CHAPTER 5
THE MIRROR’S VOICE
“Lord Balder!”
The principal’s office.
Bursting through the doors, Leon and Alisa rushed in.
“Thank you for coming, Leon. You’ve already heard the report from Orario?”
“Yes, sir. A large-scale floor collapse occurred in the Dungeon. What is the current situation?”
With the large ash desk between them, Balder and Leon quickly confirmed what they knew.
Orario was dealing with a massive irregularity that affected an entire floor, and the School District was also starting to act.
“Almost all students were able to get out before being trapped, and no deaths have been reported yet… However, the Third Squad and Seventh Squad have likely been trapped by the cave-in.”
The smile left Balder’s face even as his eyes remained closed.
His voice was without emotion, and he said nothing more than the simple facts of the report.
“Lefiya…”
Alisa paled as Leon furrowed his brow.
Her heart raced in concern for the students and her old friend.
“I will go, too. We cannot leave it only to Orario.”
“Yes, please. Take Malik and the others if you wish. I will leave it to your judgment.”
“L-Lord Balder! I’ll—!”
“Alisa, please remain here. If the others are going, it will be difficult to maintain control here. We will provide material support and, if necessary, open the Alchemy Department’s stores.”
Ordered to remain on standby when she wanted to volunteer to help with the rescue, Alisa could not argue against a god who could grasp the entirety of the situation.
“…Yes, sir,” she forced herself to answer.
Leon nodded briefly and left the room immediately.
“Are they…safe?”
“There are alive. The number of my blessings has not decreased. I cannot say whether they are in perfect health, but…fortunately, the squads involved have Lefiya and that boy. They should be able to avoid the worst.”
Balder’s lips curled slightly as he replied.
Alisa found his seemingly meaningful comment mysterious, but his smile soon disappeared.
“If there is a concern, then it lies within Lefiya. How will her heart lean when put into a difficult position…?”
This is insane.
That was Luke’s thought as he saw the scene unfolding before his eyes.
“A blaze shall soon descend. Approaching flames of war from which there is no escape. Battle horns blaring on high, all atrocities and strife shall be engulfed.”
This was an ultra-long chant. The sheer scale and amount of magic power poured into the spell made Luke shudder, but Lefiya cast it repeatedly without batting an eye. And what made him doubt everything he thought he knew was that she was using such a large-scale annihilation spell not to attack.
“Incinerate, sword of Surtr—My name is Alf.”
There was no trace of even a single monster anywhere around them.
As the final verse of the spell faded into the silence surrounding them, a jade magic circle suddenly expanded around Lefiya’s feet.
It extended through the rocks, blocking off any number of passages, covering a circle with an 80-meder radius, and searching whether there were any monsters or people inside it. Confirming that no adventurers or students were nearby, Lefiya simply dispeled Rea Laevateinn.
And then she held the wand in her left hand forward.
“Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree. You are the master archer.”
Her voice rang out clearly as she recited her own original spell.
Her wand targeted the pile of rocks blocking their passage like a giant’s corpse.
And there was also a ring-shaped magic circle glowing around her right hand, which was not being used for the spell she was casting.
“Loose your arrows, fairy archers. Pierce, arrow of accuracy—Arcs Ray!”
The enormous beam she unleashed swallowed up the pile of rocks.
There was a tremendous impact and booming explosion.
Not even drilling through the rock but annihilating it started a secondary collapse, but Lefiya immediately reacted.
“Canon!”
Her skill’s key phrase.
She immediately activated the magic that she had preemptively cast before Rea Laevateinn.
“Wynn Fimbulvetr!”
Three furious torrents of snow erupted.
She held out her right hand this time, another jade magic circle forming around her feet as she unleashed an icy blast, freezing the collapsing labyrinth solid.
Precise control and enormous output. Freezing the deadly rocks, it held and supported them, creating a cavern. Shielding his face from the tremendous chill gale, when Luke looked up, he saw an ice tunnel.
A stout ice tunnel had appeared within the stone caves.
“Fuuuh…I can’t ignore the Mind consumption when I use magic without holding back.”
So she said, but she did not look particularly exhausted at all.
She had just used three different types of magic in succession.
The first was a wide-range detection spell. She expanded Rea Laevateinn’s radius as far as possible because it could distinguish between people and monsters within its range, allowing her to check for the presence of adventurers or students, followed by Arcs Ray to clear the rubble once she was sure of no one else getting caught up in it. Then, the absolute zero temperatures of Wynn Fimbulvetr froze the passage that had lost all support, creating a pathway.
Blowing away the rocks blocking their path, preventing a further collapse, and simultaneously building a path they could continue down. It was easy enough to say. But how many adventurers could begin to pull off a similar feat?
It was not hard to imagine that excavating the Dungeon would take a large amount of time and work. Dividing the work between enough people and with specialized gear, they could finally carve out a tunnel after working with the utmost caution and care, and Lefiya had done it all by herself.
It was a preposterous use of magic and an absurd level of magic power.
This is a Level Four.
No, this is Loki Familia’s Thousand Elf.
He had heard about Lefiya’s fame any number of times during his travels with the School District, but Luke realized again that they were not fanciful tales.
He trembled in awe as he understood that she, too, was one of the potential heroes.
“…This is insane…”
As he murmured that after watching her make a tunnel of ice four times now, Lefiya turned back to him.
“I know it’s inefficient, but it would be unbearable if any adventurers were caught up in it when I cast the spell.”
“I know…I know, but…!”
A younger girl had saved his life several times now, and Luke was wrestling with his petty masculine pride.
The cave-in they had escaped had hit a large area, blocking every route. They were closed in. The simple truth was that Luke would not have been able to do anything alone. He would have had no choice but to wait for rescue.
Meanwhile, Lefiya simply said, “Let’s move on.”
And they had moved at a blinding pace with her repeated use of those three spells that would have made any mage faint.
As he muttered to himself questions like, “How much Mind do you have?” and “Even if someone thought to do it, could they pull it off?,” Luke started to feel everything he considered common sense shatter around him.
“…If you can tunnel through the rock yourself, then wouldn’t it be better to just make an escape route? Make a path to the fourteenth floor or…”
“Ganesha Familia and others should already be on the move after hearing the uproar. So I’ll leave that to them. It’s far more efficient to have many people digging rather than have me go at it alone.”
As he just said the thought that crossed his mind, Lefiya calmly answered while walking down the ice tunnel.
It would certainly progress much faster if both sides were digging out the main route, but linking up with their lost squad members was a battle against time. And Lefiya and Luke had a massive head start, being so much closer to the event.
Lefiya’s priorities were unwavering, and Luke acknowledged her logic.
“Still, though, we haven’t had much luck. Finding a shaft leading to the next floor is difficult when you want one.”
Though they were proceeding through the collapsed Dungeon with Lefiya’s nonsensical method, the extent of her Mind reserves was limited. As she said herself, this was extremely inefficient.
Lefiya was not blindly following the main route. She was searching for a shortcut down to a lower level through a vertical shaft. With that, they would be able to set course for the eighteenth floor without wandering through the entire labyrinth.
Luke had offhandedly suggested just making her own by shooting Arcs Ray at her feet, but that was a little too much, breaking one of the few unwritten rules of the Dungeon. If there were any adventurers below them, they would surely die, and even if there weren’t any, it would likely cause another collapse.
Rea Laevateinn, which Lefiya had received from Riveria, could search laterally, but it could not search vertically.
“But this is already the sixteenth floor. We can reach the seventeenth floor if we can find one more passage.”
“That’s true, but…this has taken longer than I expected. Us aside, I’m concerned about them.”
As Luke said, they were already on the sixteenth floor. They had somehow managed to reach here from the collapsed fifteenth floor.
Luke glanced at the pocket watch Lefiya pulled out. The 7th Squad had already been inside the Dungeon for just under half a day.
They were about to break their record for time spent in the Dungeon.
Ordinarily, this would be when his body and mind started to ache, but…
…I’m not tired at all.
Maybe because the Dungeon prioritized recovering from the collapse, but no monsters were being born. And, of course, inside Lefiya’s ice tunnel—where even the labyrinth walls were frozen—there was no way for monsters to be born.
There were some monsters popping up that had managed to survive the cave-in, but far fewer than usual. Lefiya was technically assuming a backline position, but she defeated monsters faster than Luke. He was starting to wonder if she could not just do everything herself.
Is there even any reason for me to be here…?
He started to wonder why he was there, why she needed a vanguard.
He started to feel even more worthless.
Of course, as a result, he started talking less, and silence began to fill the air between him and Lefiya.
“…Luke, can I ask you something embarrassing?”
“…What do you mean, something embarrassing?”
Maybe unable to take the silence anymore, Lefiya asked a question.
Luke had a dubious look as he answered.
“Conceited might be a better word than embarrassing, but either way… Luke, are you interested in me?”
BAM!!!
Luke’s head slammed into the ice wall right beside him.
“Whoa?! Are you okay, Luke?! Did you slip?!”
Luke’s face turned bright red as his senior looked at him with wide eyes, drawing the wrong conclusion.
“Wh-wh-what are you asking?! Of course not!!!”
“Ah, of course. Thank goodness. Given how hostile you were before, I wouldn’t know how to respond if you said you were interested in me.”
He lost control and shouted reflexively, but when she delivered her response with a smile, it tore so many holes in his heart that it probably looked like a beehive.
Not noticing Luke’s wobbly steps, Lefiya had a genuinely relieved look on her face.
“The truth is, Nano said something strange, so I was wondering if you were maybe feeling self-conscious around me.”
“…Did you think that was why I was being quiet just now?”
“Yes. If you brought emotions like that into the Dungeon, I would have to scold you. But thank goodness. I couldn’t decide how to react to it.”
Damn it, looking so happy.
Luke’s fist trembled with all sorts of emotion as he struggled to figure out whether he was angry, sad, or just wanted to cry.
Who even just straight up asks someone that?!
It’s not like I especially like her! It’s not that I’m interested in her at all!!
But if I was, there’s no way I could just say, “Yes, I do like you,” to a question on the spot like that!!!
How bad at love can you be?!
I definitely hate you!
Luke glared red-faced at the foolish elf whose brain had shifted entirely into teacher mode to do the best job she could.
“Looks like you’re in a better mood already.”
“Eh?”
“Please don’t get the wrong idea. It may seem like I can do anything right now, but that’s only because of the experience I have built up.”
Luke’s eyes widened when she suddenly smiled.
“So you don’t need to feel down. I’m your instructor, so it’s only natural I would push myself for your sake.”
That smile made Luke feel a different sort of shame from before.
