With a great deal of luck and good timing, Loki jumped to the side and behind pillars as the vines raced past her head. However, the monster’s open jaws slithered closer every second.
“There was another one?!”
Confidence disappeared from Bete’s face for the first time. Putting his battle with the other monsters on hold, he kicked off the ground in a desperate attempt to reach his goddess in time. However—it was already too late.
The monster’s gaping mouth was mere seconds away from swallowing the deity whole. Bete’s face was blank as he reached out to his goddess at full speed. At that moment—
Loki thrust her hand into the bag she carried over her shoulder and pulled out a handful of dark crystals. She scattered them across the floor with one quick flick of her wrist.
“Lookie there!”
Dark purple magic stones now sparkled all over the floor off to her right.
Not just any magic stones, but high-quality magic stones. Even the monster could tell at a glance, immediately changing course with a hungry look in its eyes.
Bete watched in amazement as the monster sharply veered away from behind his goddess.
“Pure magic energy, magic stones, livin’ people…These monsters seem to pick targets in that order.”
Loki whispered to herself as she watched the monster willingly slither away from her with her thin, discerning eyes.
She had heard about it from Lefiya, who had firsthand experience during the battle at the Monsterphilia. Therefore, she had prepared quite a few magic stones to use as decoys during the investigation—just in case.
If they’re drawn to magic, then magic stones should work, too. Her hypothesis had been right.
“Look, Bete, it took a hike!”
“Sheesh…Just don’t get eaten, got that?!”
Bete didn’t have long enough to actually sigh at his goddess. Catching a glimpse of another monster coming up behind him out of the corner of his eye, he unleashed an arcing roundhouse kick over his right shoulder.
Picking up momentum, he spun even faster as his left leg slammed into the approaching creature’s head. Thrown backward through the air in a wide arc, the monster hit the other two creatures, sending them all to the floor.
“We make one heckuva combo, Bete! Breathin’ as one!”
“Like I care. Stop trying to piss me off, stupid woman!”
Bete snarled a retort as Loki ran toward him. The goddess couldn’t help but grin, knowing her follower wouldn’t openly admit he was worried about her.
The werewolf broke off eye contact to keep from feeling even more uncomfortable.
“These things sure are a pain in the ass…Can’t even make a dent in ’em.”
“Now that ya mention it, the Amazon twins couldn’t do nothin’ with their bare hands, either. That skin’s pretty thick, ya know?”
“Why didn’t you say that sooner?”
Bete furrowed his eyebrows, irritated that his goddess brought up this information as an afterthought.
The two turned together to look deeper into the dried reservoir. The monsters were beginning to untangle themselves.
Neither let their guard down as Loki explained that Lefiya’s Magic and Aiz’s sharp slashes had worked well on these creatures last time.
“…Hate to use this, but might as well,” Bete mumbled as he reached behind his waist with his right hand.
The sound of sliding metal softly echoed in the chamber. He withdrew a knife from its sheath that appeared as if scarlet flames burned from within—a magic sword.
He leaned down so that he could align the blade with one of his faintly silver boots.
Frosvirt, his “Superior” metallic boots, had the ability to absorb magical energy. The scarlet flames burning in the blade of Bete’s knife died down almost instantly as their energy poured into his right boot.
“Just curious, but what did that run ya?”
“One mil.”
“Uwaoh, a one-million-valis attack! That’s gonna be somethin’ to see!”
A pale yellow jewel in the middle of his right boot shone in the darkness until all the energy from the magic sword had been absorbed. Crack! The blade shattered and fell to the floor the moment the last of the scarlet flames disappeared. The jewel then instantly turned scarlet. As if on cue, the boot erupted in searing, crimson flames.
Whoosh! New echoes filled the chamber as Bete stood ready, an inferno embracing his right foot.
“—I’ll send ’em flyin’.”
Bete’s wild nature appeared in a toothy grin on his lips.
He stepped once toward the nearly untangled mass of monsters. Then, slowly, he took another step and another. As the red-hot flames seared half of his footprints in the stone floor, suddenly, he picked up speed.
The creatures howled like so many broken bells as he approached. All that did was make him smile, the tattoo across his cheek flexing with the muscles beneath. Finally, he kicked off the floor.
Jumping clear out of his enemies’ line of sight, he eyed them from above as he snorted. His arc came to an end at a stone pillar, and he kicked off of it with his left leg over to another pillar and another. He changed his angle of attack three times before finally charging the monsters from their blind spot. Bete swung his flaring right foot out to the side and brought it crashing down with all his might.
“!!”
A searing flare bloomed upon impact with the closest monster’s head.
The flash was enough to make anyone want to shield their eyes. Frosvirt’s physical power combined with the energy from the magic sword to enhance Bete’s already enormous strength. Flames roared as the creature’s head was cleanly severed from its body. It instantly dissolved into ash before it could even feel any pain.
As Bete landed on the floor, the first monster to notice him leaped into the air for a counterattack.
“Burn!!”
Bete somersaulted into the beast’s oncoming strike.
