Ch.38
Hestia's scream came from the direction of Rivira.
We were an hour into breaking camp, packing the last supplies near the crystal tree line, when the sound cut through the hum of Floor 18. High. Terrified. Her voice, unmistakable, carrying across the open air of the safe zone.
I was running before anyone spoke.
The Hestia Knife was in my hand. My pack hit the ground behind me. The crystal grass blurred under my feet and the trees thinned and Rivira's rough stone buildings appeared through the tree line and her voice was closer now, words mixed with the screaming.
"Let go of me- let GO-"
Around the corner of a supply shack. Alley between two buildings. Three men, armed, rough-looking. And Mord Latro, holding Hestia by the arm with one hand and a short sword in the other. He had her pulled against his chest, her feet barely touching the ground, her twin-tails hanging loose and her bare feet kicking at his shins.
"Shut up," Mord said. "Just need your little boyfriend to come pay the-"
Firebolt left my palm at full speed, a bolt of white-red flame that crossed the alley in a blink and hit Mord center mass. The impact launched him backward through the wooden wall of the supply shack. The wall exploded outward in a shower of splinters and dust and Mord's body tumbled through the debris and hit the stone floor inside and didn't get up.
Hestia stumbled forward. I caught her. Her hands grabbed my shirt and she pressed against me and she was shaking.
"I'm okay," she said. "I'm okay, I just- he grabbed me when I was walking to the market and I panicked and I-"
She stopped.
Her eyes went wide.
Blue light pulsed from her body. Faint, brief, already fading. The afterglow of divine power released without control, a burst of Arcanum triggered by terror. The air tasted like ozone and copper and the crystal trees nearest us flickered.
The ground shook.
A low rumble, deep enough to feel in the bones of my feet, running through the stone floor of the safe zone. The crystal ceiling above us, the massive dome that held Floor 18's artificial sky, cracked. A line of black split the blue surface and spread outward and chunks of crystal rained down, shattering on the ground around Rivira.
Someone in the town screamed. Then everyone.
The ceiling broke.
A section the size of a house collapsed inward and through the gap something fell. Massive. Black. Wrong. It hit the ground between Rivira and the lake and the impact sent a shockwave through the floor that knocked people off their feet. Dust and crystal shards erupted upward and for a second I couldn't see anything.
The dust cleared.
It was standing. Twenty meters tall, maybe more, black-skinned, humanoid but stretched wrong. Muscle packed over bone in slabs that looked like they'd been welded on by someone who'd heard of anatomy but never studied it. Its eyes were red. Its mouth was a gash that split its face from ear to ear and inside were rows of teeth that went back further than they should.
The Black Goliath.
I knew it from the anime. The enhanced variant, the Dungeon's immune response to Hestia's Arcanum burst. Level 5 equivalent. Regeneration. Roar Blast.
The Goliath opened its mouth. The roar that came out was physical, a wall of pressure that flattened the grass and shoved me back a step and set my ears ringing. Hestia pressed against my back, her hands over her ears, her face buried between my shoulder blades.
People were running. Adventurers from Rivira scattering, some toward the monster with weapons drawn, most away from it. Bors was shouting orders that nobody was following.
Ryuu appeared at my right side. She'd crossed the distance from camp in seconds, her twin short swords drawn, her hood down, her flaxen hair loose. Her eyes were locked on the Goliath and her breathing was controlled.
"Level 5 equivalent," she said. "Minimum. The regeneration will outpace conventional damage."
"I know."
Mikoto arrived behind us, katana drawn, Ouka and Chigusa flanking her. Welf was running from the tree line with his pack bouncing against his back.
The Goliath took a step. The ground trembled. It was heading for Rivira.
"Ryuu." My voice came out flat. Steady. "Left flank. Hit the tendons behind the knees. You're the only one fast enough to get under it."
Her eyes moved from the Goliath to me. One second. Then she nodded and was gone, a blur of white and green moving left.
"Mikoto. Futsunomitama when I give the signal. Anchor its feet. Pin it in place."
Mikoto's eyes were wide but her hand on her katana was steady. "Understood, Bell-dono."
"Welf." He was beside me now, breathing hard from the sprint, his pack dropped, his hand on the greatsword at his back. "Magic sword. Full output. I need twenty seconds."
Welf's jaw tightened. He pulled the Crozzo blade from the sheath on his back. The blade was red, the color of a forge at full heat.
"Twenty seconds," Welf said. "I can do that."
"Hestia." I looked down at her. Her blue eyes were wet and her chin was set. "Stay behind Ouka. Don't move."
"Bell-"
"I'll be fine."
She let go of my shirt. Ouka stepped forward and she moved behind him and her hands were fists at her sides.
Ryuu hit the Goliath first.
She came in low and fast along the left side, below its field of vision, and her twin blades carved into the back of its left knee. The cuts were precise. Tendons separated and dark blood sprayed across the crystal grass and the Goliath's leg buckled. It staggered, caught itself on one hand, and swung at her with the other. She was already gone, rolling under the fist, coming up behind the right leg, cutting again. Both hamstrings severed in under three seconds.
The Goliath dropped to its knees.
She'd seen Level 4 adventurers fight. She'd been one. The boy who'd just given her orders was Level 2 and his voice hadn't wavered and when he'd said "left flank, hit the tendons" he'd said it like he'd done this before. Like he'd fought this specific monster in a life she couldn't see.
Ryuu cut the second tendon and rolled clear and watched him from across the Goliath's fallen body. He was standing still. His right hand was at his side and light was building in his fist. White light, bright enough to see from a hundred meters, growing.
He was counting.
"Mikoto! Now!"
Mikoto planted her feet and raised her katana and the chant left her lips in a rush of Far-Eastern syllables. "Futsunomitama!"