He had been doubting his own reason for being here. She had seen right through him. She had put on a little act in order to cheer him up…No, he still felt like what she said was honest.
Damn it…!
But I was just arbitrarily assuming things about her again…
Looking closer, Lefiya always paid attention to her surroundings and diligently checked the map. She was also regularly replenishing herself with small trickles of her magic potion.
They did not run into enough monsters that Luke needed to do anything because she was choosing the optimal and shortest route. It seemed like she had an infinite supply of Mind, but that was just because she recuperated at appropriate moments as they pressed forward.
She appeared powerful because she was doing what came naturally to an adventurer.
Luke couldn’t do those obvious things and still didn’t fully know what they were.
That was all it was.
He was being gifted with more lessons, and this time, he decided to cast away any sense of inferiority.
“Luke, are you still agitated?”
“…Honestly, yeah. I’ve never imagined a disaster or actively hostile terrain on anything on this scale. I imagine it’s the same for the others, too.”
After leaving the ice tunnel, they were attacked by a hellhound leaping out from a side path. They both attacked at once. They picked up just the magic stone and hurried forward.
“Then you have gotten a little bit wiser. This is the Dungeon. Even when we’re higher level than what’s suggested for the area, we can still be caught in dangerous situations and still lose our lives.”
Luke gulped.
Even in the middle floors that were called the starting line, parties of second-tier adventurers could be pushed into deadly situations. They could even die.
In fact, without Lefiya, they would have been wiped out.
The Dungeon is out to kill you.
Luke understood well now what that meant.
This was the Dungeon.
This underground world was filled with deadly traps around every corner.
While they were taking their first rest since the collapse:
“…Have you ever come close to dying?”
Luke asked the question to quell his restlessness. Lefiya finished drinking water from her bottle and passed it to Luke.
“If it weren’t for them…for my comrades in the familia, I would have died around fifty different times, I imagine.”
“Wha—?”
Luke was speechless.
It was not a joke, though. She was seriously saying that she had experienced near death more than fifty times.
An incredible mage like her…?
What he was thinking was probably showed plainly on his face because she just flashed a knowing smile.
“When I was a Level Three like you, I was far more immature. It was bad enough that I tripped up my comrades many times.”
“…Even though you’re so strong now?”
“Yes. Having almost died fifty times, I’ve finally reached where I am. That’s why I have to continue improving.”
The elf, stronger than Luke and more grown-up than Luke, smiled again.
He was so stunned that he could not bring himself to drink from the bottle when her voice suddenly changed. She turned her attention to their surroundings.
“Luke, if you think that I am strong, please share what you have learned from me with others, too. Share whatever becomes a part of you with one or many people.”
Finishing their break, they continued forward as she went on.
“Carry what you’ve learned into the future. That is the duty of students… That’s what I believe after my experience here as an instructor.”
Those sounded like none other than Lefiya’s own words. What she felt in her heart of hearts, shared without reservation.
Because it felt so real, so full of emotion, it hit him hard.
“And save whoever you can. Keep as many people from suffering as you can. Don’t lose the people precious to you.”
That was why he shuddered.
It was so passionate and heartfelt, Luke felt a shiver run down his spine. Forgetting all caution for a moment, he glanced at her.
Her eyes looking straight ahead did not reflect anything.
What are you watching? Where are you looking? Who are you?
At that moment, Miliria and Cole crossed his mind. And Nano, smiling.
His childhood friend, foolish and always needing help, and yet always trying to act like an older sister.
Looking Lefiya in the eyes, he saw the scene of the people he cared about most, battered and broken, sinking into a lake of blood.
Luke’s lungs froze, and his lips quivered.
“Did you…let someone die?”
He asked the question before even realizing it.
“I killed her.”
His breath stopped.
“With my own hands. There was no other choice, but even so, I killed her.”
It was not a confession. Not penitence.
It was just the truth.
It was as if the labyrinth’s darkness had pulled the information from her heart and given it to Luke.
Luke did not know the context.
Maybe she had been badly wounded, and she put an end to her misery.
Maybe she had tearfully had to cut her loose so that everyone else could survive.
Luke did not know. But that did not matter now.
Did she know the face she was making now?
Did she know what her eyes looked like?
“…!!!”
There was something that he had thought for a while now.
She was strong.
But at times, her strength…was scary.
She pushed herself with complete composure.
She always seemed to be calmly weighing the line between life and death.
There were times when she stopped being the Lefiya Viridis who the others looked up to and who he had feelings for.
The change in her eyes could not be expressed as a simple transformation, and there were times when Luke found it terrifying and nerve-racking.
But what bothered him the most was…
“Luke?”
“…No, it’s…nothing.”
Noticing his gaze, Lefiya turned to look at him.
Her deep blue eyes were reflecting Luke.
He looked down, trying to escape them as he balled his hands into fists.
He wanted to save the others. He wanted to meet them again. As soon as possible.
To keep the woman beside him from being alone.
That was what he thought.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeh?!”
They ran away.
For the umpteenth time, they had sprinted into a passage in the Cave Labyrinth in the face of an encounter with a swarm of monsters.
“That many isn’t faaaaaaair! What’s the point of a formation with that?!”
While Nano whined, right behind her, Cole shot back with a tense voice.
“Just keep running, Nano!”
An immense mass of minotaurs, hellhounds, and the squad’s archenemy, liger fangs, was barreling down on them.
The Dungeon was clearly out to kill them with its greatest weapon: sheer numbers.
If they had not been missing Luke, if they had been the full 7th Squad, then it might have been possible to control the situation through force. But being forced into a constant series of fights, their stamina was badly drained, to the point they could not face the monsters straight up.
A predicament underground. An unforgiving fight for survival.
The Dungeon practically salivated as it steadily and surely drove their backs against a wall.
“Sprout new leaves and verdant light. Grow, grow, grow, ascend trees, dampen flowers, adorn the forest.”
Miliria boldly began to cast a spell.
Compared to a dedicated mage like Nano, she lacked magic power. In her Status, Agility and Dexterity were her best abilities. She was a forest hunter skilled in bow and song.
Though she was still only Level 2, remembering what Lefiya had taught her, she focused on casting and moving, performing a basic Concurrent Cast.
“And bind. Admonish the savages. This is the forest shrine kept by its guardian.”
A crumbling wall and an outcropping of rock.
As she placed her hand on various parts of the labyrinth they sprinted past—like planting a seed—a bit of light appeared, transforming into a small magic circle.
Just before the roaring monsters passed, she activated her spell.
“Silva Vine!”
Multiple whips of light—magic vines—sprouted from the magic circles simultaneously.
The greenish vines were like traps, stringing up and binding the monsters mindlessly chasing their prey.
“WOOOOOO?!”
“GAAAAAAA?!”
Wrapping around their limbs and torsos, the vines brought the swarm of monsters to the ground with a loud rumble.
A carefully placed binding magic.
There wasn’t enough time to spare to cheer how perfectly they fell into the trap, so Miliria simply twisted her upper body while running, taking aim.
Spinning as her feet hung in the air, she rapidly fired the three arrows she had nocked to her bow.
They landed perfectly, shattering the skulls of monsters struggling to escape their bonds.
“Ghhh!!! Nano!”
“Yeah!”
As she displayed that elegant hunter’s technique, Cole, sprinting full speed, put a hand to the ground and turned around. He spun with Nano, tearing into the necks of a hellhound and a minotaur struggling to escape.
“Allllllll right!”
And Nano’s morning star was the finisher.
The chain traced a high arc overhead, and the fist-sized steel ball absorbed her magic power, turning into a glowing sphere the size of a human head and sprouting spikes of magic power.
The magic star hammer, developed by the School District’s renowned Alchemy Department, tore into the monsters.
“Gooooooo?!”
Though she was a mage, it was a crude but powerful blow unleashed with a Level 3’s status.
The monsters lying on the ground were shattered as cracks formed in the ground from the impact.
The monsters’ roars faded, and the only sound left was the squad’s breathing.
“You did it, Mimi—”
She started to run over to the MVP, who had gotten them out of a dangerous spot, but her voice faded.
Miliria was breathing heavily, hobbling toward the monster’s corpse, before grabbing the arrows she had fired and pulling them out.
Of the three, one had snapped.
“Just five left now…”
She grimaced, looking at the two arrows in her right hand before putting them back into her quiver.
Nano and Cole didn’t say anything.
Her current state spoke volumes about their situation.
“Cole…how many items do we have left?”
“…One potion and half a magic potion…we’re out of food and almost out of water.”
The three of them gathered up, catching their breath in the middle of the passage, leaving the monsters’ corpses be.
Miliria and Nano, sitting face-to-face, looked even more exhausted when they heard the quiet voice of the boy who had taken the backpack.
They were currently on the seventeenth floor.
The collapse repeatedly blocked their path, forcing them to turn around and go back. They had somehow managed to get this far, but they were approaching their limit, and fast.
They had burned through items at a heavy rate. Far more than usual.
If Cole’s estimates were right, then they would soon run out of what little supplies they had left.
It was an emergency in the Dungeon.
They had underestimated it. The physical exhaustion of being in a situation like this. The mental strain. The massive stress.
Constantly threatened by the labyrinth, they were about to run out of the water, food, and recovery items they had prepared for the expedition.
It’s already been one day since we entered the Dungeon…
Stopping his fingers before they started to quiver, Cole pulled out the pocket watch that Lefiya had given them.
“A Level Two can remain active inside the Dungeon for one day without supplies.”
That was what Lefiya had said. But with the caveat that applied to adventurers:
The three of them, nothing more than students who hoped to become adventurers, were utterly lacking in experience. The exhaustion of even a single exchange with monsters was enormous. They needed to switch to tactics of aiming directly for magic stones for a one-shot kill, setting aside whether they were even capable of that.
He desperately struggled to control his ragged breathing.
He knew he already had one leg firmly planted in the quagmire of panic. His sense of time was completely warped. There was no sky overhead to reference. Instead, they only had the grimy, dark underground labyrinth, and it was oppressive. It had been only one day. That meant it would take even longer for relief to come from the surface. Would Lefiya and Luke find them? No. He could not do that. They could not count on anyone else. But, but, but…
Although Cole was only fifteen years old, he could say without doubt that this was the most difficult situation he had experienced in his short life.
He was desperately fighting with the other him, who wanted to whine and complain. Miliria and Nano, who were quietly trying to recover, were surely the same.
Not good.
Without Luke, Cole was the who was constantly keeping an eye on the squad’s condition. That was when Nano realized something.
“Mimi, Cole…use the items. I don’t need the water, either. I’m Level Three. I can handle this better than you.”
