"That was really close just now. Thank goodness for Mr. Banxia."

In the seaside restaurant, Ai Hayasaka looked visibly relieved. "Mr. Banxia helped us back in the city once before too — you really are a good person."

"Yeah, it's nothing." Banxia accepted the compliment with a shake of his head, then asked offhandedly, "What brought you two to the docks?"

Ai Hayasaka turned toward the young mistress beside her, only to find Kaguya Shinomiya staring blankly at the ripples in her cup.

"Lady Kaguya?" The call came in a low voice.

"...Hm? Oh, it's you, Hayasaka. What is it?"

"Are you feeling unwell?"

"Of course not. My health is fine." Kaguya Shinomiya looked up at Ai Hayasaka, expression flat, then paused and added,

"My heart is just beating a little fast."

"...I see." Ai Hayasaka went quiet for a moment and decided not to push. "Mr. Banxia just asked what brought you to the docks."

Kaguya Shinomiya raised her eyes. Her gaze drifted, and for just a moment, it caught the young man's eyes, softened for once by good food, before she pulled it back, her tone perfectly composed:

"I simply used the name of the Star Moon Chamber of Commerce to negotiate a seafood trading arrangement with the local merchant guild."

"Eh? Young Mistress, can you actually say that out loud?" Ai Hayasaka stared.

This was a deal they'd been running quietly behind the scenes. On top of that, the person sitting across from them was both the creditor who had put up the principal and the partner who had signed the bet agreement. How had the young mistress just spilled all of it without so much as blinking?

"Oh, I see."

Banxia's response was calm. His hands never paused.

Ai Hayasaka quietly breathed out.

It seemed the young man couldn't care less what they were doing with his money.

That was a full forty gold coins.

"Still, you two have nerve. Coming to a place like this with just the pair of you, not even a guard in sight." Banxia took a bite of a small sea fish, charred and fragrant from the grill.

Charcoal-grilled seafood first thing in the morning. Quite a novel experience.

"A guard..." Kaguya Shinomiya paused.

It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to bring one. She just hadn't dared bring the wrong one, the wrong guard could make things more dangerous, not less.

Large merchant guilds raised their own guards from childhood. Those were trusted hands. Outsiders couldn't hire them away.

Merchants with more resources spent serious money on renowned high-rank adventurers. At the end of the day, no one really trusted the principles of a low-rank hire.

And a high-rank adventurer, even for a single engagement, cost enough to make her wince.

Right now, she wanted to pour every last gold coin into the business. That kind of expense was hard to justify.

But after today, she'd come to terms with the reality: a guard was not optional.

"Mr. Banxia, would you be interested in working as one?"

"Hm?" Banxia glanced at her with a strange look. "You want to hire me with my own money?"

"..."

"I'm kidding. But I'm not looking to be anyone's guard." He set the fish bones on the edge of the plate and wiped the corner of his mouth. "I can guess your concerns, though. If you genuinely want someone reliable, I actually know a person — trustworthy enough, and the price shouldn't hurt."

"Really?"

"If you're interested, I'll ask when we get back to the city."

"Then we'll leave it in your hands, Mr. Banxia."

...

The carriage back to the city rode smooth.

Banxia leaned against the cart bed piled with hay. Full stomach, nothing pressing, he should have dozed off without a second thought. But he wasn't sleepy in the slightest.

The mermaid girls could wait for tonight. Last night's ordeal had temporarily killed that mood.

What occupied him now was his cheat ability. Something had changed, and it was all he could think about.

[Current Demon Lifespan Held: 1,420 years (Fusion Available)]

That part in parentheses had only appeared when he opened the panel just now.

He was certain it hadn't been there before.

As for why it had shown up...

He turned recent events over in his mind and landed on a rough answer: most likely because this was the first time the monster lifespan in his possession had ever crossed a full thousand years.

He shifted position and focused his attention on the panel.

[Spend one thousand years of time to obtain one Fusion Pill.]

[Fusion Pill: Fuses and sublimates two skills of lv.3 or higher. The stronger the correlation between skills, the higher the probability of success. (No loss upon failure.)]

Banxia understood the new function immediately.

Spend currency, fuse two lower-tier skills, synthesize a higher-tier one. Simple enough.

The panel had never shown specific grades before, so he still had no idea what tier his current skills actually were.

"Good stuff, no question, but one thousand years, System. That's quite an appetite you've got," he muttered inwardly.

A Fusion Pill was obviously the real deal. Failure didn't cost anything, either.

The only problem was the price.

It was genuinely, painfully expensive.

