I Became a Landlord (1)

"Hold the line!"

"Kueeeek!"

The soldiers took the orcs' charging assaults with practiced ease, their shields locked tight as a single wall. Behind them, spearmen thrust through the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gaps and brought the creatures down.

They're fighting better than I expected.

I revised my assessment of the soldiers on the spot. Individually they might have been weak, but as a unit they were solid. Well — an army is a collective, not a handful of elites. I suppose that's only natural.

The battlefield changed when one last orc came bursting from the dungeon entrance.

A massive foot came down and crushed the corpses of its own kind. Its body was a ruin of burns, the flesh sloughed and raw, but the killing intent in its eyes was very much alive as it glared at the soldiers.

There was no mistaking it. This was the boss.

"Ra! Kraksa!"

The chieftain orc roared and swung its axe. The blade, heated red-hot by the fire, smashed into the front of the shield wall.

The entire formation shuddered with the sound of buckling iron. Several soldiers in the front rank couldn't absorb the impact and were driven bodily backward.

In awakener terms, roughly D-rank?

Against soldiers who were F-rank on a generous day, it was an opponent they simply could not match. There was only so much a formation could do to paper over a gap in raw power.

"I believe it is time I stepped in."

Charlotte, who had been watching the soldiers, finally drew her sword and moved forward. She too had judged that they could not handle this.

Now I'll get to see what a knight is actually capable of.

"Open the wall!"

At her command, the soldiers who had been barely holding on moved as if they had been waiting for it. The moment the shield wall parted, Charlotte kicked off the ground and charged through.

The formation had already reshaped itself into something like a circular arena. Only the orc and Charlotte remained inside, eyeing each other like gladiators.

The orc moved first. It swung its axe with a hand still dripping pus.

A heavy clash rang through the forest. To the ear it sounded like a collision of raw force against raw force, but the reality was different. She had angled her blade from above to deflect the axe, then ridden the same line straight into the orc's flank.

It was a familiar form of swordsmanship, in its way.

Longsword technique, I think they called it. Close-combat awakeners tended to pick up martial arts or sword forms the higher they climbed, so identifying it was not difficult. So that's what they meant by offense and defense as one.

A principle a colleague had once boasted about finally made sense. What I had taken for a purely defensive line became an attack; what looked like an attack cut off the enemy's strike. The transitions between offense and defense flowed like water.

The orc's axe-work, by contrast, was crude in the extreme. Chop down, or swing. That was the entire repertoire.

But if technique alone decided a fight, no combat sport in the world would bother with weight classes. The orc had no technique — only the crushing strength of an overwhelming physique, and it used that strength to shove Charlotte back hard.

Still. Charlotte should win this.

Her level was about the same as the chieftain orc's — D-rank. At equal rank, a creature covered in burns that had also inhaled half a forest's worth of smoke was bound to be at a disadvantage.

The prediction held. As the seconds stretched, the orc's movements grew visibly sluggish. Charlotte did not miss it. She took the opening and carved deep into its neck.

"Kuraaaa...!"

Blood fountained from the orc's throat. Drenched in what it had just sprayed, the creature staggered and dropped to its knees.

"...?"

That was when I noticed something was wrong.

Blood can't dry that fast.

Moments ago it had been soaked in its own blood. Now only a red haze seemed to cling to it, as if everything had already dried away.

The change became unmistakable then. Crimson energy gathered on the orc's axe, thread by thread, as if the blood itself were condensing along the steel. And the moment it straightened its kneeling legs and heaved the axe high, a faint red light ran the length of the blade.

Weapon Enhancement?

The light clinging to the axe was unmistakably Weapon Enhancement — the exclusive technique of C-rank close-combat awakeners. Watching a mere D-rank orc use it made my brow furrow on its own. It was a technique the creature should never have been able to handle, but it seemed to be forcing the issue by burning its own life as fuel.

"Aura!"

Charlotte's voice, for the first time, held something like panic. Apparently they called Weapon Enhancement Aura in this world.

If that's really Weapon Enhancement, this is bad.

Temporary or not, an orc that had stepped above its rank was no longer someone Charlotte could handle. Sure enough, the axe wreathed in crimson light drove her back.

Axe-edge and sword-blade locked, scraping out a sound that set the teeth on edge. The enhanced axe was slowly biting into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the steel. If Charlotte had been holding a high-grade blade, she might have withstood a Weapon-Enhanced edge — but what she had was an ordinary iron sword.

A hairline crack appeared in the blade she was using to block.

"Kh!"

Her face twisted with dismay as the crack spread.

You'd be in trouble ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if you thought a healer was just a medic.

I reached out before she could go and get herself thoroughly Lotte'd.

From the cracking, failing sword, a brilliant light bloomed as if to meet the orc's axe head-on.

At some point a floral fragrance rose as if to cover the smell of blood. Following it as if spellbound, I found a gorgeous light flowering along the blade.

