Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 300

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Chapter Three Hundred: The Goddess’s Stairway 2

“Karen… what is it you’re holding?”

At Julius’s question, Karen startled and looked at him.

“You can’t see it?”

“I can… see something, I think. But it’s blurry—I can’t quite focus on it…”

“I see. So it’s hard to focus on it. Maybe that’s why no one found it—it’s difficult for ordinary people to see.”

There had been a time when Julius was left behind by Karen. He hadn’t been able to follow her as she moved toward a zero-magical-power zone. But now Julius knew how to follow Karen wherever she went.

Karen’s expression shifted to one of alarm as the realization clicked.

“Julius, there’s absolutely no need to break your soul just to see it—it’s just an egg! A tiny egg! The kind that looks like a chick small enough to fit in your palm would hatch from it!”

“Is it dangerous?”

“I don’t think it’s dangerous.—But it’s wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“It feels like everything about it is wrong. Beyond having no magical power—it’s almost like it has negative magical power? It’s unnatural, impossible, and yet it’s here.”

The white egg was perfectly round and white and beautiful, and yet something about it was twisted, tangled, and deeply warped.

“A zero-magical-power zone just had no magical power—but this is different. It’s deeply unsettling, and somehow… I think I understand why monsters want to destroy it—”

At that moment, cutting Karen’s words short, a scream rang out from beyond the tent. A moment later, the guard knight came rushing inside.

“Monsters are attacking again—more of them than before! They appear to be heading this way! Both of you, please evacuate immediately!”

Outside the tent, screams broke out in waves. They were probably the voices of commoner merchants and servants with no means to protect themselves. Casualties might be mounting even as Karen stood here. She understood that the monsters were converging here because of this egg. Which meant she had to destroy it.

“Karen, this egg has to be killed, correct? Let me do it.”

“You can’t even see it clearly, Julius. Besides, I’ve defeated weak slimes before, and I’ve even wrung a chicken’s neck, so I’ll be fine.”

Still, this was different from fighting back against something that attacked her, or killing for food. This was her first time killing something for any other reason, and Karen swallowed.

It was different from ambushing a monster with magic or arrows. The shell containing the unborn creature looked so thin that even Karen could easily crush it.

“Karen?”

“I’m fine.”

Fortunately, her gloves prevented her from feeling anything. Karen took a deep breath and crushed the egg in her grip.

“—Pii.”

A cry came from inside her closed hand, and with a sharp intake of breath, Karen opened her palm. In her hand lay the broken eggshell and a tiny, tiny monster hatchling.

It was a hatchling of some kind of pure white monster. A small bird-type monster, wrapped in fluffy white down. Whether the hatchling was sturdy or Karen’s grip had simply been too weak, it showed no visible injuries.

The chick opened its pure-white eyes wide and tried to chirp again. Its white beak opened, its white tongue trembled—but no sound emerged, and it went still in Karen’s palm.

Tears spilled from Karen’s eyes.

“Karen, are you all right? Perhaps if you had left it to me after all—”

“No. These tears aren’t because killing it was painful.”

Julius stared in surprise. Karen wept as she gently cupped the hatchling in both hands.

“What’s heartbreaking is that it was made to hatch at all…!”

“Made to hatch is heartbreaking…?”

“It’s a monster, but it has no magical power. That’s impossible for a monster—it shouldn’t even be able to exist. Yes, even the black dragon said the egg had no magical power, so I knew that from the start—but this little one must have been in so much pain.”

For something that should not exist, this world was a cruelly painful place. Surely this hatchling had suffered from the very moment it was laid as an egg—far more than Karen, who, for example, would have appeared on the fiftieth floor without a shred of magical power. Because it was far too wrong as a monster.

“I should have gotten here sooner.”

Karen held the hatchling to her chest—the pitiful hatchling that had only been able to die once its shell was broken. Julius gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Whatever it is you have come to understand, you have done nothing wrong. Isn’t that right?”

Karen nodded with tears still in her eyes. She could feel the magical power beginning to surge within her body clearly now. The black dragon had, through its own intent, forced upon Karen an understanding of the truth of monsters—and she was on the verge of ascending a step. But it felt different from all the times she had ascended before.

