arc1 · 011-ep11

Episode 11: A Rescue in Passing

After wetting his throat with the canteen water, he pushed on deeper into the final stretch of the middle layers, and before long came out into a junction hall where the separate routes on the left and right converged into one.

Just beyond it gaped the long descending stairway leading at last to the "lower layer".

He had decided to cinch the rucksack's shoulder straps one more time before taking the stairs, and had just stepped into the shadow of a thick stone pillar standing beside the passage, hand on the clasp, when—

From the depths of the diagonally opposite passage feeding into the junction came the bright laughter of young women, echoing off the stone walls.

It was a party of three women, kitted out in matching light armor and staves.

Perhaps because not a whisper of monster presence hung in the air, the trio walking his way looked thoroughly relaxed, chattering away in full bloom. A sudden face-to-face meeting at the narrow junction might startle them, Iori figured, so he decided to wait quietly beside the pillar until they passed.

Their high-spirited conversation, ringing clearly through the silent underground space, arrived together with the sound of their approaching footsteps.

"――Oh, that reminds me—I went diving in the upper layers last week with the boy who came to try out my clan, and he was just soooo cute! I wanted to keep diving with him, so I broke out my allowance and covered all his gear, carried his pack for him, even bought him a top-shelf potion!"

"Lucky! I wanna dote on a boy too!"

"Though he said 'maybe I'm tired already' after barely any walking at all, so we headed home in like thirty minutes. But at the end he thanked me and gave me this little smile, and honestly it made me so happy I could've kissed my whole paycheck goodbye~!"

As the woman pressed her hands to her cheeks in a daze, the other two nodded along merrily—"I knooow!" "A boy coming to the dungeon with you is a reward all by itself, isn't it?"

Fastening the rucksack's buckle beside the pillar, Iori recalled Sagimori-san's joke at the counter the other day and gave a small wry smile.

――That line about a line forming if a man ever went public—it really wasn't an exaggeration at all.

Just as the trio stepped into the junction hall, the woman with the staff said, in a slightly dreamy voice:

"But you know, pampering boys is all well and good, but don't you ever want, just once, to be protected all cool and heroic by a man when things get dire? Like in a shoujo manga~?"

"Ahaha, where'd that come from! You've been reading way too many manga!"

"Right, right! No way we'd ever bring a precious boy somewhere this dangerous and make him fight! Protecting is us women's job!"

The bright, giggling laughter had barely finished ringing through the hall when—

From a dim recess just beside the passage they'd come walking down, dead in their blind spot, a huge gray shadow burst out with a heavy thud rumbling through the floor.

A Rock Ogre, its frame topping two and a half meters.

Whether it had been lying in ambush at the passage's mouth, it sprang out right before the trio with its log-like right arm already swung high.

"Kyaa!? A Rock Ogre!?"

"—the two of us vanguards will hold it! Get back!"

The women who'd been laughing mere seconds ago went pale, and the two vanguards hurriedly raised shield and longsword.

But their footing was bad off the ambush's sheer suddenness; the woman who caught the mighty descending arm on her shield cried out "Ngh, heavy—!?" and, unable to withstand the impact, looked about to be flung backward.

The shock tore the shield clean off her left arm, strap and all, sending it rolling; the longsword dropped from her right hand and she was on the verge of sitting down hard—when the Rock Ogre mercilessly raised its left fist over her head for the killing follow-up.

The party member beside her couldn't reach her in time, and the staff-wielding rear guard's incantation wouldn't make it either.

Danger— Iori kicked off the floor from behind the pillar right next to them.

Slipping soundlessly in beside the woman who was toppling backward, he wrapped his left arm around her slim waist and pulled her firmly back behind him in one smooth tug. The instant he confirmed she could stand on her own two feet, he let go of her waist and stepped out half a pace ahead of her, shielding her.

"Eh...!?"

In the same instant the woman's breath caught, a compressed mass of wind burst from Iori's outthrust left palm and slammed the ogre's descending left fist back with a thunderous roar.

Into the opening of the great bulk, staggered back arm and all, Iori pressed one step deeper.

His drawn one-handed sword flashed in a single stroke that scooped up from below the defenseless, raised jaw of the Rock Ogre, and the great bulk crumpled to the spot without so much as a cry and vanished.

The three women stood frozen, eyes wide at the sheer suddenness of it all.

Sheathing his sword, Iori picked up the longsword lying at their feet and handed it back hilt-first to the vanguard woman. Then he scooped up the big magic stone from the Rock Ogre he'd just felled and plopped it onto her other open palm.

He had barged in out of nowhere and killed their prey. Handing over this magic stone as their share should keep anyone from grumbling that he'd stolen the kill.

Saying nothing to the women—faces flushed, eyes still flitting in shock—Iori gave a slight, polite bow and turned his back.

"Ah... th...thank you..."

To the small voice she finally squeezed out, he raised one hand lightly in answer without turning around, and made for the descending stairway just beyond.

A few paces behind him, as if a spell had finally broken, the women's excited squeals burst out.

"Wait, hold on, was that not way too cool!?"

"H-he just pulled me in by the waist with one hand, my heart nearly stopped...!"

"How is anyone supposed NOT to fall for that!? Hey, that person just now—a man? A woman!?"

"Wait, this expensive magic stone—I really just got handed this!? At least let me say thank you—! Waait!!"