CHAPTER 5 BRAVE SOUL!
Daedalus Street came alive.
The hidden armed monsters raised a war cry and began their charge. Loki Familia intercepted them. An unprecedented clash began, centered around the Labyrinth District’s western side.
The other adventurers kept out of the loop couldn’t grasp the situation, left behind by the flow of events and contributing to spreading confusion and uproar among the people.
“Has Lefiya disappeared…?” Filvis was moving alone through the district.
As the sounds of combat boomed out from the west, a number of residents stood still as others ran around in circles like insects entranced by a light. Filvis alone kept her cool and took in her surroundings. Instead of heading for the western battlefront, she observed the Loki Familia formation closely.
Their factions had formed an alliance, and she had some knowledge of the events transpiring on Daedalus Street. From that, she knew that observing Loki Familia’s camp was a more effective method of determining the sequence of events. As the situation changed from moment to moment, their movements gave the best indication of how to track the armed monsters.
On top of that, Filvis was prioritizing the safety of her kind, foolhardy fellow elf.
If she couldn’t make sure that Lefiya hadn’t rushed into danger, she wouldn’t feel comfortable enough to carry out her original task. She leaped up to a rooftop without a sound.
…? Loki Familia is…
Looking down from above, Filvis noticed that amid all the bustle from the crowd of adventurers, Loki Familia’s followers were standing frozen in place. They were leaning together, saying something to one another, and then their expressions changed when they left the location.
As she watched silently, Filvis kicked off the edge of the roof.
“Hey, what happened?”
“Wah?! Oh, Maenad, it’s you…”
The guy from Loki Familia was shocked to see her but lowered his guard when he realized she was part of the alliance between familias.
“The armed monsters were confirmed in the east. The uproar in the west is a decoy.”
“!”
“Apparently, the group protecting things over there was wiped out…along with some other adventurers. That black minotaur is connected to it! If they get underground at this rate, things are gonna be bad!”
It was the work of the stray armed monster. That seemed to be the best guess. And at the same time, the perimeter in the east had been stretched thin.
He explained the situation as they made their way. Filvis was astonished and held her tongue. If they didn’t hurry, the monsters would slip out of their grasp while still in possession of the key.
“Please help us out!”
“…Got it.” Filvis nodded in response to the stressed adventurer, setting aside her concerns about Lefiya for the moment.
“…”
Other people overheard their conversation.
They’d been observing the movements of Loki Familia, just like Filvis, focusing their efforts on eavesdropping. They hadn’t been noticed, and Loki Familia wasn’t on guard against them as they stood in the shadows nearby.
They silently departed, slipping down into the alleys.
Directly after that, monsters appeared before Filvis and the Loki Familia members as they began to sprint.
“Wh—?!”
“Are they…the six-legged monsters from Knossos?!”
They were a small breed with a red crystal instead of a magic stone, some of the countless vargs unleashed in Knossos. The adventurers who’d set foot in the man-made labyrinth recalled that nightmare. Filvis’s crimson eyes widened.
“Shiiiiiii!”
From the alley’s manhole, from the gaps in the walls, from the underground stairs, the insectile vargs swarmed them, as if they’d been planted beforehand. The group was forced to fight the monsters welling up from the crevices.
A comparable scene unfolded in several other places around the center of the Labyrinth District.
“C-Captain?! There’ve been several water spider sightings!”
“An enemy trap.”
In Loki Familia’s main base, Raul cried out as he gathered the reports from the semaphores. He had been summoned by Finn, whose eyes narrowed.
The reports of monster appearances were mostly around the edges of their formation. Most of the other adventurers focused on the main battlefront in the west, which was why they didn’t notice the localized movements.
It was clearly an attack aimed specifically at Loki Familia.
“The enemy is moving! We have to get control of the east, the location of the monster sightings. Don’t let them get away from us!” Finn shouted in a strained voice that echoed through the air.
A shadow proceeded through the underground passage.
There was a small body with slender limbs, wearing a prum-size version of adventurers’ battle clothes.
And unlike a normal goblin, it was lean, an enhanced species.
This was the red-cap that had fought Tiona four days prior.
As the bright-red cap bounced on its head, it quickly and carefully moved through the stone passage, watching its surroundings.
It was holding a lump of silver in its hands.
“—Found you.”
“!!”
When it turned a corner, it realized several figures were standing before it: a group of five humans and animal people.
They were not Loki Familia.
They were the followers of Thanatos.
They’d been ordered to find the Irregulars, the armed monsters, before Loki Familia did to dispose of them and obtain the key.
They weren’t wearing Evils’ robes. Instead, they were equipped with swords and armor and dressed like adventurers.
“Kaaaaaaa!”
“Guh?!”
The crazed fanatics weren’t scared of dying as they charged against the red-cap as a unified front. The monster couldn’t fight back, getting pummeled through its defense and dropping the key from its hand. The silver orb fell to the floor, and the leader of the group snatched it from the ground.
“We did it, Lord Thanatos! I, Acoz, have retrieved the key!” shouted the human man, crying the name of his patron god with blazing eyes.
It would be fair to say that they’d made sure their hunt went off without a hitch. They’d blended in with the other adventurers, waiting patiently for the opportune moment to strike. They hadn’t left Knossos in the past couple of days while Loki Familia had kept the exits under surveillance.
They had left four days prior.
It was the same day the armed monsters had made their appearance, when they’d taken a route out of Knossos through the Dungeon to get aboveground, disguised as simple, random adventurers.
And they’d been waiting in Daedalus Street all along for the monsters to appear.
As they blended in to the surroundings as adventurers, they were able to carefully observe all of Loki Familia’s movements without arousing any suspicion, gathering information about the flow of the battle.
They were the detached force that Thanatos had mentioned.
“Now Knossos will be totally safe!” The man trembled in excitement, sneering at the wounded monster.
“We should erase all evidence of this,” he said, starting to point his weapon at the red-cap along with his subordinates.
“Get them!”
“?!”
A sudden order rang out. His squad was slow to respond.
Adventurers leaped out from the web of interlocking passageways, the intersection where they’d caught the goblin.
The Evils’ Remnants were taken by surprise, unable to resist and incapacitated in an instant.
“Wh—…Loki Familia?!”
“Just as Captain thought. They really were mixed in with the other adventurers.”
The human leader was aghast upon seeing the jester emblem engraved on their armor. Anakity had taken out three of the five enemies in the blink of an eye. Her one-handed sword whistled through the air.
It would be fair to say they had made sure that their hunt went off without a hitch—except for one fatal flaw. They had been led on by Braver the whole time.
“The report of monsters appearing in the east was…a trap. To lure you out.”
Finn had guessed the existence of a detached force, since the Evils had been so passive. He presumed there were several squads pretending to be adventurers and secretly searching for the monsters’ whereabouts.
Of course, it was difficult to find the assassins among the thousands of adventurers in Daedalus Street.
That was why Finn spread some bait.
“A-a trap?!”
“Yes. As you heard, we tricked our allies and all.”
Anakity’s group had focused on spreading the misinformation, even to their own allies.
From the point when the real armed monsters broke through the west, the members of Loki Familia had been forced into making flustered responses. And that would look like a perfect opportunity to the Evils watching Loki Familia. Anakity had captured them from a handful of adventurers who had moved out.
“Then…then this key is…?!”
“It’s just a replica. Didn’t you know?”
Anakity disinterestedly pointed out the silver orb in the leader’s hands. It was the replica Finn had shown everyone in the meeting. The man’s eyes bulged past their limits.
If this was what Thanatos was calling a detachment, Anakity’s unit was one, too.
Finn had set out to drag his prey to shore—hook, line, and sinker.
“No way…nowaynowaynoway! Was the monster a lure, too?! Has Loki Familia been working with the monsters?!”
