I have to admit,
trailing after Empress for a full day of wandering around turned out to be pretty relaxing.
Not until night fell did the two of us finally make it back to the house she shared with Aria — where I found the Great Spirit had already gotten dinner ready.
"Isagi's here again, is he? Guess I'll go get a bit more ready, then."
"I'll help too."
"Me too!"
"Okay..."
Aria gave a faintly indulgent look — though it was clearly aimed at Empress beside her.
This one, you could tell at a glance, was the type who said she'd help but really just made a mess of things.
And sure enough, that's exactly how it went.
I discovered Empress had almost no capacity to take care of herself. As far as "cooking" went, her grasp of it seemed to extend to roughly the knowledge that fire could roast food.
And even then, it wasn't guaranteed to actually cook through.
Dinner was simple, not much different from the late-night meal I'd made the day before — boiled potatoes as the staple, paired with meat paste and vegetables boiled in a pot.
Conditions in the ancient era were just harsher. There was no helping it.
As always, we ate dinner without much talk.
Aria showed little curiosity about my visits; she spent most of her time reading. Just as in Ais's memories, the Great Spirit was quiet — quiet enough that people sometimes forgot she was even in the room.
By contrast,
Empress was, without question, a noisy one.
She not only explained why I'd come today but had Aria think it over and give a rough rundown of the Dungeon's situation — more or less matching what I'd already learned that morning.
At the same time, as if she'd noticed something, she asked a rather pointed question.
"Isagi's a bit like an Elf, you know."
"...?"
"I mean, the type that's lived a very, very long time."
"..."
Why did that feel aimed at me specifically?
Could Aria have somehow guessed about the time-travel?
That shouldn't be possible — they wouldn't even have a concept like that yet, would they?
Without saying much more, once dinner was done, the energetic Empress dragged me out of the city and into the wilderness beyond.
This was the nightly "patrol."
Compared to the frivolous things she got up to during the day, once night fell, her activities actually turned serious.
As mentioned before,
outside this era's Orario, numerous "satellite fortresses" ringed the city — the front line holding back Monsters ever since the city had once fallen.
These fortresses were also what people had built as they counterattacked the Dungeon, pushing forward step by step.
Naturally, they were garrisoned by [Hero]es and soldiers.
So the city had to maintain its ties with them — the roads needed regular upkeep and patrols, to keep Monsters from tearing them up or attacking the caravans hauling supplies back and forth.
Right now, the Empress was moving at the speed of a true powerhouse.
She raced along the roads outside the city like a bolt of lightning, wiping out every Monster she passed in an instant.
Empress's speed really was incredibly, incredibly fast.
Thankfully I could still just about keep pace, so it didn't trouble me much. And watching her fight, I noticed some details I'd overlooked before — or rather, hadn't noticed at all.
"Wish."
After clashing with a Lv.8 adventurer, I'd come to understand that pressing further forward meant coming into contact with this kind of mysterious, almost metaphysical Strength.
And right now, in Empress's every movement, there was naturally something of that same power.
Under the night sky,
she was "glittering."
The magic Empress used had felt like a lightning attribute before, but now it seemed more like a light attribute.
Once I got close, I could even feel the tremendous heat radiating off her.
And in the glow of that light, she seemed to carry a certain "sacred" majesty about her.
It was a thought that rose up without any clear reason, unbidden.
Just as with the earlier battle against Maxim, I was gradually coming to understand exactly what the power of "wish and belief" could bring about.
So that's how it is—
Stare—
Before I knew it, I found the Empress's beautiful face leaning in close, filling my view.
By now the two of us had reached the area near the Beio Mountain Range north of the city — its towering, lush forests looked dim and faintly menacing under the night sky.
From somewhere far off, the roars of Monsters drifted over now and then.
Even a thousand years later, in present-day Orario, the Beio Mountain Range held far more Monsters than anywhere else — let alone now.
Calling it a Monster "den" wouldn't be an exaggeration.
Even with a powerhouse like Empress around, the forest was simply too vast — clearing out every last Monster inside was next to impossible.
Because of that,
Empress would come out here from time to time to clear Monsters, treating it as something of a "daily routine."
"Let's go!"
"Mm."
Once we got here, I finally had a bit of room to act on my own.
Before this, the Monsters along the way had all been instantly cut down by the woman beside me, leaving me with basically nothing to do.
But now...
I summoned my [Soul Teardrop] right away, and the three of us charged straight into the forest, plowing through and cutting down nearly every Monster we came across.
I noticed the way Empress killed Monsters was extremely simple and brutal.
It came down to going straight for the Monster's Magic Stone.
Probably because she had no need to collect Magic Stones, her method of dispatching Monsters was simply to shatter the Magic Stone inside them outright, letting the Monster crumble instantly into ash and scatter.
That said,
she was still quite careful about picking up whatever materials the Monsters dropped — she didn't even let the drops from weak Monsters like Goblins go to waste.
I guessed the city's demand for such things must be considerable.
"By the way, Isagi, what's the deal with this armor of yours?"
She'd clearly never seen equipment like it before.
As it turned out,
aside from a single great bow, Empress didn't even carry a weapon. In battle she mostly relied on her fists and feet, and even that great bow was quite ordinary — nothing close to high-grade equipment.
Probably this era simply had no such thing as "[Hero] Smiths," and the strongest weapons and armor were instead ones transformed from Spirits themselves.
Thinking this over, I looked at the woman beside me, who was watching me with curious eyes.
Then, on impulse, I spoke up.
"You want one too?"
"Mm-hm!"
"I could see what I can do."
Forging a first-tier armament — or even something stronger — for Empress really wouldn't be all that difficult.
I had more than enough materials on hand to spare.
I could have Cecil forge it, then bring it back to her from the future myself.
Bringing the girl along with me wasn't even out of the question — after all, for a lot of custom requests, it was better to have the smith and the client talk things over face to face.
What concerned me was this:
if I forged a new weapon for Empress now, would that make her — in the future, as the final boss of the Dungeon's lower levels — stronger still?
Or even further—
I found myself wondering: maybe, like with Alfia, in the future I could use the "undying curse" to bring her back to life?
____
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