60th Floor Free-for-All 4
There are times when a sudden accident no one saw coming freezes a person solid, leaving them unable to react. You know the kind of scene—in dramas, when a truck comes barreling toward someone and they just stand there going uh, uhhh—?
I used to think that was pure fiction, the sort of thing writers invent for effect. It wasn't.
Before I got isekai'd into Heroes Chronicle, I'd once watched a person get hit by a bongo truck that shot out of an alley and go flying—right in front of my face. It took me a good ten seconds just to process that someone had been hit. The brain needs time to accept something, I guess.
What I'm saying is that the Empress standing before me was no different from that truck flying out of an alley.
Why is the Empress of the Empire in the Kingdom, in the Tower, on the 60th Floor, right in front of a boss monster field…?
She was the Empress of the Empire. Meaning she was the one who, under the Goddess's command, was supposed to stabilize Imperial territory and hold back the endless monster waves pouring in.
No—forget the duties for a second. She was the head of the entire Empire. Sure, being a natural-born 6-Star gave her every reason for confidence, but if the Empress got hurt or killed on Kingdom soil, what would happen to the world? Heroes Chronicle wasn't some game where you respawned at a temple if you died. Worst case, the Empire collapses, the monster waves come flooding through, and Han Se-ah's entire playthrough goes to hell along with the Kingdom…
Faced with something so far outside common sense, my head turned into a complete mess. Every stray thought and worst-case scenario flared up and died back down in a frantic loop, like someone had tossed fireworks into an old warehouse.
"Hmm…. I already said there's no need for formalities, Sir. Sit."
"…Ah. Yes."
I'd been standing there blankly turning my thoughts over, and by the time I looked up, the entire party had already taken their seats—leaving me the only one still on my feet. The Empress tossed the remark my way after noticing.
A tea party, right in front of a fortress that very clearly housed a boss monster. Watching the black-armored Imperial Guard serve black tea and macarons, I couldn't even begin to process what was happening—and the desire to understand it was steadily draining away.
Well. Fine. This was a game world, after all…
By real-world standards, it was like the President of the United States personally grabbing a rifle and fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. But if that president happened to be an absurd superhuman who could tank bullets, then sure—it was probably safe enough.
"There is much I wish to hear, but this situation interests me most of all. The walls collapsed from the inside, signs of battle that do not appear to be human work, and yet the fortress gates remain firmly shut through it all."
"Ah, about that—"
I finally sat down at the table, and the thoroughly untimely tea party began in earnest. Whether one of the female knights in the Guard specialized in this sort of thing, or whether the Empress of the continent had simply plastered the carriage with magic tools, the black tea and macarons they'd brought out were fragrant and sweet beyond reason.
The most lavish, high-class party I'd ever attended had been at a count-rank noble's estate, and this was better than anything I'd tasted there. I wasn't any kind of tea connoisseur, but the way it went down smooth—bitter rather than sweet—still screamed luxury with every sip.
As I sat there quietly nursing my tea, it was Katie who started talking.
Han Se-ah was busy managing her stream settings, watching her viewer count explode as chat screamed over the appearance of a natural-born 6-Star and the Empress of the Empire. Grace and Irene, neither of them nobles, had gone stiff as boards with the Empress sitting right in front of them.
"The story begins back when there was no mid-boss on the 55th Floor—"
"Oh? A mid-boss."
Katie, on the other hand—chat called her a brat, sure, but until she'd run away from home she'd been a duke's daughter raised on every kind of elite education. Add in her obsession with chivalry and heroic epics, and she turned out to be a natural storyteller.
It was the same principle as getting good at Japanese because you love anime, or improving your reading skills because you love web novels. Listen to enough stories and you get good at telling them yourself.
So Katie's tale began, and the Empress listened with genuine interest while her Imperial Guard busily set about cleaning up the surroundings. The black-armored female knights used some magic tool I'd never seen before to shove aside the debris that might kick up dust, tidying the area until it was spotless. The onlookers murmured among themselves even as they drifted farther back and quietly started assembling tents.
These were the people who'd come running after hearing Irene's speech at the base camp in front of the Gate, so of course they'd brought every last tent and supply with them.
"You went all the way to the Empire's northern border? Hmm, yes—House Svedov. I have heard their name."
"Y-Your Majesty, it is an hon—"
"Don't interrupt, you idiot!"
