Then she let go with one hand.
Her fingers went straight to the hidden pocket sewn into the inner lining of the battle dress at her waist.
After a moment of searching inside -
She drew out a clean handkerchief, folded into a neat square without a single crease. She held it out to Haimer, right into his reach.
"This is..."
Haimer lowered his eyes to the white cloth, caught off guard for a moment.
"Don't worry. It's clean."
Ais assumed he found it distasteful, and tilted her face up to explain in complete seriousness.
"Lefiya puts a fresh one in the inner pocket of my battle dress every morning, right on schedule."
"Lefiya says that when I go down into the Dungeon, or when I'm out on patrol -"
"- if I scrape my skin open and bleed, I can use it to bandage the wound for the time being, so it doesn't get infected."
At that, Ais made a point of adding one more thing.
"I'm always careful when I fight. I've never had a little cut like that."
"So this is the first handkerchief I've ever taken out to use."
"I see."
Seeing that Ais was still holding the handkerchief up and watching him steadily -
Haimer gave a helpless smile and stopped making a fuss about it.
He reached out with his left hand and took the handkerchief, still faintly warm from her body.
He turned it over once or twice in his hand for a look.
In the lower right corner, along the hem -
fine pale-blue silk thread had been used to embroider a tiny, exquisite flower bud by hand.
The stitching was dense and even.
The aesthetic of a pure-blooded elf, no less. There wasn't a single flaw in the work.
By the look of it, Lefiya really had put her heart into this gift.
With that thought, Haimer folded the handkerchief over again to double its thickness.
He pressed it against the wound in his right palm.
While he was at it, he scrubbed hard at the dried blood smeared around it.
"Miss Lefiya has good taste."
Haimer kept the pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding, and needled Ais with a half-joke.
"Still, this handkerchief was a gift she made especially for you, Miss Ais - and here you are handing it over to me..."
"If Miss Lefiya finds out about this later -"
"- she'll probably cry in your ear about it for days."
The image of that elf girl rose in his mind: eyes brimming, her whole face one great wounded accusation. Haimer nearly laughed out loud.
But Ais, standing across from him -
parted her lips slightly and tilted her head in blank confusion.
"Isn't a handkerchief for bandaging wounds?"
"It soaks up blood either way, whether it's mine or yours, Lord Haimer."
"Why would you care so much about who gave it to me?"
"And why would you care whether Lefiya cries?"
Ais asked it back honestly, genuinely puzzled, not a trace of anything else in those clear eyes.
She had missed the point of his veiled teasing entirely. Frighteningly literal-minded.
Looking at that stunningly beautiful, utterly guileless face -
Haimer found himself with nothing to say.
So this was what it meant to bat your eyes at a blind man.
"Never mind. I talk too much."
Haimer let out a low, resigned laugh and shook his head, dropping a conversation the two of them were clearly holding on entirely different channels.
"It didn't mean anything in particular. Just me musing to myself here. Don't worry about it, Miss Ais."
He put the little interlude aside.
Haimer narrowed his eyes.
He turned his head, gaze traveling over the top of the wall.
Toward the corner of the street, where a chaotic clatter of hooves was rising -
and several dozen more pairs of beast eyes glowing red were closing in fast.
A rough sweep of his eyes.
Another batch: a dozen-odd monsters of assorted species.
"Looks like more than half the monsters hidden away up here on the surface are converging on this house of mine now."
Haimer looked at the mindless pack and stated it flatly.
Hearing him, Ais followed his gaze forward as well.
The calm expression she'd worn while facing him -
vanished the instant those monsters came into view.
Her center of gravity dropped, the muscles in her shoulders drew tight, and she slid straight into a grim, battle-ready stance.
"By the way, Miss Ais." Haimer turned his head and looked at her again, slowing the rhythm of his words. "These monsters ought to be tearing up the whole city. Instead they're throwing themselves at me, all of them, from every direction. A strange thing..."
"On your way here, did that really not bother you at all?"
"Do you already know the reason, Lord Haimer?"
Ais asked it back, her hand already resting on her sword hilt.
"Of course I know. Call it an accident of my own making."
Haimer answered without a shred of evasion.
