Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 298

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Eight: Something That Caught Her Attention

“Julius, you’re back.”

Helfried said it with an expression of quiet relief, and ushered both Julius and, as an afterthought, Karen inside the tent.

Upon emerging from the dungeon, Julius had been immediately summoned to Helfried. Karen was preoccupied with several things and followed along in something of a daze. Fortunately, the knights who had come to collect Julius were men who had served as Helfried’s personal guard since the days at the Ehlertt estate, and Karen knew their faces well enough that they let her through.

Coming out of the dungeon, her body felt wonderfully light, and breathing was easy. And—she had also noticed something she found very hard to stop thinking about.

“What is happening?”

“The dungeons throughout the Great Forest have begun triggering Great Collapse stampedes all at once. Normally, the timing would be more spread out, but such a thing is possible. We are holding the hunting festival to suppress them. The problem is that dungeons across various regions also seem to be on the verge of Great Collapse.”

“Other regions?”

“Yes. All across the Kingdom of Earthfill. The Ehlertt territorial capital dungeon is fortunately unaffected—likely because you cleared it last year, Julius… It seems the dungeons in territories where clearing has been neglected in recent years are the ones triggering Great Collapses. But there are reports that even dungeons that have been regularly cleared are beginning to collapse as well.”

“I’ve been told this information came from the priests…”

“Yes. That’s why I doubt there’s any mistake. Their information network is both accurate and fast.”

The management of dungeon gates belonged to the temples—to the priests who served the goddess. They used a form of magic known as divine magic, which operated not through comprehension and magical power, but through devotion to the goddess. Among the divine spells was apparently one that allowed communication over great distances.

They also possessed various other closely-guarded divine arts. These special abilities were said to be indispensable for managing dungeon gates—which was why temples capable of wielding divine magic administered those critical facilities in most countries.

In this world, the goddess held great influence, while the temples themselves held comparatively little. Yet from time to time, priests occupied positions of great importance—that was the nature of their role.

“Julius, I know how much this hunting festival means to you, and I’m sorry to ask—but would you join the monster hunting unit? In a typical year, the monsters should lose momentum after sustained hunting. …In a typical year.”

“I don’t mind.”

Julius agreed readily, and Helfried offered him a pained smile.

“…I knew you would say that. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Brother Helfried. My quarry has already been hunted, after all. Isn’t that right, Karen?”

“Oh—yes, that’s right, Lord Helfried!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. But—may I borrow Julius for a short while before he joins the unit?”

“Hmm?”

Helfried’s eyes widened very slightly at Karen dropping the formal speech with Julius, but he recovered and nodded as though nothing had happened.

“Of course. If, knowing the current situation, you still wish to do so, then there must be a good reason for it.”

“I’m grateful for the trust, though I also feel the weight of it…”

Karen smiled ruefully, and despite being inside the tent, she turned to look unerringly in one specific direction and pointed.

“The monsters coming out of the forest are heading in that direction—am I right, Lord Helfried?”

“That direction?”

Helfried looked puzzled and followed where Karen was pointing.

“There’s a forest in the direction you’re pointing. It’s a vast forest. Rather than saying the monsters are heading there, it would be more accurate to say that monsters are also emerging from that direction.”

“Even so, don’t all the monsters appearing along the vast perimeter of the Great Forest end up moving toward that point, no matter which edge they come from?”

At Karen’s certainty of tone, Helfried’s expression grew serious, and he pressed her.

“— Karen, are you saying the monsters are not heading toward us in pursuit of human presence?”

“Can we explain later?”

“So it’s urgent, then?”

Julius nodded on Karen’s behalf as she continued staring fixedly in that one direction, and Helfried nodded back with a grave expression. Karen asked:

“Aside from the tents, what else is over there?”

“…Nothing but tents, really—though I don’t have a complete picture of what each participant has brought with them, or who they have in their company.”

“I see.”

“Karen, do you want to go there?”

“Yes, Mr.—”

“Karen.”

Julius cut her off mid-daze. Karen looked up at his steady smile and corrected herself.

“Yes, Julius. I want to go there. And since the monsters are heading there too, I need you to protect me. Can I ask that of you?”

“Of course, Karen.”

Julius took her request with evident pleasure and scooped her up in his arms again. This was not the dungeon—it was open ground, with the Ehlertt knights stationed all around. Helfried clearly had a great deal he wanted to say. Karen had some resistance to it, but she chose not to refuse and let herself be carried.

“Take me over there, Julius.”

“All right.”

Julius smiled and tightened his arms around her. Karen wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and softly stroked the back of his head.

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Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 297

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Seven: Trial’s Notice

“Little Karen… got a minute?”

“What is it?”

Sepl had approached her with a serious expression, and Karen climbed down from the carriage. Since Karen and Licht had taken Lumi with them, the carriage had been left waiting in front of the cave on the sixth floor, where the adamantite deposit was. They tied Lumi to the carriage—which apparently had not been attacked by monsters—and had currently made their way back up to the fifth floor.

“Did something attack you in the sixth-floor cave?”

Apparently, after Karen and Licht sped off on Lumi, the knights had barely managed to make it through the adamantite cave while regularly applying smelling salts.

According to the knights, there had been ghosts inside the cave. As the name suggested, ghosts were spirit-like monsters, though they were said to be monsters rather than the actual souls of the dead. For D-rank monsters, their mental interference with the knights had been unusually strong.

