Ophelia followed Duck A as it silently waddled after the human girl and the clockwork doll through the lower dungeons of Aquina Castle.
The nurturing, caring and non-insane part of Ophelia wanted to scoop up her duck, head back to the cottage and deposit it back into its pond so that Duck B wouldn't be lonely anymore. As happy as she was that her duck was curious enough to play explorer, it was far too dangerous to wander around a dungeon where it was officially on the lowest rung of the food ladder.
And yet Duck A was not only still very alive and very fluffy, but remained so with very little assistance from Ophelia.
Oh, she'd slapped a few giant mice away and hissed at a tunnel owl that wanted to use her hair as a tree branch to perch on. But for the most part, Duck A was perfectly fine on its own, waddling in the darkness as it maintained a respectable distance from the illuminating light cast by the human girl's sword.
Even so—
A duck should have been as obvious to the darkvision-imbued monsters as it was to a troll in the day! It shouldn't be capable of waddling right now, but instead fleeing for its life as Ophelia batted away the cyclops bats that tried to gorge on it!
There was no longer any doubt in her mind.
Duck A possessed some measure of .
How and why deeply confused her.
She knew the very weakest and the very strongest monsters could shroud their presence. But Duck A was just a duck. Ducks didn't have an aura of killing intent to hide. They waddled, swam and ate plants. And neither the water nor the oats she fed them were likely to run away.
“—There's clearly opportunity here. This is an old castle that was once inhabited by more than vermin. If there wasn't clear room for, oh, I don't know, a skeletal lich bursting through the wall, I wouldn't feel so dissatisfied.”
“Guess the Duke is pretty dumb for not keeping a skeletal lich in his basement, eh?”
Once again, Ophelia's attention was caught by the pair loudly burgling her employer's castle. A lot about them confused her almost as much as her duck did.
Hearing how they were dissatisfied with how safe the dungeon was topped the list.
That confused her greatly. She'd personally cleared it of the monsters and vengeful spirits that resided here—including, yes, a skeletal lich. That was a lot less fun than it sounded. Sword saint or not, fireballs were still fireballs and swords just weren't a fan of necromantically imbued bones.
The more she listened, however, the more she realised how utterly unordinary these two were.
That was a given, of course. Nobody normal waltzed into dungeons like this. But even so, Ophelia had to acknowledge their superior oddness.
Especially the human girl.
Ophelia couldn't get over how weak she looked.
Absolutely nothing about her stuck out as a swordswoman.
The girl's image clashed terribly with what Ophelia had seen with the piano. Certainly, there was nothing to suggest she deserved the finely crafted weapon that was being used as a lantern.
But weak human girls didn't complain about dungeons lacking skeletal liches. They ran away from them while leaving a splotchy mess behind.
No … there was something Ophelia couldn't sense.
Something which belied sight. Something beyond the girl's lack of care for her surroundings and the way she complained like nobility.
That, at least, Ophelia was certain of.
She was somewhere up the ladder of aristocracy. The way she jabbed her finger was the same as the ladies of the ducal court whenever a strawberry was off-centre on a shortcake. One glance at how she walked told the story of a girl who spent more time at a noble court than a fencing court.
All the more reason, then, for Ophelia's curiosity.
There was something very, very, very unusual about her.
Every instinct as an A-rank sword saint told her that.
And she had absolutely no idea why.
“—A trap. And a terribly poor one, as well. This is one of the most recommended corridors available, meaning the Duchy of Aquina has clearly opted for affordability over flourish!”
“You mean … there are people who don't design their own death corridors?”
Oh, and now they were dissatisfied with the traps in the corridor.
Ophelia was personally offended at that. She'd tested them herself. She didn't have to, of course. But dodging the boat scythe was always fun. The dragonfire trap was 50/50 depending on her mood and the falling ceiling spikes were a pain, since she had to screw them back in afterwards.
But none of them were bad.
She was perplexed at why people clearly breaking into the castle had gripes about the quality of the defences. Especially as they clearly weren't immune to them.
“Rock, paper, scissors, go!!”
After a game of rock, paper, scissors in which the clockwork doll clearly cheated by analysing the other's hand movement, the girl with the shiny sword advanced one step at a time, utilising a technique to feel out the trapped tiles that Ophelia could only describe as extremely unorthodox.
