Genichi knew that, at this point, any explanation was pointless.
The elf in front of him had been scorched by the flames of revenge for five years. Her heart had long since frozen solid under a glacier of hatred.
She didn't believe a single word from an abuser. She would never show mercy to someone she saw as a dark adventurer in the middle of cruelty.
In that case, there was no reason to waste breath.
If she wanted to kill Genichi, it wouldn't be that easy.
He never fought unprepared.
Before entering the Dungeon, he'd already inventoried his trump cards.
He might only be Lv.2, but the skills in his skill slots were his real backbone.
And besides…
A red gauntlet appeared over his left hand.
The Boosted Gear of the Red Dragon Emperor.
A crimson metal gauntlet manifested out of empty air, plates locking into place one by one along his left forearm until his entire hand and forearm were covered.
On the back of the hand, a green jewel glowed like a dragon's opened eye, shining with eerie pressure in the dim Dungeon corridor.
"Boost!"
A low, metallic electronic voice rang out. The jewel flared with dazzling light.
In that instant, surging power flooded Genichi's limbs like boiling magma. Strength doubled. Magic doubled. Every aspect of his body leapt to a new tier.
He tightened his grip on the ordinary standard-issue longsword he'd taken from Demeter Familia's armory. The blade reflected his cold face back at him.
If she couldn't understand words, then they'd speak with steel.
Until she was willing to listen, or until one of them fell.
Genichi's gaze sank.
The next moment, both of them sprinted.
No warning. No prelude.
In the center of the corridor, longsword and wooden blade crashed together.
Clang!
This time, Genichi wasn't sent flying.
Boost's multiplication, plus the stat correction granted by Pride, gave him just enough capital to contest a Lv.4 head-on.
His arms still went numb with pain, but he held his ground.
They were close enough to breathe each other's air.
Ryuu Lion's stunning, ice-cold face was less than half a meter beyond the locked blades.
There was no emotion in her eyes, only that dead, practiced emptiness of someone who'd seen too much death and no longer cared.
In her world, killing was as natural as breathing.
And Genichi, right now, was darkness.
Her weapon wasn't an ordinary iron sword. It was a second-tier adventurer armament, made from the trunk of a great sacred tree from her homeland, the Lumina Forest.
Its material strength far surpassed common metal. It also carried natural magic conduction and amplification, light, razor-sharp, and never rusting.
Genichi's longsword, by contrast, was the cheapest mass-produced piece you could buy in Orario.
Several rice-grain chips had already formed along the edge, the marks of a blade that couldn't endure repeated uneven clashes with the sacred-wood weapon.
Genichi understood clearly: if he kept trading head-on, his sword would snap within ten exchanges.
He changed tactics immediately.
One step off-line, his body twisting, he narrowly avoided Ryuu Lion's follow-up cut.
He stopped chasing direct weapon contact. Instead, he used the speed advantage gained from Boost to weave, evade, and hunt for openings.
Ryuu Lion's swordplay was simple and vicious, with no ornamentation. Every three strikes, one went straight for a vital point.
This was killing technique hammered into shape by five years of revenge hunting, efficient, lethal, without mercy.
Genichi moved through the blade-light. Several times, her edge grazed his clothes, ripping thin slashes across his outfit.
He didn't panic.
He was waiting for a moment.
At last, Ryuu Lion's thrust stabbed into empty air. In the instant she recovered her stance, her center of gravity shifted, just barely, but enough.
Now.
"Fukuin!"
Magic surged.
It was an attack spell recorded in his "Magic Grimoire," a technique from Alfia the Silent.
Demon King Valion.
No long chant. No obvious warning flare of mana. The spell itself was the bullet.
Bmmm!
Invisible sound pressure condensed into ripples visible to the naked eye and slammed into Ryuu Lion's side before she could fully guard.
Genichi held nothing back.
Ryuu Lion flew like a snapped kite, crashing through a stone spire behind her. She tumbled several times before stopping.
One hand braced on the ground. Blood spilled from the corner of her lips, bright red against pale gold hair, a few drops staining it in a way that made the scene feel brutally vivid.
Ryuu Lion lifted her head, and for the first time, emotion flickered in her eyes.
Not anger. Not pain.
Shock.
"…Demon King Valion."
She spoke the name quietly, as if confirming the impossible.
That was Alfia the Silent's signature magic.
The spell of the woman once called the strongest mage, the one who nearly destroyed all of Orario through sheer personal power, the magic she was proudest of.
Ryuu Lion would never mistake it.
So who was he?
Genichi didn't give her time to think.
"Boost!"
The gauntlet roared again. The green jewel blazed a second time.
Multiply again.
Two times again.
Magic surged through him at double the doubled level, rushing like a flood. It burned like it might tear his blood vessels apart, but it also gave him the capital to bridge a gap in levels.
He drew in a breath and began to chant.
It wasn't the incantation for Demon King Valion.
Ryuu Lion glanced down at her wound, then looked back up, staring at the black-haired boy with the crimson gauntlet on his left arm and a sword in his right.
Her eyes were no longer empty and cold.
In their place was a sharp, almost tangible scrutiny, the weight of a question that cut like a blade.
"Who are you?"
She spoke for the first time.
Her voice was cool, carrying the distinct cadence of an elf, steady and heavy with meaning.
Genichi didn't answer.
He slowly lowered his sword. After two boosts, the jewel on the gauntlet entered a brief cooldown interval, its light dimming slightly.
He met Ryuu Lion's gaze without flinching, letting silence stretch between them.
He didn't answer "who I am."
"The four of them are from a dark familia."
He looked straight into her eyes, voice slow and deliberate.
"I didn't lie to you."
The corridor fell quiet, except for the lingering silence after monsters had fled, and the faint breathing of four dark adventurers who'd passed out from blood loss.
Ryuu Lion's hand, holding the wooden blade, paused in midair.
But then she didn't waste words. She still didn't believe Genichi.
Whatever the reason Genichi could use the Silent one's magic, that was no longer related to "dirty lies" in her mind.
Seeing that Ryuu Lion's face held no expression at all, Genichi cursed under his breath, and didn't bother explaining again.
If she wouldn't listen, then he wouldn't talk.
He still wasn't out of options.
He gripped his sword with both hands, adjusted his breathing, and prepared to fight Ryuu Lion again.
(End of Chapter)
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