“Now that you mention it, they were definitely all over the place. Some went down with a flick, but others needed a lot more convincing. But an entire swarm aiming for magic stones? Is that even possible? Monsters born hungry for magic stones? That’s no joke.”
Aiz listened to Asfi and Lulune’s conversation and thought about everything they had said.
Asfi’s guess seemed to be the most logical explanation. Thinking back to the flower monsters she fought during the Monsterphilia and in Rivira, there had been quite a few individuals that were stronger than much of those in the ambush they had just defeated. There was so much variation among them that it was impossible to draw any conclusions.
And there was still one big question remaining: Why didn’t they attack one another? Just as Lulune suggested, it could be that the monsters with the deeply colored magic stones hadn’t developed a taste for them after the fact but hunted them out of innate instinct.
Aiz’s train of thought reached that point before taking a hard detour.
Those plant monsters are here…That means somewhere up ahead—
There was a good chance she was here, too.
A head of short bloodred hair along with the snakelike bodies of the flower monsters came to mind.
Her left hand tightly clenched into a fist.
Aiz quietly prepared herself for that encounter.
“Forking again, haaah…”
The party came to a stop in front of another intersection.
Their path split into tunnels going left and right. Lulune turned to Asfi for a decision.
“Asfi, which way this ti—”
That’s when they came.
The sound of massive bodies sliding across the fleshy walls interrupted Lulune in midsentence. The vivid flowery heads of the carnivorous plants appeared on the left and right.
“Two fronts? You gotta be kidding me…”
“Worse…they’re behind us, too.”
“Damn it…!” Lulune yelped shrilly after Aiz pointed out the severity of the situation, her head on a swivel.
Left, right, and behind. They were trapped in a three-way pincer. The creatures advanced along the floor, walls, and ceiling, and the other members of Hermes Familia watched their approach, frowning at their adversaries.
The escape routes were cut off.
“…Sword Princess, can you handle one side by yourself?”
“Understood.”
Asfi phrased her order like a request, and Aiz agreed.
With a top-class adventurer like Aiz holding one flank, Asfi was free to supervise Hermes Familia’s counterattack in the other two directions.
The party leader’s sharp voice cut through the air as she issued orders. Sixteen adventurers rushed to their positions.
Eight moved to the back, seven to the right, and Aiz to the left to meet the monsters head-on.
Then the Sword Princess charged. Desperate drew first blood.
As if something had expected this turn of events, a large pillar descended straight down from the ceiling directly above her.
“?!”
Aiz dove forward out of its path.
She kicked off the ground and into the air. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! More gigantic pillars dropped from the ceiling in quick succession. Aiz continued to dodge them one after another until she realized what had happened.
The left path had been completely cut off. Asfi and her other allies were on the other side.
“We’re cut off!!”
She could hear Lulune’s muffled cry from the other side of the thick wall of pillars.
Aiz’s golden eyes widened. The Dungeon never sprang this kind of trap. This possibility hadn’t crossed her mind. And now she was completely secluded as her allies looked on with similar shock on the other side.
—I’ve been isolated!
Aiz was forced to fend off the monsters while still in disbelief.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
“!”
Severing their vine whips, Aiz dispatched the five monsters with ease.
The last of them dissolved into ash behind her as she turned back to the wall, intent on destroying it to reunite with Lulune and the others.
That is, until the appearance of a murderous presence stayed her hand.
“……!”
The overwhelming bloodlust made Aiz’s shoulders tremble. She spun around to face the dark end of the long tunnel.
She remembered the feeling coming from whatever was in the black shadows at the end of the tunnel, a pressure far too powerful to ignore.
Aiz steadied herself, knowing full well this wasn’t an opponent she could allow to see her back…She narrowed her eyes after a few moments and started advancing, as if the darkness were drawing her in.
The light from the flowers growing on the walls flickered, casting shadows across Aiz’s face.
The sound of her boots echoed, light reflecting off her silver breastplate and spaulders as she advanced down the straight tunnel.
She didn’t have to go far.
Slowly, something approached like a mirror image.
Her opponent emerged from the darkness, matching her step for step.
“—Never thought you’d come straight to me. Can’t complain, though.”
The one who greeted her was the redheaded tamer.
Without any disguise, the woman’s ivory skin and bloodred hair were plainly visible. Her green irises locked onto Aiz.
—I knew she was here.
The woman’s icy glare met Aiz’s golden gaze.
The two women faced each other in the long, fleshy green tunnel.
“…What are you doing here?”
“Guess.”
“This…What is this Dungeon? Did you make it?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Neither side blinked, both ready to lash out at any time as Aiz studied her adversary.
The tamer looked like an experienced bandit or battle-hardened marauder, the gear she wore frayed and damaged. Not only was she not wearing armor, the red-haired woman had no weapons on her person.
Judging by the way she’d responded, the tamer was not interested in discussion.
Similar to the last time they met, she spat her answers, keeping them as short as possible.
“Keep your mouth shut and follow me. There’s someone who wants to meet you. You’re coming along, Aria.”
Aiz’s gaze sharpened into a glare.
