Episode 39 – The Name of Strongest IV
— Sixteenth Floor
Beyond the large door stood two monsters.
Each was a knight clad in armor—one red, one blue. Both held broad longswords. The red knight wreathed its blade in flames, while the blue knight enveloped its own in cold air, ice particles swirling around it.
Facing those two knights, an adventurer strolled calmly into the room.
It was Iris.
She wore minimal gear. Over a form-fitting outfit, she had only the essentials—light silver armor pieces like a breastplate and greaves. Over that, she wore a black coat designed to absorb impact. Naturally, everything she wore was first-rate and expensive. Hidden beneath the coat at her waist were a pair of small pouches.
Iris already had her sword drawn.
It was a rapier.
Its beautiful blade shone with a reddish-golden gleam.
That color was proof it was forged from Hihiirokane, an extremely rare ore found only inside dungeons. A weapon made of it possessed exceptionally high affinity with Abilities and Gifts—there was no doubt an adventurer wielding such a blade was top-class.
Iris was also concealing her face.
With a single, expressionless white mask.
That mask itself was her ability: “Another Persona.”
She had already activated her Ability. A thin, tightly focused metallic hum began to slip from her rapier. Watching the blade carefully, one could see it trembling ever so slightly.
Her ability created high-frequency vibrations along the blade, massively boosting its sharpness. Most monsters were diced into pieces the moment her rapier touched them. And against powerful ones, if Iris put even a bit of strength behind it, her weightless strikes could still cut deep. She had already proven that—against dragons, no less.
In fact, the one who opened the way past those two dragons had been Iris, the former leader of Aghiya.
With the overwhelming power of her Ability.
“It’s been a while since I’ve dealt with your kind—”
Iris stared at the two monsters.
She hadn’t chosen this room for any particular reason.
It was simply the closest one.
Thinking about it that way, she probably didn’t consider this expedition special at all. She was diving into the dungeon with the same attitude as always.
In the first place, she had done almost no prep for this adventure. She hadn’t decided which rooms to clear, and she’d only brought the bare minimum of consumables, like healing potions. Preparation had never been her strong suit.
For this expedition, Iris prepared the same way she always did:
She didn’t build strategies around hypothetical enemies—she just brought herself to the condition she believed was best.
The finest sword. The armor she knew by heart. The usual tools. She believed she needed nothing else. After all, with just those same tools, she had slain countless monsters—and even dragons.
There was a kind of personal aesthetic to her way of preparing.
Hoooooo—
She heard the monsters’ breathing.
It was almost… human.
Human, and well-trained.
Iris grinned—wide and sharp.
She liked this dungeon. Every monster in it fought with a human-like cunning and skill. They were nothing like the creatures in Podie. In terms of sheer power and speed, Podie far outclassed Tohe.
But the monsters in Tohe’s dungeon were all masters of technique.
Just watching how they swung their swords, they used countless forms.
Just like adventurers.
Their movements resembled them as well.
Leather boots thumping against the floor, they approached her with light steps.
Her guard was the Hassō stance — blade tip pointed at the sky. Adventurers sometimes use the same technique. From that stance, they fling the sword down with everything they have. Iris supposed the two monsters would do the same.
The blue knight and the red knight were skillful. They moved so as to sandwich Iris from left and right, and almost simultaneously brought their swords down. The cold and heat sealed in their blades detonated as they crossed; steam rose, and a white haze swallowed Iris’s sight.
Iris didn’t know from which direction the monsters’ swords would come. But she never intended to dodge. She had no intention of doing so.
Faster than either knight’s blade could reach her, Iris let her rapier brush across their bodies. That alone cleanly sliced through the armor; the meat and innards within burst, and the blue monster’s blood splattered onto Iris’s golden hair. Yet not a drop stained the rapier.
By a strike that could scarcely be called a slash, the monsters folded at the cut bellies and dropped in crooked, broken halves. Of course, their swords had no force left in them; they never reached Iris.
Iris had no further interest in the fallen monsters; she didn’t even bother to pick up the Calvaon.
Without looking back, she headed straight for the next level.
◆◆◆
— Twenty-ninth Floor.
The monsters present were knights—six of them. Each was a giant knight, bodies roughly three times the size of a human.
Their armor looked like rock: dull, massive, unpolished, lacking any sheen. It had the feel of raw stone hewn into shape, and the monsters wore that as armor.
Their weapons were rock as well. Large boulders. The grips were thick, the rest sky-wide—essentially clubs. They were not of a length anyone could wield comfortably, and their weight matched that. Many adventurers had tried in the past to take those weapons from fallen foes, but none could actually lift them.
Standing against such rock-incarnate monsters was—Koroa.
He was clad head to toe in armor made of dragon scales; a helm covered him so completely his characteristic red hair could not be seen—his whole body encased in silvery dragon plates.
One could call it dragon plate-mail.
The dragon scales he wore bristled. The scales themselves seemed to have a will of their own; perhaps because they had sensed a monster, perhaps in response to Koroa’s murderous intent, each scale whispered and rippled.
Koroa had already drawn his sword.
A golden blade. It was already stained with blood—blue blood, proof that he had slain many monsters to reach this floor.
He stared at the knights before him. Seeing them, he took from one of the many pouches at his waist a small vial: a blue drug called Swiftfalcon Potion—a potion that increases a person’s speed. It was one of the drugs Koroa often used.
It was expensive, but Koroa used such potions frequently to descend into dungeons safely.
He slipped the bottle between the plates of armor and downed it in one gulp. A surge of strength and speed ran through him. At first, it had felt remarkable, but now, having used such drugs so often, Koroa felt nothing special; the sensation was familiar.
