Chapter 153
She did not reply.
She moved.
Fast, at least by the standards of this world.
For most adventurers on these floors, Ais Wallenstein would have looked like a blur of golden hair and cold steel, a storm compressed into human form. But to me, everything about her felt strangely slow, as though the world itself had dipped into thick water and she was trying to cut through it with pure skill alone.
Her sword came for my neck in a clean, merciless arc.
I tilted my head slightly.
The blade passed through empty air.
Ais did not stop there. The moment her first strike missed, she twisted her body and stepped in closer, her footing light, precise, almost soundless against the stone. The second strike came lower, aimed for my ribs, followed immediately by a third meant to take my arm if I tried to counter.
I did not move far.
I did not need to.
A slight shift of the shoulder. A small step back. A turn of the waist.
That was enough.
Steel kept slicing through the space where I had been an instant before, close enough for the wind of it to brush against my clothes, but never close enough to matter.
Behind Ais, the last surviving adventurer scrambled backward on all fours, face pale and wet with panic. He looked from me to her like a drowning man staring at a lifeboat he did not deserve.
I clicked my tongue.
This was starting to get annoying.
Ais's expression did not change, but I could feel the pressure in her attacks rising. She was testing me now. Measuring distance. Reading reactions. Her eyes never left me, sharp and steady, as if trying to peel away whatever answer I was hiding behind my face.
Her sword flashed again.
This time, I raised a hand.
My fingers closed around the flat of her blade.
The corridor went still.
Ais's eyes widened, just slightly.
The steel trembled in my grip, caught between us. She pulled, trying to free it, but it did not move an inch. For the first time since she had appeared, there was a visible shift in her expression. Not fear. Not yet. But surprise, clear and unmistakable.
I looked at the sword in my hand, then at her.
"…Can you calm down now?"
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then a voice cut through the corridor.
"Ais!"
Another adventurer rounded the bend at a run. One I recognized immediately from the anime.
Riveria Ljos Alf.
The moment her eyes landed on the scene, the dead adventurers, the fading shadows, Ais with her sword trapped in my bare hand, her face sharpened.
The elf's staff was in her hand in an instant.
"So it is true," she said, her voice cold and controlled. "There really is someone attacking adventurers on the upper floors."
I stared at her.
Then I slowly looked down at the corpses.
Then back at them.
"…You people are really committing to the misunderstanding, huh."
The surviving thug suddenly found his voice.
"He killed them!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet and pointing at me with a shaking hand. "That bastard summoned monsters and slaughtered them! He was going to kill me too if Sword Princess didn't show up!"
I looked at him flatly.
"Are you seriously going to play victim right now?"
"Shut up!" he yelled, almost shrill with desperation. "You think they'll believe you over me? You psycho!"
Ais finally pulled her sword back when I let go of it.
She did not attack again right away, but she also did not lower her guard.
Riveria's gaze moved to the surviving man, then to me. Her eyes narrowed, thoughtful now rather than immediately hostile. She was older, calmer, and clearly not as willing to take the scene at face value.
"What happened here?" she asked.
The thug opened his mouth first.
"We were just passing through when he attacked us!"
"Bullshit," I said immediately.
Riveria's gaze flicked toward me.
The man kept talking, words tumbling over each other, desperate, messy, loud in a way that scraped against my ears.
I let out a slow breath.
Right.
Enough of this.
"…You know what? No."
The shadows beneath their feet stirred.
Darkness erupted upward.
Ais's sword flashed down, cutting through the rising black—but the shadow simply split around the blade, reformed, and coiled around her wrist like a living rope.
Riveria's lips moved, the beginning of a chant—
The shadow wrapped around her staff. Snaked up her arms. Pinned them to her sides.
Her mana flared, bright and hot, pushing back—
The shadows tightened.
The light died.
Both of them stood frozen, bound by living darkness.
Ais pulled against the restraints. Her muscles tensed. The shadows didn't give even a millimeter.
Riveria tested her bonds with subtle shifts, probing for weak points with the controlled precision of someone who'd escaped bindings before.
She found nothing.
I glanced at them.
"…Relax. I'm not here to fight you."
Then I walked toward the thug.
The color drained from his face.
"No—no—wait—!" His voice cracked. He stumbled backward until his shoulders hit the wall.
A longsword materialized in my hand—simple steel, plain crossguard, nothing special.
I stopped in front of him.
His whole body went rigid.
I lowered the blade until the point rested against his throat.
"Let's try this again."
"I—I told them already—!" His Adam's apple bobbed against the steel.
I pushed forward.
Just a little.
A thin red line appeared on his skin. A single drop of blood ran down his neck.
"Try again."
"Whoever you are—" Riveria's voice came from behind me, cold and measured despite the shadows holding her. "Think carefully about what you're doing."
I didn't turn around.
"I am."
Ais said nothing.
But I felt her stare boring into my back.
I kept my eyes on the thug.