Even so, it almost worked.
Almost.
Quack, quack. Quack, quack.
Ophelia only realised Duck A was no longer before her when she saw the white fluffy feathers waddling across the tiles.
Horror gripped her as her beloved, if clearly strange duck gifted with powers of stealth, waddled fearlessly across the multitude of trapped tiles lining the corridor.
Click.
And then her jaw dropped again.
Upon the telltale sound of the boat scythe's mechanism activating, a pair of massive, swinging blades instantly passed each other by.
Duck A survived by sheer luck, the top of its head only a millimetre away from the two blades as they came swinging down from the walls.
But there was nothing lucky about the human girl.
She moved.
Instantly.
With the speed of a lunging duellist, this girl caught flat footed and completely unprepared—simply skipped to the side.
With a motion as casual as if she was playing hopscotch in a playground, she reacted with such speed that her movement blurred, leaving Ophelia to blink while staring haplessly at where the girl just stood.
An afterimage!
Yet again, Ophelia's jaw dropped—and continued dropping even further as she witnessed the ease to which the human girl skipped away from the traps which should have sliced, stabbed or vaporised her.
Ophelia was fast.
She could do the cool blurring movement thing too! But even Ophelia needed to have her footwork in order. She was the Snow Dancer. Not the Snow Instant Jumping, Skipping, Hopping Sensation.
Ophelia was officially impressed.
And for a sword saint, that was no small feat.
Speed wasn't everything, of course. In fact, sometimes, it didn't matter at all.
Because even with the human girl's prodigious reactions, there was only so much artful dodging she could do when everything and the kitchen sink was being hurled towards her.
Click.
This time, there'd be no escape.
Ophelia was aghast when she saw Duck A trigger the final trap before the stairs.
That trap was definitely bad news. It was the only one she never touched. There was nothing fun about dodging the 782 acid arrows that launched from the top-of-the-line Hayfaire & Moore Fully Automated Dip-Loose™ Volley Defence System.
Mostly because they couldn't be dodged.
Those arrows would cover the entire width of the corridor.
They couldn't be evaded. Only blocked. But unless the human girl was a mage, she was stuffed. And as far as Ophelia could see, she wasn't.
She had no shields, physical or magic.
And neither did Duck A.
Ophelia immediately started to move. Duck A was in danger. The arrows would launch in less than two seconds, and no matter how lucky her duck was, it wasn't surviving-acid-arrows-lucky.
Then she saw the poise of the human girl, and the way her sword seemed to move … no, jolt, at an impossible speed to a ready position.
A position to face down the 782 acid arrows, each one capable of burning a hole right through her.
But perhaps not her enchanted sword.
This mad lass! She planned to parry them!
The immediate response, the conviction, shocked Ophelia.
So much so, that her feet stumbled even as the impenetrable wall of arrows came whistling towards Duck A. She was too utterly transfixed on this crazy swordswoman. This unknown, E-rank adventurer, who raised her sword with an expression of utter boredom scribbled on her face.
And so—Ophelia the Snow Dancer watched, her arms falling limply by her sides as she bore witness to the sight of each and every arrow being swiped aside as easily as an artist brushing paint across a canvas. This diminutive human girl, boasting not a lick of combat prowess in her poise, answered 782 acid arrows with contemptuous ease.
Or well, not quite 782.
A few of the arrows had struck Duck A.
Wide-eyed astonishment turned to despair as she sound of sizzling filled the air. Acid burned at the stone tiles where the arrows fell. But only the arrows striking her friendly duck hit true, melting her lovable friend into a gruesome pile of green goo.
Or that's how it should have gone.
Ophelia wasn't sure what surprised her the most.
The fact that she'd discovered a highly promising swordswoman, boasting speed and reflexes to match Ophelia even at her blurry best. Or that her duck was impervious to both acid and arrows.
Oh. And it now had blue eyes. And a shiny beak.
That was something.
All the Snow Dancer knew, as her hand went to her sword, was that she wouldn't need to stave off boredom with sewing today.
kayenano A map of the Kingdom of Tirea (v0.5) is now available! Isn't it beautiful? Use it to plot Juliette's journey as she strives to rescue her quality of life!
