Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 7

by Fujino Omori

  Haruhime saw it all unfold in slow motion. The Amazon tumbling through the air, the blade landing at her knees, the white-haired boy flying over her head and directly into a stone pillar, breaking it before sliding to a stop at the edge of the Floating Garden.

  And finally, the last of the shards falling to the ground.

  The ominous red light filling the garden flickered before fading out.

  “Ugh—gahhh…!”

  Bell’s exposed skin scraped over the stone surface as he slid all the way to the edge of the Floating Garden. Knees, elbows, and the palms of his hands raw and bleeding, he climbed back to his feet.

  The red light that had consumed the garden before was now barely a soft glow. The altar now had a withering, dull red appearance due to Bell accidentally knocking down one of the pillars that focused the moon’s light. The sparkles that had poured upward like a confused waterfall only moments ago were nowhere to be seen.

  Catching his breath, Bell returned the knife to its sheath. The sound of many bare feet racing across stone swarmed around him within moments.

  The infuriated faces of over fifty Amazons were waiting to meet his eyes when Bell finally looked up. He was completely surrounded.

  More accurately, they cut off his escape routes with a half encirclement, trapping him against the outer wall.

  “Now you’ve done iiit…!”

  A massive Amazon stepped in front of the ring with such force that the ground shook beneath her feet.

  At the end of her meaty arm was Haruhime, forcefully pulled from the chains.

  Phryne had a fistful of the renart’s golden hair clutched in her mighty fist, roughly pulling her forward. Bell’s body jerked into action, preparing to rush to her aid. However, the infuriated aura of the rest of the Amazons following their commander’s lead made him think twice.

  “Brat, just wait till I get my hands on you…!”

  “Ah…!”

  Phryne slammed Haruhime to the floor by her hair, eyes bloodshot with rage.

  “Miss Haruhime!” Bell yelled as the girl stayed down. A low, booming voice cut him off.

  “So how you gonna pay, breakin’ our Killing Stone like that?”

  The sheer power in her voice made Bell lean backward, goose bumps jumping up on his skin.

  The Killing Stone lay in pieces. The very sight of the darkening crimson shards served only to make the Amazons even angrier.

  Bell had completely ruined the ritual that they’d spent years preparing.

  Flames and smoke still rose from the spot where Mikoto’s Ignis Fatuus had ignited, and pieces of the pillar Bell tackled slowly rolled across the floor. At least fifty Berbera lay motionless on the ground, looking like little more than corpses dotting the scene of a massacre. They would not be rejoining this fight.

  Bell scanned the crowd of Amazons surrounding him and made eye contact with Aisha. He couldn’t read her expression in the slightest. Looking away from her gaze, Bell turned to face Phryne.

  “All you did was bring us back to square ooone…!”

  “…”

  The muscles in Bell’s face tightened as he stood beneath Phryne’s icy glare.

  It was true. All his efforts had accomplished was to reset the situation.

  That’s why he wasn’t celebrating. Ishtar Familia could acquire a new Killing Stone.

  Just like with Aisha, Bell’s destroying the stone only delayed the inevitable.

  This wasn’t over.

  …In order to protect Haruhime…

  In order to save the girl collapsed at Phryne’s feet…

  There was no other option than to secure her freedom from the goddess who had set all this in motion.

  “…Please release Miss Haruhime.”

  Overcoming his fear, Bell made his appeal to the Amazons surrounding him.

  Lips twitched, fists clenched; the Berbera were not in the mood to listen. Haruhime’s green eyes shook as she looked at the boy from beneath an imposing shadow.

  Aisha’s mouth narrowed into a frown, but the only audible response was Phryne’s croaking laughter.

  “GE-GE-GE-GE-GE-GEH! Ain’t you a joker, Little Rookie!”

  The Amazon’s massive eyes suddenly unleashed a piercing death stare at the white-haired human.

  “Get off your high horse, puny braaat! Who do you think you are?”

  “Ahhgh…!”

