Ais's mother, Aria.
When those words reached the ears of everyone present, every head lifted sharply.
"Leo?"
"You..."
Finn, Riveria, and Gareth were taken aback.
As for Ais, her whole body jolted, and she stared blankly at Leo, unable to speak.
Compared to Finn and the others, Leo only grew calmer, as though what he had just said were not some great secret but something everyone already knew. Perfectly natural.
That matter-of-fact manner led Finn and the other two into a misunderstanding.
"Ais...?"
Riveria looked at Ais, a question in her eyes.
Finn and Gareth exchanged a glance, then looked at Ais as well.
"...I didn't tell him."
Ais understood what the three of them meant, and her voice was complicated.
Leo naturally knew what riddle the three were playing at.
It was simple, really. Ais's unknown origins might be a mystery to others, but Finn and the rest knew them perfectly well.
Back then, it was those three, together with Loki, who had brought Ais into this Familia and taken in the girl who had lost her parents.
So while Ais's background was an enigma to everyone else, to Finn and the others it was something they knew inside and out.
Naturally, the three of them also knew that Ais had never been willing to reveal her true origins to anyone, which meant that in the entire Loki Familia, and indeed in the entire lower world, only four people knew where Ais truly came from.
Those four were Loki, Finn, Riveria, and Gareth.
Yet now Leo had called out Ais's identity in a single breath, or rather had called out the name of Ais's mother, which forced the three of them to suspect that Ais had already told Leo about her past.
Given the relationship between Leo and Ais, that would hardly be hard to understand.
Though the two of them had only spent a year together, far less time than the rest of the Familia had spent with Ais, the length of that time didn't necessarily mean anything.
Even a fool could see by now that the relationship between Leo and Ais was far closer than that of ordinary Familia companions, especially after Leo's strength had risen. The two of them now basically moved together in everything, with rather the air of a matched pair, and even the members who used to find Leo unbearable had nothing left to say.
After all, the reason they had found him unbearable before was that this newcomer seemed to have no idea of his own place or how little he weighed. He hadn't even received the Falna, wasn't even an adventurer, and yet he spent every day beside the Familia's Princess. It was plainly a case of reaching far above his station.
Bete was the representative case. He found the sight of Leo hovering around Ais all day especially intolerable, thought this small fry had no self-awareness whatsoever, even suspected Leo of latching onto a powerful patron in hopes of living off a woman, and so never gave him a decent look.
Of course, that foul-tempered Werewolf probably never gave anyone a decent look, but Leo was certainly the one he liked least.
It was only now, with Leo risen to Lv.5, become a first-class adventurer, and possessed of strength comparable to Ais's, that such voices had slowly faded.
With Leo's current reputation and potential, no one would say any longer that he wasn't worthy of the famous Sword Princess.
Finn and the other two had been watching the Familia members grow all along, so of course they knew everything about what was going on between Leo and Ais.
The three of them even felt that this might not be a bad thing. Letting the Doll Princess, steeped in hatred, learn what love was would benefit Ais's growth too.
On that basis, the three had never opposed Leo and Ais spending time together. When a certain trashy patron goddess got wildly jealous and tried to intervene, they had even found every possible way to stop her. Otherwise, with how she doted on Ais, Leo getting within three meters of her would have counted as a miracle.
Under those circumstances, the three of them thought that if the person was Leo, perhaps Ais really would be willing to open her heart to him.
Unfortunately, they had guessed wrong.
"Ais didn't tell me. I worked it out myself."
That was what Leo said.
"Worked it out?"
Finn and the other two were even more astonished.
"You didn't think I don't know where the name 'Aria' comes from, did you?"
Leo said it with something like a laugh.
Aria. The name wasn't actually all that unfamiliar. To some people, it was even a very illustrious one.
As mentioned before, in the ancient age before the gods descended to the lower world, Spirits, the avatars and darlings of the gods, had assisted all kinds of heroes and given the lower world the power to fight monsters.
Among them was one Spirit who had once assisted an extremely famous hero.
That hero was called Albert, a man who had fought the monsters ravaging the lower world alongside companions of great ambition, including Elf royalty, Dwarves, Beast Humans, Pallums, Amazonesses and more, and who had accomplished many great deeds.
Among all the heroes of renown, he was the especially famous sort, called a great hero, a great champion, a great swordsman.
In some heroic epics, Albert was even considered one of the origins of adventurers.
That was because, in life, he had led a group of people known in ancient times as "mercenaries" in exploring the Dungeon together.
In other words, mercenaries were the earliest adventurers, the earliest Dungeon explorers.
As the leader of those mercenaries, Albert was also called the Mercenary King, which is to say the King of Adventurers.
In some books this great hero would be written as Albert, Eusebius, Sword Overlord, and so on, bearing all kinds of different names.
But no matter which story it was, at this great hero's side there would always be the figure of a certain Spirit.
She was the Great Spirit who governed the element of wind: Aria.
"Anyone who knows those stories would think of that Great Spirit the instant they heard the name, wouldn't they?"
Leo looked at Ais as he said it.
"The Great Spirit who governs the element of wind, and a group of Creatures happen to use her name to address Ais. Doesn't that give you something to chew on?"
Most importantly, back in the town of Rivira on Floor 18, Revis hadn't used that name for Ais at first.
Not until Ais used that magic of hers, the one that felt most like cheating: Ariel.
"A Creature identifies her as the Great Spirit Aria specifically after Ais uses her magic. That alone says a great deal."
Leo's calm voice echoed through the office.
"Especially since Ais's magic has always been regarded as a cheat-level power. That makes it all the more suspicious."
