INTERLUDE

THEIR RESPECTIVE BATTLES

The sound of a blade parrying a wooden sword, an intense clash, rang out as Aiz landed in the alley.

“Guh!”

As she fell on the ground from the roof, Aiz faced off against her attacker, the masked adventurer.

The stranger’s long, hooded cape fluttered, and they wore boots that extended halfway up their thighs. The svelte adventurer held a wooden sword as their lower body shifted into a battle stance.

The location was a backstreet in the southeast of the Labyrinth District.

The street was unexpectedly wide at seven meders with wooden boxes and casks and mounds of scrap wood haphazardly scattered around. The skirmish between the boy and the adventurers chasing the monsters was in the distance. That one corner of the Labyrinth District became a battlefield all their own, as if the rest of the world had been closed off.

“Who are—?!”

“Unfortunately, I cannot identify myself. Please forgive what practically amounts to a surprise attack,” the anonymous adventurer interjected sincerely as Aiz started to question their identity.

It was a resolute, honorable response, and the face behind the mask could be that of an elf. Their polite tone had an apologetic tinge to it, but it also revealed their readiness for battle, a declaration that combat couldn’t be avoided.

“Against an opponent like you, I can’t take a wait-and-see approach—I’ll be going all out from the start.”

The next instant, the masked adventurer disappeared.

“!!”

In one high-speed action, they retreated out of Aiz’s field of vision.

Her golden eyes were a split second behind, tracking them moving diagonally to the right, and the anonymous adventurer leaned down enough to scrape along the ground before unleashing a strike with the wooden sword from a low angle.

Aiz responded precisely to the attack closing in from her periphery, deflecting it with Desperate.

““—Gh!””

The wooden sword and rapier cut through the air, their impact sending a stinging jolt through both their arms.

The moment they traded blows, Aiz’s golden eyes met sky-blue ones.

As if recognizing from the start that the attack would be blocked, the anonymous adventurer darted away, brushing past Aiz, accelerating further.

“?!”

As a gale, the challenger blew past Aiz and circled around her, using the wide alley to its fullest to boost their speed. The sound of feet pounding the stone pavement over and over echoed through the street as the occasional cobblestone shattered and kicked up into the air. The attacker didn’t stay still for a split second, moving in all directions.

“—Ha!”

“!”

They unleashed an attack in the blink of an eye. A flash of steel managed to block the wooden sword slashing up behind her.

Aiz furrowed her brow at the force transferred through her sword.

The masked adventurer didn’t allow her any time to think, taking their distance and attacking from a high speed.

Another attack. Followed by another.

Aiz blocked them as they came from all directions. Her eyes widened as the magnitude of the strikes incessantly resounding through her became clear.

Is the force…increasing?!

There was no mistaking it.

The second attack was stronger than the first. And the third with more impact than the second. The ambush had grown intense, and the impact started to shake Aiz’s body through her defenses.

Desperate was quivering from the blows, a testament to their increasing power.

Is it a kind of sprinting skill like Bete’s?

Solmani was the name of the werewolf’s skill, powerful and rare, that increased strength and agility as it accelerated. Aiz guessed it was extremely likely that her opponent had a skill of some kind that interacted with the action of sprinting.

In a fight between two adventurers, techniques and tactics were obviously fundamental, but sussing out magic and skills was equally important. Failing to see through the enemy’s abilities or trump cards could be the difference between victory and a complete reversal at the last possible moment.

Those trump cards would often be the line between victory and defeat, especially in a fight between two people with real skill.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!” A loud scream accompanied another attack.

Her opponent’s body gave off golden particles of light.

Aiz had seen that effect before.

Is it the same as Androctonus, the Man Slayer?!

That was the first-tier adventurer Phryne Jamil, who’d attacked her when they had fought Ishtar Familia in Meren.

Phryne should have been a Level-5 opponent, crossing swords evenly with Aiz at Level 6. At the time, she’d been giving off a large number of light particles. The scene before Aiz’s eyes stirred memories from a month ago.

Had her opponent been given a boost equivalent to a level-up?

Was this masked adventurer a former member of Ishtar Familia?

No, that’s not it. This isn’t one of Ishtar’s followers.

Aiz discarded the speculation in her mind, because there was a memory that came back, far beyond a month ago.

I know. I know this person.

I—We’ve fought before!

