We left early the next morning and made for the tenth floor.
Jupiter hadn’t reached the second midpoint yet, so we had to start at the sixth level.
“Bleh. I wish they’d just register midpoints based on your party and not on a person-by-person basis, y’know?”
“Quit your complainin’. If they did that, people’d just cheat to get ahead.”
“Aw, c’mon!”
As we sloshed our way through a mist-covered marsh, the radiant star looked past me at what was ahead.
“But ’cause of this stupid system, Jupi’s exhausted!”
“…Again?”
I quickly looked behind us and checked up on Jupiter for the first time in about a minute.
She was huffing and puffing, and she looked like she was about to pass out. Her legs were shaking like a baby deer.
“My bad. Let’s take a break. I’ll go scoop her up.”
I ran back to offer the silver-haired girl a hand.
“Hey, Jupiter. Let’s take little break, huh? Whaddya say?”
Jupiter responded by furiously shaking her pigtails from side to side. Then she looked up and put on the most see-through tough-girl act ever.
“…Mime mokay…”
“You are clearly not okay.”
You can’t even talk right. C’mon, now.
“You spend your time in the rear. It’s no surprise that you’re out of breath.”
I scooped the little princess into my arms and sat her down on the flattest rock I could find.
I looked over at Haruka who had gone on ahead, and she made the okay gesture with her fingers before skipping back to us.
“Okay, Jupi,” she said. “Let’s you and me take a li’l break, okay? Taking breaks is just part of the adventure, y’know.”
She pulled some rehydrating solution from her backpack and brought it to Jupiter’s lips.
For a battle-crazed psychopath, she’s surprisingly responsible at times like this.
“…Sor…ry. I’m being a bother.”
“Don’t worry about it! You’re the whole reason we’ve made it this far safely.”
“She’s right,” I agreed. “Everyone has stuff they’re not good at. You tell us where to go, and then we move. Everyone plays their part, right?”
“That’s right!”
“Wah-hah-hah,” Haruka and I laughed, our voices light and cheerful.
Seeing our boisterous display of vitality, the true route’s miniboss muttered, “…You’re both so tough. I’m jealous…”
Jupiter sighed and looked at us with a heart full of envy as she sat on the purple rock.
I dunno… As a complete weakling of a miniboss, I think the fact that Jupiter can drop an enemy from miles away is way more impressive.
“If you train a bit, you’ll be able to keep up with us in no time!” Haruka exclaimed. “Let’s go for a run together sometime!”
“…I hate exercise.”
“Did I just get rejected?! Waaah!” Haruka cried, pretending to be hurt.
I know exactly how you feel, Jupiter. I get what it’s like to not want to exercise. But there’s no way you’re going to get the physical stamina you need without doing something.
It’s not like you’ve got to run a full marathon while wearing fifty-pound weights or do ten thousand sword swings while changing up your form every time or anything crazy like that.
You can start with simple stretches and then gradually increase your load… The important thing isn’t the amount you do or how long you do it for; you’ve just gotta keep it up.
Unless you have some extenuating circumstances, like having to build yourself into a fortress of muscles within a year, you should just start with doing what you can.
And as long as you keep that up, the rest will—
“Hm? Oh!”
“What’s up, Kyou?”
“I just had a good idea.”
I shared my brilliant thought with Haruka, and the radiant star’s face lit up like the sun. With a big grin, she agreed to help. We just needed to convince Jupiter.
“Hey, Jupiter. I’ve come up with a way to make it so we can move a lot faster while tiring you out less. Will you hear me out?”
“Please tell me.”
“All right, now we’re talking,” I said and started to explain my idea with emphatic gestures.
The good idea I had come up with was…
“Tell me, madam, are you comfortable up there?”
“I’m comfy… But I also feel like I’ve suffered some indescribable indignity,” grumbled a discontented voice from my upper back.
Yes, that’s right—I was carrying the girl with silver pigtails along with our supplies on my back.
