“Agallis Arvesynce!”
Alize’s chant summoned a torrent of magical energy that burst forth from her body, followed by the sound of dynamite. Her arm, her legs, and her sword—all were bathed in the same fiery glow, the color of her crimson hair.
“A fire enchantment?” said Alfia, unperturbed. “Is that the best you have?”
“You bet your butt it is! A pure, pretty, and perfect girl like me needs a pure, pretty, and perfect spell to match! What do you think? Now you know why they call me the Scarlett Harnell! Heh-hem!”
Alize’s proud look lasted only a moment before she got down to business.
“Form up, girls! Start operation Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee!”
“““Got it!”””
Responding quickly to their captain’s order, the girls formed a ring around Alize.
“Three in the back, five in the middle, and three in the front. I suppose they have to bolster their defense now that Elgarm’s not with them.”
From his vantage point atop a crystal bluff, Erebus watched the battle unfolding below. Only two of his underlings remained by his side, utterly exhausted.
“They’re not doing so bad holding their own against a Level Seven like Alfia,” he said. “Especially considering one good hit from her will tear any of them in half.”
Astrea Familia’s performance was nothing short of exceptional. They were fighting an opponent four levels higher than themselves.
Any adventurer could tell what a hopeless endeavor it was. Even a single level gap was enough reason to throw in the towel. It was like fighting a foe on another plane of existence. Erebus might as well have been watching eleven bunny rabbits take on a fire-breathing dragon.
“But their teamwork is extraordinary,” he went on, “and that’s an adventurer’s greatest asset. That’s the one thing that gives them a chance to go up against unwinnable odds and come out on top.”
Watching that teamwork somehow plug the gap between their levels, Erebus couldn’t help but smile. When Alize lunged forward, the mages quickly covered her assault. When Lyra and the other support crew in the center of the formation launched their projectiles, Lyu and Kaguya were there with perfect timing to press the advantage. Healing spells and buffs from the rear constantly kept the party fighting fit.
This was what adventurers were truly capable of. Having the courage and the faith to put their lives in their allies’ hands, even when one slip could spell doom for all of them.
Preparations like Perseus’s accessories and Riveria’s magic were the distillation of a thousand battles’ worth of accumulated experience.
This fight was essentially a Dungeon raid; a party of adventurers combining their strength to take down a formidable boss.
“They’re doing well, even accounting for Alfia’s little handicap.” Erebus grinned. “Now, where will things go from here, I wonder?”
But the witch’s answer to that, as for all things, was the same single word.
“Gospel.”
That word produced an invisible, yet deafening wall of sound.
“Grh?!”
Although Lyu managed to take only a glancing blow, she was still tossed through the air. Alize wasted no time in giving her command.
“Maryu! Healing!”
“Leave it to me! Rea Vindemia!”
The eldest member of the familia cast her spell without delay, and the curative light enveloped not only Lyu, but also Asta and Noin, who had sustained wounds of their own on the front lines.
“Don’t forget all the potions and elixirs Braver gave us! Just stay alive and I’ll heal you right back up!” yelled Neze from the middle rank. Along with Noin and Iska, she was spending the battle using curative after curative on her allies. There were even magic potions in her arsenal, so the mages on the back rank didn’t have to worry about suffering from Mind Down.
This focus on magical resistance must be the prum’s doing, thought Alfia. My sound is not getting through. Especially with that high elf’s protection in the way.
Silently, she observed the actions of her opponents.
Their ceaseless attacks are testing my nerves. Plus, they are cautious. They neither stray too far, nor come too close. Instead, they constantly force a response, whittling down my patience.
She could come to only one conclusion.
“They are trying to tire me out,” she said.
At that moment, a sneak attack came from behind her. Alfia moved effortlessly to the side, dodging the attacker’s blade without a second thought.
“She’s a monster!” spat Kaguya in frustration, after her blade failed to so much as nick a single strand of ashen hair on the witch’s head. “How many of my attacks has she avoided so far?!”
Astrea Familia had been forced to fight defensively ever since parting with their Loki Familia allies. However, that hadn’t stopped Kaguya and the other front liners from making bold attempts on their foe’s life. Yet the unflappable Level 7 did not show so much as a single bead of sweat on her brow.
A wave of sound gouged the earth, and although Kaguya’s evasion was immediate, she was still tossed backward. Thrown clear of the battlefield, she struggled to her feet and used her sword to cut down a flame-wreathed monster that leaped toward her. Afterward, she raised her blood- and sweat-stained face and cut a path through the smoke and cinders to rejoin her allies.
Kaguya was keenly aware that one direct hit would be the end of her. “We can’t take this much longer, but that witch hasn’t even paused to catch her breath!” she muttered. “If she doesn’t wear out soon, this will all be for—!”
“Oh, I see you’ve already started without me. My fault for arriving late, I suppose.”
“!”
She spun toward the direction of the new voice.