“…What is that cocky nonsense, you klutz? Who do you think is always protecting you? You replenish yourself. There’s nothing worse than a mage who can’t act when the time comes.”
Cole was taken aback hearing Nano’s proposal. Seeing her smile so awkwardly, Miliria glared and pushed back.
An argument over supplies. They refused to fall that low. They didn’t even consider it.
In the previous squad Cole had been in, though, it had happened.
They had run into trouble during fieldwork that was far less dangerous than this, and students started attacking each other. Cole could do nothing more than stare in shock. That squad was split up.
Cole loved the 7th Squad.
They respected each other, helped each other, and forged a deep bond with each other. Elf or human—stuff like race did not matter. He loved them. And he would do anything to not lose them.
Cole forced Miliria to take the potion and Nano, the magic potion.
As they looked at him blankly, he stood up and smiled. The head wound that should have stopped bleeding ached beneath his makeshift bandage. Acting tough was a badge of honor for a guy. Cole emulated Luke, the boy he looked up to like an older brother.
“Let’s go… Just a little bit more, and we’ll reach the eighteenth floor.”
His words probably contained more than a little wishful thinking, but even so, they trusted him.
Finishing the final resupply he had given them, they stood up and nodded with determination.
Cole took the lead as their scout and started walking.
This is the last route. If the collapse blocks this, too, it’s over. My heart will break, and there won’t be any going back.
Gripping the rolled-up map in his hands, Cole prayed.
We can’t go on like this.
Please.
Just let us through.
The prayer he just made was the most foolish thing possible, something an adventurer should never fall back on.
When clinging to hope, the shock of failure was immeasurable. Veteran adventurers always forged ahead while imagining an even worse scenario than whatever predicament they found themselves in. Cole had slipped the noose around his neck.
But perhaps in a moment of caprice, the Dungeon let them go.
“…! Yes, yes, yes! Milly, Nano! We’re out on the main road! It’s a straight shot after this!”
“R-really?!”
“Ha-ha…a reward for all my daily hard work.”
They had stumbled upon the main road that led into the big clearing at the end of the seventeenth floor.
The massive road big enough for a giant to pass through was not fully blocked, even after such a large cave-in. Parts of the Dungeon walls had crumbled here and there, but if they could get past this, it would be a straight path forward to their destination.
As Nano cheered, Miliria smiled with relief. Cole also gained a bit of strength, and tightening up their formation to defend against any monster attacks, they increased their pace.
Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, they pressed on with smiles on their faces. On and on.
They continued their march forward. The impacts and roars that gradually started to reach them erased their smiles, but even so, they had no choice but to keep moving.
And then they were struck—with utter despair.
“ ”
They had reached the massive room at the end of the seventeenth floor.
The Great Wall of Sorrows.
The seamless, massive stone wall had crumbled from the inside out, turning into a mountain of rubble, and the master of this place rampaged beyond their field of vision.
“UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
The seventeenth floor’s monster rex.
It was Goliath, the first floor boss they had ever seen.
The giant that boasted by far the greatest strength of any monster they had ever encountered was swinging its massive, treelike arms at the prey far below it.
“Gaaaaaaaaaah?!”
“Damn it, it’s strong?!”
“We can’t get through this!”
A party of upper-class adventurers was crying out.
They had also been caught up in the collapse and had no way to return to the surface.
They had made up their minds faster than the three students. Thinking quickly, they had raced here at top speed—and ran smack-dab into the floor boss.
Goliath stood guard in front of the passage leading down to the eighteenth floor on the other side of the room. There was no slipping past. There were dozens of other monsters, too, making it even harder to force their way through.
“…Weren’t there still two days left until Goliath’s interval?”
“The adventurer who reported it got it wrong…or the Dungeon is feeling particularly malicious. Which do you think?”
As she thought back to the reports on the board at Guild Headquarters that they had checked with Lefiya before taking on the middle floors, Miliria’s elven features twisted in aggravation. Cole could manage nothing but a hollow joke that even he did not find funny.
The crumbling Wall of Sorrows had made significant progress on its repairs.
A large amount of time had passed since Goliath’s last birth. So even if they had gotten here faster, their fate was settled.
With every swing of its fists, it broke everything in its path. With every step it took, the entire room quivered. The 7th Squad stood dumbfounded at the sight of a giant monster whose very existence was a cataclysm.
“H-hey, kids! Quit starin’ and help! Help us!!”
One of the adventurers noticed the students. After a moment, they realized it was the rough-looking man who had led the pass parade to them a week ago. He was shouting at the 7th Squad standing at the entrance of the room.
Their shoulders twitched.
The desperation was stark on his face, in his voice.
This was a predicament that even an adventurer with far more experience than them could not escape. Seeing a man who looked so much bigger, so much rougher, and so much stronger than them pleading for help was bloodcurdling.
They were being held hostage by the Dungeon yet again—not by despair, this time, but by a terrifying choice.
“…Mimi, Cole…”
None of them could move.
It was Nano who spoke.
“We…should help them.”
The two of them spun toward her.
She was the palest of them all, and she still mustered up the courage to say that.
“I can’t…watch them die…!”
“Wait! Do you understand the situation?!”
“I know! I know how exhausted we are, how strong that monster is. How could I not know?!”
Nano shouted back when Miliria raised her voice.
The combat uniform she was so proud of was in tatters. Her weapon was battered and warped. Her face red with blood. In that state, still, she raised her voice.
“But even so, we’re School District students!”
Their eyes widened.
“We’ve seen the world! We’ve helped so many people! We shared Luke’s sadness and worked so hard to become able to save people who are suffering! So how can we abandon someone in the Dungeon?!”
“Gh…!”
“I don’t wanna do that!”
Their pride and duty as School District’s students. The vow they had made as the 7th Squad.
“…Do you remember what Lefiya taught us?”
Her voice suddenly softened.
“‘No matter how scary, no matter how much they might reject it, there comes a day when people have to take a risk.’”
“…And you’re saying that’s now?”
“I dunno! But if it was Lefiya! No matter how exhausted she was, no matter how difficult it was, she would definitely go save them!”
Nano smiled.
Her arms and legs trembled like a newborn foal’s.
But even so, she had a big smile on her face.
“I want to become an adventurer who can feel proud facing her.”
Cole smiled.
There was nothing else to do.
His heart quivered in agreement.
“…Let’s go, Milly.”
“…Argh! Nano! Cole! You idiots!!!”
The elf girl shouted and started running. Nano and Cole followed close behind, stepping onto the battlefield where the giant’s roar thundered.
The truth was that all three understood they had no choice but to fight. Even if they ran, they had no future if they couldn’t reach the eighteenth floor. And as students who sought out truth and put their faith in righteousness, they could not bear to use the adventurers as a decoy and flee to safety by themselves.
In which case, Nano was right. This was the place, and now was the time for them to risk it all.
“Lightning, heaven’s name. Betray thy earthly kin, share not thy voice. Grant me the blessing of lightning—Zalga Yell!!!”
Nano unleashed the opening salvo.
As she moved to the center of the room, a magic circle expanded overhead as soon as the monsters were in range, and she hit them with a lighting rain.
The surprised adventurers dodged, and several bolts hit some of the mob monsters as Goliath, a section of its massive, gray-brown body scorched by bolts, turned its furious eyes on the mage.
“Scary…! It’s scary, but look here!”
As terrified of the monster rex as she was, Nano still cast her spell, dispersing her magic power as obviously as possible. Evidently, even Goliath could not completely ignore a Level 3 mage’s ultimate magic because it picked up a boulder at its feet and threw it at her.
Nano canceled the cast in surprise and ran away in a panic as Miliria and the adventurers immediately moved.
“Get away quickly while our stupid mage draws its attention!”
“You guys…! You students really are a bunch of softies, aren’t you?!”
Most of the mob monsters had disappeared with Nano’s spell, and Miliria provided support with her few remaining arrows. Seeing that, the adventurers shouted for joy in an almost insulting tone.
With Goliath distracted, they beat a hasty retreat without needing to be told. Supporting those who were injured, they cut through the smaller monsters, passing by the giant’s feet and into the passage at the end of the room.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
That only enraged Goliath.
With Nano in front of it and the adventurers at its feet, it dealt with both piecemeal. How it stomped its feet in a tantrum at being scorched by magic was ridiculous, but it was a monster rex. That was more than enough to shatter the ground, creating a lethal spray of rocks.
Dodging the hail of stones, Miliria bit her lip, trying to keep her footing as the ground quaked beneath her, landing the best shots she could.
“You’re useful after all! You should join our familia!”
“Spare me the jokes! It’s bad enough seeing your face again!”
The rough adventurer who seemed to be the leader of his party grabbed a quiver of arrows from one of his comrades and tossed it to Miliria.
After all the adventurers had retreated, he stayed as the rear guard at the exit. The only ones left were the students.
“Let’s go!”
“Yeah! Cole!”
“I’ll be right behind you! You go ahead!”
Cole shouted as he cut into the monsters that had separated from the pack, protecting Nano.
They ran at Miliria’s call, approaching the terrifying floor boss.
“ !!!”
Goliath roared like it was declaring it would not let them escape.
Summoned by its voice, monsters poured into the room from the passage behind them. The primordial, most dangerous action: summoning help. Seeing the wave of monsters approaching, their eyes warped as they picked up speed.
The monsters were furiously chasing them down, but that was fine. They had a head start, so they would reach the passage to the next floor first. They just needed to time it right. They would get only one chance—
At that moment, the three of them made eye contact.
The elf hunter was running around the giant, unleashing arrows to distract it. The mage held her staff at the ready, saving her strength and building power.
And the werewolf scout judged the range to Goliath’s and reached into the pouch at his hip.
“Three, two, one…go!!!”
When he triggered the item he pulled out, magic power flowed, and he threw it.
The item he threw arced through the air, and right in front of the giant’s eyes, it exploded in a dazzling bloom of light.
“ ?!”
It was a light flower, a quality magic item produced by the School District’s famed Alchemy Department.
The flash grenade exploded high overhead, blinding Goliath. While it writhed in pain, the two girls raced off at Cole’s signal and immediately began their pell-mell sprint to the passage.
“Ha-ha, you guys are great!”
They moved with a level of coordination that put adventurers to shame, and the leader of the rough adventurers shouted joyously as the students ran toward him.
The 7th Squad was brilliant.
The School District’s assessment of their fighting ability was not mistaken, and even upper-class adventurers could acknowledge their skill as they boldly overcame a difficult situation that would make most people cower.
Absorbing Lefiya’s teachings, they made the optimal choice, and though it was only for a brief moment, they got one over on a floor boss.
