The Weakness of Beatrice the Level Cap Holy Swordswoman:Volume7 Chapter 2

Status: Incomplete

6/13 parts completed

   

Chapter 2: Bonus Scenario Unlocked

Part 1

Abyss// What I would like for you to do is search for mistakes.

Abyss// There are no obvious hints.

Abyss// There have been six incidents before this.

Abyss// Review all of those materials and locate anything that does not seem to belong.

Part 2

“Squeal.”

Halfway up a Ground’s Nir mountain, the nearly-4m pig-faced giant named Boo Boo tilted his head like a small child in front of the brick house that the palm-sized Fairies had built for him during the nights.

“What are you drinking, Beatrice? It’s so dark.”

“Hm? This is coffee☆ Making it from scratch here in Ground’s Nir wasn’t easy.”

He was answered by Holy Swordswoman Beatrice whose long red-and-silver hair fluttered and who had added a tattered gray cloak to her bright red armor and pure white miniskirt. She held a wood-carved mug in between her hands and smiled while seated on a nearby stump.

To make real coffee, you had to harvest the beans, roast them, crush them with a mill, heat up a syphon, and go through a long and arduous process, but she had received some interesting information from Iroka, the capable young woman of the three maid sisters back on Earth.

…Dandelion coffee was apparently a thing.

As its name suggested, it was made from the plant’s roots instead of special beans. It was no more than an imitation that provided a coffee-like flavor, but it was still a relief to have something. There were no actual coffee beans or dandelions in this world, but that was a separate issue. After a lot of trial and error that occasionally ended in a grimace or in writhing on the ground, she had discovered that the Fluffy Male Flower’s root was similar to a dandelion’s. This was the fruit of her blood and tears. Humans were about the only living things willing to die for their hobbies.

(I thought Philinnion would know since plant roots are so often used as medicine, but that glasses cow can be careless about the details.)

“Tremble tremble. So what is this about? Some weird human food thing???”

“Hmm.”

Boo Boo sounded cautious, so how was she supposed to answer him? She recalled hearing that he had had a bad experience with an energy drink made by Mixing Expert and White Witch Philinnion. The Iberian Orc’s sensory organs were as sensitive as his muscles were strong, so he may have had trouble with stimulants.

“It’s more of an indulgence than a food. You enjoy the flavor and aroma instead of filling your stomach and gaining nutrients.”

“Boo. Humans have such strange rituals.”

Boo Boo groaned in confusion. He seemed excessively fixated on food, but he was only ever searching for what he needed to survive. He may have never come across snacks or indulgences before.

Small children could drink dandelion coffee just fine since it had no caffeine, so Beatrice made a casual suggestion.

“What to try some, Boo Boo?”

At times like this, it was best to fill an empty mug with the dark coffee while asking with a smile. With needlessly nervous newbies, you could not give them time to think!

Boo Boo was more fixated more on the color than the flavor or smell. He sniffed his large nose with a skeptical look on his face.

“Boo… Is this really okay to drink? It’s so dark and it smells burnt. It’s like the potion used to protect my wood house from bugs.”

“Ah ha ha. There’s no need to drink it black as a sign of maturity, Boo Boo. I have milk and sugar here. You’re supposed to enjoy it as an indulgence, so forcing yourself to drink it is pointless.”

Level Capper Beatrice made it sound simple enough, but that milk and sugar were the result of opposing nature using brute force. There were no supermarkets or convenience stores in Ground’s Nir.

“Squeal. Is this boiled down Blessing Maple sap?”

“Yep. I boiled it until the syrup turned into a white powder. It still has a bit of a unique flavor, but actual pure white sugar is pretty hard to make. It’s a miracle the Farmers can do what they can.”

“The elder said this is really nutritious! Wow, it’s so sweet. I could eat these forever. It’s like they soak into my body.”

“Wait, eating just the sugar cubes is against the rules, Boo Boo! That doesn’t give you a mature atmosphere at all!”

“Squeal. I bet that drink is really good with this in there.”

