The cabin was full of panicked screams and sobbing.
After Ryuu left the room,
she found the corridor in near-total chaos — some people murmured prayers under their breath, others huddled in corners clutching their children, some ran about like headless flies, and others shouted furiously, demanding an explanation from the crew.
But there was no response at all. Whether it was crying or raging, not a single crew member came to explain the situation.
No one knew what had actually happened.
The only certainty was what was about to happen — the airship was going to crash.
The Sleipnir carried an enormous number of people.
As the most famous "landmark" of Altena, the capital of the Magic Kingdom, it welcomed tens of thousands of visitors every day.
It wasn't merely an inn.
It also housed several massive memorial exhibition halls, along with grand ballrooms that hosted lavish dances every night.
She hadn't thought much of it when they'd first arrived, but now, standing in the corridor, Ryuu found the sheer press of people almost unimaginable.
So... what now?
Even as a Lv. 7 adventurer, the elf girl found herself trapped in a long moment of uncertainty.
Ideas flickered through her mind one after another, only to be dismissed just as quickly — neither her own magic nor Alise and the others' would do anything to help the situation.
And what could she herself actually do?
Probably... jump from a height of a hundred meters or more before the airship crashed, then get clear of the blast radius the moment it hit the ground.
For an adventurer above Lv. 5, that wouldn't be difficult at all.
In fact,
the girl had spotted a few people in the crowd whose brows were furrowed but whose eyes remained steady — likely adventurers of some skill, probably planning the same thing.
At most, they might save a few people on their way out, if they had the chance.
That was about it. What else could be done?
As the "strongest" beings in this world, faced with a disaster like this, that was the limit of what even they could manage.
But—
perhaps that was the difference between a "Hero" and merely a "strong person."
Ryuu saw Isagi, who had also come out of his room, dashing down the corridor toward the outer hatch.
The boy moved fast, and he wasn't waiting for her.
Ryuu understood — this was his trust in her. Because whatever Isagi was about to do, he knew that with her own strength, she'd be fine.
So in a moment demanding every second count, there was no need for words or gestures of comfort. The elf girl wasn't the type who needed emotional reassurance in a moment like this, either.
Still,
Ryuu couldn't help but feel a flicker of worry — she had no idea what Isagi actually meant to do.
So she could only hurry after him.
Until she saw him arrive at the end of the corridor, before a sealed hatch door.
It wasn't an ordinary door, of course, but one cast from solid steel — after all, they were high in the sky, and if it were simply opened, the wind would sweep up everyone in the corridor and hurl them straight out into the open air.
"Ryuu, hold this door shut the moment I'm through."
"Got it!"
Whatever Isagi meant to do, she would back him to the end.
With that,
he forced the steel door open with sheer strength. A violent gust of wind roared in, and the boy slipped outside in an instant, while Ryuu threw her own body against the door to keep the raging air current from blowing it open again.
She seemed to have already guessed what the boy was about to attempt.
Ryuu could only think — how could that possibly be done? Was such a thing even achievable?
Even for a Lv. 8 adventurer, even with something called the "power of wishes," surely that wasn't possible?
That was something ordinary people couldn't even imagine — no, wouldn't dare imagine at all.
Isagi could fly.
So to him, even if the airship were about to crash, it hardly mattered — he could easily carry Ryuu to safety, and with his speed, even save a few more people before the crash.
But—
that wouldn't mean much. No, it wasn't that it would mean nothing — it was that he could do far more than that.
For an ordinary adventurer above Lv. 5, someone who by this world's standards absolutely counted as "strong," that would already be the limit of what they could do.
But for him, the limit of what he could do wasn't that.
Instead...
Golden wings unfurled beneath the night sky.
Once outside, Isagi could see the massive airship's condition even more clearly.
Thick black smoke poured from it, though it hadn't yet caught fire — it looked like some internal propulsion mechanism had failed, robbing it of the ability to fly.
In truth,
there was no real "secondary damage" happening inside the cabin at that moment. Aside from widespread panic, most people had somehow kept a basic sense of order — there wasn't even a stampede. It was almost unbelievable.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on that. What Isagi needed to do was simple —
[I'll hold it up!]
Against the Sleipnir's monstrous bulk, the boy's body looked like nothing more than a speck of sesame — a tiny black dot.
And yet,
that small point of light plunged straight into the churning black smoke, reaching the very bottom of the airship, and there, raising both hands, he single-handedly braced the mountain-sized vessel from beneath.
"!!!"
An unbearably heavy pressure slammed into his body all at once.
For the first time in his life, Isagi felt as if every drop of blood in him was trembling.
The black [Dragon's Feast] had already spread across his entire body. Beneath the grotesque Dragon Armor, the familiar stinging sensation returned, the armor squeezing his limits at an indescribable pace.
His life force was draining away at breakneck speed.
