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“That would be the 100th floor, in the Guardian Knight’s Area. The guardian there is strong, so be careful.”

“Sure, not a problem.”

She shrugged and muttered, “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you” like some old lady, but she agreed anyway.

“Okay, here goes. Activate Kidou. Target: Floor 100, Guardian Knight’s Area.”

When the dryad’s spell was complete, the fairy ring produced glowing green spores, and they blew around like a whirlwind, creating a cylinder of light.

When the light faded, I had arrived at the 100th floor.

It seemed a little cruel to suddenly be dropped into the boss room, though.

Before my eyes was a seated, motionless iron golem; next to him, three beautiful women sat at a round table, playing a game where they stacked woodblocks into a pyramid.

Startled by my arrival, the busty beauty who’d been about to place a woodblock accidentally knocked over the whole pile, then stared in shock.

Her expression was so distressed that I nearly apologized automatically. Instead, I just cleared my throat.

“Just a moment, I do declare.”

One of the women spoke up in an unusual manner, putting out her open hand to stop me, so I assented.

She had long, straight hair and the composed air of an honors student, but her weird way of speaking ruined it. “Beauty is only skin-deep,” as they say.

I wanted to just ignore them and keep moving ahead, but the only staircase went back down.

You could probably proceed to the top only if you had beaten the floor by legitimate means.

I hadn’t really minded when I played video games, but being forced to follow these rules in reality made me want to blast a hole in the ceiling and make my own loophole.

But it would be pointless if I made them angry, got teleported again, and had to start all over, so I reluctantly waited for them to finish their preparations.

Each of the three women equipped a belt that held a rapier-like sword over her short, simple dress. The handles of the swords were carved with a fashionable relief designed to look like a rose.

They put on gauntlets and greaves, but for some reason no breastplates or helmets. Why wouldn’t they protect their heads and hearts?

As I contemplated this question, two of the women who had finished putting on their equipment carried the table into a corner of the hall, while the third started up the golem.

According to their AR displays, the women were level-7 homunculi. Apparently, they had “Foundation”-type skills and abilities, and all three of them had the “Magic Manipulation” skill. They shared the title Zen’s Puppet.

Strangely, although all three had the same rapier equipped, only one had the “One-Handed Sword” skill; the other two had “Polearm” and “Spear” instead.

All of them looked just like the woman who’d been tending to Mia in the main room.

As far as I could recall, a homunculus was an artificial life-form created with alchemy or some kind of sorcery.

Since they were basically clones, there must have been a lot of them with the same appearance. Judging by the facial features, could they have been based on Mia?

Fully booted up, the iron golem rose to its feet. It was huge, over ten feet tall. Its molding was peppered with random rivets, giving it a somewhat prewar aesthetic.

With their arrangements apparently complete, the women’s leader drew her rapier and brandished it in my direction.

Clearing her throat with a cute little noise, the woman spoke.

“I am impressed that you made it this far, Sir Labyrinth Explorer.”

Her voice was entirely too monotone.

I would otherwise have wanted to hear more of her pleasing voice despite the circumstances, but her flat tone put it to waste.

“I’m just a merchant.”

“A merchant?”

The women were taken aback and looked at one another uncertainly.

After exchanging glances silently for a while, they seemed to arrive at some kind of conclusion, and they turned back to me and continued.

“…Labyrinth Explorer! We are impressed, I do admit.”

So they’re just going to stick with Labyrinth Explorer, huh?

She had started using that strange phrasing now, too, but it was better than the monotone from before.

“You have earned the right to do battle with the guardian, I do declare. If you can defeat the guardian, you will be entitled to proceed, I do acknowledge. The winner will receive a reward from our master, I do promise.”

…It might be better than the monotone, but I also feel like I’m watching an elementary school play.

Paying no attention to my indifference, the woman continued her scripted monologue.

“Now you must fight. Iron golem, there is no need to hold back.” The beautiful woman finished her lengthy monologue and gave me a satisfied look. The smugness in her expression kind of annoyed me.