The star of the show had clearly shifted. Boo Boo loved the sweet flavor so much he could not stop smiling as he threw a few sugar cubes into his mug. And…

“Gulp.”

“Ah!?”

He tilted his head back and drank the whole thing in one go. It was a lot like swallowing a pill using a cup of water. White steam had still been rising from the mug, but he had not even blown on it to put his mind at ease.

“Boo- wait, Boo Boo!?”

“Hm??? What’s wrong, Beatrice?”

“Open your mouth! Hurry! You aren’t burnt!?”

“Squeal?”

Beatrice got up from the stump with the large Shining Weapon shaking from its diagonal position on her back, but Boo Boo did not seem to understand why she was panicking. Iberian Orcs must have been made different from humans on a fundamental level.

“B-Boo Boo?”

“Why are you so freaked out?”

“Well, um…you’ve never had coffee before. Was it too bitter for you?”

“Everything’s sweet with those things in it, so I couldn’t tell.”

Part 3

Abyss// You have just one chance.

Abyss// Look to the center of what does not seem to belong. You will find the answer there.

Part 4

“Oh, what’s this? Are you drinking coffee, Boo Boo? When did you get so mature?”

“Eh? Did you make that yourself? I knew you had started working in the field, but getting a pure coffee tree here in Ground’s Nir is quite an accomplishment!!”

“Squeal?”

The nearly-4m giant only tilted his head.

His new visitors were Fighter Priest Hermelina, the brawler with short green hair and a priest robe with a bold slit (and a flat boob window), and White Witch Philinnion, the healer with fluffy blonde hair, glasses, and a pointed white hat. They normally tried to act like the more mature ones, so Boo Boo finally realized something when they began complimenting him.

“I was happy with just the sugar, boo, but it looks like everyone praises you if you hold this bitter stuff like you know what you’re doing.”

“Well, sounds like you understand how the adult world works. You’re right about that. Everyone actually loves sweet things, but all the respect goes to brand names and social status. It’s the same with bags, houses, cars, and boyfriends. Money is meaningless if it doesn’t bring you prestige.”

“Hermelina, fill Boo Boo’s pure mind with any more of your dark worldview and I will roast you. Just like a coffee bean.”

Beatrice’s fiery response was to be expected at this point, so no one bothered taking it seriously.

Philinnion, the young glasses woman with suspenders-bound boobs, glanced over at the row of wood-carved mugs and other cooking equipment.

“Huh? If you’re enjoying some coffee, then where are the snacks? What food do you have to go with it?”

“Squeal, these are sweet and tasty! I think they go perfect with coffee!!”

“Those are 100% pure sugar cubes, aren’t they!? Even those brutal British snacks are only half sugar and half butter!!”

The college girl bristled and raised her voice as she began her usual complaints about fat, sugar, and carbs (despite ending up eating more of them than the others), but Boo Boo only tilted his head since he was a mysterious lifeform who could convert anything he consumed into the energy he needed to live.

“Is there any kind of…you know, a snack we can whip up real quick?”

“Boo, when did we start talking about cooking? There are some cooking tools I don’t use in the house.”

When they visited the brick house, they found it had more stuff than before.

“Oh, Boo Boo. Have you started using a mirror?”

“The Fairies attached that to the wall. They say I have to look after my appearance now. Life is hard sometimes.”

“Oh, there’s a bookcase too. Boo Boo, you’re turning into a stylish and intellectual urbanite.”

“The Fairies brought that too. I can’t read all the tricky words, but I can understand the stories with lots of pictures. Those are fun.”

It sounded like most of them were picture books. Had palm-sized Meridiana and Alice invented the stories, or were they legends and old stories passed down by the Fairies? But while Beatrice wondered about that…

“But, yeah, some are missing.”

“Hm?”

“Sometimes, some of the pictures books go missing. Like the one that goes here or here. See all the holes? And I was hoping to read that one soon.”

“Hm, so do you have a thief? Although I think only the Fairies are here very often.”

