A Mesugaki Never Backs Down (4)
Thanks to Arthur agreeing so readily, our dungeon party was filled to capacity, and we headed straight for the dungeon.
Karl? He comes running over wagging his tail the second I say a single word to him, so he's fine.
We were just short of the dungeon entrance when the memory of last time surfaced, and I stopped short, turning to Arthur.
Arthur, you don't have any trauma about dungeons, do you?
"Pitiful Prince, you don't happen to wet yourself at the sight of a dungeon entrance, do you?"
"Is this because of what happened with Joy? If so, I'm fine. Threats to one's life are an everyday affair for me."
Arthur said it with a joking, playful air, but I knew it was no simple jest.
The succession struggles over this kingdom's throne were quite vicious, after all. With no one to watch his back and no mother to protect him, Arthur had likely come close to being erased from existence any number of times.
That was why a mere threat to his life couldn't shake him. He'd been through far too much to be fazed by anything like that.
"Rather, I would like to ask you in turn. Lucy Aln. What about you? Does the sight of a dungeon entrance not make you want to weep?"
I'm fine!
"How thoughtful of the Pitiful Prince who was trembling behind my back last time. But don't worry — I'm perfectly fine, apparently."
"Arthur. You were trembling?"
"I. Was. Not. Afraid."
Between my mocking tone and Frey's question, delivered with pure, innocent curiosity, Arthur's lips gradually stiffened.
I could endure one jab on my own, but it seemed the innocent questions fired off from beside him without a shred of malice were harder to bear.
"Professor Karl. How do you endure this?"
"You grow used to it. The human heart wears down slowly, after all."
"You have my sympathy. Truly."
Even as the two men consoled each other, we kept moving, and before long we arrived at the dungeon's entrance.
"So, how many floors are you planning to climb today?"
We're not doing a dungeon climb today?
"What's this? Did the Pitiful Prince plan to use me to climb the floors? How unfortunate. I have no intention of climbing any floors today."
Soul Academy's first-term First Clearer emerged at the point exactly two weeks after the midterm exams ended.
In other words, as long as we fully cleared the Academy Dungeon before that date, we could claim the reward granted to the party who first conquered the dungeon.
And I am a person who could fully clear the dungeon in a single day if I put my mind to it. There was no reason to rush a clear now for a reward I didn't need yet.
Last time I'd only gone all-out because I thought of it as a speedrun duel with Arthur — that wasn't the case now, was it?
"Hmm? Then why are we entering the dungeon at all?"
To level up!
"We're entering to gain experience."
Thanks to everything that happened last time, my level had risen considerably — I was already at 15.
Considering the characters around me were usually around level 4 or 5, that was quite far ahead.
But it still wasn't enough.
Now that the game had become reality, what I had to pursue was, first, safety. And second, safety.
The main story would be starting soon, and I'd be colliding with the Apostle of the Evil God. No matter what variables cropped up at that point, I needed to be prepared to suppress them.
According to my plan — thinking ahead to what was coming later — I intended to hit level 23 by today and then grind proficiencies until I dropped.
Back when I played this as a game, I used to deliberately keep my level on a razor's edge to avoid the tedium of endless grinding, since too much level-grinding made things boring.
Those were the good days. Damn it all.
"Experience. Do you have need of such a thing?"
Perhaps the word experience, as filtered through my mesugaki translation, had been too ambiguous — Arthur threw out a question.
Explaining levels and proficiency to an in-game NPC like Arthur would be a pain, so I'd just brush past it for now.
Of course I do.
"Pitiful Prince, I'm a person too, you know?"
"Mm. I did forget. Given what you displayed, I wondered whether you carried the blood of a troll or a vengeful spirit."
"Arthur. I wholeheartedly agree."
Was this his attempt to strike back at all the insults I'd dealt him? Arthur let loose with talk of trolls and evil spirits.
At that, Frey beside him nodded emphatically, while Karl, evidently unable to keep his expression in check, hurriedly turned his head away.
No. What exactly have I done to deserve being called a troll or a vengeful spirit? It's true that Lucy's father Benedict is a troll of a man, but having the fallout land on me too is going too far!
And which part of me looks like a troll, exactly?!
"Pitiful Prince, are your eyes quite shot? Calling me a troll, of all things."
"This is not about your appearance. I speak of your conduct."
Arthur, as if he'd been waiting for the chance, recited his evidence.
The miraculous recovery he'd witnessed when I faced the minotaur last time. The inhuman persistence I showed in daily training. The absurd strength that came out of such a small frame.
Listening to them one by one, no one would have found it strange to hear that I wasn't human.
"Those are roughly the grounds I could muster. Have you any rebuttal?"
Prince Arthur, thoroughly committed to the art of teasing people. That confident smile of his is seriously irritating.
No matter what I say, you're determined to make me a troll, aren't you? Fine. Then I'll guard you from a direction you never saw coming.
If Arthur wants to make me into a troll so badly, I'll grant his wish.
"To think the Pitiful Prince was this desperate to tease a young girl. You put it so pitifully that I have no choice — I'll concede the point."
I raised a hand to cover my mouth and gave a playful little giggle, and Arthur stared at me, dumbfounded.
Haha. You didn't expect a frontal assault, did you? Congratulations — now you're the petty little prince who's dead serious about teasing girls!
"Wait. Lucy..."
Let's go!
"Let's go. To the dungeon. We can't stand around chatting all day, you know?"
And with that I walked off without giving him a single moment to respond. A flawless victory.
