Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Organization

“This is it.”

Guided by Spriggan, our walk through the city had ended with us in front of a building—one that was pretty conspicuous, even by the capital’s standards.

Lorraine stared at it, looking astonished. “Are you sure? Isn’t your organization a gathering of ability wielders with unique powers who take on underworld contract work? You can’t expect us to believe that this is your base of operations...”

“I understand how you feel, but think about it: who’d ever expect us to be here? People don’t often pay attention to what’s in plain sight. I’d wager it had never crossed either of your minds that a place like this was actually hiding such a shadowy secret.”

“Of course it hadn’t,” Lorraine said. “You were right about it being in plain sight. Landwise, it must be larger than the church or the royal palace.”

She was right, though the palace and the church would win out when it came to height. Still, this place definitely took up a larger square area of the city. I wondered which had cost more. Given this building’s purpose, its distance from the palace, and its location in the outskirts of the city rather than the center, it was safe to assume that the palace cost the most, followed by the church, followed by this place.

“A colosseum, huh?” I muttered. “Always wanted to visit one, but I never thought it’d happen like this...”

Yep, we were looking at one of the largest buildings in the entire capital, the Vistelya Grand Colosseum.

Several cities in the Kingdom of Yaaran had fighting arenas, but this one stood proud as the largest of them all. It was one of the main attractions of the city. Here, countless mighty warriors and mages had fought countless battles, creating a long history of exhilarating entertainment for Yaaran’s citizens.

Tickets—which were tags made of wood—were cheap enough for any common villager to afford, but that didn’t mean they were always easy to get. The once-a-year grand tournament, which saw the attendance of fearless competitors from all over Yaaran, was so hard to get tickets for that it was well-known for desperate would-be spectators to be willing to drop tremendous amounts of coin to secure themselves one. The fact that most people wouldn’t sell despite that just went to show how popular the tournament was.

Oh, me? Sure, I wanted to see it too, but more than that, I wanted to participate. If you wanted to do that, you needed the skill to cut it, obviously, but you also needed to win your way through the preliminaries held across Yaaran. Not everybody had to do that though—some competitors could get in via recommendation. It could be from the adventurer’s guild, a noble, a big-name merchant, or even a famous combatant.

It was easy to guess that I never caught the eye of anyone like that. What’s more, I hated the idea of paying to see a tournament that I wanted to join but knew I had no chance to. I’d always wanted—and I mean really wanted—my first visit to be as a competitor. That said, if this was how that first visit was actually going to happen, I should have just swallowed my pride and gone as a spectator.

Becoming a competitor was a pretty far-fetched idea for me these days anyway. Some random competitor hits me with a strange technique, and oh, look, he’s a vampire! I’d get people like Nive stalking me, and I very much did not want people like Nive stalking me. One of her was already enough, thank you very much.

“What, you’ve never signed up as a competitor?” the old man asked in a low voice. “I think you’d make it far with skills like yours...but then, you only awakened your ability recently. I suppose that explains it.”

He headed for the entrance, where two people who looked like gatekeepers were standing. At a glance, you might think they were like the guards stationed at the city gates, but their armor didn’t bear the crest of the kingdom’s knights. In fact, their armor’s design was considerably different. I’d assumed the kingdom managed the colosseum, but maybe that wasn’t the case after all. Maybe the old man’s organization ran it and loaned it out to the kingdom when needed? That would mean the organization had some serious financial pull. It would also make them pretty well integrated into the Kingdom of Yaaran itself.

Perhaps it had been a really bad idea to come here.

Well, I couldn’t do anything about it now. I’d just have to grit my teeth and go with the flow. If worse came to worst, we still had Laura. She could handle a trivial thing like the entirety of Yaaran for sure...so long as she wasn’t asleep for once.

I was kidding, of course, but the scary thing about Laura was that she made you feel like she could do something like that. I doubted she actually would though. She wouldn’t have chosen to hole up way out on the frontier otherwise. That said, chances were high that she had a deeper motive for doing that.

The old man approached the two gatekeepers. They looked at him doubtfully, but upon getting a better look at his face, they immediately stood at attention.

“O-Oh! Welcome back, sir!”

We knew from what the old man had told us that he was fairly high up in the ranks. A big part of the reason their chief had bought Goblin’s story was likely due to Spriggan’s status and reputation. In most other scenarios, this would’ve ended with their chief saying, “I don’t care. Just kill them already.” Spriggan must have taken those odds into account when he’d sent Goblin out.

Once again, the old man’s cunning impressed me. It was a good thing our interests were currently aligned; he wasn’t the kind of enemy we could afford to let our guards down around. Sure, I liked him, and he did have a certain air that made you want to depend on him, but I knew I had to be rational about these things.

“Mmm, good to be back,” the old man said. “Is the chief in? I’m here to meet him. Did you get the message?”

“Yes, sir! Vaasa instructed us to let you through down below upon your arrival!”

“Vaasa said that? Hmm. All right. Then that’s where I’ll go. Oh, these two are with me. I assume that’s fine?”

“Of course, sir! Please, head on in!”

The old man beckoned to us to follow, so we did. Surprisingly, the two guards weren’t shooting us suspicious looks. In fact, it seemed like they didn’t have much interest in us at all. I took that to mean they weren’t in the know. They didn’t seem to be people Spriggan had scouted, but from the greeting they directed at Goblin with their eyes, they were clearly members of the organization.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Hey, gramps...” Goblin sounded nervous as we walked.

The old man—Spriggan sighed. “I know. The chief won’t be below ground.”

Lorraine and I looked at him inquisitively. We’d come here to meet their chief, after all.

“The two at the entrance,” Spriggan explained. “They mentioned Vaasa.”

“That’s a member of your organization, right?” I asked. “Doesn’t that mean our message got through?”

The old man nodded. “It does. But Vaasa’s...one of the people I personally scouted, and...”

“And he’s the guy who picked a fight with me the other day,” Goblin finished for him.

Lorraine and I both instantly understood the old man and Goblin’s concern.

“So you mean to say...” Lorraine said, “he’s one of the ones who refuse to believe you lost?”

“Apparently so,” the old man said. “Which means...”

“There’s a good chance he’ll try something?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I don’t think we should be heading straight for him then...”

Lorraine was right; it was best we avoid running headfirst into traps as much as possible. Ignore the fact that this was coming from me, the guy who ran headfirst into a trap and ended up with this body to show for it.

“You’re correct,” the old man said. “But think of it like this: we don’t want him making a surprise interruption during our meeting with the chief, yes? I thought it best for our negotiations if we pacified him first. The choice is, however, yours. We are, after all, your captives.”

He shook the magical bindings that Lorraine had placed on his arms.

You might think that there wasn’t much point in keeping them on since we were already here, but it never hurt to be safe. Even if they only bought us a moment, that was a moment we could use to beat a hasty retreat.

The old man’s tone had been slightly joking, but he was right that we had to make a choice. Lorraine and I looked at each other, contemplative.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think I’ve never had anything good come of walking into dangerous places like this.”

“Your mistake was strolling into those places to begin with. Not that I get to pass judgment, considering I’m walking into one right now. Regardless, I think he’s right.”

“Spriggan?”

“Mmm. Meeting with the chief is all well and good, but no matter how smoothly things go, any kind of unfortunate interruption would bring them to a dead halt. Whereas if we deal with it beforehand, we can go in without worrying about it. That sounds preferable to me.”

“Yeah... I’m just concerned about whatever it is they’re planning to do to us. Do you think we’ll end up in a fight?”

I’d directed that last part at the old man.

“Most likely,” he said. “Vaasa refuses to believe that I lost, so he’ll be raring to pick a fight with you. That’s just who he is. On the other hand, that’s all there is to him. Trounce him, and he should come around. At least, that’s what I do whenever I need to make him listen.”

He’d been so casual about it, but that sounded like a pretty terrifying approach to education.

“I’m not like that with everybody,” the old man said. Maybe he’d seen the scared look I gave him. “I’ve never done that to Goblin or Siren.”

“Really?” I asked, looking at Goblin.

Goblin nodded. “Really. I may not seem like it, but I’m on the peaceful side when it comes to organization members. As for Siren...her skill set just isn’t the offensive type. We know we’d never stand a chance against gramps no matter what we tried, so we never pick fights with him in the first place.”

“So this Vaasa’s not peaceful, is the offensive type, thinks he does have a chance at winning, and that’s why he picks fights?” Lorraine asked half-jokingly.

I mentally rolled my eyes at her flippant summary, but that was just who she was.

The old man nodded, taking it in stride. “That’s him. Though, those traits also make him quite humbled by defeat.”

I considered our options, but this was pretty much a foregone conclusion, wasn’t it? That didn’t mean I wasn’t reluctant though. I figured I’d give myself a push.

“If we fought this ‘Vaasa,’ who do you think would win?” I asked.

“Hmm... I think you’d come out on top, Rentt,” the old man replied. “As for Lorraine, I’m not sure. He might be a bad matchup for her.”

“Really?” Lorraine asked.

“Mmm. I don’t mean to imply that you’re weak. Ranged magic is less effective on him. Even if you used the spells you used on me, he’d like as not get back up.”

What kind of monster was he?

“It’s not that he’s as durable as I am,” the old man continued. “It’s simply that magic is less effective on him. You see people like that from time to time, no? Even without a unique ability to their name. Although, I suppose you could interpret it as an ability in its own right.”

Lorraine nodded. “You do. Some people are just more resistant to magic in general. I hear that some are even completely immune, but I’ve never met anybody like that myself.”

“Yes, Vaasa’s one of those types. Not completely immune, of course, so enough spellpower will take him down, but anything like what you used on me will also damage the building, so in that sense...”

This was the kingdom’s biggest colosseum, so naturally, safety measures were installed all over the place, but it was best to not test those to begin with. That said...

“Magic resistance, huh?” I muttered. “That’d make him a mage’s natural enemy.”

“Indeed,” Lorraine replied. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have any options. Besides, resisting magic would also include healing magic. Hmm. In which case, I suppose dealing with him first is the best decision after all.”

“Why— Oh, I get it. You’re right.” It clicked pretty quickly for me what she was getting at.

“If we beat him up,” Lorraine said, “he’ll stay down.”

That certainly made perfect sense to me.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Incidentally, is ‘Vaasa’ a code name too?” Lorraine asked.

The old man shook his head. “No. It’s his real name.”

“Is it now? Then if you had to give him a code name, what would it be?”

“You don’t need to ask in such a roundabout way. It’s not as if I’ll suddenly get indignant about informing on my allies now. And besides, you knocking Vaasa around helps us too.”

“I suppose my consideration is unnecessary then. I thought if I asked like that, you could perhaps just barely deny selling your allies out if anyone accuses you afterward.”

The point Lorraine was getting at had to do with the fact that the organization’s internal code names already blatantly described their owners’ abilities. With that in mind, there was maybe a gray area where the old man could get away with saying, “No, no, I only told them his name!”

In fact, I was pretty sure the old man was very much capable of leading a conversation to make it sound like he’d given us nothing more than Vaasa’s name. And Vaasa himself sounded like a straightforward—or simple, if I was feeling uncharitable—kind of guy.

“I appreciate the consideration, but it’s fine,” the old man said. “Now, as for Vaasa’s ability...”

The old man told us all about Vaasa’s ability, including its countermeasures and weaknesses. He was so thorough that I felt as though there could be nothing left, but then again, I couldn’t just fully take him at his word. Part of it was because of who he was, but part of it was because when it came to combat, there was a lot that you couldn’t understand without doing it for yourself. If you got cocky going into a fight because you had all the information, you’d be tripped up when you least expected it.

As a matter of fact, that was exactly what had happened to the old man’s group when they’d tried to deal with us. They couldn’t have known that the Bronze-class adventurer they’d been told was the weakest link was actually an inhuman monster who could get back up after taking any kind of hit.

And while it would be terrifying if that actually happened often, there was no denying that the world was, in the end, made up of those kinds of hair-raising coincidences all stacked up on top of each other. I myself was proof of that; I’d never once imagined I would end up with a body like this. Letting your guard down was just asking for trouble.

Lorraine nodded. “Noted. Thank you for the explanation. Did you get all that, Rentt?”

I was the one who would be fighting Vaasa, so it was me who needed the information the most. Naturally, I’d been paying full attention, so I nodded back.

The old man continued. “Apart from Vaasa, other members should be somewhere in this base. I’ll tell you about their abilities, especially the one who’s likely to pick a fight with you, Lorraine. Goblin, did you tell them that Lorraine hurt me with her magic?”

“I did. I said that while I didn’t really understand it or see it, it seemed like a pretty big deal. Actually, what did you do?”

“I just cast some ancient spells I studied as a hobby,” Lorraine replied. “They came from old manuscripts I found. A lot was missing, but I managed to piece them back together. I plan to eventually collate their methods, compositions, and characteristics into a book to sell to the mage’s guild, but as of now, not many mages know about them, which is not to say none. It’s just that we tend to be rather secretive about the results of our own research.”

That was surprisingly...actually, it wasn’t surprising at all. It was entirely in character for her to go around casting ridiculous spells at the drop of a hat. I thought it was pretty bold of her, but then again, there were more spells than you could shake a stick at in this world. Plenty must have vanished after nobody had inherited them from their creators. Many mages had kept the knowledge to themselves, as Lorraine had mentioned, but sometimes these spells just hadn’t been of any use, so nobody had bothered to learn them.

If they were written down, then future generations could use that as a clue for reviving them as Lorraine had done, but I doubted that happened all too often. It seemed that, unless a spell was particularly useful, its fate was to fade away into obscurity, leaving people to wonder whether it had really existed at all.

Lorraine was kind of obsessive about that sort of thing. If she was curious, it didn’t matter to her whether it was useful or not—she was the type to begin researching it right away, aiming to use it. Maybe it was lucky that she’d been the one to find those ancient manuscripts.

“Ancient magic...” Goblin said. “Well, it’s not like nobody uses it. We’ve got someone who does too, right, gramps?”

“You mean Fuana? I suppose you’re right. But was she always the quick-to-rile-up type?”

“Not usually, but when it comes to magic... This one time, I asked her about a poison spell for a job, and she spent the entire night talking my ear off about it. Not that she was angry, per se. When I tried to tell her to drop it, she wouldn’t take no for an answer because she said that she wasn’t finished and that incomplete knowledge would only hurt me.”

Lorraine looked impressed. “Sounds like we’d get along. Although, I’m not sure I could manage an entire night. I’d prefer to establish a proper study plan to stick to, complete with periodic tests to determine whether you’d achieved the required level of understanding, and I’d only let you go if you had.”

Goblin gave Lorraine a look that was part amazement, part fear. “You know, I think she would get along with Fuana, gramps. Hopefully they don’t get into a fight; I kind of don’t want to see that happen. I mean, I know it’d make things easier for us. It’s just...no.”

“I understand what you mean, but...hmm, I wonder,” the old man said. “Fuana’s quite confident when it comes to magic. And besides...”

“Yeah, she’s pretty attached to you. I guess a fight is the way this is going to go.”

