Fortuna Explorer

~At the same time, in the adventure city Agatra, at a terrace seat in the open-air market of the commercial district~

“Here you go, Princess. Sorry for the wait.”

“Wow, hehe, thank you, Wis.”

A leather water bag was offered by Wis.

Fortuna accepted the brown bag, made from the hide of an aquatic monster with excellent water resistance, with a smile.

With a heavy thump, Wis sat down at one of the open terrace seats in a corner of the open-air market.

The combination of a mysterious beauty with green hair, somehow noble air, and innocent town-girl cheerfulness, together with a rough, flashy-looking man, naturally drew the attention of those around them.

“Mm, this wine’s good. It’s diluted with water, same as in the Kingdom, but even so, the flavor’s completely different.”

“Mm, this rich Grep aroma clinging from the nose to the throat. The reason it has been finished into such a clear taste must surely be because the Empire’s water is very delicious. Snowmelt flowing from the Hinaya Mountains, water polished through complex strata over thousands of years, and the legacy of the water dragon. Wonderful.”

Fortuna’s slender throat gulped lightly. Holding a hand to her cheek and making her star-shaped irises shine, she praised the wine.

The two casually enjoyed wine diluted with water, which they had gotten poured into the leather drinking bag at a stall.

“Strata? What the hell’s that?”

“My, you lack study, Wis. When we have time later, I shall give you a lesson.”

“Don’t need it. If something tastes good, ending it at ‘it tastes good’ is enough. Thinking about unnecessary stuff is tiring.”

“My, what a shame. You have good natural intelligence, so I think you would grow more and more if you studied.”

“Don’t need it. I can tell the difference between what I need and what I don’t. Strength doesn’t need wisdom. …If the sword of the king of this world gained unnecessary wisdom, the king might come to fear the sword, right?”

Wis leaned his large back against the chair’s backrest. His sharp red eyes reflected Fortuna’s amber eyes sitting across from him.

“Ahaha. I do not know who you are talking about, but if it is the king of the world, they would not say such a small thing. Ah, but this wine really is delicious. I shall request a refill later.”

“Don’t waste too much travel money. The procedures for the Kingdom’s puppets still aren’t finished.”

“Mm, it was an unexpected stroke of fortune that some of the gifts from her included things leaked from the Magic Academy, but well, they are difficult to handle. Those dolls were made from Father and Mother as materials… They are very hard to handle.”

Pure. Fortuna spun her words in the tone of a young child talking about something fun.

She no longer had any standard of good or evil. She had abandoned and broken it herself.

“Ah, even considering cost performance, it’s questionable. You need thirty stray magicians from the Dragon Cult and one hundred talented believers as magical power furnaces just to move two dolls with free will. Apparently the legendary All-Knowing Dragon could move no fewer than a thousand of them at once, though.”

“Well, but we must use what can be used. Hehe, I am proud. Father and Mother, as expected of royalty, never yielded until the very end and carried through the pride of the royal family. From now on, they shall continue working as our dolls.”

Second Princess Fortuna’s destruction of the nation had been accomplished in an almost perfect form.

The public cover story had also already been spread, and the royal family had fallen completely into her hands.

“You’re a terrifying woman as always. Turning your blood relatives into your own literal dolls.”

Contrary to his words, Wis murmured without deep emotion.

The individual who had slaughtered most of the Kingdom’s forces that had obstructed Fortuna’s destruction of the nation, putting his own actions aside, whistled at his master.

“I wanted dolls of Elder Brother and Sister-in-law too, you know? But their damage was too severe, so they unfortunately had to be cremated. I do hope they properly reached the angels’ side.”

“Ugh, that’s seriously off-putting…”

“And if I were to speak greedily, I would have wanted Elder Sister too… Ah, no, she is better left alone after all. If I tried to use her half-heartedly, it would not be strange if she overturned the board. Even if she became a doll, it would not be strange if she regained at least her ego.”

Fortuna laughed softly. She thought of the time she had spent with her eldest sister, the first princess, who had been the greatest obstacle in her destruction of the nation.

Ah, it had been fun. Fortuna thought of the moment she overcame the symbol of her young golden age and swung her sword down at the neck of her crawling eldest sister.

Her eldest sister’s gaze had been overflowing with the power to live without giving up anything until that very last moment. It had been terrifying enough to make her tremble, and beautiful.

