Gray won the contest, which was only natural.
As a genuine A-rank, his physical capabilities were naturally hundreds of times stronger than those of an ordinary girl—though Katy, who wasn’t putting in any effort, was actually neither ordinary nor a girl.
Despite the soul of Noctiluca protesting vehemently, Katy chose to lose the match with a smile.
After all, having once been a man and still identifying as a “pure dude” in her own mind, she knew how important this seemingly childish competition was to Gray.
Just moments ago, the guy had been ready to jump onto the table to start scrubbing.
“Congratulations, Mr. Gray,” Katy said, clapping her hands lightly with a hint of a smile on her lips.
“You aren’t ‘completely winless’ anymore.”
Looking at the girl’s seemingly sincere smile, Gray felt happy for barely half a second.
Had he really fallen so far that he needed to beat a weak, defenseless girl just to regain a shred of pathetic self-confidence?
“Ah, thank you, Miss Katy…”
As the excitement on Gray’s face visibly collapsed, Katy felt like she had failed a bit.
How should she put it?
It was like spending half an hour trying everything to cheer up a dog, only for the big dog to keep its ears drooping, lying on the floor and peeking up with those miserable eyes.
If “winning once” wasn’t enough, then she would just have to gamble with her own body.
“Hey, Mr. Gray.”
“…Hmm?”
“How about we go for a drink? To celebrate your first victory.”
“Eh?”
A look of confusion appeared on Gray’s face.
“Miss Katy, don’t you know you have to be eighteen to—”
“Hah—!”
Ten minutes later, inside a cheap tavern in Knox City, Gray slammed a wooden mug heavily onto the bar counter, completely ignoring the looks from those around him.
Beside him, the girl in the white dress was sipping a glass of Milk Liqueur.
Her holy aura and face looked entirely out of place in this noisy, chaotic bar.
“Mr. Gray, be careful about drinking so fast, or you’ll get drunk too quickly.”
Watching the young man pour cheap beer down his throat mug after mug, like a dehydrated camel at a watering hole, Katy couldn’t help but remind him.
Ordinarily, it was difficult for the constitution of an A-rank warrior to get drunk, but that wasn’t necessarily true for someone drinking like Gray.
This guy looked like he was trying to replace all the blood in his body with beer.
“Watch out or you’ll get beaten up for not being able to pay your tab again, Gray. I won’t be able to save you then.”
The bartender behind the counter seemed to be an old acquaintance of Gray’s, teasing him while skillfully filling another mug.
Then, the man’s gaze fell on the girl beside him, and his eyes instantly lit up.
“Whoa, and who is this beautiful lady?”
“She is an Angel.”
Gray suddenly put down his mug and cut in, staring at the bartender with an exceptionally serious expression.
“She’s an Angel who descended from the Divine Kingdom.”
“It’s… it’s not that big of a deal.”
Katy was a bit stunned by this sudden directness, her cheeks flushing slightly.
“My name is Katy. I just asked Mr. Gray for help in finishing some food I couldn’t eat.”
“See! Definitely an Angel! Only an Angel could say something so kind!”
Gray spread his arms and pointed toward Katy, shouting loudly as if showing off some rare treasure to the bartender.
“Yeah, anyone willing to help an A-rank like you, the Weakest Winless, must be an Angel from above.”
Looking at the girl who was shyly averting her gaze, the bartender chuckled and played along while wiping a glass.
To hide her embarrassment, Katy lowered her head and took a sip of the Milk Liqueur, the liquid leaving a faint white trace around her lips.
Gray glanced at her surreptitiously, his Adam’s apple bobbing, before grabbing his mug for another huge gulp.
“By the way…”
Katy licked the liquor from her lips and asked as if casually, “I’m actually a bit curious. Why is Mr. Gray called the ‘Weakest Winless’?”
Even though he knew the girl’s question carried no ill intent, hearing the words “Weakest Winless” come from those cherry-like lips still made Gray’s heart twitch, as if it were being squeezed hard by an invisible hand.
“Sigh, some memories are best left in the past.”
The young man let out a long sigh and buried his face in his mug to play dead.
“This kid is too embarrassed to say, so I’ll fill you in, beautiful Angel.”
The bartender happily took over the conversation.
Gray’s mishaps were clearly a favorite joke he shared with other customers.
“After this guy advanced to A-rank over a year ago, it was like he was cursed. He fixated on one specific dungeon and threw almost his entire life savings into it.”
“In the end, right up until that dungeon suddenly closed a short while ago, he never managed to successfully clear the boss even once.”
During that time, every time he was forced to activate a Teleportation Crystal to return to the dungeon entrance, having lost all his equipment, Gray would walk into any tavern and the atmosphere inside and out would immediately be filled with joy.
“Gray, you must have lost everything in The 13th Dungeon again!”
The bartender mimicked the gloating tone of other heroes with great vividness.
Back then, the Weakest Winless, ridiculed by everyone, would flush red, the veins on his forehead bulging as he argued that he just had his own rhythm, that he was just learning the patterns this time, and that he would definitely clear it next time.
Then came some hard-to-understand words, things like “those damned delayed attacks,” “why does the BOSS have a second phase,” or “the bastard who designed that dungeon must have had a door that wouldn’t open from the inside when he really had to pee as a kid,” which would make everyone roar with laughter.
At this moment, as his old friend tore open his wounds once more, Gray let out a cry of agony.
Like a female knight surrounded by goblins, his face was full of shame and resentment, wishing he could find a hole to crawl into.
“Gugh, dammit! Curse that Noctiluca!!”
The young man slammed his empty mug onto the table and covered his face in pain, his voice grinding through his teeth.
“Why… why did you run away before I could beat the dungeon?! Noctiluca! Are you that afraid of me?!”
The bartender was laughing at him, but he still kindly helped wipe up the beer that had splashed from the mug.
Katy, however, had no time to comfort or mock the pathetic man in front of her.
Something was wrong.
She seemed to have misunderstood something.
In her memory, whether it was being pushed off a cliff by a rolling stone, being turned into a pincushion by skeleton archers on a narrow bridge, or being one-shot by her own hammer, Gray had never given up.
Every week—sometimes even every day—he would visit The 13th Dungeon.
While the Teleportation Crystals carried by heroes could protect them by warping them back to the entrance before they suffered fatal wounds, the price was that all the equipment and items they carried would be left in the dungeon.
This was a major source of revenue for the dungeon.
Previously, Noctiluca had thought this idiot who went into the dungeon with full gear every time was some rich second-generation kid with money to burn, or simply a masochist looking for a thrill.
Looking at it now, this guy had treated conquering her—no, conquering The 13th Dungeon—as his life’s goal!
The only one!
He had even been willing to sell everything he owned just to scrape together a set of gear for a run.
But after Noctiluca was fired, The 13th Dungeon entered a locked state and could no longer be entered.
Having lost his life’s goal, Gray could only drown his sorrows in booze, even forgetting to take commissions to pay for his drinks, eventually resulting in him being thrown out of a bar like trash.
Katy looked at Gray, who was still cursing Noctiluca, and then at the Milk Liqueur in her hand that he had bought for her on credit.
She swallowed hard.
She had underestimated her own importance in Gray’s heart.
Thinking about it now, she seemed to have accidentally… warped this guy’s entire life!