“Level eighty……?”
A level high enough to strain belief.
I immediately looked at the girl who’d been introduced as a porter.
Her face was freckled, a healthy tan, unremarkable.
Slightly flat nose, the kind of face that doesn’t stick in the memory.
Her clothes had no distinguishing features either — frankly, she had almost no presence at all.
She looked nothing like someone who far outstripped the likes of Alicia.
“Level? Is that some new concept?”
“A measure of strength. In your case, Eris — level seventy-three.”
“Wait, so that girl is stronger than me!?”
That apparently came as a genuine shock, because Eris cried out loud.
She turned immediately to Sarmat.
“You hired her, didn’t you? What’s going on?”
“I was looking for porters and a contact introduced her. He was a trustworthy person, so I didn’t particularly investigate her background……”
Suspicion rising.
All eyes turned on the girl without mercy.
Then Makina added:
“The girl’s face is perfectly symmetrical in a way that’s unnatural. Most likely surgically altered by some means.”
“Surgery? I’ve heard certain doctors in the Empire do that.”
“This face is natural. If I were going to have it altered, I’d make it prettier.”
The girl spoke up for the first time in her own defense.
No offense intended, but her face was thoroughly average — the kind you’d forget by the next day.
If someone were going to go to the trouble of surgery, they’d make themselves more attractive.
……Wait, hold on.
“……What if they made it deliberately like this? To avoid being noticed.”
“Now that you mention it — I’m reasonably good at remembering faces in my line of work, but hers is the one I simply couldn’t retain no matter what.”
“That’s looking more suspicious by the second.”
“There’s nothing suspicious about it. I’ve always had a thin presence.”
“Then why is your level so high?”
“I was an adventurer. But I was poisoned and can no longer move properly, so I work as a porter now.”
She rolled up her sleeve and showed an old wound.
The mark of a bite — a snake, or something like it — was clearly visible.
Part of the skin had turned a bluish color. Painful-looking.
……Hmm. For an on-the-spot lie, it was well constructed.
A former frontline fighter working as a porter — that wasn’t unheard of.
The level was absurdly high, but……could there be something to it?
I was starting to waver when——
“……You’ve just dug your own grave. That blue marking is a Poisona Python bite. They’re a species commonly used by assassins for building poison tolerance. And since they only live far to the south of the continent, being bitten naturally is essentially impossible.”
Eris stated it flatly, then reached into her robe for her staff.
Knowing she was outleveled, her face had gone visibly anxious.
Sarmat matched her expression, his hand moving to the hammer at his back.
The girl, meanwhile, was unnervingly calm.
“……Impressive range of knowledge for a Sage. Though this timing is convenient for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“From this distance, you won’t finish your incantation before I reach you. That ceiling gives Sarmat no room to swing his hammer. And Viktor clearly can’t fight.”
She surveyed the room and laid out her analysis.
Then her gaze moved to Makina and the Lancelot-types behind her.
“Those golems — the attendant is conveniently in the way. They can’t move immediately. Five seconds is all I need.”
She said it with complete confidence, then produced a knife from somewhere inside her clothes.
The blade began to turn black immediately.
What was that……?
The moment I felt something deeply wrong, Eris screamed.
“Curse toxin!! Don’t let it touch you!!”
“Too late!”
The girl lunged forward in a low crouch.
——She’s fast!!
For just an instant, she seemed to vanish from my sight.
She closed the distance to Eris in a heartbeat, blade angled for the throat.
Polished, economical movement — not a wasted motion anywhere. Almost beautiful to watch.
Eris had no time to react.
And then — a sharp metallic ring.
“Wh——!?”
“One second, and I win.”
Makina’s arm had knocked the knife away.
The speed had been such that even the girl hadn’t seen her move.
Her eyes went wide — but she immediately put distance between herself and Makina.
“……I didn’t account for a hidden fighter like this.”
“I wasn’t hiding in the slightest.”
“Doesn’t matter. This ends here. You die.”
She said it calmly, and reached down to her boot.
From it she produced a needle-like weapon.
At level eighty, she was thoroughly professional.
Prepared for the unexpected, she’d apparently been carrying several backup weapons.
“Tch — at this rate I’ll——wait, hm?”
“……Are you alright?”
“Perfectly fine, yes.”
While everyone looked on with concern, Makina said it in her usual tone.
She gave the arm that had caught the knife a light flex.
Not a scratch. No trace of the curse toxin whatsoever.
“Impossible. That should put down any living creature with certainty.”
“I am not a living creature.”
With that, Makina reached to her wrist and detached her hand with a metallic click.
The sight — impossible for any human — finally told the girl what she was dealing with.
“A golem……?”
“Correct. And for reference — my level is five hundred and twenty.”
Makina moved immediately to seize her.
The girl twisted to escape with impressive speed, but the gulf between their levels was simply insurmountable.
Makina had her pinned to the floor in an instant.
And then——
“I-INCREDIBLE!!!! THAT’S AMAZING!!!!”
For reasons that had nothing to do with being harmed, Eris collapsed on the spot.