Chapter 21
Elves had two great talents.
One was a knack for archery, and the other was the ability to wield spirit magic.
Most elves were good with a bow. But spirit magic was a gift only a select few among them were born with.
That was why elves with high spirit affinity held such a lofty status among their own kind.
“Ohhh… a child favored by the Spirit King. You have the talent to become a magnificent spirit mage.”
That was what Nierel had once heard from an elf elder when she was young.
Nierel had been born with an exceptional affinity for spirits.
From childhood on, she had been showered with the hopes of the other elves.
“You can do it, can’t you, Nierel? If you’ve won the Spirit King’s favor, you’ll become a truly splendid elf. You might even lead the forest and become an elder someday.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
Under that weight of expectation, Nierel trained in spirit arts.
The more the rumors spread, the more elves placed their hopes on her.
“Wh-why won’t it work…?”
But as time went on, something strange began to happen.
She found herself unable to communicate with the spirits anymore.
The more she failed, the more frightened she became.
And the more frightened she was, the more completely the spirits shut her out.
“Hmm… you failed again, Nierel. It’s all right. Rest, and try again tomorrow. We have plenty of time.”
“Y-yes…”
But elves, with their long lives, were patient.
Making a few mistakes was nothing unusual.
Still, Nierel knew it wasn’t just simple failure.
For all the talk that she was a spirit-affinity prodigy, her connection to the spirits kept growing thinner and thinner.
In the end, one day, Nierel ran away from the forest.
She was afraid of disappointing those who had expected so much from her.
She was afraid of carrying that expectation through the long, long life of an elf.
So she fled to Babilgrid.
In Babilgrid, she could pass for an ordinary elf.
She hid the truth about spirit magic and became a climber as a plain, ordinary elven archer.
“Oh, an elf? Then you must be good with a bow.”
Even there, though, the expectations kept coming.
Fortunately, archery was easier than spirit arts.
Even by the standards of an ordinary elf, she was an excellent archer.
Compared to the crushing burden of being hailed as an unprecedented spirit-affinity elf, the expectations that came with being a simple elf archer were far easier to bear.
With that pressure eased, Nierel found her smile again.
But peace did not last long.
On her first descent into the sixth floor after becoming a ninth-grade climber, Nierel made a critical mistake.
Her arrow struck an ally.
He looked at her in the instant before death, his expression twisted with betrayal, shock, and every other emotion imaginable.
From that day on, her hands began to tremble whenever it mattered most.
She tried to overcome it, but whenever the situation grew dire, she would still make mistakes.
In the end, she wound up joining a rookie party on the first floor.
She was running out of money. She had no choice.
If it was only goblins, it wouldn’t be dangerous.
So she steeled herself once more and tried to push through it.
At first, it seemed like things were going smoothly.
Then it came out that the three childhood friends had been deliberately walking in circles through the labyrinth.
Right then, raiders who had spotted them attacked the party.
“U-uh, uh…”
The raiders were stronger than Nierel’s party.
The odds of victory were low.
This could be a battle where everything was taken from them and they died with nothing.
Nierel knew that if she performed well, they at least had a chance.
“I-I have to… I can do this…”
But the moment she realized that, her hands began shaking again.
Her damned hands always started trembling and acting up the moment something mattered.
Nierel knew it instinctively.
If she fired now, she’d make a mistake again.
“Miss Nierel!”
Then one of the party members, Ivan, shouted.
“I’ll rush in and strike at the enemy’s rear. Please cover me!”
Ivan spoke as though he didn’t care at all about her trembling hands.
Didn’t he realize that if she slipped, an arrow could end up buried in the back of his head? Wasn’t he afraid?
“Miss Nierel! You can do this!”
Ivan even took the time to encourage her.
Come to think of it, he had done that all along during the expedition.
He had always told her she could do it.
He had never once said he was counting on her.
Whoosh—
Ivan charged forward with confidence.
It was as if he truly believed in Nierel.
Her hands were still shaking.
The arrowhead wavered wildly and failed to settle on the target.
I have to shoot…!
But Nierel knew this much: if she didn’t shoot now, she would die anyway.
Please, just this once. Whispering the prayer she always did, she let the arrow fly.
Thwong—
“N-no!”
But even this time, no miracle came.
The trembling arrow flew not toward the enemy, but toward the back of Ivan’s head.
Nierel cried out in panic and squeezed her eyes shut.
She had done it again.
Hate for herself welled up inside her.
She’d made the same mistake again.
I did it again…
The whole party is going to get wiped out because of me—
But what happened next was nothing like what Nierel had imagined.
Whoosh—
As if he’d known the arrow was coming for him, Ivan dropped low the instant Nierel loosed it.
His body slid across the floor like it had been thrown into a slide.
The arrow Nierel had fired grazed Ivan’s forehead and then punched straight through the head of an enemy archer.
Ivan did not stop there.
As though every movement had been planned, he attacked the frontliner beside him.
It had been a lie when he said he would aim for the enemy archer from the start.
Knowing Nierel would accidentally shoot at him, he had deliberately guided the arrow toward the enemy archer instead.
“Huh…?”
Nierel stared blankly at Ivan for a moment.
He had known from the beginning that she would make a mistake.
He had never expected her to shoot correctly in the first place.
Come to think of it, he’d always been like that.
Even while fighting the goblins, Ivan had checked on Nierel at regular intervals.
“Ivan…”
Ivan had expected nothing from Nierel.