As two people pushed the leader against the ground, his widened eyes quivered, staring at the monster, which had been acting scared the whole time.
The monster spoke. “S-stroke of midnight’s bell.”
In the next instant, the goblin’s body was covered in a film of gray light, and when the light dispersed, a prum girl was left sitting in its place.
“Wh—?!”
“To tell you the truth, we intended to catch the actual monsters and uncover you with that, but…we cut that for time.”
They’d used transformation magic.
The man opened and closed his mouth in total silence as he realized that she’d just been an empty reflection of a monster.
As Anakity continued disinterestedly, she turned her eyes from him to her.
“Thanks for your help. That magic is so convenient.”
“Y-y—…you…”
When Anakity turned around, the prum girl—Hestia Familia’s Lilliluka Erde—was at the peak of her confusion. She’d been discovered and captured a little while ago. Lilliluka had assumed she’d be killed, but Anakity had a demand of her: “Help us.” She’d been brought to this underground path without consent, forced to transform into an armed monster, and run around in circles holding the replica key.
After seeing through her disguise, Anakity, or rather Finn, had changed plans. They had used her power instead of the monsters to draw out the Evils’ detached forces.
“What are you doing?! Aren’t you trying to wipe out all the monsters aboveground…?!”
“Ah, it’s fine. Don’t worry—this is an entirely different thing from your little incident.”
Though she was unable to collect her thoughts, Lilliluka Erde was able to subconsciously guess what was going on from Anakity’s answer.
Maybe. Probably. Surely. Undoubtedly. Loki Familia had—No, Finn Deimne had put the familia at the center of two different conflicts, handling it perfectly fine despite the extreme chaos of the battle in the Labyrinth District.
Huh? That makes no sense.
But even then, it was another story to process it completely.
To think there were several different forces facing off against one another in a huge incident embroiling the city.
She couldn’t keep herself from asking what the hell was going on.
“I think it’s a bit mean to pull in someone unrelated…but,” Anakity started.
Lilly was taken aback. Anakity walked up to her, looking straight down at the prum.
“You see, I’m pretty angry,” Anakity admitted, raising her perfectly shaped eyebrows and bending at the waist so their faces were almost touching.
“You tricked Raul with the worst possible method, of all ways.”
“Huh?!”
“To Raul, Finn Deimne is a symbol, someone who would never betray him. Even if it was a fake Finn, that fool would never fail to obey him…And you pretended to be that Captain and deceived Raul. So yeah, I’m really angry.”
Because Anakity and Finn had been together with him since they entered the familia, she knew him best, and her fury was more serious than anyone else’s.
The thin cat tail that extended from her small backside swayed slowly.
As if boring into Lilliluka, she pressed her pointer finger into the chest of the pale prum locked in place.
“So—this just makes us even.”
And then she smiled sweetly.
Lilly was filled with an unimaginable terror as the black catgirl adventurer put on a broad smile.
“Sorry for using you. You can go now. Even if you’re our enemy for the moment, we didn’t want to get you wrapped up in our problems.”
Anakity Autumn. Her second name was Alsha. A second-tier adventurer.
She was without doubt one of the best among all the Level 4s in the city.
There was a cold fire inside her beautiful figure that first caught Loki’s eye. She was a catgirl gifted with beauty and intelligence, a noble feline recognized by the gods.
“E-eep?!” Lilliluka yelped when Anakity spoke with that smile.
This isn’t funny. I could do without getting involved with her, she thought, rising to her feet and about to scurry away.
“Ah…that’s right. This is from the captain.” Anakity passed along a message to Lilliluka just as she was leaving.
“‘I’m letting you go once out of respect for your bravery. But there won’t be a second time.’ That’s all.”
The prum girl froze in place. This time, she was aghast.
She thought she’d outwitted Loki Familia, outwitted Finn Deimne.
But she was wrong.
She’d been dancing to Braver’s beat.
“Bye now. I won’t let you go next time, either.”
“Uuuuuuuugh?!”
Lilliluka Erde dashed away as fast as she could, not even bothering to soothe her wounded pride.
It might have been demonstrating a loser’s natural disposition, but she wanted to get away from “those crazy people.” She whizzed past, escaping without looking back.
“Is it okay not to find out what all she knows, Miss Aki?”
“We know better than anyone how dangerous a prum’s determination can be. Interrogation or torture would just be a waste of time. This is fine.”
Plus, one of the reasons why Finn had said to let her go was because they were hurting for time. And more than anything, Anakity didn’t have the leeway to be bothering with the prum girl.
“All right, then…We’ve kept you waiting.” Her voice was cold as she looked down at the man pressed against the floor.
“You have a key, right? If you guys didn’t have a means of getting back into Knossos, then you’re not much use moving on your own.”
“Gh?!”
“Trying to steal the key off the monsters was leaving too much to chance. Did you hide it before coming here? Then, I’ll just have to force it out of you.”
The blade of the sword glistened.
The leader twitched, the corners of his eyes flaring as he tried to break free from the people holding him down with all his might.
“My life belongs to Thanatos—!” He managed to get one hand free and reached toward his chest.
“I‘m not going to let you blow yourself up.”
Anakity’s hand flashed, her sword piercing through his hand and pinning it to the ground.
“Guuu—Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!”
He had an Inferno Stone hidden beneath his equipment. She’d stopped him from igniting the self-destructive device.
With his hand pinned down like an insect specimen, he was overcome by intense pain, trying desperately to remove the bloody sword staking him to the ground, but he couldn’t remove it one inch.
The silver blade remained lodged deep in the ground, refusing to loosen its grip, no matter how many times he tried to yank his hand free. It was as if the sword itself contained her fury.
“Please don’t waste my time. I’m not used to this sort of thing,” she warned with cruel eyes, smiling, but a silent, blazing anger smoldered in her eyes as she remembered Leene and the other comrades who’d been ripped away from her.
“But please don’t take that the wrong way. Cats can be…cruel, or so I’ve heard.”
After that, everything was a blur to the man. He thought he was enduring it, motivated by his sense of purpose, but once the real torture started, the screams came pouring out.
After screaming for a while, he gave them everything they wanted before being unceremoniously knocked out.
“Violas are coming!”
“Loose your arrows! Alicia’s group, begin chanting!”
The elves’ song resounded in the underground passage, the southeast of Daedalus Street.
Monsters were streaming out of Knossos with increased fervor, and there were no signs of the flow slowing down.
The elves fought primarily with magic as beads of sweat trickled down their faces. There were untold magic potion test tubes lying broken on the ground at their feet. Farther ahead, there were dunes of ash dotted with vibrantly colored magic stones.
Riveria’s instructions were allowing them to maintain the battle lines several hours after the battle had begun.
Fatigue was visible on the faces of the elves as they fought in a circular formation.
Despite the war of attrition that Thanatos had laughingly foisted on them, the elves hadn’t chosen to withdraw. It was almost as if they were waiting for something.
“Lady Riveria!”
“!”
Alicia’s jubilant shout reached Riveria’s long, slender ears.
When she turned back, Riveria saw Anakity emerge from the depths of the passage, along with some other members of the familia. As she let the elves under her command deal with the monsters, Riveria rushed over.
“Is it finished?”
“Yes, we got it.”
It was a short exchange. But that was more than enough.
Anakity took out a magic item in the shape of an orb. The letter D was engraved in it. It was unmistakably a Daedalus Orb—the key that Loki Familia had been chasing ever since their flight out of Knossos, the key to recovering from their hopeless situation, the key to Knossos that Anakity had acquired after interrogating the leader of Thanatos’s detached force.
It was only one key. But it was a concrete reward.
Behind Anakity, the faces of the other familia members were flushed. They couldn’t contain their excitement.
“Well done. Leave the rest to us.”
“Okay. I believe in you.”
Riveria’s lips curled up as she felt the heft of the Daedalus Orb in her hand. Anakity smiled back one more time.
