In the passageway dominated by darkness, lights gleamed at regular
intervals. The shining points continued along the walls into the distance, just
bright
enough to dimly illuminate
the walkway. Every so often, a cool draft wafted through the gloom, making the
lights flicker.
A line of figures
advanced down the corridor.
One after
another, strong shoulders and muscled arms bearing sheathed knives passed
before the weak glow. The clanking of the fasteners on their armor blended with
the pounding of their shoes and boots.
They were
adventurers.
There were
perhaps ten or twelve in the group, led by a dwarf with a helmet pulled low
over his eyes. Each held a magic-stone lantern and used it to search the
surroundings carefully.
They were not in
the Dungeon.
The
tunnel-like hallways they walked through were made of rock, hewn by human
hands. Magic-stone lamps nearing the end of their life spans were affixed to
the walls, while water rushed down the center of the passageway with a hiss.
It was an
underground sewer.
“Prey is always first come, first serve. No hard feelings, right?” said
an animal person in the group.
“Just try
touching one of my kills and see what happens,” an Amazon responded.
The armor of
each adventurer was engraved with a different familia’s emblem; they were a
mixed-faction party. It was clear from the extreme lack of unity that the group
had been formed in haste. The animal person responded to the uncompromising
Amazon with spit and a curse.
These rough, poorly behaved individuals were all
experienced adventurers. Among them was Mord Latro, as well as the two human
companions who
always accompanied him.
“Are you sure
this is okay?” asked the other.
“What are
you talking about? The guys from the Guild are leaving no stone unturned on the
surface, but they haven’t found a thing. They must be in the sewers.”
Mord had a
rugged build and a fierce visage, with scars on his forehead and cheeks. He
looked every bit an overbearing scoundrel. In fact, about two and a half months
earlier, he had even tried to give a certain extremely fast-growing rookie an
adventurer’s baptism.
He withdrew a
scroll from his pocket.
“We’ll kill
these monsters before anyone else can catch up. The prize money is gonna be
ours!”
The
illustrations on the scroll depicted armed monsters, drawn based on what was
known about them. Among them were a fiendish lizardman and a gargoyle.
Three days
had passed since the monsters appeared on the surface as a result of the
disturbance instigated by Ikelos Familia. After shaking off the adventurers
pursuing them, the escaped monsters scattered across Orario. Even now, they
were hiding somewhere in the city.
Guild
Headquarters took the situation very seriously, ordering several familias to
quickly subjugate the monsters and placing a bounty on their heads as an
incentive. Tempted by the generous reward, adventurers abandoned their
exploration of the Dungeon and were currently in a frenetic search for the
monsters believed to still be on the surface.
“No, that’s not
what we meant, Mord.”
“These armed
monsters look really strong. I heard they even got away from Loki Familia…”
“It won’t be
a problem. The Sword Princess beat them up pretty good from what I hear.
They’re probably so tuckered out they can’t even move right now. For a bunch of
monsters that only know how to go on a rampage, they’ve been awfully quiet. I’d
say that’s proof enough. It’ll be an easy win.”
As Mord
loudly guffawed, the men accompanying him exchanged uneasy glances.
A group of upper-class adventurers from a different familia was also
talking among themselves.
“By the way…Did
you hear the latest about the Little Rookie?”
“Yeah.
Townsfolk seem to be giving him the cold shoulder. He’s really done it now,
eh?”
“He must have
gotten a hankering for his vouivre friend. What an idiot.”
“I think
it’s because he let all that special treatment and flattery about being a
record holder go to his head. Serves him right!”
The
adventurer had become a laughingstock—no more than an amusing subject for
ridicule.
Other
adventurers listened to the disparaging conversation and joined the sneering.
That was when
Mord broke in.
“…Hey, you!
What’s so important you can afford to forget the business at hand?” he said,
his scoundrel’s face twisting into an even grimmer expression than usual.
“Right now, we’re a lot like him ourselves, I’d say! So stop picking on the
Little Rookie!!”
“Hey now, Mord!”
“What’s the
matter all of a sudden?”
His companions
rushed to stop him, but he flew at them, spitting.
His outburst
threw the party of unfamiliar adventurers into confusion.
“That little
brat attacked other adventurers because they were killing a vouivre. I’d say
that’s going too far!”
“Yeah, it’s…I know, it’s the debt! It’s all because of that unbelievable
debt his familia has!”
Their voices
were choked with a mixture of scorn and hostile criticism toward the boy. Mord
turned his back on them emphatically and began walking forward again.
“What’s with
him?”
“Yeah, what’s his
problem?”
Mord could hear the murmurs behind him, and he
snorted with irritation. Just when the atmosphere of the group was growing
perilously stormy, the
dwarf at the head of the line yelled out.
“Stop.”
The upper-class
adventurers reacted in unison to his tensely spoken order.
The dwarf was
glaring straight ahead.
Deep in the
gloom, a pair of yellow eyes glinted.
Then, with a fat, undulating tail covered in
scarlet scales, the monster showed itself.
“It’s…the
lizardman!”
“Finally showed
yourself, eh!”
No sooner had the adventurers moved into battle
formation than the monster, clad in armor, charged toward them.
“UOOOOOOOOO!!”
The sturdy dwarf had braced his shoulders in an attempt to absorb the
shock, but he was thrown backward by the frontal attack.
“What…? What’s
going on?”
The shocked
voices of Mord and the others rained down on the dwarf, who had become
entangled with the adventurer behind him as he fell backward.
Oblivious to
whom he was attacking, the lizardman rampaged through the group.
“Swoooosh!!”
“Oooooooof?!”
Along with
its flashing longsword and scimitar, the creature also swung its tail about
like a flail.
Unable to
defend themselves against their foe’s terrible battle prowess, the trampled
party let out a series of screams. The tail hit an animal person, knocking him
into the air so that he lost his footing and fell into the waterway.
A spray of
liquid blasted the adventurers, sending them running without a single backward
glance.
“Guess he wasn’t
so weak after aaaaaaaaaall!!”
With a chorus of
wretched screams, Mord and the others fled at full speed.
“…Mmmm.”
A pair of pointy, misshapen ears quivered at the sound of low screams
echoing in the distance.
The dragon
girl fluttered her ashen eyelids and slowly opened her eyes. She could just
make out a dark stone ceiling above her.
“Where…am I…?”
she mumbled to herself.
“Are you awake, Wiene?”
The gentle
voice had come from right beside her. Slowly turning her eyes in that
direction, Wiene saw a beautiful siren with a relieved expression on her face.
“Rei?…?!”
As soon as
she uttered the name of the siren, her fellow Xenos, the vouivre leaped up.
“Bell! Where is
Bell?!”
“Please calm
down, Wiene. Bell is fine.”
Rei wrapped her wings around the frail body of
the girl, speaking slowly to calm her frantic worry over the boy’s safety.
“Really? Oh, I’m
so glad…But when I was at his side, didn’t I…?”
“Fels brought you back to life.”
Wiene unconsciously touched her hand to the red stone
on her forehead, tilting her head in confusion at Rei’s words.
“Maybe it would have been best if she’d slept a
little longer.”
“Gros…?”
It was the
gargoyle, standing by their side, who had spoken.
Wiene looked
confused. A moment later, Lido appeared.
“I’m back!” he
announced.
“Lido!”
“Oh, you’re up, are you, Wiene? I’m so glad!”
“Yes. Where were you just now?” “…I chased off some adventurers.”
With that, he turned to speak with the black-clad mage Fels, who had
come to greet him.
“Are you okay,
Lido?”
“I am.
Thanks to your magic, my body is perfectly healed. I can move around just fine.
The adventurers came rather close, though. It would be best to move from here.”
“Oh, I see…”
Wiene did
not know what to make of this grim conversation between Fels and the others.
She looked around. They were not in the Dungeon or in Knossos, the man-made
labyrinth that the hunters had brought her to. Instead, they were in a
forgotten chamber of a sewer, where she could hear the sound of flowing water.
About
fourteen of her brethren were there with her, including lamias, trolls, and
Lido. Even to Wiene, the group looked small. Timidly, she spoke up, her profile
illuminated by the light of the half-broken magic-stone lanterns.
“Where…are we…? And where are the others?”
“…Let’s explain. Listen well, Wiene,” Fels answered.
As the
girl’s amber eyes shifted uneasily, the mage explained clearly and concisely
that they were on the surface, where townspeople were chasing her and the other
Xenos in an attempt to kill them. For that reason, they were moving around
Orario so as not to be found. In the process of fleeing from the adventurers,
some of the Xenos had been separated from the group.
“If only he were here, we may have been able to
do something, but…”
Hearing the
unfamiliar name, Wiene followed the gazes of Lido and Rei.
When she saw what they were looking at, she
froze.
A powerful
jet-black limb had been set on the floor. It was a severed arm, the massive
muscles practically as thick as Wiene’s torso. Now it was encased in ice to
keep the flesh from decaying. The vouivre gulped at the sight, which spoke to
not only the violence of the battle that had nearly cost Lido and the others
their lives but especially to the importance of the minotaur’s presence.
“To survive,
the only choice is to return to the Dungeon. But the entrances to Babel and the
labyrinth are all shut tight, so as matters stand, there’s currently no way to
get back,” Fels said from the depths of the torn hood.
Alone and
unaided, surrounded by enemies on all sides. They were in the worst situation
imaginable.
The mage paused
for a moment, then continued.
“If we have one
hope, it’s…”
The whispered
words melted away into the silence.
Surrounded
by her brethren, who were also now hushed, Wiene slowly looked upward into the
darkness that enveloped them.
“Bell…”
He was born hungry.
The first thing he did when he set foot there
was to massacre everyone. Countless members of his familia were present. They
tried to attack him, and
he was hungry. They showed
him no mercy. He thought of them less than the morning dew. He beat them to
death with his hands, stomped them to death with his feet, crushed them with
his body. Within the boundless maze, he threw himself into endless battles.
He didn’t
know exactly when he first became aware of himself. There was a sense that it
had been when he was born, but he also felt like it was long, long before that.
That his self had hovered within some sort of dream. The one thing he
remembered very clearly was the scene so vivid it had made him conscious of his
self.
He was still
hungry for that feeling.
Even when
his skin was torn, his bones crushed, and his flesh melting, rotting away, he
continued to move from one place to the next, slaughtering his familia members.
The turning point came when he finally fell to
his knees, bereft of energy. The figures that appeared before him at that
moment were not his familia
members but his brethren.
They
protected him and rescued him from the jaws of death. After bringing him to
their home, they soothed his body.
As they had helped nurture something within him other than hunger, he
saw the brethren as a positive presence. They were also widely knowledgeable
and taught him the true nature of his hunger.
“It is a
powerful yearning,” the fighter who was kin had said. “It is what you
desire.”
His
yearning? He didn’t really know what that was. But he understood that it was
his “desire.”
In the dream
that visited him incessantly, there was no sound or smell, only light. A will
so strong his body shook from it, an ecstasy that filled his empty shell, something
that affirmed his very existence.
He learned
many other things from his brethren. Wisdom, strength, and the use of weapons.
Eventually he separated from them and once again threw himself into the place
where he had been born. The far graphite depths of the Dungeon.
This is not it.
This is not it.
Having
learned the true nature of his hunger, he could no longer feel satisfied. Even
if he honed his strength and massacred his kin, he would never be able to reach
his dream. At some point, he even began to feel irritated. Perhaps you could
call it impatience. His hunger grew and grew. He carried on the search for his
dream and remained lost on his way.
“AH—AAAAAHHHH?!”
The hunter fled,
screaming.
A number of
other hunters lay on the ground, their arms and legs twisted at impossible
angles. A pool of blood had formed around them. They had very cleverly
discovered his hiding place. So he destroyed them. The victim destroyed the
would-be aggressor.
This is not it.
This is not it.
That thing—the
dream—would never have run from him in terror.
These
hunters had fled after taking a single step toward him. He had caught up with
them and grabbed them around their necks with his groaning, powerful arms
before slamming them against the wall. Countless fissures had spread through
the decrepit ruins. Spewing red liquid, the hunters’ eyes rolled back in their
heads. The sound of breaking bones came all too easily from necks he grasped
like twigs in his palms. He remembered the promise he’d made to his brethren
and withdrew his hands.
