The Unavowed 4 (Patreon)

The Unavowed
Chapter 4

-VB-

The norm of Danmachi’s world was different from what I could do.

First off, the magic I could do was based on systems that I was familiar with in my past life. This included Azerothian magics (fel, arcane, necromantic, nature, holy, and void) and a few others. There was a problem with my [Arcanist], however. I only had limited number of spells that belonged to each category of magic, and the number of spells wouldn’t go up until I spent eight hours each day to research new spells. This meant that these magic could not be how I presented myself against Riveria. It would be there in the fight, yes, but it wouldn’t be the main focus.

No, no, no. When I had Panacea and Bonesaw’s powers under my belt and a head brimming with ideas, I couldn’t just sit here and go the usual “har har magic go brrrrrrr!”

Actually…

Actually…

The magic I had didn’t work the same as Danmachi’s magic. There were things I could do that no one in Danmachi could do.

‘I’m getting ideas…’ I thought to myself.

Second, brute strength was mutually exclusive with magic. Riviera may be a Level 6, but she didn’t have the strength, speed, or endurance of a Level 6 warrior. Combined with a need to speak the incantations for whatever magic spell she had, she would be open to retaliation. Of course, she could shorten the chant or outright omit if she really needed to, but this would also reduce the power and effectiveness of the magic.

Oh, I expected that she would be physically stronger than me. Level 6 magician was weaker than a Level 6 warrior, but a Level 6 was still ridiculously strong compared to an unblessed “normal” person like me.

It’s a good thing that I don’t intend to fight her with only magic or with brute strength, then.

-VB-

As usual, her familia was making this out to be bigger than it was.

Sure, the rescued magician was indeed challenging her, but it was more that it was condition to Goddess Loki herself.

The man valued his privacy and independence, obviously. However, Riviera found herself curious as to why this “Alan” didn’t want to join Loki’s familia. Most adventurers and prospective adventurers would have jumped at the chance to join the most powerful familia.

(Some might argue that Loki’s Familia was not the most powerful, merely one of two within Orario, but she would argue right back, politely of course, that it was only Loki’s Familia that had managed to dungeon dive down to the fifty-ninth floor and no other existing familias.)

So it came to her as a surprise that she and Loki found a man who didn’t want to join their familia. In fact, he wanted a contract with them instead.

A contract for what? Well… Riveria might have been a bit too focused on the magic used by magician that she and Loki both forgot to ask.

Speaking of magic, Alan wielded a category of magic that she never thought to wield herself.

Divinity.

It was ludicrous that a mortal man would be the first to wield some kind of divine magic, for what was holy magic if not divine, and use it for his own means and not the will of a divine. More than that, everyone knew that descended gods and goddess could not use their own personal powers in the Mortal Realm.

So how?

Where?

What?

She had so many questions, but she couldn’t find answers for them. She very much intended to get her answers the moment Alan joined their Familia.

Riveria didn’t think she was arrogant, but in a battle of magicians, she knew that no one else in the entirety of Orario and the Mortal Realm that could match her. Maybe if the adventurers of Freya Familia put their effort into improving themselves and not satisfying their goddess, they might be able to challenge her, but they didn’t and thus she stood at the top of the world.

“How hard are you going to put him down, R-Riveria?”

She looked to Lefiya Viridis, an elf magician like herself, who looked up to her with bright eyes. She looked back towards the open gates of the Twilight Manor and hummed. “He challenged us and our goddess. I think I will be rather strict with him.” At the same time, he would be joining them once he lost, so she couldn’t be too tough on him lest she kills his self-esteem.

Grunts and noises of agreement rang out around her.

Loki stood off to the side, cooing over Ais while the stoic young woman kept putting her down with a dead blank face.

“He’s coming!”

Everyone’s attention quickly turned to the open gates.

Loki also used the moment to grope at Ais one more time, only to be punched away again.

Riveria narrowed her eyes as she saw the man walk towards them. Instead of the tattered clothes he wore the day before, he now wore something that tickled at her senses. He also donned a mask, a smooth white thing without any eyeholes and only a central spine that ran from top to bottom.

The man stopped the moment he stepped into the courtyard right within the gates.

“Here I am.”

Bete snorted from behind her. “He’s got balls or he’s dumb,” he snarled dismissively.

“Or outright crazy,” Finn hummed with a smile.

Riveria looked over him. Like she thought before, his tattered clothes were gone, replaced by a heavy fur cloak that covered all of him from shoulders to the feet.

Loki quickly ran up until she was right next to Riveria with a childish pomp, her hands on her waist and cocky grin on her face.

“You actually came, you crazy boy!”

“I am a man of my word, Goddess Loki!”

That was strange, the way he spoke. Instead of using honorifics, he instead used the title. He wasn’t being disrespectful about it, either. There was respect in those words, an acknowledgement of Loki’s status as a goddess that stood over humanity.

Loki cackled. “Alright. Then the two of you get to the center! I want to see the spar right here!”

Everyone else quickly backed away.

Riveria thumped her staff against the ground once.

