Ren flew in a straight line, looking down over the vast forest.
This was their second attempt at the 35th Floor. This time, they had slightly altered the strategy. Ren was still headed for Meteora's former main unit, but the other three directions were assigned as follows: Mei & Mariabelle, Shion, and Iris & Fūri.
Iris was tasked with carrying Fūri while flying and warning the Elves along the way. To avoid complications like the Elves asking, "Aren't you the invaders?" they decided Iris should not linger and quickly fly away after issuing the warning a few times.
Now then.
"...I can see it, but…"
The main unit seemed unchanged. As Ren rapidly approached and unleashed her full-power area magic, their response with bows and spells was also the same.
However, upon closer observation:
"She's not there."
Meteora, who should have been the leader orchestrating the movements, was absent.
So, a second one wouldn't appear, after all.
In that case, what was the command structure? Their movements seemed to be orderly. Were they well-trained, or were they simply incapable of any actions outside of a prescribed routine?
In either case, without the girl, their fighting power was halved.
Even as arrows rained down and wind magic was launched, Ren, flying at high speed, was rarely hit. In contrast, Ren's magic, thanks to its homing effect, steadily reduced the enemy's numbers. As the enemy forces dwindled, their attacks weakened.
There was no sign of the stalling tactics they had faced previously. Perhaps there was no one left in the unit capable of giving variable orders. Consequently, they focused all their effort on Ren, who they recognized as a sufficient threat.
"This is favorable for me…!"
Ren took a few hits, but she ignored them. As long as they weren't fatal, it was fine. Thanks to MP replenishment from remote Energy Drain, Ren managed to successfully annihilate 80% of the enemy before running out of energy.
At this point, they were nothing more than a disorganized mob. The Dark Elf soldiers began to scatter and flee. A handful of them headed toward the forest, but what could just two or three people possibly accomplish? Ren cast Heal on herself to mend her injuries, then pursued the ones heading to the forest, cleanly eliminating them one by one with Mana Bolt as a precaution.
It was an effortlessly smooth victory.
After catching her breath, Ren sent a telepathic message to her comrades.
I'm done here. How are you all doing?
We're fine! Fūri-san made the fight much easier. (From Mariabelle)
I'm okay by myself. I've already halved the enemy forces. (From Shion)
We are also fine… I'd like to say, but it is proving quite troublesome, so any help would be appreciated. (From Mei)
Got it. I'm heading over to Mei and the others then.
This telepathy was incredibly convenient for separate actions.
Ren spread her wings again and flew toward the battlefield where Mei and Mariabelle were. There, the two of them were overwhelmingly dominating the Dark Elf group. Mei, who was unfazed by half-hearted attacks, casually approached the enemies and delivered heavy blows with her mace, inflicting fatal damage. Taking advantage of the chaos, Mariabelle dodged sporadic attacks and landed kicks, crushing bones wherever she struck, be it the head or the abdomen.
It looked like they would be fine even without Ren, but since neither of them could use area attacks, the fight was likely tedious. Ren rapidly approached the enemies, who were preoccupied with Mei and Mariabelle, and disposed of two or three of them with a Mana Bolt, then cast Heal on Mariabelle.
"That helps, Ren-san!"
"Let's finish this quickly, Maria-san!"
Ren attacked from the sky, while Mei and Mariabelle fought on the ground. With one extra person, the efficiency of their annihilation more than doubled. Although they couldn't use area-of-effect spells that might harm allies, the enemies' focus shifted to Ren, allowing the two on the ground to move freely.
"Alright, that's that."
The collection of the dropped items was postponed. After confirming that Mei and the others had no serious injuries, Ren headed to Shion, who was fighting alone. By the time Ren arrived, the battle was already concluding.
The unit was annihilated. Shion, who finished off those who tried to flee toward the forest with fox-fire, called out, "Ren-sama."
Pop! Shion, now in her fox-girl form, quickly hugged Ren the moment she landed on the ground.
"Whoa. ...Shion, jumping at me suddenly is dangerous."
"I apologize. My spirits were too high from the battle," she said.
She looked embarrassed, but she made no move to pull away from Ren. When Ren questioned her with a look, Shion offered an excuse: "Isn't your magic power low?"
Fūri, Iris, how are things on your side?
Hmm. We're about to finish up here, too.
Ren exchanged a knowing glance and a nod with Shion. Shion turned back into a fox, and Ren flew with her. As they headed to assist, the battle was already over by the time they arrived.
"Ren-san!"