This wasn't merely a contest of Strength — it was humanity's tiny power struggling against "nature" itself.
Given Isagi's current Stats,
even something as colossal as the Sleipnir, a construct of steel, would be trivial for him to destroy outright. And even pushing it aside, or hurling it away, though difficult, wasn't impossible either.
But right now,
the sheer kinetic force and pressure of a several-hundred-thousand-ton airship plummeting from the heavens
had already exceeded whatever anyone would call the limit of human capability.
What Isagi had to do now wasn't just stop the airship — he had to lift it, carry it, and as gently as possible, without causing any damage, set it down somewhere outside the city.
This simply wasn't something a person could do.
In fact, just as Ryuu had realized a moment ago, it wasn't even something anyone would think to attempt.
The very idea of it, forming in one's mind, already felt absurd beyond reason.
But now!
Isagi was doing it!!
That impossibly tiny point of light truly slowed the falling behemoth's descent — and it was, truly, gradually coming to a stop.
At that very moment,
hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people in the city below watched this scene unfold.
Amid the billowing black smoke, that brilliant golden star shone so vividly — was it magic? Or was it the nation's newest scientific achievement?
Neither.
Soon, word passed from mouth to mouth among the residents with telescopes, bringing a "truth" that no one could believe.
That golden star was a person.
A figure clad in pitch-black armor, using nothing but his own two hands, had forcibly halted the airship's fall.
It was an adventurer!
Most residents of the Magic Kingdom's capital were worldly enough to know.
For a human to accomplish something on that scale — without a doubt, that had to be an adventurer from Orario, the Labyrinth City.
There was no other possibility.
Because while other nations of the world might well have many strong individuals,
the strongest adventurer in this world had to be in the Labyrinth City — because only in the Dungeon could a "Monster" of that caliber possibly be born!
Was it the [Berserker] of Freya Familia?
Or was it the School District's strongest, the Greatest of Knights?
But soon,
these outdated guesses were swiftly "debunked," because the city's current strongest was known to be from Astrea Familia — the vice-captain under the goddess of justice and stars.
The official title bestowed on him, set long ago, was only the [Knight of Abundance].
But the people —
or rather, the gods of the city — used a different name, one first spoken by the Goddess of Beauty, Freya.
The boy was [Astrea's Blade];
he was the [Sword of Justice];
he was the [Most Brilliant Star];
he was the [Wing of Salvation];
or rather, what the gods of the city had already settled on, unanimously —
a [Hero].
The airship came to a stop.
Just as it seemed it always should have been, held up by the boy with golden wings, its colossal body froze there, suspended in midair.
A [Hero] is someone who accomplishes what no one else can.
That is why —
the world needs [Heroes].
At that moment, whether the tens of thousands of passengers and crew aboard the Sleipnir or the residents of the city below, all of them were utterly stunned.
It felt as though they were witnessing a miracle — no, this was a miracle.
An unbelievable [Miracle], happening right before their eyes!!
The airship that should have crashed had not only stopped — it had begun to move, slowly.
Toward the outskirts of the city, it drifted, little by little.
At that moment,
in the city, Ais and the others had seen the whole thing too. The golden-haired girl summoned a gust of wind at once, ready to rush over and help.
But Aphrodite, standing beside her, stopped her.
Gods, perhaps, understood other gods best of all.
The goddess seemed to sense something, and simply said that if something went wrong for Isagi, it would be better for Ais to go then, not now.
But—
she doubted anything would go wrong.
That was the goddess's "faith" speaking, and though Ais didn't quite understand it, she nodded and agreed.
Elsewhere in the city,
Asfi, who was with the goddess Artemis, and Alfia, moving alone, both watched the same scene, feelings stirring within them.
Not until, beneath the night sky,
the massive airship truly drifted beyond the city's edge and began to descend slowly, bit by bit — people even found themselves drawn toward the city's outskirts, as if compelled to witness something.
At last, they watched the Sleipnir settle gently down,
coming to rest on the vast plains outside the city, under the light of stars and moon, still trailing wisps of black smoke.
But soon,
the official rescue teams and the airship's original crew swiftly began bringing the passengers down, organizing the relief efforts in orderly fashion.
By that point, it had nothing more to do with the [Hero].
Isagi had already left with Ryuu, and before anyone noticed, they had returned to the city, back to the elf inn room they'd stayed in the night before.
"So tired."
Lying in bed after his bath, the boy let out, for the first time in his life, a groan of pure exhaustion.
After all, this hadn't been a battle — it had been pure, brute labor.
The armor had nearly wrung his life force completely dry. Even after downing an entire vial of panacea, his body still felt utterly drained.
Still,
had he really managed to do it?
Before he'd tried, even Isagi himself hadn't been sure — he'd simply felt he had to try, no matter what.
He hadn't expected—
And from now on, the story of this [Hero] would begin spreading throughout the world.