“I don’t see a staff on you,” she remarked.

“I don’t need one, Princess Riveria.”

She blinked. “You know of me?” she asked. Mostly, only the elves knew of her status or those who knew elves and interacted with them, but that was only within Orario. Outside of the Dungeon City, very few knew and hadn’t he been a newcomer to the city? That was the conclusion she came to after she talked with him.

“Of course. Your name is spoken in high regard everywhere in this city.”

It wasn’t what she asked, but she could ask in depth later.

“Are you both ready?!” Loki asked as she moved away towards the sidelines.

“How would we determine the winner?” Alan asked.

Loki hummed thoughtfully, though Riveria knew that she already had an answer and was only putting up a show.

“How about…” Loki spoke. “When one side either knocks out or surrenders?”

“Are you sure?” Alan asked again but he sounded concerned.

Riveria narrowed her eyes.

‘Does he actually think that he has a chance of winning?’ she thought. While he might have access to a form of magic she didn’t know about, she felt how weak they were compared to her short incantation spells.

“Yes!” Loki exclaimed with a maniac grin.

Riveria would have to scold her goddess about it later.

Alan turned to her and bowed respectfully, lowering himself almost to ninety degrees but not quite.

Riviera returned the bow with one of her own.

“Challenger and the Defendent!” Loki called out. “Ready yourselves!”

Riveria pointed her staff forward and held it there.

Alan… stood still.

“Fight!”

“Harbinger of the End -!”

“P̸̻͗̑a̵͉̐͝͝i̸̜͋n̴̢̻̘̉͘.”

Riveria choked on her words as she stumbled backward as something burned within her. The suddenness of the pain caused her to stop. It wasn’t a strong pain, but the fact that some kind of magic penetrated through her Abnormal Resistance to cause a persisting burn-like pain inside of her was astounding.

And scary.

“The white sno-”

“C̵̢͕̱̋̏o̶̖͒r̸͍̻̝̎̌̏r̶͎̤͛́ṷ̸͚̟͛̈p̷̱̍t̴̩͐i̸̱͓̔̇͌ͅơ̴̹͇͆n̶̛̻͗.”

She grimaced as the pain intensified, but if the first pain was like a fire, then this was one felt like a sharp, gnawing pain biting at all of her.

She opened her lips to continue chanting. She was wrong; Alan was indeed a magician to be wary.

An unblessed magician pierced through the Abnormal Resistance of a Level 6 adventurer.

He was dangerous! She couldn’t hold back-.

“Blow with the wind before the -”

She chanted but she also saw he was … channeling. He wasn’t chanting. He gathered holy magic within his hands and -.

She winced when something struck at her out of nowhere with divinity, but her Abnormal Resistance held and negated all of the attack’s effect.

Alan saw how his most recent attack remained ineffective.

“C̵̗̃ǘ̸͇r̵̪̓ș̴̈e̵͖̍ ̶͇̇o̵̺̿f̶̜͝ ̵̹̊A̷̙̚g̸̢̈́o̸̓͜n̶̦̚y̷͕̍.”

And then struck again hard with whatever that third attack was.

She gritted her teeth and fought through the compounding pain.

“Closing light, the freezing land!”

Her eyes widened in surprise when Alan suddenly bulked.

And then his cloak fell off on its own…?

And rose on its own…

The cloak hadn’t been a cloak.

She watched as eight thin legs clicked against the cobblestone ground while an arachanid body ballooned and a buzzsaw mouth running from head to abdomen on its underside opened up and screeched at her.

And jumped at her.

Riveria found herself a little too shocked between the pain and the sudden appearance of a monster and couldn’t stop a blur from jumping forward from behind her.

There was a familiar wind shearing blow that thundered her eardrums, and the giant spider keeled over. It crashed against the ground and fell still after a moment or two of twitching.

“Oi, why are you interfering?!” Alan shouted.

Riveria looked and saw Bete standing between her and Alan.

“Fuck the match! What the fuck is that?!” he snapped at the challenger while pointing to the dead giant spider.

‘It’s bigger than her,’ she realized as she cut off her chanting and slowly stood up as the

Alan threw his hands up. She realized that he had been wearing something rather nice, a light blue button-up cotton shirt and pair of pants, underneath the cloak-that-was-a-spider.

“I’m trying to show off here!” Alan spat back. “And you ruined it!”

“You brought a monster here!”

“Monster?! How dare you! That was my pet I made yesterday!”

Riveria’s head felt light as Bete and Alan began to argue loudly.

She was … had the pain been so much that she teared up? She felt her tears running down her cheeks. Drooling, too, maybe.

She found herself stumbling forward.

Maybe she should sleep. Take a nap.

That sounded like a good-.

Her eyes snapped open as the all-encompassing pain and more came to an end in an instant. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself staring at golden lights fading away quickly and then at a crowd of Loki Familia gathered around her from where she laid (when?). 

“... What happened?”

Loki, looking incensed, pointed to Alan. “He happened.”

Well, yes, but that’s not what she was asking.