"WAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Gilbert roars. As if on cue, the battle begins.
For Luda Lunder, it was the most intense combat she had ever experienced.
The Wolf Knight's massive battle axe swings down from every direction.
Gilbert, eyes wide open to their limit, deflects the crimson-wind-like attacks—from above, from the side—with the Purgatory Sword. Every time blade meets blade, Luda can feel his white-knuckled grip on the handle.
The Purgatory Sword was a massive blade in its own right, but the Wolf Knight's battle axe, crowned with human skulls, was far larger still.
The sweeping attacks left wide openings, but the force packed into each blow was extraordinary. Gilbert, who had never once backed down from any fight, was being forced to retreat, parrying strike after strike.
He couldn't take them head-on. For all his bullheaded recklessness, Gilbert was a man who had trained for years to become a Hunter. He had accumulated considerable experience fighting those stronger than himself.
Sweat beaded on his forehead. His breathing came in ragged gasps, yet he held his ground against blows that could kill in a single hit, deflecting them by the narrowest of margins.
"Damn it, so hard! No good—my sword can't cut through this!"
Beside Gilbert as he deflected, Gregg launched cuts and thrusts at the briefest of openings.
Strikes aimed at hands, arms, and the axe handle barely managed to slow the boss's onslaught by a fraction of a second.
Hard, massive, and overwhelmingly powerful.
That alone was enough for the boss to overpower all four of them. The storm-like fury of its battle axe engaged Gilbert and Gregg head-on while simultaneously keeping Tino suppressed in her blind spot.
The silver-white Wolf Knight was indeed analyzing the party's combat capabilities.
And its priority target was not Gilbert with his greatsword or the large-framed Gregg—it was Tino.
Phantoms.
Luda learned for the first time just how terrifying the high intelligence displayed by a Phantom could be.
And—the brilliance of the Hunter who faced one.
Tino evaded the sweeping battle axe with the minimum necessary movement.
A few strands of her lustrous black hair grazed the axe and scattered through the air.
With the blade passing right before her eyes, sweat glistened on her skin, but her gaze remained steady and unwavering. No trace of fear.
How could she move like that?
How could she remain composed before a blow that would mean death if she delayed even a second?
Tino wasn't overwhelmingly fast.
No matter how fast she was, she couldn't possibly move faster than a descending axe.
What Luda saw was courage.
Even under immense pressure, Tino evaded with movements as graceful as a dance, and despite the dire circumstances, Luda was moved.
As a Solo operator until now, Luda had never witnessed the movements of a Thief of higher rank outside the training grounds of the Association.
The techniques she had seen there were excellent, but they had never stirred her heart.
But today, watching Tino in this Party—her composure when facing a superior foe, her refusal to retreat—it was something different entirely.
The true calling of a Thief was not combat.
Perhaps, as someone bearing the role of a Thief , that assumption was even misguided.
And yet, in that moment, Luda felt an overwhelming, spine-tingling adoration toward this girl who looked about her own age or perhaps a little younger.
"...Damn it, she's not slowing down at all!"
Gilbert clenched his teeth and groaned.
A devastating strike that could split the world in two.
Even a Phantom should have stamina limits, yet the momentum behind that ceaselessly swinging battle axe showed no sign of waning.
Even though he wasn't taking the blows head-on, the strain on his arms from deflecting each one was beyond imagination.
If the weapon he was wielding hadn't been a Treasure Weapon but an ordinary sword, it would have snapped long ago.
The furious clash of blades, the ring of metal on metal echoed through the dim cave. It was nothing short of a miracle that no one had sustained a serious wound yet.
—But miracles don't last long.
"...Huh?"
Whose voice was that, in the end?
A dull sound rings out. A broken white blade tumbles through the air.
Gilbert's eyes go wide. Tino watches in shock. But the most stunned of all was probably Gregg.
The well-worn longsword he had been gripping in his right hand—wielding just moments ago—was now a fraction of its former length. The broken blade slowly falls to the ground with a dry clatter.
The first to grasp the reality were Luda, watching from a distance, and—the silver-white Wolf Knight facing them.
Time seems to freeze.
In that instant, Luda saw—in the stretched, decelerated moment—that protruding jaw twist into an ugly grin.
Those eyes looked down not at Tino or Gilbert, but at Gregg, whose face had gone slack with shock. The boss raised its battle axe high.
Luda's throw of her dagger was almost reflexive.
The dagger spun end over end, flying toward the boss's face as if drawn in. The boss deflected it with the flat of its axe. For the briefest of instants—an opening appeared.
The axe was already descending again, but in that fleeting moment, Gilbert recovered and met it with the Purgatory Sword.
If he deflected it, it would hit Gregg. So instead of his usual deflection, he blocked it dead-on.