An ultra-short chant enchantment that granted a boost strong enough to let its user challenge those above her level. Even among Elves, a race born to magic, would anyone possess magic that powerful?
But if the magic came from the Spirits, who like the gods could exercise a portion of their miracles, then it made sense.
Leo was telling them that this was why he had guessed Ais was the daughter of the Great Spirit Aria.
Except...
"...To guess from that alone that Ais is the descendant of a Spirit is rather bold, isn't it?"
Riveria was silent for a while before she said that.
Leo's guess had reason and evidence behind it, but who was the Great Spirit Aria?
She was a figure who existed in the age before the gods descended to the lower world.
And when did the gods descend?
That happened a thousand years ago.
Which meant that the age in which the Great Spirit Aria was active in the world was at least a thousand years past.
Spirits may be the avatars of gods, but they and their kind are not eternal and undying. They are a long-lived race, the same as Elves.
A Spirit's lifespan is very long, but at most a few centuries. Surviving a thousand years is difficult.
Moreover, as avatars of the gods, Spirits, like the gods themselves, cannot bear offspring.
This was common knowledge.
And yet, under those circumstances, Leo dared to guess that Ais was the daughter of the Great Spirit Aria?
That was no longer a bold guess but a joke that would make anyone laugh out loud.
But this joke happened to be the truth.
"Spirits are a race that specializes in miracles to begin with. Even if they can't give birth themselves, that doesn't mean there's no other way to pass something on."
Leo held to his claim.
He wasn't just talking nonsense either.
In many legends and anecdotes, Spirits could accomplish all sorts of impossible things: turning themselves into divine weapons, taking a hero as their master and helping him or her cut down powerful enemies, turning their own blood or limbs into miracle medicine that saved lives. Among those examples were cases of using the power of miracles to create new life, which touched on the forbidden domain of the gods' creation of life.
The original work still hadn't revealed exactly how the Great Spirit Aria had given birth to Ais, but that Ais carried the blood of a Spirit was certain.
She had inherited the wind of the Great Spirit Aria, inherited her mother's power, and that was why Revis had mistaken her for Aria after she used her magic.
"And if that isn't enough to make the point, I found another suspicious detail."
Leo looked over everyone present, paused on Ais, then said it lightly.
"In some of the stories, the great hero Albert, who received the Great Spirit Aria's aid, is also called 'Waldstein'."
Waldstein the Mercenary King. That was another alias of the great hero Albert.
And Ais's full name was... Ais Wallenstein.
Waldstein... Wallenstein...
It couldn't have been more obvious.
"My guess is that Ais's father is that great hero Albert."
Leo would not stop until his words struck home.
"I don't know how a great hero and a Great Spirit from a thousand years ago managed to have such a daughter together, or how she was left behind into a world a thousand years later, but every sign points to Ais having a deep connection with those two."
Someone who didn't know the original work would have a hard time making that leap.
But Leo belonged to the category of people who already knew the answer and worked backward to the process, which made things much easier.
Sometimes, the reason people can't guess the answer to a riddle isn't a lack of ability but an inability to make the connection.
Once you know the answer, working backward through the riddle reveals that the solution is unimaginably simple.
Ais was the daughter of the great hero Albert and the Great Spirit Aria, the bloodline left behind by two great figures from a thousand years ago.
As for why she had been born and why she had come to this era, readers who knew the original work had made all sorts of guesses, including but not limited to crossing through time, being frozen or sealed away, and so on, but the original work had never spelled it out.
Leo didn't dwell on any of that. All he needed to do was guess boldly.
The process didn't matter. It was enough for the logic to hold together.
"This is also why I said 'She' has a close connection to the Spirits." Leo's gaze passed slowly over everyone present. "'She' craves Ais, craves Ais's mother, or rather craves the blood and power of the Spirits. That undoubtedly shows 'She' cannot be unrelated to them."
"When Ais first saw the jeweled fetus, her reaction was strange too, as though some kind of resonance had arisen between them, some instinctive revulsion."
"And that jeweled fetus was gestated by 'Her'. It might be 'Her' tentacle, or even 'Her' avatar."
Every line Leo spoke pulled the identity of 'She' closer to the existence known as a Spirit.
If I can't say it outright, then surely there's no problem with hinting like mad?
With that thought in mind, Leo poured out every clue and every piece of information he had all at once.
"That would also explain how 'She' can create Creatures. Only a power like a Spirit's, one that can bring about miracles, could do something like that."
And if 'She' could even create Creatures, then for a proper Great Spirit like Aria to find a way to create a daughter related to her by blood ought to be the most ordinary thing in the world.
Leo was also, in his roundabout way, telling them that this was why he had dared to guess that a Great Spirit who couldn't bear children might have a daughter.
Whether the facts were actually so no longer mattered.
Knowing that Ais really was the daughter of the Great Spirit Aria was enough.
"......"
Having heard Leo out, Finn and the others looked at one another, and in the end all fell into silence and thought.
Ais stared blankly at Leo for a while longer, then lowered her head and said nothing at all.
Leo could feel that Ais was uneasy right now.
Her long-concealed origins had been exposed by Leo just like that, which left her utterly at a loss.
She had to admit it. She was a little afraid.
Afraid that Leo would look at her with different eyes.
It left her unable to look at him at all, so she could only lower her head and bury her face completely.
"Leo."
Finn rubbed his brow and said a word to him.
"Keep this to yourself for now. Understand?"
Which amounted to admitting that what Leo had just said was correct.
"Understood, Captain."
Leo had no objection.
And so, in a rather delicate atmosphere, they talked over a few other things as if changing the subject.
Not long after, Leo and Ais left Finn's office.
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