Riveria’s face quickly tensed again, and she enthusiastically turned back to the elves.
“—Let’s go. We’re done defending against the monsters!”
““Yes, ma’am!””
The elves responded in perfect unison to Riveria’s call. With her eyebrow raised, the high elf spoke with a voice steeped in all her pent-up frustration and anger. As the passage filled with a swirl of battle lust that contradicted her image as a fairy, Riveria singled out one elf hidden away in the middle of the squad.
“Lefiya, are you ready?”
“Yes!…Ready!”
In the midst of the furious battle, there was a single mage who’d been held in reserve, not casting a single spell. She’d been kneeling, holding on to her staff, meditating to increase her magical limit and honing it. As she stood, she opened her eyes.
“Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree. You are the master archer!”
Her bright-yellow hair whirled up as she created a magic circle of the same color. Her magic power rose in an instant. This girl with her insurmountable magic power was the elves’ special lance, a battering ram to blow away impregnable defenses.
“Loose your arrows, fairy archers. Pierce, arrow of accuracy!”
The high elf pointed her staff forward as the other elves crouched.
Lefiya glared at the horde of approaching monsters as she spun her chant.
“Arcs Ray!”
The giant ray of light filled the entire corridor, annihilating all the monsters.
And Riveria quietly, sharply thrust her long staff forward.
When the raging roar of the ray quieted, when it had cleared away all the things blocking the path before them, the elves—no, all of Loki Familia—raised the signal to begin the counterattack.
“Charge!!”
The squad composed of eleven elves charged toward Knossos—straight forward in a single line, like a ballista bolt pulled back to its limit being released. The orichalcum door, which had been closed to stop the emission of monsters, opened with the key in Riveria’s right hand.
“Huh?”
Thunk! The door flung open with a crash.
The Evils stationed on the other side cried out in confusion. While the enemy was standing dazed before her, Riveria leaped out to the lead and swung her staff resolutely.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!”
The enemy forces were blasted away like leaves from a tree.
The elves didn’t look back as they crossed into the dimly lit labyrinth, advancing without pause.
“E-e-enemy attack!!!” The Evils’ Remnants panicked, sounding their alarm bells.
Arrows flew, swords slashed, magic was unleashed. The fairies ferociously kicked aside all who stood in their way—people and monsters alike. Pushing onward, they changed formation. Riveria now stood at the center of the squad.
She let out a savage order unbefitting a high elf.
“Devour them all!”
“Huh?”
Thanatos was dumbfounded.
“I said it’s an enemy attack!! The members of Loki Familia that have been holding in the passage just charged in!”
Time stopped when he heard the report from his follower who’d rushed into the hall. Snapping back around, he looked at the pedestal in the center of the room, at the watery film displaying images from all around the labyrinth.
Riveria’s elves had entered through the southeast door, advancing into the labyrinth at tremendous speed, destroying the remnants of the Evils and monsters in their path.
“…Gh!!”
Barca had been using the giant crimson orb to operate the doors, and he opened his eyes wide in surprise. Even when he lowered a door to block the elves’ path, Riveria’s key unlocked it immediately, and when he unleashed the monsters from their vaults, the violas and vargs were frozen solid and reduced to ashes.
The fairies were an unstoppable force. Nothing could slow them down.
“They attacked? They attack—? They attacked?” Thanatos felt sick from the shock upon seeing it with his own eyes.
“You’re kidding, right? Why? Isn’t that impossible?”
No one could have predicted that Loki Familia would attack from a position caught between conflicting forces. At the very least, Thanatos the god hadn’t been able to.
They stole a key. It was unfortunate. The worst possible result, actually. But it was fine up to there. He could understand that much.
But instead of holding on to that precious key and taking it back or even using it as a lure or a trap, they were using it to attack.
How did they catch us off guard? It was our arrogant assumption that they wouldn’t attack, even in the worst case. It’s our carelessness for looking down on Loki Familia—
Finn Deimne was someone who could win against all-knowing gods.
It was his experience from leading so many armies. Knowledge and experience were very different things. Thanatos in particular had been a workaholic in heaven, spending all his time purifying souls. He had no knowledge of the subtleties of the battlefield. None but the most battle-hardened warriors who’d crossed countless battlefields could sense the way the wind was going to blow on a battlefield. It would have been impossible for Thanatos to figure out Finn’s seemingly reckless plan.
“D-does he see any chance of winning? Anything other than a gamble?”
Not just a reckless, suicidal charge but a planned surprise attack?
Was there some calculation where he could take on the vast labyrinth and get a valuable result from it?
Deplete our forces, map Knossos, obtain another key, or discover the location of a demi-spirit who’s hidden away in the labyrinth—Thanatos was still confused as he systematically went through all the possible strategic conditions for victory against the enemy.
He was being led around by an unknown wonder. His doubts kept piling up.
If Finn’s old enemy Valletta Grede had been alive, she would have said a few things.
“Dumbass! There’s no way Finn would ever just defend!”
“That rotten hero—he’ll keep attacking all the way to the depths of hell itself!”
The next moment, Thanatos’s eyes opened as wide as they could go.
“—Are you kidding me, Braverrrrrrrrrrrrr?!”
It sounded like a shriek or an acclamation. As he sweated with a smile on his face, Thanatos turned to his panicking followers.
“Call Levis for me! This is really bad!” he boomed in half fear and half delight.
Thanatos smiled, displaying his propensity to cave to the unknown, to the undiscovered.
And then he let out a shout.
“We’re going to be swallowed whole!”
“Reporting! Lady Riveria has commenced the raid on Knossos!” shouted the elf, dashing into the room out of breath.
Upon hearing the announcement, Raul and all the other members of the familia froze before unleashing a booming roar.
“““OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”””
Fists were clenched, and the mood of the Loki Familia base was electric.
The wild cry from the center of Daedalus Street was loud enough to make the other adventurers searching for the armed monsters jump out of their skin.
As they were consumed by unprecedented excitement, the prum leader quietly murmured to himself:
“Good.”
He uttered a single word. But it contained a flood of emotions.
It was the first time since this battle had started that Finn had the feeling of “bring it on.”
They’d latched onto the throat of their enemy, shooting out a silver bullet against the monsters hidden away in that hellhole—in place of a greeting. They’d announced the time to counterattack as the fairies wedged themselves into the battle.
Finn raised his voice at this critical moment. “We’re redeploying the defensive squad. Have Gareth turn his team around! Cease pursuit of the armed monsters and secure the door that Riveria opened in the southeast. Defend it to the last! Upon finishing our preparations, we’ll launch a follow-up attack!”
The success of Finn’s strategy led to a huge increase in morale. Everyone shouted as they received his orders, reaching a fever pitch.
“Astounding…They got us good.”
In a spire overlooking the main base where Finn and the others were gathered, Dionysus was almost moaning as he spoke.
“Finn never had the slightest intention of staying on the defensive,” Loki responded next to him as she looked down over the excited camp.
“The enemy will be restless when they obtain the key. If they figure out we’ve got one, it’ll be too late. We gotta crush them before they get any chance to prepare.”
They’d turned tail and run from Knossos once before, when the Evils had been able to finish their preparations and invited Loki Familia inside.
They’d defeated Finn and the others with their perfectly laid plans.
But this time was different. They hadn’t made any preparations at all. They hadn’t imagined they could be attacked, which meant they hadn’t made any arrangements to engage the enemy.
And even if they had, they wouldn’t have any time to mobilize.
It was a textbook example of a surprise attack.
“With their defenses all leaky and ramshackle, we can swallow them whole and bring back some information. This’s our first and last chance.”
The jester goddess smirked audaciously. And then it slipped into a soft smile.
“Finn, ya seemed to be wrapped up in doubt, which is uncharacteristic of you, but…” Loki trailed off, watching over the prum as he continued to call out orders.