Ophelia followed Duck A as it silently waddled after the human girl and the clockwork doll through the lower dungeons of Aquina Castle.
The nurturing, caring and non-insane part of Ophelia wanted to scoop up her duck, head back to the cottage and deposit it back into its pond so that Duck B wouldn't be lonely anymore. As happy as she was that her duck was curious enough to play explorer, it was far too dangerous to wander around a dungeon where it was officially on the lowest rung of the food ladder.
And yet Duck A was not only still very alive and very fluffy, but remained so with very little assistance from Ophelia.
Oh, she'd slapped a few giant mice away and hissed at a tunnel owl that wanted to use her hair as a tree branch to perch on. But for the most part, Duck A was perfectly fine on its own, waddling in the darkness as it maintained a respectable distance from the illuminating light cast by the human girl's sword.
Even so—
A duck should have been as obvious to the darkvision-imbued monsters as it was to a troll in the day! It shouldn't be capable of waddling right now, but instead fleeing for its life as Ophelia batted away the cyclops bats that tried to gorge on it!
There was no longer any doubt in her mind.
Duck A possessed some measure of .
How and why deeply confused her.
She knew the very weakest and the very strongest monsters could shroud their presence. But Duck A was just a duck. Ducks didn't have an aura of killing intent to hide. They waddled, swam and ate plants. And neither the water nor the oats she fed them were likely to run away.
“—There's clearly opportunity here. This is an old castle that was once inhabited by more than vermin. If there wasn't clear room for, oh, I don't know, a skeletal lich bursting through the wall, I wouldn't feel so dissatisfied.”
“Guess the Duke is pretty dumb for not keeping a skeletal lich in his basement, eh?”
Once again, Ophelia's attention was caught by the pair loudly burgling her employer's castle. A lot about them confused her almost as much as her duck did.
Hearing how they were dissatisfied with how safe the dungeon was topped the list.
That confused her greatly. She'd personally cleared it of the monsters and vengeful spirits that resided here—including, yes, a skeletal lich. That was a lot less fun than it sounded. Sword saint or not, fireballs were still fireballs and swords just weren't a fan of necromantically imbued bones.
The more she listened, however, the more she realised how utterly unordinary these two were.
That was a given, of course. Nobody normal waltzed into dungeons like this. But even so, Ophelia had to acknowledge their superior oddness.
Especially the human girl.
Ophelia couldn't get over how weak she looked.
Absolutely nothing about her stuck out as a swordswoman.
The girl's image clashed terribly with what Ophelia had seen with the piano. Certainly, there was nothing to suggest she deserved the finely crafted weapon that was being used as a lantern.
But weak human girls didn't complain about dungeons lacking skeletal liches. They ran away from them while leaving a splotchy mess behind.
No … there was something Ophelia couldn't sense.
Something which belied sight. Something beyond the girl's lack of care for her surroundings and the way she complained like nobility.
That, at least, Ophelia was certain of.
She was somewhere up the ladder of aristocracy. The way she jabbed her finger was the same as the ladies of the ducal court whenever a strawberry was off-centre on a shortcake. One glance at how she walked told the story of a girl who spent more time at a noble court than a fencing court.
All the more reason, then, for Ophelia's curiosity.
There was something very, very, very unusual about her.
Every instinct as an A-rank sword saint told her that.
And she had absolutely no idea why.
“—A trap. And a terribly poor one, as well. This is one of the most recommended corridors available, meaning the Duchy of Aquina has clearly opted for affordability over flourish!”
“You mean … there are people who don't design their own death corridors?”
Oh, and now they were dissatisfied with the traps in the corridor.
Ophelia was personally offended at that. She'd tested them herself. She didn't have to, of course. But dodging the boat scythe was always fun. The dragonfire trap was 50/50 depending on her mood and the falling ceiling spikes were a pain, since she had to screw them back in afterwards.
But none of them were bad.
She was perplexed at why people clearly breaking into the castle had gripes about the quality of the defences. Especially as they clearly weren't immune to them.
“Rock, paper, scissors, go!!”
After a game of rock, paper, scissors in which the clockwork doll clearly cheated by analysing the other's hand movement, the girl with the shiny sword advanced one step at a time, utilising a technique to feel out the trapped tiles that Ophelia could only describe as extremely unorthodox.
