I want some ice cream.
Shivering in the night air, I pulled the collar of my coat—hardly a Treasure Weapon—tighter, trying to escape reality.
Well, to be precise, the real reason I was shivering wasn't the cold air. It was Riz, who had somehow gone from Treasure Hunter to just...
Hunter.
Tino was flying about frantically atop the stone pillars, searching for something that didn't exist.
Meanwhile, Riz—who had given Tino those instructions—was busy piling up Sand Rabbit heads in front of me.
Riz was faster than any beast in the vicinity, and since she wasn't hunting to eat, her hands never stopped.
I'd only spotted a single Sand Rabbit, but they apparently propped up the local ecosystem, because there were quite a few of them around here.
Riz caught them one by one, brought them back, and—without so much as a second thought—snapped their necks and stacked them in front of me.
In the darkness, those round eyes that still gleamed even in death were deeply unsettling. I started averting my gaze partway through, but I couldn't shut out the thudding, thudding sounds. At least the rabbits didn't cry out loudly—that was a small mercy.
Is she going to eat those? She's not, right? Come on, that's animal abuse. Well, I guess they're classified as Monsters, but they're basically just animals.
I'm a Philanthropist. I naturally hate having violence done to me, and I'm not too fond of doing it to others. Slaying Monsters wasn't a crime, so I had no real reason to stop Riz—but this was going too far.
"Watch me!" Tino said, didn't she? Go watch her. I can't see anything anyway.
I heaved a deep sigh and decided to offer a word of protest.
Ever since becoming a Hunter, they'd always been helping me. I owed Riz and the others a great deal.
But that was a separate matter from this.
"Riz... don't you think that's enough?"
"Huh? Really?"
The sounds stopped. I didn't know how many she'd killed, but even facing away, the strong smell of blood drifted over to me.
Even for someone as accustomed to smells as I was, it was enough to make my stomach turn.
"I'm... a Philanthropist."
She hadn't misjudged me. The bond between Riz and me wasn't so fragile that this would shake it.
But I couldn't stop my words from sounding curt. At my words, Riz circled in front of me and tilted her head.
Her eyes held pure bewilderment.
"? You're saying I should hunt the main body instead of the terminals?"
??? I had no idea what she was talking about. More Hunter jargon?
"But even calling them terminals, the terminals themselves don't seem to be aware they're being used. Even I might not know where the source is. They seem pretty wary. Lucia or Cit would know more about this kind of thing."
Riz pressed a finger to her lips and rattled on at full speed. I was too busy trying to understand her words to actually make sense of any of it.
Setting aside the first half, which I didn't understand at all, I focused on the latter part.
They were wary? Well, of course they were—so many of their companions had just been killed. Sand Rabbits were probably herd animals, so naturally they'd be cautious. Though from the look of things, that caution hadn't done them much good.
Come to think of it, did Lucia and Citry know a lot about rabbits? I'd never known that, but Mages and Alchemists did tend to have all sorts of strange knowledge.
If the three of them got serious, there wouldn't be anything left—let alone rabbits. They really didn't need to go all out for rabbits.
Yeah. I felt like I understood about eighty percent of what she'd said. The important thing was getting Riz to stop the massacre.
I let my gaze drift through the impenetrable darkness and spoke, trying to sound cool.
"Basically, there's no need to hunt any more rabbits. Whether they're wary or not doesn't really matter."
"Klein, nice one! So cool! But we still haven't taken out the source, and I think we need to make them regret messing with us. If they think they can oppose us and then just hide and survive, wouldn't that be a disgrace? We have to crush them in the name of the 'Mourning Specters'... They probably think we're trash who can't even pinpoint their location. I don't think it's good for us to keep being looked down on. We need to stomp them flat so they never even think about baring their teeth at us again. Lucia and Cit would definitely say the same thing!"
Riz's eyes were sparkling. It seemed my point hadn't really come across.
