Episode 16 — The Two
It happened only a few dozen minutes after Nada headed to the dungeon.
A woman was standing in front of Nada’s room.
It was Iris.
Her outfit today was different from before—she was dressed like an adventurer. Her weapons were a slender sword distinguished by its gold-decorated sheath, and a kukri knife strapped behind her waist. Her armor consisted of a minimal set: a breastplate, greaves, and other light pieces worn over a black, form-fitting underlayer. The armor shone with the vibrant silver of monster scales—custom-made using the hide of a creature known as a Platinum Dragon. Over that, she wore a black coat designed to soften impacts, made from the material of another monster called the Great Black Wolf. Naturally, both materials were top-grade even within the academy.
Wearing all that, Iris had come to visit Nada for one reason.
—She thought she’d help out an adventurer who was diving into the dungeon all alone, looking so lonely.
“Nadaa—? You here? I’ll help you with your dungeon dive—”
Without the slightest hesitation, Iris unlocked the door to Nada’s room using the spare key she had.
A kind-hearted upperclassman volunteering to accompany him on his dungeon exploration out of pure goodwill—she imagined Nada’s happy reaction, her cheeks tinting pink as she stepped inside.
Hearing no sound at all, she assumed Nada was still asleep and walked toward the bed at the back.
“…Huh?”
But Nada wasn’t there.
The room was empty.
Iris found it strange that he was already gone at this hour.
But the weapons, armor, and even the various medicines that should have been in his room had decreased in number. Iris visited his room often, so she remembered the exact arrangement of these little things. Especially since Nada only owned the bare minimum and didn’t keep even a single indulgent item—anything missing was obvious at a glance.
“Dungeon…”
Muttering that, Iris took off her coat and tossed it carelessly onto the floor. She quickly removed her armor too, then sat down on Nada’s bed—the one he always slept in.
“I got all fired up for this…” she whispered in a small pout, leaning her head back.
An exposed lightbulb came into view. It wasn’t on, simply hanging there in silence. The sun outside was hidden behind clouds, leaving the room dim, and she didn’t feel like turning the light on. As she let out a long sigh, Iris caught the scent of his sweat lingering in the bedding. It hadn’t been aired out in quite a while, she thought. Maybe he’d been too busy since leaving his party. That man cared about things like this.
“Why am I doing something like a maid…?”
Grumbling about the task she was about to undertake, Iris suddenly stood up. First, she opened the window next to the bed to let fresh air into the room. That alone made her feel a bit better.
Next, she folded the comforter and mattress into thirds, lifted them up, carried them outside the apartment, and hung them on the communal laundry rack below.
She returned to the room, but now the musty smell bothered her. So she wrapped a clean cloth from Nada’s room around her mouth, grabbed a duster and a broom, and started cleaning. At home, she had a maid dedicated to doing this, but unfortunately, no such luxury existed here. And Iris herself liked things tidy, so whenever this room was dirty, it irritated her.
After doing all that for a dozen minutes or so—since Nada’s room was small—it quickly became clean.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
It was unlikely the homeowner would ring their own bell upon returning, so Iris wondered if Nada had taken out a loan somewhere.
“Yes—coming.”
“Oh, Miss Iris?”
Unfortunately, the person at the door wasn’t a shady debt collector but Dan, Nada’s friend—someone Iris knew well.
He had a small frame and wore a tiny backpack.
“My, if it isn’t Dan-kun. Long time no see—”
“Yes. Is Nada here?”
“Sorry, he’s not. I think he’s probably gone to the dungeon.”
“He did!?”
Dan’s eyes widened in surprise.
Iris found his reaction strange.
“Is it really that strange for Nada to not be here?”
When Iris asked, Dan tilted his head and let out a thoughtful groan.
“No, it’s not weird for Nada to head into the dungeon… but…”
“But?”
Iris’s tone sharpened at the end.
“I’m just wondering if he was even in a condition to go.”
Dan murmured with a worried expression.
“Did Nada catch a cold or something?”
Impossible, Iris thought immediately, but she asked just in case.
Ever since she met him, Nada had been absurdly healthy. He got injured a lot, so trips to the infirmary weren’t rare, but Iris had never once heard of him catching a cold.
“No, not that… but Nada looked pale yesterday.”
“Pale? Nada did?”
“Yeah. He definitely did.”
Dan confirmed firmly.
“Maybe he ate something bad? That guy gives off the vibe of someone who’d eat whatever he finds. Or maybe he ate something past its expiration date.”
One of the impressions Iris had of Nada was his voracious appetite.
He would eat things even if the color or shape was questionable. Iris had seen him get stomachaches from that more than once. Maybe it had something to do with how he grew up.
