Adaptation (5)
The day I saw the message telling me my Divinity comprehension and proficiency had increased, I immediately threw myself into putting the upgrade to practical use — after feeling its performance with my own body the moment I got it.
After all, becoming better at handling Divinity didn't just mean my holy magic got stronger; it meant an across-the-board boost to my combat power as a whole.
Convinced that if I mastered this properly I might actually land a hit on Benedict, I used my friends and the Aln Knights as test subjects while I adapted to the change.
And yet, despite all that effort, I still couldn't reach the wall called Benedict.
Ugh. Thinking about it again just annoys me.
Isn't that man taking this whole 'mature adult' thing a little too far?
His daughter is flailing desperately just to land a single touch on him — how can he never, not even once, let it slide?
Even if only out of fondness for watching her give it her all, surely he could quietly allow one attack to slip through, no?
Setting aside the fact that I'd been dragged into this, sparring with Benedict was a tremendous help in adjusting to my new Divinity.
Fighting tooth and nail just to survive forced me to get comfortable with it before I even realized it.
It was hard to feel the difference while I was still trading blows with a monster like Benedict, but now that I was up against ordinary monsters instead, I could finally sense just how much stronger I'd become.
WHAM! Watching a monster burst apart the instant my mace connected, I couldn't hold back a laugh.
It's true the monsters in this dungeon aren't particularly strong. This place wins by sheer numbers rather than individual quality.
But that doesn't mean they're weak enough to be total scrubs, either. As befit a spot frequently farmed in the midgame, they possessed at least a baseline level of toughness.
Simply put, the reason these things were getting so miserably obliterated was that I was simply too strong.
WHAM! Having smashed apart another one trying to flank me from behind, I swatted a third away with my shield and turned to watch the others. The most eye-catching, as always, was Frey.
A lover of solo action since long before this, she had charged into the horde with my blessing and was carving her way through their midst.
By now, Frey's sword — imbued with color, with Aura — lopped off a monster's head with every single swing, and thanks to her, the density of monsters pressing toward me had thinned out considerably.
Arthur's growth was just as striking.
Put through grueling ordeals with the knight order, he now wielded Aura at will, and on top of that had learned to weave magic naturally into close-quarters combat.
As I was idly admiring a glimpse of the completed magic swordsman I'd always wanted, Arthur suddenly roared at me.
"Lucy Aln! Is this really the time to be standing around watching!"
"Why? Finding it too hard all on your own? In that case, I suppooo~se I could help..."
"Damn it all! Never mind! I shall manage on my own!"
...No fun at all. What a pain.
Fine. If he wants to do it alone, let him shoulder it all by himself. I'm not lifting a finger.
Even my taunts, which I'd been spraying in every direction, came to a stop, and I turned my gaze away from Arthur's grumbling toward Joy.
Her practical magic — intuition honed from sparring with me, structure hammered in through the Aln Knights' training, and polish earned through repeated bouts with Benedict — was clean enough to remind me of a mage on the other side of a monitor.
Dispatching enemies that closed in with tidy efficiency, keeping defensive magic on permanent standby against any stray attack, and on top of all that stacking large-scale spells to wipe out clustered monsters. So this was the talent that had academy professors gushing over her.
"Aaugh!?"
Doing my best to avert my eyes from Joy, who'd just taken a hit from the remains of a monster she'd been busy dispatching, I turned my head at last toward the warmth of divinity.
Since parting ways with me, Phoebe — now carrying the Chief God's Divinity within her — had fully embodied it.
Perhaps because Johann, the foremost authority on divine magic, had personally instructed her, her talent had grown to the point where she'd suffer no comparison against even several famous, active high priests. She truly deserved the word 'Saintess'.
Everyone has grown to where they'd hold their own even against the characters on the other side of a screen.
I suppose it's only natural — I'd gathered in one place people who should never have been collectible at this point in the timeline and trained them the way a user would.
What an awkward situation. This leads to the unavoidable conclusion that, compared to their monitor counterparts, the only one who falls short is me.
"Everyone! Please fall back!"
Just as I was snickering at this feeling I couldn't tell was pride or exasperation, Joy raised her voice in urgency.
My friends didn't question her shout for a second, immediately retreating from the monster horde, and once she confirmed they were clear, Joy slammed the spell she'd prepared straight into the middle of the pack.
Within the dungeon, lightning that would once have been called the wrath of the gods came crashing down, annihilating the monsters wholesale.
Hmm. About an hour to clear one trap, then? Judging by their condition, the kids could probably push through one more, but that'd be the hard limit.
After that, we'd need to rest.
All the more so, considering Agra could try pulling some underhanded nonsense at any moment.
"And that's a wrap... probably?"
I'd been mentally plotting out how to run the grind when Joy's voice tugged the corners of my mouth upward.
"...My lady? Why are you looking at me with that expression?"
"What's wrong with my adorable face, Scatterbrain?"
"It looks extremely mischievous right nooowww..."
It was that obvious, huh? Still playing with the corner of my mouth, I shrugged and informed Joy that her bad premonition had been dead on.
I was planning to rest a bit before moving on, you see? But the moment I heard 'that's a wrap,' the urge to mess with her welled up and I couldn't hold it back.
When someone says that line, it's practically a rule that you have to inform them it is, in fact, not the end.
Right?
"Nooooooo!"
