CHAPTER 8
THE GREAT FAMILIA WAR
“Ahnya.”
“…”
“How long are you going to stay like that?”
“…”
“…I asked how long are you gonna stay hidin’ in bed!”
“…Runoa, calm meown.”
“Don’t stop me, Chloe! Lady Freya is Syr, isn’t she, Ahnya?!”
“…”
“Then we’ve gotta go hear the full story, even it means kicking her ass!”
“…”
“We just have to help out the kid and take Syr back, right?!”
“…”
“Say something, you stupid cat!”
“Runoa, calm down.”
“Get up already! If you won’t, I’ll make you!”
“Runoa!”
“Gh…”
“…”
“……”
“…”
“…We’re going.”
“…”
“You can rot away there for the rest of your life!”
The door flew open.
The sound hung in the room; her resentment had taken shape. That left just two people in the room.
“Ahnya, we’re going to the war game meow.”
“…”
“We begged Lord Njǫrðr and Lady Demeter. Mei and the others converted, too.”
“…”
“Lyu doesn’t know…But we’re going to fight, too.”
“…”
Ahnya, do you not want this place to go back to how it was?”
“…Gh.”
“Well, I want that back…So I’m going.”
And then there was one.
The door closed. Ahnya hugged her knees and curled up in her bed.
Runoa was strong. So was Chloe.
But Ahnya fighting, that was impossible.
Her brother was scary.
Freya was scary.
She didn’t even know what the girl who had saved her really was.
And she couldn’t muster the courage to find the answer to that question.
Runoa was right. Ahnya was just wasting away. She was a lost kitten who couldn’t do anything alone.
She hung her head in disappointment at herself.
Then—
“—You.”
The door flew open, and someone rough and coarse walked over to the bed.
That coarse and vulgar tone sounded so familiar. Her shoulders quivered as she buried her head between her knees.
“…Big brother…?”
The lost kitten nervously raised her head.
The giant city walls in the east are glowing a faint white.
A bead of sweat drips down my cheek as the darkness starts to give way to sunlight.
“Eeeya!”
The next instant, sweat and a few strands of hair are wiped away by an impossibly big twinblade.
Even as my eyes widen and I gasp, my arms and legs don’t stop moving.
After twisting my body to the side, I kick the ground twice like I’m dancing, using the rotation to slash with Hakugen.
“Haaah!”
It’s a brute-force response that relies on the raw force of my Strength and Agility stats.
At a glance, it looks haphazard, and it’s something I definitely wouldn’t have been able to pull off before. But with a Level 5 status, I can combine evasion and attack into a single fluid motion.
“Don’t let your status decide what you should do!”
But my outrageous reaction is instantly crushed by my opponent’s even greater absurdity.
With insane visual acuity and courage—and an Amazon’s strength—she grabs my wrist and hurls me behind her.
“Guuuuuugh?!”
Instead of flying in an arc, I bounce against the ground like a ball.
Thrusting my free arm into the grassy field, I recover my balance and kick off the rapidly approaching wall and leap to the side. Time is of the essence because the other Amazon, whose long black hair fans out in the wind, is already slashing at me.
“Don’t be so eager to go for such an obvious opening!”
“…! Ghaaaa!”
The two kukri knives flashed in succession while the big twinblade came crashing down from above.
A howl works its way up from the pit of my stomach as I meet their combined attack head-on.
It’s just before dawn in Hearthstone Manor.
I can’t remember anymore how many times I sparred with Ms. Tiona and Ms. Tione in the courtyard.
They burst into our home a few days ago. Just like the goddess and everyone else, I was taken aback when they announced they wanted to help me. Mr. Finn had volunteered to teach Lilly, and he was the one who suggested asking them to help me with some “fine-tuning.” We’ve been fighting constantly since then.
For serious training, it would probably have been better to go up on the wall where I went with Ms. Aiz or else somewhere in the Dungeon, but Ms. Tione pointed out that the time spent getting ready and going back and forth would be wasted, so it was decided we’d train right here in the middle of the home.
“Here I come!”
The courtyard wasn’t nearly large enough to accommodate a bunch of first-tier adventurers going wild. The lawn was completely torn up, the plants were in terrible shape, and the pole holding the magic-stone lamp was broken. And Lilly had already thundered about the repair costs, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. I couldn’t afford to lose focus at all.
Training or not, that’s what it means to cross blades with first-tier adventurers.
“Your body first! Then your head! You’ll never be able to keep up in a fight with first-tier adventurers otherwise!”
“Freya Familia’s attacks will be even more intense!”
Countless scratches cover my arms and legs. I feel every impact in my bones, and everything feels numb. The rapid slashes of the knives and the heavy crush of the twinblade lay into me again and again as I focus on defense.
They keep pushing me back against the wall over and over with what can only be called a torrent of attacks.
Ninety percent of my counterattacks are instantly defeated, so scrambling away is the only way for me to survive. When I unleash a kick like a cannon shot only to have it easily parried by a deft elbow, it feels like I’m having a nightmare.
As first-tier adventurers, the Amazon sisters have far, far more experience and techniques than I do. So the result is exactly what you’d expect. I’ve been getting pummeled day in and day out.
“Remember your training with Aiz!”
“You have the tricks and techniques she pounded into you, don’t you?! So draw them out now!”
But just as often, their words spur my heart and body onward.
—Don’t let your status decide things for you.
—Don’t leap at every opening.
Right, those were things she told me, too.
Now that I’ve made it to Level 5, I need to revive my old resolve.
Link my abilities and my techniques, combine my weapons and tricks, synchronize my spirit and body!
“Grow…Uchide no Kozuchi!”
Just then, a supporting voice reaches my bloody back.
In a corner of the courtyard, Ms. Haruhime stands up from where she has been kneeling and finishes her casting.
She’s sweating just as much as I’ve been while focusing everything on applying her level boost.
“—Ngggh!”
Readjusting to my status that’s suddenly been boosted, I launch my counterattack.
As beautiful rays of light envelop my body, I accelerate. The gleaming white and jet-black knives in my hands flash.
Using the techniques I’ve learned, I aim for the sides of Ms. Tione’s weapons, knocking them off path to parry all of her slashes. Intentionally leaving an opening, I bait Ms. Tiona. Seizing the initiative, I swing the Hestia Knife in my right hand and put my whole weight behind it.
“Haaaaaaaaah!!!!”
Everything is riding on this attack. A single strike containing all I can muster.
Ms. Tiona’s eyes widen, and she smiles as she blocks it head-on with her massive weapon before flying backward.
The impact made her adamantite weapon shudder. It’s a refreshing sound that I haven’t heard yet in all of our training. It feels good.
A high-pitched sound like a tuning fork rings out in the courtyard.
“Allll right! …So, how’s it feel, Argonaut?”
“…Yes, it’s probably fine now.”
Ms. Tiona spins in the air and lands without issue a short distance away.
Breathing heavily, I return my two knives to their sheaths before opening and closing my fists over and over.
“The inconsistency I was feeling…is gone.”
When we level up, there’s inevitably a gap in perception between our body and our mind. The mind can’t immediately adapt to the sudden changes in every aspect of our physical abilities. Maybe because I’m inexperienced and have only been an adventurer for a short time, it takes a while for me to adjust. The last time it happened was while I was fighting iguaçu during the expedition two months ago.
So the goal of the training this time isn’t to practice to the very last minute. Like Mr. Finn said, this is to fine-tune my body and mind to get rid of that discrepancy.
“It took us until the very last moment but looks like it worked. You shouldn’t be in trouble anymore…And you did good keeping up. I’ve heard about it plenty by now, but that’s some amazing magic.”
“Th-thank you…”
Ms. Tione even complimented Ms. Haruhime, whose eyes are still spinning. She looks like she might collapse at any moment. Ms. Haruhime has also leveled up, and since a few days ago, she’s been helping with my tuning.
In her case, rather than becoming physically stronger, her level boost has become even more formidable. Now that she’s Level 2, it lasts for twenty minutes instead of fifteen, the cooldown has gone from ten minutes to nine, and naturally, the maximum number of tails she can muster has increased from five to six.
There’s no doubt Ms. Haruhime’s power is going to be key in the war game. Lilly’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep when she asked Ms. Haruhime to test it to her limits. This way, we won’t have to worry about using it without practice during the main event.
Plus, it’s good that I got to experience pseudo–Level 6 movements…
Combine the level boost with the mental gap I already have from leveling up and I really might have ended up rampaging like a bull.
It’s a bit of an odd comparison, but the power output almost feels like transforming into a dragon. Thanks to Ms. Tione and Ms. Tiona, I’m able to control it now.
Considering this was also practice fighting against first-tier adventurers, this fine-tuning session is something that could only have been done with Level 6s like them. I can’t begin to thank them enough.
“It would have been good if Aiz could have trained you all, too, so…sorry.”
“No, I heard there are reasons, and I’m sure she is cheering us on.”
I shake my head. I don’t know the details, but…the things she taught me are still firmly rooted in my heart. Now, and even during all the fighting in that field, everything she has done for me is a huge help.
I will face the war today together with her teachings.
“…The sun is…”
Ms. Haruhime looks up.
Even in the courtyard, surrounded by the walls of the manor on all sides, it’s still clear the sun has started peeking over the horizon.
The sky is bright red. So red it almost looks like twilight.
This is the third day of our training and the day of the war game.
My heart quietly but suddenly starts to race as I prepare to meet the fateful day.
“Argonaut…”
As I peer up at the sky nervously, I realize Ms. Tione and Ms. Tiona have walked over and are smiling at Ms. Haruhime and me.
“Do your best!”
“Go kick Freya Familia’s ass!”
Ms. Haruhime and I look at each other, feeling just a little bit relieved by their glowing smiles and rough and wild encouragement.
Nodding, we smile back for Goddess and Lilly and everyone else, too.
““We will!””
It was a track left by the giant called history.
Rows and rows of large, crumbling pillars in lines.
Countless paving stones faded of color extended all around.
Broken arches leaning but still standing after many, many long years.
A large mausoleum, several structures that were believed to be residences for religious figures, bare ground and massive boulders, green encroaching everywhere, even now in the process of becoming part of nature. It was a majestic, sublime scene, but at the same time, it was one of immense solitude.
And what was most notable was that all the ruins were on top of a lake.
This island floated atop beautiful emerald-green water—water cupped by a giant caldera surrounded by a foreboding ring of mountains.
These were the Orza city ruins.
It was the name of a massive complex of ruins in a caldera lake to the northwest of Orario, at the western end of the Beor Mountains. And this was the battlefield where the war game would be carried out.
The history of these ruins stretched back over 2,000 years. It was originally a fortress city carved out of the land to stem the tide of monsters pouring from the massive rift in the ground.
In addition to ensuring they did not have to worry about water, the caldera formed a natural moat that frustrated the monsters’ assaults. With the steady work of half-elves and half-dwarves, the islands grew to be a self-sufficient city, and it apparently stood proudly until the day an especially large monster attacked it from the sky.
The warped, elliptical island that had now fallen into ruins was still surrounded by the remnants of ramparts and towers. Scattered across the rugged and undulating landscape were a great many leaning structures and many more completely broken skeletons of buildings, making it clear this place had been abandoned long ago.
And among them was one particularly large temple on the western edge of the island.
In ancient times, before deities descended to the mortal realm, people exposed to the menace of monsters worshipped imagined deities, praying for salvation. Orza was believed to have a deep connection with spirits, and that large temple was generally known as the house of the gods. Inside, several statues of deities were enshrined.
It was believed that a goddess of beauty was one of the deities worshipped there.
“—The breeze is cold, there are scattered clouds here and there, but as you can see, it is a beautiful day! Perfect weather for fighting, even on the battleground in the mountains where the weather can shift so quickly! I will be your host and commentator for the war game again this time! Ganesha Familia’s Fire Inferno Flame, the fire spitting flame magic, Ibly Archer!”
“I am Ganeshaaaaa!”
“And I’m joined by Lord Ganesha!”
In distant Orario, the Orza ruins were visible in the reflection of mirrors. Divine mirrors had already been set up all around the city, and a live commentary was being run by Ganesha Familia.
But in contrast to the feverish excitement that accompanied the war game with Apollo Familia five months ago, the city was quiet. The adventurers in taverns, the people looking up at the mirrors set up on the main streets, and even the deities gathered in Babel all looked nervous in the final moments before the battle began.
“Now, then! This is a new experience for Orario—The Great Familia War! A clash between Freya Familia, hailed as the city’s strongest, and a coalition of familias led by Hestia Familia! And the aim of the game this time is a variation of Hide! And! Seeeeeeeek!!!”
The annoying commentators were the only ones fired up.
In front of Guild Headquarters, Ibly was screaming into the magic-stone microphone.
“Allow me to breeze through the rules! Victory goes to the side that finds the other side’s deity first! Every familia taking part will hide its patron deity somewhere in the Orza ruins, and the followers will race to find them! Quite literally hide-and-seek!”
“Is that…Ganesha?!”
“That’s exactly right, Lord Ganesha! Of course it is not just a simple hide-and-seek, either, though! If enemy familia members run into one another they can get in their way and fight—a full-on battle royale! Rivers of blood and graveyards of weapons will surely spring up as they try to protect and find the deities!”
That wasn’t just metaphorical, either.
All told, forty-seven familias were taking part, and more than eight hundred followers would be fighting in this war, so no matter what the rules might be, a battle where blood would be washed away with more blood was what awaited them.
Hearing Ibly’s explanation, the people of the city all gulped.
“Buuuuut! While Freya Familia will have to find every last one of the coalition gods and goddesses, the coalition need only find Goddess Freya to win! That has to be a pretty big advantage for the coalition! It almost feels unfair! What do you think, Lord Ganesha?!”
“Even that’s not enough of a handicap.”
“Is that a serious answer from Lord Ganesha?!”
The live commentary and the mood of the city were at complete odds with each other as they echoed through the streets. Meanwhile, those left behind in the city…
“Bell…”
“Eina…”
In the Guild Headquarters, where a mirror was hanging near the ceiling, Eina could do nothing but pray for Bell’s safety, wishing she could do more, while her colleague Misha gently held her.
“With rules like this, they had to ban me specifically since not only could I fly around and locate Goddess Freya, I could even end it immediately with a surprise attack…Was that it?”
“Thought it was your Talaria more precisely. Some people knew there was a magic item that allowed its user to fly through the sky, but with you carrying Hestia and charging into Lady Freya’s home like that, it has definitely become common knowledge…You still haven’t accepted it?”
“…Making a fuss about it now wouldn’t help. Other than Talaria, which was banned, I’ve already shared all my magical items with them…There is nothing to do but believe in him. In them.”
On the thirtieth floor of Babel, where various deities had gathered, Asfi grimaced as Hermes shrugged in resignation.
“Aiz, it might be hard…but do you want to watch together?”
“……Yes…”
In Loki Familia’s home, Aiz held Tiona’s hand and finally looked up, stepping into the parlor.
Tione sat on the couch while Gareth crossed his boulder-like arms and Riveria kept one eye closed. Finn just licked his finger. They were all watching the mirror that Loki had set there.
The war game was about to begin.
“It’s so big…”
I mutter to myself as I stare out at the ruins that I couldn’t completely take in even with an upper-class adventurer’s vision.
“The eastern side is our coalition’s camp…and Freya Familia is in the west?”
“That’s right…the biggest structure is in the center. That’s supposed to be the boundary…”
Ms. Nahza holds her longbow at the ready as she explains the layout, since I’ve only just arrived.
We’re on one of the surrounding mountains, which gives us a vantage point from where we can see the whole of the island. The view of the caldera lake from the cliff top is beautiful. If I had come for any other reason, I’m sure I would have been stunned by the way the lake mirrored the heavens above.
This is the second time I’ve been to the Beor Mountains. This caldera is on the opposite end of the mountain range in relation to Edas Village, where the goddess and Ms. Aiz and I got lost during Rakia’s invasion.
I never would have imagined such a beautiful sight is only a couple hours away even if I’m carrying Ms. Haruhime—which wasn’t any trouble at all for an upper-class adventurer.
“Freya Familia has been in the ruins since this morning…Lady Freya is hidden somewhere in the western side, I’m sure…”
Following Ms. Nahza’s finger, I spot the ruins of a half-destroyed giant temple.
The area for the coalition to hide our deities is on the eastern half, while Freya Familia holds the western half. As long as they’re inside those regions, it’s fair game to hide the gods and goddesses anywhere we like. They could be in one of the towers on the outer edge or right in the center. The ruins are big enough to contain a whole district of Orario, so finding a single deity will be difficult.
“But to have a war game in such a massive ruin complex…” Mr. Ouka commented.
“Considering there are almost fifty familias taking part, it’s reasonable enough…” Ms. Nahza holds down her hair being rustled by the breeze.
I don’t want to just steal his words, but the city ruins atop the giant lake really do look almost like a completely different world. We’re about to turn what used to be a fortress city into a battlefield to settle things with the most powerful opponents there are.
“…Thank you. This is enough for me. Let’s go back.”
Controlling my nerves, I turn back with the both of them. We descend the long, precipitous slant, back to the field camp.
The Orza ruins are near the southern end of the caldera, and on the southern end of the island is the only bridge. The mountain side of that bridge is where the coalition’s base camp has been set up.
While Ms. Haruhime and I trained until the very last moment, most of the other coalition adventurers came to the group of tents set up by the Guild and Ganesha Familia the day before—Freya Familia had apparently crossed over the caldera lake on a raft from the north.
Once the war game starts, this base camp will be the evacuation point where injured adventurers who drop out of the fighting will be taken for treatment, which is why Dian Cecht Familia members can be found all around the camp.
“I feel like I don’t have enough items…Hey, anyone got some spares?!”
“Miach Familia has them! Go talk to Lord Miach and pick up what you need!”
“Having Crozzo magic swords and even swords from Hephaistos’s shop to pick from is like a dream come true…but I still can’t calm down.”
The camp is buzzing with excitement and nerves.
A beast person carefully inspects their weapons, and a dwarf is having a comrade help to put on heavy armor. I watch these scenes unfold as the battle draws near—when a couple of voices call out to me.
““Bell Cranell!””
“Ah…Mr. Luvis, Mr. Dormul!”
Turning around, I see a familiar pair running over to me—Modi Familia’s Mr. Luvis and Magni Familia’s Mr. Dormul. The elf and dwarf from during the expedition who we helped fight a moss huge.
“Are you going to fight with us…?”
“Of course. The life I should have lost along with my right arm, I owe it to you. If I don’t repay that debt now, then when?”
Mr. Luvis has a bow and a quiver of arrows ready as he touches his right arm.
It’s covered by his battle gear and a glove, but if I looked underneath, I’m sure I’d see a silver prosthetic just like Ms. Nahza’s. Even though he has lost his arm, he still has a neat smile befitting an elf. “The time to fulfill my pledge has come. Let us fight together, comrade of the elves.”
—I swear on the name of Luvis Lilix that one day I will repay this enormous debt.
I remember the promise he made when we were in Rivira after we defeated the moss huge. Behind him, Ms. Lana is wearing the same sort of smile as she stands firmly on her prosthetic leg.
“What are ya talking about, comrade of the elves! Then us and Hestia Familia are dwarven brothers!”