“However, it seems the feast is far from over. I can’t wait to join in.”
It was a man sporting hair the color of boiling blood—the Evils lieutenant known as Vito. He arrived on the eighteenth floor with a contingent of eight troops.
“It’s you!” growled Kaguya, recognizing the man as the one she had fought in this very place not two weeks past. “Why are you here?! Did you come via Babel?!”
“Oh, it hardly matters, right? The fact is, I am here, and eager for our second dance.” He opened one eye a sliver and flashed a fearless smile. “Aren’t you?”
“Ah, Vito. You made it.”
The keen eyes of Erebus’s follower quickly picked out his master, watching from on high.
“It is good to see you safe, my lord,” he said, in spite of the vast and uncrossable distance between them. “Pray do not do anything too reckless. You are liable to get scorched to ash sitting out in the open like that. That would mean the loss of my blessing, and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my feast like that very much, would I?”
Vito turned his focus back to the girl standing before him, and his lips curled up in a grin. Kaguya did not even bother to hide her displeasure.
“Back again, you disgusting cretin? I suppose the only reason you were down here that day was to scout things out?”
“Quite right,” replied Vito. “Sending a god into the Dungeon is risky business, as I’m sure you’re aware. Everything had to be planned out perfectly to avoid any little mishaps.”
He showed little reluctance in addressing her query, almost as though it didn’t matter.
“However, meeting you girls back then was a strange twist of fate,” he went on. “Perhaps our paths are destined to cross?”
“I sincerely hope not,” replied Kaguya. “Having to see you once is bad enough. Get out of my sight before I throw up.”
She grimaced at the man through the billowing smoke and heat. Just then, she heard Lyra’s voice.
“Kaguya, what are you doin’?! —Hey, what?! More enemies?! Argh, that’s the last thing we need!”
Lyra spotted new trouble and was about to come over to assist, when…
“Get back, Lyra! And don’t tell the others!”
Kaguya’s furious rebuke caused the prum girl to stop in her tracks.
“If we let them split our focus, we’ll be overwhelmed! Besides, I am more than a match for this group of powerless fools!”
“Y-you’re unhinged! You can’t take ’em all by your—”
“Make up for my absence, prum! Now go!”
“You what?! How am I meant to fight for two people at once?!”
“Now!!”
“…Argh, fine!” said Lyra, caving to Kaguya’s stern glare. “But you owe me a drink back topside!”
The priority was the Level 7. Lyra knew that, and she also knew there wasn’t any room for error. Thus, she disappeared back through the curtain of steam and rejoined the battle.
“Heh-heh-heh. I do hope you weren’t including me when you said ‘powerless fools,’” taunted Vito. “Even a man like me has a sense of pride, you know.”
“Shut it, scum. Be grateful I even give you the time of day. I would like nothing more than to tear that woman’s head from her shoulders.”
Then a dauntless smile appeared on Kaguya’s lips.
“But don’t think I forgot how you made fools of us all back then. I’ll cut you into ribbons, so I never have to see that smug grin of yours ever again!”
“Ha-ha-ha! What a foulmouthed young lady you are! Then let us dance, as you wish.”
On his cue, Vito’s subordinates rushed into battle, and the dance began in earnest. Evil on one side, and the cold steel of a Far Eastern blade on the other.
Three cultists came rushing forward, two from either side and one from the front, brandishing their poison-tipped swords. Kaguya made short work of them before instantly slicing a fourth enemy who jumped down from above. One of the cultists writhed on the floor, coughing up blood, and reached to detonate his explosive device, but Kaguya slammed her toes in his face, knocking him out.
The hem of her kimono fluttered, offering a glimpse of her fair legs. Then, without even looking behind her, Kaguya spun around and parried a thrust aimed at her back before slicing the assailant in the stomach faster than his eyes could open wide in surprise.
“Hrgh!”
“Gurgh?!”
The name of her sword was Higanbana, and the blood droplets left in its wake aptly looked like fallen petals.
It was a sword forged in Orario for the sole purpose of cutting down villainy. With an expertly crafted edge, it had carried Kaguya through many a battle against evil. Though shattered in the girl’s previous encounter with Alfia, the fragments had been recovered and reforged, resulting in a successor to the weapon’s legacy.
Five Evils servants littered the Dungeon floor. Only four remained, including Vito himself.
Kaguya’s one-woman war raged on in service to her friends fighting the Silent Witch elsewhere.
She surged forward. Vito’s attacks were on another level compared to those of his underlings, yet Kaguya subtly altered their trajectory even while dodging the onslaught of the frustrated Evils. The enemy blades sliced through strands of her beautiful, silken hair, and left cuts in the cloth of her kimono, but the only look on Kaguya’s face was one of scorn and disdain.
Then her sheath sang as she drew her sword. Flashing Blade: a technique of her accursed bloodline, an iai slice that cut through three foes at once.
“Gaaaaaghh!!”