But…
They were still students lacking in experience.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
“ ”
Cole, at the back of the group, got ambushed from behind by a single liger fang.
“Cole?!”
Cole immediately turned around, only for the monster to bite his hand as he was brought to the ground. Nano and Miliria, who were about to leap into the passage, stopped short.
As he heard their cries, Cole desperately fought off the monster trying to tear into him with a furious strength.
It caught up?! Just this one?! From that distance?! How…?!
He quickly confirmed the other monsters chasing them were still far away.
Consumed by terrible confusion…Cole suddenly realized something.
His hand creaked under the powerful jaws, trying to tear off his arm even now.
The monster’s hair was standing on end. It had sickly, bloodshot, feral eyes.
The flesh of its last meal was still hanging from its fangs, and he couldn’t fail to notice its glistening purple crystal.
An enhanced monster…!
Cole was struck by shock as it dawned on him.
The encounter earlier.
The swarm of monsters they had defeated and then left lying there.
In their exhaustion, they had failed to deal with the magic stones in their corpses…
“Damn it!!!”
Cole cursed himself as he continued struggling.
The liger fang had feasted on the corpses of the monsters they had left lying there. All of those magic stones. And with its now enhanced body, it had chased down Cole with ease.
He had forgotten to take care of post-battle cleanup in the haze of his severe physical and mental exhaustion.
A careless mistake in a terrible situation.
A simple and trivial failure.
But that was life and death in the Dungeon.
Cole cursed their blunder.
And after Lefiya had told them so many times always to be sure to deal with magic stones, no matter what.
“Kh?!”
Turning back, Miliria unleashed an arrow, shooting through the liger fang’s temple.
Still not falling, Nano smashed it with her staff, finally killing it.
It was the briefest exchange of blows.
They immediately helped Cole up, but even so, it was too late.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Goliath swung its arms in pain, and almost as if aiming for it, it fell backward onto the wall where the passage was.
“Whooooooooooaaaaaaaa?!”
The adventurer yelled as the rocks started falling, and they ran deeper into the passage.
The next moment, there was a loud noise, and the wall over the passage to the next floor crumbled.
“…That’s…”
The rumbling and quakes continued as Nano murmured.
The giant slowly sat up, revealing no trace of the passage that had been there before. The one and only cavern leading to the next floor was warped, collapsed from the inside, and covered with a mound of rubble.
The labyrinth wall was warped, as if it had failed beneath the giant’s weight.
Losing their path out, Nano slumped to her knees.
Cole and Miliria forgot to breathe as despair filled their eyes.
“OOOO…”
Standing up, its vision restored, Goliath glared at the pitiful students.
The swarm of monsters had caught up, too.
There was a terrifying giant ahead and an enormous horde of monsters behind.
They were surrounded, and at that moment, they could practically hear their spirits breaking.
Goliath’s ground-shaking steps drew near. The monsters’ encirclement grew tighter.
Soon they would tear into them without mercy, body and soul.
“Fusillade Fallarica!”
That moment.
A rain of magic more furious and vicious than the monsters poured down all around the room.
“ ?!”
Countless fiery missiles pierced the monsters’ backs and exploded, burning them alive.
Even Goliath faltered before this enormous display of firepower. In the blink of an eye, a string of death cries filled the air as the students spun around.
At the entrance to the room, far in the distance, stood a boy wielding a longsword and an elf with a wand outthrust.
“Luuuuuuuke! Lefiyaaaaaaaaa!”
Miliria and Cole stared as Nano burst into tears.
They had made it in time.
When she confirmed that all three of them were there, Lefiya raced forward.
“Luke, heal them! Use all the items if you need to!”
“Got it!”
The Level 4 and Level 3 closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Lefiya leaped out ahead of Luke, carving through the swarm of monsters rocked by the sudden barrage.
“Hah!”
“Ghgaaah?!”
Cutting through a minotaur with Tear Pain, she leaped with one leg, dancing through the air as she dismembered a group of al-miraj. She took aim at the liger fang that jumped at her with a roar even as its body burned and mercilessly slammed it with the hilt of her sword, breaking its neck.
Lefiya drew the attention of every monster that managed to survive her spell as she went on a rampage, thanks to her Level 4 Status.
“Potion, Milly! No time to waste!”
“…Right, right!”
“You, too, Nano, quit crying and stand back up!”
“Luuuuuuke!”
While Lefiya held their attention, Luke broke through the line of monsters and linked back up with his squad.
There were cuts on his face. His armor was damaged and nicked all over.
They had forced their way through the seventeenth floor at top speed when they heard Goliath’s roar. Catching the bottle tossed her way, Miliria had tears in her eyes, and Nano rubbed her drenched face.
“Luke…”
“Whoa, Cole, you’ve gotten pretty manly while I’ve been away!”
Luke grinned at the werewolf boy with a bloody bandanna around his head.
After a moment, Cole broke into a smile and poured the potion he was given over his head.
His smile fading, he turned to cover his injured comrades. Anger filled his face as he wiped away the approaching monsters.
With the items we have on hand, full recovery is probably impossible, but I can leave them to Luke for now.
Confirming their condition out of the corner of her eye, Lefiya calmly assessed the situation.
There were around fifteen mob monsters around them, including the floor boss.
The floor boss was a different story, but she could make quick work of the other monsters. The problem was…
…It’s looking over here.
Goliath did not immediately attack as it stared at her.
It seemed to be watching them like an inquisitive baby, and then its massive chest swelled, unleashing another thunderous shout.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
The roar reached into the farthest corners of the labyrinth and made her want to cover her ears.
It was the same summoning call that had trapped Nano and the others earlier and the same echoing howl Lefiya and Luke had heard before racing here.
The next moment, her second-tier adventurer’s senses once again detected the scrambling sound of monsters on the move. Reinforcements were beginning to gather in small groups at the entrance to the great room.
With the Dungeon unable to birth more monsters in the vicinity with its structure so damaged, the remaining monsters across the seventeenth floor gathered instead.
With a single move, the situation was quickly changing.
That Goliath…is intelligent.
The others would surely have nodded if they had heard Lefiya’s thoughts.
The floor boss before them, who had thrown a boulder at Nano and blocked their escape route, was special.
There were weaker and stronger individuals, even among monsters of the same species. That rule also applied to floor bosses born across longer intervals.
And this Goliath was apparently extraordinary.
Now of all times. Lefiya furrowed her brow.
If monsters are going to pour into this room, there is no point in running back that way. We’ll just get caught by a giant swarm somewhere along the way.
Even if the rest of the 7th Squad had recovered their stamina, they were surely still worn down mentally. She wanted to avoid dragging them on a death march with no end in sight.
And the road leading to the Wall of Sorrows was big enough that Goliath could follow them there. A giant melee with Goliath and swarms of monsters in an even smaller space would be a disaster.
With the passage to the eighteenth floor crushed, defeating the enemy’s leader was the most reasonable way out.
Lefiya exchanged looks with the giant staring at her.
I have one summon burst precast already. A superlong chant right now…would be a bad idea. It’s waiting for me to start…
To be safe, she had prepared a spell before entering the room. That explained the magic circle around her left hand.
Unfortunately, monsters were already gathering.
And even now, the giant’s eyes were watching her.
Considering all of that, Lefiya decided to not risk a massive magical bombardment to turn everything around.
In a pincer between Goliath and the other monsters, odds were that she wouldn’t be able to finish a long chant while also protecting the 7th Squad. Lefiya made her decision and set her priorities.
“Luke, take the others to the Wall of Sorrows!”
“The Wall of Sorrows?! What do you mean?!”
“No monsters other than Goliath can be born from it! Take up positions with your back to that wall!”
Luke glanced at Lefiya as he cut down more attacking monsters.
The boy interpreted it as a way to prevent an attack from behind.
Even if they had recovered somewhat, having them covering her back was dangerous. And Luke’s breath was starting to grow ragged, too. It was natural, all things considered. Counting the time before the collapse, they had been fighting monsters in the Dungeon for over a day. Just as the three of them had burned through supplies at an alarming rate, the latent stress was weighing heavily on Luke, too.
Rather than fighting in the center of the room and having to deal with all four sides, having their backs to a wall and being able to focus on just three sides would certainly decrease the burden.
But is that back-footed plan really the best idea right now?!
Turtling up here without attacking?
As Luke reflexively looked back, Lefiya shouted sharply.
“Quickly!”
Even a slightly shorter chant would become difficult if more monsters started surrounding them.
Her deep blue eyes argued that, and Luke had no choice but to believe the adventurer with far more experience than him.
“Get ready to run!”
“Y-yeah!”
Forcefully ripping through the wall of monsters with a Level 3’s brute strength, he cut a path across the cavern.
The moment the 7th Squad started moving toward the wall, Lefiya immediately began casting.
“I beseech the name of Wishe. Ancestors of the forest, proud brethren!”
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
As expected, Goliath reacted to the increase in magic power and started moving.
Lefiya watched the giant coming straight at her as she wove a second summon burst, calling on the strength of the great high elf.
“Harbinger of the end, white snow. Gust before the twilight.”
Though the charging calamity attacked with unbelievable ferocity, Lefiya cast her spell while carefully evading its blows as the students reached the wall at the western edge of the room.
“We made it!”
As Lefiya had said, it was a giant wall incapable of birthing any monster other than Goliath. And with the giant out rampaging already, no more monsters would be coming from it.
Luke turned around, standing in front of the rubble of what had been the wall.
“Hurry up and get over…!”
His words trailed off.
She completed her chant, fighting and dancing around the fearsome floor boss and the other monsters all the while. Then Lefiya thrust her left hand toward the students.
As time froze for them, the wand became the mouth of a cannon, unleashing a wall of ice.
“Wynn Fimbulvetr.”
The blue ice’s gleam filled their vision.
They braced themselves, not believing their eyes, but this magic was not one that froze them or damaged them. Shivering from the cold, they nervously opened their eyes and gasped.
“Ice…covering everything…?!”
In front, to the right and left, even above, pillars and massive hunks of ice blocked everything.
From the outside, it was a twisted, giant pyramid of ice.
Several monsters attacked it. Some even unleashed breaths of fire, but the thick ice wall did not falter.
The three blasts of ice had become a barrier, sealing them in.
“We can’t get out, Luke!”
“We can’t break it from inside, either!”
“…What is this…? Don’t gimme this—this bullshit!”
Cole and Miliria tested the ice several times with their weapons. Luke stood there stunned, his voice trembling and then roaring in anger.
“Why?! Why, Lefiya?!”
Nano’s weepy voice could not reach her outside, either.