The golem certainly looked impressive as it thudded and clanked toward me, but its incredibly slow speed made it much less intimidating.

“Number 6, Number 7, use ‘Body Strengthening’ and station yourselves to the left and right. We’re using Formation Z.”

At first I ignored the words, assuming it was some kind of ancient language, but then I realized there was English mixed into the beauties’ conversation.

Trazayuya had abandoned the development of the homunculus manufacturing facility, so they must have learned it from Zen, who was a reincarnation like Arisa.

The women dispersed to three sides of the room, and a light glowed on their foreheads. Looking closely, I saw that a little magic circle about the size of a five-hundred-yen coin had appeared on each of them, and in the next second their statuses changed to Body Strengthening. Was this Foundation Magic?

However, the effect was mild, as they were now only 30 to 40 percent stronger than an ordinary person.

I watched as they got into position.

…Are they not wearing bras? This is ridiculous.

My eyes were drawn irresistibly to the remarkably lively bouncing.

But I was shortly punished for the sin of forgetting about Mia and indulging in such stupid thoughts. While I was distracted, the golem had finished its approach and raised a fist into the air.

I could probably dodge easily if I crouched underneath the golem’s crotch, but I didn’t really want to do that.

Instead, I raised my Magic Gun with its power on the highest setting and shot out one of the symbols on its forehead.

It had the letters EMETH spelled out on its forehead in the Roman alphabet, so I destroyed the E, turning it into METH.

Technically, it should really have been written with three Hebrew letters, but it appeared to be the real thing nonetheless, as it stopped moving just like in the traditional folklore. That’s right: the folklore of the world that we came from.

“Impossible! I do exclaim.”

“This is why I said we should hide its weak point, I do remind you.”

“For now, we must determine a course of action, I do insist.”

The three women standing against the walls of the room clearly hadn’t expected me to win so easily and were starting to panic.

I guess that made sense, since I’d destroyed the main force that was their level-30 golem without batting an eye, and the three of them were only level 7.

Still, they had lovely voices that carried quite well.

“Number 5, Number 6, leave this to me and proceed without me, I do declare!”

“Number 7! We will not forget you; I do withdraw!”

“Number 7, I believe you mean ‘retreat without me,’ not ‘proceed without me,’ I do jest!”

Although they all had the same face, there appeared to be subtle variations in their personalities.

I was a little concerned that Number 7 had raised a death flag for herself so willingly, but I had no intention of killing them anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

The beautiful women swiveled their identical faces toward me, new magic circles of light appearing on their foreheads.

Above the magic circle, transparent Magic Arrows appeared.

“Fiiire!”

The women all shot their arrows at me on the command of Number 5. She was the leader, probably because she was the earliest model of the three. Without waiting to see whether they’d hit their target, Numbers 5 and 6 turned on their heels and started to flee.

They leaped onto ropes that were hanging from the back wall and jammed their feet into the knot at the bottom. Immediately, they were yanked upstairs.

The Magic Arrows zipping toward me didn’t seem to have a tracking system, so I trusted my “Evasion” skill to guide me out of the way and avoided them easily.

Dodging Number 7’s rapier took little more than swaying to the side. I grabbed her outstretched arm and pulled her off balance, striking her in the abdomen with the palm of my other hand.

I made sure to remember to turn my fingers downward so as to avoid sexual misconduct.

Number 7 lost consciousness, so I caught her in my arms.

She felt so soft that it nearly made me forget my purpose, but I had no choice, since I couldn’t just let her fall to the ground like that. Yep, I definitely had no choice.

But I couldn’t just go on carrying her around, so I spread a fur pelt on the floor in a corner of the room and laid her down on that.

When the women had been changing into their battle gear, I’d noticed that they had various kinds of weapons and magic potions. I was hoping to find magic scrolls, too, but there were none of those.

There were eleven magic potions in all. Three were intermediate, and six were lesser potions; the other two were Almighty Paralysis Removal and a Mana Potion.

All the weapons were engraved with stylish reliefs, and my “Estimation” skill told me they were worth a considerable amount of money.

