This chapter is 3 in 1, ch 285.2/ ch 285.3/ch 286 — I did this so I wouldn't lose track of the count ;)
_______
Chapter 285.2: Then Let's Fight (Part 2)
__
Alise's magic, [Crimson Blossom Tower]—Isagi was of course very familiar with it.
But it had to be said.
When Ryuu-senpai used it versus when the real owner herself used it, there really was a huge gap——
If the flames coiling around the Elf girl were a gorgeous, flowing brilliance, then the flames coiling around Alise were an unending wildfire that scorched the very heavens.
Isagi had heard Ryuu mention it before.
Her [Crimson Blossom Tower] was less powerful than Alise's because it lacked the boost of her good friend's "skill."
[Righteous Flower Crimson Bloom]:
In battle, gain a high [Strength] correction;
· If at a disadvantage in battle, gain high [Endurance] and [Dexterity] corrections;
· In battle against a powerful enemy, gain high [Agility] and [Magic] corrections;
· If the above three conditions are met, the corrections to [Strength], [Agility], and [Magic] rise higher in value the longer the skill remains active;
Besides this, there was also.
[Righteous Fight, Righteous Flame]:
Skill effects strengthen in melee combat;
Magic effects strengthen when casting magic;
The former was a plain, unadorned boost to all ability values; the latter, a plain, unadorned new multiplier zone for extra attributes and magic effects.
After a round of this stacking game.
There was no doubt it would turn the girl into a stat monster.
And under the boost of these skills, the [Crimson Blossom Tower]—which was already an "enchantment-type magic" and possessed multiple stages—had even more variations, and became all the more unpredictable.
At this moment.
The flames in Isagi's eyes were not merely spreading.
Within them, a clear trajectory was moving about—no, not just one, but three, four, five, six, seven... the flames did not travel along the girl's blade edge, but instead——
Burst apart, scattered, completely surrounding him from different angles.
But no clear killing intent surged from within.
Alise could not hide her bloodlust; even he himself had to borrow the "Land of Reeds" character card and gain the high weapon proficiency of the "[Sword Saint Secret Art]" before he could, every so often, enter that kind of state.
This included Ryuu-senpai, and Ais was the same—they too could only barely sense it, and occasionally touched that degree, no more.
So the Alise of this moment was by no means as high-level as he'd thought; the reason there was no bloodlust was simply that, purely, she was not attacking.
Though this too was a little puzzling.
Because the Alise from just now had clearly unleashed the third stage of her magic [Crimson Blossom Tower], that is——
[Flame Blossom].
According to Isagi's intelligence.
—which he'd also gleaned from Ryuu-senpai—the three stages of [Crimson Blossom Tower] were, respectively, [Blazing Inferno], [Full Flame Burst], and finally [Flame Blossom].
Their corresponding effects were: the basic coiling around the body and weapon, bringing a "flame" enchantment;
spreading the range of the flames, igniting the entire area around herself, the enemy included;
and.
as a finishing move, finally condensing all the flames and then bursting them apart;
But "burst apart where"?
Isagi had clearly just heard Alise shout out the words "[Flame Blossom]," yet the flames showed no sign of exploding, so...
It was fake.
The girls were playing the kind of "little trick" often used among mages—though she'd chanted the lines, she hadn't actually released the magic.
So the [Crimson Blossom Tower] the girl was using right now should still be the second stage.
That is, using a large area of flames to obscure the Pale King's field of vision, rendering "[Death Gaze]" ineffective—but the problem was, doing this would block their own field of vision too, wouldn't it?
The problem was relative.
Amid the blazing fire, he could no longer see the girls' figures, and naturally they could not see him either.
In that case——
Isagi began to move.
The current situation had become a mutual game of "hide-and-seek," and he was confident he could catch the girls before they caught him—indeed, going by his own perception, doing this was actually more advantageous... No, wrong!
An incomparably cold blade-flash suddenly cut through the sea of fire, aimed straight at his throat.
"Calamity's flower of the other shore——"
"[Five Lights]."
Swift, cold, brimming with killing intent.
So vicious.
Kaguya's blade was incomparably precise; the instant it missed, she immediately switched targets, launching an attack from another direction at extreme speed—truly unending, like falling leaves.
Ryuu-senpai could also use Kaguya's magic [Five Lights], but again, it came down to the matter of "skills."
The Elf girl's slashing magic had a fundamental gap from how Kaguya wielded it.
Isagi quickly understood as well.