Under the inhuman strength bearing down on the Purgatory Sword, Gilbert's knees buckled and he was hurled backward—but that momentary opening was created.
In that instant, Luda had already dashed forward and shoved Gregg's body—larger than her own—out of the way.
This was why Luda had stayed outside the fight. For moments exactly like this—to provide cover when things went wrong.
The delayed axe swipe grazed Luda's back and cleaves into the ground where Gregg had stood just a moment before. The thick blade sinks deep into the earth with a heavy thud.
Luda and Gregg tumble across the ground in an undignified heap. Even as they roll, they somehow manage to turn their eyes toward the boss.
A huge opening is created. But by then, Tino was already airborne.
Using the back of the massive axe embedded in the ground as a foothold, Tino's small body soars high into the air.
For an instant, the boss's gaze—filled only with resentment—registers shock.
The boss's decision is instantaneous. Both arms had been gripping the axe, but it releases its left hand to pursue Tino.
Tino's leap carried her well beyond the boss's enormous body. Its outstretched arm, complete with fully grown claws, grazes Tino's legs as she rises above it.
Tino's refined features twist with pain. Blood sprays from a shallow gash on her right thigh. But her momentum doesn't stop.
And then Tino soars over its head entirely, clinging to the boss's back.
The crimson short sword in her right hand glints sharply. The boss thrashes its body.
Then, without a sound, Tino drives the short sword cleanly through its neck.
The blood-dripping eyes roll back, and the clawed arm flails through the air as if trying to seize Tino.
But in the end, those claws never caught Tino clinging to its back, and the massive body collapsed to its knees.
Almost simultaneously with Tino touching down, the Phantom's enormous form vanished.
§ "Did we... win?"
Gilbert murmured in a daze, breathing hard through his shoulders. The Purgatory Sword slips from his hand and crashes to the ground with a heavy clank.
His voice, stripped of its earlier ferocity, sounded his age—young and boyish.
"...Victory."
Tino clutched her gashed right thigh and declared concisely, her voice devoid of emotion.
She sat down on the ground and examined the deep laceration on her right thigh.
A long, jagged scar across pale skin.
The wound, as if cut by a keen blade, had fortunately missed the arteries and wasn't life-threatening—but it wasn't something she could just leave alone.
If that decisive blow hadn't finished things, she wouldn't have been able to run even if she'd wanted to.
With blood still flowing steadily and a sharp pain throbbing, Tino bit back a grimace and let out a small sigh.
"That was close."
From the potion holder hanging at her belt—one that could carry up to five—she pulled out a small glass vial containing a pale pink liquid.
A healing potion created by Alchemists. The medicine, born from the fusion of science and magic, could heal wounds instantly—not as powerful as a Healer's magic, but effective all the same.
In a Party without a Healer, it was essential.
She uncapped the vial, tugged down her shorts to expose her thigh, and poured the potion directly into the wound.
She let out a brief cry of pain as the wound was irritated, but the gash—from near her groin all the way to the back of her knee—sealed up quickly.
There was still some lingering pain inside, but that too should heal with time.
Gregg, who had been lying on the ground, pushed himself up and stared at his beautifully broken sword.
As if only now understanding the situation, his face had gone pale.
"That was close... I thought I was dead for sure. Damn, of all times for my sword to break."
"At least you're alive, old man."
"Gah-ha-ha, can't argue with that."
He laughs as usual, but there's something lacking in his voice.
Still wearing that strained grin, he looks toward Luda—the one who had saved him without regard for danger.
"Thanks, Luda."
"Y-Yes... I barely made it in time. Thank goodness. Tino, are you all right?"
"No problems. I can walk. Given time, I'll recover completely."
The potions Tino carried were high-grade. They took time, but could heal most wounds as long as they weren't fatal.
She wiped away the blood and slowly rose to her feet.
Seeing their leader looking so unbothered, Gilbert felt a wave of relief.
She had been an opponent they had never faced before—at least with his previous Party, even with the Purgatory Sword fully charged, the odds of winning would have been slim.
Defeating it without any serious casualties was nothing short of a miracle.
If even one member of this Party had been missing, victory would have been doubtful. A win balanced on the thinnest of ice.
Gilbert pressed his hand against his still-racing heart—the lingering terror of death surging through him—and sighed.
"But they don't drop anything, huh... bosses."
"Bad luck. Compared to a regular Phantom, the chances of getting something would've been higher."
Gregg wore a complicated expression. He picked up the blade of his beloved broken sword and carefully sheathed it.
Restoring a completely broken sword was practically impossible.
At best, he could melt it down and recover the materials. Considering the reward, it was a huge net loss.
Luda offered what consolation she could with a wry smile.