"Mm. If that's how it is, then it's just Haimer's accident."
Ais nodded along with him and accepted the answer whole, without a moment's hesitation.
It never even occurred to her to ask what kind of accident.
Hearing that clean, immediate reply -
the corner of Haimer's mouth twitched twice, entirely on its own.
In the end he had to say something.
"That was quick, Miss Ais. You believe me that easily?"
"Because Lord Haimer doesn't lie. It definitely wasn't on purpose."
Ais turned her head to look at his profile, her tone absolutely certain.
Fine, then.
Faced with that direct, unwavering gaze fixed on his face -
with so lofty a compliment settling on him so lightly, Haimer had nothing left to say.
And as they spoke, the pounding of those dozen-odd monsters up the street had swelled into something like thunder in their ears.
The heavy footfalls shook the loose gravel on the ground into a wild little dance.
Haimer set the small talk aside.
He lifted a foot.
Meaning to step straight over the low stone bollard in front of him,
cross to the wall on the far side of the street, and pull the silver spear still lodged in the brickwork free to meet them.
A few strides took him to the wall.
He looked it over.
The spearhead was intact, not a nick in the edge.
The curve of the blade still threw back a sharp, cold gleam under the streetlamp.
All it had picked up was a bit of blue-grey stone grit dragged out of the wall's interior.
Haimer reached out with one hand.
Five fingers closed hard around the cool shaft.
A slight pull of his arm -
and with a muffled crack of splitting masonry, he wrenched it out of the bluestone brick that had it pinned.
He rolled his wrist.
Two casual horizontal swings of the shaft sent a low, urgent whistle of parted air through the street.
Then he turned, leveling the point at the next wave of monsters charging his way.
"BOOM -!"
But before Haimer could even settle the silver spear into a proper guard -
An ear-splitting crack of sound!
It detonated without the slightest warning off his front left!
Ais's long legs drove down with sudden, violent force.
The bluestone slab beneath her feet shattered into a spiderweb of cracks!
She shot forward like a blue-green arrow loosed from the string!
The boost of [Ariel] pushed her speed into a terrifying tier.
"Shk!"
The monster at the head of the charge had no time even to react.
The blur of the sword in her hand split it clean down the middle.
Its body burst apart, dissolving into black ash in midair and scattering on the wind.
A breeze slid through her long golden hair, carrying a hint of chill.
She turned her head.
A flick of her wrist shook the last flecks of ash from the blade's edge, and she looked back at Haimer, still standing there with his spear in hand.
"Lord Haimer, go take care of that wound on your hand first."
"The rest of these stragglers here - leave them to me. I can handle them alone."
"All right. Then I'll trouble you, Miss Ais."
Since someone was volunteering to go clear the field, Haimer saw no reason to spend the extra effort.
He let the spear fall out of its stance and planted the butt on the ground.
With his other hand he folded the bloodied elven handkerchief tighter and pressed it into his palm.
He stayed where he was, watching the afterimages of her weaving through the pack.
Meanwhile -
Beside an abandoned, towering chimney less than a few hundred meters from that street.
The cold wind screamed past at that height.
- The senior officers of the [Freya Familia], the Pallum Four Warriors of Flame Gold, famed for their flawless coordination.
They were crouched in a row along the rim of the chimney.
"That's the famous Sword Princess."
"Of all the places she could be, why did she run to Lord Haimer's?"
"Blocking monsters for him at a moment like this, no less."
"Loki must have sent her."
Another brother in an identical helmet picked up the thread.
"Lady Freya mentioned it offhand once. Back in Heaven, Lord Haimer and Loki were the kind of friends who'd share the same pair of trousers."
"With the whole city thrown into chaos like this -"
"- Loki sending her own Sword Princess over to protect him does stand to reason. It adds up."
"But!"
"Whether she or the Sword Princess mean him any harm or not -"
"- as long as she still wears the Loki Familia's emblem, she is still one of Loki's."
"Which makes what she's doing right now, and the very fact that she's able to be standing there -"
"- proof, at this delicate moment, that Loki intends to reach a hand into Lord Haimer's affairs."
The one who'd spoken turned his head toward their leader.
