"What do you mean, 'nothing strange about it'?!"
"She received her God's Grace less than a day ago!"
"From Lv.1 to Lv.2 in the time it takes to catch a nap?"
"Even those Familia girls you brought over before—this speed is just too damn unreasonable!"
Loki grumbled and cursed.
But the words had barely left her when the intel Finn had reported yesterday flashed through her mind. After all, last night Koharu had single-handedly bloodied the turf of several Familias.
And she'd solo-killed a Lv.3 captain of a god's Familia.
Overpowering and killing someone two ranks above her. In the Lower World, that was truly a stunning, world-shaking feat.
If you measured it strictly by the standard of a "great deed"—this kind of showing, crushing a higher-ranked opponent, did meet the threshold of one.
Loki might down plenty of booze, but she still had judgment enough for this.
Still. Her head could accept it, but her gut felt sour all the same.
"Tch."
"Your luck really is one of a kind."
"How do these monster-tier prospects all end up scooped into your nest just from you taking a stroll outside?"
"Meanwhile our Twilight Manor lately can't even run into one halfway-gifted talent..."
"Don't tell me you coming down to the Lower World sucked away all my good luck?"
With that thought, Loki muttered her complaints off to the side.
While Loki was still venting her bellyful of grievances, Ais—who had been quietly trailing behind her own patron goddess—simply ignored the muttering beside her, her expressionless face tilting slightly down.
She fixed her golden eyes squarely on Koharu, who stood only a touch shorter than herself.
Koharu had had no interest in Loki's complaints to begin with. Now, sensing Ais's unconcealed stare, her distinctive swirl-patterned eyes snapped over.
Her wrist dropped, fingers hooking at once around the sheath of the jet-black 『Weeping Blood』 at her waist. Her thumb pressed against the guard, poised to draw at any moment.
Noticing this aggressive little motion of Koharu's, Ais wasn't angered. Instead she began rapidly replaying in her mind that instant on the training ground.
"The angle of your draw just now..."
Ais spoke up suddenly, her voice carrying a certain wooden earnestness.
"Your right shoulder rose too high."
"All your power concentrated into the burst the instant the blade cleared the sheath."
"The motion locks up completely."
"Your lower body gives no thought to defense at all."
"Which means you left yourself no spare room to retreat, didn't you."
"You, wielding a swordsmanship like that..."
"seem to be gambling your life."
"If your first strike gets blocked..."
"or the enemy slips off the position where you predicted your cut..."
"you'd die, wouldn't you?"
The moment those words came out, even Loki—about to resume her grumbling—halted and stared with some surprise at her own Ais-tan, who was never much of a talker.
"And also."
As she spoke, Ais thoughtfully raised a hand and mimed a motion of borrowing force backward.
"If, back on the training ground, I hadn't chosen to sidestep right to dodge..."
"but instead, after reading the arc of your cut, had flicked up with the flat of my blade..."
"and used the momentum of your charge to force a parry against your edge..."
Ais looked at the wound on the web of Koharu's right hand.
"Your arms, under that hard collision, would have been jolted straight out of joint by the heavy recoil."
"And then..."
"I'd only need a smooth slide of the hand..."
"to beat you to it and send my point into your throat."
Having finished, Ais simply stood there in silence.
As a natural airhead, Ais's mind had never grasped the social niceties of small talk, much less understood what saving face meant at a time like this.
Earlier, on the training ground, after a lock of her hair had been cut away, she'd begun running hundreds of dry simulations of the technique in her head. The conclusion she reached in the end was crystal clear.
It was a trade-one-for-one, throw-your-own-life-away style of desperate combat.
As for Ais's blunt breakdown—the fingers Koharu had resting on her hilt slowly loosened. She tugged at the corner of her mouth, baring a few faintly sharp shark teeth.
"Then what if."
"My speed is fast enough that the opponent has no time at all to slip aside?"
Koharu shot back.
"The 『Yakumaru Jigen-ryu』, from the very day it was created, has existed to kill."
"No need for defense."
"No need for retreat."
"Its core is discarding defense in pursuit of instantaneous explosive force."
"As long as my blade is even a single millisecond faster than the enemy's reaction..."
"then the one who dies first will always be him."
"As long as one strike ends it—why should I bother about my lower body's defense?"
This near-mad declaration had Loki shaking her head.
But after Ais heard it, she actually kept that slightly dopey-cute stance and seriously followed Koharu's line of reasoning for a few seconds.
Then Ais honestly shook her head.
"But even so, doing it that way is too dangerous."
"You won't survive on the deep floors."
"The number of monsters and their angles of attack down there make no sense at all."
