The Crossdressing Girl 2

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It was a thoroughly chaotic situation.

The Giant Worm's corpse, a sword still buried deep in its massive round maw, refused to disappear, fouling that wide, clean cavern with its slimy fluids. Caden, leaping down from the deactivated golem, had become Katie Wellesley. And somehow they had cleared the floor without ever using the golems that clearly needed repairs.

Just as solving a problem required working through it step by step, this one needed an order of operations. Between a dead worm and a maintenance bay sitting idle, calming a half-panicked Katie Wellesley seemed like the only way the conversation was going to move forward.

"This— wh-why…?"

"I see. So it wasn't Caden at all — it was Miss Katie."

Hanna must have been thinking the same thing, because she launched into the story of the Grand Duke they'd met in the Blessed Forest last time, filling in Grace and Irene for me. Wait — you weren't supposed to have heard that story. The whole setup was that I was the only one who knew the secret. What are you doing explaining it?

The silver lining was that Katie was still clutching the necklace in a full-blown panic. I made a mental note to give her a harder time later as Jjanhae-jwa, then looked over at Caden — no, Katie — who seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Hanna knew her secret inside and out.

Fair enough. A runaway girl whose family heirloom had just broken on her — of course she was freaking out.

The magic armor Katie Wellesley had brought with her was, at least, an heirloom passed down through her ancestors: old, worn, and the kind of gear you could repair and upgrade. But that necklace-type disguise artifact was a completely different story.

"What the hell is going on?"

"R-Roland? D-do you happen to know any mages at the Magic Tower who specialize in magical tools?"

She'd been fidgeting with the necklace nonstop, and now she lunged at me the way a drowning person clutches at anything that floats. Forget the stoic adventurer cosplay — first things first, deal with the crisis right in front of her. She was so desperate her speech patterns had already shifted.

Faced with that pleading look, I shot Hanna a quick glance. She was a fake genius mage riding the game system and answering viewer questions, but she could at least read an item effect window, right? Katie must have remembered that Hanna was a mage too, because she bolted over to her next.

"Um, well… the internal mana circuits have completely vanished. I don't think recovery is possible."

"……Hiek."

What Katie got was a clean death sentence. Her legs started trembling so hard she looked ready to collapse on the spot. I glanced over at Hanna's stream screen and immediately understood why.

The necklace description had popped up just like a quest window or a quest item.

…Looks like this really is a character quest after all.

"I… I see. So there are no mana circuits left inside…."

"I-it'll be okay, won't it? If what Miss Hanna said is right, the circuits disappeared — the interior itself isn't broken! If we go to the mage who made this tool and ask, they should be able to fix it."

"I-it's an incredibly old object… It sounds like a fairy tale, but there's a legend that a dragon who took a liking to the kingdom created it…."

"Uh… um…."

Irene, desperately trying to comfort a completely deflated Katie, clamped her mouth shut with nothing left to say. She'd probably figured it was just an expensive magical tool — but lore-wise, this was an ancient royal treasure, a gift bestowed upon the northern Grand Duke's house.

It was a far heavier story than a girl who'd vanished while playing hide-and-seek with a handful of Stray Orcs. Whether "heavy" was the right word, I wasn't sure — but the quest scale was clearly on another level.

Caden's eyes brimming with tears must have triggered Irene's maternal instincts, because she shot me a pleading look that screamed do something. Look, my specialty is physical work. I don't have a solution for this kind of thing….

"Hey, if we can't fix it, how about figuring out why it broke first? The fact that this giant corpse won't disappear, and the fact that the artifact broke the second she got out of the golem — they all seem connected."

"Yeah. There's definitely nothing we can do about that artifact ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here."

While Katie despaired, Irene soothed her, and Hanna checked the character quest with her brain fully offline, Grace came through with a textbook-sensible suggestion.

Then again, prioritizing an ongoing scenario quest over a character quest you can't clear yet was the natural call for any player. Hanna stashed the broken necklace in her inventory, and together we approached the massive corpse of the Giant Worm.

The huge thing that hadn't turned into a Mana Stone and vanished. The maw alone looked about four meters across, and the body had to stretch well past fifteen meters. A quick internet search told me anacondas average around four meters, so this thing was nearly four times that size.

"The shell — whether it's actual stone chips stuck on or just feels like stone — is ridiculously hard. Makes sense that it could tank a golem's sword."

"There are so many teeth it's disgusting. The fact that the corpse won't disappear… does that mean it's not one of the Goddess's creations?"

"Holy shit, it's huge. Something this size could've swallowed all five of us in one gulp."

Everyone tossed out a comment except Katie, who was staring at the Giant Worm with her mind completely checked out. Just the height of that slack, dead maw at four meters was more than enough to feel oppressive.

I tapped the rock-hard hide that, without the Knight-type Golem's massive blade, would have barely yielded a strip of skin even to sword aura. Strong rebound pressure pushed back against every knuckle. Without the Knight-type Golem, this was absolutely a large-class monster no Intermediate Adventurer party could have handled.

To kill something like this, you'd need dozens of thirtieth-floor adventurers banding together to dig traps.

…This doesn't feel like a boss monster one person is supposed to solo. Did the golem somehow drain the artifact's mana?

Obviously, the monsters of this world had mana too. As equal creations of the Goddess, mana dwelled in their bodies. Even if a Horned Wolf outside the Tower died without turning into a Mana Stone, adventurers still hunted them for their hides and horns.

Which meant large-class monsters didn't just have thick, tough hides — they also possessed natural physical enhancement. When a large-class monster showed up, it wasn't a single knight who rode out; entire knight orders swarmed in for a reason.

Even I, a natural-born 6-star, would need to go all-out with my hammer to shatter an adult ogre's limbs, knock it down, and cave in its skull. In game terms, it was an absurd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠situation — a single tank solo-killing a party-scale raid monster.

Right. A raid monster.

Large monsters were raid monsters that demanded party-level coordination. A single Knight-type Golem, even a big one, did not have the specs to casually beat one to death. It could hold its own in a fight — but it wasn't something that should have solo-killed the worm while we were busy inspecting the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hangar.

And inside that hangar, there had clearly been things like a wrecked giant bow, practically advertising itself as a DPS-type golem.

"The corpse doesn't seem to be disappearing, and Roland said it's the same kind of monster that shows up in the southern desert — so let's check out the hangar too."

"Yeah, Hanna's right. We should hand this golem and the worm's corpse over to the Magic Tower."

I'd suggested examining the Giant Worm not because I expected Grace or Irene to find anything. Obviously, I was hoping the player — Hanna — would discover something, or that the system would update.

But watching her suggest we head to the hangar empty-handed, it seemed the Giant Worm's corpse was just a corpse. Feeling oddly disappointed, I steered clear of the sticky fluids still oozing out and headed back toward the hangar.

"…Oh. There was a place like this on the hangar wall?"

"Miss Hanna discovered that you can channel mana into the interior walls of the hangar as well."

Katie, who hadn't said a single word while standing dejectedly in front of the Giant Worm's corpse, finally opened her mouth. Whether Irene's gentle pats were working, or whether she was just as fascinated by this place as she'd been with the Knight-type Golem, I couldn't tell.

So Katie's nickname had officially become Northern Kiddo, huh. Porn Girl, Roland-sensei, Noona, Maman, Kiddo… what a depressingly petty lineup. I kept poking at the mechanical arms and exploring the hangar's maintenance bay.

Until a strange woman's voice rang out.

Beeeep — ding!