They were all made of ordinary steel, but there were so many varieties—halberds, bhuj, long spears, short spears, greatswords, war hammers, and so on—that I decided to help myself to them anyway.

I had plenty of powerful weapons like Holy Swords and Sacred Blades in Storage, but unless I was fighting an opponent like a greater hell demon, it was annoying to have to change my title every time I wanted to use them.

I could beat most enemies with magic or my bare hands, but I wanted some disposable weapons that I could use in case I was surrounded by monsters I didn’t want to touch directly, like cockroaches.

Hearing faint sounds behind me, I turned around to see a spiral staircase descending into the center of the room.

Seems, I’d successfully met the victory conditions.

Quickly stowing the weapons and potions in Storage, I headed toward the staircase.

Recovering the core of the golem lying on the floor would take too much time and effort, so I just stuck the whole thing into Storage and started to ascend the spiral stairs.

The room on the far side of the fairy circle was made of ivy like the one the dryad had occupied, but it was a bit different.

This area had a cocoon, too, but the shoots forming it had withered and dried up, and all that lay in the cocoon’s bed was a brown, mannequin-like husk.

Laying a dark cloth over the corpse, I poured out some water from the Well Bag in place of a memorial service.

Now it could rest a little easier—or so I had thought.

“Wateeer!”

“Huh?”

Small white hands shot out and grabbed mine as I tried to put away the water bag, pulling it up to a small mouth.

The little face, which had looked like it was made of clay, began to change as it drank the water. In a matter of minutes, the mannequin turned into the shape of a little girl. She looked just like the dryad I had seen on the lower floor.

“Okay, now gimme magic!”

Are these things really dryads, or are they succubi?

The dryad happily took a few hundred MP from me, then let out a contented sigh like a middle-aged man knocking back a cup of sake.

“Oh? You gave magic to the me downstairs, too.”

“‘The me downstairs’?” I asked Dryad Number 2, puzzled.

“We’re all me! You humans are the ones who’re weird, splitting into individuals like that. Trees and spirits and such are all connected, y’know. I just can’t contact them unless I have magic.”

Was this like a subset of the Gaia theory?

Maybe they were like a colony organism that used magic to create a network or something.

I didn’t care enough to keep delving into it with more questions, so I just asked Dryad Number 2 if she could teleport me to the top floor.

“Yeah, sure. Wait a sec— Hmm…it seems like something’s interrupting my connection. If I had an elf with Forest Magic, I could send you wherever, but right now it looks like I can only get you as far as floor 180.”

“That’ll work. Thanks.”

“Leave it to meee!” she declared, puffing out her chest confidently.

I stepped into the fairy ring and was teleported to the 180th floor.

“An infestation?”

I muttered involuntarily. The trees and ivy that made up the floor and walls of the room I’d been teleported to on the 180th floor were all disastrously chewed up.

I was guessing this bug-eaten section was the reason that the dryad’s “connection” was interrupted.

Wielding a Magic Gun in each hand, I took out the insect monsters that blanketed the corridor one by one as they gnashed their teeth.

There were so many of them that I was afraid they’d crush me to death at this rate—probably impossible because of the difference in our levels, but I still didn’t want to be covered in bug guts.

I took a halberd out of Storage and held it in my right hand.

I thought it would be heavy, but since my STR stat was so high, I was easily able to swing it with one hand.

I didn’t have a “Halberd-Wielding” skill, but when I attacked a long-horned beetle–like monster that was charging at me, I at least gained the “Polearm” skill.

I nearly danced down the ten-foot-wide passageway, massacring monsters with my halberd.

It wasn’t that I was particularly enjoying the battle. Since my body was so light, despite my more than sufficient strength, handling the halberd’s heavy weight meant that I ended up turning my strikes into more of a dance.

I got sick of it halfway through, so I switched tactics: I pulled out a boulder from Storage and rolled it through the hall to crush the bug monsters, then took out any survivors with the Magic Gun.

I didn’t collect the cores because I didn’t want to get covered in bug guts, but I’d probably defeated at least a hundred of them by the time I reached the next grand staircase.