"All it takes is one that isn't fully dead, or one lunging in from the side."
"You, having spent every last reserve, wouldn't even have the strength to dodge."
Ais delivered her final verdict. It was exceptionally clean-cut.
"Tch."
Hearing words that all but sentenced her to death, Koharu let out a displeased click of her tongue. She turned her head away, clearly not pleased to hear anyone belittle her ultimate art like that.
But as a battle-junkie who made combat her lifelong pursuit, Koharu's mind was just as clear. The scenario Ais had laid out was, in truth, a fatal reality that would very likely befall her in that kind of dead end.
So Koharu forced down the churning displeasure and prepared to stop bothering with this wooden post of a girl.
However, Ais hadn't picked up on the other's intent to end the topic. Instead she tilted her head, her gaze dropping to her own palm.
Her right hand traced, in tiny motions midair, the opening movement of a draw. After trying it over a few times, a moment later, Ais raised her head again.
Her eyes glinted with an almost stubborn earnestness as she asked:
"But..."
"About that swordsmanship you mentioned, the one called 『Yakumaru Jigen-ryu』."
"Could you teach me?"
The instant she said it—
"Huh?!"
Loki, still tugging at her hair in frustration nearby, was caught off guard, eyes going round as she looked at Ais, then at Koharu across from her.
What kind of play was this?
A moment ago she'd torn the other's technique apart as worthless. And now she was actually asking to be taught it?
Koharu was likewise taken aback. Her distinctive swirl-patterned eyes blinked twice.
Clearly she hadn't expected that, after running the technique down like a rotten plank of wood, the other would have the nerve to turn around and ask to learn it.
Snapping out of it, Koharu let out a cold laugh.
"Teach you?"
"Why should I?"
"This isn't like buying a drink at the tavern—toss down a few coppers and I'll just hand the trick to an outsider."
"Since you look down on my style, then don't go coveting it."
"Is that so. Then what a shame."
Faced with Koharu's exceptionally blunt refusal, the calm on Ais's face wasn't broken. Nor did she feel any embarrassment at being turned down. She only lowered her eyelids with a touch of regret, her head tilting slightly to one side, and let out a soft sigh.
Knowing full well that if he let these two socially clumsy girls hash it out, it would surely end in a falling-out, Haimer stepped in at that point with a resigned but timely word.
"Come to think of it."
"When Miss Ais pointed out the flaw in your draw just now, Koharu—you yourself must have already felt it clearly, no?"
Haimer said.
Koharu pressed her lips together and said nothing. Haimer went on.
"The 『Yakumaru Jigen-ryu』 does push offensive efficiency to its utmost. But..."
"that's all it is—offense, and nothing more."
"In this Dungeon world full of the unexpected, if you can't guarantee a one-strike kill against anything and everything..."
"then this single weakness is truly enough to become a fatal blind spot."
"Then by your meaning, Kami-sama, what should I do?"
"You need a shield."
Haimer answered quite simply.
"Or rather, you need to work out some mechanism that, when your first strike misses, forcibly buys you the next reaction window in a hopeless spot—even if it's only a tenth of a second."
"Your innate gifts are strong. So—"
Haimer turned his head. His gaze landed on the dazed Ais to the side, and he gestured toward her.
"You need a sparring partner who can constantly press you and fill that gap in experience."
"And here, Miss Ais is clearly the best candidate to meet that requirement."
Haimer just laid it all out plainly. He figured Koharu would work it out herself.
For though she was willful in conduct and fierce in temperament, she was never a fool. She respected the strong. So between admitting her skill fell short and pursuing ever more extreme strength, she'd choose the latter without hesitation.
And so, after a dozen-odd seconds of silence, Koharu did indeed stand there, her swirl-patterned eyes sweeping back and forth between Haimer and Ais several times.
And she understood. If she wanted to survive in this broader, crueler world, stubbornly clinging to a flawed style truly couldn't bring any real improvement.
Life lies in motion. Its essence is in ceaselessly surpassing oneself.
"Fine."
With that, Koharu readily set aside her earlier arrogance and gave a nod, formally taking on this high-intensity sparring arrangement.
Having gotten Koharu's definite answer, Ais, standing to the side, seemed to see in the guidance arrangement Haimer had just set up the hope of using the chance to study up close the way Koharu channeled force into her cuts.
Her golden eyes visibly brightened.
"Thank you, Lord Haimer."
Airhead though she was, Ais could still understand that Haimer's words were meant to help her too, and she thanked him at once.
"Uh..."
Only, through all of this, Loki—who'd been a spectator the whole time—sat there mouth open, wanting to cut in with a word or two, only to find she couldn't get a single word in.
