Isagi was thinking about whether, when the time came to subjugate the [Black Dragon], he might be able to line up some extra help.
At the same time, he wanted to test again just what exactly this "undying curse" — the one he'd unleashed through Divine Power — actually was.
Last time, he'd used it in an emergency and never really understood it.
And so...
Before spring arrived, Isagi leveled up to Lv.8. So did Ais. The two of them became, after Ottar, the first adventurers among the group to reach Lv.8.
This was probably just a difference in pure talent.
After all, Lefiya, Ryuu-senpai, Riveria, and the others still had some way to go before their own level-ups.
Taking advantage of this window of time...
Isagi and Ais decided to go on a "special training" trip, heading outside the city to get a feel for their new Strength — and to try out new weapons while they were at it.
Because of this, Cecil came along again this time. The three of them decided to head north of the city to the [Dragon Valley], completing the Guild's recently issued [Visiting Dragon] commission along the way while also conducting further investigation of the Dragon Valley.
Besides, near the Dragon Valley, they'd be able to fight without holding back.
During earlier training, they'd already sunk more than half of the small island the goddesses had originally bought — and that was before leveling up.
Aside from the Dungeon — and even then, only in the relatively deep floors, since fighting freely in the upper floors risked large-scale damage — there was basically nowhere outside that could accommodate them cutting loose however they pleased.
Such were the troubles of the strong.
They rode again on a Wyvern tamed by the Ganesha Familia.
Isagi and the girls traveled north from morning to night, and after roughly the same few days as before, the ancient, towering walls came into view once more in the distance.
They'd reached the [Great Wall].
The Wyverns no longer dared to go any further. This time, Isagi, Ais, and Cecil covered the rest of the way on foot.
Fortunately, the young man and the girl could fly on their own.
Carrying Cecil wasn't a problem, so their pace stayed fairly quick.
Once they arrived...
Isagi began, with practiced ease, pitching a tent atop the crumbling walls, setting up a small camp, and starting a fire to cook.
After days of hard travel, the most important thing, of course, was a hot meal.
Meanwhile, Ais — following directions from a certain Elf they'd met before, who had chosen to stay behind here as a "sentinel" — headed off to deal with the [Visiting Dragon] that had recently broken through the Dragon Valley's seal and made its way out into the world, not far from camp.
That Dragon-type Monster had been wandering near the Dragon Valley for quite some time.
Drawn in by the sentinels stationed nearby, it had been circling the area ever since, without heading toward any human settlements to cause harm.
Based on its estimated level, it was probably around Lv.6.
"You think you can handle it alone?"
"Of course!"
Ais nodded very seriously, then, riding a faint breeze, vanished from sight in an instant.
Before long...
the girl came back carrying a massive Magic Stone, along with what looked like a still-beating "Great Dragon heart" — a classic drop material from Dragon-type Monsters.
Cecil carefully packed it away.
After all, a Lv.6 Dragon-type Monster was rare even in Orario — one would normally need to reach around Floor 50 to encounter something like it.
It was simply that Isagi's special Dungeon produced such things a little too "abundantly."
Ordinarily, a thing like this would sell for at least tens of millions — no, even now, its market price would still run at least ten million-plus Valis. Best to keep it well preserved!
Ais clearly had nothing to worry about.
A Monster like this could no longer trouble her at all — in fact, the girl felt a faint, almost unbelievable sense of ease.
"Let's take a bath first."
It wasn't clear what exactly she'd done out there.
When she came back, she was covered head to toe in pale-gold, thick Dragon blood.
This was actually rather troublesome.
Since the [Great Wall] obviously had no bathhouse, they had no choice but to do things the same way as in the Dungeon.
There was certainly no natural hot spring or lake anywhere nearby, so the only option was to dig a pit — or blast one straight into the ground with magic — then fill it with a water-attribute Magic Sword.
A bit extravagant, admittedly.
But at the level Isagi and the others had reached, it hardly mattered anymore.
Prompted by Isagi's reminder, Ais seemed to notice something too. Biting her lip slightly, she quickly grabbed Cecil and ran off.
Isagi paid them no mind and went on preparing his feast.
It was hard to tell whether it was day or night here. Near the Dragon Valley, as always, Heavy dark clouds and mist blotted out nearly everything; a little light filtered through from above, but that was all — no sun, no stars or moon, year-round, unchanging.
