TBAGM Vol. 2 Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3 – Twin Stars and Twin Wings

By the time the surroundings were fully dark, Nero and I had returned home.

After leaving the Magic Academy, we made detours to several places together, so we got back late. The promotion-exam team had surely returned to the guild already. Since some might be asleep, we eased the front door open as quietly as possible.

“Welcome home.”

“Whoa! L-Lady Serina?!”

The moment I opened the door, Serina was waiting there, which startled me. She always greeted us at the entrance and took care of our luggage and clothes, which was an enormous help. But today she stood a touch closer than usual, and I felt a certain intensity from her. Ignoring that, Char hopped from my shoulder and slipped into the guild ahead of us.

“So then, Lord Lloyd? How shall we explain this?”

“H-How shall we explain what?”

Serina asked with an even brighter smile than usual. Was she pleased, or was that smile burning with anger? Either way, something had definitely happened.

“I’ll let it go this time because they’re ‘cute,’ but next time, report beforehand.”

“Cute? Ah—I forgot to tell you, Serina.”

“Hm? What are you talking about?”

Beside my dawning realization, Nero tilted his head. I’d meant to inform her in advance, but between arranging the promotion exams for Ellis and the others and matters with Nero, it had slipped my mind. Just then, the ones Serina had labeled “cute” made their appearance.

“L-Lloyd, you’re back?”

“Welcome back, Lloyd!”

Twin girls with a single adorable horn sprouting from their foreheads.

The shy one with pale-violet hair was Rii.

The buoyant one with pale-pink hair was Mii.

“So you’ve come. Sorry we’re late. Both of you, welcome to ‘Veiled Moonrise.’”

“P-Pleased to meet you.”

“Pleased to meet you!”

They answered with bright, energetic bows.

“W-Wha—what is going on, Lloyd?!”

Catching sight of us and the twins, Nero let out a cracked shout. I hadn’t said a word to him either, so his shock was understandable. Serina looked exasperated as well.

“Please explain to us too. Until you returned, Lord Lloyd, we had no idea what was going on.”

“Understood. Let’s move to the conference room.”

It wasn’t right to talk this out in the entryway, so we headed to the conference room. Inside, Ellis, Elna, and Rei—who had been serving the two—were already there.

“Good work, both of you. Judging from your faces, you passed your promotions.”

“I became a B-rank alchemist!”

Elna all but pushed her head toward me, plainly asking to be patted. Smiling at how adorable she was, I gently stroked her hair. I hadn’t expected they’d truly be allowed to skip ranks; it made all the discreet arrangements worthwhile. What arrangements? I merely bowed my head to a few former pupils.

Mint, an A-rank adventurer, for Ellis.

Abaddon, the supreme smith, for Nick.

And for Elna, the genius alchemist Furyua.

Furyua was a shut-in, so she likely sent one of her excellent subordinates instead.

With those three as witnesses, any pushback from examiners or examinees could be crushed in an instant. It might look like borrowing the tiger’s might, but Ellis and the others had strength fit for tigers themselves; they simply lacked a place to be recognized. Producing a B-rank via a skip would make “Veiled Moonrise” the talk of the realm again. Kyros was probably flushing scarlet with fury right about now.

While I was thinking that, Ellis puffed her cheeks ever so slightly.

“I worked hard too, you know!”

“Good job, Ellis. Did you make B-rank as well?”

“No… I did get promoted, but I didn’t make B-rank…”

Ellis drooped her shoulders apologetically.

“I-I see…”

I caught myself at a loss for words. I hadn’t imagined she wouldn’t reach B-rank with her ability. Chiding myself for the careless remark, I opened my mouth to comfort her.

“But even C-rank is—”

“—I ended up as A-rank!”

Ellis cut me off, sticking out her tongue with a playful, bashful grin.

““H-huhhhhh?!””

Nero and I shouted in unison. Elna, Serina, and Rei didn’t scream, but their faces made the shock plain. Only Rii and Mii tilted their heads, not quite grasping what “A-rank” meant.

A-rank was the top adventurer among adventurers. A step below the monsters known as S-rank, but essentially the top. In fact, there were only a few dozen in the whole nation. You couldn’t simply “make” one by deciding to. 

During the five years I served “Incarnation of the Sun,” I taught relentlessly and managed to produce three A-ranks. On the strength of that record, and though it was irregular, I received not only the title of S-rank Appraiser but that of S-rank Adventurer as well. That said, the only one I could instruct directly was Nero, who was in my own unit; the other two were raised via Kyros, so they probably never realized I had been the one assisting.

“E-Even I went through hell to get there…”

Beside me, Nero looked crushed. He too had grown by enduring training that felt like dying every day. He had only just shed his worries; was he back where he started, or worse?