“I guess it is. Lorraine, you’d best prepare yourself. I’ll tell you about Fuana’s ability too, of course, so do your best. We’ll just...sit back and enjoy the show.”

I supposed that was easy for the old man to say, since he wouldn’t have to fight. Maybe he liked watching that kind of thing in the first place. He’d apparently gone on a rampage in a few fighting arenas in his younger days, after all.

At any rate, we weren’t left with much choice. Lorraine and I shared a look, then began ruminating over the old man’s information, working out countermeasures in our minds.

◆◇◆◇◆

We walked through the colosseum and eventually reached our destination. Given that we were underground, the view was unexpected.

“There’s an arena down here too?” I muttered.

“We often use this place for sparring,” the old man said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a secret from the outside world, however. You can rent it just as you can the one above.”

The exact rental fee for the arena depended on the amount of time you borrowed it for, but it was at the very minimum several hundred gold. I couldn’t not afford it, but it was by no means easy to put on a show capable of generating enough profit to make it back up.

Well, that was the case for me. Lorraine could manage it. If I had to guess how, I’d say that maybe she could direct a play with her extremely fine control of magic. Mages who could do that weren’t exactly rare, but I’d still bet on Lorraine being head and shoulders above any of the ones in the employ of the top theatrical troupes. There weren’t many of those in the first place, since most skilled mages preferred to make a regular living slaying monsters and delivering their materials.

Certainly, there were mages in the world capable of finer and more artistic illusions than Lorraine, but they were specialists, the elite of the elite who continuously pursued mastery. None of them would be in a rural nation like Yaaran, and if the situation called for it, Lorraine could switch professions in the blink of an eye and do just fine if she wanted. With a few years of experience and practice, she could even become world-class.

Once again, I was reminded of her ability to make a living anywhere she went. I wondered what I could do. Make shadow puppets with Division, probably. Wow, talk about basic.

“Your members train quite diligently, it seems,” Lorraine said.

The old man nodded. “Of course. In this business, losing your edge means losing your life. In a sense, that may make our occupation harsher than being an adventurer. If you fail your jobs, you can still cut and run, whereas we cannot. As our current circumstances tell you, failure or escape only leads us to wonder where the next attempt on our lives will come from.”

I could hear from his words how much he meant it too. It made me sympathize with him a bit. I’d never given much thought to the assassination business before, having never had anything to do with it, but the more I did think about it...

It seemed surprisingly not worth it. You’d always be the target of somebody’s resentment or suspicion, and you’d never find any peace of mind. The pay was no doubt high accordingly, but even so, it seemed quite a busy occupation. You wouldn’t get any time to spend your earnings, instead moving from one job to the next, day after day. If you found another job that suited you better, then of course you would want to quit.

That was exactly the case with Goblin. And from the way Spriggan talked, it sounded like he wanted to retire too, but he had a lot of subordinates to take care of. He couldn’t just up and quit. That was life for you: unless you did it perfectly right, climbing the ranks would only land you more responsibilities.

“But enough of that for now.” The old man scanned the surroundings. “This is where we were told to come. Somebody should be here...”

The underground arena we were in was level ground surrounded by a ring of spectator seats seven levels high. It was roughly a fourth or a fifth of the size of the one above ground, but because of the amount of vertical space, it didn’t really feel confining.

If the organization members sparred and trained here every day, then I could understand why their combat capabilities would be so polished. Needless to say, direct confrontations would be rare because of the nature of their work, but honing their skills was no less important for it. For those who made a living from conflict, strength was always a necessity.

Still, I doubted the old man could gigantify down here—not that he needed it, really, with how strong he was. Just using his ability on his arm or leg would give him enough offensive power to deal a fatal blow.

After we’d been looking around for a short while, a sudden, dazzling light shone into the arena. Actually, that wasn’t quite correct. Strictly speaking, it was shining on a circular patch of the third row of spectator seats directly opposite us, deeper into the arena.

Seeing as how it wasn’t flickering or swaying, the light obviously wasn’t the product of any kind of fire. Even if you used a mirror to reflect it, it would still show movement. Therefore, it had to come from a magic item. The methods to produce tools for magical illumination were well-known, and you could order the end results from pretty much anywhere, but since they were expensive, only public facilities like this one used them.

In ordinary houses, most people still used candles. They could be mass-produced from the fat of monsters or animals. Beeswax and plant wax were options too, but mostly only nobles used them because they were costly. With that in mind, it was clear the organization didn’t hurt for coin. It wasn’t free to keep magical lights on—they needed to be refilled with mana from magic crystals or a mage, with all the costs associated with that.

To use it so casually... Oh, I should mention that the light was currently shining on two people. One was a man with a large build, and the other was a pretty short...girl, I think?

“You have some nerve coming here, traitors and cowards! I am Vaasa! Strongiron Vaasa!”

“And I’m Fuana the Spellwise!”

After naming themselves, the two leaped from the stands, spun in the air, and landed on the ground. As a credit to their attention to detail, the light followed them the entire way and was even now still shining on them.

“What’s their deal?” I asked reflexively.

The old man looked astonished, but in a weary kind of way. “They’re idiots. Skilled idiots...but still idiots.”

◆◇◆◇◆

Lorraine looked like she was over it too. “You said they’re skilled, but honestly...I can’t bring myself to believe you.”

“I get it. I really do. But it’s the truth. If you underestimate them, you’ll be in for a rough time. Stay on your toes.”

I sorely wanted to point out that just watching them was rough enough, but he was probably keenly aware of that already, so I held my tongue.

The pair, who had struck funny looking poses a few steps away from us, spoke first, starting with the guy. Strongiron Vaasa, was it? Yeah, him.

“Gramps. Goblin. You have some nerve waltzing right back in here! Especially you, gramps! I’m disappointed in you. I heard from Goblin that you lost a fight. I think I speak for everybody when I say that’s a complete lie!”

I’d thought he was disappointed over the loss for a moment, but evidently not.

“With your strength, there’s no way you’d lose to a group of Silvers!” Vaasa continued. “Heck, I could eat two Silvers for breakfast! And every time we fight, I’m like a kid to you! Why are you saying you lost?!”

I was beginning to get a pretty good idea of what was going on here.

Goblin was the first to reply. “I told you, didn’t I? How many times does it take to get through to you? I was pretty far away at the time, but I could still tell that he got hit by a barrage of huge-scale magic. And he confirmed it himself. He admitted his own loss, loud and clear.”

“Lies! All lies!”

Goblin slapped himself on the forehead and turned to us. “This isn’t going to work,” he said wearily.

Yeah, this avenue of approach was definitely a dead end. The old man took that as his cue to take over the conversation.

“Why do you think I’m lying? What would I gain from doing such a thing?”

That was a straightforward question. He was right too; if he were capable of beating us, or had beaten us, we wouldn’t be in this situation. He’d have just killed us, end of story. In other words, the old man was trying to highlight that it would be pointless for him to lie about that. However, that wasn’t good enough for Vaasa.

“Don’t ask me to read your mind, gramps! You know I’m not good with the specifics like that! I’m not smart enough! But what I do know is that you’re always thinking hard about complicated stuff to do with our jobs and the other organization members—stuff that’s deeper and bigger scale than I could ever imagine! And that led you to this! So there’s gotta be a meaning to it!”

“Talk about half-baked reasoning,” Goblin mumbled in a low voice. “What do you mean ‘stuff’? What stuff? I mean, you’re not exactly off the mark, so I guess an idiot’s intuition comes in handy sometimes...”

“Hmm,” the old man said mildly. “If you’re right, then I’m working for the sake of the organization, yes? In which case, there’s no reason for you to stand in our way. Why, that’s a weight off my shoulders indeed. Now come on Vaasa, take us to the chief, won’t you? We can talk on the way there. There’s a lot we need to catch up on.”

Vaasa looked as though he was going to buy it for a moment. “Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s—” Fuana nudged him in the side. “Wait, no, this is all wrong! That’s not how this goes!”

“Tsk, thought I had you there.” The old man seemed to be replying to Vaasa, but his voice was quiet enough that he was almost talking to himself. “So, what’s wrong, exactly?”

Fuana “the Spellwise” apparently decided it was her turn to finally join the conversation. “I see that it’s as impossible as ever to let our guards down around you, gramps! But you won’t trick us! What’s this about a spell hurting you?! Has my magic ever brought you down?!”

The old man got a faraway look in his eyes for a moment as he thought back, then nodded his head after finding whatever it was he was looking for. “No. Yours lacks punch.”

“Lacks punch?! I can blow a castle wall down! Ha! Unbelievable! You’re telling me you and your monstrous toughness got done in by a single Silver’s magic?! There’s just no way!”

I was impressed at how loud she could be with that small body of hers.

Lorraine looked at Fuana with her magic eyes. Even she couldn’t perfectly tell how much mana a person had or how good a mage they were, but I supposed she wanted to get all the information she could in advance.

After a short while, Lorraine spoke. “I didn’t expect her to have so much mana. She’s got about three times as much as you do, Rentt.”

Well, that was depressing. I’d thought I’d gotten stronger, but it seemed I still had a long, long way to go.

Maybe Lorraine had sensed my mood, because she smiled wryly. “You’re a swordsman, not a mage, and you’re thrice-blessed besides. It’s not as simple as just comparing who’s better.”

“But she has three times my mana, right?”

“Well...yes. She’d make the cut as an adventurer and would probably be a first-rate mage too. No wonder we shouldn’t underestimate them.”

“You think...? I don’t see it, myself. They look kind of dumb.”

“Sure, but that’s got nothing to do with their capabilities. Think about it. Nive’s a bit like that as well, isn’t she?”

“That’s because of the intimidating aura she’s always giving off. I wouldn’t call it dumb; it’s more like you can never tell what she’s thinking. It’s like looking into a bottomless pit.”

“A bottomless pit... I suppose you’re right. Nive is like that. And I don’t get the same feeling from these two.”

“Right?”

“Mmm.”

Lorraine and I nodded gravely as we observed the dumb-looking pair.

I then brought up the actual main topic. “So, think you’ve got a shot?”

“Depends on her ability. But yes, I think I do. You?”

“Likewise. Seems like he’s the completely physical type, ability included. He probably is a good matchup for me.”

“Are you okay for weapons? Your sword took a beating in the fight the other day.”

“More or less. The shape’s still right, so it’s not like I can’t use it...but I’ll go with a reserve sword. It’s a cheap one, and I can only pass spirit through it, but that should actually work out better for this.”

“That’s likely for the best, since he can apparently shrug off long-range magic. Who knows how effective a blade charged with mana would be?”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Anyway, you’re gonna have to use more than words to convince us! Isn’t that right, Vaasa?!”

“You got that right, Fuana!”

I could hear their enthusiasm very clearly, which meant that Lorraine could too. It was abundantly evident from the shared despondent look on our faces—not that she could actually see mine—what we were thinking: we weren’t going to be able to settle this by talking.

“So what would you prefer?” the old man asked.

The two of them replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“Let us fight the ones who beat you!” Fuana demanded. “If they beat us, we’ll take you to the chief!”

“If we win, then this is as far as they go!” Vaasa declared. “That goes for you too, gramps and Goblin!”

Well then.

The old man sighed heavily. “Fine, fine. Do as you wish.” He turned to us and lowered his voice to a whisper. “There you have it. Good luck, you two.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d fully expected this to happen. He definitely had a good grasp on the kinds of people they were. That put a sudden thought into my mind.

“Is everybody you scouted such a straightforward idiot?” I asked.

If they were, then I could imagine how rough the old man had it. Goblin was the intelligent type, but Siren seemed closer to these two, albeit calmer in comparison. She’d been willing to hear what we had to say, after all.

The old man shook his head. “Goodness forbid, no. They’re just exceptions. Everybody who actually knows what they’re doing gets sent out on jobs, so they’re usually not around. These two spend most of their time here because we can only give them straightforward work.”

Wow, being kept away from jobs actually sounded kind of fitting for them.

“Which is not to say we don’t make them do anything,” the old man continued. “There’s clerical work, and the organization also has to manage the colosseum. When there’s no cloak-and-dagger business happening, we have them handle that. I imagine they have a lot of free time on their hands right now. No tournaments are happening, and nor are any other events planned. The arena has its share of off days too, so...”

“Part of why they’re doing this might just be to kill some time,” Goblin muttered.

I really didn’t want to believe that, but it was pretty obvious from their entrance that they did have time to kill. Still, even if we wanted to run from all this, that wasn’t an option.

I looked at Lorraine, and we nodded to each other.

“Fine, we’ll take you on!” I called out. “Who’s fighting who?”

Of course, it was best if I took Vaasa, and Lorraine, Fuana, but we couldn’t actually say that; given their contrarian attitudes, there was a decent chance it’d end up the other way around.

If we gave the choice over to them, Fuana, who was interested in magic, would choose Lorraine, and then Vaasa would be left with me. That was the idea, anyway.

To support the plan, the old man added a comment of his own. “Oh, right. Lorraine here was the one who brought me down with her powerful spells, yes, but she didn’t knock me out. Rentt here finished me off. With a sword, no less.”

No sooner had he finished talking than...

“Then I’ll be the one to take you on, Rentt!” Vaasa yelled.

“Hey!” Fuana shouted. “Why do you get to pick first?!”

“Does it matter? Didn’t you say you were really interested in the mage? If they’re not lying, then she can cast a bunch of spells really fast with more firepower than yours. I doubt that’s true, though.”

“Mmm... I guess you’re right!” Fuana nodded immediately. “Okay, then I’ll take you, lady! Got that?”

For somebody called “Spellwise,” she didn’t seem all that smart. Either way, it was convenient for us to play along. This was all going just as we’d planned, so neither Lorraine nor I raised any objections.

“All right,” I said. “That works for us.”

◆◇◆◇◆

We discussed what form the fights would take, and, of course, it was decided that we would be using the underground arena.

This arena—and the one above too—was equipped with devices that created shield spells capable of preventing all kinds of attacks, magic or otherwise, from reaching the spectators’ seats, so we could fight without having to worry about that.

Since anyone from the organization could operate them, Goblin had volunteered. We needed the old man to keep his eyes on the area so that if push came to shove, he could use his ability to get Vaasa and Fuana to listen to us.

They, on the other hand, knew nothing about this. Fuana was currently sitting in the spectators’ seats, looking excited to watch the upcoming match, and Vaasa was right in front of me holding a spear at the ready.

If you hadn’t guessed already, he was a spearman. I was wielding a one-handed sword as usual, albeit one that couldn’t channel any mana or divinity. However, since mana didn’t work on him anyway, it wouldn’t be a problem if I couldn’t use it. As for my divinity, I wanted to keep it under wraps for now. I couldn’t just throw out all my trump cards. I’d done so against the old man, but that was because he’d driven us into a corner.

It wasn’t that I was overconfident. Rather, it was because I wasn’t confident that I was making the effort to hide my tricks. Not that it would matter if it turned out that I’d judged wrong and lost because of it.

“A swordsman, huh?” Vaasa said. “There’s no way a needle like that could’ve knocked gramps out.”

