Cheer
"E-everyone, over here! The villains are coming up from below! H-hurry and gather up...!"
"Y-yes, ma'am!!!"
"Hah... haaah...... Did anyone else find people on the fifteenth floor? Friends, anyone you know still missing?"
"No one...!"
"Then... hurry... we'll check the sixteenth floor one last time and all go down together... haaah......"
My lungs were screaming for air. We'd already been running up and down more than ten floors from the basement, and my thighs were starting to burn, the soles of my feet aching. I was honestly reaching my limit. But Batori and I kept searching for people.
We were checking the fifteenth floor now. There might still be people left behind, and if those people ran into the villains, they would be as good as dead. With Batori at my side, I shouted myself hoarse, over and over, herding everyone toward us.
Batori was the hero here, no question. But she was the passive type, and she wasn't good at raising her voice. So the moment we hit each floor, I was the one yelling for everyone to gather up, and fast.
Anyway, it was exhausting. Only the sixteenth floor left now, but it was still exhausting. I desperately wanted to rest — except if I stopped now, we'd only run straight into the villains.
"Anyone still on the sixteenth floor! Villains are fleeing up from below! We're heading for the shelter, so please come out now!"
My legs screamed with every flight of stairs. How did Baek Eun-hwa and Batori do this every single day? How hard must their lives be? And not just those two — this was the daily reality for every hero. How did any of them manage it?
The thought crossed my mind, but...
"Haaah...... haah...."
"Handler, are you all right? We still have a ways to—"
"W-we have to get down fast... If the villains head toward the shelter — if they come down the shelter stairs — it'll be dangerous. We have to move as fast as we can... hahh......"
There were more important things to worry about right now. I gathered the dozen or so survivors and started down again with Batori, pushing myself as hard as I could. This situation probably wasn't that hard for Batori. But for me, with an ordinary civilian's body, it was brutally difficult. That was only natural.
"Haaah...."
We started down the stairs together — Batori at the front, the civilians in the middle, and me bringing up the rear. Having to constantly climb and descend from the sixteenth floor all the way to the basement was filthy hard on the knees. I even started thinking it would be easier to just roll down. But if I actually did that, I would die, so I gritted my teeth and kept going.
And if, on the way down, some of the villains slipped the heroes and came onto the route to the shelter...
CRACK!
"Guhhh...."
"D-d-don't stop, everyone keep going down...!"
Batori drove a knuckle-wrapped fist into a solar plexus and had them subdued in an instant. The sounds of heroes and villains fighting kept drawing closer as we descended, but the shelter stairs were separate from the regular ones, so we could keep going.
"Haaah... haaah...... haaah...."
Every so often I genuinely thought I was going to collapse, so I would lean on the railing for about ten seconds, then scramble down again. That was all I could do. I couldn't help it — I was so spent I could practically taste blood in my lungs.
"Handler! Hurry!"
"I-I'm coming......"
But I couldn't keep stopping. If I fell behind alone in this situation, I would run into a villain and die for sure.
"Haaah...."
I started down with the others again. From the sixteenth floor to the thirteenth, the thirteenth to the eighth, the eighth to the fourth... we kept descending, and we were almost to the basement. Only four flights of stairs left.
"...Villains."
"There's a hero all the way down here...?"
"Surrender immediately. Before I subdue you — surrender first..."
"Those ones in the back look like civilians."
"If we kill the ones in the back first..."
"Somehow......"
The villains had appeared. There were about fifteen of them, from what I could tell, and they looked like they'd been wounded fighting the other heroes. Had they been hiding in the shelter? Had the other heroes missed them? I didn't know. But there were villains, and they were blocking our path. That much was certain.
"......"
"......"
They were injured, but you could never take villains lightly. And behind Batori were a lot of survivors — and me. Batori and the villains... neither side moved first. A standoff.
"M-mooom!!"
"Eek... eek...!"
"M-maybe we should've just left the shelter......"
The people behind Batori didn't trust her. They started worrying first. Some of them started talking nonsense — things like what if Batori lost to those villains, weren't we all going to die, we should have just stayed hidden, we might all die because of that girl.
My heart was hammering like mad, and every breath came out ragged, but I could hear every word of that garbage with perfect clarity. If I could hear it, then Batori — whose senses were far sharper than mine — could hear it too.
Was that why?
"...Ah."
Batori's height began to shrink, little by little. The 160 centimeters she'd reached started slowly, gradually decreasing. I could see it happening. She wasn't below 160 yet. But the garbage coming from behind her — the slander, the criticism — was making her smaller.
So Eodeokshini wasn't just about growing. It included shrinking when she was cowed by criticism, too.
I realized that now. If this kept up... I didn't know how strong those villains were, but it was definitely dangerous.