  She grabbed Haruhime’s hair again and pulled her up to her feet. Then the frog-like Amazon leaned down to the point that her face was next to her captive’s. Phryne’s jaw hid Haruhime’s shoulder as she opened her mouth to speak.

  “This here is our tool! One that we’ll use to smash Freya’s lot to bits! This has nothin’ to do with the likes of you!!”

  The Amazons were too hungry for war with the Labyrinth City’s most powerful familia to let go of Haruhime’s power so easily.

  Bell couldn’t stand the look of pain on Haruhime’s face and tried to repeat his demands, but Phryne wasn’t finished.

  “Just who do you think kept this varmint alive—a varmint so useless she couldn’t even make money as a prostituuuute…? It’s her duty to use that body to pay us baaack!”

  “…”

  “Isn’t that righttt, Haruhimeee? You tell him how it isss.”

  Haruhime’s body shook. The Amazon’s wide lips whispered into her ear with all the affection a chef would have for a rat.

  Momentarily released from Phryne’s grasp, Haruhime made eye contact with Bell.

  “Master Cranell…”

  The young girl’s hands came together in front of her chest, still well within grabbing distance of the fleshy boulder behind her. A range of emotions passed through Haruhime’s eyes.

  “Please take your leave…I’m fine…”

  “…”

  “Leave me be……I beg you, do not bother yourself with my situation any longer.”

  Haruhime’s voice trembled out of fear of Ishtar and the Amazons around her. Bell watched the renart look away as menacing grins appeared on the lips of every Amazon in his line of sight.

  Bell kept his eyes trained on the girl and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Stories of heroes.”

  “Eh…?”

  “I made my decision based on the heroes we talked about.”

  Haruhime’s head shot up in surprise. Bell’s voice never wavered as he continued.

  “I decided to save you.”

  “How do you mean…?”

  “To save you and to prove you wrong…I’ve made up my mind.”

  —No hero would ever come for someone as lowly as myself.

  —Prostitutes are the ruin of heroes.

  Bell declared that he’d come all this way to refute the words she had uttered that night in the red-light district.

  Haruhime recoiled, but Bell’s confidence only grew.

  “The heroes you and I admire—they aren’t like that!”

  The strength in Bell’s voice caught everyone’s attention. Aisha and Phryne blinked, the Berbera shifted on their feet, and Haruhime stood in stunned silence.

  “A prostitute, a cause of ruin—none of that would matter to a hero!”

  “Th-that can’t be true…”

  “Heroes would fight, no matter how many frightening, powerful enemies are in the way!”

  “It can’t be like that…”

  “My idols, the heroes I look up to, they would protect you to the very end!”

  “!”

  He had said his piece.

  Bell fought off his fear, anxiety, and unease to say exactly what he wanted to since that night, in a voice loud enough for all to hear.

  Just like the heroes the two of them aspired to, he would reach out and take her hand.

  In fact, he was reaching out to her at this very moment. His outstretched hand reflected in her green eyes, Haruhime’s body quivered.

  “Ge-ge-ge-ge-ge-geh! The brat thinks he’s a heeeero!”

  Bell ignored Phryne’s chucklin
g as his eyes burned with the determination he felt in his heart.

  The boy’s powerful gaze scared Haruhime. She held her own body tight and shook her head back and forth.

  “I…I am a prostitute!”

  She thrust the words out of her mouth, declaring the title that had become her fate.

  “I don’t want to become your burden! I am a soiled being, not worthy of anything!”

  Bell’s chin shot up and he glared down at the renart.

  “Don’t think that we can’t do anything, that you’re not worth it!”

  “—!”

  It was the first time Haruhime had ever heard anger in Bell’s voice. He wasn’t finished.

  “Being laughed at, pointed at, being called names, being called dirty—that’s not shameful at all!”

  His grandfather’s words.

  They had become rooted within his heart. Now he brought them crashing down on Haruhime.

  “The truly shameful thing is standing still because you can’t make up your mind!”

  The renart’s eyes went wide.

  “I still haven’t heard what you want!”

