CHAPTER 6 THE HERO’S SELF-DENIAL
“Captain, I’m sorry…We’ve lost track of the monsters.”
Aboveground, one of the familia member’s voices melted into the still night air.
They were in the central area of Daedalus Street, in Loki Familia’s encampment.
Listening to the report as he chewed his lip, Finn retreated quietly into thought.
When Gareth got pinned down, should I have moved Riveria? That black fog made it harder to communicate…No use thinking about that now.
The clash in the west of the Labyrinth District had been the crux of the battle aboveground.
If they’d gotten control there, they probably would’ve caught the armed monsters. But they managed to escape their grasp as a result of Finn looking down on their strength—and the power of their supporters, Hestia Familia—and lack of dedicating forces to that front.
Moving Riveria aboveground would have been a big risk…especially when we had no way of knowing when we’d manage to get our hands on a key.
If he’d moved Riveria aboveground, the Evils would have gained control of the underground passage. Which meant they wouldn’t have been able to pull off a quick one on their unprepared enemy. The two fronts had been at odds with each other.
If they had been greedy and managed to get everything, that would be one thing, but if they lost everything because of it…As a commander, Finn had to weigh the risk of that.
The black minotaur hasn’t been found, either. Did someone kill it…? No, someone must intend to do something with it.
He was most concerned about the Irregular that hadn’t been caught yet. The minotaur hadn’t roared out. The Labyrinth District was too quiet. It was ominous.
Plus, I can’t read the enemy’s movements…
It was the armed monsters’ route. They’d totally betrayed his expectations. The moves were irregular, as if they were being guided in the wrong direction.
“The monsters were last seen in the area around Twentieth Street, right?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Finn furrowed his brow upon confirming with the familia member.
Twentieth Street…We investigated it, but…Impossible. That’s…
Something was off. As if two gears were out of sync.
Finn’s thumb wasn’t aching at all.
“…What the hell are they after?” Finn’s whisper was erased in the wind.
Raul was acting as his aide and seemed to misinterpret this as pained silence.
“I’m sorry, Captain…It’s my fault. If I hadn’t gotten tricked, if I hadn’t broken the formation…”
“Raul, I’m not blaming you. Besides, your mistakes are my mistakes. I’m responsible for taking Hestia Familia too lightly.”
Finn wasn’t going to allow Raul, who was busy hanging his head in disappointment at himself, to think that.
“We were able to strike back at Knossos, but we let the armed monsters get away…”
That murmur described the current state of affairs.
They’d lost the battle but won the war—he couldn’t placate himself with that. Finn had greedily and insatiably intended to win it all. He intended to destroy the armed monsters after using them, calm the chaos in the city, get his hands on the key from the beasts, and beat Hestia Familia and that boy who had rebelled.
And he hadn’t been able to because he’d misread the situation and made light of Hestia Familia. He was the one who had split his forces between them and the remnants of the Evils, and he couldn’t use that as an excuse any longer.
It was his blunder.
“It won’t go according to plan, huh…? Good grief.” Finn sighed slightly, crumpling up the completed plan in his head and throwing it away.
Switching gears.
They hadn’t achieved the outward goal of eliminating the armed monsters, but the main plan—the surprise attack on Knossos—had succeeded. He should just accept that as good enough for now.
And besides, the fight wasn’t over yet.
There were more things left to do.
“Send trackers to Twentieth Street. Have them search every nook and cranny, including any underground passages connecting to dead ends. I want to know how they got away.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Twenty-seventh Street. Where Rox and the others were hit. That’s probably the location of the black minotaur. Call Bete, Tiona, and Tione to the east…no, to the north to search for it. If they find the target, they are to shoot a signal into the air immediately.”
“Understood!”
“Raul, has Aki reported in yet?”
“Yes, they’re currently fighting underground, pushing at the southeastern door while it’s open, but…the Evils are fighting back hard…”
“Got it. Tell them that depending on the enemy’s resistance, they are to pull back. If a creature appears, they should retreat at once. Now that we have a key in hand, it’s pointless to get hung up on one door.”
“All right!”
As Finn handed out orders left and right, the familia members responded.
Because his plan had two different fronts, the squads were divided above- and belowground.
Aboveground, the team was a younger generation of first-tier adventurers, while the underground was important enough to be left to the most dependable forces, Gareth and Riveria. Partway through, he’d had to change the deployment, playing it by ear, but they’d managed to produce results, albeit minimally.
To Finn, the battle had already been decided. All that was left was to determine the route and escape path of the incomprehensible armed monsters and locate the whereabouts of the black minotaur. With that, the skirmish aboveground could be wrapped up.
“If Riveria is moving according to plan, they should be securing an escape route. A report should be coming from the Dungeon anytime now. We wait for that.”
“Understood!”
“Reassemble all forces aboveground. Surround the north and corner the black minotaur—”
Finn had already assumed there would be no more disturbances.
At least until that moment. That was when his thumb suddenly started to ache.
“Wh—…?”
“H-hey! That’s—!”
Even before he heard the familia members’ voices, Finn’s blue eyes saw it—grotesque shadows rising into the air above 20th Street, not far from the encampment, just on the western edge of the central area.
The winged beasts bat their wings, roaring as if unveiling their true monstrous nature.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—!”
The thunderous roar of a gargoyle shook the night sky.
The swarm of monsters flew to the north of Daedalus Street, howling as if to draw attention to themselves.
It was at odds with their previous actions. Finn couldn’t understand their intentions. The prum was bewildered but quickly narrowed his eyes.
“C-Captain?!”
“I know.”
Finn didn’t even glance at Raul, who’d rushed in, looking at the northwest outer edge where the monsters had touched down.
“This is just like the Dungeon…” He let out a long sigh at the series of extraordinary events.
Finn had judged from their previous movements that they wouldn’t attack in the north where the residents were evacuating, trusting the instincts of Bell Cranell, who hadn’t been worried about the armed monsters.
Because of that, he hadn’t deployed any familia members to the outer edge of the district. The defenses were light.
The inconsistent movements of the monsters were so out of place that he felt the presence of a third party in them.
Can I attribute their mysterious route to that third party? Someone trying to use this situation…This doesn’t sit well with me.
Finn understood that it had come to this, that Loki Familia had to send out a squad, too.
At that, his eyes dropped to his right hand.
It was slight, but there was an ache in his thumb.
Is there something there?…Or is something going to happen?
As he licked his thumb, Finn remembered the words of his patron goddess.
“See through it with my own two eyes, eh…? Sheesh,” he grumbled, sighing once before he made his decision.
“Huh? What is it, Captain?”
“Raul, I’m taking a squad and heading over there.”
“What?! You’re going yourself?! Wh-who will give orders here?!”
Riveria will be back eventually, he indicated as he left it in Raul’s hands, intending to clear his name. In response, a pitiful wail rose up, which Finn ignored, moving out quickly.
He gave the lower-tier members and even the first-tier adventurers a standby order as he headed to the northwest with a unit.
“…It’s no good, Thanatos. We lost one of the varg plants.”
In the base inside Knossos, the labyrinth master’s room, Barca spoke flatly, standing before the pedestal to observe the inside of the maze.
“Argh…Was it Nine Hell’s team?”
“Yes. They found the plant on the twelfth floor, following the path of the swarm of monsters that was drawn to its magic…”
Barca looked down at a screen of water that reflected the image of the high elf’s side portrait as she moved. As the remnants rushed around, struggling to move heaven and earth, Thanatos looked up at the ceiling, taking in Barca’s report.
“Not just Braver…but Nine Hell is after us, too…I guess I really shouldn’t have let Valletta die this easily.”
Even though he was the God of Death, he still regretted allowing a single soul to return to heaven.
That said, the god couldn’t wipe the smile from his face, even though he’d been duped. It was as if he was enjoying the mystery of the unknown, continuing to move pieces on the board, amusing himself with the lost battle with no thoughts of surrendering.
“There’s another…no, two more groups of invaders besides Loki Familia. Well, they aren’t people…”
On the surface of the water, an image of a monstrous shadow flashed across the screen instead of Riveria’s group. Barca’s visible eye, which was inscribed with a D, narrowed.
“Ahhh, one of Ikelos’s toys, huh…? Our hands are full enough with Loki Familia. To tell you the truth, I wish I could let them be, but both sides have keys. Can we bring them down?”
“We won’t be able to get the small group…the one with the vouivre. They came in through the abandoned door connecting straight to the seventeenth floor. Did they break through the collapsed hidden passage…?” Barca postulated as Thanatos sketched out the battle situation in his head from his position atop the steps.
The Evils had lost one of their plants, leaving them with half their battle power—well, half might be overselling it, but it was a painful blow. It wouldn’t be fun to get their asses handed to them and let Loki Familia go.
They’d ascertained that the current location of Riveria’s group was on the tenth floor. Even if they pressed in force, the monsters weren’t enough to stop them. The actual members of the Evils’ Remnants were split between fighting Loki Familia on the first floor and tracking down Riveria’s squad. The latter group was still moving through the ninth floor.
“And Levis?”
“Healing her wounds. Which seems like…it’ll take a while.”
Upon hearing the status of his last dependable bodyguard, Thanatos drummed his fingers against his temple.
They had enough firepower to crush Riveria’s group—though it wasn’t as if he could send out the demi-spirit. And if the situation repeated itself, Levis would get killed this time.
But, like, based on Nine Hell’s movements, I’m guessing they’ve found the connecting path to the twelfth floor…
Even if Thanatos got his forces together with the intention of wiping them out, Riveria could easily retreat from Knossos. It was possible. Very possible. The only reason they were still rampaging around the labyrinth was because they had a means of escape.