In the space in front of the staircase, even more monsters were waiting, oozing and wriggling on the floor.

…Gross.

My disgust must have influenced my next move, as I think I threw the boulder I used to crush them a little more violently than necessary.

I had assumed that after the boulder scattered the monsters, it would hit a wall and stop, but instead it pushed through the wall with a conspicuous groan, creating an enormous hole.

Bugs or corrosion must have weakened the outer walls.

The pressure difference created a sudden gust from the hole, so I grabbed on to some ivy growing from a nearby wall.

The draft quickly died down, so I headed over to the newly made hole, disposing of leftover monsters as I went.

“What a beautiful view.”

It was the kind of scenery that I would have liked to gaze at for a while under different circumstances, but in this case it was a bit disturbing.

This room was on the opposite side from the entrance I’d first come in through; through the hole, I could see that so many of the leaves of the giant tree had fallen off or changed color.

I couldn’t see the top through the clouds, but when I looked down, I saw that the bark of the trunk was in terrible condition from more bug infestations.

This was different from what I’d read in Trazayuya’s notes. The monsters should have no reason to lay waste to the tree like this, in theory…

The bugs that had skittered away from the gust of air were starting to move toward me again, so I scattered them with the Magic Gun as I made my way to the grand staircase.

The guardian of the door to the 190th floor was a sea anemone–like monster that shot ice bullets from its tentacles, but I defeated it easily with the halberd, so it didn’t leave much of an impression.

There were no insect monsters on the other side of this door; instead, manufactured wood golems were silently working to repair the holes made by the insects.

They didn’t seem to have any interest in attacking me or slowing me down, so I ignored them and kept moving.

After that, I managed to make it to the main room without any major hindrances. Not even thirty minutes had passed.

It seemed like there were traps about, but they were all deactivated—maybe to allow the wood golems to work—so I didn’t know what kind.

In the back of the great hall, Zen was waiting for me.

Mia was on the throne, too, but she was still unconscious. About a third of her stamina had recovered, but her MP was depleted again.

“I didn’t think you would make it up here so quickly.”

“Oh really?”

Zen looked surprised, but I simply shrugged.

Trying to keep his guard down, I walked forward very slowly as I spoke.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way that you could return Mia to me without a fight?”

Zen cackled.

“No, certainly not. By defeating the iron golem, you’ve demonstrated that you are qualified.”

He carried on his monologue.

“However, you do not have the right title to fight me. I’ll have to have you fight a formidable enemy that you cannot possibly defeat so that you might earn the Hero title. As a reward, I will grant you this Holy Sword, Gjallarhorn.”

Zen held out the sword in his hands, still in its scabbard. The scabbard was shaped like a long, narrow cone.

The AR display also gave its name as Gjallarhorn, so it must be the real thing.

I had heard of this sword before from Zena. If I remembered correctly, the king who’d founded the Shiga Kingdom had made it.

Although its stats weren’t very high when compared with the Holy Swords I already had, it was certainly leagues above any ordinary sword.

But I had to wonder how he had gotten his hands on such a national treasure.

“So is this supposed to motivate me?”

“Of course! If you return this lost sword Gjallahorn to its kingdom, you’ll have all the fame you could possibly desire. You could surely even become a noble if you wished.”

The words alone made it seem as if he was simply appealing to my greed, but he spat the second half of his statement with such contempt that the word noble sounded more like filthy dog.

Still, I couldn’t figure out his true motives. Did he really just want to be killed, as I’d inferred before he forcibly transported me out of the Cradle?

“Here are your opponents.”

After Zen spoke, his shadow spread out to the center of the room. Then, three iron golems appeared from inside. Unlike the golems I’d seen so far, these had no writing on their foreheads. They were probably in some hard-to-find location, then.

On top of that, seven beauties who had been hiding in the shadows of the pillars lined up behind the golems.

Among them, I saw the two who’d fled earlier, Number 5 and Number 6. They all had the same face, but their hair was different enough that I was able to tell them apart.