“Boo, it’s strange. Where did ‘Studying Alone Together’ and ‘Secrets of the Female Body’ go?”

“What!? I-I’m not sure whether I should be mad or not! It was those palm-sized things that came up with that ridiculous lineup, but they’re also the ones who confiscated them! Are two different factions of Fairies in disagreement about this!?”

At any rate, they were interested in the cooking equipment.

They checked the mountain of pots and pans gathered in a corner of the rectangular room.

“I see, I see. A pot this deep should do. I have some Rising Powder and Doodle Doo Eggs…oh, and you have some vegetable oil. I think we can make do with this.”

“Hey, Philinnion, you can use this trip to another world to show off your feminine side if you want, but you aren’t planning to bake cookies or a cake, are you? That would take way too long.”

“(Heh. That’s the problem with this unfeminine and so very flaaat person.)”

“Do I need to grab you by the ankles and swing you around, glasses cow?”

Boo Boo’s house did not have a kitchen, so any cooking generally began with stepping outside and placing a pot over the fire. The White Witch seemed to have a good idea, so she filled the metal pot with vegetable oil and placed it on the fire. While it heated, she mixed together some white powder, bird eggs, tallow butter, and clear drinking water.

“You can’t hope for the regulated temperature of an oven in this wild environment. And if you want it done quick, isn’t frying something the simplest choice?”

Once she stuffed the goopy dough inside a leather bag with a single hole, the preparations were complete. She did not bother shaping the dough and simply squeezed it into the boiling oil.

Boo Boo watched with eyes wide.

“Squeal? What’s that stretchy stuff? And why is it hardening so quickly!?”

“These are called churros☆ If we had time to let the dough set, I could have made round donuts, but I thought the immediate effect seen here would be more fun.”

The process did not have many steps and it looked simple enough, but getting the moisture of the dough right was tricky and they would fall apart if you got it wrong. Beatrice and Hermelina stared into the distance while seeming to fade away. That glasses girl really had needlessly shown off her feminine side.

Feeling like the shining sun, Philinnion pulled the golden brown churros out of the oil and sprinkled some of Boo Boo’s sugar on them.

“All done. Well, what do you think? You don’t see churros as often as normal donuts, do you? It feels like a special event, doesn’t it? Hwa ha ha! Don’t underestimate a young woman who has a decent repertoire of skills to draw on!!”

“Squeal, these are the snacks?”

“Yes. You eat them with the coffee.”

“Why eat them together?”

“Because those are the rules.”

“Well, if it’s the rules,” said Boo Boo as he grabbed some of the human-size churros. Incidentally, Beatrice was curled up inside her tattered cloak after the attention was stolen away from her coffee, so she was not paying very close attention.

The person who was more interested in food than sex appeal tried eating the mysterious new food.

And…

“Ow.”

“?”

“S-squeal. They’re poking my mouth…”

Boo Boo tearfully grabbed his wood-carved mug to have something to wash the food down and then he tilted his head back.

“Gulp.”

“Wahh!? A-a-all at once!? That was bubbling hot water!!”

“Beatrice, what were you teaching Boo Boo!? He’s turned coffee into some kind of coming-of-age ceremony using fire!”

Beatrice was unsure what to say since Boo Boo had a tendency to do that. The first way he learned to do something tended to stick with him for a while.

Part 5

It was the middle of the night.

“Pu pu pu. Squeal, squeal.”

A soft light from the fireplace illuminated the inside of Boo Boo’s brick house. He was sitting on the floor with his mug while he threw some premade firewood into the fireplace.

This was unusual for wild(?) Boo Boo.

He was no longer afraid of fire. In fact, he seemed to enjoy looking after the crackling flame. He was apparently afraid of the dark because of the possibility of ghosts, but he may have overcome that fear by controlling this light source.

A small girl walked in without even knocking first.

“Oh, what’s this? It isn’t often that you are still up at this hour.”