“Ugh.”

“Karen, what’s wrong?”

Julius supported Karen as she bent double, pressing her hand to her mouth.

“…I feel… sick, maybe. This is different from all the other times I’ve ascended.”

“If this is not a curse, what is it?”

“Yeah, honestly, maybe this is the black dragon’s revenge on humans?”

Julius ground his back teeth as Karen went pale.

“…Why did it have to be you, Karen? It could have let me understand instead.”

“I think… understanding the absence of magical power was necessary. Maybe it couldn’t make you understand that… which is why it said I would be able to find it.”

Assaulted by a nausea that resembled euphoria but was nothing like it—more like being drunk—Karen’s head began to spin.

“No matter what grudge it held against humans, to do this to you after you offered to help—”

“It’s all right, Julius.”

“Karen, you are far too kind-hearted.”

Julius fixed her with sharp eyes.

“I love your gentleness, Karen. But I cannot accept the way you sacrifice yourself for others—even for monsters. If at least it were for your own sake—”

“It is for my sake, Julius.”

Karen smiled despite the cold sweat breaking across her skin. Julius looked down at her with an expression of complete surprise.

“Karen…?”

“Thanks to this, I’ve figured something out. I’d been half-aware of it for a while, actually. Whoever ruined Weiss… that baby pegasus and this little bird… they’re trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone.”

By blackening monsters into decay, or by purifying all of their magical power until they were bleached pure white. The process was somehow similar to what Karen had learned about making the Philosopher’s Stone in her previous life.

Tormented by nausea that felt like the worst hangover imaginable, drenched in cold sweat, she set aside the suffering of her body, and her tearful eyes lit up with brilliant light.

“But the method is wrong!”

The air itself trembled, as if in answer to Karen’s understanding.

“It’s wrong—and the understanding the black dragon gave me made me realize it…!”

Particles of rainbow-colored light poured down from the sky, passing through the tent and showering down onto Karen. Immediately, her pain began to ease—as if the black dragon’s curse were being painted over by the goddess’s blessing.

A band of light pierced through the tent like a stairway sent down by the goddess for a soul in need of salvation. So that the small bird resting in Karen’s hands could reach the stairway, Karen gently raised her hands.

“I’m sorry. And thank you… You helped me understand. Even as a B-rank alchemist, no matter how much I researched, I couldn’t figure it out—but now I have a glimpse of how to make the Philosopher’s Stone—”

When the particles of light touched it, the little bird monster hatchling seemed to take on a peaceful expression, as though its pain had eased, and Karen felt a wave of relief and smiled—then collapsed where she stood.

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Alchemist Karen No Longer Compromises, Chapter 299

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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Nine: The Goddess’s Stairway

“Master Julius, the anti-monster defensive line is over in that direction—”

“I have something to attend to. Wait a while.”

“Yes, sir!”

Watched by puzzled knights who had no idea what was happening, Karen and Julius moved in a single direction. Julius carried Karen in his arms and headed where she pointed.

“Karen, what exactly are you sensing?”

“Magical power, I think.”

“Magical power?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but… there’s something over there that I can’t stop thinking about. I think the monsters are heading toward it.”

Julius looked at the swirling currents of magical power churning in Karen’s eyes as she lay in his arms, and narrowed his own.

“I see. The black dragon may have used its own life to raise your step on the Stairway—so that you would be able to find something.”

“You mean a monster decided how I ascend the step?”

“That is how I sometimes feel about it. Though I wouldn’t say so in front of a priest.”

Karen frowned at something ominous in that, and Julius smiled to reassure her.

“The idea that a monster might be interfering with the goddess’s designs is something priests simply cannot accept. To them, monsters are nothing more than beasts used as instruments of divine trial. They also take poorly to the notion that some monsters possess enough intelligence for meaningful conversation, even though it is simply a fact.”

Karen pressed her lips tightly together. She had no intention of making enemies of the temples, so it seemed wise not to mention her negotiations with the pegasus or the black dragon outside trusted company.