Since there were seven of them, I thought perhaps Number 7, whom I’d left behind in the Guardian Knight’s Area, was there, too, but a woman called Number 8 was there in her place. Unlike the other girls, her chest was rather desolate.

“However, in your current position, you will surely be killed by these formidable enemies and attain the title of Hero only beyond the grave.”

From Zen’s perspective, I was level 10. He undoubtedly assumed that I couldn’t win against three level-30 golems.

Zen spread both arms and spoke toward the heavens.

“Therefore, I will give the blessing of the gods to all of you: Limit Break.”

A violet aura radiated from Zen’s body, engulfing the golems, the women, and even me.

Judging by his speech, it must have been some kind of strengthening magic, but I would prefer not to receive any charity from someone who was clearly my enemy.

As if sensing my feelings, the purple light around me faded.

My log informed me that I had resisted the effects of Limit Break.

I didn’t receive any skill in the process, which made me wonder if this was one of Zen’s Unique Skills.

“Now, I look forward to an excellent battle to the death.”

With those words, Zen put his hands on the music stand–like Cradle Core and began to operate it with his fingertips.

In the next moment, a wall arose between the throne area and the rest of the room. Checking the map, I saw that in addition to the wall, the throne platform had risen to become a viewing area.

A magic arrow flew at my head as if to chastise me for being distracted by the map, but I dodged it by tilting my head to the side.

Then I zigzagged to avoid the arrows that followed.

Was this many really necessary?

When I looked in the direction they’d come from, I saw the women who’d fired them glaring at me with demonic anger.

But that wasn’t the only thing strange about them.

Why in the world were they shedding red tears?

And why, instead of the strange speaking style I’d seen before, were they howling like wounded animals?

Maybe that spell literally broke their limits?

If you sacrificed the safety of your own body in order to become more powerful, you’d be destroyed either way, so what was the point?

Were these women nothing more than tools to Zen, then?

While I was occupied with these unhelpful thoughts, the golems and women had started to move. They were much faster than the ones I’d fought in the Guardian Knight’s Area.

On closer inspection, I saw that glowing rings of magic were spinning around their arms and legs.

This was probably a visual indicator of Zen’s Limit Break spell.

The golems had the same rings of light around their limbs, too.

However, the power boost must not have reached their control systems, because their movements were very clumsy. They were so unbalanced that it looked like they could fall at any moment.

I focused on the first golem to close the distance between us.

I wanted to use this as an opportunity to ascertain the effects of Zen’s Unique Skill, but I didn’t have any way to do so: the iron golem from before (which was the same model) or the wyvern I’d faced (which was the same level) might have been comparable, but I hadn’t taken any damage from them.

The golem tried to strike me, and I took advantage of its lost balance to grab that arm and toss it judo-style. It was a very simple maneuver.

However, taking advantage of my carelessness, the seven women used the golem’s giant body as a blind spot to fire arrows at me.

They fired three magic arrows each, for a total of twenty-one.

The arrows flew at me with the speed of bullets, and I moved as my “Evasion” skill instructed me, sidestepping one and then another.

At this point, I was pretty sure that even if someone fired on me at point-blank range with an automatic pistol, I could still dodge it.

But my opponents were prepared for this, and when I was still recovering my balance from evading all the arrows, the second golem charged.

Its arm swung at me with a powerful gust, but I avoided it with a side step.

Putting some distance between us, I fired magic bullets at the golem’s leg with the Magic Gun’s power on its highest setting. Three hits destroyed the golem’s knee, and it immediately slid to a halt, carving a groove in the floor.

Before the third golem arrived, I took a short spear out from Storage by way of the Item Box and stabbed it into the second golem’s leg as it tried to crawl across the floor.

I quickly allocated some points to the new skill, then used my newfound talents with the spear to hurl it at the approaching third golem.

There was a loud noise of metal against metal, and the spear disappeared.

A hole opened up in the golem’s chest, and it flew back as if struck by an invisible fist.

There was another huge hole in the wall behind it.