Mr. Dormul delivers his retort in a booming voice. Ignoring Mr. Luvis’s reproachful gaze, he pounds his broad chest.
“We haven’t forgotten, either. It’s a crazy opponent…but for you, we’ll fight to the end, brother.”
I’m at a loss for words as Mr. Dormul and his dwarf comrades beam at me with warm smiles.
Though I met them both in a strange way through Ms. Eina, we helped one another in the Dungeon, and now we’re standing shoulder to shoulder. It would be easy to call it an odd bond. But the connections that brought these elves and dwarves to come to our aid is making me feel so warm inside my chest, and I’m truly grateful to them from the bottom of my heart.
“Yes! Thank you so—”
“Hey! Don’t forget we came, too, Rabbit Foot!”
“—Geh?!”
Out of nowhere, a thick arm wraps around my neck. Coughing as everyone else looks on in shock, I frantically turn around and see an adventurer flashing a crooked grin.
“M-Mr. Mord?! You all came, too?!”
“Damn straight! If we win this, we’ll get every last bit of treasure Freya Familia has tucked away! We’re gonna break the bank at the casino!”
I can’t help but smile that even at a time like this, Mr. Mord is the same as always.
A few steps away, Mr. Gyle and Mr. Scott were just shaking their heads though…What could that be about?
“…Looks like you’re good and ready.”
Letting me go, Mr. Mord looks me up and down.
I’m wearing the sixth iteration of the armor Welf made for me and a new set of anti-detection battle gear. My weapons are the trusty Hestia Knife and Hakugen. And I have a Goliath Scarf around my neck.
My equipment also includes three dual potions and one of Ms. Nahza’s precious newly developed elixirs.
Looking down at the gear I’ve put on before going to survey the battlefield again, I nod firmly.
“Let’s win this, Rabbit Foot.”
“…Yes, Mr. Mord!”
He flashes an adventurer’s smile instead of his usual thuggish one, and I can’t help but smile back.
“Would all of the deities and children please come here! It’s time for the final briefing!”
As everyone steels themselves for the coming battle, Lady Hestia’s voice rings out from the center of the camp.
Ms. Nahza and Mr. Ouka, Mr. Luvis and Mr. Dormul, and Mr. Mord all nod to one another and start moving.
Only two hours to go before the war game begins.
We’re just waiting for the signal from Ganesha Familia in the final intermission right before stepping out on the stage. In front of the tent at the center of the camp, Lady Hestia has gathered everyone’s attention. The other deities and the captains of the various familias were arranged at the front of the group while Welf, Ms. Aisha, and dozens and dozens of adventurers, smiths, and the Berbera formed a half-circle around her.
“First of all, every god and goddess needs to take one of the flowers laid out here. Put it on your chest and don’t try to hide it! This is an official notice from Ganesha Familia!”
The deities all do as Lady Hestia asks.
Lord Takemikazuchi chooses a purple chrysanthemum.
Lord Miach a coleus leaf and flower.
Lady Hephaistos grabs a rainbow iris.
Lord Modi and Lord Magni are crying weakly that everything is over. But they and the goddesses who hold a grudge against the goddess of beauty all put flowers on their chests as well.
“The rules were settled in detail at Denatus, and I’m sure the deities already know, but…if your flower is stolen by one of Freya’s children or if you lose it, you are removed from the game, so be careful!”
“So even if a god is found, that’s not the end, and as long as they hold on to their flower, the game’s not over…Is that how it works?”
“Yes, that’s right, Mord! All of you children are aiming for Freya’s flower, and her children are after our flowers! However, if a deity’s flower is taken, their entire familia will be out of the war game, so all of you deities be sure to run or fight to the very end!”
Lady Hestia puts a red freesia on her own chest.
It’s taboo for mortals to hurt or kill deities. I heard that the flower-stealing rule is meant to neatly sidestep that issue. We’re of course forbidden to attack deities directly. If, by chance, a magic barrage hits a deity and they’re accidently sent back to heaven, the offending side that’s responsible for the attack would be immediately disqualified. This was decided to avoid any extreme strategies like blowing up the entire ruins the moment the war game started.
Freya Familia will be hunting for all of our deities’ flowers.
As for us…stealing away Lady Freya’s flower is our ultimate goal.
“I didn’t get to confirm at Denatus, but how much are we allowed to resist? Am I allowed to fight Freya’s children directly?”
“Using divine authority is banned, and Freya’s charm is obviously out, too, but…”
“…Where does that put Take?”
When Lord Takemikazuchi asks his question, Lady Hephaistos didn’t have an answer, and it seems like Lady Hestia doesn’t, either.
All of the deities preside over something…and in Lord Takemikazuchi’s case, it’s war and martial arts. It could be argued that him resisting would be an extension of those things, so it isn’t really clear whether it should be forbidden, and if it is, how much…Basically, it’s a blurry line.
“…Just for argument’s sake, if you were up against Freya’s kids, how many could you fight?”
“Against second-tier adventurers, I could handle twenty of them. And against a first-tier adventurer, I should be able to take at least one.”
“““Then go out and fight on the front lines.””” Hearing his calm answer to Lady Hestia’s question, Lord Modi and the other male gods all grumbled together.
While all of our expressions went stiff, Ms. Mikoto and Mr. Ouka and the rest of his familia puffed out their chest in pride.
“W-well, why don’t you resist, but don’t go so far that it gets ruled as foul play…The most important thing is how we deploy our forces and how the deities are hidden.”
Pulling herself together, Lady Hestia turns around to address the crowd. The commander of the operation is on the wooden box behind her, staring down at the parchment spread across the giant table.
—Hestia Familia stands at the head of the coalition, so naturally the brains of the operation has to be one of her followers.
There was more than a little resistance when the commander was first announced, but no one’s complaining anymore.
She keeps staring at the map of the ruins with a tranquil expression that’s like the calm water’s surface—like a certain hero of her race.
Long before I arrived, Lilly was looking out over the battlefield, drawing up plans.
“…The deployment…will be left to all of you.”
After finally collecting her thoughts, or maybe because the time is up, Lilly looks up with a resolute look, having cast aside her doubts as everyone focuses on her. “If Lilly decides everyone’s positions, that makes the formation predictable. The enemy would be able to figure out where all of the deities are hidden. So Lilly would rather remove your hiding spots from the plans entirely.”
“…Yeah, got it, supporter.”
No one here thinks she’s shirking her responsibility. She clearly grasps the difference in ability between our side and our opponents’, and she’s taking the all-knowing deities into consideration as best she can.
Some unknown male god whistles while looking at the prum girl standing next to Lady Hestia.
“Everyone, let me say this first. The enemy’s commander is shrewd. He is far more capable than Lilly. If we prepare ten plans, he will crush nine of them and use the last one as a trap to corner us.”
Lilly looks out at the gathered adventurers as she speaks the unvarnished truth.
The enemy’s commander is almost guaranteed to be Hildsleif—the white elf I call my master, Hedin Selrand. I know painfully well just how intelligent, logical, and merciless he can be.
“It goes without saying, but we are facing einherjar. Even with the numbers we have, if we faced them head-on, they would crush us. That is our enemy. That is Freya Familia.”
As she watches Lilly share her analysis, her inner thoughts, and a moment of weakness, Ms. Daphne murmurs “Lilliluka…” in concern.
“Put bluntly, if the situation were any different, Lilly would want to run away right this instant.” For just a moment, Lilly averts her eyes, looking faint, almost ephemeral. “But—Lilly wants to win.”
Then the next moment, she looks up with a breathtakingly powerful light in her eyes.
“Lilly wants to pummel Lady Freya for the unforgivable things she did…and more than anything, Lilly doesn’t want to be separated from Mr. Bell! We will never hand over the people precious to us!”
A sudden passion fills her voice. Ms. Mikoto’s and Ms. Haruhime’s eyes widen, and Welf breaks into a smile.
Ms. Daphne and Ms. Cassandra are caught by surprise, while Ms. Aisha and Mr. Mord grin ferociously. Mr. Ouka and Ms. Chigusa nod. Ms. Nahza’s and Mr. Luvis’s and Mr. Dormul’s eyes grow sharper.
“Adventurers, lend Lilly your strength! And Lilly will guide you to victory!”
She said it.
That word.
There’s no going back. Now we have to go out and bring back victory.
The adventurers explode.
“Uooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”
They raise their weapons and roar as one.
Their shouts echo across the sky, aimed at a single girl. Lady Hestia’s so taken aback she almost falls over.
“All right! Let’s do this!”
“If that prum kid’s gonna say that much, then we got no choice!”
“Anything less would bring shame on Amazons everywhere!”
The morale of the adventurers who were struggling with unease, anxiety, and fear has been completely replaced by a ferocious determination to fight.
“You’re a good woman, Lilly! I’m sorry for laughing and calling you stumpy!”
“At the next naming ceremony, we should give her the title My Little Lover!”
“I have to show sweet Lilly my good side, too!”
It isn’t just the followers. The male gods who are notoriously fickle suddenly sound like they’re raring to go, too.
I can’t help being stunned by the sudden frenzy that’s consumed the camp…But that lasts only for a brief moment. I suddenly realize my cheeks are flushed, and I’m grinning from ear to ear.
“Looks like she stole your thunder, Mr. Supreme Commander,” Ms. Nahza whispers teasingly.
“Ah-ha-ha…But still, I think this is fine.”
I laugh awkwardly.
I’m not the right person to give everyone rousing encouragement. It might be a bit disgraceful as a captain, but…I’m happy. More than I can begin to put into words. I’m just so glad.
The person I consider my partner for my first party, the supporter who so hated adventurers—she’s become someone who can move this many people’s hearts and inspire their cheers.
—She really is just like Braver.
That’s the first thought that comes to mind. Even though I’m hardly qualified to make that comparison, I’m still really proud of her.
“Ah, Mr. Bell…”
As the fired-up adventurers pour out of the tent, rushing to finish last-minute preparations, I walk over to Lilly and Goddess. With her first job over, Lilly heaves a big sigh and starts blushing when she sees me coming.
“You were amazing, Lilly. Really…It was like seeing Mr. Finn up there.”
“It was all Mr. Finn’s suggestion. ‘Take advantage of your cute appearance and after acting sweet, fire them all up with a bold declaration.’ …He said that would be the best approach for adventurers.” Lilly looks embarrassed after revealing her trick. “The name Braver does not fit how cunning he is.”
For some reason, that’s funny to me. But at the same time, Lilly seems larger now somehow.
…The way she is now, I think I can tell her…
There’s something I’ve been thinking this whole time.
Not quite something out of place. It might even just be a wildly overblown idea. But there’s a possibility that’s been nagging at me.
“Hey, Lilly…could you hear me out?”
The white clouds sail eastward in the wide expanse of the blue sky.
All of the deities and other adventurers have left the central tent.
The only ones left are Welf, the rest of our familia, plus Ms. Aisha, and the people from the expedition. When she heard what I said, though, an uncomfortable look came over Lilly’s face.
“Since you said it, I don’t really want to doubt it, but…Lilly just cannot accept it. The possibility of something like that happening seems impossibly low.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I think you’re right. But could you just tuck the thought away in the back of your mind for me?”
When I ask that, Lilly smiles and nods.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said something so strange and bothered the commander who’s in charge of running the whole battle. Honestly that is exactly what I’ve been thinking and why I hadn’t thought of saying it sooner.
But seeing how much she’s grown, I decided to trust Lilly.
“Uh, ummm…could I talk to you…just a bit…?”
Ms. Cassandra clutches her rod as she nervously makes a request.
“What is it, Cassandra? This isn’t about some new dream or something, is it?”
“Ugggh, Daph…even though you believed me in the lower levels…you still won’t accept my dreams.” She holds back the tears and fidgets awkwardly under Ms. Daphne’s glare. As everyone looks at her, she starts getting nervous, so I lend her a hand.
“Umm, did you see another dream?”
“Y-yes…”
“What sort of dream was it?”
“I—I don’t really want to say…or rather, there’s no way to escape it…All sorts of things happened on twilight-colored ground…fairies and prums…and a boar and a chariot…”
That…actually makes me really want to know…
I start sweating when I see her turning pale and struggling to put what she saw into words. Her eyes dart back and forth before she finally seems to make up her mind.
“But a wind was blowing.”
When she says that, what I feel isn’t doubt but surprise.
“A…a wind…?”
“What’s that supposed to do?”
“I—I don’t know, but…still…a wind was blowing.”
Ms. Haruhime cocks her head, and Ms. Aisha is wearing a dubious look, but Ms. Cassandra just repeats herself.
I peer up at the sky as Ms. Daphne and the others sigh exasperatedly.
“The wind…huh…”
A light breeze pulls the clouds along the sunny sky.
“The bridge is lowering! The familia coalition is to deploy in its designated region!”
One hour before the start.
With the order of Ganesha Familia’s captain, Shakti, the bridge to the Orza ruins was opened up.
Seeing that, the coalition adventures on tenterhooks in the camp rushed out onto the bridge.
Dwarves with war hammers, elven mages with staves, smiths with magic swords, Berbera, who answered Aisha’s call, all rushed to the points Lilly had designated for them.
“What a surprise, seeing you here, Bors.”
“Who asked you, Cyclops! When the time comes, I can get off my ass! …No, that’s a lie. The truth is even if it killed me, I didn’t want to come…!”
Bors was carrying a big ax as he started to fire back nonchalantly only to turn pale and almost start sniffling.
“I had planned to hide out in Rivira! But my stupid goddess joined up, wanting to put Freya in her place…! She dragged me all the way out here!”
“Ohhh? Is that really the only reason?”
“…Nope. If it wasn’t for Rabbit Foot and Gale Wind, I would have bitten the dust already. I’m payin’ my debt before the interest grows. That’s how we do it in Rivira.”
The head of Rivira, who got mixed up with Juggernaut along with Bell and Lyu, made his excuse.
The wide, stone bridge rumbled with the sound of hundreds of adventurers running in long strides across it.
“Ha-ha-ha! I see, I see. Then be sure to prove your manhood!”
“Damn straight! Now that I’m here, I’m gonna win and claim my share of the money and fame! And brag in front of all the cowards who didn’t come to fight!”
Tsubaki laughed at Bors’s desperate last shout, and then they reached the end of the bridge and headed off in different directions. The rest of the adventurers followed their leads and began to scatter.
There were no parting words. They knew the enemy they were facing wasn’t going to give them the time for heartfelt farewells.
“Ruins in the depths of the forest, basements—there are too many places to hide. I’m honestly a little worried about being found at all. Not being found during hide-and-seek is as lonely as the setting sun…”
The deities crossed the bridge as well and began looking for places to hide in their designated eastern half of the island.
“Quit the stupid crap and just hurry; pick your hiding spots already. It won’t be funny if you get caught before your children even get to do anything,” Hephaistos chided Hestia, who puffed out her chest.
“I—I know! I was treated as a rare character up in the heavens, but I happened to be a master at hide-and-seek!”
“That’s the first I’m hearing about it…” Takemikazuchi glanced dubiously at her.
“Did you mean to say you couldn’t be found because you just holed up inside the temple?” Miach hit the nail on the head.
The coalition deities were moving with small security details while taking one another’s movements into consideration when deciding where to hide.
“All adventurers and deities have crossed the bridge!”
“All right, seal the bridge! Ilta, you all watch the area along the cliff like we planned!”
After the deities finished crossing the bridge, Ganesha Familia sealed the way again.
The Orza ruins were located on a giant island at the southern end of a caldera lake. It was impossible to reach it without crossing the bridge on its south side, and there were guards posted around the cliffs at regular intervals to prevent anyone trying to swim across. So even if outside forces or monsters appeared, they would have to get through Ganesha Familia’s Level 4 and Level 5 adventurers before making it to the ruins.
Their rock-solid perimeter wouldn’t come down until the flowers of the familias fighting in the great familia war were all accounted for.
“Lady Freya.”
Inside Freya Familia’s camp in the western ruins, their patron goddess was sitting on a stone throne as Ottar approached after finishing his preparations.
“What is it, Ottar?”
“The flower from the Guild has finally arrived. Please set it upon your chest.”
It was a small bunch of petals.
This was the flag and key to victory in this war game.
The flower she was presented was a lilac.
“…How ironic…”
Seeing the beautiful purple flower, Freya wore a smile that was almost self-deprecating.
“…? Is there a problem, Milady?”
“No, nothing.”
Freya took the flower and put it on her chest.
She wasn’t wearing her usual dress that resembled a black flame.
She was wearing a stylish, modest white dress that resembled a bridal gown.
Adorned in formal white dress, the goddess made a break with all of her lingering attachment and announced to her boar attendant—
“Win, Ottar.”
“Yes, Milady.”
“I will get my hands on Bell. This is the only way left.”
“…Yes, Milady.”
The warrior simply nodded. He would do that as many times as needed.
All for the sake of his master’s divine will.
“…”
A pair of coral-red eyes looked in their direction.
Hedin’s long blond hair rustled in the wind as he peered at the goddess without any change of expression.
“What are you doing standing there, fly?”
“…Silence, ignorant cat. I was merely affirming my loyalty.”
Hedin turned away without even a glance at the cat wearing a silver pauldron on one shoulder with a hanging cape attached.
Turning away from his master, he adjusted the position of his glasses with one hand and addressed those below him.
“My loyalty is all for Milady. Followers of the sublime goddess, obey my voice and become her arms and legs.”
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
As he stood atop the massive building, the einherjar roared back.
The battle cry shook the emerald-green lake, resounding like a horn blowing to announce the arrival of a battle.
“Keh…keh-keh…the time has come. Ragnarök…i-is beginning…”
The dark elf hugged his pitch-black sword in its scabbard as he muttered timidly.
“Is it time?”
“It is.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
The four prums lowered their sand-colored helms.
“Let’s get this over with. We’re not doing anything different this time. Run them down.”
The cat person readied his silver spear and clad himself in an unalloyed killing spirit.
“Once the battle has begun, you will support me, Rona, Ilda. If any barbarians appear that would harm the goddess, I will not be accommodating.”
““Yes, ma’am!””
The healers and herbalists known as the Andhrímnir snapped to attention in fear of the girl sitting atop the rubble with closed eyes.
“…Come, favored one of the goddess.”
The boaz warrior moved away from the goddess’s side, interested only in one single boy.
“It’s starting, Bell.”
“Yes…!”
Meanwhile—
The redheaded teen and white-haired boy clenched their fists as they heard the warrior cry echoing from the west.
“And with that! The war game starts nooooooooooooooooooooow!!!”
The two hands on the clock aligned pointing straight up.
In the distant Labyrinth City, the bell rang, signaling the beginning of the battle.
VS. Freya Familia. Hide-and-seek.
Victory condition: collect the divine flowers.
The curtain rose on the biggest war game in all of history.
The Orza ruins were certainly big enough to be compared to most cities.
The total area of the massive ruins in the middle of the caldera lake would contain almost an entire district of Orario. Meaning even with almost fifty familias milling around, there was plenty of room to spread out.
The one to offer this location as a possible battleground—when the Guild asked for suggestions—was Hermes Familia. A neutral faction whose patron god made a hobby of visiting various ruins, doing fieldwork, gathering information and treasures from the olden times. All sorts of artifacts from the ancient era had already been retrieved from Orza, and the ruins were an empty husk at this point, which was part of what made it ideal for the familia war.