And yet on the way back, there had been almost no effect at all, which had left Karen and her companions somewhat at a loss. They had concluded that the knights must have been hit harder on the way down because the dungeon’s monsters had been more active due to the black dragon having descended all the way to the tenth floor—so had Sepl perhaps suffered some kind of attack after all?

Karen reached for her pouch, wondering whether she should have him bite into one of the curry roux cubes that served as the base for a panacea, when Sepl shook his head.

“It’s not that, Little Karen. There’s just one thing I wanted to ask you.”

Sepl wore an expression serious enough to be called grim. The fifth floor was a snowy mountain slope beneath a clear blue sky. The crevasse that had nearly swallowed a knight during their descent had filled back in—perhaps it had snowed while they were gone. There were likely other hidden crevasses too. Other than that, no monsters seemed to be about—but had he perhaps found something?

Karen swallowed and waited for him to continue.

“You’ve stopped using formal speech with Master Julius… don’t tell me you two did it in the dungeon?!”

Karen silently delivered a low kick to Sepl’s shin.

“Ow!”

Urte followed up with a kick to his backside that sent him flying. There happened to be a crevasse where he landed, and the snow beneath his feet crumbled away. Sepl scrabbled at the edge with a yell.

“Crap! I’m slipping, I can’t climb out! Help!”

Karen looked at the crack of the crevasse Sepl was dangling over, and something clicked.

“Oh… this hole looks like it connects to the tenth floor. The shape of the crack in the ground looks the same as what I saw looking up from the tenth floor.”

But when she had looked up at the vertical shaft from the tenth floor, the crack hadn’t been sealed with snow—she had seen blue sky. Perhaps the dungeon sealed it with snow only when intruders were present. It seemed the crevasse the knight had nearly fallen into last time had not been buried because of snowfall after all.

“Hmm? Is that so? For B-rank adventurers, that could save quite a bit of time when descending to lower floors. A D-rank adventurer like Sepl doing it would be a death sentence, though.”

“Sorry for asking, okay!? But anyone would be curious!?”

Sepl offered something resembling an apology as Urte pulled him out, though he showed no sign whatsoever of having learned anything.

Karen gave Sepl an exasperated look.

“Maybe I should tell Ms. Lily that Uncle Sepl sexually harassed me.”

“I’m so sorry, please spare me!”

Sepl prostrated himself more deeply now than when he had nearly fallen into the crevasse. It seemed he valued Lily more than Karen had realized. She sighed and decided to let it go.

“We ran into a black dragon on the tenth floor. We overcame that kind of ordeal together—of course, it brought us closer. Don’t go saying strange things.”

Of course, the fact that they had opened up to each other about things buried deep inside was also part of it. But that wasn’t something to share with Sepl.

“You see, Mr. Julius—”

“Julius, isn’t it? Karen.”

Julius was suddenly at her back, whispering in her ear, and Karen jumped.

“I’m terribly sorry; I’m still not quite used to it—”

“Just ‘sorry’ is fine. When you use formal speech, it feels like there’s a distance between us, and it makes me sad.”

“Anyway, stop whispering in my ear. It tickles.”

Julius smiled and slowly drew back. Then he turned his gaze to Sepl, who had gotten to his feet.

“Sepl, I understand you’re something like a relative to Karen. Even so, wouldn’t you agree there are things one simply shouldn’t ask a woman?”

“Yessir.”

“Unfortunately, Karen and I are not yet intimate to that degree—but even if we were, I would not wish you to know the precise details. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

Sepl kept nodding while breaking into a cold sweat.

Karen had been watching, waiting for the right moment to step in, when a girl’s high voice reached her ears—a voice that had no business being here.

“Karen! You’re back! …What is that monster?! Is that a giant lizard?! Wait—a black dragon?!”

Running up the snowy slope came Petra. Her light outfit gave no indication of it, but she moved with a remarkable lightness of foot, twin tails swaying as she climbed—and then stopped dead in astonishment at the monster carcasses the knights were carrying.

“Lady Petra, what are you doing here? Even as strong as you are, it’s dangerous to enter a dungeon alone.”

“There’s a reason for it! So you’re not going to say you won’t give me the cosmetics just because I wasn’t guarding the dungeon entrance, right?”

“Yes, yes, I won’t say that. …So what’s the reason?”

The first thing Petra had rushed to confirm was the matter of the cosmetics, and Karen deflated somewhat. It seemed the most pressing concern for Petra was whether or not she would receive the Princess Waltride cosmetic set Karen had promised as compensation for guarding the entrance. Karen gave a wry smile, half-expecting whatever had happened to be nothing too serious, and asked.

“Well, monsters have been pouring out of the deep forest one after another, and things on the surface have gotten quite serious. At the rate they’re going, they could wipe out every town in the area, so the Earl took charge and called on everyone gathered for the hunting festival to help, and they’re barely managing to hold back the flood of monsters from the forest.”

“What?! That’s an extremely serious situation!”

“That’s why I told you I had a reason.”

Petra said it with perfect composure. Compared to the cosmetics set, the crisis occurring outside apparently did not rank very high in Petra’s priorities.

“And apparently it’s not just here—the same thing is happening in other places too, so hunting festival participants are leaving one after another as word reaches them. There was some talk that an evacuation might be necessary, so while Master Julius can certainly take care of himself, they thought the rest of you should come back—that’s why I came to get you.”

“In other places too… the same thing…?”