Thanatos wanted time to ready his forces and to create a situation that wouldn’t allow the enemy to run away even if they tried.
A lure to keep the fairies in place.
“…Barca, where are the other invaders?”
“The tenth floor. Far away from our troops.”
Thanatos pondered in silence for a moment.
“Open all the doors to the routes that I’m about to specify.”
“…What?”
“Manipulate the doors around the loitering vargs to prevent them from getting in the way of the intruders.”
He wouldn’t stop them. Instead, he instructed that they be drawn deeper into the labyrinth.
The enemy had a key to freely move inside the maze themselves. If he was unlucky, they might stumble across an important facility or a spirit room.
Barca swung around, doubting his ears, as Thanatos’s eyes narrowed coldly.
“We’ll collide with ’em.”
“Are we really doing the right thing, Fels?!”
The black-robed mage Fels paused upon hearing that voice.
They were inside Knossos.
With their deal with Hermes, Fels made use of this escape path, breaking into the Evils’ hideout with their team. This area was connected to the Dungeon.
“This is a good option if we’re thinking about Bell and his gang! But abandoning Gros and the others? It…feels wrong for us to return without them, right?!”
“You’re wrong, Lido. I believe in him.”
They had somehow managed to make it through Loki Familia’s counterattack. They had been in the process of trudging toward the Dungeon when one voice rose in opposition. The mage clenched their jet-black gloves, robe trembling, despite being one who wouldn’t lose their composure even before the old god Ouranos.
“To think that foolish boy would overcome a deity’s divine will—”
Fels ran, filled with trust for a certain boy. As the mage moved forward, the others pushed on to continue along the path, too.
They rushed down the stairs. Fels was looking for a path back to the Dungeon. To let those behind them escape, the mage continued deeper and deeper underground, farther from the traces of the battle above.
With the key, Fels opened the orichalcum doors. One of their party used high-frequency echolocation to accurately pinpoint the best route in the winding maze that they could steadily and confidently proceed through without getting lost.
“If you make it into Knossos, it’s your victory, he said…but it won’t be that simple in a hideout for the Evils—now will it?”
When a swarm of monsters appeared before them in the winding passage, the black gloves of the mage released a shock wave that blew away the swarms of vargs and detonated parts of the larger violas’ bodies. This team’s counterattack cleaned up the enemy in no time at all.
But we’ve only encountered monsters—not the actual members of the Evils…Is something happening in here?
Fels suspected something abnormal was occurring in Knossos, since the remnants of the Evils weren’t resisting with as much force as expected.
The mage guessed correctly. In an unknown location, Loki Familia had robbed the Evils of all their leeway to deal with intruders, especially when they were also dealing with Anakity’s group in the hidden passage underneath the Labyrinth District near the open door. They were all out of forces to split off to deal with the newest intruders.
“If it’s like this…”
We can make it, Fels was about to say.
Bam. A deep sound echoed through the passage.
“…?”
Followed by: bam. Bam. A series of the same noise.
Fels quickly realized it was the sound of doors opening—but they hadn’t done anything to unlock them, and the mage couldn’t fathom the reason behind this sudden change.
Are the Evils operating the doors…? Is it to lure in the monsters? No, but…this open route is…
Following the echolocation despite Fels’s misgivings, they arrived at the stairway to the next floor.
“Fels! I can faintly smell Mother—the Dungeon! It’s connected down here!”
“…” Fels fell silent amid their excited shouts.
There was a connecting path to the Dungeon on the floor below. If they got there, they could escape Knossos.
But this timing…Is this a trap?
Are the Evils intentionally leading us to the next floor?
“Hey, Fels? What are you doing? Those bizarrely colored monsters will come after us!”
“…No, it’s nothing. Let’s go!”
Either way, Fels’s group had no information about the structure of Knossos, which meant there was no real choice to make. If there was a path before them, they could run through it as fast as possible to avoid the enemy’s traps, and that was it. They couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.
“Full speed ahead! We can get out soon!”
Fels and the others accelerated down the stairs.
Their decision was correct. The mage guessed they could crush any enemy in hiding with their battle strength. Fels was confident they could deal with any man-made Dungeon gimmicks using insight and magic items. All of it was correct.
But if there was a flaw in their calculations, it would be the fact that they’d crossed into the twelfth floor; that the enemy was leading them not to a trap but to another group; that they would encounter the vicious fairies rampaging through the labyrinth.
“?”
The first person to notice their presence was Fels.
“This is…”
“The thing that emerges when adventurers…use magic…?”
They stopped moving inside the jade crest spread across the ground. Only Fels guessed the true nature of the crest extending out from the door thrown open by the Evils.
It was part of a magic circle, spreading across an extremely large range. This ability materialized with an enormous magic power polished through a combination of once-in-a-lifetime talent and extreme effort.
Someone on the same floor had cast a net of magic power.
The magic circle crawled across the ground and arrived at them, moving past their feet.
It can’t be…searching—
The jade brilliance shone up from their feet, a magic response almost screaming that it had locked onto its target.
—Have we been caught?!
In other words, they were already in range of the onslaught.
“Get out of the circle!” warned the mage with too much talent.
“—My name is Alf.”
The mage heard an incantation that they shouldn’t have been able to hear.
“Rea Laevateinn!”
A multitude of giant pillars of flame surged out of the ground in front of them, out of the magic circle.
“Uuuu—oooooooooooooooooooo—?!” They screamed and leaped backward as bursts of infernal fire exploded before their eyes.
Just as they were about to be burned by the blazing pillars rising from their feet, they managed to scramble out of the magic circle, avoiding being turned to ashes.
With a tremendous wave of heat and sparks, the labyrinth was scorched in an instant.
“Fels?!”
“…This is a special robe made to protect against magic and curses, but…that really nailed me good,” Fels admitted in tattered clothing, standing at the head of the group and last to escape.
Smoke rose as the mage looked down at the charred black robe, letting out a groan that resembled a wry laugh behind the hood ensconced in darkness. Supported by one of the team members, Fels had managed to stand up.
Thud.
“To think we’d run into you in a place like this.”
The sound of boots rang out from the smoke in the passage, which parted to reveal long jade locks of hair. It was Riveria, holding her long staff and leading her group of elves.
“Loki Familia…!” Fels groaned at the unlikely encounter.
Riveria had been in Knossos on the twelfth floor, using Rea Laevateinn to distinguish between humans and monsters. In the words of her patron goddess, she had been using radar—expanding the magic circle to search the floor.
Riveria had been looking for enemy forces. But when she encountered a response that wasn’t Levis, the remnants of the Evils, or their accomplices, the vividly colored monsters, she’d decided to unleash a preemptive attack.
Fels couldn’t have predicted an attack spell triggered through walls.
“Those armed monsters…managed to slip through Finn’s attacks and made it all the way here, huh?” Riveria’s eyes narrowed sharply at the scene before her.
Those cowering behind Fels were a group of armed beasts, eleven of them in total.
With teamwork and divine plans, the monsters had gotten past the city’s strongest faction and managed to make it into Knossos—against all odds.
This reaffirmed to Riveria that the monsters were a threat. It didn’t matter how they managed it—their existence posed a danger. Faced with a prearranged encounter, Riveria immediately moved to eliminate the force standing before her.
“—Riveria Ljos Alf—no, Loki Familia, I would like to negotiate with you.”
Fels was a step ahead of the high elf preparing to cut them down, opening their mouth and stealing the initiative before Riveria could move. The mage understood they were in the wicked hunting grounds of Knossos and wanted to avoid turning it into a battlefield. To make it out alive, Fels opted for a negotiating table.
“…You’re the mage leading the monsters. You’re Lord Ouranos’s messenger, right?” asked Riveria as she gazed grimly at the mage.
“That’s correct. I’m here obeying the divine will of the creator god of Orario,” Fels readily confirmed upon deciding that it wouldn’t serve any good to hide the truth.
The mage knew it would be better to persuade her, to draw out every card possible, to use anything with the potential to help them in their cause. But when the younger elves, plus Rakuta, heard about the divine will of the founding god, it shook them up.
Riveria mentally chided herself. Her subordinates’ will to fight was dampening, and they’d lost much of their determination. The proud elves would hesitate to attack the mage now, much less the monsters. She discerned from this short exchange that the mage was extremely wise and extraordinarily dangerous.
“You let them rampage aboveground. And now that you’re in a predicament, you’re suggesting we negotiate? How convenient. Did you think we’d accept this nonsense?”
“When we were aboveground, everyone was directing their malicious intent toward monsters. Even if we’d tried to force contact with you, it wouldn’t have been possible for us to engage in a levelheaded conversation. It has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with emotion.”
“…”
“And in the one-in-a-million chance that a third party happened to observe our negotiation, Loki Familia would have had no choice but to exterminate the monsters. We would never have been able to propose negotiations under those conditions, but then this opportunity fell into our laps by chance…Do you understand where we’re coming from?”
I see. They have a point. And they are familiar with the war of words.
Riveria could recognize the mage’s wisdom was coming from an age even greater than her own, as a high elf who boasted a life span longer even than normal elves. The mage before her eyes was wiser than she was. It would be impossible to try to win the argument.
“…As someone who’s argumentative, I’m sure my words are insufficient. I’d like you to hear it in their own voices,” Fels suggested, stepping aside to allow a single lizardman to move forward.