“Yer a pretty monstrous hero yerself.”
Loki smiled. She’d known it all along.
“…How rowdy,” a woman murmured.
With voluptuous breasts, a beautiful body, and crimson hair reminiscent of blood, it was a monster in the form of a person— Levis.
With her enhanced hearing, the creature could hear the boisterous chaos in a distant part of the labyrinth. As she hunkered down on the floor with one knee raised, she frowned in annoyance.
“—You shut up, too. Aria can wait. First, we blow away the city and make a big hole…Yeah, I’ll show you the sky on the surface—filthier than the time before. Tch,” she scoffed, holding her head with one hand.
From the outside, it seemed she was talking to herself, but upon listening in, it’d become clear that she’d formed an understanding with something.
“It won’t be much longer…Just a little more. Wait down there patiently,” whispered the woman, voice echoing throughout the long hallway inside Knossos.
Before her, a giant pillar of green meat was forming against the tall wall of the labyrinth. Near the top, a silhouette resembling the upper body of a person was squirming, casting a long shadow against the walls and floor.
“L-Lady Levis!” cried one of the main members of the Evils as they rushed through the entrance of the hall.
Levis swung around, bothered by the intrusion, and the man continued to speak as he knelt down.
“Loki Familia has invaded Knossos! They have a key, and they’re wreaking havoc! At this rate, th-they might reach one of the s-spirit rooms around the labyrinth!”
The man was careful to not lay eyes on the repulsive green pillar, averting his gaze to the stone-paved floor. Beads of sweat kept hitting the ground as his voice trembled.
The pillar writhed ominously, making a ghastly noise as tentacles extended out, surrounding the man, as if observing him.
“Please. P-please help us…!”
“Useless fools…” Levis slowly stood up as her green eyes narrowed.
And as if in sync with her movement, the tentacles began to coil around the man’s body.
“Let it go. It’s not a magic stone. It’ll just make you sick.” Levis spoke indifferently as the man disappeared above her head, pulled up by the tentacles.
As if to respond, the pillar released the sound of crushing meat, and a rain of blood splattered against her cheek.
“Sheesh…Incompetent, each and every one of them…” she muttered, wiping her cheek with a rough swipe of her arm and drawing the pitch-black cursed sword sticking out of the ground.
Levis left the hall as the sound of chewing echoed behind her, looking bored out of her mind.
The footsteps of the elves rang out loudly as they rushed down the stairs in the complicated, mysterious, labyrinthine insides of Knossos. Loki Familia’s squad of elves didn’t allow the Evils in their way to stop them as they delved farther into the depths of the labyrinth.
“Three enemies ahead!!”
“A group of monsters, two o’clock!”
“Break through! Attack!”
As the elven girls searched for enemies, Riveria gave commands from the center of the formation.
Troops of the Evils sporadically emerged, eager to stop them, but they all fell victim to the magic of the elves. As rays of light burst forth from their wands, they blew away the enemies.
They hadn’t slowed down once from the moment they entered Knossos, not stopping their movements and continually opening new paths in every direction.
Riveria’s mission was to disrupt the enemy in Knossos—one way or another.
If they could manage to turn the main base of the Evils’ Remnants into a storm of chaos, the Evils wouldn’t be able to intervene in the battle aboveground. At the very least, Riveria’s team needed to pin down the enemy in the man-made dungeon until they could suppress the armed monsters.
And their primary goal was to gather information about Knossos: steal a second key or determine the location of the demi-spirit and deal a destructive blow to the enemy’s infrastructure.
It wasn’t necessary to completely wipe out the enemy to achieve victory. They needed to blaze through as much of the interior of Knossos as possible, laying the foundation in preparation for the full assault to come in later days.
“Advance! Advance!”
With that in mind, they needed to run and couldn’t afford to stop.
As they charged into Knossos as a single squad, they were comparable to a lone ant wandering around a giant anthill. If they were cornered, they’d be crushed in no time at all, considering their power imbalances.
To survive and bring the plan to fruition, they had to avoid capture. It was crucial that they spread as much chaos as possible, as this would prevent the enemy from taking the initiative and relegating them to the defensive. An invasion by a single squad was always one misstep away from catastrophe—or as Thanatos put it, suicidal.
As they cut deep into enemy territory, Riveria’s judgment was the key to success for the unsupported troops carrying out their surprise attack alone.
“I sense something on the left! Change course to the right!”
“Yes!”
“Alicia, recover Sonia and the others!”
“Understood!”
When Riveria sensed a trap lying in wait, Alicia and the rest of the team followed her lead without hesitation. They could sense the shock of the enemy forces who’d been lying in wait down the left passage as the troops distanced themselves from it. At the same time, Riveria didn’t neglect to delegate recovering her team with items as she deftly handled an unending series of decisions.
In this regard, she resembled Finn.
She was influenced by all the times she’d stood with Gareth watching over the gallant figure of the prum.
And above all, as a high elf, Riveria wielded extraordinary charisma among elves. Even in the heart of the enemy’s base, the fighting spirit of the elves didn’t drop—but increased.
“Materialize, mighty barrier of forest’s light, and lend us your protection—my name is Alf!”
Riveria made her magic stand by, maintaining the magic circle that expanded to a radius of five meders. As she chanted, the elves gathered perfectly inside it in formation as they ran forward.
A jade-colored glow illuminated their faces from below their feet—the light of the fairies’ blessing. The elves’ chests trembled, as if they were all overcome with emotion, as if they had received royal protection.
“Everyone, stop! Lefiya!”
“—Pierce, arrow of accuracy!”
They dashed out into a wide passage and were greeted by a wall of monsters.
In response to the swarm of violas and vargs filling the hall, Lefiya quickly stepped in front of the squad, gathering the attention of all the monsters—and then she fired.
“Arcs Ray!”
“?Aaaaagh?!”
A stupidly powerful cannon erased the swarm of monsters.
“Lefiya, don’t stop casting! Prepare the next volley!”
“Yes!”
They immediately began to move again as the particles from the magic cannon spun together with a Concurrent Cast. A giant ray of light filled the width of the passage and washed over the horde of monsters trying to push through with numbers, turning them all to ash. This was the sixth iteration of the same scene.
With that tremendous output, the bombardment of fire unleashed by Lefiya was equivalent to a lance.
It was like a battering ram that blew away all the enemies that gathered, standing across the hardened door.
Draw the attention of the many monsters hidden away in Knossos and then annihilate them with one blast. That was why Lefiya had been held in reserve, why she’d been tempering and refining her magic through meditation.
Riveria was busy commanding the squad, which meant they couldn’t rely on her firepower all the time.
To trample Knossos to the ground, Lefiya’s lance was essential.
“Freeze, chains of winter!”
“March, inferno boots—”
“As contracted, I command you!”
As Lefiya was dealing with the enemies in the larger passage, the other elves including Alicia were taking out the monsters emerging from the side routes with their own magic.
In Riveria’s squad of female elves, every single member was a mage or magic swordswoman who’d mastered Concurrent Casting and trained in high-speed combat with the ability to freely use shortened-cast magic.
Magic rained down on them one after the other, analogous to a fortress shooting off a legion of fairy arrows.
“Enemy squad, from the front!”
“A group of mages…and magic blades!”
The icing on the cake was their defensive wall, which trivialized the counterattacks of enemies lying in wait.
“Via Shilheim!” activated Riveria from its state in standby, halting the concentrated volley from the enemy.
“What?!”
“Our attack…?! Aaaaaaaaaaaargh?!”
The remnants of the Evils shuddered at the jade dome enshrouding the group, but that was short-lived. The elves cut them down with swords in passing, a fairy platoon with eleven members in all.
Even in Loki Familia, they were a cut above, as the party was entirely composed of elves who were Level 3 or higher. They didn’t stop producing their magic circles.