I moved quickly to steady him.

“W-Well, Ellis spent three straight years honing 【Water Ball】. If you master 【Magic Breaker】 from here, you should be able to return to A-rank, Nero.”

“Mr. Lloyd… right! I’ll get back to A-rank, no matter what!”

Relief slipped out as I watched Nero rally.

“Let’s set that aside for now. Where’s Nick?”

No matter how we dragged it out, the story of Ellis becoming A-rank wasn’t something we could finish discussing before midnight. I’d have to grill Mint another day.

“Nick hasn’t returned yet.”

“Hm? Still taking his promotion exam?”

Elna’s exam lasted twelve hours and she was here. It was hard to imagine Nick’s would run even longer.

(Could it be… Abaddon?)

All I had asked Abaddon was to ensure the exam was conducted fairly. He was a craftsman through and through. Even if he was aligned with “Incarnation of the Sun,” he wasn’t the sort to entangle himself deeply in inter-guild squabbles. Which meant he was probably doing some joint work with Nick, dragging him in. In that, he resembled Mint, brazenly involved with anyone who piqued his interest. Mint had apparently been training jointly with Ellis lately, too.

I should probably show my face at “Greenpeak” before Mint scolded me; I owed them advice. And if my hunch was right, “Greenpeak” was soon…

“If Nick’s not here, let’s save Rii and Mii’s story for tomorrow. Their room is ready. Serina, would you show them?”

“Understood. It is past midnight, after all. We shouldn’t keep children up this late.”

“Then once everyone’s up tomorrow, I’ll introduce the two of them, and we’ll talk dungeon strategy.”

Even with a single victory in the showdown, our guild ranking was twenty-second. First place was still a far horizon. As we were now, we couldn’t lay a finger on “Incarnation of the Sun.”

(Undermine the foundation first.)

However massive your power, if your footing crumbled, a small push could topple it all. First, a complete clear of the volcano dungeon. Kyros had poured effort into conquering it, and failed. If we seized it in that opening, “Incarnation of the Sun” would suffer a real blow to its prestige.

(Wait for me… Kyros.)

†

While Lloyd spent several weeks shoring up the foundations of “Veiled Moonrise,” rot advanced within “Incarnation of the Sun.”

It wasn’t superficial; it was rot from within. On the surface, things seemed to be going well, precisely why the decay progressed so quickly.

The first sign showed in the First Unit. They were currently pushing through a forest dungeon.

A week earlier, on the 20th floor during the boss fight:

“Frontliners, push those Treants back!”

“““Yes, sir!”””

“Backline, wait for the cue and lay down covering fire!”

“““Understood!”””

Even after Lloyd’s departure, the First Unit’s raw strength still held. At first the ranks had been nothing but grumbling and the unit barely functioned. But the man who overturned that state of affairs was their current leader: “Hero” Allen.

“Leave the rest to me!”

Confirming that his teammates had driven the treants away from the boss, Allen sprang from the center of the formation as if taking flight. The Elder Treant—hulking and gnarled as a great tree—lashed dozens of vines at him. A single snare would mean force from all directions and his limbs torn off in an instant.

“Haaaah!”

He drew the greatsword from his back and hewed through every vine. His speed was such that everyone present couldn’t help but stare; without breaking stride he kicked off the ground and vaulted high.

Soaring above even the ten-meter-tall boss, Allen shifted his grip from one hand to two and raised his blade high.

“【Excalibur】!”

Radiant light poured from Allen’s greatsword, an almost divine brilliance.

He brought the sword down in a high overhead arc toward the boss.

“Gyaaa!”

In that moment, the Elder Treant snared the surrounding treants with its vines. Monsters had no intellect, this was pure survival instinct.

“““Gyaaaa?!”””

The seized monsters shrieked at their leader’s unthinkable move. Ignoring their plight, the boss slammed them forward as a living shield into Allen’s descending blade.

“““GYAAAAAAA—!”””

The treants let out death-cries as Excalibur cleaved into them.

A hellscape of pandemonium unfolded.

Treants were bodies of wood; by 20th floor, their hardness was considerable. Even 【Excalibur】 struggled to pierce through a wall of dozens. That was fine because it was exactly what Allen wanted.

“Everyone, concentrate your fire!”

With the treants pulled from the vanguard, the more than thirty teammates now had a clear line. The Elder Treant had overcommitted to countering Allen’s 【Excalibur】.

“““Haaaaaah!”””

“““【Fire Flame】!”””

Gladiators carved at its footing while mages slammed fire spells into its face. With all attention fixed on Allen, the boss’s reactions lagged badly. A Floor-20 boss shrugged off most C- and even B-rank strikes, but not when over thirty of them landed at once.

“G—GYAAAAAAAAAA—!”