Riveria couldn’t tell the expressions on the ugly faces of monsters apart from one another. But she could see the strain in its orpiment eyes that harbored the light of reason.
“…We just wanted to help Wiene…to help our vouivre comrade. That’s all,” the monster said.
The faces of Alicia and the others paled.
“Did it just speak?!”
“A monster…?!”
“How…repulsive…!”
The elves moaned. Each reacted in her own way, but they were all as one would expect: recoiling in disgust, or swaying, or gazing in agitation with eyes filled with fury. The elves had a reputation for being fastidious for a reason, but the reality of a monster speaking was shocking. They were all extraordinarily bewildered. All save Riveria, who’d already heard Finn’s speculations.
“We came out aboveground because we wanted to get back our comrade. Not because we wanted to attack people and not because we wanted to kill them!”
They were taken aback, unable to respond immediately to its sincere and earnest pleas. Without giving them any time to recover, the black robes quivered again in encouragement, and a single beautiful siren walked out—displaying golden feathers, golden wings, and beauty in no way inferior to an elf. It closely resembled a person.
“Above all…we want to talk with you. We don’t want to trade blows but words…” She spoke awkwardly.
The elves’ uncertainty increased at her words. Even without looking back, Riveria could tell that the elves were disturbed.
The mage is good at this. And crafty. Riveria acknowledged their skill from an objective perspective.
Fels was sending out the monsters that most resembled people at the perfect time. The elves’ confusion had already reached a fever pitch.
“What are the monsters…?!”
“But, Alicia, if they’re telling the truth…”
“If we can’t respond to discussion…that would make us more barbaric than they are.”
“Thinking back on the times when we fought them aboveground, it seemed like self-defense on their part…”
“Gh…!”
Wavering. The elves’ determination was wavering.
This was what Finn had been afraid of. If they acknowledged that they could reach a mutual understanding with the monsters, the adventurers would begin to doubt their blades.
They would no longer be able to strike down monsters.
“Self-aware monsters…We call them Xenos,” Fels explained, looking at the confusion growing in the elves, Alicia, and Rakuta.
“They’re our only hope.”
“‘Hope’…?”
“Yes—my patron god, Ouranos, wishes for people and monsters to live together peacefully.”
Without missing a beat, Fels dropped another bomb.
A shock ran through Alicia and the other elves unlike any other.
“Wh—?!”
“Are you crazy?!”
“Our history has been fruitless. Always hating each other. Always killing each other…We want to bring an end to all that. The Xenos are our last hope.”
Don’t listen. Ignore it. Riveria could have given that order as the girls shouted back at the mage, their faces changing color. But she couldn’t go against her own feelings. If she didn’t know the desires of the mage and monsters or their aim, if she didn’t know everything, she couldn’t come to an answer. If she just cut them down without question, that itself might make her a barbarian.
After all, she was a trueborn elf.
“The existence of Xenos has the potential to be a bridge connecting monsters and humans. Instead of brandishing fangs and claws, they want to use thought and words to get to know us people, to live together with us…That’s what they have been looking for.”
“—?!”
“They raised a prayer in the Dungeon, and the almighty Ouranos acknowledged it. The Xenos are an Irregular that even the Dungeon couldn’t have foreseen. A new possibility that the mortal realm gave birth to after all this time.”
Alicia and the others gaped as Fels spoke of the monsters, including the lizardman.
The power of Ouranos’s name was extraordinary. After all, his achievements had him praised as the ultimate god, even in Orario. It was enough for the elves to start to think about hypotheticals and the underlying truth.
Their outlook was shaking. Their grasp on common knowledge was collapsing.
Standing in the space between shock and hatred, the elven girls were pushed to the verge of mental shutdown.
Above all, their greatest source of confusion was that they didn’t feel fierce hatred when faced with these monsters as they did when standing off against the normal ones. Fels’s case was all the more persuasive because these monsters didn’t evoke those feelings.
If they’d felt hatred, they wouldn’t be struggling, choosing to cut them down.
Riveria herself would’ve been the same.
“It doesn’t have to be immediate. But to bridge the gap between the world above and below, to put an end to this chain of loss…we would like you to understand them.”
The mage held out one hand.
Please overlook them just this once, he was pleading. The eyes of the monsters behind the mage were boring into them.
Their wish. Their yearning. We want to get to know you.
The lizardman, the siren, the lamia, the unicorn, the troll, and many other monsters gazed at them without a roar.
It was an impossible scene between people and monsters.
It was heretical.
The monsters before their eyes.
That was Ouranos’s secret: the Xenos, different from people and from monsters.
“…”
Riveria closed her eyes as scenes flashed across the backs of her eyelids: setting off from her home forest, encountering the goddess and prum in the worst way possible, joined by the dwarf she found absolutely incompatible, journeying together until today.
The image of her obstinate, audacious, tactless prum friend.
And a glimpse into his worries and resolve as he sat on the bed and clenched his fist the other day—
“…”
Finally, Riveria opened her eyes.
“Loki Familia, if you could somehow take this—”
Interrupting the mage’s words, she rejected him.
“Are ya stupid?”
Everyone froze as Riveria spat out a refusal.
“—our patron goddess would say.”
Riveria shocked the other elves, glaring back at Fels in their quivering black robe, ignoring the resignation written on the Xenos’s faces as if they had lost count of how often they’d encountered something similar.
“Can you prove it? Is there anything substantiating your claims? Do you have any plans? Any explanation that could convince people who’ve lost their families to monsters? Any way of showing their sincerity?”
As Fels spoke of ideals, Riveria parried back with reality.
Arching her brow, slightly raising her chin, Riveria narrowed her eyes coldheartedly.
“Right now, I don’t want to hear your ideals or delusions; it’s a purely realistic discussion. Don’t appeal to our emotions with underhanded tears. Use logic.”
“…”
Riveria didn’t let up on her rebuttal tinged with denunciation, silencing the mage.
“Unless and until you can do that, I can’t accept your argument.”
“…Cap…tain?” Alicia murmured in shock at the sight of Riveria elaborating cogently.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. The beloved and revered queen of her race was overlapping with the figure of a certain prum. Based on her speech and that unwavering determination, Riveria bore a strong resemblance to Braver.
No, it was exactly like him. A mirror image.
“Mage, let’s test your resolve. Forget all this hypothetical talk about ‘someday’ and show me a resolve convincing enough to move me at this time, right now…Do you actually have that in those black robes of yours?”
Riveria was Finn Deimne without a doubt.
Out of respect for his determination, she channeled him, speaking on behalf of her friend who wasn’t there. She knocked away the monsters’ hands, word for word in the way of the revered Braver.
“If there isn’t, then…” Riveria ruthlessly declared, “your story is a pipe dream more meaningless than the fantasies of a child longing to be a hero.”
She put an end to their negotiations, slicing them down and spitting out her words almost venomously to prevent the morale of her team members from deteriorating further. At the unwavering pronouncement of the high elf, Alicia and the others swallowed hard and then cast aside their doubt.
“…Riveria Ljos Alf. Or rather, Finn Deimne.”
Both stood at the head of their respective groups. Fels looked closely, crestfallen, at Riveria, their black robes shaking.
“You’re both wise. And you have the necessary elements of a hero…And a faith that doesn’t balk even when confronted with sacrifices that must be made.”
Upon seeing the character of a hero in the high elf standing in the Xenos’s way, Fels responded in frustration.
“I can’t help thinking…what would have happened if you’d been our ally.”
“A meaningless hypothetical. Even if we were to talk with you, our position would not change.”
“I suppose so. Then…to survive, we’ve no choice but to resist.” Fels reluctantly assumed a ready stance, jet-black glove shining.
The faces of the Xenos behind Fels showed anguish, as if detesting the idea of people fighting against one another.
Loki Familia and the Xenos were about to clash.
“Get them—!”
““!!””
The followers of the God of Death rushed in at top speed.
“The remnants of the Evils!”
“Now of all times?!”
Alicia and Rakuta screamed as a large force of the remnants rushed them from the open doors and the ones that’d been closed. Riveria’s brow furrowed deeply.
“It would take time to gather this many of them…I’m guessing they were stalling from the start, huh?!”
Before Riveria could regret it more, Fels groaned.
“This must be why they led us together…! To push both our forces to fight!”
This had been Thanatos’s aim all along, the two leaders realized.
With a firm grasp on the battle that had unfolded on Daedalus Street, the God of Death predicted that if Loki Familia and the Xenos encountered each other, a fight would inevitably break out. At the very least, they would both stop, which gave Thanatos time to pin Loki Familia down in Knossos and make them unable to retreat. With that in mind, he’d gathered his own forces on the twelfth floor.
He was looking to profit from their conflict by turning it into a three-way battle.
That was the situation Thanatos had wanted.
“I can’t tell how many enemies there are!”
“W-we’re being surrounded! There are monsters in the passages to the right, left, and behind us!”
“…Gh!” Riveria tightened her grip on her staff as the elves cried out.
She was confronted with the fact that she hadn’t been able to maintain her composure when faced with the extreme Irregular, the Xenos. Her guard had slipped in Knossos once and only once, and that had brought her to this predicament. The vision of a smiling God of Death, someone she’d never met, passed through the back of her mind.
As she shelved the regret filling her breast, Riveria howled. “Break through one part of their formation! Ensure our path out!”
“Lido, Rei! Intercept them! Loki Familia and the Evils, too!”
Fels shouted again as the monsters reluctantly readied their weapons. The Evils’ forces surged into the passage with Loki Familia and the Xenos.