“I am not Aria.”
Aiz’s rebuttal only deepened the woman’s frown.
“Aria is my mother.”
“Cut the bullshit. Aria has no children. Even so…whether you are Aria or not, it makes no difference.”
Aiz leaned forward during their brief exchange.
“How do you know Aria? What do you know about her?”
“Only her name. ‘Bring me Aria, bring me Aria.’ All I did was obey that annoying voice…and ran into you. That’s it.”
Even the display of emotion and unusual talkativeness did nothing to sway her.
Judging by her tone, it pained the red-haired tamer to use more words than necessary. She brought their conversation to a swift end.
“Enough useless chatter. You’re coming with me.”
With that, the woman plunged her hand into the floor.
She bent at her thin waist, large breasts swaying, and a sound like a whirlpool gushed out from beneath.
She yanked out her hand in a spray of red liquid as a long silver cylinder emerged from the ground in her clutches.
With a hilt at the end, there was no mistake. It was a longsword.
—A nature weapon?
Aiz watched in amazement as the woman drew the sword. The tamer assumed her stance and flicked off the last of the red fluid.
The weapon looked as though it had been molded from a living creature’s flesh and bones. Its uncanny form lacked a hand guard or any embellishment whatsoever. The crimson blade didn’t even have a cutting
edge. An aura pulsed around the weapon, as if a curse would befall anyone struck by it.
Aiz kept her mouth clamped shut but quietly released needless tension from her body.
An impending battle was upon the two combatants. Aiz entrusted her fate to Desperate and faced the challenger.
“Here I come.”
The woman charged.
Her short hair lashed around her head like splattering blood as she brought the strange longsword down with all her might.
Aiz blocked the strike head-on, using Desperate to knock it aside.
A complex echo bounced through the hallway, an odd mixture of the metallic clang and a dull thud not much different from a punch. The woman continued her assault, using the ferocious strength that had overpowered Aiz during the battle of Rivira. Her weapon whistled through the air in a gaudy display of power that Aiz dodged without difficulty. The blond swordswoman followed it with her own upward cut.
In a repeat of their previous battle, pure swordsmanship battled against sheer strength in a furious exchange of blows.
“……?”
A serious expression appeared on the woman’s face amid the slashes and counterattacks.
One eyebrow rose as she realized Aiz’s speed continued to increase, her attacks coming faster and faster—when suddenly, both eyes widened.
She could see only Aiz’s afterimages stepping into close range. A flash of surprise passed over her face an instant before—!
The sword connected with such force that she lost her balance.
“Wha?!”
Aiz didn’t allow her time to recover. Her follow-up attack was already on its way.
Barely able to keep pace with the incessant slashes, the woman struggled to block or dodge the first strike while the second was on its way. SHING! The last impact sent her reeling.
Unable to disperse the momentum of a full diagonal slash, her feet tore long gashes in the greenish floor.
The tamer was stunned when she finally came to a stop.
Slowly, very slowly, she brought her hand to her breast and trembled as she looked down at the glinting blood on her fingertips.
There was a shallow cut across her chest. She looked up at Aiz. “You—No way…” Returning a glare as intense as the other girl’s, the tamer’s face melted into a scowl. “You raised your Status…?!”
The girl standing before her was far more capable than she had been ten days ago. Of that the short-haired woman was now painfully aware.
A level-up meant a new level of strength attainable only through great accomplishment.
Aiz had broken free of her former limits after rising to Level Six as a result of her battle with the floor boss Udaeus.
The girl the tamer had overpowered in the crystal-packed town no longer existed.
“Gah, such a pain…!!”
The woman’s voice dripped irritation as she spat the syllables one by one.
The sheer physical strength that had overwhelmed the girl ten days ago wasn’t good enough anymore. She could hold her own now.
Aiz softly responded to the woman’s hateful scowl.
“I just didn’t want to lose to you.”
The pain of defeat she’d felt under that dark night sky had given Aiz the boost she needed to reach higher.
Deep down, Aiz hated to lose as much as her friends in Loki Familia did. Harnessing her unbreakable spirit had motivated her to prepare for this moment. Now was her chance for revenge.
Aiz pointed a blade as sharp as her will toward her opponent.
“Tsk…”
The woman clicked her tongue as she brought her longsword back into position. The two glared into each other’s eyes.
The woman’s usual indifferent expression had been replaced by clear loathing, her gaze bearing down on Aiz like pikes tipped with hatred. The murderous aura that bore down on the blond swordswoman was thicker than ever.
The two combatants faced each other without a word until the red-haired woman broke the silence.
“Aren’t you going to use it?”
The woman wanted to know if Aiz would use her wind.
Aiz’s Magic—the spell Airiel—was her greatest weapon. It seemed unnatural to not use it.
“I don’t…need it.”
Aiz did not mince words.
Reflecting on her constant use of Airiel in their previous battle, Aiz was determined to return to the fundamentals. A swordswoman needed to win by her skill with a blade. She wanted to win this battle on that alone.
“—Don’t get cocky!”
Rage burned in the woman’s eyes.
