Boom!
With a heavy impact, the stone wall of the cave shattered, the sound echoing through it.
That was the destructive force of the morning star that had just barely missed my body.
I had escaped safely, but even the wind pressure from the glancing blow made my skin sting.
If it had landed properly, then even a body reinforced with magical energy would have been smashed to pieces, reduced to tiny scraps of flesh and scattered in all directions.
Wow. Just imagining that for a second was a pretty horrific way to die.
"Well, then again, if it doesn't hit, it's not all that meaningful."
"Quit dodging around like a coward!"
Boom!
Once again, the iron ball of the morning star came flying at me, the chain stretching taut behind it.
But as expected, the result was another unfortunate "Miss."
No, in this case, maybe "Guard" would be more accurate?
Rustle, rustle
"Yellow Temperance. Your weaknesses are... now that I think about it, way too many."
"What nonsense are you spouting!"
Boom!
Rustle, rustle
"Well, that's the story."
As you can see, ever since a little while ago, her attacks—the Amazon who could be called a fake Berserker—had failed to land even once on me.
Thanks to that, this scene had become one where she alone was getting more and more worked up.
And naturally, the look she kept throwing at me grew even more openly murderous.
How scary.
I might just wet myself.
"Tch. For a scrawny little bastard, you're annoying."
"If I were to interpret that differently, it would be, 'I am deeply impressed by your superb strategy,' right? Thanks for the compliment."
"At this point, I have to ask... is your head actually okay?"
Hmm, probably?
Instead of answering, I gave a small shrug.
At that, she loosened her grip on the morning star in her hand and lowered the weapon for a moment.
With her attacks repeatedly being blocked by the yellow slime armor wrapped around my body, she must have decided there was no answer if she kept going like this.
If I were to judge it coldly... finally, huh.
"Too late."
If this had been any other capable Level 2 adventurer in Orario, they would have tried once or twice, realized their attacks were being stopped, and immediately looked for the next move.
Was she, despite her savage appearance, actually lacking in experience?
If that really was the case...
"That's a little disappoint—gh!"
Kraang!
The moment I thought it, she lunged at me again.
And this time, the weapon she brought forward was none other than herself.
More precisely, her beastlike incisors and fangs.
In other words, the new tactic she chose was a biting attack.
The effect was... more incredible than I expected!
Crunch! Spit!
"Hmph! As expected, it tastes disgustingly awful."
"How frightening. So when physical blows don't work, you go for this instead."
No, wouldn't the normal thing be to try other methods first?
Slashes, for example, or piercing attacks.
At the very least, testing whatever magic she had would make sense.
"What if you couldn't tear it off and your mouth got stuck shut? Then it would've been game over for you, wouldn't it?"
"Since that didn't happen, isn't that enough?"
"...Tch, utterly reckless."
But that was also part of the charm.
The one I knew had been the same way.
"Yeah. She was like that too."
In the past, the Master I vaguely remembered had been the very definition of a layabout.
A man who did not see a Heroic Spirit as a hero, but only as his own familiar, or a pet beast kept at home.
Every word he spoke was self-centered, and he seemed not to know the first thing about respecting others... or even that such a concept existed.
He was the kind of trash human being who was so stereotypically awful that even calling him a bad man felt like too much.
But even a scumbag like that apparently wasn't completely brainless.
At the very least, he wasn't stupid enough to blurt out his own death sentence.
Still, his sleazy gaze clearly saw her as nothing more than a temporary flesh doll, a toy to play with when he was bored.
"What was I doing back then?"
Ah, right.
Back then, I was just thrilled that I could actually see the Heroic Spirits I liked in person, so I was goofing off and chatting with Caster.
At the time, during the early days of the war, neither Caster nor I cared about the Holy Grail.
He wanted material for a new work.
I just wanted to satisfy my fandom.
"Yeah. That was all there was to it."
And then, the next day, our purpose—
our Fate—was overturned by what happened.
"You idiot. I told you over and over not to do such boring crap."
Caster had seen through that part perfectly.
With that peculiar way she had of reading people, she had laughed like a mischievous child and said, "That guy's definitely going to cause trouble soon." It feels like just yesterday.
And sure enough, that bastard of a host had set up a trap to wipe out me and the other Masters the moment the ritual began.
The problem was that, no matter how you looked at it, it was an outdated, ancient kind of trap—and even that was so blatant it felt amateurish.
No, seriously, what kind of world was this back then?
What Magus in their right mind would trust the Church's neutrality?
And on top of that, an early elimination for Assassin?
Hey, idiot! That trick had already been used ages ago by someone else!
There was a reason Hassan series info had been floating around online for so long!
...Well, in the end, things went exactly as expected.
The host who had set the trap was taken down along with the Church people pretending to be neutral, and after the other Masters counterattacked, they all died on the spot.
In the chaos, Berserker's Master went charging ahead on his own and got his guts carved up by the remaining Assassins, dying right there too.
And Berserker herself just stood there beside him and watched without a word.
Maybe she decided that a noble queen and warrior's pride didn't need to dirty its hands.
Either way, her early elimination had already been all but decided.
"She could've just quietly been dismissed without any pain."
But that, too, must have been something her noble pride couldn't allow.
After her Master died, with her body slowly fading away, Berserker, Penthesilea, ignored it completely and, with a savage aura like a beast's, single-handedly wiped out all the remaining Assassins around her.
If she hadn't fought there, the host bastard might have barely survived by escaping with the few Assassins left alive.
In the end, looking back on it, that was also a debt I owed.
"No, that's not the important part."
To put it simply, that was the first time I had ever seen a Heroic Spirit fight, seen their battle, seen their pride—so stubborn it was almost haughty—with my own eyes.