"But didn't you just admit to being a troll, in the end?"
Frey said something from behind me, but I ignored her.
Frey. Read the room. Are you asking to get thoroughly stomped the next time we spar?
The best way to farm experience was to visit an external dungeon outside the Academy — a permanent one, like the dungeon in Evans, that didn't vanish after a single clear. Repeatedly clearing a dungeon like that was the efficient play.
But at Soul Academy, students couldn't venture to external dungeons until their second year. Freshmen were locked inside the Academy Dungeon, no way around it.
Not a problem, though.
Gamers are the kind of people who find the best possible efficiency in any situation. Naturally, the research on how to level up most efficiently as a first-year at Soul Academy had long since been completed.
There were a few established routes.
Since I was planning to go from level 15 to 23, I'd simply start from floor 34.
Upon entering the dungeon proper, I looked around at the scenery and tilted my head.
I distinctly set it to start from our highest cleared floor before coming in, so why are we on floor 7?
What gives?
"Hm? Why floor 7?"
We had clearly cleared up to floor 30 last time. As I puzzled over it, I remembered that Arthur had newly joined the party.
Oh, right. Arthur's only ever cleared up to floor 7.
"Oh, that's right. The Pitiful Prince is a scrub who's only ever cleared up to floor 7, isn't he?"
It was a muttered aside that slipped out without my meaning to, but the mocking laugh attached to it by the mesugaki skill turned it into a taunt.
I stole a glance at Arthur's face — his mouth was clearly smiling, but his eyes were utterly unchanged.
"My apologies for being a scrub, Trollish Noble Lady."
No, no, it's fine! We can climb right back up in no time!
"Aww, it's fine. Unlike the scrubby Pitiful Prince, I can get us back up in no time at all."
"Is that so? I look forward to it."
"Past that alley, a scrub goblin is going to loose a sloppy arrow at us. I'll block it, so Frey, you take its head."
Lucy's words proved true. The moment the alley ended, a goblin waiting on the far side loosed an arrow, and no sooner had it been deflected than Frey swung her sword and took the goblin's head clean off.
The harmony between Lucy, who acted with absolute conviction, and Frey, who didn't doubt a single word out of her mouth, was remarkable.
Extraordinary, Arthur thought, admiring them inwardly.
He'd sensed it before when they'd fallen into that trap together: Lucy Aln's capacity for conquering dungeons was transcendent. If someone told him Lucy Aln had been involved in the very creation of this dungeon, he would have simply nodded and said, well, that figures.
Granted, her Blessing let her know what lay within the dungeon — but that kind of command couldn't be achieved through information alone.
That was talent. An instinctive grasp of how to use heaven-granted information with maximum efficiency.
At this level, he suspected Lucy Aln outclassed even the commanders of most knightly orders. No wonder Armadi had granted her a Blessing. If a human like that existed, even he would want to lend her his strength.
Arthur thought all of this, but kept it behind his teeth. If he offered praise, her shoulders would no doubt swell up again, and she'd start flinging around words like scrub and loser — that much was certain.
And so, under Lucy's command, the party carved through the dungeon at a staggering pace.
Dead weight Vishy had been replaced by Arthur, now an asset on the field. Naturally, the speed of their clear was far greater than last time.
Floor 7 to 10 took them less than ten minutes; floor 10 to 20 a mere thirty. They arrived at floor 34, Lucy's target, roughly two hours after entering the Academy Dungeon.
"What's the matter, Pitiful Prince? Are you tired? You were so confident at the start."
I genuinely might die.
He'd barely fought at all — only run — and yet here he was.
As Arthur clutched his knees, struggling to master his ragged breathing, a laughter-laced voice drifted over from ahead.
"It's because you pick fights with such scrubby stamina that you end up in humiliating situations, you see. Pitiful Prince?"
When he stole a glance upward, he saw Lucy Aln's face, poised and composed without a hint of disorder.
A light sheen of sweat, but that was all. Her breathing was as even as ever.
She'd sprinted while hauling that heavy armor and shield — how could she be so serene? Was this person truly a pure human?
However he looked at her, she seemed to have the blood of something not quite human mixed in.
"If it were up to me, I'd like to keep moving a while longer."
You mean to force-march us even further from here?! Is this person a demon?! At this rate he'd collapse from exhaustion before ever facing a single monster!
"If the scrubby Pitiful Prince desperately begs me to let him rest, I suppose we could take a short break."
Beg? I, the Third Prince of this kingdom — beg to you?
"Well? What will you do, Pitiful Prince?"
Her crescent-moon eyes, slightly curved, looked down at him. Lucy's intent was obvious.
She knew perfectly well Arthur was already at his limit, and she was saying all this to tease him.
What should I do?
His body had already hit its wall. Even if he gritted his teeth and pressed on, he'd collapse before long and become a laughingstock all over again. He didn't want to hand her the ammunition.
But rather than collapse propping up his pride...
"...Might you let us rest?"
As Arthur's words escaped in a voice barely above a leaking breath, Lucy tilted her head.
"Hm? What was that, Pitiful Prince? I can't quite hear you."
This wretch...!
Someone with physical abilities like hers could not possibly have failed to hear his voice!
Does she intend to humiliate him even further?! Is this because he called her a troll?!
Despicable. Truly, utterly despicable!
Arthur's indignation erupted inside him, but he had no better option available.
"I said I wished to rest a moment."
"A-hah! Understood. If the Pitiful Prince wants to rest thaaat badly, then let's take a short break, shall we?"