“Kill! Kill theeeeeeeeem! Kill Loki Familia and the monsters, too! For Lord Thanatos and for our wish! Kill all of them!”
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” They let out a fiendish battle cry as their enthusiasm went off the rails all of a sudden.
As the adventurers, monsters, and Thanatos’s followers mixed together, they commenced the three-sided struggle.
“What’s the situation?” Finn asked the familia members who’d come first as he arrived from northwest of where the monsters had descended to the outer edge of the Labyrinth District.
They were on the roof of a building that could look out over the whole area surrounding the plaza.
“The evacuation of the residents hasn’t finished yet! Adventurers from other factions are fighting the monsters. And Little Rookie is…”
As he heard the report, he saw the boy and gargoyle struggling against each other.
You again, huh…Bell Cranell? Finn’s pupils narrowed as he watched the boy’s face lose composure from the side.
As he thought, he tried to get a grasp on the situation: the swarm of monsters attacking, the residents of Daedalus Street falling into fear and scrambling to escape, the Guild members and other lower-tier adventurers trying to direct the evacuation. Ganesha Familia was prioritizing the lives of people as they made their way through the city. The top-tier adventurers were desperately fighting against the monsters and struggling to combat the strength of their enemy. There’d already been several casualties.
And Little Rookie was clashing with a gargoyle while protecting a half-elf Guild member.
“…Take your positions. Those on the ground, check them while we snipe at them from here so that they can’t escape into the sky.”
“Yes, sir!”
He handed out instructions as the leader of his faction, making snap judgments.
The familia members dashed off to share his orders with the group on the ground while the remaining members readied their bows. Finn looked down at the prepared stage. It could hardly be called a battlefield.
They don’t really seem to be Irregular…For monsters hidden away from people for this long to intentionally attack evacuees…They exposed themselves for the masses to see. The other monsters are keeping the other adventurers back; the gargoyle is ostentatiously fighting with Little Rookie… It’s too much .
His strange feeling from before turned to certainty when he saw the scene unfold before his eyes. He could sense the intent of a third party—a divine will that had created the scenario, even manipulated the monsters to bring about this performance.
Hermes Familia…?
If it was a group with deep knowledge of the armed monsters and the ability to bend them to their will, there was no one else save those who’d sided with Ouranos as his faction had done. Had Hermes Familia been moving around behind the scenes as they were fighting Hestia Familia?
The odds were that this was an action that went against Ouranos’s divine will.
And Bell Cranell didn’t seem as though he was acting as he desperately tried to defend himself.
An independent action. Hermes’s face came to mind. He was a god who Finn couldn’t quite grasp.
Is that gargoyle…being manipulated? It’s only aiming for the Guild member Bell Cranell is protecting. Considering Perseus’s crazy magical items, I guess that’s believable?
The half-elf girl was wearing a bracelet giving off a mysterious purple light. Utilizing to its fullest the enhanced kinetic vision of a prum, Finn easily saw through the events.
A god was toying with the mortal realm, rewriting the plot to achieve his desired ends.
“The plaza is a stage, the residents are the audience, and the monsters and adventurers are the extras to excite the crowd. And the star is…a single boy crossing blades with a reactive gargoyle,” Finn murmured to himself softly, so that the members readying their bows didn’t hear him.
Below his eyes, a stir rose from the residents who still couldn’t manage to escape the plaza, from the “crowd.” And it wasn’t out of fear.
“Little Rookie…”
“—Little Rookie? That one? Bell Cranell?”
“He’s fighting…for our sake…”
They were talking about the adventurer putting himself on the line to protect the half-elf under attack, the brave boy who’d gallantly appeared in their moment of need.
How would it look in the eyes of the people who’d criticized Bell Cranell?
“Bell…” murmured the orphans who Finn had met the other day in the crowd.
Among a group of human, chienthrope, and half-elf orphans, Ossian the prum boy was there, watching Bell’s battle in shock. The disappointment in his eyes gradually faded as he struggled to understand what was going on.
The crowd’s disapproval of Bell Cranell was dissipating.
A farce…
The crowd had been attacked, the heroine was in peril, and the hero protected them from the monsters.
It was all drama.
It was all absurd.
Anyone would be drawn in by the performative manipulations of a god.
Should he praise Hermes for his talent? Or should he be disappointed that the residents of the mortal plane were made to dance for him? Upon understanding the god pulling the strings behind the scenes, Finn alone looked at the “stage” with clear eyes.
Other than him, the only ones who saw through the creation of the stage were gods.
As he saw Hestia Familia arrive in the plaza with their patron goddess and stand there when they realized they were unable to do anything, Finn thought to himself.
If his actions five days ago were a folly…this is a purification ceremony.
A ritual to earn back the title of hero as a coda.
The reaffirmation of a hero as arranged by a god.
Did Hermes intend to force Bell into the role of a hero? Finn didn’t know his divine will, but that was his best guess.
If I were in his position…
If it were Finn, what would he do?
Would he dance if he knew everything would turn out as he desired?
Or would he brush it off, saying he couldn’t possibly stomach it?
But in the end—Finn suspected he would prioritize his ambition.
He’d go along with the ulterior motives of the god. For the sake of his people, he would throw away his pride. He would return to take the role of a hero.
After all, he was a created hero, a hypocritical hero who’d weighed everything in the balance as he moved.
“Loki…sorry, but there’s nothing to see through here.”
This was a stage brought forward by a god. Everything was moving according to the script. There was nothing left to discover.
And this was Finn’s response to the goddess’s advice.
The monsters are pathetic, too…They were setting out to return to the Dungeon but became manipulated by a god.
Finn didn’t feel any pity for the monsters, but just this once, he looked on with compassion at the gargoyle rampaging wildly on the ground.
“Captain, everything is in order!”
“All right, give the signal.”
The familia member had reported that everyone was in position.
With a brief order, Finn readied himself to throw his Fortia Spear.
He wouldn’t try to destroy Hermes’s stage. It was quite the opposite. Finn would use it against him to suppress the monsters. And the vindication of the boy was incidental, a bonus. It wasn’t as if he had no desire to knock down the Little Rookie. As he’d told the orphans, Finn acknowledged the boy himself.
—Or it was because he wanted to see what conclusion Bell Cranell would reach.
Would he be unable to decide anything and be torn to shreds by the monster’s claws, committing the worst possible folly?
Or would he go along with the divine will, kill the monster, and reclaim the title of hero?
Which of those two choices would he pick?
Finn’s blue eyes observed the boy, along with those of the people in the crowd, to see his decision.
“Loki Familia has come!!”
The squad on the ground broke into the plaza.
The adventurers and residents cheered, and the winged monsters roared, ready to die.
“—Hng!” The fiendish gargoyle spread its wings wide, flapping, making a suicidal charge along the ground.
It was a desperate attack that didn’t give the half-elf in shock or Bell Cranell any opportunity to avoid or defend.
The finale was fast approaching.
“Get ready.” Finn equipped himself with his own spear, ordering the familia members to prepare to pierce the winged monsters with their arrows.
As he steadied his long spear, Finn looked at the monster and the boy and nothing else.
People screamed.
Monsters howled.
Everything was being yanked around by the strings of divine will held by a smiling puppeteer.
While his surroundings closed in around him, the whole world condensing into an instant, the boy’s eyes flashed.
The claws of the monster were about to skewer him.
In the face of them, Bell took action.
To believe.
“?” Finn froze.
The boy had spread his arms, waiting, as the monster’s stone eyes filled with shock at his defenseless stance.
In the next instant, the gargoyle stopped his charge, dodging out of the way.
“—Wait!” Above the plaza, Finn reacted faster than anyone, shouting for his familia to halt, shocking them all.
His bugged-out blue eyes were glued to the gargoyle that’d stopped its attack.
Did it stop? Could it stop? Did a monster stop its attack? And not just by breaking free of brainwashing—but of its own will?!
Finn didn’t miss the monster’s behavior, recognizing that it hadn’t stopped its attack because it’d returned to its senses. When it was confronted by Bell, it’d stopped its charge of its own volition.
At the same time, Finn realized his deduction had been wrong.
Wasn’t the monster controlled from the start?
Then did it choose to sacrifice itself for Bell Cranell from the beginning?
Did it make a deal with a god to repay the boy who’d protected the vouivre with his own body?
Was a monster acting…for the sake of a person…?!
In the span of a second, these questions and answers swirled in his mind. Finn was rocked by the shock with as much impact as a lightning strike.
Say it was an intelligent creature. A genuine monster had protected a person without any ulterior motives or calculations.
It had responded to the trust of a boy.
More than that—Bell Cranell!
He’d chosen the most foolish of alternatives, a third choice where he neither killed the monster nor sacrificed the half-elf.
A third choice that surpassed Finn’s predictions. He’d believed there were only two options available.
But the boy had destroyed the scales.
He’d shredded the absolute will of the gods.
He’d kicked aside the seat of a hero set before him and roared in rebellion against the world. It was an unprecedented foolishness, but Finn saw it as dazzling—almost blinding.
“?”
At that moment, as Finn was caught in a dizzying swirl of emotions, his thumb ached with a pain sharp enough to shut off his thoughts.
The strongest warning bell that something was approaching.
Finn was the only one who looked up.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
A loud roar resounded, crushing all doubts, conflicts, and plots.
“Thousand Elf?! What are you doing out of the Dungeon?!”
“I’m sorry! I’ll explain later!” she shouted, breaking away from the Ganesha Familia guards in shock as she flew out of Babel.
Lefiya was running.
With her declaration that she’d return in an hour, she’d broken through the Dungeon at a blinding speed, dashed up Babel’s underground stairway, and arrived aboveground.