If I remember correctly, they hid their identity that time, too.

A mask. A wooden sword. A cape. That sharp follow-through. The strong gaze in those blue-green eyes.

Past Aiz had been desperate to become strong and could remember only vague symbols.

Why had they been fighting? Why had they had such a serious fight?

Just who had won that fight—?

“—Hyah!”

“Gh!”

As she remained half-immersed in her past recollections, Aiz engaged in a fierce dance, darting with her sword. As the masked adventurer unleashed attack after attack, she accepted the challenge head-on.

The battle bloomed with intensity. The swift movements of her assailant knew no limits as they conducted a sonata with the sound of their mighty sprint, accelerating fast enough to break the stone pavement. Just when they were about to clash, the masked adventurer would drop their speed for a split second before accelerating to slice at Aiz. By manipulating their speed, the assailant added in tens, hundreds of feints—tactics interwoven into the high-speed battle. They were the smallest of movements, but their precision was unlike anything she’d seen before. The force of those tactics was enough to make the Sword Princess slow to judge for a second, to overcome the level handicap between them. It inspired awe.

Aiz lost the initiative and tried to use her own speed to chase the masked adventurer.

“Ngh…?!”

The enemy’s wooden sword smashed the wooden crates and barrels nearby, sending fragments of wood flying.

A blast of projectiles blocked her vision. Aiz was forced to intercept them. The rain of shattered wood didn’t allow her any opening for pursuit. The masked adventurer used the terrain to its utmost potential and kept the Sword Princess from closing in.

The hotly contested battlefield had been a storage area for scrap wood. The stacked wooden crates and rows of casks transformed into obstructions blocking Aiz’s line of sight.

The anonymous adventurer would escape to the left. But the moment they entered a blind spot, they would come from the right to take Aiz by surprise. From Aiz’s perspective, the movements were otherworldly, totally betraying her expectations.

Barrels burst, crates danced, and just when she thought countless splinters would be coming from the front, a blow from the wooden sword came in directly from the side.

“Khhh?!”

Aiz just managed to guard against it, but the masked adventurer had already retreated out of her range.

They weren’t greedy in their assault, cutting in with an attack in passing and then leaving Aiz’s field of view as they endured Aiz’s counterattacks with a range of techniques and a tireless sprint.

A super-precise, super-high-speed battle. A transcendental hit-and-run.

The masked adventurer’s tremendous speed and orbit increased as they passed through their surroundings, breaking casks and crates as if a gale. A hail of fragments assaulted Aiz from all directions, accompanied by a series of tremendous booms, to the point that she could imagine herself being trapped inside a windstorm.

They’re really going all out…using every last thing to face me.

Their skills, the boost from that light, the terrain. Aiz could feel the conviction in her opponent’s stance as they used every last card at their disposal: It was a desire to pin her down in this location.

As she deflected the enemy’s attacks, Aiz thought.

They can’t maintain this kind of attack for long. If I wait for their stamina to run down, I can break through, and given time, my eyes will adjust to their speed, and I can deal with it.

But that’s a bad plan.

If the masked adventurer was connected to Bell, their goal was to buy time. Since Aiz had lost sight of him, more time here was a loss for her.

“…” Aiz was troubled.

If the situation were different, she would have enjoyed continuing the swordplay. If neither of them had their own obligations, they could have clashed head-on to their hearts’ content.

If they’d been the same level as Aiz—they could have had more close-range combat.

Aiz drew Desperate’s sheath from the sword belt.

“!!”

Sword in her right hand, sheath in her left. As the masked adventurer continued to move at high speed, they gazed in wonder at the Sword Princess’s form.

Sword and sheath in both hands…Can the Sword Princess dual wield? Impossible. I’ve never heard of her doing that before.

The challenger was perplexed and suspicious but never stopped their feet. The masked adventurer continued their sprint to take full advantage of their skill while observing the movements of the girl with golden hair and golden eyes.

In the center of the alley, enclosed in a gale prison, Aiz closed her eyes.

She lowered both arms, holding them loosely by her side, as if to say, Strike however you like. It was formless.

Is this a waiting stance…?

Aiming for a counter. A passive tactic.

Did she give up on following my movements? Is she intending to bet it all on a single attack?

For the masked adventurer, it was exactly the sort of development they should have wanted to buy time. If the assailant kept running and continuing to divert without attacking, they could maintain the stalemate.

