuit, there was no way he could overcome the godlike speed of the Sword Princess before she reached her destination.
“And here I was just thinking that my thumb was awfully itchy. I suppose this is all part of the bargain, as well?” The voice of a boy came from the direction of the standard route leading to the eighth floor, directly opposite the opening Ottar and the others were occupying.
The boaz narrowed his eyes at the blond prum and his long spear.
“Hey, Ottar.” Finn posed, almost as though greeting an old friend.
“…Finn?” Ottar silently lowered his weapon.
Around him, the trio of first-tier adventurers remained at the ready. From behind Finn emerged another—a high elf of unparalleled beauty.
Realizing he was more than outnumbered, the boaz conceded, his fighting spirit gone.
Their opponent having lost his malice, Tiona, followed by Bete, took off after Aiz down the passageway.
“Riveria! Help that prum girl!” she called.
“We still have no idea what the hell is even going on!” Bete shouted.
“Y-you two…!”
As Tione’s face twitched at her sister’s (and comrade’s) temerity, Finn and Ottar faced each other. The two familia captains began to speak. Tione couldn’t leave the one she cared so much about, and Riveria was already at work tending to the blood-covered prum.
“As Bete so eloquently put it, I’m still a bit foggy as to what’s going on here. Would you mind filling me in on why exactly you chose this time and this place to take up arms against us, Ottar?”
“There’s no incorrect time and place to challenge an enemy.”
“Indeed. Then would it be safe to take this as the will of not only your familia but your god, as well? Is Lady Freya hoping for all-out war between us?” Finn asked with a smile, to which Ottar remained silent.
The sharpened tip of the prum’s spear gleamed in the Dungeon’s light.
“…I was acting independently,” he finally uttered, voice low.
Abandoning his weapons, he began walking forward. Even as Tione’s eyes narrowed into tiny points, he proceeded toward Finn and the others undeterred.
He walked right past Finn, Tione, and Riveria, who had finished casting her healing magic on the downed prum and was waiting beside Finn with one eye closed.
“So long as you’re going to form your little clique, I’ve no chance of winning,” the boaz said coolly the moment he passed them by.
“Good to know. We’re not keen on taking up arms against you, either,” Finn replied.
It was a name Aiz would never forget.
The back that overlapped her father’s.
The page in the legend.
The greatness that had been achieved.
Today, an adventurer who’d taken his first breath—had obtained his first qualification for hero-hood.
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