He wasn’t wrong really; my sword was pretty much a needle compared to the old man’s giant form. Maybe I could’ve used it for some decent acupuncture, depending on where I stabbed him. Unfortunately, all I’d actually ended up doing was knocking him out.

“Even needles can hurt if they prick the right spot,” I replied. “Want to see for yourself?”

Okay, so it wasn’t the wittiest of comebacks, but, hey, this was me. That was what you got.

“Ha!” Vaasa snorted, laughing at me. I didn’t let it get to me though.

The old man stood between us in the center of the arena, acting as the adjudicator. “Very well, the match will now begin. Are both of you ready?”

When we were deciding who the adjudicator would be, the answer had been pretty obvious. Lorraine might have been able to do it, but things could get messy if they accused her after the fight of being biased toward me.

You would’ve thought the old man would fall under similar suspicion for being a traitor, but Vaasa had complete faith in him, saying that he was completely fair when it came to stuff like this.

Upon seeing both Vaasa and I nod, the old man nodded too, raised his hand, then...

“Begin!”

He swung it down, signaling that the mock fight had begun.

◆◇◆◇◆

First, I figured I had to test the waters a little. I wasn’t underestimating him—it was the opposite. The idea of throwing all caution to the wind from the get-go and banking everything on a single make-or-break exchange was just too terrible to consider. At worst, I’d rather fight an endurance match. I hadn’t decided whether that was necessary yet, but the decision would make itself clear after my sword had crossed his spear a few times.

Anyway, first swings first. A few steps remained between me and Vaasa, and he was standing with his weapon at the ready. I broke into a dash to close the distance, going as fast as the wind. Figuratively, that is. I wasn’t actually that fast. Although, I thought I was moving a little quicker than I usually did in combat, but that was because I was using almost all of my mana to strengthen myself physically.

We’d been informed that magic didn’t really work on Vaasa, but just because I couldn’t use mana to attack him didn’t mean I couldn’t use it to enhance myself. It just meant there was all the more for me. I wasn’t using every last drop, though, because I had to save some in case I needed to throw up a shield spell. While using Division made it look as if I’d taken no damage, it definitely still added up, so the fewer attacks I actually took, the better.

“Mmm?!”

Vaasa looked surprised that I’d closed the distance instantly—fine, maybe not instantly, but that had been what I was going for. He hurriedly pulled his spear into a closer guard position and readied himself to slash it at me.

His reaction speed was impressive. I’d been kind of making light of him because of the silly act he’d put on before the fight, but I internally apologized and reevaluated my opinion.

Of course, I still had the initiative. I’d launched my offensive knowing full well he could react. Vaasa made a matter-of-fact, diagonal swing down at me from my left, giving me a feel of his personality. I intentionally moved into its path, intending to twist myself out of the way at the last moment...

Suddenly, I got a bad feeling. In the corner of my vision, I caught a glimpse of Vaasa’s mouth: he was smiling. That was when I realized I could sense something coming toward my left flank.

I had to think fast. I avoided the spear, and it continued down toward my right. It didn’t look like Vaasa was doing anything else, but I had a pretty good idea of why he’d let himself get baited into this situation. It was because of his special ability. I was proven right when I spared a brief glance to my left and saw a number of glinting, daggerlike blades flying at me. They’d started moving the heartbeat after I’d dodged the spear, and they were moving fast.

If Vaasa had intentionally been aiming for this opening where I couldn’t dodge because my own inertia was pulling me along, then he wasn’t as straightforward a guy as I’d thought. No wonder the old man had called him skilled and told us not to underestimate him. With a little more common sense and discretion, Vaasa would make for a great organization agent. I thought it was a shame, and I didn’t even care about the organization.

Still, that didn’t mean I was going to take his attack. We’d only just begun. Letting him land the first strike would be ceding him the flow of the fight, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. Having said that, this wasn’t a good time to use Division.

I had to avoid the daggers no matter what. Thankfully, not being human gave me options. The joints all throughout my body had a wider range of movement than would usually be possible for a person. If I wanted to, I could spin my head around—which was terrifying, if I do say so myself.

It wasn’t just my joints either. I could bend all kinds of body parts in pretty impressive ways. For example, I could bend backward at a complete right angle. I made full use of that flexibility—er, maybe freakiness was a better term—and twisted my body out of the way of what I now counted as three daggers, which would have hit my head, chest, and stomach.

To sum it up, I contorted my body really, really hard. Enough that if a normal person tried it, their spine would snap into pieces. And my efforts paid off—the daggers continued on their straight flight past me.

For a moment, Vaasa looked flabbergasted at my inhuman movements before he found his voice again. “Wha—? The hell was that?!”

I figured that was fair enough. If I’d seen somebody move like this when I was still human, I’d have had the exact same reaction, down to the face and the words. Right now, though, I knew full well that I could do this kind of thing, so it was no big deal.

Vaasa had frozen in shock for a moment, which made him the perfect target. In my new position, the tip of my sword hovered just above the ground, and I swung it up to slash at him.

To give you a better idea of the scene, I was bent over backward, almost doing a bridge, and I’d brought the sword in my right hand into an upward swing. It was an impossible move for a regular human, but for me, it was easy. I had, after all, done extensive testing on how much of this stuff I was capable of. I’d even practiced the kind of scenario I was in now, thinking that a human opponent would have more openings from below.

The issue with it was that, since my stance wasn’t solid, I couldn’t put much force behind my sword. Nevertheless, I could make up for that by physically enhancing my arms and charging my sword with spirit. All in all, it was an attack that made ample use of my body’s unique properties and my own efforts. I doubted anyone had ever been on the receiving end of one quite like it.

“Grrraaahhh!”

At this close range, there was no way Vaasa wouldn’t notice my sword coming at him. True to my expectations, he pulled his spear in to defend himself. My sword clashed against it, causing a spray of sparks. Vaasa lost the power struggle and went flying back. That was no surprise; I’d put a lot of power into that attack, and his defense had been rushed.

I considered chasing after him...but then I dismissed the idea. The daggers that had come at me earlier were gone. Vaasa was probably waiting for me to come directly at him so he could use that as his opportunity to strike.

Besides, I could also use the brief lull to fix my stance. I straightened up from the bridge position and returned to my original posture. Vaasa landed quite a distance away and reassumed his stance. I was impressed; his fundamentals were solid. On the other hand, I could see shock in his eyes.

Wait, no, that was terror. Come on, did he really have to look at me like that?

◆◇◆◇◆

“What kind of ability does he have...? Those...wormlike movements. How...?”

Seated next to Lorraine in the spectator stands of the underground arena, Spriggan had a look of blank amazement on his face. It wasn’t hard to guess that Rentt’s inhuman movements had been the cause.

Be that as it may, Lorraine was finding it difficult to respond. She knew the answer, of course. It was quite simple: Rentt Faina wasn’t human. Therefore, he was capable of inhuman movements. Equation over, proof shown.

Part of her wanted to say it and be done with it, but she knew she couldn’t. The old man was being relatively cooperative because he’d mistaken Rentt for an ability wielder. More importantly, the fewer people who knew the truth that Rentt was a monster, the better. A decent amount of people already knew, to be fair, but none of them were the type to let that kind of secret out. The old man seemed similarly trustworthy in that regard, but he also belonged to an enemy organization, so she couldn’t tell him.

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” she said. “I’ve looked into it in various ways, but it doesn’t seem like something that can be summed up with a few words.”

In a sense, that was actually the truth. What kind of monster was Rentt? She still wasn’t sure. She knew he was some kind of vampire or vampire relation, yes, but that was all. There wasn’t enough information to identify him. It wasn’t unheard of for, say, a rabbitlike creature to be discovered in the wild and labeled a species of rabbit, wild rabbit, or rabbit relation, but then it actually turned out to be a type of dog.

She truly didn’t know what Rentt was. It was almost enough to make her want to get him identified by the God of Appraisal on the spot, but she had too many matters to take care of first. So many, in fact, that she wasn’t sure when they’d be done with them all. There was no need to rush, though. Until the answer was clear, she could have plenty of fun studying him in all kinds of ways. She knew it was only a matter of time before they found something, so she didn’t feel a sense of urgency.

“Mmm...” the old man muttered. “Fair enough. Simple-to-understand abilities like mine are surprisingly uncommon.”

Evidently, he’d found his own rationalization for Rentt’s circumstances.

“Is Vaasa’s one of those too?” Lorraine asked.

“Hmm. You know how he calls himself ‘Strongiron’? It’s because he thinks that what he can do is create metal out of nothing.”

Did that mean the other members of the organization didn’t recognize Vaasa’s self-appellation? She found it somewhat difficult to care whether they did or not, considering their code names were more or less a game to them, but it was true that there was no point in having a name if nobody called you by it. Now that she thought about it, the old man and the guards at the entrance had both used “Vaasa.”

“Is that not the case?” she asked.

“I’m not completely sure. You see, when he was a child, he could create lumps of salt. He doesn’t remember it, but I do. When I had him try it again, he couldn’t.”

“He lost his ability?”

“The standing theory with ability wielders is that we can’t lose them after they’ve manifested.”

“Yet Vaasa...”

“Lost his, yes. Personally, I think it’s a conceptual issue. His ability isn’t gone; he just unconsciously believes that attacking with metal weapons is the strongest option, so he’s found himself unable to do anything else. It’s similar to how if a person is convinced deep down that they can’t climb up to a high place, they become truly unable to.”

“So you’re saying that a person’s own perception has a strong effect on their ability?”

“I believe so. In Rentt’s case... Well, I wonder. When he fought me, his body lost its form entirely. Perhaps he can manipulate its structure entirely at will? Hmm. Maybe I’m onto something with that.”

That was actually quite close to the mark. Rentt’s Division did exactly that. Lorraine pondered her response. She could refute the old man, but that could instigate a troubling line of questioning. Before she could say anything, though, a shout came up from down in the arena.

Vaasa had come to a stop after being blown back by Rentt and had resumed his stance.

◆◇◆◇◆

“H-Hey! What was that?! What kind of body do you have?!”

Vaasa was looking at me as if I were some kind of creature he’d never seen before. It was a far cry from his high-spirited mood earlier, and though I’d only met him today, it felt as though he wasn’t acting like himself.

“What kind?” I replied. “This kind.”

I spun a number of various joints around to show him, including my neck, which I turned so my head was facing backward. Hmm. It was strange seeing things from this point of view, if I did say so myself, but this didn’t mean I was letting my guard down; I still had my senses focused behind me.

With a series of cracking noises, I returned my head to its original position and saw that Vaasa looked even more terrified than before. Seriously? After all the trouble I went to, giving him a detailed demonstration... Just kidding. Of course he’d react that way.

“What are you? A monster?!”

“That’s a bit much, coming from somebody who’s colleagues with that old giant. I’d say he ranks way above me when it comes to monster impressions.”

“I mean, yeah, but you’re pretty up there yourself.”

Oh, he agreed with me. I didn’t think he’d treat his coworker as a monster like that. However, that didn’t mean I could agree with him. I was human. Well, that was actually a work in progress, but still.

“No, I’m totally normal,” I said. “Anyway, you’re not one to be pointing fingers. What was with those daggers earlier? They appeared out of thin air and disappeared just as fast.”

I knew why they had, but it was worth asking all the same. I didn’t think the old man had lied to me—it was just that Vaasa might let some new information slip. Who better to ask than the person himself?

“My ability is pretty normal,” Vaasa said. “I call it ‘Strongiron.’ I can create and vanish metal in any shape, whenever and wherever I want.”

“So you could create gold and sell it?”

Now that was an exciting prospect. Given Vaasa’s reaction, though, he might have thought that I was making fun of him.

“As if! Uh... Well, that’s not actually impossible for me, but I can’t make that much gold anyway. Besides, whenever I release my ability, the metal I create disappears.”

In which case, he probably had limits on the amount of other kinds of metal he could create too. Maybe that was why he’d only created three daggers earlier? His own concentration could be a factor too. But just as I thought, his ability wasn’t limitless.

The old man had possessed an unlimited well of endurance and stamina, but that could have all come from training. Plus, Goblin had mentioned that constant usage of his ability had gradually let him control more goblins at once. It seemed that no matter what form your power took, you had to train if you wanted to become strong.

◆◇◆◇◆

Now then, I had a pretty good grasp on Vaasa’s ability. Like me, he could still have tricks up his sleeve, but if I let that stop me from going on the offensive, this fight would never go anywhere. Combat always came with risks. Victory went to those who went in knowing that. Or so my theory went.

“All right, let’s pick this back up,” I said. “Here I come.”

I hadn’t needed to say that, but Vaasa was giving off the impression that he was kind of out of it after the shocks he’d received. While I could have kept that advantage and attacked him, I didn’t want him crying foul because of it after the fight. I would win this fight fair and square. That is, if you could call having a body that could take fatal injuries and recover to be as good as new “fair.”

Vaasa grunted. “Bring it on!”

My words had shaken him out of his half-daze, and he schooled his expression back into seriousness as he gripped his spear. His stance was tight; I couldn’t see any openings. I couldn’t tell exactly how much he’d recovered, but it was clear that he wasn’t letting my potential monstrousness get to him anymore.

Once I confirmed that, I charged him once more. This time, I made use of proper swordsmanship to slash at him. Catching a human enemy off guard with inhuman movements was all well and good, but from a power perspective, forced, unnatural movements could only be about seventy percent as effective as the real deal. The only reason I could even use them was because I used spirit and mana to brute force the issue. In a proper fight, the swordsmanship that I’d been refining since the start of my adventuring career was far more comfortable to use.

Perhaps it had been too easy to read, however, because Vaasa deflected my sword with his spear. He then continued the movement, bringing his spear down and aiming a thrust at my chest, which was completely undefended. That didn’t matter, though, because I bent over backward and dodged his strike.

“Again?!” Vaasa cried.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, but I didn’t blame him for not adapting. Who’d ever expect their opponent to do that in a fight?

Vaasa hesitated for a moment, perhaps because he didn’t know what to do with his spear next. I followed through with my movement and placed my hands on the ground behind me, using the momentum to do a handstand and kick his motionless spear as hard as I could just below the tip on my way up. I didn’t stop there though; I sprung off my hands into a backflip and my feet landed back on the ground, which I kicked off of as I went for Vaasa.

This had all happened in a single moment, so he hadn’t brought his spear back down into a neutral stance yet. Right now, he could see me and read my next move, but he had no way of stopping me. I stepped in close to him and brought the sword I’d been holding behind me around in a horizontal slash at his chest.

All it resulted in was a loud, high-pitched clang. I looked closer and saw something that looked like a sheet of metal covering Vaasa’s chest. It was obvious that it hadn’t been there earlier, because he was wearing light leather armor.

That meant it had to have been created by his ability. As if to prove that, the very next moment, it shifted shape into a number of arrow-like projectiles which shot straight at me. They were a lot smaller than the daggers from earlier, but because of the sheer amount of them, they would be hard to avoid.

I couldn’t dodge straight back because I was so close, so I zigzagged as I retreated instead. Nonetheless, I couldn’t manage to avoid them completely, and one grazed my shoulder. My robe was in the way though, and its ever-reliable defensive capabilities rarely let anything through. The tiny arrow deflected off of it.