Even so, it almost worked.
Almost.
Quack, quack. Quack, quack.
Ophelia only realised Duck A was no longer before her when she saw the white fluffy feathers waddling across the tiles.
Horror gripped her as her beloved, if clearly strange duck gifted with powers of stealth, waddled fearlessly across the multitude of trapped tiles lining the corridor.
Click.
And then her jaw dropped again.
Upon the telltale sound of the boat scythe's mechanism activating, a pair of massive, swinging blades instantly passed each other by.
Duck A survived by sheer luck, the top of its head only a millimetre away from the two blades as they came swinging down from the walls.
But there was nothing lucky about the human girl.
She moved.
Instantly.
With the speed of a lunging duellist, this girl caught flat footed and completely unprepared—simply skipped to the side.
With a motion as casual as if she was playing hopscotch in a playground, she reacted with such speed that her movement blurred, leaving Ophelia to blink while staring haplessly at where the girl just stood.
An afterimage!
Yet again, Ophelia's jaw dropped—and continued dropping even further as she witnessed the ease to which the human girl skipped away from the traps which should have sliced, stabbed or vaporised her.
Ophelia was fast.
She could do the cool blurring movement thing too! But even Ophelia needed to have her footwork in order. She was the Snow Dancer. Not the Snow Instant Jumping, Skipping, Hopping Sensation.
Ophelia was officially impressed.
And for a sword saint, that was no small feat.
Speed wasn't everything, of course. In fact, sometimes, it didn't matter at all.
Because even with the human girl's prodigious reactions, there was only so much artful dodging she could do when everything and the kitchen sink was being hurled towards her.
Click.
This time, there'd be no escape.
Ophelia was aghast when she saw Duck A trigger the final trap before the stairs.
That trap was definitely bad news. It was the only one she never touched. There was nothing fun about dodging the 782 acid arrows that launched from the top-of-the-line Hayfaire & Moore Fully Automated Dip-Loose™ Volley Defence System.
Mostly because they couldn't be dodged.
Those arrows would cover the entire width of the corridor.
They couldn't be evaded. Only blocked. But unless the human girl was a mage, she was stuffed. And as far as Ophelia could see, she wasn't.
She had no shields, physical or magic.
And neither did Duck A.
Ophelia immediately started to move. Duck A was in danger. The arrows would launch in less than two seconds, and no matter how lucky her duck was, it wasn't surviving-acid-arrows-lucky.
Then she saw the poise of the human girl, and the way her sword seemed to move … no, jolt, at an impossible speed to a ready position.
A position to face down the 782 acid arrows, each one capable of burning a hole right through her.
But perhaps not her enchanted sword.
This mad lass! She planned to parry them!
The immediate response, the conviction, shocked Ophelia.
So much so, that her feet stumbled even as the impenetrable wall of arrows came whistling towards Duck A. She was too utterly transfixed on this crazy swordswoman. This unknown, E-rank adventurer, who raised her sword with an expression of utter boredom scribbled on her face.
And so—Ophelia the Snow Dancer watched, her arms falling limply by her sides as she bore witness to the sight of each and every arrow being swiped aside as easily as an artist brushing paint across a canvas. This diminutive human girl, boasting not a lick of combat prowess in her poise, answered 782 acid arrows with contemptuous ease.
Or well, not quite 782.
A few of the arrows had struck Duck A.
Wide-eyed astonishment turned to despair as she sound of sizzling filled the air. Acid burned at the stone tiles where the arrows fell. But only the arrows striking her friendly duck hit true, melting her lovable friend into a gruesome pile of green goo.
Or that's how it should have gone.
Ophelia wasn't sure what surprised her the most.
The fact that she'd discovered a highly promising swordswoman, boasting speed and reflexes to match Ophelia even at her blurry best. Or that her duck was impervious to both acid and arrows.
Oh. And it now had blue eyes. And a shiny beak.
That was something.
All the Snow Dancer knew, as her hand went to her sword, was that she wouldn't need to stave off boredom with sewing today.
kayenano A map of the Kingdom of Tirea (v0.5) is now available! Isn't it beautiful? Use it to plot Juliette's journey as she strives to rescue her quality of life!