Bathed in sunlight, there were half-broken pillars and walls forming forests of shadows. The statues of imaginary, unspeaking deities, missing parts of their faces and arms, watched on silently. The ruins of a great bath missing not only a roof but even walls had been filled with the rains stored for years on end and had been transformed into a large, tranquil pond.
Scattered here and there around the ruins were white and gray rune stones with spear-wielding gods and giant wolves engraved in them. The stones would have had cultural value, but they had been shattered by monsters long ago and could no longer be deciphered. All the valuable burial goods in various graves had already been stolen by grave robbers.
It was a symbol of decline and destruction.
The sublime majesty of history and the emptiness of an age forgotten to the past.
The adventurers gave the scene one glance before immediately looking away. The city that had once boasted such glory only to fall to destruction was going to experience another massive change today.
“Any enemy presence?”
“None. They don’t seem to have approached the boundary between east and west yet.”
“Then report back to base! We’re moving!”
The adventurers of the coalition were constantly on the move.
Modi Familia’s elves, led by Luvis, and a party of beast people, and many, many more scouts flooded the ruins.
“No enemies detected in the southeast, Lady Lilly. It appears they have not yet arrived at the eastern region.”
“Roger, Ms. Mikoto. Leave the rest to the garrison and proceed west. From there, investigate the forward ruins. Were it Lilly, that would be the first place to assign troops.”
“Understood!”
Lilly gave her orders to the crystal that echoed with Mikoto’s voice.
Her location was approximately the center of the eastern region that was the coalition’s side of the island.
Lilly had set up a headquarters of sorts in the ruins of a marketplace surrounded by the bases of various broken columns.
There were crystals—oculi—spread across the stump-sized pillar bases.
By chance, it resembled the command base Hestia had set up on the roof of the tower during the skirmish in Daedalus. Spreading out a map of the ruins, Lilly received reports from various units via the oculi and then proceeded to hand down clear and quick directions.
“L-Lilly…the reports have been coming nonstop for a while now. Are you going to be all right?”
“Everyone else is fighting the monster that is Freya Familia. Lilly can’t fight, so she can’t afford to complain over something like this!”
The headquarters guard Chigusa was taken aback by how many oculi were glowing with constant transmissions from adventurers, but Lilly didn’t even look up as she focused on making notes.
They were calling it headquarters, but the two of them were the only ones there.
The coalition needed to protect the deities hiding around the ruins, too, so they couldn’t afford to spare more manpower to protect Lilly. If she fell, the chain of command ran to Aisha, Daphne, and then Tsubaki. Losing her wouldn’t be the end for the coalition. The thing they most needed to avoid was failing to discover the enemy’s strategy because of an excess of caution.
With her silence, Lilly made it clear to Chigusa that they couldn’t afford to get their priorities flipped.
But—
“Hey, prum! There aren’t any enemies in the central area! What now?!”
“Li’l E, there aren’t any enemies coming from the north. I don’t think we need to be worried about getting outflanked for now.”
“We’re at the front line and going to cross into enemy territory! Okay?!”
“Commander! Give us some orders!”
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can act tough all I want, but this is more information than I can handle!
She had spoken as if it was her duty that she had to do, but what she really felt was different. Bors’s husky voice, Welf, an Amazon, an elf—all the oculi were blinking and making shrill sounds, and she wanted to just throw them away. She started feeling a powerful grudge against Braver for just smiling and saying, “If it’s you, you’ll manage,” and ordering her to orchestrate and command a massive multifront operation.
But I have to…! With as weak as I am, this is the only way to help Mr. Bell and everyone else! I can’t just rely on Ms. Daphne’s strength!
Daphne, who had reached Level 3 with her exploits on the expedition, was a valuable fighter in the coalition.
They couldn’t afford to have her serving as Lilly’s lieutenant.
She had been entrusted with command, so she didn’t have the option to rely on anyone else.
She gave orders to all of the adventurers as her eyes grew bloodshot, sweat formed on her brow, and her face twisted so much Chigusa started getting scared. And then she scrawled the new information down on a parchment different from the map.
“Repeat, all scouts should prioritize finding the enemy forces and Lady Freya! Avoid combat if at all possible! Gathering information is the number one priority!”
Picking up a fist-sized oculus, she deftly issued critical commands.
Lilly was focusing heavily on offense in this battle.
As proof, the ratio between scouts out looking for the enemy and defenders was 70/30.
Put bluntly, they couldn’t defend against Freya Familia’s attack.
Loki Familia’s Finn made clear that a rush by Ottar, the first-tier adventurers, and the einherjar was something that absolutely had to be avoided. No matter how many adventurers banded together, they would be crushed by any serious attack.
That meant a defensive battle was as good as defeat.
Understanding that, the strongest defense Lilly had was offense—she wanted to seize the initiative and put the enemy off-balance to avoid her forces finding themselves on the back foot.
I need more information! The enemy’s approach! Positioning! Numbers! If Lady Freya has been carefully hidden, we’ll have to calculate it backward from the enemy’s deployment! No matter how many traps might be set along the way in that!
She wouldn’t say it out loud, but Lilly didn’t mind if the scouts were wiped out.
Put another way, she was resolved that they couldn’t do this without accepting some sacrifices. Because contact with the enemy was functionally equivalent to complete annihilation. Even between forces of equal level, the base strength of the alliance adventurers and Freya Familia was just too different.
If they were noticed, the scouts would absolutely get devastated.
One of the garrison squads in the central region of the ruins, away from the market—
“Eh?! Then Lilly’s treating all of the scouts like sacrificial pawns…?”
“More like whatever move she might make, it will end up that way. It would be the same even if I were commanding.”
Daphne covered one of her ears in annoyance as she explained the situation to Cassandra.
“To win in this game, both sides have to dedicate a massive portion of their forces to scouting. They have to find all of our deities in this enormous battlefield somehow, just like we have to find Lady Freya.”
She decided not to mention that Freya Familia, as long as they had enough time, had the option of just defeating every single follower on the coalition’s side.
“If we know where their goddess is, then no matter how furious an attack they launch, we can counterattack. The more people they send out to attack us, the weaker the defenses around Lady Freya will become.”
“Ummm…so then since they have to find all of our deities to attack, they will have to spread out their forces…and that’s the opening that Lilly is aiming for?”
“Exactly.”
Glancing at the oculus at her hip, Daphne was thinking about what Lilly was going through at the moment while carefully choosing her words.
“If she tries to limit the damage to her allies, we will never be able to win this fight.”
In one of the scouting squads—
“So we’re letting them graze our flesh to smash their bones?”
“Yes. That is what Lady Lilly said. Honestly, it’s not just us scouts, either; even Lord Takemikazuchi and the other deities are lures, too…”
Ouka and Mikoto were running through the woods as they spoke.
“—And as our flesh is carved away, we will have no choice but to strike the opponent’s heart.”
“—No matter how much it might hurt.”
Right after they found out the format of the war game, Lilly had said as much to Hestia Familia. She didn’t need Finn to tell her that much. She could recognize the flow of the strategic front.
Ouka looked amazed while Mikoto just looked forward.
“We must bring down Lady Freya before our last deity is defeated—even if we fall in the process. That is what is expected of us.”
“—Of course, some of us are more important than the others when it comes to the master plan.”
Tsubaki chuckled at Aisha’s comment.
“In that sense, she’s nasty like Finn. Or I guess I should say, determined.”
There was a limit to the number of oculi available. It was clear that Lilly had been selective about which groups were given a communication device: Aisha and Tsubaki’s group, Daphne and Cassandra’s, Mikoto’s, and so on.
Their force was large enough to be worthy of being called a coalition. Whether intentionally or unconsciously, there were sure to be adventurers who didn’t listen to Lilly’s orders. The most obvious were members of familias in the Goddess Alliance who were after Freya for personal reasons.
Taking that into consideration, Lilly assigned the oculi to people she could trust, particularly people like Aisha and Tsubaki, who could be trump cards or might have a key role in the chain of command.
“So we command—well, watch all the squadrons we can see and report back to the shrimp. Basically like field officers.”
“I’m not great at directing others. I’ll handle the vanguard and you can take care of the troublesome stuff, Antianeira!”
“There’s just two of us Level Fives here, so you’re gonna have to do some work too, Cyclops…You’re a familia captain, aren’t you?”
With a little sigh at Tsubaki’s irresponsibility, she looked back at the smiths ready to deploy behind them. After confirming the readiness of the artillery unit armed with a massive loadout of magic swords, Aisha spoke into the oculus in her hands.
“There are no movements in the center of the battlefield, Shrimp…It’s quiet. Too quiet…”
No unit has noticed any enemy movements…?
In headquarters.
After taking Aisha’s report, she slipped into deep thought as Chigusa watched.
Are they waiting to see our positioning? …But even knowing that, we have no choice but to start feeling them out!
Feeling something off, Lilly gave another round of orders for the scouts to push into the enemy’s territory.
We pilfered as many oculi as we could from Fels, so we should have a clear advantage in communication! Meanwhile, the farther Freya Familia gets from Mr. Hedin, the more their communication will suffer! That applies even to first-tier adventurers!
That would create an opening that they would surely be able to strike at. That was what she believed. Or rather, that was what she was praying would be true.
Even if they were using magic-stone signal lights, they wouldn’t be able to maintain full reciprocal communication, and in some areas of the island, they wouldn’t even be able to communicate at all. For hide-and-seek, the oculi were so valuable they were practically cheating.
Taken to the extreme, this hide-and-seek game is a war for information! No matter how many local losses might pile up, winning on the real battlefield is all that is needed!
The farther Freya Familia’s members got from Hedin, even if they were acting on their own judgment, the more people the coalition would have to rely on. If they could use the time that the sacrificial units managed to gain to array their forces and attack Freya’s hiding place, they had a chance of winning.
Depending on how they’re positioned, we can deploy our artillery units armed with Crozzo magic swords, Ms. Haruhime, and our trump card, Mr. Bell. There won’t be any holding back! Time is against us! We have to steal Lady Freya’s flower before we lose all forty-six of our deities…!
She clenched her hands as a disgusting sweat formed in her palms.
As Daphne and the others understood, her strategy would require massive sacrifices.
But even so, Lilly needed a precise understanding of the state of the board.
Which squares had pawns; where was the queen hiding?
Where was the rook that could smash through everything?
Where were the black and white bishops that could unleash a long-range barrage?
Where were the knights that could disrupt everything with their characteristic movement and teamwork?
Where was the strongest king, the queen’s ultimate defense?
She needed to know all of that as soon as possible to really grasp the board. If the scouts were taken out, so long as they left the information they had gleaned behind, that was worth a mountain of gold. It could even be the key to victory.
So Lilly assumed the role of a ruthless commander, quashing the guilt in her heart.
When it came to a commander’s callousness, she couldn’t see herself being a match for Finn, no matter how much she might grow.
“All clear in the north.”
“No enemies sighted in the south.”
“We’re pushing forward!”
As the unease welled inside her, the battlefield was quiet.
At the very least, it couldn’t be anything other than quiet on the coalition’s side.
To find Freya as soon as possible or to catch any enemy squads aiming for their deities, they had an enormous number of scouts out patrolling or else lying in wait in each sector.
When would the silence break?
As commander of the whole operation, Lilly felt her heart grow louder and louder as time passed.
So she waited attentively.
For the moment her allies got some information.
For the moment they were sacrificed.
Waited, waited, and waited. Until—
“……Gh?”
That was when she noticed something was off.
It was too quiet.
Far too quiet.
“L-Lilliluka Erde…we’ve pushed halfway into the enemy’s territory.”
As if confirming her suspicion, she received a stunning report from Luvis.
Half of the enemy’s territory.
In other words, the coalition had a dragnet spread across three quarters of the entire island.
And yet they not only hadn’t met the enemy, they hadn’t even seen any trace of them.
It was strange. Disturbingly so.
Had the enemy even deployed any adventurers on the island?
Did Hedin really understand they were supposed to be playing hide-and-seek?
“Lady Lilly…w-we cannot find the enemy…”
“Hey, Li’l E, what’s going on?! There hasn’t been a single fight yet!”
“There’s no way they’re just hiding. We have a net up using Asfi’s magic items. Even if they went invisible and erased any scents, there is still no way they could have slipped through undetected.”
Lilly’s thoughts wavered from doubt and unease as the oculi lit up with a symphony of bewildered voices.
No enemies? That’s impossible.
But even if it should have been impossible, the current situation was running counter to all of Lilly’s predictions. The possibility that they were somehow slipping through using incredible stealth could be ruled out, based on Aisha’s report.
What is this feeling? This cold feeling.
Am I already caught in the enemy’s trap?
Countless worries flitted through her mind, eating away at her heart, but she just barely managed to swallow them down with an iron will.
The island’s western side…are they inviting us into their territory? But what are they planning? Are they trying to stretch our lines to separate us from our deities? Or is there some trap set to annihilate our forces in the field? Or…?
Her hand trembled as she scrawled notes on the parchment, updating the information, and then tried to read the board in front of her.
Her brain proposed countless possibilities, and she examined every factor she could think of as the doubt seared her mind.
Should they keep pushing west? Or should she stop the scouts for the time being?
But what would change by waiting?
Without information, they couldn’t launch a preemptive attack or respond to an enemy assault.
Lilly’s thoughts stalled in the face of an intractable situation—just then.
“E-enemy sighted! Enemy sighted!!!”
“!!!”
One of the oculi lit up.
The voice was Luvis.
Modi Familia’s four-man cell had pushed the farthest forward.
Lilly shuddered, and she leaped to grab the crystal.
“Where?!”
“In the west! The westernmost edge of the island!”
—The western edge?!
Lilly couldn’t believe her ears.
“How many?! In what scale?!”
She restrained the urge to ask him if he was sure, but she reflexively raised her voice in a shout, forgetting that they were trying to hide themselves.
But there was no reply, no matter how long she waited.
Instead, she just heard a gasp through the crystal.
As she grew more baffled, Luvis finally spoke.
“…All of them…”
“…What?”
The elf’s voice quavered as time froze for the prum.
“All of Freya Familia.”
“…What the hell is this…”
Mord froze at the scene unfolding before him.
“Oy, what…”
“Wh-what are they…?”
Welf holding his magic sword and Dormul holding his shield both murmured in shock.
“…Are they crazy…?”
Bors broke into a cold sweat as his uncovered right eye widened.
“They deployed their entire force on the western edge of the island?! Is this a joke?!”
And Daphne, who had theory-crafted dozens of anticipated enemy deployments herself, couldn’t hide her shock.
Freya Familia had set up their headquarters at the edge of the precipitous cliff on the westernmost edge of the island, with the waters of the lake at their back.
It was an area where the ruins of temples littered the ground. There were 150 warriors. They were all wearing the familia honors attire, their uniform beneath their armor, arrayed like an iron wall.
They showed no sign of moving, and there was no trace of any spells being readied. None of them so much as twitched.
They had arrayed themselves on the western edge of the ruins like an army prepared to defend their goddess’s castle to the last.
“Where’s Lady Freya?! Is she really in the enemy’s camp?!”
In the ruins of a market to the east, Lilly screamed into an oculus as her disbelief showed on her face.
Shock and agitation, confusion and irritation, and more than anything, apprehension.
She was praying that this was just a trap or an empty nest as she repeatedly sought confirmation.
“W-wait! ……No, she’s there! Goddess Freya is inside the camp, too! Inside the temple farthest to the back of the camp with its back to the lake!”
In the southwest of the ruins, Luvis had climbed to the top of the tallest tower on the island and shouted back into the oculus, unable to keep his calm.
Squinting his eyes that were fittingly sharp for an elven archer, he could see through the broken roof of the largest temple—the house of the gods—and inside, he spotted the goddess herself.
She was sitting on a throne that had been prepared for her, not doing anything. Just casually propping her head up. She suddenly looked up, her silver eyes clearly looking back at him. Luvis turned deathly pale.
“Is there a detachment?! Is this massive fortress a decoy while the monsters hit us in the back?!”
“…No, they’re all there. At the very least, their core force is inside the camp. Vana Freya, Bringar, Dáinsleif, Hildsleif…and Ottar, too.”
A giant mausoleum sat in the center of the western ruins.
Aisha had moved to the roof of this mausoleum and couldn’t hide her shock. Tsubaki looked like she had just swallowed a bitter pill as she stared at the details of Freya Familia’s formation.
“That’s why we couldn’t find any trace of them…”
From the start of the war game to now, they hadn’t moved one step from their base.
It wasn’t just Tsubaki and Aisha, either. More and more reports came in from the scouts who had pushed into the western half of the ruins only to be left speechless.
“A bear-in-the-hole castle…?”
Mikoto was bewildered as she looked at it.
The enemy formation she saw reminded her of a strategy used in a Far Eastern board game. A castle-like formation that surrounded and protected the king with every single piece on the board.
“They’re literally fighting with their back against the water…!”
Far away from them on the eastern end of the island, Takemikazuchi groaned as he saw the scene reflected in the oculus that Hestia was holding.
The enemy had cut off their own retreat and forsaken all tricks. They intended to face down the coalition head-on.
Meanwhile, inside Orario…
“Eh? Ehhh? What do you mean?!”
“They’re ignoring the rules…!”
Tiona couldn’t follow what was happening, and Aiz gasped.
“So that is what he went with.”
Meanwhile, in the same room, Finn narrowed his blue eyes.
“Lord Hermes, this is…!”
“It’s not like they’ve broken any rules. They just ignored the standard approach for the game.”
As confusion spread across the city, inside Babel, Hermes calmly explained for Asfi, having seen through the strategy.
“It’s a plan we can’t possibly copy. Something only they could pull off…”
Back on the island, Hestia tensed as she clenched the oculus in her right hand.
“Gh…! Master…!”
And the news also reached Bell, who was acting alone to avoid being noticed by the enemy or his allies. His mind turned to the person who had surely planned this.
“Why should we go along with pointless rules?”
As the surprise of their deployment rumbled across the battlefield and over the mountains into Orario itself, Hedin haughtily spoke from his place in Freya Familia’s formation.
Standing atop the temple where he could look out at all of his forces, he adjusted his glasses with his right hand.
“Inside the range of my voice, the warriors are as freely controlled as my arms and legs. This method is the most efficient. This formation is the strongest.”
His beautiful golden hair blew in the breeze as he made his declaration.
The silent second-tier and lower einherjar went without saying, but even the first-tier adventurers, while they scoffed some and looked unhappy about it, gave their silent assent, too.
“Respond quickly. You have only two options.”
Hedin’s strategy was exceedingly simple.
He concentrated his forces into a single point—abandoning any thoughts of hiding or seeking.
As Hestia realized, this was a strategy that was possible only because it was them.
If the coalition tried it, they would just be trampled by overwhelming force.
It was because they could bring a heavy-weight prizefighter’s force to bear that they could turn hide-and-seek into a battle royale.
He’s a demon…
Lilly turned pale.
Leaving the market in the east with Chigusa, she rushed to the massive mausoleum where Aisha’s group was waiting. When she saw the enemy layout for herself, she felt her heart freeze.