"You came for us. We were fine on our own, though."
Iris waved her hand, and Fūri was already busy collecting the drop items. They appeared to have suffered little damage. Ren cast Heal on them just in case and asked, "How did it go?"
"With Fūri-san, my wind magic gets stronger!" Iris exclaimed.
"We even developed a small combo, Iris-chan and I."
Besides using magic normally, Iris could expend MP to make Fūri use magic, essentially like asking Fūri instead of asking a general spirit. With this method, Fūri could be made to use magic again even when she was under the cooldown time for her own activation.
"Approaching the enemy while ethereal and hitting them with a Wind Slash double-tap—even I think that's a bit of cheating."
"Wow, that's brutal," Ren admitted.
Of course, they had to be careful since magic could still affect Fūri even in her ethereal state.
"Seriously, everyone has become so much stronger."
"Hehe. We can't rely on Ren forever, you know."
Fūri smiled, gesturing as if to say, "Praise me," even as she continued to work. After giving her a light hug, Ren took off again to collect the drops from her own area.
And then.
When they returned to the Elf forest and the settlement:
"...No one is here."
The settlement was eerily deserted. It wasn't that they were out fighting. When Ren looked down from above during the flight, there were no people visible in the forest either. It was a case of mass disappearance, similar to when Ren first arrived in this world.
"Iris. What was it like when you tried to talk to them?" Ren asked.
"They seemed surprised by the sudden intrusion and were about to shoot arrows, so I hastily flew away."
"So, they were definitely there at that time."
If it were the work of a separate unit, they would have run into them.
In that case,
"Maria-san. Is this a system feature?" Ren asked.
"Yes. Once you clear the floor, the Elves you protected also vanish. It must be because there is no longer any need to protect them," Mariabelle replied.
"Ugh. I wish they would at least fix that part."
It felt as though the dungeon was loudly proclaiming that they were nothing more than NPCs—pieces set up by the dungeon. There was no sense of accomplishment from having protected them. It might have been better if they had suspected Ren of being an enemy collaborator.
However,
"This is the best evidence that Mii-chan is different from the others, right?" Ren noted.
"Yes."
If she was still safely waiting for them back at home.
"...I want to hurry back, if that's okay?"
No one objected to Ren's suggestion.
-----------------
The descending staircase to the 36th Floor and the stone monument appeared at the opposite location from the 35th Floor entrance. The new ability given to Iris and Mei was the expansion of their storage. With this, their storage capacity was now about three-quarters of Ren's. It was fair to say there was no longer a significant difference in their fighting capacity.
After quickly transcribing the contents of the stone monument, they went down the stairs—but instead of the 36th Floor, they emerged at the entrance to the shrine.
The bizarre sensation of descending stairs suddenly turning into ascending ones and then taking a step onto flat ground never got easier to handle, but this time, before complaining about it, Ren sent a telepathic message.
Meteora, the 35th Floor is finished safely.
One second, two seconds—five seconds.
Last time, the response was instant, but now there was no reaction.
No way.
Ren's companions, their eyes wide, simultaneously began sending telepathic messages.
Mii-chan!
Meteora-san, please answer!
Meteora-sama!
Meteora-san, if you don't answer, you won't get dinner today—
You are so noisy! Let me have my nap in peace!
A reply!
Huh. What? You were just sleeping?
Ren felt it was understandable that she blurted out the question, taken aback by the anticlimax. Fortunately, Meteora didn't seem to take offense and answered cheerfully.
Yes, I was. It was warm and pleasant today. ...Oh, I borrowed your bed.
...Thank goodness.
It was true that extreme relief could cause one to collapse. Ren's legs lost their strength, and she seriously considered flying instead of walking.
Then, can you wait for us? We're coming home.
Yes, yes. You don't have to rush. I'm going back to sleep.
With this, Ren knew. The Dark Elf Princess, Meteora, had been reborn as an individual existence in this world.
-----------------
"...I see, I wasn't there. And the Elves and Dark Elves vanished once the task was done."
At the late lunch table. The girl listened to Ren and the others' report, quietly processing the information, and then let out a deep sigh.
"Thank you. That takes a load off my chest."
"Does that mean you're willing to go into the dungeon now?" Ren asked.
"I suppose so. ...I really wish I could return to my original world. Then, I would go meet the Demon Lord and assassinate him somehow."
In reality, that wasn't possible. If the world was destroyed, the Demon Lord himself was likely dead, so there wasn't much point in assassinating him. The story would be different if they could travel through time and change the past.