But even that chosen strength had knelt before her luck.

“Ah, that scary sister, huh. I get that. That old man was strong too.”

Wis also reminisced. That old knight serving the eldest sister had been strong.

An ancient old knight said to have lived since the Great War. Apparently, in the past, he had run through the Great War period with dragons and “ogres” as friends.

A strong knight loved by many Drifting Dragon Objects gathered from the depths of the Jiyamaya Sea of Trees. The strength of that old man’s arms had been more splendid than the Kingdom’s army.

The princess and hero who had ended the Kingdom. Each thought of their own trial, their own strong enemy.

It was something arrogant, allowed only to victors, and somehow resembled nostalgia.

“…Hmm. Unfortunately, rumors of a coup and rumors of civil war will likely have reached the sharp-eared Empire. The Empire’s politics also will not be simple. If Father and Mother’s dolls work properly, then I believe we can be formally accepted as envoys of the Kingdom by the very last moment before the Dragon Festival begins…”

Along with her emotion, she wove schemes.

She tested her own luck. For that reason alone, she continued violating the world.

“Well, let’s keep quiet until then. Hey, I’m telling you, don’t go poking at the Dragon Slayer or the dragon until then.”

Wis pouted. Though he understood that worrying over his master’s free-spiritedness was the true work of a retainer, he did not seem to have given up on admonishing her.

“Ehh, am I not allowed? I wish to speak with that person much, much more.”

“No. You’re. Not. Don’t drag me into your insane moves. Damn it, the reason we’re still in one piece and casually eating market snacks like this is just a dragon’s whim. Do you understand that?”

While moistening his mouth with wine, Wis’s gaze sharpened.

His eyes were fierce enough that an ordinary soldier might lose the will to fight just from that gaze, but his lord was completely unbothered.

She hid her fluffy amber eyes behind beautiful double eyelids and smiled.

“Ahaha, of course, of course. Hey, Wis.”

“What is it, stupid princess?”

“From your perspective, how was she, the Hoarding Dragon?”

The wind stopped.

Amber eyes, inhuman eyes that carried madness without even showing it in a yawn, reflected the hero.

The eyes of the woman who had once made the hero who tried to become the king of the world abandon the path of conquest had not changed at all from long ago.

“—Can I say it honestly?”

“Yes, with your frank opinion.”

At the princess’s words, the hero laughed.

“What. The. Hell. Was. That?”

His voice sounded stunned.

“…………”

“It was different from what I’d heard. The anecdotes about dragons that anyone in this world knows, and the legends of dragons passed down in my family. Dragons, creatures of a higher rank than humans. Among them, that Hoarding Dragon is a legend among legends, a descendant of the Flame Dragon and Water Dragon, right? And yet, what the hell was that?”

The hero spoke of the dragon.

An extraordinary life-form he had heard of since childhood. An existence that had been in this world since an era far, far older than the ancient Great War, from the civilization before people supposedly reached for the stars.

Those who ruled the great sky, controlled fire, called water, brought knowledge, and governed the balance of the world.

Dragons.

They were supposed to be endlessly free, arrogant, and the embodiment of irrationality.

“—She was like just another human. I was shocked.”

“Heeh.”

But the dragon the hero had glimpsed earlier was different from that knowledge.

“Certainly, her power and presence were on another level. If she’d felt like it, we might’ve died.”

Wis’s rugged warrior’s hand tightened around the leather bag filled with wine.

“But that didn’t happen. You get it? Even though she’s a dragon, she let us go. At the very least, she let us go even though we were unpleasant existences to her. Do you get what that means?”

“Hehe, who knows?”

“She’s sane. That dragon might be someone within our common sense.”

Wis gulped down the wine in large mouthfuls, as if he would drain it all in one go.

“Geh. If she’s sane, if she’s just an existence that’s merely strong, then there are any number of ways to deal with her. Like with your elder brother…”

Gulp.

He simply tilted the leather bag and drank the wine poured inside. His rough, crude gestures suited him like a painting.

“Ah, Elder Brother. Certainly, if it had been a frontal match, he would have been able to fight you properly. Hehehe, even now when I remember it, it was fun.”

Fortuna lowered her face and shook her shoulders. The reason for that trembling was absolutely not remorse or regret.

