Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria - Volume 12 - Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE OF DESPAIR 

The night was swarming with silence. The vast expanse of darkness could be an ocean of black ink. Of course, there was no sound of waves crashing. There wasn’t even wind as the sky remained cloudless. There was only the moon frozen high in the sky, calmly looking down on the land. 
A stream of cold moonlight poured into a building tucked away in the side of a certain mountain. Nestled amid the trees, it was almost glued onto the mountainside. There was not even a single light. The building was quiet and dark. There weren’t even animal sounds to break the silence. 
“…” 
A rustling approached the building. 
Hermes climbed the stairs that creaked with each step. When he came to a sudden halt, he put a hand on the handrail and turned around. Visible in the distance, a white tower, Babel, rose into the night sky. He narrowed his eyes as his thoughts shifted to the adventurers fighting below it who the people would never know about. It lasted only a moment before he turned forward again and finished his climb. 
Hermes was alone. There was no trace of anyone in the building. It was almost disappointing that it was this empty. Climbing the large spiral staircase outside, he left the building and headed to the balcony. 
It was a broad space to be called a balcony. Made of wooden planks, there were plants kept on either end of the space—flowers, of course, and cultivars of agricultural products. All the plants made it feel like a big greenhouse. 
At the other end of the balcony, there was a magnificent night sky that came into view. It was the ideal observation deck, with a view of the Labyrinth City overflowing with the light of magic- stone lamps in the distance. 
And in the middle of that nightscape, in the midst of that superb view, there was a deity staring toward the city, back to Hermes. 
“Hey, I found you.” 
He took off his hat and stepped closer. It was a certain goddess’s hideaway. A giant storehouse for saving up food. The second home for a certain familia. 
“…” 
Maintaining her silence, the goddess turned around slowly, a blank, passive mask on her face. 
“Don’t you think it’s about time we ended this, Demeter?” 
Her honey-colored hair fluttered as she looked back at Hermes, though her face was as still as a mask. 
“I see. You actually came, Hermes.” 
 
“Ow! That hurts! Your claws are digging into my shoulder!” 
“I-I’m sorry…” 
Loki reflexively recoiled, swinging her arms and legs like a child. As they slowly descended , Rei the siren struggled to not grip too hard with her talons as she spread her wings. 
They were in Knossos, descending through the middle of the shaft created by Thanatos, down the hundreds of meders that it extended. They had secretly dodged the adventurers on watch and snuck in from the Labyrinth District. 
Finally, they reached the ground on the ninth floor of Knossos, and Loki looked up. 
“Man, this is reaaaaally far down,” she said. “Sorry for forcing you to bring me here, Rei-Rei.” 
“R-Rei-Rei…” 
“But parachuting with a monster was a neat experience.” 
Paying no heed to Rei, who was shocked by the nickname, Loki kept talking to herself in her usual laid-back manner. Lighting the magic-stone lamp at her waist, she started moving down the path that Finn and the others had taken. 
“It sure has changed…” 
It didn’t take long for them to reach the labyrinth master’s room, the long passage, and the routes the three squads had gone down after splitting up. As they proceeded through the transformed labyrinth, Loki stopped at a place she remembered. 
It was the main area nearest the Evils’ base, the one closest to the labyrinth master’s room. It was the location of the fateful crossroads from the day of the first attack. It was the place where Gareth and Loki had discussed their strategy for the endgame after cornering Thanatos. And as they were leaving, it was the place where Dionysus had gone off on his own. 
“Ganesha Familia did a damn fine job clearing a path all the way to here.” 
“Yes…the surrounding flesh is completely dead.” 
Almost all of the green flesh had been scorched, and even the bare stones showing in the gaps of flesh were charred. Loki approached one part of the passage. It was dark, a shadow that even the magic-stone lamp could not pierce. There was a passage that blended perfectly into the darkness that the adventurers—and even Loki—had overlooked before. She held the lamp up above her head to light the long passage that was cloaked in shadow. 
“…Rei-Rei, you don’t need to guard me anymore.” 
“What?” 
“I mean, I was just dragging you along on my whim. You should go help out where the big fights are happening. That’s what Finn planned.” 
“B-but to leave a goddess alone…” Rei tried to persuade her, uneasy. 
“I’ll be fine.” Loki smiled slightly. “There aren’t any more monsters around here.” 
Her voice was full of confidence that left the siren at a loss for words. There was no way Rei could stand up to a goddess in a war of words. 
“…Very well. If a goddess is saying that, then…” 
“Sorry for dragging you along on impulse.” 
“It’s fine. I’ll be on my way, then.” 
The siren flew off quickly, curious about how things were going elsewhere in the labyrinth. She spread her blue-tipped, golden wings and headed toward the tenth floor. 
“…All right, then.” 
Loki started walking. The light from the magic-stone lamp dangling below her outstretched hand cut through the darkness as she proceeded down the passage. She was following in the footsteps Dionysus had taken before. 
The passage was filled with half-rotten flesh. That area had probably been almost entirely used up to power the tenth floor already. The flesh sagged to the ground like a deflated balloon that clung around Loki’s calves, evoking the sensation of trudging through a swamp. All around her smelled like a dense jungle, though wafting toward her from the distance was the sickly smell of honey. It was as if the whole place had been doused in it, and it left her grimacing in disgust. 
Along the path, corpses of vibrantly colored monsters that had been drained of their magic stones were piled high. When she ran her hand through them, they turned to ash that trickled between her fingers. And like the monsters, there was an arm sticking out of the swamp of flesh, the corpse of an adventurer that had been pushed all the way there. Loki was silent, faced with images that spoke to the ghastliness of what had happened that night. Before long, she reached the end of the passage. 
There was an open space. The giant shaft created by the god’s return was still filled with green mass all the way to the surface, but in the rest of the space, the flesh on the walls and floor was rotting away. 
Loki opened her crimson eyes a bit. She had come there for a reason: to find decisive proof of the identity of Enyo. 
“…This is…” 
There was an ancient-looking chair, a cord, and a mirror. And traces of liquid spilled on the floor. 
“This smell…There’s no mistaking it. It’s the same smell as the one in Dionysus’s wine cellar.” 
A faint, sweet, bewitching fragrance. The remnant smell of the wine of the gods. That was enough to tempt Loki’s senses all by itself. 
“I’ve come to check my answers, Demeter,” Hermes announced. 
He put his hat back on and traced his finger along its brim as he looked at the deity before him. 
“Ah…you found me. You found me.” 
Demeter responded in a melodical way that almost sounded grief-stricken, but she was entirely at ease. In fact, it even caused the rear guard of Hermes Familia members hiding away on the stairs or in shadows at the front of the balcony to shudder. Her gown billowed and whipped around slightly as she gradually turned to face Hermes. 
Her public face—the image of a warm goddess—was nowhere to be seen. She did not have any expression at all. There was a terrifying emptiness to her face, showing the depths of the goddess, her hidden true self. 
“Just you and your children, Hermes? A miscalculation…or, rather, a misfortune. Even if we didn’t draw Loki and her followers, it would have been nice if some of Ouranos’s mercenaries had come to me, too,” Demeter said. 
The goddess saw through the existence of those hiding their presence. The gaze focused on Hermes was colder than he had ever seen from her, even though they had known each other for a long time. 
“…To split our forces?” he asked. 
“Yes. After all, the preparations are complete. The die has already been cast. Whatever you might try to do now—arrest me, send me back to the heavens—none of it matters. The door to the underworld will still be opened.” 
There were no signs of any of her familia members in the surroundings. They were nowhere to be found in Demeter Familia ’s storehouse. There was a chilling calmness to her. An ominous silence filled the air. 
“…And your followers?” he ventured. 
“They aren’t here. Or, rather, they aren’t anywhere.” 
“…Why?” 
“Who’s to say? Perhaps I sent them to the den of demons or they became fertilizer to allow flowers to bloom…Now, which do you suppose it is?” 
In her current state, Demeter was so repulsive that the members of Hermes Familia who heard her trembled, their armor grating audibly. Cold sweat trickled down their cheeks as they struggled to keep breathing steadily. There was a tone, an intonation, to her voice that they had never heard before. She was not even unleashing her divine will, yet they were still shaking. Was that the inherent hideousness of the deusdea—the true nature of deities? 
The mortals’ hearts were jumbled, filled with a fear far from what they’d experienced against monsters. 
“Hermes…Didn’t I tell you before?” 
Her bangs swayed. Her empty eyes looked like pure quartz that had not been stained by anything. 
“As I’ve said before, I am not satisfied. I am the goddess whose very name means ‘the mother of the earth.’ The mortal realm is not as it should be. And I cannot tolerate it.” 
Her voice grew in intensity. Her eyes opened wide as she shouted. 
“I cannot tolerate its unreasonableness! Its discrimination! Its distinctions!” 
She vented her raging emotions. 
Hermes’s followers felt as if something were gripping their hearts, but they could not understand what she was saying. It did not make any sense to them. It was beyond human understanding. But if nothing else, they were still determined to throw away their lives to protect their patron god, should it come to that. 
“…Yes, I’ve heard that. I’ve heard it from your lips before: the paradox that you, the very incarnation of love, cannot love everything about this mortal realm. And the conflict that it’s caused.” 
“Then don’t you get it?” 
The two deities stared each other down as they stood on the balcony. The air almost seemed to crackle, electrified by the tension between them. Her arms drooping listlessly, Demeter looked down. 
“You understand why I…did this—?” 
“Let’s quit this farce , Demeter. The jig is already up.” Hermes cut her off, shaking his head. 