She had long silver hair and an undeveloped body. A black ribbon dress and decorative flowers covered youthful skin that seemed to directly reflect the moonlight. That dress was an invaluable item that the Fairies had woven from Ground Spider silk. She was the Fairy Queen and one of paradoxes with a soul who were called Break News because seeing them was enough to make the news. Her name was Strigona and she could envelop everything with her toxic wings if she let loose.

However, she was accompanied by someone else at this late hour. This fellow Break News was Kallikantzaros, the Vampire who claimed the lunar eclipse as her own. Her small body was wrapped in a black swimsuit and a red negligee, she wore a nightcap on top of her long and fluffy blonde hair, and she held a gray pig doll under one arm, but no one would take her lightly because of that appearance. The fangs visible at her mouth were far too sinister for anyone to let their guard down.

She frowned a bit when she saw the mug Boo Boo was holding.

“Coffee? You have my praise for choosing an uncaffeinated variety, but that dissolved smell still bothers me. Boo Boo, you are meant to offer me your blood, so take care of your blood composition.”

“Squeal?”

“Ignore that fool who wants to suck you dry. I see, I see. So is that really coffee? Whenever night falls in the inn town, they always take the mug away from me! Now, hurry up and give me an offering. Honey or bread instead of sugar would have been better…but make sure to add plenty of milk! Do not forget that part!! Wow, wow!!”

“How are you and your sweet tooth any better than me!?”

The Vampire made that biting observation while the Fairy Queen was leaning out toward Boo Boo’s extra-large mug to smell the contents.

By the way, Strigona’s insistence on honey or milk may have been connected to the unverified stories of the palm-sized Fairies secretly doing people’s work in the night in exchange for such things.

“Squeal. I tried to give this to the vegetable in the field, but she got really mad at me.”

“Is that coffee replacement made from a plant root? I almost feel bad for that perverted carrot if you essentially offered her a relative to drink.”

Strigona sounded somewhat exasperated as she rudely licked her lips and reached for the milk pot.

The “vegetable in the field” here would be Ileana, the brown beauty who was a plant Break News and the greatest Mandragora. She was very interested in all “noble pastimes” that came in the form indulgences not needed simply to survive, but on a more fundamental level she preferred humus to a T-bone steak. You could not expect a normal sense of taste from her.

“Strigona, if you’re here to sleep, the sheets are folded in the corner.”

“Thanks.”

“The room is warmer than normal today, so you may not need to fold the blanket over for two layers.”

“…Why is this house equipped with so much bedding that Boo Boo never uses?”

Kallikantzaros asked that with a small sigh. Boo Boo generally just lay on the floor without a blanket or even a pillow, but there were also some human-sized items here and there. This was quickly becoming a second home for that silver-haired girl.

“But you should brush your teeth before going to sleep. The elder said you have softer teeth than us.”

“Yes, yes. I know.”

“Squeal. Strigona, you always go right to sleep once you’re full.”

“I! Said! I! Know!! When did you turn into my caretaker priestess or Morgan, Boo Boo? It saddens me to see my precious utopia taken from me! Where am I supposed to relax now!?”

“You really are a queen deep down, aren’t you?” said the Vampire.

“What about you, Kallikantzaros? There’s still plenty of coffee.”

“No thank you. Unfortunately, I choose not to consume anything that does not taste of rust.”

The Vampire pulled a small bottle from her large chest. It contained what seemed to be dried red leaf flakes. If she was to be believed, they had to taste of rust. She removed the cork, sniffed at the contents, removed one flake, and placed it on the tip of her tongue.

“The Iberian Orc village has returned and I no longer need to use tablets or tea as a replacement, but I can’t seem to change. I left my old routine and rhythm for so long that I can’t seem to return to it. I feel like someone who started a vegetarian diet to lose weight and then never stopped.”

“Squeal?”

Boo Boo’s predator was discussing whether or not she would eat him, but he did not seem to recognize the danger.

With a mug between her hands, Strigona gave her old friend a suspicious look.

“If there is nothing here you want, why did you come here at all?”

“I have business with the bloodless one. It concerns the world outside my control.”

“?”

Boo Boo and the silver-haired girl tilted their heads in unison.