Oleg Svedov—not part of the hero party, but a relevant figure in the story who'd been hovering nearby—had a seizure of a reaction to the Empress's words and got dragged off by Alissa. The story itself, though, proceeded smoothly.
The mid-boss that had never appeared on the 55th Floor. The Gate that had suddenly sealed shut. The journey north into the Empire with the Ice Cross Knights, and the crest of a Kingdom ducal house discovered there—
Katie told it better than expected, and not only the Empress but the standing Imperial Guard, the Ice Cross Knights themselves as parties to the tale, and the viewers watching through the camera all listened with rapt attention.
On one side, people were busy building a base camp. On the other, people sat at a table enjoying black tea, macarons, and madeleines. The whole scene had a bizarre quality to it. What finally broke up that strange tea time was a herd of centaurs charging across the distant grassland, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Hmm. Bring me my greatsword. Listening to this story has made me want to face the Tower's monsters myself."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Whether they'd been stationed inside the fortress and gone out on reconnaissance in the opposite direction from us, or whether they'd simply spawned in the area after the mid-boss died and the encampment got wrecked, I had no idea.
What I did know was that the natural-born 6-Star Great Empress Charlotte had personally decided to handle the trash mobs. The onlookers fretted over what would happen if that precious body of hers got hurt—but the Imperial Guard looked completely unfazed.
They stick to her side constantly, so they probably know her combat power down to the last detail. While I was thinking that, four female knights from behind the carriage came forward carrying an enormous strongbox.
Tall, well-built knights who looked to be between 170 and 180 centimeters, hauling a massive metal chest the way you'd carry a coffin—not two of them, but four.
Apparently obsessed with a black-and-gold color scheme, the box itself was matte pitch-black metal, with wave-or-cloud patterns embossed in gold along the edges and the lock. When the Empress reached out a hand, it seemed to recognize her mana—the lid opened on its own, revealing what lay inside—
"…What is that, a sword?"
"Good lord, with one hand?"
A colossal black greatsword that looked a full three meters long lifted into the air of its own accord and settled with a solid thunk into her small hand.
As if a weapon had no need for gold at all, the greatsword was pure black from blade to hilt. A blade even larger than the Four Heavenly King's greatsword that had fled into the fortress moments ago, gripped in the hand of a girl who stood maybe 160 centimeters tall—the proportions were spectacularly unbalanced.
Even if she could handle the weight, her height meant the blade dragged along the ground, plowing through the grassland dirt like a hoe. The chat window went berserk in an instant.
"So the Empress is, what, a heavy-weapons loli concept? But that greatsword alone looks twice as heavy as Roland's hammer and she's holding it one-handed. Okay, now I'm starting to get a feel for what natural-born 6-Star characters are like."
"…Roland's got a sword—well, the Holy Sword—but either way he's a tank with near-invincible durability who can deal conditional damage. The princess has a title that means 'shield,' so she's probably a perfectly filled-out hexagon of offense and defense, a sword-and-board type. And the Empress looks like a pure glass-cannon extreme DPS swinging a super-giant sword, right?"
Apprentice commanders who didn't dare lift their heads. Adventurers and mercenaries whispering with outright rudeness. The Imperial Guard offering silent formal respect. The hero party sitting at the table, debating whether they ought to stand. And over a million viewers plus one streamer.
The Empress took every last one of those gazes with perfect composure, then smiled playfully—and sprang forward, shattering the grassland beneath her.
A tiny doll soaring high into the sky, flying straight toward the ever-clear sun. The colossal greatsword she'd raised vertically with almost acrobatic ease let out a sinister scream, and the world grew brighter still. Golden aura gathered in a mad rush, as if determined to blot out the sun and become its replacement.
So that's what they meant by calling her the Sun of the Empire…?
The moment that pillar of golden light—so dense it erased even the shape of the pitch-black greatsword—came swinging down, the world flared as bright as if a high-tier spell had detonated.
"Hmm. Weaker than I expected? Though they do seem tougher than the trash that comes down from the north."
And so, what remained on the grassland was not a herd of centaurs but a massive crater and a towering cloud of dust. A technique that was barely more than a basic attack, packing power on par with high-tier magic.
It was the moment a natural-born 6-Star—and the Empress of the Empire—proved exactly what she was capable of.