What flashed through Karen’s mind was what the black dragon had told her. Something that should never have been born was trying to hatch. The black dragon had forced its way to the surface to kill it before it could. And the surrounding monsters were apparently all converging on the same place, trying to kill it too.

“Yes. For now, only news from within the Ehlertt territory has come in, but a priest who brought the report said it might be happening in other territories too. He called it the goddess’ trial.”

“…Does that mean something is trying to be born in multiple places?”

“What are you talking about?”

Karen brushed Petra off with a smile and turned back toward Julius.

“Mr. Julius, maybe you really should carry me and get us to the surface faster than anyone else?”

“Julius. Karen.”

Julius corrected her with a pleasant smile. Karen glared at him.

“Julius! Lord Helfried and Lady Alise and Master Sieg might be in danger—this is not the time for that!”

“I know. But what concerns you and me is important to me as well.”

“Oh, fine! I get it, so just take me already!”

Karen held out both arms to Julius like a child asking to be picked up, and Julius scooped her up without hesitation.

“Licht, carry Karen’s luggage and follow us.”

“Little Karen’s luggage—Urte and I can—”

“You two are slower than Licht.”

Julius turned down Sepl’s offer and gave the instruction. Licht nodded.

“I’ll explain the situation to the Captain and then catch up with Karen’s bags.”

“I’m counting on you.”

Licht nodded with a smile at Julius’s words.

“Leave it to me!”

The words had barely left Licht’s mouth before Julius broke into a run. Held in Julius’s arms—far more comfortable than Lumi’s back or even being supported by Licht—Karen emerged from the forest edge dungeon in no time at all.

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Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 296

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Six: Confirmed

The tenth floor, enclosed on all sides by towering walls of ice.

Karen was gently shaken awake by Julius. The moment she opened her eyes, she squinted against the brightness.

“Oh…”

“Good morning, Karen.”

“Good morning, Mr. Julius.”

Karen answered, and once her eyes had adjusted, she looked around and let out a soft breath of wonder.

“This is incredible…”

“This floor is at its most beautiful at this hour.”

Whether it was the angle of the light filtering down from the distant sky above, or some quality of the ice walls and pillars themselves, reflections scattered in every direction, and the whole space sparkled in rainbow colors like a crystal cavern.

“I thought if we were going to pray, this would be the right time.”

Karen followed Julius, still wrapped in his coat. He stopped at the far left side of the open area before the boss room, in a corner nestled between ice columns along the wall.

He crouched down and poured holy water over the spot in silence—the kind of purifying water sold at temples. Then he set one of the sachets Karen had given him on a dry patch of ice.

Karen blinked at the sachet being used as an offering for the dead, then rummaged through the pockets of the cloak and her pouch. After a moment, she pulled a bottle of dried herbs from her rucksack—herbs kept for potion-making—and selected the ones that had kept their shape, gathering them into a small bouquet.

She set the little bouquet softly on the ice, and Julius whispered:

“Thank you, Karen.”

“They might be resting here as brothers- and sisters-in-law I never had—of course I would.”

Karen stood straight and closed her eyes before the ice grave marker that had been there from the beginning. In this world, one prayed for the soul of the departed to ascend the steps and reach the goddess. Would those souls be reborn? If there truly was another life awaiting them, Karen prayed that it would be a peaceful one.

If their next life was a blessed one, perhaps the souls did not even need to reach the goddess. Karen herself had no memory of arriving in this world by way of the goddess.

After finishing her prayer, Karen went for a walk. As she moved through the ice that gleamed like crystal in the beautiful morning light, Julius—who had fallen into step beside her without her noticing—spoke:

“Karen, you are to be my fiancée. Would you call me Julius?”

“? Mr. J—”

Karen had been about to say that she already did—but Julius cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her, and Karen closed her eyes.

When the knights led by Alban rejoined them and entered the tenth-floor boss room, they let out sounds of astonishment at the sight of the wendigo and the black dragon lying side by side.

“To have defeated a black dragon… was that not the feat accomplished by the very founders of the Ehlertt Earldom?”

“I think this was a weaker specimen among black dragons, Alban. It was an extraordinarily old individual—it could have died of age before too long, regardless.”

“Even so, the fact that you accomplished the same feat as the Ehlertt ancestors remains unchanged. As a knight of the Ehlertt order, I am proud of your achievement, Master Julius.”

Julius spoke as though trying to calm the excited Alban down.

“The black dragon’s defeat was made possible with the help of Licht and Karen.”

Karen gave a wry smile at Julius’s modesty. By any honest measure, not one person in a hundred would believe she had contributed anything. What she had done amounted to dodging the black dragon’s attack once. She had also initiated the conversation with it, but how that had counted as experience enough for her to be in the process of ascending a step was a mystery even to Karen herself.

And yet Alban nodded with an oddly convinced expression.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be strange at all for Miss Karen to have contributed to the black dragon’s defeat.”

“Eh? You actually believe that?”

“I have had occasion to witness your abilities more than once, Miss Karen.”

Alban looked down at the wide-eyed Karen and grinned, then turned to Julius.

“More importantly, she was sincerely concerned over nothing more than you entering the tenth floor despite being someone capable of conquering the twentieth. She came to us with every justification she could think of, laying bare all her cards, asking for our help so she could go and find you. It may not have been the ideal behavior expected of a knight’s spouse, but it was dazzling to witness. How could I not trust her?”