Vaasa, perhaps motivated by seeing my retreat, came for me. His spear offensive was fierce. It began with a vertical slash, which immediately turned into a sweeping, horizontal cut after I dodged it, which then turned into a thrust after I jumped back.

My sword was lowered, and I wouldn’t be able to bring it up in time to block. He’d put a spin on his spear thrust, so if it hit me, it would pierce deep. I definitely didn’t want that to happen, but when I made to dodge, more metal arrows appeared in my way and shot toward me.

Vaasa’s ability was a huge pain to deal with. I was forced to admit that in circumstances like these, it was worth its weight in gold.

Arrows, or spear? Either way, I’d get stabbed, damn it. Still, the arrows were the obvious choice—they had less power behind them. Left with no other alternatives, I headed straight toward them. It was the only way I could get away from his spear.

“Hmm?!”

Getting pierced by a few arrows wasn’t a huge deal to me because of my body, but apparently Vaasa hadn’t been expecting my movement. He looked surprised, but not as much as last time—his spear didn’t stop.

That was a shame, actually, since it might have given me an opening to get clear. Anyhow, just as I’d expected, I plunged into the spray of metal arrows created by Vaasa’s ability, and they pierced the left side of my body. However, because they’d just manifested, there hadn’t been as much force behind them as I’d thought, so I got away with only shallow wounds.

I thanked my good fortune, and with the brief respite I’d created for myself, I brought my sword back up, charged it with spirit, and swung it at the head of Vaasa’s spear.

He’d gotten in close and cornered me with his offensive, but this was also my biggest opportunity. What’s more, since his arrows were still stuck inside me, it was hard to imagine that he could use his ability for defense. My read on him so far told me that he couldn’t create more metal until he’d retrieved what he’d already made. There was a chance he was only pretending, but right now, that was easily a bet I was willing to take.

And it paid off. My spirit-charged sword connected just below the tip of his spear and cut through, sending it flying away.

“Aw, crap!” Vaasa yelled.

He interrupted his offensive and fell back, probably because he’d judged that continuing with a close-range fight wouldn’t be wise.

Payback successful. I looked over at Vaasa, a small part of me hoping that breaking his weapon meant that I’d won, but he still looked raring to go. The fight was still on...

◆◇◆◇◆

I wondered how Vaasa was planning to fight me now. As I watched him, I saw him visibly begin to concentrate on something. Then metal started forming at the tip of his broken spear, creating a new spearhead.

Ah. Maybe I should have expected that, given his ability. Even so, how durable and strong would it be? It seemed kind of like a rushed patch job. Then again, there was only one way to find out. Before Vaasa could completely finish his preparations, I dashed straight for him.

“Hmph!” Vaasa didn’t look like he’d expected me to wait; he reacted right away. He blocked my downward cut with the shaft of his spear, between where he was gripping it. Up close, I saw that the grip had a thin metal coating—one that felt strongly reinforced.

His ability truly was extremely versatile. If he put more thought into it and polished it, he could become pretty fearsome, but as it was, it looked like I was still more than a match for him.

Maybe the old man had high expectations for Vaasa too. If he made him fight a myriad of enemies for more experience, then— Hey, wait. Was I one of those enemies? I wouldn’t put it past the old man to have set things up so his side could benefit a little too.

Vaasa’s movements were a little different now. It wasn’t that they had dulled; they had just changed. Before, he’d thrust and struck at me like any other spearman would have, but now he was moving more like a staff wielder. He’d probably trained as both so that he could keep fighting even if his speartip broke. It made perfect sense, considering that he could reform his speartip with his ability during a fight and shift back into being a spearman.

Given his occupation, I figured that he didn’t always need to kill his targets. Sometimes, he needed to bring them in alive. It sounded entirely plausible for the organization to commit kidnapping and extortion. In such cases, stabbing a hole in the victim and killing them would be problematic. A staff gave him the benefit of restraint, and he could use it to beat them up, knock them out, that kind of thing.

Vaasa’s staff moved like it was dancing as he parried my attacks, while my sword stabbed and slashed at him at inhuman angles and timings that prevented him from stringing together a moment of focus. It seemed he had gotten used to the freakiness and unpredictability of my body, but adjusting long-established, ingrained habits in one’s movements wasn’t something that you could do on the fly. Spearmanship established under the premise that your opponent had the range of motion of a normal human wouldn’t deal with my movements well.

When it came to the first-rate masters, my trickiness obviously wouldn’t pose much of a problem. There were people out there like Nive, who moved so smoothly that she could deal with Division-using vampires.

It was a different world, up at her level, but Vaasa wasn’t there. Gradually, my attacks started connecting. His stamina was running out. Continuously dealing with unusual movements and thrusts from unexpected directions wasn’t just a drain on your physical endurance; it was a drain on your mental endurance too.

In contrast, the concept of stamina barely existed for me in the first place, and my mental fortitude was a lot more steadfast compared to back when I’d been human. If I felt like it, I could fight for three or four days straight. Winning a contest of endurance against an undead opponent was an uphill battle. And that wasn’t even the full extent; I could shrug off dozens of fatal wounds as if they were nothing. I understood why undead had been so feared back in ancient times.

“Damn it!” Vaasa muttered, glaring at me. He probably understood that his situation was only getting worse. He gripped his spear tight. Its tip had already finished reforming, and he was moving like a spearman again.

“It’s time I finished this,” I said.

“Not if I can help it!” He readied his spear and thrust it at me.

Compared to him, who was covered in wounds, I was basically unharmed. Strictly speaking, we’d injured each other a roughly equal amount; I’d just taken blows instead of cuts. However, my undead body had been quick to mend them each time, so outwardly, I was completely unscathed. Sure, there was a limit on the amount of life force I could draw from, but the fact that my body would be in perfect condition until that ran out was pretty unfair.

It wasn’t my fault that it worked that way, so cut me some slack. Still, I did feel a little bad that none of this felt “fair and square.”

Vaasa’s thrust came straight at me, but it was weak. I figured it would be easy to dodge, but the moment I thought that...

“Take this!” Vaasa shouted, and his speartip flew at me like an arrow.

Ah. He could do that because he’d created the tip with his ability. While he hadn’t caught me off guard, the projectile was flying a little harder and faster than I’d expected. Maybe being driven into a corner had given him a burst of strength, or maybe he’d set things up so that he could bet everything on this moment. I didn’t know. But his speartip flew straight and, before I could get out of the way, stabbed into my stomach.

“Yes!” With newfound momentum, Vaasa stepped in to follow up on his attack. That was natural; usually, it would be the kind of wound that dulled a person’s reactions no matter how hard they tried to fight on. However...

“That kind of stings.” With the speartip still in my stomach, I ignored it as I moved in toward Vaasa, my movements no different to how they’d been earlier.

“Wh-What?!”

Naturally, my lack of reaction flustered him, which only made sense. No human could take an arrow to the stomach and maintain the exact same look on their face, much less move about unimpeded, but I wasn’t human, and that was that. If I had been human, I probably wouldn’t have won, for starters.

As I pondered that, I brought my sword down on his head. I wasn’t going to kill him, of course, so I used the flat of the blade. My aim was true, and I scored a direct hit.

“Ack!”

Vaasa immediately collapsed. His eyes rolled back up into his head, and he lay there unmoving.

“Hey, you’re alive...right?” A little worried that I’d put too much into my swing, I approached and checked on him.

After I confirmed that he was indeed alive, I looked at the old man.

“He’s completely knocked out. It’s your win, Rentt.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Wh-What was that?!” yelled a voice to Lorraine’s side, from the spectators’ stands. The old man had already descended to check if Vaasa was out cold.

Though he’d been the adjudicator for the fight, announcing the start and preventing outside interference was all that had been necessary of him, so there had been no issue with him sitting in the stands. He’d had to get up close to check if Vaasa was still alive or just unconscious, but that was a given.

Lorraine looked toward where the yell had come from and saw Fuana the Spellwise. She was finding it hard to believe the fight she’d just watched. Her disbelief likely didn’t stem from Vaasa’s defeat and her sense of camaraderie and faith in him, but simply from Rentt’s movements.

Lorraine had been with Rentt the longest, ever since he’d obtained his undead body, and even she still found it difficult to believe on occasion. It was easy to imagine how much of a shock it would be to someone seeing it for the first time.

Sensing a chance to have some fun, Lorraine called out to Fuana. “Is something wrong?”

“‘Is something wrong?’ Of course there is! Didn’t you see that?!”

“See what?”

“He moved like he doesn’t have a spine! Vaasa landed a decent amount of hits, but he didn’t react at all! Not even at the end when that speartip stabbed into his stomach!”

Undead did, in fact, have spines, but their bodies were as pliable as mollusks. It was a unique characteristic of theirs that almost any kind of damage done to them was meaningless up until the point their existence could no longer hold itself together and snuffed out. That was why Rentt hadn’t reacted to Vaasa’s hits, or even the speartip. However, she couldn’t explain that, and even if she could, there was no guarantee Fuana would buy any of it. Left with no alternative, Lorraine chose to give what could perhaps be considered a slightly inaccurate excuse.

“That’s just his ability, no? When I saw Vaasa use his—it’s called Strongiron, right?—I felt the same way. An ability that creates weapons out of thin air? I wanted to yell at him to be more considerate of the laws of physics.”

Truth be told, she was wondering how Vaasa did it. She could understand magic and spirit techniques, because they were phenomena that manifested using the energies of mana and spirit respectively. All the same, she had the impression that unique abilities were derived from something else. They didn’t appear to use any kind of energy. Perhaps, like with mana, only those who possessed it could feel it, but...

In that sense, both Rentt and Vaasa seemed equally unusual to a “normal” human like her.

Despite being an ability wielder herself, Fuana clearly still found Rentt strange. “Even gramps would show some kind of reaction after taking that many hits! That ability is just...it’s just weird!”

“You think?” Lorraine said. “I wonder if there’s a limit on the range of possible abilities. I don’t really have a sense for that myself though...”

Before their oddly mismatched conversation could continue...

“Whew, managed to get the win.”

Rentt approached the spectator stands. Beside him was the old man, who was carrying Vaasa over his shoulder—very easily too, which almost felt odd given the unconscious man’s large frame, but given the old man’s true nature, it made complete sense. If he wanted to, he could grow to become several times larger than Vaasa.

The old man reached the stands and casually tossed Vaasa into them.

“Whoa, hey,” Rentt said worriedly. “Will he be okay? I just knocked him out. Shouldn’t you be a little more careful with him...?”

The old man snorted. “He doesn’t train the way he does so that something like that would be enough to harm him. Besides, he let his guard down far too much. A little rough treatment won’t hurt him.”

“I thought he put up a good fight, personally. Especially considering I was his opponent.”

“Hmm? Is that dissatisfaction I spy on your face?”

“No, it’s not like that... I just figured I was a little unfair.”

Rentt was probably talking about how he’d essentially brute-forced the win by virtue of being undead. Even if his level of ability was equal, or even a rung lower, inexhaustible stamina and endurance could give him the win eventually anyway. In essence, perhaps he felt that he hadn’t won on his own merit.

However, the old man replied, “Even if you forced the win with your ability, that still counts as your own skill. In the first place, consider this: we’re an underworld organization that tried to assassinate you. He challenged you to a direct fight without doing any research beforehand and lost. It’s obvious which of you is the fool.”

The old man’s tone sounded derisive of himself, likely because he’d made the same mistake just a few days ago. Still, even then, he, Goblin, and Siren had received information from the organization, done their best to avoid notice, and only resorted to the brute force approach after everything else had failed. By comparison, Vaasa had chosen to charge in headfirst, which only further supported the old man’s reasoning.

“You think?” Rentt asked.

“Yes. In that sense, this was his complete defeat. You diligently acquired information on him from me and challenged him after planning reasonable countermeasures. Hopefully, he comes away from this having learned his lesson in that regard...”

“I knew it. You were using me to teach him.”

“Ho? So you noticed? It’s fine, no? This way, nobody loses out.”

“That’s only assuming your organization doesn’t put a target on our backs again...”

They’d come here to prevent that, but there was no telling what would happen.

“I certainly hope not,” the old man said. “I’ve had enough of you lot already. Don’t worry. I’d refuse the order if it was given.”

“Mmm, well...let’s leave it at that for now, I guess.” Rentt turned to Lorraine and Fuana. “So, you two are up next, right? Are you ready?”

“Yes, I can start whenever,” Lorraine replied.

“Huh?!” Fuana exclaimed. “Uh, I-I, um, yeah, I’m always ready!”

Her voice sounded oddly shaky. Evidently, Rentt’s match had been quite a shock to her.

◆◇◆◇◆

In the underground arena, two women stood facing each other. One was an adult who exuded the aura of a profoundly wise mage, while the other had the appearance and height of a young girl and was clad in robes that looked a little too big for her body.

The adult was Lorraine, the girl was Fuana the Spellwise, and their fight was about to begin. Like my fight with Vaasa, the adjudicator was the old man—Spriggan.

Like earlier, he wouldn’t enter the arena during the fight. He would be carrying out his role from the spectators’ stands, just before the mana barrier. You might think he should watch from closer up, but given the scale of our fights and the ranges of our attacks, he had to be where he was.

A fight like mine and Vaasa’s, where we mainly used a sword and spear, was one thing, but area attacks were the bread and butter of a fight between mages. If he was in the arena, it wouldn’t matter how careful he was—there was always a chance he’d get hit by stray projectiles from bombardment spells. Therefore, he had to adjudicate from outside. He was skilled and tough enough to endure being inside, but it was silly to expect him to carry out his role while being bruised and battered.

As such, this was the most logical option; not only for fights between mages, but for fights between ability wielders too, because they often played out similarly. If two people with an ability like the old man’s clashed, the resulting small arena would leave nowhere to run. What a terrifying thought.

“Very well, the match will now begin. Are both of you ready?”

In a voice that didn’t match his small frame, the old man’s question boomed throughout the entire arena. The two fighters nodded.

“Then...begin!”

◆◇◆◇◆

Fuana was the first to make a move. At the old man’s signal, she focused her mana, then fired an unchanted Fotiá Volídas, a fireball. The fact that it was several times the size of a regular mage’s, coupled with how fast she’d manifested it, made it clear that she was skilled.

Fotiá Volídas wasn’t a particularly advanced spell, so being able to use it wasn’t anything to brag about, but neither was it anything to make light of. It maybe wouldn’t hurt a tough monster, but a direct hit would definitely ruin a regular human opponent’s day. It was quick to manifest and didn’t consume much mana. Plus, like with the one Fuana had just fired, you could adjust its strength and size. That wasn’t all though.

Once Lorraine saw that Fuana had fired a Fotiá Volídas, she began moving to the right to get out of its way. Naturally, she’d enhanced her physical abilities with mana, so she could move far faster than your average person. In addition, although she was a mage, she knew her way around non-magical combat too, so her movements were practiced and smooth.

