Ch.23
Ryuu set my drink down and didn't leave.
That was new. She usually placed the order, turned, walked away. Three steps, no conversation, the same combat footwork she used for everything. Tonight she stood at the edge of my table with the tray against her hip and her sky-blue eyes on my face.
"Level 2 in three weeks," she said. "The Guild is calling you the Record Holder."
She said it flat. Ryuu Lion announcing a fact like she'd announce a rain forecast. But her eyes were doing the work her voice didn't. They moved from my face to my hands to my shoulders, measuring. A fighter sizing up someone she's been told is different from last time.
"News travels fast," I said.
"Misha Flott works at the Guild." Ryuu picked up my empty water glass. "News does not travel. It detonates."
The corner of her mouth moved. It was the Ryuu version of a grin, which meant it was so small you could miss it if you blinked.
Arms around my neck. From behind. The weight hit my back and a brown cat tail brushed past my jaw and Anya's voice was right in my ear.
"Congratulations-nya! Bell is amazing! Level 2, Level 2!"
She was squeezing my neck and bouncing and her chair was tipping and my drink was in danger. I caught the mug with one hand and Anya's elbow with the other.
"Anya, my drink."
"Drink is fine-nya! Bell-nya is Level 2! That's so fast! Faster than anyone!"
"You're choking me."
"Anya is hugging, not choking. There's a difference-nya."
"FROM THE CUSTOMER'S PERSPECTIVE THERE ISN'T." Mia's voice came from the kitchen. Just the voice. The rest of Mia stayed wherever it was. "GET OFF HIM AND CLEAR TABLE SIX."
Anya let go. She stayed bent over my shoulder for another second, her cheek against my ear, and whispered "-nya" before bouncing away toward table six. Her tail caught my mug as she went and I caught it again.
Chloe materialized on my left. I hadn't seen her sit down but she was there, one elbow on the table, chin on her palm, green eyes half-closed. She leaned in close enough that the Hostess kitchen came off her apron.
"I knew it," she said.
"Knew what?"
"Nice arms." She reached over and squeezed my bicep through my sleeve, the same way she'd done on my first visit. Her fingers lingered. "Even nicer now. You've been filling out, Bell-nya. The Dungeon looks good on you."
"Is that your professional assessment?"
"I'm very thorough." She didn't let go of my arm. Her thumb traced a circle on the inside of my bicep and she was watching my face while she did it.
"CHLOE." From the kitchen.
Chloe let go. Stood up. Looked down at me with a smile that promised the assessment would continue later, and walked behind the counter at a pace that communicated she was obeying on her own schedule.
A plate appeared in front of me. Larger than what I'd ordered. Roast meat, vegetables, a side of potatoes that weren't on the menu, a roll of bread still steaming. Syr set it down and pulled up a chair across from me and sat.
"On the house," she said. Her gray eyes were warm. The Syr-smile was in full effect, the one that looked kind and genuine and probably was, and also probably wasn't, and I'd stopped trying to figure out which because the answer was both. "For the Record Holder."
"You don't have to-"
"I want to." She folded her hands on the table and watched me eat. Her bluish-gray hair was in its usual ponytail and her apron was clean and she looked like a girl who worked in a pub and had no secrets and no divine mirror and no Familia full of Level 5 killers waiting for her to say a word.
I ate. The food was good. She watched. At some point Mia walked past the kitchen doorway and looked at me. Looked at my plate. Grunted. Kept walking. From Mia Grand, former Freya Familia captain, that was a standing ovation.
"Bell."
"Yeah?"
Syr's head tilted. "You're different today."
"I hit Level 2."
"That's not what I mean." She was studying my face. "You're sitting differently. Your shoulders are lower. You look like someone who stopped waiting for something and got it."
She wasn't wrong. The falna update had been last night and the new stats hadn't kicked in yet, but the Level itself had changed the weight I was carrying. The Minotaur was dead. The great deed was done. I wasn't waiting for the fight anymore. I was past it.
"Maybe," I said.
Her smile widened. A fraction. "It suits you."
She stood up, took the empty plates, and went behind the counter. The sway of her skirt as she walked was deliberate. I watched. She knew. We didn't talk about it.
The street was different.
Adventurers I'd never spoken to nodded at me. A dwarf in Goibniu Familia armor stepped aside at a corner and said "Record Holder" like he was trying the title on to see if it fit. A group of younger adventurers, Level 1s by their gear, stopped talking when I passed and one of them elbowed the other and pointed.
I was halfway to the north wall when someone fell into step beside me. Tall, lean, Loki Familia cape. I didn't recognize him. He had brown hair and a narrow face and he was walking at my pace without looking at me.