Did the spear I threw really do all that? Now, that’s insanely OP.

The second golem stood; I waited until it was lined up with the first one, then took out my next spear and threw it. I needed no confirmation to tell me that my attack had worked.

I saw the golem’s red dot disappear from my radar out of the corner of my eye as I turned my attention to the other points that were coming up behind me.

Three of the homunculi were attacking me side by side.

The way they were moving together looked a bit silly, but I could tell by their weapons that Zen wasn’t playing around. The one in front had a large shield and a rapier, the second one had a bhuj, and the third had a poleax.

Most likely, the one in the front would block my attacks, while the other two would use their longer weapons to counterattack from either side.

Hidden entirely behind her giant shield, the first woman attacked me almost twice as fast as Number 7 had in the Guardian Knight’s Area.

Once she came into my range, I aimed a kick at her slightly tilted shield.

She lost her balance and toppled back onto her rear, and just as I expected, the other two women charged around her and came at me from the left and right.

I had planned to knock out the woman with the shield first, but the other two backed her up faster than I’d expected.

The woman with the poleax charged at me with a yell, but I smacked her weapon away from me and into the bhuj approaching on the other side, canceling both attacks.

Next I yanked on the poleax and kneed the woman holding it as she was pulled toward me, knocking her out. There must have been too much force, though, because I heard her bones creaking on impact.

I’d have to be more careful or I might seriously injure one of them.

I grabbed the poleax from the unconscious woman and whacked the bhuj-wielder under the chin with the handle as she tried to change her stance, knocking her down. So that she wouldn’t get right back up, I jabbed her lightly with the butt end of the poleax, knocking her unconscious.

Five to go.

The four who’d been hidden behind the wreckage of the golem were approaching me now.

The woman with the large shield was standing up, so I decided to deal with her first. I smacked down her shield with the poleax, destroying her stance again— Huh?

Well, that plan didn’t work.

I must have put too much strength into the slashing attack with the polehammer, because it sliced the top of the shield clean off, despite both being made of steel.

She lashed out at me with a short sword from behind the remains of the shield, so I quickly dodged.

Long-handled weapons might be too difficult to use at such close range.

I postponed the troublesome woman with the shield, focusing instead on the four women coming up behind her.

I couldn’t see them, so I relied on the dots of light on my radar to track their movements.

Just then, one of the women leaped out from behind the shielded woman in a pose straight out of a beat-’em-up game, swinging a war hammer down toward me.

Since I’d been depending on the two-dimensional radar, I wasn’t expecting her to come from above, so my reaction was a little slow.

As a result, there was a gap in my defense after I parried her with the poleax, and a woman with a greatsword came around the woman with the shield to attack me.

The whole “identical faces” thing was getting really confusing. The fact that they all had different weapons was my only salvation.

Raising the greatsword with both hands, the woman swung it sideways at me.

At this rate, my torso was going to take a direct hit from the giant blade.

Well, if I was normal, that is.

I dug my toes into the floor enough to make a hole in it, then swung my foot up forcibly, flinging up flooring to use as cover.

It was meant to be only a diversion, but the area of my kick’s effect was unexpectedly strong, and the woman was flung into the air along with the dirt.

Was this the parallel-world equivalent of flipping tatami floorboards?

But I had no time to entertain such superfluous thoughts, as the next attack was already on its way.

The woman with the short spear slid under the feet of the one with the shield, who’d also been launched into the air a bit, and stabbed up at me from below.

My posture was too unbalanced to evade it normally.

I pushed myself into the air with only the power of one ankle. It wasn’t enough, but I compensated by grabbing the shield woman’s shoulder and pulling myself up farther.

Once I was in the air, the beauty with the war hammer came at me with another powerful swing.

I used my grip on the other woman’s shoulder to whirl myself around in midair, avoiding the attack by a hair’s breadth. As I landed on the ceiling, the woman with the scimitar shot a magic arrow at me.

This is getting a little too hectic.

I kicked off the ceiling and avoided the incoming missile, landed on both my hands, and used a classic break-dance-like move to swing both feet and knock out the women who used the war hammer and the short spear.