Deep-red shadows danced across the chamber walls and pillars as Bete’s burning leg swept across the beast’s entire body, setting it alight. Whoosh! Roars of the ensuing inferno filled the chamber while Bete jumped out of the way.
Flipping in midair, he watched upside down as what was left of the creature dissolved to ash. The corner of his lips pulled back into an unmistakable grin.
“Bete, get one of the stones!”
“Ah-hah? Just had to ruin my fun…”
The werewolf heard Loki’s order just as he finished off the second monster. He selected his next target to carry it out.
He knew from his previous encounters with the carnivorous plants that their magic stones were located deep in their throats. Closing the distance in the blink of an eye, he held back his full strength and delivered a dizzying blow just under what would pass for the monster’s chin.
The upward strike flung the creature backward, with flower petals falling in its wake. It was still very much alive, shrieking until it landed on the stone floor, where it writhed in pain. Bete stomped on its still-smoking lower jaw to pin it in place. Grabbing its upper jaw with his left hand, he ruthlessly forced its mouth wide open—wide enough to snap the joints.
The creature’s hot breath bellowed up from beneath him. Bete wasted no time in thrusting his right hand deep into its mouth to snatch the stone out.
“Nasty!” he growled to himself, wrinkling his nose as he dodged an attack from the remaining monster.
Tucking the magic stone into his shirt, Bete turned to face his final opponent and charged.
“You’re the last one!”
He advanced at full speed, but the fanged plant had other ideas. It launched a wave of tendrils at the werewolf in an attempt to forestall the frontal attack.
The yellowish-green whips reflecting in his eyes, Bete turned, dodged, and wove his way through them. The monster’s body seemed to cringe as the last of its spear-like stems passed by the werewolf without hitting its target.
He closed the
remaining distance with the ferocity of a hungry predator, kicked off the floor, and soared.
Bete thrust his burning foot forward in midair, tearing through the darkness like a flaming arrow.
“Burn in Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell!!”
The resulting kick caused an explosion that engulfed the creature’s head. What was left of its body came blasting out of a cloud of smoke, as though it had been shot from a cannon.
It hit the closest pillar head-on, but didn’t stop there. Two, then three pillars were destroyed before a fourth one finally withstood the impact. A small avalanche of stone joined the lifeless corpse on its way down.
The headless creature’s body was covered in the rubble before finally turning to ash and disappearing entirely.
“Hell of a show, there…”
Loki’s murmur echoed through the silence as the dust cleared.
The scarlet light disappeared from Bete’s right foot a few moments later as the remaining embers went out completely.
The fight over, a stunning silver gleam returned to the metal boots as he stood still in the old reservoir.
“Got some evidence, but nothin’ that’ll get me closer to the bad guy.”
“Had to use a magic sword, wasn’t even close to worth it.”
Flip, flip. Loki tossed the magic stone between her hands as she and Bete made their way back through the sewers.
Their battle with the hungry plants over, they were retracing their steps to return to the surface. Looking around the dried-up reservoir yielded no results, and since Bete didn’t have a spare magic sword, they felt it was a good time to call it a day. It was too dangerous to proceed without the proper equipment.
Already clear of the older sewers, Loki took a closer look at the magic stone as the two of them walked down the main waterline.
It had a brilliantly colored core. It was obvious that this was different from normal, dark purple magic stones. “Hmm,” Loki whispered to herself, without realizing, as she eyed the ominously shimmering crystal in her hand.
“Now that I think about it, it’s the same as the one Tione ripped from that a monster on floor fifty.”
“Floor fifty…You mean the new breed that y’all ran into on the expedition?”
“Yeah, that filthy-lookin’ caterpillar monster.”
Bete commented on the similarity of the two magic stones as Loki intently examined the one in her hand.
It wasn’t long before the two of them arrived at a familiar spiral staircase. Going up the many loops and arriving back in the stone shack, Loki and Bete enjoyed their first breaths of fresh air after hours underground.
Turning toward the sun shining brightly in the blue sky: “Haaaa!” Loki took a deep breath and stretched her arms high above her head. Bete showed no signs of fatigue, only cracking his neck with each hand as his shoulders finally relaxed.
“Shall we head home?” said Loki casually, and the two of them left the shack behind.
Out of the narrow backstreets and on toward row upon row of high-class hotels, the street steadily became wider and busier as they went. It wasn’t long before they were surrounded by the voices of townspeople.
Then, just as they were making their way back toward the center of the city—
They encountered a deity as they rounded a corner.
“Oh? That you, Dionysus?”
“…Loki?”
Loki came to a stop in front of the familiar face.
His beautiful golden locks stretched down to his neck, framing an enchanting smile that could make anyone, male or female, melt on the spot. His glass-colored eyes met Loki’s. Indeed, it was the god she’d had a short conversation with at Ganesha’s Banquet of the Gods only a few days ago.
Of course he wasn’t dressed in his finest attire, but he still carried the aura of royalty and wore an expensive outfit. An elf woman with beautiful black hair stood at his side, most likely a member of his familia.
