It was not the former [Empress] of the Hera Familia.
It was the [Amazon Empress] who, a thousand years ago, had fought alongside the great hero Albert against the [Black Dragon].
A comrade of the Mercenary King.
One could even argue that, in a certain sense, she counted as a member of the "hero's party."
If you thought of the [Black Dragon] as the Demon Lord, then it really did fit.
Throughout history, there was almost no record of her at all—even in fairy tales and heroic sagas, she was mentioned only in passing, and that was all.
So—
His eyes opened, then closed.
When Isagi, with practiced ease, climbed up from the ground, he discovered that he had already returned to the space above the earlier sand pit.
The strange scene from before had vanished.
The houses around the plaza still stood, and the houses set into the rocky walls of the crater still stood too; the sand had not melted, and it flowed toward the interior of the pit. Only now, within the darkness at the bottom of the crater, one could faintly make out a thin door of mist.
And at the crater's edge, among the corpses of those hunters, a tiny golden point of blessing radiated a warm glow.
[Awesome.]
Isagi was certain that he was absolutely no match for that "Amazon Empress" right now.
She was at least Lv. 8 in strength—and more than that, as a [Hero] of the ancient age, her power couldn't even be pinned down using the current [Falna] level system.
As he'd said—
That ancient battlefield below was nothing more than a relic left behind when Zeus and the Hera Familia had once fought the gods of the Pyramid.
But the adventurers of that era had only been at the Lv. 5 and Lv. 6 level.
To his current self, they posed no threat at all, and naturally they were even less likely to be some kind of final BOSS of the lower floors.
But this "Amazon Empress," as a comrade of the great hero Albert from the ancient age, was likewise a genuine, bona fide [Hero]—she was more than qualified for the role.
So it was time to go back.
All he could say was, thank goodness he hadn't come along with Lefiya and the others—otherwise, in all likelihood, every single one of them would have died once over—
The Great Library was brightly lit.
Out of habit, Ryuu wanted to keep searching here for clues about that Amazon Empress, but of course the result was that she found nothing.
After returning from their adventure in the Dungeon this time, neither the elven maiden nor Isagi had gone back to the Familia to rest. Instead, they had headed straight for the Guild and this Great Library, to see whether they could dig up any information.
"The Guild has nothing either."
Isagi was the more efficient of the two.
That was because the Guild had plenty of clerical staff—and besides, most of the information about the ancient age was poetry passed down through the ages, fragments of legends, or the "eyewitness reports" that certain deities had handed down from on high at the time.
Their authenticity was completely unverifiable, the accounts were fragmentary, and there was hardly any substance to them at all.
Ryuu, meanwhile, was using the clumsy method, going through this library book by book, as if trying to find anything at all that mentioned the "Amazon Empress."
But there simply wasn't any—and that was very strange.
First of all.
"Just where exactly is this [Empress] the empress of?"
Had the Amazon race ever, in ancient times, built some colossal, immense nation?
Remember, this wasn't just a queen—it was an empress. And in the present day, the only power on the continent whose ruler called himself "Emperor" was that mightiest of all, the [Empire].
"But according to current information, for several centuries the Amazon race has been quite loosely organized."
Never mind fringe nations like the warrior country.
Across the continent—
The Amazons were numerous, yet they had no particularly large "organization" to speak of.
That was because, although the women of the Amazons loved to band together, they were also fond of valor and fighting, and even outside the cities they mostly lived as tribes and merchant caravans.
It was said that this had once been a very mainstream way of life for the Amazon race.
Namely, driving those things called "caravan wagons."
They were both shop and stage: wherever the caravan wagon rolled, that was where they performed and did business, like a traveling merchant guild. All over the world, in every corner, one could find the figures of the Amazons.
"Perhaps the ancient age was different."
For a matter like this, it was probably best to go and ask Lady Riveria, and then have her go on to inquire with those thousand-year-old scholars of the Alf Royal Forest.
A "young elf" like Ryuu-senpai had no way of knowing such hidden secrets.
Come to think of it.
There was one other way to dig up news about the "Amazon Empress," and that was to travel back a thousand years into the past.
But that could wait until after he leveled up—
Time flew by swiftly... but things were fine, all in all.
After another two or three adventures, in the stretch of time as early summer drew near, Isagi and the maidens of the Familia all leveled up one after another.
This time, there was no particular order to it.
Lefiya, Ryuu, Ais, Isagi, and Tiona all leveled up right after returning from their adventure.
Haruhime, meanwhile, had leveled up ahead of them to Lv. 5, and Lady Heith was now at Lv. 6 as well.
Not only had the whole party's strength climbed a full tier, but also...
"It's too fast—much faster than before again."
The summer morning light was soft and diffuse.
The sky was clear and the air fresh; against the deep blue firmament, a few wisps of cloud drifted slowly along, letting the faint golden sunlight spill down upon Astrea by the window.
The goddess of justice wore a plain white dress, the very picture of a gentle, lovely wife—yet her face carried a trace of faint worry.
Because she had realized something.
Even though they had already become such high-level adventurers, by all rights the pace of their leveling up should have grown slower and slower.
Especially after Lv. 5—yet now Isagi and the others' pace, compared to when they had been at Lv. 1 and Lv. 2, could even be said to have grown faster?
Was it the influence of the [Appointed Time]?
She pursed her lips.
Although she had already fully confirmed the [Hero], as a goddess, Astrea's heart at this moment was still deeply conflicted.
She couldn't imagine how Zeus and Hera had once felt about their own Familia setting out to subjugate the [Black Dragon].
Perhaps, having completed two of the three great commissions by subjugating Behemoth and Leviathan, both the god and the goddess had been full of proud satisfaction?
Or had they still worried, just as she did?
Or else...
Astrea shook her head, thinking of the expedition they had already decided on, the one that would be launched before long.
The subjugation of the "Corrupted Spirit."
It would be spearheaded by the Loki and Freya Familias. From her own Familia's side, it would be Lefiya, Ryuu, Haruhime, and Tiona going together—and she'd heard that Airmid would be there too, along with Lady Asfi, who had recently returned from the Empire.
Come to think of it, that fellow Hermes was still being "detained" by the Empire.
He was an unreliable sort, to be sure.
But with her patron deity in danger, was the Guild really so at ease about sending Asfi into the Dungeon?
This subjugation of the Corrupted Spirit should count as the last great battle before the [Black Dragon] appeared—and the only great battle that would take place at all.
Astrea was very worried.
Especially when she thought of how Isagi couldn't go, she worried all the more. Before she'd even noticed it, it seemed she had come to rely on that boy quite a lot.
Mm.
Wasn't that only inevitable?!
The goddess of justice blushed faintly and, a little embarrassed, turned her head back to look at the boy who, at this very moment, was still fast asleep in bed.
____
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