Her eyes focusing sharply as the smell wafted up from the floor, Loki started looking around the area…as if she was sure of something. 
“…There it is.” 
Hooking her finger into a small gap in the stone flooring, she pushed it down, and one part of the stone made a noise and slid to the side. It was a hidden passage. 
—“I’d expect them to have a secret path out for when their stronghold was about to fall!” 
—“Don’t miss any hidden passages!” 
What Gareth had said during the end stages of the first assault found its proof there. 
The mastermind, Enyo, had lured the deity here, set off the return pillar, and then managed to escape from the rampaging green flesh using the hidden passage. Stairs continued downward into the floor. Before the door could close again, she slipped in the hidden passage. 
Loki held out her torch with one hand as she descended the stairs. The narrow stone steps continued into the darkness, creating an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, but Loki’s vermilion eyes did not waver in the slightest as she kept looking straight ahead. 
“…” 
At the end of the stairs, she reached a wall blocking her way. She found a switch for a hidden door in the area, triggering it to open. At the end of the hidden passage was a space filled with pillars. There was a spiderweb of interlocking passages, each surely the end of another hidden passage. 
The surrounding walls were covered in ancient murals: People fleeing in terror from monsters. A sea of flames. Lives being greedily devoured. Destruction and slaughter. Violation and chaos. A gruesome feast of death. A vision of hell. 
“ ? ” 
And standing in the center of the chamber was a being in a dark-purple robe that covered its whole body and a jet-black cape. The cape was decorated with different masks. It was an eerie appearance, seemingly symbolizing the different faces of a deity. 
Loki glared at it. 
“So you’re Enyo.” 
“Wh-what did you say…?” 
Demeter’s face snapped back up as she managed to respond, but her voice was trembling. 
“I’m saying this will make you more pitiful. And I don’t want to see you like that. The sight of you lowering yourself to the role of a jester is not something I ever wanted to see.” 
Hermes’s voice was coated in sadness as he fixed her with a melancholy gaze. 
“Demeter, the Goddess of Fertility. As I said before, an incarnation of an all-encompassing love. Terrifying if you ever make her mad. Able to lay waste to the entire world…but this kind of direct method isn’t your style.” 
Demeter’s face paled. He did not know what she was feeling: the regret, the resentment, the despair. Even a fellow deity like Hermes could not understand that. But Hermes believed it was necessary to release her from that painful role. 
“You’re not Enyo,” he proclaimed. 
 
After pitching through the air for some time, Lefiya and the other adventurers landed on a stone floor. They were in a large open chamber. Nearly half of the fifth squad had been separated from Anakity’s group, but there was still plenty of room for all of them in the stone chamber. Calculating back the length of their fall, the location had to be the eleventh or twelfth floor of Knossos. 
Lefiya quickly looked around as those thoughts crossed her mind. And while she was thinking, she caught sight of the masked creature who had landed right in front of them. 
“Tch! That was a stupid trap to fall for…!” 
Bete’s frustration was as directed at himself as the pitfall above their heads that had been covered up entirely by the green flesh on the ceiling. 
They would not be able to return to the tenth floor from this place. At the very least, they wouldn’t be able to without taking a roundabout path. The chamber was connected to several passages. There were entrances visible in the walls even above their heads. It felt like they were in a chamber that served as a relay point connecting all parts of the labyrinth. 
It might have been intentional or because the energy was being directed to the tenth floor, but more than half of the surface area of the chamber had the view of the original Knossos. Chunks of yellowed flesh were rotting off the walls and ceiling, creating an almost sluglike appearance. 
The adventurers grimaced about getting split up easily and immediately prepared their weapons. 
“…” 
However, the masked figure did nothing. It just stood there, unmoving. There was not even the sound of breathing from behind that eerie mask. Its purple robe trembled from the shock waves caused by the heavy battle occurring on the floor above. 
…Why isn’t the figure doing anything? 
At that moment, that was what every adventurer was thinking. They had reached an odd stalemate. After triggering the pitfall trap, the masked creature did not do anything. Even though the adventurers had an obvious advantage in numbers, the creature was being too passive. It was unnatural. Even Bete furrowed his brow in suspicion. 
“…” 
Lefiya was the only one who did not feel that way. With her yellow hair streaming behind her, she stepped out from the line of adventurers by herself. 
“Lefiya…!” 
The members from Loki Familia had a bad feeling as she stood square across from the enemy. The masked creature was the one who had murdered Filvis. A desire for vengeance could have threatened to set her heart afire. They had the feeling that the current silence might just be the calm before the storm. The members of Loki Familia immediately tried to stop Lefiya, a mage, who was facing the enemy from the closest possible range. 
“I always…” Lefiya was quiet, deviating from their collective anxiety. 
Her dark-blue eyes were fixed on the masked creature. 
“…I always thought it was strange. This question in the back of my mind, wondering who you were.” 
“…” 
“You were constantly in Enyo’s shadow, but I thought you were always odd, too.” 
“…” 
“I always felt something off about you.” 
Her voice resounded in the chamber. The masked figure was silent, unresponsive. The adventurers did not know what Lefiya was talking about. Bete raised an eyebrow—“What the hell are you trying to say?” he seemed to ask—as he watched her. 
Everyone was still, unable to do anything but watch in silence as Lefiya eloquently pressed the masked figure. 
“You appeared before me —every single time, all the time.” 
“No intention of introducing yourself, eh? Then let’s start with checking answers.” 
Loki violently tossed the magic-stone lamp to the ground in front of Enyo in black clothes. There were several torches set around the chamber with flames flickering. Loki raised her chin and glared defiantly at the deity before her while Enyo simply watched her, as if ready to laugh if her answer was off its mark. 
“First of all, you kept your identity hidden to the very end so that the plan to destroy the city would not be leaked…Except it had nothing to do with that at all. ” 
“…” 
“And it had nothing to do with prudence or cowardice, either. Because you had already shown yourselves to us straight-up. You kept this side of yourself hidden and acted like you’d never even harm a flea.” 
Loki was acknowledging that Enyo had been somewhere close to them. That was effectively an admission of defeat. Enyo had blended into their daily life with skill, without apology, and with an innocent face that neither the heavens’ trickster, Loki, nor Hermes had been able to see through. 
“Second, you started this plan six years ago. Maybe you had the evil idea to crush Orario long before that, but…the six-year mark is undoubtedly when the actual plan itself started to take shape.” 
“…” 
“And the catalyst was the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare.” Loki kept showering Enyo with words as her opponent maintained a tight-lipped silence. “On that awful day, the corrupted spirit hiding in the deep levels—or, more precisely, a fragment of it—had been drawn to the lower floors by something . That was where you first learned of its existence—the final piece you needed to complete your plan.” 
The day when the mastermind of that incident, Olivas Act, had become a creature. The fragment of the corrupted spirit had been in the lower floors that day. Loki was declaring that Enyo had been the lone deity who realized that. 
“And then, related to that, the third point. After contacting the corrupted spirit and successfully negotiating with it, you brought together the remnants of the Evils and the spirit’s underground forces. Never showing yourself, you just used Levis and the masked creature to pass on orders.” 
“…” 
“While it seemed like you were skillfully manipulating the Evils and the underground forces, you were actually between a rock and a hard place. And that was because you had to accept the creature’s irrational desire to search for Aria.” 
Loki stepped closer, speaking as if she saw through Enyo’s black clothes completely, but Enyo did not interrupt her. Quite the opposite. Enyo seemed to be pleased, silently egging her on to continue her revelations. 
“Our first encounter with those man-eating flowers…that incident during Monsterphilia. That happened because the creature was pestering you. You did it to search for Aria. You did not actually want to go through with it—or maybe you didn’t really care either way.” 
“…” 
“When I found out that the Guild…that Ouranos was hiding something, you tried a bunch of schemes to sever any trust I had in him, didn’t you? So that it would be easier for you to move around in secret. And those drunken warnings about Ouranos were in service of that goal.” 
Loki spoke with supreme confidence as she touched on the fact that Dionysus had constantly prevented them from cooperating with the Guild. Enyo’s only miscalculation had been that a certain Goddess of Beauty had also caused an incident at the same time to test a certain boy’s strength. 
Because of the size of the disturbance at Monsterphilia, several adventurers would have been called in. But because the charmed monsters started rampaging first, Ganesha Familia and Loki Familia had been the fastest to react. And because of the speed of their initial reaction, Enyo had missed the timing to unleash all the man-eating flowers waiting in the sewer system. 
The violas that Loki and Bete had encountered in the water tank and that Finn and the others had wiped out all throughout the sewer system were the ones that Enyo had not been able to recover. 
“I should tell you now—I know who Aria is. If the corrupted spirit that has consumed many spirits is looking for it, then Aria can only be a being descended from a spirit. Which means either an actual spirit or someone who has the blood of a spirit in their veins.” 
Basically, they had found Aria. This was a coincidence that Enyo had not anticipated, the miscalculation that the creatures would discover Aria themselves. In other words, Aiz. 
“The corrupted spirit at the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare, it had been drawn there by something —by Aiz. The corrupted spirit first noticed her existence when she used Airiel in the Dungeon after joining my familia.” 
That was right. The true genesis of it all had been nine years ago. When the girl named Aiz Wallenstein had first started walking down her current path. Perhaps it was fate. On that day when she unleashed her magic for the first time, it had been to defeat the black wyvern that Thanatos had summoned into the Dungeon. 
Even though they were deep belowground, the corrupted spirit had recognized the traces of a fellow spirit. It had taken years, but it had moved out toward the lower floors. And the real reason that it had started moving from its position hidden away in the depths of the Dungeon since Ancient Times was because of the existence of Aiz. 