“I’m sorry for the rough treatment.”
After unleashing the ice barrier, Lefiya retreated, putting a considerable distance between her and Goliath and the other monsters.
The ice barrier would not be easily broken. It would last even if Lefiya died. If the worst did happen, she would have to pray for the arrival of a rescue team from above or reinforcements from below once the passage was cleared from the eighteenth-floor side.
She was unsure of her ability to protect the 7th Squad in the current situation, so she moved them to a safe zone and locked them in a barrier.
Because their safety was more important than her own life.
Or more specifically, she chose to make that her priority.
And more than anything—she wanted to try fighting.
Just as Aiz had fought Udaeus alone, she would face this monster.
“I don’t intend to die, and I don’t intend to lose…If I fall here, the goal of being able to protect myself and save everyone would be nothing more than a distant dream.”
Her eyes narrowed as she restated her reason for choosing this path.
She could have fired the spell at Goliath instead, but it would not have been enough to finish it. Not unless she stopped moving and focused everything on delivering a devastating blow. At her current skill level, the force and precision of her magic dropped a great deal during Concurrent Casting. She still couldn’t reach the same heights as that beautiful, monstrous girl that she had so loved.
So she girded herself with the resolve of becoming a magic swordswoman.
A ferocious giant and a mob of monsters in front.
New monsters trickling in from behind.
Standing in the center of the giant chamber, Lefiya readied the sword in her right hand and raised the wand in her left.
The giant roared, not allowing her any time to indulge in sentiment.
“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”
With the shout of a single enemy, all the monsters moved into action.
Lefiya began to sing.
“Proud warriors, marksmen of the forest. Take up your bows to face the marauders. Answer the call of your kin, nock your arrows!”
One versus many.
In such an overwhelmingly disadvantageous melee, the moments where she could Concurrent Cast were limited.
All she could use were Arcs Ray, which had a short chant, and Fusillade Fallarica, but only for her first attack.
It was safe to rule out summon bursts that required longer chants.
She would save the precast spell remaining on her left wrist for the decisive moment. That was her trump card.
“Bring forth the flames, torches of the forest. Release them, flaming arrows of the fairies. Fall like rain, burn the savages to ash!”
As the enemies rushed her and Goliath threw a stone, Lefiya ran.
She completed the chant and unleashed her spell as she surged forward.
“Fusillade Fallarica!”
“ ?!”
She fired it at ultra-close range.
The torrent of fire arrows blanketed a wide area, incinerating the monsters charging her. It was not just the monsters that shattered. The ground did as well, and a massive cloud of dust rose as Goliath grew confused after losing sight of Lefiya for a moment.
“—Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree.”
Using that moment’s opening, she raced ahead.
When she exited the dust cloud right in front of it, the floor boss was clearly stunned.
The wall of monsters that had been between them was no longer there. It swung its massive arms at her after allowing Lefiya to get close while casting. But Lefiya did not falter.
She accelerated as if mimicking her rival bunny.
“Hiyah!”
“Ghhh?!”
Faster than Goliath’s arms, she sliced its right leg as she passed.
There was a dull thud like her sword had slammed into the trunk of a tree. Its skin split, and she carved into flesh, drawing a spray of blood. The arm swinging down behind her tore into the ground, unleashing a torrent of destruction.
Despite Goliath’s tremendous durability, her sword’s blade did not so much as chip. But it was not a large weapon and could not deal a decisive blow.
Lefiya would have to seize victory with her magic.
“You are the master archer. Loose your arrows, fairy archers!”
This was a situation where she would have to begin her next round of magic the moment she finished the last one. Her mind shuddered at the prospect of how many consecutive spells she would have to endure, but that didn’t matter. Really, if this wasn’t an emergency, she would have been grateful for the opportunity.
As a magic swordswoman, this was undoubtedly the ultimate test and the strongest enemy.
Goliath’s estimated potential was considered an even match for Level 4. Just like Lefiya. If she could overcome this, she could become even stronger. Sure of that, Lefiya’s heart roared.
Her face was cold as ice, even as her heart burned hotter and hotter.
She boldly slashed with her sword, keeping a careful distance from the giant, never staying still.
The previous me could never have done this…
Could the Lefiya from three years ago, or even a few months ago, have imagined it?
Fighting alone at close range with a floor boss.
No matter how much her desire to fight roared, though, a corner of her heart always trembled.
No matter how much she changed, there was always a feeble Lefiya Viridis she could not totally erase.
Her heart shook at the giant’s howl.
It brought back memories.
She could hear the pathetic sounds from her memories.
The voice of the old Lefiya, the weak, crybaby Lefiya that she so hated…
“Ah, aaah…”
Three years ago.
In the same place, the great chamber of the seventeenth floor that was flanked by the Wall of Sorrows, Lefiya blanched and trembled.
“Nassen…Alisa…everyone…”
Her comrades lied on the ground in bloody heaps as she faced the terrifying giant with chattering teeth.
That day, the 7th Squad again broke the school’s rules.
Because of Bardain’s desire to see the eighteenth floor, they had enlisted the 1st and 2nd Squads, challenging the Cave Labyrinth with twelve students. Of course, Alisa and Lefiya wanted to stop. But Bardain was not yet satisfied, and Nassen was curious to see the Under Resort so he joined in as well. And so it went. They left that day before Alisa and Lefiya had a chance to report them to Leon or the others, so Lefiya and Alisa reluctantly followed them.
It was pure optimism. Everything had been fine so far, so it would be fine this time, too. They had explored the Cave Labyrinth dozens of times before. And with two more squads, they were practically a midsize party. They were almost all Level 2 even, so it was almost like an expedition of adventurers.
So even if they had been concerned, somewhere in the back of their minds, they were sure they would make it to the eighteenth floor somehow.
Until they saw that absurd giant.
“No way…no way…!”
They had heard that some adventurers had already taken care of it, but there it was, alive, lurking in the big passage where it attacked them.
They screamed as they ran into the big chamber. That was when the ghastly festival began.
The prum Nassen was the first to fall. He had not even been hit by a direct attack. The giant had just swung its hand down, splitting the ground, and some flying debris had hit him. He stopped moving, bleeding like a squashed tomato.
The next was Alisa. She tried to rescue Nassen since he was still breathing, but she was surrounded by monsters and ravaged.
Bardain tried to protect her as she cried and screamed, leaping in with a furious shout and, at the cost of one of his arms, managing to rescue Alisa and Nassen.
And that was that.
“Run! Run, Lefiyaaaaaaa!!!”
Self-reproach and regret filled his voice as he shouted, swinging his great ax wildly with just one arm. He was surrounded by a herd of minotaurs, a candle soon to be snuffed out in the wind.
The other squad members were caught by the floor boss’s howl and immediately taken down once they were immobilized. The giant’s swinging arm was devastating and their shattered bodies performed a grotesque dance.
Tears welled in Lefiya’s eyes as she stood there, unable to do anything.
Somewhere in her heart, she thought they would somehow manage as long as they had Bardain.
He was a problem child and easily carried away, but he was dauntless and reliable, watching over them like an older brother. He was incredibly strong, and she thought they could make it through any difficult situation as long as he was there.
But Bardain had lost an arm, and his face was filled with despair. He was on the verge of being killed by minotaurs.
They had mocked the Dungeon. Wondered why this promised land was called the center of the world, forgetting how many lives had been stolen by this den of monsters ever since ancient times. Now it was belittling them, tracing their cheeks with a cruel hand, about to snap their necks in its grip.
Lefiya’s heart shattered.
“Unleashed…pillar of…light……limbs of the…holy tree…”
Tied down by terror, her voice trembling in despair, she let out a gasped chant.
Her legs refused to move. She could not flee. She almost slumped down on the spot. But Bardain was fighting alone, Nassen was lying in a pool of his own blood, and Alisa was bloody and battered as well. If Lefiya couldn’t use her magic, they would all die.
With tightly gripped fingers that refused to let go, she held up her trembling rod as the giant’s shadow loomed over her.
“ ”
The nightmare slowly raised its fist.
Right as her heart was about to burst, Lefiya completed her chant and unleashed her magic.
“A-Arcs Ray!!!”
The flash of light hit the giant’s fist straight on.
A searing ball of light blinded her.
There was a loud blast, and Lefiya was blown backward.
“Agh?! …Gh?!”
Goliath just recoiled backward a bit.
Its fist was raised overhead, knocked back by Lefiya’s full-power spell.
Smoke was rising from it, but there wasn’t even a scratch.
Lefiya’s magic had only just managed to defend against the giant’s most minor of attacks.
“Ah…aaah…aaaaaah…!”
Goliath slowly adjusted itself, staring at the quivering, fragile little fairy with its cold, emotionless eyes. That was the moment when Bardain’s strength gave out, too.
Lefiya was powerless.
There was nothing else they could do to resist.
At that moment, Lefiya’s 7th Squad was tragically and mercilessly wiped out.
…How much have I changed since then?
A white-hot emotion welled within her as she recalled those memories.
Her patheticness, her powerlessness, her inability to do anything but cry—the current Lefiya did not doubt for one moment that the extension of that was why she had lost someone precious to her.
She shouted as if to blot out the unsightly memories, like she was trying to unleash all the hatred and anger she felt when she thought about her past self.
“Pierce, arrow of accuracy!”
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The rampaging Goliath swung its heavy fists as her cast rang out.
Its right fist hurtled toward Lefiya. The same fist that had hammered despair into her heart.
As she overlapped with the girl from her memories, Lefiya’s eyes flared.
How much stronger had she gotten since then?
Let’s find out!!!
“Arcs Ray!!!”
A large white flash erupted from her outstretched wand as Goliath’s fist closed in.
As magic and fist met, a violent flare of light illuminated both of their faces.
After a brief struggle, Lefiya’s magic blew the giant’s entire right arm and shoulder away.
“ ?!”
It let out a terrible howl.
The giant clutched the smoldering wound with its left hand, the black hair on its head swinging wildly as its writhing shouts filled the room.
The deafening voice terrified even the students sealed off by the ice barrier.
And realizing full well who had just caused that terrifying monster to scream in such pain, the students went pale.
“Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree. You are the master archer!”
Lefiya didn’t feel anything in particular. She simply confirmed the results and prepared her next spell immediately.
Sprinting as she Concurrent Cast, she prepared to finish off Goliath, but the reinforcements finally arriving at the entrance interrupted her.
“Don’t! Get in! My way!”
Her eyes opening wide, Lefiya began her slaughter.
