94. Dance with the Witch (7)
94. Dance with the Witch (7)
"...It's settling into a lull now."
The fighting was dragging on longer than expected.
I poked Elisa's cheek as she slept, oblivious to the world. When my finger pressed into her soft cheek, she shot up like a student who'd overslept and yelped.
"I-I'm late!"
"You're not, so don't worry."
"Ah..."
Elisa's face instantly flushed tomato-red. I looked away from Elisa, who covered her face with her hands in embarrassment, and spoke to Sif, who was stretching.
"We're heading out soon. You remember what to do, right?"
"Yaaawn... I said I remember. I'm not that stupid, you know."
Good. I patted the shoulder of Elisa, who was still spiraling in embarrassment, a couple of times, then took my canteen from my pack and wet my throat. Staying hydrated was essential for what could be a long fight.
"Everyone, drink some water. Depending on the situation, we may have to fight for hours."
At my words, everyone took out a canteen and drank. Sif even splashed water on her face, perhaps trying to shake off the drowsiness.
Well, it wasn't my concern. The main players were Elisa and me. I put my canteen back in my pack and stowed it in a corner. I had no intention of fighting with my pack on. Gripping my beloved mithril shovel, I looked back at the two people standing behind me.
Faces thick with visible tension.
I spoke to the pair, who were brimming with worry.
"I'm heading up."
"Yeah."
"...Y-yes."
Me first. I stepped onto the stairs I had made with my Skill and climbed up onto the battlefield. As I expected, the battlefield was complete chaos.
Crimson. Dark blue. Severed heads. Fallen monsters. Piled-up corpses. The floor, which must once have been a murky yellow, was now barely recognizable.
People often called a battlefield hell on earth, and the sight made it easy to understand why. I observed the two races still swinging their weapons and waging war.
A few dozen of them remained. They were the ones who had survived in this hell to the bitter end, and their state was gruesome.
An orc warrior swung an axe with his left arm after losing his right. A lizardman fought a desperate battle after losing its tail. Monsters bled from all over as they continued their brutal struggle.
"...Desperate."
"Urp..."
"Ah, ah..."
"Get a grip."
Was this the first time either of them had seen anything like this? I snapped them back to their senses, then drove my shovel into the neck of a fallen lizardman at my feet. Its head came clean off without resistance against the sharp mithril.
Like the monsters they were, their vitality was something else. I watched the head roll on the floor, spewing blood, and then spoke to Sif.
"Sif. Take screenshots from here."
"O-Okay."
"And Elisa."
"...Yes?!"
To Elisa, who yelped in surprise, I issued a request—no, an order.
"You come with me. I can't do it alone."
"Huh? B-but if I come with you, I’ll only be dead weight..."
I turned my head to look at her and was met with a face stained by fear.
No matter how much praise raised her self-esteem, she was still a coward at heart. People did not change that easily. But considering what lay ahead, I needed to help Elisa overcome at least some of her timidity.
The three years at the academy would not be peaceful.
Even just the next incident...
"Kueeeek!"
Right, I was on my way to fight. I advanced over the corpses covering the ground. Even then, the orcs and lizardmen continued steadily reducing each other’s numbers. At least three or four more appeared to have fallen.
"I need your magic to take them down. Two Second-Class spells. Are you certain?"
"Y-yes..."
"Orcs are weak to lightning magic, and lizardmen are weak to fire magic. Prepare your spells, and when I give the signal, cast them immediately. Understood?"
Elisa nodded, but I couldn't entirely erase my unease.
This cowardly Wizard might panic and fail to cast properly. If that happened... it wouldn't be a major problem, but I might have to consider leaving her out of the plan I'd been working on lately.
To see the ending, I needed at least one steady, reliable comrade.
...It was time to begin.
I gripped the shaft of the shovel slung on my back.
-------------------
Corpses. Blood. A fishy stench.
Elisa raised her gaze. Looking at the scene spread across the ground beneath her feet felt as though it might make her collapse on the spot.
"Lightning for the orcs, fire for the lizardmen. Lightning for the orcs, fire for the lizardmen..."
She stared into the air and chanted the words to herself endlessly.
'A few uses of my Skills would finish them in no time.'
Yohan checked the monsters' conditions with his eyes and sized them up instantly.
They were the first monsters he'd seen in the flesh, but they were ones he'd killed to the point of disgust in the game. He couldn't remember how many playthroughs he'd done, but he recalled coming to this dungeon many times. That was because the monsters were numerous, so they gave plenty of experience, and the rewards were decent enough.
'It'd be better to go after the orcs.'
"I'll take down the orcs first."
Yohan reached that conclusion after scanning the lizardman camp, which was being pushed back. He would attack the stronger side and restore some balance. Striking the lizardmen first would take less effort because they would collapse quickly, but it would also leave him facing a larger orc assault.
Not that he'd fall to monsters of this caliber now, but he wasn't the type of man to choose a troublesome option.
