Tione finally realized the reason behind that smile—that idiot sister of hers was always protecting her from the shadows.
“That asshole…Thinking she can be a hero to me…?!”
Tiona might have been taken in by those stories of hero-hood, but she wasn’t waiting for a hero to come save her. No, she had to be the hero. Because she had another part of her that needed protection. So her simpleminded sister had kept on smiling.
Until the day she could make Tione smile.
Tione had always thought she’d been the one supporting and protecting Tiona. But in reality, Tiona had been the one defending and upholding her.
And it had been the same for Tiona.
Backs together, the two sisters had always protected each other.
“What do you think I am? Some princess waiting for her hero to come? I’d rather eat shit and die!!”
Tiona wasn’t coming. And even if she did, Tione was only going to give her an earful—with her fist.
She was the only one who could take out the opponent standing before her now.
Take her out—and protect her Tiona.
“Argana—I’m going to kill you.”
“What a wonderful look that is in your eyes, Tione…Finally, you’ve become a warrior again,” Argana mused. Tingling pinpricks worked their way up her spine at the way Tione’s gaze bored into her.
Tione ignored her comment, opening her mouth as a red-stained puff of air passed her lips.
“…You haven’t changed, Tiona,” Bache murmured, taking in the sight of the smiling girl before her. “You always were the biggest idiot in Telskyura…the craziest animal.”
No matter what kind of dilemma she’d found herself in, no matter how tight a corner she’d found herself in, that grin of hers had never vanished. She was always, always smiling.
With that brilliant, innocent, virulent smile pasted on her face, she wrested victory from her enemies. With that one smile, she’d overcome everything the world had tried to throw at her.
“What were you expectin’? Of course she hasn’t changed! Even Tione may have changed over the years, but this girl’ll always be the same stupid idiot!!” Kali howled giddily before bringing her laughter-induced convulsions to an abrupt stop. She slowly pulled herself back up to a sitting position, grin widening as she glanced down at the two warriors below. “—This is great! I knew I liked you better than Tione!” she exclaimed, almost as though trying to draw a sympathetic response from her immortal kin.
Tiona smirked.
Having made the self-encouraging assertion that she felt no pain, she let her lips part just slightly.
Revealing a solid red puff of air.
—This is it.
Bache’s face tightened at the sight.
Tiona’s breath was red. And not just metaphorically, either, but truly red—the heat inside her was great enough to stain the very air she was breathing.
It was Tiona’s rare skill, Intense Heat.
Its effects activated before her Berserk ability finished, providing her a massive boost in ability if her status entered critical. It had the same activation requirements as Tione’s own attack-boosting skill, Backdraft. So long as the two sisters had these skills, no matter how dire their situation, the further they were pushed, the higher their combat power would rise.
The Hyrute sisters were most dangerous when they were cornered.
From atop that boat.
From within that cave by the sea.
The two rites reached their climaxes at the exact same time.
Around both of them, Amazons stomped their feet in unison, letting out ever more deafening cries of war, one atop another atop another.
“My future of war…let’s see how it plays out.” Kali’s voice melted into the darkness.
Then the decisive battles began.
The shadow raced through the dark night.
It hadn’t stopped since seeing those monsters appear in the port.
There was something it needed to confirm. Back to the screams and chaos of the wharf in its wake, it ran all the way outside the city.
It arrived at a cave, not altogether unlike the sea cave Tiona had ventured into only a short while earlier. Cautiously, it slipped inside, not making a sound. Breath stilled, it wove its way through the ant-like tunnels of the cavern, careful not to get lost among its passageways. It didn’t use a light, instead feeling the wall against its hand to lead it along, a shadow melting into the surrounding darkness as it continued forward through the gloomy tunnel.
“—!”
It was then that it saw them.
Cages, seven of them, all containing a miniature viola with flower bud closed and tentacles coiled up around it. And carved into the earth around the cages were ruts, leftover evidence from the earlier journey the cages made from the city.
“Someone turn on a light in here!”
“?!”
It came from behind—and suddenly the light of a magic-stone lantern illuminated the perimeter.
It was Loki, having successfully followed the shadow without being noticed thanks to the help of her familia members. Loki shone the light on her target, revealing its true form.
Everyone in the entourage she’d brought with her inhaled sharply in unison, taken by surprise at the revelation.
“Not who you were expectin’, was it?”
The shadow, no, the man boasted a stocky frame of roughly two meders tall, and shining beneath his black crop of hair was a pair of obsidian eyes. Firm, tanned skin stretched over the muscles of his arms and chest, revealing a body perfectly honed for fishing.
A human man.
“Rod…wasn’t it?”
“My…lady…?”
The Njörðr Familia captain, Rod, stood staring at Loki with his eyes as round as saucers.
His voice caught in his throat as he looked from Loki and her magic-stone lantern to the gaggle of girls behind her. It didn’t take him long to realize he’d been followed.
Throwing a glance at the immature violas behind him, he finally spoke, his voice hoarse. “W-well, isn’t this a surprise? How, uh…how long have you been, uh…following me? Ha-ha…Guess I was in too much of a rush to notice. Goddammit…” He let out an undeniably forced chuckle, trying what he could to smooth over the incriminating situation.