“I don’t care about your bad-taste memories. Anyway, the dragon was more sane than expected. If she had been the Hoarding Dragon we had predicted in advance from documents and reports, we probably would have died there.”

“Heeh.”

“Don’t ‘heeh’ me. You could’ve been burned to ash.”

Wis pouted at the carefree Fortuna.

“But that did not happen.”

Fortuna’s words reached Wis in the market bustle as though seeping into him.

“—”

“I became certain as well. ‘Fortunately,’ the dragon is surely changing now… Yes, truly, she is completely different from the past.”

“Huh? The past? What are you talking about?”

“Eh? Did I say something just now?”

The woman laughed, laughed.

Her cheerful, smiling face was that of a town girl who had obtained ingredients sold cheaply at the market.

But one eye alone was open, colored by a star-shaped iris, and it was different. It was a horrifying eye where nobility and madness had been boiled down thickly.

“Changing, huh?”

“My, did you not understand, Wis? Hehe, you truly do not understand a woman’s heart. Come now, recall it. To begin with, why did the dragon let us go?”

“Huh? Ah… That guy, huh.”

Following Fortuna’s hint, Wis realized.

He realized the reason the dragon had let them go.

“Hehe, yes, yes, that is right, Wis. Did you hear it? You did, did you not? ‘Stop, Drako.’ He stopped the dragon. Fu, fu, fufufufufufu. What is that man, really? He—”

“The Dragon Slayer.”

“…Certainly, that guy stopped the dragon. It was so shocking it somehow slipped out of my head.”

“Yes, it surprised me, but we saw it. The dragon let us go exactly as he said. In other words, the dragon respected him, a single human.”

Fu, fufufufufufu.

Fortuna laughed, unable to help finding it amusing.

“Hey, Wis, my sword, my strength, my hero. From your perspective, what kind of existence was that Dragon Slayer?”

The princess asked the hero.

She asked about the slave who had accomplished the great feat of killing a dragon, a feat normally permitted only to heroes.

She asked about the man who was beginning to violate the dragon’s way of being.

“Can I say it honestly?”

“Yes.”

“—Gyahaha. What. The. Hell. Was. That? Creepy.”

Contrary to his words, Wis curled his lips upward and made a savage grin.

“That thing is no good. He’s a bad type. My bad feeling was right. I saw him and became certain. That thing is the kind you must not get involved with.”

No good, he said, but his red eyes, like a blazing sunset, shone brilliantly.

“—Heeh, Wis. He is a human who makes you say that much?”

“…In terms of simple strength, honestly, well, at best he’s the upper layer of second-rate. He doesn’t reach first-rate. But he’s creepy.”

“What do you mean by creepy?”

“…Did you feel nothing? When I talked with that guy, I felt it. As if something inside him was… Ah, yeah. At the same time I was being looked at by him, I felt like I was being peeked at by something else too. Gyahaha, seriously, he’s creepy.”

A descendant of the hero who betrayed the Hero, one loved by countless talents of war, and one of the transcendent ones, Wis evaluated the Dragon Slayer.

Creepy.

Other than the Dragon Slayer, there had only ever been one man he had evaluated that way. The strongest enemy who had made Wis imagine death the most: the first princess’s old knight.

All sorts of Drifting Dragon Objects and grave goods, otherworldly items of power that, originally, only chosen people were allowed to wield one of.

Wis felt the same sensation from the Dragon Slayer as from that extraordinary old transcendent one who had treated such things as disposable.

“My, my, Wis. Did your occult switch turn on? Could it be that you are getting scared?”

“Shut up, octopus. Listen seriously. …This damn helm reacted to him.”

“My, is that true? That ‘cursed item’ should only react to people of your family line, should it not?”

“Gyahaha, yeah, it should’ve. But maybe, just maybe, it might be possible.”

Wis looked at the thing wrapped around his belt.

An old, rusted bucket-shaped knight’s helm. In the holes of its hollowed-out eye sockets, a small abyss that could not be seen through gaped open.

The “cursed item” handed down in Wis’s family since ancient times, which had dangled from the waists of successive family heads across the ages, existed quietly there.

“Ahaha, you are starting to make a good face, Hero. Will you help me this time as well?”

“Yeah, same as always. You break things, and I break things too. Truth is, I didn’t want to get involved with that Dragon Slayer, but if there’s a chance I can push this damn bucket helm onto him, that’s a different story.”