But the Sword Princess should realize that I’m aiming to buy time…Is she trying to lower my guard? Is it a trap?

The storied warrior behind the mask tried to read into the intentions of the swordswoman. The assailant had been attacking nonstop. And in that smallest of gaps, they adopted a defensive mind-set.

That slight gap in the force of their gale could hardly be called a defensive posture—but it was enough for the girl.

The next instant, Aiz dashed.

“Urg?!”

Discarding the camouflage of a counter, she came in with an instantaneous approach. The masked adventurer was visibly shocked as the golden-eyed swordswoman appeared before their eyes, charging into their projected path.

It had all been a feint—a strategy that Aiz devised to create a single instant of doubt in the masked adventurer. The anonymous challenger realized that the time needed to think had in itself been the trap, and they gathered all the strength in their body to intercept the oncoming blow.

“Hy—?!”

Even as the assailant had been caught off guard, they still maintained the sprint, unleashing a sweeping horizontal slash with the wooden sword.

It carried the force of their skill and the boost brought about by the light particles.

It was a single attack with all their might, combining every blessing they’d been granted.

Crack.

“”

The Sword Princess readily repelled the attack with her sword without difficulty and with the precision of threading a needle.

Not enough strength.

Not enough speed.

Not a high enough level.

Even with the masked adventurer’s ability and strength, it was meaningless before Aiz, even as a Level 6.

There was an insurmountable difference in combat experience.

The masked adventurer was strong without a doubt. Their movements were more refined than the ones of the person in Aiz’s memories.

But Aiz had grown far more than they had.

She’d gone into the Dungeon again and again without rest. She’d continued defeating monsters without end.

She’d gotten mixed up in the incident with the vividly colored monsters, the demi-spirit, and the mortal combat with the creature. She’d accumulated all that experience.

On one side was a person of true strength who’d retired from the front lines; on the other was the Sword Princess, who was fighting out at the very forefront even now.

The number of difficulties they’d overcome on their path to this rematch was the clear deciding factor between them.

They had been equal only in the realm of techniques. Aiz reluctantly lowered her eyebrows, slashing with her remaining weapon.

“Fortunately, it was the sheath side—”

“It was a good thing you attacked from the right,” Aiz whispered as she parried the wooden sword, the masked adventurer swinging their sword diagonally down with all their might using a single hand.

“If I used the sword, I couldn’t have held back.”

Aiz was relieved that it ended without her cutting her opponent in half, dispassionately unleashing an attack with the sheath in her hand.

“—Gggggh?!”

A single flash smashed into her opponent’s side at extreme speed—a scathing and decisive blow. When the air was forced out of their lungs, they spat up blood as they were blasted away with the force of a river bursting through a dam.

Fragments of wood flew into the sky as they were thrown back into the boxes and barrels behind them.

That slender body smashed into a wall.

The masked adventurer left cracks in the brick wall, exchanging a final glance with Aiz right before losing consciousness.

Their searching sky-colored eyes filled with regret as they slumped over.

The sonata of the gale died down. And in its place, long golden locks fluttered in the alley.

“…I’m sorry.”

Three minutes.

That was the amount of time spent to reach a conclusion to this battle that no one would know of.

The slight time that the anonymous adventurer had managed to buy.

Aiz didn’t look back at the unconscious woman as she left that place.

“What was that wind just now?!” Tione was in a fit of rage.

She’d been ordered by Finn to scout and raid, following his instructions when the armed monsters appeared in the Labyrinth District’s southwest area. She approached the throng of monsters from behind as they marched directly east toward Loki Familia’s main base in the central part of Daedalus Street. In hot pursuit, she saw the parade of monsters and commenced attacking them from behind with throwing knives and other projectiles.

The large group of monsters lost its edge—there was no escaping from a first-tier adventurer. They were just about to be captured.

At least if it hadn’t been for that divine wind.

“I thought they were hiding and shooting off ice when all of a sudden that weird-ass wind started blowing! Don’t screw with me!”

“Amazing! We flew through the sky, Tione! That must be what birds feel like!”

“Shut the hell up!” Tione snapped at her sister’s easygoing observation and subconsciously smashed a wall with her fist.

There was an invisible defense around the armed monsters. Two of them. They were invisible with one ability or another, hitting the Amazons with their ice and obstructing their movements. The sisters quickly saw through the invisible enemies and the ice attack without too much difficulty, but they’d been removed from the battlefield by the enemies’ hidden trick.

