Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 8

“…We’re counting on you,” Riveria pleaded, almost as though entreating a saint.

The blade of the scimitar bisected the monster’s chin in one clean swipe.

“Gwwwwuuuuoooogggh!”

“Yah!”

Continuing through, it sent the head of the bull-headed minotaur flying. Her long black hair tied up in a ponytail, the girl sliced through the dim gloom of the grotto in a flash. The monster dealt with handily, she continued forward and toward the large swarm now gathered in front of her, aiming a sweeping kick.

“Bete Loga! C’mon, let’s go! We’re on a date! We’re on a date!”

“I never imagined the dating scene would be so brutal…” Bete grumbled, a bit stupefied at the antics of the smiling, waving, slaughtering girl. His hands shoved in his pockets, he delivered a kick to an incoming hellhound that shattered its cranium.

They were in the Dungeon’s middle levels, the “Cave Labyrinth.”

More specifically, on the seventeenth floor—the stronghold of the third-tier adventurers.

It turned out what Lena really wanted was a “Dungeon date,” quite possibly the least romantic idea for a date ever. Certainly, fighting and killing together as a method of increasing one’s affinity with another made perfect sense when it came to the brute-force social skills of the Amazons, though Bete wasn’t sure if this truly applied to all Amazons or just the one in front of him in particular.

If they weren’t fighting on the streets, they were fighting between the sheets.

That was all Amazons knew. Though for Bete, this was more of a godsend than a flaw, as the idea of a normal “date” about made him want to puke.

“Look, look, look! Isn’t this al-miraj the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?!” Lena cried out as she sent the lovable rabbit monster sailing with a mighty SPROING!

“Gyaaaaaaaah!”

“You say as you beat the living shit out of it.”

The brutish spectacle was so far removed from an ordinary date that had Lefiya and the others been there, they’d have fainted on the spot. As the girl annihilated everything in her path in her excited, happy flailing, her slashes cut deep despite her feminine antics.

“Just knowing that Bete Loga is here beside me is enough to shoot me to the moon!” she announced, scimitar in her right hand and gold-lined arm protector on her left. She used the thick metal to ward off her enemies’ attacks as she set her blade awhirl in a dance allegro. It was an altogether unique battle style; the rapid movements made her look more like a spinning top than anything else. She held nothing back as her slender curved limbs executed her every power-packed move and her bare feet slammed into the teeth of the nearby liger fangs with such force they rendered their faces unidentifiable. Every attack sent her undersize loincloth dancing, revealing again and again the white undergarments and copper thighs beneath. Even the arm protector on her left hand became a weapon when she smashed it straight into the monsters’ flesh and shattered the bones inside.

A Level 2, huh? And about to level up again, by the looks of it…Seems she’s got no problem against monsters up to the twenty-fourth floor or so, Bete mused, eyes narrowed as he watched the girl throttle swarm after swarm of monsters with no need of help from him.

She was undeniably beautiful—radiant, almost, with the way the sweat was flying off her. And suddenly Bete realized her plan: After all, what man would be able to resist seeing her now? Well, sans the terrifying howls and spattering blood, perhaps.

“Outta my way,” Bete growled, aiming a kick at a nearby minotaur that Lena had let escape and debilitating it with a single strike.

“Gwuuuaaaagh?!”

“Oh, I knew it! You really are strong!”

And with that, the battle was over. The Amazonian girl seemed satisfied, taking deep, heavy breaths. She then proceeded to run around from pile of ash to pile of ash, collecting the fallen magic stones and drop items in place of the completely unhelpful bump on a log, Bete.

She didn’t seem the least bit concerned that her perpetual high was starting to grate on Bete’s nerves. Just thinking about what they must look like to any other adventurers passing by made Bete want to melt, and he twisted his face into what must have been the thousandth grimace already since the night before.

“This is so much fun! On a Dungeon date with Bete Loga!”

“Yeah. ‘Fun.’”

“My heart feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest! But since I can’t see your face that well, I wanna hide it by throwing myself into battle after frenzied battle!”

Bete truly didn’t understand how the girl could be having so much fun.

Bouncing over, she shot him a grin, her tiny tongue poking out from between her lips.

This girl, Lena Tully, was an entirely different kind of “simple” than Tiona. Bete’s one consolation was that she was at least smarter than the other Amazon, but she still couldn’t “read the room,” so to speak, for the life of her. Perhaps this was thanks to the fact that her naivete was more lovesick-induced than hereditary.

“…Do you Amazonian witches flaunt your gravy at any old macho thug who walks by?”

“Huh? Oh, no! Not at all! Not. At. All! That’d mean Aisha and the others would be all over you right now, hmm? Since you beat them and all?” Lena protested, fighting back against the common misconception about Amazons.