A cursed item, a troublesome object that continued sucking vitality simply by being held.

It forced unquestionable bindings on Wis. Even if he threw it away, even if he threw it away again, before he knew it, it appeared before him: a cursed item.

It would not come off Wis’s body.

“My, Wis? Are you becoming a little enthusiastic?”

“Gyahaha.”

But that curse could be forced onto someone else.

A curse that possessed the hero’s bloodline and had robbed its power for generations had reacted to another person for the first time in several hundred years.

Wis bared his teeth and laughed.

“Ah, should we really do it? A test of luck with the dragon. Honestly, at first I thought this time I’d definitely die here, but unexpectedly, there might be a chance to win.”

There are many uncertain factors, though. Wis muttered that, and Fortuna ignored it with a fixed smile.

She did not hear inconvenient words. That was the kind of person she was.

“Ahaha, let us do that, Wis. Fortunately, none other than the Dragon Slayer has proven that the dragon has lowered her rank and is now an existence reachable by the hands of we humans.”

The sky was high and blue.

The amusing pair exchanged words happily.

“Let us test it. How far can my luck, this luck alone, go?”

Her reason was simple. She simply wanted to test it, to know. Whether her own luck was real.

Whether there was anything in this world more valuable and genuine than her own luck—

“Ah, I am getting excited. Ahaha, a test of luck with Dragon-sama. Now, this time, this time for sure, will I finally lose?”

“Yeah, you’re creepy too.”

Wis gazed at her mad eyes. He gazed at them with amusement.

At the same time, he listened to footsteps clearly approaching them.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, brother and sister, whose permission did you get to sit in that seat?”

“My.”

A crude voice, spittle flying.

The baptism appeared equally for everyone.

For the man who had come from a different world, for the unfortunate woman chased from her country who had come with hope beside her weak retainer, and equally for the princess and hero who had brought down a kingdom.

The baptism of the adventure city came.

“Oh! Super beautiful! Green hair, that’s rare!”

“Hey, sister, that seat there is one we always use. What are you doing using it without permission?”

“Whoa, isn’t this crazy? Huh? What? Are you picking a fight with us?”

Grinning faces, shallow composure born from the advantage of numbers.

Five armed men, adventurers, showed interest in the princess and hero with smirking faces.

“……………”

“……………♪”

Wis and Fortuna exchanged words with only their gazes.

What do we do?

I am interested.

With only their eyes, that intent was exchanged.

“My, I apologize. It is my first time visiting an adventure city. Might you be adventurers?”

Fortuna smiled. She lavishly turned her noble blood and beauty toward the adventurers.

“Oh? You’re seriously beautiful when you smile. Hm? Hey, doesn’t this woman kind of look like someone? Hey, Gald!”

Like starving stray dogs with meat dangled before their eyes.

The adventurers, not even trying to hide their vulgar desires, stared at Fortuna from her face to her body as though licking her all over.

They had tasted this before.

They knew the pleasure of preying on strangers they did not recognize, on the weak and isolated in this city where people gathered.

Just recently, too—

“Oh? Ah, ah! She does, she does look like her! That green-haired country woman we played with the other day!”

One large man peered into Fortuna’s face and curled his lips ugly as he laughed.

“Heeh.”

Her amber, star-shaped irises shook greatly for just an instant. Like a large stone thrown into the surface of water.

The temperature of the air around Fortuna dropped. Only Wis noticed that.

“What? A young lady from a good family and her escort? Must be nice, huh? Hey, sister and brother, since you came all the way to the adventure city, how about we guide you around?”

He was a large man close to two meters tall. He spoke while spewing booze-reeking breath from his filthy stomach.

“That’s what they say, Princess.”

Wis asked Fortuna while finishing his appraisal of the adventurers out of the corner of his eye.

Whatever happens, I can do whatever I want. That was the hero’s judgment.

“Mm, in that case, since we have the chance, perhaps I shall ask you.”

Fortuna touched a finger to her shapely chin and tilted her head.

Only Wis noticed. The princess’s eyes resembled a cat assessing its prey.

“Oh, you’re cooperative. Hi, hihihihi. Hey, the man over there isn’t invited. If you don’t want to get hurt, leave this sister here and get lost.”

The large man called Gald raised his voice at Wis.

