Nada Volume 2, Chapter 49

Episode 49 – Epilogue

Three weeks had already passed since they defeated the Hundred-Armed Knight.

Now that his injuries had healed and his body had recovered, Nada was diving into a dungeon again.

Naturally—it was Podie, a place he knew well.

Nada had completely adapted to Podie’s environment. He even felt nostalgic for it. The ceiling was high—probably more than ten meters. Luminous flowers bloomed overhead, and thanks to their light, adventurers could check their surroundings.

Nada narrowed his eyes.

Even if internal shifts had changed things a little, he had always kept up with the latest information about Podie. So he knew this path. It was a familiar route—an important passage leading downward.

He glared toward the back of the corridor—the place where monsters lurked.

There they were.

He heard footsteps.

Many footsteps.

It was Kashokh.

Wolf-shaped monsters.

Since there were a lot of them, Nada knew that on these upper floors, only Kashokh appeared.

Nada immediately took up a defensive posture.

He lightly drew back his right foot and lowered his center of gravity just a little.

A well-practiced movement.

But the weapon in Nada’s hand was not the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.

It was just a sword.

A simple sword he drew from his waist, with another identical one still sheathed on his right hip.

The sword Nada drew was an ordinary broadsword—the kind a first-year academy student might use. About sixty centimeters long, with a slightly wide blade so it wouldn’t break even against monsters. On Nada’s giant frame, it looked short, even mismatched—but he used it.

He firmly gripped the lower part of the hilt with his right hand, placed his left hand lightly as support, and raised it before him in a relaxed, natural motion.

It was a seigan stance.

Nada felt no awkwardness in the posture—if anything, it stirred a sense of nostalgia.

When he first enrolled in the academy, he had used swords like this, just like everyone else. As the other students gradually awakened their Abilities and Gifts, Nada had begun seeking new power, switching to progressively larger blades.

So at the beginning, Nada had fought with swords like this—defeating Kashokh using short blades.

He also wore armor, though only the bare minimum: breastplate, gauntlets, and greaves. He had picked them solely for their low price. They were iron gear—the kind a first-year Larva Academy student would have.

Even though his equipment was far inferior to what he used to carry, Nada felt no anxiety. Rather, he calmly prepared himself to face the Kashokh.

They came.

Enemies, beasts, monsters charged at Nada.

The first one, a wolf of familiar size, leapt at him. Nada didn’t attempt to dodge. Instead, he simply swung the broadsword downward. Though the edge was dull, his raw strength made up for it.

It would be more accurate to call it striking than cutting.

Nada wielded the dull broadsword like it was a lump of iron.

The Kashokh rushing from his forward-right slipped to the side for an instant, but Nada swung the blade into its abdomen. It didn’t slice—the flesh merely sank under the impact. With that force, Nada sent the monster flying into the wall, where its skull burst open.

A third Kashokh attacked.

From the right.

Judging he couldn’t dodge, Nada thrust the broadsword between the monster’s jaws to block the bite.

At that moment, another Kashokh leapt from the left.

Nada immediately turned his left hand toward it and pulled back his wrist. From his gauntlet—Solideum—a beautiful silver blade shot forth. It pierced the Kashokh’s forehead. When Nada twisted his arm, the wound tore open, and with a vigorous sweep, he sent the monster crashing into a nearby wall.

Then Nada kicked away the Kashokh that was still biting down on the broadsword, and repeatedly drove the thick blade into its torso, killing it by brute force.

Nada slid the Solideum blade back into the gauntlet while keeping his eyes fixed ahead.

The Solideum had snapped during his fight with the Hundred-Armed Knight, yet by the time he was on his way back, the blade had already restored itself. Apparently, Solideum was the sort of convenient weapon that healed itself even if broken.

Since it was a weapon found inside a dungeon, Nada assumed that must be one of its traits—but he didn’t actually know the specifics, nor was he particularly interested in finding out more.

“Nothing ever changes here, does it—”

Nada stared down the passage ahead.

Kashokh were there.

A lot of them.

His beloved weapon, the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, wasn’t with him.

Even a sturdy weapon forged from wootz steel would eventually wear down after enough use. Its shaft had started to shift, and the blade had dulled. So he’d used his connection with Balba, the owner of Astuto Breza, to send it off to a blacksmith reckless enough to take on such an oversized weapon for repairs.