But this was no simple pigtailed piggyback. It was a three-pronged strategy: First, Jupiter, who was good with long-range attacks and detection, acted as a sensor to alert us of anything nearby. Haruka, meanwhile, created a battle formation with Futsu-no-Mitama to take care of any enemies nearby. And then, should any enemies get past her, I had Eckesachs at my side, ready to take them down.
The results of my insane training carrying that demonic deity while running triple marathons had finally come in handy. Wah-hah-hah-hah!
“Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“What’s the matter, Kyouichirou? Am I heavy?”
“Not even slightly. Compared to carrying around that gluttonous evil goddess, you’re as light as a sack of feathers.”
Gritting my teeth and holding back sobs as I thought back to those awful days of training, I pushed ahead through the mucky marshland.
Someday I’m gonna show that wicked goddess what’s what. I swear it!
✦ ✦ ✦
“Please stop! Why do you keep picking on me?!”
“One diced tomato, coming up!”
Between my Fourth Field and Haruka’s psychotic cooking skills, we quickly sent the edgelord mummy’s respawn back to where it came from.
“All right! Now Jupiter can access the second midpoint, too!”
“Good job! Time to go see the li’l jigglies!”
As Haruka and I chatted about this and that, our footsteps eventually brought us to the warp gate for the second midpoint.
“……”
…Huh?
I couldn’t hear any footsteps coming from behind me. I turned around and noticed that the silver-haired girl was standing perfectly still.
“What’s wrong, Jupiter? Are you getting tired?”
“She must be. C’mon, Kyou. Piggyback time!”
Compelled by Haruka, I started walking toward Jupiter.
I don’t know why she doesn’t just call on me when she’s tired. I’ll lend her my back whenever she needs it.
With each step I took, Jupiter’s figure grew larger in my sight. I soon saw that she was standing with her arms slack, staring silently at the ceiling. The tenth floor’s weird atmosphere made her look strangely mysterious.
She sure is delicate, though, huh?
She was probably a bit skinnier than other kids her age. Not to mention the fact that black lightning was sparking around her as she stood. It made her look particularly—
“Huh?”
Black…lightning?
Why? There aren’t any enemies left…
“Hey, Jupiter?”
“……”
She didn’t answer. She simply continued looking up, like some unmoving statue. But then…
“Kyou!”
…the next instant, a massive bolt of lightning came down from above. The pitch-black bolt crashed down mere feet in front of me.
“Wha—?!”
I scrambled to get Eckesachs ready, and waited for what would happen next.
Black bolts continued raining down over the same area at regular intervals. But the silver-haired girl kept standing perfectly still. Her crimson eyes looked completely hollow, as though they were devoid of life. She didn’t so much as blink and remained unmoving.
Something’s definitely wrong with her.
Approaching her was way too dangerous, though.
“Hey, Jupiter! Snap out of it!”
“Jupi! Are you okay?!”
The only option left was to desperately call out to her. We reassured her that there were no enemies left, and after a few minutes of trying to calm her down, the light returned to her eyes. As soon as it did, the jet-black lightning vanished like smoke.
“Ah… I—I…”
Apparently, she realized on some level what had happened. As soon as she came back to her senses, Jupiter’s face turned deathly pale.
“I… I…”
“You’re okay! You hear me, Jupi? Everything is okay!”
Jupiter looked like she could collapse at any moment, so Haruka hugged her and held her close.
“She’s right. We would never get upset at you for something like this, okay? Everyone here is your friend. We won’t force you to do anything. We won’t get mad at you. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
I chose my words very carefully as I began to come up with a theory about what had just happened.
I would still have to ask her about it, but I guessed that something had caused her to lose control of herself.
When Jupiter mentioned that she “couldn’t control her powers,” she wasn’t talking about her skills. We had seen as much for ourselves the moment we saw her drop an enemy with pinpoint precision.
She could control her skills just fine.
What she couldn’t control was the root of her powers, the truth that lay behind them.
Modified Sublime Demis Model “Keraunos”—the spirit that had formed a pact with Jupiter.