Alfia raised her eyes and looked at the boy who had returned from outside.
"You're late."
"...Huh?"
"You only went down to the Deep Floors to deal with a Monster Rex, and it still took you this many days. Looks like you need more training."
'???' Rayleigh thought.
"How do you know that?"
"..."
Alfia fell silent.
Expressionless, she met Rayleigh's gaze and the two looked at each other for quite a while.
Then the woman looked away and said, "I heard it from the Adventurers who came to the shop."
"So that's how it is."
After putting his things down, Rayleigh went behind Alfia and lifted that black hair she used as a disguise.
Yet his action did not arouse any disgust from the woman.
On the contrary, she even felt a little touched.
Lifting the smooth hair aside, Rayleigh confirmed that the tags stuck to the back of her neck was still there and had been functioning normally the whole time.
Only then did he relax.
"Good. Nothing went wrong." Rayleigh spoke softly.
This tags was something he stayed up for several nights in a row making before he left.
He stored the power of Kaidō inside the tags, letting it release on schedule every day to take the place of his treatment while he was away.
This tags was a consumable. It could only last four or five days before shattering and disappearing.
And it was not cheap, either.
For ordinary Adventurers, even Potions were more cost-effective than this.
And it could not replace a Magic Sword.
There was no such thing as a "magic scroll" in this world.
The kind of wondrous item where Magic was sealed into parchment and could be activated just by tearing it open did not exist in Orario.
Otherwise, there would be no point to Magic Swords.
The reason was simple.
There were no true "sealing arts" in this world.
The value of this tags, if one looked across all of Orario, could only be described as terrifying.
Because this was a technique Rayleigh created by using the sealing arts within Kidō to seal Reiatsu and Kaidō inside it for storage.
And it was precisely because it was Kaidō that it succeeded.
If it had been Bakudō or Hadō, sealing it successfully would be impossible.
The difficulty was not even on the same level as sealing Kaidō.
"To waste your strength on doing something like this before an expedition... what a foolish man." Alfia spoke in an unpleasant tone.
But that was not what she was thinking inside.
In truth, her illness was not something that lasted only a day or two.
Even if the treatment stopped, it would merely return to how it was before.
She was already used to that kind of pain.
But Rayleigh would not listen.
If she was treated on time every day, it could suppress her symptoms, and at the very least she would not have to suffer so much that she wished for death.
Just to make things a little easier for her—he raised the risk to himself when entering the Dungeon.
It could only be described as foolish!
"Then... maybe I should just do this instead."
Feeling that her hair was in the way, Alfia raised her hands, grabbed a lock on each side and parted her long hair into two bunches.
Rayleigh was stunned.
Looking at Alfia holding up her own hair and turning her hairstyle into twin-tails, his brain suffered an unprecedented shock!
His brain crashed.
All that remained in his eyes was Alfia's "trying to act cute" pose.
"Hm? What's wrong with you?" Alfia noticed Rayleigh staring at her blankly and asked in some confusion.
But there was no response.
"Rayleigh?"
She frowned and tilted her head.
'!!!'
The terrifying damage output reduced Rayleigh to critical health.
He staggered, covering his stopped heart with one hand, and screamed inwardly,
'Please don't keep being this cute!'
With difficulty, he raised his face and looked at Alfia, who stood up and was staring at him with concern.
"Too cute..."
"Nani?"
Alfia froze.
Then, in an instant, her expression turned cold.
"Are you an idiot?!"
After saying that, she stepped onto the stairs and returned to the attic.
Only Rayleigh was left behind, replaying that overwhelmingly adorable image in his mind, unable to calm down for a long time.
'Twin-tailed onee-san... too cute!'
She was a top-tier mature beauty, yet she could still be this adorable.
That was unfair.
Even though it was praise, Alfia did not seem happy about it.
In any case, she did not even come down for dinner.
Rayleigh went out and bought a fruit cake, then left it outside the attic.
...
Early the next morning, he went out and returned to his Familia headquarters.
"Oh! Rayleigh-boy, you're back! Quick, look at this!"
"You—that is?"
Rayleigh looked in surprise at the Captain of the Hephaestus Familia, now standing in front of him.
At the moment, the one-eyed Master Smith was holding up a strangely shaped sword.
Although its appearance was different from how Tobiume supposed to look, Rayleigh recognized it at a glance as the Zanpakutō, Tobiume.
Holding up Tobiume, Tsubaki said excitedly,
"I modified Little Ume for you. Look—this is what it looks like after the modification. Pretty good, right?"
Rayleigh looked at the "sword" in Tsubaki's hand.
The shape of the blade had changed from a seven-branched sword into a flame-shaped blade.
Not only that, there was now a groove down the center of the blade, and within it flowed a crimson liquid.
"No way...!"
Modifying a Zanpakutō was not some unimaginable technique.
But for it to appear in this world made it unbelievable!
In the 12th Division, Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi, head of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, often modified his own Zanpakutō.
Depending on his needs, he would alter it to achieve functional changes or upgrades.
From simple changes to advanced biological ones, he had many different methods.
His Zanpakutō, Ashisogi Jizō, had been modified into something powerful in both its Shikai and Bankai states.
To modify a Zanpakutō, there were roughly two directions that had to work together.
First was the vessel.
Then the soul.
As far as the vessel went, that part was not too hard. For a Zanpakutō, the blade was both body and house.
The soul, on the other hand, was its true self and the source of its power.
For Tsubaki, changing the outer form of a Zanpakutō was not difficult.
What was difficult was making the Zanpakutō accept it.
If Tobiume did not accept it, then no matter what Tsubaki did, she would never succeed.
The Zanpakutō might even break itself on its own.
In other words, Tobiume liked Tsubaki.
"Tsubaki, let's talk about this later. Right now, I need to go see Hephaestus first."
"Ah, I see. Then later."
Tsubaki was not the least bit draggy.
As soon as she heard Rayleigh say that, she turned around and left.
The subject of Zanpakutō modification had to be discussed properly.
...
Half an hour later, after updating his Falna, Rayleigh looked at his numbers and frowned tightly.
Strength: S999
Endurance: S999
Dexterity: S995
Agility: SS1088
Magic: SSS1275
His Magic broke past the range of SSS, yet it still did not seem to have reached the top.
"Huh."
Blacksmith and Spirit healing Development Abilities had both ranked up, reaching H.
As for Swordsman, it was still at its initial I rank.
'Should I level up?'
To fill the vessel completely, the total proficiency required was under 400.
Although it was only a vague feeling, Rayleigh thought that was about right.
However, the difficulty of obtaining those 400 points of proficiency was hell mode.
He subjugated a Monster Rex, killed an Enhanced Species, and on top of that gained Excelia provided by the Zanpakutō.
Even so, it still was not enough?
There would not be any major incidents in the near future.
Compared to rushing forward impatiently, consolidating his foundation was the real path.
As everyone knew—peak level still could not beat absolute completion!
'Then let me see what my true limit really is.'
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