A main cannon, barrage, and defense. This group went well beyond the stage of mobile artillery.
They were a fortress.
“It’s been a while since we’ve formed a Fairy Force!”
“I’m fine with supporting from the back lines and all, but wow. Rampaging under Lady Riveria’s command is truly an honor!”
“Hey! Rampage? We’re doing nothing of the sort!” Alicia warned the younger elves making a fuss in their exaltation.
Under normal circumstances, it was rare for Riveria to take an active role leading a raid.
As the woman heralded as the city’s strongest mage, she would maximize her potential in the back lines: an overwhelming firepower to exterminate enemies without exception, a defensive method to protect allies from attacks, and a healing support that could maintain an entire battle line. She’d filled her role as a pillar supporting large groups. It was like giving a tiger wings to team her up with Gareth’s dwarves who bore the full brunt of the front lines.
But once she separated from the main group, running around as a detached force, she changed dramatically, becoming a projectile weapon, turning into a wedge formation of fairies that Finn could drive in at just the right time.
“Don’t prattle on! Attack!”
““Yes, ma’am!””
They launched themselves into combat—a high-speed melee with Concurrent Casting.
Magic was versatile if one mastered its speed and adapted to most situations. The elves running amok in the Dungeon wielded an unimaginable firepower—a flower on the battlefield, as though a cavalry squad.
The situation was different from the usual Dungeon, requiring a long-range hit-and-run, foiling the Evils’ soldiers as they attempted their suicide bombing.
As the elves kept moving and unleashing their magic, no one was able to pursue them.
“Lefiya, don’t fall behind.”
“Y-yes…!”
It was Lefiya’s first time joining her fellow elves on the squad, and she was out of breath as she continued to cast magic concurrently. With her improving enough to join them, the fairy squad had acquired a main cannon, completing the mobile fortress.
They had all the pieces necessary for a surprise assault on Knossos.
“Front and rear doors have been closed!”
“I’m opening the front! Time your magic to fight against it!”
The doors had been the largest bottleneck, rendered meaningless by the key in Riveria’s hand. The orichalcum barriers yielded readily, opening from their firmly locked positions, exposing the flustered enemies to a hail of shots.
It was the rampage of all rampages, the fruits of Anakity’s labor. The proud fairies fought to regain their honor and subdue the fury of their murdered comrades.
“Lady Riveria, a second key!”
“Well done!”
Alicia hadn’t missed one person wildly trying to escape among the enemy forces firing back. She’d stopped him in his tracks with a freezing spell and knocked him out, stealing away his hidden key, their second one. After Riveria’s praise, the elves continued to shout.
Their advance couldn’t be stopped.
“…?”
Riveria alone noticed the slight shift as the squad built up increasingly more momentum.
The enemy’s attacks had stopped, grinding to a halt, when their desperate attempts to prevent their advance had assaulted them before.
“…Lefiya. Change your cast.”
“Wha…? Ah, yes!”
It’d been nothing more than a reprieve for a short moment, but it was enough for Riveria to recognize it as the harbinger of something abnormal.
She gave a new order. And upon seeing the high elf’s tense face, Lefiya and the other exuberant elves became anxious as well.
Riveria was wise.
She knew not to let her guard down in the man-made labyrinth—not in the hellhole that had brought Braver to a point of no recovery.
Her vigilance paid off. It came out—with a bang!
The door boomed as it opened wide, as crimson hair the color of blood fluttered.
“—! I-is the creature here?!”
One of the elves searching for enemies sounded the alarm.
All present swung around, and the figure of the strongest monster in a human form reflected in their eyes.
“After the elves, it’s the prum, huh?”
Levis, the creature, approached, more menacing than the orichalcum door.
Behind her were vividly colored monsters, a multitude of fodder soldiers.
A genuine monster was closing in, one that had beaten both Finn and Aiz.
“—Hn…!” Riveria squinted as the red-haired woman charged with the sinister cursed sword in her hand.
“Ummm…is this okay, Captain…?”
Aboveground, the wind was blowing in the home base of Loki Familia, which resembled an old castle.
Beside Finn, Raul had timidly opened his mouth, asking the captain who was still looking out over the Labyrinth District.
“Is what okay?”
“Is it really all right to have Miss Riveria and the others break into Knossos…? The demi-spirit is one thing, but that creature there…”
Raul was having difficulty stringing together words, but he felt an apprehension that he couldn’t brush aside. Before Raul’s eyes, Levis had brought Finn down in a single blow when they’d entered Knossos last time. It was a nightmare.
It had been a shock to see the greatest hero and his idol being mercilessly overrun. It had left a big impact on him when Finn lost.
Even Aiz couldn’t stop it by herself. It was an overwhelming mass of unreasonableness.
“…”
Finn fell silent for a moment as Raul remained apprehensive about the creature with red hair.
“Open up!!” commanded Riveria.
All the elves obeyed, discharging a fusillade of magic.
Rays of light—crimson, azure, gold—rushed at Levis.
“Violas.”
“OOOOOOOoooOOOOOO!”
The creature gave a terse command to the monsters, disinterestedly holding out her left hand.
They advanced in front of her, becoming a wall of flesh to block the magic, a tremendous number of vibrantly colored monsters. They wouldn’t falter from a broadside of that level.
Levis sprinted out, making an opening in the shield of monsters.
“…?”
She had an uncomfortable feeling.
“That’s it.”
“Huh?”
“Now that we have a key in our possession, that one creature is the only cause of concern in Knossos,” said Finn with an unwavering expression, focusing straight ahead.
He turned to face Raul, who was visibly surprised, and continued without any hesitation in his voice.
“Raul, I wanted to be called Braver so much that I negotiated with Loki for it.”
“…?”
“In order to be a light, to exemplify bravery for my race…I was prepared long ago.”
There wasn’t a logical flow to his statement, leaving Raul flustered. But as Finn continued, Raul finally understood what he was trying to convey.
“If I was to freeze up because of one person, because of a single threat—I wouldn’t be standing here.”
Raul shivered, getting goose bumps—at Finn’s quiet face, at his cold eyes, at the magnificence of his resolve.
Yes, Finn had called himself the name “Braver.”
He was a hero who’d put up a front, a man-made hero calculated from the very start.
Finn had borne the weight of that second name from the very beginning. He had always carried that pressure, enough to crush a normal person, on his small back with his immeasurable determination to turn a lie into reality.
What was brave about fearing a single creature?
How could he call himself a hero?
He would never have taken the name Braver if he cowered before them.
“Besides, Raul, you’re not taking Riveria seriously enough.”
He’d put trust in his friend, layered and heavy.
“If it’s Riveria—she can drive back something of that level.”
What—?
Levis’s discomfort grew at the constant hail of shots that the elves unleashed to keep her from approaching.
Their effect was a little—no, a bit more than a little too much.
It was enough for the shots to break through the wall of violas and graze Levis’s cheek, enough for her to slow her sprint, to prevent her from carelessly approaching them.
The force behind the magic was intense, more intense than it should have been given that it was a short cast.
They’ve been firing off their magic. Why haven’t they hit their limits?
The elves had advanced through Knossos, reaching the depths of the Dungeon.
It didn’t matter if they worked in recovery with items. With their output and number of spells, they should have reached the limits of their mental strength. And yet, they continued to bombard the enemy without stopping.
By coordinating the front and back lines, the magic blades expelled their rapid-fire attacks to fill the gap between the blasts from the first row and those preparing their next round in the second row.
The stone slabs of the passage burst apart. The wall and the floor crumbled, and the chunks were blasted away.
They weaved together their chants in rapid succession, tens of spells overlapping, before destroying the wall of violas down to just a single monster.
The moment the wall between her and them disappeared, Levis saw it.
“?”