Alise was actually manipulating the flames to provide "illumination" for the other girls.
Depending on the flames' temperature, the colors they displayed differed.
As long as she distinguished the flames around her own body from the colors of the other flames, she could very easily, amid this all-encompassing blaze, accurately locate his figure.
So this counted as... a [Combination Move]?!
Interesting...
Ineffective, ineffective, ineffective, ineffective, ineffective.
Kaguya felt her shoulder being lightly patted—it was Alise; no need to turn around, she could tell by feeling alone.
At the same time, her friend's gentle whisper came to her ear.
"Calm down, Kaguya." "Right."
There was no time to be distracted; in an instant, the two girls swiftly separated, and what appeared where they'd been was the broken longsword in the Goblin king's hand.
There was not the slightest time to catch their breath; every minute, every second was incomparably precious at this moment.
This was also why Kaguya had been so agitated just now.
Because time was not on her side.
Yet the attacks were utterly ineffective—how was a battle like this to continue?
There was no hope of winning in sight at all...
But Alise didn't need to say anything more; Kaguya could understand what that idiot captain wanted to say—that she was not alone, that she still had companions.
Tch.
But that wasn't the point; what was important?
Calm, calm, calm, calm, calm... empty her mind completely, focus on the battle before her.
In the Far East, the Gojouno family were the imperial court's "sharp blade," the "assassins" who carried out all manner of unmentionable missions, and so, naturally, they had a set of their own things passed down.
And among them.
Kaguya was the most outstanding genius—as a Lv. 4 adventurer from outside the city, she was even an existence capable of overturning an entire nation.
And so she strove, wanting to approach that "place."
Forgetting everything, leaving before her eyes only her own blade, and the enemy's fatal weakness.
This was a certain "power" branded into the Gojouno family's bloodline—or it could be called an "awakening"; indeed, the former patron goddess, Konohanasakuya-hime, would use the power of the goddess of beauty, through charm, to let her touch that realm.
[Pure Slaying].
What Kaguya pursued was actually something Isagi knew very well—after all, though the great paths number in the thousands, different roads lead to the same destination.
He suddenly recalled the night before, speaking with the Ryuu from the future, listening to her tell the story of how, after she and Alise and the others had died, she'd begun a frenzied revenge.
And then, later on, meeting Isagi.
The two of them together began to hunt down the remnants of the Dark Familia throughout the city—even to kill gods.
"Deicide."
When she'd just heard this story, even Kaguya found it a little hard to believe.
Just as Ryuu, at first, had listened to Isagi say, in that offhand way, the line "Senpai, let's go kill the gods."
But.
[There is nothing that cannot be killed—gods included.]
[There are always more solutions than difficulties.]
Get your brain working, think it through properly.
Even something you cannot do, you must accomplish, or else you can only die—this is what an adventurer is; an adventurer is one who must, again and again and again, break through that impossible limit.
As her thoughts flowed.
Kaguya inexplicably began to grow entranced.
Those rose-red eyes began to contract, growing somewhat hollow, no longer focusing on the "humanoid" shape in the sea of fire before her that was clearly different in color from its surroundings—just as Isagi had guessed, Alise was using the flames' temperature differences to illuminate the existence of the "Pale King."
But in the girl's eyes, what existed was not the Goblin king, but her own blade, and a simple, plain "puppet"...
——The forest firmament now grown distant, the boundless stars set into the endless night sky...
The Elf girl holding a wooden sword was chanting magic.
Using deep-green orbs of light, she joined Kaguya and Alise in attacking the Goblin king within the sea of fire.
The magical explosions of the light orbs rose and fell one after another, but the results remained minimal—indeed, Ryuu was utterly unsure whether she'd even hit her target.
The boy was simply too fast.
The problem that the future Ryuu had once encountered, the Ryuu of this moment now encountered once more.
If magic could not land, then it was meaningless.
In that case, she could only draw closer to her opponent!
The Elf girl was clumsy, and therefore also seemed very pure—she always thought of the simplest method, then threw herself wholeheartedly into doing it.
The Ryuu of this moment was exactly like that.
She changed her current "positioning," beginning to approach the Goblin king in the sea of fire at even closer range than Kaguya and Alise.
And then.
She felt the "battle" that her future self had once spoken of.
[You mustn't get hurt, because a single touch means death; you must, at every moment, walk along the edge of death, constantly maintaining a taut state—one strike, two strikes, three strikes, four strikes——]
The monster's attacks were incomparably lethal, while her own attacks had only minuscule effect.
