Skill Tree 5
That barrier of hers — the kind that only broke when Roland put his fists into it.
Hanna's mouth wouldn't stop curling upward, clearly remembering the moment her own shield had been punched clean through by nothing more than a press of his index finger. Leaving that grinning Hanna and a Grace who was simply happy to have a new companion behind, I sank into thought.
Why had Irene come looking for me?
To put it bluntly, the "unyielding warrior who never gets hurt" she claimed to want was all over the forty-third floor. The fact that I was a 6-star was something only Hanna and I knew. Objectively speaking, I was famous enough, sure — but not so famous that someone would track me down after a single meeting.
By the knowledge circulating out there, shouldn't she have gone looking for a Top-tier Adventurer still on the forty-third floor? Choosing the guy who gave up at thirty-seven over the ones who never quit, who punched through the fortieth and made it all the way to forty-three — that just didn't add up.
"It's really sturdy, this thing!"
"Thank you for the compliment."
She'd concealed her position as a Candidate Saint, and she seemed to be concealing the real reason she'd sought me out as well. Of course, she was from the Temple, and the system itself had vouched for her as a Candidate Saint — so she wasn't hatching some sinister scheme. I was just curious whether this was Temple business or a gacha character's side story.
A priest from the Temple, one who wielded holy magic that beautifully, being an evil person? That ran against the common sense of this world. Any priest who'd fallen even a little would already have been buried under the Temple by the self-cleansing work of the Inquisitors.
A full 5-star priest had joined the party, but the tenth-floor search was still exactly where it had been. A barrier specialist wasn't going to help much on a clue-hunting quest. Still, the smile never left Hanna's face, so the quest itself seemed to be going smoothly enough.
…Or was it just the 5-star?
Either way, our party now held far too much firepower for dealing with Horned Wolves. Even without me, a halfway decent frontliner could have farmed them without breaking a sweat. And so our days continued — hunting Horned Wolves one after another thanks to Grace's tracking.
Just when I was starting to wonder whether even the viewers were getting bored of it, Hanna — who'd been collecting byproducts — let out a scream of pure joy.
"This! Look at this!"
She thrust one hand high overhead like a national athlete hoisting a gold medal. Grace and Irene turned curious looks on Hanna, who was squealing with excitement while Horned Wolf byproducts tumbled forgotten across the ground.
What she held wasn't an eyeball, or hide, or horn, or fang, or claw. It was a handful of silver fur, glittering in the prairie sunlight. Anyone with working eyes could tell that shimmer didn't belong to a Horned Wolf — it was from a Full Moon Wolf.
"Finding traces of a Full Moon Wolf among Horned Wolf byproducts… the Tower really is a strange place."
"Is this the Full Moon Wolf's fur? The color is truly beautiful."
Grace and Irene marveled over the silver strands. They were so fine and luminous you could almost believe they'd been spun from melted silver rather than grown on a beast. The claim that a Full Moon Wolf's hide would fetch a hundred gold coins at auction was starting to look more and more credible.
While the two women were still drunk on that beautiful color, Hanna clenched her fists so hard her breath came out in sharp little puffs — the quest must have advanced to the next stage.
So that was the loop: hunt Horned Wolves, find Full Moon Wolf traces, hand those traces over to the Magic Tower, and then you could track the Full Moon Wolf itself. It reminded me of those hunting games I'd played in my previous life — collecting traces of giant monsters to track them down…
"All right. Let's call the hunt here for today."
"Yeah! We should head straight to the Magic Tower."
Hanna nodded at once, matching my suggestion without hesitation. Nobody had any reason to object to the party leader's call, so we all turned around and started back. The rest of the byproducts got dumped into inventory without ceremony, but Hanna clutched the Full Moon Wolf's fur the way someone holds a winning lottery ticket.
Whether it was the sheer beauty of that silver fur, or the sheer joy of landing a quest item on the very day she'd recruited a new companion — after the quest had been dragging its feet — her grip looked white-knuckled. And so, just like the time we'd run into bandits, we left the prairie before the sun had even set and arrived at the Magic Tower Branch.
"Should we wait here?"
"Yeah, I can go up alone. The mages I talked to at the inn should be there."
Leaving Irene, who was looking around the Magic Tower with open curiosity, and Grace, who had glued herself to Irene's side and was explaining everything, Hanna headed up to the second floor alone. She must have gotten something like a business card from the mages who'd visited the inn during the Horned Wolf incident — she produced whatever it was and was escorted in immediately.
Watching her go, I sprawled comfortably at a table and stretched out. Grace, showing off that natural friendliness and sly charm of hers, linked arms with Irene and started touring the Magic Tower Branch lobby. Between the drinking and the crashing into things, the woman really did have an excess of initiative.
"Oh my, Lady Irene? I never expected to see you here."