Weren't we going a bit overboard for rabbits?
The enemy was Sand Rabbits. If it were humans, maybe, but Sand Rabbits?
I didn't think being underestimated by rabbits was any disgrace. Besides, they hadn't bothered anyone—they'd been living modestly in this dog-eat-dog world, minding their own business. They hadn't even come after us.
Giving her all was one of Riz's finer qualities, but I wished she'd pick her battles.
And what did she take Lucia and Citry for, exactly?
I wasn't going to say it aloud, but they weren't the type to waste effort. If Riz pushed hard enough, they'd probably go along with it—but left to their own devices, they'd never think to annihilate harmless rabbits.
Taking Riz's words seriously, the content was so absurd it almost made me grin.
And that was when I realized my mistake.
Riz had clasped her hands behind her back and was looking up at me with an expectant, excited gaze.
That's right. Riz could be a little impulsive, but she wasn't stupid. She was rough, but she had a sense of humor too. She was a dear friend to me.
In that case, Riz's words... she was probably just joking. We hadn't been communicating much lately, and she might have been trying to make up for that.
Building a mountain of Sand Rabbit corpses over a joke was a bit much, but it wasn't exactly something to get riled up about.
I was on my game today.
"No, honestly, rabbits aren't even on my radar... Besides, can't pinpoint their location? The source? A king? The rabbit king would obviously be inside the rabbits' burrow. That goes without saying."
He might have been out and about, but he'd probably be inside the burrow by default. Though whether a Sand Rabbit herd even had a king was highly questionable...
At my spirited reply, Riz's face lit up like a blooming flower.
"Riz, that's your problem—you try to find everything by sight. You need to actually think things through."
"Ehhh, I am thinking too! ...I see, inside the burrow, huh... There are lots of similar burrows around here, so it might be the perfect hiding spot for the timid rabbit's master, maybe..."
Master? What master? Sand Rabbits didn't have owners.
"Yeah, yeah, that's right. None of that matters anyway—go watch your apprentice do her thing."
I couldn't see a thing, but she was probably giving it her all.
I grabbed Riz's shoulder—she'd somehow twisted her lips into a cruel smirk—and turned her toward the cylindrical pillars. I wasn't sure if she was serious, but she needed to stop fixating on rabbits.
Under the hazy moonlight, a dark blur was blurring. All I could tell was that something was blurring.
Watching it bounce between the multi-meter-tall pillars made me feel like I was seeing a yokai.
"She's gotten so impressive... She's practically a full-fledged Thief already."
"Ehhh, really? I still haven't trained enough! She needs to grow up faster so she can be my sparring partner..."
I thought Tino was good enough, but Riz still seemed unsatisfied. Well, one of the reasons she'd taken on an apprentice was supposedly to raise Tino stronger than herself as a sparring partner, so I couldn't really blame her.
Actually, I'd been vaguely wondering—wasn't training someone to be stronger than you a contradiction? How did that even work?
With my heart full of longing for ice cream, I tried to pacify Riz. Before Tino finished her investigation, I had to get her to accept why we'd come to this Treasure Hall.
"I came to this Treasure Hall because I wanted to see how Tino had grown. At the 'White Wolf's Den,' I might have been a bother to Riz, but that was just bad luck."
"Ehhh, Tino's fine and all, but I want you to see my growth too!"
Still held by the shoulder, Riz craned her neck fully and looked up at me from below.
Even if I looked, I wouldn't know. I thought she was already plenty strong.
Riz and the others were already beyond my ability to keep up with. Tino honestly wasn't far behind either. Watching was fine, but I couldn't offer any advice...
I decided to stall.
I stroked her healthily tanned neck with my palm. Riz's eyes grew moist, the tension drained from her shoulders, and she shivered.
Her body temperature seemed to have risen considerably.
The engine Riz had under the hood was high-performance and finely tuned.
Energy, in simple terms, was heat. When Riz displayed her full power, her body temperature soared to extraordinary heights.