“Quickly…to the captain and the others…!”
For the sake of those still in Knossos, Lefiya set out to cross Central Park for Daedalus Street. She leaped over five meders to the roof of a shop, jumping from building to building in a straight line to the city’s southwest region.
Even as she struggled for breath, Lefiya resolutely sprinted to call for reinforcements.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“—Gh?!”
Her sprint lost its momentum as that bellowing roar rocketed into the night sky.
“That roar…Is that the black minotaur?!”
Lefiya was sure that fearsome bellow on par with the howl of a floor boss belonged to the black minotaur for which they were on their utmost guard.
It was a cry with enough strength that she could tell she wasn’t the only one who cowed upon hearing it, that people all throughout the city quivered at it.
Lefiya had stopped moving in shock. As she nervously ignored the residents of the city and subconsciously opened the windows on the upper floors of the building to gaze to the city’s southeast, she steeled herself.
She kicked off with enough force that a piece of the roof broke away when she flew, and she accelerated toward the Labyrinth District.
Where are they in Daedalus Street?! Are they rushing to the minotaur?!
Lefiya tried to narrow down where the black minotaur had emerged in the giant labyrinthine district, but in the end, it would prove unnecessary.
Because after she crossed Central Park and set foot in Daedalus Street, she saw the battlefield at the northwestern edge of the district unfold before her.
In response to the mortal combat, the wild roar and scream intertwining, the frightened residents shouted until their voices cracked. A Guild member was at a loss for words, and that turned into cheers of support as adventurers raised their fists above their heads.
Everyone raised their voices for the boy.
Everyone quivered as he embarked on his adventure.
Everyone saw a hero.
“…You did it, Ottar.”
Finn sighed for appearances’ sake, glancing sidelong at the tremendous stage.
“…” The boaz warrior standing before him said nothing.
All members of the Loki Familia squad had gathered in the northwest area, where they’d run into Freya Familia. Finn’s group was held back by Warlord and their other first-tier adventurers, preventing them from interfering with the battle between the boy and the minotaur.
Finn realized that they hadn’t been able to catch the black minotaur on Daedalus Street because of these adventurers. Everything Ottar and his allies had done was for the sake of setting up this battle. They had beaten back other adventurers just to guide the black minotaur to this place.
“As my lady wishes,” Ottar commented, shifting his body weight to throw his great sword.
The large hunk of metal split the wind as it rotated, landing in the middle of the central plaza, right between Bell and the minotaur.
The boy sprinted, grabbing the hilt and drawing the sword.
The beast’s body shook, as if it was rejoicing.
“Hu?!”
“UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The great sword and Labrys flashed, sparks flying.
As their battle accelerated, the throng of people roared again.
I was wrong about this, too…Upon witnessing the fight, Finn realized his error.
He’d judged that the black minotaur was an Irregular, that it randomly sowed destruction with its violence unlike the other self-aware monsters. That was why he’d told the familia members to be the wariest of it as the thing that needed to be dealt with above all else.
But he’d been wrong.
The minotaur was self-aware—it had a goal.
It desired single mortal combat, a battle with the boy. That was all.
“…”
Finn watched the scene that birthed a maelstrom of wild enthusiasm, the battle that ignited the hearts of all—young and old, man and woman, even gods.
“…Argonaut.”
Tiona had called him that once. Or perhaps she meant to bring up one who was a heretical hero, like Bell Cranell. Everyone had pointed and ridiculed his foolish behavior. And everyone was in awe when he finally achieved great work in the end.
There had been interesting scholarly research on it that said the age of heroes in the Ancient Times had begun with Argonaut. A weak, pitiful, flourishing kingdom at the center of the world had roared as the next generation of heroes was born one after the other, guided by the back of that pseudo-hero. The ferryman of heroes. The one who pulled a multitude of heroes—the Argonaut.
“Ottar…” Finn had begun to speak somewhere in the middle of all this.
“…What?”
“You know, I’d set out to match Phiana. For the glory that had brought my race hope.”
“I know…that’s the only reason you’re fighting.”
“Yeah. But I’m going to stop that now.”
Ottar’s eyes opened wide at Finn’s declaration. It was genuine shock, which he usually never showed.
Phiana’s knights. In the Ancient Times, she’d killed multitudes of monsters and rescued countless people, demonstrating the bravery and embodying the first and last symbol of glory of the prums. Deified in posterity and worshipped as a goddess, she was the hero of his race and the person Finn held in highest regard, the one who’d stood tall before even Argonaut.
Finn had been struggling to become the next Phiana, to become the light of the prums in the stead of their great ancestor.
However, Phiana wasn’t enough. His race had lost its foundation, fallen further than it had been in Ancient Times.
That was why—
“I have to surpass her.”
Ottar’s expression changed from one of surprise to understanding.
“Watching him…even has an effect on me,” Finn noted.
As the battle continued to unfold, he thought about having to transcend the part of him that had come to just accept casting things aside.
That he had to become a hero who obliterated the scales, too.
“‘Or is following in the steps of Bell Cranell too much for you to handle?’…Heh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Finn laughed out loud as his own motivational speech boomeranged back at himself, giggling like a child, causing the familia members nearby to get flustered and Ottar to look at him dubiously.
Bell Cranell had continued on the path of the fool to the very end, eventually finding his way back to the path of the hero in the process. He’d struggled and strived without casting aside anything. Even if it was a miraculous walk on a tightrope, a paper-thin margin, it was something he had reached with his own strength—without yielding to the world to cast aside divine will.
This is the type of hero the gods…and the world wants to see, I think.
In that case, Finn would remove his facade, start anew in a way that wouldn’t lose to the heretical hero.
He was being shaped. He was changing. He knew it. And that was fine.
Someone who could stand still after being enthralled by this boy’s adventure wasn’t a true adventurer.
I…should bury Deimne.
Bury the hatred for monsters in the depths of his heart for the time being.
Loki’s advice had been good. He’d made his decision when he saw that gargoyle.
Whether for the sake of its comrades or the boy.
Because the monster offering up its life either way—that was the bravery Finn had been seeking all along.
“…Arcus. Pull back the squad.”
“What?!”
“As long as Ottar and the others are here, we won’t be able to do anything. It’s a waste of time. We should start on another matter.”
Finn shifted his gaze. He saw Lefiya reluctantly turning away from Bell’s battle with the minotaur and heading back toward the rest of her familia.
“…Not going to watch it to the end?”
“I already know what Bell Cranell will accomplish. Now that the monsters are gone, I’ve no use for this place.”
As Finn made to leave, Ottar looked a bit surprised, though only those who’d known him the longest would recognize this expression.
It was a day filled with odd expressions for him.
Finn smiled like a child again, satisfied and exhilarated.
Yes, he already knew in his bones the result of this battle.
Just like that time before, the boy would ignite a fire in people’s hearts and demonstrate his way of life—drawing in, fascinating, and urging everyone.
Like a page in an epic.
“I should take a risk…no, go on an adventure, too.”
“And so you’ve gone, Finn…” Loki whispered when she heard the report from the messenger.
The encampment was devoid of the main members of the familia. Raul had lost his cool and shouted “Whaaaaaat?!” at the report that Finn was taking Lefiya and the other familia members to the Dungeon. When Gareth had gotten the order to withdraw from the underground passage and meet at the Dungeon, he dashed away, grumbling, “Oy! You’re really dwarf-handling me here!”
Watching it all from the spire, Loki raised her head and looked out over the northwest of the Labyrinth District as she sat cross-legged in front of the window.
Now that Dionysus had met up again with Filvis and left, Loki was alone, thinking back on what had happened a few hours before.
“—Hey, old man.”
Before the battle had started in the Labyrinth District, Loki had gone to Guild Headquarters, meeting the old god alone at the underground altar.
“I heard it all from Hestia. About the monsters yer callin’ Xenos.”
“…Is that so?” Ouranos’s expression didn’t change in the slightest as he lounged on his seat, almost as if he’d anticipated the information would get to Loki from Hestia. He didn’t panic or welcome it.
“You got yerself a real bomb there, with what y’all are hidin’. It might even be a bigger deal than the city destruction scenario that we’re chasin’ right now.”
“…”
“Dionysus’s instinct was right, in a way.”
It was a world-class Irregular that wouldn’t stop with just Orario.
With his secret exposed, Ouranos closed his eyes, almost as if in resignation.
The old god was presumably about to ask, What do you intend to do now?
“But right now, I don’t give a shit about that one way or the other.” Loki spoke first. “If Finn happens to come to the answer that y’all are hopin’ for—when that time comes, you damn well better not get in his way,” she warned with a straight face, to Ouranos’s surprise.
“Right now, that child is tryin’ to change. He’s been moved by the uproar y’all brought, he’s worryin’, and he’s tryin’ to reach a different answer than he had up until now!”
Loki saw the wavering heart he’d hidden when he heard Ikelos’s answer.
Loki had watched over it, as he was shaken by Bell Cranell’s actions, as the hero had constantly questioned himself in anguish.
She had not intervened.
She left Riveria and Gareth to get close to him, watching over him as a parent while he tried to come to his own answer. She knew better than anyone that he didn’t want the advice or guidance of a god.
“I don’t know which path he’ll choose, either! No one can predict it, and he might run down a rugged, high path! But that’s his story and his choice!”
Because Finn wanted to weave the ballad of his own heroism.
“If you try to take advantage of that, I’ll kick yer ass in the blink of an eye! If you try to extort him, I’ll damn sure beat yer ass!” She berated Ouranos vehemently as he opened his eyes wide.