“To gain the cooperation of the underground forces, you had no choice but to go after Aiz like you meant it.” 
“…” 
“That was why you had no choice but to get us wrapped up in this .” 
That had been the worst possible result that Enyo could imagine happening. It left them with no choice but to drag Loki Familia , the strongest faction in the city, right into the middle of everything. 
“…Here’s my answer.” Loki glared sharply as she spoke, while Enyo still had not said a word. 
“The true identity of Enyo is—” 
“The first time I felt there was something out of place was when I headed for the pantry on the twenty-fourth floor chasing Miss Aiz.” Lefiya addressed the mask directly. “Back then, when I was talking to Mr. Bete, I felt magic. I was the only one who felt it.” 
“Huh?” Bete cocked his eyebrow when she mentioned his name. 
—“As long as your Magic is the only useful thing you got, you’ll never be anything more than baggage,” Bete had said when he had berated her so harshly. 
—Magic…? 
Lefiya had definitely sensed magic then. She—and it had been only her—had noticed the presence of the masked figure tailing after them from the shadows. And that disconcerting magic would become one of the clues that helped her hypothesis get a better grip on reality. 
“The next strange thing was the very first time I entered Knossos.” 
That was the day when Finn had been badly battered by Levis and their squad had been scattered. While Aiz and Gareth’s group had been separated by Barca Perdix’s traps, the two elves had been left behind on the upper floors. 
“You intentionally appeared in front of us there . You pretended not to notice us while purposely letting us follow you . All so that you could lead us all the way to the entrance to the labyrinth.” 
At the time, Lefiya had been lost in the labyrinth with Filvis. And then all of a sudden, the masked creature had suddenly appeared all by itself. They had followed it and discovered a gate leading out of Knossos to the outside. Thinking back on it after the fact, that coincidence was just too good to be true. The masked creature’s appearance was too convenient, and it was all the more suspicious that a creature would not notice the likes of them following it. 
“After we were separated from the captain and lost inside Knossos, you were trying to let us…No, you were trying to let me flee outside .” 
A murmur spread through the adventurers. They were confused by what she was saying, and more than a few of them were starting to doubt her sanity. Even Bete was looking at her suspiciously. But Lefiya did not stop there. 
“And the last oddity was when…my precious friend was slaughtered before my eyes.” 
The masked creature’s purple robe twitched at that. 
It hurt just to remember what had happened at the time, and she struggled to even say the girl’s name, and yet Lefiya continued, pushing through the pain to get to the truth. 
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why did you bother to help me?” 
There was doubt that she had no longer been able to ignore. 
“We were in the same middle section of the ninth floor as Mr. Gareth’s group. How did we end up all the way at the entrance to the Dungeon?” 
Her voice was getting rougher, more emotional. 
“How did we manage to escape all the way until we were right in front of the exit?!” 
The dam burst on all the emotions she had been holding back. 
“Even then, you were pretending to attack us, but you were really just chasing me to the entrance to the labyrinth!” she screamed, which echoed in the chamber. It sounded as though her heart was being ripped out of her chest. 
“You were trying to keep me away from Knossos, even if it meant breaking my heart…” 
Lefiya’s blue eyes were teary, and her lip quivered. 
“You were always…protecting me .” 
Time stopped. The adventurers were at a loss for words. Bete was standing still, struck with awe. The mask remained silent, as if trying to ride it out. Everyone’s eyes were focused on her as Lefiya spoke the name of the figure standing in front of her. 
“Isn’t that right, Miss Filvis?” 
She heard an auditory hallucination. Like the sound of glass shattering. Like the sound of stopped time being forced into motion again. The masked creature’s arms hung limply, like a broken doll. Its neck bent like it was staring at the ground, and its clenched metal gloves relaxed, losing all their strength. It looked like a criminal who’d had all its crimes exposed in broad daylight. Slowly, it raised one hand and placed it on the mask. 
“…When did you figure it out?” 
The mask came off, letting the hood fall back to reveal red eyes and jet-black hair—the elf who had been murdered before Lefiya’s eyes, Filvis Challia. 
“Gh…!” 
Lefiya was on the verge of tears. She had exposed it herself, and yet she had still clung to the hope that she had been wrong. 
“That’s not possible…How…?!” 
One of the adventurers who had been reporting to Anakity on that day was startled. Those who had witnessed Filvis’s last moments with Lefiya stared at the masked figure’s face in disbelief. They were as close to seeing a ghost as they could get. Left without the ability to process the events in front of them, they lost themselves when they saw her face and gasped, clasping their hands to their mouths. While everyone else was speechless, Lefiya wrenched her lips open again. 
“I didn’t figure it out…Until Loki talked to me with the others, I never even considered the inconsistencies…” Lefiya responded with her clenched fist quivering, her heart beating out of her chest. 
“The masked creature is someone you know well, Lefiya.” 
Before the start of the operation, when Loki had come to her room, her patron goddess had told her as she sat in a trance. She had said there was a high likelihood that Ein’s true identity was Filvis Challia. When Lefiya had first heard the hypothesis, it was like she saw fireworks. In the depths of her misery, she became enraged at the insult to her friend and screamed at her patron goddess. 
“But the more I listened to Loki’s story, I became less certain! Did you really die?! I started thinking you really might be still alive!” 
The goddess’s words had connected all the inconsistencies scattered throughout Lefiya’s memories. 
What had caused Lefiya to stand back up was not revenge. She had risen to disprove Loki’s theory and learn the truth. 
“After I talked to the captain’s team, there was nowhere left to run! I couldn’t sit still!” 
After Aiz and the others had watched her leave the room, Lefiya had gone with Loki to the office where Finn, Riveria, and Gareth were waiting. 
“Lefiya, we’ll tell you everything we know about the masked creature, as well as our theory. We’d like you to consider it from the perspective of someone who knows Filvis Challia. Once we are done, we’d like to hear your thoughts.” 
Finn’s voice was so cool, it had almost made her shudder. While her red-hot emotions had melted together, they calmly shared their knowledge to reach a conclusion about the identity of the masked creature. 
“During the last expedition, when we were setting up to advance into the new depths, when we were split up by the Dragon’s Urn, the masked creature attacked, leading a swarm of vibrantly colored monsters.” 
“We’re talking about the time when we advanced to the fifty-third floor to meet up with your group.” 
Riveria’s and Finn’s first point was something that had happened four months ago. While Lefiya and Bete and their group had fallen down the shaft created by the valgang dragon, Finn’s group had taken the standard route heading for the fifty-eighth floor. That was their meetup spot. 
“During that time, the masked creature was searching for something while threatening us.” 
While Aiz’s group was uneasy and under attack, Finn had noticed something about the enemy’s movements. 
“ ? The question is, what is that thing looking for? Aiz?” 
At the time, Finn had chalked up this search for something as a quest to locate Aiz, whom Levis had been after. But what if that was not the case? 
“What if the masked creature was searching for you?” 
What if it was trying to guarantee Lefiya was still alive? What if it was trying to make sure that Lefiya alone did not die? When he’d said that, Lefiya’s throat clamped shut. 
“Our biggest suspicion was when you first entered Knossos together with Maenad and somehow made it out safe.” 
Gareth picked up on this clue. Finn, Gareth, and Aiz had all been in dire situations after they got split up by Knossos’s traps. And while all that was going on, Lefiya had been the only one who had not ended up in any kind of jeopardy. It was unnatural. She had even run into Thanatos and escaped unscathed. 
That itself was suspicious. 
Lefiya and Filvis had not had a Daedalus Orb. And yet they had somehow survived without triggering any of Knossos’s traps. As more time passed after the event, it became more apparent just how crucial having a key was to move around Knossos. The opposite had become just as clear: just how hopeless it was to be stuck in Knossos without a key. It would be fair to say that Lefiya moving around Knossos to find Aiz’s group was nothing short of a miracle. And in truth, were it not for what Lefiya and Filvis had done, Aiz’s group would have died, locked away in Knossos. 
But what if that had not been a miracle? What if it had been inevitable? If it had all gone as intended by the person standing beside Lefiya. If it had been a bitter choice taken to save her. 
“If the person beside you had been a double agent working with the enemy…it would be possible for you to avoid Knossos’s traps and escape to a safe area.” 
Filvis had taken the lead to protect Lefiya. She had been able to escape Barca’s traps, avoid all the eyes set around the Dungeon, and nudge Lefiya’s thoughts in the right direction. When Finn had pointed that out, Lefiya immediately tried to deny it, but the words would not come. The growing suspicion had robbed her of her ability to deny their theory. 
“There is something we still can’t figure out. You had reached an opened gate once already.” 
The masked creature they had followed had gone outside to meet Ishtar, leaving the orichalcum gate open. Even if it was designed to close on its own, leaving the entrance to a secret hideout open was just too careless. Riveria had even been waiting outside Knossos on standby still. 
In other words, the masked creature—Filvis—had feigned going out to meet Ishtar…all so that Lefiya would have a way to get out. 
She thought back to what Filvis had said at the time. 
“ ? Lefiya…I think it would be best to search for the exit.” 
“—While I understand your desire to pursue your fallen comrades—” 
“—Finding a way out and soliciting help seems the wisest path.” 
Filvis had kept saying it—that Lefiya should escape the labyrinth by herself! 
“—You…you think I can just leave a selfish, stubborn…wreck like you…?” 
“—Do you even care at all how I feel?” 
“—I can’t let you die!” 
