Why did she have to die? That was all she could think about. That was all she kept asking herself. But there was no answer in her bleak thoughts, which had become desolate wasteland. There was no response, even when she pleaded with reason, which had frozen over, offering about as many answers as a wall of ice would. She was not filled with rage, nor was she filled with sadness. There was only white. Her head and heart were all white—snowy ash covered everything, making all boundaries disappear. Where did her emotions end? Where did her thoughts begin? What was pain? And what wasn’t? She could not understand. She could not move. She could not do anything. In that infinite field of white, memories buried under ash twinkled like jewels. “Then I will protect you. I won’t let you die—even if it’s only you.” Her weary heart tried to reject this scene—to stop it from replaying again. But it would not stop. Unbidden details flashed before her eyes: Her voice. Her gestures. The warmth of her body. “Once this is all done, we’ll go. I promise.” A broken promise. And finally, her smile. “…” A tear fell from her sapphire eye. Even though she had already wept until she thought she could weep no more, the tears didn’t stop. Even though she had howled in pain, her reservoir of tears hadn’t dried up. It was as though her body had become a fairy spring, burbling with water. Every time ripples swept across the deep-blue surface of the water, Lefiya was overcome with grief again. “ ? , ? .” She could feel someone standing in front of her, trying to say something. But Lefiya could not grasp these unspoken words. Her broken heart could not process anything. All she did was move her parched lips and whisper a single name. “Miss Filvis…”
“Lefiya…” In a voice tinged with sorrow, Aiz called her name one more time. But there was no response. She continued to slouch over, weeping, crumpled on the floor like a doll with broken strings. They were in Lefiya’s room in Loki Familia ’s home. The elf girl silently sobbed in a room originally meant for two. In a word, she looked pitiful. There was nothing resembling an expression on her face, which had become locked in place as it dripped with rivulets of tears. Her parched lips barely opened, and from time to time, she whispered the name of her friend who was no longer there—like a faulty music box. She was almost an alabaster sculpture with an embedded soul, grief leaking out in immaterial tears. It had been only five days since Aiz had emerged from her own room after questioning herself in deep isolation. But that was different from what was happening with Lefiya…for Aiz had retreated into herself based on her internal conflicts, while Lefiya had been broken from the outside. Her precious friend Filvis Challia had been taken away from her. “Lefiya! Lefiyaaa! I’m begging you to look at me…! Smile like you always do…!” tearfully pleaded Lefiya’s roommate, Elfie. Her eyes were puffy and raw from tears, and her voice was already raspy. Over the last few days, she had stuck close to Lefiya. Nothing Tiona or Tione had said worked. Even Riveria could not get through to her. Right now, there were only three people in the room. Since they couldn’t be by Lefiya’s side around the clock, they would drop in during their free moments, but no one could manage to return any spirit to her voice. They just didn’t know what to say to her in this situation. She had watched on as her friend’s neck snapped right in front of her eyes—devoured by monsters, slaughtered. For a girl with such a tender heart, it was too cruel a blow. But behind their concern, they knew she was broken. The first-tier adventurers had all calmly reached the same conclusion: Lefiya Viridis was beyond recovery. “Stand back up! Get vengeance!” These were words they could never, ever say. There was no way they could ignite that black fire and add kindling to it. Aiz knew what happened to those burned by that black flame, which was why she could not bring herself to shove the girl into that sea of hellfire. “Aiiiiz! Lefiya…won’t…!” “…” Elfie wailed as she clung to Aiz, burying her face in Aiz’s shoulder. And Aiz could do nothing but support her. Unwept, all she could do was embrace Elfie as she cried for the both of them. She averted her gaze, feeling incredibly powerless. Aiz softly reached out and gripped Lefiya’s hand, but the elf remained as empty as a broken doll.