An unbelievable typhoon.

It was unlike anything they’d experienced before, a wind cannon that Aiz’s Airiel couldn’t even have matched. They’d literally been blown away by it. While they were high up, soaring through the starry night sky, they witnessed the monsters moving farther away, just as the two sisters had managed to catch up with them.

The first-tier adventurers’ hot pursuit was reversed at the last minute.

Outmaneuvered, Tione roared in a furious voice that shook the sky, frightening the people in the city, who could have taken it to be a monster.

“Looking down on us…!”

After they were grandly blown away, they finally landed near the outer edge of the western part of the Labyrinth District. In her rage, Tione had taken the tone of a villain as she punched the wall one more time.

The trick up the enemy’s sleeve, her quick temper that caught her off guard, and, more than anything, her inability to fulfill her beloved Finn’s order caused her anger to well up. She devoted her remaining patience to thinking about the enemy.

Was this invisibility a skill of the tamer who Finn had mentioned?

If the invisible things were part of Hestia Familia, would that mean it was the effect of a magic blade? The scenes of the siege in the War Game with Apollo Familia were burned into her mind.

Was it the work of the legendary Crozzo’s Magic Swords—of Welf Crozzo?

Shithead. Tione burned with rage. If my guess is right, I’m gonna beat his ass when I catch him or give him a good knee to the stomach, at the very least, she decided with bloodshot eyes.

At about the same time, a certain young man with red hair felt a tremendous chill.

“We’re gonna catch right back up! Tiona!”

“Okay!”

As she continued to be consumed by fury, Tione ran for the central part of the district, where the enemies were heading. As she rushed off driven by anger, she smashed the black-bricked buildings and pavement wherever her feet landed.

She was inhuman in her pursuit to the extent that the monsters seemed pitiful. The pair would be able to catch up to the enemy’s back lines within three minutes.

If they could pull that off and catch the monsters in a pincer with the defensive squad, the monsters would be out of luck.

But it wasn’t to be.

“!”

“Tiona?!”

The other half of her party suddenly turned down a different route. Tione almost telepathically guessed what her stupid sister was thinking, though she was shocked.

A pitch-black fog was released from near the central area where the defensive squad and the monsters were clashing.

That suspicious fog permeated the surroundings, stretching to the northwest.

It would have been fine if it was the southern side of the district, since there were only adventurers searching for monsters there. But Tione had heard there were still residents evacuating in the north.

If the monsters moving around in that fog headed for the northwestern end of the district, it would be bad. That was what Tiona had to be thinking.

“That idiot! Is she trying to disobey the captain?! Hey! Wait for me!”

Because the two of them had been told to move together, Tione chased after her little sister, heading northwest.

“A smoke screen!”

Gareth was fighting in the middle of the area of the black mist that Tione and Tiona had seen.

Near the central area of Daedalus Street, Gareth had moved from his station underground up to the surface to assault the armed monsters who’d escaped the sisters. As he used his Level-6 strength to corner the monsters, the pitch-black mist spread around in futile resistance.

At the hands of the mage leading the monsters, the battlefield descended into a chaotic mess of human and monster screams intermingling.

“Get them—!”

“Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”

More and more of the reinforcements for Loki Familia piled into the part of the Labyrinth District that’d become the main battlefield. The sounds of weapons and claws clashing wildly rang out.

Amid that, Gareth dashed unhesitatingly in a straight line. His target was the person who’d released the dark mist, the black-robed mage.

“Grr!”

“Guh?!”

The mage was toppled by the force of the ax swing. Gareth paid no heed to the other monsters, focusing only on their leader.

If I can just take out this mage—!

The monsters would no longer be able to use any further schemes and Loki Familia would have a significant advantage. Gareth had seen through the level of detestable danger the mage posed, locking onto its presence in the awful visual conditions and preparing to smash his war ax into its black robes.

“Hmm?!”

An ice blast interrupted him.

Gareth hadn’t heard a chant. It had been an ice-type magic blade, without a doubt.

Frozen in an unnatural position, he managed to break the ice and swing down his blade, but the mage used the split-second pause to escape.

As he saw that black robe disappear into the mist, Gareth made to follow it, annoyed, when a second blast of similar force came at him.