Hoisting the shrieking Joy onto my back, I sprinted toward the next trap while drafting the plan for a long, long grind.
One week into the grind in the Reez territory. Even though we were pushing through the grind with rest cut to the absolute minimum, I hadn't seen a single message from Agra.
You used to throw a tantrum every single time I set foot in a dungeon — so why aren't you butting in at all now?
Why do you only show up when I'm fully prepared to deal with every cheap shot you've got, you sneaky little bastard!?
Would it kill you to toss me a bonus stage and some extra EXP!?
Even though I'd gotten a bit worked up midway through and gone around slinging every insult in the book at Agra, the Evil God never once intervened in the dungeon.
Pathetic piece of trash. You're an Evil God, so you figure honor and pride are for chumps and you'll only pounce when it's guaranteed you'll win?
Just you wait. You will never, ever win. Not once, for the rest of eternity.
Apart from confirming that Agra was, befitting an Evil God, a cowardly, sneaky, small-minded, prideless impotent bastard, the leveling process itself went almost suspiciously smoothly.
My friends' stamina had turned out better than I expected.
Probably thanks to the Aln Knights' sleep-deprived training regimen, they grumbled and groaned through the endless ordeals but never actually collapsed.
Ah, though Arthur did ask me at one point why we were bothering with this at all, saying the Aln Knights' training would've been far more beneficial.
My answer was simple.
'Does the Pitiful Prince truly lack even the wit to feel his own growth?'
Levels don't show on the surface, but they are without question one of the rules this world runs on.
So if you step away and grind hard enough to make your level spike, the sense of your own growth becomes impossible to miss.
Upon hearing this, Arthur realized he had in fact grown stronger, and from then on he never once complained about my methods.
The others were the same. When you can see yourself growing stronger in direct proportion to the suffering, what possible reason is there to complain?
"Petty, cowardly, gutter-trash, limp-dick Agra. Spend the rest of your miserable life groveling in the dirt where you belong. Please and thank you."
Hurling my taunt the instant we entered the dungeon, as always, I clicked my tongue at the total silence that greeted it.
Grandfather, who'd witnessed my little tirade, looked at me like I'd lost my mind, saying I had to be the only person alive who talked to an Evil God like this — but he didn't stop me.
Two weeks into the grind.
The way the people of Reez territory looked at us was starting to get distinctly weird, but I paid it no mind.
The only thing on my mind was that the grind's efficiency kept getting worse and worse. At this rate, hitting 90 before sophomore enrollment was going to be a stretch, wasn't it?
Damn it. If that bastard Agra had just gifted us a few bonus stages along the way, we'd be growing way faster than this!
Three weeks and four days into the grind.
After spending twenty hours a day inside the dungeon, I finally reached level 90 — and slammed straight into a growth wall.
Despite grinding all day long, my level simply refused to budge.
For my friends, the spot was still effective for grinding, but their stamina was the problem.
Nearly a month of back-to-back forced marches had left everyone looking haggard, and even I — the one who'd normally just say grit it out — was starting to worry my friends might actually collapse.
Maybe it's time to wrap up the grind. The second semester is starting soon anyway, so it's not like the timing's too early.
Just as I was mulling this over, Alsaetin paid a visit to our camp beside the dungeon.
He'd arrived with his face and voice completely altered, and at the sight of my friends' wretched state, he let out a dry little chuckle.
"I knew my master was working the young Burrow hard, but this place is even worse."
"And what's the Inferior Young Master scrub learning, exactly?"
"He is being force-fed the fundamentals of information work — the same basics I was taught. My master says she intends to use him as an informant inside the Academy."
When I heard that the more he got worked, the more he grew — and that Karia was thoroughly enjoying herself — I said a prayer for Jackal's soul.
Of all people, he had to get caught by Karia? If that sour-tempered auntie makes you her plaything, you're in for a world of suffering.
I wonder if by now he's realized the Aln Knights would've been the kinder option.
"He is getting by well enough, so there is no need for concern."
"Oh, I got that. So why'd an info-peddler like you come all the way here?"
"Because there is something I must deliver."
The words written at the top of the paper Alsaetin handed over read as follows.
Operation to Eradicate Evil God Followers, Led by the Art Sect.
Every single word dripped with menace, and I was still blinking at it when Alsaetin continued his explanation.
"You captured an Apostle of the Evil God not long ago, if you recall. Using the intelligence extracted from that one, the Art Sect drafted a purge plan, but given its scale, it has yet to be put into motion. At present, they are soliciting cooperation from the various churches..."
Belatedly snapping back to my senses, I let my eyes travel over the words on the paper.
The framework was to shrink the Evil God faction's presence on the continent, using the information Nakrad had provided.
But as I read the lines beneath it, a strange sense of déjà vu washed over me, and I went back to the top and reread it from the beginning.
And then I was certain. This event — it was the same event I knew.
"Info-peddler. That pervert Apostle of the Art Order — where is that lunatic and what's he doing right now?"
"He is currently staying with the Sect. There is a great deal to be discussed."
"And that pathetic, spineless twig of a man?"
"The same. As I understand it, Nakrad is also imprisoned beneath the Sect."
...
AAARGH! DAMN IIIIT! No matter what happened, I was dead set on never setting foot inside the Art Cult Cathedral!
And now you're telling me I have to go!?
It's not like I can just stand around and watch those idiots walk straight into a trap with their own two feet!