She could only watch helplessly as her own Ais-tan struck up such a natural rapport with Haimer's Koharu, and could only sit there dumbfounded.
Was this even reasonable?
"How did it even turn out like this..."
Loki muttered under her breath, mouth twisting, clearly baffled by the strange brainwave-communication mode between these two.
Still, lately, out of concern over Ais always heading into the Dungeon alone, Loki was clear on one thing. As her Familia's sole seedling, Ais had indeed been stuck at a leveling plateau for far too long.
For Ais, mired in that plateau, finding a bit of fresh stimulation at this stage wasn't a bad thing at all.
And so the matter fell neatly into place.
"Then, once the construction on Lord Haimer's new base over there is finished and built up..."
"I'll go over there every day to train with her?" Ais was about to casually nail down the future schedule.
"That, and only that, is absolutely not allowed!!!"
But the moment those words came out, Loki—like a fox whose tail had been stepped on, fur standing on end—leapt hard to plant herself in front of Ais, arms crossing exaggeratedly into a big red X across her chest as she looked at the little cabbage she'd raised from childhood.
Then her pupils glared so hard they nearly went bloodshot, her whole face wary as she rounded on Haimer.
Enough that Haimer rolled his eyes at her.
And when the news later broke that Koharu had completed her Rank Sublimation and advanced to Lv.2—
"Lv.2."
"The younger generation is a fearsome thing."
Gareth stroked the thick brown beard on his chin.
"From receiving the first drop of Divine Blood imprinted upon her, to crossing the threshold of Lv.1 Sublimation—not even a single day."
"A speed this fearsome outstrips even the rising stars of these past few years."
"Truth be told, watching Lord Haimer's bunch of girls, this old man can't help recalling that crowd from the [Hera Familia] a dozen-odd years back."
"Aye."
Finn seconded his old partner's musing. Riveria nodded as well.
"But speaking of which, Captain Finn."
"The duel we set to contest the deep-floor expedition slots against the Second Company—there should only be a few days left, right?"
Haimer asked.
Finn nodded at that.
"Indeed."
"Our supply stockpile for tackling the deep floors is already fully prepared."
"Raul and the others of the Second Company have likewise been stepping up their preparations."
"It may be a friendly exchange, but a sparring match is still a sparring match—with a senior's pride on the line, I'm sure Raul and his lot won't want to lose too badly."
No sooner had Finn finished speaking than Amou Kirukiru, leaning against a corner not far off, brushed the black hair from her forehead and cricked her neck.
"So the backbone of your Second Company is some guy called Raul?"
"Is he strong?"
Hearing Amou Kirukiru's sudden question, Finn gave a wry smile.
"If Miss Amaha is the yardstick for comparison..."
Finn sighed and opted for honesty.
"I imagine Raul's strength would leave you somewhat disappointed."
No sooner had these words dropped—
"Thud!"
As Finn's honest words hit the ground, at a window along the second-floor corridor of the Twilight Manor, a heavy sound of knees crashing to the floor followed.
Hearing the commotion, Finn's wry smile deepened.
"Boo-hoo-hoo!"
And there, in the second-floor corridor of the Twilight Manor, the spiky-haired Second Company member Raul now had both hands clapped over his face, his whole body collapsed to his knees on the corridor carpet, wailing.
After all, he couldn't help it. Captain Finn had spoken the truth.
After all, Amou Kirukiru, the "Calamity God's Cursed Weapon" who had broken the "Sword Princess" Ais's fastest-leveling record, was now openly one of Orario's next-generation monster stars.
As for her showing in terms of combat power, that needed no further mention here. She was strong to a genuinely absurd degree.
At the Lv.2 stage, without using magic, in a fully head-on melee, she could already trade blow-for-blow, fist meeting flesh, back and forth, with Tione—an Amazon elite who had reached Lv.5.
And even while on the losing end of a brutal beating, she faintly displayed an absurd tendency to grow more excited the longer she fought, and to recover faster the worse her wounds got.
An inhuman thing.
By comparison—what about himself?
Raul buried his face deep in his palms.
It had taken him a full four years, scrabbling and stumbling through the Dungeon, blundering his way up to Lv.4 with great difficulty. But he'd done it entirely by hiding behind seniors like Finn, sneakily scooping up the [experience] they left behind.
He had no magic that could turn a battle around, nor even a single skill worth showing off. His five basic abilities were utterly unremarkable, without a single standout point. As for the Magic column, forget it—perpetually zero.
Even his title, as defined by the Denatus, was "Extraordinary Man"—which really only pointed to a supremely ordinary man.
At that thought, Raul was utterly crushed.
"Raul, that's about enough."