"L-lightning..."
And Elisa wasn't the type of woman to abandon her task either.
Even trembling as she was, she slowly began her incantation.
A powerful incantation that would snuff out the life of the Orc Great Warrior.
'She was doing well.'
Relieved inwardly, Yohan glared at the two orc warriors who had spotted him. The two had been swinging their axes like mad. They had been butchering a lizardman, and when they discovered Yohan, they charged as if they had found fresh prey.
"You’re a nuisance. Craft."
"Gwee-eeek!"
In an instant, the two orcs charging at him were impaled on sharp pillars and slain.
With an indifferent face, having lightly dispatched the two orcs, he felt a burning gaze.
The owner of that gaze was obvious: the Orc Great Warrior.
The Orc Great Warrior looked back and forth between Yohan and the Lizardman Great Warrior with blazing eyes.
'It was obviously deciding which of us to attack first.'
That creature didn't possess the intelligence to fall back, regroup, or pit Yohan and the lizardman against each other.
Amidst this, the Lizardman Great Warrior, sensing the situation turning strange, took a few steps back and began to observe the development.
Exhausted from the long battle, it intended to catch its breath in this moment. It knew perfectly well that, even with its intention obvious, no one would be able to lay a hand on it.
If the Orc Great Warrior and the unknown adventurer fought and mutually destroyed each other, that alone would be a gain. The Lizardman Great Warrior ordered his underlings to engage the orc warriors, then began to spectate the fight between the two.
And so, a duel between the Orc Great Warrior and Yohan Quartz was set.
Yohan moved first.
He took a few steps forward with the intention of baiting the creature into attacking him. Five steps. Closing the distance, Yohan considered the reach difference between himself and the Great Warrior.
'The difference in reach was nearly threefold.'
That was natural, since the creature was roughly twice his height. As the distance narrowed, Yohan adjusted his grip on his shovel and prepared to swing it. In a melee brawl, he was obviously at a disadvantage, but he wasn't a warrior who fought in melee to begin with.
Seeing Yohan armed, the Orc Great Warrior grinned and hefted its own weapon, a massive axe. An axe thick with blood and chunks of flesh. How many lizardmen had been sacrificed to that axe, Yohan didn't know. Nor did he care. His only concern was how to bind the Orc Great Warrior's body.
"...Well, I suppose a greeting is in order first. Craft."
He lightly used his Skill to create a wall.
A barrier three meters high.
An ordinary human would have felt uneasy at losing sight of their foe, but to the Orc Great Warrior, it was a flimsy wall it could smash apart with a single kick. Knowing this, Yohan watched the Great Warrior swing its axe at the wall and cast his Skill again.
"Craft."
A single pillar, its tip sharpened to a point. But as if living up to its title of Great Warrior, the orc dodged the pillar with an agility unbefitting its massive frame and kicked it, snapping it in two. Seeing this, Yohan began to hammer his Skill in rapid succession.
"Craft. Craft. Craft. Craft."
Pillar. Pillar. Pillar. Pillar.
Pillars kept sprouting, aiming for the Great Warrior's body. A bewildering sight. But the Great Warrior repeatedly dodged and smashed the pillars with its agility, and at times, its reflexes. Judging by its movements alone, it ranked among the top monsters he had ever hunted.
Yet seeing that, Yohan smiled thinly.
'That was enough for a test.'
It was exactly as strong as he'd anticipated. With a more solid estimate than expected in hand, Yohan lifted his feet, which had been planted as firmly as a tree, and approached the Orc Great Warrior.
"Elisa! When I shout 'now,' cast your magic!"
"Y-yes!"
A monster whose frame looked to be at least four meters tall looked down at him. A single kick from it would be enough to send him straight to the afterlife.
But however strong the Orc Great Warrior was... it was just an early-game monster.
As if he were some mana-starved suicide seeker, Yohan kicked off the ground and rushed the Orc Great Warrior. At the sight of a tiny human charging at it, the Orc Great Warrior let out a roar and began to move limbs thicker than logs.
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
As the two figures drew closer, Elisa's body began to tremble violently.
'I-if I made a mistake, Y-Yohan would...'
She didn't know Yohan's combat strength. Nor did she have any experience venturing into dungeons. Because of that, Elisa felt a crushing pressure.
If she made a mistake, Yohan would die. That fact alone sent the heart of a girl who'd lived her whole life as a coward pounding as if it might burst.
'I couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t make a mistake. Couldn’t...'
She repeated the words without pause as she gathered mana in her hands. The spell was ready to fire at any moment, but the order hadn't yet come. Elisa gritted her teeth and watched Yohan.
At last, Yohan's weapon and the Great Warrior's clashed. The impact was enough to numb her legs, making Elisa stagger. Even so, the spell wasn't canceled.
'Elisa, you could do this.'
Explosions and dust filled the air, making it impossible to tell whether Yohan was alive. Fear surged through her, but she didn't panic.