Today Isagi made beef curry, served with steaming rice.
By the time Ais and Cecil got back, he'd already prepared two large pots, more than enough for the three of them to eat their fill.
Before the meal...
the girl asked if he wanted to bathe first — the water they'd left behind could still be used. It was a bit of an odd arrangement, but that was how things worked in the Dungeon: even though the water source had been conjured with water-attribute magic, they still tried to conserve it as much as possible.
Isagi was used to it by now, and besides, after days of hard travel he really did have plenty of dust and grit on him.
So he let Ais and Cecil eat first.
He climbed down off the wall and found the pit they'd dug at the edge of a slope, tucked deep to one side — they'd even raised four walls of earth-attribute magic around it as a screen...
Bathing, eating, resting.
The fire crackled and burned, accompanied by the faint, intermittent roar of a Great Dragon carried from somewhere in the distance.
Coming this close to the Dragon Valley for the first time, Ais felt, inexplicably, a strange sense of calm settle over her.
The one she was absolutely destined to defeat — the object of hatred buried deep in the girl's heart — lay not far away, at the churning center wrapped in violent wind.
Every so often, Ais glanced toward that place, but there was nothing to see.
"Let's rest first, and start training tomorrow morning."
"Okay!"
Days of travel had worn them out; there was no need to rush straight into training.
Isagi remained fairly relaxed about it.
He crawled alone into his own tent, then burrowed straight into the warm blankets and fell asleep.
Until he woke up.
After breakfast and washing up, Isagi summoned his [Soul Teardrop] and had it stand guard, to prevent anything unexpected from happening — or to keep Monsters from around the dragon bones from wandering in and turning the camp into a mess.
After that...
he set off together with Ais and Cecil toward the [Dragon Valley] — the "death wasteland" beyond the [Great Wall].
The ashen, barren land held almost no life at all.
Only the howling wind.
It was enough to make even Cecil, a Lv.3 adventurer, struggle to withstand it; she could only manage to stay close by Isagi and the blonde girl's side.
By the time the towering silhouette of the wall had faded into the far reaches of the blowing sand and wind...
Isagi and Ais were ready to begin their training.
Cecil, meanwhile, could only wrap herself in her Spirit's protective cloth and peek out from behind a small pile of rocks nearby, watching the proceedings.
The girl blacksmith had insisted on seeing for herself how her newly forged equipment performed.
It wasn't Ais's new weapon.
It was Isagi's own.
The new longsword in the blonde girl's hand had been forged by the god Goibniu himself — according to the god's own words, a "Divine Artifact" absolutely surpassing everything he'd made before!
Though that description might not be entirely accurate.
Because what it held within wasn't Divine Power, but the "wish" condensed a thousand years ago by the Pallum's Fianna Knights.
Of course...
Fianna was also a Pallum goddess, so calling it a "Divine Artifact" wasn't really wrong either.
In ancient times, Fianna had been known as the Holy Maiden of the Spear.
Though a Pallum, she'd excelled at mounted combat, and the knight order she led — composed of Pallum knights — had never lost a battle, the sharpest blade tearing through the tide of Monsters.
Now, the knight order's banner, carrying on her spirit, had been fused into this longsword.
In the end, the god Goibniu had named it the [Sword of Rising, Unfading Sacred Radiance].
The old god's naming sense seemed to have some issues — though, thinking back to the [Sword of Despair], he apparently just liked that particular tone.
Ais, for her part, had no complaints about it.
To the girl...
the weapon's name didn't seem to matter much. What mattered was the thing itself — she could feel that the banner from a thousand years ago shared some indescribable connection with the force buried deep within her soul.
Including her own body.
As if guided into a "dance," every time she drew this sword, her spirit and both hands fell into a state of intense exhilaration, inside and out.
She could even hear the wind "keening."
Just like a warhorse charging forward, breaking through the raging winds, thundering hooves crashing into the ranks of Monsters...
"Come on, Isagi—"
The girl drew her longsword.
It was breathtakingly ornate, utterly unlike the previous [Sword of Despair].
Because the materials had been so abundant, Goibniu had used the highest grade available, along with a whole array of rare materials gathered from the special Dungeon.