Then again, for where he was right now, dumping another thousand years into existing skills wasn't going to do much anyway.

His warrior-side skills had mostly hit lv.3. Stacking further from there, a thousand years might not even buy him a single level.

On the magic side, two hundred years' worth of mana was already more than enough to work with. Just burning through all of it took half a day of effort, there was no way to exhaust it in an actual fight.

And if he somehow did exhaust it, the lv.2 Advanced Meditation Method could restore it to full in a single night.

More to the point, keeping two hundred years of mana compressed down to novice level with lv.2 Mana Concealment was already straining his control. Any more, and it would start leaking.

No need to add to the magic side for now.

"Alright, decided. System, give me one Fusion Pill — let's see what you can do."

"For the skills: Basic Sword Technique lv.3 and Basic Dodge lv.3. The affinity should be solid."

The moment the words formed, the numbers on the panel began to drain, fast.

A thousand years of time. Gone in an instant.

[Fusing Basic Sword Technique lv.3 + Basic Dodge lv.3, ]

[Year 1: Deep in the unseen, you receive an inspiration beyond all expectation: rather than flashy techniques and elaborate forms, perhaps driving every fundamental to its absolute limit is the true path to strength.]

[Year 1,000: Saber, spear, sword, staff. Offense, defense, advance, retreat. Dodging, shifting, leaping, maneuvering. In the fundamentals of combat, you have reached the pinnacle of martial arts.]

[Fusion complete, ]

[Skill obtained: Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.1]

[Return to Fundamentals (Chroma): One path to the pinnacle of martial arts.]

The description was almost nothing.

And yet Banxia's breathing went heavier.

An explosive force bloomed silently inside him, pushing his already formidable body up another tier. But that wasn't the real prize. What was truly precious were the countless martial arts now engraved into his mind, no longer mere "skills." They had sunk below conscious thought, settled into the instincts of his flesh and bone, as natural and unremarkable as walking or climbing.

"That's pretty absurd."

Banxia straightened up from the hay-strewn cart bed. He flicked his toe, and the man-height two-handed greatsword sprang up into his palm.

In the past, a sudden surge of strength like this would have taken him a full night to adjust to, at minimum.

But right now,

Under just two fingers, the massive gem sword turned. Quiet. Steady. Perfectly controlled.

➤ Next: The Three Heroes

Chapter 42 - The Three Heroes

"Did you hear? The kingdom's Three Heroes have come to Alterna!"

"Weren't they supposed to have headed north to subjugate the Demon King already?"

"Heh-heh, this is my exclusive scoop—"

"You?"

"...Fine. It's posted on the guild notice board."

The conversation from the neighboring table drifted over. Roxy set down her bowl of vegetable soup, which had already gone cold, and her gaze fell absently onto the tabletop.

These past few days she had kept herself shut away in her room studying Wrath of Finality. Before long, she would be able to cast this military-grade flame magic with her own hands.

When that day came, her strength would take another major leap forward.

As for Hypnosis Resistance, that defensive magic, she still hadn't found a suitable way to train it.

"Sigh." She let out a soft breath, gaze drifting toward the cluster of adventurers eating at the nearby tables.

Mr. Banxia hadn't come to see her in several days now.

Could it be that he was sick of her...

The feeling crept through her chest quietly, spreading without permission, until even the soft bread she usually hesitated to splurge on tasted like nothing at all.

Roxy shook her head firmly.

"It's completely normal for adventurers to go ten days or half a month without taking a quest. What's wrong with me?"

Even so, she stood up and settled her bill, deciding to clear her head in the guild hall and check if any monster subjugation quests looked worthwhile.

Once she'd picked one out, she'd go find Mr. Banxia and they could take it together.

Before long she arrived at the guild entrance, and the scene inside stopped her short.

Adventurers were streaming in and out in droves. The crowd had practically returned to what it used to be.

"Could it be that the monster that injured the Platinum-rank adventurer was already dealt with?" Puzzled, Roxy stepped inside.

Sure enough, the open-ended commission at the very top of the board, the standing request to subjugate that powerful monster, was gone.

That meant someone had already destroyed it and collected the bounty.

Could it be Mr. Banxia who killed that monster...? She instinctively thought of the most likely person.

After all, he was a warrior capable of hunting a magic dragon with his bare hands. His nameplate still showed a novice rank, but his true strength had likely long surpassed most Platinum-rank adventurers.

He was the strongest adventurer Roxy had ever seen.

It was entirely natural for her to think this way.