When they were at the exit, Filvis had expressed a bitterness that overflowed into words when Lefiya said she was going back into the labyrinth. 
“Lefiya…What do you think?” Finn had prompted. 
Upon hearing Loki’s conjecture, Finn’s group had quickly come across a suspect for the identity of the masked creature after a rapid investigation. When they said the name of their suspect, Lefiya could not help but nod as all the mysterious circumstances flashed through her mind. 
“When we first entered Knossos…When the creature cut down the captain and Mr. Raul and the people with him fled to the lower floors, when we were separated from Mr. Bete…When it was just Miss Filvis and me by ourselves.” 
Coming back to her senses, Lefiya let her shoulders tremble as she forced herself to face the reality before her. And then she screamed at Filvis Challia, who was standing there, gloomily looking down. 
“That was the final piece!” 
Lefiya looked up, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes. Her azure eyes still replayed the scene as her voice poured down like rain. 
“The creature with red hair let me go even though I had been left behind! But what if she wasn’t letting me go at all?! What if she had just decided that she didn’t have to bother herself, since one of her comrades was standing right beside me?!” 
It was not that she had been overlooked. It was that Levis had already assumed that Lefiya’s fate was sealed. That was why the creature had ignored Lefiya. 
“—Can you not even do a single job correctly?” 
“—Why is it still alive?” 
There were the words that Lefiya had not been around to hear, dialogue exchanged between the creature with red hair and the masked creature in the depths of Knossos. 
“…” 
Even though Lefiya screamed, Filvis did not respond, simply continuing to look down, as if acknowledging that it was all true. Filvis still did not deny Lefiya’s accusations. Tears streamed down Lefiya’s face as she shook her head like a whining child. 
“I wanted to scream that it was all a lie. I wanted you to be alive. I wanted to be happy that you lived. But…but…! I…!” 
Delight and despair. Lefiya felt those two clashing emotions about the girl standing before her. 
Lefiya was screaming inside her disheveled heart herself even as she desperately tried to endure the shock racing through her body. 
“Wait! What are you talking about?!” Bete shouted. 
While all the other adventurers were left behind by the situation, Bete gave voice to their thoughts. 
“What the hell do you think you’re saying?! That sinister elf and the masked bastard have been in the same place at the same time before!” 
During the incident in the pantry on the twenty-fourth floor, both Filvis and the masked creature had been seen together in the same location. And the first time they had entered Knossos, the two of them had been in two different places at the exact same time. 
“And didn’t you watch a monster eat her right in front of you?!” 
And above all, it was the masked creature’s hand that had snapped Filvis’s neck, murdering her. The fact that she was even standing there before them was a paradox in itself. Bete glared suspiciously at the ghost in front of him. 
“That’s why I told you to cast aside your emotions.” 
A single shadow leaped down from a passage above their heads. It was wearing the same mask and same gloves as Filvis. A second masked creature that looked identical to the first. 
“Wh—?!” 
“—This is all because of your shameful behavior.” 
Ignoring the adventurer’s shock, it flung off its mask, revealing Filvis’s face. Once she had removed the mask, the layered voices turned into the voice of Maenad, with which Loki Familia had become so familiar. 
It wasn’t something as simple as similar features. They were exact replicas, like a reflection in a mirror. The one and only difference was that the second one had red eyes that appeared clouded, as if reflecting the abyss. 
“What the hell is going on…?!” 
The first Filvis kept her eyes cast down, and the second Filvis viciously berated her. While Bete and the others were struggling to come to any meaningful terms with this situation, Lefiya wiped away her tears and looked up. 
“Up until now, Miss Filvis only ever used two spells in front of us. The first was for an extremely short-cast lightning. And the second was for a barrier…But what if she had actually developed a third type of magic—one that she had kept hidden from us?” 
The adventurers gasped. Bete’s eyes widened. And the Filvis standing across from Lefiya closed her eyes. 
“A third spell that she never revealed. It would have to be—” 
The second Filvis. The two fairies. Lefiya was sure of her answer as tears welled in her eyes. 
“Cloning magic.” 
 
“You’re wrong…You’ve got it all wrong, Hermes! I’m Enyo! It’s me!” 
Beneath the moonlit sky, standing on a mountainside balcony, Demeter’s hair lashed out violently as she shouted. Hermes was not moved at all as he took her in and mercilessly denied her claim. 
“There’s no way you were forced to drink the divine wine, too. I don’t believe that.” 
“You have it wrong! I’m the mastermind! I’m the one who did everything…!” 
“Demeter.” Hermes interrupted her quietly but firmly. “I’m asking you here. Please stop this already. I don’t want to see you embarrass yourself any more than this.” 
That caused all the strength to drain out of Demeter’s body. There were tears in her eyes as she sank to her knees. 
“…You debased yourself by becoming the scapegoat, but that had nothing to do with protecting Enyo, right?” 
“…” 
“Was there some kind of deal?…Or was it blackmail?” Hermes stepped forward and knelt on one knee to talk to her. 
She must have realized there was no more turning things around, because the goddess resigned herself and started to talk. 
“I got in too deep…” 
“…” 
“A certain god was behaving oddly, so I went looking for him. And because I was careless, he…kidnapped Persephone and my other followers.” Demeter hugged her knees, remembering what had happened at the time, and her face turned deathly pale. 
“He said if I didn’t do what he said, he would kill my children. I rejected it at first. But when I did, he killed one of them , like it was nothing. I was shaken. And then he killed another one . I screamed, begging him to stop. And then another one . I started weeping. And then another one …” 
Her memories were stained with fresh blood. It began to sound like she was holding back her sobs. For deities who were nigh eternal, it was not so long in the grand scheme of things to wait for humans to be reborn. But this optimistic perspective that they would eventually meet again would still never allow them to accept their followers being murdered. 
And that went doubly so for the loving goddess Demeter, who in her kindness could not bear their suffering. 
“After deciding I was sufficiently broken, that monster said, ‘You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to kill anything. Just keep your mouth shut.’” 
“…” 
“He has his sly side, but when he makes a deal, he keeps his word. I behaved myself and he didn’t kill anyone. And if I tried anything, he would immediately slaughter my children, which robbed me of any will to resist…” 
There was the Falna engraved into her followers’ backs. The patron goddess could sense them from the connection created by the Ichor she had shared with her children. 
As long as she behaved herself, the number of Blessings would not go down. But if she did anything out of the ordinary, made notes, used secret signals, tried to contact people, she could sense the number of Blessings shrinking. 
It was an incredibly simple and brutal calculation that went on for days, wearing away at Demeter’s heart. 
“…I think it was around the time when Ares’s kingdom decided to come attack. I talked to Takemikazuchi. He said that something about you was off but that he couldn’t understand a woman’s heart…He asked me to help you,” Hermes murmured. 
Demeter smiled slightly as she nodded. “That sounds like Takemikazuchi… 
“But, Hermes, if you had believed him at face value and tried to contact me, I would definitely have run away. I would have hidden here by myself to avoid suspicion and not let anyone get close to me.” 
“…” 
“That was why…by the time he noticed, it was already too late.” 
Finally, tears started falling from Demeter’s eyes. She must have figured out what the true mastermind was trying to accomplish. She had effectively weighed the fate of all of Orario on the scales against her followers’ lives. But even that was already too late. 
“…So you were set up as the mastermind?” 
“Yes. I never could see through him. I never knew just how twisted he really was…Even back in the heavens, I never understood him.” 
Demeter’s damp eyes looked up to the sky as she spoke. 
“Enyo’s true identity is—” 
“—Dionysus.” 
Loki declared as she glared at the personification of darkness in front of her. 
“The farce ends here.” 
The sound of laughter seeped from the robe. In the next instant, a hand grasped the robe and yanked it away. The purple-and-black cloth fluttered as the mask fell to the ground. Blond hair revealed itself, accompanied by the sweet facade he always wore. 
His identity revealed, Enyo—Dionysus—unveiled himself. 
“Well done, Loki.” 
His smile was no different from what he always had around Loki—as if it were just a snapshot from an everyday scene. 
It was so excessively repulsive, it made Loki want to throw up. 
“So you figured me out? No, I suppose I should say you saw through me. As expected, I could not pull off my fool’s performance in front of you.” 
He started to clap. The dry sound grated on Loki’s ears: A wholehearted praise. A compliment from the bottom of his heart. An earnest celebration for the person who had discovered Enyo’s true identity. 
His eyes were clear. They were not clouded by alcohol . His smile and his way of speaking and carrying himself were the god Dionysus’s true self. 
Loki’s vermilion eyes flashed, flaring with rage. 
“You intentionally kept yourself drunk in front of us…!” 
Dionysus just smiled faintly, as if to confirm her accusation. It had not been some other deity who had gotten him drunk and manipulated him. He had done it to himself. He would sit in the underground wine cellar at his home, drink divine wine, and whisper to the reflection of his eyes in the glass. Telling himself that he was an ally of justice and that he was going to strike down evil together with Loki and Hermes. 

While he was drunk, Dionysus genuinely believed he was a righteous god. It was almost like a split personality. That was why Loki and Hermes had not been able to doubt him entirely. 
And of course not. How could they suspect a fool who honestly believed himself to be just? Dionysus had blended in with them perfectly. They had been unsure whether he was an enemy or a friend or a spectator. 
He had been watching them from the closest location possible, hiding his true self in his intoxication. 
Loki’s body seethed with humiliation. Dionysus seemed to be enjoying himself as he probed further. 
“When did you figure out that I was Enyo?” 
“…Right after ‘you’ blasted off, I really thought it was Demeter. I was following the clues you left while drunk.” 