“Y-you guys…” Raul stood still, lost in thought. There was nothing he could do about the situation unfolding before his eyes. In the manor cafeteria, the members of Loki Familia were all silent, collectively mourning, as though they were attending a funeral. The cafeteria was usually full of cheer, but the hall had gone silent, as if the sound itself had been stolen away. It was uncanny, sending a shiver down Raul’s spine. “…Gh.” One of those present was Anakity, the cat person with black hair. Her expression said she despised the time off they’d been given. She would’ve much preferred devoting herself to some mindless task, giving her no time to dwell on her thoughts. Noticing the anguish on the face of his beautiful colleague, Raul started to say something, but the right words never came to him. He already knew what was bothering her: their flight from Knossos the other day. It was not that they had lost to or fallen for their enemy’s tricks. It was that the entire chessboard itself had been flipped on them . The path toward victory they had been following completely vanished from underneath them. It was an event that one of the strongest factions in the city, Loki Familia , had never experienced before. Out of desperation to stay alive, they had watched their friends die begging for help with outstretched hands—the poor members of Dionysus Familia . Because they had turned away to save themselves, an entire faction of more than eighty adventurers had been wiped out. “Y-you guys…” Raul was disappointed in himself for continuing to whimper the same thing. In the past, he had always been the one who’d made a fool of himself, and his friends in Loki Familia were the ones who called out to him, helping him back to his feet. In a way, Raul’s embarrassing behavior maintained the balance and harmony of those around him. This was his unique contribution, the unintentional charisma he brought to the group as a boring human. In every horrible situation, the sight of hapless little Raul Nord carrying on helped the rest of the familia loosen up and smile, knowing that everything would somehow work out for the best. He was embarrassed by his self-hatred and rage, the unease, the confusion, the fear of it all. But he had managed to overcome it, even though the effort caused his chest to hurt and made him want to tear off his own skin. Since it was just him who had fallen, Raul always managed to stand back up. He knew himself well. That was why he could grit his teeth, bear through it, and keep his head up. But right now… Raul didn’t have a game plan to address his friends whose heads remained bowed—because he had not been there to witness this himself. He had not been involved in their tragic choice to sacrifice others in order to live on. To secure a path of escape out of Knossos, Raul had moved to prop open the gates connected to the Dungeon with his team. All that he had done was immediately close the orichalcum door once his fleeing friends had made it out into the Dungeon…to stop the wave of green flesh closing in on them. He could not share their burden—much less erase it. He couldn’t inspire them like Finn and the others. Raul could only look pathetic as he cursed his own incompetence. “You bastards still wallowing?” snapped someone, annoyed, cutting through the funereal hush that hung over the room. When he snapped his neck around in surprise, Raul saw a single werewolf enter the hall. “B-Bete…” He must have come to get food. It was obvious that he didn’t expect any to be served, barreling through the cafeteria toward the kitchen where the ingredients were stored. He scoffed as he glanced at the familia members, who trembled in surprise. Raul hurriedly followed him. “B-Bete, are you okay…?” Aren’t you depressed? Isn’t this hard to get over? Raul silently asked Bete, finding himself drawn to the werewolf out of an urge to cling to anything and everything in desperation. Raul might have hoped he would be able to do something with the strength of a first-tier adventurer. “Spit it out already! If there’s something you want to say, then say it to my face!” “Eep?!” Bete seemed the same as usual. He was violent and abrasive, as if nothing had changed. But in this moment, this crumb of normalcy was reassuring.
“…If you haven’t finished pitying yourselves yet, then just keep wallowing some more.” “…What?” Which was why that last comment took Raul by surprise. Bete had not snorted or sneered, even though he was one to look down on and verbally assault anyone he deemed a weakling. In a way, he was overlooking their behavior, for now. “B-Bete, what happened…? Did you eat something weird…?” The werewolf hadn’t unleashed a torrent of scorn—or even an irate shout. This left Raul feeling like he’d run into a monster doing a handstand or something. As if he was beginning to get annoyed by Raul’s slack-jawed look, Bete clicked his tongue in irritation. “It’s the same for me. You need time to cool your head.” “What…?” “Go ahead and sputter gutless complaints until it’s time.” That was when Raul realized something: Bete had been a spectator, like him, securing one of the other passages into Knossos. He was frustrated remembering their defeat and escape, but he had still managed to get his emotions under control and move forward. “‘Until it’s time’…?” Raul repeated the words without meaning to. Finally, the werewolf snorted. “While you bastards are wallowing in your own misery, Finn’s crew is moving in your stead.”