The rest of her face was devoid of any expression, her murderous intent overflowing. She raised her weapon into position, cracks forming in the handle.
Showing more emotion than ever before, she leaped up in a flash.
Her opponent charged like a missile as Aiz raised her saber, racing out to meet her.
Silver and crimson blades crossed at breakneck speed.
Impact.
CHAPTER 4
WHITE-HAIRED DEVIL
“Loose your arrows, fairy archers. Pierce, arrow of accuracy!”
A beautiful voice spread through the air like waves over water.
Lefiya cast a short spell and lifted high into the air a staff designed specifically for magic users: Forest’s Teardrop. Made from a white ore called seiros that mages were rather fond of, the staff was capable of increasing the base strength of Magic. Compounded with a magic crystal and a rare item known as Tear of the Elder Tree, it was extremely suitable for elven magic.
The crystals at the end of her staff flashed at the same time a magic circle expanded.
“Arcs Ray!”
An arrow of light appeared at her forceful call.
The powerful spell barreled forward, supported by her Skill, Fairy Cannon, and filled the narrow hallway with a bright light. The twenty monsters in the target zone howled before disintegrating as the spell overwhelmed them.
Only scattered ash remained when the radiance faded.
Confirming there were no survivors, Lefiya lowered her staff.
“That’s right, you’re from the Wishe Forest—a homeland known for possessing high magic power even among our kin…With magic such as that, it’s no wonder.”
“I-I’m nothing special. This is the only job I can do…”
After neutralizing the monster band barring their path, the small three-member party continued ahead. Filvis looked at Lefiya with satisfaction.
They had arrived on the twenty-fourth floor. Their mission to catch up with Aiz had led them through a complicated tangle of twists and turns as they descended deeper into the Dungeon. At last, they had reached the appointed floor. Walking between Bete and Filvis, Lefiya could hear only the sound of their tapping footfalls on the wooden ground.
The party had set their sights on the northern pantry. According to their information, the outbreaks were occurring along the main route that wound through this floor. They discovered piles upon piles of ash and some uncollected loot. Perhaps there wasn’t enough time for the previous party to collect it all. It stood to reason that only top-class adventurers could take on so many monsters on this floor at once. They were almost certain that Aiz and her companions were behind it.
More monsters appeared on the main route, forcing the small group into battle—and costing them valuable time. So they chose a slight detour, which brought them to a narrow hallway sheathed in tree bark. However, the passage was narrow only compared to the main route. Over five meders in diameter, anything short of a big party would have no problem passing through.
The bluish green moss growing on the walls illuminated the happy smile Lefiya wore during her conversations with Filvis. The black-haired elf’s praise and the sense that the barrier between them was eroding away were the reason for her expression.
“Enough blabber. We got company.”
Bete rolled his eyes as he jumped in front of the elves.
He was on top
of the monsters at the other end of the hallway in the blink of an eye. Flipping through the air like an acrobat, he nailed several deadly hornets in midair before driving his heel into the grotesque, plump body of a two-meder-tall hobgoblin, cleaving it down the middle.
Bete eliminated the monsters in their path as quickly as possible to not waste any time.
Crack! The walls around Lefiya and Filvis suddenly opened.
“!”
“Fall back, Viridis!”
Seeing Lefiya surrounded by newborn monsters, Filvis called out her name before rushing to defend her.
Drawing a shortsword, she slew the monsters bearing down on Lefiya. A lizardman led its brethren into combat with a deafening roar, but Filvis’s combination of swift stabs and sweeps felled them quickly. Dodging their thick tails, she removed lizard heads from torsos.
Lefiya stood still, unable to join the fray as the enemy numbers decreased by the second. Filvis removed a wand from inside her belt.
“Purge, cleansing lightning!”
Still engaged in combat with the remaining two lizardmen, she formed an incantation on her lips.
As Filvis began Concurrent Casting, the two monsters fell to the floor in pieces.
Then she pointed her wand at three dark fungi expanding their mushroom umbrellas in a threatening manner.
“Dio Thyrsos!”
Her short-trigger-spell magic flared to life the same moment the dark fungi released poisonous spores into the air.
Sharp flashes of lightning roared through the hallway, roasting the dark fungi and burning the spores out of the air at the same time.
A-amazing…
Lefiya marveled at Filvis’s prowess in battle, dispatching the entire swarm on her own.
Unlike the casters suited for the rear ranks, Filvis was a magic swordsman.
Sought after for mid-formation positions by many parties of adventurers—in demand and extremely popular—they could balance any combination of combat strategies. While able to fight on the front lines themselves, they could provide more powerful ranged support with their Magic than any arrows or thrown weapons ever could. They were magic users capable of holding their own with speed; Lefiya idolized that battle style. Even among magic swordsmen who fought with short-trigger spells, Filvis was exceptionally fast.
With sword and wand in hand, she excelled at short- and long-range combat. The ability to use Concurrent Casting made her a force to be reckoned with even in the fiercest of battles. Driving enemies back with her sword, feet moving like a rhythmic dance, burning them down with Magic, her elegant beauty—she shone like a jewel on the battlefield.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 3 Page 12