“The Bloodline Blessing—some say it carries even the hatred of the monsters that were defeated—and yet it is still framed as nothing but a divine blessing.”

Julius gave a self-deprecating smile.

“If this dreadful power that runs through the bloodline were not steeped in monsters’ hatred, what else could it be?”

“I don’t think monsters hate the people who defeated them, though?”

Karen hadn’t noticed Julius’s twisted smile and said it plainly, as one might state a simple fact.

“Monsters seem to want to die for some reason. Not just to die, either—they seem to want to die properly. It’s strange, isn’t it? But when I think of it as just how monsters are, it makes a kind of sense. They don’t feel like they hate people. They don’t seem to enjoy killing. And yet they attack even when they’re not hungry… I think they attack people because they want to die, because they want to be defeated. That’s what dying properly means to them.”

A smile had spread across Karen’s face as she talked. Different from wild beasts, different from hungry predators—they were frightening creatures who attacked people for some other reason entirely. Deepening her understanding of such creatures fascinated her endlessly.

Julius looked down at her animated expression and asked:

“If monsters feel no hatred, then why would a powerful monster leave behind a blessing that persists for generations?”

“Maybe it’s their way of saying—thank you for finishing me off?”

Karen said it with eyes that shone with gratitude, as though she had stepped inside the mind of a monster herself. Julius let out a soft laugh.

“If you say so, then I’m sure that’s true.”

“Oh—I was being rather offhand about it, so please don’t take it too seriously.”

Until now, Julius had been certain that someone harbored hatred toward him. That was why he had believed himself to be suffering—and that escaping that suffering required relentless, desperate effort without the slightest lapse. But if Karen said so, then no one hated Julius at all. Whether or not it was true, Julius had decided to believe it—and in the shelter of his arms, Karen flustered for a moment before looking somewhat repentant.

“I’m a B-rank alchemist now, so I really should try not to say offhand things so often… oh.”

The moment Karen gave a small cry of realization, Julius stopped walking.

“Is it somewhere around here, Karen?”

“Yes.”

Driven by curiosity, Karen wanted to get down from Julius’s arms. He lowered her slowly, as though reluctant to let go.

A number of tents stood in a row. These were tents left behind when people had fled at the news that a Great Collapse might be coming. A few people had trickled back and returned to some of them. One or two had guards posted outside. Karen walked toward one of those tents.

An Ehlertt knight stood watch before the one Karen approached.

“Master Julius—and Lady Karen. What brings you here?”

“Please let us in.”

“But this place is—”

“It is on behalf of the Ehlertt Earldom. Let her through.”

The knight who had moved to block Karen’s entry gave Julius a puzzled look, but stepped aside. Karen went in, and Julius followed—and immediately frowned.

“…A morgue, is it? Are you all right, Karen?”

“I’m fine. It’s cold enough that nothing has started to rot at least…”

She answered in a somewhat absent tone and drifted forward into the tent. The bodies of the commoners who had died during the hunting festival lay in a row. Karen stopped in front of one of them and crouched down, studying it intently.

Probably a commoner merchant of some kind. The clothing was prosperous-looking—but on closer inspection, the hands were rough in a way that didn’t match the outfit at all. After a moment, Karen rummaged through the pouch at the corpse’s waist.

From the pouch she withdrew a red medallion and a white egg, small enough to fit in her palm. Aside from the faint glow it gave off, it looked almost exactly like a chicken’s egg from her previous life.

“That medallion—is it a scarletite alloy? May I see it?”

Karen nodded and handed the red medallion to Julius.

“—A hammer and a sword. The crest of House Court, the viscount’s family.”

“House Court?”

“The family crest of the man who commanded the third unit that dove into the dungeon with you.”

“Sir Alban’s unit?—Ah, I see. It’s evidence planted to frame him.”

Now that she thought about it, he had mentioned being targeted with false accusations more than once. Karen understood, and promptly lost all interest in the medallion.

Every bit of her attention had turned to the egg.

The Translator’s Note

As there is no plural form in Japanese, it is sometimes difficult to translate certain parts. It became clear from this chapter that there were several commoners who had died, not just one.

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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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