  Bell’s words—and his right hand—reached out even further. He yelled:

  “I want to know the real you!”

  The boy’s voice cut through the remaining smoke and flames still inside the Floating Garden.

  It rang out into the night under the full moon. Even as it disappeared into the distance, everyone standing above the weak red cloud felt a change in the wind.

  The Amazons stood in silence. Haruhime met Bell’s gaze.

  Drop. One solitary tear rolled down her cheek and dropped off her chin.

  “…Haruhimeeee.”

  A new sound.

  A warning from Phryne from directly behind her ear.

  Haruhime’s shoulders jumped. Looking at the boy for another moment, she let her gaze fall to the floor.

  Her body, hair, and tail shook softly.

  Her lips slowly opened.

  “—Grow.”

  And she started casting.

  “GE-GE-GE-GE-GE-GEH! That’ll wooork!”

  Phryne laughed with joyous mockery. Despite the boy’s call, the renart began to chant instead of answering him.

  “Miss Haruhime…!”

  Bell grimaced as she clenched her eyes closed tight and continued the incantation.

  “That power and that vessel. Breadth of wealth and breadth of wishes. Until the bell tolls, bring forth glory and illusion.”

  She reached forward from her chest, as if surrendering something to an unseen recipient. The renart’s regal voice continued to grow louder.

  “Callin’ yourself a hero gets you nowhere. Ge-ge-ge-ge-geh! Now I’m gonna show you why!”

  Haruhime’s beautiful song reverberated throughout the garden as two Berbera handed Phryne a grand battle-ax.

  The other Amazons took that as their cue. Weapons were being drawn left and right all around Bell.

  “—Grow.”

  The intimidating clashing of metal and the stomping of feet on stone joined the ensemble of sounds swirling within the garden. The Berbera flexed their muscles and flashed their blades in the moonlight.

  Out of all of them, Aisha was the only one who kept her eyes on Haruhime. She was the only one who noticed something strange about the flow of magical energy emanating from the golden-haired fox.

  “Confine divine offerings within this body. This golden light bestowed from above. Into the hammer and into the ground, may it bestow good fortune upon you.”

  The energy of her spell went past all the members of her familia and into the chest of the human boy.

  Her incantation nearly complete, a misty cloud of magical energy started to swirl around him.

  “Anybody, stop Haruhime!”

  Right after Aisha’s suddenly frightened scream reached the ears of her allies…

  A magic circle appeared above Bell’s head as sparkles of white light fell around him like a veil.

  The boy glanced around in surprise. It wasn’t until he looked above his head that he saw it: a pillar of light—no, a handleless hammer of light forming directly over his head.

  He felt the warmth of its light on his skin. His eyes fell onto the renart. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

  “—Grow.”

  The Berbera finally realized what was happening and jumped at the two of them, but they couldn’t make it in time.

  Because the name of her spell escaped Haruhime’s lips at that exact moment.

  “Uchide no Kozuchi.”

  The sparkling hammerhead fell, surrounding Bell’s body in a radiant light.

  The light flooded his body and spirit with pure power, like a shot of revitalizing adrenaline.

  A spark had been lit within him, each flake of light emerging through his skin.

  “HAH—HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

  The Berbera threw caution to the wind and charged in blades-first.

  One particular Berbera brandishing a broadsword came straight at Bell from the front. Her weapon flashed before Bell’s eyes, when suddenly he grabbed hold of its hilt.

  “Huh?!”

  He stepped outside the weapon’s path and into his opponent’s space.

  Tripping her with his foot and knocking her over with his free hand, Bell forced the weapon into a wide sweep. All of the closest Berbera were knocked backward.

  “GAH!”

  Five Berbera hit the floor as Bell put his other hand on the broadsword that had belonged to their ally. It was his now.

  It was also at that time that Bell realized the flakes of light emerging from his body were the same ones that had come from Aisha during their fight in the Dungeon. That was the final piece of the puzzle.

  Haruhime’s Magic, “Uchide no Kozuchi.”

  It had the power to grant its target a temporary level-up.