After the last of his enemies had collapsed onto the floor, he left the
ruins where he had been hiding.
It was not deep
in the Dungeon but rather close to the surface.
Feeling no
emotion whatsoever toward the night sky covered in its thin blanket of clouds,
carrying just a single weapon, blood dripping from his entire body, he
continued to wander lost, with resolute steps.
He kept
searching.
To find the
dream. To meet again.
A Menace Let Loose: Monsters Scatter Across the
City.
Dungeon
Post Town Rivira Destroyed. Were Monsters on the Surface Involved?
The Secret Maneuvers of Ikelos Familia: A Second Door to the Dungeon?
Several news publications were spread out on the table. Hestia and Lilly
stared grimly at the headlines, written in
Koine.
“This is getting
really serious…”
“Yeah, these stories
are all over town. The locals are sick with worry.”
It was the fourth morning since the incident involving Ikelos Familia
and the Xenos that had turned the city upside down.
Hestia and
Lilly were standing in the living room of Hearthstone Manor, their home,
looking down at the reports.
Lilly had
gathered them from around town, each a scroll of several leaflets sold by a
familia or a merchant. They were full of countless bits of information and
conjecture about the monsters’ appearance on the surface.
For Hestia
and Lilly, who were privy to the details of the situation, even the ones that
appeared at first glance to be gossip, were no laughing matter.
“And look at
this one…” Hestia said glumly, shifting her gaze to another of the notices.
The article
she examined was small and squeezed into a corner. The headline read: Violent
Rampage by War-Game Champion Little Rookie: Lost Hope, Lost Prestige.
There were similar articles in other notices.
Some included his portrait. Hestia stood at the table beside the much shorter
Lilly in stony silence, her
brows knit. Just then, Haruhime and Mikoto
walked into the living room, dressed in maid’s outfits.
“Lady Hestia.
Lady Lilly. We’re back.”
“Apologies for
taking so long. Many of the stores were closed.”
They were returning from a shopping trip, and
they set down paper bags full of vegetables and dried meat.
“Welcome back.
Nothing was wrong in town?”
“…Nothing
obvious. But the way everyone looked at us, compared to before…” Haruhime said
evasively. Mikoto spoke more clearly, although with a troubled expression.
“Some of
them were very cold. As we suspected, Sir Bell’s actions seem to be having a
broader effect…because we’re in the same familia as him. It feels like the
pressure has been building over the past few days.”
Hestia sighed and
looked at Lilly.
“No change with
Welf today?”
The young armor
smith had not shown his face since the disturbance.
“No. He’s
been shut up in his workshop ever since. He’s hopeless…but when I leave food in
front of his door, it always disappears, so he must be alive in there,” Lilly
grumbled.
Hestia
looked toward the corner of the garden where the workshop stood behind the main
building. At that moment, the living room door swung open.
“Oh…Mr. Bell.”
The boy walking toward Hestia and the others looked almost the same as
usual. That is, aside from how preoccupied he seemed.
“…”
He started
to say something to Lilly, Mikoto, and Haruhime, then looked away. The words
were stuck in his throat, but he eventually turned to Hestia and forced himself
to speak.
“Um, Goddess…please let me go into town.” Lilly
and the others reacted with surprise.
“…What on earth
are you going to do outside?” Hestia asked.
As the
leader of the familia, their goddess had strictly forbidden Bell to leave home.
She hadn’t ordered him to stay inside until the excitement cooled down, but she
thought it best for him to lie low at least in the immediate aftermath of the
incident. It was for his own safety. Bell’s position at the moment was that
perilous.
“If you want to collect information, the supporters or I can do it.
There’s no need for you to personally go, right?”
“But…”
“You might get
hurt again.”
Bell stiffened,
perhaps recalling the hostility and disappointment many
residents and fellow adventurers had directed at
him the other evening when he had walked down Daedalus Street in the
battle-scarred city.
With a shuddery
breath, Bell met Hestia’s gaze and answered her.
“Sitting here doing nothing, just letting time
pass…That’s the scariest thing of all right now.”
He could not
remain still any longer.
In response to
his pleading look, Hestia closed her eyes for a moment.
Finally, she nodded.
“Okay. You may
go.”
“Goddess…”
“But—only on the
condition that I go with you.”
Bell had been relieved for an instant, but his
eyes widened. Lilly and the others reacted much the same.
“Lady Hestia, I
don’t think—”
“Supporters, I’m counting on you to keep
collecting information and guarding our home! Today, I will serve as Bell’s
bodyguard!”
Hestia gave them a thumbs-up. Lilly, who was
leaning forward in surprise, pouted and grudgingly murmured, “I can’t believe
it.”
The goddess may have been messing around, but
she had made her divine will known.
As a goddess, she was the one who could best
protect Bell now. “We’ll try to be back by lunchtime! Let’s get going, Bell.”
“But, Goddess…”
Hestia
walked to his side and peered up at him. Finally, giving in to his goddess’s
stare, Bell nodded.
“Okay, let’s go…”
We set out, leaving home
behind. As promised, I am headed to town with the goddess.
For these past
four days, I’ve been under house arrest—or at least, that’s how
I see it. But thanks to Lilly and the others who
have been gathering information,
I at least have an idea of recent developments
in the city.
Once word
got out that the monsters had breached the surface, the eight city gates were
completely sealed. The Guild, in an attempt to get things under control as
quickly as possible, issued a bounty for the Xenos. Many adventurers
I want to know where Wiene and Lido and the others have gone, too. When
I heard the rumors and imagined the Xenos being driven out, I couldn’t bear to
stand idly by.
“…”
The sky above
Orario is overcast.
The rain
that had been falling since the incident has stopped, but the sky is shrouded
in clouds, as if expressing the city’s current mood.
The streets
in town are quiet. Perhaps because everyone is afraid of the monsters, the few
people who are out and about rush off quickly. The small children I always used
to see on my way to the Dungeon are nowhere to be found. Is this really Orario?
“My shifts
at the Jyaga Maru Kun stand have been canceled as well…” the goddess murmurs
despondently as I gaze around this unfamiliar Orario in bewilderment.
We head to
West Main Street, past many shops shuttered and locked up tight. As expected,
there are more people on the main thoroughfare, but most are Guild employees,
who normally wouldn’t be walking around, along with their adventurer guards.
They are probably on patrol or actively searching for monsters.
The vitality of the town has vanished, replaced by an atmosphere of
nervous tension.
“…Hey, you!”
“Look, over there!”
The stern
expressions are directed at us.
Without a doubt,
they are staring at me.
“The Little
Rookie…I heard all about him and how he caused Loki Familia so much
trouble.”
“It’s probably his fault that the monsters got
away.” “Just a typical adventurer in the end.”
“Hey now, don’t put us in the same category as that guy. At least we
know the time and place for that behavior.”
A chorus of
voices tangles in my ear.
Even without
improved hearing due to my Status, I would be able to make out quite clearly
the buzz of voices around me. Ordinary citizens, shopkeepers, fellow
adventurers…all manner of people stare at me in revulsion as I walk down the
street.
It’s the
same experience I tasted that evening in Orario. Criticism is bearing down on
all sides.
“They say it was for money…But I think the truth is he was protecting
the monsters.”
“Monster fetish,
eh?”
Now and then, I hear the worst insult in the world hurled at me, someone
who protected a despicable vouivre. The words pierce me to the core.
I knew going in that this would happen. I have to accept it. As I
struggle desperately to withstand the onslaught, another thought enters my
mind.
All the daggers
of criticism seem to be directed at me and me alone.
I heard that
Ikelos Familia has been destroyed and its leader, God Ikelos, banished
from the city. In this place smothered by fear and anxiety, I seem to have
become the sole outlet for people’s feelings…Perhaps I am an easy target for
their blame.
An enemy to all
people.
The tips of my fingers freeze at the phrase, which has begun to feel
real. As I desperately try to quiet my ragged breathing—the goddess spins
around.
“If you have something to say, say it to our faces!”
She jabs her finger toward the people around us.
Both they and I
are struck dumb by the goddess’s sudden reaction.
“Bell
behaved recklessly because of the debt that I accumulated. You could even say
he did it because of his deep love for me! So if you’re going to pass out
blame, don’t forget about me and my sins!!”
As she
delivers this speech to her surprised audience, the goddess emphasizes the word
debt. And very subtly, the word love…
People begin
to huddle together after watching the goddess press both hands to her broad
chest and speak with such conviction.
“The Loli
goddess…”
“Yes, it’s her!”
“It must be true that she borrowed two hundred
million valis…” “A natural disaster has befallen us!” “The curse of the Loli
goddess…”
“If she’s in that
situation, then her followers must also be…”
The goddess
throws her hands up, her anger flaring at the whispers.
“Shut your
mouths! What total nonsense!” she shouts.
As I rush to
restrain her, it dawns on me. The malice permeating the
I’ve gone and let the goddess protect me after
all. I’ve made her tell a lie. Belatedly, I realize what she meant by the word bodyguard.
By becoming a
buffer, the goddess has made
it difficult for mortals to openly blame me. But in the course of protecting
me, her follower, she has become the target for the people’s animosity herself.
I hang my head.
“Goddess, I’m so
sorry…Because of me—”
I was about to say, “You’re in this mess,” but she cuts me off before I
can finish.
She turns and
stares up at me, then starts laughing at my dismay.
“Bell, let’s hold
hands.”
Pulling me along, she and I start walking
forward together once more. “Um, G-Goddess…”
“I know it’s
unwise of me, but I feel a little happy. Lately you haven’t needed any looking
after. You’ve bolstered my reputation, you see.”
Her deliberately
teasing tone is like a pat on the shoulder.
She squeezes
my hand. Normally I would feel embarrassed, but now…I just feel miserable. I’m
ridiculously spineless for relying on the goddess’s protection and causing her
so much trouble.
At the same time,
despite myself, I feel happy.
I know I
shouldn’t let her spoil me…but against my best intentions, I squeeze her warm
hand back. Only a little.
People
continue to give us judgmental looks. But I don’t feel as cold as before.
“…Goddess, can we stop here for a moment?”
“Sure, but what for?”
Having asked
her permission, I pause in front of a building on the central thoroughfare.
Even for West Main Street, the stone structure housing The Benevolent Mistress
tavern stands out as unusually large.
“You come here a lot, right? This is actually my
first time,” the goddess says. “Really? You’ve never been?”
Even with
everything going on, The Benevolent Mistress is open for business. As we walk
up to the entrance, a waitress appears, perhaps having noticed us standing
outside.
“Lyu…”
“…”
The pretty young
elf stares into my face.
She saved me
during the mission to the eighteenth floor, so I came here today with the
intention of thanking her. But now that I’m standing in front of her, I find
myself unable to speak.
Fear wells up
inside me…What if she feels the same as the townsfolk?
As I stand
there with the words stuck in my throat, Lyu sighs softly and walks down the
entryway stairs.
“Mr. Cranell. I am not going to snub you just because I heard some
rumors in town.”
“!”
“I believe what I
see with my own two eyes,” she says, smiling ever so
The tension drains from my body at the
encouragement from the upright and dependable elf. The corners of my eyes are
wet.
Lyu bows slightly to the goddess. “Goddess
Hestia, it is good to meet again.” My goddess raises a hand in happy greeting.
“Little elf!”
I quickly wipe my
eyes.
“Um, Lyu…Thank
you for saving me on the eighteenth floor,” I say.
“Please think
nothing of it.”
I give her a
once-over.
“Uh, are you
all right? I heard that the mission party suffered horrible casualties.”
Lilly told
me that the party from Ganesha Familia, which had originally received
the mission, risked total destruction at the time. I’m worried about Lyu, who
fought in the battle against the Xenos.
“As you can see,
I am fine. My body has recuperated. But—”
She pauses for a
moment.
“There was a
monster.”
She narrows her sky-blue eyes as if recalling
the hair-raising experience. “That creature…It was a black minotaur, and it
inflicted terrible casualties on
Ganesha Familia and us.”