“Karen…”

Julius looked deeply moved for a moment before suddenly leaning closer—and Karen grabbed his face firmly with both gloved hands. Trapped between Karen’s fingers, Julius lowered his brows pitifully.

“Why do you refuse, Karen? Your brain no longer melts, does it?”

“Because we’re in front of people?!”

“Is one not permitted to exchange kisses in front of others? I was under the impression you were vain and rather enjoyed receiving my affections before an audience.”

“Listen, Julius, showing off in front of a group of knights who aren’t interested in men is—”

“Hey, are you two being lovey-dovey in a dungeon again?!”

—is pointless, she had been about to say, when Licht’s reproachful voice cut across her. That morning, Licht had stumbled upon Karen and Julius mid-kiss and waited with a deeply pained expression until it was over. His words were understandable given that.

However, because of the unfortunate timing, it instead sounded as though a man who was interested in men had barged in, and an awkward silence fell over the group for a moment.

Eventually, Alban cleared his throat and spoke:

“It is well and good to be on affectionate terms, but one never knows what may happen in a dungeon. Given that a black dragon crossing floors was extraordinary enough, should we not ascend to the surface with some urgency?”

“I agree with Sir Alban completely!”

“Then let us leave the dungeon quickly. Karen, may I carry you as I run?”

“No.”

Karen stuck out her tongue at Julius, then walked away from the disappointed-looking Julius and the wryly smiling Alban.

While Karen and Julius had been exchanging their playful back-and-forth, the knights had been moving briskly, making preparations to transport the bodies of the monsters Julius and Licht had defeated.

As Karen watched Julius reluctantly join the preparations after practically being dragged along by Alban, Gottfried approached her with a sigh.

“The way Master Julius looks at you is rather intense. Was it always that strong?”

“We’ve grown even closer than before.”

Karen had shared her secret with Julius, and he had invited her to join his private farewell. At Julius’s wish, Karen had already stopped using formal speech with him and had begun addressing him only by his name.

“—If you ever feel like running, come to me first.”

Karen had been about to answer with a smile that she had no intention of running anywhere, when her body was caught from behind.

“Running from what, exactly, Karen?”

His hearing was extraordinary. Gottfried had lowered his voice so Julius surely couldn’t hear—and yet he had apparently caught every word and closed the distance in an instant.

“Julius, this is a little tight.”

“Tell me what you were going to run from, and I’ll let go, Karen.”

Julius murmured in a voice that was somewhere between stern and sweet. Karen, firmly held and unable to move, stayed silent, and Julius turned his attention to Gottfried.

“Captain, what exactly were you planning to help Karen run from?”

As far as Karen could see from within Julius’s arms, he was smiling—but the atmosphere was anything but peaceful. The area around her ear began to warm, and Karen sensed magical power leaking from Julius.

Wearing a tense expression, Gottfried slowly began backing away. Before Julius’s magical power could shift into an outright threat, Karen tugged lightly at his sleeve.

“What is it, Karen—”

Julius glanced away from Gottfried and looked down at Karen with eyes that were somewhat sharper than usual. Karen stretched up toward his lips—but couldn’t reach them from inside his grip, and ended up pressing her lips to his chin instead.

“You were holding me too tight for me to stretch up to your lips. What a shame.”

Julius’s eyes went wide, and the moment his hold loosened, Karen slipped neatly out of his arms.

“Karen? The kiss?”

“I’m not in the mood for it anymore, so next time.”

Karen said it with a smile, and Julius’s expression shifted to one that clearly realized he had been outmaneuvered.

“Putting that aside, why is it fine when you kiss me in front of people?”

“It’s different when I do it, isn’t it? Especially for you, Julius.”

“That is… yes, fair enough.”

Julius had been talked into a corner, and Karen pressed her advantage.

“Kisses from you still make me a little melt-y, so I’d rather save those for when it’s just the two of us. It would be embarrassing to be seen like that by other people!”

“…Yes, and I would rather other men not see it either.”

As Julius nodded with a look of agreement, Karen glanced over at Gottfried and grinned.

“Loved to pieces—confirmed, right?”

“…Yes. Well. Given your boldness, Miss Karen, I suppose that is entirely as it should be.”

Gottfried looked utterly exasperated. Karen beamed back at him. Julius watched the two of them, and eventually the edge went out of his expression as well.

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Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 295

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Five: Reason for Challenging the Dungeon

“Karen, are you truly all right?”

Karen was washing the alchemical cauldron with snow when she hesitated for just a moment before answering Julius’s question.

“It’s hard just being here. More than just the cold… It’s a feeling like simply existing is painful.”

She was honest about it. This was probably what this world felt like for people without magical power—the pain was enough to make Karen think that as she let out a white breath.

Julius frowned at her answer.

“Karen, we haven’t made a formal announcement yet, but we are as good as engaged. Please stop hiding things and tell me honestly.”

“What?! Mr. Julius, do you think I’m saying it hurts when it doesn’t?!”

Karen looked up at him with an expression of genuine disbelief. Julius’s own eyes went wide at that.

“Of course not! That’s not what I meant at all, Karen. I meant that the level of discomfort you described seemed far too mild.”

Hearing Karen’s answer, Julius apparently thought she was understating her suffering.

“The fact that I caused such a misunderstanding… could it be that you are enduring something to keep me from worrying?”

