Chapter Text
Sweaty, tired, gross. Lal Mirch pushed herself out of the A-class dungeon portal to the cheers of the media and adoring fans. Oregano and her other teammates stumbled out behind her.
“Amazing clear, Madame Mirch!”
“No losses, as always!”
“AAHHHHHHH MISS LAL PLEASE HAVE MY BABIES!”
The cacophony of the crowd assaulted Lal Mirch’s ears. She wanted to punch everyone but strained out a fake smile for the press instead.
That bastard Iemitsu. Who the fuck had ever thought that a retired army woman turned into a professional mercenary would make a great publicity figure?!
Urgh, even the army had been better. At least there hadn't been any insect blood washing her clothes and skin blue. Lal cast down her eyes. She needed a new outfit, again, and the money better not come out her pocket. She was going to squeeze CEDEF’s financial department dry!
The press surrounded her and took photos of Lal in all her disorderly glory.
Lal wished she could bark at them to stop with all this bullshit. She wanted to snap. But she held her tongue: now, more than ever, humanity needed hope. As that hope could only be provided by powerful flame users… someone needed to be chosen as a representative for the people.
Lal Mirch became exactly that kind of poster girl for the post-apocalyptic.
Not because of her own wishes; because general society had willed it so.
After the dungeons broke out, Lal Mirch remained the only Arcobaleno who was restored to her previous normal age, as she had always been incomplete.
Because of this, the media latched onto her, out of all the fellow cursed babies, to be the representative for the people. After all, no matter how powerful they were, the others were still exactly that: a set of creepy babies. For any non-mafia member, a sense of scepticism at the sight of the Arcobaleno’s forms still persisted. No matter how much the world changed, people in it didn’t.
Lal Mirch not only looked adult, but possessed an impressive musculature and warrior-like bearing. A burn scar ran down her face. She fit exactly the definition of a mighty hero for the masses.
Ironic, considering that despite her strength, she wasn't sure she would be able to best Fon's tricky martial style nor Mammon's powerful illusions. She would never win against Reborn. And yet, she was the one people held up the most.
Speaking of reborn...
As the sounds of the crowd washed over her and CEDEF representative came to get her, Lal Mirch sneered in disgust at the signboard that featured that annoying menace.
A baby in a suit and a fedora, with curly black sideburns, was displayed on the signboard holding a little gun pointed at the viewers. The gun looked like a toy, but Lal Mirch knew extremely well it wasn't. Now, after the dungeon break, most people in the world knew it too.
‘Ciaossu! Save the world. Join mafia today,’ the signboard read.
...those ads were getting crazier by day. Lal Mirch's eyebrow ticked.
She switched on her phone. Missed messages and calls crowded her notification tab. Dungeon-clearing job offers. Some random mafia spam. Messages from her CEDEF colleagues. A couple of party invitations.
Of course, this wasn't her private phone. Her work phone numbers, despite not being publicised, still got around every now and then. A lot of agents in the mafia and even newly forged flame users with unique abilities could get information on her if they were lucky. Sometimes Lal Mirch suspected that Mammon was selling out some of her numbers and other non-critical info for money. She should have a talking-to with that tricky mist.
Generally, the publicity was managed by a separate department of CEDEF, and Lal Mirch was thankful for it. Keeping her temper in check would have been impossible if she had to play nice all the time with the likes of coward politician trash, or dungeon-deniers who still kept insisting that all dungeon breaks were photoshopped, or even adoring fans who couldn't wait to worship the ground she walked on.
Someone's voices drifted into Lal’s ears as she contemplated which job to take on next. She didn't take orders from CEDEF. She decided her schedule from the offers she received all on her own.
She overheard a media guy trying to sniff out a new story now that an article about her successful dungeon clear was prepared. Lal Mirch took a note to intimidate those nosy journalists to include her teammates in the article, too.
The dungeon clearance was team effort. It was hard for Lal Mirch to solo dungeons, with her being primarily a strategist, scout, and support-dps. In the normal flame mafia world (talk about the redefinition of normal!) her fighting skills shone brightly and she could floor most enemy agents just with clever stratagems and flame power.
But killing monsters required a mightier punch, which, with Lal's full flame power still unavailable due to the curse, needed several people to pitch in with their flames. So, while she did do the biggest part of the work in the dungeon clearance by scouting out the path, devising the plans to kill monsters, killing non-boss enemies, and providing support with illusions to cover her teammates, the rest of her teammates had to band together to actually punch down the boss.
Yet despite their hard work, they remained in the shadows. Lal Mirch shone alone in the eyes of the public.
"Urgent news!" a reporter whisper-shouted to his operator. Lal side-eyed him as she was walking towards the car with her entourage. "They say that hobgoblin dungeon that's just a few streets away burst!"
"What? Fuck! Are we going to face those monsters now?! Is it a big one?" The operator geared up to run at a moment's notice.
"Calm down, idiot! The dungeon is really low-level. There is a big guild not too far from here as well, so someone should come assist soon."
"Well, someone will deal with it," the operator calmed down instantly. "We can leave it to someone else, while we can go and try to wheedle out an interview with Madame Mirch. Now, that will sell!"
"Idiot!" the reporter hissed. "I've heard a whisper that one of the monster processors there is that guy - Weakest Flame!”
Hearing 'Weakest Flame' Lal Mirch felt all her plans for the day fall apart on an almost physical level. She cursed under her breath and strode to the reporter and operator duo.
That weakling brat!
A headache pounded her forehead.
Irritation bubbled up inside her every time someone spoke of the situation. She couldn’t fathom why on earth Skull would do that. Why declare his SS+ class so openly? Hadn’t he spent enough time in the mafia world to realise that one needed to keep a trump card to oneself?!
