Chapter 87: Who Is the Person in the Spring?
There was no mist or anything else covering the surface of the spring, so Torajirou Shiro could see the scene inside very clearly.
A beautiful elf was currently in the center of the pond.
Her smooth, slender back faced him, pure white like snow aside from a faint trace of green in her hair.
Her neck and shoulders formed even, graceful lines.
From Shiro's angle, he could even see her soft, delicate figure, while water droplets slid from her neck down to her slim waist.
Her straight ivory-like legs sank into the water, appearing faintly through the reflection on the spring's surface.
At this moment, she used her artwork-like hands to scoop up the clear water.
Then she carefully rubbed her hair with it.
Whenever water droplets occasionally fell onto her ears, the tips of her ears would tremble slightly.
A fairy from a lake in a fairy tale.
If Shiro had to find a phrase to describe the scene before him, that would be the first thing that came to mind.
At that moment, the elf in the spring seemed to notice something and turned her head toward Shiro.
That also allowed him to see her true identity.
"Ryuu?!"
He cried out instinctively.
With Shiro's skill, even if he really were peeking, he normally would not be discovered.
But who could have expected that the person in the spring was someone he knew?
The moment he spoke, an arrow brushed past his face.
"Who's there?!"
Then, a katana flew toward him and blocked his path of retreat.
Ryuu held her sword-drawing posture with her left hand.
With her right hand, she covered her chest and sank her entire body into the water.
She glared fiercely in Shiro's direction.
"Um... it's me..."
Shiro raised both hands above his head and walked out from the trees.
After seeing that the person was Shiro, Ryuu frowned in surprise.
"Shiro-san?"
"Although I know you're surprised about why I'm here, can you put on some clothes before we talk?"
Shiro pointed with the index finger of his raised right hand toward her completely bare body.
Only then did Ryuu's focus shift from the familiar person in front of her back to her current state.
Her face turned red as she shouted.
"Turn around!!"
Shiro turned around.
Behind him came a rustling sound.
It was the sound of clothes rubbing against skin.
The scene from earlier unconsciously appeared in his mind again.
And now, the person involved was changing clothes right behind him.
Damn it.
Why did this feel even more suggestive?
Thank you, Finn.
"Please explain why you are here."
While Shiro's thoughts were wandering, Ryuu, who had finished getting dressed, appeared in front of him again.
She was wearing the same combat outfit as when she had come into the Dungeon to find Shiro last time.
However, this time, Ryuu was not wearing a hood, nor had she covered her face.
When she questioned Shiro, he could still see the faint steam rising from her body after bathing.
A natural fragrance unique to elves drifted to the tip of his nose.
"Well... I came out to bathe..."
After Shiro explained the whole situation to her, Ryuu stared at his face for a long while.
Then she sighed.
"Forget it... I have two special antidotes with me. Shiro-san, take them for emergency use."
She walked to the tree and pulled out the katana embedded in it before sheathing the blade.
Then she took two bottles of medicine from a small pouch beneath her cloak and handed them to Shiro.
"Thank you."
Shiro did not act stubborn at a time like this.
After thanking her, he reached out, took the medicine, and put it inside the Gift Card.
He could not bring himself to let his friends suffer just for the sake of his own pride.
At that moment, looking at Shiro's face, Ryuu somehow said something without thinking.
"As an apology, could Shiro-san accompany me somewhere?"
"An apology, huh..."
Shiro's gaze unconsciously drifted toward Ryuu's waist again.
After noticing his gaze, Ryuu's face turned red once more.
Her tone carried a bit of anger born from embarrassment.
"Stop talking nonsense! Are you coming or not?"
"I'm coming..."
Ryuu brought Shiro through the forest.
Along the way, she picked many white flowers.
In the end, they arrived at a narrow clearing.
Several wooden crosses stood arranged in the clearing.
Judging from the decorations around them, this place was likely some kind of graveyard.
Ryuu placed the white flowers in front of more than a dozen crosses.
Then she took a bottle of wine from the pouch at her waist and poured it over certain grave markers one by one.
"This place is..."
"These are the graves of the comrades from the Familia I once belonged to."
Ryuu raised her head and calmly looked at Shiro.
She suddenly regretted bringing him here.