“Even if I tried to hide something in front of someone as experienced with dungeons as you, Mr. Julius, there’s a high chance you’d figure it out eventually, right? So I thought I was already being honest enough about how bad it feels…”

She said it with a dejected look on her face, but her hands kept moving without hesitation—washing the cauldron, tending to the ladle. Karen spoke of her weakness, yet her movements showed reserves of energy, and Julius regarded her with an unsatisfied look, touching his chin.

“What you made just now was a panacea, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Fail, and it would be just a curry. Succeed, and it would be a panacea. Either way, it should have made for a fine dinner.

“Licht ate it without realizing, but I was recovering from magical power intoxication, so when it settled, I was able to tell. After making a panacea with a body that had just used up all its magical power— are you certain your body has no problems beyond merely ‘feeling painful’ after creating something like that?”

“…Now that you mention it, I really had used up all my magical power, hadn’t I? Maybe it recovered while I was asleep.”

“You were only asleep for about an hour.”

That was far too short a time for a fully depleted magical power to recover completely. She had been too keyed up facing the black dragon to pay much attention at the time, but after draining her power to suppress her presence, her body had felt heavy—heavy enough that she had doubted whether she could do it again and escape if she needed to.

That was why she had negotiated with the black dragon before the fight and gotten it to leave her alone.

“…Thinking about it now, that is strange. It does hurt, but I think I might actually be feeling rather well.”

More than well, even—she felt more energetic than when she had woken up. Using magical power to make potions with a body that should have been exhausted from draining its power, and feeling better for it—now that it was pointed out to her, it was odd.

“Karen, you may be in the process of ascending a step, as a reward for the black dragon’s defeat.”

“But I didn’t even participate in the fight!”

Karen had done nothing but faint from the black dragon’s very first roar. Julius shook his head, however.

“Perhaps the goddess recognized you. Or perhaps the black dragon did.”

Karen looked down at her own hands with a strange feeling. They were very cold and stiff with the chill. But even washing the cauldron in the snow, the feeling hadn’t left her fingertips the way it had when they had first entered this dungeon.

“Your body must be filled with magical power.”

“But I don’t feel like I have magical power intoxication…”

“Which also means your body was that depleted to begin with.”

Karen had finished washing the cauldron and ladle and was reaching for the dishes when Julius took them from her hands.

“Mr. Julius?”

“I won’t interfere with the care of your alchemical tools, but for everything else, please leave it to me and rest.”

“No, no, this sort of chore is my job—oh, I can’t reach!”

Julius had held the dishes up high after taking them from Karen, well out of reach even when she stretched up on her toes.

“You should finish preparing yourself and get into bed before I finish washing these dishes. If you cannot finish in time, I can help wipe your back.”

“No, thank you!”

Because of the cold environment, dirt and odor were not much of an issue, but in conditions where all they could do was quickly wipe themselves with hot, wet cloths, having Julius wipe her body was utterly out of the question.

Licht had gone to the ninth floor to gather firewood, and when he returned and witnessed the standoff between Julius and Karen, he set the firewood down and headed straight back to the gate leading to the ninth floor.

“I’ll be sleeping on the ninth floor with Lumi. You two take all the time you need.”

“We are not taking any time; your consideration is unnecessary!”

Karen raised her voice at the awkwardly speaking Licht, but he quickly retreated to the ninth floor anyway. Left alone with Julius, Karen hurriedly began preparing hot water as she watched him rapidly finish the dishes.

She just barely managed to finish getting ready before Julius was done. Karen settled into her makeshift bed by the campfire—and lying down, she realized she was still wearing Julius’s coat. She looked up at him.

“Mr. Julius, you gave me your coat—aren’t you cold?”

“I’m perfectly fine with this much, Karen. The twentieth floor of the Ehlertt territorial capital’s dungeon was far colder.”

“…Even so, it’s still cold here, isn’t it?”

Julius’s coat was specially made to withstand conditions on the dungeon’s twentieth floor. Curled up inside it, she had been wonderfully warm. So Karen opened it toward him.

“We’d be even warmer if we wrapped up together, Mr. Julius.”

Julius blinked lightly at her words, then smiled.

“Are you sure?”

“I wiped myself down more thoroughly than ever since we came into the dungeon.”

In doing so, she had discovered that she had no real frostbite anywhere on her body. No cracking, no splitting, no discoloration. Her body really did seem to be in the process of ascending a step.

Karen waited, rolling around contentedly, until Julius finished tidying up, got himself ready, and lay down beside her. Karen flung the coat over him with a swoosh and snuggled up against his shoulder.

Julius laughed softly and drew her close beneath the coat. Just as Karen had thought, being wrapped up together made it even warmer. She pressed her cheek against Julius’s chest without the slightest flutter of nerves, and the tension drained out of her body as a sense of comfort settled in. Julius spoke to her in a voice tinged with amusement:

“Even this close, your brain no longer melts. That’s somewhat lonely, I must say.”

Karen glanced up at his faint smile, then pressed her forehead to his chest.

“When I’m with someone, I get completely swept up in them right away. Like my brain has melted, and I can’t think about anything else. Everything I am starts to revolve around the other person. I used to call it being love-brained—but I think love actually had nothing to do with it.”

“Karen?”

“I hated living for my family, but I didn’t know how to live for myself, so I lived for whoever I was with instead. I was just running away from a life that wasn’t going the way I wanted it to.”

“…When in your life are you talking about?”