Beyond the four pouches at his waist, Koroa had brought a great deal of gear into the dungeon. In thigh pouches, he carried several paralytic potions and poisoned knives; at the entrance to this room, he had left a bag containing spare weapons and extra potions.
Each item was a necessary tool for Koroa’s delve, and choosing them had taken considerable time.
For today’s run, Koroa had collected plenty of information and had chosen his initial rooms so he could solo his way to the fastest route toward the room where the "Knight" waited.
Everything so far had fallen inside Koroa’s calculations. This room was no exception.
He had calculated which monster would appear in which room and had worked out, beforehand, strategies for every monster except the hagure. He had planned which potion to use and which equipment to bring in which room—and, because the unexpected always occurred, he’d allowed himself some extra margin.
Perhaps because of that, during this past week, Koroa had only dipped into Tohe a few times and hadn’t done any serious dungeon exploration. Even when he did enter Tohe, it was only for scouting and preliminary practice. For this day, Koroa needed extensive preparation.
The giant knights walked with heavy, echoing footsteps.
Koroa erased his presence.
According to the intel he gathered beforehand, their eyesight wasn’t very good. They identified enemies by sound.
Koroa had prepared several stones. All were just ordinary pebbles—nothing rare or special. He’d picked them up in the room just before reaching this one. He tossed one onto the ground. The stone rolled across the floor, and in the quiet room, its sound was far from small.
The giants reacted.
The one closest was drawn toward the pebble. Koroa slipped up behind the giant without making a sound and whispered his Gift.
“—O lord of lightning. Embodiment of my will. Great bloodline of mine. Grant me the power to halt time. Grant me the power to freeze all creation for but a moment.”
The lightning god Koroa invoked—Zeus—granted him a severely diminished power.
What he released from his left hand, the one not holding his sword, shot toward the giant as a lightning bolt. But it dealt no real damage. The jolt was weak, small; the giant didn’t even scream.
As a Gift, it was low-grade—barely capable of stopping a monster’s movements for a fraction of a second. A simple ability that almost anyone blessed by the lightning god could use. But Koroa used this ability often.
Its duration was short, but it required very little energy.
Koroa, with his speed boosted by the potion, would never waste that single “instant” when the giant froze.
The moment he triggered the Gift, he dashed in, closing the distance to the giant’s neck.
Then he swung.
The giant’s head rolled easily onto the floor.
The impact made a loud sound. Koroa landed, immediately backed off, and waited for the next giant. Then he repeated the process. On this floor, Koroa stuck to this kind of safe method.
Koroa understood himself as an adventurer very well.
Facing rock giants head-on in a straight fight—something so terrifying—was simply impossible for him.
He lacked Corvo’s power, and he lacked Iris’s speed. That left him with only one option: win through other means.
Using the best methods available to him, Koroa cleared the dungeon one enemy at a time, carefully and meticulously.
It was adventuring in its purest form.
◆◆◆
— Forty-fifth Floor.
Nada was on this floor.
His enemy was a single knight.
Nada let out a small sigh.
The monster before him was one he had hunted several times back in the Aghiya days.
Their height was about the same.
But the opponent was somewhat thinner.
It held two short, thin swords—one in each hand. It likely wore armor beneath its black coat, minimized to keep movement light.
Calling it a knight felt wrong. “Martial artist” was more fitting.
It slew adventurers with sheer volume of attacks, its nimble footwork far beyond something achieved overnight—impressive for a creature that had only recently come into existence.
Nada leveled his Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
He pointed straight at his foe.
He aligned the tip of his weapon with the enemy knight.
He had no motivation.
From the start, this dungeon expedition was something he’d been forced into by Iris. Who hunted the stray monster, who ended up becoming the academy’s strongest—none of that mattered to Nada, who was more worried about tomorrow’s meals.
The reason he chose these rooms was simple.
After the other six rushed into the closest rooms, he picked the one farthest away. He hadn’t looked up any information about the monsters. He just needed not die. With that mindset, he chose the method that would let him stall for the most time.
To begin with, Nada was wearing armor. Most of it was made of iron. Heavy, but cheap and durable. A small amount of orichalcum was mixed in, making it a bit lighter and tougher, which also made it expensive. The dull-colored armor, smooth-surfaced to deflect blades and fangs, consisted of gauntlets, greaves, a breastplate covering his torso, a skirt of armor extending below the knees, and, though he wore no helmet, all vital points were protected. Each piece had been custom-made by a blacksmith with considerable skill.
Compared to the equipment used by the other six, this armor wasn’t good at all—but for Nada, the expense had been painful.
And thanks to that, Nada was broke.
Ideally, he wanted to pick up the Calvaon and head to the next floor, but Iris had warned him beforehand:
“—Nada, seriously aim for first place. If you pick up any Calvaons along the way, I won’t forgive you.”
Apparently, Iris understood his nature better than he expected.
Nada let out another sigh.
Why did he have to risk his life in a dungeon expedition that didn’t even make him money?
He sighed deeply again and gripped his Green Dragon Crescent Blade tightly.
Luckily, on the floors Nada entered, monsters often appeared one at a time. Since he was bad at fighting multiple opponents, this worked out well for him. He moved steadily through the floors, defeating monsters, each time staring sadly at the Calvaon that rolled out of their bodies.
Nada sighed once more.
Seeing that as an opening, the knight lunged at him swiftly, as if trying to lop off his head with its twin blades.
Nada met the attack head-on and casually swept it aside with his polearm.
No tricks.
He simply swung wide with all his strength. That one strike easily shattered the swords the knight tried to use to block, the blade dug into its torso—but did not stop—and the knight was sent flying into the wall beside them.
Nada sighed again.
He didn’t look at the monster he’d just defeated.
Because if he did, he would definitely want the Calvaon it carried.
Contrary to his own intentions, Nada was progressing smoothly through the dungeon.
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