Next to Loki and her glare of incredulity, the hume bunny Rakuta spoke up, no longer able to keep her thoughts to herself.
“Y-you’re the one who’s been setting loose the violas in the lake?”
“—That, uh…Yes! Yes, I am! It was all me! You caught me!” he suddenly blurted out, seemingly out of desperation. Eyes flashing, he raised his voice even louder. “It was definitely me! I was the one who set loose all these monsters into the—!!”
“All right, all right. We get it already,” Loki cut in before he could finish. She waved a flippant hand in the frozen man’s direction, ever so slightly widening her vermilion eyes.
“You’re really gonna let your kid take all the flak for this, are ya, Njörðr?”
A heavy silence settled down over the cave.
Only after Loki’s voice had echoed into the depth of the cavern and a painful silence descended did a figure emerge from the shadows.
The sandal-clad foot of a finely shaped calf appeared first, followed by an auburn-tinged ponytail, hanging down loosely from the back of the man’s head.
It was none other than the god Njörðr, his face taut with pensive reflection.
“S-Skip, don’t…!” Rod pleaded despondently, but it was too late.
“What the…hell is going on here?!”
“Two scumbags for the price of one, that’s what’s goin’ on here,” Loki explained.
Rakuta and the rest of Loki’s followers could only look back and forth between Rod and Njörðr with identical confounded looks. The person, or rather god Loki had seen escaping from the scene of the violas back at the wharf had, in fact, been Njörðr.
But Loki
hadn’t been the only one to notice Njörðr’s hasty retreat. Rod had, as well. Unable to shake his god’s questionably timed exit, Rod had followed him all the way to this cave, only to have Loki and her followers show up only moments later behind him.
“Then that ‘confession’ he gave us…?”
“He was just coverin’ for his pop…You’ve got yourself a good bunch of kiddos, don’t you, Njörðr?”
While discovering his own god was behind the viola attacks must have been a considerable shock for Rod, the moment Loki and the rest of her followers had shown up, he hadn’t hesitated even a second to cover for Njörðr—his faith in and respect for his “Skip” were just that great.
Behind Rod, Njörðr grimaced, his features a mixture of regret and shame.
“It…it can’t really be true, can it, Skip? How could you unleash these monsters into the lake…?”
“I’m afraid it is, Rod.”
“Why? Why would you do something like that?!” Rod’s face was twisting now, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
“…I’m not the wonderful god you all believe me to be,” Njörðr responded, avoiding Rod’s gaze and looking, instead, toward Loki. “Loki, this is all my doing…”
“Yeah, cat’s out of the bag already. No use hidin’ things now.” Loki lobbed a small bag at Njörðr’s feet. The multicolored powder mixture Rod had shown Aiz and the others down at the pier the other day spilled out of the opening—the “magic dust” Rod and his men used to ward off monsters out at sea.
Njörðr’s brows creased further still.
“I’ve been sending my kids all over. To the folks at the Guild and even to Old Man Murdock himself. Finally, I’ve got my evidence,” Loki continued, alluding to the bag that Aiz had given her not long ago.
“…!”
Njörðr brought a hand to his head in resignation, visibly pale.
But before he could offer up a response, Rod did for him, voice laced with surprise. “Master Borg? And…the Guild? But…but what do they have to do with any of this, milady?!” he asked shakily.
“Well…” Loki started. “It goes somethin’ like this—”
“—one of you isn’t the culprit. All of you are the culprits!”
A similar conversation was currently taking place in an empty storehouse behind the Guild Branch Office.
The Guild Branch chief himself, Rubart, paled in the face of Riveria’s accusation.
“What are you…? A-an accusation like that is an insult to the Guild—!”
“Then what does that make you, the one who carried out the actions in question?”
As chaos overwhelmed the city of Meren, the branch chief had been taking advantage of the similar commotion in the branch office to slip out of sight and cart with him a certain item to the storehouse.
What he hadn’t expected, though, was the sudden appearance of a green-haired high elf, and—caught red-handed—he let one of the items in his arms drop to the floor as his face twitched. The item in question was of a decidedly magic-stone make.
“The reason Meren has not called for aid from Orario, even in a dire situation such as this…is because you control the signal!”
And, indeed, the telescope-like signal itself was right there in his hands. The series of magic-stone flashes it created was strong enough to reach the guard post along Orario’s great stone walls, allowing Meren to alert the city, even from kirlos away, of any urgent distress.
“You know that if any adventurers from Guild Headquarters were to come now, they’d become instantly aware of all the dirty dealings currently occurring. For instance, our little viola situation…Am I correct?” Riveria stated, one eye closed as she stared Rubart down with the other.
“…!”
Rubart’s face began losing its color at a nigh unparalleled rate.
“All that earlier chicanery about not being on good terms with the Guild was simply to keep us from discovering your involvement as a conspirator, yes?”
“L-Loki Familia…!”
In yet a third similar conversation, Alicia was currently accosting a certain Borg Murdock, head of Meren, at his family estate. The village chief’s hands were gripping the sides of a large hemp sack containing, quite clearly, the “magic dust” in question.