“Give me an update on the situation.” Bete had been right. In the executive office, Finn was poring over information with Riveria and Gareth, living up to the werewolf’s expectations, solemnly and resolutely. “We know Dionysus Familia ’s members were the only ones to suffer direct casualties. We didn’t deal with particularly significant losses, and neither did Hermes Familia ,” said Riveria. “Aye, but obviously, morale will drop. They’ve survived this incident by turning their backs on fellow adventurers. This is going to change them,” added Gareth. Finn quietly listened to their reports with neither regret, hatred, nor any visible mental anguish coloring his face. The prum hero was charged with leading Loki Familia and their entire alliance of factions, which meant he had to be more stoic than anyone. He had to control himself and present an example to those below him. And Finn was in a state of mind to do it. I’m surprised that this chance encounter with the Xenos has changed my heart into one of steel , Finn inwardly analyzed. Is this that growth Loki was talking about? He almost scoffed out loud. Of course, he felt a sense of obligation, frustration, and regret. However, after setting those aside, he also felt a desire to meet the coming battle head-on. As the man called Braver, he understood the most important thing he had to achieve right now. They needed to decided what direction the familia would be taking. The top priority was to work out a plan for the second assault that he had predicted they would need. Additionally, they also had to think of a way to spur on the familia after its morale had been dealt such a devastating blow. “And the conditions in Knossos?” “Ganesha Familia is leading efforts to remove the green flesh filling the labyrinth. We’ve sent some of our people with them, too, but…” Gareth trailed off. “The progress is slower than expected. The flesh attacks as if it has a will of its own,” Riveria finished, picking up where the dwarf left off. Finn slipped back into thought.
The first attack had been necessary to clear Knossos. In the fight with the remnants of the Evils and the creatures, the alliance of familias had been in control from start to finish. Following Finn’s blitzkrieg plan, the adventurers and healers from all the factions had overrun the remnants of the Evils and handily crushed the plants that were the source of the vibrantly colored monsters. But at the final stage, right on the cusp of complete victory, the tables had turned on them. As far as Finn was concerned, that expression didn’t even describe the extent of it. It would be more accurate to say the entire table had been sawed in half. It had started with the invocation of the seemingly sentient flesh. That hideous mass had filled the passages of Knossos in the blink of an eye, preying upon any adventurers it found. Caught up in that onrush of all-consuming green, Dionysus Familia had been annihilated. And Lefiya’s friend had faced a noble death in front of her. Brimming with green overgrowth even now, Knossos had been transformed from a den of demons into the devil’s castle. “As for those on Ouranos’s side…We’ve had contact with Fels, but…with all these developments, Fels doesn’t have a good grasp of the situation, either, except that it might be like a spirit miracle…” Finn glanced down at the oculus magic item placed atop the desk. According to Gareth, the patron god of the Evils, Thanatos, had said that Knossos was not a fortress but an altar. An altar for a sacrifice. The abrupt return of a god had triggered the altar, which was all part of the scheme created by the enemy’s ringleader and true mastermind—Enyo. “If everything went according to Enyo’s plan…I can’t help but shudder. It means we’re not the only ones who are disposable—even the remnants of the Evils are, too. Our enemy is coming at us like a god,” Riveria summarized frankly, awe and fear in her voice. “…Did you notice anything, Finn?” Gareth asked. Finn was silent before speaking his own mind. “…I couldn’t see a face. Even when I was with Thanatos, I could perceive his expression as he moved his pawns…But with Enyo, I couldn’t even grasp their intentions beyond the board. Not even a sliver of them.” “…” “If Enyo managed to activate the altar by keeping everything a secret—including their true identity—the enemy is a monster beyond our wildest imagination. Riveria is right. From the very beginning, they never intended to have a real fight.” Finn had used his pawns atop the board and his ingenuity to create a perfect advance. However, while Finn played by the rules, the enemy was cheating, pulling a sword from outside the playing field and stabbing it down into the board . Enyo had not just tried to kill Finn’s pawns—but even tried to kill Finn, the person moving the pawns, too. “A god, huh…?” It had afforded a perspective different from mortals, divergent values, leading to a battle of opposing worldviews. Finn had won the match and the battle. But in the end, the god had made it seem as though the battle had never happened to begin with. And he had been overcome by a feeling unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Finn laughed—one tinged with humiliation, gained knowledge, and militancy. “…Anyway, there’s nothing we can do except move on. We must create the plan for the second assault, which we have to win at all costs. Cast aside the fear as we go challenge Enyo one more