"You're Bell Cranel."
"Yeah."
"You train with Ais-san."
"Yeah."
He kept walking. A cart loaded with potatoes rattled past us on the cobblestones and a kid chasing a dog cut across our path and the Loki Familia member waited until both were gone before he spoke again.
"She's been in a good mood. Since you started training with her. I don't know what you're doing but whatever it is, keep doing it."
He peeled off down a side street before I could respond. I watched him go. His cape disappeared around a corner and I stood there on the cobblestones.
Ais Wallenstein was in a good mood. Her Familia noticed. They attributed it to me.
In the anime, Ais trained Bell because she was curious about his growth. It was never personal for her, or at least she never showed it. Here she was already different. I'd changed things by standing my ground and looking her in the eye instead of running. The training was the same but the angle was different and her Familia could see it even if she couldn't.
The thought sat in my chest the rest of the walk.
She was already at the wall.
Golden hair in a low ponytail, practice sword in her right hand, weight on her back foot. She'd been warming up. The stone around her was scuffed with boot marks. The morning light was coming over the wall from the east and it caught her hair and turned it white at the edges and she stood there in the light with her sword arm loose and her gold eyes found me coming up the stairs.
She didn't say congratulations.
She adjusted her stance. Wider. Deeper. Her grip shifted on the practice sword and the angle of the blade changed from the guard position she used when she was calibrating for a Level 1 to a position I hadn't seen before. Higher. More direct.
"Level 2 means I don't have to hold back as much," she said.
She lunged.
The speed was different. She'd been holding back more than I'd realized, calibrating every swing to the range where a Level 1 with S-rank stats could survive and learn from getting hit. This was faster. The practice sword came in from the left at a speed I could track but barely dodge and I got my body out of the way by a margin that would have been comfortable yesterday and was tight today.
I counterpunched. The Knife wasn't in my hand, just my practice sword, and the swing was faster than I expected. My Level 2 body hadn't caught up with my Level 2 stats yet, and the extra speed surprised both of us. The practice sword caught her blade and deflected it wide and her eyes went wider before she reset.
She came again. Faster. I used the footwork. Three-step lateral, but this time I could hold the third beat longer before my legs burned, and I came out of the dodge with enough balance to swing instead of just surviving. She parried. The clack of wood on wood echoed off the wall.
We went at it for an hour. Maybe longer. The practice swords splintered. She got a spare set from a bag by the wall and we kept going. I took hits. She landed a strike across my ribs that put me on my back and I got up and she waited and I came at her again. She scored my shoulder. I scored nothing on her but I came close twice and both times she had to move instead of just standing there absorbing it.
By the end my shirt was soaked through and my arms burned and my lungs were on fire and I was sitting against the wall with my back on the cool stone and my legs stretched out and my practice sword lying across my lap. She sat down beside me. Close enough that our shoulders touched.
She wasn't breathing hard. Level 6. This had been a stretch for her, but it wasn't effort. The sweat at her temples was from the sun, not the fighting.
We sat there. The city spread out below the wall, morning traffic starting, the Babel tower casting its shadow across the central district. A bird was building a nest in a crack in the wall two feet above my head, carrying bits of straw in its beak, making trips back and forth with complete indifference to the two people sitting below.
"I reached Level 2 in one year," Ais said.
I turned my head. She was looking straight ahead at the city below. Her profile was lit by the morning sun and her gold hair was loose from the ponytail, strands stuck to her neck with sweat.
"You did it in three weeks."
She paused. Her jaw worked once.
"How?"
I didn't answer.
The bird landed above my head with a fresh piece of straw and disappeared into the crack. Below us, a merchant was arguing with a cart driver about a blocked lane and their voices carried up the wall, tinny and distant.
I could have given her an answer. The same one canon Bell gave. I think it's because there's a place I want to reach no matter what. It was true. It just wasn't all of it. The rest of the truth was Hestia's hands on my back and the excelia that came from places I couldn't name and a skill called Liaris Freese that accelerated everything my feelings touched, and none of that was an answer I could say out loud.
So I said nothing.
Ais didn't push. She sat beside me against the wall with our shoulders touching and looked at the city and waited for an answer that wasn't coming and accepted its absence the way she accepted most things. Quietly.
But she turned her head. Just enough. And she looked at my profile the way she looked at the Dungeon when she was deciding whether to go deeper. Like she was seeing a floor she hadn't mapped yet and she wanted to find out what was on it.
I kept looking at the city. Her gaze sat on the side of my face, warm and steady.
The bird came back with more straw.
We sat there.