"W-Well, at least you're alive. That's what matters. Right? You can always buy a new sword."
"...Yeah, I guess that's true."
"Here, take this. It's shorter than your old sword, but it's better than nothing."
"Sure."
Gregg took the crimson short sword, gave it a few swings, and tested its balance.
The boss was down, but they hadn't achieved their objective yet—and they still had to get back.
Unlike Monsters, Phantoms spawned naturally. Even a path they had already cleared couldn't be considered safe.
Exhausted, Gregg and Gilbert sank to the ground and drank from their canteens.
Luda, replaying the battle in her mind, spoke.
"Still, if things like that show up... the stranded Hunter could be in real danger."
"Mm... yeah... was it Level 5? Could that be what took them out?"
"Level 5..."
Tino furrowed her brow at the word.
The boss had certainly been formidable. With three Level 4 members, they had barely scraped by. A Level 5 Hunter losing to it wouldn't be surprising at all.
After all, Levels were standards set by the Association. A Level 5 Hunter wasn't necessarily stronger than a Level 4.
Of course, reaching Level 7 or 8 required accumulating enormous accomplishments and was a different tier entirely, but Level 5 was a range that could be attained even without extraordinary talent.
Tino surveyed the boss chamber once more.
A spacious room. Luminous stones were set into the walls beneath a high ceiling.
Dim light fell across the floor, but there were no bloodstains, no signals suggesting someone was stranded.
If a Hunter had been stranded here, they would have left some kind of sign.
The White Wolf's Den was not that large a Treasure Hall. Getting lost and unable to find one's way back seemed impossible.
That left the Phantom's strength as the most likely obstacle—but even so, a Level 5 Hunter would naturally consider the possibility of needing rescue. The complete absence of any such preparation was strange.
This was a trial. A trial Mastaa had deemed appropriate for Tino.
If so, then Tino Shade—an inexperienced Treasure Hunter—should be able to solve it.
"………………Mastaa, I don't understand...—!?"
As she murmured in a slightly forlorn voice, Tino's hearing suddenly caught a sound.
The other members, slumped in exhaustion, looked up with puzzled expressions as Tino raised her head.
"What is it, Leader?"
"Get up. Something's coming."
"!? A Phantom?"
Tension and release. Still wired from the boss fight, their fatigued bodies screamed in protest as the three forced themselves to stand.
Tino twisted sideways to dodge something that came flying through the air.
It was an arrow. A long crimson arrow embedded itself in the wall with a dull thud.
And then—for the first time, Tino's face went pale.
"...What?"
A beat later, Gilbert let out a dumbfounded sound.
Through the main passage leading to the boss room—the same one they had entered from—appeared the silver-white Wolf Knight in black plate armor they had just barely defeated despite taking injuries.
And not just one.
Eight blood-red eyes belonging to four of them stared down at Tino and her party.
—The boss they had just defeated had been waiting for reinforcements!?
The possibility surfaced belatedly in Tino's mind. Thinking back, the boss's movements had been cautious—as if it were stalling for time.
Their footsteps shook the ground.
Gregg's lips trembled as if he were witnessing a nightmare.
"You're kidding..."
Similar to the boss they had just defeated, but each wielded a different weapon.
A two-handed greatsword. A massive club that nearly reached the ceiling. An enormous bow clearly not meant for indoor use—and beside it, a dark-iron firearm with an ammunition belt so long it dragged on the ground, suggesting it was automatic.
Their entrance into the room was unhurried, almost leisurely—as if demonstrating their overwhelming superiority.
But the look of human resentment in their eyes was no different from the individual they had just felled.
Luda's voice came out ragged and trembling.
"W-Why? We just defeated them...!"
"...Mastaa, this many reinforcements are... I'm sorry, but this is too much."
Tino touched her injured right thigh with her fingertips.
The pain still lingered. Maneuvering like before would be impossible. If the wound reopened mid-fight, they would lose their last chance.
Facing the vastly outnumbered party, the four silver-white Wolf Knights formed a formation. The greatsword and club took the front line, while the firearm and bow lined up behind them.
Their disciplined movements were like watching a proper imperial army unit—a stark contrast to the disorganized Wolf Knights they had encountered in the corridors.
Gregg raised the crimson short sword, but facing four massive Wolf Knights, he looked thoroughly outmatched.
Even Gilbert, lifting the Purgatory Sword and pointing its tip forward, had lost all trace of his earlier bravado.
"W-What do we do?"
"...W-What do we mean, what do we do..."
The members looked to Tino.
Tino maintained a facade of calm and answered in a suppressed voice.
Making decisions in a crisis was the Leader's job. If the Leader broke, the Party would crumble. Here and now, Tino had no one to rely on.
"We have to fight..."
