Isagi woke up to find two idiots lying on the floor of his room.
For a moment, he was simply at a loss for words.
He could more or less guess what these two had come here to do.
Rubbing his temple, Isagi had no choice but to rouse both girls, and the three of them set off once more for the city.
Honestly, of all the times to be causing this kind of trouble—
Another two or three days passed.
The early spring sun was warm and the weather fine. When he woke, Isagi could still hear crisp birdsong drifting in from outside the window. A breeze wafted gently across the fields, cool and pleasant.
He washed up and ate breakfast.
In high spirits, Isagi rode a carriage toward the city together with Goddess Demeter, who happened to be heading out as well. He'd gotten up especially early today.
There was something important to do — his battle with Ottar.
Few people knew about it, and since it might cause considerable destruction, there would naturally be no audience. That was both Ottar's wish and his own.
A fight was a fight, not something meant to prove anything to anyone.
After entering the city, Isagi said goodbye to Goddess Demeter and headed straight for Babel.
As two beings who had both reached Lv.8, if they were to fight all-out, it could happen neither within the city nor above ground — somewhere like the area around the Dragon Valley might work, perhaps — but Isagi had a better idea.
Go into the Dungeon.
And more specifically — why not go to the place where the Pale King had once been.
It was spacious enough, wouldn't disturb other adventurers, and even if the floor got wrecked, since it was an upper floor, no Juggernaut would appear.
Simply perfect.
Ottar agreed to the suggestion, so the two of them met beneath Babel at the arranged time that morning, then entered the Dungeon together amid the crowd of adventurers.
The whole way went smoothly.
Following the familiar path, they entered the Goblin Kingdom, then took the lift straight down to the twelfth floor, to the final King's Chamber. The route felt both familiar and a little strange.
They came at last to the great doors, still standing open. Pushing through, they found the white mist that had once filled the space entirely gone, leaving behind an ordinary stone hall with a huge round hole overhead.
"This is the place."
"Not bad." Ottar nodded.
The whole way, the silent Boaz youth hadn't said a single word, just following quietly behind him.
He wore golden armor and carried the Black Tyrant Sword on his back, fully armed and ready. For this fight, as Isagi put it, both sides could go all out — Ottar especially didn't need to hold back, even if he unleashed power enough to kill him.
Because inside the Dungeon, he could be revived.
The earlier fight with Ais could, in a sense, be called "training" — neither of them had truly let loose. But this time, they could fight without any restraint at all.
Watching the City's Strongest walk off toward the far end of the chamber, Isagi's body began trembling with an eager, almost unbearable excitement, for reasons he couldn't quite explain.
If fighting adventurers was already an enjoyable thing,
then the fight with Ottar was, in this world right now, the most important — and the most necessary — battle between adventurers there could be.
It was what one might call the [Final Showdown].
After this fight, any opponent who merely bore the title of "adventurer" would become meaningless to him.
Because aside from himself, no one was stronger than the Boaz youth standing before him.
That much was an absolute fact.
And the same was true for Ottar.
Isagi could feel it — the sharp, equally exhilarated gaze burning beneath the man's golden armor.
But for Ottar, something mattered even more than that. At this very moment,
he knew his goddess was surely watching him.
Atop Babel—
in the Goddess of Beauty's chambers, Freya lay across her sofa, the Divine Mirror in her hands watching the scene now unfolding within the Dungeon. She was the sole spectator to this fight.
No — not quite. Heith was there too.
The pink-haired girl stood off to the side, rather timid, not quite understanding why the goddess had called her to watch, yet unable to resist glancing curiously into the Divine Mirror, her gaze always settling on the Astrea Familia boy.
The Goddess of Beauty had long foreseen this battle.
She simply hadn't expected it to come so soon — though by rights, it should have arrived within these past two years, given how near the Appointed Time was drawing.
Still, she truly hadn't expected—
that Isagi and Ottar would begin this fight in the Dungeon at Lv.8 strength.