The Ehlertt Earldom had investigated Karen’s life history. Julius was well acquainted with the circumstances of her upbringing. That was why he could not understand when in her life Karen could have repeated such acts of escapism.

“My previous life.”

Karen murmured it with her eyes still closed.

“I have memories of a previous life.”

“…I see.”

Julius breathed the words as though something had clicked into place. He didn’t press her with questions or try to draw more out of her, and Karen was grateful for his quiet—without noticing, the breath she had been holding released itself.

Julius said nothing about her confession and spoke of something else instead:

“When I was small, I lived hidden away with my mother in a little house deep in a forest far from any town. But my father found us, and I was taken and left somewhere around here.”

Instead of answering, Karen reached beneath the coat for Julius’s shoulder, then traced down his arm until she found his hand—and gripped his long, cold fingers tight.

“I had no way to fight back then. I scraped together every ounce of strength I had and made it out of the dungeon, and that was where I was found and taken in. I went straight home, but my mother was gone—and in her place, my father had come to collect me, having heard that I had escaped the dungeon on my own. He intended to acknowledge me formally as his son, having seen the power I had shown.”

“…So something like that happened to you.”

“There may have been brothers and sisters of mine left in this same dungeon before me.”

Karen’s grip tightened on his fingers. Julius continued in a calm voice, undisturbed by her reaction:

“I never asked my father about it. But the way he abandoned me here felt practiced, so I thought that if I ever returned to this dungeon one day, I should make graves for them. Perhaps no one rests here at all, and this is merely my needless anxiety. Still, if you wouldn’t mind, would you pray for the souls of the brothers and sisters I may once have had?”

“…Leave it to me.”

The fact that Julius said it this way meant he almost certainly believed, deep down, that they had existed. For the children whose very existence was uncertain, for the young Julius who could easily have become one of them, Karen suppressed the sob threatening to escape.

Seeing Karen respond in a trembling voice, Julius held her gently with a soft smile.

“Now that I know previous lives and next lives truly exist, there is real meaning in praying to the goddess that their next lives be happy ones.”

Saying that, Julius gently stroked Karen’s hair as she began to cry in muffled, broken sounds. Eventually, after watching Karen drift to sleep with tears still falling, Julius wiped them away and quietly closed his own eyes as well.

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Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 294

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Four: Dealing with the Dragon 3

When Karen came to, she was lying outside the boss room on the tenth floor. She was wrapped not only in her own mantle but in a knight’s mantle as well. The scent that drifted to her nose told her whose it was before she even had to think about it—it was Julius’s—and Karen smiled to herself and buried herself deeper into the folds.

“If you’re awake, get to work, Karen.”

“…Okaaay.”

Called out by Licht, who was apparently somewhere nearby, Karen had no choice but to stir herself and start moving.

“Karen, you’re welcome to keep resting. Licht, please don’t force Karen to work after she lost consciousness.”

“Julius, she’s here as a party member, and she made a promise to do her part. I make it a principle to treat party members as equals regardless of rank.”

“Master Licht is right on this one, Mr. Julius. Please don’t worry on my account.”

“Karen…”

Karen sat up and shivered. The dungeon was as bitterly cold as ever. But thanks to the mantle Julius had draped over her and the campfire nearby, her teeth weren’t chattering.

It wasn’t only cold—simply existing in this place carried a faint, constant ache. If she stayed on this floor much longer, her body would begin to take damage again before long. But Karen pretended she was fine and got herself moving.

“What happened to Little Lumi?”

The riding dragon that had been tethered near the pillar on the tenth-floor side of the gate to the ninth floor was nowhere to be seen. Karen looked around, and Licht answered:

“She’s on the ninth floor now. The black dragon’s presence scared her half to death.”

“Since the two of you look unharmed… You already defeated it, right?”

The black dragon. An S-rank monster capable of speech. The fact that it could talk had left a small ache in her chest—but Karen pushed the feeling down and said it plainly, and Julius nodded.

“Yes. Its body is in the tenth-floor boss room. If there are any materials you need, we could collect them now while we have the chance.”

Karen’s eyes went wide.

“Why are you asking me about materials from a monster the two of you defeated?!”

“If you are a party member, distribution is only natural, Karen. Isn’t that right, Licht?”

“Well, when you put it that way, yeah.”

“But… really? Is that all right?”

Julius nodded with a bright smile, and even Licht shrugged and nodded along. Karen set up the alchemical cauldron over the fire and swiftly disposed of any lingering sympathy for the black dragon.

“I’d like as many parts as possible, please. A good variety.”

“For alchemical experiments, I assume. You may have my share as well, for your research.”

“That’s too much, Mr. Julius! Please keep your share for yourself!”

“Not at all. I had always intended to offer whatever I obtained at the hunting festival to you. So the materials from the wendigo—the tenth-floor boss I defeated alone—are entirely yours.”

“Oh my goodness…!”

Karen’s heart raced at the thought of all the things she might attempt with an enormous quantity of extraordinarily high-grade materials. Faced with this dreamlike situation, she had no room left to feel sorry for any monsters. The black dragon had tried to eat her at first, after all. It had even identified her as the weak point of the party and deliberately targeted her.

If Karen hadn’t had the presence of mind to negotiate with it, she might have had her heart stopped by that very first roar. Julius would probably have protected her from that—she had a feeling he would have—but she knew it instinctively: that roar hadn’t been directed at Karen. That was why she had only fainted. If it had been aimed solely at her, she had no idea what might have happened.