She had been too naive.
Even though Finn had shared so much information with her, she hadn’t been cognizant enough of it. Of just how much Hedin Selrand loathed inefficiency and just how ruthless an elf he was. She was reminded again of just how far beyond her he was as a commander.
He has no intention of any dialogue with me. He isn’t going to play chess! He doesn’t care about turn order or rules, he’s just telling me to draw my sword!
He had as good as stabbed a knife down into the board and was telling her to pick it up and fight him.
Ordinarily, anyone would get caught up in the concept of hide-and-seek.
Where to search.
Where to hide their deity.
Where to spring ambushes.
How to build a strategy to account for all of the possible choices.
But Hedin had transformed what was a troublesome competition for his side into a more convenient contest of strength. By not scattering his forces, he had completely nullified Lilly’s plan to sacrifice numbers to create an opening. There wouldn’t be any great search for deities. From the moment Freya Familia chose a fortress strategy, the coalition was left with only two options.
Charge into it or not.
He’s…a demon…!
The thought echoed in her head as her mind raced.
It was the worst sort of choice.
There was no other option. At the very least, Lilly couldn’t think of another one.
She recognized she was being forced to choose between two options that were both convenient for the enemy.
“Hey, what do we do, commander?!”
She could hear Mord’s and Bors’s nervous voices ringing from the oculus.
She couldn’t choose a prolonged fight.
Freya Familia’s entire force was gathered in one place. And their fundamental strength was on a different level anyway. Sporadic attacks would just be driven back, and the casualties on the coalition’s side would only grow. And if they just kept staring at each other, they would be hit by a crushing attack the moment their focus wavered.
They were far weaker in strength, so at a fundamental level, they couldn’t afford to be put on the defensive. And when it came to the question of provisions, the coalition, with its significant numerical advantage, was going to run out of supplies first.
A drawn-out fight was meaningless. Meaningless!
They had no path forward that didn’t involve a decisive battle then and there, just like the enemy wanted!!!
“Lilly…”
“Lady Lilly…”
Chigusa, who was her guard, and Haruhime’s squad, which had come running over to the mausoleum, both noticed the heavy sweat on Lilly’s brow.
Not good, I can’t let them see me sweat. If they do, there will be no calming the panic.
Aisha and Tsubaki, who had waited for her to arrive, and Daphne as well, all watched quietly as she stood frozen in a maze of shock, not saying a word.
A head-on fight with Freya Familia was hopeless, but did they have any choice but to face it?
Only a failure of a commander would make that choice. Was there not any other path? What would Finn say if he were there?
Would she really have to send her comrades into what was certain defeat…?
Just as she was about to be crushed by the weight of her responsibility—
“Lilly.”
The white oculus hanging at her hip lit up.
“Let’s do it.”
The boy’s voice was trembling. He was struggling with his own fear, too.
Let’s face it together. Saying that, he was putting his hand on Lilly’s back as she stood frozen.
That was enough to shine a light in the dark maze she had been trapped in.
Her swirling thoughts suddenly cleared, and her racing heart calmed as she made her decision.
She clenched her hand into a fist.
“—Gather all the scattered forces.”
There was still sweat on her cheeks as she glared out at the enemy.
“Quickly re-form the squadrons. Mr. Luvis and the rest of the scouts will act as a raiding force.”
“U-understood!”
“Ms. Haruhime, go inside the building here and put on a reverse veil. Do not allow the enemy or anyone in the city to notice you, and hang back close behind Ms. Aisha’s unit. Be prepared to cast your Level Boost whenever needed.”
“Y-yes!”
Surprised by the sudden change in Lilly’s demeanor, Daphne started giving directions to Cassandra and her squad while Haruhime and her Berbera bodyguards went down into the mausoleum for a moment.
“Ms. Chigusa, Lilly doesn’t need a guard anymore. Link up with Mr. Ouka’s unit and support them.”
“Lilly…yes!”
“Ms. Aisha, Ms. Tsubaki, do we know the location of the enemy’s healers?”
“…No, we can’t see them from here.”
“They’re being kept hidden. We won’t know until the fighting starts.”
“Then prioritize finding them once the fighting starts. Lilly will search as best she can, too. Breaking the enemy’s lifeline will be crucial…Prepare magic items for Mr. Luvis’s raiders, too.”
Chigusa nodded forcefully, and Aisha and Tsubaki smiled as they responded.
Hearing their commander’s unfaltering voice and seeing the commanding and courageous prum’s figure, the coalition forces escaped their moment of turmoil.
Mord and the others seeing and hearing her through the oculi, and the adventurers around her, obeyed her instructions without question.
“Other than the raiders, re-form everyone into three divisions. Ms. Tsubaki will command the center, Ms. Aisha the left wing, and Ms. Daphne and Mr. Bors the right wing. Distribute the magic swords throughout all three divisions!”
Morale quickly recovered from its low ebb as Lilly fired off orders.
It was safe to say that the advantage Lilly had tried to gain from the oculi—communication speed and fidelity—had basically been erased.
If Freya Familia was entirely within earshot and well inside Hedin’s line of sight, then his orders could reach every warrior. Even if there was some lag, it would just be a rounding error. Their army was firmly under control, and they would be able to make up for the communication speed of the oculi.
Because of that, the only clear advantage the coalition had left was the massive number of Crozzo magic swords they had prepared. They would have to cut through the strongest deployment using just the powerful magic swords that Hephaistos Familia had provided and that Welf had mass-produced instead of sleeping the past two weeks.
Don’t cower! You’re standing here for Mr. Bell’s sake!
We’ll break them.
We have to break through.
Remember the grief and anger!
Shred the enemy formation to get revenge on Freya and her followers for charming them and making them hurt Bell!
I am this party’s commander!
Spurring herself on, Lilly drew the knife, stabbed into the board, and pointed it at the devilish elf across from her.
“We’ll do it…!”
“Passing marks.”
After receiving confirmation of the coalition’s redeployment, that was Hedin’s evaluation of Lilly’s resolution.
If she had turned tail and run just because the enemy was Freya Familia, or if she had trifled with some pointless stratagem, Hedin had intended to decimate the coalition in the blink of an eye.
“I despise incompetence. But I will acknowledge the weak who strive for competence.”
An ordinary commander would have cowered at the difference in strength between the two sides and not have drawn the blade he had thrust into the board.
On that point, the prum girl who had received Finn’s shared wisdom was passable in the same way as Bell.
“If it’s you, then I can cross swords as I planned.”
Having silently acknowledged the girl, Hedin gave his order.
“Have them prepare to charge. Do not defend. Only attack.”
“Sir!”
As the one adventurer rushed off, the white elf carefully observed the coalition’s movements.
“This is like a dream. Lining up head-on across from Freya Familia…the Freya Familia…”
“I know what you mean…a nightmare, right?”
Following Lilly’s orders, a large number of adventurers started moving together.
Ogma Familia’s Gyle’s face drained of color, and Nahza grinned ever so slightly as she responded.
“I joined because I thought I would be able to fight, too, since they aren’t monsters, but this…this is scary. Really scary.”
Her right arm, her airgetlám was trembling.
The opponent was the strongest enemy imaginable. Difficult enough to make her think a monster rex would be better to face. Even Nahza, who always had an indifferent look on her face, couldn’t avoid being scared.
“…I’m not going to run. I’m doing this to help Bell. I won’t hurt him again.”
But even so, she wouldn’t say she regretted it.
She was another adventurer who had committed to fight for Bell’s sake, just like Lilly. The smile on her face captivated Gyle, and steeling his resolve, he smiled back.
“…Same here.”
They didn’t say anything else as they both headed to where they had been deployed.
Gyle with his ax to the raid squad, Nahza with her bow and arrows to the left wing.
“The center should be heavy on walls and focused on defense; the wings are mobility oriented. The dwarf-only Magni Familia needs to head to the center.”
Lilly was standing atop the massive mausoleum, having sent everyone else away as she continued to give orders into her oculi.
She wasn’t dividing the adventurers by level. It was natural that keeping members of the same familia together would allow them to work together more easily. Other than people like Nahza, who didn’t feel any restraint—she was mostly filling the divisions with whole familias.
The center had Tsubaki, Welf, Magni Familia, and many of Hephaistos Familia’s high smiths.
The right wing had Daphne, the healer Cassandra, Ouka and Chigusa, and the Rivira outlaws led by Bors.
The left wing was Aisha and the ex-Ishtar Familia Amazons. Because they had notably fewer magic swords than the other two divisions, Mikoto with her gravity magic had also been deployed there. Behind the three divisions were the mages and Haruhime’s reserves.
“Sh-should we change our positions, too?”
“Don’t. It would be pointless for us to do that. All we can do now is keep hidden and watch.”
Inside a certain ruin, Hestia was restlessly staring at the oculus connected to Lilly while Hephaistos just crossed her arms and leaned against the wall with her eyes closed.
The eastern half of the island where the coalition deities were hidden was devoid of adventurers save the deities’ bodyguards. The battlefield was farther west than the dividing line in the middle of the island. The coalition set up its headquarters at the big mausoleum in the center of the western region, Freya Familia was deployed to protect the house of the gods on the western edge of the island, and the two sides were carefully watching each other.
“…This is the first time I’ve seen such a quiet war game.”
In the city far away, Ibly, who was always so loud and abrasive, murmured to himself in a voice barely picked up by the magic-stone megaphone.
He was right, it was quiet.
The only action was the redeployment of the coalition’s forces.
Other than that, there were no swords clanging and no battle cries raised.
The deities on the island and the residents of Orario gulped as they continued to watch.
But finally, the silence was broken.
“…It’s time. Advance…”
Having finished their preparations, Lilly gave the order through the oculus in her hand.
As both camps watched, the crumbling ruins turned into a battlefield strewn with a sea of rocks. There was no one to stop what had once been blocks filled with buildings from being turned into a vacant lot. The three large divisions nervously began to advance in a line toward Freya Familia in the distance.
“Hold.”
Meanwhile Freya Familia was unmoving.
At Hedin’s cool command, they maintained their positions, not budging at all. Some had thrust their spears’ pommels into the ground like gatekeepers, while others just glared with their swords still sheathed.
“Keep advancing. Don’t stop…”
Lilly repeated the order as the divisions unconsciously slowed beneath the glare of so many eyes.
What she wanted was to get into effective range.
To reach the range where the magic swords could spit flames that would scorch the enemy’s forces.
It felt like her life was being shaved away with each step the coalition force took, but with a will of steel, she had them continue the advance.
“Forward…”
The coalition pressed onward.
“Hold.”
The einherjar didn’t move.
“Forward…”
A bead of sweat trickled down the prum girl’s cheek.
“Hold.”
The elven marshal’s expression was unmoving.
“Forward…”
The sweat dripped from her chin.
“Hold.”
The marshal’s eyes wouldn’t misjudge the distance.
“Forward!”
The next instant.
“Now.”
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
The battle cry marked the start of combat.
“They’re coming!”
Bors shouted as the einherjar rushed forward in the blink of an eye like a raging tide.
“Ready the magic swords!”
In the center, Tsubaki’s shout reinforced the adventurers who had been badly shaken.
“Not yet! Don’t fire yet!”
On the left wing, Aisha watched for the moment to unleash her fusillade.
“The enemy isn’t using any magic yet! They aren’t in range, so calm down!”
On the right wing, Daphne called out her analysis.
In the era of gods, when opposing armies met, it was standard to see volleys of spells instead of arrows. But there was no magic yet. Meaning the enemy had grown tired of being cautious of the Crozzo magic swords.
That was how it looked to their eyes.
“Ugh…?!”
But the danger they posed was all too real. Weapons brandished with malice, bestial roars, and a speed that could only be achieved by those with terrifying statuses. A disjointed charge poured forth like a torrent, as if they had no intention of cooperating with one another. Freya Familia’s followers, who built their individual strength by clashing daily in Folkvangr, didn’t pay any attention to their comrades. They only looked to cut through the coalition lines and scatter the enemy by their individual strength alone.
It was a charge that brought to mind a twisted mountain of swords, and Ouka and Chigusa holding their magic swords were overwhelmed by the vision of it.
“H-hold! Hold! Don’t get ahead of yourselves!”
Bors’s voice shuddered as he desperately tried to control himself. An eerie coldness gripped his heart.
They were pushing, closing in, stampeding. Faced with the strongest warriors who would trample them the moment they closed the distance, they felt their mouths go dry, but even so, they endured the moment that seemed to last an eternity.
“Hold, hold! Nowwwwwwww!!!”
And Bors roared, his veins swelling and spittle flying.
“Fire!!!!!!”
Tsubaki gave the signal as well.
The next instant.
“Kazukiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!”
Flames erupted from countless magic swords.
Explosive flames, crackling blizzards, thunderclaps, gales all erupted into the advancing force.
“ GH?!”
The rainbow flashes of artillery intertwined, creating a glorious torrent of magic power, slamming straight into the onrushing Freya Familia and drowning out their cries.
Explosions and shock waves shattered the paving stones and shook the entire ruins.
Explosion after explosion. The concentrated fire of the entire force set off a chain of detonations, and a flood of destruction followed in the blink of an eye.
“Giii?!”
“Geeeh!”
“Gaaaaaa?!”
The unwavering cannonade sent a beast person running at the head tumbling, followed by a human, and then a half-elf.
As the overwhelming and awful contradiction of a rapid-firing artillery barrage landed all around them, Freya Familia couldn’t escape. Even famous second-tier adventurers fell victim to the magic swords and were swallowed up in the flash of light.
All of the Crozzo magic swords could output a power that far exceeded even long-cast magic by an advanced mage. Adding Hephaistos Familia’s magic swords to the mix, the firepower swelled to excessive proportions. It was a pure show of force capable of pacifying even some of the lower floors of the Dungeon.
Seeing the wide swath of destruction they had cut before them, even the adventurers using the magic swords shuddered.
But that shock was immediately replaced by terror.
“—Oooooooooooooooooooo!!!”
They didn’t fall.
Even with their skin burning, even after losing their weapons.
Even if they might lose an arm, even if they might have a leg blown off out from under them.
The followers of the goddess of beauty couldn’t be stopped.
“Ahhh?!”
Forgetting that she was a healer, Cassandra clutched her staff and screamed.
A human kept charging despite being covered in terrible burns.
She saw a dwarf with icicles still hanging from their body, and an Amazon holding her arm that had been cut off by a blade of wind. No matter how many times they were blown back, they kept getting up, even walking over their fallen allies as they charged at the coalition.
“Einherjar!” Daphne shouted.
The army charging through scenes of hell were the epitome of berserkers.
Freya Familia didn’t fear death. They had experienced it countless times in the daily fighting in Folkvangr, dying and then reviving. There was fear. Pain, too. But the goddess’s formidable followers forced all of that into submission with their unwavering fealty and pure, honed fighting instinct.
That was why they couldn’t be stopped. That was why they continued to run beneath the furious assault of the magic swords, still seeking battle. That was why they were einherjar. It was a feat only possible because they were Freya Familia—and after witnessing that live demonstration of why they were often called the strongest familia, the coalition adventurers grew pale and started to recoil in fear.
“D-don’t cower! Crush them! Fire! Fire! Fire!!!”
Bors roared in fear, but it was effective. It was a reckless command, but because it was simple, the adventurers reflexively obeyed. They fired. And fired. And fired again. Swinging down and swinging up, pleading for the fearless warriors to be destroyed, they grew desperate as they continued to unleash their barrage. Cracks formed in the blades, but when they shattered, one of the adventurers waiting in the reserve would step forward, and a new magic sword would roar to life.
Even without the divine mirrors, what sounded like a volcanic eruption echoed over the mountains between Orza and Orario and could be heard by residents all around the city.
“Whoa…that’s crazy…”
“This is just a straight up war.”
“But this is the only way Hestia’s side can win.”
“So this is why that idiot Ares is so obsessed with Crozzo…”
While the people shuddered, the deities in Babel had their own thoughts.
The thunder echoed without end, shaking the entirety of the Beor mountain range. As the mountains were shaken to their foundations, the monsters living there fell into a panic and scattered, trying to get as far away from the giant caldera as they could. And just as the number of remaining Crozzo magic swords started to reach the halfway mark of their reserves…
The massive cloud of dust, sparks, ice crystals, wind currents crackling with electricity, and multicolored magic particles quietly cleared. Just beyond, countless einherjar lay collapsed on the battlefield where even the paved stones had been obliterated.
“…Hah, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-hahhh! We did it! Serves you right, you Freya Familia bastards!”
After almost a minute of silence, when he saw that the enemy wasn’t getting up, Bors started laughing maniacally.
“Screw einherjar! We’ve got Crozzo’s magic swords!”
His laughter spread, and the other adventurers, who were all breathing heavily, started cheering, too. Even if the einherjar didn’t fear death, there was no one who could escape it. None except for deusdea. Because of that, the limit would come. The sheer strength of Crozzo’s magic swords just happened to be greater than their fortitude this time.
The coalition roared with excitement.
Even if the enemy’s first-tier adventurers hadn’t been part of the charge, they had taken down a large portion of the enemy’s fighting strength. It was safe to call this initial skirmish a complete victory. Holding up the hilts of broken swords, the members of every familia cheered.
All save a few who grimaced.
Even if there hadn’t been any other way, Daphne and Aisha and the likes of them didn’t feel great about a sheer burst of firepower that couldn’t really be called a strategy.
“Rakia’s mythic invincibility…dammit!”
In particular, Welf, who had mass-produced the Crozzo magic swords, had a bitter look on his face. His homeland of Rakia had fought many countries using countless Crozzo magic swords, turning everywhere they reached into a wasteland. They had earned the resentment of most elves and brought the sort of destruction despised by spirits. And the scene before them was no different from the works of Rakia that gave birth to their legend of invincibility. Or at least that was how it looked to him.
“I just ended up doing the exact same thing as them…!”
Following the same path that he had so despised, Welf was struck by intense self-loathing.
But.
There was a misunderstanding in his reaction. He didn’t see the whole picture.
He was too naive.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…huh?”
Bors’s loud laughter suddenly stopped. His good eye was focused on the members of Freya Familia collapsed on the broken, shattered ground. And countless golden particles the color of twilight.
“—My name is Gold. Arm of the goddess who vows immortality.”
And then a sweet voice reached their ears.
“Thrice burned, ever pierced. Hell of flaming spears, yet light is born laying death low.”
It was coming from the enemy’s formation. They appeared, standing within the clearing cloud of dust in the distance.
“The Andhrímnir?!”
Lilly was the first to realize they were there. Her hazel eyes picked out the group wearing white robes like a band of priestesses. She shouted, realizing she had been slow to notice them because the fusillade unleashed by the magic swords had created a curtain of smoke covering the battlefield.
“Rejoice, be merry, go wild. My body is gold. Source of renewing light, bring endless conflict here.”
Her long, faintly crimson hair was tied back in two tails. She wore a white pinafore over a red nurse’s dress and token armor. The one difference between Heith Velvet and the other healers and herbalists was she held a rod embossed with gold decorations as she wove her spell.
A giant golden magic circle appeared in the center of the battlefield strewn with piles of corpses. Time froze for the coalition forces. They simply couldn’t believe the scale of the magic.
“Zeo Gullveig.”