“This magic blade…Is this one of Tsubaki’s?!”

Its output couldn’t be matched by an average smith. It brought to mind the master smith with whom he had a direct contract. Plus, he thought he heard the words test fire from the fog.

I don’t know what you’re thinking, you asshole. Gareth’s lips twisted.

I’m gonna get her good once this is over…That said, Tsubaki’s a fool’s fool, but she knows the time and place for her tomfoolery. She wouldn’t come attackin’ just to test the strength of a magic blade. In which case—

Was her patron goddess, Hephaistos, on the side of the armed monsters?

Or could she be motivated by her friendship with Hestia? Or because she’d judged that the heretical beasts shouldn’t be killed?

Gareth was trying to think it over for a second, but the rain of ice didn’t end. Without giving him any time to think, it was precisely targeting him and him alone.

“Mr. Gareth!”

Noticing that Gareth was being hammered with attack after attack, the other familia members dashed over to him, but that just made things worse.

“”

Of all times, an ice blast incomparable to the previous ones came flying toward them. A stream of blue ice shot through the black mist. The blizzard blew past, leaving Gareth no way to evade its effects as it froze over the pavement in an instant.

As he tried to cover the members of the familia, he took out the shield beneath his mantle on his back to absorb the full brunt of the blow.

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?!”

The crackling chill sound was so loud that everyone on the battlefield stopped moving.

“M-Mr. Gareth?!”

“…I’m guessing it’s on the same level as Riveria’s magic, huh? That’s got a wee bite to it.”

The shield, and the hand holding it, and all of Gareth’s lower body were frozen over. He was frozen up to his beard, and his face looked frostbitten, as if he’d been outdoors in a blizzard in an icy country.

If she put everything into it, Riveria’s Wynn Fimbulvetr was stronger. But that didn’t make this assault any less scary. After all, this one had been unleashed by a magic blade that could cast spells quickly.

“All of you, fall back!”

Gareth couldn’t help but grin, despite the fact that he was in a position where he needed to chase after the monsters, and his blood boiled as he took a second cannon blast.

“Shiiiiiii!”

“Wh—…Vividly colored monsters?!” The astonished cry of a familia member rang out.

Gareth had seen it as he was blocking the ice blast: the outline of a water spider emerging from the shimmering black mist.

What at first seemed to be one turned into many, indiscriminately attacking both Loki Familia and the armed monsters.

“Tch, those bastards…Tryin’ to take advantage of the chaos, huh?!”

Upon realizing that Gareth’s squad had withdrawn from the underground in the southwest, the Evils had sent them up. Shrouded in dense fog, it was a perfect battlefield for them. They’d come to take advantage of the chaos and steal the armed monsters’ key.

The plan had originally been to use them as bait to lure out the Evils, but the current situation was not good at all.

“Narfi, hold back the Evils! Don’t let them engage the monsters!” boomed Gareth.

The familia members responded valiantly to his command. It’d turned into a three-sided fight with no way of telling apart friend from foe. Loki Familia was chasing after the monsters while facing off against the Evils’ forces to secure the key before them.

The main battlefield had gone past the point of disorder, transitioning into full-blown chaos.

“The key! Steal the key! Find the monsters and—”

“Shut up!”

“—Geh?!”

During a moment of relative peace, Gareth sent the offensive forces of the cloaked Evils flying as they wildly swung their swords. These deployed soldiers were sacrificial pawns, no doubt, and wouldn’t have a key to get back into Knossos.

Gareth wanted to chase after the armed monsters already, but his situation wouldn’t allow it.

“It’s Elgarm! Crush him!”

“Hiyo!”

“If we just beat this dwaaaaaaaarf!”

“Hiyo!”

“H-he’s a monster! Surround hiiiiiiiim!”

“Hiyo!”

“I-I’m sorry for the sneak attack!”

“Hiyo!”

“Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Hiyo!”

“This friggin’ dwarf won’t die! All of you! Get him!”

“““Uooooooooooooooooooh!”””

Between ice volleys, the Evils’ Remnants swarmed in. He shouted a name that resembled one of a magic blade. The Far Eastern girl launched the surprise attack. The vividly colored monsters charged. A rotten master smith’s cackling laughter at the chaos echoed.

Everything centered around Gareth. They were desperately trying to hold him down.

They all viewed Elgarm as a threat and swarmed him.