But even so.
As long as her attacks were effective, then repeating them a hundred times and more would bring victory.
Whether the present Ryuu or the future Ryuu, they were, after all, the same person—naturally, facing the same problem, they would arrive at the same result.
The orbs of magic burst open almost alongside the "Pale King's" attacks that came within a hair's breadth, and likewise, the present Ryuu too had companions she could trust—companions to whom she could even entrust her very life.
No words were needed.
Alise and Kaguya immediately began to cover Ryuu, who'd charged out in front.
And at the same time, the other companions sprang into action as well.
The girls were indeed not skilled at the tactics of an ordinary adventurer party—having the vanguard hold the line, the mages cast magic, and everyone else find ways to stall and cover their teammates.
But this also made their tactics more flexible.
Facing a high-speed enemy.
The Astrea Familia at this moment had an unavoidable problem: a portion of the team's members truly could not keep up with the opponent.
Once approached, they would, with high probability, be killed in an instant.
So the best course was actually to simply not let them take part in the battle at all.
Because once they joined, combat strength would have to be freed up to protect them, yet the benefit gained was——
From a rational standpoint, at the very least, having more than half the Familia's members withdraw from the battle was the correct choice.
But this was training, after all.
So Alise and the others wanted to give it a try—if it truly didn't work out, then they would all simply stop going to the Dungeon from then on; they could even give up their [Falna] and become ordinary people.
[At the very least, we have to have tried.]
This was the girls' choice.
And so.
Their decision at this moment was to use Alise, Kaguya, and Ryuu—the strongest in personal ability—to tie down the opponent.
After all, there was only one enemy; so long as the three of them clung close enough, they could maintain a constant offensive while keeping him from targeting the other, less swift team members.
Of course, beyond this there was also a second "line of defense"—the mid-guards led by Neze, responsible for providing support at all times.
As for this werewolf lady known as [Justice Fang]—ah... now it should be called [Just Tooth], since her original title had been solemnly ordered changed by Goddess Astrea.
After all, the Goddess of Justice had no such thing as "fangs."
In any case.
As a werewolf, she possessed the swift speed shared by all her kind, but unfortunately, her skill [Wolf Howl Under the Moon]—which could be called a "racial gift"—could only be activated on the night of a full moon; and since no moon could be seen in the Dungeon, she was unable to bring out her full strength.
Isagi did not know much about her.
He only knew that she was a rather older big-sister figure among the Familia's seniors, who often looked after others, and was called the "third captain."
And as for her strength——
[Somewhat interesting].
In the blink of an eye, he broke through the encirclement of Alise, Kaguya, and Ryuu.
Using the most basic of tactical techniques, Isagi headed straight for the two mages in the distance.
And midway.
He met with Neze's interception.
This big sister, with a head of disheveled silver-gray shoulder-length hair, wore the specially made gauntlets particularly favored by the werewolf race—clearly, like the other Amazon woman, she belonged to the "fist-fighters" skilled with fists and feet.
Punches, kicks, and knees and elbows too.
Her tall, slender, beautiful body became the woman's lethal weapon.
The only problem was there was no method, no so-called technique—it was entirely, completely, fighting by "intuition."
[Very much like Tiona].
This was Isagi's assessment.
The Amazons' fighting was almost always without method—in this respect, it was different from Alise, who'd been trained by Goddess Astrea, and from Kaguya, born of a prestigious great family. Ryuu-senpai included.
As an Elf, she too had, from a young age, studied a certain amount of magic and combat knowledge in her homeland; coupled with the guidance of Alise, Kaguya, and the goddess, the girl's fighting also appeared quite "by-the-book."
But when Isagi faced Neze, and Iska who rushed up afterward to help, the battle with the two of them was, on the contrary, a bit like fighting "monsters."
The werewolf and the Amazon woman both fought purely on instinct, relying on reflexes to attack and defend.
This lack of method would, in the first few seconds, leave one unable to grasp their "pattern"—but it was only a few seconds; even in a one-against-two situation, judging by yesterday's experience, defeating the two of them took him ten seconds at most.
But.
"Iska, Neze, retreat!"
Along with this, the two figures swiftly withdrew from the raging fire.
Isagi discovered that what came at him head-on was, of all things, a great cloud of foul-smelling air, and... hm?
Lime powder?
____________
Chapter 285.3: Then Let's Fight (Part 3)
__
It was not lime powder, of course.