The Elder Treant roared many times louder than its minions and crashed face-first to the ground. The wood that made up its body began to dissolve, leaving a single massive magic stone at its core, the sign of a cleared boss.

“““Yes! We did it!”””

The unit’s shout of triumph nearly matched the boss’s last scream.

Dungeons ran to thirty floors; from Floor 20 down was the “lower stratum,” where difficulty spiked. This season, it was Incarnation of the Sun’s first entry into the lower stratum; a result to make the First Unit proud.

“As expected of Allen! Everything’s clicked since he took charge!”

“Good thing we didn’t follow Nero!”

“Yeah, he actually gives us roles we can execute!”

They had already forgotten any lingering attachment to Lloyd. Running dungeons with Allen brought better efficiency and visible results than with Lloyd, so they believed.

“As expected of an A-rank adventurer! A commander who can fight is amazing!”

In the two months since Lloyd left, Allen had grown considerably.

Pulled out, his progress looked like this:

.

[Name]	Allen (21)
[Titles]	Incarnation of the Sun, A-rank Adventurer, First Unit Captain, Hero
[Stats]	Stamina B→A　Leadership B→A
[Skills]	【Excalibur】 B→A　【Braver】 D→B
[Inherent Trait]	None
[Profession]	Hero
[Attributes]	Agility C→A　Strength B→A　Endurance D→B

.

Several entries had already reached A-class. Allen had also single-handedly defeated the A-rank-designated “Green Goblin” on Floor 15, and by special exception had been promoted to A-rank; Kyros’s pull, of course, played a part.

“We might beat Second Unit to a full clear at this rate.”

“Allen’s command is insane!”

“Feels like he’s growing like crazy lately!”

Grinning, the teammates lavished praise on Allen.

Had Lloyd been there, he would have snapped at them to keep their guard up. He knew how to balance carrot and stick. Allen, by contrast, merely looked on and basked in self-congratulation.

(Heh. My post as First Unit captain is secure now.)

Remember Allen’s other skill? Besides 【Excalibur】, he also had 【Braver】.

【Braver】 massively amplified command ability and even boosted the team’s parameters, a monstrous skill. Not unique, but rare enough that perhaps one person bore it in a century.

In short, the First Unit felt stronger because of Allen’s 【Braver】; they themselves had hardly grown. Unaware of that, they mistook Allen’s aura for their own development.

“Grab the magic stone and let’s head back! We push into Floor 21 tomorrow!”

“““Roger!”””

Having abandoned the drills and assignments Lloyd used to impose, only decline awaited them.

That was the first sign of rot.

—

The second rot came from Sothia.

A few days earlier—

“Maru. You’re no longer of use.”

“Eh?!”

Kyros, just as he had with Lloyd, was about to cast off one more “spent” subordinate.

“However, I’ll keep you on for menial work. Your title stays as-is, of course.”

“I-I understand. I’ll accept.”

In truth, Kyros had no intention of truly expelling anyone. Everyone in “Incarnation of the Sun” had been brought in because Lloyd had judged them talented; if cast out, they might join another guild and become a threat. What Kyros wanted was to sift out the defiant, those who might endanger his perch.

Once Maru left the room, Kyros curled his lips into a warped smile.

“Well then, Sothia, does this suit you?”

“Mm! As expected of Lord Kyros!”

The beastkin girl who had appeared before Kyros right after the historic guild face-off with “Veiled Moonrise”—Sothia—had, in mere days, won his absolute trust. How? Charisma, centripetal pull—those, perhaps. But above all, she possessed an uncanny persuasiveness. Whatever she said sounded convincing, so much so one might suspect a skill at work. Yet when Kyros appraised her beforehand, the only skill she had was 【Appraisal】 at rank A so that couldn’t be it.

“Speaking of which, how goes the trial?”

To judge whether Sothia was truly fit to serve as the guild’s advisor, Kyros had set her a trial: develop the Third Unit. The Third Unit was a dumping ground for washouts and those in slumps. If such a unit rebounded, Sothia’s ability would be proven. Stroking Il—her contract beast, a small black creature like a cat—on her shoulder, Sothia answered with delight.

“Smoothly! I’m teaching them ‘endurance arts’ right now.”

“Endurance arts?”

The unfamiliar phrase made Kyros tilt his head. Of course, it was Sothia’s own home-brewed regimen.

“Yep! You strike your own weak points full force and train yourself to endure the pain!”

“D-Does that even work?”

“Of course! But as for the Third Unit, give me just a bit longer. I’ll show results within half a month.”

“Ah, take as long as you like. You’re contributing plenty elsewhere. Truly, bringing you into our guild was the right call.”