Bathed in ice, Gareth kept wreaking havoc, his roar ringing in the wind.

“Each! And every! One a ya! Go easy on an old man!”

“““As if!””” Shooting ice blasts wildly, the smiths and even the Evils’ subordinates all shouted back in unison.

If they let the dwarf go, he would wipe out his target, the monsters. And the rest of them.

They were absolutely convinced this was the case, which was precisely why the minor-league players on the side of the Evils fought back as their sweat and tears blended together and the smiths struggled desperately to hold him back.

The two-front plan left Gareth between a rock and a hard place. He was undoubtedly bearing the brunt of the three-sided fight, howling as the veins on his forehead rippled.

“Yer! In! My! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!”

In the end, Loki Familia was forced to let the armed monsters escape while Gareth was pinned down on the main battlefield.

“Yeah, not sure why I came here, but…I can’t help it if I found something.”

With her bare brown feet stepping firmly on the building’s roof, Tiona looked down at something.

As she’d checked out the black fog, she’d gotten separated from Tione. She’d made it all the way to the northwest part of the district, and in her sight was a single vouivre that’d slipped out of the mist roaming around.

It was a humanoid monster wearing a robe, its red stone shining from inside its deep hood.

“Guess I’ll kill it,” Tiona commented, wielding Urga one-handed as she jumped from the roof.

When the Amazon’s shadow danced through the air, the vouivre dashed in the opposite direction, as if spooked.

“Miss Tiona!”

“Arcus! And everyone else! Are you following that vouivre?”

“We are! One managed to get away from Mr. Gareth’s squad…”

“Then let’s go after it together!”

“Okay!”

Joining up with the others chasing the vouivre, she dashed through the street, steadily accelerating and closing the gap.

Tiona uncharacteristically had something on her mind.

The humanoid monster is a vouivre…but it’s different from the others…This is definitely the one that showed up in the city the first time…Yeah. She pondered as she chased after the vouivre that resembled a lamia—a half snake, half human—desperately fleeing.

When she looked at its back, she couldn’t help but think it looked like a scared young girl.

But it was the humanoid monster that appeared in the city a week ago, the winged monster that attacked a child.

It’d been the first impetus for the commotion in the city, the starting point of this whole problem.

Anyway, that’s what kicked this whole thing off, right? That was about as much as Tiona understood, defining the beast before her eyes with a simple judgment.

That means—if I somehow understand it, everything’ll make sense!

Tiona was a raging idiot.

In fact, she was so stupid that Bete, her mortal rival who did nothing but hurl abuse at her, would look at her pitifully if he heard her internal thought.

She was seriously thinking she could get to the bottom of the complex incident, the one troubling Finn and the others, just by probing a single monster.

She believed that the uncertain feeling in her heart ever since their first encounter with the armed monsters would clear up.

To repeat: Tiona was a real idiot.

“Miss Tiona?!”

“Oh snap?!”

But that was why she was able to see that scene without hatred or loathing or any preconceptions toward monsters.

As they approached an intersection, a half-elf child appeared. The child froze as the vouivre pushed toward them. At the same time, a decrepit building started to tremble violently above the child’s head, unable to withstand the impact of the nearby battles. It started to crumble.

Just as Tiona got ready to swing Urga to try to save the child—the vouivre sprinted to the rescue.

“”

The monster turned into a silvery-blue arrow, darting forward to push the child down as its wings burst out of its robe and spread to cover both of them from the rain of rubble.

“Ruu!” screamed the other orphans who chased after the half-elf.

The members of Loki Familia gasped.

As the avalanche of rubble fell, Tiona murmured, “—Protected.”

But it was drowned out by the noise of the building falling.

How did the orphans view this sequence of events? What did it look like to Arcus and the others?

It must have looked like a monster spreading its fiendish wings and attempting to assault a child when a pile of rubble fell on its head by chance.

But it was different for Tiona, whose dynamic vision was far superior.

Only she was able to correctly piece together the movements that transpired in that split second. She knew the vouivre noticed the falling building and pushed the child down to protect them.

And because she was a stupid girl, the plain truth of the situation was etched into her eyes.

“—Loose!”

As the dust cleared, the familia members saw the monster in the middle of the rubble, looking furious as they shot their arrows. The monster’s scales deflected the arrowheads as it withdrew from atop the child before dashing away.

“I’m going by myself! You guys protect those kids!”