Even the ferocious, powerful female warrior, and even the dark, cruel assassins.
That was the moment I felt it in my bones: this was what a hero was, and this was why they were so captivating.
"Ah, yes."
Especially that noble queen, that strong female warrior.
"She was ferocious."
She shattered the surrounding assassins with a morning star as big as her own head, then laughed cruelly with their blood all over her.
And yet that, too, was beautiful in a way that felt almost savage.
"She was strong."
Her body was fading away as she was being dismissed.
Then one of her legs vanished, throwing off her balance, and the assassins' daggers finally began to reach her body.
And yet that small but sturdy warrior of flesh and blood.
She simply mocked the weak prey around her, bit down on the throat of the nearest one with her own teeth, and tore him apart brutally.
After that, cutting down the rest of them with the sword at her waist was practically a foregone conclusion.
Even that desperate struggle was dazzling.
I couldn't take my eyes off her.
"She was..."
At last, after finishing off all the Assassins.
Though she was a complete wreck, looking as if she might disappear at any second.
That noble queen, that warrior, standing there in that place.
The one I had watched in secret.
"She was..."
Not once.
Not a single time did she kneel those trembling knees to the ground.
"She was..."
Through the broken ceiling of the church.
She looked up at the moon in the sky.
With a satisfied smile.
And then, quietly.
"She was more beautiful than anyone else."
She vanished without leaving anything behind, returning to where she had always been meant to go.
Without ever knowing the pounding heart of the man secretly watching her.
"Haa."
Waking from that sealed-away memory, I savored the feeling once more.
Yes, I admit it.
No, I had never once denied it or pretended not to know it.
I had fallen in love with her beauty at first sight.
I had been drawn to her overwhelming strength and violence, and her savage valor.
And in the end, I had my heart completely stolen by her sacred, noble final moment.
In short, this was without a doubt love.
Yes.
Berserker, Penthesilea, was without question my first love—and my unrequited love.
She was my first hero.
"You spent two whole days mocking me like I was a lunatic, Caster."
No, was it more like you treated me like some one-of-a-kind natural monument who had never even once comforted himself?
Come to think of it, she wasn't all that different from me either.
"That was how it was."
After that, the harshness of the Holy Grail War that truly got underway left me with no time to properly digest even a feeling as tender as this.
And now, only after all this time had passed, I was finally chewing on it again.
I'm really hopeless, aren't I?
Whoosh!
"Don't get distracted!"
"Oops."
Ah, right. I forgot. Sorry, my bad.
Just then, a sharp, cutting sword strike skimmed past my throat, and I snapped my mind back to reality.
By now, the woman in front of me had already figured out all of Yellow Temperance's weaknesses.
Well, calling them weaknesses was almost too generous.
Basically, everything worked except blunt-force attacks and physical resistance.
So all she had to do was bite it, or slash it apart with a sword, just like before.
Which meant this yellow armor's turn was over.
Now, instead of defense, it was time to shift the flow with a counterattack...
Ssshh!
"Huh!?"
What? She dodged it?
That was the first [Snake] I had used here, wasn't it?
Not even Tiona, let alone anyone else until now, had ever managed to dodge it on first contact.
"Could it be future sight through the sixth sense? No, maybe it's just instinct?"
It had been close, but she had definitely sensed something at the last second and thrown herself aside with all her strength.
Which meant it wasn't future sight, at the very least.
If that was the case, there was only one thing I could think of.
"An instinct that would make even a beast cry. That's an absurd level of natural perception."
My guess was that she must have some kind of skill related to that.
And as if to confirm it, after that she evaded my moves several more times, predicting them all with almost purely instinctive senses.
Magecraft constructs, mystic eyes, ninjutsu.
Every counterattack that should have been perfect failed before it even began.
Meanwhile, the occasional close-quarters techniques she threw at me came in with timing so sharp it was downright chilling.
At this point, I almost understood why that goddess with the terrible taste had insisted on traveling with her.
That was an unbelievable talent, almost like a quasi-instinct.
"And on top of that, this physical ability."
At minimum, she was on the level of a Level 5 first-class adventurer.
Though there was a slight lack of maturity to her, and the rhythm of her body felt a little uncoordinated, making her seem like someone who had only recently reached this level.
She must have been promoted recently and come straight here afterward.
"Her weapon handling is top-tier no matter what she picks up."
At some point, she had started using and switching among the weapons dropped by the fallen Amazons, constantly throwing off my responses.
All things considered, she wasn't as fast as Ryuu, not as strong as Tiona, and not as tough as Gareth.
But the effort she had built on top of that extraordinary talent was clearly worth a great deal.
A true owner of god-given talent.
In a way, she might even be the seed of a hero this age demanded.
"Good!"
Literally, she was pretty damn good.
No, maybe I was even seeing the possibility of a new hero.
I might be meeting a Berserker unique to this world.
But my greed, my standards, were higher than that.
Which made this the final test.
"Good. Very good!"
Please, don't disappoint me, warrior of a foreign land.
"Amazon, what's your name?"
"Is this another cheap trick? You already know it. My name is..."
Flinch!
In that instant, she put a huge amount of distance between us—farther than at any point until now.
Her instincts must have sensed something strongly.
As sharp and accurate as ever.
"Answer me."
"Pen, tesilei... a."
"Penthesilea. Indeed, even just your name has the bearing of a true hero."
In that sense, I'll show you something interesting.
And after that.
Would you still be worthy of my respect then?
What a fascinating expectation.
"[I am Hermes' bird.]"
Now then, dog.
It's time to eat.