Finn had crushed the fear he’d let slip in front of Riveria and Gareth, the seed of destruction on the path of Braver, the collar that would force him into Ouranos’s camp by extorting him into making a deal with the monsters.
Loki was telling the old god not to get in Finn’s way.
“Tell that playboy, too! If you get in his way, the rules of the mortal realm be damned: I’ll be comin’ to murder ya! Try to run to heaven—see if I care. I’ll chase ya until I destroy you and there ain’t even a speck of dust left! And that goes for you, too, old man!”
That shout, verging on bluster, contained all of Loki, all of her love for Finn.
Or perhaps it was the scream of a goddess trying to protect her child.
“If you try to get in the way of his goal, I won’t forgive you.”
It was the one and only time Loki would interfere, a divine will stepping in to ensure that Finn would be able to walk his chosen path without any gods getting in his way.
“If you can abide by that, then…I’ll keep quiet about your bomb, the Xenos.”
“…Very well.” Ouranos accepted after a few moments of silence, judging the deal to be sufficiently of value.
The four large torches on the altar crackled.
After the two gods made their deal in secrecy, Ouranos asked, “Loki…why are you going so far to support Braver?”
“Huh? That’s easy. Like that playboy might put it—”
Almost contemptuously, almost boastfully, she couldn’t help responding to the old god.
“—because I’m that hero’s first fan.”
The cool night air brushed Loki’s cheeks as she descended into thought, warm wind blowing from the northwest.
The pulse of the hero who had returned.
“Finn, don’t get left behind.”
Remembering her response to Ouranos’s question, Loki narrowed her eyes.
“Carrying out your initial goal is a great thing. I love that unwavering side of you. But ya know…if you get too caught up in that, you’ll be overtaken in a flash.”
She sent good wishes to her follower who was continuing to worry, struggling to come to an answer even then.
“But you’re best when you’re sticking to your resolve and duty, carrying all of that even as you move forward. You won’t lose to anyone, not even that shrimp’s kid. Win for me.”
Loki opened her vermilion eyes and smiled.
“Win this hero’s race.”
“For our dreeeeeam—!”
Another one of Thanatos’s followers blew themselves up, shaking the passage with more explosions.
Inside Knossos. The twelfth floor.
The three-sided battle among Loki Familia, the Xenos, and the Evils raged on.
It was a melee in a passage the size of a room in the Dungeon. Under Riveria’s command, the elves sang as beads of sweat scattered and they fired off magic. The intelligent monsters desperately pushed their battered bodies, rampaging with the aid of the black-robed mage.
The Evils’ Remnants and the richly colored monsters tried to crush both forces at once. The followers of the God of Death charged with beastly howls as the violas’ feelers and the vargs’ fangs danced without restraint.
The sheer number of enemies encircling them was more than enough to make the elves, including Alicia, uneasy.
A raiding unit that normally used Concurrent Casting to attack with long-distance hit-and-runs couldn’t unleash its true strength in a giant free-for-all with no real way to move around. That was what happened when they stripped the Fairy Force of its advantage of high-speed combat.
Taking wounds to her cheeks and arms as she endured the fierce attacks of the Evils, Alicia was struggling to breathe.
“—! Don’t get close to me, you heretical monsters!”
“Kuh?!”
She swung around, lashing out at the siren that had unintentionally drifted close to her in the shock wave from the explosion.
The Xenos fell to the ground, its beautiful golden feathers severed.
“Repulsive! Know some shame! Trying to pass yourself off with the words of people!”
“—Gh…!”
“Do not…deceive us!”
The siren’s face warped in sadness, stung by the high-minded elf’s sharp rebuttal.
Loki Familia was attacking the Evils, of course, and striking back at any Xenos that approached them. The lizardman and troll had no intention of attacking, trying to defend themselves as best they could.
But even as both sides recognized this as the intent of the Evils, even in this precarious situation, the adventurers refused to join hands with the monsters.
It was a profound testament to the relations between monsters and people.
As the God of Death chuckled, watching the scene unfold from his seat beyond the board, he grinned at the predetermined performance he’d arranged.
“Kuh—?!”
“Lady Riveria?!”
Amid a melee that didn’t allow time for predictions, Riveria was exposed to the intense suicide attacks conducted by the Evils’ Remnants.
They turned themselves into weapons, blowing themselves up in an attempt to stop the artillery fire of the city’s strongest mage. With them weaving in close by using the chaos of the brawl to their advantage, their sacrificial attacks forced Riveria to stop Concurrent Casting. They didn’t even balk at engulfing their allies in their attacks, creating an absurd chain of explosions.
“They intend to take care of us by any means possible, huh?!”
More detonations went off, violas’ giant bodies collapsed, and elves screamed. Fels’s black robes trembled as the battlefield turned to pure chaos.
A huge free-for-all among the three forces mashed up together in the enclosed space.
And as if to announce their death sentences, a door slammed open.
“This is where you were—pest.”
“—?!”
There was crimson hair, the color of blood. Deep amid the battle, Riveria shuddered, recognizing the green eyes that locked onto her.
It was Levis. She’d finished healing her wound and missing arm, raising her ominous, cursed weapon now that she had reached the feast that Thanatos had prepared for her.
Visible unease lit Riveria’s face.
Now that they no longer had a path to retreat, total destruction was inevitable.
“Die.”
Levis didn’t give Riveria an opportunity to respond. Cocking one of her twin blades behind her back, she threw it with inhuman strength.
The wind roared and a dull clap of thunder boomed as Levis’s blade split the air. The violas and vargs in its path exploded into fragments of meat like burst balloons. The indiscriminate attack sent the heads and arms of Evils flying like toys.
A spray of blood rained down in its wake as the blade cut through the battlefield, rushing full speed toward Riveria.
But before it could reach her—a single elf was destined to become its prey first.
“—Alicia!” There was only enough time for Riveria to call her name.
As she knocked away one of the remnants, Alicia looked up and immediately froze as the assassin’s missile approached her at sonic speed. The pitch-black cursed sword reflected in her eyes, silently, mercilessly handing down her death sentence.
It was going to crush her head without even allowing her enough time to let out a dying scream.
“Guh. Aaa—”
“—Huh?”
Right before it hit, a golden wing spread across Alicia’s field of vision, moving into the path of the cursed sword. The siren had crossed her arms and wings, absorbing the impact of the blow.
It pierced her folded wings, burrowing all the way into her right shoulder.
The siren put all her strength and awareness into her torso muscles, keeping the sword from tunneling through her body any farther.
“Rei?!” yelped the lizardman, along with the other Xenos, as the siren was knocked back, tumbling into Alicia, who was right behind her.
“…Why?”
Alicia had landed hard on her back. Sluggishly pushing herself up to a sitting position on the floor, she barely managed to whisper that much.
The siren lay powerlessly on her chest, shoulder and face stained crimson. Her long lashes quivering, she opened her eyes and smiled.
“Your hair is prettier than my wings. I just thought that…I didn’t want it…to get dirty.”
“—Wha…?!”
“I had a dream…that if you could ever…somehow forgive me…I wanted to be friends with you…”
Alicia’s face cracked as she looked down at the siren whose breathing was ragged even as she flashed a peaceful smile on her face.
The elf could no longer control the whirlwind of emotions that appeared on her face: an infant on the brink of tears, an enraged fairy, a lost child who didn’t know where to go.
There was no proof. No evidence. No plan. No sincerity or logic to convince those who despised monsters.
There was earnest love—one-sided, but it was a precious philia. Friendship.
This was a monster: a noble being, starved for affection, who put herself on the line and willingly threw away her own life for the sake of others.
Was this a beast?
If it was, then what would that make Alicia, the one who wouldn’t lend that noble woman an ear and swung a sword at her instead? Did it make her a far more depraved monster?
This shocking revelation summoned a storm of emotions that overflowed from her heart. Her value system was shattered at its core: The idea of monsters as a symbol of absolute evil was gone. Alicia’s eyes darted around. She was unable to hold the siren’s body close, even as she looked down at her chest, where death was approaching the being by the second.
Loki Familia’s elves saw that, too, and Riveria’s face warped, displaying the agony in her heart as she stood still in shock.
The Xenos were on the verge of tears as they watched the actions of their comrade.
“Missed, huh…? Well, whatever,” Levis commented, watching their drama play out without a trace of emotion.
“I’ll just hunt down those defective monsters, too.”
She swung her blackened sword, signaling the tragedy about to begin.
The real monster was the woman who had been given free rein over the whole of the battlefield. A moment of silence fell as everyone, even the monsters, stopped moving, sensing the icy chill and intense bloodlust of the overwhelmingly powerful creature.
The elves paled, the Xenos recoiled, and even the Evils gulped.
Riveria moved faster than anyone else to resist, beginning to sing a spell. Fels’s robe quivered as if to say I can’t die yet when the mage moved to break the deadlock. And Levis coldly narrowed her eyes, ready to kick off the ground.
“Sorry, but I’ve no interest in watching a tragedy.”
Bam! A door slammed open on the opposite side from the one through which Levis had entered the room.
A hero with billowing golden hair stood at the entrance to the large passage.
“Especially not after seeing the real-life epic of a hero.”
It was Finn, holding out the key in his right hand and his long spear in his left.
“Finn!” Riveria shrieked upon spinning around and recognizing him and the other members of their familia.
Her jade eyes filled with light. The high elf had never given up hope or lost faith in her old friend.