"I say we report this situation, and their contact, in full detail to Lady Freya right now, and let her decide."
"You want to go running back to report it this very second?"
The leader mused, answering with a question of his own.
"And what do the four of us do in the meantime? Sit here and watch?"
"We watch a while longer. Have some patience."
The leader lifted his head toward the chaotic night sky.
"At the very least, we don't move until this wave of monsters around Lord Haimer has died down completely."
"We can't afford to let a single key detail about him slip past us at a time like this."
"Fair enough." Another brother, still watching the street, nodded.
"Like you said, if this really is just Loki acting on old sentiment and sending help..."
"...then it's a messy little debt tangled up with old grudges, and one we can live with."
"Whatever else you say about that madwoman Loki, the friendship she and Lord Haimer had in the past was the genuine article."
"If it were officers from any other familia..."
"Say, that small fry from the Ishtar Familia."
"If they dared come within half a step of him at a moment this critical -"
"- the four of us would have charged straight down from here already."
"And taught them a proper lesson."
The four exchanged a look and quickly reached a consensus.
The leader finally straightened his short body and set the tone:
"Then all of us stay on this chimney and hold the highest level of alert."
"That Loki Familia Sword Princess down there does look like she's already handling those disgusting monsters for Lord Haimer..."
"But you can never be too careful."
His face went grim.
"No one can guarantee that some mad rat lurking in the back alleys of this city -"
"- won't use this manufactured chaos as cover to try something out of line against him."
"Keep watching!"
"Yes!"
The other three answered together, low.
...
At the same time.
Inside the Pleasure Quarter.
Sealed off by the tall, thick buildings ringing its perimeter -
the wine and lantern light in here, set against the fire and slaughter out in the streets, made this feel like a world cut entirely apart.
But as the distant flames grew, they forced even the night sky red.
The great scarlet lanterns hung on the wooden pillars, meant to draw in customers, swayed restlessly in that agitated wind.
On this bluestone lane, thick on any ordinary day with the smell of liquor -
Wearing nothing but an extremely revealing white bikini,
Samira, with her short silver hair, had been leading five battle courtesans, each gripping some crude weapon of her own.
They had just come out of the shadows and rounded a fairly well-concealed alley mouth,
ready to carry out the reconnaissance task Ishtar had handed down.
And then.
Samira's bare foot never made it out of the alley.
The moment she saw what lay ahead, her whole body seized up as though she'd been struck by lightning.
As though an invisible pressure had nailed her in place, unable to move.
There.
Directly in front of the narrow alley mouth.
Under the dim yellow halo of an old streetlamp.
Two people stood in perfect silence.
The woman at the front had long silver hair like spilled moonlight,
falling strand by careless strand to an impossibly slender waist.
As for the man standing exactly half a step behind her -
he was enormously built, broad and towering, his skin dark.
A pair of boar ears rose high out of his hair.
Beneath dark red short hair sat a coarse face as hard and cold as granite. A boaz!
- The captain of the [Freya Familia], Level 7.
- The "Warlord," Ottar.
And.
The patron goddess of the [Freya Familia].
- The goddess of beauty, Freya.
"Lady Freya..."
One glance was all it took.
Samira's voice caught in her throat along with everything else.
The five Amazons behind her, laughing and joking a moment ago, went stiff where they stood.
"It's so late, and there's such a racket out there. Where are all of you headed?"
A lazy little smile sat on Freya's face.
"We..."
"We're only carrying out Lady Ishtar's orders..."
"...to go to the eastern streets and see what all the disorder is about."
With Freya and Ottar standing together outside the Pleasure Quarter, Samira's voice tightened audibly.
"Is that so?"
The smile on Freya's face didn't shift in the slightest.
"Then don't bother."
"Take me to see Ishtar, the mistress of these streets of yours."
As she spoke -
a purple light kindled in Freya's eyes.
- The authority of the goddess of beauty.
"Charm"!
"Yes."
Samira, who a heartbeat earlier had been fighting her terror with everything she had -
and the five panicking Amazons behind her -
went slack-faced in the next instant, the focus in their eyes dissolving into hollow emptiness.
