Twilight Manor at night wasn't dim. If anything, it was lit up bright.
Magic-stone lamp light spilled out from the windows of every spire, and combined with the magic-stone lamps set into the courtyard, almost drove off the darkness entirely, lighting up the surroundings.
The night wind drifted past, lifting the golden hair of the girl standing in the courtyard, swaying it up and down. The sight was beautiful beyond words.
Leo stopped, his eyes meeting the gold eyes of the golden-haired girl, and fell into a long silence.
Watching the girl who said nothing as she gazed at him, who even after a year together was still so bad with words, his expression somehow loosened.
Every time he saw the too-beautiful girl, Leo would do this. He would immediately stop in his tracks, as if unwilling to intrude on the picturesque scene she stood in, unwilling to break the mood. And when their eyes met, he couldn't bring himself to speak right away.
Every time the two of them met, it went like this. They would silently look at each other for a while before breaking the silence, which wasn't an uncomfortable one.
Sometimes it was Leo, sometimes Ais. The two of them seemed to be waiting for the other to speak first, and a certain Amazoness girl who often witnessed this scene and was close to Ais had complained about it more than once.
"Anyone who didn't know would think you two were having a patience contest over there. The kind nobody else can join in on."
Remembering the Amazoness girl's complaint, Leo laughed inwardly and finally stepped forward, coming to stand in front of her.
"Why are you out here?"
Leo said it softly, like a man coming home from work to find his girlfriend waiting on the couch.
Whether he himself realized it, well, who knew.
The girl, as always, was brief and to the point.
"...Waiting for you to get back."
A cool voice, a tone empty of emotion. If you ignored how blunt the actual content was, anyone who didn't know better would think she was deliberately keeping someone she disliked at arm's length.
"Everything go okay?"
Ais's eyes had already swept over Leo. Seeing no obvious wounds on him, and that he was unreasonably clean, she realized he'd cleaned himself up over at Babel before coming back.
"Of course." Leo let her look him over, his tone easy, like a guest dropping in. "Just took a walk around the first few floors of the Dungeon. What could happen?"
Clearly, Leo had no intention of telling Ais about the corner he'd been backed into.
But he didn't realize that as a first-class adventurer, Ais had far more experience and far sharper eyes than he did.
Leo had cleaned himself up and hadn't brought back so much as a scratch, but he'd forgotten one thing. His weapon and armor were still on him.
With a single glance at the short sword and small shield at his waist, Ais spotted it. Both pieces of gear showed wear that wasn't severe, but absolutely couldn't be ignored.
Equipment more than good enough to use down to the Dungeon's 12th floor, gear that even counted as fine among superior equipment. Worn down like this from just the first few floors?
That could only mean one of two things.
Either Leo was lying, and he hadn't just gone to the first few floors of the Dungeon but had pushed deeper, taking on powerful enemies with these two pieces of gear.
Or Leo had been through a lot of brutal fighting, which had worn the weapon and armor down to this state.
The former probably wasn't it. Ais knew him well enough. One look at his face told her he wasn't lying about that.
Which meant it was the latter.
The boy she'd brought back, standing in front of her, had gone through more combat in a single day than most people would ever see.
"...What floor did you explore down to?"
Just to be safe, Ais asked anyway.
"Floor 5."
Leo had meant to hide it, but seeing the girl staring straight at his face, he smiled wryly and just told her the truth.
"...You're really okay?"
The moment she heard he'd gone to Floor 5, Ais went quiet for a long moment, then said this carefully.
She clearly understood. A newbie adventurer just starting out shouldn't be going to Floor 5 on his first trip into the Dungeon.
It was reckless. Dangerous.
Even though she'd done plenty of reckless, dangerous things herself, she couldn't help saying it, sounding almost like she was scolding him.
"It's fine, I know my limits." Leo explained, "I wasn't planning on Floor 5 originally. But I have Magic, and once I tried it out I knew I could go a bit deeper. So I went to Floor 5."
"Magic..." Ais looked a little surprised. She looked at Leo. "You got Magic?"
"Yeah." Leo nodded, smiling. "A Magic with a lot of potential. No idea how it ended up on someone like me, a Human with no natural magical talent."
That seemed to spark her curiosity, one of the rare things to draw her interest.
"What kind of Magic?"
She stared straight at Leo again, making no effort to hide it. It was just that anyone who didn't know her would probably never read it off that cool, expressionless face.
Leo had no intention of hiding it either, and simply held out a hand.
"Light of heaven, sword of stars."
Leo chanted his Magic smoothly.
"Meteor Dance."
The next moment, several meteors flew out from his raised hand, drifting above his palm.
Ais was instantly drawn in. Her golden eyes locked on the meteors flitting back and forth above his palm, a rare ripple stirring in them.
"Beautiful Magic..."
She said it honestly.
"It's Star attribute Magic."
Leo offered a brief explanation.
"Star attribute?"
Ais tilted her head. Clearly, she'd never heard of this attribute.
"I'm not sure either. That's just how it shows up in the magic slot on my Status."
Leo shrugged.
Over the course of the day he'd cast his Magic plenty of times, but hadn't found any obvious difference between this so-called Star attribute Magic and Magic of other attributes.
The only thing he could say for sure was that its versatility and controllability were both pretty high.
Some Magic was hard to control freely. The most typical example was fire-attribute Magic. Because of how aggressive and explosive it was, the caster had a hard time controlling it perfectly, which often led to excessive collateral damage.
In this respect, Leo's Star attribute Magic seemed completely different. Easy to handle. Even a rookie like him could control it without trouble.