“And then?” 
“First of all, I was suspicious about whether Demeter could even make a crazy-potent wine. Demeter’s purview is the harvest. Even if she could gather the ingredients for the wine, did she really have a handle on how to make it?” 
“She might have just been hiding it. Those sorts of parlor tricks and white lies are standard for gods, right?” 
“Exactly. It wasn’t conclusive, just enough to raise the question. The next thing that didn’t quite fit was that the number of deities sent back to the heavens and the number of deities left didn’t match.” 
“Oh?” 
“There was the one who was supposed to be you and then there was Thanatos, who went flying right in front of me…But I noticed that one other deity had gone missing. Someone else besides Demeter, who had gone into hiding.” 
Dionysus’s eyes narrowed, pupils contracting. 
“There’s no more point to it, but…since we’re already here, let’s check your work all the way to the end.” He prodded Loki for her answer. 
His tone was that of someone enjoying a game. It was a god’s amusement. 
“If it wasn’t me, who was sent back in that pillar?” 
“Penia.” Loki responded immediately with the name of the goddess who lived on Daedalus Street and ruled over poverty. “Before we busted in this time, I stopped by to visit the location where the residents of Daedalus Street are evacuating. When I asked around, the children of the slums were saying, ‘I haven’t seen Lady Penia around lately.’” 
“Heh-heh…” 
“In addition to getting yourself drunk to give yourself suggestions, you got Penia drunk to make her your puppet.” 
He must have approached her with a bit of friendliness as kindred deities from the same homeland, or all it had taken were gifts of food and drinks to that greedy Goddess of Destitution. The specifics of how he had gotten Penia to drink the divine wine did not matter much to Loki. But one thing was for certain: The one other deity had abruptly disappeared from Orario. Demeter had not been the only scapegoat. 
“There was another reason to get Penia drunk. It was so that I could convert all my children to be followers of Penia.” 
As for Dionysus Familia ’s simultaneous Status seal, this was the explanation for what had happened. 
“You even got your own followers drunk.” 
That included all the adventurers who had participated in the first assault on Knossos, from the familia’s second-in-command, Aura Moriel, down. They had not actually been Dionysus Familia . They had been Penia Familia . Dionysus had even made his former followers drink the divine wine. 
There was no need to keep them constantly drunk—just before their Status update. He could pour them a glass of red wine—“the one for special occasions” —as a reward for their work. Once they had drunk the divine liquid, they would have been completely drunk and easily manipulated by his words, mistaking Penia for their patron god, Dionysus, after he swapped places with her. All that remained was to have them receive the conversion from Penia. 
It was an absurd puppet show. He tugged at the wet red strings, and people and deities alike danced along to his show. Just imagining it was ludicrous and ghastly. 
It was sad. Aura and the others who had sworn adoration and loyalty to Dionysus had not even been his followers in reality. Their bodies and their hearts had been manipulated by the god standing there before Loki. 
“…At the start of all this, you said some shit about revenge for your children who were killed. But after the drunken stupor wore off, those were just ones who had started to realize they weren’t followers of Dionysus anymore…which is why you disposed of them. Right?” 
Dionysus could not hold back his laughter anymore. 
“Heh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Amazing, Loki! You got it in one!” 
 “One month ago, several of my children were slain.” 
 “The killer’s method was simple: approach from the front, grab the neck, then break it.” 
 “As far as I’m concerned, every god and goddess in Orario is a suspect.” 
After she had investigated the sewers with Bete, Dionysus had declared that to her face, determined. And it had all been a lie. 
As Loki guessed, the three followers who had been sacrificed were ones who had sobered up while they were still getting their Status from Penia. Perhaps they had not been drunk enough. Regardless, they had panicked and fled the home, running into the deserted streets—where they were murdered by a creature. Dionysus had the masked creature take care of them. And the rest had been just like he told Loki. The bodies were discovered in a way that it would not matter if the Guild investigated it, and he pretended to be the victim, making a show of his pretend grief and anger. 
And then all he had to do was show Loki the vibrantly colored magic stones and link it back to Monsterphilia. 
At the time, Dionysus was drunk, of course. And because his emotions seemed real, at least in his moment of intoxication, Loki did not see through the lie. 
But there had never been any revenge. No battle for their honor. It was all just a charade set up by Dionysus. There was no revenge to be had for anyone. Every last one of his followers had been dancing to his tune the whole time. 
“You piece of garbage…” 
Loki unleashed her rage in his children’s stead. The god before her laughed and laughed, the cruel cackle unbefitting his elegant young aristocratic image. 
It had all been possible because of the divine wine. It was a farce sparked by the creation of a liquor that far surpassed Soma’s. But it was not just a farce. It was also a tragedy of immeasurable proportions. 
“Penia was really a magnificent cover for me. As soon as my plan became feasible, I immediately thought of using her. As backup when it came to looking for the culprit. Of course, she’s a deity herself, so she had a foible or two, but…” 
Because Penia ruled over poverty, she was an odd goddess who had absolutely no followers. So even if Dionysus secretly converted his children to her, as long as she was drunk and there was plausible deniability, there would not be anyone suspicious of the situation—because she did not have any followers to point out that something weird was going on . 
There was no better choice for Dionysus’s deceptive ploy than her, so she became his scapegoat. 
“Yeah, that old coot did a good job leaving behind a hint for me.” 
“What’s that?” 
“I recognized that wine from somewhere else…besides in your wine cellar.” 
“!” 
“Penia had it. When I first ran into her on Daedalus Street, that old hag was holding a wine bottle with the same label as the one in your cellar. I remembered that.” 
It had been the first time they had gone to Daedalus Street to investigate. Penia had been holding a piece of meat on the bone and a bottle of wine. It appeared to be the same as the one in the wine cellar, and the label had the overflowing goblet, too. 
“Ah…sheesh. I forgot that she could be a real glutton. And I had wasted effort in warning her not to drink more than was necessary. She was drinking extra on the side and hiding it from me, huh?” 
Taking the wine and making a mess of things, acting under no one’s orders. Dionysus sighed. His reaction made Loki want to throw up again. 
Without realizing she was getting drunk, Penia must have been sipping the divine wine like it was any old drink. 
“…And then you killed Penia here.” 
Dionysus’s lips curled into a smile at that. 
Loki imagined the scene at the time, the events during that first assault. Following the suggestions that he had given himself from the start, Dionysus had separated from Loki and the adventurers. He had followed the illusion of Enyo that he had seen, drunk from the divine wine, and without anyone knowing—no, without letting anyone notice—he had gone off on his own. 
And everything after that was exactly as he had set it into motion: his little act with Loki on the oculus and waking up from his drunken stupor. That had triggered the throbbing headache, splitting his personality apart, shattering the mask of a righteous god that he had been hiding behind. 
And afterward, he had become drunk on darkness, awakening his true character, an abyss of evil. He used the mirror that had been prepared to immediately convey everything to himself. The reflection in the mirror sneered, smirking as the progress report came in after he had awakened as Enyo. And tied up on the chair was the pitiful scapegoat who had been brought there beforehand. 
Bound and gagged, Penia could not even scream as Dionysus slowly gouged her chest with the dagger in his hand— 
That was the whole story of that day. 
Once Penia was sent back, Aura and the rest whose abilities had been sealed were wiped out. And Enyo, who had set that atrocity into motion, fled to this hidden passage, living on, happy as a clam. 
He had faked his own death with a bonus on top. Thinking back on it, killing all his supposed followers served another purpose besides providing sustenance for the altar. It also prevented any fear of someone discovering his deception by checking the Status on any of the corpses. 
“And you were correct, Loki. You were the one deity I never wanted to have as an enemy.” 
Belying his words, Dionysus’s face looked reinvigorated—like a mastermind enjoying the sparring with the detective who was hunting for the culprit. As Loki’s rage grew, he had another question for her. 
“Allow me this one last question. How did you become convinced that I was Enyo?” 
“…” 
“With Demeter still hiding herself, she should have been a prime suspect, even if you had your doubts. And Penia’s wine bottle supports your theory, but it isn’t a decisive clue, either. You could just as easily use it to argue the reverse, that I really had been the one who was sent back and Penia had been making herself drunk to avoid suspicion…So what convinced you it was me?” 
It was a genuine question. He wanted to know how she had become sure that the villain was Dionysus. 
“…The truth is that I couldn’t be sure up until the very end. As you said, there were multiple possibilities.” Loki acknowledged his argument as she reached back into her memory. “But that was when I remembered what that shrimp had said.” 
Hestia. Dionysus’s eyes widened at the unexpected mention of the deity. 
“While we were watching you, I talked with her about a couple of things. About how you acted back up in the heavens. About your sickness and the way you tried to pick fights with other gods, just like I did…” 
Loki remembered the childish goddess’s eyes as she watched Dionysus playing with the children in that neighborhood. Recalling that look, Loki delivered the conclusive blow. 
“You know, Dionysus, that shrimp didn’t call you ‘strange’ or ‘weird.’ She said you were ‘scary.’” 
Not “odd” but “scary.” It had nothing to do with him being drunk or not. There was a fundamental part of his nature that struck fear into others. Hestia had unconsciously noticed Dionysus’s darkness. None of the other gods or goddesses must have noticed his pitch-black divine will, not even Demeter, who was closest to him. But the Goddess who embodied the Ever-Burning, Sacred Hearth had picked up on that. 
“As much as I hate to admit it…and I really do hate it…I believed her. That’s all.” 
She had believed Hestia’s word over Dionysus’s. That had been the decisive difference. That was how she had chosen the true villain from among all the gods. 