"No, it wasn't him. We were the ones who killed that monster." A voice from directly behind her made Roxy jump.

She turned around. The speaker was a noblewoman who likewise carried a staff, radiating a warm, gentle, almost maternal glow.

Those considerable assets in particular made Roxy's eye twitch involuntarily.

"...May I ask who you are?" Roxy asked politely.

"I am Ava Marlowe. You've surely heard my name." The noblewoman raised her chin slightly, undisguised pride in her voice.

Before Roxy could react, the crowd around them erupted.

"Ava Marlowe..."

"That sounds so familiar, I feel like I've heard it somewhere."

"Isn't that the real name of the mage among the Three Heroes?!"

So this was someone that famous.

Roxy grew several degrees more guarded. What would a person like this want with her?

Ava Marlowe, she had read about her in books. Born to a great noble family in the royal capital, raised on the finest magical education since childhood, and not long ago personally recognized by the king as a court mage. She was set to head north alongside the other two legendary figures to subjugate the Demon King on behalf of the Kingdom of Arabagia.

What business could someone like that possibly have with her?

"Don't look at me with such guarded eyes." Ava blinked, almost playfully. "I can see your mana is quite decent. You must be a fairly well-known mage yourself."

Being praised by someone like this should have been enough to send anyone floating.

Yet the reality was,

"I... don't really like being famous." Roxy's voice dropped.

"I see." Ava didn't press it. Simply resting a hand lightly against her chest, the tone shifted. "Before we depart to subjugate the Demon King, we have orders from the king to first head south and deal with the Great Demon entrenched in the City of the Dead — the King of the Undead.

Would you like to come and help?"

The "we" naturally referred to the other two members of the Three Heroes.

Might, magic, and healing. The Three Heroes, who stood at the very peak of the kingdom.

Facing a personal invitation from figures like these, Roxy shook her head without a moment's hesitation.

"I can't."

She knew her own limits.

Subjugating a Great Demon far more dangerous than a red mirror dragon, she'd only get in the way. Worst case, she'd get herself killed. Even if this battle was destined to be written into the history books, she didn't believe she had any business standing on that stage.

"Then that really is a pity." Ava let out a soft sigh.

Part of the reason she had revealed herself and extended this invitation was that they needed mages to clear the minions guarding the Great Demon. But the more important reason was simpler:

She genuinely liked this petite, lovely girl.

Since the other party wasn't willing, though, she wouldn't force it. She brought her smile back and turned to address the hall at large. "Before long, we will join with the nobles of Alterna and march together to the City of the Dead, to subjugate the Great Demon that has plagued the south of this kingdom for an entire century.

We hope every capable mage will come to our aid. This is a great achievement — one that will be recorded in the annals of history!"

The hall erupted. Adventurers pressed together in clusters, talking over one another with fiery enthusiasm.

In the middle of all that noise, Roxy asked quietly:

"Are only mages needed?"

"Naturally." Ava looked down at her, smile still gentle. "The opponent's magic can manipulate the dead. Without reliable long-range damage output, any melee adventurer who isn't strong enough will just become another corpse soldier to fight. However many go in, that many more enemies come out."

"...I see." Roxy understood.

A Great Demon entrenched for a hundred years. Who knew how many corpse soldiers had piled up in that time. Even the Three Heroes would have to advance inch by careful inch.

"So, what do you say, care to reconsider? This is the kind of feat that gets your name written into history." Ava extended the invitation one more time.

"I... would only be a burden." Roxy shook her head again. Then something seemed to occur to her, and she looked up with sudden earnestness.

"But I know an extraordinarily formidable warrior. If he heard this was a chance to take on a Great Demon, I think he'd be willing to help."

"...A warrior?" Ava paused, then suppressed a smile.

She had said he would probably be willing to help, and phrased it as though he would be helping them.

The tone from this petite mage wasn't a request at all. It was more like she was recommending a useful hand to the three of them.

"That's right. Mr. Banxia. He's an extraordinarily formidable warrior."

"Is that so?" Ava only smiled, and said nothing to the contrary.

Just an adventurer from a small border city in the south who had never set foot in the royal capital. How would she know what true genius actually looked like?

Ava could admit she had complimented the girl's mana, she hadn't expected that one remark to plant such an unfounded notion in her head.

In Ava's estimation, the petite young girl before her was genuinely decent. A cut above the average adventurer.

But only that, and nothing more.

As for this "extraordinarily formidable warrior" she kept mentioning, he was probably around the same level.

She didn't dislike this kind of adorable misunderstanding.

...

➤ Next: Service Down to the Stomach