Ten-odd minutes later, in the highest room at the top of the spire of the Temple of the Divine Courtesan.
Ishtar had been leaning an elbow on a thick length of carved brass railing.
A glass of expensive red wine in her hand, looking out over the Labyrinth City in its chaos.
Then she heard the door behind her - which should have been locked - shoved open with total nonchalance.
Ishtar turned her head at once, irritated, ready to curse whoever it was.
Instead, the hand holding the wineglass stopped dead.
When the figure reflected in her pupils registered -
Ishtar froze where she stood.
Freya spared her the lightest glance.
Then crossed the wide, gauze-draped room like a woman who'd walked it a hundred times.
She sat straight down on the gold-tasseled velvet couch Ishtar normally kept for herself, and crossed her long legs as naturally as breathing.
Then she picked up the silver decanter from the low pearwood table.
Without so much as another look at the mistress of the house, she poured herself half a glass.
That utterly imperious ease, as though she were lounging in her own familia's halls, made the corner of Ishtar's eye twitch with rage.
"It's been a while, Ishtar. You're not looking well lately."
Freya lifted the glass she hadn't even had time to swirl, a smile at the corner of her mouth, and tipped her hand slightly in Ishtar's direction.
Ishtar turned her head and noticed the battle courtesans by the door, eyes utterly vacant, reduced to puppets.
"You - you charmed my children?!"
"F-r-e-y-a!"
"What do you want?"
"Forcing your way into my private Temple of the Divine Courtesan in the dead of night is one thing..."
"...but you dare use your charm to take control of children who belong to me!"
"So you really did come here while those rabid monsters have the city in an uproar -"
"- to kick me while I'm down?!"
Ishtar forced herself not to hurl the wine in her hand and roared at Freya instead.
Freya took no notice at all of that venom-soaked glare.
She only watched with those exquisitely beautiful purple eyes as Ishtar shook faintly with fury.
She set the glass back down on the table.
Her expression mild, and let out a small sigh.
She couldn't even summon the interest to lean back against the velvet cushion.
"Don't think so highly of yourself, Ishtar."
"I simply think that a disturbance of this size breaking out there -"
"- is obviously some rat with no fear of death, deliberately probing us from the dark."
Hearing that, Ishtar sneered.
"Ha! That's rich."
"And so?"
Ishtar lifted her chin and glared at Freya, her whole face full of contempt.
"You bring that obedient dog of yours all the way to my home -"
"- just to come and tell me -"
"- that you suspect this entire city's monster riot is my doing behind the scenes?!"
"You think I've fallen far enough that anyone can push me around now?!"
Ishtar's fury boiled over.
"Suspect you?"
"Hahaha."
Instead, Freya only leaned back where she sat and asked it back.
And then.
As though she'd just heard the crudest joke in all the Lower World -
she covered her mouth and laughed, low and soft.
That contemptuous little laugh.
Set Ishtar's eyelid twitching with rage.
She felt like a clown capering for an audience of one.
Then, after a short while of laughing -
Freya slowly reined the smile back in.
"No, I didn't come all this way specifically to question your intelligence."
"Though I've no idea what you - an old woman who's spent every day lately cowering in this quarter that reeks of powder and perfume -"
"- guarding the place like you're expecting thieves, skipping even the banquets you love best -"
"- what shabby little trick you're cooking up this time."
"Even so."
"This upheaval outside."
"One look is enough. It could never have come from your hand."
"After all, I know exactly what you're worth, Ishtar."
"At a crossroads like this one -"
"- you simply don't have the nerve to plan an event on that scale."
"You bitch -!"
The moment the words landed -
Ishtar's gorgeous, meticulously painted face flushed scarlet, driven there by a verdict delivered so lightly and yet so completely humiliating!
The provocation was so raw she wanted to fling dignity aside on the spot, throw herself at Freya and claw that face to ribbons.
But.
The problem was.
She still couldn't do it.
Ishtar looked at Ottar, still standing by the door, and went on grinding her teeth, glaring death at the perfectly serene Freya.
"Since you know the idiocy out there wasn't the work of my people -"
"- then what are you doing marching into my house with your entourage?!"
Freya rose slowly to her feet.