All of the Arcobaleno belonged to the SS+ class, but not one of them had revealed it. Even Reborn! The trigger-happy baby ‘only’ declared himself as S+, while the rest of the Arcobaleno lied they were A to S classes.
And then there popped in Skull with his all-out shiny SS+! Even despite having the weakest skills to back that up!
If even Reborn humbled himself, why the heck hadn’t that given a helpful hint to Skull that maybe, just maybe, being too honest was a no-go?
Urgh. This set Lal’s blood pressure rising.
Now, because of that brat’s stupidity, he was getting dissed by any random riff-raff off the streets. Lal wanted to strangle everyone. She had no love for Skull at all, but she didn’t find joy in his suffering either. She had tried to offer help or throw in some dungeon-clearing team vacancies, but Skull joked it away. The brat was probably too proud to work under any other Arcobaleno, even preferring lowly laborious jobs.
Meanwhile, the reporter continued.
“We should get our arses there now, how can we miss this scoop? If that guy dies- Could this be the first Arcobaleno death?! Can you imagine how much we'll sell?" Greed in his voice intermingled with fear: death of an Arcobaleno. This seemed absolutely terrifying, considering how tough those monsters were to ordinary humans.
A faint smile void of all mirth surfaced on Lal’s lips.
That’s it. She was done here.
With a few paces, she reached the reporter and grabbed the ugly mug by the throat.
“Who the fuck are you calling 'first Arcobaleno death'?" she growled. She might not like Skull, but this kind of cowardly lowlife who wouldn't even step into a dungeon had no right to speak like this of anyone who risked their lives on the frontlines of dungeon clearance and monster processing.
"M-madame!"
Lal clenched his neck tighter and enjoyed his gasps. In a short while, she released him - but not before releasing her flames and spreading a terrifying aura all around her. Making the lesson stick.
“S-sor-ry!” the reporter puffed out. The operator tried to hide behind him.
"Lead the way," Lal Mirch ordered.
Time to save the arse of one troublesome cloud. Urgh, she couldn’t even get him to pay for her overtime.
Lal Mirch easily blew apart a few nearing hobgoblins. They were easy pickings, being small and relatively weak monsters. Usually they could be a force to reckon with in a large horde, but for some reason, they were scuttering away all scattered and disoriented from the gap of dark energy in the air - the dungeon.
Something had scared them off?
Lal Mirch frowned.
Killing those disgusting creatures was a good thing, but... unknowns always brought trouble. In her line of work, Lal Mirch could only feel confident when she knew all the whys, and hows, and whos.
Suddenly, someone flew out of the gap. The thing- the person chasing the hobgoblins-
...this was the most heroic woman Lal Mirch had ever seen.
The woman was dressed in a tattered black cloak and her dark red hair was in a mess that, as Lal intimately knew, would take hours to comb through. Letting out a cry, she moved a stick in her hands in a circular motion and-
A row of hobgoblins rocketed into the air before dropping into bloody splashes on the ground at insanely high speeds.
The helpers and onlookers alike gaped at the scene.
The woman didn’t stop there. She huffed a loose curl out of her eyes and-
Wait, where was she?!
The space she’d been in was empty.
But just then-
The red-haired woman reappeared again with a soft clap, closer to Lal this time. She sliced through the air with a determined, powerful motion - a row of hobgoblins each fell into halves before they could launch a counter.
Less than a minute, and this woman - who looked young at a closer look, perhaps barely out of her teens - dominated the battlefield.
Lal Mirch now saw the familiar purple-haired baby held within the redhead’s arms.
...She found Skull.
Just then, one second, and-
A shadow blinked into existence right behind the woman!
"Behind you!" Lal Mirch shouted as she readied her gun. But before she could fire-
Boom!
The woman turned around and poked the air with the stick she was holding in her Skull-free hand.
The boss monster exploded into smithereens. Bits of its greenish-brown body and organ matter scattered across the scene.
Lal Mirch's eyes widened at the destructive power.
Killing this boss monster itself wasn't that impressive, as any well-formed team could do it for this dungeon level. But this amount of sheer potency-
Even her team would find it hard to deal such a strong hit!
Who the hell had Skull dug up?
Lal Mirch wanted this young woman in her team, and now!
They finished off the rest of the hobgoblins together. The creatures hadn't had the chance to hobble or rush away as both women blasted off the blighted beings.
Skull cheered them on while sitting comfortably in the redhead’s arms and making an occasional comment
“Waaaaaah, Harry, Skull-sama is amazed!”
“Lal, you are cool, too - but you missed this one!”
“Ooooh let’s make it a competition, who’s gonna be faster? Skull will take bets, everyone!”
…Lal Mirch wanted to hit this brat but what else was new?
Instead of paying attention to the useless guy who hadn’t felled a single monster, she focused on the woman.
"Who are you?" Lal Mirch asked in the end, after everything was done.
Immediately, she wondered if her tone was too brusque. It was a habit from the military and Lal didn’t actually mean to sound so demanding, but it came to her naturally. The certain CEDEF idiots she associated with only recognised this kind of manner.
A wave of reporters and bystanders surrounded the place, but the local guild had arrived and was preventing them from entering the scene; after all, monster cores and other ingredients needed to be harvested, and the wounded humans needed to be healed.
The woman smiled. She looked tired and a little dizzy, even disoriented - but Lal Mirch didn't blame her at all.
"I'm just Harry," she introduced herself. Harry's voice was rather feminine and gentle, unlike her appearance of a battered hero. “Apparently, I’m also… What would you call, a Flame user?”
This was the start of their world's greatest legend.