Good day.
My name is Lupinus.
Lupinus Lord Denton, if you please.
I serve as the leader and tank of Torquetam.
Our members include Pakira, a cat-beastkin and attribute-user, and Riv, an incredible swordswoman and a mysterious girl.
And then there's myself. I'm an elf.
Not just any elf, but one from a long and noble bloodline — in fact, I'm royalty.
An elf lord. The daughter of a viscount.
For generations, my family has wielded the Shield of Achilles, an OOPArt passed down through the ages.
It's a Relic with the Sturdy attribute, and my role is to protect everyone with it.
Incidentally, I'm eighteen years old. A proper eighteen.
I am absolutely not twenty-eight, thirty-eight, or forty-eight.
Just because I look mature and happen to be an elf doesn't mean you can write me off as older. That's simply rude.
Well, looking mature isn't entirely a bad thing, I suppose.
And since I'm past the age of adulthood, I am indeed a grown woman.
And yet somehow something feels off. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Pakira and Riv are both past the age of adulthood too, yet nobody treats them that way.
They're still calling them girls and young ladies and all that.
As for whether I could bring myself to treat the two of them as adults... that's a tall order.
Besides, even after reaching adulthood, you can't drink until you're twenty.
I really do wonder what kind of adulthood you get at fourteen.
Putting that aside, everyone in Torquetam was a Class III Delver.
Seventy percent of all delvers are Class V.
That's one rank above the so-called insurmountable wall of Class IV.
And being Class III in your teens is exceptionally rare.
I don't say this often because it comes off as arrogant, but we were talented.
This isn't boasting or pride—purely a matter of fact, we had talent.
And us, who had been… hailed as the rising stars.
We nearly perished—every last one of us—after earning the right to attempt the Class II trial.
No.
We did perish, didn't we.
The opponent was a chimera we encountered on the thirty-third floor, during an investigation request in a dungeon.
A mid-tier Silver-rank monster.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been a particularly difficult fight.
But that chimera was white. A white chimera.
And its strength was so immense that even we, at Class III, weren't sure we could win.
That was the rumored albino variant—a monster from a special dungeon.
It was our first time encountering one.
Its fire, lightning, and wind Relic tails were powerful, and it moved like a lion.
But the worst of them all was the Relic, "Evil Gaze."
It steals the freedom of anyone who meets its eyes, if only for an instant. A thoroughly despicable Relic.
Against high-ranking monsters, even a momentary opening is a fatal wound.
And on top of that, our opponent was an albino variant.
We fought bravely, but were immobilized by the Evil Gaze, and we were wiped out entirely.
No — or rather, we should have been.
And yet here we are, alive... Why is that?
What's more, when we were found, we were completely unharmed.
Still, the pain, the injuries, the humiliation of defeat — I remember every bit of it vividly.
So what exactly happened?
According to Riv, it seems an elixir was used on us.
That legendary Legacy you can actually drink. Also called a potion from the age of the gods.
The elixir — a medicine of life and soul.
Indeed, with an elixir, it could have saved us from the brink of death.
But who? For what purpose? And what did they do to us?
Using an elixir for free? That's simply impossible.
No matter how much I think about it, I just can't figure it out.
And there's one more thing.
The return stone Pakira had been carrying was gone.
But at that time, none of us should have been able to use it.
After all, we had collapsed and lost consciousness.
To be more precise, we were on the verge of death.
Someone administered an elixir to us, then used a return stone to send us back.
What an absurd story... it's simply inconceivable.
We ought to verify the truth for ourselves, so we volunteered for the guild's investigation party.
To that floor.
The chimera was gone.
But scattered across the ground, faint black stains dotted the surface.
"Riv. What do you make of it?"
"Mm... the blood of two people..."
"I see."
"Hmm. That settles it, then."
There was no mistake. Someone had healed us with an elixir.
And then used a return stone to save us.
"Why?"
And to this day, they still haven't come forward.
Something is off.
This had to be a deliberate act with some ulterior motive.
Using an elixir for free like that is absolutely unheard of.
As delvers, as people, no one would do such a thing... there has to be a scheme behind it.
One day, a band of black-armored knights might appear before us.
A noble might show up.
It could even be the supreme race, the Edda — nothing but worry and fear, really.
Warily keeping our guard up, we ground through our commissions.
Nothing happened. Days slipped by, pointlessly.
The special room of the high-end inn we were using as our base.
We'd been leisurely enjoying tea — with the beloved table and chairs we'd brought along — when.
"...Hey... you two... Riv... I've completely... forgotten something..."
The girl sitting across from me murmured, just like that.
"That's rather sudden."
"What is it?"
This girl. She really does just blurt things out.
We've been together for a decent while now, ever since forming Torquetam.
And yet I still can't quite pin down her personality.
It's not just her personality I can't figure out — her appearance, too, for that matter.
And honestly, I'm not even sure what she is.
But I don't dislike her. She's a companion, after all.
"...I once met a boy who... smelled like an elixir..."
"What was that?"
"Come again!?"
"Ugh... I forgot..."
I let out a sigh.
Honestly, this kid — seriously, what am I going to do.