Because Yohan had told her she could do it, and not to be afraid.
Even when the Great Warrior turned its gaze to look straight at her, she waited for Yohan's command.
The man who looked after her even knowing she was a witch. The man who encouraged her and told her she could do it.
...A man who reminded her of her father from that distant time, from back when he used to be kind, before he tried to kill her.
Would she ever meet someone like that again?
Elisa's will, which had always kept its head down low, lifted its head.
'I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. I could do this...'
"...Craft. Elisa! Now! Fire it at its head!"
A familiar voice rang out alongside a roar thick with pain. The voice that had given her courage.
Elisa immediately fired her magic.
"Lightning... Spear!"
A lance of yellow lightning shot from the small girl's hand. The bolt of lightning, flying with the speed of an arrow, pierced through the Orc Great Warrior's head. Its power was so great that the battling orcs and lizardmen all looked up at the ceiling the lightning had struck.
"Excellent."
Right before clashing with the Great Warrior, Yohan had faked a swing of his shovel, rolled his body, and driven a pillar into the Great Warrior's vitals. Now he dusted himself off and stood up.
"You've succeeded once, so the second time will be easy."
Everything was hardest the first time. Seeing that Elisa looked much better, Yohan shouted,
"Next is fire magic!"
"Yes!"
With Elisa’s magic strengthened by her newfound confidence, the battle ended easily.
He had deliberately left both of them alive to build Elisa’s confidence. As he looked down at the roasted corpse of the Lizardman Great Warrior, the sound of someone collapsing made him turn.
It was Elisa.
"I-I... d-did it..."
"Yeah. You did well."
He carefully picked up Elisa, whose face was etched with fatigue. Seeming to have no energy left even to be embarrassed, she fell asleep the moment she was in Yohan's arms, as if she'd fainted.
It was because her first real battle had left her with no strength left to stand.
Yohan carried her in his arms and regrouped with Sif. Sif was in the middle of going over the countless photos one by one.
"Did you take a lot of pictures?"
"So many that I need to sort out just the really good ones."
"I see."
Fortunately, the hastily improvised operation had ended reasonably well.
"Hm-hm, payment for services rendered..."
Sif hummed to herself as she shoved the photos into a small pouch. Watching her, Yohan turned his gaze down to Elisa, who was soundly asleep in his arms. She was in a deep slumber, likely from having spent so much mana. He handed Elisa over to Sif and instructed her.
"Lay her down over there and extract any usable materials. I’ll check the rewards."
"What? What about me? I wanna go see too!"
"Stop talking nonsense and look after Elisa."
'The rewards were not that great anyway.'
Leaving Sif's grumbling voice behind, he walked toward the reward chest.
---------------
"...Elisa. Are the contents of this report true?"
"Y-yes... I-It's also been certified by the Exploration Guild..."
Elisa stared at the professor with a tense expression, but the professor was far too absorbed in the report to notice.
"Honestly, I was worried about you, Elisa, but you discovered and cleared a new dungeon... Incredible! Even an A+ hardly seems sufficient. You receive an A+!"
Numerous talented students had come and gone through Kalon Academy, but not one had ever found a new dungeon and cleared it.
And with a party of just three, no less!
Professor Grandel of Dungeon Exploration Studies stared wide-eyed at the photographs attached to the report. His fascination bordered on madness. Elisa was flustered by the sight, but Professor Grandel did not care.
'She discovered and cleared a new dungeon! There would be an uproar in a few days!'
For a man who had devoted his entire life to dungeon research, this was an exceptionally fascinating type of dungeon, and he was already planning to rush over the moment official exploration became possible.
A new dungeon with a new type of floor.
A dungeon where mutually hostile monsters appeared simultaneously.
A blue crystal that revived the petrified monsters.
Dungeons with unique gimmicks were an everyday occurrence, but one with this kind of gimmick was a first.
'I hoped access would be approved soon!'
A week for a cleared dungeon to reset. Normally about a month to get a permit from the Dungeon Exploration Guild.
The professor began planning to explore the dungeon as soon as permission was granted.
"Uh... P-Professor?"
"Ah, you may leave now."
"Oh... well, then..."
Elisa carefully closed the door to the research lab and let out a sigh.
'What a relief...'
The professor had rated her work very highly despite the disadvantage of completing the assignment alone.
It was welcome news for her, as she wanted to win a scholarship so she wouldn't be a burden to Professor Lennon, who had paid her expensive tuition.
Walking down the corridor in a daze, she suddenly stopped and began to let out a gloomy giggle.
"Hehehe..."
'...Yohan would be pleased to hear, wouldn’t he?'
He was one of the few men who treated her kindly. Thinking of the fierce-looking man whose personality was so much gentler than his face suggested, Elisa blushed without realizing it.
"Oh my, Elisa. Why are you laughing so gloomily in the middle of the corridor?"
"Eek?!"
Until Martina, looking at her with worried eyes, spoke up.