Money was required. Time was required.

Because of that, Nada had been forced into adventuring without the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.

At first, he’d tried getting another large weapon as a substitute, but unfortunately, all his funds had gone straight into the repair costs.

So here he was, fighting with something like a beginner’s broadsword.

Nada laughed.

The corners of his mouth rose sharply—niitah—a wide, crooked grin.

He only had a cheap weapon to rely on, and he still had to fight a horde of Kashokh.

But he wasn’t worried. Not even a little.

Just another day of hunting monsters as an adventurer, he thought, and without a word, he charged straight into the troop of Macacos.

◆◆◆

“It seems you went and did something reckless again. Perhaps it’s time you learned your limits?”

The moment Nada returned from the dungeon, he reported the details of his adventure to the brown-haired receptionist across the counter. The reply he got was this—spoken flatly, like she was just fulfilling a duty.

“…Yeah, I guess.”

Both of the broadswords he’d brought had snapped. One had been too heavy to bother with, so he’d tossed it—sheath and all—in the dungeon. The other had broken halfway through; it was probably beyond repair, and Nada was still carrying it.

His armor had shattered and fallen apart, barely resembling its original form by the time he made it back.

You definitely couldn’t call it a smooth dungeon expedition.

“Well, you did manage to bring back Calvaon, it seems—”

The brown-haired receptionist eyed the pouch at Nada’s waist, stuffed full to bursting with Calvaon. They were all small and looked low in quality, but he’d brought back a lot.

“Yeah.”

“What would you like to do with them? Should we convert everything here? Or will you be handing them off to someone else?”

“Unfortunately, part of it is already spoken for, so… twenty percent here.”

Nada said this and handed over twenty percent of the Calvaon he’d brought back.

The exchange rate for Calvaon wasn’t high, but adventurers were obligated—per guild protocol and the Academy’s rules—to exchange twenty percent of anything obtained in the dungeon at the management office.

The brown-haired receptionist accepted the Calvaon and told him the usual lines.

“Very well, Sir Nada. The converted funds will be transferred to your account through the bank shortly. Thank you for your hard work today. You must be exhausted, so please rest well at home. And we look forward to your next contribution of Calvaon—do return to the dungeon soon.”

“Yeah.”

Nada said that and headed home immediately.

He didn’t have the strength or will to stop by the Spinossissima household.

When he arrived home, he tossed the heap of junk-like damaged armor and weapons into the corner of the room.

Of course, the undamaged Solideum and the kukri knife were placed down carefully.

Tayla wasn’t there. He always worried about leaving her alone while he was exploring the dungeon, so he had entrusted her to the Spinossissima household.

Thinking he’d go pick up Tayla tomorrow, Nada headed to the well outside and drew some water.

He looked down at the water’s surface.

His own reflection stared back at him.

It was a familiar face. There were some new thin, scratch-like marks on his cheeks, but he got those often—nothing worth worrying about.

Nada dumped the bucket of water over his head.

Still fully clothed.

It was cold.

As if he were trying to cool the heat that clung to him after returning from the dungeon.

He drew another bucket of water and looked down at the surface again.

He wondered if he had changed.

If he were different from the person he used to be.

He now had ties to the noble Spinossissima family, and a younger sister—Tayla—he had to raise. His Green Dragon Crescent Blade wouldn’t return for quite a while. And despite never wanting it, he’d earned the title of the academy’s strongest—something most of the academy probably didn’t even acknowledge.

But none of that actually changed his situation.

Dive into the dungeon, earn money.

That’s it.

That’s how he survived.

No room for comfort.

No room for luxury.

He figured he probably hadn’t changed at all.

No—he corrected himself.

There was one thing that had definitely changed.

Nada took off his upper garment and clutched the left side of his chest with his right hand.

Hard.

A lump sat where his heart was.

After defeating the Hundred-Armed Knight—after the four strange images of unknown landscapes flashed into his mind and he lost consciousness—he awoke to find this lump in his chest.

It was like a stone. No matter how much cold water he poured over himself, it remained the only part of his body that stayed hot. Sometimes, stabbing pain would shoot through his chest.

“—gh!”

Nada felt the pain in his left chest and instinctively crouched down, gripping it tightly.

The pain faded.

But the stone-like lump never cooled. It stayed hot—always burning inside him.

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