The woman with the large shield parried my attack and rolled across the ground. Opponents with high defense were a real pain.

Three to go.

The beauty with the greatsword scrabbled back up from the floor, scowled at me, and gave a yell.

The red liquid was now flowing from her ears and nose as well as her red-stained eyes. This couldn’t be good for her body. Her stamina gauge had already been reduced almost by half.

A magic circle appeared on her forehead, glowing with a suspicious purple light, and then started to get bigger.

It expanded to the diameter of a basketball and created an absurd number of magic arrows—five times as many as before.

Her MP gauge was at zero, but for some reason the arrows didn’t run out.

It was causing a considerable strain on her body, though; I could see blood vessels popping out all the way up to her fingertips as she stretched her arm toward me.

I ducked left, then right, to dodge the first arrow and sank my fingers into the leg of the fallen second golem, lifting it up to use it as a shield. Warding off the endless stream of arrows, I started to edge toward the woman with the greatsword.

Just before my improvised golem-shield could crash into her, the woman danced through the air and swung her blade down toward me.

I promptly released my hold on the leg and shifted the poleax in my other hand to deflect the sword.

…I have a bad feeling about this.

It might have been because of my “Polearm” skill or a different skill.

But in any case, thanks to this premonition, I was able to avoid becoming the victim of the greatsword, though my ax wasn’t so lucky.

The polearm split in two, but I dodged backward, a piece in each hand.

The woman with the large shield had moved back to the front of the ranks and was getting closer.

I noticed that well enough, but I assumed she was going to attack with her rapier, so I failed to get away when she came at me with a shield bash instead.

I was flung into midair as if hit by a truck, and the swordswoman followed close behind with a stormy slashing attack. As a bonus, the woman with the scimitar came at me from the side, using a bizarre technique where she spun like a top.

Normally, I’d have no way of avoiding all this, but if I gave up now, I’d be done for.

With my current position and potential moves, I could think of several possible ways to incapacitate the beauties without killing them.

The fact that I was able to consider all this in an instant was probably thanks to my obscenely high INT stat.

I used the broken halves of the poleax in each hand to strike the greatsword on both sides, ruining both our weapons, then used the splintered remains to pulverize the ground beneath the feet of the scimitar-wielder.

The scimitar-wielding woman fell to the floor like a top thrown off balance.

The swordswoman attacked me with the remains of her greatsword, so I parried with the splintered handle in my other hand. Then I used the momentum from my parry for a roundhouse kick, knocking out the greatsword-wielder.

Two to go.

Ignoring the fallen beauty with the scimitar for now, I turned my attention to the one with the large shield.

Her capillaries appeared to be in bad shape, too, as her skin and clothes were bright red.

Worse yet, her stamina gauge was way too low. If I took a swing at her, it looked like she would pass out before I even landed a blow.

I had no choice. I discarded the handle in my left hand and focused on the opponent’s rapier.

I held still as it came toward me, aiming for the last possible second before catching the blade with two fingers, my absurdly high STR stat allowing me to easily snatch the weapon from her hands.

The woman was still taken aback at having her sword stolen away when I planted a hand on her shield, forcibly creating distance between the shield and the woman’s body.

She moved her free arm to block my attack, but she was too late.

A light jab with my fist was all it took to render the woman unconscious.

I turned around to defeat the woman with the scimitar, but she had apparently already self-destructed and passed out when she fell before.

Confirming that the battle was over, a corridor opened to the throne platform.

I was afraid that the women’s lives would be in danger if I left them like this, so I used all the stamina potions I’d found in the Guardian Knight’s Area to heal their wounds.

I had wanted to save at least one just in case Mia needed it, but I would have felt terrible if one of the women died because I’d held back, so I spared no expense.

Of course, it would be a waste to let a busty, beautiful woman die, but more importantly, I felt sympathy for the way their boss had used them.

Stepping into the corridor, I set my title to the one that Zen had desired.

The sound of Zen’s applause echoed in the hall.