She saw the jade magic circle that all the elves were inside, illuminating the area beautifully, absorbing all the remnants of magic drifting around the hallway and returning them to the elves.
It was increasing their magical strength, bestowing royal protection.
A rare skill. Levis went bug-eyed. That was all she could determine.
“Just as Finn underestimated you—”
Using the time bought by the elves’ fusillade, the high elf had finished her chant, her voice ringing out sweetly through the passage.
“—You looked down on us too much.” Riveria mercilessly spoke to the creature—one that hadn’t put in any effort or devised any sort of plan, trying to approach its prey head-on.
“Blow with the power of the third harsh winter, advent of the end–––my name is Alf!”
As she lined up with Lefiya, who’d chanted Summon Burst, Riveria readied her long staff. The jade magic circle gleamed as the voices of the two elves, master and disciple, overlapped with each other.
““Wynn Fimbulvetr!””
Levis recoiled at the simultaneous frozen cannons—six blizzards in total.
“Tch?!”
Kicking off the floor of the main passage, she flew into a side path by a hairbreadth.
Her left arm and the cursed sword couldn’t escape the firing line in time, swallowed up in the jaws of the blizzard. The eyes of the creature distorted as she made the instantaneous decision to abandon it, snapping off the frozen arm and narrowly avoiding getting dragged away by the explosion.
Less than a second later, the loud boom of an avalanche resounded behind her.
The twin cannons of ice froze everything, leaving a track of blue covering the entire main passage. The interior of the labyrinth was consumed unbelievably by an enormous cold wave.
Levis persisted, even as her skin was getting frostbitten, managing to escape onto a side path…When she lowered her right arm from her face, the scene of a frozen passage unfolded before her eyes.
The area was covered in frost, filled by a giant block of ice and icicles.
There was no path through the ice cavern, defying all who tried to get past.
“Insects…you’ve got some nerve!”
When she pummeled the frosty pillar before her eyes in a rage, the surface cracked under the impact, but the enormous chunk of ice would not break. She was unable to proceed down the large passage. It was impossible to follow Riveria’s squad from there.
The labyrinth was made with stones of the obsidian soldiers that diminished the effect of magic, and it was absolutely terrifying to see it entirely frozen over, albeit it was one section of the maze.
It should have been impossible. It was a tremendous firepower, accounting for the Summon Burst and simultaneously firing identical magic.
“As if I’ve got time to sit around recovering!”
She’d lost an arm. With her left arm below the elbow severed and the wound frozen over, her prided healing skill was having trouble getting going.
Done in by the elf master and disciple, Levis trembled in humiliation.
“L-Lady Levis?! Wh-what happened…?!”
“You guys do something about this ice. I’m chasing those elves by a different route.”
After demanding that the Evils who’d gathered at the crash deal with the frozen passage, Levis went in the opposite direction.
That high elf is a nuisance. If I’m not careful, this will happen again. Should I prioritize regenerating my arm?…Damn it. This is gonna take time.
The recovery hadn’t started when she bitterly cursed to herself.
The door slammed open with a loud bang! as if in response to her anger.
“She left.”
Riveria’s ears twitched when the violent door-slamming sound reached them.
They hadn’t changed locations. They hadn’t thoughtlessly moved away, either. Instead, they’d hid themselves behind a bend in the passage and waited for Levis to leave. Lefiya and the others breathed a sigh of relief when their bold move paid off, gazing out at the hall covered in ice.
“Don’t leave my magic circle. I’m retrieving the magic energy.”
“Yes, Lady Riveria!”
With Riveria at its center, the jade-green magic circle swept together the remnants of magic filling the passage, allowing them to absorb back into her and the other elves. That was the true nature of the skill that had astonished Levis.
Alf Regina—a rare skill that none save Riveria had ever developed.
The effect was an enhancement of her own abilities and the amplification of the effectiveness of magic wielded by fellow elves inside her magic circle by recovering the magic energy in the surroundings and converting it back to Mind.
In other words, along with Riveria, all elves inside the magic circle would increase in magical strength and recover their deleted Mind.
In particular, the latter effect was peerless. Even if it paled in comparison to the nonsensical recharge of the demi-spirit on the fifty-ninth floor, its recovery effect was significantly more pronounced than the Mind auto-recovery effect from Spirit Healing.
Finn had ordered the surprise attack on Knossos because he knew of that skill. Alf Regina would allow them to enhance their magical abilities and recover their Mind as they ran around in a giant labyrinth of an unknown size.
When she’d developed the skill, Loki had danced wildly, excited to create an elf-only squad centered around Riveria. Seizing the opportunity, Loki had even tried to give it a gaudy name like “Fairy Force,” but Riveria hated decorations and embellishments, and she’d rejected it.
That said, the name had been surprisingly popular among the elves in the squad, who called themselves that behind closed doors.
It was an incredibly valuable party skill befitting the image of Riveria, the city’s strongest mage.
“Lady Riveria, what should we do from here?”
“First, resupply. My skill isn’t all-powerful. It can’t heal you in full. Treat the wounded.”
“Yes!”
The squad had certainly been taxed, particularly Lefiya, who’d been firing off heavy blasts and even using Summon Burst. Alicia started the work of resupplying.
As Riveria let them continue their work, she turned to a single girl.
“Rakuta, the mapping?”
“Y-yes, it’s coming along,” squeaked a single person, a girl of a different species amid a squad composed of elves.
It was the hume bunny Rakuta. There was a reason why Finn had sent her along with Lefiya for their romp in the deep levels: her genius at mapping.
“B-but it’s full of holes…! It’s not even a map…!”
“That’s fine. It will serve us well when we challenge Knossos in the future.”
Riveria took the map-in-progress as Rakuta’s rabbit ears twitched.
True to her word, it was a fragmentary map, covering only the areas they’d passed through. That said, the number of doors and other openings were all noted in detail. Considering it’d been created in her spare time as Riveria and the elves were fighting around her, it was worthy of praise. In the Dungeon, they couldn’t use compasses due to a special ore running through the structure, but in Knossos, there was no such limitation. It was extremely valuable to deduce that their present location was to the south of Daedalus Street.
It was more than enough to avoid needlessly wandering in circles.
“Rakuta, I think we’ve gone down around ten floors’ worth of stairs. What is your judgment?”
“I—I had the same feeling! Compared to the Dungeon, I think we’re around ten floors deep…” responded the mapper with her superior depth perception.
Riveria started to think.
That creature won’t fall for the same maneuver again…Next time we run into her, she’ll destroy the entire squad. If we’re to find an escape route, this is the time…
Riveria had no intention of underestimating Levis. There was no way she could.
They’d handled her well because she’d looked down on them. If the creature attacked them as seriously as she’d done to Finn, Riveria’s squad of mages would be wiped out as soon as she could get close enough to attack.
And it wasn’t as if they could keep fighting the remnants of the Evils forever.
In the end, the enemy could overwhelm them with their strength.
It’s possible to…devise a means of escape…If the god in Aiz’s legend was a patron god of the Evils, one of the evil gods, then…Riveria thought for the briefest of moments before deciding on a course of action.
“We’re going to find a path connecting to the Dungeon and move from the south to the southwest.”
“Yes!” With Rakuta, the elves stood up and immediately began to mobilize.
To avoid running into Levis, they distanced themselves from their battleground as much as possible. Following Riveria’s instructions, they quickly located a staircase leading down from the tenth floor and proceeded to it.
And from the eleventh floor, they went down one more to the twelfth floor.
They moved carefully—and quickly.
When the monster attacks started, they had a lucky break with the help of Rakuta’s surveying techniques.
“The Dungeon…!”
“We did it!”
A crash resounded, and the labyrinth wall gave off smoke, and there emerged Lefiya and the others. The group cheered as they saw the mist—it was unmistakably the twelfth floor of the Dungeon.