“Got it!”

With Urga in her hand, Tiona ordered the others to stay behind and chased the vouivre herself, staring intently at the monster’s back. She had arrived at an answer.

Finn…Tione…Sorry…

She thought back to the stories from a week before about the monster attacking a child. But wasn’t it just protecting someone like it did now?

When Argonaut tried to protect it, wasn’t it the same sort of thing?

Tiona could feel her questions start to dispel, sense the uncertainty in her heart melting away.

As she apologized to the leader of the faction and her sister, the stupidly instinctual girl squinted.

“I…don’t want to fight these monsters, I think.”

In the end, just as Tiona cornered the girl in an alleyway, she lost track of her movements.

“!!”

When he heard that noise, Bete kicked the ground.

“Wai—Mr. Bete?!!!”

He leaped off the building, leaving the others who’d been ordered to stand by to deal with the black minotaur. His wolf ears pricked up, perceiving the source of the noise and sprinting after it. It was cutting vertically from the southwest of Daedalus Street north. Bete wasn’t nice enough to overlook these obvious movements. If it was supposed to be a trap, he’d just crush it.

It would normally be a breach of command, but Bete’s anger was pent-up from being ordered to wait even though the western side had become the main battlefield, and his howl rippled through the night sky.

“?!”

“What was that?!”

There were the sounds of a furious acceleration, a tremendous noise of something cutting through the air, and violent footsteps kicking off walls and roofs. The adventurers on the ground turned to the sky one after the other, noticing a presence moving above their heads at high speed. Through all of that, Bete tracked the source of the noise as he kicked the buildings and shot through the sky.

I can’t see anything! Are they invisible?

His sharp amber eyes narrowed, locking onto a momentary tremor in the atmosphere before him.

It could be that someone was harboring enough wind pressure to cause the air to quiver. Or someone was wearing a cloth over their body to become invisible.

A magic item. It didn’t take long for Bete to realize who it was.

“That rabbit boy, huh?!”

Bete accelerated as he brought up images of this enemy in his mind’s eye.

He was irritated. When he’d heard that Hestia Familia—that Bell Cranell was supporting the monsters, he’d gotten angry for some reason. He didn’t understand why he was so irritated. But this person Bete had recognized for his power had done something incomprehensible to him. It felt like a foreign substance was lodged in the back of his throat. To borrow Tiona’s words, he felt iffy.

Talking the big talk. What the hell are you doing, rabbit boy?! …Well, either way, s’got nothin’ to do with me!

As the cloaked figure hopped through the buildings of differing heights, he almost looked like a rabbit, occasionally leaping over tall spires, but Bete never let this invisible existence escape his range of perception. The invisible person was busy pouring their all into sprinting and didn’t notice this high-speed pursuit.

Bete leaped and sprinted like a wolf chasing down its prey.

There he is!

And in the Labyrinth District’s northwest area, he landed in a back alley with a huge impact.

“…”

His ashen hair fluttered from the landing as he looked around the area that had fallen silent once again.

It was a place where several lanes intersected. The road was shrouded in darkness without a magic-stone lamp or the moonlight. Stillness filled the surroundings.

He couldn’t pick up a single sound. It was as if the darkness was trying to deny anyone being there.

There wasn’t a figure in sight.

“—Get your ass out here.” Bete could sense the presence in one of the lanes, staring into the empty darkness.

Even if the figure had become invisible, they couldn’t fool the senses of an animal person. He was about to move toward the enemy who wasn’t responding.

“What the—?”

“…”

The person who walked out of the darkness was a single renart girl.

She had gorgeous long blond locks, no less beautiful than Aiz’s hair. She had an air of graceful beauty and wore a Far Eastern crimson kimono.

Bete remembered the girl who resolutely met his eyes.

Their encounter had been two months prior on the day he’d attacked Meren to help Tiona and Tione. There had been a renart mixed in with Lena and Phryne and the other members of Ishtar Familia.

Did she convert to Hestia Familia after Ishtar Familia was destroyed?

Bete furrowed his brow, entirely disinterested.

“I know you’re not alone. The rest of you, get out here already.”

“I am alone.”

As he shot a glance down the alley she was blocking, Bete spat, rejecting her claim.

“Quit screwing with m—”

“—I am alone!!” She shouted this time.