My breath catches
in my throat.
The black
minotaur…Could it be the new Xenos who Lido encountered in the Hidden Village?
I haven’t come across it myself yet…
My goddess,
who has been listening to our conversation, tightens her jaw as if she also
just remembered something. Lilly or Mikoto mentioned it as well, I’m certain.
That
incredibly strong Xenos who gave Loki Familia so much trouble—that was a
monster as well, they’d said.
“I’ve heard that same black minotaur was seen on the surface. And you, too…If
your group was on the eighteenth floor, why did you appear in Daedalus
Street?…There are so many things I’d like to ask you.”
“…”
“But now isn’t the time, is it? I’ll have to ask
you when next we meet.” There must be many things Lyu wants to know about my
experience during
the episode and my encounters with the armed
monsters. But seeing the pallor of
my face and considering the circumstances, she refrains from asking any
more. I wanted to ask her about the Orb of Knossos, but for the time being I
avoid bringing it up.
“Speaking of
which, how is Syr…?” I ask instead.
“Syr is taking some time off. She said she has
some things to do.” “Oh, I see.”
I look past
Lyu. From inside the tavern, I can hear the catgirl waitresses Ahnya and Chloe
asking me the same questions over and over with unrestrained curiosity.
“Young man, tell
us your story, meow!”
“Are the rumors
true, meow?”
Runoa, the human
waitress, attempts to restrain them.
“Mind your own
business, you two dumb cats.”
Conscious of the stares that continue to come our way, I move to leave.
It won’t do to bring the commotion into the tavern.
“…Well, Lyu, we’d
better be going. Thank you so much,” I say.
As we walk away,
Lyu calls out to me.
“Mr.
Cranell, keep your spirit strong. I do not fully understand your actions… but
if they were the result of a decision that you made, you must not be
discouraged.”
Surprised, I turn
around.
Lyu herself
pursued justice when she was a part of Astrea Familia, to the point that
she was blacklisted. Her words resonate with me, perhaps because they hint at
empathy for my situation.
Our eyes
meet, and I bow to her. The goddess and I walk away from the tavern.
After continuing
down the street for a few moments, the goddess turns to me.
“…What next,
Bell? Is there somewhere you want to go?” she asks.
The truth is, there isn’t. I have no idea where
Wiene and the others are or even where I might find some information about
them.
Normally when I’m
at a loss, I go to the Guild, but now…
Eina’s teary face
and confused words flicker across my memory.
I don’t believe
you…! I could never…believe you…!
I haven’t seen
her since then. I’ve been too ashamed.
Still
pitifully unable to muster the courage to see her, I mentally cross out the
option of going to Guild Headquarters. The weight of my thoughts pushes my gaze
downward, but I lift my head.
Surprise crosses
her face. She locks eyes with me for a moment, then nods.
On the way
from West Main Street to East Main Street, we pass Central Park, which has been
encircled by adventurers. More accurately, Babel itself has been surrounded.
Members of Ganesha
Familia and other factions have joined together with Guild staff to prevent
monsters from passing through the great hole that leads to the Dungeon. Even
Lido and his group will not likely be able to force their way through security
this tight. If they do, the Xenos will certainly suffer losses.
In addition
to the adventurers, a lot of gods are walking around the streets. Some are
accompanying parties of adventurers, and some are on their own. In contrast to
the townsfolk of Orario, it seems they are secretly enjoying the current
situation and searching for excitement in a totally different sense of the word
than we are. When they see me, the laughing gods seem to want to cause trouble,
but thanks to Hestia’s growled warnings, we manage to pass through without
incident.
Finally, we
arrive at Daedalus Street.
“There are so
many adventurers here as well…”
I’ve passed
through this entryway with the goddess before, at the Monsterphilia. Now, as we
enter, I see that the chaotic residential district is packed with adventurers.
Animal people with double swords slung at their hips, elves carrying bows and
quivers of arrows, dwarves hefting sledgehammers over their shoulders—these
figures wearing gear fit for the Dungeon are far more brazen than the
adventurers we saw on our way here. They seem prepared for a monster to leap
out at any moment. Some are even stopping townsfolk who walk by and pressing
them for information.
“Have the traps
been laid?”
“Are you closing
in on the Xenos?”
As if to answer my unspoken thought, the goddess turns toward me with
concern.
“Even if
they don’t know what it is, exactly, everyone seems to realize that something
fishy is happening here in Orario…”
Is it that
they vaguely sense the connection between this place and the Dungeon?
It’s
sensible, but it also makes me anxious. The only hope for the Xenos who remain
aboveground is to return to the Dungeon. But with so much security
between
Babel and Daedalus Street, where Knossos is located, the prospect of Wiene and
the others sneaking through seems hopeless.
Most
adventurers are probably after the huge bounties…But still, as I watch them
pass by, it’s difficult to breathe. I bring my hands to my throat.
“Um, Goddess, what do you think about the bounties? The ones that the
Guild—that Lord Ouranos has offered…?”
“Well,
Ouranos has his own position to consider. If he didn’t do something to get the
situation under control, I think he’d lose his authority.”
I’m worried
that Ouranos, who is something like the god of the Guild, has forsaken Wiene
and the others. But my goddess crosses her arms and insists that my concern is
unfounded.
“To the contrary, by offering a bounty, isn’t he preventing adventurers
from cooperating too closely?”
By setting
them in competition down to the last man, Ouranos is preventing familias from
combining their strength while also ensuring that they don’t share
intelligence. I have to agree that the scariest thing for the Xenos would be if
the various factions freely exchanged information to form a seamless net around
them.
On the other
hand, by offering a large bounty, the Guild gives the appearance that it’s
fully committed to the cause and will stop at nothing. Even within the Guild,
it must be difficult to doubt Ouranos’s intentions.
Listening to
the goddess explain all this in a quiet voice, I feel everything begin to make
sense.
“…”
We continue to search blindly for information, wandering along Daedalus
Street, which is a complex multilevel tangle of up, down, left, and right—much
like the Dungeon.
From the
shadows along the streets and the windows of the buildings, countless dark
stares pierce me. I have been glared at and slandered plenty before arriving
here…But now it feels stronger. The malice. The hostility.
It even
feels as if the residents of Daedalus Street—the Labyrinth District— hate me.
They suffered direct harm during the incident, and I am the adventurer who
intentionally threw the fight to control the monsters into chaos. Of course,
they don’t go so far as throwing stones…
“And to
think, he once killed monsters that rampaged through our neighborhood.”
“The Little
Rookie turned out to be nothing but another typical adventurer
I hear
despairing voices around me. New grudges seem to be emerging with every passing
moment. Concerned for me—I’m still pressing my hands to my chest—the goddess
reaches out to squeeze my hand. That’s when it happens.
“!”
I run into the
one person I least want to see.
“Miss…Aiz…”
The
golden-haired, golden-eyed Sword Princess has just rounded the corner with a
number of lower-level members of her familia.
As we bump
into each other unexpectedly, Aiz, who I respect so much, gapes for an instant
with surprise. Then she looks me squarely in the face.
Is Loki Familia investigating Daedalus
Street, too? No, they must be— The events of the other day suddenly come back
to me.
Those two
golden eyes looking down on me as I protected Wiene. My knife confronting her
sword.
How does she see
me now? What will she say?
I stand next to the surprised goddess, as if
Aiz’s stare has pinned me in place. “…Little Wallen-something-or-other! Bell
and I are on a date right now. Let
us pass, will you?”
The goddess uses her back to shield me from the obvious distrust and
hostility from the other members of Aiz’s party.
Aiz glances
briefly at the goddess, then returns her gaze to me.
“…”
In contrast
to my own unease, neither her blank expression nor the look in her eyes has
changed. After what feels to me like an eternity of silence, she slowly parts
her lips.
Right then, a
cheerful voice rings out.
“Heeey, Aizu!
What’re you guys doing standing around over there?”
It’s the
goddess Loki, leader of Aiz’s familia. Poking her head around the corner from
another street, she’s found Aiz and the others stopped next to Hestia and me.
She widens her narrow eyes.
“…Aha, you’re
with Itty Bitty!”
She turns up
the corners of her mouth, smiling like a child who’s just discovered a toy.
“You have some business with Finn, don’t you? You’d better hurry up!”
Loki says to Aiz and her companions.
Aiz looks
indecisive for an instant, then accepts Loki’s suggestion with a
“…What do you
want, Loki?”
My goddess
stands firmly in a corner of the street boxed in by dark bricks, cautious now
that Loki’s cleared the area. But Loki walks straight toward her and slips
smoothly past.
“Young man.
You really did something funny this time, didn’t you?” she says.
Ignoring
Hestia’s shouts, she brings her face within a hairbreadth of mine as I stand
there in shock.
“Beats me
why you did it, but now ya know what happens to people who protect monsters,
huh?”
“!”
“All those
guys who used to make such a fuss over you are giving you the cold shoulder…How
do you feel now?”
Like a snake, her thin arm slithers around my stiff shoulders. She peers
into my face.
Her actions
seem to lack any malice. It’s pure curiosity. Nothing more, nothing less.
All I can do is stare at my feet as she grins
and whispers in my ear. “Loki, get off him! What the hell do you want?” “Ha-ha!
To mess with him, obviously!”
Outraged,
Hestia tries to pull Lady Loki away from me, but she dodges and takes two or
three steps backward.
Then she
sticks out her tongue, as if she couldn’t care less about the red-faced
goddess.
“The
deities’ve got their eyes on you in more ways than one,” she says to me. “‘Oh
look, the White Rabbit’s done it again!’ That’s what they say. There’s no
shortage of gossip when it comes to you, young man. Of course, my Aiz can beat
ya any day!”
“…”
“But actually, I’m interested in you these days, too. You’re pretty
feisty for one of Itty Bitty’s kids.”
Loki
continues squinting at me with her vermilion eyes. She sees me as no more than
an amusing child. I’m certain that one phrase sums up her opinion.
My unsettled
emotions confuse me. I feel I’m once again witnessing the gap between the
unfathomable deusdea—the gods and goddesses—and the residents
“You’ll be
destroyed if you take an interest in him! You’re already making enough trouble
for other deities. Keep your hands off Bell!” my goddess shouts.
“You’ve got
some nerve talking to me like that! You’re real low-class for a goddess, ain’tcha.”
I can hear the
goddess breathing heavily next to my shoulder.
“Goddess,
are you all right?” I ask, trying to calm her down. As I do, I notice something
out of the corner of my eye.
What’s that?
Several figures are crossing the end of an alley. I recognize them from
somewhere.
My attention
divided, I find my gaze jumping back and forth between the two goddesses and
the alley where the figures passed.
The goddess
notices my behavior and seems to guess something has caught my attention.
“Bell, if
something is bothering you, go ahead and check it out. I’ll wait for you here.”
“B-but…”
“Don’t
worry, we’re not going to get into a fight…Anyway, I want to talk to Loki.”
The goddess looks up at Loki, her attitude
completely changed from a moment before. Loki tilts her head with a questioning
look. I hesitate briefly, then give in to the goddess’s indulgence. “Excuse me,
then. I’ll be right back.”
I nod to
them both and dash off down the alley so I don’t lose track altogether.
I’ve
been here before. As I chase after
the figures—who I can now see are young children—I think back on the
events that took place in this very same Daedalus Street.
Finally, I arrive
at a plaza where a large church stands.
“Uh…big…brother.”
The fountain is broken and dry, and several of
the church windows are shattered.
In front of this desolate orphanage in the
depths of the Labyrinth District, I once again find the children I’ve met here
before.
“Lai, Fina, Ruu…”
I murmur the
names of the three children, who by now have noticed that I
“Big brother…”
A brown-haired
human boy, his face covered in scrapes and scratches.
A chienthrope
girl with long, straight cream-colored hair.
And the youngest
of the three, an androgynous half-elf child.
They are the orphans whom I met about a month earlier, the time I
followed Syr. They look surprised to see me. Perhaps returning from an errand
for the orphanage, since I can see packages of food in their arms.
“B-big brother…”
says Fina, the chienthrope.