Whoever won would become Lv.9 — perhaps even the very first Lv.10, perhaps even a true [Hero].
This wasn't merely a battle for the title of City's Strongest. It was a battle for the strongest adventurer in the world.
"Do you have more faith in Ottar, or in Isagi, Heith?"
"Ah..." Her instinct was to say "Isagi" — after all, they were companions now, so of course she'd be a little biased toward him. But Heith opened her mouth and, in the end, couldn't quite bring herself to say it.
After all, if she said it out loud,
wouldn't that just reveal she wanted to go join Astrea Familia!
She really did think that, but in front of the goddess, she still couldn't bring herself to admit it.
"It's Isagi, isn't it."
There was no way such a small, girlish scheme could fool the Goddess of Beauty.
Looking at the pink-haired girl's slightly flushed, pretty face,
Freya said nothing more, only continuing softly.
"I'm not entirely confident in Ottar either."
"...?"
"Astrea's just lucky, after all.
The children she's picked up while wandering the world all carry unusually special souls."
This wasn't merely a matter of the Goddess of Beauty's personal taste.
What mattered most was—
whether strong or heroic, such beings were inevitably out of the ordinary.
Isagi's soul was special too, though not quite to the degree of being "one of a kind." Still, she had to admit — the boy possessed something no one else did, something even the gods couldn't fully understand.
It was something that had already transcended this world.
So it really was a difficult thing for Ottar to win against him. In a sense, Freya was beginning to understand something like "fate."
The battle between the two of them arose from a kind of inevitability.
And its outcome, too, was an inevitability already decided.
No matter what, it couldn't be changed. The one good thing was that although they had to fight each other, they were still companions after all.
So— [It doesn't matter even if you lose.]
That was what Freya had told her child before he set out.
She, who had always demanded the utmost without exception,
a goddess who pursued only the strongest, the best, the most perfect — had suddenly said such a thing.
Even Ottar had been caught off guard by it.
But Freya hadn't explained any further — words wouldn't do it justice. When the time came, in the midst of the fight, her child would understand on his own.
And so it was.
At this very moment, within the "mirror" before the goddess, the battle was about to erupt — and in that instant, Ottar came to understand something.
Isagi was going all out.
This was respect, and it was inevitable too — because a fight that didn't demand full effort would surely hold no interest.
So—
the very first thing Ottar witnessed was the boy's newest "weapon," forged by Cecil — something that had already surpassed the very concept of a [first-tier armament], close to being a Divine Artifact in its own right. No — it was something else entirely.
Isagi had named it the [Tier-Zero Armament]: [the Undying One's Blade Techniques]. It was both Gate's Opening and Bow of Tears.
Amid the roiling sea of blood, Ottar quickly sensed the tremendous impact carried within the endless crimson slashes. The instant the blade met his greatsword—
a pitch-black, bone-piercing cold began crawling up from his hands and feet, like a swarm of tiny insects. The sheer wrongness of it caught even a veteran adventurer like Ottar off guard.
The gray-white, brightly lit chamber suddenly dimmed entirely, and then an even more terrifying silence closed in.
[There's nothing left.]
For no reason he could name, this absurd thought surfaced in his mind.
Ottar told himself this was probably some illusion again, or an attack on the mind — some formless, Magic-like effect.
But the harder he tried to steady his thoughts, the more real the wrongness he felt became. What was happening?
By the time he came to his senses, the boy and his blade had both vanished. Suddenly, a pair of pitch-black hands seized his own hands and feet.
So cold. The instant they touched him, Ottar's heart gave a thudding lurch.
The sound was almost unbelievably loud.
And in that daze, countless more black hands groped their way over, seizing his arms and legs, endlessly gathering, entangling, climbing upward.
Like a swarming mass of insects, as if meaning to swallow him whole right there. At the same time, Ottar felt some massive downward pull.