“Elsewhere” meant the First and Second Units. No sooner had she joined than Sothia reworked every unit’s composition. Unlike the balanced rosters Lloyd had assembled—built to nurture each member’s growth—she rebuilt them to win now. She also shifted the First Unit’s target from the desert dungeon to the forest dungeon. Of the nation’s three dungeons, the forest was the most difficult. In Lloyd’s era, the hardest dungeon was precisely where he stationed the Third Unit, to let them build confidence by felling tough foes. Sothia, prioritizing a swift clear, threw the First Unit at it instead.

As a result, Incarnation of the Sun began clearing faster than any guild. The First Unit breached Floor 20 of the forest dungeon; the Second Unit did the same in the volcano dungeon, a pair of feats. Kyros was thrilled; though he had set Sothia a “trial,” its outcome hardly mattered to him now. Only one flaw remained: her policies skewed far too hard toward efficiency.

In reshuffling rosters, Sothia transferred members between units without the slightest regard for their feelings. Previously, when comp or placement caused friction, Kyros would hear members out and placate them, or rather, Lloyd sensed discontent early and fed it to Kyros in careful drips. Lloyd, in his own way, had leveraged Kyros’s authority.

Now Sothia’s approach piled frustration on the rank-and-file to a degree incomparable with before, ready to explode at any time. Maru had been one such case; anticipating trouble, Sothia had Kyros demote him to the bottom in advance.

“If anything else comes up, say the word.”

“Mm! Thanks!”

It was the very policy Lloyd refused to adopt “crushing with authority” and Sothia was now enforcing it. The policy itself wasn’t “wrong”; efficiency had in fact multiplied. But they were still people. A “false advisor” who possessed nothing beyond 【Appraisal】—Sothia—could never replace the “true advisor,” Lloyd. 

Thus, the guild’s rot crept downward from the top.

—

There was, however, one man who resisted Incarnation of the Sun’s decay. At the very time Ellis and the others were taking their promotion exams—

“Lord Kyros. May I be removed from my unit?”

“What?! Edgar, what’s this all of a sudden?”

Kyros’s eyes flew wide. Edgar was captain of the Second Unit and an A-rank adventurer, a rising star who had led the volcano dungeon push. Kyros had heard countless pleas to move “up,” but never once a request to leave a unit altogether.

“You’ve always been hungry for the top!”

“That’s exactly it. I ran too hot and burned out, you could say I’ve lost my drive. I’d like a short leave.”

Every word Edgar spoke was a spur-of-the-moment lie. Weeks earlier, the Second Unit had descended into vicious infighting on Floor 20 of the volcano dungeon. Eager to rush the clear, Edgar ignored his team’s warnings and challenged the boss alone. Predictably, he couldn’t solo a lower-stratum boss and had to be saved by a passing duo.

From that incident on, no one followed his commands. Who would obey a leader who charged the boss alone and crawled back half-dead? With Sothia installed as advisor they somehow cleared Floor 20, but Edgar himself was treated like ice.

Yet that was exactly what he wanted.

(I want to taste rock bottom once.)

That was his true intent. The pair who’d saved him had nullified the boss’s fireballs and then felled it with 【Water Ball】. After witnessing strength that absurd, watching his teammates strut over mere high-tier spells had become agony.

(Truth is, I want to join Veiled Moonrise.)

Watching the face-off, he had realized beyond doubt: the duo who saved him on Floor 20 were Nero and Ellis. Digging through records afterwards, he found that Ellis had once been a complete dropout. And the one who had extended a hand to Ellis and Nero had been the advisor who originally captained the First Unit.

(But when someone throws down a gauntlet like that, you can’t just refuse!)

Ellis had provoked him: “Try becoming the strongest adventurer in Incarnation of the Sun.” Since then Edgar had wanted to drop out, dive solo, and rebuild himself from the ground up. His new goal was to become the kind of adventurer who produced results alone.

“What do you think, Sothia?”

“If Edgar says so, I’m fine with it! Rest is important, you know?”

Kyros, seeking help, turned to Sothia at his side.

(No opinions of your own… This is the ‘supreme commander’ they talk about? Pathetic.)

Knowing now who Lloyd really was, Edgar’s loyalty to Kyros had already evaporated. He had seen the truth: every one of Kyros’s “moves” had been propped up by Lloyd’s labor. And now he leaned on a freshly arrived beastkin. Edgar was sick of it.

“Very well, Edgar. From tomorrow, you’re a solo adventurer. Clear dungeons as you please.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Edgar bowed and left the guildmaster’s office at a brisk pace.

(I will become the strongest adventurer.)

His aim was to earn the recognition of those two, and then to seek instruction under Lloyd. He couldn’t care less about Incarnation of the Sun’s “growth.” Ironically, however, the path he chose would, in the short term, end up saving the guild.

†