“That might be it. He could’ve eaten something bad. But… I don’t think that’s what it was yesterday.”
“Why do you think that?”
“—The gargoyle.”
“The gargoyle? That monster with the red eyes?”
Iris had heard about it too.
A fellow adventurer had told her.
Dan nodded slightly, confirming that they were talking about the same creature.
“Yes. That’s right. Nada reacted to that word, and that’s when he went pale. I think something happened in the dungeon. You know how Nada’s working alone now—so it wouldn’t be strange if something happened inside the dungeon, right? That’s why I think he looked pale. So today, I brought him medicine, but…”
“So that’s why he went to the dungeon and wasn’t in his room. But in that case, something’s odd.”
Iris fell into deep thought.
“Why do you say that?”
“If Nada really wasn’t feeling well, he would never go into the dungeon. He’s absolutely flawless when it comes to risk management. In that case, why would he go so early in the morning?”
“Maybe he has some personal grudge with the gargoyle and went to kill it?”
Dan joked lightly.
“There’s no way… right?”
Iris and Dan exchanged glances.
The Nada they knew—if you wanted to put it nicely—was straightforward to a fault. He didn’t bother with complicated approaches. Put negatively, he was simple-minded. His thinking was shallow and impulsive. He wasn’t good at analyzing things deeply, and his solutions mostly relied on brute force.
That kind of Nada, having a “grudge” against a monster?
A normal person would ignore such a thing and continue with daily life, or carefully prepare before trying to resolve it.
But Nada—Nada would absolutely, without thinking twice, just go kill the monster.
“…Dan-kun, that gargoyle you mentioned—it’s the one that’s been getting talked about recently, right?”
“Yes. Nada definitely reacted to that gargoyle.”
“That bothers me.”
“True.”
Iris and Dan nodded to one another.
The next moment, Iris turned and headed back into Nada’s room.
To put her armor on.
“Dan-kun, I’m going to head for the dungeon.”
When Iris called out loudly from deeper inside the room, Dan immediately shouted back.
“Then could you wait just a little? I’ll get some medicine ready right away. Knowing Nada, he probably won’t even bother saving any healing potions for the trip back if it means winning! I’ll prepare some for you too, Miss Iris!”
Iris also knew how effective Dan’s medicine was.
Back when she and Nada were in the same party, she had received his concoctions several times through Nada. Without question, the recovery potions he made were first-rate. Compared to the expensive medicines Iris normally used, Dan’s were probably superior.
Iris called back loudly,
“Alright. I’ll leave it to you.”
Dan promptly told her to wait at the dungeon entrance and left.
◆◆◆
Iris quickly equipped her armor and headed to the dungeon reception. Dan wasn’t there yet. She decided to first gather information from an acquaintance who worked as a receptionist. While information about the gargoyle was easily obtained, information regarding Nada was not.
Normally, information on other adventurers could not be disclosed.
However, thanks to Iris’s authority, coupled with the fact that the subject was Nada—and the possibility that he had gone after that gargoyle, risking his life if left unchecked—her calm yet persuasive argument settled the matter. The brown-haired receptionist, though displeased, told her: Nada had entered the dungeon about an hour ago.
While Iris was collecting this information, Dan arrived.
After hearing about Nada, he responded with a convincing-sounding “I knew it.”
Dan immediately handed Iris the bag he was carrying.
After he quickly finished explaining the medicines inside, Iris prepared to head into the dungeon.
Dan apparently wanted to follow her, but Iris convinced him that she would move through the dungeon much faster on her own, and he accepted.
With Dan seeing her off, Iris descended into the dungeon.
“Well then—shall we begin?”
Right after entering, Iris glared into the darkness ahead.
The familiar air soothed her.
She was concerned about the recent appearance of a stray monster and Nada’s battle with it, but she wasn’t someone whose awareness would be swayed by such things. Maintaining composure inside a dungeon was second nature to her—after all, she was the former leader of Aghiya, the academy’s top party, famed for always making the optimal decision no matter what befell her comrades.
Iris pulled a vial from Dan’s bag.
It was—Swiftfalcon Potion.
A potion that drew out a person’s speed beyond their natural limits. Normally, Iris disliked relying on such things, but today was different. Speed was worth prioritizing.
Iris downed the potion in one gulp and tossed the empty bottle aside.
Then she placed her right hand over her face, sliding it down from her forehead to her chin.
In the next instant, her face was concealed by a white mask.
Unlike normal masks, its mouth and nose were integrated into its structure, with only the eye openings cut out.
It was an emotionless, inorganic mask.
—Another Persona
Iris’s personal Ability.
Drawing her rapier from her hip, a beautiful blade shining in crimson-gold appeared.