"The captain stated a fact—he didn't call you trash."
"And besides, you were eavesdropping on their conversation, and you've still got the nerve to play the pitiful act here."
The Second Company member Anakity stood to the side, arms folded across her chest.
As a Cat Person, watching Raul in this crushed state, her long slender black cat tail swished irritably left and right behind her, and the toe of her leather boot tapped, tap, tap.
"Anaki, isn't this the moment you're supposed to comfort a poor battered guy like me in a gentle voice..."
"In that case, want me to kick you down the stairs so you can bawl in front of everyone all over again?"
Anakity rolled her eyes, but didn't actually raise a foot—she just bent down, reached out, pinched one of Raul's ears, and yanked it hard upward.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Anaki, you're gonna rip my ear off!"
Raul hurriedly leaned with the pull, both hands instinctively grabbing at Anakity's wrist, trying to rescue his ear.
Seeing this, Anakity let go, her fuzzy black cat ears flicking back, and gave the back of Raul's head a slap.
"How much could it hurt."
Looking down at Raul, who'd finally clambered up off the floor, Anakity put one hand on her hip.
"And quit going all mopey at the drop of a hat—the seniors of the First Company and Lord Haimer's Familia are still watching down below. Isn't that embarrassing?"
Rubbing his reddened ear, Raul sniffled and stole a glance out the window, meeting Gareth's gaze head-on.
The elder Gareth didn't mock him for the little farce he'd witnessed. Beside him, the Pallum captain Finn wore his usual gentle smile and waved a hand this way.
Pulling his gaze back, Raul scratched his messy spiky hair and muttered under his breath.
"I know it's embarrassing—I just couldn't hold it in."
"And this batch of newcomers Lord Haimer brought over, each one weirder than the last. What we grind at for years, they surpass in a few days... How's a person supposed to live like this?"
"But it's precisely because we're about to be damn well overtaken that we've got to work even harder!"
Anakity was exasperated, wishing he'd shape up.
"Whack!"
With that, the toe of Anakity's leather boot slammed without ceremony into Raul's shin.
The force was judged just right. Not enough to injure bone or sinew, but absolutely enough to hurt.
"Owww!"
Raul clutched his shin and hopped in place, hissing through his teeth. The face he'd been wearing with a put-on air of tragic gravitas instantly scrunched into a knot.
Anakity couldn't be bothered to watch his comical leg-rubbing. She flicked the slender black tail behind her and walked to the edge of the balcony.
Resting a hand on the railing, she looked down across the courtyard from on high, fixing on the several newcomers below who were locked in a heated bout with the First Company.
"Look at them."
Anakity pointed below.
Over there, the small girl wielding twin blades—Kohina Hiruko—was being swung at by Tiona hefting a greatsword one-handed. Yet Kohina Hiruko showed not a trace of fear—instead she giggled and clung up along the blade like a piece of sticky candy that couldn't be shaken off.
Another, a black-haired woman called Tendou Kisara, was forcing her way through an ice barrier Riveria had set up, gashes of blood opening across her body—yet the killing chill radiating from her sent a shiver down the spine of even Anakity, standing on the second floor.
These people. It had been only a few days since they received their Grace. Yet the moment they fought, every one of them wore the desperate stance of someone who'd tucked their own head into their belt.
This indifference to pain, this wringing-out of their own limits—it was something that adventurers like them, who'd slowly climbed up under the shelter of proper Familias in an increasingly comfortable Orario, simply did not possess.
"If even monsters like them are working this hard, while we stay put, disheartened and stagnant—then we've already lost before the match even begins."
Anakity's voice cooled.
Raul opened his mouth but couldn't get a word out.
He was a seasoned adventurer too. How could he fail to see that, as long as these newcomers survived, their surpassing the Second Company in level was a matter of a year—or even just a few months.
It was like watching a runaway carriage barreling toward you—you want to stop it, but you can't even touch it.
"But isn't the match both sides agreed on just a few days away?"
Raul sighed.
"We can't exactly, like them, go through a few days of special training and then carve them up like melons and vegetables."
Anakity turned around. Her displeased black slit-pupils fixed on him.
"So this is exactly what you, the Second Company's commander, ought to be thinking about, isn't it?"
"Commander, sir."
Raul scratched his head, pressing on his mop of messy spiky hair and rubbing it into further disarray.
"Fine."
If he couldn't win one-on-one anyway, then he'd think of another trick.
Raul lowered his hand, and though the gloom on his face hadn't fully faded, at least he straightened his back.
"Get Alicia, Line and the rest over here. Since the First Company's people are putting Lord Haimer's newcomers through their paces, we'd better figure out how to deal with these humanoid monsters too."