Dionysus froze up at her declaration and suddenly looked down. 
“Ah…Hestia again, huh…?” 
There was a stifled laugh, inaudible to anyone not listening closely. His eyes were covered by his bangs; his mouth broke into a smile that seemed almost to split open his cheeks. 
“Sheesh. She’s been ruining my plans ever since our time in the heavens…That troublesome goddess ,” he growled. 
His tone changed in an instant. His divine will was on full display. Watching him like a hawk, Loki finally asked a question of her own. 
“Let me ask you. That masked creature…is your follower, right?” 
His one and only follower. Dionysus, or rather Enyo, had cast aside all his other familia members, even Aura, leaving himself one piece to play. 
The god looked up, smiling as his eyes narrowed. 
“Yes, that’s exactly right. My cute little Ein—my two dolls.” 
 
“Correct,” Filvis casually responded when Lefiya mentioned cloning magic, as if she had totally given up. 
“…On the fifty-third floor, when the captain’s crew was fighting, I heard that the masked creature had evaded Lady Riveria’s magic. That it had used the split second to flee from the attack when the blizzard lowered everyone’s visibility.” 
Lefiya tried to contain her turbulent emotions as she stood across from Filvis, putting Finn’s and Riveria’s thoughts into words. 
That had been a barrage with a wide range that the city’s strongest mage, Riveria, had unleashed with perfect timing. Was it really possible that someone could not only evade it but use it to escape without anyone noticing? 
The answer was obviously no. 
“But what if that wasn’t to escape? What if it was undoing a spell?” 
That was what Riveria and Finn had theorized. They had lost sight of the enemy as if it had just disappeared. That was another of the hints that had nudged them in the direction of a preposterous answer: cloning magic. 
In terms of proof, they had the fact that the enemy’s equipment, mask, hooded robe, and metal gloves had been left behind, encased in ice. It was possible that Filvis had immediately released her magic, and the body that had been created by a spell turned back into magic particles. And after that, the wave of ice scattered the remnants of magic. Nothing remained of the masked creature’s figure. That was the trick that had rendered Riveria’s blast seemingly ineffective. 
“If there were two of you, Miss Filvis, then…then that would resolve all the inconsistencies.” 
The other Filvis with darkened eyes—henceforth referred to as Ein to avoid any confusion—was standing behind Filvis, glancing over at Lefiya. 
It was not a mirage that would disappear into mist if someone touched it. It was a real body that could attack and defend, and it even had its own thoughts and will, functioning entirely autonomously. It was undoubtedly a rare magic—no, it had to be a magic that Filvis Challia alone could use. 
“To guess all of that from little information…Hmm. Loki Familia members aren’t to be trifled with…I was a fool to leave you any clues…” 
There was wonder and self-deprecation in Filvis’s warped voice. 
“You are undoubtedly a fool. Your ego hindered Lord Dionysus’s plan. You should be ashamed of yourself, Filvis.” 
Ein’s voice was cold, filled with scorn and anger. 
The uncanniness of their performance forced the other adventurers to accept Lefiya’s theory. Cloning magic. The implication of its existence changed everything about their understanding of the incidents that had occurred leading up to this. 
They had reconsidered the identity of the masked creature—all because Loki had guessed that Enyo was Dionysus. 
“—Who gives a shit about some stupid spell,” Bete spat. The tattoo engraved on his cheek distorted as he made no effort to hide his annoyance. “Are you a monster like that redhead or not?” 
The masked figure could control the vibrantly colored monsters just like the creature Levis. The surrounding adventurers were startled by the werewolf’s dangerous, bloodthirsty glare. 
“I am,” Filvis responded without any hesitation. 
There was no emotion on her face, just an empty expression. Lefiya desperately tried not to stagger back. She had prepared herself, but she still felt like she was about to faint. Her voice welled with a feeling that was neither fear nor agitation as she probed further. 
“Did it have to do…with the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare, Miss Filvis?” 
“…” 
This time, Filvis did not immediately respond. But her silence was an acknowledgment of a kind. Seeing that, Ein sneered, showing emotion for the first time. 
“What? You’ve come this far. Just tell her.” 
“Shut up…” 
“You want to explain yourself to your beloved Lefiya, right? Just tell her so she’ll sympathize and comfort you.” 
“Stop…” 
“Or should I tell her?” 
“—Quit it!” 
Lefiya could not help but gasp at the bizarre scene. It was a conversation between two different Filvises. An argument with the same voice on both sides. If she closed her eyes, it would have sounded like a one-woman skit. An internal conflict was playing out due to cloning magic. 
Right now, Filvis’s conflict and true feelings were being laid bare. To Lefiya—and to all the adventurers there—she looked extremely unstable and insecure. 
“…Lefiya, you’re right. On the day of that nightmare, I was sullied.” 
Before the darker clone could reveal it, Filvis bared her own past for Lefiya. 
“Or, rather, I was corrupted .” 
The Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare. 
A sacrificial pass parade that the Evils had started in the middle of the floor. The awful incident had caused significant losses for both the Evils and the adventurers gathered under the Guild’s banner. 
A young Filvis had been there that day, along with the rest of Dionysus Familia . 
“Back then, I was still filled with pride that was very fragile. I considered myself some envoy of order…I headed to the twenty-seventh floor with the rest of the familia, and I lost myself escaping from that hell…” 
At the time, Dionysus was effectively a hidden third faction. He was pretending to ally himself with the Guild’s goals while probing the Evils’ movements, always on the lookout for an opportunity to overthrow Orario. But that was just his divine will that he kept hidden, so Filvis and his other followers were involved in the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare as members of one of the righteous factions. 
“And that was where…we encountered it.” 
“It…?” 
“The corrupted spirit’s avatar.” 
“Ts—” 
She was talking about the corrupted spirit’s feeler that had been drawn out by Aria. Lefiya’s heart skipped a beat as she listened to Filvis’s dark confession. 
“The others were wiped out, leaving me behind. There was no time to fight back. It was overwhelming. A tragedy. It broke my spirit.” 
The undulating green flesh, the mysterious shrill voice, her comrades trampled with no means of fighting back. This was the spectacle that had unfolded itself in Filvis’s sorrowful eyes for an instant. 
But Lefiya was confused. 
“…Wait. Didn’t you abandon your party?! If you turned tail and ran like a coward, when’d you become a monster?!” Bete snapped. 
He must have noticed the same inconsistency as Lefiya, for he hounded her with a scorn-riddled accusation. 
That was right. Filvis had abandoned her friends and sprinted for her life from the twenty-seventh floor. She was one of the few who had survived that nightmare. Bors had even seen her wandering around Rivira on the eighteenth floor, seemingly dead on the inside, wallowing in the depths of her despair. That had been the origin of the name Banshee—a nickname that she was called with such contempt even to this day. 
Banshee, the party-killing elf. 
Filvis paused at their suspicion. 
“She didn’t run away ,” Ein answered in her stead. 
“Wha—?” 
Filvis had not run away. Lefiya’s eyes went wide at the implication. 
“I heard them crying for help, so I turned to face it, and it killed me. It was an utterly meaningless, wasted death.” 
“Gh…?!” 
“You can guess the rest, right?” 
Her fallen body must have had a magic stone embedded in it. She had been reborn as a creature. Lefiya’s throat went dry. Bete’s brows furrowed, rage visible. He clearly did not like what he was hearing. 
Filvis Challia had not abandoned her friends to survive. She had come back to protect them, sacrificing herself with the pride of an elf. After dying, she had been transformed into a monster. 
As Ein spoke, Filvis fell silent, the wails and lamentations of that day ringing in her ears. 
—“Run, Filvis!” 
—“Hurry! Go now!” 
—“Aaarghhh…” 
—“Go, Filvis…Get away.” 
—“Run, Filvis!” 
—“Fil…vis…” 
Her brave and gallant comrades had fallen, one after the other. Even the second-in-command, who was like an older sister to all the younger members in the familia, had been eaten. Even the strongest of them, their leader, was on the verge of being pulled into the spirit’s body as he desperately tried to let Filvis escape. The elf who was the most inexperienced of them all had turned her back as tears streamed down her face. 
 “Help me.” 
But then she’d heard that final murmur. The captain had whispered something that he had tried to hold back so she would not hear. His words gripped her heart. With tears running down her cheeks, she gritted her teeth and turned around to face that repulsive enemy. 
It was the most hideous irony of all. She had proven herself noble and virtuous and pure. However, for that very reason, she had ended up corrupted. 
“Th-that’s…” 
That was the truth of what had happened to Filvis Challia’s body on the day of the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare. As a fellow elf, Lefiya felt her heart ache, as though she had been pitched into the pits of hell. 
“It was not a coincidence that the spirit’s avatar was on the twenty-seventh floor that day. It was drawn by the smell of blood…It was looking for new feelers from the large number of adventurers gathered there,” Filvis said, her voice full of hatred for the sin that the mastermind of the incident, Olivas Act, had committed. 
The dead bodies of the rest of Dionysus Familia had all been implanted with magic stones, but every last one had just turned into lumps of flesh that could do little more than moan incoherently. 
Only Filvis had the compatibility, the strong character to be reborn as a creature. 
“So then…When Mr. Bors and the others saw your despair in Rivira…that wasn’t because you had abandoned your familia…” 
“Yes. It was the anguish in myself for being degraded into a monster.” 
She’d had tattered clothes and hair matted with blood, features that seemed devoid of all life, and she had slowly dragged herself around, trying not to approach anyone. It had all been Filvis’s distress as she wandered around the town like a ghost barely clinging to life, searching for the illusion of her lost comrades, begging to wake up from a nightmare. 