“…”
She tucks her
tail between her legs and steps backward.
The half-elf
Ruu, who is usually lost in a daydream, shifts his gaze nervously back and
forth.
They’re afraid of
me…Could things get any worse?
As I stand
there silently, Lai, the human, leans forward as if to protect the other two.
“…Why are you
here?” he asks.
His sharp look
and words reveal a newfound hostility.
I can’t breathe
or even move a finger.
The three
children live here in Daedalus Street. They probably know what I did. They may
even have watched with their own eyes as I protected a monster and attacked
other adventurers.
“Why did you
do it?” Lai asks me, his voice full of the same judgment, hatred, and
disappointment as the other townsfolk.
“Our neighborhood was a wreck, and…I thought adventurers were supposed
to kill monsters!” he spits out. “Traitor!”
I can
practically hear my heart splitting open. Lai’s words hit me harder than any of
the other criticisms I’ve heard today. That, and the sad look on Fina’s and Ruu’s
faces as they stare at the ground.
I’ve tainted
their memory of me and betrayed their youthful admiration for adventurers. The
choking sensation in my throat and the excruciating pain drilling into my heart
are almost too much to bear.
A sense of true
loss floods every corner of my body.
“I’m out of
here,” Lai says. He turns and walks into the orphanage.
Fina and Ruu
glance at me. Then, without a word, they follow Lai.
The door of the church slams shut with a bang,
as if to throw their rejection in my face while I stand there frozen. As if
it’s telling me not to come in and
I’m drowning
in unthinkable misery and a bitterness that cuts into my very flesh. This
despondency goes beyond simple lethargy, and my knees buckle under it. I
collapse like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
I have never felt
more dejected.
The sky, thickly blanketed in clouds, stares
down on my miserable self. “…Bell?”
The words
abruptly break my train of thought.
That door
that I thought would never welcome me again has opened, and someone is walking
toward me.
I slowly look
up—and see Syr.
“I’ve been
talking to Maria and some others about whether they might be able to evacuate
from Daedalus Street.”
I am sitting
with Syr on a brick bench in a little garden near the orphanage, where a few
bushes and flowers have been planted.
“Because of
what happened in the Labyrinth District…Well, it would be dangerous if the
monsters showed up again.”
Lyu had said
Syr was taking some time off work, and apparently she has been using that time
to discuss her options with Mother Maria, the head of the orphanage. She tells
me the two of them have been visiting the other orphanages in the Labyrinth
District and urging them to evacuate.
For the past
few days, she says, Daedalus Street more than anywhere else in the city has
been full of adventurers coming and going, and the air is charged. It’s easy to
see why she’s worried the area will end up as a battleground again.
Whatever my
reasons were, the fact that I caused all this weighs heavily on my heart.
“I guess it would
be rude…to ask what happened,” Syr says.
“…”
“Lai and the others have been pushed to the
limit. Sometimes they’re quiet; sometimes they put on a brave front…I think
they’re at a loss for what to do.”
I haven’t made any attempt to speak, so Syr has
been talking nonstop. She’s wearing a white dress I’ve seen her in before.
She looks straight ahead, a smile on her face,
and does not pry in the least. Even though she must know what I did…
Maybe it’s because she looks so completely
unchanged that I can’t help blurting out a question.
“I will if you
want me to,” she says with a pleasant smile.
“No, no…” I say
uncertainly.
“Are you trying to make up your mind about
something?” Am I?
No…What I
must do is clear. I have decided. I will save Wiene and her fellow Xenos.
The scales
have already tipped. I will lend my strength to Lido and the others who even
now are in such danger, even if it means making many more enemies.
Even if people I
care about, like Lai, hate me for it.
So this is not indecision I am feeling after all…It is terror of being
completely isolated.
“Something
really seems to be bothering you…It’s better not to keep your troubles to
yourself, you know!” Syr says.
“…”
“You have a
familia, don’t you, Bell?”
Her words
shake me. I don’t care what happens to me. I’m afraid, and I will probably
tremble when it happens, but I made the decision myself. It doesn’t matter if
people throw stones. I have to take it.
But the members
of my familia…that’s another story.
Before the
goddess and I left home, I stood by the door listening to her conversation with
Mikoto and the others. Because of me, they’re being treated as a
disappointment.
My chest feels
like it’s about to explode.
I will not
regret my decision. I must not. I know this, yet I’m on the verge of being
crushed by self-reproach.
It’s how I felt
when I met Aiz and also when I saw Lyu. I’m…
“…I’m afraid
to ask,” I blurt out, unable to keep the thought to myself. “I’ve gone and
acted so selfishly, caused so much trouble for everyone…I’m afraid to ask what
Welf and the others think of me…”
Now that
this pitiful confession has spilled from my mouth, all I want is to disappear.
As I hang my
head in extreme self-loathing, Syr reaches out and cups my face in her hands.
“Huh?”
“Pardon me.”
When she pulls my
head, my listless body is unable to muster the least
In other words,
my head is now on Syr’s lap.
“Um, uh, wha—?”
“This is in
return for the lap pillow you gave me before.”
Forgetting all
about my internal conflicts, I panic and try to jump back up.
The hand resting on my head holds me in place.
“In return?! You
forced me to do it that time…!” I say.
“Hee-hee…Was that what happened? Well, let me force you this time, too,”
she says playfully, lowering her voice.
She begins to
comb her fingers through my hair.
“Don’t be
afraid. Don’t lose your path. You may have lost some things, but other things
remain by your side.”
Her tone has
shifted to one of gentle remonstration, and I stop struggling.
I lift my
gaze, as if something is pulling my eyes upward. Syr’s smile greets me. Her
eyes are brimming with the same affection I saw when she was looking down on
the children asleep at the orphanage.
I flip onto my
back on the bench. Raising one knee, I return her gaze.
Eventually, she lays a hand gently over my eyes.
“I…I like how you always keep on running,” she says with a sigh. Her
voice is so quiet it’s practically a whisper.
“What?”
When I push
away the hand blocking my view, Syr smiles cheerfully, her cheeks flushed.
“…I mean I like
you how you usually are!”
Her huge smile
cheers me up, as if it’s telling me not to worry.
Amazed, I
get up from Syr’s lap and look around. I realize that her smile, unchanged from
before, has relieved some sort of tension within me.
“…Somehow it seems like you’re always cheering
me up these days.” She giggles.
“Next time, should I hold you in my arms?” “Uh,
no thank you!”
I blush at her
teasing and force a weak smile.
The sky is still
covered in ashen clouds, but my heart feels a bit sunnier now.
“That’s why I’m saying you
need to get the hell out of Daedalus Street in short order! How many times have
I told you? Why do I have to come out here myself?!”
In response
to the raving, spit- and sweat-spewing Guild head Royman Mardeel, Finn Deimne,
captain of Loki Familia, remained coolly composed.
“If we withdraw,
which familia will you assign to defense?”
“I’ve heard Ganesha
Familia is not functioning at full capacity right now, due to the damage
from the mission.”
“They’re still better than you undependable rascals! Breaking the
standby orders the other day and doing whatever you damn pleased…Unbelievable!”
The spot
where Finn and Royman were talking was remote even for Daedalus Street: a
section of Main Street that had been reduced to ruins in the battle with the
monsters four days earlier. All around them, Guild employees were working on
the repair and reconstruction effort, and Loki Familia members were on
security patrol.
Standing
near the rubble created when the vouivre destroyed a wall, the rotund elven
Guild head flew at the leader of the prums, his belly flab shaking.
“Let’s stop
the probing, yeah?” Finn said, looking up at Royman with his wise blue eyes.
“What you Guild people are so worried about is the entrance to the Dungeon down
below us…Am I wrong?” he continued.
“…!”
“We learned
a few tidbits from God Ikelos before we handed him over to the Guild. He told
us about Knossos, among other things,” Finn said, lowering his voice at the
word Knossos.
It was none
other than Loki Familia that had captured the leader of Ikelos Familia,
now expelled from the city. The god had answered their questions with a
sly grin.
“I can
understand why you’d want to monopolize the information about Knossos and block
any leaks, but I think you should reconsider the situation. The other familias
already suspect the truth. They’ve guessed that this place is connected to the
Dungeon.”
Finn
continued explaining to Royman, whose voice seemed stuck in his throat.
“Royman,
please put your own interests aside for the moment. These monsters defeated
even Ganesha Familia. Who’s going to be able to suppress them here in
the city?”
“…You let
them get away yourselves, if I’m correct. If that hadn’t happened, things would
be a lot different right now…!”
“There’s no
excuse for that. But next time we will take them down. We understand the
enemy’s strength now.”
Finn shrugged,
and then, shifting the mood, he broached a new topic.
“The key to
Knossos that Ikelos told us about…If we find it, we’ll give it to
“!”
“In
exchange, I want you to let us continue our work here. We, too, want to get the
monsters under control as quickly as possible so the townsfolk don’t have to
keep living in this fear.”
Royman, who
had been watching Finn as if evaluating his suggestion, finally opened his
mouth.
“Are you
moving forward with investigating this dungeon we’ve been talking about?”
“Yes. Gareth
and Tiona managed to dig through the adamantite wall and get in. But an
orichalcum door blocked the far side of the room they found, and as you’d
guess, they weren’t able to break that one down. It takes time and labor to
destroy things made of adamantite…and we decided we shouldn’t pointlessly
demolish anything until we know what is hidden in Knossos. After all, we
wouldn’t want to bring trouble to the surface.”
“…We’ll need
all the information about Knossos. The structure as you understand it so far,
the location of the orichalcum door…Can you promise to report to us every
detail you know?”
“I can,” said
Finn.
Royman, who had launched into negotiation mode after hearing Finn’s
explanation, waited for a moment, then nodded.
“All right,
then, I’ll accept your conditions. I will inform Ouranos…But! Don’t even think
about deceiving me! I’ll cut you scoundrels off without a second thought if you
try anything funny!!”
“I understand,”
Finn replied, a smile playing around his mouth.
The Guild chief
snorted and walked off with his bodyguards.
A moment later, Riveria was standing in his
place. The high elf vice captain had come from giving orders to the other
members of the familia.
“Whew…Seems like
that guy hasn’t changed.”
“Ha! I don’t trust Royman, but I give him
credit. He’ll negotiate for mercenary reasons; that much is easy to figure
out.”
Riveria sighed at the thought of her
unattractive, corpulent brethren. After listening to Finn recount their conversation,
she responded with a question.
“Are you certain? Knossos intel aside, you even
promised to hand over the key.”
“The god Ikelos said there was more than one.
We’ll be fine if we keep one for ourselves,” Finn said, as if he could see into
the future.
“At the very
least, I think we can count on Royman. But just like with the mission, I smell
something fishy going on. When it comes to what’s happening right now, I don’t
think we have enough information yet to trust the Guild wholesale.
“The Guild
isn’t monolithic,” he added, licking the thumb of his right hand. “And speaking
of which, Riveria, how’s Freya Familia?”
“Seems
they’re still serving as porters for the city. Their explanation that it’s due
to these extraordinary times is reasonable…But they seem to be merely watching
and waiting, which is unusual for them. They say they don’t want to get
involved just now.”
As Finn and
Riveria were discussing Freya Familia—Orario’s other biggest faction,
which together with Loki Familia was often likened to one of the city’s
two heads—the girl with the golden eyes and hair approached them.
“Good work on
your rounds, Aiz.”
“Thanks…”
“Did you notice anything unusual?” “…That kid,
Bell, came to Daedalus Street.” Finn narrowed his blue eyes at the news. “He’s
stepped out, has he?”
Riveria, who
had been watching Aiz out of the corner of her eye, asked the question that was
on the young girl’s mind.
“Finn…Are you
suspicious of Bell Cranell?”
“I am
certain he’s a key witness in this incident. The adventurer I faced on that day
was not the Bell Cranell I know,” Finn replied, looking out at the street where
he and the boy had confronted each other.
“God Ikelos
said he had been capturing and smuggling monsters in order to sell them off to
‘monster lovers.’ But was that really all he was up to? Armed monsters, high
intelligence levels, mutant subspecies like that black minotaur… Wouldn’t you
say there’s a special something about them?”