So I ignored the unbelievers spouting nonsense up ahead and decided to send Batori my thoughts. It was the name we'd decided to register — still not officially registered yet — but I called out Batori's hero name.
"Eodeokshini, you can do it!"
"...Handler......"
"You've got this!"
I cheered for Batori. In the end, this was always what I, as Batori's handler, needed to do to help her. Nothing was more certain than this. I was alone in the back, so out of breath that even speaking was hard. But I poured everything I had into shouting it.
"H-hang in there...!"
"Save us!!"
"Do something...!"
"......"
Had my words had even a little effect? The unbelievers in front of me — the ones who'd been whispering despair and garbage behind Batori's back — slowly started passing along words of encouragement too.
And then, of course.
"Everyone except the one in front is a civilian. Subdue them all... we have to make a way out for ourselves."
"Yeah. Kill them all. Then we go all the way down to the basement."
Batori's height grew again — grew far beyond what it had been a moment ago, until she was well over 170 centimeters. The clothes she was wearing were starting to look more than just tight. But neither I, nor Batori, nor anyone else had the luxury of worrying about that.
The villains picked up weapons from their hands, the floor, wherever they'd dropped them, and prepared to fight. Batori prepared to protect everyone, alone. And the people behind her cheered her on.
"Hang in theeeere!!!"
I brought both hands to my mouth, cupping them like a megaphone, and threw every cheer I could at Batori — as loud as I could, as many times as I could.
Then the fight between Batori and the villains began.
One versus many. A fight that looked overwhelmingly stacked against Batori. But she had grown even more than a moment ago, grown stronger... and of all the versions of Batori I had ever met, this was the most mature, the tallest she had ever been.
"Urgh...!?"
"This bastard's insanely strong!"
"Change of plans! Forget the hero, kill the ones in the back and run up— ghhk—!?"
"Who said I'd let you do that...!"
Batori started taking them apart, one by one, with almost casual ease. I had expected a fight on a stairwell full of civilians to be difficult, but those worries vanished completely. When the villains came at us with weapons raised, she seized a leg or an arm and hurled them into the wall. When several of them tried to swarm her from different angles, she slipped one blow and drove a knuckle-wrapped fist straight through someone's face.
We could see every bit of it, right in front of us. A weight class incomparably stronger than when she had faced that villain with the kitchen knife. Batori — Eodeokshini — cleaned up all fifteen villains.
Cleaned them up, literally. Some had their faces buried in the wall. Others lay sprawled on the floor, foaming at the mouth. A few were barely clinging to a stairwell pillar, just short of the drop...
The cheering was effective. Almost too effective. At this rate, she wasn't C-Class — she was......
"Handler...!"
"Ah..."
"Are you all right? Nothing like a weapon came flying this way, did it?"
"...I'm fine. I just... I was out of breath, and exhausted, so I zoned out a little."
Anyway, after finishing off all those villains, Batori came back to check on me. We really should have been heading straight down. But now that Batori had taken out every villain in front of us, maybe that was why no one was talking garbage anymore. Everyone just waited quietly, doing nothing, for Batori to speak.
"Mmm... are you very tired...?"
"...Yeah, but I can make it down to the shelter somehow. Don't worry."
"Then I'll carry you. I've taken care of everyone for now, but we still have to get downstairs...!"
"You don't have to go that far..."
I was grateful that Batori was so worried about me, but of course I was going to refuse. It wouldn't be right to only look after me in a situation like this. We had to look after the others too, and it was dangerous because we might still run into villains. I was naturally going to turn her down, but...
"E-everyone...? Um, uhh.... Let's go back down to the shelter...!"
"......"
Batori didn't even wait for me to finish. She scooped me up in a princess carry and called out to the others. It was... kind of embarrassing. My face was getting pretty hot. Being carried around like this by a little goblin who used to be smaller than me was incredibly weird, honestly.
"Hahh......"
"Hehe...!"
But my body was falling apart at the seams. And I was happy that Batori had grown this much. And luckily, there wasn't a single villain between us and the shelter.
"Handler, I did well, right...?"
"Yes. You did amazingly well. You did so, so much better than I ever expected. Thank you."
"Hehe..."
There wasn't a single reason to scold Batori. Instead, nestled in her arms, I should stroke the head — the horns — of this goblin beaming up at me with that sunny expression, and praise her. She really had accomplished things beyond anything I had imagined.
"...Ah. I seriously think I might collapse."
"You pushed yourself too hard...?"
"...Yeah. That's true."
I wanted to keep praising her, but my whole body was screaming in protest. The truth was, I had been on the verge of collapse for a long time already.
"...Handler?"
"......"
"Handler...?!"
Still held in Batori's arms, I lost consciousness.