Menesteil (5)
The boss of Floor 10 was utterly powerless before a shield charged with divinity.
It was the same creature that had already found itself stonewalled by my parrying once before. Did it really think it could punch through a shield reinforced with holy power?
The golem flailed desperately, but every last bit of it was nothing more than flailing. Before even a few minutes had passed, the thing crumbled into meaningless ruin.
Watching the golem's remains clatter down into scraps, lifeless in a way it hadn't been when it first rose, I leaned against the shield I'd planted in the ground and let out a long breath.
Haaaah. This is genuinely exhausting as hell. Now that the fight was over, I was half-dead on my feet.
Right up until the battle itself, I'd had no problems at all.
My stamina is nothing to sneeze at, you know.
Even back in my training days with the Aln family, I could keep moving for hours without a break. And now, grown far beyond anything I was back then, I could easily push through two days straight.
For someone like me to collapse from a simple physical limit would be absurd.
So why was I dying right now? There was exactly one reason: the backlash from using divine smiting arts for far too long.
'Keeping up a defense with divinity burns through stamina at an absolutely insane rate, you know?!'
<Which is precisely why I never told you. You'd be left a soggy rag every time you used it.>
I'd mentioned this before, but I still handle this skill clumsily.
I'd grown somewhat accustomed to using it for physical reinforcement, but anything beyond that was a serious struggle. I can't control the output, so I'm always forced to hurl it out at full power.
Pouring divinity into my shield this time was no different.
While blocking the golem's attacks, I'd had to flood the shield with maximum divinity every single moment, which meant I could feel my stamina draining to rock bottom in real time.
It was only because Unbreakable Will kept forcing me upright that I was still standing. Otherwise I'd have just asked Carl and Alsaetin for help from the start.
...Oh. Right. I could have just asked for help.
My original goal of gauging my own shield-work had already been achieved, so there was no reason to fight it alone.
Aaaargh. Whatever. Damn it. This is all the fault of that miserable, worthless tin can.
Why is that revoltingly ugly hunk of scrap so stubbornly durable?
In the game, it keeled over and died right around the one-minute mark, like clockwork.
And the clear reward it dropped was a single fire magic stone?! Seriously, what a total noob-trash nuisance of a tin can!
"Shall we call it a day here?"
'Yes.'
"Good. This shabby, grimy scrub dungeon is making me sick."
I'd originally planned to push deeper even after clearing the Floor 10 boss, but that was out of the question now. If I forced myself any further, I'd genuinely pass out. Time to head back to the inn and wash up. I couldn't stand this grimy feeling a second longer.
*
While I was washing up at the inn, there was one minor incident involving the face-obsessed fox diving into the clothes I'd taken off, but anyway — cleanup complete, I tossed my armor aside, threw on something light, and stepped outside.
I had to settle up the loot I'd hauled out of the Menestale Dungeon today.
The things I'd picked up on the lower floors were, from my perspective, mostly worthless junk. Stashing all of it in my Inventory would just eat up space — putting any of it to real use was impossible.
So the best move was to simply hand this junk over to the Adventurers' Guild. Sell the loot for pocket money, bump up my standing with the guild, and while I was at it, raise the receptionist's affection toward me too... is what I'd love to say, but nope. I'll count myself lucky if she doesn't hate me.
"There's truly no need for you to go yourself, my lady. I can handle it and return."
Carl tried to dissuade me, visibly uneasy about my visiting the Adventurers' Guild again.
He was worried about me being exposed to all those greedy stares again — the ones from last evening at the guild.
Personally, I thought the worry was pointless.
Maybe if my name were still unknown. But with the fact that I am Lucy Aln declared openly to the world, who would dare meet my eyes?
And what would they even do if they picked a fight with me? Yes, my current appearance is that of a cute girl — but the name Lucy Aln carries enough weight to drive that cuteness straight into the dirt.
I, of all people, knew better than anyone the power of Lucy's infamy, so I brushed off Carl's concerns and headed for the Adventurers' Guild.
The moment I stepped inside, I knew my prediction had been dead on.
The instant my face appeared, silence swallowed the entire guild.
'A familiar atmosphere.'
<Indeed. The same sight you saw to death back at the academy.>
The ones straining to turn their heads away. The ones stealing furtive glances. The ones cowering and burrowing into the corners.
The exact scene that greeted me whenever I walked into class late.
Desire or greed toward a cute, pretty little girl? Yeah, right. As if that could possibly exist here.
When I strode boldly toward the reception desk, the people waiting in line parted to make way without a word. The receptionist sent desperate, pleading looks toward the other adventurers, begging for backup, but not a single soul took the bait.
'Excuse me.'
"Hey. Big Guy."
"Yes, my lady! Lady Aln! What can I do for you?!"
The receptionist received me with rigid, immaculate posture, as if daring me to find even the tiniest flaw.
Watching him stand there all stiff and frozen honestly made me want to nitpick. If I wanted to tear into him, I could find a hundred things to complain about.
Starting with, Am I that scary to you?—
No. No. Calm down.
Maybe it was because I'd been stressed out all day, but my circuits were getting devoured by the Mesugaki skill. What was the point of tormenting someone I'd have to keep dealing with for the foreseeable future?
Having barely reined in my sanity, I told the receptionist I'd come to have my loot processed.
"Your loot? Will you place it on the desk?"
'On here?'
"On this flimsy little thing?"
"Yes."
"Would you look at that. Yes."
Hmm. Not sure all of it is going to fit up there. Well, he said to do it, so I will.