“It seems the god used Knossos to set that wyvern after Aiz nine years ago…”
Upon opening the connecting door and breaking through the wall of the labyrinth, Riveria looked back at the stone path leading perfectly into the Dungeon before turning away.
She wasn’t sure whether all the floors were connected to Knossos. But Riveria had a clue. She knew the story of how Aiz had encountered a deity with the appearance of an evil god on the twelfth floor not long after she’d joined the familia. The god had disappeared from the Dungeon, even though he shouldn’t have had a path to escape. In other words, he’d used Knossos to leave, meaning there was a connecting path on the twelfth floor.
Riveria finally caught her breath, but her thoughts were focused on how to fight.
We retrieved a second key. It’s full of holes, but we have the makings of a map of the labyrinth. We found an escape route, too…But it’s not enough.
Entrusted with the invasion, she felt she hadn’t produced adequate results.
Find the location of the demi-spirit or strike the enemy facilities… That’s what I want.
Now that the enemy fortress was thrown into chaos, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Riveria could tell that the efforts of Loki Familia to cut off the enemy’s flow of supplies and monsters hadn’t been wasted, now that they’d raided this far into Knossos. Finn’s surprise attack plan was part of their success, but the enemies hadn’t been prepared for the battle at all. They would never get this chance again, and she wanted to obtain information about Knossos to render the hellscape as powerless as possible.
I’m guessing the plant producing the inexhaustible supply of water spider monsters…is somewhere in Knossos. We’ve seen too many of them for it to make sense otherwise. If we can find and destroy it…
If she was to point out an issue with that plan, it would be Levis.
That creature is wounded…My magic and Lefiya’s took one of its arms.
When they’d hit Levis with Wynn Fimbulvetr, Riveria was sure she’d seen her arm and the cursed sword plucked from her body and buried in ice. Levis would avoid an imprudent second assault and focus on recovery—or rather, if Levis actually wanted to come at them with half strength, Riveria would gladly perform her last rites.
If the creature happens to approach, I can keep the second-tier attack spell Rea Laevateinn deployed and sense her before she comes near us. That would buy us enough time to retreat…Now that we’ve secured a path out, it’s not a bad gamble.
Upon weighing the risks and returns, Riveria made a decision, raising her head to look at the elves.
They were exhausted, but the light of battle in their eyes was still there. They remained in high spirits to avenge their comrades and crush the den of the demons. Riveria nodded at their morale.
“We’ve obtained our escape route. Use this as a starting point. Let’s lay waste to Knossos once more. If time permits, of course.”
She gathered the elves on the Dungeon side, announcing her intention to commence the assault again. As expected, no one voiced any opposition. From Alicia down, the elves renewed their desire to rampage.
“Fortunately, we took possession of a second key. I want someone to take this, go through the Dungeon and Babel to Daedalus Street, and bring reinforcements.”
Dropping to one knee, Riveria looked around at the girls sitting in a circle, scanning the group for someone to get back to the surface as quickly as possible. Considering the condition of their Mind consumption, her eyes stopped at a brilliant burst of beautiful yellow hair.
“Lefiya, you go.”
“!”
Riveria chose their irreplaceable lance, the girl who’d put in so much effort in the labyrinth. Because she was the newest member of the Fairy Force, she’d shouldered the biggest burden.
It was unfortunate to lose Lefiya’s firepower and Summon Burst, but Riveria judged she was the best choice.
“This is a critical role. It will be imperative that we have support when we withdraw…Bring them as soon as possible, okay?”
“Yes! I shall be back in three—no, one hour!”
“I’m counting on you,” Riveria said, smiling slightly as Lefiya put her right hand on her chest and stood up.
While the elves prepped for the second attack, Lefiya turned her back on them, dashing to the entrance of the room. After glancing at her once, Riveria looked back at the path leading into Knossos.
“Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
The battle wasn’t over yet.
Aiz sunk into despair.
The clouds rolled through the sky, and she stood there alone, bathed in moonlight.
As expected, the difference between her and the one she’d tried to believe in was like that between the foot of a mountain and the summit. As she’d feared, the boy had made her misgivings manifest. She shouldered an unbearable sadness.
“…And the vouivre is alive,” Aiz whispered in the northwest of Daedalus Street, in a back alley that should have been empty.
Agitation filled the air when she spoke the word vouivre before it settled into complete silence. Aiz stood in the center of the street, staring dejectedly at the empty space before her.
“Come out…” she said.
And all of a sudden, the empty space quivered, casting off its veil to reveal a single boy’s figure beneath the moonlight in the next second.
His white hair shimmered like virgin snow beneath the light. The black undershirt and the plain iron-gray armor gave off a faint luster, piercing Aiz’s eyes.
Bell…
White hair, red eyes.
He stood in the middle of the street.
Aiz painfully murmured his name in her heart, as if whispering the name of a lover.
And when she saw the monster—the vouivre—clinging close to him, her gold eyes looked down.
“I’ve been thinking about…why you asked me that question…ever since.”
Aiz had quickly started chasing Bell again after getting stalled by the masked adventurer.
And when she caught up to the presence of the invisible boy, she saw what she’d pretended not to notice while chasing him. It was an unbelievable scene.
Together with a renart girl, he’d been hugging the vouivre, a human and a monster sharing a moment of joy with teary eyes.
Upon witnessing that scene, seeing the monster’s tear-filled smile, Aiz felt as though time had frozen in place, and she hadn’t been able to stand before the boy until now.
She was faced with the reality that she’d been desperately trying to avoid for five days.
Let’s say a monster could smile, like a human.
Or be consumed by worry, like a human.
Or shed tears, like a human.
Or was self-aware, like a human.
She’d been uncertain about the true meaning of his questions, which now stood before her eyes.
“So this is what you meant……”
The vouivre he’d protected to the point of standing against them wasn’t dead.
The impetus behind this whole incident, the cause of her and Bell walking down separate paths, was still here—
Aiz slowly lifted her head.
Her body quivered as her eyes met those of the vouivre standing stock-still and holding on to the boy’s hand.
Its amber eyes reflected Aiz’s face and housed an undeniable intelligence.
They mirrored the Sword Princess’s cold, dark, emotionless gaze.
“Miss Aiz!! This girl is—” Bell started, turning in place and trying to protect the vouivre from Aiz’s gaze, pleading with her.
“My answer,” she cut him off, speaking with a razor-sharp tone, “will not change.”
And she put her hand on the hilt of Desperate.
“If anyone cries because of a monster—I’d kill it.”
The boy froze at the Sword Princess’s answer—at her drawn sword.
As she held back the grief in her heart, Aiz took a step forward.
“Wait…Please wait, Miss Aiz! This girl hasn’t harmed anyone or anything! She would never do something like that! This girl—Wiene—is different!”
She had no more desire to lend an ear to his nonsense.
“Will you be able to say the same thing if that vouivre goes on another rampage?”
“?”
“I won’t allow it.”
He didn’t have a response.
The vouivre trembled, and the crimson stone in its forehead glimmered like a garnet. With the knowledge that her expression had become coldhearted, Aiz thrust peremptorily with her response.
The boy didn’t know why Aiz was being this unsympathetic, and he probably didn’t want to know.
But one thing was clear—there was no room to negotiate. She hammered home the grave reality that they were already in opposition.
“U…ah…” he moaned.
Get out of the way.
Approaching the deathly pale boy step by step, Aiz desperately wanted him to move. But at the same time, she already knew that her wish wouldn’t be granted.
For no other reason than that he’d already given his answer.
On that day, the fool who had stood against Aiz and Loki Familia would not go back on his resolve. He’d arrived at the opposite answer from theirs, as if a reflection in a mirror.
Aiz’s eyes narrowed with sorrow when he took the hilt in his hand and drew his pitch-black knife.
“—Gh…” The vouivre faintly whispered something.
“…” Aiz wore a coolheaded mask.