Finn thought
back to the way Ikelos had smiled slyly just before they handed him over to the
Guild. He hadn’t been lying, but he hadn’t shared the heart of the matter with
them, either.
Standing
before him, Aiz seemed to be recalling something, too. A shudder passed through
her shoulders.
“If there is
something different about those armed monsters…and Bell
Cranell was
led astray because he knew what that something was, then the events of that day
begin to make more sense. And moreover, it means he was left with no choice but
to oppose us,” Finn said.
He noticed that
Aiz was holding her tongue, and he laughed dryly.
“Aiz, it’s
not that I’m labeling Bell Cranell an enemy without letting him tell his side
of the story. This is my way of saying I believe in him. As a person and as an
adventurer.”
“…”
“But this
time, things are different. I need to know for sure…if he is our friend or if
he may become our enemy.”
Speaking now as a faction boss, Finn looked toward the section of
Daedalus Street where tall buildings clustered.
“Riveria,
I’m handing command here over to you. I have something to do on my own.”
“Why alone?”
“I don’t
want to stand out or raise any alarms. Aiz, did Bell Cranell come to Daedalus
Street by himself?”
“…No, he came
with his goddess.”
“Ah, I see. And
can you tell me where you saw him?”
The prum
adventurer continued, even as Aiz and Riveria fixed disbelieving stares on him.
“I’m off to meet with Bell Cranell.”
After saying good-bye to Syr,
I head back alone toward the spot where I left the goddess.
Here again,
everyone I pass on the street is emanating hostility. Syr may have cheered me
up, but this just isn’t the kind of thing you get used to.
I hurry along, my
eyes on the ground.
“Bell Cranell.”
Someone is
calling my name. I’ve been mocked plenty, but so far no one has tried to stop
me on the street. I halt in my tracks, surprised.
When I turn
around, I see…
“—!! Mr.…Finn?”
It’s the
golden-haired prum.
Wearing armor and carrying a long spear, Loki Familia’s captain
is staring at me.
“Only a knife for self-defense, eh…? That’s pretty light weaponry you
have there, given your current predicament.”
My heart
skips a beat at his comment, which he delivers with a smile that crinkles his
blue eyes.
I am wearing
no armor whatsoever, because I know the Xenos are not dangerous. But the other
adventurers wouldn’t understand that. Given how careless I must appear to
everyone around me, I wonder what Finn is thinking.
It’s not that I
didn’t have time to properly prepare—I was just being stupid.
I’m wincing at my blunder, but Finn continues as
if nothing is wrong.
“You’re by
yourself, I see. I’m glad, because I wanted to talk to you in private about
something.”
I, along with the demi-humans who have been watching our encounter,
start in surprise.
The next moment, they’re giving me strange
looks. Some even direct critical gazes at Finn, but the upper-class adventurer
just smiles at me.
But…is it
wrong that I’m steeling myself against that outwardly friendly smile?
“What do you
say?” he asks.
“…Oh, uh, okay,”
I answer in a voice that’s stiffer than I intended.
The look in those
blue eyes makes me feel like “no” isn’t an option.
I follow the
prum’s small figure as he searches for a place free of passersby. Eventually we
arrive at a blind alley that seems to be some kind of storage area piled with
wooden boxes and barrels.
“…”
We’ve been
in a similar situation before. Last time, the prum captain asked for my advice
about his marriage proposal. This time, things are completely different.
Why would he
want to talk to someone like me who treated him like an enemy?
As if guessing my
thoughts, Finn faces me and begins to speak.
“I intend to
turn a blind eye to what you did that day. The priority now is resolving the
current situation. I want to have a productive conversation,” he says, looking
up into my surprised face.
“A
conversation…?”
“Yes. You
know something about those armed monsters that we don’t know, right? To
take it a bit further, I’d guess you know everything about the recent
incident.”
I feel like the
point of his spear has skewered me through the heart.
Finn Deimne,
Braver. Aside from his fighting ability, he is famous for his levelheaded
leadership abilities even when facing the Irregulars of the Dungeon’s depths—in
other words, for his sharp mind.
Just how
much of the truth has he discerned already? What does he know, and what
information does he want? Is he an enemy, or might he be an ally?
My wildly beating heart prevents me from thinking clearly. Flustered, I
stare at him.
“I consider
what happened the other day to have been a small misunderstanding. If we’d been
sharing information, things probably would have gone differently.”
I rub my
right hand over my chest. Finn is right that there might have been a wiser way
to approach that situation. If I had told the members of Loki Familia
But the instant I
decided to rescue Wiene, my body moved of its own accord.
Instinct is the only word
for it.
And no matter what anyone says, I’m certain Finn was the one who
butchered her during her rampage.
Mercilessly, deaf
to any pleas.
When I saw
those blue eyes looking down on us from the roof as he threw his long spear, I
immediately discarded the option of negotiating.
As a
captain, Finn is a different breed. Even more of a realist than Lilly, he is
able to objectively assess any situation and arrive at a decision without
letting his personal feelings get in the way. He weighs his options neutrally,
ruthlessly, and cruelly.
If it was in
the interest of a greater cause, he’d discard me without a second thought.
“Plus, things are
different now,” Finn says.
He’s right.
Things are different now.
There is no
out-of-control Wiene. No imminent threat to ordinary civilians. We have no
reason to oppose each other. Putting aside the rest of Loki Familia, if
only Finn would show me in some way that he understands the Xenos…
I’m
beginning to realize that Finn holds complete control over our current
conversation. Still, I trust him, and I’m wavering over whether or not to open
up about the Xenos.
“Bell Cranell. If you know something, I want you
to tell me.” “I, uh…”
If I can ask for
his cooperation…wouldn’t it be okay to tell him?
My lips that
have been sealed shut begin to crack open…when we are suddenly interrupted.
“Hey, Bell! What
a coincidence!”
““!””
The cheerful
voice echoes down the blind alley.
“Lord Hermes…?”
“Yes, yes
indeed, it is I, Hermes. What are you up to back here? Lost, perhaps? Or maybe
young Bell is out collecting information in Daedalus Street as well?”
Wearing his
winged traveling cap, Hermes approaches us with a sprightly step.
“Oh ho, Braver.
Were you two in the middle of something?” he says, as if
“…No, no,
we’re just finishing up, God Hermes,” Finn answers, searching the god’s smiling
face.
After a
moment, he sighs as if he’s given up on something and starts to walk away.
I feel flustered
as he passes in front of me. As he leaves, he looks toward me.
“Bell Cranell. Do
you have the key?”
“…?”
At first, I
don’t understand what Finn means. But an instant later, I shiver in surprise.
The key…Does he
mean the Orb of Knossos?
An image of
the magic item floats before my eyes. As I think of the ball inscribed with the
glyph D—which I don’t have access to at the moment—my expression grows
tense. Finn smiles at me.
“Never mind
if you don’t know about it. Forget I said anything,” he says, and walks out of
the alley.
I watch his
small form disappear into the tangle of streets, then turn to Hermes.
“Lord Hermes, what are you doing he—?” “Bell.”
Before I can
finish my question, he puts a hand on my shoulder and brings his face close to
mine.
“It would be best if you didn’t tell Loki
Familia about the Xenos.” “!”
I am doubly
surprised, first by the word Xenos coming out of his mouth and second by
the nature of his advice. He continues in a low voice.
“Or perhaps
it would be more accurate to say it won’t make a difference even if you do tell
them. Even if they know the Xenos are intelligent, in the end Loki Familia
will inevitably choose to annihilate them.”
“…!”
“And even if
they ask for your cooperation, I suspect they’ll just end up using you.”
He continues with
a firm voice and a serious face.
“On this one
point, you will not see eye to eye with the Loki Familia Braver
commands. I’d be willing to bet on it.”
I gulp at the
god’s declaration.
Having said what
he needed to say, he steps back and smiles kindly if
“You know,
I’ve been involved in the Xenos incident myself, at Ouranos’s request,” Hermes
says.
“…! At Ouranos’s request?”
“Yes. I’m trying
to track down where the Xenos have gone.”
My shock does not
subside. Hermes seems to be showing all his cards.
“At the
moment, Asfi and the others haven’t been able to track them down— though I’ve
heard they were spotted in the sewers. The downfall of the Sage, I suppose you
could say.”
The downfall
of the Sage…How can I question Hermes when he even knows about Fels? I decide
that he must share my knowledge of the situation.
“But when…?”
“For quite a
while. I think I knew about the Xenos before you did. We’ve been acting quietly
behind the scenes up until now.”
“So,
then…What did your familia do when they found out about the talking monsters?”
“As you might guess, some were quite shaken by it. But now, they
consider it part of their work. As long as they profess to be neutral, the word
of the client is absolute. More than anything, though, it’s because their
leader—me—is a certain type of guy.”
As I stand
before the foolishly grinning Hermes, I imagine Asfi letting out an exhausted
sigh. I can’t help a tight-lipped smile myself.
“We’re working independently, but you can consider us allies,” says the
still-smiling god with a wink.
At the word allies, a sense of extreme relief washes over me. I
suppose it’s a sign of just how far I’ve been backed into a corner…
“Oh, Beeeeell!”
The goddess is
calling me.
“You’re all the way back here, are you? You never came back, so I had to
go looking for you. Was everything all right?”
“Uh…Sorry,
Goddess. I’m fine.”
“Oh, what a relief.
I was worried…but why is Hermes here?”
The relieved goddess, who has walked up to us,
looks at Hermes quizzically. “Ha-ha-ha! So sorry, Hestia, I was just borrowing
young Bell for a moment to have a conversation.” He laughs as if he was just
joking around. “Well, I’ll let
you take over the role of guard. Hestia, keep
him safe!” he says and walks off. “…Bell, what were you talking with Hermes
about?”
As I explain our
conversation, the goddess strokes her chin.
“I’d heard
that Hermes and his familia had received a request from Ouranos, but…”
“Oh really?”
“Yes. So I guess
they’ve been working to help the Xenos…”
The
goddess’s words trail off, and she looks in the direction that Hermes
disappeared. She appears to be suspicious of the god for not even trying to
have a proper discussion with her. I follow her gaze, myself.
As we stand
there, a single bead of water falls onto my shoulder.
An instant
later, the blanket of clouds covering the city bursts into the sound of rain.
The droplets
begin descending, each to its own destination, changing shape as it falls.
“Ugh, rain again…”
The werewolf Bete
snorted and shook his head at the patter of raindrops.
“If only it hadn’t rained after the commotion, the animal people might
have been able to use their noses to find the monsters by now,” said the Amazon
Tione.
“This damn rain has totally washed away the
scent…Shit,” Bete replied. “Werewolves are always useless just when you need
them most.” “We’re better than Amazons, who just stand around doing nothing.”
““What did you say?””
At their
encampment in the Labyrinth District, members of Loki Familia paused for
a moment as the downpour began. The faction’s leaders were gathered there for a
meeting.
The dwarf
Gareth sighed at Tione and Bete, who were glaring at each other with unveiled
irritation. Next to them, Tione’s sister, Tiona, was flopped down on the stone
pavement with arms and legs outstretched, soaking in the shower.
“What’s with you,
Tiona? Are you worn out or something?”
“I’m not
worn out, but my hands and arms are killin’ me from banging on that adamantite
wall for so long. Then, as soon as we dug through it, we got ordered to fill it
in again! Finn’s a real slave driver.”
“That’s just the kind of situation we’re in. Put
up with it,” Finn said. He had returned to the encampment just as Tiona was
waving around her red hands and complaining about him.
“How did it go, Finn? Were you able to talk to Bell Cranell?” asked
Riveria, who had been waiting for him.
“Yeah. We
met, but we were interrupted before we finished,” he answered, walking into one
of the tents that had been set up.
“He wouldn’t
say anything…but I’m fairly certain he’s hiding something. He knew about
Knossos, although he doesn’t seem to have the key.”
The
question-and-answer session may have ended unsuccessfully, but Finn had been
watching Bell carefully, and now he spoke with confidence. Unlike the
still-green captain of Hestia Familia, the prum was able to make off
with quite a bit of information after even a short exchange.