She swung her sword, tearing monsters limb from limb, breaking bones with her knees and elbows, and using her magic unceasingly as the monsters tried to latch on to her. A tremendous flash left great gouges in the swarm, but even so, the reinforcements flowed in without end. Goliath’s eyes were bloodshot as it attacked in a painful rage, not caring that its attacks were scattering its reinforcements, too.
The situation changed in the blink of an eye.
A single enemy with outrageous strength and a horde of almost forty.
Though she managed to block one of the giant’s attacks, the force still sent Lefiya’s slender body flying, and fangs and claws tore at her body from every direction.
Her lungs ruptured, and blood flew.
The ends of her ears were torn, and a part of her bright blond hair was ripped away.
The fearsome roars of the monsters took on the tone of sadistic laughter. That was how it sounded. However, even so, Lefiya’s expression remained unshaken.
She did not despair. She did not quiver. She did not flinch.
She did not stop moving, continuing to sing even as she tirelessly swung her sword.
All that filled her heart was a questioning voice.
How would she move here?
How would she deal with this?
How would Ms. Filvis approach this?
Her body answered by using her movements, stances, and techniques. Lefiya faithfully emulated those actions with her body, projecting them on herself.
“Haaaaaaah!”
She kept accelerating. And accelerating. And accelerating.
She split al-miraj in two. She obliterated minotaurs with magic. She used hellhounds’ flames to scorch liger fangs and then baited Goliath’s attack to splatter the pack of hellhounds. She raced, chanted, danced, and flashed, swinging her wand and sword.
Even as fangs tore into her cheeks, even as claws shredded her thighs, she pushed all of her fighting to the next level.
I’m doing it.
I’m becoming a magic swordswoman!
I’m fighting without giving in to the giant or the monsters!
I’m becoming someone strong who can protect myself and save others!!
And yet…
Darkness lurked in the depths of her heart.
A white elf was standing there in the corner.
A vision of her that had become visible at some point.
She refused to smile.
Even though I’m becoming like you, becoming strong, you look so sad to see me.
Why?
Why do you look like that?
I don’t know.
I don’t know, but if I do better, I’m sure she will smile.
If I get closer to her, I’m sure she will smile and praise me!
“Yes!!!”
Her magic erupted, turning a dozen more monsters to ash.
On a battlefield billowing with blood, Lefiya performed a grim, tragic melody as she let her sword sing.
“Loki.”
Loki was looking out at Babel—or rather the Dungeon spreading out beneath it—from the manor’s skyway when a voice called out from behind her.
Turning around, she saw Riveria standing there.
“Oh? You good to be here, Riveria? I thought you’d go there for Lefiya.”
“Gareth went. Digging in the ground is not an elf’s job, as he put it.”
Makes sense.
No one could match a dwarf when it came to excavation. Compared to a race inseparable from mines and shafts, elves didn’t even count as competition.
It was not just familias, either. The School District had also mobilized, so too many people were involved as it was, risking a secondary collapse. As big as the Dungeon was, the collapse affected only three floors in total.
“So what, you come here to entertain me since you had time to kill?”
“That is half of it.”
“And the other half is to check whether any of my blessings disappeared?”
“…If you already knew, then spare me the runaround.”
Riveria closed her eyes and sighed as Loki chuckled.
Then the high elf stared at her goddess’s discerning eyes in annoyance and pressed her for answers.
“So how many?”
“Don’t worry, none missing. Lefiya’s safe.”
“…Safe for now would be the correct response, given the situation.”
Loki’s smile disappeared as she looked back at Riveria.
“You think Lefiya’s gonna up and die?”
Riveria was silent for a moment.
“Whenever she went to the Dungeon, I always took precautions. Asking Elfie, Alicia, or others to never allow her to be alone.”
“Because she would go overboard?”
“Yes. Or become possessed by a phantom that is no longer here.”
Understanding what she was getting at, Loki quietly listened.
“Sealed away in the Dungeon in what is almost surely isolation…even with the students at her side, they can no longer stop her, I imagine. The moment she runs into a deadly encounter,. it will be the perfect excuse to unleash everything she’s built up so she can confirm whether she’s made the right choices.”
All the necessary conditions to push Lefiya into action were currently present in the Dungeon.
Once she finished that preface, she finally responded to Loki’s earlier question.
“Those who offer themselves to their delusions will surely be consumed by the Dungeon someday…I have seen it any number of times before.”
Babel reflected in her jade eyes as she stared into the distance.
Loki did not agree or disagree.
She only said, “That’s right. Right now, Lefiya is tryin’ to stop bein’ herself.”
“Lord Balder, what do you mean by saying Lefiya’s heart will start to lean?”
In Breithablik at the center of the School District.
When they had given what instructions could be provided, and there was nothing left but to leave things to those on the scene, Alisa asked Balder about what he had said earlier.
The god slowly answered.
“In the course of her time as an instructor, I believe she has gained a degree of flexibility in how she sees things, but…even so, the scales of Lefiya’s heart are swaying, though she herself is unaware of this.”
And so, even if he had pointed it out, she wouldn’t notice.
Whether Loki Familia, Balder, or Leon and the teachers admonished her, it would have no effect because she had not noticed it herself.
Alisa’s confusion became apparent as she struggled to follow the god’s words.
Balder smiled softly.
“Alisa, what did you think when you met Lefiya again?”
“…She seemed like a different person. She cut her hair, seemed more mature, fairer. I thought she had become an adventurer…”
“I see. To me, she looked, truly, like a different person.”
“!!!”
Alisa’s eyes widened. But at the same time, she remembered.
“I didn’t recognize you.”
He had said as much when he met Lefiya again. If that was not a figure of speech, if he meant it literally, then…
Lefiya appeared to be someone other than Lefiya in even a deity’s eyes.
“When I heard Loki herself had sent Lefiya as a recruiter, I had some expectations. They solidified when I met her. Anger, regret, or perhaps penance…whatever it may be, Lefiya is attempting to become someone else.”
Alisa’s shoulders trembled.
She had seen it several times in the past week—Lefiya staring off into the distance. In those moments, Lefiya had definitely looked like someone else entirely. There were moments when an elf with long, jet-black hair, who Alisa had never met, seemed to overlap with Lefiya.
“Likely she is chasing after the phantom of someone she lost, attempting to offer up her own body for that person’s sake.”
As Alisa gasped silently, the god spoke without emotion, as if simply stating the truth.
“If she catches up to that phantom in body and soul…then even if she returns alive, it will not be as the Lefiya Viridis that we know.”
The screams of countless monsters echoed and merged.
The giant groaned like the ground itself was roiling.
A single elf’s sword dance and opera continued without end, evoking strings of cries and showers of blood.
Lefiya roared.
Her chanting continued without end, and her voice never faltered. She overlapped with that beautiful yet monstrous girl, steadily transforming.
Her chanting accelerated, growing clearer, stripped of anything extraneous.
Her song, nobility, and sublime beauty were overwriting her existence.
Just a little more. Just a little bit more.
I haven’t won yet. But I can now.
Just a little more, and I can kill the weak me. If I can get just one step closer to her, I can cross this terrifying sea of monsters and claim the giant’s crown.
What’s left to cast aside?
What can I still replace?
Filvis had allowed her arm to be eaten for Lefiya’s sake.
So maybe Lefiya should lose an arm herself.
If she could understand an arm’s worth of her pain and sadness, the girl standing in her heart would surely smile.
Let’s go.
I can make it.
I can reach the true Filvis. I can become a true magic swordswoman.
The magic circle was waiting around her left wrist for the perfect moment. She began the countdown to the decisive moment, when she would play her trump card.
Glaring at the monsters, aiming at Goliath, she thrust her hand out for the one magic that allowed her to fight on alone.
“Canon!!!”
Just as she prepared to hammer home her choice in the Dungeon:
“Lefiya!!!”
With a howl of magic, the barrier of ice shattered.
“?!”
Stunned, Lefiya and the monsters turned to the west.
At the foot of the Wall of Sorrows, glimmering diamond dust and balls of electricity scattered as the battered and injured 7th Squad appeared.
There was no way it should have broken. It should have been impossible.
Students shouldn’t have been able to shatter the ice barrier that she had built.
They must have fired it—Nano’s magic cannon.
Ignoring the obvious risk, they unleashed her lightning multiple times at close range to break the barrier from inside.
“Why…?”
Her sword and song both stopped as she watched, dumbfounded, but they didn’t give her a chance to finish as they rushed over.
“To help you, obviously!”
Even as blood poured from open wounds burned all over their scorched bodies, the 7th Squad charged through the monsters surrounding Lefiya. They had been focused entirely on her so they were caught completely off guard with their backs exposed.
“What are you doing? What are you getting so smug about? If you’re gonna scold me, then don’t try and join the dead yourself!”
Luke roared as he slashed into the wall of monsters.
“Did you not teach us that adventurers help each other?!”
“You said yourself that the Dungeon is not something to face alone!”
Miliria nocked an arrow, and Cole thrust his knives into the monsters, pleading with her.
“No! Don’t go off alone! Don’t leave us behind! We don’t want to be bystanders! Let us fight with you!”
Nano was wobbly as she ran over, scraping the bottom of the barrel while shouting tearfully.
They faced Lefiya with her own words. Her own teachings that she had thought up and used to guide them. The true and honest lessons she had taught them were now coming right back to her.
As she stood there dumbfounded, those words became a mirror.
“Listen to us! I wanted to save people! I got full of myself because of that brash sense of duty!”
His gray hair swaying, Luke charged Goliath alone.
He drew the furious giant’s attention to himself, his hands clenching his sword and trembling from the pressure, even as he turned his thoughts into words and roared for Lefiya’s sake.
“But now I look up to them! To adventurers! To you!”
Lefiya’s hands quivered.
Her heart was composing a single melody.
“I don’t want to just be protected!!!”
He was a reflection of the old Lefiya.
Weak, naive, and a crybaby, but still chasing after her dreams.
The starting point for Lefiya Viridis, who experienced failure, fell countless times, but still refused to stop aspiring for more.
“Where are you looking, Lefiya?! Who are you looking at?!”
Her disheveled strawberry blond hair swayed as Nano moved through the path Miliria and Cole had opened for her. She could barely walk and every breath was a struggle, but her eyes were focused on Lefiya as monsters’ howls rang out all around her.
“I’m scared! Even though you’re you, sometimes you turn into someone else! You seem like you might go someplace far away, and it’s so scary!”
Frozen, unable to move, she stopped right in front of Lefiya and shouted:
“Don’t look at someone who isn’t here! Look at us, Lefiya!!!”
Nano did not even reflect Lefiya’s past self—she looked just like Filvis. Lefiya could only look on in shock.