“After that…I tried to kill myself.” 
“…!” 
“Too many times to count. I tried everything I could think of. But…” 
Filvis had not died. She had torn off her arms. She had opened gaping holes in her body. She had hacked at herself. She had burned her body over and over with magic. She had bled herself dry. She had snapped her own neck. She had even tried letting monsters eat her. But she had not been able to end her own life. 
The unbelievable regenerative abilities of a creature forced her to survive the most lethal wounds. 
So then she had tried to scrape out the magic stone and reach the same ashy fate as a hideous monster—but she could not do that, either. 
 Why?! Why?! Why??!! 
The vibrantly colored magic stone in her chest seemed to have control of her body. It would not allow her to deal any fatal wounds. Even when she came to death, her corrupted body would not allow her to cross that final line. 
Filvis had become a feeler, a servant of the corrupted spirit. Her ability to control her own fate had been stolen away from her. 
Finally, the whispers started to echo in her head, the offensive voice of the spirit—the mother who had created this form of her. 
 “Why don’t we get along?” 
 ”What is your name?” 
 ”I want to see the sky.” 
 “Fulfill my wish.” 
Filvis had screamed. She was a proud elf, but she had been degraded into an unsightly monster. This living hell had completely broken her. 
“…!” 
What if I had been in her position? Lefiya thought, but even that threatened to break her heart. But that pain didn’t begin to come close to the pain that Filvis had endured. No one could comprehend her suffering. 
“I developed the cloning magic after I had become this…” 
—I can’t accept what I have become, but I can’t die. 
It could have been a form of escapism or because of her strong desire to be an uncorrupted version of herself. But even that could do nothing to distract her. Filvis became a puppet who did nothing but cry. Her eyes became hollow, and she was filled with darkness as the whispers in her head tormented her—just like Lefiya had been in the aftermath of Filvis’s final moments. 
“You grieve and suffer, but you try to hang on to your pride. You are beautiful.” 
And then. 
“ I love you. I am in love with your beautiful self.” 
Someone loved Filvis as she was. 
“That’s right. I love you no matter what. If you can’t forgive yourself, then—” whispered either a god or a devil. 
“Let’s make all the other children the same as you.” 
The destruction of Orario. The corrupted spirit dominating the surface. If that happened, then the mortal realm would overflow with monsters, and a small handful of chosen people would be turned into creatures by the corrupted spirit, following in the steps of Filvis. After the world had been turned on its head, it would be able to accept the existence of that broken, beautiful, hideous girl. Dionysus had used his sweet words to douse her cracked heart in a poison disguised as the sweetest noble rot wine, wafting like honey. 
“But that’s…?!” Lefiya shouted, unable to endure this confession any longer. 
If the corrupted spirit took control of the world aboveground, people would lose their lives. It was a sinful path that could never be allowed to pass. 
And as she cried out, rage welled up inside her. For the first time, Lefiya felt white-hot anger for a deity—fury at Dionysus for sneaking into Filvis’s helpless soul and whispering sweet, fake words to manipulate her. 
“But to me at that time…his words were salvation.” 
“Gh?!” 
“Lord Dionysus said that he loved me even though I was so unclean. To be able to be with him while achieving his dream…That was the only path I had left.” 
“Miss…Filvis…” 
“Because he was the only one…No one would accept me as I was other than him…” 
However, on the verge of breaking down and with no one else to turn to, Filvis had accepted those sweet words, drunk that forbidden honey. She had joined hands with the devil. 
“You’re a real piece of shit…” 
At the end of a hidden passage, in the chamber filled with columns, Loki cursed Dionysus again, after she’d heard Filvis’s story in his own words. 
“You hurt me, Loki. And after all I did to save my beloved child who was broken in body and spirit,” Dionysus responded, not bothered in the slightest. 
The torches set on the wall surrounding them flickered, casting a shadow on his handsome face. With the characteristic perfect features of the deusdea, he almost looked like an inhuman sculpture. 
“And above all, I praised her. I honored Filvis for sacrificing her familia comrades, living on, and proving the existence of the corrupted spirit with her own body!” 
His voice swelled with passion. He had learned of the existence of the corrupted spirit thanks to Filvis, who had been turned into a creature. And because of that, he had been able to quickly contact the corrupted spirit and bring it over to his side. 
“I was delighted! There was nothing more gratifying! I knew right away it would become the key to my plan—especially since we cannot use Arcanum here!” 
After that, it was just as Loki had deduced. Using Filvis, Dionysus had made contact with the corrupted spirit’s underground forces, with Levis. He had kept moving behind the scenes up until that fateful day to bring his plan to fruition. 
“…Why are you trying to destroy Orario?” Loki asked as Dionysus displayed an exaggerated delight, like an actor performing on a stage. 
Even though you had to kill all your followers. Even though you had to make a puppet of your beloved one. You planned the destruction of Orario while sacrificing everything. What was it for? 
Dionysus was silent for a second. His smile slipped off his lips as he regained his composure. 
“To correct the mortal realm,” he responded. His face resumed a deity’s divine mask. “The mortal realm is impure as it is now. Gods and goddesses are just doing as they please. It is necessary to change things, to return the realm to how it was supposed to be.” 
“How it was supposed to be…?” 
“I’m sure you know, Loki. Unlike the adventurers of today, the heroes of the past did not have any Blessing from the gods when they faced the monsters emerging aboveground.” 
During the Ancient Times, before any deities had descended to the mortal realm, the swarms of monsters flowing out of the big hole invaded the territory of every race, overrunning them. 
It was the darkest hour of humanity, when the most blood flowed. That was what Enyo was looking to achieve by destroying Orario. It was supposed to be a cruel world where monsters rampaged aboveground. 
“Those valiant heroes did not have the protection of any deity, overwhelmed by monsters at first. However, as time passed, they started to resist, and eventually they became able to push back the grotesque hordes!” Dionysus’s calm voice became heated. “They grew! Those children! Those residents of the mortal realm! I won’t deny there were miracles wrought by the spirits sent from the heavens! But those heroes overcame mortal limits with nothing but their own strength!” 
“…” 
“And without borrowing the power of Falna to draw out their potential! With their noble blood and tears and an unyielding will, they cut through that age of darkness!” 
It was true. Even though there were interventions by spirits, the residents of the mortal world had broken free from the monsters’ domination by their own hands, stealing back the land that had been taken from them. In the end, they had pushed the monsters all the way back to the big hole that was the start of it all. And then they had constructed a fortress—the predecessor to Orario—to stop the flow of monsters. 
“…Yeah, that’s right. The children of that time were really monstrous. Just giant clumps of the unknown.” 
These were the great works of the people called “heroes”—an achievement great enough that even the gods watching from the heavens had to acknowledge it. Those chosen people had grown, made great strides, and evolved. It was like a familia leveling up now. They had continued to break out of their shells, growing to accomplish their dearest wishes. 
From the perspective of the modern era, they were some of the most unbelievable Irregulars of the mortal realm. That was the age of heroes, before the arrival of the age of gods. 
“That was Oratoria —pure and unadulterated! The path taken by children! One to which deities should pay the ultimate respect! That was the reason! That was why this mortal realm has no need for deities!” 
He was talking about the start of the Dungeon Oratoria , the true heroes whose names had been added to those epics. To praise that, Dionysus was talking bombastically about destroying Orario, about destroying Babel—the symbol of the gods’ descent to the mortal realm. 
“I don’t care if you call me cruel or self-righteous or evil! I will use any means necessary to open the gates of hell! To manifest that realm of death, for life to shine again, I will return the world to that wonderful era!” 
To reset it all. 
“I will bring this age of gods to an end!” 
This was a perspective that he could hold only as a god. To the mortals enjoying peace around the world, it was incomprehensible, a cruel verdict that they would curse. 
However, that was a divine perspective, too. Because he was a supernatural existence, he loved the children of the mortal realm. It was a form of agape, the ultimate love of a god for man that respected their pure brilliance. There had to be many deities who would express an understanding of that love. And Dionysus announced it with a lofty look, with the clearest of eyes. 
Loki opened her mouth, surer than ever. 
“Liar.” 
As the room fell silent, her voice sliced through the air. 
“You just want to see children screaming and crying .” 
With her vermilion eyes open, she sent daggers to the frozen god with her chilled gaze. 
“You went to the trouble of decorating this place with these murals—proof enough of your rotten core!” 
On all sides, the walls were adorned with ancient murals: People fleeing from monsters. A sea of fire. Lives consumed whole. Destruction and slaughter. Ravishment and chaos. A gruesome feast of death. Scenes of hell, of the underworld. 
They were all rooted in a wild mania. 
It was almost audible if she listened closely: the cries of the people fleeing without any hope, the despair, and the broken laughter of someone who was already beyond fear. In one part of the murals, there were people dancing in wild revelry, praying to the heavens, while beside them, others were gouged open by monsters’ claws and fangs, spewing a fountain of blood. 
It was a vision of hell as the people lost themselves in an unending repetition of screams and laughter. At times, it resembled a violent, intoxicated ceremony from the way they indulged in meat and wine. 
Loki shouted, pointing out that all the tragedies displayed around them were a window into the obsession of the one who had assembled them. 
“You just want to see children running for their lives, crying and shouting, broken. You want to witness an orgia !” 
She could tell because she was a goddess, too. Looking back on Dionysus’s words and actions, on his constructed character, she could easily discount his speech waxing love for the mortal realm. 