Some would pray and give thanks that the boy had saved tens of thousands of lives and averted a disaster;
some would marvel at just how absurdly, terrifyingly powerful the boy's strength was, to a degree beyond imagining;
some would fear a person like him, wondering just how terrifying an adventurer he would be if he ever truly fought seriously;
and some —
no, a great many — began to speculate.
Whether the boy could defeat the Black Dragon, and grew certain that he could, since he had already accomplished what even the Zeus Familia and Hera Familia of old had failed to do.
The world began to change, starting that day.
But this—
was only the beginning.
High atop the mountain peak, the one-eyed god had watched the entire scene unfold from start to finish. The Hero's trial was far from over.
Odin merely nodded in satisfaction, then drank from the cup in his hand.
Once, he had intended to put the children under Zeus and Hera through a trial just like this.
But those arrogant fools had scorned the idea, even finding the notion laughable.
But—
the fools were them, not him.
Because a [Hero] never hesitates to show their strength to others;
a [Hero] never troubles themselves over how to prove their power to the world;
a [Hero] need only exist, and recognition follows naturally.
Of course,
the one-eyed god had learned his lesson this time — he hadn't bothered asking the boy's permission at all. After all, when it mattered, a [Hero] would rise to the occasion regardless.
Whether saving people or saving the world, it was simply a given, as far as such a being was concerned.
A [Hero] would never bother with such considerations.
So...
let the trial continue, then—
"Odin's probably scheming exactly that."
In the room, girls and goddesses alike, including a beautiful woman with long silver-gray hair, all crowded around Isagi's bed, until it almost felt like some deathbed vigil.
Ah, well.
Being surrounded by so many beauties before dying wasn't a bad way to go, he supposed.
Thinking this, Isagi fiercely drained the large bowl of meat broth in his hands, then took the plate of beef curry Ryuu handed him, digging in with huge bites, too busy eating to even talk.
So tired, damn it — better refuel properly!
Nearby, Aphrodite and Artemis were both convinced that today's airship crash hadn't been an accident at all — it had been deliberate.
Though as gods of Olympus, they weren't technically from the same pantheon as the gods residing in Asgard.
But the two sides actually knew each other quite well.
"Mostly because we live close by," Aphrodite added.
Odin was the leader of the Asgard gods, a "Great God," and when it came to him, even fellow Asgard deities like Loki and Freya — and the [School District]'s headmaster, Baldr, that ever-gently-smiling young god with golden hair whom Isagi had met before —
all had only one word for him.
[Ruthless].
And then, [Tyrannical].
"There's absolutely no doubt he'd pull something like this!"
The most outrageous part was that the airship's crew apparently had known all along — after all, the moment the Sleipnir landed safely, the official rescue team arrived almost instantly, as if it had been prepared and waiting in advance.
"Seriously, gambling with that many lives..."
"That's just his personality," someone said.
"Mm-hmm!"
Well, since that was the case,
"Let's head back," Alfia said flatly. As a member of Hera Familia, she quickly recalled a similar incident from the past — when their captain, the [Empress], had received an invitation from Odin before departing for Dragon Valley.
Back then, the goddess Hera had taken one look at the letter and cursed Odin as someone with something seriously wrong in his head.
Sick. Insane.
Naturally, she'd ignored it entirely.
And indeed — a god who'd crash an airship on purpose today might pull off who-knows-what tomorrow.
Who wanted to play along with something like that?
Alfia pursed her lips, clearly quite displeased about the whole thing.
As for Isagi,
he didn't think much of it, because—
today's incident, honestly, had been easier than expected. Sure, he'd been exhausted just now, but it was only that — exhausted, nothing more.
He hadn't even really pushed himself.
Forget pushing himself — he'd died more times than he could count in the Dungeon. At least this time, he hadn't died.
When the boy voiced this thought aloud,
the women around him were utterly stunned, but after thinking it over carefully, they realized it was probably true — and yet, even so, it was still completely absurd!
Alfia even felt a sudden urge to forcibly drag the boy away.
But—
"Let's just leave it at that. I suppose this is what they call a [Trial]. If the great god Odin wants us to prove ourselves to him, then we'll prove it."
It didn't matter.
It could even be said it wasn't that big a deal.
Isagi wasn't putting on a brave face or acting tough — he was simply stating a plain fact, nothing more.
And with that, the brief meeting came to an end.
Isagi finished off the entire plate of curry in his hands, then had the elf girl refill it for him once more.
He only thought,
if he didn't go outside tomorrow, what other tricks would Odin come up with?
That guy wouldn't actually pull out some secret weapon and fire it at his own capital, would he?
He even found himself curious what other stunts the one-eyed god might pull off next.
For now, though, the boy's mood was simple and light.
Fully ready to face whatever [Trial] came next.
____
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