The basement of the Great Tower of the Temple of Odis.
Pauline stood in the room where the Frost Orb was enshrined. Luisia was beside her. The orb, about two meters in diameter, emitted a white light from its centrally recessed base. Frost covered the orb, and their breath was visible in the cold air.
Luisia shivered.
“Something’s coming.”
A monster’s roar echoed even underground.
Pauline knew it was the roar of Ymir, the primordial titan. The wrath of the creator, terrifying all living things. Pauline held her hand over the orb and infused it with magic.
The light and cold intensified, and Pauline pulled her cloak closer.
“Are you alright, Luisia?”
Rion’s little sister clasped her hands together as though in prayer.
She nodded over and over, her small body trembling.
“…Oniichan…”
The faint whisper tightened Pauline’s chest.
Outside, thousands of adventurers and the knights defending the royal capital were fighting for their lives. Among them was Luisia’s brother, Rion.
Pauline had commanded dungeon expeditions many times before. But those had only ever been on the scale of a single party. To bear the weight of thousands of lives—to shoulder the fate of the entire world—was a pressure so immense that it made her want to faint.
Even now, people whose names she did not know were falling in battle to protect the temple. And on top of that, Luisia carried an even greater fear. She’s only twelve years old, a girl who had lost her father at a young age. To now face the possibility of losing her brother as well…
There could be no words for such anguish.
――OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
A tremendous roar shook the air.
Once again, the voices of Ymir and the others echoed through the walls. And this time, they were closer.
The light of the sacred orb flared as though crying out in alarm. Heavy, earth-shaking footsteps reverberated from every direction. Pauline could vividly imagine it—the monsters surging toward the temple.
What had become of the adventurers on the ground?
Had they all fallen, their bodies piled high outside, with the monsters now marching over their corpses?
Fear was all that came to her mind. She tightened her grip on her staff and endured.
If I tremble here, then what kind of Commander am I?
Luisia clutched the sleeve of Pauline’s ceremonial robe tightly.
Forcing herself, Pauline returned a smile.
“It will be all right. The gods are—”
The ground suddenly shook.
The orb’s light flickered wildly, and both of them lost their balance and fell.
Dust rained down from the ceiling. Bricks tumbled from the walls and clattered across the floor. From the upper levels came a chain of shouts and screams. Then the door to the room burst open, and one of her aides rushed inside.
“The city walls have been breached!”
Pauline nodded quietly, summoning all her self-control.
“Is that so? Please give me an accurate report.”
“Yes! They haven’t entered the temple yet. However, the monsters have grown unusually powerful. There are also reports that Ymir has breached the front lines…”
The monsters’ voices drowned out her hearing.
Pauline shook her head.
“They’ve entered. However, this is the source of the sealing chill. If the gods and the main force are safe, we have a chance of winning if we can hold out.”
The group members nodded and returned to the surface.
Luisia’s voice trembled.
“Then…!”
Hugging her knees, her eyes wide with pity.
“Where’s my brother…?”
Luisia clutched the front of her dress tightly. A green light slowly filled her eyes.
“It’s my fault.” She never spoke the words aloud, yet Pauline could see them forming on the girl’s lips.
“I have to become stronger, after all…”
Luisia repeated the words to herself.
A green radiance gathered in her chest, illuminating the entire room.
“I have to…!”
Then a voice echoed within Pauline’s mind.
It was the voice of the Goddess of Fertility, Freyja.
—Luisia.
The tone was calm, as though she had already resigned herself to what was about to happen… and accepted it. Even now, an immense reserve of mana slumbered within Luisia. Because the divine power that Goddess Freyja had once carried away from the heavens still remained inside her.
The problem was that Luisia had never learned to wield it. The control of mana was like a floodgate. Within Luisia lay a vast spring, but the amount of water she could release at any one time had always been limited by the narrowness of that gate.
But what if that gate were suddenly thrown wide open?
Then the skill <Miko> would become exactly what its name implied. Luisia would no longer be any different from the gods themselves.
“…Luisia!”
Pauline called her name sharply.
The girl’s sky-blue eyes were steadily turning green. She’s drawing upon the gods’ power in such overwhelming quantities that, for the first time, Pauline was no longer certain that Luisia would ever return to normal.
A dreadful thought flashed through her mind.
Had the Chief God, Odin, been waiting for this all along?
Waiting for a girl with the power of creation to learn the terror of monsters… to grow stronger and stronger… and, in the end, arrive at the same conclusion he had.
Still on her knees, Luisia’s lips trembled.
“My big brother has always been the one protecting me… so…”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“I don’t want anything terrible to happen to him anymore!”
Then Luisia cried out.
“I don’t care about heroes or the horn…! If my brother dies, then none of it means anything…!”
Tears, illuminated by a green light, slid down Luisia’s cheeks. The light intensified, and Pauline was thrown back. The frost on the floor shattered, swirling into the air like a blizzard.
Coughing, Pauline stood up.
“Lu…Luisia?”
The girl, enveloped in green light, lowered her chin slightly in response to Pauline’s question.
Pauline gasped. Her eyes were wide open, yet there was no tension in her mouth or cheeks. Her green eyes turned towards Pauline.
“…Luisia?”
Even when Pauline repeated the question, Luisia showed no reaction. The noise outside was still palpable. Voices of monsters and people rained down from the ceiling. Without even moving an eyebrow, Luisia slowly raised her hand to the surrounding walls.
The girl extended a finger and pointed to the wall in front of her.
“Over there…”
Luisia turned her green eyes toward Pauline.
“I think there’s… something there that I can use.”
She was pointing toward the eastern side of the underground chambers.
To where the monster—the ratbone, Rata—was being held.
“It looks like the enemy has finally played all of its cards. If we can endure this, then we still have a chance to win. And even if we can’t…”
Luisia left the rest unsaid.
Then she smiled.
“Shall we go?”
It was a smile that made the muscles in her cheeks tremble. In that expression, she looked strikingly like Freyja. And to Pauline, it was both reassuring… and terrifying.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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