Charlotte's eyes flew open like blossoms bursting into full bloom. In the same instant she clenched her teeth and stepped forward, putting her weight behind the sword.

Then white Aura and crimson Aura collided.

Bewilderment crossed the chieftain orc's face.

"Kr, krak...!"

It was a blade that should have been forced back in any contest of raw strength. But Charlotte's light-filled sword sheared through the thick axe-head in a single stroke. The sword-light continued on and whispered across the orc's neck.

A wet, final slice.

The buff was overkill.

That thought was only natural. The bisected axe-head and the orc's head hit the ground in succession, and a cheer erupted across a battlefield that had been holding its breath.

"Waaaaaah—!"

"Long live Lady Charlotte!"

Charlotte approached through the cheering and bowed her head.

"I am unharmed, thanks to you."

"I was only doing my job."

Landing heals and buffs at the right moment was my work, so it was not a lie. I accepted her thanks as gracefully as the situation required and walked over to the chieftain orc's corpse.

"This may be rather gruesome for a priest to look upon, Father."

"There's something I need to check."

If this was anything like a Tower floor boss, the body would definitely have that inside it. When I placed my hand near the chest, I felt a familiar energy. I drew a knife, parted the flesh, and looked in.

Sure enough. A red crystal a little smaller than a fist was nestled there.

...There's a key.

The key to the door leading to the next floor. It was also the key that opened the reward room. It did not actually look like a key, of course, but the awakeners who climbed the Tower called it that for convenience.

When I pulled it free, Charlotte showed interest.

"That is a special magic stone, I see."

"A special magic stone, you say?"

"Unlike ordinary magic stones, it is found only in dungeon monsters, and only occasionally. I understand the Magic Tower purchases them at a considerable price."

"...I see."

Was it something different? Charlotte's explanation did not match the use I knew. The thought crossed my mind that this might have nothing to do with the Tower at all.

I shook my head a moment later.

...She might simply not know. Unlike Earth, information in this world did not flow — it pooled. That was only natural in a place with no internet and nothing you would even call a press. The possibility that the truth existed and they simply had never learned of it could not be ruled out.

Holding the magic stone, I looked at the dungeon entrance.

"Let's go inside."

"It will still be burning. Even if the interior is a beach, the heat will be dangerous."

"If what I know is correct, it should be fine."

When a floor boss died, that floor's environment reset. Monsters did not respawn immediately, but destroyed terrain and environmental conditions recovered quickly. So if the orc we had just killed was the boss, the fire inside the dungeon should have gone out by now.

I stepped through the portal.

"Look — the fire is—"

A blast of heat slammed into my face. The flames had not diminished in the slightest. They were still devouring the entire forest.

"..."

Charlotte, who had followed me in, looked back and forth between the burning woods and my face.

"It is still on fire, however?"

"...That shouldn't be possible."

"The heat is simply too intense. Let us go back out."

I turned around without argument. But my feet stopped again almost immediately.

The magic stone in my hand was glowing faintly, as if answering something.

The roaring flames shuddered all at once. Then they began to shrink rapidly, as if being sucked into something invisible. The smoke that had blanketed the forest flowed backward and vanished.

The boss died outside the dungeon, so the clear registered late. In the Tower, bosses never left their floors. I had not even considered the possibility.

"The fire is dying down. No — the heat itself is disappearing."

Charlotte surveyed the surroundings with open curiosity.

"I have heard that dungeons vanish once their chieftain is slain. Then, after some time, they reappear in an entirely different location... I wonder if this is related to that phenomenon as well?"

"...I couldn't say. But it's an interesting hypothesis."

I responded appropriately and walked deeper into the forest, where the heat had already gone.

But it is suspicious, I'll give it that.

The Tower had put down roots in every nation. Not separate Towers — the same Tower, with the same contents. And a cleared dungeon appearing somewhere else as if it had been copied — could that really be a coincidence?

Of course, it was a stretch of a theory with not a scrap of real evidence to stand on.

Once I collect the reward, I might learn something.

The key vibrated more strongly the closer I drew to its destination. Following the reaction, I eventually came upon what appeared to be the orcs' village. Crude leather tents and a wooden palisade came into view first. Inside stood a grotesque totem woven from animal bones and branches.

This should be the place.

The key reacted more strongly the closer I brought it to the totem. I held the magic stone out before it and slowly channeled energy in.

The crystal rose from my palm.

So far, this is exactly as I know it.

Then the energy drained away, the empty magic stone tumbled to the ground — and a message in a familiar font filled my vision.

Original Piece?

The font was familiar. The wording was utterly foreign.

The messages did not stop there.

A sliding chime rang through the air.

"...!"

It was not even a long list. But with so few entries, it was no surprise that one item in particular leapt straight off the page.

My heart pounded. I wanted to shout for joy. But Charlotte was right beside me, so I kept my face still and forced the feeling down.

A way back. No — I've found a lead, at least.