Not only did it possess higher durability than the previous [Sword of Despair], tougher and more resilient — it had also left the smithing god considerable room to work with.
And so...
Goibniu had forged it to an almost bafflingly intricate degree.
Between the gold-and-silver-woven hilt was set a Magic Stone taken from a Dragon-type Monster of Lv.7 or above; along grooves like blood channels, golden "Dragon blood" flowed into every corner of the hilt, etching an intricate, ancient pattern across its surface.
This was an ancient blessing-prayer passed down from the Elves.
[Sharpness, Hardness, Magic specialization—]
Whatever properties a weapon could possibly have, this one had them all — practically a perfect "all-around sword."
And along the blade itself...
it was wrapped, coil after coil, in the Fianna Knights' banner, from whose gaps a pure white glow seeped out, Magic surging within it to an almost frightening degree.
This was also a "Magic Sword."
It carried innate bonuses to Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Magic — simply holding it boosted the wielder's base stats across the board.
At the same time...
the moment its holder was injured, the sword could channel its own Magic to heal them, granting a temporary Endurance bonus each time — the more it fought, the tougher its wielder became.
And once the banner unfurled, transforming into a tassel tied to the hilt...
the pure, flawless white blade could unleash its ultimate "finishing move." Isagi didn't know exactly what that effect was, since Ais hadn't used it yet — testing this was precisely why they'd come here.
Meanwhile...
Isagi, as always, took the "box" that Cecil had been cradling in her arms this whole time, treating it as carefully as if it were a treasure.
It wasn't large, roughly thirty centimeters on each side, looking exactly like an ordinary briefcase — entirely jet black, with no patterns or decoration of any kind, just a plain square box.
Isagi simply held it in his hand, then murmured to himself.
"Deploy."
Just like with Wolf's Feast before, the briefcase began to "melt," dripping out a thick, viscous black liquid that slowly spread beneath his feet.
Then...
centered on himself, the black liquid reflected another figure — himself, clad in armor.
Almost instantly...
"up" and "down" swapped places.
Isagi, now clad in jet-black armor, stood before Ais.
Compared to his previous form with its spiked, wolf-shaped armor, his frame now looked even larger, nearly three meters tall. The wolf's head had been replaced with a "dragon's," and his whole build now carried the massive, imposing bearing befitting a Great Dragon.
Though it had no wings...
its long, slender arms and legs, held in a posture almost crouching low to the ground, radiated an overwhelmingly savage and terrifying aura.
Between the gaps of the jet-black armor, deep purple lightning flickered faintly, forming dense, intricate patterns that finally converged into a pair of long, golden Dragon eyes atop its head.
For a moment, Ais genuinely thought Isagi had turned into the [Black Dragon].
That was, of course, impossible.
He'd gathered materials from every Dragon-type Monster he'd slain over the long haul and fused them all into this armor — especially the materials from the "Miracle Twin-Headed Dragon" boss he'd fought before. The two bosses' drops had been split so that he took the Twin-Headed Dragon's materials while Loki Familia took the SSS-rank hunter's, and it had already been agreed that if the lower-level final boss, Empress, dropped any materials, Freya Familia would get priority claim on them.
This was a distribution arrangement worked out long ago.
And so, the greatest characteristic of this brand-new "Dragon Armor" he now possessed came from the pure stat values of the "Twin-Headed Dragon."
As well as...
the various innate spells that Dragon-type Monsters naturally carried!
The deep purple lightning that had been flowing through the armor's seams gave way to rings of ice, turning into streams of deep azure frost. In an instant, the jet-black armor — which had looked like a night sky churning with faint, angry thunder — transformed into a glacier of extreme cold.
A frigid chill spread outward, and even Cecil, off to the side already wrapped in her Spirit's protective cloth, felt a bite of cold.
Not to mention Ais, standing directly before Isagi now.
She realized this wasn't simply "cold."
Ice-attribute magic carried the property of [Freezing], and at its extreme could even freeze time and space itself — that was the very nature of the "Thousand-Azure Ice Garden" nestled in the gap of Floor 61.
The armor Isagi now wore hadn't reached that level yet.
But as a Dragon-type Monster — born at the very apex of Monsters — its innate "talent" was already staggering enough to leave one speechless.
____
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🔥 New history: DanMachi: Inheriting the Legacy of Alternate Versions — posted on The_Mikudayo