Back when she’d first arrived at Maalt, all she’d had was her skill as a mage. She hadn’t been able to handle trips into the forest or fights with monsters at all, but she’d spent the last ten years diligently training and learning. She was lightning quick on the uptake at pretty much any subject to begin with, and a hard worker on top, as well as extremely intelligent—way more than a guy like me. Before I knew it, she’d learned how to move quite smoothly, with an agility you wouldn’t expect from a mage.

I was happy to see her growth, because I’d been watching her since way back. That said, at the end of the day, she was a mage, so it was rare for her to go into a fight with a sword in her hand.

For this fight, all she was holding was a single, small wand. She could cast magic just fine without it, but when it came to mana expenditure, firing speed, and the like, it made a difference. Not only that, but she’d also told me that she could use it to feint attacks against her opponent. After all, since most mages fired spells from the tips of their wands, her opponent would unconsciously focus on it, despite the fact that Lorraine could fire a spell from anywhere she wished. If the tip of her wand was all they were thinking about and her spell suddenly came from directly below, they’d be in for a shock.

I was getting off topic, wasn’t I?

Lorraine dodged Fuana’s Fotiá Volídas, but the fireball suddenly veered off from its direct course at a right angle and began pursuing her.

This was the strength of the relatively simple-to-cast Fotiá Volídas. After you fired it, you could easily manipulate its flight path. You could do this with other spells too, but the more advanced you got, the harder it was to do.

In that sense, Fotiá Volídas was easy to handle. Needless to say, Lorraine would be prepared for that. She smiled at the pursuing fireball, then ran directly toward Fuana. Right before she reached her, she pulled a dagger from her waist and aimed it at Fuana’s neck. You didn’t see her doing it often, but this was in Lorraine’s repertoire too. Then, the barest moment before the fireball hit her back, she dodged to the left.

The fireball, unable to pursue her, continued straight toward Fuana. Lorraine had been too fast—even more so than earlier. She must have increased the amount of mana she was using to physically enhance herself at that moment.

Just when I thought the fireball would hit Fuana head-on, she stretched her hand out toward it and let out a shout.

“Haah!”

It was suicidal. It went without saying, but magic wasn’t so convenient that your own spells wouldn’t harm you. What should have happened was Fuana’s arm exploding into flames, but instead, the fireball suddenly vanished, leaving only an unharmed Fuana standing there. While that had been going on, Lorraine had backed off, and the two were now facing each other at a distance similar to the start of the fight.

“Is that her ‘Spellwise’ ability?” I asked the old man, who was nearby.

He nodded. “‘Spellwise’ is just what she calls herself, but yes. Like I told you earlier, it lets her see the weakest part in the structure of a completed spell. You might be tempted to think of it similarly to magic eyes, but while those allow a person to perceive things such as the flow or amount of mana, Fuana’s ability is fundamentally different. Hmm, how should I explain this? To use the body as an example, if a person’s magic eyes can see the places where blood gathers and allows them to estimate where the heart and brain are, then Fuana just knows where the heart and brain are at a glance.”

“I’m not sure I get it. The person with magic eyes would know where the heart and brain are too, right? Based on the locations where blood gathers.”

“Yes, but they would have to go through the process of reasoning to realize that. Fuana knows it intuitively, in an instant. She doesn’t have to think; that’s just how it is for her. Keep watching, and you’ll see what I mean.”

◆◇◆◇◆

So she could see the weakest point in a spell at a glance. That seemed like a strong ability—enough to make her a natural enemy of any mage. It was equal to Vaasa’s resistance to magic.

“Fuana must be a bad matchup for Lorraine then too, huh?” I said.

The old man tilted his head slightly. “Not necessarily. Vaasa nullifies magic without doing anything, but that isn’t the case for Fuana. Look.”

I did as he said and saw that Lorraine was circling Fuana at a run, looking amused and firing spells at regular intervals. Vráchos Volídas, Hydor Volídas, Anemos Volídas—using the most fundamental of spells of each element, Lorraine cast projectiles of earth, water, and wind one after another.

Nonetheless, Fuana brought her hand up and, with a burst of mana, erased every single one before they touched her. When she’d done that to the Fotiá Volídas earlier, it had looked like she’d touched the fireball, but strictly speaking, she’d just unleashed mana from her palm to disrupt the structure of the spell before it hit her.

Now that was useful. But while I’d have loved to learn that trick for myself, I wasn’t capable of determining a spell’s weak point at a glance. Spell structures weren’t fixed, so their weak points were always moving. I could see that even when the spells coming at her were the same ones, Fuana would reach her palm out to slightly different spots each time. In short, it was a feat that you could only pull off if you had her unique ability.

I figured even Lorraine would have trouble dealing with it, but when I looked over at her expression, it was still perfectly at ease. In fact, she looked like she was having fun. It wasn’t the face she made when she’d landed in a sticky situation, but the one she made when she’d found something that caught her interest. Whether it was with her experiments or whatever else, I knew the look she made when things weren’t going well, and right now, she wasn’t wearing it. In other words, she was convinced she still had this in the bag.

Next, perhaps because she’d cycled through the elements enough times to satisfy her, Lorraine cast a different spell. At first, I thought it was a Fotiá Volídas, but upon closer inspection, there was a chunk of rock in the center of it.

There were spells that launched flaming boulders, but it didn’t seem like this was one of them. The reason was because the boulders in those spells would be red-hot by the fire that enveloped them, but the rock in whatever Lorraine had cast was still earthy in color.

Lorraine was more than capable of making that kind of spell adjustment if she wanted to, but I didn’t think that had been the case here. As for why, it was because Fuana, the target of the spell, dodged it instead of erasing it like she’d done with all the others. If that had been a regular flaming boulder spell, I doubted she would’ve had to do that.

As I was pondering that, I looked at the old man.

He nodded. “That was clever.”

He must have seen my quizzical look, because he elaborated.

“That can’t have been a flaming boulder spell. I dare say it was a Fotiá Volídas layered over a Vráchos Volídas.”

I nodded to myself. That was one of the explanations I’d been considering too, but I still wasn’t exactly sure what the point of it was.

The old man continued. “In short, it was a two-spell combination. If Fuana wanted to erase it...”

That was enough for me to connect the rest of the dots myself. “Oh, I get it. Since it’s two spells, it’d take her extra time.”

“Correct. What’s more... Well, this is just a guess, but from the way Fuana was discharging her mana earlier, I think the weak points in Fotiá Volídas and Vráchos Volídas are considerably far apart. When combined together, aiming for both in a single moment must be quite difficult.”

So basically, it was like trying to pierce the hearts of two animals with a single arrow while hunting. Not even a master at their craft would be able to do that. No wonder Fuana was forced to dodge out of the way. That was a surprisingly simple-to-exploit loophole in her ability. She could still get a lot done before her opponent discovered that, of course, but maybe all the ability amounted to in the end was being a first-encounter killer.

As I was thinking it over, the old man added, “Still, there aren’t many folk out there who can do that. Even if you only use simple spells, layered magic is an advanced technique that consumes a taxing amount of mana. It’s a double-edged sword that can harm the caster if they let their control over it slip. You’d have to be awfully confident in your spell control to use it in a real fight.”

Wearing a lot of mana-amplifying objects at once was supposed to cause them to interfere with each other and explode, but Lorraine was the kind of woman who wore them anyway, so...

Despite how she appeared, I thought that maybe “reckless” was a better word for her than “confident,” but for the sake of Lorraine’s dignity, I figured I’d keep quiet. Because while she definitely had the control, it was also true that sometimes her mad schemes made me want to ask her if she was all right in the head.

That said, regarding this current fight against Fuana, I thought Lorraine had made the correct choice. A combination of two or more spells would protect their individual weak points, so Fuana wouldn’t be able to make full use of her ability. Running would be her only option.

The fight continued like that for a while, and I began to think this would be an overwhelming victory for Lorraine. But then she cast another Fotiá Volídas and Vráchos Volídas combination, and Fuana stood her ground and faced it.

Was she going to try and erase it? I’d thought that was impossible. However, what Fuana did was something new. This time, she kept her hand closed, formed a fist, and aimed it straight at the incoming spell. She then punched straight forward, and with a loud bang, struck the flame-encased chunk of rock dead-on. Her fist caved all the way into the rock...and then the spell vanished.

It was abundantly clear that Fuana had just erased it. The way she’d done it was pretty much entirely by brute force, and I wasn’t sure it was sustainable, but the old man looked as though he’d expected this to happen. He’d explained to us earlier that something similar to this might happen, so I doubted Lorraine had been caught off guard. As for what “this” meant...

“Fuana’s a mage, but she’s also a magic brawler,” the old man said. “As you just saw, her weapons are her fists.”

◆◇◆◇◆

From that point on, Fuana’s movements changed. Her reactions hadn’t been slow when Lorraine had been firing spells at her earlier, but neither had they been especially fast. Now, however...

Fuana kicked off the ground and closed the distance with Lorraine. It was like the final pounce of a carnivorous predator chasing its prey: powerful and intense.

If Lorraine had been a herbivore, you could imagine that she would have panicked, run, and ended up pinned to the ground in what would have been her final moments. She wasn’t prey though. She was a hunter that used her intellect and exceptionally quick wits to herd predators into traps.

As Fuana closed in on her, Lorraine calmly watched as though merely obeying her natural instincts. Then, just before her opponent’s fist reached her, she threw up a shield spell to protect herself.

Of course, Fuana still had her ability. Even though a shield spell was intrinsically uniform in strength, there would still be minor mana deviations within it. Evidently, she could see the weak point created by those distortions too.

With a crack, Lorraine’s shield shattered before Fuana’s fist touched it, but it took more than that to get the better of a woman like Lorraine.

Fuana immediately went to pull her fist back, but she couldn’t. No matter how hard she pulled, it wouldn’t move, and her eyes widened in surprise. I looked closer, and saw that the shield spell had surrounded her arm like shackles, restraining it in midair.

The shield Lorraine had cast earlier must have been double-layered. A fragile, obvious-to-see one to bait Fuana into lowering her guard, and a second one to open up and clamp back down on where she punched through the first, to restrain her movements.

That had been Lorraine’s plan for her spells, and it had worked. Fuana was locked in place. That wasn’t to say Fuana couldn’t attack with the rest of her body, since only her hand was trapped, but it wasn’t Lorraine’s fighting style to get in close anyway.

Lorraine, seeing that Fuana couldn’t move, smiled and began concentrating her mana. She then aimed at Fuana’s arm and fired a thick bolt of lightning. It gave off a loud crackling sound, and Fuana spasmed violently before beginning to fall toward the ground. For a moment, I thought that Lorraine had won, but then I reconsidered. I wasn’t sure that would be enough to take Fuana down.

Fuana, who was falling backward, did a quick flip, landed on her feet, and jumped back to create distance from Lorraine. Smoke rose from her smoldering body, and you couldn’t call her completely unharmed, but she hadn’t lost her fighting spirit. Her eyes still blazed with fiery light like those of a carnivorous animal. It was obvious that Fuana was still raring to go.

Out of everybody, Lorraine seemed the most pleased to realize that. The look she was giving Fuana said: “I’d be disappointed if you went down that easily.”

This was definitely a match worth watching.

“If she could move like that, she should’ve done so from the beginning,” I murmured.

“She does start out like that sometimes,” the old man replied. “But she must have thought it wouldn’t work on Lorraine.”

“In what sense?”

“Lorraine’s a mage, but she’s quite capable with close-quarter combat, no?”

“I guess so...” I gave a vague answer since I didn’t want to give away any specifics.

The old man caught on and only nodded in response before continuing. “In which case, it’s not hard to imagine she’d have defenses prepared to handle a sudden charge from the outset of the match. And even if she didn’t, well, you saw what she could do with those shields.”

“That makes sense. I spar against her sometimes, and whenever I run at her recklessly, she can deal with it more often than not.”

I still sparred against Lorraine, even after my body had become undead. It was fundamentally for both of our training, but to her, it was also experimentation. Ever since I’d become an undead, I’d been developing new abilities on a regular basis. In our spars, we could test the extent of those changes mid-combat.

One example of that was Division, where the me of today would have a better handle on it than the me of yesterday. It wasn’t a big difference though—just stuff like being able to extend my patch of darkness a smidgen farther, or being a fraction of a second faster. In a fight, however, that could be huge. Victory was decided in the quickest of instants, after all.

“I believe Fuana dislikes such recklessness,” the old man said.

“That’s surprising,” I replied. “I had her pinned as the type who only made reckless moves.”

“Despite appearances, she does her thinking where it counts. Although I suppose that’s something else she does instinctively, so maybe you could say she doesn’t think at all, but that’s semantics. At any rate, she was likely trying to catch Lorraine off guard.”

Now that he mentioned it, I thought he was probably right. “Good point. If I was a mage and my opponent made it seem as if she could only move like a mage, I’d be taken aback if she suddenly came at me like that.”

That must have been what Fuana had been aiming for. Currently, she was moving around the arena as freely as she pleased. It was less magic and more the movements of a beast. Most people would never expect a small girl clad in oversized robes like her to be capable of moving like that.

It went without saying that judging a book by its cover wasn’t a good thing to do, but at the end of the day, appearance was always the first thing people formed impressions from.

The old man nodded. “Indeed. Although, she seems to have failed at it. Lorraine was quick to see through her ability. She must have been forced to discard her plan and resort to her fists.”

In other words, Lorraine currently had the upper hand. To prove that, although it looked as if she was the one being pressed right now, Fuana’s attacks had yet to breach her defenses.

I wondered if that meant this would be over soon...

◆◇◆◇◆

“Is this all?” Lorraine asked, looking straight into the eyes of her opponent. They hadn’t lost their fighting spirit, even though the girl’s body was scorched. “I’ll be settling this soon then.”

It was hard to tell from appearances which of them was the villain in this scenario. Lorraine was a virtuous adventurer and Fuana was a member of an assassin’s organization, so perhaps you could call the latter the evil one, but currently, Lorraine looked like a villainess from every perspective—like a witch who was looking down her nose at an innocent young girl and slowly driving her into a corner.

“This isn’t over yet!” Fuana shouted, then kicked off of the ground.

Lorraine knew that her opponent’s body should have taken considerable damage from her lightning, but the girl moved so fast that she couldn’t tell at all. She was on Lorraine in an instant, her fist already mid-swing, but Lorraine was protected by a countless number of shield spells. Although Fuana’s fist smashed through them, one by one, she recast them just as fast—no, faster—preventing the girl’s attack from ever reaching her. And that wasn’t all.

“Barqharba Sijn.”

Her offense wasn’t lacking either. As she finished her chant, ten spears of lightning appeared from the sky and slammed into the ground, encircling Fuana. The sky above was still clear, and Fuana made to leap up and escape, but before she could, more lightning manifested and completed the prison. Then...

“Shikhrér,” Lorraine murmured.

The spears of lightning surrounding Fuana crackled, then began to strike inward. The lightning crashed like torrential rain. With no space to dodge, all Fuana could do was allow it to slam into her body. Almost nobody could receive such an offensive and still remain standing, but to Lorraine’s surprise, after a dozen or so seconds of incessant lightning strikes passed and the prison dissipated, Fuana rushed at her with tremendous vigor.