A huge body and a small brain.

Without judging the other person’s ability, he looked down on him simply because his body was smaller than his own.

Only a few days ago, after tangling with a certain black-haired adventurer and a Lizardonian, and nearly having his neck stomped broken, he had completely forgotten it after venting in the pleasure district.

In his head, all that remained was how good the green-haired country woman he had toyed with using the same method several months ago had been, and the excitement of twisting the neck of the man with her and throwing him in the trash.

“That’s what they say. What’ll you do, Princess?”

“Wis, please go take a walk nearby. I have things I wish to ask these people.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Wis readily left his seat. After glancing once at the adventurers, he walked away from that place.

“Oh? Hehe, smart guy. The man with that green-haired woman last time had the nerve to resist, though.”

“Hyahaha, this time we don’t have to deal with the corpse of a man whose neck got snapped.”

“Deal with it? We only threw it in a trash can. Trash belongs in the trash can, right?”

The adventurers laughed from the bottom of their bellies.

The surroundings began to stir noisily, but no one offered a hand.

Adventure city. To live here, one needed strength, the strength to brush off sparks with one’s own power rather than relying on others.

Everyone without that strength met a miserable end.

“Well then, sister, we’ll guide you somewhere good. The man’s gone now too. Hihihi. You’ll come with us, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

Grinning, snickering, laughing.

Amid gazes of desire, Fortuna stood and walked together with the adventurers as they surrounded her.

Their destination was the darkness, the back alley.

Fortuna also stepped into the darkness of this city, where light and help did not reach, where the tears and blood of countless people swallowed by the adventure city had soaked in.

“Adventurer-sama, about that green-haired country woman you mentioned earlier?”

“Huh? A woman who looked a lot like you. A gloomy woman who looked unlucky, and she had the nerve to come to the Guild with a man, saying she wanted to become an adventurer. A stupid woman.”

Click, click, click.

The sound of footsteps walking over stone pavement. One of the adventurers answered Fortuna’s words.

“Ahaha, I see. What are those people doing now?”

“Ahyahyahya!! Who knows? At least the man who was with her is probably underground, melting into mush in an unmarked cemetery, right? As for the woman… Well, we tossed her aside after playing with her however we wanted, so I dunno.”

“If she’s still alive by now, maybe she’s standing around in the slums. This city isn’t so soft that outsiders can live that easily.”

“Or maybe she was used in a hunt that was practically population reduction and became monster feed outside the city. Man, what a waste. That woman’s body was pretty damn good.”

In the darkness, the adventurers laughed. Surrounding their prey, they heated their bodies with anticipation of the pleasures to come.

They knew the dark pleasure of tormenting the weak with violence.

“My, what terrible people you are. Could it be that I too will be turned into your toy, like that countryside-smelling unfortunate woman?”

“—Hihi. That depends on your attitude.”

Bam!

Suddenly, the large man called Gald grabbed Fortuna’s slender shoulder and slammed her against the stone wall.

Fortuna, whose back had struck hard, coughed and squeezed air from her lungs.

“Cough— My? Were you not going to guide me? Hehehe, it seems I was deceived.”

Without showing even a trace of the pain in her back, Fortuna smiled.

“Shut up. You knew, didn’t you? You followed us all the way here. Were you inviting us? Hm?”

His eyes glittered, no longer even trying to hide his desire.

Gald grew excited, licked his thick lips, and brought his face close to Fortuna.

“Well, if you entertain us, things won’t get too bad.”

“That flashy-looking escort ran off right away too. He wasn’t worthy of a young lady. What, were you frustrated?”

The adventurers around them also breathed roughly, unfastening the buckles of their light armor as they gathered around Fortuna.

An act repeated again and again.

A simple rule, a cruel law.

The strong decide the fate of the weak. That law simply existed here, indifferently—

However.

“I have always been very, very lucky since long ago.”

“Huh?”

Adventurers who survive have traits in common.

Knowing themselves, and not choosing their prey incorrectly.

Ah, today, they lacked all of that.

“But that girl was not like that. She was clumsy, unfriendly, and inefficient. That is why I overlooked her. Even though she was not necessary for my test of luck. Ah, Trena, you truly are unlucky.”

“What’s with this woman? Did she go crazy?”

“Doesn’t matter. Her looks are top-class. Strip her!”