It was a healing spell that covered a massive area. The special ability of the girl who had supported the baptism in Folkvangr all by herself activated—and the fallen einherjar revived.
“What?!”
Bathed in the golden magic welling up from the ground, the human’s scorch marks and the beast person’s frostbite completely disappeared. The dwarf and Amazon pressed their severed limbs to their wounds, and after an eruption of magic energy, they regained the use of their limbs. And like the dead rising anew, more warriors tottered back to their feet.
“I have received Lady Freya’s permission. Starting now, this is a new Folkvangr.”
Ignoring the coalition staring in shock, Heith calmly spoke.
“Welcome, brave savages.”
Despite those words, her eyes were cold, as if she was looking at insects rather than warriors. It was a gaze Bell had never seen coming from her. Instead of a reliable healer, she was a merciless enemy. The beautiful girl with a visage almost like a goddess’s delivered the death sentence.
“The blessing of battle upon all of you.”
There was an intense gleam in the eyes of the newly revived einherjar.
“Th-the magic swords!” Lilly shouted.
“Too late,” Hedin concluded.
“Go forth, einherjar,” Heith delivered the goddess’s command.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
A second charge.
This time, the fearless charge slammed into the coalition’s lines.
“No waaaaaaaaaaay?!”
Bors’s scream was drowned out by a deafening war cry.
The einherjar had covered half the distance in the initial charge, and now their sprint was carrying them the rest of the way as they unleashed their swords, spears, axes, and hammers.
The coalition’s shield wall immediately braced themselves as the lines crashed.
“Guoooooooooo?!”
Dormul shouted in shock the moment the enemy’s charge landed.
His shield caved in and the heavily armored dwarf forced back.
“I—I can’t hold them?!”
The struggle only lasted a moment.
Magni Familia’s defenses were shredded in the blink of an eye, and they were all flung clear.
“Gaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
After their shield wall collapsed, the adventurers’ screams were inevitably going to follow. Under the brutal assault of the einherjar, their armor shattered, their weapons snapped in half, and before long, blood was splattering everywhere. And from there, it was a familiar scene. The unforgiving math of superior levels and statuses utterly crushed the lower-level adventurers.
A human cut down, a beast person run through, an elf hit by a thrown sword, Amazons thrown back all at once. After Dormul and the other dwarves had been sent flying, dozens of pairs of sabbaton forced their way through the hole. Panic and confusion consumed the coalition, and the line began to buckle.
“Dammit!”
Aisha’s voice roared as she swung her sword in a one-sided melee.
The right wing, the left wing, and the center had all been shattered the instant they made contact. The front line was crumbling, leaving the mages and Haruhime’s reserves in the rear very exposed.
There were some who unleashed their Crozzo magic swords even if it meant hitting allies, but it was no use. Even if some of them were blown away, Freya Familia wouldn’t stop. Ignoring their comrades that fell, the einherjar thought of nothing besides slashing into the enemy. The most nightmarish part of it was that even if three coalition adventurers banded together to attack, they would be taken out by just a single einherjar.
In the age of gods, quality outweighed quantity.
Just one higher-level adventurer could easily dominate a hundred nobodies. In a fight against opponents who were superior even in techniques and tactics, the coalition’s adventurers were helpless.
“They’re too strong…?! Even the weakest of them is too much! All of them are like this!”
Mikoto couldn’t do anything but focus on evasion as she endured attacks from all sides.
She was forced to use shinobi skills to survive rather than fight head-on like a samurai. Smoke bombs, grenades, and her kunai Shakuya—she was going through weapons and items at a rate that was going to leave her empty-handed soon.
She finally managed to cut down a single person, but she could tell from the response that it was a mere Level 1 adventurer. As she stood still, struck by that merciless realization, she was nearly decapitated and was forced to continue fighting.
The strongest familia.
They should have been aware of the weight of that reputation already, but Mikoto shuddered as the full force of it hit her.
“Ms. Haruhime! Cast your level boost on Ms. Aisha, Ms. Mikoto, Ms. Daphne, Mr. Bors, and Mr. Welf!”
“R-right away!”
With the coalition being shredded, Lilly wasn’t going to stand idly by.
She was deploying five tails. With her level up, Haruhime could now handle six, but the Mind cost grew with each tail. When she used five during the expedition, she had almost slipped into Mind Down, but Lilly couldn’t worry about that now. To hold the line, she had to use their cheat card without holding back.
“—Mages! Commence your attack! Serket Familia through Ratri Familia, focus fire on the center of the line!”
This was also the time for Command Call.
The effect of the skill she had gained with her level-up allowed her words to travel farther when she shouted above a certain volume.
So if she raised her voice, it was possible for her orders to reach people’s ears even on the most intense battlefields. This was how she was sending orders to those who hadn’t received an oculus.
Standing on the roof of the giant mausoleum looking out at all of the divisions fighting, Lilly used her skill and the oculi to send out more orders.
But she couldn’t erase the concern she was feeling.
“They got us to waste our magic swords!”
The initial charge of the einherjar had seemed reckless, but the true purpose was to bait the coalition into using their Crozzo magic swords.
Hedin hadn’t underestimated the threat that Welf and Hephaistos Familia’s magic swords posed. So he had provoked them to waste a large portion of their limited resources on a failed attack that was completely negated by the Andhrímnir. The fierce counterattack was just a cherry on top.
The Andhrímnir…just as Mr. Finn said, they are far too dangerous!
Even though the coalition should have completely won the initial skirmish, they—or rather a single girl—had completely erased all their progress.
An army that didn’t fear death and a healing ability that was at worst second in all of Orario. It was a tactic that required both of those factors to work—in other words, it was something that only Freya Familia could pull off.
“But now we know where they are…!”
Defeating the Andhrímnir was their highest priority, up there with taking out the enemy’s first-tier adventurers.
In exchange for a board state that she desperately wanted to pretend didn’t exist, Lilly reached her hand to a silent oculus to silence Heith and the healers at any cost.
“Mr. Luvis, Mr. Mord! Please!”
In an instant, the troops she had set as an ambush sent up a wild cry.
“All right!”
“Let’s do this!”
Far to the northwest and away from the main melee, right on the flank of where the Andhrímnir were deployed, Mord’s unit cast off their robes, becoming visible again.
Fels’s reverse veils.
Lilly had distributed them to the raiders and kept them hidden. She had set an ambush by having them circle around the main battlefield with the express intent of sending them after the Andhrímnir.
“We were waiting for you to show up!”
They had carefully, carefully approached the enemy while avoiding detection, and now they broke into a sprint not to let their opportunity go to waste.
Because the coalition’s line had been shattered, almost all of the enemies were pouring into the front lines. And because they were pushed up far from the back lines, too, there was no one protecting the Andhrímnir.
Mord licked his lips at the sight of the isolated healers as he swung his magic sword.
“Eat this!!!!”
Mord, Gyle, and Scott each unleashed a line of flame that swallowed up the Andhrímnir.
“Keep going!”
The fierce, rough men fired off their Crozzo magic swords over and over to destroy the beautiful girls.
Not knowing that the deities watching the mirrors in Orario were booing them, Mord and friends continued their barrage without letting up.
“H-hey! Aren’t you overdoing it a bit?!”
“There’s no such thing as overdoing it with Freya Familia! The whole reason we’re doing this is you said you couldn’t use these swords! Just sit back and watch!”
The elf Luvis spoke out against the merciless onslaught, but Mord wasn’t going to listen.
He was on fire. Not out of heroism but from a powerful desire to help one boy.
To pay back all of his debts, the ruffian rampaged.
“We’re gonna help Bell Cranell!”
Urged on by the feeling of omnipotence that Crozzo magic swords tended to give people, they kept summoning more explosions.
Soon, their attacks created a sea of flames, scorching the Andhrímnir.
Because it had been a complete surprise attack, they hadn’t had time to avoid it. And there was no way to defend against so much firepower.
Cracks ran down the swords’ blades as they reached their limit. Mord and his friends were breathing raggedly as they finally stopped their barrage.
“Hah…hah…no matter how much you can heal, you can’t use magic while getting scorched! Just curl up and die!”
Mord flashed a proud grin as he leaned the sword on his shoulder.
There wasn’t a single person left standing in the sea of flames.
The crackling of the flames filled the air.
The einherjar fighting on the front lines were unconcerned. Naturally.
Even Hedin standing at the rear watched in silence. Because there was no need for him to do anything.
Finally, Mord, along with Luvis and the rest of the raiders, grimaced at the unpleasant smell of burned flesh and covered his face with his burly arm.
“Maybe we did overdo it a little…?”
“Of course there would be some lying in wait to aim for us.”
Mord froze when he heard a voice coming from the flames.
“But what of it?”
Slowly, a single girl stood up from the burning ground where she had been lying.
“What?!”
Mord and Luvis couldn’t believe their eyes.
The girl was burning.
Her armor had been completely destroyed, and her clothes had burned away. Her snow-white skin was bright red.
Standing in the sea of flames, tormented by the hellfire, her body was becoming covered in grotesque burns.
And she was regenerating.
“Ars Gullveig. Unfortunately, I already activated my magic.”
A golden light drove away the fierce flames lapping at her skin.
A pattern of light like a compressed magic circle appeared on the surface of her skin.
“M-Mord! She’s just like…?!”
“The eighteenth floor?!”
Gyle and Scott grew pale as they remember the Black Goliath Bell and the others had fought.
The scene before their eyes was eerily similar to the nightmare of a monster rex whose regeneration outpaced the damage a whole mass of mages could deal.
Auto-heal.
A regeneration that continuously healed damage for a set period of time.
Heith’s magic had been cast on herself and the rest of the Andhrímnir before they were attacked—before they had set foot on the battlefield even.
One by one, the healers and herbalists stood up after her.
“N-no way…?!”
They were like phoenixes rising anew from the ashes. It was like watching the dead come back to life after cremation. Their scorched skin regained its vibrant luster beneath the golden motes of light. The bands holding Heith’s hair back burned away, but even her long, singed hair soon recovered.
The weakening flames were no match for the auto-healing, and now the Andhrímnir were not even being burned. All the crackling inferno could do was shame the girls by burning away their clothes.
What remaining battle gear they had slowly disappeared as shoulders, stomachs, supple hips and thighs, and even the well-formed lower halves of breasts were revealed.
But even so, the adventurers had no time to be embarrassed or aroused.
Holding her rod in one hand, Heith walking forward through the flames was too divine.
“Y-you monsters!”
“Mord?! Stop!”
Faced with a rare magic that only members of Freya Familia knew about, Mord went into a frenzy.
Not listening as Gyle tried to stop him, he slashed at Heith as she stepped from the flames.
“If I hit you with this!”
Hefting his magic sword, he intended to hit her directly with a blazing attack.
“Hideous.”
But the rod in her hand flashed with a terrible speed.
“—Gh?!”
A vertical swing from high overhead slammed into Mord like a war hammer.
His face dropped to the broken stones, and Mord was immediately knocked unconscious.
“Odious. Unsightly. Far too unpleasant.”
Gyle and Scot, and Luvis’s elves went silent as the girl stomped down on the magic sword at her feet.
“I cannot understand how the likes of garbage such as you could dare bare their fangs at the goddess. How can you dare to corrupt her authority…You cannot be sane!”
Looking up and brushing aside the curtain of hair covering her face, she revealed her bright, crimson eyes burning with wrath.
“Have some shame, you fiends! Impure wretches who reject the goddess’s divine will!”
“I will not let your vulgar gazes or your foul stench reach her. Not one drop of your disgusting saliva will fall in her presence!”
There wasn’t a trace of her usual warmth in her voice as her face twisted into a portrait of rage. If Bell had been there, he would have been taken aback by such a dramatic transformation, but it wasn’t anything special. Just like her comrade and the rest of the familia, she worshiped the goddess of beauty.
Saved by the goddess, she faithfully offered up awe and love that didn’t pale in comparison to Hörn’s.
“Everything is for Lady Freya’s sake—be gone adventurers!”
In a rage, she revealed her murderous intent and willingness to fight.
What began then was annihilation.
““Gaaaaaaaaaaaah?!””
“Guuuuh?!”
Gyle and Scott were swatted aside by her rod before they could use their magic swords. And the arrow Luvis immediately loosed may have pierced Heith’s shoulder, but it did nothing else. After she pulled it out, it didn’t even leave a wound behind, and right after Luvis’s face twisted, his consciousness was stolen by the swing of a rod. The remaining members of Modi Familia were sent to the ground with all the might that the healer Heith could muster.
* * *
A dedicated healer had just torn through Level 2 and 3 upper-class adventurers.
Seeing that strange scene on the mirrors in Orario, the most speechless were not the normal people or even the adventurers.
It was other healers.
“Heith Velvet…”
Among the Dian Cecht Familia, healers who had avoided participating in the war game, Amid Teasanare, Dea Saint, narrowed her eyes in awe.
Amid, who was famed as the greatest healer in the city, and Heith.
For a while, they had been known as Orario’s two great healers: the silver saint and the golden witch.
The main difference between the two who dominated the first and second slots on the list of best healers was above all healing range.
Amid could use healing magic with a broad area of effect, too, but Heith had been forged in the fires of Folkvangr and was on a completely different level. Amid would win out in raw healing output, but Heith likely took the flag when it came to sustained output.
And the other decisive difference was pure combat ability.
While Amid’s melee ability was in the realm of normal healers, Heith could obliterate second-tier adventurers all by herself.
“Her background as a healer is just too different…”
That was what the rumors that had reached the saint said, but they were unmistakably steeped in the truth.
The girl had originally endured the baptism in Folkvangr as an einherjar, but—just like a certain abandoned kitten—she recognized her limits as a warrior and despaired. However, with unwavering devotion to the goddess, she changed class to a healer and discovered a latent talent that eventually bloomed.
Her current status was Level 4.
Her second name was Vana Mardel.
In consideration of the golden gleam of her magic, her unbreakable determination, and her undying life force, the deities hailed her as a true Valkyrie.
“A unique follower born from the harsh environment of Freya Familia…Just like the first-tier adventurers, if the coalition can’t do something about her, they have no chance of victory…”
As the fellow healers in her own familia around her shuddered, the saint murmured those words with absolute confidence.
“Not good! At this rate…!”
Daphne was fully aware of that, too.
“Lilliluka, are there any more raiders you can send in?!”
“I’m doing it already! But Vana Mardel’s healing ability is too great! She won’t go down!”
In a gap between the onrushing einherjar, Daphne could just barely see another unit attacking, but the Andhrímnir didn’t fall. The other healers and herbalists’ work was abnormal, and as the raiders struggled to take them down, the enemy mages in the rear shredded them.
She could feel Lilly’s impatience through the oculus painfully well.
“If we don’t stop them, no matter how much we fight, everything will fall apart…”
The enemy she had just managed to put down would be revived again if Heith and the healers started moving. With the help of a level boost, she had finally taken down one. To have them come back would be a nightmare.
She couldn’t blame Lilly for incompetence in letting the ambush fail, though. The moment they had a hidden trump card like auto-heal, the most effective strategy of crushing the healers before they could activate their healing was out the window. If Daphne were in Lilly’s place, she would have flipped the board and rampaged by now.
“Can the Andhrímnir be targeted from the right wing?!”
“Don’t ask the impossible…! We’ve got our hands full just holding the line!”
She was in the middle of the scramble herself while commanding the right wing, catching a spear swing with her Fencer Laureate. The level boost particles around her body were shimmering as if groaning from the exertion, but she somehow managed to defeat the attack. She had no time even to catch her breath.
“Soul Light!”
But even so, they were still okay.
They were centered around Cassandra while Ouka, Chigusa, and Bors in particular were fighting with wild desperation.
Just like Daphne, Cassandra had managed to reach Level 3 on the expedition, and she was making full use of her healing magic, helping adventurers on the verge of collapsing recover their footing countless times.
Even as they struggled to deal with the enemy’s healers, they were being saved by their own. But unfortunately, in a battle of healers, the coalition had no hope of victory.
“The enemy’s base! If their mages move up, it will be bad! It’s over if they get in range! We have to take out the Andhrímnir before—”
Daphne was fighting without even the chance to wipe the sweat away as she pleaded into the oculus.
“Gh.”
Lilly’s breath caught like she was being strangled.
Daphne immediately realized why.
“ ”
Time froze for her as she saw it.
Near the back of the enemy base in the distance, there were countless spears of lightning targeting them.
“You seem to have gotten the wrong impression…This is well within my range.”
The color drained from Daphne’s face. The voice of the elf she should not possibly have been able to hear echoed in her ears as she realized her mistake. At the start of the fighting, it had seemed like the enemy had decided to ignore the threat of the magic swords. That they had mistaken their range. That was how it had looked to Daphne and the rest of the coalition.
But they were wrong. The enemy—Hedin—had not attacked simply to get them to cough up their Crozzo magic swords. The main battlefield, the newly formed Folkvangr—it had been within that first-tier adventurer’s range from the very start.
“Checkmate—Caurus Hildr.”
He unleashed his spell.
The bolts of lightning lit up the faces of the adventurers frozen in disbelief, arcing downward and pouring onto the battlefield.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The countless lightning strikes landing from above hit like bombs. They were an evil battalion of lightning soldiers raining chaos on the battlefield. One bolt pierced a human running away in terror, while another blew away a chunk of the ground and a beast person with it. An Amazon who tried to cover a comrade was electrocuted. And all this happened without touching a single member of Freya Familia.
The lightning strike had been ultra-precise. Hedin had a clear and accurate grasp of everything happening on the battlefield, and he took extra care to hit only enemy adventurers. He also destroyed many of the remaining magic swords.
“Gh—Protect Cassandra!”
“Uooooooooooooo?!”
Daphne screamed as the rain of lightning fell on her.
Giving up on maintaining the line, she chose to prioritize maintaining their party’s lifeline instead. Responding immediately, Ouka raised his great shield while Bors and the rest of the residents of Rivira rushed over with steely resolve. Pushed to the ground by Chigusa, Cassandra watched as countless lightning bolts crashed into dozens of shields.
Fallen pillars and rubble scattered in every direction, kicking up stone fragments as the battlefield was miserably split in two.
“The absurd number of magic swords has been whittled down. It’s time.”
As the crackle of electricity and a massive cloud of dust rose over the battlefield, the lone white elf who had created the current situation delivered his cold announcement.
The countdown to the true rampage had begun.
“It’s time now you beasts. Go.”
“That powerful a barrage, from that far away? He’s crazy as ever…!”
Tione spat in irritation as she watched the battle on the mirror.
The magic attack had traveled more than five hundred meders, and it had hit so hard that more than two hundred adventurers had gone down. His hail of lightning that managed to blanket most of the battle line inspired cold shivers even in the members of Loki Familia.
“Hildsleif Hedin Selrand…the range of his magic is the greatest of anyone in Orario.”
“Eh?! But, but, you’re stronger, aren’t you, Riveria?! You’re called the city’s strongest mage, right?!”
“Depending on what exactly you mean by that, the answer changes. Taken to an extreme, if it comes down to super-long-distance spell slinging or hand-to-hand combat, I would lose to Hedin.”
Tiona resolutely tried to argue against Riveria’s cold analysis, but the high elf fixed her hair as she calmly answered.
