The Legged Sunfish

"Wh-what!?"

Han Suho's younger sister, Han Suyeon, was scowling as if she had just walked in on something she was never meant to see.

He waited until the house was empty and brought a woman home!?

She was genuinely stunned. Where women were concerned, Han Suho had never shown so much as a speck of anything.

And aren't the two of them pressed way too close? With the lights off?

What shocked her even more was the face of the woman lifting her head from Han Suho's shoulder to look this way.

This is insane. Why would a woman like that be with my brother... wait?

"Ah! Could you be the little sister!?"

Click. Clara stood and switched on the living room lights she had turned off for the anime.

"A pleasure to meet you! I am Clara, Han Suho's wife!"

"Whoa...!"

The lights came up, and Clara's face finally showed itself properly. Suyeon's mouth fell open by degrees, the way it does when someone sees a face that shouldn't be real for the first time in their life.

An elf... So this is my brother's summon. The one Mom told me about.

Only then did the clothes Clara had been put in register.

That's the black collared tee Suho always wears... but underneath? No. What is he doing to a girl who looks that innocent!

Eyes blazing, Suyeon glared at Suho.

"Hey! If she's a kid, you could at least dress her properly!"

"She's not a kid. She's twenty-four."

"What?"

"Older than both of us."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Suyeon couldn't make Clara's age line up with her face. Which was fair.

Older? Twenty-four...?

She thought of the twenty-four-year-old seniors she knew. Most of them haunted campus until late every night, dark circles sunk deep, drifting around lifeless as frozen pollack...

No. I've actually seen an elf before, and it was nothing like this.

"What are you doing? Say hello. Clara's waiting."

"Ah, I'm sorry. Um... please just call me Suyeon. And, uh... would it be all right if I called you unnie?"

"Un...nie?"

"I-if that makes you uncomfortable, something else—"

A blur—

Speed on the order of an Agility near fifty.

Suyeon didn't even have time to be startled. She blinked once, and she was in Clara's arms.

Th-that scared me...

"What a wonderful sound! You will say it once more?"

"Uh, unnie?"

"Once more!"

"Unnie?"

Clara, plainly delighted by the title, drew Suyeon in even tighter.

What is this scent?

Something faint and lovely drifting off Clara tickled Suyeon's nose.

I want this unnie for myself.

Clara had risen onto her toes to hold her, and those long ears tickled the nape of Suyeon's neck as well.

I think I'm about to awaken to something very wrong!

Ding! Ri-ri-riing—

"What are you two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠doing over there?"

"M-Mom!? You can't just show up at the house out of nowhere!"

"What are you talking about? This is my house."

Suyeon clamped her mouth shut at that. Thinking about it, the one who had shown up out of nowhere was her. She had only felt caught because she'd been in Clara's arms.

"Father, Mother, welcome home!"

"Mom, it's been ages! You too, Dad!"

A beat late, she greeted her mother as if nothing were wrong, and her father behind her—feeling a strange little pang as Clara, busy greeting them too, loosened the arms that had been around her.

From somewhere, Dad produced a side table that fit the existing four-person set exactly, pushed it flush against the dining table, and sat at the head.

And so the whole family sat down together.

"That was really you?"

Suyeon was floored to hear that the current first-place record holder of both Floor 1 and Floor 2 was me. Until now, the only thing she had known was that my summon was an elf.

If I want this story under control before it gets out, better to tell it once they're home.

I explained everything that had happened, in detail.

"You skipped the most important part."

"Which is?"

"Why did unnie become your wife?"

"Well, that's..."

That was when Clara cut in.

"I fell for him at first sight! I received a proposal! That is how we became husband and wife!"

"Wooow~! Love at first sight! Unnie, you are so romantic~"

...?

From the very start, Suyeon's reactions to everything Clara said had been over the top. She agreed with all of it. She took all of it in the best possible light.

Why is she like that.

She was even being scrupulously polite, unnie this and unnie that. She doesn't call me oppa!

I mean, I get it, but...

We were born in the same year. Me on the first of January, my little sister on the thirty-first of December. Our parents didn't mind Suyeon tossing my name around, so long as she didn't do it outside.

Anyway, her reactions only grew more excessive.

Even after the meal, when Clara moved to help with the dishes.

"We can't let pretty little hands like yours get dirty, unnie. Please just stay there. I'll do all of it."

"I wish to learn! Next time, I wish to try cooking too!"

"Oh my...!"

Elves get by on a single piece of fruit at a meal, and Clara in particular didn't even need that. Even so, Suyeon looked moved to tears that she would carry food and learn to wash dishes.

She calls her unnie, but she treats her like a little kid.

And again, when it was time for bed.

"Unnie. You're really sleeping with me? That's all right?"

Clara smiled, soft and bright.

"Understood! I will sleep with Suyeon!"

"Hhk! Unnie, your smile is too cute!"

...I hadn't thought my little sister would take to it this well.

In only a few hours, the sister the family register had stuck me with had fallen completely for Clara.

"System window. Entering the Tower."

From early morning I left Suyeon—who would not peel herself off Clara—behind, and entered the Tower again today. Right before we went in, the look she sent me while I was being held princess-style was strange.

What are you glaring at.

.

.

.

Once we were inside, I asked to be set down as far as possible from the transparent wall of the Preparation Room. Staying in a princess carry the whole time was a little much, and so only Clara stood directly in front of that wall.

Beyond it...

This floor's monster was the so-called legged sunfish. Exactly what the name said: a thing with legs stuck on. Yes. Legs. The foot kind. Tentacles hung from its tail, and it stood on two of them.