“Oh?” Lorraine said, intrigued. “You endured that? I’d thought it’d hit you directly, but apparently not.”

“Hmph,” Fuana replied. “Thanks for giving me your spell!”

“What?!”

She tried to determine the meaning behind the words, but Fuana’s fist was already coming at her. For a moment, it seemed foolish to Lorraine—the girl was repeating the exact same attack again—but that thought was immediately dashed when the blow connected.

“Ngh!”

For the first time, Fuana’s fist smashed through all of Lorraine’s shields. Then it slammed straight into her arm. Although Lorraine did her best to mitigate the blow, ultimately, she was a mage. Even though she’d strengthened herself physically with mana, it wasn’t enough to make her impervious to the strike. She immediately leaped back and put space between her and Fuana, but her arm...

“It feels a little...numb.”

It felt like it had been hit by lightning. She studied Fuana, who was chasing after her to make a follow-up attack and saw that the girl’s body was clad in crackling lightning. That was...

As her thoughts raced, Fuana threw another punch. It broke through her shields again, but she’d expected it this time, and she had a rough grasp on its strength. She recast even more shields, increasing their intensity, and successfully prevented the fist from reaching her.

Fuana didn’t give up. She twisted her body and slammed a roundhouse kick straight into the opening her fist had just vacated. It smashed through the remaining shields and blew Lorraine away. Fuana didn’t let her go though; the girl kicked hard off the ground and flew into the air, closing distance.

“This is the end!” Fuana somersaulted mid-flight, then launched into a diving kick down toward Lorraine.

I knew it, Lorraine thought, fascinated. That’s definitely lightning on her leg.

“But it’s incomplete,” Lorraine murmured.

She fired a Fotiá Volídas midair to adjust her trajectory and push herself out of the way of Fuana’s dive kick. She reached the ground first, took aim at Fuana, who had still yet to land, and then...

“Barák Seará!”

Lightning formed a sphere that encased Fuana, then it mixed with wind and struck and slashed inward in a violent tempest.

Fuana screamed.

The spell lasted roughly ten seconds. However, that was ten seconds spent within the full might of the storm’s fangs. At the end, Fuana, smoking and smoldering, fell from the air and crashed into the ground.

Lorraine looked at the old man, and he descended into the arena to check on Fuana.

“She’s still alive,” he said. “Don’t worry. Her sturdiness is her one redeeming feature. Oh, but before I forget: the winner is...Lorraine!”

◆◇◆◇◆

“You adapted quite excellently,” the old man said to Lorraine as they both returned to the stands. He sounded impressed. “Even I didn’t know Fuana could do that.”

“Are you talking about how she clad herself in lightning?” Lorraine asked.

“Mmm. I haven’t a clue what that was.”

“I’m not entirely sure either, but I believe she repurposed the spell I cast on her and used it as armor. It must be an original spell of hers. Her ‘Spellwise’ title might not be entirely off the mark.”

“Ho? It was that impressive?”

As I listened to their conversation, a thought occurred to me. “But you took her out with that Barák Seará at the end, right? If she can wear the spells of others, why didn’t she do it with that one?”

“Without asking her, I can’t say for sure,” Lorraine replied, “but it seemed like her spell was still incomplete. She wore my lightning, yes, but after I took a closer look I noticed she was still being hurt by it. Her wounds were increasing by the moment and her mana expenditure shot through the roof. Still, the idea itself is fascinating. The spell looks simple, but I think it’s actually quite deep. I’d love to do some research into it myself.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Ngh...”

After a while, Fuana woke up. Her injuries had mostly healed already, since Lorraine had doused her with a potion she’d had on hand.

Although Lorraine would probably get mad at me for saying it out loud, I thought maybe she’d done it because she would’ve felt bad leaving a young girl wounded and burnt all over.

Lorraine then murmured, “It’d set me back if she lost her ability to cast that spell because of this.”

That was Lorraine for you—never afraid to be herself. But even if Fuana did become unable to use that spell where she wore the magic of others like armor, Lorraine had already seen it once. With her magic eyes, she’d likely seen through the spell’s structure to a certain extent already, so it probably wouldn’t be much of a setback. That said, since it was still imperfect, the creator’s thought process and input would no doubt be valuable.

I figured Lorraine had already taken all of that into account for her decision to heal Fuana. And maybe, just maybe, part of it had been because she hadn’t wanted to leave a young girl injured. Despite appearances, Lorraine was a kind woman at heart. So long as experiments weren’t concerned, anyway.

Fuana slowly got up and examined her surroundings, before muttering, “I lost. You even made me use my Spelldrain Armor.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Lorraine asked. “I applied a potion to your injuries, so they’re mostly gone, but I can’t say the same for any internal damage you might have suffered. Here, you should drink this just in case.”

She handed Fuana another potion. Its blue tinge didn’t exactly make it look very appealing, but Lorraine’s potions were fairly tasty.

Potions could vary in taste quite a lot depending on who brewed them. Ingredients mattered too, but the brewer was the one who decided what aspects to focus on. Some only cared about making its restorative effects as efficient as possible—which was extremely logical, if you ask me—and some figured that if they were going to be making a drink anyway, it might as well be an enjoyable one. Lorraine was one of the latter kind of brewers, and she valued both taste and efficiency.

Fuana took the proffered potion and just stared at it for a while.

“Don’t worry. There’s no poison in it,” the old man said. “If they wanted to kill you, they’ve already had any number of chances to do so.”

Fuana nodded, looking convinced, and began gulping it all down.

“That was good,” she said after she finished. She sounded unhappy about that, but her expression was one of satisfaction. She was looking hale and hearty now too, compared to her previous, slightly ill appearance. Probably because the potion had spread through her body and healed up her insides. Since the first one had only been splashed on her, it wouldn’t have had much of an effect on her organs and the like.

That was where magic and divinity surpassed potions. Healing spells and purifying rites would affect the whole body at once, while a potion began from the spot where it was applied, then slowly permeated outward. The deeper you went into the body, the weaker a potion’s restorative effect. You had to drink it if you wanted to avoid that from happening, but in the middle of a fight, or if you were trying to give it to a person who was unconscious like with Fuana just now, that was a difficult task.

Still, it wasn’t all downsides; potions, once brewed, could be used by anybody. Moreover, so long as you were careful with how you stored them, they’d last as long as their constituent ingredients would. Healing spells or purifying rites were only available for as long as their caster had the strength to use them. All in all, both options had their advantages and disadvantages.

“I’m glad that you seem to be doing fine,” Lorraine said. “Now, onto the main topic...”

“Mmm,” Fuana replied. “You want to meet the chief, right? Then—”

“No, I was talking about the original spell you used earlier. You called it ‘Spelldrain Armor,’ I think.”

Wait, what did she mean by “no”? We were here to meet the chief, and I was willing to bet that I wasn’t the only one present who sorely wanted to point that out. However, Lorraine’s curiosity had been piqued, and there was no stopping her.

“I have a rough grasp of the structure, but I have few questions,” she continued. “Also, it’s clearly still an incomplete spell. I could tell by the difficulty you had trying to control it, as well as the fact that it was injuring your body. But I think it has astounding potential, and once it’s complete, it will no doubt be a formidable weapon for us mages. Now, I have a number of hypotheses I want to pose to you, so...”

“U-Uh...”

Fuana looked a little put off, but once Lorraine got like this, there was nothing I could do to stop her. We’d just have to wait until she was satisfied. So when the old man and Goblin looked at me, all I could do in response was shake my head.

◆◇◆◇◆

After a while...

“I get what you’re trying to say,” Fuana said. “You want me to teach it to you. But the spell’s important to me, you know. I can’t just give it out for free.”

Lorraine nodded emphatically. “Of course. New inventions should be fairly compensated for. What would you like? Money? I’ll pay as much as you want. Or maybe magic? Would you like to know some forbidden spells? Or ancient ones? I’d be happy to teach you.”

Lorraine really wasn’t holding back.

Even though Fuana had asked for payment in the first place, she looked bewildered, like she hadn’t expected to be offered so much. She evidently still wanted it though, because she said, “Th-Then...teach me the spell you used that hurt gramps so badly. That will do.”

Perhaps she thought that Lorraine would back down if she asked for such powerful magic.

However, Lorraine didn’t hesitate to give her reply. “Sure. Do you want to start now? It was more than one spell though, so it might take you some time to learn it all. Oh, I suppose I should give you a demonstration. I’ll borrow the arena for a moment, if that’s all right.”

Then she headed down into the arena. Goblin was quick on the uptake—without a word, he quickly ran over to reactivate the mana barrier.

I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Lorraine put on a grand magic show, consisting of the three spells she’d used to do a number on the old man. The destructive energy and sheer scale of them made the mana barrier shudder worryingly.

Fuana’s jaw was wide open as she watched on in silent shock. She was watching though, and I figured the mage in her was properly eager to learn—

“There’s no way I’m learning those any time soon...”

Or not. Still, a promise was a promise, and since she’d answered Lorraine’s questions about her spell, I figured she was sincere about fulfilling her end of the bargain.

◆◇◆◇◆

As we watched Lorraine cast her magic, I heard a voice from behind me.

“She’s something else. I guess she’d have to be, since she beat Gilli.”

“Gilli?” I replied absentmindedly, still watching Lorraine. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you his name? Would you get it if I said ‘Spriggan’? His real name’s Gilli Flood. There’s a city in the south famous for its competition fighting, and there he’s known as ‘Gilli the Monster.’ I recruited him, established the organization...and that’s how we ended up where we are now. I feel bad about what happened, by the way. Toward your party and his unit. The person I installed to be our agent in the royal circles double-crossed us, you see. Gave us nothing but skewed info. Came back as soon as I could, but everything’s already chaos. Don’t even have the time to handle my guild work.”

Until about halfway through, I’d only been listening with half a mind because I’d thought it was just Goblin returning. But then I’d realized whoever this was sounded different, and then the contents of what they were saying finally registered with me.

I turned around, and as I’d expected, it wasn’t Goblin. It was a man whose age was hard to tell. He wasn’t young, and I’d have guessed he was over fifty, but I couldn’t narrow it down any further than that. His physique wasn’t that large—it was more or less average, for an adventurer—but I could tell even through his clothes that he’d forged it well.

What was more, although he was calmly sitting in a spectator’s seat like nothing was amiss, I couldn’t see any openings in him at all. I immediately knew that I’d stand no chance against him in a fight. I didn’t even think I could run. He had a dangerous aura that warned me I would lose my head before I could make it any decent distance away. However, despite all of that, the look on his face was cheerful, or maybe you could call it fearless. Whatever it was, it wasn’t unpleasant.

I kind of liked him. There was something to him that just drew others in. Still, I had more important things to be concerned with right now.

“Who are you?” I asked.

My voice came out calm and detached, but I was anything but. Panicking would’ve gotten me nowhere though. I hadn’t noticed the man approaching me at all. If he’d decided to attack, I wouldn’t have been able to react.

Plus, I couldn’t even imagine myself escaping a head-on fight against him, much less winning one. And that was taking into account my current body. In short, both instinct and logic were telling me that panicking would be meaningless.

“Me? I’m—”

The man seemed entirely happy to answer me, but before he could, Vaasa sat up groggily in a seat behind him.

“Ngh... Wh-Where am I...?”

Then Vaasa saw the man between us. His eyes popped open wide and he scrambled to kneel at the man’s feet.

“Ch-Chief! Wh-What are you doing in a place like this?”

Ah. So this was their chief. I was completely willing to believe that. The man’s presence, magnetism, and composure—only a truly exceptional kind of person could possess what he had. I could tell as much, and my insight and ability to judge people were basically nonexistent. Anybody would get a similar impression from him.

The man looked disappointed that Vaasa had stolen his introduction, but he faced me and plowed on anyway.

“There you have it. I’m the chief of this organization. The name’s Jean Seebeck. Pleasure to meet you.”

Just like that. And now that he’d given me his name, I had to give him mine too, right? Him being the chief of an assassin organization didn’t mean I could forget my manners. Actually, perhaps it was even the opposite—his position made my inner nature as an underling show itself.

That was a joke.

“I’m Rentt, a Bronze-class adventurer,” I said. “I’m here because...I came with my companion to meet you.”

“I know. Still, Bronze, huh? Vaasa here’s as good as Silver, you know. Close to Gold, even, if he uses his ability. Well, maybe not that good, especially in a straight fight. Still, neither is he lackadaisical enough to be beaten by a Bronze.”

The man was talking to me, but Vaasa, who was to one side, listening, had a happy gleam in his eyes. It was almost childish of him, but maybe that just spoke to how much he idolized his chief. The man certainly seemed like the broad-minded type. It kind of made you want to follow him.

“Did you watch the fights?” I asked.

“I did. There’s a spot up above with a view. Then the young lady over there started throwing ancient magic around, so I came down to get a better look. I appreciate the show. It’s quite fascinating.”

While I doubted Lorraine was used to getting the “young lady” treatment much, there definitely weren’t many mages out there who infiltrated assassin organizations and started showing off ancient magic. I could understand why she’d caught the chief’s interest.

“You weren’t going to stop us?” I asked. “We were fighting without your permission.”

“You can fight as much as you want, so far as I’m concerned. Though truthfully, I hadn’t noticed until just earlier. Your fight with Vaasa had already started, so I thought it’d be tactless of me to interrupt. I’d have stopped you if it looked like you were going to kill each other, but neither of you seemed like you wanted that.”

I hadn’t wanted to kill Vaasa, that was for sure, but had that really been true for him too? I distinctly recalled that he’d aimed straight for my vitals with his daggers.

“Yeah, I would’ve stopped just before I did,” Vaasa said defensively.

Even if we ignored whether or not that was true, it was all too easy to forget that kind of intention once your blood was up and pumping. Well, whatever, we could just leave it at that.

“Anyway, it was an interesting match,” the man said. “I didn’t know you had an ability, Rentt. At least, I never received any reports of such while you were in Maalt.”

“That would make sense. It’s kind of a recent thing.”

The man nodded cheerfully. “Ha ha! I see. I suppose these things do happen.”

I’d pictured the chief of an assassin organization to be a more menacing, uncompromising person, but he seemed pretty reasonable. Maybe he’d hear us out. Before we got to that, though, I recalled that I’d heard something kind of crazy, so I figured I’d ask about that first.

“Hey,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Isn’t Jean Seebeck...the name of the grand guildmaster?” I’d thought the name had sounded familiar, but it had only just come to me where I’d heard it before.

“Yep, that’s right,” the man replied casually.

From deep down, a thought struck me: Okay... This is really, really bad.

Was I going to get out of this alive?

◆◇◆◇◆

“So, um, could you please let us leave here alive?”

Now that things had come to this, I decided I’d just ask in the most direct way I could think of. Being indirect about it and getting a vague answer would be a pain, and if he wasn’t going to let us leave, I figured he’d probably be honest about it.

Chief Jean’s eyes widened and he burst into laughter. “Pfft! Is that what you were worried about? Relax; you’ll be leaving in one piece. You’re Wolf’s favorite, aren’t you? Who knows what he’ll do to me if I vanish you.”

That piqued my interest. “Does Wolf know you’re...?”