"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell the truth." I pressed the blade deeper. More blood welled up. "Or else…"
"We were going to rob you!" The words exploded out of him. Tears streamed down his face. "Okay?! We saw you alone and thought you'd be easy! That's it! That's all it was!"
The corridor went quiet.
Behind me, the crackle of Riveria's mana stopped.
Ais's struggles ceased.
I pulled the blade away from his throat.
The sword dissolved into nothing, particles of light scattering between my fingers.
The shadows around Riveria and Ais loosened—but didn't release completely.
I turned halfway, meeting Riveria's eyes.
"That answer good enough for you?"
Riveria's jaw tightened. Her eyes moved from the sobbing thug to the corpses, then back to me.
"...I see." The words came out stiff, formal. "It appears we acted on incomplete information."
Ais said nothing, but her posture shifted slightly, it was now less aggressive, more uncertain.
"So?" I asked.
Riveria's lips pressed into a thin line. For a moment, she looked like she was chewing on something bitter.
"...We apologize," she said finally. "The fault was ours for intervening without understanding the full situation."
"And you?" I glanced at the Sword Princess.
She was quiet for another moment, her eyes studying my face.
"...Sorry," she said quietly.
I looked at them both for a few seconds longer then I waved my hand.
The shadows dissolved completely, melting back into the stone like they'd never existed.
See? That wasn't so hard.
Just a simple misunderstanding cleared up with a little bit of intimidation and forced honesty. Now we could all move on with our lives and—
"RIVERIA!"
The shout echoed down the corridor.
Heavy footsteps thundered toward us as I turned my head just as more adventurers rounded the corner.
A werewolf, the twin amazons and a dwarf and a few others I didn't recognize.
They skidded to a halt, taking in the scene.
The werewolf's eyes went from the bodies to Riveria and Ais, then locked onto me.
His lips curled back, showing teeth.
"The fuck is this?" His hand went to his weapon. "You the bastard killing people down here?"
"Bete, wait—" Riveria started.
"Like hell I'll wait!" He drew his weapon, the metal singing as it cleared the sheath. "Look at this shit! Bodies everywhere and this asshole's just standing here!"
The Amazons moved to flank him, weapons already drawn.
"Tione, Tiz, stand down—" Riveria's voice sharpened.
They didn't listen.
The werewolf—Bete—lunged first, closing the distance in a blur of movement, his blade arcing toward my throat.
The Amazons came from both sides, coordinating their strikes with practiced precision.
I didn't move.
Their weapons came within inches—
And stopped.
Like they'd hit an invisible wall.
Bete's eyes widened. He pulled back and struck again, putting his full weight behind it.
The blade stopped in the same place.
"What the—"
One of the Amazons tried to circle behind me. The other went low.
Same result.
Every attack hit the same invisible barrier and went nowhere.
I watched them try for a few more seconds.
Honestly? I was impressed by the persistence.
But also tired of this shit.
I let out a long, slow breath through my nose.
"...Goddammit."
Here's the thing about patience.
I don't have a lot of it.
And these people had just burned through what little I'd started with.
So I released my Aura. My aura unfurled like a beast waking from a long sleep.
The werewolf's next attack died mid-swing. His arm started trembling. The blade wavered. His knees buckled like someone had cut the strings holding him upright.
Both Amazons stumbled backward, weapons falling from their hands and clattering against stone. The color drained from their faces so fast I was half-convinced they were about to pass out.
The others behind them? They just collapsed. Some fell to their knees. Others went flat on the ground, gasping like they'd forgotten how breathing worked.
Even Riveria went rigid, her staff braced against the floor just to keep herself standing. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the cold.
But Ais?
Ais was different.
Her sword fell from her hands.
Her breathing quickened—shallow, rapid, wrong.
Her eyes went wide, pupils shrinking to pinpoints.
"No—" The word came out strangled, broken. "No, no, no—"
She took a staggering step backward.
Then another.
Her hands came up, fingers digging into her hair, gripping hard enough that I thought she might draw blood.
"NOT AGAIN—!" Her voice cracked, raw with something that went beyond fear. "NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! NOT—"
She was screaming now.
Her legs gave out and she hit the ground hard, curling in on herself, hands clawing at her head like she was trying to tear the memory out.
"Ais!" Riveria tried to move toward her, but the pressure was still there, still pinning her down. "Ais, it's not—!"
But Ais seemed like she wasn't hearing her.
Right.
Shit.
I remembered Ais's backstory about being traumatized by the black dragon or something.
Yeah.
That was probably not great.
I pulled the aura back immediately, reeling it in as fast as I'd released it.
The effect was instant.
Bete collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, sucking in air like he'd been drowning.
The Amazons slumped against the wall, trembling.
Riveria straightened slowly, her grip on her staff white-knuckled and shaking.
But Ais was still on the ground.
Still shaking.
Still trapped in whatever hell her mind had thrown her into.
I stood there, looking down at her.
Then let out a quiet sigh.
"...Shit."
Yeah.
This definitely wasn't how I'd wanted this to go.
And just like that, my first day in the Dungeon somehow became even more troublesome than I expected.
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