This was different from Luke, who wielded superior technique and fighting spirit, or Anthem, who had pushed physical resilience to its limits.
"It's fine, it's fine. Seeing Tino's growth will show just how hard Riz worked too. You're way too tense, Riz. Let's try to relax a little more."
"You mean respond to everything in a natural state? Hmm, we've been through our fair share of hell, but I think we're still far from that. Ever since you left to take care of those trash people, exploration has gotten boring too."
"Yeah, yeah, right?"
...I didn't know what she was saying, but if she seemed happy, that was fine.
Riz nodded firmly, as if convincing herself, and leaned against me.
"Yeah. But you know, I think I'm feeling better now. Thanks, Klein. I'll do my best. So I won't disappoint you."
"...You won't disappoint me."
If anything, I was the one worried about whether Riz and the others would be disappointed in me.
Just then, Tino's voice rang out from atop the pillars—relieved and, unusually, excited.
"Mastaa! A Treasure Weapon! I found a Treasure Weapon! It's a bracelet type! I found it, Mastaa! Mastaa! Big sister!"
"Oh, nice going."
Finding a Treasure Weapon in such a low-ranked Treasure Hall was extremely rare. Maybe the fact that almost no one came here had worked in our favor.
I must have been living right. Quite the opposite of me.
Since tangible results had been produced, Riz would surely be satisfied too.
Thinking that, I looked down—only to find that Riz's earlier cheerful expression had vanished. She was frowning and clicking her tongue.
"Damn it, that little T. She let her guard down. There's no way Klein came all the way to a place like this just for one Treasure Weapon. Can't she feel this shaking?"
...Huh?
Thrum. A tremor swept through my entire body, as if the ground had flipped over.
Even Tino was startled—she let out a short scream and leaped into the air.
The only one who remained calm was Riz.
It wasn't an earthquake. The tremor showed no sign of stopping.
In my confusion, I couldn't speak. I couldn't even scream. I couldn't move.
Riz took my arm as if to calm me, and hugged me tight. That much was enough to restore a sliver of composure.
And then, at the unexpected sight before me, I fell silent.
The source of the sound and vibration was at the center of the pillar formation. In the wide space enclosed by the pillars, a massive black mass was rising from the ground.
It was about four meters tall—the same height as the surrounding pillars. At first glance it could have been another pillar, but looking closely from a distance, you could see that it had "limbs."
In the darkness, a strange pattern—like an inverted triangle—glowed red atop its head.
What was that?
Riz pressed her index finger to her lips and was muttering under her breath with a serious expression.
"Golem. Metal armor. Boosters on the legs. Cannons on both arms. Shield and longsword. No wings. An advanced land-type Golem? The crest is what Cit called 'Akasha.' ...So this is what you were after, Klein... Hmm, yeah, it might be strong."
A Golem? Oh, right. Phantoms did appear here too.
I listened to Riz's tactical analysis while pretending I already knew.
"Yeah, yeah, that's right. A big Sand Golem."
Between this and the White Wolf's Den, Treasure Halls had gotten pretty dangerous lately. It was probably the boss, but wasn't its Level way too high for the difficulty of this Treasure Hall?
Being big was synonymous with being strong. A Dragon could slaughter countless Hunters on sheer size alone.
Well, the Sand Golem in front of us wasn't that huge, but compared to Tino, it was enormous.
The giant Sand Golem turned to face us. I couldn't make out the details, but from the silhouette, it was clear—as Riz had said—that this massive humanoid was holding a great sword and shield.
If I'd had my wits about me, I would have fled on the spot. My legs wouldn't move.
Riz was wearing a rare grim expression.
"Hmm. I don't think Tino and I can handle this. We're not exactly great at fighting, and when you said 'light work,' your standards were pretty harsh, Klein."
"...Tino's the one who chose it."
Ugh, I felt like I was going to vomit.