Nine Hell Riveria Ljos Alf was superior in raw power and in the number of options she could call upon for offense, defense, and support. In terms of the standard back line mage role, her power and abilities far outstripped anyone else.
But Hedin was a magic swordsman who had also mastered close-range combat.
Their fields of expertise were too different to really compare.
He was an expert in melee and faster spells using super-short casts. He was the optimal build for an advance support class. But on top of that, as demonstrated so powerfully in this war game, he also had absurd firepower and range.
“He once defeated a massive army using only magic.”
Whether it was true or not, rumors about him to that effect had spread from the sand sea. If there was a single way to describe him, it would be an artillery swordsman.
“But more than anything else, the total amount of his Mind…Hedin’s ability to sustain his magic is demonstrably greater than my own.”
Riveria acknowledged that when it came to total amount of Mind with which to use magic, she lost out to him.
The fact that he hadn’t even broken a sweat after launching a hail of magic that covered an entire massive force lent her statement even more credence.
As the Amazon sisters made clear their disapproval, Riveria’s eyes narrowed.
“And the other elf of the black and white knights is coming.”
Her jade eyes sternly looked deep into the mirror as the cloud of dust started to clear.
In the center…
“Haaaaaaa!”
“Gua?!”
A sharp slash tore into Freya Familia.
While most of the coalition’s adventurers were being pushed back, Tsubaki Collbrande wiped the blood and dirt from her face as she continued fighting a frenzied, ferocious struggle.
“Don’t hesitate! If three isn’t enough, swarm one of theirs with five of ours! If five isn’t enough, then make it ten! As long as you can hold out, I’ll cut them all down!”
The Level 5 master smith’s encouragement raised the morale of all the adventurers around her.
Since she couldn’t really exert command, Tsubaki transformed into a warrior who cut down enemy after enemy. Even as imposing as the einherjar were, they still fell to their knees in the face of her first-tier strength.
She had already cut down dozens of enemies, and countless warriors in armor were lying all around her.
This is bad! The flow of enemies isn’t slowing! I’ve put down dozens of them, but they still keep coming!
Sweat dripped down her cheek.
She muttered to herself, calling them war demons—
And as long as those healers are around, the ones sleeping on the ground will keep coming back…! This is worse than the Dungeon!
“This is why Freya Familia is so hard to deal with.”
They had been holding out with the support of Hephaistos Familia’s magic swords, but Hedin’s barrage earlier had taken out a lot of them. With the cloud of dust obstructing his vision now, he wasn’t going to fire another volley yet, but once it cleared, if another round came, the coalition’s morale would collapse. And Tsubaki would probably reach her limit, too.
If it comes to that, then there’s nothing left but a suicide charge against the Andhrímnir before the cloud clears.
Just as she was about to make her decision—
“Guaaaaaa?!”
There was a sudden sound.
Not the cry of someone who had been cut down, but a hair-raising slash.
“ ”
Tsubaki’s ears didn’t deceive her.
It was a sound that could have only come from a master of the blade.
“—Hegni!”
She spun around to the west.
The dark elf was standing in the back of the fading cloud.
“H-Hegni Ragnar?!”
“A first-tier adventurer!”
“H-he actually came…!”
Tsubaki’s shout primed the adventurers and their shouts and screams started soon filled the air.
Silver, almost purplish hair and dark skin marked Hegni as a dark elf. His pitch-black sword was drenched in blood, and his sharp gaze roved as if searching for prey to chase down. He had a cold smile on his lips, as if he wished to enjoy a banquet of blood.
Facing off against a first-tier adventurer. That was enough to make any adventurer despair, and so the alliance stood on wobbly feet.
Meanwhile, Hegni…
Arghhhh…so many people I don’t know are looking at meeeee…!
He was panicking.
Just complete and utter panic.
His dangerous gaze flitted this way and that to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze, and the cold smile was just a spasm that had frozen his face in a strange way. The useless elf who was the ultimate introvert and utterly lacking in communication ability felt his heart racing as he transformed into a monster.
N-not good…I—I have to do this right…! I am Lady Freya’s follower and technically an amazing, first-tier adventurer in Orario…! If people make fun of me, that would be a humiliation for the familia and Milady…!
Her forcefully twisted his lips upward, spasming cheek and all, forcing himself to wear a sinister smirk.
“…Keh-keh-keh, coming face to face with my abyss here is your fated end…the ruins of the ancients mean nothing and sing of crimson…my blade lusts for sacrifice. And thus…d-d-d-d-die.”
Twitching beneath the gaze of so many people, Hegni tried to convey the idea “I will handle this division and exterminate you all. The initial skirmish is over. Prepare yourselves.”
Meanwhile, the reaction from the coalition was tragic.
“Uwah, what’s with him?!”
“I thought he was going to say something, but holy crap he’s weird!”
“Oy, what’s with him?! What’s he saying?!”
“For an elf, his face looks like a damn ogre!”
“Apologize! Apologize to all elves!”
“““How the hell is someone like him a first-tier adventurer?!”””
Argh, I want to die.
A gleaming droplet shimmered at the corner of the dark elf’s eye.
Stop, please stop, don’t look at me like that! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t! Why, why am I a first-tier adventurer. I don’t need the attention, just let me fade into the darkness and fight. Just let me become darkness, I want to be an embodiment of shadow. I can’t. Make it stop. I just want to be alone in the forest. Argh, make it stop. I just want Lady Freya to lay her head on my lap—no, the other way around.
Hegni tried his best.
He really tried his best, enduring the pressure of everyone’s eyes and his own imagined victimization. But the moment he realized that his silly performance was being broadcast on the mirrors in Orario, his mental balance collapsed, and catastrophe struck. The shame and embarrassment seared into his mind, and he executed a pathetic retreat.
I can’t…I should just use it…
In other words, he used his magic.
“Draw thine sword, King of the fiendish blades.”
He held his sword up to the heavens with both hands, like a knight—or as if trying to hide his face.
At the same time, a black magic circle unfurled around his feet.
“Ghh?! Stop his cast!”
Tsubaki screamed without concern for dignity.
She was taken aback by his comic performance that had lasted just a brief moment, but the moment she heard him begin casting a spell, the biggest alarm bells started ringing in her head.
She knew the reason for Hegni’s second name, and she worriedly drew the magic shortsword at her waist.
“Sacrifice reason and offer up blood. Slaughter all until the feast is finished.”
It was a short cast. Even if she slashed at him now, it would be too late.
Seeing her reaction, the other adventurers and smiths followed her lead.
Countless magic swords and dozens and dozens of arrows all flew at Hegni as he stood there with his eyes closed.
“Dáinsleif.”
There was an explosion as he said the name of the spell.
The magic circle seemed to gleam, and then it was swallowed up in a storm of attacks.
It was a firepower that even a first-tier adventurer couldn’t just take head-on. Tsubaki and the others covered their faces and gulped. The flames danced.
And
“Gyaaaaaaaa?!”
The sound flashed.
Tsubaki’s ears shuddered at the sound of a sublime rampage bereft of all mercy and restraint.
“ ”
Tsubaki was speechless as a spray of blood rose from one end of her formation.
Three upper-class adventurers fell to the ground.
Standing beside them was a single dark elf who seemed to be wearing the smoke like armor.
“—Rebels who refuse to heed the goddess’s will. I shall accept thy penitence in spilled blood.”
His voice changed completely. The timidness from just moments earlier was completely gone. His gaze was unyielding and cruel. He had activated the magic that he must never be allowed to cast.
“Dáinsleif…! Hegni’s personality-altering magic!”
That was the ritual and the key that allowed the dark elf who was so scared of what other people thought to transform into a warrior.
It was different from a standard offensive magic or enchantment. It was a rare magic that affected the mental state of the user. The effect was a literal transformation of both his personality and his speech. This magic was the reason why when Bell was attacked by Hegni during the Goddess Festival, he wondered if he was really the same person.
But it didn’t affect his status in any way. It only affected his personality, so among the wide range of magics, it could even be said to be rather plain.
“He switched to the other Hegni…!”
But in specializing so completely in its mental effects, it surpassed mere autosuggestion and transcended into self-reconstruction. What happened could be called the realizing of his ideal form. A magic to summon the strongest version of himself created because he hated himself so.
“I grow tired of your faces. I shall grant you mercy. Draw your swords. I shall allow you to fall as warriors.”
A bead of sweat dripped down Tsubaki’s cheek.
During Orario’s dark ages, Hegni had used that magic and felled over a thousand followers of the Evils in a single battle. She knew painfully well just how powerful it could be.
Absorbing the light of the shattering magic circle, Hegni’s faintly purple eyes glimmered bewitchingly as he made his declaration.
“Be gone, rabble. Worms who reject the goddess’s love are not worthy of life.”
The dark elf’s body suddenly sank slightly. And then he sprinted. So fast that it almost looked like teleportation. The moment it seemed a black shadow had passed, a full squadron had been cut down.
“Aaa…aaaah?!”
It was a single slash.
The curse sword he wielded extended the range of his slashes, allowing him to cut down many adventurers in a single flash.
A rondo of destruction and despair began. There was no hesitation. No mercy. The limiter holding back his full power had been completely removed by his magic, and he transformed into the manifestation of a blade that made even his ultimate rival Hedin call him “utter garbage, but the strongest melee fighter amongst all elves.”
As if wielding a magical sword that couldn’t return to its sheath without bringing countless deaths, he set off a storm of blood.
Adventurers were cut down. High smiths and their magic swords were broken, too.
His slash didn’t discriminate. Not between men and women and not between races. Like a god, it was impartial. It merely handed down death sentences like a tyrant.
“It is not my job to announce injustice. All who content themselves in weakness are at fault.”
Hegni’s second name, Dáinsleif, came from the name of his magic.
It was the highest praise from the fanatical and passionate fans he had among the city’s deities, acknowledging his transformation from a dark knight to a true tyrant of darkness.
Ten people, then another ten. He was laying adventurers low at a blistering pace. Merciless and cruel, the dark elf had transformed into a murderous, rampaging lord of war. Standing a short distance from him, Tsubaki spoke up.
“…L’il E, I need that level boost or whatever.”
“Eh?”
“Hurry!”
“R-right away!”
Borrowing Welf’s name for her, she called to the prum girl through the oculus.
It sounded like someone rushed over, and then suddenly a powerful magic power rose up behind her, and a golden pillar of light that looked almost like a hammer appeared overhead.
“Uchide no Kozuchi!”
Haruhime’s level boost seeped into her body, and her status shifted from Level 5 to Level 6.
However, even so, that didn’t put her at ease. Every adventurer other than her had fallen, leaving a crimson ring of blood around them.
“So you are the one with the qualification to battle me, Cyclops.”
“Aye, ominous blade. I will snap your magic sword.”
Hegni watched her with eyes like a sharpened blade.
She muttered to herself, “You’re no elf, you’re an evil spirit.”
With that, her expression changed, and she readied her Benishigure.
The breeze rustled the dark elf’s cloak. The central division was almost obliterated as the lord of war and the smith faced off against each other.
“Your fate is decided. This blade shall be your gravestone.”
Suddenly, the two of them disappeared, and there was a furious clash of blades.
“Tsubaki!”
Hearing the furious clash of swords behind him, Welf raised his voice.
It was a dance of blades that a Level 2 like Welf couldn’t really even see. The pitch-black blade and long sword crashed and slid, and then sparks flew, etching an arc letting him know there had been a slash there.
Welf gasped at the afterimages created by a battle between two Level 6s, and then clenched his fist.
Even if it’s a duel, I have to help! Li’l E told me about Dáinsleif’s magic! My Will-o-Wisp can work…!
Lilly had shared a lot of the information Finn gave her about Freya Familia, and Hegni’s magic was of course part of that. To maintain his other self, he was constantly using Mind, and his body was flooded with magic power. The mysterious light in his eyes and the purple gleam rising off his body like a heat haze were effects of that.
And if there were magic particles, then there was a spark that would ignite Welf’s anti-magic fire. Dáinsleif, which had to be constantly active like an enchantment, was a perfect target for Welf.
“Blasphemous Burn!”
Holding his magic sword in his left hand, he thrust out his right hand.
He poured in Mind, pushing the range to the limit.
That way, no matter how fast Hegni was, no matter whether he could even see Hegni or not, the dark elf’s entire area of movement would be covered.
Targeting the entire ring where the elf was locking blades with Tsubaki, he shouted the ultra-short cast.
“Will-o-Wi—”
But
THUD.
There was a sound like lightly tapping a wheel with a staff.
Like a light cat kicking off the ground and into a sprint.
Just before his anti-magic fire activated, the sound of instantaneous acceleration rattled in Welf’ ears.
In the blink of an eye.
A chunk of flesh went flying from Welf’s right shoulder.
“ ”
A super-speed line cut into view, stealing away a part of his shoulder.
Time seemed to slow for Welf, and the moment he recognized he was being attacked, blood poured from the opening and a scream erupted from his throat.
“Guaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!”
His eyes were bloodshot, and a terrible sweat erupted on his face as his right arm hung limply like a broken doll.
“Don’t try anything strange, small fry.”
There was a voice to his right.
Turning around, he saw him.
“You’re…”
Vana Freya Allen Fromel.
Having easily interrupted Welf’s magic, he was standing there leisurely with silver spear in hand.
Silver armor on his right shoulder and an emerald pelisse hanging from it. His only other armor was silver greaves below his knees. An armor that didn’t account for the possibility of stray hits, because he was the fastest in all of Orario.
Welf’s face twisted from the searing pain as a cold sweat formed. He had no way of knowing, but Vana Freya only wore his pelisse when he intended to fight all-out.
“Though I intended to finish you in the first hit like last time.”
“Gh…?!”
“You pulled back at the last second? Learned your lesson about being run down by me already?”
That was right.
Welf had been attacked by Allen during the Goddess Festival. The moment he heard the chilling sound of that instantaneous acceleration, he reflexively started moving. That split-second defensive instinct had kept him from being instantly knocked out of the fight.
“But it doesn’t make a difference. Just a waste of my time. Get lost.”
“Gh…screw you!”
He erupted at those eyes, looking at him not even as an enemy, but just a bump in the ground slowing the chariot’s rush. But right when he brushed off the searing pain and howled, the next instant, Allen suddenly bore down on him.
What began was a tremendous barrage of spear thrusts.
“Gah, Gh, uggggh…?!”
His shout was nothing more than spirit. It was almost a miracle his limp right arm was even still attached. All he could do was slip into a crouch and use Shikou-Kazuki, his magic sword, as a shield. But doing that, he was like a child unable to fully hide behind a tree trunk. Beneath the protection of the longsword’s flat blade, he endured a barrage of thrusts.
But he was gradually being carved away. His clothes, his skin, his whole body.
He was fading. Losing blood, the strength to hold on, the will to counterattack.
He continued yelping as his left hand holding the magic sword and his shoulder pushing against the flat of the blade were both being pierced by attacks that evaded his defense. His flesh was tearing, and his bones were cracking and shattering as his entire body was broken down. The torrent of thrusts pushed Welf to the brink in no time at all.
…It isn’t breaking…
Meanwhile, Allen looked quizzically at the scene.
No matter how many times it wavered from his thrusts, Welf’s magic sword didn’t break. An ordinary magic sword was fundamentally a consumable item. In its endurance, it was an eloquent expression of its maker’s persistence.
Allen’s sharp gaze shifted, acknowledging the bump in the road to be a real, if minor, obstruction.
“What is that magic sword?”
“…Just a little something…that I made…!”
Welf didn’t boast at Allen’s question. He called the blade he had forged with his pride as a blacksmith just a stepping stone to greater heights.
“If you can’t even break a simple magic sword, you must not be much, either…!”
And he maintained a false bravado.
He was bleeding, and his body was battered, but he still forced himself to grin. It was a provocation, an arrogant blacksmith laughing off a first-tier adventurer. But Allen was untroubled.
“I’ll acknowledge your skill as a blacksmith.”
Indeed, for the first time, he actually recognized Welf’s capabilities.
“But only that.”
“ ”
And then he made Welf his next victim.
Kicking against the stone pavement, he accelerated. There was no way a mere blacksmith would be able to react in time. Welf had turtled behind his sword, but in an instant, Allen appeared at his side, unleashing a kick.
“Gah?!”
And that was all it took to finish Welf.
The rising right leg landed straight in Welf’s side, knocking him off the ground.
For a brief moment, he experienced a floating sensation, and then a spinning left kick slammed home. Welf’s collar bone cracked, and he went flying, rolling across the cobblestones, where he collapsed miserably.
With the last bit of his stubbornness, he managed to hold on to his sword, which grew red with the blood dripping from his hand.
“I told you before, small fry. Run back to your workshop and go play with your toys.”
Allen had said the same contemptuous line the first time they had met. That was the day that Ishtar Familia had been destroyed.
“Get it through your head. Smiths aren’t ever going to be any use on a battlefield, loser.”
What Welf had accomplished wasn’t even one minute of slowing Allen down.
Leaving the blacksmith quietly slumped down on the ground, Allen began to perform his mission.
“Aaah?! Uwaaaaaaaaaa?!”
“I…I can’t hit him…nothing works?!”
At Hedin’s direction, the chariot had joined the fight along with Hegni. Seeing that, the coalition adventurers screamed in despair. Their formation had been completely shredded. Even Lilly grew pale while watching from atop the mausoleum.
On the left wing…
“Lady Aisha! The center!”
“Dammit…! Those monsters!”
As the cloud of dust finally faded, Mikoto and Aisha could see that Hegni and Allen had obliterated the center of the battle line.
In textbook fashion, the coalition’s battle line was deepest at the center. The Level 5 Tsubaki had been sent there, and the bulk of their fighting adventurers and smiths had been set there, too. But now it was almost completely wiped out.
Seeing the adventurers being picked off without even being able to run away, it was clearly no longer even a battle.
“What should we do?! Lady Lilly has her hands full directing the center and right wing! At this rate…!”
“Gh…reinforce the center! If Cyclops goes down, that really will be the end! We need to get Haruhime and go help that dwarf—”
That was Aisha’s agonizing choice.
The left wing was currently in a massive free-for-all. They would have to set a rear guard to move over the center, and that rear guard was sure to be lost in the process. Aisha swallowed the guilt and was about to order the Berbera putting up a valiant fight around her to die for them.
“Ugh?!”
“Gyaaaaaa?!”
But her resolve amounted to nothing.
“…?! Sharay! Eliza!”
The Berbera who were behind her were suddenly taken down by four people at once.
Spinning around in shock with Mikoto, Aisha saw four figures.
“A useless plan.”
“Not like you could do it.”
“Obviously.”
“Since we’re here.”
Sand-colored helmets and matching armor.
A long spear, a great hammer, a great ax, and a greatsword. Four weapons for four prums.
“The Gulliver brothers…! Bringar!”
Mikoto shuddered as the three younger brothers’ lips curled into sneers.
“Eternal Shadow and Antianeira.”
“This is a rehash of the Goddess Festival.”
“You’re going to fall to us again?”
And finally, the eldest brother, Alfrik, announced with compassion—
“Fall here, for Lady Freya’s sake.”
“Ghhh! Don’t look down on me!”