It was a specially made—specially made enough to affect even a First-Class adventurer—batch of "lime powder."
Inflicting abnormal statuses such as "stench," "burning," "vertigo," and "tinnitus," it could impose at least about ten seconds of effective "control" even on a Monster Rex of the 27th floor.
And if the target were the "Pale King" right before them?
Lyra judged that, optimistically estimated, the effective time would be three seconds—five at the very most—but even that was already enough.
As fistfuls of "lime powder" scattered down, an explosion followed hard on its heels.
[Mousse Bomb].
The pink-haired Pallum girl was both the commander of the Astrea Familia and its "long-range support position." Normally, this role was filled by an adventurer skilled with a bow and arrow—or at the very least, one who used crossbow bolts—but Lyra used neither.
She threw bombs.
Not just the various bombs she made herself, but special magic bombs as well.
The roar was deafening; the yield of the bombs buried in advance even shook the distant city, drawing more than a few people to glance sidelong toward this patch of woods beyond the walls.
But even so.
In the very moment when the smoke had not yet dispersed.
The Pallum, just about to retreat, saw a deep-green arm thrust out from the thick fog before her.
"Not a scratch, huh?"
The Goblin king who had suddenly appeared before her still bore no visible wounds upon his body.
"Tch."
No wonder he was a fellow even stronger than the monster that had killed her and all her companions.
Just as the Pale King's huge hand was about to come down to seize her head, Ryuu and Kaguya finally arrived.
Wooden sword and longsword crossed, buying Lyra the chance to break free.
"That was close, that was close—leaving it to you."
The girls' strategy, for the moment at least, was proving fairly effective.
With Alise's arrival, the three of them once more surrounded the Goblin king on the spot, locking him into a stalemate.
At this moment.
Two minutes had already passed—compared with yesterday's record, it was no small improvement.
But still...
The Ryuu who had come from the future together with Isagi still watched the battle continue from afar.
Alise and the others' performance today was, of course, partly thanks to her.
Because the elf girl had spoken of the experience she had gained during this time, adventuring alongside the boy.
That was something incomparably precious.
And for her companions, high-intensity combat would let them quickly understand those things, ultimately converting them into knowledge useful to themselves.
Ryuu remembered the most important words Isagi had once spoken.
And that was.
The most important thing in combat is [Don't Die Yourself].
Because once you die, there is nothing left at all—so no matter what you set out to challenge, you must first ensure you won't be killed outright by your opponent.
In other words, a battle against a powerful enemy always begins with "dodging" first. So long as you can evade your opponent's attacks, you then have the room to keep up the stalemate.
Alise and the others now clearly understood this point.
And next.
Once the battle could be held in a stalemate, the next step was the search for, and the attempts at, victory.
The "Pale King" was of course not invincible.
When Isagi had defeated him, he had been no more than Lv. 4—though, given the boy's ability values, this was already a level that could rightly be called that of a "monster," simply not something an adventurer of the same rank could compare to.
But Lv. 4 was Lv. 4; however far one broke past their limits, it was impossible to surpass Lv. 5.
On top of that.
What Alise and the others were ultimately meant to defeat was not the Pale King, but the [Juggernaut]—which, in her own memory, was something they were capable of killing.
That fellow's defensive power—or rather, its [Endurance]—was not high; Alise could even forcibly break open that anti-magic outer shell of his.
So it could be done!
As long as they could find a method to effectively wound the "Pale King," then dealing with the [Juggernaut] would be no trouble either!
And so...
Burning, slashing, magic, explosions—and even, theoretically, the team's highest output——
"Roar, rise up, from the very origin. Throw open the gate, survival of the fittest, O deep flame that holds the jaws! Devour it all to nothing!"
As the girl's chant came to its end, magic descended from the heavens.
"[Demon Flame Possession]!"
No matter what, wide-area annihilation magic from a Lv. 4 mage was by no means an existence that could be ignored.
What was more.
Accompanying it was yet another lightning-attribute attack spell.
Ryana and Sertia were the only two mages in the Familia, and their coordination was extremely seamless; through years of constant combat, they had long since become able to fuse their respective magics together, amplifying that instant of output.
This was the team's strongest killing move.
The flaming meteor plunging from the heavens, wreathed in crackling lightning, fell like a golden torrent toward the place where the "Pale King" stood.
The next instant.
The edge of the woods was smashed into a crater at least several dozen meters wide, scorching flames and electric currents still spreading and roaming within it, trying to deal the enemy inside a second wave of damage.