Though he at first attempted to conceal the sack, he quickly realized such actions were too little, too late, instead simply slumping to the floor in resignation.
“But what could all of them have to do with those flower creatures…?”
Loki could hear her followers’ bewildered voices behind her but didn’t reply; instead, she looked first to the motionless violas who appeared to be sleeping in their black cages, then next to the powder scattered around Njörðr’s feet.
“There’re magic stones mixed in with all that stuff…ain’t there?”
“…There are,” Njörðr responded, defeated.
There was another collective gasp of surprise from Rod and the rest of Loki’s familia. Loki, however, just moved the conversation along.
“Crushed ’em up good and small to keep anyone from noticing…then mixed ’em up with fishy parts and all other sorts of raw, stinky gook…That sound about right?”
“Indeed. I’m impressed, Loki. I put a lot of work into that to make sure even other gods wouldn’t see through it…”
“I had Aizuu sniff things out. She’s got a nose for this kinda stuff. Snuck into Murdock’s place and found his little stash of magic stones in the basement.”
Njörðr’s lips curled upward in a self-deprecating grin.
Rod, still stunned between the two, cut in with his own request for clarification. “W-wait just a second here, milady! By magic stones you don’t mean…mean those, do you? Those…stones inside monsters’ chests?! How the devil would something like that keep those same monsters at bay?”
“Those flowers…Seems there’s one thing they like even more than the taste of human flesh—other monsters. Or, more accurately, the magic stones of other monsters. This was news to me, too,” Loki explained, and the eyes of Rakuta and the other girls behind her widened further.
This had been what Aiz and company had reported following the last expedition. The vibrantly colored monsters such as the violas and the caterpillars were merely “tentacles” for the corrupted spirit, seeking out magic stones for the spirit to feed on.
“Scatterin’ this stuff with its magic stones out in the water makes the violas go crazy, drawing their attention away from the boats themselves and allowin’ ’em to sail through without so much as a scratch.”
When Tiona had called the magic dust “monster bait” the other day, she’d been right on the money. This was an item perfectly crafted for viola-repelling use.
“But…but…but it just doesn’t make sense! Why would…But other monsters, too! They didn’t attack the boats, either!” Rod insisted.
“Didn’t I just say those flower beasties prefer the taste of their own kind?” Loki explained with a sigh. “They ate everything! ‘Magic dust’ and other monsters alike. Why else do you think the seas have been so peaceful lately?”
As Rod’s eyes widened in realization, first he, then Rakuta and the others, and finally Loki, too, all threw their gazes in Njörðr’s direction.
“I’m pretty sure I know the answer already, but…I just hafta ask,” Loki continued. “Why’d ya do it?”
Njörðr took a few steps farther inside the cavern, walking over toward a small spring before plunging his hand in the water. When his fist emerged, it was wrapped tightly around the tail of a fish.
“…Take a look at this fish, Loki.”
It was a dodobass, big and black. Though still young, it was already as long as most other fish in their prime, and its tough ovular scales were already growing in all across its body.
“Wonderful batch of scales it has, yes? All of it a result of evolution—to protect itself from the monsters in the lake.”
“You don’t have to tell me. Things l
ike that have been happenin’ since monsters first emerged on the surface. The whole ecosystem’s careening out of control.”
“Exactly, exactly…But this dodobass, you see, is actually quite lucky. It was somehow able to keep itself alive; its children were able to find food. Others, however, weren’t so lucky…”
“And…that’s why you set loose all those violas into the lake?”
Njörðr nodded, his face cheerless. Around him, Rod and the others couldn’t help the somewhat sardonic half smiles that rose to their lips. “The oceans of this world, they’re in a…horrid state. The increase in monsters these past five hundred years has simply been too great.”
“I guess that makes sense…Up on land, we’re somehow able to keep ’em under control, but there aren’t a lotta people who could do the same thing out on the open sea.”
“Yes. Poseidon and his followers did what they could, but it was a Sisyphean task from the start. If it had gone on much longer, my men and I, well…we’d have been out of jobs. And not just us—fishing would become a fool’s errand in every sea of the world. I simply couldn’t let that happen.”
Njörðr was, after all, a god of the rod.
The whole reason he’d descended to the human world was to reap the bounties of its waters. Next to him, Rod, his fellow fishing captain, stood stock-still, simply listening to his deity’s confession.
“Meren almost reached a breaking point not long ago,” Njörðr continued. “The fish dropped to dangerously low levels. The lake’s monsters nabbed all of them before we fishermen could reel them in. Orario, of course, had enough money that it could simply import its fish from elsewhere, but what were my men and I supposed to do?”
“…”
“Fishing is our livelihood. We have no other way of making money. But fishing requires that we venture out to sea, and with each passing voyage…my men were dying. Rod’s father…and his grandfather both met their ends this way.” He smiled sadly at Loki, silent for a moment before continuing. “My blessing did them no good. They were no match for those monsters.”
“Skip Njörðr…” Rod sniffled, looking as though he was about to cry.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 6 Page 23