She did have a point.

“All of us have our types and such, you know? For me, well, mine’s more like an alarm going off. Beep-beep-beep! He’s the one! And then I just know! Like I said yesterday—it’s made me believe in fate!”

“…”

“Which is why!…I just knew I had to have your children!”

It was an admission of love so direct, an elf might frown in disapproval.

Indeed, the Amazons made no effort to hide their procreation-inclined intentions.

With a blush warming her cheeks and a hint of shame coloring her features, Lena shot Bete another smile, almost as though plucking up her courage. “If we keep going much farther, we’ll end up having to stay here overnight. You probably don’t want that, hmm? Do you, Bete Loga? What should we do, then? Maybe…maybe if we could meet again, we could…go all the way down to the lower levels sometime?”

But despite all her efforts, the werewolf’s heart remained as cold as ice.

His amber eyes stared indifferently at the still-smiling girl.

Affection. Pah.

Adventurers didn’t need it. And even more certainly, the strong didn’t need it.

It was nothing more than white noise.

And for Bete right now, a werewolf detested not only by others but by himself as well, it just made him want to gag.

“—Are you really that stupid?”

“Huh?”

And so he pushed her away.

The rotten werewolf, selfish beyond measure, violent to a fault, and capable of nothing but hurting those around him, raised his head.

He was going to make this confused girl understand whether she wanted to or not.

To turn her affection into revulsion.

“You sure talk big for someone who doesn’t even know her place.”

“Th…! That’s…I—I know I’m not as tall as Aisha or the others and…and that maybe I’m not so strong yet. And maybe I even got pushed around by that frog lady a lot, but…From now on, all that’s gonna change! One day, I…I’ll even become as strong as Bete Loga!”

Bete smirked. “You’re a chump. And you’ll always be a chump!”

This made the girl’s orange-pearl-colored eyes widen with a start.

“Doesn’t matter how much you keep yappin’ about ‘someday, someday’—fish bait like you’ll never amount to more than just that: fish bait! So quit your whining! Ain’t gonna do you any good!”

“I…But I…I have to try…”

“Yeah, you and everyone else! You’re all alike! Goin’ on and on about your big dreams, then you don’t regret it till you’re halfway down a monster’s throat. You’re disgustingly weak. Nothin’ but stupid, flimsy dreams and a whole bunch of baloney!” Bete continued, scenes from his past playing out before his eyes one after another. He wasn’t even looking at the stupefied girl anymore, but through her and toward the blood-strewn field of his memories beyond.

And from the middle of that scene came the sound of his own laughter.

“You’re nothing. And you always will be. Ignorantly spewing lofty goals that you’ll never come close to reaching. And I hate it. More than anything else in the world, I hate it.”

“I—I…”

“You don’t even have the guts to tell me I’m wrong, do you? Heh…Well, you can’t polish a turd,” Bete finished, still sneering at the stock-still girl in front of him.

“Weak and strong just don’t mix.”

It was a statement forged of pride, of utter arrogance.

And with it came the contemptuous echoes of his laughter in the dark, quiet grotto where neither human nor monster dared approach.

Lena’s gaze sank slowly toward the floor. Her thin frame began to tremble, almost as though holding back tiny sobs.

Bete’s laughter faded, and for just a moment, he felt a sort of dried-up cynicism (along with just a tiny bit of disappointment) seep out from the corners of his tattoo. But then the feeling was gone, and the smile was back on his face, accompanied by an almost too-forced snort.

At long length, Lena looked up at him.

“Then…does that mean once I’m not a piece of fish bait anymore…I can be with you?!”

Her voice crescendoed into a full-out belly roar.

“…Wha—?!”

The orange pearls that were Lena’s eyes were glittering more violently, more radiantly than ever before. Bete, on the other hand, could only stutter in bewilderment, his mouth hanging open in a stupor.

“Yippee!! All I have to do is get stronger and then I’ve got me a first-tier adventurer as a hubby! The wife of one of the most truly coveted males in the species!! Yes, that’s it! That’s all I have to do! Everything’s going according to plan!”

“Wh-whaaaaaat?!”

“And that means I’ll get to bear Bete Loga’s children!!”

“Y-you idiot! The hell are you going on about—?!”

As Lena raised both arms in a sudden burst of exuberant triumph, Bete felt his heart cry out in agony.

—That’s not it at all, you lunatic!

This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. No, Lena had truly punched a hole in that strategy, leaving him trembling and confused in its wake. This was, without a doubt, the strangest, most off-kilter response Bete had ever received after shooting off one of his cruel smirks.

“Stop that right now, you baby-obsessed bush leaguer! Were you even listening to me?!”