Bete was getting visibly vexed as his gaze started to look more and more threatening. But the renart girl wouldn’t back down.

As she held both her quivering hands to her chest, she spoke again. “Please move out of the way!”

“…”

“And fast!!” she shrieked.

But she wasn’t directing this at Bete, even as she faced him. Behind her, in the darkness, a second presence moved farther away.

A rear guard.

The girl standing before him was setting herself as a decoy to let her treasure escape.

“…People who can’t fight shouldn’t be tryin’ to act brave.”

Bete saw no vestiges of the girl he’d seen in Meren.

She’d been a dollish wisp of a girl who’d only been protected by the Amazons. But now, she could snap her jaw at someone.

Bete was growing increasingly more irritated.

I hate weak broads more than anything else.

He was talking about women who played tragic heroines, despite having no strength to stand up against anything; girls with no real understanding of the gravity of their words, who armed themselves with nothing more than a feeble wish with no resolve; wretched women who started begging for their lives as soon as they were unmasked.

Bete spit out internally, lightly kicking the stone pavement as if to stroke it, and his metal boots, Frosvirt, shot stone fragments into the air, turning it into buckshot.

“Uuuh…?!”

These fragments struck the shocked renart, scratching her cheek and ripping the fabric of her kimono. She staggered but managed to remain standing.

Bete hadn’t intended to hit her, wanted to scare her a bit to resolve the situation, but she went beyond his expectations.

“Tch. Beat it.”

“I will not.”

“I’ll pulverize you.”

“I won’t move!”

And she didn’t, even under his sharp glare. The fox rebelled against the wolf.

He easily could’ve leaped over her head and chased after the fleeing person. But for some reason, Bete couldn’t ignore the girl blocking his way. That was why he moved to pummel her, to use his power to punt her aside.

He closed in on the girl with arms outspread in an instant.

As he felt a strange sense of déjà vu, he raised his hand, annoyed at the pointlessness of it, about to swing it down.

“Gh!”

That’s when he saw the unwavering green eyes peeking out from behind her golden bangs. Bete’s hand froze in midair.

“…”

And his eyes widened.

He silently looked into Haruhime’s eyes, which hadn’t turned away even as she was about to be smashed.

It was a strong gaze, a resolute expression that erased all the remnants of the girl he’d seen in Meren.

Despite being scared, despite her fear, she had no intention of backing down.

There was no mask to be peeled off. The fox bared her fangs with all her might.

It was a pathetic figure of a girl.

It was a bluff of a small fry, a rejection of that categorization.

As the two of them froze, staring at each other, it was silent.

The distant sounds of battle reached the ears of the animal people.

The first one to break their silence was Bete.

“—You little shit!” The edges of his lips violently curled up. “Can’t even do anything—are you really ready for this?”

“Gwa?!”

Bete was going off on a murderous tirade, causing the renart to begin convulsing in fear. But she wouldn’t step down, glaring back at him with heightened emotion. Bete was almost impressed but chose to hurl his abuse at her.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself!!”

In place of his lowered fist, he stomped the left heel of his Frosvirt into the ground, unleashing a torrent of explosive noises and shock waves that sent the girl flying. Her back banged against the wall near the entrance of the back alley, where she slumped over and let out a groan in pain.

Bete couldn’t hide his smile at the sight of her. It wasn’t from his enjoyment of bullying her or a sadistic satisfaction to see her in pain but a chuckle to welcome her to “this side.”

“Stop acting like a proud hussy! You only have your power going for you!!”

“Rg!!” The head of the anguished renart snapped up in response to his contempt.

She mustered all her spirit as she glared back at Bete. She stuck her quivering hands in front of her chest as if presenting an offering, and she began to chant.

“—Grow.”

Bete grinned menacingly, squinting.

You’re gonna do that much to protect some monsters?

Then, show me your resolve!

Hit me with your determination to resist the strong!

Any thoughts of the key and the remnants of the Evils disappeared from Bete’s mind at that moment.

The violent werewolf faced the renart as an enemy, as if acknowledging the determination of a simple weakling.

There was nothing to speak of the battle that followed.

The violent, starving wolf mercilessly beat down all who would bare their fangs at him, until there was no skin left unbruised. When the weeping renart tried to howl at him again, he harshly beat his contempt and her powerlessness into her.

As he cackled over the echoing cries of a new weakling, Bete followed the presence who had fled the scene.