Tentasun

Clara wore the knight's dress uniform as if she had served as one all her life, and it suited her absurdly well. She had insisted a sword was all she needed, but the Tower only let you carry in items that came from the Tower itself, so we had gotten both.

And the situation now—

Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh—!

I was going to lose my mind. A seven-second clear.

…How had it ended up like this? Better to rewind, nice and slow, from the night before I fell asleep. That night, too, I was killing time scrolling the galleries.

Mm. Looked like everyone was having a rough time of it on account of their summons. Our Miss Clara wasn't like that.

Turning the word our over on my tongue — when had it stuck there? — I drifted off to sleep.

And then morning. That was when it started.

I'd been asleep and rolled onto my side when the back of my hand met a warmth and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a softness that had no business existing. I flinched. I knew at once. Whatever was touching the back of my hand right now was—! Do I just fake being asleep? Except I already flinched. She definitely caught that I'm awake.

I eased my eyes open. And there, exactly as expected, was Miss Clara.

"Did you sleep well, dayo?"

Whoa…! Is this the view a man married to a beauty gets to see every morning? And not just any beauty — an elf so ridiculously cute and pretty it shouldn't be legal, the second I open my eyes?

"U-um? Did you come into the wrong room?"

"Of course I found the right one, dayo!"

My self-control is not going to survive this!

I tried to pull back the hand resting against her chest, and Miss Clara caught it, drew it in, and cupped it around her own face. What is this? This impossible, yielding softness? Her small face fit into my palm all at once, and the give of her cheek felt far too good.

"You're supposed to ask me if I slept well, too, dayo?"

"D-did you sleep well, Miss Clara?"

"Drop the Miss, dayo!"

"Uh… d-did you sleep well, Clara?"

She smiled, small and bright. All I'd done was ask if she'd slept well, and that was enough. It was the kind of smile that steals a heart in a single stroke, and before I knew it the fingertips still framing her face gave a twitch. Even the long ear under them was soft.

"Nn. It's already morning, and this is our wedding night, dayo?"

I swallowed before I could stop myself.

Clara had worn yesterday's T-shirt of mine to sleep in. It was still September, so the shirt was a thin summer short-sleeve, and thin enough that something showed through….

Click.

That was when I heard Dad clearing his throat as he stepped out of the master bedroom. Mom and Dad are right next door! Only then did I come to my senses and push myself up.

"U-um, Clara? We still don't know each other very well, so this kind of thing, we should take it slow…."

To keep from meeting her eyes, I grabbed my legs and shifted them. I was injured; I put everything I had into looking desperate and preoccupied with the mere act of trying to perch on the edge of the bed.

"Han Suho?"

"Yes — yep! Clara."

Out of nowhere she was calling me by name, family name and all.

"You don't get to say 'slowly' to an elf, dayo? A hundred years is still slowly, dayo?"

"Th-then as fast as I can…."

"Mm~ I'll accept that for today, dayo!"

With that, Clara threw my door wide open.

"Your daughter-in-law offers her morning greetings to Father and Mother, dayo!"

"Ahem. Sleep well, dear daughter-in-law?"

"Did Father sleep well too, dayo?"

"Thaaat I did~"

I didn't need to see him. His voice alone told me the corners of Dad's mouth had climbed.

"Clara? Why were you in Suho's room…?"

"As his wife, I'm waking my husband, dayo! We have to see Father off together, dayo!"

Clara's voice was bright, as if nothing at all were out of the ordinary — as if nothing the least bit suspicious had happened, and all she'd done was wake me after hearing, yesterday, that Dad left for work around six.

Before Mom could settle into some strange misunderstanding, I hurried into my wheelchair and came out of the room.

"Mom, Dad, sleep well? I, uh, I only just woke up myself. Clara woke me."

"You never get up, normally."

"Up bright and early — what a good girl our daughter-in-law is."

"Seeing Father off to work in the morning is only proper, dayo!"

And so that noisy, bustling morning passed.

Before we entered the Tower, I was sure I'd explained things to Clara well enough. What kind of monster would show up, how it attacked, even the fact that clear times were ranked, so we absolutely could not kill it too fast.

"System window."

I touched the Floor 1 tab that had appeared after we cleared Floor 0, and Clara and I entered the Tower. The Preparation Room was the same classroom-sized space as on Floor 0. Just as we'd agreed beforehand, I was lying prone at Clara's feet.

Floor 1's field was ten meters by ten. From here on, every floor, the field would grow to match the floor number. Beyond the Preparation Room's transparent wall was this floor's monster. The so-called Tentasun.

A purple tentacle as thick as a person's waist hung from its tail, and it kept squirming the thing and smacking the dirt with it. Squirm, squirm — bang! Squirm, squirm — bang! As if it were ready to lunge at any moment.

The time limit, too, would scale up with the floor number from here on.

"You're really all right, even seeing it yourself? Clara?"

"Ugh…. A fish with a tentacle for a tail, dayo. It's so gross, dayo! The purple makes it even grosser, dayo!"

"Uh…. We're still in the Preparation Room, so we can leave. Want to just go?"

"We start right now, dayo!"

"…You're sure you're okay?"

"Hurry!!"

"Here we go!"

I tapped Yes on the system window.

Thwack—!

The instant the transparent wall in front of us vanished, the Tentasun charged. At the same moment, Clara manifested her Prayer.

Oh?

Three characters seared themselves into my head at once. So this is what Prayer is. Clara's Prayer rose up in my mind the way a system window stays visible even with your eyes closed.

A flame the size of a fist appeared directly above the incoming Tentasun. The thing was arrowing across the ten meters between us, and up to there it was exactly what the guide had described. But—

FWOOOSH!!!

Before it had even covered half the distance, the fist-sized fire had swollen big enough to wrap the Tentasun's entire body. This isn't the guide…. A heartbeat later the fireball was enormous enough to blanket a Tentasun the size of a front door. This is way too different! The heat of it reached all the way to where I lay flat on the ground.

WHUMP—!

In a blink, Clara kicked the Tentasun away. The moment the creature — now a fireball — looked ready to reach us, she cut it off. She kicked a living thing that weighs hundreds of kilos?!

The Tentasun never touched us. It plowed straight into the dirt right in front of us. Thud. Twitch. Twitch. Tough little life…. It had been burned until it smelled like perfectly cooked fish, and still the tentacle kept squirming. Even so, a Tentasun that could do nothing but twitch its tentacle….

· · ·

In the end it died having done nothing but give off the smell of fish on the grill.

…I'd been perfectly clear that hitting the rankings would draw far too much attention, so we were supposed to stall and take our time killing it….

Clara hadn't exactly been scrambling to finish it fast. She never even swung her sword. A sheet of hot flame simply roared up once over the charging Tentasun, she punted the thing — and that was the end of it.

Floor and grade are decided by level. Floors 1 through 9 are the Unranked floors. Levels 1 through 9 are Unranked level. Normally, anyone at level 10 or higher can't even enter an Unranked floor. But Clara was level 5, with stats close to level 12, and a Mid-level Ability User.

…This is my summon!?

"On to the next floor right away, dayo!"