“Of course I was! And now I’m more pumped up than ever! I’m gonna get strong! The strongest you’ve ever seen! If I can just make it to Level Six, then…he-he-he…he-he-he-he-he-he…!!”

“What the hell…?!”

What in the world is wrong with this girl…?!

The nigh-unparalleled depravity behind her smile was enough to shake Bete to his very core. Lena, however, was ignoring the werewolf’s terror while pushing herself so close to him that their chests were practically touching, then gazing up at him.

Her eyes consumed him, spinning like twin orange whirlpools. S-somebody help me!

“Once I become strong, please make me Bete Loga’s—make me your wife!”

—It’s Tione! Oh god, a Tione just showed up!!

The Finn-obsessed, two-screws-loose Berserker had appeared on the scene!!

He should never have let his guard down in front of this lovesick Amazon.

Not even scorn and ridicule were enough to divert the beating, lovelorn heart of this carnivorous girl, loyal to nothing but her own instincts. No, those would have only thrown more fuel onto the fire.

“Oh yeah! And I get it now!”

Lena continued to speak, her voice like daggers plunging into the werewolf’s short-circuiting brain.

“When you call people fish bait or weaklings…those aren’t insults at all!”

“”

It was at that moment.

That time came screeching to a halt.

“They’re more like…worms on the end of a hook, you know? Like a carrot in front of a donkey!”

“…”

“Which means…you’re just trying to cheer me on! Yeah, that’s it!”

“…Like hell I am, you pinhead.”

But those were the only words he could manage to squeeze out.

Lena blissfully ignored him, skipping on ahead, almost as though she was in such high spirits that she couldn’t control her own feet.

“…”

Around them, the blue phosphorescence emanating from the walls seemed to brighten, light seeping slowly into the gloom of the normally silent cave. The derisive laughter of the strong had been replaced by the cheery chirping of a young girl, the sound echoing off the stone. The werewolf stood in stunned silence, his shadow stretching toward the wall with no one left to bare its fangs at.

Bete watched the girl leave before letting his gaze drop slowly toward his right hand.

A scene from his memories was rising up to meet him.

Of a girl who’d once told him the same thing.

“You useless roaches! Gettin’ in our way again! You think we enjoy gettin’ slowed down by all this excess baggage, huh?”

Bete had been hurling profanities that day, as well.

“Bete, calm yourself! There’s no reason to disturb the peace!”

“Oh, cram it, you old hag! You know I’m right!”

It had been two years ago, on one of Loki Familia’s expeditions.

On their way down to their target floor, they’d gotten attacked by monsters, and the lower-level members had quickly found themselves battered. This stalled them for quite some time, which was what had led to Bete’s tirade (and Riveria’s subsequent admonishment; the high elf couldn’t let his words go despite the situation).

The whole affair was enough to steal what little morale the lower-levels had left, even with Finn’s and the other elites’ mediation. Heads were drooping, tears were building, and teeth were biting hard on trembling lips. They were completely incapable of fighting back against the first-tier adventurer’s censure.

That girl, Leene Arshe, would have been with them.

“Hey, you! Dum-dum with the glasses! Why’re you here, huh? You think you’re a healer? You can’t even protect yourself! Worthless piece of shit!”

“Ngh…”

“All you fish bait should just crawl back into your hole. You don’t belong on the battlefield…and you never will!”

It was later, when the whole group had finally been able to settle down for a longer rest, that Bete had run into the human girl, Leene, in the shadow of a nearby rock. He’d chided her then, only for the girl to gaze up at him, trembling.

She’d looked him straight in the eye through those large glasses of hers, fear and hesitation all but gone.

“This is the seventh time you’ve yelled at me, Mister Bete.”

“Huh? You’ve actually been keeping track? Heh, you really are hopeless.”

“This is true. I am hopeless. Already, you’ve saved me seven times…no, much more than that.” Gathering her courage, she took his right hand—the one that had been injured protecting Leene and the other lower-levels.

Bete simply stuck out his tongue. Stupid injury. It’s what I get for involvin’ myself with weaklings, is all, he thought, cursing his own ineptitude.

But he wasn’t about to say that out loud. Instead, he prepared to lay all the blame on the “weaklings” themselves, but before he could get the words out, Leene shot him a smile, almost as though seeing through the barrier of his heart.

“I think I…finally understand. What you keep calling us…weaklings…fish bait…They aren’t insults.”

Time had stopped for Bete then, as well.

His hardened features twisting.

The tattoo on his face—his fang—distorting.

Leene’s braid shook, tears in her eyes as she turned a gallant smile toward him.

“I may be one of these weaklings, but…I can still heal you.”

“…”

“So…would it be all right if I…stayed by your side?”

A warm light formed around his hand as she spoke, already working at healing the gash on his skin.