  While active, the magic allowed the recipient to move with power and speed one level above their Status. That was the reason Ishtar kept her existence under wraps, why she was the trump card against Freya Familia—“Level Boost.”

  The thing that made the Goddess of Beauty swell with glee; she’d worked so hard to conceal the most powerful form of sorcery.

  The reason that Phryne and the Berbera refused to let her go was that she possessed a rare magic so powerful it should have been illegal. What Eina had told him at the Guild, about Aisha’s sudden increase in strength and speed and Ishtar calling Haruhime her ace in the hole—everything made sense now.

  Phryne and the Berbera froze in place. There was no stopping the power, Haruhime’s power, from flowing into Bell. He felt it, embraced it, and was fully prepared to use it.

  “T-TAKE HIM DOWNNNNNNNNNNNN!”

  More Berbera charged in with a battle cry, but Bell was ready to meet them head-on.

  “—FAHH!!”

  One swing of the broadsword sent several of the Amazonian warriors flying into the air. Each one crying out as their feet left the ground, they spiraled into a hard landing on the stone surface.

  Bell’s strikes were too fast for their eyes to see. The broadsword had become a wall they could not break and a weapon they could not block. Sparks flew into the air, joining the pinpricks of light around Bell as even more Berbera were thrown from their feet. The Level 2 Amazons didn’t stand a chance, knocked out in the blink of an eye. Even the Level 3s who should have been on equal footing with Bell were tossed aside like tissue paper.

  Haruhime had bestowed upon him the abilities of a Level 4 adventurer, and he wasn’t about to hold any of it back.

  “H-HARUHIMEEEEEEEEE!”

  “UwAH!”

  Phryne roared as the one-sided slugfest unfolded in front of her eyes.

  A flash of gold within the rush of Amazons caught her attention. She reached out with one meaty hand, grabbed the girl by the neck, and hoisted her off the ground.

  “You betrayed usss! Break the spell, you worthless prostitute! B
reak it now!”

  As soon as Uchide no Kozuchi was triggered, its effects would last until time ran out or the caster chose to end it. Even if Haruhime were knocked unconscious or worse, the spell would not wear off. Phryne resorted to force out of desperation, but even then, the renart didn’t give in.

  Neck cracking between muscular fingers and feet swinging through the air, Haruhime clenched her eyes shut. Her cheeks shone in the moonlight, wet with more tears.

  Fighting to stay conscious, she forced weak words through her quivering lips.

  “I do not want to sell my body ever again…!”

  She said it; that shy girl actually said it.

  “I do not want to hurt anyone ever again…!”

  Afraid of others, terrified of the world, the fragile renart gathered up all the emotion, every desire, every grievance she’d kept bottled up.

  “I do not want to die…!”

  And put it into two words:

  “Save me…!”

  She asked for his help.

  “!!”

  He heard. Bell’s eyes instantly zeroed in on her.

  Dashing through the horde of Amazons, he hurled himself at Phryne with the force of a cannonball at full speed.

  “Wha—?!”

  “AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

  The massive Amazon barely managed to get her ax in position to block the incoming blade. However, the impact knocked her back toward the center of the garden.

  She let go of Haruhime in mid-fall, sending the helpless girl into the air. Bell reached out to catch her, but a quick shadow got to her first.

  “Miss Aisha…!”

  “…”

  Holding an unconscious Haruhime in her arms, the Amazonian warrior’s long black hair danced in the wind behind her. Her narrow eyes were focused solely on Bell.

  A heartbeat later she was airborne, jumping backward high into the air to allow a fresh wave of Berbera to attack.

  “B-blooood…?!”

  Bell engaged the Berbera head-on in an attempt to follow Aisha. At the same time, Phryne climbed to her feet and felt something unusual dripping down her face.

  The blade of her ax had carved a gash into her own cheek. Bell’s attack caused the injury. She slowly traced the wound with her thick, trembling fingers in disbelief.

  “My beautiful face…is BLOODYYY…?!”

  Her whole body shook before erupting like a volcano.