Decent power—the Goblin king was bleeding.
This was the first thing Alise and Kaguya noticed.
[Yes!]
But they could not be too pleased just yet.
As the team's brain, Lyra was the first to calm herself down.
The Goblin king possessed no ability to reflect magic; therefore, if it were as Ryuu said, then their strategy against the [Juggernaut]—theoretically—should be to have Alise and Kaguya first "pry open" the opponent's anti-magic shell.
And then use Ryana and Sertia's magic to deal the opponent a fatal blow.
This procedure was indeed correct.
In that case, what now needed training most of all was, on the contrary, the "attacks" of Alise, Kaguya, and Ryuu.
If their past methods of attack would not work, then all that remained was to break past their own limits.
Lyra realized this point.
And this was precisely the thing that the Isagi and Ryuu from the future had come to do.
In the eyes of the two of them, the girls still had a great, great deal of room to improve. Having only recently leveled up to Lv. 4, not only had their basic figures, such as ability values, failed to reach their own ceilings.
The same went for their skills.
To call them "abysmal" would be going a bit too far, but they really were at a "not-so-great" level.
This battle lasted about five minutes.
It was progress over yesterday, but there was still a major problem—namely, endurance.
Put plainly, the string in their minds was not yet taut enough.
A single mistake would lead to losing the whole game.
And the most important thing was perseverance.
Isagi felt that perhaps the girls ought to be given individual instruction; the general direction was indeed no longer a problem now, and what was needed next was simply time.
According to "history," Alise and the others would, roughly a year from now, die.
And during this stretch of time, they too had to seize the time to break past their limits on their own; he and Ryuu came from the future, and it was impossible for them to guide the girls forward every single day.
"So do your best."
After a day's practice had once again come to an end.
Isagi spoke softly to the girls, who were once more utterly exhausted, completely unable to rise from the ground.
Just as had been said before.
This was not him and Ryuu-senpai saving them, but them saving themselves.
________
Chapter 286: Changing One's Own Ending
__
There was still about an hour until they returned to the future that belonged to himself and Ryuu-senpai.
From day into night.
Once again, everyone had spent an entire day in the small grove outside the city.
Only, beneath the cold winter night, today's little grove was an utter mess—craters big and small and trees strewn every which way littered the ground, looking as though it had been ravaged by some natural disaster. Isagi lit a campfire.
Under the glow of the Magic Stone lamp, he got ready to grill some fish to eat.
Cecil was making her final records. The girl had been nowhere to be seen all day—she'd been preparing the "plan" to upgrade the seniors' weapons.
Just a moment ago.
After confirming things with Alise and the others, she'd planned to head back and prepare the materials, then get to work the next time they traveled back.
Ryuu-senpai, meanwhile, intended to pull Alise and her own past self aside for what was, in a sense, some "special tutoring"—in other words, one-on-one instruction.
Isagi was thinking the same thing.
Except the one he planned to instruct was Kaguya.
Because it was right up his alley—so long as he switched to the "Land of Reeds" character card and drew on the skill of the [Sword Saint Secret Art], instructing the girl from the Far East was an effortless matter.
It came back to the same point.
At the end of the day, what the seniors of the Astrea Familia were playing was still a "star-player game"; so long as the three of them—Alise, Kaguya, and Ryuu—grew stronger, the battles would naturally become much easier.
"Let's go."
Handing out the grilled fish he'd prepared to the girls who'd been hungry all day, Isagi called over to the black-haired girl who at this moment was clutching her long sword, still mulling over something, and headed toward the darkness in the distance.
Kaguya looked especially worse for wear.
Mainly physically—today this girl had put too much force into it and broken her own hands.
Had he not treated her with Monkey Wine, then even after downing an [Elixir], she might well have had to rest at home for a good long while.
And now, though her physical injuries had mostly healed, the mental exhaustion still made it hard for the girl even to stand.
But even so.
She forced her body upright all the same.
That was just how stubborn types were—the girl gritted her teeth, propped herself up on the long sword in her hand, and in an awkward, limping posture followed crisply behind him.
The night sky was faintly cool.
A cold evening wind blew in from the distant darkness, and beyond that, there was the sound of a river flowing quietly.
Isagi was very familiar with the surroundings—after all, he came here often, so it was basically like his own home... ah, no, this was his home.