“This reminds me of that green-haired girl from before! Let’s hit her and make her cry like back then! It’ll feel better that way!”

The adventurers did not notice.

They did not notice that today, they were absolutely not on the side of the strong.

“And I truly am fortunate after all.”

“You’re not making any sense—huh?”

Until the final moment, they would not notice.

“Huh?”

“Eh? Pupya.”

A red wind.

It blew down from above. A scent mixed into the wind, the scent of a man unlike them, one who often bathed and enjoyed fragrant oils.

At the same time, the scent of blood.

The adventurers who should have numbered five until just now had been reduced to four.

“I agree with that, adventurers.”

From the top of his skull, he had been crushed underfoot.

At the feet of the red-haired man, there was one mushy mess like a crushed tomato. In exchange, one person had vanished.

“Eh, eh? Penny? Where is Penny? Eh?”

“Ah, is this the one called Penny? He’s gotten awfully soft.”

The red-haired man had fallen from the sky.

He wiped the mess stuck to his boots against the wall and grumbled.

“H-huh? From where…”

“Up. From the roof. I changed my mind. I don’t like letting things go exactly how that insane woman wants, but I don’t want to stand next to a woman who’s got another man’s stinking smell on her.”

One needed qualifications.

One needed qualifications to survive in this adventure city.

They were strength and cruelty. The country woman who lacked them had been swallowed by this city, and the princess and hero possessed them in excess.

“Ahaha, fortunately, it seems my hero changed his mind. How wonderful.”

Star-shaped irises stared at Gald.

Her green hair was glossy, and her fingers combed through it. The green hair was the same, yet it was completely different.

That woman looked very much like the country woman the adventurers had tormented the other day, and yet she was a completely different existence.

Ah, now, far too late, he noticed.

“Ah, hi, ee.”

Gald. The foolish man suddenly remembered. He had seen those eyes somewhere. He had seen them just recently.

That black-haired adventurer he had encountered at the Adventurers’ Guild. Those eyes that had beaten him down and looked down at him.

He had vented with women in the pleasure district because he had been afraid of that. Those eyes that looked at him as though not even seeing him as a living creature.

The black-haired adventurer and the green-haired woman now staring at him had the same eyes.

“Hi, th-the same eyes… D-don’t move! This woman—”

Gald shouted at the red-haired man who had suddenly appeared. That was right, he could use this woman as a hostage, and they still had greater numbers.

“Sorry. I don’t want to cause too much of a commotion. We don’t need witnesses or survivors, right?”

“Yes, I do not think anyone will find out, fortunately.”

“Eh?”

There was already no one left.

The party members he had acted with for several years had their necks broken like dead branches, had somehow been split clean in two, or had become stains on the wall.

The red-haired man faced him while clapping his hands clean.

“That’s what she says. Our lucky star said so. Well, how should I put it? As fellow men with bad taste in women, I sympathize.”

“Huh, eh? Dead? They’re dead? Eh?”

The green-haired woman had already vanished from Gald’s mind. He could not understand what had happened or what was about to happen.

“Too slow.”

The red-haired man’s arm swished.

“Pura.”

Without understanding anything, everything above Gald’s neck was slammed into the wall and joined the paste.

The adventurers’ blood and flesh seeped into the back alley and became one.

The hero’s overwhelming violence.

His qualifications were more than sufficient.

“Ahh, ahh, we did it. The very moment I said not to stand out and not to get into trouble, I already committed our first kill in the Empire. Judging from their equipment, appearances, and builds, well, there’s no mistake they were adventurers.”

Wis, who had disposed of them without being splashed by even a single drop of blood, looked at the barely remaining corpses while kicking them.

“Thank you, Wis. I was nearly violated.”

“Shut up, stupid woman. You deliberately provoked and lured those men, didn’t you? Did these guys displease you that much?”

“No? Not especially.”

The princess smiled quietly.

That was nostalgia belonging only to her, something even the hero would not touch.

“—I see. Ahh, what a mess. What do we do with the bodies?”

“Mm, either way, thanks to my luck, it will not be discovered in a way that affects us. However, it is certainly not good to leave the dead exposed pointlessly… Ah, I found something good!”

Trotting along, she hopped through the pool of blood.

Her horrifying luck even warped the way blood splashed. Not a single drop of blood touched her skirt or robe.

A large iron box.