On the other hand, Levis kicked the ground with a sharpened gaze, leaping out to cut Riveria’s neck before she could resist.
“Like I’ll let ya!”
“—Gh!”
She was stopped by the battle-ax of a dwarf flying in at a right angle from behind Finn. Gareth had dashed to the scene upon being summoned by Finn at the main base, and he crossed blades with Levis now.
Upon impact, a massive shock wave rippled out, causing the air to tremble as the dwarf warrior clashed head-on with the creature who’d defeated both the Sword Princess and Braver. Levis scoffed as Elgarm grinned ferociously.
“Everyone, support Alicia and the others. Secure a path for retreat!” Finn barked his orders as he dashed.
When Levis relied on speed over power to swipe at Gareth, Finn butted in from the side with his Fortia Spear, challenging her even though he’d been cut down once before. He weakened the momentum behind Levis’s sword, supporting Gareth through teamwork.
““Riveria!”” They called for the high elf, seizing the advantage in this fight.
“Heh!!”
“Tch…Three Level Sixes!”
Wielding her long staff, Riveria joined the front lines with Finn and Gareth, adding to the raging battle.
The teamwork among Loki Familia’s three leaders was divine, assaulting Levis from three different sides to create a storm of continuous attacks. The Xenos, who’d been swept aside in the flow of events, were filled with awe.
Even though she was a mage, Riveria was keeping up in speed and working in perfect unison with the prum and dwarf in close-range combat. She’d always had more skills and tact than anyone else, working with Finn to nip Levis’s counterattacks in the bud while Gareth’s top-tier strength made up for their lack of power.
These three had fought together longer than any other team. That was the reason they were called the strongest fighting force in Loki Familia.
“—Harbinger of the end, white snow!”
“—Rg?!” Levis’s shoulders trembled as Riveria decisively started Concurrent Casting while attacking with her staff.
As the creature acted cautiously, wary of the blast that had stolen her arm, Gareth stepped in, seizing the advantage.
“Yer full o’ openings!”
“Guh?!”
His battle-ax swung up, hitting the side of her cursed sword, just barely managing to block it. Levis’s body was knocked back in an arc as her sword shattered, landing some distance away from them.
Riveria cut off her spell mid-chant.
By drawing the attention of their enemy to her chants, Finn and Gareth had attacked. Their original plan to ambush a decoy.
“It’s my first time doin’ it with a creature, but…it’s certainly dangerous. That woman is full of energy!”
“That’s what I told you, isn’t it? Fighting her head-on’s not a good plan.”
Gareth’s tone was rougher than usual—perhaps because it was the first time in a long while that the three of them were fighting together. Finn responded with a complaint reminiscent of old times. Riveria finally got her taste of relief since this battle had started.
“Sorry…Finn, Gareth. Thanks for the help.”
“It ain’t over yet! Did ye forget?! The adventure lasts until you make it back!”
“Yeah, don’t get sloppy on me, Riveria.”
Riveria let herself smile as the others glared at Levis without letting their guard down. Her face quickly tensed, matching theirs.
“Narfi, we’ll be the rear guard! Heal Alicia and them, then go back down the path we came on!”
The other familia members had moved in from the surroundings in a surprise attack to rescue the Fairy Force. Breaking through the Evils who’d clumped together in panic, they had returned to that path with the elves in tow.
“You think I’ll let them go that easily, prum?” The creature’s green eyes burned as she swayed, trying to stand.
Without words, she proclaimed her intent to exterminate them all, unleashing an overwhelming bloodlust. Even with Finn, Gareth, and Riveria teaming up together, they were still fighting on the Evils’ home base. Even if they somehow managed to hold off Levis, the others would be crushed by the Evils, who held an advantage in their numbers.
And on their side, Riveria was exhausted, so she would be the first to run out of stamina. Without their teamwork, that would be the end. They were not a match for Levis individually. It would be a defeat in detail.
Finn responded to Levis’s statement. “Sorry, but we’ve got no intention of fighting you straight-up.”
He didn’t rise to her challenge, raising his voice the moment Rakuta and the elves had all been evacuated.
“Lefiya—do it!”
The next instant, a magic circle spread from their feet.
“?” Levis froze as the jade circle expanded through the large passage, past where she’d been standing.
From inside the path that Finn’s group had entered, a golden-haired elf had been left behind.
It was Lefiya.
“Ahhhh, how annoying, annoying, annoying—”
Wielding Forest’s Teardrop in both hands, she unleashed a tremendous magical light.
“—Because of that human, my body is burning!”
Enthralled by Bell’s battle with the minotaur, Leafa felt as though her heart and body were burning.
Just like Finn, Lefiya had been fascinated by the boy’s adventure, and it renewed her determination.
She converted the strength of her thoughts into a heightened magical power.
The blast had been on standby with the use of her Summon Burst. It had reached critical mass while Finn’s group had stalled for time—the magic of the city’s strongest mage.
The monsters took notice of the source of magic power overflowing like a cup brimming with water, but it was too late.
“I can do it, too!!”
Unleashing her white-hot feelings, she turned her body into a blazing inferno to save her comrades, giving birth to an unprecedented firepower.
It was an extermination blast that could pass through walls, stealing her master’s thunder. Having led Finn all the way there, the elf had bided her time, waiting to drop her own supersize support.
“Rea Laevateinn!!”
A pillar of hellfire shot up from the floor, rising to the ceiling.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?!”
A hellish inferno emerged. In an instant, the web of passages was overwhelmed by the columns of flame, which blasted everything inside its field of magic with a blistering heat wave. The first to rise were the screams of the vibrantly colored monsters, followed by the fearful cries of the Evils. Though the Xenos weren’t targeted by this attack, they screeched, enveloped by the aftermath and dashing away from it.
“Tch—?!” Levis covered her face with her arms, retreating at an inhuman speed as the inferno shot up at her.
Finn didn’t miss a beat, immediately realizing the Evils had fallen into complete chaos as he barked out his orders. “Retreat! Full speed! Get out of here!”
Just as they had arranged it beforehand, the familia members in the rescue squad moved in perfect concert. Riveria and Gareth departed in haste, darting one after the other to their escape route down the path where Lefiya was waiting.
“C-Captain…I…”
“…”
At the entrance to the path, Alicia was the last to leave, looking up at Finn with a full range of emotions on her face. Hauled there by the others, including Narfi, she felt her legs give out as she sat down on the ground.
Alicia was holding on to and couldn’t let go of a siren at death’s door whose shoulder was pierced by the cursed sword, covered in blood, just like she was. Alicia tried to say something, but nothing would come out.
Upon seeing her troubled expression, Finn understood everything.
And with that, he spoke. “Carry this monster, too!”
“!”
For a few moments, Narfi and the others were stunned, struggling to move, but they eventually pulled it together to obey his order. As they supported the inhuman body with wings instead of arms, they lifted it out like they would have a human. After reaching the escape path, the members of the Fairy Force supported them. Alicia was among those helping.
“Finn Deimne…!”
Fels witnessed the scene of the humans carrying out one of the Xenos and saw the prum looking back at them and gesturing with his jaw. That gesture sent a jolt down the mage, who froze in place before finally calling out in a voice filled with faith.
“Lido, follow Loki Familia!”
“Got it!”
The monsters went along, rushing down the labyrinth drowning in the remaining vestiges of fire, and escaped out of the large passage, charging at full speed as the cries of the Evils’ Remnants continued to ring out behind them.
“As if I’d let you get away…”
Inside the large passage-turned-crimson-hellscape, Levis stared at the backs of the adventurers and Xenos disappearing beyond the rampaging fire, about to mercilessly hound them down.
“Don’t chase them.”
“!” A masked figure appeared from behind her, putting the brakes on her plan.
It was wearing a hooded purple robe and metal gloves on both hands. It was another creature that Finn’s team was aware of—the one called Ein.
“Don’t chase them? Is there any purpose in letting them escape from here?”
“…”
“You had one job. And you can’t even get that right? Why is that guy still alive?” Levis spat with animosity and annoyance, baring her fangs like an untamable wild animal and ratcheting up her bloodlust to full.
“If all you can do is get in my way…I should just kill you. What do you think of that?” Levis suggested cruelly to the fellow creature.
It fanned the flames with its robe and responded, “This is Enyo’s order.”
“!!” Levis’s green eyes snapped open wide.
In the words of the gods, the city destroyer. The being behind everything.
There was a short silence.
Upon staring at the masked creature, Levis scoffed and turned away. “You tell Enyo that if this plan fails…I’m coming to kill you.”
And with that, Levis left, moving with her back to the large passage and the remnants who still hadn’t quelled the chaos. The masked creature watched her disappear into the darkness, casting a glance down the path that Loki Familia and the Xenos had taken before melting into the darkness without leaving any trace behind.
“They aren’t following us…” Finn murmured in the rear guard as he looked over his shoulder.
Though they were faced with intermittent attacks from the remnants of the Evils and their monsters, his biggest fear, Levis, never made it to the scene. Finn was suspicious, but nevertheless, he dashed out of Knossos along with the other familia members. Opening the door to the connecting passage and breaking through the wall of the labyrinth, they arrived at the twelfth floor of the Dungeon.
“They…probably won’t be coming. Seems like we finally shook them, eh?”
“Yes…”
As they moved from the area connecting to the passage to Knossos, leaving a fair distance between them, Finn finally took a breather with his comrades. They stopped in a room shrouded in fog.
But many of the familia members didn’t let their guard down—namely because the heretical monsters had come to the same place, concerned about their comrade that Loki Familia had carried with them.