The reason Leo could do this right now, casting the Magic but holding it back from launching, keeping it dancing above his palm, was because of how controllable it was.
On top of that, Leo had also discovered that he could cast the Magic even without chanting.
Yes. Without the chant, Leo could still cast the Magic.
The catch was, without the chant, the Magic he fired came out a lot weaker. Less than half the power of a normal cast. And if he tried to make up for it by spending extra Mind to add attacks or boost power, the Mind cost climbed well above a normal cast.
It was strictly an emergency option for crisis moments when chanting wasn't possible. Unless Leo eventually got strong enough that even less than half the power was enough to deal real damage to powerful enemies with this Magic, that kind of usage just wasn't worth the cost.
Leo had a feeling this strange capability had to be tied to the Stranger from Another Star Skill.
"Removes all ability growth limits" was probably far more valuable than he'd imagined. Not only might it be the root reason an ordinary Human like him had ended up with a Magic with this kind of future, it had also lifted the Magic's own built-in restriction of "must be chanted to cast."
Either way, Leo figured the "all ability" mentioned in the Skill definitely didn't just mean basic abilities. It included Development Abilities, Magic, Skills, and even Level. Everything.
The "ability" here wasn't basic abilities or Development Abilities. It was the ability of "Status" itself. The whole Falna.
Leo had a vague feeling this Skill was going to be something serious.
How serious?
Quite possibly... more serious than the original protagonist's Liaris Freese.
For a transmigrator from another star like him, escaping an ordinary future might come down entirely to this Skill.
Unaware of Leo's internal calculations, Ais admired what she'd called "beautiful Magic" for a while before speaking again, unhurried.
"If you have Magic, then I can relax."
With Magic, forget the monsters on the first few floors of the Dungeon. He could probably handle the entire Upper Floors.
Provided, of course, that the Magic could be cast successfully and actually hit the enemy.
If you were a pure rearguard Mage, the kind who needed someone protecting you to chant and cast, then you definitely couldn't go alone into floors beyond what you could handle.
But Leo's Magic was clearly an ultra-short chant, and he'd also picked up some swordsmanship. Casting and using Magic mid-fight wouldn't be too hard for him.
"You... might be well-suited to the Magic Swordsman path."
Ais offered this comment.
The Magic Swordsman was a high-level middle guard class.
They were beloved and welcomed by every major adventurer party. Unlike ordinary Mages, they could push to the front line themselves, applying "Magic," that power treated as a trump card, in the thick of brutal combat.
Adventurers in this class usually relied on fast-casting ultra-short chant attack Magic as their main means of combat. They were especially good at chanting Magic in intense close-range fights, quick and nimble, with no shortage of firepower. Wherever they went, they were highly welcome teammates.
Ais herself had Magic, but hers was the kind used to enhance her own body, not the kind to one-shot an enemy mid-battle. So she didn't count as a Magic Swordsman. She was just a normal swordsman who could use Magic to boost her power.
But Leo was different.
He'd learned swordsmanship and could fight enemies up close on the front line. And he had this kind of fast-casting ultra-short chant attack Magic. The Magic Swordsman path was wide open to him.
If he could make it work, even in the Loki Familia where strong people were everywhere, he was sure to have a place.
Magic was already a power only a few could obtain, and attack Magic that could be used in intense combat was a minority within that minority. If Leo could become a Magic Swordsman, his standing in the Familia would shoot straight up, and he'd make a name for himself fast.
After all, even in the Loki Familia, the people who could really be called Magic Swordsmen numbered only a handful.
Ais had seen the potential hidden in Leo to become a Magic Swordsman, so she'd given him this advice.
"Actually, I was thinking the same thing."
Leo perked up. Ais's suggestion had landed right on what he'd already been considering.
He'd also realized that his Magic was a good fit for the Magic Swordsman path.
At first, Leo had wondered whether he should become a Mage specializing in magic. After all, while his Magic was an ultra-short chant, by spending extra Mind he could push both its power and the number of attacks up. If he didn't care about the cost, he could use an ultra-short chant to unleash wide-area firepower rivaling a long chant or even an ultra-long chant. That would be more than enough to become a rearguard Mage.
Mages were also a very scarce class among adventurers. No Familia would refuse to take in a Mage. The members most Familias wanted to recruit and were most short on were Healers who could treat wounds, then Mages who could serve as rearguard.
Most people wouldn't turn down the chance to become a Mage. Leo included.
But Mages lacked the ability to fight on their own. They usually needed a team to fully bring out their value, and without teammates their effectiveness took a heavy hit.
Leo didn't really want to be someone who could only be protected, who couldn't fight without someone fighting alongside him. So compared to a pure rearguard Mage, he'd rather become a Magic Swordsman who could fight solo.
So Leo had already made up his mind.
"I want to keep learning swordsmanship from you. And if I can, I'd like to learn Concurrent Chanting too." Leo smiled at Ais. "I'll probably be bothering you a lot from here on. Hope you don't get sick of it."
Ais shook her head, her golden hair swaying with the motion.
"I won't." She said it very seriously, as if she'd accepted some kind of mission. "I'll teach you properly."
"...You don't have to take it that seriously." Leo thought back to past training sessions with her, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Whenever you have time is fine."
Ais wasn't actually Spartan about it. It was just that she didn't have a good sense of how much force to use, couldn't really hold back, and on top of that was bad with words and clumsy with people, so she often chose to teach Leo through sparring.
Because of that, Leo had been sent flying by this delicate-looking girl more than a few times...
Remembering those times, Leo gave a small shudder.
This path was tougher than he'd imagined...
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