A trash can. Under the Empire’s advancing urban sanitation plan, those things existed in various places and gathered the adventure city’s metabolic waste.

Then this too was surely the result of that metabolism.

“Oh, an urban-management trash can. It’s amazing, huh. You feel the difference in national power from the fact that they can install stuff like this.”

“Yes! Ashes to ashes, trash to the trash can. Let us clean up properly!”

Fortuna spun around and around.

“Eh, who’s going to touch this mess?”

“That would be the person who made the mess.”

Wis twisted his face in disgust, and Fortuna simply laughed at him.

After sighing several times, Wis began collecting the corpses.

The wind blew.

Fortuna suddenly looked up. Even in the dark back alley, if she turned her gaze upward, she could see the blue sky that had been visible from that market.

That blue was the same color as the sky she had gazed at during her childhood, together with the twin elder sister born at exactly the same time as her.

“Goodbye, my—”

“…Did you say something?”

“No, surely it was your imagination, Wis.”

She would no longer stop.

There had never been a reason to stop, and now, in this very moment, the possibility that might have been able to stop her had also been crushed.

“Hey, Wis.”

“Huh?”

“Do you think it is possible for humans to go outside destiny? Do you think it is possible to abandon the mission imposed on them, the role expected of them?”

That was her deep-seated illness. The rebellious spirit toward the world that she had noticed in childhood.

Her other half had not been able to go outside.

Because of the mediocrity and incompetence carved into her body, she had likely been defeated by the world.

There was neither sympathy nor pity, and yet a cold emptiness moved back and forth inside Fortuna’s hollow chest.

“…Dunno. I don’t care.”

“I see.”

The curt attitude of her hero was comfortable to Fortuna.

“But.”

The hero’s words continued.

“Mm?”

The princess tilted her head.

“If the current situation is destiny, if going along with your stupid path of conquest and your insane nonsense is my destiny, well, that. It’s not bad for now. I’m enjoying it quite a bit.”

“Ahaha.”

Fortuna did not notice that, at his blunt words, she had laughed from the bottom of her heart for the first time in a long while.

“My, you love me far too much, Wis.”

“Annoying.”

Fortuna poked Wis with her elbow. Wis made a face that looked annoyed from the bottom of his heart.

Then Fortuna grasped the hem of her hero’s clothes.

Her star-shaped eyes fixed steadily on his red eyes.

“—I shall go outside. I will throw away destiny, test myself and this luck, and live in this abyss-like world.”

She let go of the hero’s hem, looked outside the back alley, placed her hands over her chest, and closed her eyes.

Behind her eyelids, that beautiful golden hair fluttered.

“Ah, I am looking forward to it. Dragon, great Hoarding Dragon. Please wait for me. Please test me. I will challenge you, who are the world itself, the proof of the concepts that compose this world.”

“Whoa, some weird switch got flipped.”

“Shut up, please. Now then, let us proceed cunningly, thoroughly, timidly, calmly, arrogantly, and loftily. Because we are humans.”

Fortuna smiled broadly.

She reached her slender hand toward the sky and spread her palm.

“We are going to raise our middle finger toward the unattainable sky.”

One finger, toward the sky.

“I’ll follow you, Princess-sama.”

“I am counting on you, Hero-san.”

Clang. At some point, Wis closed the trash can lid. The red stains remained, but all the pieces of flesh were now where they belonged.

“Well then, my beautiful Princess-sama, where do we begin?”

“Ahaha, let me see. First, let us wish. Mm, let me see…”

Doing one’s best and then waiting for heaven’s decree. That did not apply to Fortuna. Because her own efforts became heaven’s decree.

“The dragon, she who is changing because of the Dragon Slayer. Yes, if she is growing closer to humans, then let me see. Let her hesitate and be confused. Ah, it will surely come true, fortunately.”

She would shake the dragon. If the dragon was becoming closer to humans, and if the Dragon Slayer was the cause of it, then what an easy opening it was.

The woman who had brought down a nation would surely bring down even a dragon.

“How about this: from now on, the dragon and the Dragon Slayer will misunderstand each other?”

If she wished it, it would surely come true.

Ah, fortunately.

“Hey, Wis.”

“What is it, Fortuna?”

The sky was high and blue.

“I am looking forward to the Dragon Festival.”

Fortuna’s adventure began.