“Everyone, lower your arms.”
“Finn…”
The familia members had separated themselves from the monsters, glaring across the room at them, when Finn raised his hand and gave an order.
While Gareth murmured, marveling, the prum moved toward the high elf.
“Riveria, you have the medicine?”
“Yes…”
“Use it.”
“…Is that okay?”
“Yeah. It’s fine.”
While Lefiya and the others were dumbstruck by the exchange that only Gareth could understand, Riveria looked into his clear blue eyes and nodded, kneeling beside the siren who’d been laid on her back. From her breast pocket, she took out the medicine—a magic item for dealing with cursed weapons that Amid had made. Finn had requested it beforehand in preparation for the surprise attack on Knossos. She used it on the siren who’d been pierced by the cursed sword, which had afflicted her with a curse that prevented the wound from healing.
A murmur rose among the familia members.
The Xenos stiffened.
By the siren’s side, Alicia was stunned when Riveria used recovery magic, conducting a full healing. This action was equivalent to Finn ordering them to not fight the Xenos.
“Finn Deimne, you…” Fels murmured in amazement.
Finn walked over to the mage leading the Xenos.
“Unorthodox monsters, I’d like to negotiate with you,” he began to say, holding his long spear and looking out at the monsters with a clear gaze.
Loki Familia and the Xenos were paralyzed. Lefiya’s eyes opened wide, Rakuta gulped, and Alicia spun around in surprise.
Riveria and Gareth were the only two watching Finn’s actions in silence.
“Negotiate? You of all people, Braver…? That’s more than a little hard to believe…”
Fels was bewildered by the unexpected proposal but didn’t lower their guard. The black-robed mage knew enough about Finn’s ambition to understand just how strong his resolve could be. Fels made clear their suspicions that there might be something hidden in this suggestion to catch the Xenos unaware.
“It’s simple, really. I’ve decided I want to use you.”
“Use us…?”
“For the assault on Knossos.”
That made everyone gulp.
“Now that we have our hands on a key, we’re going to embark on a campaign to clear Knossos in the not-too-distant future and drag the Guild, who wishes for peace in Orario, into this mess.”
“…”
“When that happens, I want you all to participate in the attack. Under the strictest secrecy, of course.”
They still didn’t have a full grasp of that hellish labyrinth or nearly enough manpower to clear it out.
Which was why they needed to borrow the aid of the monsters. As Finn explained this plan, Fels maintained their silence.
“…Braver, I don’t know your real intentions. Put bluntly, we thought you were one of the only ones who would never consider a deal. I’m sorry, but I can’t trust you—”
“It’s already been shown that the armed monsters won’t attack people. At least, I’ve come to that conclusion. I’ve also confirmed that the Evils are clearly our mutual enemy.” Finn interrupted Fels mid-sentence.
“And above all…there are people in my familia who can’t point their swords at you.”
A handful of the elves twitched, including Alicia, which Finn noted out of the corner of his eye.
There was no longer any way to sweep the existence of self-aware monsters under the carpet. Even if Finn exterminated them here and now, the knowledge of them would spread through the familia from someone present who’d seen them.
In which case, he would change course and use them as much as he could.
And that was the choice Finn had come to just a little while prior.
“If…and when it comes out that we’re connected…that you had dealings with us, you know your reputation will plunge. That would be the end of your ambition to reinvigorate your race. You must know that, right?”
People would talk. And eventually, ruin would befall Finn—just as Bell Cranell had experienced. That was Fels’s point.
“Then, after losing everything, I’ll come back as a hero again. This time, not an artificial one. Yeah. Maybe I’ll be an unprecedented leader who reconciles with the monsters…or something like that,” Finn responded nonchalantly, half sarcastically, shrugging with an annoyingly shameless grin.
Fels stiffened.
Lefiya and the others stared openmouthed.
The Xenos’s eyes tensed.
Gareth’s shoulders trembled as he started to chuckle, and Riveria clutched her head as if suppressing a coming headache, but even she couldn’t help breaking into a smile.
Finn’s expression was clear and untroubled, like someone who’d broken free of all ties, but then he quickly assumed a serious look.
Finn continued. “With the potential destruction of Orario impending…I’m casting aside my personal feelings and my hatred toward monsters.”
He was prioritizing the fate of the city.
As Fels maintained their silence, Finn added, “Don’t misunderstand me. This deal is a one-time thing, for the duration of a joint battle. I’ve no intention of trying to get along after that. And I’m not signing up to help you achieve your goal. If you appear before me again after the battle, I might annihilate you, depending on the situation.”
His expression was cool. The Xenos sensed that the adventurers were looking at them differently. Finn’s eyes were only on Fels.
“…Let me ask one thing. What changed you, Braver?”
Finn’s face softened. “I regained my childlike mind. That’s all there is to it. I stopped fixating on the idea that there’s only one possible answer.”
Fels stopped trying to probe for his true intentions upon seeing another shift in Braver’s expression and turned around to acknowledge a nod from the lizardman—representative for all the Xenos.
“Very well, Braver. We’ll make a deal with you. Not that we have much of a choice in the first place.”
Finn responded with a nod and cleared the way. Fels and the Xenos cut past Loki Familia and their lowered weapons. The troll lifted the siren, whose wounds had closed, struggling for a moment on what to do before sluggishly lowering its head in thanks.
The siren faintly opened her eyes, smiling at Alicia. As she stood up, Alicia’s eyes were wavering.
Then the monsters vanished into the depths of the mist-shrouded labyrinth.
“…In the near future, I’m going to formally report on this incident to the familia. Until then, the events of this day stay among us. Obviously, it should never leak outside our faction,” Finn instructed in the middle of a silent room.
Upon receiving orders to return to the surface once the wounded were treated, the familia members stiffly started to move out. There were some who seemed anxious, others looking like something was lodged in their throat, and still others who seemed to be deep in thought. There was a range of expressions, but there was no one who could fully accept his judgment—because Finn himself had voiced his valid misgivings before.
But upon seeing the monster protect Alicia, several people were starting to have a change of heart.
“…Will this be all right, Finn?”
“If I had to pick between good or bad, well, this is bad. But there’s no helping this outcome. We can’t erase the memory of the intelligent monsters from the others, and it’ll be a waste to exterminate them. If we can make use of the strength of that black minotaur, that right there is more than enough compensation.”
Gareth had questioned Finn away from the other familia members. Finn indicated that he’d already made the necessary calculations as he shrugged with almost too much flexibility.
“The problem is whether our team will hesitate to attack other monsters…We have to find a way to nip this in the bud. Especially Alicia. She’ll require careful consideration. Riveria, you should stay with her for a while.”
“I don’t mind, but…”
“That’s not what I mean…Like you said, Ouranos might just put a leash on you, now that he and his lackeys have got a firm grasp on your weakness. You really okay with that?” Gareth asked Riveria, who’d made a difficult face at Finn for approaching this situation from a completely different attitude than hers.
In between two of Loki’s most immeasurable, unknowable followers, Finn appeared carefree as he said, “Ah, that’s what you meant.
“I’ll burn that bridge when I reach it. Like I said, if I lose my fame, I’ll start again from scratch.”
“Is your head on straight?”
“Yeah. I’ll be a hero who surpasses divine will…I was thinking that might actually be the fastest route to my goal.”
Gareth had opened his eyes wide, but upon hearing Finn’s confident response, he softened them to a fatherly gaze with a smile.
After answering Gareth, Finn looked to Riveria. “Sorry for worrying you.”
“That’s all right. It’s good to have this kind of problem from time to time.”
Finn had no choice but to smile wryly when the high elf fired back light sarcasm, making no attempt to accept his apology.
Riveria met his eyes again. “Finn, one question. What changed your mind?…Was it Bell Cranell?”
Finn was visibly surprised. “How did you know?”
“That’s what you said. If things were to occur, it would be because of that boy.”
“…Now that you mention it, yeah.”
If anything was going to provoke Irregulars, it would be him, Finn had said before the fight began, in front of everyone.
That adventurer had far exceeded Finn’s expectations, enough to redetermine him.
“Sheesh. We’ve been with you for so long, but a mere adventurer was the one to move you…I’m jealous of that boy.”
“Ga-ha-ha-ha, he’s a prum who does as he pleases. There’s no helping him.”
Their comments took the form of reproach and complaints. But Finn felt bashful and awkward upon seeing Riveria’s smile despite her verbal prod, and Gareth’s teasing tone added to it.
It was as if his friends had seen him get childishly enraptured by a heroic epic for the first time ever. It was comparable to that sort of embarrassment.
However, the high elf and dwarf seemed to welcome the change in the prum.
Closing his eyes and clearing his throat, Finn forcibly switched gears.
“It will probably take some time to reach an understanding with the members of the familia.”
“It seems that way. Even if we can’t get them to understand, we have to give them a clear explanation.”
“Mm-hmm. If not, we won’t be able to line up an attack on Knossos.”
The three of them spoke as they watched the other familia members from a small distance away. Finn had discarded his doubt and gone with his principles, but the others had not come to a clean decision, as he’d been unable to until recently.
The depth of the antagonism between people and monsters was still following them around.
“Starting with Bete, the voices of opposition will get louder, but—” Finn cut himself off there, raising his head. “First things first…how do we explain this to Aiz?”
Riveria and Gareth both fell silent.
Finn quietly took a deep breath, thinking about his greatest concern.
To start with the end, it would turn out that their anxiety was misplaced. Because even before Finn closed his deal with the heretical monsters, the dark side of the girl had run out of places to go.
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