Forged from Hihiirokane, it was well known for its exceptionally high affinity with Skills and Gifts.
Once she activated her Ability, a thin, strained metallic hum emanated from the blade. If one looked closely, one could see it trembling slightly.
That was the true nature of her Ability.
“O god, grant glory to my path—”
Then she invoked the Gift of Athena, the Goddess of War.
It was her long-standing ritual before entering a dungeon.
And with that, she began advancing through the dungeon at a speed clearly beyond human limits.
Being regarded as the strongest within the academy, solo exploration posed no difficulties for her. Where an ordinary adventurer would fear entering alone, Iris possessed both a powerful Ability and a powerful Gift. There were no monsters capable of stopping her.
Even now—
A monster appeared before her.
It was a giant-shaped creature.
A type of golem.
But it was effortlessly torn apart by a single strike of her blade.
Her rapier, vibrating at ultra-high speed thanks to her Ability, sliced through monsters with ease. The heat generated in the process only added to its killing power, letting a weapon as light and slender as a rapier effortlessly cut down even monsters clad in thick scales.
Especially in these upper floors, where only weak enemies appear, she didn’t even need to go all out to butcher them.
Even so, Iris found herself thinking.
That monster just now felt nostalgic.
It was the very first enemy she encountered when she dove into the dungeon together with Nada—and also the one that made Nada give up and flee.
Seeing such a familiar foe made her recall the past, which was rare for her.
—Her encounter with Nada was not what one would call beautiful. But neither was it ordinary.
Iris and Nada first met in this city that houses the Academy—Inferno.
She still remembers the day she met him. It had been a scorching, bone-dry, unbearable hot day. Not a single cloud in the sky, and walking outside felt like a chore. Iris had just finished a dungeon expedition with the party she belonged to at the time and was hurrying home.
Near the entrance of Inferno, she came across a boy collapsed right in the middle of the roadside. The adults and students passing by paid him no mind; he lay there like a corpse, sprawled on the ground.
Iris found herself intrigued, so she approached. Using her sheathed rapier, she poked the boy’s gaunt cheek several times. He twitched slightly.
He was still alive.
That was her honest impression.
It wasn’t uncommon to find vagrants collapsed in the slums, but to find a boy like this on the main street piqued her interest. So she took him home as casually as one might carry home a stray pet.
That boy was Nada.
She had the maids care for the boy she’d brought back, and after a few days, he recovered enough to speak. Out of curiosity, Iris asked what had happened. He said he had nowhere else to go and wanted to become an adventurer.
Iris knew farmer kids sometimes came to this city to work or try for quick riches, but never had she imagined someone would arrive half-dead like him. No water, no food, nothing but the clothes on his back—she was astonished by his sheer vitality.
From then on, she let him live in her home until the academy’s next admission period.
Larva Academy only accepts students a few times a year, and it wasn’t the season yet.
During her student life, whenever she had spare time, she trained him a little. The kukri knife he still carries is a remnant of those lessons.
Nada had truly nothing—he was like a troublesome little brother.
He lacked education, manners, combat basics, and even the common sense needed to live in a city.
After he eventually moved out, she learned that he had failed to manifest either an Ability or a Gift—and had become a failure adventurer.
Yet even so, she still remembers the sight of him desperately swinging that massive greatsword, struggling with everything he had.
He didn’t look like someone who’d ever shine as a great adventurer—not then, not now—but the thought of him fighting that powerful gargoyle stirred her interest.
Because Nada is not a normal adventurer.
Normal adventurers never drag out battles.
They use Abilities or Gifts to finish things in one strike—or at least within a minute. Otherwise, other monsters gather, and one can easily be surrounded. And that method also yields better Calvaon recovery.
But Nada chose to fight with nothing but a weapon, slowly and steadily. Sure, he could one-shot weaker monsters, but against anything higher-ranked, he would inevitably end up in a close, drawn-out clash. That’s one reason he chose oversized weapons—he threw away blades that required technique or didn’t output enough power, choosing instead a weapon that existed purely for striking force.
But even with that approach, compared to adventurers who use Abilities or Gifts, killing a monster takes time. The only ways to kill a monster are crushing the heart or destroying the brain, but landing such a decisive blow requires time and opportunity. Because of that, simple strength-boosting or muscle-enhancing Abilities tend to be undervalued in this world.
And yet—his battles have a certain “earthy charm” that sets him apart from other adventurers.
Iris wanted to see that fight.
A newly appearing powerful monster versus the earthy, stubborn card that is Nada… there was something quietly compelling about it.
And so, Iris walked across a red carpet of monster corpses—and found the stage where Nada and the gargoyle had fought.
Previous Chapter - TOC - Next Chapter
Comments
Post a Comment