She walked with unhurried grace.
Step by step, until she stopped directly in front of the teeth-grinding Ishtar.
The two of them stood at nearly the same height.
But in the clash of invisible presence between them -
an unnameable majesty -
made them look like women standing on entirely different planes.
"The commotion out there may not be your handiwork."
Freya met Ishtar's eyes without a ripple and stated her purpose.
"But I came today to tell you this."
"I will not allow these people of yours to seize on a moment when everyone's guard is down -"
"- to press their luck, use the chaos outside, and stir up trouble nobody needs behind everyone's backs."
"Keep your people in line. Lock them in here and let not one of them go anywhere."
"Otherwise."
Freya leaned in close to Ishtar's ear, a thread of cold warning entering her voice.
"This time, I won't let you off."
Freya's voice dropped to ice.
"Freya."
Ishtar forced the name out through her teeth once more, syllable by syllable.
Freya paid her no further attention.
She set the glass down on the corner of the table.
Smoothed her skirt, turned, and walked toward the door.
"Ottar. We're leaving."
The "Warlord" Ottar, waiting at the door, stepped aside to clear the way and followed his goddess out in silence.
Not until the two of them had gone all the way down the long corridor -
"CRASH -!"
Ishtar snatched up the silver decanter and finally hurled it at the wall!
Red wine splashed across a gold-threaded tapestry, leaving a great stain like spattered blood.
"Bang!"
"That she'd dare walk onto my ground and lecture me..."
Ishtar ground her teeth and kicked the low table over.
Worse still, the battle courtesans beside her, still locked in "Charm," stood there like wooden dolls, not reacting to any of it.
Which only drove the humiliation deeper.
Elsewhere.
On the main avenue of the upper residential district.
The great bluestone slabs were webbed with cracks.
A shrill wind howled and wheeled through the side streets.
The first-tier weapon in Ais's hand, the [Sword of Despair], dragged an ear-splitting screech of metal behind it.
Riding the acceleration of [Ariel], the keen blade cut a diagonal line through the reverse scales on a wyvern's neck.
Dark red blood sprayed across the mottled iron post of a streetlamp.
The wyvern's huge body slammed into the ground, spasmed twice, then crumbled into black ash that rose away on the wind.
"S-sorry! Miss Ais, we're late!"
At the end of the street, Lefiya came running, her magic staff dragging in one hand, the other braced on her knee as she gulped down air in huge, ragged breaths.
Right behind her came Tiona and Tione.
"Ais, you run way too fast."
Tiona shouldered the great double-blade [Urga] and looked around.
"These monsters have really lost it. They sprinted the whole way from Daedalus Street and they've actually all piled up at Lord Haimer's front door?"
Tione grabbed Tiona by the scruff as she started drifting forward again.
"Less chatter. Clean up the mess."
"Ho-ho - the streets are certainly lively for this hour of the night."
A woman's voice, thick and booming, carried out of the alley on the other side.
The one-eyed master smith Tsubaki Collbrande came swaggering out of the shadows with her trademark blade [Crimson Rain] over one shoulder.
The wooden geta on her feet clacked crisply against the loose gravel.
The red trousers tied at her waist snapped in the night wind, and the hemp wrappings bound haphazardly across her chest were smeared with monster grime.
Tsubaki passed the crumbling remains of a Minotaur that had only just turned to ash, and rapped the iron lamppost with the flat of her blade on the way by.
Her single eye locked, across the distance, onto Haimer standing on the steps.
"Lord Haimer, you keep the sort of company that makes a woman green with envy."
Tsubaki grinned wide and laughed out loud, scratching at the black hair at the back of her head with her free hand.
"Look at that. You kick up a little bloody storm out here, and the next thing anyone knows, even the Loki Familia's Sword Princess comes running to protect you?"
Faced with Miss Tsubaki's usual ribbing -
Haimer stayed where he was on the steps, pressing the embroidered handkerchief in his right hand against his palm with a resigned air.
"It came out of nowhere."
"Frankly, I'd rather popularity like this brought me a little less trouble."
At the same time.
Having noticed that the flow of monsters was badly wrong, Shakti arrived as well.
"Lord Haimer."