time,” Finn said, speaking into existence the promise and courage to raise Riveria’s and Gareth’s spirits—and his own. After they nodded in agreement, they started to uncover what Knossos had become. But as the conversation proceeded, they ran into an unavoidable question. “I get that the enemy used the corrupted spirit to cover all of Knossos. But…then what?” Riveria was the first to put it into words. Her jade hair quivered as the high elf furrowed her brow at the inexplicable. “At Thanatos’s whim, Enyo was kept from finishing us off. We’re certain of that. But do they intend to stay holed up in their castle now?” asked Gareth. Coated with the green flesh, Knossos was maintaining its silence. There were no signs of monsters or creatures attacking, let alone the demi-spirit. As the dwarf said, the activation of the altar should have been Enyo’s plan to end this all . A plan to kill all of Loki Familia , those with the potential to become an impediment to the destruction of Orario. Even though it missed its target, Enyo had not reacted in any way. It was ominous, almost. “Finn, you were worried they might summon the demi-spirit aboveground…but there are no signs of that. Is the enemy pretending to be as slow as a tortoise?” “…” Gareth’s comment had tickled Finn’s ears as he slipped deeper into thought. Though they had gotten a lid on the green flesh, there would eventually come a time when the alliance would attack Knossos again. This silence would lure in the alliance to attempt it. Or was that the enemy’s aim—inviting them into Knossos again? Or was there a totally different objective? But that would mean… A moment of silence fell in the office as everyone held their tongues. “…I guess this is the only other lead we have.” Finn pulled a single piece of parchment from the desk’s drawer. It depicted a monster that was the very image of an evil dragon and maidens surrounding it in a ring. It had been sketched from memory and shared by Lefiya before she broke. It was a mural on the wall that she had happened across with Filvis when they bumped into Thanatos during the very first invasion of Knossos. According to Lefiya, Thanatos had said that the mural was “something that Enyo had brought in from some ruin.” “If I remember correctly, that’s Nidhogg, huh? That was the dragon in the center.” “If we’re to believe Thanatos’s story.” Gareth and Riveria looked down at the sketch spread across the desk. Nidhogg was said to be a monster that existed in the Ancient Times. When Lefiya had given him the sketch, Finn had investigated it, but all he could find was that it was speculated to be one of the oldest calamities that had been released by the Dungeon, even before Behemoth, Leviathan, or the Black Dragon, the targets of the Three Great Quests. But this was all speculation, because detailed literature on it could not be found, so it was just Finn’s conjecture based on the time frame of the background. According to the minimal accounts of Nidhogg, it had apparently been so overwhelmingly powerful that it had thrust the world into the depths of despair. It had been strong enough that the ancient people had no chance of striking it down themselves. As for how it was defeated, it was not recorded in any historical documents. All Finn could find was “when light fell, all was over” and “the song of the children’s prayer purified the evil dragon” and other abstractions along those lines. He had tried to ask Loki if she remembered anything from that time. “Oh yeah. I dunno much about that. Everyone in the heavens was all like, ‘Things are getting bad in the mortal realm,’ but that was when I was busy trying to kill gods, so it was all a bit chaotic. If I remember, some god intervened on their own and blew it away, apparently, but…” That was the extent of her response. The use of Arcanum in the mortal realm was prohibited. And choosing to intervene was no small thing. If a pillar of light came down from the heavens, it would gouge another hole in the mortal realm besides the Dungeon. That was what Finn had taken away from her story. “Lefiya was the one who saw this sketch and had the conversation with Thanatos, but she’s not in a state of mind to talk. As for her companion, Filvis Challia…” Riveria said, dropping her pitch, lowering her eyes at the fate that had befallen her fellow elves. Finn stared at the picture again: the evil black dragon Nidhogg in the center. And the maidens surrounding it. The girls had their eyes closed, holding hands. They could have been a sacrifice to the dragon or holy maidens offering up a prayer to suppress Nidhogg. There were six of them. Six… Six, huh? Six was an unpleasant number. With narrowed eyes, Finn felt uneasy thinking about its underlying meaning. Loki Familia had the pieces to connect that ancient mural to the current situation. The problem was, if things proceeded as they did in the mural, what would happen in the end? Finn put those thoughts on hold, keeping the vague answer to himself. He decided that right now, when they were desperately in need of more information, they had no choice but to gather all the clues they could related to the mural of Nidhogg. “…Is Loki still not back yet?” When silence had totally fallen over the room, Riveria turned to look to a certain place, as if in search of the jester’s advice or hoping to see her. Finn and Gareth looked over in the same direction, too. But their patron goddess’s seat was empty.
