With a voice that was familiar yet strange, something leapt down from atop the wall.
The reason that voice felt strange was because it had no place being heard in a place like this.
Moreover, the tone was so low and cold that it was hard to believe it belonged to a girl.
The figure that stepped forward to block the way was far too small for the dangerous situation they were in.
She was at least a head shorter than even the smallest man present.
But the moment that small, fragile-looking girl opened her eyes.
Some of the hunters flinched and instinctively stepped back.
It was a reaction their bodies made before their minds could comprehend—an instinct honed through many brushes with death, screaming at them in warning.
Whether or not one heeds that instinct draws a clear line between hunters.
A few stepped back hesitantly, while one rash man instead moved forward.
“The hell is this now?”
A tiny girl, jumping into the middle of a brawl without a shred of fear.
Dismissing his momentary hesitation as mere illusion, the man crudely swung his sword at the obstacle blocking his path.
No matter how pretty her face was, in the midst of this blood-soaked chaos, it meant nothing.
But the sword, swung without an ounce of hesitation, was caught by the girl’s bare hand—without even a glove.
“…Huh?”
It’s not entirely impossible.
The quality of metal that enters the labyrinth is usually poor, and the same can be said for the skill of the smiths.
The blades in the labyrinth tend to be quite dull—exaggerating a little, they’re barely more than clubs.
With inhumanly thick skin, unbelievably honed skill, and the kind of reckless courage—or madness—that’s willing to risk losing fingers, it might be possible to attempt catching a blade like that.
But attempting it and succeeding are two entirely different things.
“Damn… the witch’s lackeys.”
“…Alje?”
And the one who succeeded wasn’t some seasoned warrior or a famed explorer, but that very girl he recognized.
Of course, he’d suspected that Alje’s combat abilities were beyond imagination, but—Seeing that power now turned not on a monster, but on a human.
The man, flustered, couldn’t bring himself to let go of the sword.
Alje swung the hand gripping the blade.
The man holding the sword was flung right along with it.
At the small girl’s gesture, the man’s body was flung into the air and sent tumbling—an utterly ridiculous sight, completely out of place in the current situation.
Though, for the one on the receiving end, it was surely anything but funny.
“…A witch?”
“Get a grip! What kind of witch is that strong physically?”
To make such an absurd mistake.
Witches were indeed powerful, but their power didn’t come from physical strength.
The same went for saints.
If anything, a mystical force that purely enhanced the body like that would be.
No—never mind.
The fact that such overwhelming strength came from such a delicate-looking girl was shocking, but at the very least, the power Alje was currently displaying still fell within the realm of human capability.
A truly skilled explorer might be able to pull off something like that.
Not someone like Hans, of course, but maybe a towering brute over two meters tall, whose entire body was built like a fortress of muscle.
“Alje!”
Hans, who had briefly frozen in shock, rushed forward before it was too late.
Of course, it was true that such physical strength would be difficult for a girl’s body to produce, but it was still within the range of plausible explanation—for now.
Or maybe he was just being irrationally optimistic on his own.
Before Alje could cause more chaos or raise more suspicion, Hans decided to end this situation himself.
It was almost laughable how confident he looked after being so thoroughly overwhelmed just moments ago, but in the end, the most important thing in a fight was momentum.
In that short time, the number of people surrounding him had significantly decreased.
More had fled out of fear of Alje’s absurd strength than those who had actually been knocked out by her.
The few that remained didn’t look ready to fight—they were simply frozen, unable to find the right moment to run.
Still, Hans didn’t hesitate to swing his sword at them.
Shhk.
Unlike Alje, those men didn’t know how to stop a blade with their necks.
No matter how dull, a sword was still a sword.
Like felling a tree or swinging an axe, Hans’s strength—while not quite monstrous—was considerable for a normal man.
More importantly, he had technique.
Precise control of force.
A clean, unwavering trajectory.
It wasn’t so much “slicing” through the neck as it was “severing” it.
With that clean, practiced motion, Hans struck the final hunter’s neck.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
Before he knew it, his breathing had grown ragged.
His bloodied hands trembled without him realizing.
Guilt didn’t knock on the door of his conscience until the battle was over—until the thrill of slaughter had finally worn off.
No, Hans wouldn’t feel guilt over something like this.
He was a hunter, a bastard, and a man of the labyrinth.