“Most wonderfully done. Welcome, new hero.”

He manipulated a shadow to carry the Holy Sword Gjallarhorn over to me.

“Is a hero what you were after?”

“Indeed.”

“Then why wouldn’t you just go to the Saga Empire instead of going to all this trouble?” I asked, my voice sharp.

The sight of the bloodied women had shocked me more than I’d realized, as my heart seemed to be raging.

“Hmph, the hero of Parion? By the time I arrived, he had already been sent home.”

“Won’t there be another one?”

“Is it that season already? Such unfortunate timing.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Even if I explained, you wouldn’t understand.”

He didn’t seem to have any intent of answering me directly.

I tried to calm my heart and mind as we continued the exchange.

“Well, Sorceror…or should I call you Undead King? Do you really just want to die?”

“The answer to that is both yes and no.”

“I’m not looking for any Zen riddles here.”

Hearing my answer, Zen laughed like someone who’d lost his mind.

In the shadow of his hood, the two purple flames wavered madly.

“Ba-ha-ha-ha! Well, is that so? I see now. You are not the descendant of a hero but a fellow visitor from the land of the gods.”

“I don’t know any such place.”

Wait, I feel like maybe Japan used to be called that either before or during the war…

“Ah-ha-ha-ha, there’s no use trying to deceive me. What did you pray to the merciless god for? What did you wish? What did you desire?”

“I didn’t ask for anything.” Because I’d never met him. “I guess if I had to pick something, maybe I wanted a vacation?” I definitely spent plenty of time wishing for that.

“Fwa-ha-ha-ha, how very selfish. Certainly most befitting of a hero.”

“What did you wish for, then?”

And also, if you were reincarnated, why isn’t your race human?

“Surely you know? Do you not see it at this very moment? I am the king of the night; undead, immortal. I prayed to the almighty god for a body that would not die, a life without hunger, and the power to strike back against wanton violence.”

“So that’s why you were reborn in such a body…”

His arms still spread wide, Zen ceased his loud laughter and slowly shook his head.

“You assume too much. No, the god allowed me to be reborn as a healthy baby. Under his watch, I was raised by good, respectable parents, and I was even destined to meet a brave and beautiful spouse of whom I was most undeserving.”

Then why…?

“I became too accustomed to my new life. Despite the fact that my previous life had been stolen away so violently, I became convinced that this time would be different.”

Zen removed his hood.

The two purple flames burned inside his hollow sockets, lighting his skeletal face.

“I was imprisoned by a noble who had become smitten with my wife and executed for a crime that I didn’t commit. When I was resurrected in this form by the god’s blessing, the first thing I saw was the heads of my parents, lined up along with those of the rest of my family. And underneath them, the body of my wife, thrown away like a broken doll…”

There wasn’t a single tear on his white cheek.

Instead, the purple flames in his sockets burned with rage.

“I have no need for your pity. I revived the bodies of my family as undead monsters, as well as those of many others who’d died under similar circumstances, and I turned my fangs on the nobles who held all the power at that time, destroying everything.”

There was no way that he could shed tears, of course. He was a skeleton, after all.

“After I obtained my revenge, I had intended to journey to the afterlife, where my wife awaits me. But the god’s blessing will not allow it. Even the Turn Undead spells of priests, even the Holy Sword I worked so hard to obtain, cannot bring me death.” This time he said his feelings out loud. “Truly, I have been cursed.

“Hero, verily, you are strong. Strong enough that you might well lose yourself in your desire for more power. But do not forget this. Man is weak. If you hold dear the girl who was with you, then be wary that you do not abuse the power the gods have given you.”

I felt as if I’d been given similar advice back in the general store.

“This power is too much for any human. Do not meet with a fate like mine…”

“…Thank you for your advice.”

I etched his words onto my heart.

“Now then, hero. I have said all that needed to be said. Deliver the final blow! Destroy me, before I am completely transformed into a demon lord!”

So stated the sorcerer Zen, or rather, the Undead King Zen.

I drew the blade Gjallarhorn, as if possessed by his madness.