Aisha’s furious shout broke the damn, and the bloodied Amazons around her all raised a battle cry. With magic sword flames, with the light of level boost, with gravity waves, they struggled against the four prums and the einherjar with every bit of their strength.
Disadvantage piled upon disadvantage.
Looking up at the mirror above Main Street, one of the residents, an adventurer—or maybe a deity—said it. Or maybe they all were thinking it.
“This is just a one-sided stomp.”
“The strongest melee elf Hegni in the center, the cat with his extreme mobility to crush those shooting from a distance, sealing the relatively intact left wing with the prum brothers’ coordination…a textbook response without anything interesting to it at all.”
Hedin sounded bored as he looked out at the battle’s development from his perch atop their side’s temple.
If he hadn’t held back the first-tier adventurers at the start and just sent them out to begin with, it would probably have ended up basically the same.
But Hedin made absolutely sure.
As the person charged with conducting Freya Familia’s operations, he understood just how lethal it would be for a first-tier adventurer to fall. If Hegni or Allen were to be taken down, even einherjar who didn’t fear death would still lose their composure, and it would lead to a loss of morale unlike any other. And the opposing general was surely aiming for that.
Because of that, he had played his trump cards only after the singular element of uncertainty—Crozzo’s magic swords—had been sufficiently dealt with. From Lilly’s or Daphne’s perspective, it was a despair-inducing ruthlessness.
“The coalition’s main fighting power has been fully deployed…but there is one rabbit missing.”
His elven eyes didn’t miss the details of the enemy deployment.
Even in a massive melee, he noticed that the white-haired boy he had broken in wasn’t there.
“Even if he charges his blast and sets it off in the main battlefield, it would just be a waste so long as Heith is there.”
Sending in a single Level 5 now wouldn’t turn things around.
After being killed so many times in Folkvangr already, even that stupid rabbit would know that much deep in his bones.
“And more than anything…with the rules of this war game, he can’t even do that.”
Indeed, the only chance the coalition had of victory was to use the main battlefield as a decoy and aim straight for the queen.
Seeing through the coalition’s plans like a mind-reading demon, the white elf looked up.
His eyes narrowed as he looked to the ends of the island far removed from the fighting.
“South…or north?”
I’m running northwest, taking care to avoid notice while still moving at full speed.
My destination is Freya Familia’s base, all by myself.
“Lilly, maybe I should fight with everyone else…!”
“No! Keep moving toward Lady Freya!”
Hearing the battle cries over my left shoulder and at my back—the countless screams of my allies—I want to turn back, but Lilly’s voice coming from the oculus embedded in my left gauntlet stops me.
The same moment that the Crozzo’s magic swords erupted, signaling the start of the battle, I circled around the northwest of the island, completely circumventing the main battlefield.
That was Lilly’s order. Use the army-scale clash as a decoy to approach the enemy’s base.
“Hildsleif and Warlord are still at the base!”
“Gh…!”
“There is no winning unless we take down the strongest adventurer in Orario!”
She’s right. Anything less won’t be possible against that man.
I’m painfully aware of that after he took me down in a single attack during the Goddess Festival. So long as he stands before the throne and protects his master, the coalition doesn’t stand a chance.
There is no future for us unless we do something about the Level 7 city’s strongest!
“And your skill is the only card we have that can take him down!”
I glance down at the oculus and then at my right hand. The chime is ringing, and the telltale glow of the charging has already started, too.
Master and the rest of Freya Familia have only seen my status during the time I spent with their familia when their goddess’s charm warped the entire city. If I wait until I can see the enemy before activating my skill, I won’t make it in time. The einherjar would never allow that.
That means the time is now. To unleash a full power attack, I have to start charging before I encounter the enemy.
The task I’ve been given is to mount a sneak attack. Stay hidden and keep moving until I can land a blow on the enemy’s strongest fighter—Mr. Ottar—with a fully charged attack.
After the onslaught of the Crozzo magic swords failed, Lilly concluded that this is our only chance of defeating Warlord.
“We have to sacrifice everyone so you can reach Lady Freya! If you don’t, we can’t win this battle!”
I grit my teeth as Lilly explains that in a commanding voice.
Even if our allies get cut down by Mr. Hegni, run down by Mr. Allen, destroyed by Mr. Alfrik and his brothers, shot down by Master—even if it means ignoring Ms. Heith and the healers, I have to defeat Mr. Ottar and reach out to Lady Fre—no, I have to reach out to her.
Even the echoing sound of the chime understood it had to be that way. Shaking off the thoughts tearing at my heart, I continue to approach the enemy’s base.
Carefully, but quickly! I can’t let them notice me!
Even in the northwest, far from the main battle, a great field of ruins stretch in every direction.
There are crumbling buildings, a marble street, and massive colonnades that no longer hold up ceilings. Taking advantage of these city ruins, I hide myself, making sure there’s no signs of watchful enemy before sprinting to the next point.
I’m currently invisible. I’m using one of Fels’s reverse veils and basically invisible.
But still I’m avoiding any bold approaches. The enemy this time is Master and Freya Familia. If they notice anything is even slightly off, that’s the end. I used an item to erase my scent to beast people’s noses, but I still can’t be too safe.
And more than anything…
The sound of the charging…! It won’t reach their base yet, but when I get close, they will definitely notice!
I can feel a wave of cold sweat break out as I listen to the chime repeating while white light gathers.
No matter how perfectly a scout erases their presence, if they make a sound that alerts the enemy to their location, they are just a fool. And I had to do just that sort of foolish stealth to launch my attack. Even though it is to gather enough strength to actually take down the enemy, I have to do it stealthily, too. The contradiction of it all makes my heart race.
The limiter…I can’t let the grand bell ring…!
If the giant bell’s chime rings out, I’ll be immediately detected no matter how far away I am.
And if I’m attacked by einherjar before reaching their base, I’ll lose our only chance.
I have no choice but to do a normal charge all the way to the limit while getting close.
But…can I really evade Master’s eyes?
I keep imagining Master’s face watching like a hawk from the base still far away.
He’s strong. And shrewder than anyone.
He’s seen through what we’re trying to do, hasn’t he?
I struggle against that suspicion as I keep my trembling breath down and push forward as fast as I can.
“…This is…”
I’ve found a structure larger than the others.
This must’ve been an amphitheater once.
Part of the outer wall is broken, and inside I can see the spectator seats and the arena. The arena is around 150 meders in diameter, and the outer wall and spectator seats are about 30 meders tall. It wasn’t hard to imagine lots of people walking out here to see a show in ancient times when there were fewer options for entertainment.
The faded columns lying on the ground are almost melancholic, but I quickly look away.
I don’t have time to get lost in emotion. I start to circle around the outside of the amphitheater.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“?!”
A shadow flits across the ground, and I can sense an attack coming from above.
Just as the battle cry and blade are about to hit me, I immediately raise my knife.
“Gh?!”
The attacker’s blades and the Hestia Knife clash.
I can’t completely block it.
I avoided direct damage, but my reverse veil gets torn, dispelling my invisibility. As I stumble from the attack, my attacker follows up with a kick. Partly because I can’t use my right hand freely due to the charge, I’m knocked aside.
I jump at the same time to lessen the impact, which brings me into the amphitheater’s center.
Rolling through the broken-down wall, I get pushed into an arena where I can’t escape.
“Did you really think you could avoid being noticed while making that noise! Bell!”
“…! Mr. Van!”
The half-prum einherjar, Mr. Van, followed me into the big arena, scolding me just like before.
I did get noticed…!
The sneak attack failed. The plan won’t work anymore. This is the end of the line.
Is it just him? No others? Can I pivot? What should I do?!
While my mind starts racing, Mr. Van seems to guess what I’m thinking and shouts.
“I’m alone! This has nothing to do with Mr. Hedin’s orders! I fought you in Folkvangr enough to figure out that you would come here!”
“Wh…?!”
“And I decided I would be the one to perform your last rites!”
He read my movements?! No, he hid himself here in the northwest, waiting for me?!
I struggle to process what Mr. Van is saying as he glares at me like I betrayed his trust.
“Traitor who rejected Lady Freya’s divine will despite receiving her blessing! No matter what Mr. Ottar or the rest might say, you alone will fall by my hand!” It’s an unmistakable rage, tenacity, and a clearly drawn line. “This is my duty as the one who was charged with watching over you!”
Even though it occurred in a twisted world, we lived in the same home and ate at the same table. We’d fought each other dozens of times during the baptism, sometimes sharing advice, and I do feel a certain odd bond with him.
It might just have been a trick, but for those twenty days, I was a fellow member of Freya Familia.
The half-prum’s eyes are warped as he watches me. And my eyes are, too. But just as quickly, Mr. Van slashes at me, casting aside all trivial emotions.
“Gh…?!”
“Fight, Bell! Fight!”
Silver twinblades threaten me over and over. I can sense his resolve in his blades—if you won’t take my hand, then I’ll kill you.
I deflect the two blades arcing toward my chest with the Goddess Knife.
I can’t reject him. In the middle of the amphitheater, we lock blades, just like we once did during the baptism.
Knife meets sword, and sparks fly.
A shrill clang rings out like a painful cry.
We crash.
My doubt led me to make several misjudgments.
My feelings toward Mr. Van and Freya Familia are stronger than I thought.
“Using just one hand?! When did you get so big for your britches that you started thinking you could look down on me?!”
“Gh…!”
“Use your charge! On me! Your enemy right now is me!”
His bloodred rage echoes in my ears. The fact that I’m still holding on to my charge even now, Mr. Van is genuinely trying to kill me.
As I weather his assault, what I feel isn’t fear or anxiousness—it’s a shocking sense of emptiness, and a maddening sadness.
A level-up is truly cruel.
The Level 4 Mr. Van who I fought so many times during the baptism, who I sometimes defeated and sometimes lost to…now seems so painfully slow.
I can see his attacks so clearly.
Even though I am filled with doubt, I can handle his attacks with ease.
I sparred with first-tier adventurers to acclimate after leveling up. There’s no way I can lose here.
“Ghhhh!”
Gritting my teeth, I close the distance.
This is the end.
His eyes widen as I rush forward, sheathe the knife in my left hand, and punch him right in the stomach.
“Gah?!”
I shout like yelling will help me burn away the pity and sentimentality lingering in my heart.
“Firebolt!”
My fist unleashes a blast of heat. The lightning flame crackles, burning Mr. Van’s body and sending him flying up into the spectator seats.
“…Belllllll…!”
Mr. Van slips off the stone step he hit and falls forward. His mouth is bloody as he stretches his trembling hand toward me before passing out.
“Ngh…”
I’m not even breathing hard.
The battle didn’t last a minute. Level 5 and Level 4. The difference in those two numbers is everything. And this bitter experience has shown me the heights I’ve managed to climb.
“So this is where you were.”
But…
“ ”
That short fight was more than enough to draw the strongest to me.
“Acting on your own, Van? You did save me some time.”
I hear something touching down in the arena and a solemn voice. Holding my breath, I slowly turned around.
Rust-colored hair and eyes, and an imposing, massive body. A greatsword in each hand, and an even larger black mass of a sword on his back.
In front of the boaz who reigns as the peak of all adventurers, a hoarse voice falls from my lips. “…Mr. Ottar…”
The city’s strongest who hasn’t joined the main battle…Has he been searching for me from the start?
I’m still far from a full charge. And sneak attacks aren’t possible when he already knows I am here. My body runs so cold it feels as if I’ve been encased in ice. I can sense Lilly’s heavy breaths through the oculus.
This time for sure, our plan has failed. It’s been completely shattered, and our one chance at victory is—
The End. Those two words fill both of our minds.
“…”
As I stand frozen in the center of the amphitheater, Mr. Ottar’s eyes silently move. Seemingly noticing the light converging at my right hand, he narrows his eyes slightly. Then he throws the greatsword in his hand.
“Gh…?”
It lands in front of me with a thud. Close enough for me to reach out and take it. Reflexively, I stare right at it.
The blade is made of mithril. The edge and sturdiness are the real deal—undeniably a first-tier weapon.
This isn’t an attack. Not even a threat. It’s almost as if he was giving me the weapon. After he notices that I’m not moving in my confusion, he speaks.
“Take it.”
“…Huh?”
“I said take it.”
The greatsword.
My eyes goes wide.
“Full power,” Warlord says. “Come at me with everything.”
His words carry the gravitas of a true warlord.
“I will give you one attack.”
He’s testing me. Or trying to measure my ability.
“Stake your everything and come at me. Attack me with all of Bell Cranell’s strength.”
“Gh…?!”
I’m speechless.
He’s serious. He means every word.
The boaz in front of me knows exactly what we’re trying to do and is still telling me to go ahead and try!
A trap…no, it can’t be! He doesn’t have to do anything like that!
He is the strongest. He can easily beat me with a simple frontal attack. There’s absolutely no reason for him to resort to tricks against an inferior adventurer he can crush in the blink of an eye.
This is just Warlord’s way.
As his goddess’s strongest follower, he wants to test me.
—Warrior.
That word dominated my mind.
“M-Mr. Bell…”
A trembling voice comes from the oculus. Lilly is agitated, too. But she is also pleading. There’ll never be a better chance than this. I can’t let this opportunity go. Even if it was presented to us on a platter by the enemy, I have to take it.
And if I do nothing, all that’ll happen is he’ll mercilessly crush me.
But if I somehow manage to topple Mr. Ottar here, a path to victory will open.
“…Gh!”
I take it with my right hand—the silver greatsword.
“Firebolt!”
I channel the lightning flame from my left hand into the mithril. Immediately, the charging light in my right hand spreads to the blade.
The flame that should have faded clings to the metal, growing in strength.
Dual charge.
By extending the effect to cover the sword, I cause the drain on my stamina and Mind to instantly shoot up, but it’s a small sacrifice.
I can’t change the soft chime into a grand bell. Switching gears isn’t possible anymore.
Not unless I cancel the charge and start from scratch. But doing that would mean losing all the stamina and Mind I’ve already spent. Considering the fight waiting for me, even if I manage to take down Mr. Ottar, I can’t afford to waste any Mind.
Holding the sword in both hands, I push forward until full charge is less than a minute away.
…Can I really do it? An enemy I could never normally beat…A fully charged Argonaut…!
I know the full destructive power of Argonaut better than anyone. A short charge might not be enough, but pushed to the absolute limit, it can erase every enemy without a trace. I’ve overcome a difference in levels using this skill several times before.
It’s what Goddess called the strike of a hero, the strength to overturn any hopeless situation.
Can I really hit a flesh-and-blood adventurer with such an extreme attack…?
I stare at the boaz standing in front of me. He’s only wearing light armaments. The right side of his chest and the back of his hands, his forehead and the like—there are only a few places where he’s wearing anything that provides any real coverage. With that sort of protection, he can’t possibly withstand a full charge. Will it kill him?
My opponent is the city’s strongest adventurer.
He’s not someone I can afford to hold back against. I can’t let my guard down.
But still…
The hesitation in my heart’s making me wary about using a full-power attack.
Evidently wanting to dispel my concerns, Mr. Ottar starts to chant.
“Silver moon’s mercy and the golden plains. I offer this body to the lord of battle.”
My eyes shoot open.
“Charge bearing the goddess’s will.”
It’s a short cast.
But despite the quickly completed cast, a tremendous magic power is unleashed.
“Hildis Vini.”
A golden light sears my eyes. A gleam like twilight gathers in the warlord’s sword.
“What…?!”
I study the gleam, and then I catch my breath. His weapon is clad in light, turning into a golden sword. The furious magic light covered the greatsword’s surface, almost like a flame of the end. It’s a massive light that made the sword look like it was growing, as if the weapon had donned the fur of a golden boar.
That impossible swell of magic…is it like Argonaut?
No—it’s just a straightforward and extreme form of enhancement?!
“That is Mr. Ottar’s magic…? The golden gleam Mr. Finn said defeated another Level 7 adventurer…!”
Through the oculus, Lilly trembles at the sight of the blinding golden gleam. His increase in strength doesn’t require any charge time. I can’t be sure, but based on what I’m seeing and the information Lilly gathered, that’s my best guess.
It’s a simple strength buff.
And because it’s simple, it becomes an unimaginably powerful trump card when combined with Mr. Ottar’s absurd amount of strength.
Feeling the cold sweat on my skin, I cast aside all hesitation. That’s just how much power was hidden in that golden sword.
“…”
“…”
As my charging continues, like a ballista being readied to fire, I slowly assume my stance. Gripping the greatsword with both hands, I lower my hips.
And Mr. Ottar takes the same stance, almost like he’s purposely mirroring me.
I’ve been given an identical copy of his sword.
Our weapons are equal. There’s no difference in equipment.
Victory will be decided by the combination of strength, magic, and raw destructive power.
A white light and a golden light.
A roaring flame and a furious gleam.
The billowing waves of power spilling from our weapons fill the amphitheater.
Lilly watches with bated breath.
Ms. Aiz and everyone else in town is surely watching through the mirrors, too.
Feeling everyone’s gaze on me, I grip the thick hilt of the sword.
And the time finally comes.
Five minutes.
After waiting the full time I can charge after reaching Level 5, the ringing bell reaches a feverish pitch.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
I start running.
With all of my might.
Swinging the sword imbued with sacred flame over my right shoulder, I advance on the strongest warrior standing in my way.
Mr. Ottar doesn’t move. He is scarily still.
He watches me charge straight on, immobile as a massive boulder.
Unease, fear, worry—throwing all that away, I unleash a sacred flame.
“Argo Vesta!”
Full strength and full spirit.
Having climbed all the way to Level 5, I unleash Bell Cranell’s strongest attack.
Recognizing that, the boaz holds his greatsword at the ready and roars.
“UUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
As if trying to push me back with his voice alone, he unleashes his impossibly superhuman strength.
His golden slash crashes into my sacred fire.
And—
“ gh?!”
There’s a tremendous impact, a flash of light, and then a thunderous boom.
The contest lasts for only an instant.
The blazing sacred flame looks like it’s being pushed back by the golden light, but at almost the exact same time, both swords reach their limit and completely shatter, blowing Mr. Ottar and me away from each other.
“Gah?!”
I’m launched through the massive arena and slam directly into the marble wall like I was carried there by a river bursting its dam. The impact shatters the wall and steals all the air from my lungs as the giant amphitheater shudders. Cracks run through the remaining walls and the spectator seating, kicking up a cloud of dust.
I’m sure I’m imagining things, but I could swear the entire island just went silent.
It’s like our attacks clashing made the adventurers and einherjar stop their fights and catch their breath.
“Geha, gaha…aaaaaa…?!
What little remains of the greatsword’s hilt slips from my hand as I writhe from the aftermath. As my hands spasm, I look up, breathing raggedly, half praying.
Through the clearing smoke…I see a shadow appear.
“…So it’s a draw…”
That’s all he says in a curt, low voice.
He’s standing.
His thick legs carved two deep gouges in the stone-paved stage when he was pushed up against the wall. Peeling his massive body from the broken wall, Mr. Ottar slowly looks at me.
“No…considering the difference in level, your attack surpassed mine.”
Pure commendation.
His rust-colored eyes narrow as he praises the Argo Vesta that matched his Hildis Vini.
Despite that praise, though, my face grows deathly pale.
A draw? Canceled out? Argonaut?
