How had it ended up like this? In a situation so utterly chaotic it was beyond words, I alone stared blankly down from the building.
The gray-haired woman standing on the battlefield like a noble queen.
...And the many pitiful men who had been swept away by her.
And among those men, a familiar, long-missed face.
*Grandpa...*
I already knew that the grandfather who had raised me was, in fact, Lord Zeus.
"—I'm so proud of you."
*...*
And yet, even so, he had treated me like his own grandson.
To me, he had always been just Grandpa, not the God of Thunder.
But what about now? What about now?
Even if I thought of that god as my grandfather, to Zeus, I was nothing more than a stranger who had suddenly appeared.
He was a god, so there was a chance he would understand, but I didn't want to needlessly worry him. I pulled the hood over my head, tugging it even lower.
I needed to hide my face as much as possible to avoid the instincts of a god.
Through the gap in my hood, sharp gazes pierced through.
The wary looks from the captains of the two factions.
The two gods watching me with curiosity.
And... that gray-haired woman glaring at me as if she wanted to kill me.
*Her name was... Arphia, right?*
According to Materia, she was Materia's older sister.
Materia had mentioned how proud she was that her sister had become such an outstanding adventurer.
*Lv. 7...*
I hadn't expected her sister to be Level 7. This was unexpected.
*How is she this strong...?*
As the years passed, I had grown as an adventurer myself.
I felt that growth most keenly when facing an opponent directly.
It was the warning of intuition, forged from countless battles and sharpened senses.
A metric that told me whether the person in front of me was stronger or weaker, and exactly how threatening they were.
An adventurer's instinct was a foundation in itself. While different from a god's intuition, being able to grasp that indescribable "something" was what defined a true adventurer.
Even for me, who had moved past my immature days to become a seasoned adventurer, that warning still existed.
And right now, that warning was screaming...
*Damn... she's on the level of a Captain?*
Her oppressive presence was no less than the two heroes watching from afar.
She radiated such a powerful aura that I wondered why a hero of her caliber had left no name in my era.
*Lv. 8? 9?*
At the very least, that was the benchmark I should use. She was likely a Level 7 honed to the absolute limit, like Otaru.
No, judging purely by the aura, she felt even stronger than Otaru did at Level 8. We had never fought, of course, but the feeling was there.
The warning bell, which hadn't rung once since that day, was now tolling loudly. It was a stark reminder not to let my guard down.
"Move. I'm in a bad mood."
"Ahaha... then I really can't move aside."
Cranel—whose name was the same as mine, which felt strangely uncanny—was already fleeing with a tearful, miserable face.
Compared to the power he radiated, he was fast. At least when it came to running away, he was incredibly quick.
*Honestly, I wanted to run too...*
I had suggested that I just grab both of them and bolt, but Materia had refused.
"I'm sorry. But my body can't really endure a speed faster than Cranel-san's."
It was a somewhat odd answer, but I let it go. Cranel's expression had been equally strange; he probably didn't take it as a compliment either.
In other words, going too fast was a no-go, so she preferred the "moderate" speed of Cranel. Thanks to that, I was suddenly tasked with buying them enough time to escape at a manageable pace.
Roughly five minutes. If that was impossible, then three minutes would do, she had said...
*Can I really manage that...?*
From the looks of it, she was a mage. Judging by the shockwave earlier, she appeared to be a combat-oriented mage who used short or ultra-short incantations for bombardment.
Even Otaru's magic was like that, but this was a pure mage—Level 7, effectively Level 8—firing off repeated bombardments. Honestly, I wasn't confident I could block it completely.
*Saving my own skin is easy.*
But I had to protect two frail people who could be killed by the aftershocks alone!
To be honest, I wasn't confident.
Confident that I would lose.
*Still, I'm basically the natural enemy of mages.*
No matter how fast the incantation, it couldn't be faster than my magic.
If I intercepted the incoming spell and cut off the incantation right there, it would be over. Unless it was guided magic like Lefiya's, I should be able to buy a little time.
"I owe your younger sister a favor."
"...A favor?"
"Yes. So I was told to hold you back until the two of them could escape, and I had no choice but to step in."
I didn't really need to explain, but I laid out the situation anyway.
Partly because I didn't want any grudges left over from this clash, and partly because I had heard she cherished her sister; I hoped those words might make her back off willingly.