A false white elf, chasing after a phantom, wearing her skin, putting on a mask of her face.
The images in those two mirrors forced Lefiya to realize everything.
Those simple, polished mirrors hit Lefiya with the truth.
“Lefiya is Lefiya!”
Alisa shouted.
Even if they were the words of a god, she rejected them for her friend and did all she could to hold onto that bond.
“She’s kinder than anyone, willing to be hurt for others, to cry for them! No matter how talented or how clumsy she is, she’s honest! She can’t be anyone else!”
Tears fell from her eyes, glimmering with her feelings for her friend.
“Yes. That is correct, Alisa. No matter what path she might follow, no matter the mask she might wear, the result will be nothing more than a twisted thing. It is an end for the still living that is more gruesome, more pitiful than clinging to a rotting corpse.”
As Alisa leaned forward emphatically, Balder agreed with a sad smile.
Distressed for the child and student who was even now lost, he raised his face, turning his thoughts to her.
“She cannot become anyone other than Lefiya.”
“But still, as much as she might attempt to stop being herself, Lefiya cannot be Filvis Challia.”
Riveria’s answer, the same as that of a certain god of light, was carried by the wind as she, along with Loki, looked to the Dungeon, where the girl was fighting.
“The current Lefiya will arrive at a single result. However, that is nothing more than self-satisfaction. A contradiction will inevitably arise, and she will self-destruct. The answer is obvious.”
That was what made her different from Aiz.
Aiz was undeniably unsteady. But she was not trying to become someone else. She was simply seeking the strength she needed to achieve her own goal. Unlike Aiz, in chasing someone else’s phantom, Lefiya was attempting to obliterate herself.
“That’s right. I bet Lefiya’s got a contradiction brewin’ in herself right now. And now that she has to look into the mirror of those students of hers, she’s been hit with somethin’ she can’t untangle.”
That was the reason why Loki had sent Lefiya as a recruiter and Balder had placed her with the 7th Squad. Knowing she would try to be honest and proper when facing the students, they wanted her to notice the contradiction building in her own self. To realize her misguided path as she became aware of the truth.
“A teacher is a person who guides students while at the same time being taught by them.”
To borrow Leon’s words, that was the crux of the matter. Lefiya needed to become a teacher capable of understanding what was right instead of a student who could continue onward even as she committed to making a mistake.
“Notice, Lefiya!” Alisa shouted out the window.
“Remember, Lefiya,” Riveria called while looking at the labyrinth.
“Reclaim yourself, Lefiya,” Balder declared, his eyes still closed.
“Mm, just a bit more, Lefiya,” Loki said as she opened her eyes to the shifting breeze.
““““You are not anyone other than Lefiya Viridis.””””
In different places, from various perspectives, four voices overlapped.
Inside a labyrinth where anyone would continue to wander lost, Lefiya heard a throbbing sound.
“I’m begging you, Lefiya!”
“Please!”
Luke ran up Goliath’s arm, losing his footing as the arm swung. He landed hard on his back but thrust his sword into the ground and stood back up.
Nano cried, dropping her wand and gripping Lefiya’s battered shoulders as she stood in front of her.
““Let us protect you!!!””
The mirror shattered.
The old Lefiya, the false Lefiya disappeared, and when she was forced to confront the reality of her contradictions, Lefiya was pummeled by her students’ raw emotions.
Her deep blue eyes wavered.
The stubbornly bound resolve and determination came undone.
A warm light rose from around her wrist.
The magic circle around her left wrist—the elf ring was waiting.
Borrowing Filvis’s and Riveria’s voices, it questioned her.
“What will you choose?”
“I…”
Her mind was blank as her lips uttered the final answer.
As countless emotions swirled inside her battered and wounded body…
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
“Gh!”
“Kyah?!”
A hellhound leaped out, dodging through Miliria’s and Cole’s attacks as Lefiya and Nano stood there. Lefiya pushed Nano aside, cutting through it with a single slash.
There was no time. The monsters—the Dungeon—would not wait for her to anguish and agonize over an answer. It was time to make a choice.
Surrounded by fearsome monsters, while the students observed with twisted faces, in a soft voice as if absorbed within herself, she gathered the fragments of the song she chose.
And she shouted:
“Gather, breath of the earth. My name is Alf!”
This was her answer.
“Veil Breath!”
A jade light bloomed.
What came forth was neither a lightning to scorch the very stars nor a shield to shatter an enemy’s attacks.
The light that enveloped her comrades was defensive magic that came from Lefiya’s master, who had always guided her and shown her the way forward.
Stunned, Nano, Luke, Miliria, and Cole were imbued with a blessing of green light.
They had been clad in a magic shroud that healed their bodies while protecting them from both physical and magical attacks. The 7th Squad looked at the adventurer who had cast the spell in amazement.
As time seemed to compress and slow down, Lefiya finally uttered the words.
“Please protect me.”
That was her answer to the dumbfounded students.
“I am a mage, so if you protect me—no, since all of you said you would protect me—I will save you!”
Those were the words they had been waiting for.
With tears in their eyes, and their faces a mess, they all smiled.
““““Got it!””””
Their four voices answered in unison as they roused themselves.
Their bodies were pushing past all limits as they overflowed with emotion. They picked up their fallen weapons, clenched them, and borrowed the strength of the blessed light protecting them.
At that moment, their hearts were one.
“Circle formation! Hold out for three—no, just one minute!”
Standing in the middle of a sea of monsters, Lefiya made her request.
The battle on the twenty-fourth floor flickered through her mind. During that desperate last stand surrounded by countless carnivorous flowers, Lefiya had also asked for three minutes.
But it was different now.
Filled with determination, she vowed to close in with the city’s most powerful mage.
“Milly! Cole! Hold back the minotaurs on the left and right! Nano, start casting, but save it for the end!”
Gathering his strength, Luke dashed forward with an iron resolve.
Shouting instructions, he pulled away from Goliath for a moment, jumping back into formation. Miliria and Cole answered with a shout while charging into the enemies on either flank. Meeting Lefiya’s deep blue eyes, Luke rampaged through the monsters threatening her from in front.
Combining the destructive strength of an attacker with his newfound defensive techniques he’d been learning as the party’s bulwark, he put on a more rousing performance than anyone in the squad.
“I beseech the name of Wishe!”
Lefiya began to chant, putting Tear Pain back in its sheath and taking out the rod she had kept on her hip the whole time.
Holding it like a one-handed sword, she linked it with the wand she had shifted to her right hand.
They snapped together, combining into a magic staff taller than she was, much like Riveria’s Magna Alfs.
This was the twin staff Fairy Dust, Lefiya’s new weapon.
The wand, made from Filvis’s Protector’s White Torch, and the rod, made from the remnants of Lefiya’s Forest Teardrop, were the first weapons made in Orario with a dedicated linking function.
“Ancestors of the forest, proud brethren. Answer my call and descend upon the plains. Connecting bonds, the pledge of paradise. Turn the wheel and dance!”
It was a custom weapon made utilizing even the knowledge she had gained as a student, allowing her to unleash her true strength not as a magic swordswoman but as a dedicated mage.
By linking her weapons together, the magic jewels in the wand and rod synchronized, bringing forth a roiling, explosive magic power.
“Come, ring of fairies. Please—Give me strength!”
Taking a wide-legged stance, she held the staff parallel to the ground in both hands with a chant that seemed to hang in the air.
An enormous amber magic circle appeared, illuminating her guardians’ faces with dazzling light.
“Elf Ring!”
As she completed the summon burst and prepared to throw her knockout blow, Lefiya recalled a certain moment.
“Aaa… aaa…ggggg…!”
The seventeenth floor in her past. When she was too powerless, unable even to struggle.
As the giant prepared to slaughter them all, what had saved the students was a vivid, golden gleam.
“Huh…?”
The giant’s hand that was looming, about to squash her, was severed with a slash, and the heads of the monsters trying to eat Bardain and the other students were suddenly rolling.
Slumped on the ground, Lefiya met her golden idol as Goliath recoiled and screamed in pain.
“…Are you okay?”
A girl who was hardly any different from her.
She had beautiful blond hair and gold eyes. That was the famed Sword Princess Aiz Wallenstein.
“Whoa, this is a huge mess!”
“School District kids? We’ve got to help them!”
Aiz was on her way back from deeper in the Dungeon with Tiona and Tione and just happened to run into the students when they were on the verge of being completely wiped out.
But Lefiya’s eyes, and even her mind, were stolen away by Aiz’s beauty, and her overwhelming strength.
“…Are you a mage?”
“Eh…ah, y-yes! I am!…But I wasn’t…any help…at all…”
Lefiya answered with quivering shoulders, immediately looking down.
She could only cower, unable to help anyone. The magic she had cast had not even done anything.
Overwhelmed by a debilitating sense of powerlessness, her heart was cracking beyond all repair,
“Use your magic.”
Looking up with wide eyes, she saw Aiz looking closely at her.
“If you don’t, you won’t be able to stand up again… That’s bad. I think.”
Aiz was speaking her instinctive thoughts directly, without clear explanation.
They were irrelevant, yet they shook Lefiya’s heart, which was crumbling under the strain of utter despair.
“I-I’m weak…a coward! I can’t even cast my magic alone…!”
“But there are people you have to help, right?”
Terrified of her weakness, Lefiya tried to resist, but Aiz just cocked her head, quickly countering. Following her gaze, Lefiya saw Bardain groaning as Tiona held his severed arm to the wound. There was also Alisa and Nassen, who were being protected by Tione, sporting her long, flowing hair. And all of the other students collapsed around her.
The three adventurers could not cover everyone by themselves.
“We protect you from monsters. You save us from monsters. That’s what Riveria taught me.”
With those final words, Aiz became like the wind.
She was gallant. Heroic. Overwhelming.
She was so incredible that it made Lefiya wonder how a person could become so beautiful and strong. Her long, blond hair traced a glittering path, and her silver sword cut a miraculous and lethal arc, lighting the flare of hope on a battlefield that should have been hopeless.
She was facing the terrifying giant all alone and holding her own.
She was driving back the monster, like a scene from a story.
It was the valiant figure of one worthy to be a hero.
Lefiya almost couldn’t believe that Aiz was overwhelming Goliath all by herself.
The light of yearning set her heart racing—just like Leon had said it would.
Feeling like she finally knew what she should do, Lefiya stood up.
“Proud warriors, marksmen of the forest…!”
It was a spell she had just learned. A song that encapsulated everything Lefiya was at the time.
In that moment, Lefiya admired them.
Of course, that included the powerful and hearty Amazon sisters. But above all, she looked up to the blond-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman who was more heroic than anyone.
