"Hoo..."
With a sigh, white breath bloomed in soft little puffs.
Winter was already at its peak. In weather cold enough to make even adventurers keep their distance, the people out on the streets besides me were...
"Quite a lot, actually."
There were fewer than usual, but more than I'd expected.
Well, that made sense.
The subjugation of the Behemoth. And then the Leviathan after that.
Two incredible feats, each one monumental on its own. And both of them had happened within this very year.
After hearing news like that, no adventurer could just sit still. Whether they entered the Dungeon to seek adventure or raised a ruckus in a tavern while drinking themselves silly, everyone needed some way to calm the fire that had been lit inside them.
So what was I doing in the middle of all that?
"Ta-da, Ais appears."
"Oh, Ais..."
At the cheerful voice, I turned around and found a fluffy bundle standing there.
Ais, armored from head to toe in thick fur-lined clothes. Amazing. This was the first time I'd ever seen her wrapped up like this.
"Was she always this sensitive to the cold?"
In the original timeline, she'd walked around in nothing but a thin outfit with a deep cut down the back. Then again, if I thought about it, Loki probably forced her to wear that too.
"Cute."
The thought came to me naturally. Her usual look was cute too, but this Ais had a charm of her own.
The contrast between her normal petite appearance and this plump little furball. Bundled up in a fur hat, fur gloves, a fur scarf, and all the rest because of an overprotective mother's fussing, Ais had an odd sort of appeal that made her impossible not to find adorable.
I almost reached out to pet her before remembering the bundle I was holding in both arms.
Baaaaaaan—
"...You didn't come here for this, did you?"
Her gaze was so intense I couldn't help thinking that. From the moment she appeared, Ais had been using her Level 2 concentration to the limit, unable to take her eyes off it.
And "it" was, of course, the potato doll.
"...Want one?"
Ais nodded furiously.
She was so quick about it, as if afraid I might change my mind.
Criminally cute.
"Why are you wandering around alone?"
"Munch, munch... taking a walk... munch, munch..."
"Sorry. Eat comfortably."
Talking while eating was a rare sight, so I decided to wait until she finished the potato doll I'd handed her.
Ugh... come to think of it, I'd been hurrying because I was worried it would get cold. How did it end up like this?
"Well, I guess it doesn't matter."
Honestly, no matter how much I rushed, there was no avoiding the fate of a potato doll going cold. In that case, I might as well take it a little easy.
Side by side with Ais, I ate one of the still-warm potato dolls.
Mm, delicious.
"Where were you headed?"
"What about you, Ais?"
"I was walking."
That was the ordinary answer she gave to my casual question.
—The Dungeon.
Just remembering the past made my eyes sting with tears at how ordinary that sounded, and I felt a strange urge to cry.
"What about Vesta?"
"I'm going to the Dungeon."
"...On a day like this?"
At the look on Ais's face—something like, "To think you'd still go to the Dungeon on a day like this. How ruthless, how ruthless"—I nearly snapped.
No, if it had been the old you, you would've been saying things like "going to the Dungeon again," and yet now you're acting like you're the normal one, completely forgetting what you used to be like—
"Vesta?!"
Smack. I slapped my own cheek, and Ais cried out in surprise.
No, what was I even thinking? She'd shown such good change, and here I was having such pathetic thoughts.
Was this what people meant by the petty heart of an adult? Or was I slowly turning into one of those old fogeys without realizing it?
I wanted to be an adult, but not that kind of adult! I protested inwardly, then stopped Ais from secretly reaching for another potato doll and stood up.
"Pat-pat."
"...Thank you."
"Satisfied."
Since I only had one hand, Ais took care of brushing the crumbs off my butt for me.
A little awkward, but... she seemed happy, so that was fine. Yeah.
...Probably.
"Was that a lunchbox?"
"Ah, this?"
A lunchbox, huh. Well, if you put it that way, I guess it was.
"It's a gift for a friend."
"...?"
Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn't have said that?
"Ais already knows, though."
My head was starting to hurt, so let's just decide it was fine.
Besides, I had something else I wanted from Ais too.
"If..."
"..."
"Vesta?"
I hesitated for a moment, but I thought this much should be fine.
"Do you want to come with me, Ais?"
Ais's eyes sparkled as she nodded.
Cute.
"Yah."
Kieeeeeek!?
A cute battle cry. A scream that was decidedly not cute echoed sadly through the Dungeon.
We were on the 15th Floor now. Once we'd passed the middle floors, the number of people had dropped off sharply.
"Look, look, isn't that girl..."
"The Sword Princess?! The Record Holder?!"
"Who's that man next to her...?"
"A potato doll...? Why a potato doll?"
The youngest adventurer ever, and the symbol of a lightning-fast rise in level: the Record Holder.
Ais's fame was far greater than I'd expected.
"Seems like she's more popular than me."
Come to think of it, that made sense. Back then, I was fourteen. The current Ais was about half that age compared to me then.
And maybe a clear, believable record of one year resonated with people more than my absurd two months.
Well, that and the fact that she'd become much more childlike than before probably played a part too.