— When she returned to the surface, she would have to honor the deal she had made with the black dragon.

“I’m taking the black dragon’s spine, by the way!”

“What do you use a spine for?”

“I’m going to have it made into a sword. Dragon fangs are the famous choice for dragon swords, but a dwarf once told me that from the especially long vertebrae of the dorsal spine—only a handful of which can be taken from a single dragon—you can forge a truly exceptional blade.”

“Oh, interesting. I’d like one too, if I may—I want to make a sword for Mr. Julius.”

“If it’s for Julius, sure.”

“You needn’t bother on my account—”

“Yes, we do.”

“Yes, we do!”

Karen bumped her fist against Licht’s. When it came to Julius, they always seemed to be of the same mind. Julius sighed.

“I don’t wish you to be at odds with each other—but being too friendly doesn’t sit entirely well with me either.”

“The fact that you say something like that so honestly shows how much you’ve let your guard down around Master Licht. Honestly, I’m a little jealous.”

“I’m the one who feels awkward being stuck between the two of you!”

Licht shouted that and retreated to the ninth floor. Likely to go to the restroom.

“So we’ll wait for the knights to join us and then carry the black dragon and the wendigo back together?”

Once the monster in a boss room was defeated, the dungeon remained calm for a while. In particular, the boss room stayed safe until the boss revived, so the corpse could be left there for some time.

In the royal capital’s dungeon, when an adventurer defeated a boss on, say, the tenth floor, nearby adventurers would gather and help carry the body back together. But the deeper floors—the twentieth, the thirtieth—saw almost no adventurers, and the bosses tended to be massive, so even after a boss was defeated, it often couldn’t be retrieved immediately. The raid party would return to the surface first, celebrate, and then form a new party or clan to go back and retrieve the body.

The wendigo had been quite a large specimen, and the black dragon had been even larger. Even with Licht and Julius each carrying one, there would be limits. Julius nodded at Karen’s question.

“Yes. And before we head back, there’s something I want to do.”

“Something you want to do?”

“The truth is, I came here once as a child.”

Julius mentioned it with almost startling ease. It had never been a secret for him to begin with. Karen listened quietly.

“And so—”

“Hey, Lumi! I’m coming back this way, so if you want to stay with me, then you come over too!”

“Gyuruuuu…!”

Lumi, though still tethered to the tenth floor, had fled with only its body to the ninth floor and was biting onto Licht’s cloak; half of Licht’s body stuck out from the tenth-floor gate while only Lumi’s neck protruded from the other side. Watching the desperate tug-of-war between man and beast, Julius fell silent.

“I wonder what would happen to Master Licht’s body if the dungeon gate closed right at this moment.”

“Don’t think terrifying thoughts out loud!”

“Gyuru!”

Karen vented her frustration at having Julius’s story interrupted by unleashing a chain of frightening scenarios, all the while continuing to make her curry. Now that she looked closely, both Julius and Licht had equipment in terrible condition—their clothes were torn in places, as though bitten or slashed through. Licht in particular had quite a sizable hole blown clean through his midsection, and the unblemished skin visible beneath it was clearly the result of a healing potion.

Since both of them had already used their healing potions, Karen combined what little food she had on hand with solid roux and produced yet another new panacea for them.

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Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 293

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Three: Dealing with the Dragon 2

But Karen leaned out from between her protectors and cried out:

“If you can understand language, can we negotiate?!”

“Hey?!”

“Karen?!”

“You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?! What is it you want?! I’ll do my best to grant your wish! So can we talk—just for a moment—and see if we can make a deal?!—Gweh.”

“Are you out of your mind, trying to negotiate with a monster?!”

Licht had grabbed her by the scruff of her collar and yanked her back, and Karen choked.

“But S-rank monsters can be reasoned with…! I actually made a proper deal with the pegasus I mentioned before!”

And what’s more, the pegasus had been merciful. Karen had failed to fully honor that deal—she hadn’t been able to bring the perfect help the pegasus had wished for its foal—and yet the pegasus had forgiven her. Perhaps it had simply had no time left to punish her.

‘You… are not… a pegasus…?’

“Did you think I was a pegasus?”

The black dragon’s elongated pupils contracted several times as it fixed its eyes on Karen, her magical power no longer concealed, before it murmured:

‘You smelled… of a pegasus. I thought perhaps… you were the wretched remains… of a pegasus whose soul had been shattered to pieces… I believed that if I devoured a pegasus… it might help, even slightly…’

The realization that she had nearly been eaten sent a chill down Karen’s spine. It had been many days since she had parted from the pegasus’s foal, and apparently, the scent still clung to her body. Or perhaps it was a trace of magical residue.

“I’m just someone who knows a pegasus.”

‘I… see…’

With that murmur, the black dragon crumpled to the ground where it stood. Even as Julius took Karen from Licht’s hands, Karen kept her attention fixed entirely on the black dragon.

“Can we talk?”

‘…What is it that you want?’

“I want you to let me test whether my potions have any effect on your broken soul.”

Julius’s arms tightened around Karen as she leaned forward.

“I want to learn how to make potions that work on souls!”

It was a power she had only just, moments ago, begun to desperately want. And here, right before her eyes, was a monster whose soul was broken. Faced with a rare opportunity to test a potion, the fact that her potential trading partner happened to be a monster was a trivial detail.