In that moment, her desire to become something turned into the seed of a wish to be like them.
That was the origin of the Lefiya Viridis who admired and looked up to adventurers—to Aiz, Tiona, and Tione.
“Fusillade Fallarica!”
Lefiya’s arrows pierced the monsters, saving Alisa and the others.
The fiery missiles arced over a wide area, lighting Aiz’s face clearly as she defeated the giant.
“Wooow! It’s like Riveria’s magic!”
“Looks like you’ve got a knack for this. If you’re interested, why not join our familia? I’ll recommend you to the captain.”
While the massive sparks danced through the air, Lefiya slumped to the ground as Tiona and Tione smiled.
“…You did it. It was incredible.”
And as Lefiya’s eyes watered and she sobbed, Aiz beamed at her…
I had forgotten what I felt then.
Who she was. What she thought. Why she had wanted to be here, in this place.
“A blaze shall soon descend.”
As she remembered her starting point as an adventurer, Lefiya recited a staggering chant with far more sophisticated magic control. Embracing the emotions she’d felt for the first time back then, her heart and body trembled. And despite all of her failures, despite all the times her knees gave out, just by remembering how she felt in that moment, Lefiya discovered that she could stand back up no matter how painful it was.
“Approaching flames of war from which there is no escape. Battle horns blaring on high, all atrocities and strife shall be engulfed.”
She returned the gaze of the boy who had called out to her earlier.
The mirror that had reflected her weak self.
The pathetic, pitiful self who could not fully abandon her dreams, no matter how long passed.
She had reclaimed what made her Lefiya.
I am Lefiya Viridis.
An elf of Wishe Forest.
A member of this Labyrinth City’s grandest, proudest, strongest familia who has exchanged vows with the goddess, Loki.
She had left her home village, studied at the School District, and reached Aiz and them. Her curiosity, desire, and adoration were all bound up in the current Lefiya.
Even after losing someone precious and coming to hate her past, not even she could deny the path she had taken.
“Come crimson pyre, merciless inferno. Become hellfire.”
Ms. Filvis.
Ms. Filvis.
I really am hopeless.
I wanted to be an elf who could protect herself and save anyone, yet here I am being protected.
I’m letting myself be protected.
I’m still just Lefiya Viridis.
As she looked at the students fighting around her, she confessed this in her heart.
But it felt like the Filvis in her heart smiled.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Sensing an unparalleled surge of magic power, Goliath’s roar took on a note of urgency. The intelligent giant gave the order to take down the elf no matter what it took.
“And bind. Admonish the savages. This is the forest shrine kept by its guardian. Silva Vine!”
As the wave of monsters tried to envelop Lefiya, Miliria—who had set magic circles while fighting—activated her magic with the last of her Mind.
The vibrant green magic circles unfurled like flowers blooming in five locations, protecting Lefiya. Magic vines reached out, binding monsters, tying them down, and holding them back.
“Ghhh?!”
Even without finishing them off, the monsters bound together became a wall blocking the rest of the swarm that was desperate to tear into Lefiya. While they attacked the wall of flesh, enraged shouts echoed as monsters began killing each other.
“Great job, Milly!”
The horde would not be able to lay a hand on Lefiya before she finished her chant. As Luke praised her, their attention was focused on their final enemy, the giant.
“ !!!”
Luke and Cole leaped at the one-armed Goliath, who had begun advancing as it gave its order, and Miliria nocked an arrow with trembling fingers.
A Level 4 floor boss. There was no way students who were not even adventurers could finish it. But even so, the 7th Squad faced it with every bit of their knowledge, quick wit, and strategy they could summon.
Since Goliath didn’t even bother looking at him, Luke used all of his Level 3 strength to unleash an attack on its leg—aimed right at the wound Lefiya had carved earlier.
And when its movements faltered, Cole used the chain from Nano’s weapon that he had borrowed to wind around both its legs.
For the final push to knock the one-armed giant off-balance, Miliria fired an arrow into the monster’s eye.
It howled and fell with an earth-shaking impact.
“Purge the battlefield, end the war.”
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”
Enraged and roaring, it tore the chains and charged forward. Luke, Milly, and Cole leaped at it but were knocked aside.
She only needed ten seconds to finish the chant. But that was still not enough.
Goliath’s outstretched hand would close around Lefiya first.
“ ”
The last stand on the twenty-fourth floor.
The countless carnivorous flowers.
She needed protection back then, too.
Suddenly, Lefiya experienced a terrible déjà vu.
What had ultimately saved her from the charging monsters desperate to tear her apart was the white shield that Filvis had conjured.
No matter how elaborately she tried to deny it, that girl was no longer here.
And right when Lefiya’s concentration frayed and almost broke—
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!”
Blood seeped from their heads as Luke and the others grabbed the broken chain, pulling with all their might, even as the skin of their hands ripped open.
That wasn’t enough to stop the giant’s charge. Not even close.
But for just a brief moment, it delayed Goliath.
And that moment was enough.
“““Nanoooooooooooooooooooooo!”””
Their shouts reached the girl who had been chanting the whole time inside the magic circle in front of Lefiya.
Her eyes had been shut tight, but now Nano opened them wide as she thrust her staff forward at the looming giant.
“Zalga Amaldaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”
Ten bolts of lightning twisted and merged, becoming a single massive arc that slammed into the dumbstruck Goliath.
The impact knocked the giant off its feet, sending it flying backward with a thundercrack.
It’s all right.
Nano collapsed, having used every last bit of Mind she had left, and Luke and the others followed suit.
Lefiya’s eyes widened, sure she heard a certain someone’s voice behind her.
Tears quietly welled in her eyes, and a faint smile crossed her lips. She felt a warmth in her shoulder, like someone had just placed their hand on it.
“Incinerate, sword of Surtr—My name is Alf.”
The next moment, her eyes flared.
Her twin staff, Fairy Dust, exploded with magic power, and the magic circle expanded with a sharp ring.
It didn’t stop growing until it covered the entire chamber.
Time froze for Goliath and the monsters caught in the grand spell that Lefiya was weaving.
“Rea Laevateinn!!”
Evil-purging hellfire roared to life with a crimson gleam.
Countless pillars of flame erupted from the ground, piercing the monsters, charring or scorching them, and dragging them down in a howling blaze. Even Goliath was no exception. The floor boss’s massive body was skewered and burned from the inside out, disappearing before it had a chance to writhe in pain.
Total annihilation. A sea of flames that erased everything.
The students were speechless. They were the only ones who had been spared by the pillars of flame. Though their lungs were untouched, they still forgot to breathe as they stared in awe at the sparks dancing overhead.
This was Riveria Ljos Alf’s wide-area extermination spell.
Its defining characteristic was its precision. The spell could distinguish between friend and foe within the massive magic circle, making it the ultimate attack that obliterated only enemies. It had incinerated the monsters and silenced their roars, transforming the entire chamber into an inferno.
“…Nano…”
“Ah…”
Lefiya held her hand out to the girl who had fallen and was looking up, entranced by the sparkle of that crimson realm.
The wounded elf mage and adventurer had carried a shadow that scared Nano.
But that shadow was now nowhere to be seen as she smiled.
“Thank you for protecting me… From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all.”
When she saw that beautiful elf smile, Nano burst into tears.
Despite her Mind Down state, Nano climbed up like a little animal, reaching past Lefiya’s outstretched hand and hugging her.
Ignoring her surprise, Nano buried her face in the elf’s neck and started sobbing.
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…! Lefiyaaaaaaa…!”
“Nano? Nano? I’m all right. You’re more injured than I am. Please don’t hurt yourself…”
“Noooooooooooo!”
Like a child clinging to her mother, she cried and wept and whined.
“Thank goodness…Thank goodness,” she murmured between sobs, tears soaking into Lefiya’s clothes.
Lefiya was entirely at a loss as the other three, battered and exhausted, shambled over, watching the two of them with warm smiles. Unable to hold back, Miliria cried, too, as she hugged Lefiya.
Aaah, you don’t have to resemble this part, too.
Without realizing it, Lefiya started to smile as they overlapped with her past self, when she had been saved by Aiz and Tiona and Tione. And just a little bit, she became misty-eyed, too.
“We came all the way to the seventeenth floor, but…was this the right move?! Maybe they were waiting for help on one of the other floors!” Tiona asked, running with Urga in one hand.
“There’d be no end to it if we searched every nook and cranny of every floor!” Tione shot back as she ran in the lead. “Lefiya knows that, too! She’ll be in a place where it’s easy to find her!”
“Mhm…this is where Lefiya would choose to go, I think…”
“I—I think so, too, but…you’re all too fast!”
Running diagonally behind Tione, Aiz nodded, and a bit farther back, Elfie shouted, too, breathing heavily as she struggled to keep pace. As she did her best to keep up with the first-tier adventurers, Tiona wrapped an arm around her and lifted her over her left shoulder.
“Hyaaah?!”
Their gear was dirty because they had been working hard at clearing the rubble for a long time.
Thanks to the labors of Gareth and the others, the main route had been made barely passable and the four of them immediately rushed ahead, racing all the way down here to the seventeenth floor.
“Anyway, let’s go to the wall—gh!”
A powerful tremor interrupted Tione.
The world shook as if some incredible spell had erupted. Visibly stunned, they looked at each other and sped up.
Aided by the fact they did not encounter any monsters along the way, they raced through the great passage in a flash.
Soon, the floor’s massive final chamber finally came into view.
“!”
“Eh…who’s that?”
“He got here faster than us?”
Aiz, Tiona, and Tiona were stunned again to see a person standing there with his back to them.
He wore silver armor over his upper body. Slender and tall, he held a large longsword in his hands.
Elfie squirmed down from Tiona’s shoulder and tensed up. Aiz’s eyes widened as she saw the man’s hair and his gallant figure.
“Knight of Knights…”
Perhaps the man heard them because he turned toward them. It was Leon.
When he realized who they were, he smiled for some reason and stepped aside to let them see the scene inside the room.
“Ah…!”
“Lefiya!”
“That’s a relief… Looks like the students are there, too.”
“Thank goodness you’re safe! But I don’t know how I feel about you leaving your good old roommate Elfie behind and start getting along with some other girl!”
Aiz and Tiona were overjoyed, Tione was relieved, and Elfie complained like usual to hide her tears.
Lefiya was surrounded by students, one clinging to her as she patted her on the back.
“…Lefiya is smiling again.”
“Mhm…”
Tiona broke into a warm, sunny smile, and Aiz nodded with a soft expression.
Seeing her true, albeit troubled, smile, they decided to just watch for a little while.
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