With that—up on the platform, Haimer leaned back in his chair.
Loki sat cross-legged beside him, gripping an apple and chomping it, juice all over her mouth.
With their hearing, they'd naturally caught the whole little play up on the second-floor corridor. But neither meant to point it out.
"Tsk tsk."
Loki flicked the leftover apple core over her shoulder into the bushes in a corner of the courtyard, earning an eye-roll from Riveria.
"Haimer, your bunch of girls are about to drive my kids crazy."
Haimer wasn't much moved by this.
"Without a taste of crisis, how do you raise your ceiling?"
"Easy for you to say, standing there without a care."
Loki rolled her eyes.
"But seriously, Haimer."
"Where do you keep picking up so many of these little monsters?"
"A few of them—especially the one called Amaha and the one called Little Hiruko—feel like they could be tossed into Evilus and probably claw their way up to being some kind of boss."
"Though when it comes down to it, the one here best suited to run Evilus is still you."
"Eat your apple. This isn't your concern."
"Also, Loki—about tomorrow. The Constable's operation continues, and I'll need you to keep an eye on these kids for me."
Haimer glanced at the training ground, lost in thought.
Trash like Apollo were just fools who'd stumbled onto the muzzle of his gun. The real tumors he'd set his sights on were the ones hidden deep in Daedalus Street, even those colluding in the shadows.
He intended to sweep them out one by one. Especially that so-called man-made labyrinth, and Ikelos's side of things.
Beneath Orario lay no small amount of interesting filth.
"You're going to keep stirring things up?"
"Know when to stop. Don't really push those guys until they're cornered dogs leaping the wall. You may be able to keep the gods of the Heavens in check, but a Lower World rat backed into a corner will bite."
Loki couldn't resist the jab. Haimer was unimpressed.
"If a rat bites, just stomp the rat dead."
"But if you let the rats run wild simply out of fear of them, you only feed their arrogance."
"And that way, given enough time, it won't be as simple as a rat biting anymore."
"What are you doing?"
No sooner had Haimer's words fallen than Loki's brows knit into a knot, her vermilion eyes full of suspicion as she leaned in, tilting her body over.
She pressed one hand to Haimer's forehead, and the back of her other hand to her own.
"That's not right."
Loki compared the two temperatures back and forth and clicked her tongue oddly.
"Neither of us has a fever!"
"So how am I hearing you suddenly spout such righteous, high-minded talk? Is this still the arch-villain who slaughtered the Heavens until they were empty?"
In the face of Loki's teasing, Haimer half-lowered his eyelids, not even bothering to reply, and shot her a sidelong glance.
"Aiya, don't take it to heart now."
Seeing Haimer's speechless reaction, Loki shrugged and drew her hand back. She let herself flop backward, lying flat on the platform, hands pillowed behind her head.
"Anyway, whatever happens, since it's an idea you've settled on, I'll see it through with you to the end."
"Who told you to be one of the few in this Lower World I actually see eye to eye with."
"And if we really do capsize in some dark gutter, worst case I flounder around down here in the Lower World alongside you."
With that, Loki turned her head, her vermilion eyes sizing up Haimer's profile from below, and split into a grin with a hint of roguishness.
And then, the next second—
"Bang!"
A glass of chilled juice, still wisping with cold, was slammed down hard on the round side-table beside Haimer.
Hestia wedged herself right between Haimer and Loki, then deliberately stuck out her rear to shove Loki aside.
"Here, Haimer!"
"Fresh-squeezed juice—drink up!"
Hestia pointed at the juice on the round side-table, then stuffed the straw of a second glass into her own mouth, lips pursed.
Haimer reached out and lifted the glass, thick with condensation.
"Thanks."
At that word of thanks, Hestia's high-pursed lips finally eased back a little, and her tied-up twin-tails swayed lightly along with it.
"Smack!"
She swatted Loki.
And Loki, sprawled on the platform, watched the other clutching a glass in each hand—with none, of all things, for her.
"Hey, you little runt."
"Where's mine?"
At this, Hestia whipped her head around to glare down at the reclining Loki, her expression—which had softened a touch—instantly turning fierce.
"Urusai!"
"I've only got two hands! Two glasses is already my limit!"
"You want a drink, go get your own!"
With that, Hestia promptly turned her head away.
"Fine."
"I'm sure Haimer won't mind sharing his with me."
But Hestia had clearly completely underestimated Loki's thick skin.
Unbothered, Loki simply reached over, took Haimer's glass of juice, and slurped a mouthful.
"Haaa—!!!"
Hestia raged, and issued a duel invitation on the spot!
____
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