Things like this had happened more than once.
This wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Something like this wasn’t even worth storing in a corner of his mind.
“Alje…” “Are you okay, mister? Ugh, look at all that blood!”
“How… how did you get here?”
He had definitely told her to stay at home.
No, even if Alje had disobeyed and gone outside, it still didn’t explain this.
Even within the same zone, Kumo Strasse was vast—and Hans had come through Schindel Strasse, which meant they were nearly on opposite ends.
Yet Alje had found him so naturally, as if she had been following him all along.
If she had actually managed to tail him without him noticing, that might have been the less worrying possibility.
“I thought… you might be hurt…”
“What?” “I smelled blood.”
Hans bit his tongue to stop himself from asking the question.
From where?
There wasn’t a single part of this city where blood wasn’t being spilled.
Even the girl standing before him—she wasn’t free of it either.
Her wound, still bleeding from her chest, wasn’t the source.
Unlike Hans, who wielded a sword, Alje had fought barehanded, merely knocking people down or throwing them.
Still, there was no way she could remain entirely untouched by blood.
Even if it wasn’t her own—no, precisely because it wasn’t hers, Hans didn’t want to look at her.
At the sight of a girl, soaked in human blood.
And yet, beneath the dried and crusted blood, Alje’s amber eyes still sparkled, filled with nothing but pure worry and kindness.
“Let me take a look.”
“Alje, no—”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Unlike before, the blood staining Hans’s body also included his own.
Alje gave him a disapproving look as he hesitated, afraid she might recklessly unleash a miracle.
The girl was no longer ignorant.
In the heart of the labyrinth, if the radiance of a [Miracle] were to burst out, she knew well enough what kind of aftermath that would bring.
“I’m just going to do some first aid.”
That kind thoughtfulness tugged at his heart while also paining him.
He was grateful for her concern, but still—he was the fragile one here.
He wished she would take care of herself first.
Hans had armored himself tightly as if heading out on an expedition, but during the fight, parts of the leather had split, and blade marks were left behind.
The leather of monsters had corroded his flesh, soaking him in blood.
Alje, unable to armor him again right away, used a clean piece of cloth—where she got it was anyone’s guess—to wipe down a few particularly serious wounds and tightly wrapped them in bandages.
Her movements were undoubtedly skillful.
This was part of the innate knowledge she retained as an apprentice saintess.
“Ugh.”
“Hang in there, mister. Once we get back…”
She stopped mid-sentence.
Hans, groaning as he tried to sit up, was late to notice the strange shift in the air.
Alje had frozen completely.
Her hands, which had been wiping blood, and her eyes, which had been carefully examining his wounds, had come to a halt.
Why?
He had a lot of minor wounds, but none were truly fatal.
Hans didn’t understand why Alje looked so utterly shocked—until he realized that her gaze wasn’t fixed on the wound on his chest, but a little off to the side.
“Mister.”
“Yeah?”
“…What is this?”
Alje traced her damp fingers over Hans’s collarbone.
It wasn’t a sensual gesture—more like a child scribbling over something they didn’t want to see, as if trying to erase it.
That “paint” was someone else’s blood.
The sensation was slightly cool and sticky, brushing lightly over the thin skin above his veins, and each time it did, Hans felt a strange, inexplicable chill.
It had been hidden by the bleeding, then briefly revealed when Alje wiped it clean—only to be covered again by her fingers.
Though hard to see under the blood and clothes, there were reddish blotches blooming all over Hans’s skin.
Without warning, Alje pressed her nose to Hans’s body.
It was hardly an appropriate place to do so, surrounded by corpses and puddles of blood.
But she showed no hesitation as she buried her face against him and sniffed.
“The smell.”
The unavoidable scents of sweat and stench, the blood oozing from wounds, the splattered blood from others he had struck—fresh for now, but soon to rot.
And beyond that, older smells.
Perfume, luxuries, and the sweetness of sugar—things labyrinth-dwellers could never enjoy.
Lavish scents of candy, snacks, and freshly baked cookies.
Hans wanted to push Alje off and get up.
He had no desire to lie in a pool of blood like a corpse.
Plus, the pressure was reopening the wounds he had just managed to bandage.
The exhaustion from both the physical and mental strain of fighting was nothing to scoff at.
“Witch’s scent.”
But the girl’s strength pressing down on him was simply too strong.