“There’s no
question he’s at the center of this mess,” he declared, addressing the faction
leaders gathered in the tent.
“…”
The
golden-haired, golden-eyed Sword Princess Aiz responded with stony silence to
the words of her leader.
“So…” Riveria
said.
“Yes,” Finn
answered with a nod as the others looked on intently. “As we planned, please
watch Bell Cranell’s movements.”
“The Xenos, and
then Knossos…”
Outside the
windows, rain veiled the street. The Amazon Aisha glanced at the unceasing
downpour before returning her gaze to inside the room.
“So you’re saying the mess with those two things forms the crux of the
events that took place four days ago?” the elf Lyu asked.
“Yes,
exactly,” answered the human Asfi, her aqua-blue hair shimmering as she nodded.
The three
women were alone in an outbuilding of The Benevolent Mistress that served as
Lyu’s room. Asfi had arrived with Aisha in tow, saying she had something to
talk to Lyu about. Since Lyu didn’t have any customers needing her attention at
the moment, she had asked permission of Mia, then led them to the room where
they currently sat. Asfi had begun by telling the other two about the events on
the eighteenth floor that instigated the disturbance.
“But what
about those circles under your eyes…Are you okay?” Aisha asked her, noting the
impressively large, dark puffs.
“…I’m fine. It’s just that our selfish deity is
always driving me so hard. He’s even doing it right now! Don’t worry, Aisha,
you’ll get used to it,” Asfi replied, a nihilistic smile momentarily spoiling
her beautiful face. Uneasy at her exhausted appearance, Aisha backed away
slightly.
Lyu had been
observing their exchange.
“So why are you telling us this now?” she asked in order to move the
conversation along, looking grave.
“Hermes is
making unreasonable demands again…Ahem, in any case, he wants to calm down the
current situation, but he doesn’t have enough people to do it. He wants your
help.”
“Why didn’t
he tell us everything during the mission?” Aisha said with a mixture of disgust
and dissatisfaction. Asfi’s reply was straightforward.
“With
regards to the Xenos, he just decided that was extraneous information. At the
time, the monsters were wild with rage, and even the clients were unable to
control them or figure out what was going on. Even if a confrontation was
inevitable, the clients didn’t want anyone to be killed because knowledge of
the creatures had distracted them. As for the latter…We only found out about it
after the incident.”
After all, the second entrance to the Dungeon was the product of
Daedalus’s obsessive determination.
As Asfi
discussed Knossos, Aisha and Lyu listened silently. They both seemed at the
very least shocked by this news of talking, intelligent monsters. Aisha,
however, frankly expressed her feelings—which were in line with the aversion to
monsters latent in all humans.
“…Those
Xenos—is that what you called them? They may be able to talk and they may be
intelligent, but I still can’t understand why someone would save a monster.
They’re not the kind of creature a person wants to empathize with… especially
ones like that black minotaur,” she spat out provocatively.
Aisha rubbed
her left arm and her ribs. Although she was fully recovered now, the bones in
her arm had been pulverized in the incident, and her ribs had also been broken.
She narrowed her eyes sharply. They revealed no terror of the glossy black
creature that had dealt her a crushing defeat, only anger and humiliation.
“…It is the
desire of the clients, who are also our source of information, that we aid the
Xenos. As long as you are a member of Lord Hermes’s familia, please comply
without a fuss.”
“I’m not a very
quick study, you know, and if I don’t like something, I just
may throw a fit. And by the way, who are these
‘clients’ you keep mentioning?” “Let’s just say they are part of the Guild,”
Asfi replied to the rebellious
Aisha. She squeezed one eye shut as she spoke,
her head aching.
“By the way, these monsters that we’re talking about…Bell Cranell has
also taken pity on them,” she added.
“…Ah, I
see,” Aisha said, tugging at her long black hair as if Bell’s name had led her
to a realization. The reason for his ejection from the mission team and his
actions on Daedalus Street all suddenly made sense.
“Understood.
I’ll do as you say,” she said with a sigh. The Amazon still felt she had not
repaid her debt to the boy.
Asfi stepped closer to Lyu, who had been
absorbed in silent thought. “Leon, I have a bargain to make with you.” “…”
“If you
cooperate with us, we will give you information on the remnants of the Evils.”
“!”
“It seems
the last dregs have been hiding out in Knossos. As soon as the current
situation is resolved, we’ll search the Dungeon and collect the information you
want.”
“…Can you really
do that?”
“Sooner or
later, Lord Hermes will order a survey. I assure you we will do it,” Asfi
answered, pushing her silver glasses up with one finger.
Lyu considered
her offer, then nodded quietly. She believed Perseus.
Asfi looked hard
at Lyu and Aisha.
“I will
provide detailed instructions very soon. For the time being, please wait.”
“—Yes indeed, I
am Ganesha!”
The god in
the elephant mask struck a bizarre heroic pose as he made this announcement.
“I know
that, Ganesha,” replied Shakti Varma, sounding fully accustomed to her god’s
eccentric behavior. The beautiful indigo-haired woman was sitting up in bed in
a room in Ganesha Familia’s home, known as Iam Ganesha. She took the
basket of fruit her god was holding out to her in his chosen pose and placed it
on the sideboard.
“How are you feeling, Shakti?! I’ve come to
check on you!” “I’m already fully recovered. I believe you know that, Ganesha.”
Shakti had been spending her time in this room
ever since the recent string of incidents. She had been seriously injured
during the mission to the eighteenth floor and was still recuperating.
Or at least, that
was what she had told the others.
“I can move just fine. Why don’t you tell me why you’re keeping me in
this place for days on end?” she continued.
“Because all
you’ve been doing lately is working! I don’t want people to think my familia is
some kind of labor camp. So this time, I thought you’d better do some extreme
recuperating—”
“Ganesha,” Shakti
said, interrupting her leader’s peculiar words.
At the captain’s
quiet voice, Ganesha dropped his joking attitude.
“…I felt like you needed some time to sort things out. Especially after
I told you about the Xenos,” he said.
Shakti was
one of the few familia members he had told about the Xenos. When the Guild
ordered her to tame the monsters during the mission, too, she had obeyed only
after taking into consideration the divine will of her god.
Ganesha sat down
on a chair and looked Shakti in the eye.
“I’m sorry.”
He placed his
hands on his knees and bowed deeply.
“I made an unreasonable request, and it’s been a
burden on you.” Shakti shook her head.
“Ganesha,
don’t apologize. We were the ones who fell short. We were unable to stop the
monsters when they were out of control.”
Ganesha raised his head and looked at her from the depths of the
elephant mask.
“What did you
feel when you faced the Xenos?”
“…Fierce
anger, and also sympathy,” Shakti explained frankly, returning Ganesha’s gaze.
“After I heard Ikelos Familia was capturing monsters and selling them
off, I understood it very clearly—the nature of that unfamiliar sympathy I had
felt in the midst of trying to tame them, I mean.”
“…”
“Those
monsters are capable of rage over what’s done to their brethren…just like us,
like people.”
Perhaps it was her long experience as a tamer that allowed her to
understand the monsters’ feelings and sympathize with them.
Shakti looked out
the window into the rain.
“Ganesha, you
were right that I needed time to sort things out. I’m upset right
now. About
the very existence of such monsters. And then the fact that when Ilta and her
group learned about it, too, they faltered over what to do…That moment of
hesitation cost our friends their lives…It scares me.”
She accepted
Ganesha’s attitude of friendship toward the Xenos, but still, she was
frightened. She was right to be at a loss.
Should they
abandon the Xenos or save them?
If she were
forced to choose, she would of course pick the former. She was not a fool.
Ganesha had
been quietly watching the faint reflection of his familia member in the mirror
as she lowered her eyes. Now he spoke.
“The road to Neo Ganesha, mastery of man and
monster, is a difficult one.” “…What are you talking about?”
Her serious
reflections were abruptly interrupted by an absurd phrase she’d never heard
before, Shakti turned toward Ganesha as if she had just woken from a dream.
His mind
elsewhere, he continued in a solemn voice.
“I am still
Ganesha, man of the people.”
Shakti widened
her eyes.
“I regret
doing this to Ouranos, but at the moment, the safety of the children is the
absolute priority.”
“Ganesha…”
“We will no
longer participate in the search for the Xenos. Instead, if violence erupts
between them and the adventurers, we will protect the civilians. We will
protect the smiles of the children.”
Ganesha rose from his chair, walked over to Shakti, and looked down at
her as if to ask whether she was ready to go. She nodded energetically and
stood up from the bed.
“We’ll
increase the number of people working security to cover the whole city. I will
join them as well! I will dispel their worries with my happy-go-lucky
appearance!” Ganesha exclaimed.
“No, Ganesha, we’ll be fine without you. Ilta and her group are still at
home, right?”
“Yes. When I
left them to their own devices, they very proudly announced they were going out
to chase the Xenos again! I told them, ‘Since Shakti is resting, you guys rest,
too!’ I said if they broke their promise, I’d magically remodel our home
again!”
“So that’s why
they’ve been so quiet…”
Shakti and Ganesha left the room and walked
around the home shaped like a giant, peculiar elephant. As they checked to make
sure the familia’s core force were all present, including the first-tier
adventurer Ilta, they discussed their next moves.
Suddenly,
Ganesha lifted his head and gazed out the window of the hallway they were
walking down.
“What
concerns me is how the other gods and goddesses are taking the current
situation,” he said.
“Do you think the
other deities are aware of the Xenos?”
Miach turned his back to the rain outside the window as he addressed
Hephaistos and Takemikazuchi.
The three
were in Hephaistos Familia’s weaponry store on Northwest Main Street.
Leaving the information-collecting to their familia members, Miach and
Takemikazuchi had come to see Hephaistos in her third-floor office.
“Perhaps not
clearly…I don’t think they’ve realized yet that these are monsters with
intellect. But they do sense that they are out of the ordinary…”
“Or rather,
they’re expecting to find something different about them…”
The three
gods had learned about Wiene, along with the main events of the past week, from
their friend Hestia. Now all three were frowning and speaking in concerned
voices to differing degrees.
“What if they do
learn about the Xenos?”
“If you think
about it in terms of who’s currently in Orario…”
“Not many of
the deities are as inflexible as Ares, but then again not many are moderates
like Hestia, either. I’m thinking twenty percent will call for expelling them,
ten percent for protecting them, and the other seventy will stir up trouble,”
Miach said.
Takemikazuchi and
Hephaistos continued to frown.
“Who knows
what they’ll do in pursuit of their personal entertainment. There’s a high
likelihood that things will spiral out of control. It may be best to conceal as
much information about the Xenos as we can…”
“I see…You’re
saying it would only invite unnecessary chaos.”
The
implication was that very few deities in Orario actually acted the part—
although these three didn’t go so far as to claim they were model gods, either.
“Damn,”
Hephaistos grumbled as she rubbed her eye patch. Next to her, Takemikazuchi
slumped wearily, and Miach sighed.
“Bell is a source
for worry these days, too. To have gone and acted that
flagrantly…I’m
sure the other gods know he knows something, and they’re watching him,” Miach
fretted. The other two deities shared his concerned expression.
“Probably so…”
“It’s a bad
situation…”
The red-haired,
red-eyed Hephaistos pushed aside her bangs.
“I’ll be
honest with you. I’m reluctant to come down on the side of saving the Xenos,”
she said, abruptly changing the mood in the room.
“Hey now, what
are you saying?”
“Admit it,
I’m right. Knowing Hestia’s personality as I do, I can understand how she
couldn’t leave that orphaned vouivre to die. But as long as they’re on the
surface, the Xenos are a poison, plain and simple. At this very moment, they’re
doing nothing but causing chaos, right?”
“That’s—”
“Come on,
Takemikazuchi, you haven’t talked to your followers about the Xenos, have you?”
Takemikazuchi had interrupted Hephaistos in a surprised voice, but now
he pressed his lips together.
Any movement
to integrate the Xenos would ignite strife—even more so among the children.
Takemikazuchi knew that, and that was why he hadn’t shared the truth with Ouka
or Chigusa.