Pretending to open my Sub-space Pouch, I drew the loot out of my Inventory piece by piece. Yeesh, pulling things out one at a time is a chore in itself. Those pathetic noob adventurers made me kill far too many trash mobs.
If I'd moved according to my original plan, I never would have gone through that many battles. Thanks to them I did level up once, but I'm not the least bit grateful. The exhaustion and hassle outweighed that by far.
'Um...'
"Hey. Big Guy."
"Is that all of it?"
'No, it's not that...'
"What nonsense are you spouting? You're as dense as you look. I'm putting it on the floor. Any complaints?"
"Uh. Yes. Yes, ma'am."
After rummaging through my Inventory for ages, I finally managed to lay out every last piece of loot in front of the reception desk.
Back when this was a game, a few clicks of the mouse took care of all of it. Now that it was reality, even this was tiring. Next time I enter the dungeon, I'm just leaving the junk where it drops.
"...This really is everything you hunted today?"
'That's right, isn't it?'
"Why? Got a problem with that?"
"No! Not a problem at all! We'll process it right away!"
While the hulking receptionist and several other guild staff came out to tally up the loot, one party started drifting toward me.
Oh, I remember these guys. The noob party that went up against the Monster Train first.
I'd already resolved to give them a piece of my mind, so this worked out nicely. Pathetic adventurers. It was time for them to shoulder the full weight of the frustration that had built up inside me during the dungeon crawl.
I waited, fully intending to tear into whatever they said—
"We're sorry! Lady Aln!"
"We're sorry!"
The moment they reached me, they slammed their heads to the floor.
Uh. Wait. Huh?
"We knew nothing of our place, and dared to—!"
"Please, just spare our lives—!"
"I have a sickly younger sister at home—!"
At first, my plan had been to smash their self-esteem into glittering powder, but with them prostrating themselves so quickly, my head went completely white.
If it had ended there, I could have pulled myself together somehow. But while the first party was busy groveling, the other people I'd rescued joined in, and that's when my brain genuinely started to shut down.
The most ridiculous one of all was Carl. Here was a situation where he was supposed to be helping me, and he was just nodding along in the back!
If Alsaetin hadn't stepped in partway through, I'd have stood there watching people smash their foreheads into the floor for a good long while.
Haah. Useless outside of combat, just like a dim-witted, worthless Incompetent Dog.
Just you wait. I'll be kicking your ass later.
Once the situation had been sorted out and I'd heard the full story, I could understand why the adventurers had been so desperate. The problem was that my infamy was simply too high.
Think about it. They may have been acting out of pure survival instinct, but either way, they'd put the daughter of a Count — and a certified maniac at that — in danger.
They must have figured there was no telling what would happen to them if they stayed quiet. So they threw their heads down first and groveled in apology, hoping to hang on to their lives.
'I'm tired.'
After firmly promising that I would take absolutely no revenge, I sent them off, leaned back in my chair, and heaved a sigh inside. God, I'm so tired. So tired I could die.
Even pulling all-nighters training with Grandpa never made me feel this close to death.
<Shall we skip today's training, then?>
'No. What needs doing, gets done.'
Any other day, I'd have welcomed an offer to rest. Not today. I needed to properly practice channeling divinity into my shield.
With who knew what variables waiting for me inside the Menestale Dungeon, how could I possibly rest? Rest comes after everything is finished.
I was steeling my resolve, thinking ahead to our future visit to the Partran Territory, when the man who had started this whole baptism of apologies approached.
"I offer my apologies once more, Lady Aln. This is my fault."
For him to stand before me even while trembling in terror — I suppose the man had at least some sense of responsibility.
'It's fine. Don't worry about it.'
"You scrubs' sidekick. You think someone like me would spare a thought for a pathetic commoner loser like you? Puhahaha. Delusions much?"
Assailed by the Mesugaki skill's taunt, the man fidgeted, clearly at a loss for how to respond.
At this rate, I'm going to punch a hole straight through this man's stomach. Let's send him off quickly. Not that I still have things to say, though.
'Aren't you a bit too weak for the adventurer life?'
"Hey, by the way — why does a garbage-weak squishy loser like you, who gets slapped around by girls, even bother going into dungeons? If you want to die that badly, go die miserably alone in your room instead."
Dungeon crawling is a matter of life and death. Walk in there with half-baked skills and all you'll reap is a dog's death. If you're at the level where you have to beg for your life on the lower floors, you're better off giving up the adventurer trade altogether.
I'd only poked my nose in out of a pointless urge to help — an ugly ending to the story would have left a bad taste, after all — but the man waved his hands frantically.
"No! I don't want to die! It's, uh, that is — normally the lower floors never have this many monsters. But today, the dungeon was acting strange."
This is what the man had to say:
He lacked the skill to climb higher, but he was an adventurer good enough to scrape by on the lower floors. Yet today, the dungeon had been off. Monsters were spawning far more frequently than usual, and on top of that, their ferocity had doubled.
"I've been running the Menestale Dungeon for quite a while now, and I've never seen anything like it."
Listening quietly to his story, I found myself unable to say a word, my lips merely parting and closing.
The phenomenon had started the very day I entered the dungeon.
'Um... Grandpa. Could this possibly be...'
<Hmm. Just as Lady Armadi watches over you at all times, it seems the Evil God has fixed his gaze upon you as well.>
Yeah, thought so! No matter how I look at it, this is that thing's fault, isn't it?!
...I'm glad I saved everyone who was in danger, though.
If I'd brushed it off and then found out this was all because of me, I'd definitely have spent a long time drowning in guilt.
Well, that's one more reason added to the pile for clearing this dungeon fast.