“—Are you sober, Loki?” That was Hermes’s first response after hearing her story. They were in the god’s room inside Hermes Familia ’s home. While Finn was planning, Loki had been let into Hermes’s home, facing him as he stared fixedly at her. “I just told you. I’m serious and sober. Put the other way, I can’t think of anyone else who could be Enyo’s identity .” Loki hadn’t stopped talking since she’d stepped foot into the home, elaborating on her hypothesis on the series of events and the true identity of the city destroyer. Hermes closed his mouth and stared at her, probing her divine will. His orange eyes couldn’t conceal his surprise. He was normally an aloof, delicate god, but right now, he seemed to be carefully scrutinizing her declaration inside and out. “…What basis do you have? Just saying it out loud almost makes me laugh. Do you have any conclusive evidence?” Hermes joked deliberately because they were in this situation. Loki looked behind her, where the god Soma was standing. She had forced him to accompany her. Stealing the bottle in his hands, she poured a glass, handing Hermes a cup of red wine sloshing against the rim, warning him with a sharp gaze not to drink it. “What is this…? Wait, this is… ?” “Yeah, divine wine. I found it in Dionysus’s wine cellar when I was looking through it with Soma.” Raising the glass to his face, Hermes took a whiff of the smell. In the next instant, he smashed it on the floor, causing the glass to shatter and a pool of gory red liquid to spread. It wafted a bewitching fragrance. Hermes glared daggers at the shards of glass, not bothering to hide his disdain at the divine wine that had tried to seduce his thoughts. “With this, even a god could get wasted …I guarantee it,” Soma said. There was a smidgen of excitement and frustration in his level voice—a reluctance to accept someone who had created a better divine wine than his own and an intense curiosity. “…There’s no proof. And Loki’s theory is full of holes. But with this wine…then…” Hermes whispered to himself, having heard Loki’s and Soma’s speeches. He let himself drown in a sea of thoughts, pressing his palm over his mouth, and his eyes narrowed as he thought harder. It was as if he was placing a missing puzzle piece and deciphering the final scene. “…I got it.” Finally, Hermes raised his head and responded. “I’ll go with your theory, Loki. Or, rather, I’ll have to reexamine everything with this missing piece that you found.” This was the path leading to the mastermind. He had the key to unspool the actions of Dionysus, who had kept up his suspicious behaviors. Hermes quickly shifted gears, showing off his mental agility. “So what do you want me to do? There’s no way you came here to share your hypotheses with me, right?” “A home investigation. If our thoughts are on the mark, we’ll need to back it up,” Loki replied. “That’s true.” As soon as he heard Loki’s response, Hermes shrugged and started to walk. “I’ll make some moves. In search of the answer you seek, Loki.” Leaving the room, he gave orders to his followers who were waiting outside. As they watched him depart, Loki looked down at her hands, left behind in the room with Soma—glancing down at the bottle filled with red wine.
“Search every nook and cranny! I trust we can place the blame on the Guild and Lord Hermes later!” Asfi barked. From the wild footsteps and the sounds of crashing, you would imagine they were taking part in an emergency break-in operation. They were investigating—which was a better way to say “taking control of” the building. Hermes Familia had moved quickly. Right after Loki’s request, they’d immediately left their home and broken into the indicated familia’s home. “It’s no good, Asfi! It’s a shell of a home!” “There’s no one here!” “Gh…!” Asfi bit her lip at the reports from the war tiger Falgar and the chienthrope Lulune. The manor looked as though it had been torn apart by thieves. The shelves were stripped bare; a sea of parchments and documents was strewn across the floor, littered on top with pieces of broken antiques. But they could not find anything—as if they were mocked for being a step too late. Hearing the reports from the familia members, Asfi rushed down the stairs to the last area left, underground. She threw open the door to the basement, Falgar’s crew in tow. “Ugh…!” “Do I…smell blood?” Asfi stared at the scene as Lulune and Falgar whimpered. There was nothing particularly special about the underground room, a storage space for fruits and vegetables…other than the distinct smell of blood that Lulune had mentioned—and that thing. At the back of the dim room, an ominous cluster of red glyphs had been written in blood across the wall—as if jeering at them. As if challenging them. As if cursing them. PERISH , ORARIO . I SHALL OPEN THE GATES TO THE UNDERWORLD . With both fists balled up, Asfi was the only one there who could decipher the clump of hieroglyphs—a challenge and a confession. And then she spat out the name of the familia who owned this home. “Demeter Familia …!”
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