Seeing Ais and the others gathered around him, Shakti faltered for a moment, then spoke with her face still drawn tight.
"The way these monsters are moving is genuinely bizarre."
"It seems someone has released a monster-luring agent around your residence, which is why nearly every monster hoarded in private underground holding cells across the city has gone berserk and converged here."
"This mansion is now the target of everything. It's extremely dangerous."
"I recommend that you and everyone in your familia relocate to a Guild shelter at once!"
Hearing all that from Shakti -
Haimer paused despite himself.
It seemed the blame for the source of this catastrophe had already been dumped wholesale onto those remnants of Evilus who never saw daylight.
"Lord Haimer, let's move to the Guild shelter."
Still.
Just as Haimer assumed Ais would notice this conversation -
instead.
He found her still hard at work killing monsters.
"What Miss Shakti says is fair enough. Evacuating is a good suggestion."
At that, Haimer didn't argue her reasoning. He simply shook his head slightly, and his five fingers tightened on the silver spear.
"But I'm afraid it won't work at the moment."
"Why?"
Shakti's brow furrowed deeper.
"As it happens, Marie and Miss Rei went into the house only a few minutes ago to receive something new."
"They're unconscious right now. They can't be moved easily for a while yet."
"And whatever else you say about it, this house does count as the first base of my newly founded familia."
He turned his head and glanced at the door behind him, dented from the impacts but still standing firm.
"If I abandoned it and let a pack of mindless animals flatten it, where exactly would that leave my face afterward?"
And right as he was saying it -
from the crossroads ahead came a dense, piercing scrape of sound.
"Hssss -!"
It was like countless enormous insects dragging serrated legs across the flagstones.
"On guard!" Shakti barked, bringing her spear level in front of her.
Even Tsubaki, standing off to one side, put away some of that devil-may-care slouch and pulled the blade down off her shoulder.
Then -
At the corner of the intersection, the darkness tore open like a curtain.
Three giant ladybugs, two sizes larger than a grown man, came barreling out with a strange, lurching gait.
Right behind them came a Mad Beetle, two meters tall, its whole body sheathed in pitch-black exoskeletal plate!
Its forelimbs, evolved into a pair of massive scythes, glinted with a chilling malice in the light of the magic-stone lamps.
- A powerful monster native to the Great Tree Labyrinth.
The Mad Beetle, renowned for its destructive power and its defense.
In sheer hardness and raw destructive force, it pressed right up against the Level 3 tier!
"Hssss!!!"
At the sight of the crowd gathered ahead, it showed not a trace of fear or hesitation. Instead it let out a shriek of savage excitement.
Its hind legs shattered the flagstones as it launched itself, both huge scythes swinging, and charged straight in!
Too close. Too fast!
Lefiya hadn't even raised her staff to begin the incantation.
The Mad Beetle's fanged mandibles were already swelling in her blind spot.
Lefiya's eyes went wide.
And then.
In the next instant!
"BAM!"
A single enormous crash tore through the air!
All Lefiya saw was a straight silver streak flashing past her eyes.
And then -
"CRACK!!!"
The sound of shattering carapace exploded outward!
That Mad Beetle, rampaging unchecked a heartbeat earlier behind an exoskeleton even ordinary weapons could barely split -
In the next second, the armor it took such pride in might as well have been a cracker left out for months!
Punched clean through in an instant!
And not only that.
The brutal force still riding in the spear drove the Mad Beetle's massive body backward through the air for several meters!
With a thunderous boom -
it was pinned hard against a brick defense wall half a meter thick.
Fissures raced across the wall's face in a wild spiderweb!
"Crk..."
Without even room enough to struggle, the Magic Stone inside the Mad Beetle shattered completely.
In an instant the whole body collapsed into a great swirling cloud of pitch-black ash.
Lefiya clutched her staff with both hands and stood there frozen, mouth open, staring.
"L-Lord... Haimer... is... so... strong..."
One strike, and a middle-floor monster was dead.
And by comparison -
she'd just stood there, frozen stiff with fright...
Lefiya sank into gloom.
____
👻🔥+40 ch on Pátreon: Walnut-chan🔥👻
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