Purple light erupted from the ground beneath the Goliath. A dome of crushing gravity, concentric circles radiating outward, pressing the monster flat against the crystal grass. The Goliath's arms buckled. Its head slammed down. The ground cracked beneath it in a web of fractures.
The Goliath screamed. The sound was different from the roar. Smaller. Angry. It was already healing, the tendons in its legs knitting back together, the dark blood slowing, and it was fighting the gravity field, pushing up with arms that could tear through castle walls.
Mikoto held the chant. Her body shook with the effort, the Mind expenditure pulling at the edges of her consciousness. She watched Bell through the purple haze of her own magic.
He was standing in the open. No armor. No shield. A knife in one hand and light in the other. The white glow from his fist was brighter than the crystal ceiling. His face was empty. Like a man doing arithmetic.
His voice, when he gave orders. She'd trained under Takemikazuchi-sama her entire life. She knew what command sounded like. This boy sounded like he'd been doing it for years.
Welf drew the Crozzo blade across the air and the world turned orange.
Fire erupted from the magic sword in a torrent that hit the Goliath's exposed chest and scorched black skin to white ash. The flame was impossibly hot, the air around it shimmering, and the Goliath's regeneration couldn't keep up with the damage. Flesh burned faster than it could rebuild. The monster thrashed against Mikoto's gravity field and the crystal grass around it was melting into glass.
Twelve seconds. The light in my right hand was blinding now. The Argonaut charge was building, the white glow expanding up my forearm. My arm was shaking. The power wanted out. Every second I held it was a second standing in the open, unable to move, unable to dodge, trusting Ryuu's cuts and Mikoto's gravity and Welf's fire to keep the thing down long enough.
Fifteen seconds. The Goliath broke one arm free of the gravity field. It swung at the ground and the shockwave knocked Welf off his feet and the fire stream cut off. The magic sword cracked. Welf rolled, came up holding the broken halves, and swore.
Eighteen seconds. Mikoto's gravity field flickered. Her knees buckled. The purple light stuttered and the Goliath began to rise.
Twenty seconds.
The Goliath was on its knees, one hand reaching toward me, its mouth opening for a Roar Blast that would flatten everything in front of it. Its regeneration had rebuilt the tendons. It was getting up.
Hestia watched from behind Ouka's broad back. Bell was standing alone in front of the monster and his arm was made of light. The white glow had consumed his hand, his wrist, his forearm, pouring off him in streamers that caught the crystal ceiling's glow and scattered it into colors she'd never seen.
Her adventurer. Her Bell.
He raised his arm.
"FIREBOLT!"
The word ripped out of me and the Argonaut charge released.
The bolt that left my hand was nothing like a normal Firebolt. It was a lance of concentrated white light the width of my body, trailing fire and lightning, and it crossed the distance to the Goliath's head in a fraction of a second and hit between the eyes and kept going.
The Goliath's skull exploded. The top half of its head vaporized, black skin and bone dissolving into ash and light, and the shockwave sent a concussion wave across Floor 18 that bent the crystal trees and knocked dust off every building in Rivira. The Goliath's body swayed. Its arms went limp. Its remaining lower jaw hung open on nothing.
I was already moving. The Hestia Knife in my right hand, the blade warm from the residual Argonaut energy, and I closed the distance while the body was still falling. The magic stone would be in the chest. I jumped, planted my foot on its collapsing ribcage, and drove the knife into the center of its chest. The blade sank to the hilt. I twisted. The magic stone cracked under the edge and the Goliath's body began to dissolve, the black skin turning to ash from the wound outward, crumbling in sheets.
I pulled the knife free. Landed on the crystal grass. The world tilted.
My legs gave out. The Argonaut backlash hit all at once and my knees buckled and I dropped.
Arms caught me.
Slim, strong, steady. One arm across my chest, the other bracing my shoulder, and I was leaning against someone who smelled like clean linen and steel and something faintly sweet.
"I've got you," Ryuu said.
Her voice was close. Against my ear, almost. My weight was against her and she was holding me upright and her heartbeat came through her back, fast but controlled, and her arm across my chest was warm.
"Thanks," I said. My voice came out rough. "Nice cuts on the tendons."
"You gave adequate orders."
"Adequate?"
"For a Level 2."
Her arm didn't move. I was too tired to stand and she wasn't letting go and the Goliath's body was dissolving into ash behind us and the crystal ceiling was broken and I was alive.
Welf was sitting on the ground holding the two halves of his broken magic sword. Mikoto was on her hands and knees, shaking, Ouka beside her with a hand on her back. Hestia was running toward me, barefoot, crying again, and she was going to tackle me and Ryuu was going to have to choose between holding me up and letting a goddess crash into both of us.
Hermes stood at the edge of Rivira's perimeter. His hat was tilted back and his arms were crossed and the smile was gone.
He mouthed two words. I was too far away to hear them but I could read lips well enough.
The words were a name. Not mine.
Hestia hit me at full speed and Ryuu caught us both and I was sandwiched between a goddess and an elf and my legs didn't work and the scratches on my chest were screaming and for a few seconds nobody said anything.
The magic stone from the Goliath sat in the dissolved ash. Purple-black. The size of a melon. Worth enough to buy the church three times over.
Lili appeared from behind a building and looked at the stone and looked at me and her expression shifted from fury to something else. She walked to the stone, knelt, and began extracting it from the ash with her bare hands.
Even angry, she wasn't going to let someone else touch the money.
I closed my eyes. Ryuu's arm was still across my chest. Hestia was crying into my shoulder. The crystal trees hummed.
My right arm was numb from the shoulder down. It was going to be a problem later.
I'd worry about it later.