The same Argo Vesta that defeated Juggernaut’s claw?!
“It was a splendid attack…However.”
Even though I poured in everything I had, my full strength wasn’t enough to defeat Warlord.
Smoke rises from places where the sacred flame scorched his body, but the boaz warrior walks forward calmly, as if he took no damage at all.
“The promise was one attack.”
Throwing away the hilt of the greatsword that became a hunk of deformed metal, he draws the black greatsword on his back.
A shout rises from the oculus in my gauntlet. I’m sure it’s to tell me I have to run away.
But even as tremors take over my body—I know.
If I turn my back to him, I’ll be killed.
I’m not allowed to run. I have to fight him until I fall.
“Now it is simply a battle.”
The amphitheater has transformed into a merciless boar’s hunting ground.
Swords flashed.
Silver and black traded furiously.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Tsubaki howled like a beast.
Her clothes had been shredded, and only a single piece of cloth binding covered her upper body, but still the half-dwarf roared. Deftly manipulating the longsword in her hands, she parried multiple powerful slashes and hit back.
The one-eyed smith-turned-asura was faced by Hegni.
The dark elf’s cloak was in pieces, but there was no fear or contempt in his eyes. He acknowledged that the woman clad in the light of level boost trying to cut him down was a formidable enemy and faced her in a head-on clash of blades with the dignity of a tyrant of war.
Silver and black. Gold and purple. Their blades and the aftereffects of their magics clashed, intertwined, tracing a path. Their duel was on a completely different level leaving the other einherjar and adventurers stunned as it intensified. And—
“Sei…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”
“Haaah!”
The decisive blow was struck.
One threw their sheath and unleashed a full-bodied slash diagonally downward.
The other a high-speed upward slash as if intersecting the first’s path.
Tsubaki and Hegni passed each other and lingered for a few moments.
“Ghhh!”
Blood erupted from Hegni’s shoulder.
He winced at the wound to his left shoulder, the breeze on the battlefield rustling his cloak.
“ Gu…”
At the same time, Tsubaki knew she had been defeated.
Blood erupted from the diagonal cut that ran up her torso, splitting even her sarashi as she slumped to the side.
Even her long black hair broke its bond and spread like a fan as the light of level boost scattered.
“…You may be proud, Cyclops. Your attack threatened my life.”
Hegni turned around, still holding his sword up in his right hand.
Moving just her right eye, Tsubaki looked back at him from where she lay.
“But my Victim Abyss is a vanguard slayer…Your fate is the same as all other warriors of the sword—prey for this demonic blade.”
Hegni’s beloved first-tier weapon: Victim Abyss.
It was a curse weapon created with the help of a certain hexer, and in exchange for a certain cost, it could extend the range of its slash.
In a one-on-one fight, the better the sword master, the more it disrupted their distance, and in battle against massed enemies, it was a murderous ability allowing it to fell multiple opponents in a single slash. When wielded by Hegni, who possessed top-class melee strength among first-tier adventurers, it allowed him to become a demonic sword king capable of dominating single combat and group battles with equal skill.
“You…”
Tsubaki had experience with countless different weapons, yet she still hadn’t been able to see through Victim Abyss’s blade. Her dark skin had been cut dozens of times. Even with her status enhanced by level boost, she hadn’t been able to surpass Hegni’s blade.
“This is…why…I didn’t want to fight you…”
Sorry, Goddess…Welfy.
Just before her eyes closed, she apologized to her master and to the teen who had already fallen.
The coalition’s strongest fighter, the Level 5 master smith, had been downed, and the situation quickly began to shift.
“Cyclops…!”
Daphne grew pale as she watched Tsubaki fall.
The coalition was already in a terrible place, but now morale plummeted. That was the consequence of losing Tsubaki in the center—to lose a first-tier adventurer’s strength.
“Hey, what do we do?!”
“We don’t have any more magic swords!”
“The blacksmiths…Vana Freya got them…!”
Bors, Ouka, and Chigusa hardened their defense as a party.
Allen had rushed through freely, hunting down anyone wielding a Crozzo magic sword. Regardless of where they were standing. Right wing, center, left wing: none of that mattered to him. His legs allowed him to ignore distance as he picked off the remaining Hephaistos Familia blacksmiths and adventurers from Rivira.
And even the second-in-command Daphne couldn’t come up with a plan of action, let alone a stratagem to turn things around.
Her mind was on the verge of grinding to a halt when the tyrant of war mercilessly appeared before them.
“So you are to be the next offerings?”
“Gh?! Dáinsleif!”
Hegni’s next target after Tsubaki was them.
Because they had just barely managed to maintain a party-level organization, Hegni judged they were the largest threat at present—even if it was only an ant’s level of uncertainty—and so he earnestly and diligently brought himself to the right wing of the battlefield.
“D-Daph…?!”
Standing in the center of the party, Cassandra turned pale like a patient recognizing that death had come for her.
Daphne reflexively covered their healer with her back, only to remember that it no longer made a difference anymore.
A thick and sticky mixture of blood and sweat dripped down her cheek.
“Oy, oy! What are you doing, Laurus Fuga?! What should we do! Hurry up and say something!”
Bors, who knew better than any of them there how hopeless it was to face a first-tier adventurer on the battlefield, was on the verge of falling into a panic as she shouted. The only reason he hadn’t immediately run away is because he knew as well as Daphne that it was meaningless.
“Daphne…!”
“Laurus Fuga!”
Chigusa raised her bow, and Ouka stepped out in front of the party with his ax Kougou, seeking a decision from their commander.
Stop it. I’m not that great…
The sound of her heart racing drowned out her thoughts.
I’m not Braver…I can’t figure out some perfect move to turn everything around…!
The urge to abandon all responsibility filled her mind.
…But Lilliluka…
But at the very last moment, she remembered that girl’s face and held on.
No matter how bad the situation was, she didn’t run away…
Scenes from the expedition flashed through her head. The moss huge, amphisbaena, all of the many dilemmas they had faced.
Even though Lilly’s small body trembled in those hopeless situations, she had still kept fighting.
The girl who Daphne had acted like a master for, who she had helped raise, would never run away.
…Then I guess I have to…
Actually, I don’t wanna.
With that last complaint in her heart, the strength returned to her eyes.
To her it felt like an eternity, but to the outside world, it was a few brief moments of inner conflict.
But Hegni’s eyes narrowed sharply at those few moments, at Daphne, who had regained the scent of a threat that he had perceived earlier.
“So you intend to resist? Very well. Then I shall acknowledge you as enemies. I shall carefully, precisely, and without fail hunt all of you down.”
The tyrant wouldn’t let his guard down.
No matter how inferior they might be, his black, demonic blade would exterminate all.
Daphne glared back at the dark elf, who refused even to show them an opening.
His black blade, his dark cloak rustling in the breeze, his fully activated magic…
Observing everything about their enemy, Daphne absorbed all the information she could, and the final place she looked…was at the edge of the sword pointed at them.
“…”
Closing her eyes, she quietly gripped the blue crystal at her waist, entrusting everything to it.
“Everyone, please.”
Finally, she opened her eyes and delivered the worst order with tyrannical resolve.
“Get cut down.”
The southeast of the main battle in the western ruins.
“Kh…?!”
“Lady Aisha!”
Following a fearful exchange of blows, the Amazon groaned, and the human’s shout rang out.
““This is the end.””
A battle hammer and battle ax closed in, filling Aisha’s field of view.
A sure defeat brought about by the cooperation of the second and third Gulliver brothers, Dvalinn and Berling.
Her retreat was sealed, and she had no chance to defend or evade. They unleashed their attacks in perfect sync to mercilessly crush Aisha.
““—Only to be stopped again?””
But just before they could, the eldest Alfrik and youngest Grer spat in annoyance.
As if the four brothers’ vision was synchronized, Dvalinn and Grer, who should have finished Aisha, leaped back. The next instant, a tremendous lightning blast struck where the four of them had been.
“Lady Nahza…! I’m grateful!”
“Tch, she’s saved my ass more times than I can count now!”
A saber-style Crozzo magic sword was sticking out of the center of a crater—having been fired.
Mikoto immediately leaped to the saber and swung it at the four prums.
“We missed the kill again.”
“How many times is it now?”
“Eleven.”
“The other adventurers are falling in droves, but Antianeira and Eternal Shadow are hanging on.”
The four brothers were almost grumbling as they easily evaded the one blast that could possibly take them down—the enormous firepower of that magic sword.
The coalition’s left wing had thus far avoided complete collapse. With what even the deities watching back in the city would call a truly brave effort, they were enduring the Bringar-led einherjar’s furious attack.
The reason was the cautious, cowardly archer supporting them.
“They’re too fast…! I can’t hit them with my arm!”
Behind Aisha and the others, Nahza had set up atop a ten meder-tall column, groaning as she pulled another arrow—or rather magic sword—from her quiver and nocked it into her longbow.
A long-range attack using Crozzo magic swords.
Her sniping that checked even first-tier adventurers had extended the life of the left wing.
“Targeting the enemy while also resupplying us with magic swords…! To think a tactic like this was possible!”
“Sometimes coincidence goes our way, too! But those prums should be getting used to it soon! Be careful not to let them get the magic swords from us!”
Nahza was firing saber-style magic swords that resembled arrows.
If they didn’t hit their target, they would stick into the ground with an explosion; meanwhile, Mikoto or Aisha could rush to grab them while the enemy had backed off to avoid the explosion.
It was both covering fire and resupply.
Thanks to that, the left wing was barely—just barely—holding the line. Aisha recognized she would have been finished easily without that support. With Nahza’s magic swords in hand, Mikoto and the others were bravely firing off blasts at the Gullivers.
“Chienthrope! Protect Aisha, whatever it takes!”
“We’ll stop these guys! Oraaaaaah!”
Nahza was focused on supporting Aisha and Mikoto. She was their counter to the Gulliver brothers.
The Berbera who looked up to Aisha were fighting off the rest of the enemies—the einherjar trying to erase the troublesome archer—with a steadfast resolve. Though it was a tenuous balancing act, thanks to them, Nahza could focus on support.
She also continued to move between pillars, aggressively changing position.
“They’ve got a nice sharpshooter.”
“And cautious, too.”
“A part of Hedin’s plan is getting messed up. Serves him right.”
“We’re the ones getting held back, so don’t get too happy.”
Still entirely unruffled, the Gulliver brothers commended Nahza.
Freya Familia’s strategy was to simply force a deathmatch once enough of the Crozzo magic swords had been exhausted. But thanks to Nahza’s quick wit, a slight bump in the road had occurred.
While every division other than the reserves had been firing off their magic swords in a stupendous display—just like Hedin had guided them to do—Nahza alone hadn’t given out her magic swords. Using her own judgement, she ignored Lilly’s order for a concentrated barrage to save her own skin.
“These magic swords are our lifeline, right…? I’m not going to let go that easily…! I’ve acted rashly before and lost my arm for it…!”
Retiring as an adventurer six years ago, Nahza Ersuisu had always fought while maintaining some insurance. The trauma of having an arm ripped off by a monster when she made a mistake while exploring the Dungeon had robbed her of the courage to fight monsters.
But it had also made her wiser and more determined.
It’s okay. I know my limits. I’m just helping Mikoto and Aisha. So stay clam…!
Nahza was sweating as she continuously counted how many shots of magic swords she had left, not allowing her eyes to get too big for her stomach, sticking only to support.
She didn’t think for a moment that she could take down a first-tier adventurer herself. She had no dreams of becoming a hero. But because she was like that, she was able to extend the left wing’s life as long as she had. Her past failures and experience were saving her comrades from danger now.
“But there isn’t any light at the end of the tunnel…the end will still come!”
But she also understood that this was all just a vain struggle. Once she had used up all of the magic swords, the Gulliver brothers would easily go on the counterattack; Aisha and Mikoto, and Nahza, too, would all be taken down as easily as snapping a baby’s neck. She just waited for the balance to eventually break, not trying to do the impossible.
There was a bitter resignation in her eyes.
80/20.
That was the current balance of the war game.
And that was only after giving the coalition every possible benefit of the doubt.
While the deities in the city watched in silence, the residents were blanching at the never-ending carnage. The one-sidedness of it broke any urge to cheer for the coalition. Even though there were some instances of resistance that could be called putting up a good fight, most of the city’s residents started averting their eyes at the impossible difference in strength.
The adventurers actually fighting experienced a despair incomparably worse than what the viewers in the city felt, but still they fought. It was just stubbornness at this point. The enemy was just too absurd, too far out of their league. They were desperate to at least land one real punch in retaliation. Even if it was just a scratch, they wanted to annoy their enemies, to piss them off. All things considered, Freya Familia was so large that it got on their nerves, and as much as they had been scared of fighting beforehand, that stopped mattering, and even they became stout and brave warriors, einherjar in the truest sense.
More than anything, they wanted to make their horrible enemies howl a bit.
Because the coalition’s trump card wasn’t dead yet.
The wiser adventurers recognized that they were decoys. That Lilly was using them as cover to send the white rabbit right up to Freya. So as slender as the thread might be, they still had some hope of victory. They convinced themselves that there had to be some chance still.
And so the adventurers fought. And fought. And kept fighting.
Those who knew the Little Rookie crowed.
Aisha, Mikoto, Nahza, Daphne, and Cassandra were still holding out, and Haruhime ignored the massive amount of sweat on her brow as she continued singing.
They fought. And fought. And kept fighting.
And at the end of it all—
There was a thundercrack that shattered their hope.
“““ ”””
Silence reigned over the battlefield.
A rumbling destruction that gripped every heart, silenced every battle cry.
Everyone fighting on the island paused their battles. Enemies and allies both. Everyone looked in that direction.
The einherjar gulped. The adventurers grew pale. The first-tier adventurers’ expressions were unchanged, but their eyes narrowed.
It came from the northwest, where the sound of battle had been resounding, the sounds that the coalition’s forces had been pretending not to hear.
“Just stop already!”
The first to cry was Eina.
“Please…just stop…already…!”
“E-Eina…”
She leaped up, sending her chair toppling as she stood before a mirror reflecting the scene.
After her hoarse shout, droplets fell from her eyes and she covered her face, not hearing Misha’s voice.
“Ghhhh…!”
Aiz clenched her fists so hard her nails cut her skin, and blood started to flow.
Her face was plastered with despair as she cursed and berated herself for not standing on that battlefield.
The other first-tier adventurers watched in silence. Tiona grew pale, too, the only one who could understand her.
“Mr. Bell?!”
The last to shout came from Lilly.
She lost all composure, and the mask of the commander cracked as she watched the conclusion.
Her trembling hazel eyes stared into the depths of the oculus, at the massive shadow standing in the amphitheater.
The lone warrior held the boy by the head.
“……Gah…………ugh…………?!”
Barely able to make a sound, his skull was audibly creaking. His body was battered, and his armor was long ago lost or shattered. His legs hung off the ground, dangling like the hands of a broken clock. Bell Cranell had experienced complete defeat
“…”
The boaz warrior said not a word. Holding his black greatsword in his left hand and gripping the boy’s head in his right, he didn’t change his expression. His rust-colored eyes remained focused on the battered and broken boy.
“Don’t break him, Ottar.”
In the distance.
Hearing the crash from the house of the gods’s ruins, the goddess of beauty discerned the course of events. Her eyes closed, and still propping her head up, she spoke. There was no smile on her face, no joy. Just an acceptance of the natural result of things.
“Stand.”
“Ghhh?!”
Ottar lightly swung his right arm. That one simple movement sent Bell’s body flying into a pile of rubble. As testament to the furious fighting, the amphitheater had been transformed. Doused in lightning flame, hit by the aftershock of attacks, the walls and spectator seats had collapsed, the stones on the ground were carved out in multiple places. It was proof that the incomplete hero had struggled with all his might.
But standing amid all that evidence of a furious battle, Ottar was eerily unscratched. The warrior was the manifestation of despair for the boy.
“Ahgrgh…?! Guhhhhhhhhhhh…!”
Bell managed to draw a terrible groan from his lungs as he rose. As the blood dripped from his wounds and formed a pool, he wrung out every bit of his remaining strength and stood back up. His red eyes were bloodshot, growing redder, as he held his trembling right hand out in front of him.
“—Fire…bolt!!!”
Electric flames burst forth. A quick strike magic. As the crimson lightning spear approached him, Ottar didn’t evade it.
SLAP.
He didn’t even use his sword. He just swatted it with his right hand, as if batting away an insect. That was all. Just that was enough to scatter the boy’s magic.
“ ”
He leaped.
Without waiting for the bloodied boy to gasp, his giant body soared overhead. The boy kicked off the ground. He was terribly injured, but he still performed the optimal evasion that only a first-tier adventurer could pull off.
Right after the pile of rubble transformed into an empty space with the landing of Ottar’s thick, heavy kick, he reached out with one hand and caught Bell’s leg, swinging him in an arc over his head and then down into the stone pavement.
“Gaah?!”
Landing on his back, Bell’s body was transformed into a hammer that shattered the ground.
It was an outrageous blow. The pain was just a meaningless spark running up his spine. The blue sky in his eyes faded as he couldn’t even speak from the damage and pain. Just as his consciousness threatened to actually go out this time, a merciless stomp slammed into his stomach.
“ gh!”
He reawakened.
He switch on again.
Hell.
He yearned for Heith’s healing compared to Ottar’s resurrection through pain and attacks.
“Stand.”
It didn’t end.
There was nothing left for Bell except despair, but the warrior’s baptism wouldn’t end. Looking emotionlessly down at the boy’s face that was a mess of blood and tears, he spoke.
“Remember this well. This is the taste of mud.”
Not heeding the boy’s frail voice begging him to stop, he grabbed Bell’s chest with his right hand and threw him again at high speed. Crashes and destruction. The boy’s slender body and white hair bounced like a dead rabbit. Bell collapsed like a doll whose strings had been cut, sharing a kiss with the ground as a pool of blood silently formed beneath him.
Seeing that, Eina felt her legs give out, and she slumped to the ground in tears.
“…”
Hedin, who could see the scene with his sharp elf’s eyes, was emotionless.
“Bell…”
Seeing the terrible spectacle via Lilly’s oculus, Hestia froze.
“—gh!”
“…Where are you going, Asfi?”
“You should know without having to ask! I won’t let you say it’s meaningless!”
Asfi leaped to her feet, turning her back on an expressionless Hermes. She clutched a shining magic item in her hand as she rushed out.
“Bell Cranell is…”
“That brat…is Level 5 now, right?”
“Even the Record Holder can’t match up…?”
In a certain bar in the city, the wise adventurers who hadn’t joined the war were dumbfounded.
Looking up at the image in the mirror, they were all in the grips of terror as one adventurer shot back.
“Dumbasses. Who do you think he is?”
He was a veteran adventurer. A beast person who had survived the strife seven years ago. His voice was filled with awe and fear.
“He’s Ottar.”
That was the answer.
The absolute solution that required no proof.
The city’s strongest.
Level 7.
The summit.
Bell’s body spasmed silently and fell to the side as the figure of the lone warlord filled his reddening vision.
“If you are going to receive Milady’s love, then surpass me.”
Tears of blood flowing, confronted with a never-ending baptism, the boy sensed his end approaching.
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