The leg wound wasn't deep, but escape was impossible.
They had ranged weapons, and those two in the same armor as the previous boss couldn't be taken down instantly without a miracle.
But she couldn't give up. She couldn't abandon living, abandon fighting.
Tino was carrying the lives of her Party on her shoulders.
A different kind of tension from what you feel during combat made Tino's heart pound like a drum.
Defeating them was impossible. So she needed to find the path that gave them even the slightest chance of survival.
What sustained Tino now was Mastaa's trust.
There was no way Mastaa would hand her an impossible commission. That trust in a client like this was the only thing keeping Tino from despair.
Keeping her eyes on the four before her, she turned her gaze toward the side passage on the right leading to the boss room.
The silver-white Wolf Knights were larger than ordinary ones. A narrow passage—both in width and ceiling height—would severely limit their movement.
She steadied her breathing and gave her teammates instructions.
Seeing that, the faint trembling in the other members' bodies subsided.
"Fighting them in this spacious boss room is hopeless. We escape through the right passage. In that narrow corridor, we can limit the number of opponents we face at once. Those swords and clubs will get caught on the ceiling and be hard to use. I'll hold the rear."
§ § § "I just thought of something—what if we gathered powerful Treasure Weapons? That might do the trick."
"Luke... no matter how good your equipment is, if you're weak yourself, you'll die when it's time to die."
Conversations with former comrades flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.
A Hunter enhanced with Mana Material—moving at speeds worthy of being called up to heaven—my instincts had already given up on living.
—I'm gonna die! I'm gonna dieeeee!
The White Wolf's Den was vast. It had more width and height than you'd expect from a cave, but it was far too narrow for the uncontrollable Dark Wings of the Night to fly through.
The interior was dim, but luminous stones were scattered here and there.
Thanks to the Treasure Weapon on his right thumb—the Owl's Eye, which granted night vision—visibility was adequate.
Walls closing in on his field of vision. He frantically manipulated the Treasure Weapon, careening around corners.
The tunnels were dark and oppressive—spaces he would normally never want to enter—but right now, the only thing on his mind was how to stop.
He had brought a map, but he had long since lost track of where he was.
The Treasure Weapon was far too cumbersome, and his body slammed violently against walls and ceilings.
His vision shook with each impact. He felt like a superball or something. He couldn't even tell what was happening anymore.
His face was locked in a permanent grimace.
Thinking calmly, he should have stopped before entering the Treasure Hall, no matter what. He had gotten high on the speed. Feeling like he was going to vomit. Served him right.
He blew past a giant Phantom blocking the corridor at high speed.
No matter how far beyond human capability a Phantom was, it couldn't track something moving at bullet speed with erratic trajectories. He didn't even know what he was doing himself, so that was only natural.
By the time it turned its head toward him, he had already passed directly overhead.
He decided to pretend he hadn't seen a wolf walking on two legs carrying a large sword.
—Tino, where are you!?
Unlike Phantoms, which vanish upon death, a Hunter's corpse remained for a long time. Even if they had been fighting a Phantom and been eaten, it was impossible for absolutely no trace to remain. Wasn't it?
He had terrible dynamic vision, but at least amid the rapidly streaming scenery, he hadn't spotted anything resembling the corpses of Tino and her amusing companions. The chances of them being dead were low.
After all this, if Tino and the others had skipped their commission and were just lounging around the Imperial Capital, that would be absolutely ridiculous.
Tino was responsible, unlike him—she wouldn't just bail. But as Lise's student, she had a trickster side to her, so maybe—!
His head smashed hard into the ceiling and his vision shook.
A long straight corridor—a wolf-like Phantom that had been in his path stared wide-eyed at this sudden human missile.
But he blew past it immediately. His shoulder clipped the Phantom's temple, sending him careening into the wall with bone-rattling force.
He somehow scraped around an acute turn, his body grinding against the wall. It was a miracle his terrible dynamic vision hadn't sent him splattered into the wall yet.
The Treasure Weapon adjusting his trajectory probably helped a little too. Bless the Treasure Weapon.
But even so, he was barely holding on—and if he didn't do something fast, he was going to die.
And he would probably go down in history as the idiot who crashed into the Treasure Hall as Human Missile Number Two using the Dark Wings of the Night—a weapon that had already killed people. That was far too pathetic, and he wanted no part of it.
It was over. He would stop somehow, one way or another. If this kept up, he was past his limit.
Without realizing it, he had emerged into a wide corridor. Right ahead, the back of a huge Phantom loomed. With his survival instincts honed to a razor's edge, he decided to use it as a cushion.
All that remained was to steel himself. He covered his head, shut his eyes, and prayed desperately.
And then, an impact more violent than anything he had yet experienced tore through his entire body.