As expected, my words made the expressions of the other members soften a little.
They had probably been wary, consciously or not, because an intruder had barged into their fight—or rather, their prank.
"I see."
And surprisingly, she accepted my explanation easily. Huh? Was this going to end more easily than I thought—
"So you're another bug clinging to my little sister."
*When you start hoping, that's when you get betrayed.* For some reason, that thought drifted through my head.
At the same time, formless mana pressed down on the surroundings. Under the tremendous pressure, the members of both factions were thrown into a panic in an instant.
This was dangerous. And at that very moment, just as the captains of both factions were about to move—
"[Gospel]"
The witch moved faster.
"What?"
At the same time, my instincts screamed at their highest pitch.
I couldn't see anything, but something was definitely coming.
Following that instinct, I held out my hand and, for the first time in a long while, invoked my magic.
"[Firebolt]!"
The launched flame lightning collided with something invisible.
The male god saw it.
The clash between the searing flame lightning and the merciless [Sound].
The two spells, each trying to devour and push the other back, finally exhausted their strength at the same time and swelled up in a final, desperate struggle.
Heat and shockwaves swept across the area.
*
The aftershock of the impact rushed toward the intruder.
It was proof that [Sound] had slightly the upper hand.
And that fact came as a fresh shock to many of those present.
"It was neutralized? Arphia's magic?!"
"More importantly, what was that just now?! Did he even chant?!"
"No incantation? But Arphia's magic had an incantation too!"
*So noisy.*
Amid the clamoring crowd, Arphia remained calm.
No, perhaps that was not quite the right word.
After that single clash, Arphia had become a little more "composed."
*Power-wise, I'm ahead. But speed-wise, the other side is faster.*
Her own magic, launched first, had been neutralized. She had to conclude that the opponent was faster.
From that brief clash, Arphia had learned many things.
The most important was that the opponent in front of her was not someone to take lightly.
*Who is he?*
She remembered everyone connected to Materia. That was why Arphia was confused.
Materia had never mentioned anyone with that build.
Was he a follower of the Egyptian gods? If not, he was a level of strong that should not exist.
But no matter how far back she searched her memory, there was no one who matched him.
Not just among Materia's acquaintances, but among anyone in Orario.
*At least Lv. 7.*
Clearly a top-class mage in the city. There was no way she wouldn't know such a person.
And yet, no one fitting that description came to mind.
Then there was only one possibility.
*That rotten god...*
Arphia's one eye turned toward a certain male god. The only one who could quietly and without a trace handle a strong person like that was that irritating old man.
*Hm...?*
But the male god himself was staring at the intruder with eyes bright as a child's.
Arphia could only be puzzled by how genuinely unfamiliar he looked.
She had never intended to believe a single word that male god said, but that expression was impossible to mistake for a lie.
*Could I be mistaken? But then none of this makes sense.*
*Those vain Egyptian bastards wouldn't use a method like hiding a trump card...*
Arphia's thoughts stopped there. This was not the time for contemplation.
She watched the intruder as the smoke cleared and his figure was revealed once more.
The intruder was wrapped in a jet-black coat. She didn't know what material it was made from, but with not a single scorch mark on it, it was clearly a top-grade item.
By build, he was quite small for a man. A small frame, the sort rarely seen in the burly Zeus Familia. He vaguely reminded her of that bug, but that bug had never possessed this kind of strength.
His identity remained unclear even after looking again, and her confusion only deepened. But that was no problem. If she was curious, she could just catch him and find out.
But before that.
"Move. You're in the way."
"Haha... I'd like to, but I can't."
The man replied in a voice that sounded a little tired.
His voice was quite clear, too. Was he a child after all?
"I don't understand. Why are you going this far to stop me? What does this have to do with you?"
"I told you. I made a promise."
"You're going to fight me over some little promise?"
"No, of course not. I'm just going to buy some time and then run."
"...You're impossible to talk to. I'll ask again: why are you going this far?"
"What are you talking about...? A promise with a woman is something you're supposed to keep even if it kills you, isn't it?"
With that one line, every question vanished.
Arphia's mind cleared.
That was it. No doubt about it.
That manner of speaking, that way of thinking, that shamelessness.
This guy was a Zeus Familia bug.