The Demeter Familia's farmstead nestled outside the city—from south to north, from west to east, where the fields were, where the houses were, where the rivers were, where the greenery was—he knew it all perfectly.
And so.
Before long, a dim river abruptly appeared before them.
Because there was neither star nor moon, in the darkness the water took on a kind of pale blue hue, and then, upon meeting the glow of the Magic Stone lamp Isagi carried, it turned a warm orange-yellow.
Isagi casually found a large rock exposed at the river's edge and sat down.
Then he watched the black-haired girl not far off sit down as well, limping all the way.
"Let me see your sword."
[Higanbana].
And—[Futaba].
The pair of small tachi once gifted to Ryuu-senpai were still on Kaguya's person now, but Isagi took only the long sword from her hands.
Light, sharp, and, like the girl herself, utterly pure.
This was a [Second-Tier Armament] that, apart from its ultimate attack power, carried no special abilities whatsoever.
After taking it, Isagi drew it out a little.
Along the ice-cold blade, a faint streak of deep crimson was truly eye-catching; were it to scatter fresh blood along with it, it would indeed be like a sea of blooming higanbana.
Isagi said nothing more, only looked at Kaguya beside him and found that she had indeed frozen.
Staring at his hand as it drew the blade.
As the saying goes, the expert watches for the finer points; as a swordsman of equally profound skill, it seemed to him he didn't actually need to swing the long sword in order to teach her anything.
On the contrary.
From the smallest details, this girl could learn more than enough.
At this moment.
Inwardly, however, Kaguya was quite astonished.
[A perfect draw].
Incomparably smooth, effortless, and able to flow at once into a slash beyond imagination.
For a swordsman of the Far East, the "draw" was the foundation of everything.
So—how had he done it?
Over and over, the girl replayed in her mind the offhand motion Isagi had just made.
Then.
She recalled, too, the single strike she'd loosed in an instant during today's battle.
The very strike that had fractured and broken both of her own hands outright.
At the time, she had frightened herself.
And so, in the instant of the swing, she'd tried to forcibly pull it back, and it was this momentary hesitation and tug that left her body utterly unable to bear it, so that she suffered the backlash.
"Be more natural."
Isagi gave the same admonition as he had back then.
As for "skill."
In truth, even he didn't quite know how to teach the girl before him, but perhaps simply "watching" would do—Ais and Ryuu-senpai were both like that; just by watching him swing his weapon, they gained a great deal.
So, Isagi believed Kaguya was the same.
He returned the long sword to her.
Kaguya tilted her head slightly, and only now did she show the kind of cute expression a girl her age ought to have.
She had actually thought he meant to draw his own long sword and spar with her—wasn't that what so-called instruction was all about?
But on closer thought, that really wouldn't work.
In her current state, never mind swinging a blade—even standing was extremely difficult.
And Isagi wasn't one to go on about any overly complicated theory either.
So he simply gave a demonstration.
Letting Kaguya see how he used the long sword—that alone was already enough.
And compared to the quiet between the two of them at this moment.
In the distance.
Things over at Ryuu's end were a good deal livelier.
When Alise and the others saw that the elf girl could actually use a magic called [Astrea Memoir], they all wore expressions of disbelief.
Inexplicably, the situation turned into Alise, of all people, instructing Ryuu on how to use her own [Crimson Blossom Tower].
And as she talked on, the red-haired girl seemed to have a sudden flash of realization.
She wore an "I get it!" expression.
No one knew just what she'd figured out, but the girl only hummed away, declaring that next time, when Ryuu and Isagi came over, she'd show them her "ultimate technique"!
"You only get one chance."
Before leaving.
Isagi's soft words echoed through the night sky.
The boy and girl from the future vanished, leaving behind only the exhausted members of the Justice Familia, there in the grove outside the city.
Everyone understood what that meant.
If they failed, Isagi wasn't sure he'd be able to return to an even earlier timeline to set it all right again.
"We'll do our best."
Alise's answer was the same as ever.
The optimistic girl smiled, seemingly not the least bit worried about it.
This was the "destiny" of an adventurer; having become a follower of the Goddess of Justice, she would not fear such things.
"Thank you."
After a brief reunion came a long parting.
But one day, the effort would bear fruit, and in the end bring about a perfect ending.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan ;) — P@tr3on🔥👻
🔥 New history: DanMachi: But I am a Monster — live on The_Mikudayo
📚 Tired of waiting? Walnut-chan puts you 40 chapters ahead and keeps the translations coming
Help smash these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter (for everyone)