‘Can you… make… the Philosopher’s Stone?’

“The Philosopher’s Stone…? Does that mean there’s no other magical remedy that can heal a soul?”

‘Correct…’

“What about a panacea? Can that not heal it?”

‘A panacea would not suffice… it may ease some of the physical suffering… but no more.’

Creating the Philosopher’s Stone was the ultimate goal of any alchemist. She had vaguely thought that someday, she would like to make one. She had genuinely meant to try. But she had never felt any real confidence that she actually could. She didn’t even know the materials, let alone how to begin. She had no idea at all where to start.

In her previous life, she recalled reading in a book that the Philosopher’s Stone was thought to be made from sulfur and mercury. According to the alchemical theories of her previous life, all substances were composed of sulfur and mercury, and both could be extracted from any material.

Burning, sublimating, melting, crystallizing, distilling… after painstakingly extracting ideal sulfur and mercury from matter, they would place them into a flask. They would combine them, allow them to decay, regenerate them, and then heat the mixture.

—But mercury was poison, never mind the sulfur.

No amount of manipulation of such a substance could ever produce something capable of curing every ailment known to exist. That much lay entirely outside the realm of Karen’s understanding. And yet, if Julius ever broke his own soul, Karen would have no choice but to make the Philosopher’s Stone.

Karen turned to look at Julius with eyes clouded by fear of a future she couldn’t yet see—when the black dragon pulled her attention back.

‘You said… you would hear… my wish.’

“…Yes. May I ask what it is?”

The arms holding Karen went rigid. She heard Licht draw a sharp breath. Both of them were bracing for the negotiation to fall apart. Karen held her breath as well and waited for the black dragon’s demand.

‘Something… that should not have been born has been born… It must be killed.’

“Something that should not have been born?”

Karen frowned. It was a phrase she had heard more than once during this hunting festival, when she had approached nobles about taking in children without magical power. The nobles’ compassion for such children had been thin and hollow. The nuance was slightly different, but more than one or two nobles had spoken in a way that suggested those children would have been better off never being born.

Yet what followed in the black dragon’s words carried something a little different from what those nobles had meant.

‘Yes. Before it hatches, if possible… If it has already hatched, how pitiable.’

“Pitiable?”

The monster’s words were not exactly sound—not something truly heard with the ears. They were thoughts, conveyed directly. And so Karen could feel with certainty that the black dragon felt genuine pity.

‘Twisted together into a mess… left to rot… unable to die… forced to regenerate… pitiable, so pitiable… it should never have been born… once it is born, it cannot be allowed to live… the poor thing… all of it is wrong… all of it is wrong…!’

The black dragon let out a roar. A long, long roar, filled to the brim with grief.

‘To die in battle is more than I could have hoped for… but there are things we must do…!’

Julius and Licht raised their swords and stepped forward. Both of them intended to cut the black dragon down here and now.

It was likely that if they didn’t, the massive opening torn open by a monster of this power would allow other monsters to pour through as well. Before anyone noticed, hordes of monsters had gathered beyond the dungeon gate leading to the eleventh layer.

‘Our march… is the will of the goddess… Even so, will you still stand against us, humans…!?’

These monsters were destroying their own souls and crossing floors, ascending toward the surface, in order to kill something that should never have been born. That was the cause of this Great Collapse Stampede. The black dragon said it was the goddess’s wish. There was no reason for this monster to lie—and it was almost certainly the truth.

“You must have grown quite feeble indeed if you think you can best us, Black Dragon.”

“We happen to be among the strongest of humans!”

“Excuse me!”

Karen raised her voice loudly, cutting through the tension that had built between both sides. Both turned to look at her with puzzled expressions.

“Mr. Black Dragon—this thing you say should not have been born, it isn’t human, is it? You said ‘hatch,’ which means it’s a monster or an animal…”

‘A monster.’

“Then if you lose here, I’ll take over your task, so please tell me the details.”

“Come on now, are you really being this considerate to a monster we’re about to fight to the death?”

Licht looked exasperated, but Karen continued:

“Because something is trying to be born on the surface, right? I don’t know why it’s a problem for monsters, but it would be a problem for humans too if a monster were born, so if you tell me the details, I’ll take care of it in your place.”

Karen made the promise to the black dragon and presented the deal with a smile.

“So please, don’t attack me.”

‘Hmm… you are clearly their weak point… I had intended to target you… but very well.’

The black dragon accepted Karen’s terms.

“Is there anything distinctive about the egg?”

‘Most likely… white.’

“A white egg.”

‘And… it has no magical power.’

“No magical power?”

Karen’s eyes went wide. She had never heard of a monster with no magical power. By definition, a monster was a beast that had been corrupted by magical power.

“Um, if it were releasing large amounts of magical power, there are magical tools that can detect that, so I think I could find it—but how would I find an egg with no magical power at all?”

‘The monsters on the surface… are also trying to kill it… Go to the place that humans have blocked… the place the monsters can’t reach.’

The black dragon fixed its gaze steadily on Karen, and she flinched.

‘Your name?’

“…Karen.”

‘Karen.’

The dragon’s golden eyes narrowed.

‘You look as though you could find it… Thanks to you, I may finally die as I should…!’

The roar the black dragon let out in the next instant was the true measure of an S-rank monster’s worth. From that single roar alone Karen felt as though her very soul—not merely her body—had been struck and shaken to its core, and she lost consciousness instantly.

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