Jean shook his head, anticipating my question. “No, he doesn’t. I wouldn’t mind telling him, really, but that’d only increase his workload. You know how serious he is about his job, despite how he might seem. Can’t go making things harder on him...though that’s a little rich, coming from me.”

So Wolf didn’t know that Jean was the chief of this organization. That was surprising; I thought he would have. Or maybe he really did and just acted like he didn’t? That was the kind of man Wolf was. I guess I’d never know without asking him directly...but it was best not to poke my nose too far into these things. I had an extremely strong hunch that it would kick up more trouble than I needed. I didn’t want to get saddled with more than what I already had to deal with, so I’d just feign ignorance as much as I could.

Oh, wait, was this exactly how Wolf felt? I supposed I’d never know for sure. Not unless something went terribly wrong.

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “By the way, I’m here on orders from him to come pick you up. I know you might have your hands full with the organization, but it’d be great if you could finish up your work and come with us to Maalt.”

“You don’t say? First I’m hearing about this. I actually gave out orders to contact Wolf and tell him to come see me. I wanted to get more details on what’s happening over in Maalt.”

“Are you talking about the dungeon?”

“Yeah. The Tower and the Academy are there too right now, aren’t they? You might think that has nothing to do with you and your companions, but you’d be wrong, you know.”

Hmm? Wait, what? What did that have to do with the reason we were targeted by assassins?

Jean paused. “We can get to that later. There’s a lot I need to explain to you, and I imagine you have a decent amount to tell me too. Let’s take this elsewhere. Best if everyone’s caught up at once, no?”

Jean pointed to Lorraine and the others in the arena. I nodded, headed down the spectator stands, and beckoned everybody to come over.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I didn’t sense him at all...” Lorraine murmured to me.

She was looking at Jean, who was walking ahead of us, leading the way through the colosseum’s hallways. We ascended to ground level, then kept going up. According to Jean, his office was on the highest floor, which also had rooms for royalty and nobility that offered a spacious view of the aboveground arena.

Common folk could spectate from those rooms too, but if you wanted to do that, you had to pay a year’s worth of rental fees for it. When I heard how much that was, I firmly decided that spectating from the stands was much better. I kind of felt like the noble rooms, while very posh-feeling because of their location, were a bit too far to get a good view of the fights. Though, since they had magic viewing equipment, they probably had it better anyway. Still, I personally preferred watching fights in the flesh, with my own two eyes. Was that plebeian of me? It was anyone’s guess.

“I didn’t notice him either,” I said. “And neither did Spriggan.”

The ones following Jean right now were me, Lorraine, and Spriggan. The other three—Goblin, Vaasa, and Fuana—stayed in the underground arena. Fuana said she wanted to practice the ancient magic Lorraine had taught her, and Vaasa was going to act as her target dummy. Goblin was operating the arena’s mana barriers.

Apparently, it was questionable whether Fuana would be able to get the hang of Lorraine’s spells, so since Lorraine had pointed out flaws in her Spelldrain Armor which could be fixed immediately, Fuana had said she was going to be doing that as well.

Despite appearances, she seemed to be quite the researcher, just like Lorraine. From her personality, and her entrance earlier, I’d somewhat made light of the whole “Spellwise” thing, but now that I’d revised my opinion of her, I realized that maybe the title wasn’t so far from the truth.

“Didn’t notice a thing,” Spriggan said. “Can’t help that though. It’s the chief. You should hear what I had to go through when I joined the organization.”

“You were searching for work that wasn’t just brawling, weren’t you?” I asked. “Looking for companions.”

That had been my impression, but I was a little off the mark.

“That’s not exactly wrong, but those things weren’t so simple to find for me. I made a living fighting in arenas while I looked for more ordinary work. But one day, a strange man called out to me. Asked me if I’d like to make the best of my strength. Got a lot of offers like that at the time, asking me to become their lackey. From the leaders of bandit gangs to nobles who wanted an errand boy. None of that was of any interest to me. But this man was different. Said I’d have a lot of ‘colleagues.’”

“By ‘colleagues,’ you mean...”

“Yes, ability wielders. At the time, I knew my strength was unusual, but I hadn’t realized it was a ‘unique ability’ yet. Nobody exactly researched that kind of thing, and most people knew nothing about it in the first place. And back then, my ability was a lot weaker too. I couldn’t stay giant for long, and my limbs were usually the most I could manage. Though, my strength was still far beyond an average person’s, so I never lost in the arena.”

That proved my suspicion that even unique abilities needed training and that they weren’t just convenient get-strong-fast tricks. It still sounded as if the old man had been a monstrous outlier in his younger days too though...

“Although,” he continued, “I didn’t understand what ‘colleagues’ meant back then, so I turned him down. That’s when he wouldn’t take no for an answer, beat me up, dragged me somewhere, and taught me what he meant by ‘colleagues.’ He showed me people who caused supernatural phenomena to occur without the use of mana, spirit, or divinity, and that’s when it clicked for me. Afterward, that man, those colleagues, and I formed the organization together...and here I am today.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Now then, sit, sit. You too, Gilli.”

After reaching his office, Jean sat down and beckoned for all of us to do the same.

The soft leather couch was clearly high quality and made it obvious that he earned a comfortable living. Then again, considering he ran a huge establishment like this in the capital, there was no way he didn’t.

His public work alone had to make a killing. Colosseums were where coin flowed like water. Gambling was allowed, so long as it was reported and approved. Of course, some people did it under the table anyway—mostly the type who made a living in the shadows—but Jean and his organization were those people. It was easy to imagine that they made their money above and under the table. I wondered if they paid taxes. I kind of doubted it.

We sat on the couch, and Gilli signaled someone who looked like a serving lady. She began to prepare us all drinks.

It was black tea, and from the scent, quite high quality. I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the beverage, since it was a favorite of Lorraine’s that I’d shared with her from time to time, but that didn’t change the fact that it was expensive. I didn’t drink it often. I liked the taste, though.

After making sure everybody had their tea, the serving lady bowed and left the room.

Jean waited for her footsteps to fade away before speaking again. “So...where should I begin?”

Lorraine stopped him. “First things first. Rentt and I came here to ask you—that is, your organization—to not send assassins after us again. Could we settle that before continuing?”

She was being very direct, but she must have decided that was likely for the best when it came to dealing with Jean. After all, during our walk here, I’d given her the gist of the conversation I’d had with him in the spectator stands. I’d also told her about my read on Jean as a person. Naturally, that wasn’t conclusive evidence, but it did seem pretty clear that he wasn’t planning on killing us. That was probably one of the reasons why Lorraine had been so direct—she’d wanted to confirm that.

“Ah, yes,” Jean said. “I suppose we should get that out of the way first. We won’t send anyone after you again, of course. I said this to Rentt earlier, but we received faulty intelligence from an internal source. Put simply, we had a spy among the court, but they betrayed us. We believed their information, one thing led to another, and it was determined that you needed to be taken care of.”

“Why would...?”

Lorraine sounded as perplexed as I was. Why had things turned out this way? I remembered that the old man had said the organization was aware that the second princess had told us about the scepter and the state of the kingdom. However, that information had come from a diviner. The organization had surmised that we’d been ordered to transport the new scepter, which was why they’d attempted to stop us.

But I wasn’t sure why they wanted that. Without the scepter, the kingdom would see an increase in the number of undead. Wasn’t bringing a new one back a good thing?

I knew that Gisel, the backer of the first princess who’d hired the organization, didn’t want the second princess to accomplish the feat and get the credit, but... Well, maybe that really was all there was to it?

“You’ve heard about the scepter, right?” Jean asked.

“Yes,” Lorraine replied. “We were told it was a divine treasure with the ability to dampen unclean energy throughout the kingdom. Would its presence be a problem for your organization? I suppose you’d get more work if the kingdom didn’t have it...”

Not only them—adventurers would get more work too. Now that Lorraine had pointed it out, I realized a man in Jean’s position had a lot to gain. His day job running the adventurer’s guild and side job running the organization would see an influx of business.

However, Jean shook his head. “No, that’s not the case. I can’t deny that’s what the result would be, but we put more than enough bread on the table with what we handle already. Although, I can’t say the idea doesn’t have a little appeal to me. In certain ways, it would dramatically improve the lives of adventurers. Well, the lower-class ones, that is.”

As matters stood, skilled adventurers could already earn a decent income, but lower-class ones similar to my old self and Rina barely made enough to guarantee themselves a bed to sleep in for the night. On the other hand, if the number of undead monsters were to increase, so would the amount of bounties put out on them, which could alleviate that problem. More of the weakest class of undead, such as skeletons—or even small skeletons—meant more available income.

You didn’t see those types too much around Yaaran, but that was probably because of the scepter. They were weak monsters, so I doubted it took much for it to purge them. It was a shame that process didn’t leave their magic crystals behind, since they were still worth enough to make a living, but there was no use mourning over what never technically existed in the first place.

Still, without the effect of the scepter, those types of undead might pop up more and more. With the boost in income, paying for a roof over your head every night would no longer be an issue. That sounded great—for people like me, that is. For an ordinary person, weak undead were plenty threatening. There was no question that we were all better off without them.

“So...why try to stop a new scepter from being delivered?” Lorraine asked. “Ah, and I should mention that we never accepted that request to begin with, so you wouldn’t have needed to assassinate us regardless.”

The request that had actually been made of us was to visit the Holy Tree. What purpose that would serve I had no idea, and we hadn’t formally accepted yet anyway. I’d made the best of my wits and manners to keep the request a respectful arm’s length away, and that was where it still was. There was no way I was going to take it if it meant painting a target on my back for assassins. I wasn’t near that strong enough, and I knew it. In fact, I was currently the weakest person in the room...

Now that I’d remembered who I was surrounded by, I found myself feeling kind of down. They made me wonder if I’d really grown stronger at all.

◆◇◆◇◆

“First,” Jean said, “we should establish that the presence of the scepter is preferable to the alternative. It contributes hugely to the peace of Yaaran.”

We knew that, of course. I was about to point that out, but Jean held a hand up to stop me and continued.

“However, that is from the perspective of people other than the wielder. The current scepter is draining the king’s life, and...oh? From your lack of surprise, I take it you are already aware?”

Perhaps it had been in-the-know information at the outset, but I got the feeling it was less confidential these days. Then again, we hadn’t had a clue until the second princess told us about it...

It was likely that the upper nobility and top brass of the kingdom knew. Maybe that was why Yaaran’s royalty was so much more revered than that of other countries. Without them, everyone living in Yaaran would be worse off—not only commoners, but nobles too.

If the undead ran rampant over their territories, who knew how much more expensive it would be to deal with them compared to how things were now? Other countries already bore such costs as a matter of course, so it wasn’t as if the kingdom would cease to function, but there was obviously no need to go out of the way to create that burden.

They could always supplant the throne and take the scepter by force, sure...but the high elves had gifted it to the current royal family. If they were replaced, I doubted the high elves would be willing to continue maintaining it, or offer available solutions if problems like the current one cropped up. It created a situation where the royal family needed to survive to retain the scepter, even if that meant only as figureheads.

That had me wondering if that was where Yaaran’s tranquility—especially among its nobles—came from. It was a surprising thought.

“Yes,” Lorraine replied. “The second princess told us.”

Jean nodded. “I see. While the king’s condition isn’t public, it isn’t much of a secret either. As for the scepter...its effect is known, but only a select few are privy to its current condition. Considering your positions, I suppose the second princess is the only source you could have learned of it from.”

“How did you find out?”

“I...technically found out from the spy I mentioned earlier. The scepter itself, Kars showed me in his younger days, but I didn’t know of the risk it posed back then. I went to see him as soon as I found out, but he just waved me off and said there was ‘no other option,’ the fool. Of course he has another damn option.”

Kars? Wait a minute, was that...?

“By ‘Kars,’” Lorraine said. “Do you mean...?”

“The king. Karsten Reshon Yaaran. I’ve known him since he was little snot. I’m his senior by quite a bit, though.”

He was older than the king? I thought I remembered the king being sixty-five. Well, given Jean’s famous exploits, some simple math put him at over eighty, so I guessed that made sense. He looked way too young for that, though.

Due to the nature of the job, adventurers boasted far greater physical ability and mana reserves than your average person, and that generally made it more difficult for them to age. Even still, Jean was something else. I guessed being a legendary figure meant he was an outlier among adventurers too.

“So?” Lorraine asked calmly. “What did you mean by another option?”

“Fixing the scepter, of course. His condition is only the way it is because it broke in the first place. Still, easier said than done. He’s not willing to part with it, not even briefly. And the high elves wouldn’t leave the Land of the Venerable Holy Tree even if we bothered asking them. We were looking at a dead end. But then Gisel came out and said that the Tower had found a way to repair the scepter that would be quick and that wouldn’t require it to be taken out of the king’s possession.”

Lorraine immediately leaned forward. “How?”

Repairing a broken divine treasure... If such a method really existed, then it would absolutely attract Lorraine’s interest. When she got like this, most people would instinctively shy back a little, either afraid or put off.

However, Jean answered her without batting an eye. “The materials that go into the creation of a divine treasure are said to be extremely special. They’re nothing like regular magical items. Only after a large number of these precious components are used and the finest crafting techniques are applied can a divine treasure be created. That’s why, aside from the ones created directly by the gods, races such as the high elves and dwarves have been known to create them on rare occasions.”

I tilted my head. “We know that much, but what are you trying to say?”

“Of those special materials, it is said that one stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is usually impossible to obtain, and the reason so many who seek to create a divine treasure cannot. According to Gisel, the Tower made a breakthrough and discovered what it was. What’s more, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to obtain it has arrived. Right now, in this era, in this kingdom.”

Lorraine looked disappointed. “That...sounds like a scam. ‘The item you want is up for grabs right here, right now! Don’t miss out. Make your decision immediately!’”

Jean laughed and nodded. “You’re exactly right. But unless you’ve forgotten, our organization is composed of ability wielders. It’s not far-fetched that we’d have someone who could discern if a person is telling the truth, no?”

Lorraine’s expression changed again—to realization, this time. The human mind was exceedingly complex, and it was often difficult to tell what somebody was thinking. Forcing a person to do something with magic wasn’t easy, and tampering with memories was straight-up impossible, yet we’d seen Siren do just that with her ability.

Ability wielders could do things that magic considered impossible. It wasn’t strange in the least for one of them to be able to tell truth from lies.

“Okay,” Lorraine said. “So let’s assume what Gisel said was true. What is this special material?”

“It is, in fact...” Jean paused, taking his time as though he were unveiling a personal treasure of his. Then, he said it.

A dungeon core.

Needless to say, the facial expressions Lorraine and I made were indescribable.

◆◇◆◇◆

Dungeon cores. They were a dungeon’s nucleus and command mechanism. By absorbing and assimilating one, you would gain the ability to control its dungeon. The vampire Laura Latuule had taught us that.

Shumini, another vampire, had once created a dungeon under Maalt, but he hadn’t kept the core himself: he’d forced it onto Rina, who he’d made his servant. We had discovered his plans, and Laura had separated it from Rina and absorbed it into herself, where it currently remained.