She did not know what she had been thinking earlier.
After all, he was a member of the Loki Familia.
If he simply asked Loki-sama about her identity, everything about her would be exposed.
She did not think what she had done back then had been very clean.
It was just that the powerful Familias seemed to have silently accepted her actions and chosen not to pursue them.
After hesitating for a while, Ryuu spoke.
"Forget it. You will find out sooner or later anyway. Rather than hearing it from someone else, I might as well tell you myself."
She slowly exhaled.
"The truth is, I am on the Guild's list of dangerous people."
Her sky-blue eyes looked at the boy before her.
Perhaps because she did not see the expression she had expected on his face, Ryuu began telling him about her past.
Ryuu Lion.
In the past, she had belonged to the [Astraea Familia], a Familia that represented justice.
Back when Orario was in its dark age, every member of that Familia worked together to protect the city's safety.
However, because they upheld justice, the members of that Familia also became easier targets for hatred.
During one Dungeon expedition, they were tricked by a dark Familia.
The enemy detonated a large number of Kaenseki inside the Dungeon and destroyed around ten to twenty percent of the 30th Floor's terrain.
That action also caused the Dungeon to create a Juggernaut, a monster equal to a Level 5 Floor Boss, in order to eliminate the destroyers.
The members of the Astraea Familia were dragged into that incident.
With their combat power, they had no way to handle the Juggernaut.
To cover Ryuu's escape, the other Familia members used themselves as bait to draw the monster's attention away.
When Ryuu returned to that floor, not even the bodies of her companions remained.
Overwhelmed by grief, she gathered her companions' weapons and buried them in the place they had once jokingly said they would go after death.
That place was the graveyard before them.
After sending her goddess away from Orario, Ryuu acted alone and used every possible means to take revenge on those connected to Evilus.
Ambushes, traps, assassinations.
For the sake of revenge, she used every method available to her.
Because too many people were involved, the Guild placed Ryuu on a wanted list.
After abandoning the path of justice she originally walked, Ryuu exhausted herself after completing her revenge and collapsed in an alley.
Covered in mud, she was found by Syr.
Later, with Syr's help, she dyed her blond hair green and joined the Hostess of Fertility as a waitress.
After revealing her past for the first time, Ryuu clenched her hands together and turned her gaze away, not daring to look at Shiro's expression.
"So?"
The boy's calm words reached the elf's ears.
"Are you telling me this because you want me to scold you, or are you trying to start some 'stay away from me' drama?"
Ryuu looked at him in disbelief.
It was different from what she had imagined.
There was no disgust in his eyes.
He did not shout and run away because she was a dangerous person either.
Shiro still had the same calm expression he usually had when they interacted.
"But that had nothing to do with justice anymore! That was pure revenge!"
It seemed to touch a certain point in the elven girl's heart.
Her voice rose, and she became emotional.
"I'm not discussing philosophy about justice with you right now."
Shiro looked at her with some confusion.
"After killing those people, did you ever regret it?"
Did she regret it?
Shiro's words struck the elven girl's heart directly.
Ryuu could not help thinking about that question.
There was no doubt that her actions had been evil.
As long as someone was connected to Evilus, even if they had only provided money in secret, she would hunt them down and kill them.
But did she truly regret it?
She remembered the noisy days she had spent with her Familia companions.
She remembered the girl who had argued with her every day, yet desperately told her to run when they faced the monster.
Ryuu unconsciously looked toward the pair of katanas at her waist.
They were the keepsakes that girl had left behind.
Was she truly an evil person after all?
"If you don't regret it, then why keep letting the name of justice torture you?"
Shiro's words interrupted Ryuu's thoughts.
He could tell.
If he let this foolish elf keep thinking, she would sink into a spiral of self-doubt.
Ryuu stared blankly at him.
If it had been her past self, she would definitely have argued against Shiro with all her strength.
To her past self, justice had undoubtedly been the most important thing.
But after everything she had gone through, Ryuu could no longer find the words to refute him.
Compared to justice, what she seemed to miss more were the companions who had once discussed the meaning of justice with her.
In the next moment—
The words Astraea had left Ryuu before they parted overlapped with Shiro's words.
"Throw away justice." ×2
"Ryuu / Lion."
…
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