In any case, that was why we had quite a few people following us. If even Ais noticed, they were following us in an almost shameless way.
Not to mention the upper floors, and even the early middle floors, where we'd had to sweat buckets because a ridiculous number of stalkers kept trailing after us. The place we were headed next wasn't somewhere we could show to just anyone.
Of course, most of them dropped off along the way, but adventurers never knew when to give up.
In the end, the ones who kept following us all the way to the end had to be dealt with by force.
"But who's that little kid?"
"A porter? Looks weak."
I wasn't angry at those comments.
Not at all.
If I said I wasn't, then I wasn't.
"Congratulations."
"V."
Ais was smiling with such a girlish expression it was hard to believe she'd just been fighting a life-and-death battle moments ago.
The V she held up with those tiny, childlike fingers showed exactly how she felt.
"That one was pretty strong. Was it hard?"
"Easy."
As she said, Ais had no injuries at all, only her breathing slightly uneven as she wore a relaxed smile.
She'd handled most of the fights so far, so she should have been tired... Was this because of her spirit bloodline, or just the insane stamina of a small person?
Her endurance was so great it was almost like she could outrun a dog. Meanwhile, I felt my stamina draining fast these days, maybe because I was getting old.
For the record, Ais had been the one doing most of the fighting by her own choice. Her battle-crazed tendencies hadn't completely disappeared, even if they'd improved a little.
I'd considered telling her to restrain herself, but in the end I agreed. She must have made the suggestion trusting that she'd be able to hold back now, and that I'd help if anything happened.
Still, I never imagined she'd cut through the middle floors like that.
"Skill."
"Oh, a new skill manifested?"
"Mm-hm."
With a proud, triumphant smile, Ais lifted her clothes and bared her back—
"Stop right there. Hands off, now."
"?"
"I said stop!"
I hurriedly stopped Ais, who was lifting her clothes with a puzzled look.
No, why are you taking your clothes off in the middle of the Dungeon?
"I wanted to show you."
"If you show that, the world will end."
"...?"
"There are things like that."
After barely overcoming a crisis that not even a god's Arcanum could solve, we finally reached our destination.
"This is...?"
Ais looked around with a confused expression.
An astonishingly empty corner of the Dungeon.
What was Vesta planning to do here? Ais looked at Vesta, and just then Vesta was looking back at her too.
One jewel-like red eye met Ais's golden gaze.
"Embarrassed."
Ais looked away before she realized it. Ever since that incident before, she'd always been like this whenever she met Vesta's eyes.
It hadn't been this way from the start, but as time went on, it only got worse.
Her heart started pounding as if it might burst. It wasn't even like this when she fought monsters...
"Am I sick?"
She thought that, because her reaction was strange even though it didn't feel like illness.
She'd have to ask Riveria about it later.
"Ais."
When Vesta spoke to Ais, who was nodding to herself, her whole body bounced in surprise.
"...A cat?"
Her reaction was like that of a startled cat, and I was dumbfounded, but seeing her eyes go round, I didn't say anything. Vesta calmly handed over the bag of potato dolls she'd been carrying.
"Could you hold this for a moment?"
"Y-yeah..."
Ais took it with a dazed expression. Then the savory smell tickling her nose made her heart start pounding for a different reason.
It was the natural reaction of someone smiling when they held something they liked close to them...
"Mm...?"
I think I just had a very dangerous thought...?
"Don't eat it."
"I'm not eating it."
"You might want to wipe the drool from your mouth before you say that."
Hah. She rubbed her mouth with her arm. Thankfully, like Vesta said, she wasn't actually drooling.
...Just a little.
"Then..."
After handing over the potato dolls, Vesta clenched a fist and punched the wall beside them.
Boom! With a terrifying sound, the wall collapsed.
"This is...?"
After reaching Level 2, Ais had occasionally passed through this area. She'd escaped the life of a revenge-crazed avenger, but that didn't mean her passion for the Dungeon had disappeared.
She always kept her weapons gleaming, honed her techniques, and studied.
Studied the Dungeon. What monsters lived where. What grew in which place.
And what each floor of the Dungeon looked like.
It had taken a great deal of hardship and suffering—mostly because of Riveria—to memorize the areas she could reach and those beyond them, but the results were solid, and Ais had a fairly accurate map in her head.
A map unique to Loki Familia, not one sold by the Guild. There were many unexplored areas shared only within the Familia, but...
"Was there a place like this?"
Although Loki Familia lagged far behind Zeus Familia and Hera Familia in terms of Dungeon breakthroughs, it spent most of its time in the middle and lower floors, so its understanding of those areas was more accurate.
An unexplored area even Loki Familia didn't know about... Ais was baffled as to how Vesta had found a place like this.
But what she was even more curious about was...
"Vesta."
"What is it?"
"Who's this friend we're going to see?"
"You'll know soon enough."
Ais felt frustrated by that answer, but she didn't press the issue and simply followed behind Vesta.
For some reason, she had a feeling she'd know even without asking.
And that feeling soon became certainty.
"Oh, Vechan came... huh?"
"Ah..."
Seeing the Lizardman greeting them warmly, a strange feeling began to swirl in Ais's heart.