The palm-sized Fairies had built the brick house without asking first, so it sometimes gained new functions and rooms Boo Boo was unaware of. One of those was the attic. That was where you could find Ground’s Nir Abyss, the ultimate weapon girl who had been built in the deepest part of this island that was actually a giant armory.

Kallikantzaros and Strigona were not your normal girls, so they jumped up to the attic instead of using the ladder. And sure enough, a very human-like figure lay on her back there while surrounded by lots of flowers, small objects, and a wood-carved human statue. Two strands of mottled silver hair passed in front of her shoulders and she wore a one-piece swimsuit cut down to size. She was wrapped in bandages and – while it was hard to tell with the poor lighting – one of her arms had been severed at the shoulder and her neck was bent at an odd angle. The sweet floral and fruity aroma mixed with a coffee scent did not just come from the super-sweet mug in Strigona’s hands. It had gone cold, but an identical mug was sitting next to the bedridden girl’s pillow.

This was Ultimate Weapon Abyss.

Although she had already been destroyed.

The Fairy Queen frowned.

“She can eat and drink already? Actually, could she even do that before the damage?”

“Boo. But Beatrice said you can enjoy the smell of coffee too!”

Kallikantzaros brushed her beautiful golden hair off of her slender shoulder.

“I would like to greet her, but I do not know how. What is the proper way to speak with her?”

“Squeal. Beatrice and the others connected their beepy things with a metal string.” Boo Boo poked his giant face up from where the ladder came up and sniffed his nose as he spoke. “But I can speak with her without doing anything. Heh heh.”

“Hm, then it might be faster to use you as a translator. Unless…”

The Vampire girl pulled the small bottle from her cleavage again. She placed it next to the cold mug by Abyss’s pillow. This was of course not just an offering.

A cloud fell over Boo Boo’s face which was larger than an upside-down wok.

“Abyss seems a little uncomfortable.”

“I imagine so. These flakes are made from dried Liver Cabbage which gathers plenty of iron from the ground. …When you get down to it, she is a machine. Even if she pretends to be a living creature and no matter what she hides in her heart, some slight magnetism leaks out when she thinks. We do not know yet whether or not you are the only one she can communicate with like that. At the very least, I think we can read a yes or no answer from the sign created by the shaking of the leaves in this bottle.”

“Don’t get upset, Abyss. They’re my friends, so try to get along.”

The dried leaf flakes in the bottle were already stirring to show the thoughts of the girl lying next to them, but it stopped when Boo Boo made his troubled comment.

Strigona leaned over the ultimate weapon with a curious look on her face.

“Ho ho? Boo Boo, you’ve really tamed her, haven’t you? You damn gigolo.”

“Abyss, stop beeping and entering combat mode! Squeal, and stop making red lights appear everywhere!!”

Abyss appeared to just be lying there with her eyes closed, but a lot seemed to be happening inside her.

Kallikantzaros crossed her arms and pushed her unnaturally large chest up from below.

“I will keep this short. I am Kallikantzaros, the Break News who controls the lunar eclipse. You should be able to quickly calculate out just how cataclysmic a power that could be.”

“Squeal?”

Boo Boo tilted his head, which did not make for much of a translation. The Vampire looked down at the small bottle by Ultimate Weapon Abyss’s pillow and observed the stirring of the dried leaf flakes inside.

“Was that a yes? Then let us continue. …Have you noticed the situation that draws nigh?”

“Draws nigh?”

“Wait, Kallikantzaros, is something new beginning? At least inform me first!!”

Boo Boo and Strigona questioned her in their own ways, but the negligee girl’s response was an exasperated one.

“This is nothing new. In fact, it is quite old. Cutting down the grass on the surface is useless when the roots remain. Simply put, Boo Boo, you might think you have solved everything, but you missed something. You missed the very core of the issue.”

He could only tilt his head at that.

The Iberian Orcs had been saved from the Red. Boo Boo had saved Beatrice after she lost her Shining Weapon. And the others had worked together to save Boo Boo after he collapsed.