“…Why?” Bell’s lips quivered.
“…Why?”
In the face of the boy who was consumed by emotions, Aiz resolutely kicked the ground.
“—Damn it!”
A sorrowful clash of blades rang out.
INTERLUDE
THE WHEREABOUTS OF A SCHEME
“Cruz, the attacks from Knossos have stopped!”
“Good—use this time to finish recovering!”
A familia member’s voice resounded in the large stone passage.
The underground passage beneath Daedalus Street in the northwest. Loki Familia’s squad was exalted by the fact that the violas had stopped pouring out.
“This is thanks to Riveria, isn’t it? This means…!”
Cruz had been deployed to lead the squad and recognized this as evidence of the chaos in the enemy’s hideout. Knossos was being devoured by the unexpected invasion of the elf squad, and they couldn’t divide their soldiers or even their monsters to deal with Cruz’s group. He suspected that on the other side of that one door, the northwest of the labyrinth had been deserted.
They’d been forced to fall back by an intense attack by the monsters, but now they had the passage to themselves again.
Is there any value in having the northwest passage under control? It might be better for us to move to the southeast…But we still don’t know the location of the armed monsters. I can’t mess up the captain’s formation on a whim…
They’d sent a messenger to the main base to report in and ask Finn for instructions.
“How do you do? Ladies and gentlemen of Loki Familia.”
“!”
A single god appeared in the hidden passage.
“You…Lord Hermes?!”
The figure donned a winged traveling hat and loose clothes for travel.
Cruz was shocked as Hermes walked up.
He didn’t even have guards from his familia. His lack of vigilance was incomprehensible. It was unnatural for a god to be on a battlefield alone.
Even though they were on the same side after forming an alliance, that didn’t exempt Hermes Familia from their shady behavior. Not to mention that there was a good chance they were on Hestia Familia’s side in the struggle going on around the Labyrinth District, based on Finn’s analysis earlier.
More than anything, it was ominous.
His orange eyes were hatching a plan.
Everyone was confused, but Cruz alone stayed on his guard.
In response to his attentive gaze, Hermes let a suave grin play on his lips.
“To tell you the truth, I just wrapped up a contract with Loki. I came to report on it—and look, it’s the magic item you guys were searching for.”
“!!”
He pulled a silver sphere—the Daedalus Orb—from his breast pocket, transfixing Cruz and the others. It was the item that Hermes had received from a certain Goddess of Beauty. He made a show of it, as though he’d just fulfilled the commission from Loki during the skirmish with Rakia three weeks before.
It was a key to Knossos—and the thing they currently wanted more than anything else.
While the other members of the familia stared, entranced by the jewel and unable to peel their eyes from the magic item and its ominous radiance, Cruz managed to wrench a response from his mouth.
“…Thank you very much, Lord Hermes. Could you please hand it over?”
Cruz’s face remained tense as he held out a hand.
Why did he go out of his way to come to us instead of Loki? Why is he on the front lines?
He received his answer in no time.
“Sure, no problem. But before that, I’d like to receive my reward.”
“What?”
“Could you please take your squad here and leave, my good man?” the god requested with a hint of sarcasm, smiling as his eyebrows arched.
“Wh—?…Do what?!”
“In exchange for handing over the key, I would like all of you to disappear from here. What? That’s all I want. Honest. That’s a cheap price to pay, right?”
“Why would you want that?!”
“Because as the god who rules over negotiations and contracts, I believe it would be sufficiently valuable, my boy Cruz.”
Cruz couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had goose bumps when the god spoke his name.
He couldn’t understand—neither Hermes’s demand nor the words he was speaking. None of it.
It’s a trap. Or rather, he’s planning something.
He could feel the other members behind him shrinking back as a drop of sweat ran down his cheek.
“…Our mission is to maintain control of this underground passage. That isn’t something I can decide with my own discretion. If the captain gave directions to—”
“That’s no good.”
The corners of Hermes’s mouth rose as he challenged Cruz, not letting him finish.
“Here. Now. You decide.”
Cruz gulped at the god’s pronouncement.
It contained an absolute will that wouldn’t allow him to dodge the question.
It was an unnatural negotiation table. It was obvious that he couldn’t take the offer. But they had to get their hands on the key, no matter what. Would it be better to capture him and take the key by force? It would be a simple feat to force a god to hand it over if their strength were equivalent to that of a normal person. But, but, but doing something disrespectful to an unarmed god—
Cruz’s expression twisted over and over as he struggled with a choice that was far above his pay grade.
Hermes sighed.
“If you say you can’t take the deal, then I guess it can’t be helped. There are lots of other people who want this key, after all, so maybe I’ll give it to one of them…”
“Please wait!” Cruz shouted as Hermes started to turn away.
If he let him go now, they would never get that key. He was the kind of god who would really do that. At least, that was the feeling Cruz got from him.
In his anguish, Cruz remembered Finn’s words.
Our number one priority is to obtain a key. The destruction of the monsters and the Evils is secondary.
Forced into making a choice, the chienthrope…followed the captain’s instructions.
“…Understood. We’ll withdraw from here.”
“Thank you. Negotiations are complete. Please take this.”
With a cordial smile, Hermes held out the key, which Cruz took without a word. As everyone else remained quiet, he quickly led the squad out of the underground passage.
The sound of boots hitting the ground reverberated for a while before silence fell once again.
A voice called out from the empty space in front of Hermes.
“It appears they’ve pulled back. There is no one from Loki Familia in the surrounding area,” announced an alluring woman with blue hair as she let down her invisibility.
Asfi Al Andromeda reported in, holding a jet-black helmet in one hand.
Hermes nodded in response.
“I see—then, bring them here.”
A group of armed monsters appeared from the opposite direction of Cruz and the others.
“Calling this sort of thing a secret path…”
“It’s all the same, right? The only difference is that this one was just now created.”
The black robe of the mage standing at the front of the group swayed in apparent disdain, but Hermes responded nonchalantly.
Hermes Familia was more precisely acting as a smuggler now.
They had made a secret deal with the armed monsters Loki Familia was hunting, moving them through the underground tunnels to prevent others from finding them and delivering the group of monsters to that point.
The passage contained an entrance into Knossos.
“With this, you can bid farewell to the world aboveground. After you enter Knossos, I’ll have to ask you to take care of yourselves. I’m afraid I can’t afford to go that far. I pray you safely make it back to the Dungeon.”
The entire group of armed monsters was silent, nonviolent. Their faces were clearly those of beasts but contained hints of gloominess.
The handful of Hermes Familia members, Lulune and the others, made a point of not meeting the armed monsters’ eyes—to focus on fulfilling their mission or to avert their eyes from the uncomfortable feeling of standing next to monsters without trying to kill each other.
By her patron god’s side, Asfi furrowed her brow, a complicated emotion washing over her face.
“Lord Hermes…let me confirm one last time. Is it okay to let them go?”
“Yes. Gros’s sacrifice is a proper recompense. That was the deal, after all.”
Sacrifice. The monsters’ faces strained when they heard that word. Their faces should have been hideous but looked akin to that of a person trying to endure pain.
Advancing like a funeral procession, they moved in front of the door.
The orichalcum door opened without a hitch, thanks to the key in the hands of the mage in black. By chance, the inside was exactly as Cruz had imagined: entirely deserted.
There were no defenses on the Evils’ side.
The only things were darkness and the cool air.
“Lord Hermes…what is your aim…?”
“I said, didn’t I? The world wants a hero.”
After the last monster had entered the labyrinth, the mage turned back, and Hermes coldly responded.
In the next instant, the door closed with a violent crash.
The monsters disappeared from Hermes Familia’s eyes.
“All right—time for the return of a hero.”
While Asfi and the others remained silent, the god turned to leave, lowering the brim of his hat as the corners of his mouth turned up.
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