On the other
hand, Hestia’s children—who had accepted the presence of the Xenos—were
mavericks, and that was precisely why they were on this precipice.
“Honestly, I
don’t even know if the Xenos are worth saving!” Hephaistos said, not
concealing her feelings about the irregular Dungeon monsters whose existence
not even the gods had foreseen.
Miach, who
had been listening with eyes closed, spread his hands and looked at the other
two.
“…Hmmm. Well, let
us come to some conclusion.”
He shook his
waist-length sea-blue hair, his voice melting into the sound of the rain.
“Our decision
is—”
“So you’ve assigned it to Loki Familia,
have you?” The elderly god’s stern voice echoed through the altar.
At the sound, the plump figure kneeling before
him curled up like a piglet. “Y-yes, sir, that is what I did! I took the
liberty of determining that they were
The sound of
the rain did not penetrate the underground temple built beneath Guild
Headquarters. In the Chamber of Prayers, illuminated by four torches, Ouranos
sat still as a statue while looking down on Royman, head of the Guild, who was
dripping sweat onto the stone floor.
“With regards to Knossos, I made him promise to
not only prevent any leaks about its existence but also provide us with
information! Braver will keep his word! It is practically as if he is under our
control!” “…What are you hiding from me, Royman?”
The elf gave a start at the words of the Guild’s true master, who had so
easily seen through his deception.
“Is it the key?”
“…I—I forgot
to mention it. I have ordered them to hand the key to Knossos over to the Guild
if they find it…”
Royman was drenched in a cold sweat, but
Ouranos’s voice did not change. “Make sure they give you all the information
about Knossos. Once we have
the key, we will find the
right time and then organize a survey. It is the Guild, not individuals or
familias, that oversees the heritage of Daedalus.”
“Yes, sir!”
“I will overlook the matter of Loki Familia.
Now exit!” The quivering Royman complied.
As he walked
unsteadily out of the room, a god with hair the color of flames descended the
stairs leading from the surface. He patted Royman on the shoulder as they
passed each other.
“Royman is a shrewd one, eh?” Hermes said once he had entered the
Chamber of Prayers.
“He possesses
twice the greed of anyone else. But he’s capable, and his desire to see to the
city’s development is sincere,” Ouranos replied matter-of-factly with a slight
smile.
“So it seems Loki Familia will be
remaining in Daedalus Street, eh? Well, as long as Lady Freya is encamped in
Babel, the obvious choice for Braver and his people is to stay and wait for the
Xenos on their only alternative path of retreat.” “Yes…And as long as things
remain in this state, Ganesha will probably act to protect the lives of the
residents before all else,” Ouranos said. Although he
did not say it out loud, he
had accepted that it would be impossible at this point to rearrange the various
groups.
Because he was in
a position of leadership, issuing too forceful an order for
Loki Familia to withdraw would
undermine trust in him. His continued reign was a symbol of peace in the
city, so he needed to avoid such a situation.
Furthermore,
if the monsters that had emerged onto the surface needed to be brought down, no
one was more suited for the job than Loki Familia.
“Well, for now I’d like you to report on the current situation, since
you have taken on the task of suppressing the disturbance.”
Hermes
proceeded to the center of the altar, where the deity of the Guild sat on a
chair, and removed his traveling hat.
“The Xenos
are currently moving around in the sewers beneath the city. Reports of
sightings are increasing, but…thanks to the bounties, the adventurers are not
cooperating with one another. That may be our only bit of luck.”
“What about the
Xenos who were separated from Fels?”
“I haven’t
found out anything about them—not even how many were separated. Some of them may
have been captured already by adventurers or less scrupulous gods.”
As long as
no one came forward saying they had done so, it would be impossible to know for
sure.
“Well, a
number of adventurers found the black minotaur and intended to kill it, only to
be attacked themselves…But even now that they’ve recovered, they’re still
trembling as if they’ve had a terrible nightmare, and it seems they won’t tell
their full story.”
Sighing, Hermes
held up two fingers.
“Options are
limited for the Xenos.”
Under the
current circumstances, the runaways had two goals. First: meet up with their
brethren who had been separated from them. Second: get to the Dungeon entrance.
The latter was the most important. If the Xenos were to survive, they somehow
had to return to the Dungeon.
There were two
possible routes to get there.
The first
was through the center of the city to Babel, where they would use the large pit
leading to the Dungeon. The second was through Daedalus Street in the
southwestern part of the city, where Knossos was located.
“If they
head for Central Park, there will inevitably be a battle with the
adventurers…and no one knows how Freya Familia will act. Fels probably
won’t let them choose that option.”
“I tried to
negotiate with Freya myself in various ways, but as you’d suspect, she didn’t
seem inclined to listen to what I had to say.”
Hermes sighed and
smiled bitterly at Ouranos’s mention of the silver-haired
“In that case, the Xenos will likely head for Daedalus Street, where
they can use the terrain to their advantage…”
“But Loki
Familia will block their way to Knossos.”
In other
words, if they made use of the Labyrinth District—which was fully as convoluted
as the Dungeon—they perhaps would be able to avoid the watchful eyes of the
adventurers. But once they had passed through, the greatest difficulty would be
waiting.
“I knew it before, but this is a really tough situation,” said Hermes
with a detached laugh.
“And what
can you tell me about Knossos?” Ouranos said, directing Hermes back to his
report.
“According
to adventurers in Rivira, the monsters who attacked on the eighteenth floor
joined up with the monsters who appeared on the surface. Many of the familias
have realized there is a second entrance to the Dungeon.”
“And adventurers
are gathering in Daedalus Street?”
“Yes. Some
of them seem to be taking initiative to search for the entrance on their own,
but…Well, that area is Daedalus’s creation, and so far only Loki Familia
has found it.”
“Hermes, what
about your familia…?”
“We have already thoroughly investigated the
matter.” “!”
As if to offer
proof, he pulled out a book.
“It’s called
Daedalus’s Notebook.”
For the first
time, the normally self-possessed Ouranos widened his eyes.
“Before I
got Ikelos to let Loki Familia catch him, I had him give this to me. It
has a drawing of the layout of Knossos—including, of course, the location of
the entrances.”
“…”
“I had my
children investigate to make sure the information in the drawing wasn’t
incorrect. They had to use both the Hades Head and the stink bag…Asfi
complained to me that she was afraid for her life dodging Loki Familia
to do the survey. She even hit me.”
It was Hermes who had sniffed out Ikelos from his hiding place. According
to him, he had cornered the other deity and compelled him to give in to a
number
of demands,
one of which included handing over Daedalus’s Notebook. Over the four days
since the incident, his children had been surveying the area around Knossos on
his orders, keeping quiet and staying in the shadows so that Loki Familia
wouldn’t notice them.
Having
explained matters up to this point, Hermes drew closer to the wizened god. Then
he held out the book.
“I’ll leave this with you. You need it, don’t
you?” “…”
Ouranos
squeezed his eyes shut as Hermes narrowed his own yellow-orange ones.
The flames
in the pine torches crackled fiercely. Surrounded by a swirl of sparks, the
wizened god reached out to accept the ancient volume, along with all the consequences
it entailed, and slipped it into his pocket.
Hermes flashed a
smile and backed down from the altar.
“Hermes…What do
you plan to do now?”
“Well. As I said
before, my concern is with Bell.”
Hermes had
brought up the matter with Ouranos two days earlier in this very room. At that
time, he’d stated very clearly his divine will as a deity. He felt it would be
wrong for Bell to lose his name and honor and then withdraw from the action,
and therefore Hermes was betting everything on the boy. People’s disappointment
in Bell and their labeling him an “enemy of the people” would only get in the
way of his progress down the noble path.
That was why
Hermes was acting now behind the scenes.
“I’ve
ordered Asfi and the others to do a number of things. Beyond that, it depends
on how the boy reacts…”
Hermes was
certain Bell would be unable to sit by and do nothing. He laughed lightly, as
if he were watching the situation from afar.
“Let me ask you
a question, Ouranos. The Xenos, and the ruined Sage who is leading them…What do
you think they will do next?”
“…”
Ouranos at
first said nothing in response to the question about the assistant with whom he
had spent countless centuries. Finally, after a long pause, he answered.
“As for what Fels
will most likely do next…”
“Lido, can I have
some of your blood?” Fels asked.
Even in the
subterranean dimness, the black-clad mage could hear the sound
“Blood?”
“Yes. If I were physically whole, I wouldn’t
need to ask you, but…” “Well, you are a skeleton, after all.”
“Don’t say that,” the mage responded with a sidelong glance. Lido
scratched his arm with his sharp claws.
Fels
withdrew a feather pen from his pocket and dipped it in the red blood from the
ragged wound.
As the blood soaked in, the feather turned red, and a similarly colored
liquid oozed from the tip.
“Is that a magic item?” Lido asked, watching
Fels’s movements with interest. “Yes, although I didn’t invent it myself.”
Fels began to write on a sheet of parchment with the item, which enabled
blood to be used in place of ink.
“Who was
separated from us?”
“Aruru, Helga,
Lett, Fia, and then Asterios…Fia was with us, but when things got too intense,
she fell from the sky…and Lett went after her,” the siren Rei said, listing the names of the
al-miraj, hellhound, red-cap goblin, harpy, and
minotaur.
She was
sitting on the floor at a slight distance from Lido and Fels, talking to Wiene.
They were in a sewer tunnel. Beyond its crumbling walls, the tunnel connected
to what seemed to be a long-forgotten well, with broken barrels, buckets, and
frayed ropes scattered in a corner. A gentle rain fell through the hole that
connected to the surface. Other Xenos who had been wandering the city were
resting nearby.
“So…you
don’t know where Fia and the others are?” the vouivre asked, concerned for her
brethren.
“No. We’ve
walked this sewer from end to end, but there’s no scent of them…They may be
hiding somewhere on the surface,” the
gargoyle Gros replied.
Wiene’s stomach
made a cute rumbling sound.
“I’m hungry…”
“It’s only natural. We’ve hardly eaten anything
for the past few days…”
Naturally,
monsters became hungry, too. For the Xenos, who would never eat a human, their
current situation meant they hadn’t been able to eat properly at all. Wrapped
in a robe that one of the fleeing adventurers had dropped, Wiene rubbed her
slender bluish-white stomach.
Gros turned toward the black-clad mage, worried over their fading
strength and missing brethren especially with no sign that they would be able
to reunite.
“Fels.
We’re not getting anywhere running from place to place like this. We need
to…Hey, what are you doing?!” he
exclaimed.
“I’m writing a
letter,” Fels replied without stopping the crimson pen.
The mage
finished his work without further explanation. The moment it was complete, a
shadow rushed down the old well hole, just as if Fels had planned the timing.
Lido and the others instantly took up defensive positions, but Fels
reached out an arm and restrained them.
“So you’ve
finally managed to find us.”
An owl with
one false eye had landed on the mage’s outstretched arm. It was a familiar
spirit.
“If only my
oculus hadn’t been destroyed in that battle, I would have summoned you sooner…”
Expressing
his regrets over the fierce combat with Ikelos Familia in Knossos, Fels
tied the completed letter around the owl’s foot.
“Fels, is that
letter perhaps…?”
Fels nodded
in response to Lido’s question and let go of the familiar. The owl stretched
its wings and took off into the rainy sky, scattering white down from its
wings.
“Our last hope.”
Like a late
monsoon season, rain falls in unceasing sheets on Orario. But I doubt even this
rain can wash away the tangled and hopeless mood gripping the city.
I gaze out
the window of my room at the streets stretched beneath an ashen sky.
“…”
Though I’ve
returned home with the goddess, I still can’t escape a certain feeling.
Like I’m being
watched.
The moment I
left home, I sensed many eyes on me. At first I thought it was the
townsfolk…but as I grew more sensitive to the gazes, another possibility began
to whisper into my ear.
Something far less organic than either anger or mockery…Could it be
surveillance?
Am I being
watched? If so, is it me they’re interested in? Or Hestia Familia
I’ve been
standing by the side of the window in order to conceal myself, but now I lean
halfway out and scan the area around the building. Outside the iron fence
enclosing our home, I glimpse a figure darting around the street corner and out
of sight.