"Hello, Miss Charlotte."
I'd been about to check the chat window to see what Hanna was up to when a familiar voice reached my ear. I lifted my drooping head and looked toward Irene — and there was a face I knew. Well-kept pink hair, clothes that looked expensive, servants trailing behind with luggage.
The mage from Irene's old party — the one we'd met on the eleventh floor.
From the gem-studded hair ornament down to the casual dress trimmed with ribbons and frills, she was a woman who, once you saw her outside the Tower and out of adventuring gear, was practically screaming with her entire body, I am a noble young lady.
"I was so disappointed when you said you were transferring parties, but meeting you here is a delight. Are you here on adventure business?"
"Yes. We were fortunate enough to find traces of the Full Moon Wolf."
"Oh my, my! Your party members must be extraordinarily skilled. You said you were climbing the Tower for your pilgrimage — what a truly excellent choice."
Looking closer, mixed in among the luggage-bearing servants was a maid — the woman who'd been the party's thief. A maid-thief and a noble-lady mage. Quite the combination. According to Alice, their tank had been someone who'd come down from the twenty-fourth floor.
So a noble young lady, chasing achievement as a mage, had hired a veteran tank with money and entered the Tower with her own maid in tow.
Rare, but not impossible. Just as noble gentlemen pressed coin purses into my hands for the sake of their face and honor, the children of noble houses sometimes pottered around the lower floors of the Tower. Same idea as fox hunting being a sport for English aristocrats.
"Then this gentleman must be Sir Roland?"
"Yes. The one who saved the city from the Horned Wolves last time, and who did not turn a blind eye to the people's suffering."
Apparently the way I'd funneled compensation money through the Guild under my own name had spread past the nobility all the way to the Temple. The two women were murmuring my praises right in front of my face until my ears burned and my cheeks went red. Grace looked like she wanted to pile on some praise of her own, but even she couldn't quite attach herself to a noble young lady she'd only just met.
Listening to the open flattery, the two of them drifted naturally toward my table.
"May we join you?"
"Of course."
She settled lightly into the chair a servant pulled out for her. Behind her, the thief in the maid uniform took her place as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Beautiful face, but the talent looked thin — solidly in the 1-star to 2-star range. Taking my glance for something else entirely, the noble young lady straightened her back and spoke.
"My name is Charlotte Cavendish. My father, Viscount Cavendish, has long admired Sir Roland's adventures, and he was so pleased to have met you recently."
A noble attaching the title of "Sir" to an adventurer who wasn't even a knight. That must have been the curly-bearded gentleman who'd visited last — the final one. I'd kept the silk pouch, figuring it might come in handy, and gratefully accepted the six gold coins, which I'd spent buying cake for Alice.
More interested in the offerings than the rite itself — the man who'd skipped introducing himself, heaped on empty compliments, pressed gold into my hand, and vanished. I was still vaguely dredging up the memory when she launched into conversation, completely unbothered by my lukewarm response.
"I became an adventurer for the sake of achievement as a mage, and now this unprecedented affair has brought me together with all of you. It feels as though the Goddess herself arranged this destiny."
"The Goddess embraces us all."
She talked so much that even the sly Grace looked a little flustered. Grace was being treated like she didn't exist, and I was being treated like a scarecrow that happened to listen — impressive, in its way. If there were such a thing as a cult of chatter, she could probably bend noble daughters to her will with that three-inch tongue alone.
Goddess this, destiny that, at the end of every sentence — she had the look of a mage drunk on mysticism. Not arrogant, exactly, but a textbook case of self-absorption.
Then again, she still hadn't fully shed the air of a girl. What could you do? In my previous life, middle-school syndrome thrived even without superpowers. Who was going to stop a noble young lady who could actually use magic? Born with blue blood, waited on by servants, wielding magic and power as she pleased.
"My lady, if you linger any longer, it may disrupt your remaining schedule."
"…Oh my, thank you, Mary. I'd love to talk a little longer, but I have a prior engagement. Please excuse me."
A priestess she'd met by chance had transferred into the party of an adventurer she'd met by chance — an adventurer who'd saved the city and happened to have a connection to her father — and Charlotte had inflated that entire chain of coincidence a few dozen times over in the aristocratic style and spun it into endless chatter.
What finally cut off her bottomless stream of talk was the maid who'd been standing quietly behind her. Just as her father had pressed a coin purse into my hand, grinned, and disappeared, she broke off mid-ramble, elegantly gathered her skirts, and offered a slight curtsy.
Watching her hurry away at the head of her servants, Grace muttered under her breath.
"…Is she so talkative because she's a noble, or because she's a mage?"
"Both types tend to run their mouths, honestly."
"Um, even so, speaking ill of someone…"
"No, I'm not speaking ill of her. I just find it fascinating."