“Yo,” said Loki, surprised by their chance meeting.
“Hold it.”
Loki came to a sudden stop. “Hmm?” she said as she turned to face her own follower. His gaze was fierce, staring icy daggers at Dionysus.
“It’s them.”
“…What’s them?”
Loki questioned as Bete jerked his chin in their direction. He opened his mouth to speak, eyes unblinking.
“The unusual stench in the sewer—it’s theirs.”
Loki’s usually narrow eyes went wide, while the other two’s expressions froze in shock.
An endless stream of voices traveled all around the cliffs and up the blue crystal pillars.
But the nervous interest of all the adventurers outside was nothing compared to the all-out confusion threatening to overtake an inn built into the rock face.
The location was the Dungeon eighteenth floor, at Willy’s Inn in the town of Rivira.
No one could take their eyes off the Status engraved into the back of the headless corpse in the middle of the room. Onlookers, including Aiz Wallenstein, wore various expressions of shock.
“…W-was this man truly killed with only brute force? There could have been, I don’t know, poison or something…”
“As in, the attacker strangled him once he couldn’t move?”
Tione responded to Lefiya’s question with another question. The obviously uncomfortable elf nodded awkwardly in response.
Her view of the body was obscured behind Aiz and Tiona. However, her dark blue eyes could still see his lifeless limbs, and that was enough to make her tremble.
“The Advanced Ability ‘Immunity’ is listed under his Skills, so no, I don’t think so…”
“Someone of Hashana’s prowess would hardly be affected by even the most potent toxins, even in high doses. It is unlikely he fell victim to that.”
Aiz and Riveria continued their analysis of the hieroglyphs on the dead man’s back.
One combination of the divine characters spelled out “Immunity” in one of his Skill brackets—it protected him against different types of status effects, including poison. What’s more, the skill had reached “G.”
A G-level Immunity would have granted him protection from almost everything under the sun. Even a poison created by an expert chemist would have a difficult time slowing him down.
“We know that she caught him off guard, but a female adventurer strong enough to strangle a Level Four…?”
“…What about one of Ishtar Familia’s Berbera?”
Tiona responded to Finn’s verbal train of thought.
Bringing up the group of ferociously seductive, lithe courtesans made Finn pause and think. “Hmm,” he mumbled without looking away from the corpse on the floor. “If that were true, then this would be a simple open-and-shut case. But there’s something more here, just begging to be discovered.”
“That’s right. This is too out in the open,” Tione added.
One of the guards in the room suddenly pointed at Aiz and the others, his entire body shaking as if he were one step away from losing his mind.
“L-listen to what you just said!! The lot of you show up here, actin’ like you only just got to town. How do we know one of you ain’t behind this?!”
Bors and the rest of his group snapped to attention, his words ringing in their ears.
Top-class adventurers, people so strong they could silence a crying child with a glance, were now the top suspects. Indeed, there were several female adventurers in the room who were physically powerful enough to kill a second-tier adventurer like Hashana.
“Huuh?” Tiona voiced her disbelief while Tione denied his claim with a look. Riveria closed an eye, more perturbed than threatened. Lefiya, however, was on the verge of a panic attack.
Aiz wasn’t sure what to do, either, nervously shifting her weight.
“If one of them is the culprit…”
“Yeah, Finn couldn’t’a done it.”
A ring of adventurers surrounded Loki Familia. Willy was too scared to finish t
he sentence as he backed away, but Bors nodded and finished it for him. Prums were small, but more importantly, Finn was male. That automatically removed him from the list of suspects. With that, every set of eyes in the ring moved across each of the women. They were looking for someone who matched the description of the lady with a body curvy enough to be identified beneath a hooded robe.
First Aiz and Lefiya, then the room examined Riveria and Tiona.
Not much in the way of a bustline…That was especially true for Tiona. Showing quite a bit of skin as it was, all the men in the circle nodded as one.
“Not her.”
“No, definitely not.”
“Hey!”
Tiona stepped forward, fists raised and itching for a fight—until Aiz grabbed her under the armpits to keep the Amazon at bay.
Tiona continued voicing her grievances, but the ring of adventurers turned their attention to Tione.
“…A body like that could lure any man she wanted into a trap, don’cha think?”
Plump breasts with shapely cleavage, a small waist, and a round, soft behind, in addition to supple thighs, made her an extremely attractive woman with curves in all the right places.
Tione could feel every set of eyes wrapping around her body from all angles the moment Bors said those words. The men seemed much more interested in her than her younger sister.
“—Agh?”
Tione wasn’t about to let that slide.
A spark of fury ignited within her; her eyes burned with enough anger to char anything that got too close as she exploded into a tirade.
“My chastity belongs to the general and no one else!!
“Da’ hell do any of you know about it?!
“Seriously, anyone bring something dirty anywhere close to my legs, it’ll get ripped off and shredded to a thousand pieces!”
A surge of insults and threats poured from her mouth.
She brought her body up to its full height, acting much like a dragon, ready to lash out. She took a step forward, cracking the stone floor beneath her foot.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 2 Page 7