They were not the legs of an amphibian or a reptile. They were human legs, and that made the thing all the more grotesque. A fish like a sunfish, if it had to have legs at all, ought at least to have come with something amphibian or reptilian. That would have been the sensible version. Instead, the legs attached to it were completely human.

Those legs in particular. Probably female. Smooth. It stood tall on the smooth legs of a woman, and those slender limbs didn't seem to strain in the slightest under a body that had to weigh hundreds of kilograms. It simply stood there, glaring our way.

Human legs or not, nothing about that changed a thing. It wasn't human in the slightest. Its eyes, which looked as if no understanding could ever pass through them, were bloodshot the same way they had been since Floor 0. One look was enough to know conversation was never going to happen.

Aside from the legs, the difference was the tentacles. Last time they had been as thick as a waist. These were thin—roughly the thickness of an adult man's forearm. The problem was that thinning them had given them a new function. A mouth. At the tip of each tentacle-tail, a mouth torn long and wide, saw-blade teeth running all the way up to the palate.

A sunfish with smooth female human legs, tail swishing... Hear it described and it might not sound so bad. See it in person, and it inspires nothing but revulsion.

Still can't muster a shred of fondness for these things.

"Let's go!"

"Gladly!"

Ta-ta-tak!

The instant I pressed Yes on the system window, the legged sunfish charged on those smooth legs. This time it couldn't launch itself the way it had before, flinging its body through the air on its tentacles.

I doubt tentacles that thin could even hold up a legged sunfish weighing hundreds of kilos.

Left to its own pattern, unlike last time, it would have been the sort to strike from below with tentacles now built for attacking, and try to tear out a throat with its mouth.

Fwoosh!!

In the next instant its whole body was swallowed in flame.

Ta, ta, ta, ta, tak.

Even wrapped in fire, it looked as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if it would keep coming.

Tok.

Hop. Hop.

?

With barely two meters left, the legged sunfish that had been running right up to us suddenly stopped. Then it started hopping in place.

A slow spin. Ta, tak.

"Uh—?"

It whirled a half turn and ran—the opposite direction from us. Floor 3, where the legged sunfish lived, had a lake as well, about ten meters across. Its target now was obviously the lake at the center.

—Tat!

Shk.

That was when Clara closed the distance in a single burst and cut its legs. Both smooth legs sheared away, and the sunfish that had been running crashed onto the field.

Even then, the mouthed tentacle moved. It lunged for Clara's throat, and Clara, without a flicker of alarm, cut that down too.

Shk!

Thud. A squirm.

The fallen tentacle writhed on the floor for a moment, but the eyes of the sunfish still burning went white, and the tentacle's movement died with them.

Ding~!

"Huh?"

Startled, I pulled up the description of Absolute Defense on the colorful bracelet.

...Why did this drop on Floor 3?

"You two recover all right from the aftereffects last time?"

"Better than that bottom-rung mage, anyway."

"Listen to you. Face like a pig's head a truck ran over. Sure the aftereffects aren't still sitting on your face? No way that thing belongs on a person."

The warrior who led the party pressed a palm to his brow. He had only asked how the two of them were doing.

"Honestly, I can't tell if you two are friends or not."

If anything, his words only stoked them. Watch the pair keep sniping and there would be no end to it.

"Enough. We finish this fast today too. Heading straight in?"

"The leader's all we need!"

"Entering Floor 3!"

Fortunately, every one of them at least followed the leader. A team of five, the party maximum, built from nothing but Iron Aptitude. The sort of roster you could find anywhere. They were sure of themselves, because it was the job combination the guides ranked highest of all: two warriors, one archer, one assassin, one mage.

Iron Aptitude or not, a mere third floor looked easy. Two of them bickered, but all five had known one another from the start, and they fit together well.

"All right! Like we planned, I'll take point and— huh?"

The lead warrior suddenly felt something wrong at his side. One of his party was already staring at the legged sunfish, eyes shot red, a hand clamped over their mouth.

"Hrrrrk—!"

Thump.

In the end she lost consciousness and collapsed. It was the mage they had just been calling bottom-rung. They had barely started, and she had vomited and blacked out. The situation turned ugly at once.

The archer rushed to her, securing her airway.

"Damn it! W-we have to forfeit! First aid first! If you throw up and pass out, your airway can close!"

One of the five gone, just like that. In the middle of the mess, the assassin's eyes went strange. When the mage collapsed, her robes—cut like a skirt—had ridden up, and a woman's thigh lay bare because of it. The assassin stared at that thigh, intent.

The archer who caught him at it shrieked on the spot.

"Hey!! At a time like this, you're—"

But the assassin had started saying something insane.

"...Let's cut the legs off."

"What...?"

"Her legs are smooth, aren't they? Those have to come off."

"Wh-what are you saying! This isn't the time for jokes!"

The assassin drew a dagger and started toward the unconscious mage.

"Shit! It's the aftereffects! He already lost his mind in the Preparation Room, before we even cleared the floor! Just seeing the legged sunfish was enough to drive him insane!"

"What? From looking at a sunfish with legs?"

"Don't stop me! They have to be cut! Her legs are so smooth—aaagh!"

The other warrior seized the assassin from behind and held on for dear life.

"Snap out of it, you bastard!!"

Watching the whole thing collapse into chaos in a heartbeat, the lead warrior clenched his eyes shut. His face said this was as far as they went. In the end, he made the call.

"System window! We forfeit! All of us are getting out!"

A breath away from a total wipe, the lead warrior saved every one of them.

A few days later, the mage and the assassin came to. All they had done was see a monster from the Preparation Room of Floor 3, and yet the aftereffects laid them out for a long time. In the end the two of them made a choice: to sell the mage's robes and the assassin's gear they had received when they selected their classes.

And with that, yet another ragtag party came apart.