He had simply accepted the fact that she was “an elven archer who always makes mistakes when it matters.”
Realizing that, Nierel felt the weight lift from her shoulders.
Kraaaah!
Just then, Ivan let out a savage cry.
He was being pinned down by two raiders.
He had managed to take down one frontliner in the exchange, but two enemies remained.
Kane and Dogo had already collapsed after failing to hold off a single frontliner.
Ivan was fighting desperately against the last two by himself.
Claaaang…
Nierel nocked another arrow to her bow.
Her hand did not tremble.
[Invisible Sword: So from the start, you never trusted the elf!]
I used Nierel’s mistake to take down the enemy archer.
But there were still three enemies left that needed dealing with.
Slash—
At the same time that I dodged Nierel’s arrow, I cut at the ankle of the nearby frontliner.
Caught off guard by the sudden low strike, the enemy toppled over.
I didn’t stop. I drove my blade into the bastard’s head.
Crunch.
With a horrifying sound, the raider’s skull burst apart.
The sensation was far harder than a goblin’s head.
[Emperor Augustus: Zihahaha! What splendid footwork! You wouldn’t believe this was your first labyrinth run!]
[Lustful Demon: To think you’re already this good… Your talent is ridiculous.]
[Sword Master: Don’t let your guard down yet! He’s coming from the right!]
[Invisible Sword: Those bastards are useless. They can’t even beat one man between two of them?]
But there was still an enemy left.
A snake-like raider who had single-handedly handled Kane and Dogo lunged at me.
[Sword Master: He’s strong! Block with your shield!]
I was about to defend with my sword when, at Sword Master’s voice, I hurriedly raised my shield instead.
With a heavy, grinding crash, I felt my body shoved backward.
The impact was on a completely different level from the other enemies.
[Lustful Demon: That one’s the leader. He’s far stronger than the rest.]
He’d been grinning like a snake with all the leisure in the world from the very front.
This bastard was much stronger than the other raiders.
Even blocking his attacks was a struggle.
I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to drive my sword into him.
[Sword Master: Behind you!]
At that moment, another one stabbed at me from the rear.
I barely managed to evade it, but the dagger still scraped my arm.
“Kraaah!”
The two enemies pressed me together in a pincer attack.
I swung my shield and sword wildly to resist, but alone, it was hopeless.
No matter how extraordinary the sword spirits claimed my talent was, talent alone couldn’t overcome numbers.
In an instant, the wounds on my body multiplied.
The sword spirits were shouting like mad inside my head.
“I’d like to do that too!!”
The spirits read the enemies’ attack paths for me.
But knowing the path didn’t mean I had the skill to avoid two blades at once.
[Invisible Sword: Right chest! You really need to avoid this one!]
My stance broke down after only a few exchanges.
One of them aimed a dagger at a vital point.
The raider’s cruel smile flashed through my vision.
I felt it instinctively.
I couldn’t dodge this one.
With the taste of blood already on my tongue, I flinched hard.
But just before the bastard’s dagger could tear into my flesh, the raider’s head was suddenly flung backward with a strange, spinning motion.
An arrow was embedded dead center in the fallen raider’s forehead.
[Lustful Demon: An elf?]
[Sapier: …Did she actually land the shot properly?]
I turned my head and caught sight of Nierel.
She was holding her bow with a resolute look on her face.
Her hands weren’t shaking.
[Invisible Sword: There’s still one left!]
But there was no time to get distracted.
The last remaining raider leader.
His arming sword came screaming toward my throat.
Clang—kakakakang!
I blocked again with my shield.
My left arm went numb from the shock of it.
After only a few exchanges, the wooden shield had turned to rags.
“I thought you were just a bunch of amateurs…”
The raider leader, seeing his comrades dead, muttered with a face twisted in rage.
Nierel tried to target the raider leader with her bow as well, but he had anticipated it and moved erratically around me.
He intended to keep overlapping his path with mine and force Nierel into making another mistake.
It looked like she couldn’t find a clean angle, because she couldn’t bring herself to fire.
Kaang!
His sword and mine crashed together.
Even though I was holding a long sword, I was being overpowered in pure strength.
Every time I tried to strike, he blocked it with ease.
[Lustful Demon: Use your unique attribute!]
Then Lustful Demon shouted.
The red line of the Command Sword caught my eye.
The Soul Power that had been about sixty percent charged before entering the labyrinth had been completely filled by the goblins.
Inheritance (Phase 1) — Critical Strike was a brute-force but reliable unique attribute that dealt double damage to an enemy.
My sword and the raider leader’s blade collided once more.
Again, I was forced back by the difference in our strength.
The raider, now feeling confident again, bared his teeth in a grin.
“You might be strong for a rookie, but that’s not enough, you little bastard!”
As if he meant to finish me, the raider lifted his sword high.
I seized the opening and activated my unique attribute.
Inheritance (Phase 1) — Critical Strike.
The full Soul Power gauge plunged all at once.
The consumed Soul Power wrapped around the entire blade.
The raider leader’s expression twitched.
He must have sensed something had changed, but it was already too late.
My Command Sword, loaded with Critical Strike, smashed head-on into his arming sword.
“——!”
My attack was far stronger than before.
The raider leader lost his grip on his sword.
I did not stop. I drove my blade into the leader’s exposed upper body.
With a wet, tearing sound, the snake-like face of the raider leader collapsed inward.
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