Something was dragging at his body, as though trying to drag him down into bottomless black water.
[Thud!] Another heartbeat sounded.
Ottar realized his body was no longer under his own control at all — he began falling, falling, falling.
The prolonged weightlessness made it impossible to tell where he even was anymore.
What in the world was all this?!
Could a single sword-swing really do something on this scale?!
It was absurd beyond all reason!!
If Ottar had still been merely a Lv.7 adventurer in this moment, he'd have been finished then and there.
Just as a world of difference separated a Lv.1 adventurer from a Lv.2 one, anyone who hadn't reached Lv.8 could never possess the Strength needed to break free of this power.
Fortunately, he was now a Lv.8 adventurer, and had achieved Total Mastery over his own Strength.
Though it had only come through his goddess's reminder and guidance.
Still, it was enough.
After all, few in this world now possessed such power, and fewer still could actually wield it. In fact, only he could. That wasn't strictly "fact," but Ottar believed it all the same.
He — captain of Freya Familia, [the Mighty], City's Strongest, the invincible warrior beneath the Goddess of Beauty.
That was exactly what he believed!
With overwhelming, domineering resolve, that power surged forth as if to tear everything apart, driving out every last shred of darkness!!
A pair of unseen, giant hands appeared, tearing the boundless, freezing darkness to shreds, crumpling it into a ball, and flinging it to the ground like so much garbage!!
On the Boaz youth's body, the golden armor had already been corroded and warped — despite being an incredibly sturdy, costly [first-tier armament], it was now rust-stained and dull, its function utterly gone, torn apart like trash and cast aside.
The Black Tyrant Sword in his hand had likewise become nothing but scrap metal, a "weapon" without meaning.
Between a [Tier-Zero Armament] and a [first-tier armament] lay a gulf as vast as heaven and earth.
His weapon and armor had become his own weakness now. There was nothing to be done about it.
In the whole city, aside from a smithing god like Goibniu, only Cecil could forge equipment like this.
But it didn't matter.
The powerfully built Boaz youth reverted to how he usually looked, in nothing but a light shirt and trousers.
And this only stoked his fighting spirit further.
A brilliant golden light began to blaze from his massive frame.
That was the "Power of Domination"!
At least, that was what Ottar called it.
The refusal to believe anyone could be stronger than himself, an unshakable pride, the courage to bear the weight of everything — that unyielding will now converged, becoming the "light" that enveloped the man.
Blindingly, searingly bright.
Just as the beauty of the goddess he served was absolutely without equal, the "strongest" thing in the world.
The "power of wishes" was the "power of belief."
It was a purely subjective power, utterly devoid of reason.
And because of this, even the gods couldn't foresee it, couldn't truly understand it — because no matter how long a god lived in the lower world, they weren't mortal, and could never fully grasp the thoughts, joys, and sorrows of a mortal heart.
This was the one thing that truly set the children of the lower world apart from the gods.
[So it can be taken this far?]
Isagi tilted his head slightly.
He, of course, hadn't known any of this about Ottar.
Though Heith had told him a little of it before, since no one in the city had ever pushed Ottar to unleash his full power, there was simply no way to grasp his true strength without seeing him fight for real.
In a sense, the Ottar before him right now was [Invincible].
Believing himself to be the "strongest" — and so he was.
It sounded abstract put that way, but compared to his own [Never Disappearing] ability, the two were probably about equally shameless. They were both stubborn idealists relying on sheer force of will. So— how was he supposed to fight this?
As always, if an ordinary person had been standing here, they'd almost certainly have been at a complete loss.
But Isagi was Isagi, and he quickly came up with a countermeasure. It was simply this—
If Ottar was invincible, then why not just be invincible himself?
Strongest versus strongest — wasn't that a fairly common thing, after all?
People could never properly judge what lay beyond their own understanding. So as long as he could surpass the other's perception, the final winner would inevitably be him.
It really was that simple!
____
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