“Agh.”
I step away
from the window and leave the room. I hope I’m mistaken. My heart pounding
unsteadily in my chest, I head for the place where the goddess and the others
are gathered to tell them what I’ve been feeling.
“…?”
After hurrying down the hallway, I’m greeted by
an unexpected sight. Outside a window facing onto the courtyard, drenched in
rain but
nevertheless
apparently waiting for someone, an owl is perched in the middle of the garden.
The owl
looks up as I stop in the hallway, and I see its eye. I start at the glitter of
the quartz orb.
I turn on my heels and run down the stairs. As I step into the courtyard
and walk up to the owl, it flutters onto my arm.
“What in the
world…?”
A letter is tied
to the owl’s leg.
“A secret message
from the Xenos…”
The clock on
the living-room wall shows an evening hour. The entire of Hestia Familia has
gathered here to look at the letter I received from Fels’s familiar.
“The code is
incredibly difficult to decipher, but…there’s no mistaking it; this letter is a
call for help from Fels and the Xenos.”
Lilly is
holding a dictionary pulled from the library in one hand. As she says, the
letter is peppered with demi-human words, and at first glance, the sentences
seem to be incoherent. They can be deciphered only by rearranging and
recombining words from two different languages: the language of the prums,
which includes the word irregular, and the language of the renarts,
which includes the word fool. Only someone who knew the nature of the
Xenos and Fels would be able to read the code.
With
serious, tense expressions on their faces, the goddess, Lilly, Welf, Mikoto,
and Haruhime gather around the table and look down at the letter.
“‘We will try to
reach Daedalus Street tomorrow night.’ It seems they’ve
been driven to take extremes…” says Welf, who has just emerged from the
workshop, where he’s been holed up since the incident.
“And, well, I am quite certain that right now, Daedalus Street…” says
Haruhime, pressing her hand to her chest. Mikoto confirms her fears.
“Yes, Miss
Haruhime. It’s full of adventurers, not to mention it’s Loki Familia’s
encampment.”
The letter,
whose red handwriting has not bled despite the rain, begins with an apology,
then goes on to explain the situation that Fels and the Xenos are currently in
and their plan for returning to the Dungeon. It ends with a call for help. The
final sentence entreats us to somehow find a way to assist them again.
At first,
Haruhime, Mikoto, and I are relieved to read that Wiene safely regained
consciousness…but now we are all silent.
We stare at the
letter on the table.
“…It’s like an invitation to destruction from some evil god,” Lilly
mumbles dramatically. But it’s no exaggeration.
Given the
situation in Orario right now, saving the Xenos is synonymous with turning
every familia in the city against us.
I feel as if
the momentary hush falling over the room is going to crush my heart.
The goddess
breaks the silence.
“Let’s come
up with a clear response right now. Are we going to save the Xenos or not?”
“…!”
She looks not at me but at Welf and the others. Before anyone else can
open their mouth, I fire my words at the goddess’s averted face.
“Goddess!!…This
is something for me alone to—”
“Bell, this
isn’t just your problem anymore. The moment you, our captain, took action, it
became the familia’s problem as well. So that’s enough double-talk from you.”
I feel like
my heart seizes up at her apparent criticism of my behavior as leader.
She shifts
her gaze from my frozen form and poses her question to Lilly and the others
once again.
“Everyone,
please make your choice. Will we be allies of the Xenos and live as outcasts?
Or will we abandon them and return to our ordinary lives?”
This is the
same choice I was faced with as well. I was caught between Wiene and Loki
Familia, forced into a binary choice. Now the goddess is putting that
I don’t want
them to choose either path. That is the true feeling in my deplorable heart.
I stand
there like a criminal waiting for his verdict to be handed down, and my
memories of the Labyrinth District mix with guilt over acting immorally.
“Lady Hestia,” Welf says, raising his hand. “Can
I add one more option?” “What would that be?”
“We move sneakily to bring those guys back to the Dungeon. That way we
don’t get scolded or mocked.”
At first, I’m so
stunned by his words I don’t comprehend them.
Welf is
grinning, and the goddess, too, is smiling as if she’s just grasped everything
fully.
“Look here.”
Welf draws a
dagger from the sheath at his waist, his flame-red hair bouncing.
“This is a magic
blade. I have three more in the workshop.”
“I thought
that’s what you were up to when you were holed up in there all that time…”
Lilly says, heaving a sigh. She looks at the deep-aqua blade as if she already
knows all about it.
“I knew what
we’d have to do, and I knew we didn’t have much time. In order to save the
Xenos…Yes, I had to put aside my foolish pride. If we don’t have something like
this, we won’t be able to get around the other adventurers.”
I am still frozen
in place—although now it’s because of sheer surprise.
I can’t
believe that Welf has announced so clearly he intends to save the Xenos.
“What’s with the strange face, Bell?” Welf says
with a questioning look. “Wh-what do you mean, what…?!” I can’t help shouting.
“I abandoned you
and did all that stuff
without asking any of you!! And I caused our familia all kinds of trouble and
pain as a result!! I…was so sure that all of you detested me…”
All the
feelings and doubts I’ve kept locked up inside until now spew out
uncontrollably.
I’m sorry. It’s not that I expect to be
forgiven, but I’m sorry. As I desperately try to get out those words, Welf
beats me to it. “Bell, I told you before. Don’t apologize.” A memory springs to
mind.
This is what familias
do, right? Support one another.
That was
what Welf said to me in this very room during the mission to escort Wiene to
the twentieth floor. As I recall them, I can’t help but feel moved.
“But if
you’ll let me scold you a bit…Next time, don’t leave us behind, okay?”
Welf grins. Next
to him, Mikoto crinkles her blue-violet eyes.
“Sir Bell,
there’s nothing wrong with you. Because no matter how much we thought it over,
we definitely would have come to the same decision as you…All you did was get a
head start on the rest of us.”
I have no response to that. Next, Haruhime
sneaks up quietly beside me. “You were suffering this whole time, weren’t you?
My deepest apologies. I
should have spoken with you sooner.”
“Haruhime…”
“Thank you
very much for rescuing Lady Wiene. I am truly happy,” she says with wet eyes,
her smile and words unfolding like cherry blossoms.
Their
expressions are a mirror image of the tearful smiles Lido and the others showed
me as they held the sleeping Wiene in their arms and thanked me.
Lilly has
been watching as I talked with Welf and Mikoto and exchanged heartfelt looks
with Haruhime.
“—Geez, you
are all so softhearted!! I’m not ashamed to say it—I feel differently than you!
I am still completely against rescuing the monsters!!” she screeches, as if she
has reached the limit of her tolerance.
Her face was turned away, but now she slowly widens her eyes and looks
up at us.
“But…there’s nothing to be done if the majority
has decided otherwise.” “Lilly…”
A smile spreads
over the prum girl’s face like a sunflower.
“The idea of
deserting Mr. Bell or of Mr. Bell deserting any of us…Well, I just don’t like
it. Anyway, I’m used to being an outcast. I’m not afraid of a bunch of
disappointed stares,” she says.
“…”
I haven’t
been able to look at them straight since the day I went behind their backs, and
I now slowly turn to each one. Lilly, Welf, Mikoto, Haruhime.
Syr was right.
I have lost some
things, but other things remain.
A single tear
slides from my eye.
How many times
have they saved me? How many times have I felt this way?
“I’m
sorry…Thank you,” I say in a hoarse voice, pressing my arm against the flushed
tip of my nose.
“…So it’s
decided. We will save the Xenos, all of us together!”
Our goddess,
who has been watching us with kind eyes, brushes away the sentimental
atmosphere with her bright announcement. We all nod in unison and smile as she
gives voice to her divine will.
“I’ll just
say, though, that the situation isn’t any better than it was before. Getting
around the other adventurers, not to mention Loki Familia…Well, it’s
going to be even tougher than clearing a deep level in the Dungeon.”
“So you’re saying if we can do this, conquering the deep levels will be
a piece of cake, right?” says Welf with a grin.
“Don’t get
carried away now,” Lilly responds, glaring at him.
And with that
typical exchange, the old Hestia Familia is back.
“We’ve got
ourselves some fine opponents, that much is certain…In fact, they may be a bit
too powerful,” says Mikoto.
“Anything for the
sake of Lady Wiene and the Xenos,” replies Haruhime.
Both of them look
resolute.
Everyone is
already aligned toward the same goal.
“Okay, Bell,
get us in the mood! Give us a few words, and speak up when you do!” Welf says,
turning to flash me a fearless smile.
Piggybacking on
his mood, the goddess is suddenly excited.
“Yeah, Welf, good
idea! Let’s all get in a circle!”
“Uh, that kind of thing is embarrassing…” says
Lilly. “Ha-ha, Supporter. This is an order from your leader. You must obey!”
“Of course, now of all times…!”
Mikoto and
Haruhime giggle at the sight of the smug goddess and the grumbling Lilly.
As for me,
I’m well past my bout of crying. I wipe my face and rush over to join the
circle.
The goddess
extends her arms into the middle, and everyone else does the same, overlapping
their hands in the center. I follow their lead.
“Okay, then…Go ahead.”
I hesitate
for just a second before deciding what I’ll say, then nod at the smiling faces
turned my way. Under the eye of the owl perched on the back of a chair, my
voice swells along with my thoughts.
“Let’s save Wiene
and the Xenos!”
The endless rain
has lifted.
“We head for Knossos, where
we’ll move in accord with Bell Cranell and his familia.”
Fels was
addressing the Xenos, who were gathered in the crumbling sewer tunnel leading
to the well.
“The
adventurers…and Loki Familia may well discover us, but the only possible
route is to infiltrate Daedalus’s legacy. We could probably also take the
underground route that leads out of the city, but that is most likely a single
road with no forks. Loki Familia will unquestionably have strengthened
their defenses, and if they are lying in wait for us, we will be helpless.”
“You say
we’ll move in accord with Bell, but will that really be possible? I don’t think
we’ll be able to just wing it…”
“If they
agree with what I wrote in the letter, then sooner or later Bell Cranell and
his familia will link up with us. For now, I want you to trust in my decision
and theirs.”
“And what about those who were separated?”
“All we can
do is send them a signal. The adventurers may have already guessed our plans,
but we will send out a message and all push toward Daedalus Street at once.”
As the siren
Rei, the gargoyle Gros, and the other Xenos questioned Fels about the plan that
would determine their collective fate, the mage responded to each without
hesitation.
During this
exchange, Lido alone stood staring glumly at his feet.
“Lido…? What’s
wrong?” Wiene asked, noticing his dejected mood.
“It’s
nothing; I just feel bad because we’re depending so heavily on Bellucchi and
his familia…We’re causing them so much trouble,” he said, then adding in a
murmur between his fangs, “I feel so ashamed.”
“Lido. I
understand how you’re feeling, but so long as Ouranos is unable to act openly,
there are very few people we can go to for help. All we can do is cling to Hestia
Familia…” Fels said.
“I know, I
know…but still.”
“Lido.”
Wiene stretched
out a hand and stroked the lizardman’s arm, her fingers
“You know what Haruhime told me? On the surface,
there’s a story called ‘The Grateful Snow Spirit.’”
“Grateful…?”
“Yes. To thank the people who saved her, the
spirit brought them all sorts of things. So one day, we, too…”
The garnet-like red stone in her forehead
flashing, Wiene beamed with joy. “…we, too, can give lots of help to Bell and
the others who help us, right?” Lido looked in surprise at the innocent eyes
that smiled up at him. The girl
who had
cried incessantly after being separated from Bell was nowhere to be seen.
“Wiene…you’ve changed.”
“?”
Turning to
ash and falling into the abyss of death seemed to have awakened her—albeit
unconsciously—to the cruelty of mankind and also to the equally powerful beauty
of their potential for kindness. She had been held and fulfilled by the humble
dream in the heart of the boy. She had been saved by the kindness —perhaps the
foolish kindness—of a single person. The vouivre had been pulled from the dream
she had held through many lives and found a new desire—a wish to take the
kindness that had enveloped her and give it back to someone other than herself.