At a guess, the “once-in-a-lifetime chance” that Jean had heard about from Gisel was that very dungeon core. In which case...

This was a lost cause already, and Lorraine and I both knew it—hence, our expressions. Still, dungeons existed everywhere. Even Maalt had three if you included the new one. There were hundreds out there in the world. If you wanted a dungeon core, it didn’t have to come from Maalt. You could just as easily go somewhere else.

Lorraine and I exchanged looks that said we’d hear the rest of what Jean had to say first, then turned back to face him.

“Not exactly the reactions I’d expected,” he said. “Oh, do you not know what a dungeon core is? It’s not exactly common knowledge, I suppose. I kind of assumed you two would know though...”

Evidently, he’d mistaken our reactions for surprise and confusion. There was no harm in correcting him, really, but I stayed silent, choosing not to interrupt as he continued.

“A dungeon core is exactly what it sounds like—the core of a dungeon. They exist in every dungeon and are often well protected. If you destroy one, the dungeon collapses too. But in truth, none of this information has been verified.”

That mostly agreed with what Laura had told us. But if he was saying it hadn’t been verified, then why did they believe dungeon cores existed?

Jean must have seen the doubt on my face. “The guild has a long history, and there are a number of stories of people having destroyed one. It’s just, none of those stories can be made public. Usually because the cores were in the possession of royalty or the clergy—you get the idea. Apparently, the cores can be taken out of their dungeons. I’m sure you’ve heard the tales of adventurers who’ve made it into a dungeon’s deepest depths and defeated the fearsome boss monster in the final chamber, right? Well, those guardians—the boss monsters—and the owners of the core are two different things. Think of it like...the relationship between a store’s owner and its manager. And the owner doesn’t necessarily have to be in the dungeon.”

That made sense. It was a pretty mundane analogy, but it got the point across. It got me thinking though. If Laura was currently the dungeon’s owner, who was the manager?

I pictured monster employees who dreaded the owner’s occasional visits. Skeletons lined up in a row out front to greet her enthusiastically. Goblins and orcs cheerfully rubbing their hands together. Slimes producing beverages for the customers...

Hey, that dungeon sounded kind of fun...provided you could handle the owner biting your neck and draining you of blood if you displeased her. Or crushing you with her gravity magic.

Laura had said she was holding on to four dungeon cores, so did that make her a large company in the dungeon master industry? Considering that assimilating even one was extremely difficult, she was probably at the level of a mega-conglomerate.

“I’ve got the general idea,” Lorraine said. “So where is this dungeon core allegedly going to be, and how will it be retrieved?”

“Maalt’s new dungeon,” Jean replied.

Lorraine and I exchange looks again. It was just as we’d suspected. Still, Jean had said himself that the owner wouldn’t necessarily be in the dungeon. That being the case, he had to know it wouldn’t be so easy to obtain the core.

“How do you determine who’s holding the core?” I asked. “If they’re outside of it, they could be anywhere.”

“True, but a newly formed dungeon is different. According to the Tower’s experts, new dungeons are still unstable, so the owner of their core needs to remain inside. They’ve estimated this period to be around a year or more.”

That meant that they were working under the premise that the owner was still inside and that turning the place upside down to find and kill them would get them the dungeon core.

Still, that aside...

“That’s some impressive analysis by the Tower,” Lorraine said. “Dungeon research worldwide hasn’t really progressed much, not even in the Empire.”

“Pretty much,” Jean replied. “Still, discovery is a sudden thing, and you never know where it’ll come from. Would you believe the Tower found a way to create a small-scale, artificial dungeon? I do mean ‘small’ though. Apparently they can only get it as big as an ant’s nest and can’t harvest cores from it. Who knows how many hundreds of years it’ll be before it becomes a practical resource? That said, they showed it to me, and it was definitely a working dungeon. The monsters were only tiny ants...but they could spit acid. That’s dangerous in its own right.”

“They’ve progressed so far?! That’s wonderful. Yaaran’s Tower doesn’t have any particularly notable contributions to their name, so I’d thought they were behind the times, but I stand corrected. You wouldn’t happen to know the name of the Tower’s head dungeon researcher, would you?”

That was a fairly harsh thing to say, but I guessed that didn’t make it any less true. As for the name, Lorraine probably wanted to know so she could pick the person’s brain later down the line.

Evidently, it was no particular secret, because Jean answered easily, “I do. Hamishy Favor. Unhealthy-looking, and the very picture of what you’d imagine a researcher to be...but brilliant all the same. So much so you can practically feel it.”

If the veteran head of two major organizations—one legal and one not—was saying that, then this Hamishy person must really be something else.

Since Yaaran was a backwater kingdom, I’d taken for granted that it’d be mostly behind other countries when it came to advanced research, but finding out that we had someone as talented as that made me kind of happy. It wasn’t my achievement, and I wouldn’t call myself very patriotic, but the mood just kind of took me.

Still, even a genius’s research could be wrong sometimes. In fact, the research had just begun, so mistakes would be the norm. Case in point: it hadn’t been a year and Laura was already outside of the dungeon—which would mean that this plan would be doomed to fail from the outset.

Oh, no, whatever would we do?

◆◇◆◇◆

“So the reason the Tower and the Academy are in Maalt right now...” Lorraine said.

Jean nodded. “Yeah. The Tower is looking for the dungeon core. The Academy is too, but they’re being backed by the first prince. It’s a race to see who finds it first.”

“So the prince knows it’s necessary to repair the scepter too?” I asked.

“He does,” Jean replied. “Gisel purposefully leaked the information. At any rate, the Tower’s first priority is to discover a method for finding out who the core’s owner is. It’s a manpower problem, so they want as many people as possible to help search the dungeon. If the Academy finds it first, the Tower plans to steal it from them.”

That was logical, sure, but it would also be bloody. While it was a new dungeon that wasn’t all that large, it would still take a considerable amount of time to search every corner of it. It was understandable that they wanted as many people as possible, since the one-year deadline didn’t give them much space to work with, but the willingness to fight over it once they found it was a bit much...

Still, from our point of view, we knew where the dungeon core was, so we knew that conflict would never happen. They’d never find Laura in the dungeon, and even in the very hypothetical event they realized she was the owner, how would they ever take it from her? I hadn’t gotten an up close look at Laura fighting, but what I did see had been enough to tell me how monstrously powerful she was.

On top of that, she was in the Latuule manor, surrounded by her personnel. A single servant was at the very least a middle vampire, and that was just the lowest rung. Most were actually greater vampires.

The Latuule estate had enough military strength to go to war against an entire country. Could the Tower and Academy of a backwater kingdom like Yaaran win against that? Why even bother asking? There was no two ways about it—anything would be better than trying the extremely bad idea of taking the dungeon core from Laura.

If anything, convincing the king to change his mind would be far easier. I could tell Lorraine and I were thinking the exact same thing, but we couldn’t exactly come clean to Jean about it.

Since I didn’t really have anything else to say on the subject, I decided to change to a topic that was much more important to us.

“Right, I think I’m caught up on the dungeon core. But that doesn’t explain why we needed to be killed.”

“That would be because the second princess was trying to have the high elves create a new scepter,” Jean said. “And we thought you had been chosen to be the couriers.”

I did remember the old man saying something along those lines.

“But what’s so wrong with that?” I asked. “A new scepter would mean the king wouldn’t have to use the old one. I don’t see a problem.”

“That’s true. But the second princess wasn’t going to hand the scepter over to the king. She was going to wait until the old one had drained him to death, then use the new one to seize the throne.”

“No way,” I said immediately. “She isn’t the type to do something like that. At least, she didn’t seem like it to me.”

“And you’re right. That’s the faulty information I mentioned, passed to us by the spy we had among the court. The organization acted accordingly, and I wasn’t here at the time to catch it since I was on business elsewhere. There was nobody around who knew the second princess well enough. The specifics of the scepter hadn’t been passed down to most of them either, so nobody could make an accurate judgment call. One thing led to another, and Gilli got ordered to kill you and foil the second princess’s plot. He’d already left by the time I came back, so I couldn’t put a stop to it.”

The old man in question looked shocked. “The order came from the vice chief, so I didn’t think to question it...”

“It seems the vice chief had been in Gisel’s pocket since a long time back. I’ve already taken care of it though. We’ve got a vice chief no longer, and no court spy either.”

That was a terrifying thing to say so casually. Forget “no longer in the organization.” He’d probably meant “no longer in the world of the living.”

I guessed that was what Jean had been busy with recently. Chief of a shadow organization or not, political power struggles couldn’t be easy to deal with. Still, one thing was bugging me.

“You never noticed your vice chief was working for Gisel?”

That was a pretty big oversight to make...

“I’ve got no excuses. That said, the organization wasn’t always this big. We grew little by little by taking apart and assimilating other outfits. One was the vice chief’s. Imagine keeping a secret like that for thirty years, without even tipping your direct subordinates off. Honestly, it’s more impressive than anything else.”

So the vice chief had kept the secret their entire life, waiting for the critical moment and working diligently without telling their colleagues or subordinates. No wonder nobody had thought to be suspicious.

In the end, the result had been failure. It seemed a sad sort of life to have lived, but if the person themselves had been glad to sacrifice themselves for their loyalty, then perhaps it wasn’t so bad. Even though they’d been the perpetrator who’d caused us such trouble, they were definitely a person of principle, in a way, so I found myself feeling a little melancholy.

Maybe I could only think like that because I’d never met them and we’d come out of their plot no worse for wear. If we’d been truly hurt in some way, I probably would have held a bitter grudge against them.

“So, if that’s the case,” I began, “what are you going to do now? From the look of things, Gisel’s throwing caution to the wind and doing everything she can to put the first princess on the throne. Are you going to keep working with her?”

“No, our contract with her is concluded. I’d be perfectly content with the second princess bringing a new scepter back. I know she’d willingly hand it over to the king. The problem is whether she can manage to get it. How’s that looking, anyway?”

◆◇◆◇◆

“I’m afraid we can’t tell you that,” Lorraine said. “I know we’ve been frank with each other so far, but we do have certain matters of confidentiality to keep.”

We didn’t actually, especially considering we hadn’t even accepted the princess’s request, but Lorraine was likely thinking that involving ourselves any further in royal matters would be bothersome.

The stance she was taking was basically: “You handle the rest. We have nothing to do with this.”

I completely agreed with that. I didn’t want to see undead popping up all over Yaaran, but if we poked our noses any deeper into the scepter problem, we’d be risking our lives.

Risking mine was one thing, but it was Lorraine’s and Augurey’s that were the concern here. Besides, even if that wasn’t the case, it was still best to avoid attracting the attention of the kingdom’s heavyweights like Gisel.

If my adventurer class was higher, maybe I’d be able to show off and declare that it was an adventurer’s job to uphold the peace of the kingdom, but as things stood, I had my hands full taking care of my own problems.

Now that there was no longer a threat of Jean’s organization coming after us, I was satisfied. The best step to take next would be to wish him luck and wave goodbye.

Or it would be, if we didn’t need Jean to come to Maalt with us.

This was a problem.

“Makes sense,” Jean replied. “I’ll go ask for an audience with the second princess tomorrow.”

He backed off relatively easily. It did sound like he was an acquaintance of the second princess after all. The king too. The confidence in his words probably came from the fact that it wouldn’t be much trouble for him to meet them whenever he pleased.

“That would be the surest method,” Lorraine said. “As for our other purpose, do you have any plans to visit Maalt?”

If he didn’t want to go, we could just get him to write a letter to that effect and be done with it.

Thinking back, Wolf hadn’t seemed too enthused about the idea of Jean paying a visit either. I wondered if he’d actually celebrate him not coming.

Contrary to my expectations, Jean said, “Yeah, I do. Been thinking it’s due time I stopped by. Tomorrow’s...not open for me since I’ll be seeing the princess like I mentioned, but how about we head for Maalt the day after? That sound good?”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Aren’t you busy?”

Jean had a mountain of issues to handle. He not only had the organization to deal with, but the guild and the scepter business too. I had my own affairs, such as reporting back to Hathara and preparing for the Silver-class exam, but they were all personal matters. They paled in comparison to Jean’s responsibilities.

“The scepter issue isn’t going to be solved in a handful of days,” Jean replied. “And I don’t want to see the dungeon core secured before that happens. I’d like to check on the Tower and the Academy’s progress. I suppose I have a personal interest too. The Tower’s artificial one aside, even I’ve never seen a newly formed dungeon before. I’m curious about what it’s like.”

It was abundantly clear to myself and Lorraine that they couldn’t have made any progress, but we couldn’t tell him that. It’d only lead to him asking us how we knew.

Even if we did want to explain, we would have to be extremely careful. They had an ability wielder who could tell when somebody was lying. The best way to avoid that scrutiny was to direct the conversation so that we wouldn’t be scrutinized in the first place.

Jean’s proposal wasn’t a bad one for us anyway. We had, after all, been tasked with bringing him back to Maalt. Maybe Wolf preferred carrying on without Jean, but there was no reason for us to be so considerate of him. He was the one who’d pushed this job on us, so the least he could do was take responsibility for it.

“All right,” Jean said. “Let’s go with that then. We head for Maalt the day after tomorrow. That okay?”

“Sure,” I replied. “In the meantime, we’ll get our own preparations ready. Regarding the wagon...”

“We’ll take care of it,” Lorraine said. “So you won’t need to make any arrangements. We’ll see you in two days.”

With that, our talks were over.

◆◇◆◇◆

After we returned to the inn and told everything to Augurey, he sighed.

“Ha. This has gotten awfully complicated, hasn’t it? It’s not often one gets dragged into a mess like this. I don’t know whether to call it a novel experience or just plain bad luck.”

Siren had gone back with Spriggan to the organization, so Lorraine, Augurey, and I were alone.

The decrease in numbers made things feel calmer, but also a little lonely. Even though they’d come after our lives, we’d also been through danger together, so I’d grown fond of Spriggan’s group. Now that they were gone, I couldn’t help but feel a little down. Then again, while I wanted to think that we wouldn’t try to kill each other again since we weren’t enemies anymore, they worked for a shadow organization. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they’d come up against us in the future. Given what Jean and Spriggan had said, though, I could probably feel safe that they’d make arrangements to ensure that didn’t happen.

“Definitely bad luck,” Lorraine said. “That’s what I’d like to say, at least, but we got a lot out of it too. I suppose you could say we came out even.”

She’d acquired a new spell formula and had her eyes opened to the latent potential of unique abilities.

Moreover, it was probably an advantage that we’d made acquaintances in a far-reaching shadow organization, regardless of whether we could actually commission them to work for us. Sure, if we went around blabbing about them, they might come after us again, but as long as we didn’t do that, there was always a chance we could call on our connections sometime later down the line.

“That might be looking at it too optimistically,” Augurey murmured, “but now that our worries are behind us, maybe that’s for the best. Still, I guess this means tomorrow’s goodbye. I’m going to miss you two.”

I could hear the sincerity in his words. He was right. Augurey was based in the capital, but that wasn’t the case for Lorraine and I. We’d get the chance to come back eventually, but at least for a little while, this was goodbye.