What more was there? He could not think of any remaining issues.

“A lot is about to happen. You will be forced to pay for rushing your solution to those problems. It is possible none of the knowledge you previously relied on will apply.”

However.

The Vampire spoke with a calm conviction in her voice.

“But if you understand what the problem is at its core, you will not lose sight of yourself. Boo Boo, the times will change whether you like it or not. Instead of lamenting, you must adapt while staying true to yourself. To be honest, I have grown fond of you. Do not let this turbulent current change who you are.”

Boo Boo had no idea what she meant.

So Kallikantzaros summed it up in a way even he could understand.

She could not have made it simpler.

It was like a sinister prophecy.

“You never solved the problem of the Hero, did you?”

At that very moment, a tremor and impact seemed to shove the entire island up from below. Kallikantzaros breathed an exasperated sigh while Boo Boo and Strigona looked around in a panic.

“Wh-what!? What in the world just happened?”

“This did not come out of nowhere. A situation that has long been underway has finally made itself known.”

The negligee Vampire looked down at Abyss.

“I planned to use your processing power to predict whether or not the coming disaster would require assistance from my power…but it would seem that is no longer necessary.”

“But what actually happened!?” shouted Strigona.

Her old friend shrugged.

“They have descended,” she said. “They cushioned their fall by surrounding themselves in the same substance as the artificial atmospheric barrier surrounding this world. I imagine that umbrella was about the size of an entire continent.”

“Wha-?”

“Now, I have a question for you. It seems the Hero wished to complete an artificial atmosphere to fully surround this world, but where did they obtain the materials for it? A transparent artificial object would primarily be made of silicon, which means ordinary sand and dirt, does it not?”

She could think of two possible sources.

The first was the continents which had sunk when the Underworld Lord had destroyed the ancient humans. Since they were at the bottom of the ocean, no one would notice if they were missing.

The second was from another astronomical body or meteor located outside the artificial atmosphere.

But in either case, one question remained.

No one had ever found even a tooth belonging to the Hero, so where had they been all this time?

And what if they used that glass barrier to accomplish some kind of goal?

They could use that to directly strike the surface and to cushion themselves from the impact.

Or they could use it to construct a great continent to use as their own base.

And they could cause a certain phenomenon immediately after setting foot in the middle of the ocean.

“The Red that afflicted the Iberian Orcs was not a disease caused from within. The transformation came from the slight changes to the planetary environment brought by the artificial atmosphere surrounding Ground’s Nir. The Hero, that human who wandered here centuries ago, was attempting to remake Ground’s Nir into an environment identical to Earth. That was why destroying their artificial atmosphere was necessary to stop the Red. But what if the person controlling that artificial atmosphere was still alive? Would they really let you do that without any kind of response?”

“…”

Boo Boo’s face clouded over and red lights once more shined from Abyss to protect him. The dried leaf flakes in the small bottle stirred disconcertingly.

Kallikantzaros herself did not seem to care.

“I am saying a paradigm shift has arrived. The appearance of a new continent means this world is no longer small enough to walk the perimeter in three days. It has grown as far as the eye can see.”

“And that’s what’s causing this tremor?” asked Strigona. “No, wait.”

“If the direct hit caused a massive wave, I thought I would have to negate it by moving the ocean with my power to control the lunar eclipse.”

Everything should have been fine. Nothing should have happened.

But Kallikantzaros’s expression was grim.

“No real damage to the surrounding area, hm? That mass is the size of a continent. That level of control is actually terrifying.”

But it was not over yet.

This vast new field rewrote the assumption that Ground’s Nir was an island small enough to walk the perimeter in three days. And yet this was no more than the signal meant to announce the presence of the great catastrophe known as the Hero.

Boo Boo’s head shook a little. He could directly communicate with Abyss, so she had sent a small warning to him.

The ultimate weapon had sent him the following message:

They still live.

Part 6

Abyss// Did you find any mistakes?

Abyss// Then let us review the answers.

Part 13

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