Meteora shrugged slightly.
"Well, if you keep conquering that dungeon, maybe there will be a chance to confront the Demon Lord someday."
"Yeah. That sounds plausible," Ren agreed.
The Demon Lord sounded very much like a final boss. Or rather, one step before the final boss. The cliché RPG situation is that you defeat the supposed final boss, and an even stronger one appears. In this world's case, it would most likely be the Evil God.
Fūri's smile was strained. "Wait, does that mean the final boss is the Evil God? Defeating a god is surely impossible, isn't it?"
"If a god can be hit and take damage, can't it be killed?" Mei asked.
"Would a normal attack even damage a god, though…" Ren wondered, her eyes becoming distant. Even though their abilities were becoming superhuman, a god was a scale too large. That was the level where heroes fought with all their might and might win. Ren felt like asking if resealing the god wouldn't be easier.
"There's no use talking about the distant future. At the very least, you have a long way to go if you are still struggling with a single Dark Elf unit." Meteora said.
"I don't think you should be the one saying that…" Ren mumbled.
"Quiet. Let me tell you, that wasn't even the Dark Elves' full strength. Don't forget that what you fought was merely a single unit."
"It was quite an excessive force just to deal with one Elf settlement, and that was just one unit…" Mariabelle said, sighing.
"The battles from the 36th Floor onward will become even more intense. The fear of challenging the 40th Floor was one of the reasons I gave up on the conquest before," Mariabelle confessed.
"Maria. ...Is it that difficult?" Aisha asked.
"Yes. Of course, I am much stronger now than I was then. I think we could win with Ren-san and the others, but it is certainly not a place to challenge with a half-hearted commitment."
"!"
Aisha started to say something but held back. She likely wanted to say that if it was that dangerous, they should stop. Waiting at home, simply anticipating their return, was more painful than she thought. It might even be easier mentally if she could fight alongside them.
However, it was cruel to ask Aisha to learn to fight now. Moreover, they were at an age where they would begin to decline physically.
"Maria-san, I have something I want to talk to you about. ...If Meteora cooperates with us, we will be seven people. That exceeds the recommended number, doesn't it?" Ren asked.
Mariabelle seemed to immediately understand what Ren was implying. She looked back at Ren.
"You want me to leave the party, don't you?"
"It's not an announcement that you're obsolete or anything like that."
Ren clearly emphasized that she wanted Mariabelle to understand that.
"But if something happened to you, Maria-san, I wouldn't know how to apologize to Aisha-san... I know it's rude to say this after everything you've done for us, but you and the others have suffered enough. I think you deserve to be happy now."
The management of the brothel was no longer dependent on Mariabelle. She and Aisha had a new home, and they had plenty of savings. There were no more obstacles.
Aisha's eyes welled up with tears, and she called out, "Maria." Her outstretched hand gently rested on Mariabelle's.
"How about you keep company with the children instead? I'm sure that would be fun, too."
"Ren-san, Aisha... But to pass the torch halfway through the journey…" Mariabelle hesitated.
"It's okay. Because we aren't abandoning it—we are continuing what you started," Ren assured her.
"Continuing what we started?" Mariabelle questioned.
"Yes."
Ren nodded deeply. Fūri took Ren's hand.
"That's right. Because you were here, Maria-san, we were able to come this far. If the brothel hadn't existed, the people in this town might have had a much harder time."
Iris and the others smiled and agreed.
"Leave the rest to us. We will absolutely not let the path you and everyone else paved go to waste," Iris stated.
"It's time to leave the rest to the young ones, isn't it?" Shion said.
"Though I have been here for a short time... I believe our teachers should watch over us from a safe place," Mei added.
"See? Besides, I can easily compensate for your absence, so why don't you take a rest and feel at ease?" Meteora offered.
"...Everyone."
The information brought by Meteora had brightened the path ahead considerably. By being able to see clearly, they also saw the many difficulties awaiting them. Ren didn't know if they could truly overcome them. A seemingly insurmountable foe might be waiting.
Nevertheless, it was time to truly stand on their own. Just as Iris was striving to send her parents back to Japan, Ren and the others wanted to give Mariabelle and her group peace of mind.
Did their feelings reach her?
Mariabelle shed tears, yet smiled and nodded.
"In that case, perhaps I should teach the children martial arts next."
Perhaps a future where the children taught by Mariabelle and the others carve out a new path will arrive. Of course, Ren and her group had no intention of waiting idly for that to happen.
============
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