Dionysus quietly looked down as Loki rejected his answer. 
“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!” 
And then a complete change came over him. 
“Oh gosh…Guess you’ve figured it all out, huh?” 
When he looked up, there was no trace of the aristocratic god anywhere to be seen. Brushing his hair back with his hand, he twisted his eyes like an animal’s. The gruesome smile adorning his face transfigured his handsome features, making them utterly repulsive. 
Even the devil could not begin to compare with the being standing before Loki. He hacked out a ghastly laugh as his true nature revealed itself. His disguise finally came off completely. 
“Come on, Loki! If you get that far, that’s boring! You don’t know anything about me. We have no past together, yet you still saw through everything!” 
“…!” 
“But you’re right! You were spot-on! There is only one thing I want!” 
Loki was assaulted by a hatred unlike any she had ever felt when she saw the transformed Dionysus. But he paid her no heed as he spread his arms and shouted to the heavens. 
“Ah, orgia ! The sweetest feast of madness!” 
His unsightly face seemed intoxicated, warped. His body trembled in excitement, imagining the exaltation and pleasure that he so desired. 
“Those days before the heroes flourished—when the mortal world was overrun by monsters! That was the best! Their screams could burst eardrums, filling the air as everyone ran in terror from ghastly monsters! My heart always raced as I watched them from the skies above!” 
His cheeks were flushed like a maiden in love. His eyes were full of ecstasy. There was an aberrant lustfulness in his words as he continued his praise. 
“Did you know, Loki? Right after weak and frail children shook off the bonds of reason, they laughed !” 
“!!” 
“A devastating amount of fear turns into a magnificent climax, and their mind and soul are released! They can consume as much meat or wine as they want, but nothing can compare to that ultimate moment of euphoria! It can only occur amid the blood and entrails brought by monster fangs and claws! Those charming young maenads offered their own bodies in sacrifice, giving themselves as an offering to me!” 
Dionysus was a deviant god—a god who delighted in bringing about resentment and derangement, in causing chaos in the virtuous world, in creating an explosion of mystical ecstasy. He was aloof and misunderstood, one who occupied a position that had little to do with the social order. 
Upon finally uncovering his true nature that had stayed hidden until the very end, Loki opened her own eyes in shock. 
“The crazed cries of children are even better than the finest wine!” 
Those who he had arbitrarily declared his maenads were really just young mortal women. It was as if he was saying that the mad chaos spun by those beautiful, innocent people was the ultimate truth of reality. Clenching his right hand that covered half his face, Dionysus cackled. His facial bones creaked under the pressure. It was too sinister a sight. 
“But that paradise came to an end with the arrival of the age of gods!” In a fit of passion, he expressed his discontent. “It’s all Ouranos’s fault! Because that old god made a secret deal and sealed the hole, the monsters’ rampage, that hellish landscape ended! My orgia disappeared!” 
“…That’s why you saw Ouranos as an enemy, huh?” 
“Damn right! That senile old shit is still offering up prayers…! Thanks to him, I could never be satisfied! Even back in the heavens! He always got in my way!” 
His fingers tore through his hair as he spat scornfully. He was the very image of a foolish, egotistical god interested only in his own pleasure. His words housed this single-minded frenzy. The image of the righteous god that he showed to the children of that tranquil neighborhood was nowhere to be seen. 
But at the same time, Loki understood that those were Dionysus’s true feelings. His repeated warnings about Ouranos and general hostility to the old god when he had been drunk were based in his truth, the darkness deep in his heart. In fact, hostility did not begin to do it justice. The truth was that Dionysus loathed Ouranos with a homicidal rage. 
“Ah, speaking of the heavens. Hestia got in my way, too. That stupid goddess…After I worked so hard to draw the other gods into a murderous fight and create an orgia in the heavens…” 
“Gh…!” 
“But…that might have been for the best. If she hadn’t stopped me, I would have been consumed by murder and unable to control myself.” 
He was quiet, as if remembering the distant past, but it lasted only a second. His eyes flared, taking on a new fury. 
“A game?! What game?! No matter how much I tried to kill them, they just keep laughing right up until the end! Deities are deviant beings who can’t feel fear or despair! You bastards could never experience a true orgia !” 
In his eyes, Dionysus’s world was always gray. It always seemed to be blocked off by an enormous obstacle. 
He found it something unlovable, something unfulfilling, something wrong. And because of that, he would bring hell to the mortal realm and create a new orgia . 
“…So basically, you couldn’t start a feast of madness in the heavens, so you tried to re-create it in the mortal realm instead?” 
Monsters flowing out aboveground and the hand of the corrupted spirit were what lay beyond the destruction of Orario. That was Dionysus’s true goal. He was warping the mortal realm for the sake of his own desires. It was to be expected of the works of an evil god. 
“That’s why you took this roundabout path?” 
“Roundabout path? Do you take me for a fool, Loki? If I messed up even a little and used my Arcanum, then it would just end up as if it had never happened, between the other deities and the world’s ability to fix itself—even if the land here was obliterated.” 
“…” 
“If I wanted to achieve my goal using only the power available to me, then by extension, I would have to get rid of every other god besides myself.” 
Making it impossible. Dionysus’s mind was twisted, but he was entirely calm and rational in his reasoning. He could not directly intervene as a god. That was why he had to use only elements that existed in the mortal realm and manipulate things from behind the scenes. He had to bring about the destruction while following all the worldly rules. 
“Let me ask one last question.” 
Loki had been silent for a minute before finally asking something to clear up the remaining fragment of doubt tucked in a corner of her heart. 
“It’s about what you said when we were at the grave where your children were buried. Was that apology…a lie, too?” 
 “From time to time, I come here so I don’t forget this feeling.” 
 “An apology. Nothing more.” 
She was talking about when she had visited the Adventurers Graveyard with Lefiya, Filvis, and Dionysus. Dionysus had laid flowers at his followers’ headstones and offered up an apology. Loki had not doubted his promise. His words and underlying divine will had been the real deal. Even if he was drunk. Even knowing his true nature now. She still could not see that scene as the untruth, which left Loki with a plain and simple doubt. 
“…Don’t misunderstand me. At that time, I was apologizing from the depths of my heart to my children who had died early.” 
A pure smile crossed Dionysus’s face. 
“Yes, those were my sincere feelings for losing their lives carelessly before the promised time. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you up along with Aura and everyone else! Oh, you’ll be so lonely when you’re sacrificed! I’m sorry you weren’t awarded a beautiful death, fulfilling our agreement when you became part of my familia!’ Something along those lines!” 
But then his face twisted grotesquely, appearing almost monstrous. 
Loki clenched her fist audibly. 
“Don’t misunderstand, Loki. I love my children. Just like you do. But I just love them in my own way. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” 
Loki reached her boiling point and passed her limit. She maintained a quiet expression, but inside, she swore an oath in wrath. With her divine will, she promised that she would bring down this god who was an insult to the mortal realm. 
“Filvis is an extension of that.” 
After laughing for a while, Dionysus touched on his one remaining follower. 
“I love it . Maybe more than I love anyone else. Oh, how it despaired at its own existence. Its lamentation was close to destruction…Ah, it does not even pale in comparison to the orgia .” 
“Lord Dionysus did not tell me that Olivas Act had lived on as a creature…” 
A smile appeared on Filvis’s face. It was a self-deprecating smile at her own inability to become a useful puppet. 
“It must have been because he thought I might rebel against him or because he thought it would get in the way of his plan…Either way, I was nothing more than a single cog in the machine to him, to put it nicely.” 
The battle at the pantry on the twenty-fourth floor. Filvis’s shock upon seeing Vendetta Olivas Act had been real. 
On the same day Filvis had become a creature, Olivas had become a hybrid between human and monster. What fate! But Filvis had spent her time mutilating and trying to destroy herself. She had not noticed that the mastermind of the incident had survived. Well, it was better to say that Dionysus had not let her discover it. To carry out his plan to destroy Orario, he could not afford to have conflict among the underground forces. 
“And of all things, that was the day I met you, Lefiya.” 
“!” 
The day that she had set eyes upon the creature Olivas, Filvis’s shock was immeasurable. And a small fissure had formed at that time. She had doubted Dionysus once, and her heart inched away from him. At that very same moment, someone had appeared: the girl named Lefiya Viridis, the one who had called Filvis “beautiful” even though she had been corrupted. Lefiya had no way of knowing just how precious that had been to Filvis on that day. 
“You are not unclean!” 
Without knowing anything, she had enveloped Filvis’s hand in hers. 
Filvis had been avoided by everyone because she was the Banshee. 
But Lefiya had grabbed her hand . 
The hideous beauty had gone as far as to brandish a blade to reject contact with others. Filvis was the girl whose corrupted body only Dionysus would touch. 
But Lefiya had accepted her. 
That changed Filvis’s heart. It was a light in her darkness. 
“At the very least, I wanted you…not to die. That’s what I thought as I carried out Lord Dionysus’s orders.” 
During the destruction of the twenty-fourth floor, she had protected Lefiya even at the cost of her own body. Right before the expedition, she had gone along with Lefiya’s training and shared her magic with her. Without going against Dionysus’s orders, she had continued to protect Lefiya while participating in the assault on Knossos. And then, she had been slaughtered by her clone, in hopes of keeping Lefiya far from the coming battle… 
All her actions behind the scenes as Ein, all her inconsistent behaviors, all of it had been for Lefiya’s sake. 
“Miss Filvis…!” 
When they had been separated from everyone else during the first invasion of Knossos and before the first assault, Filvis had kept trying. She had kept pleading with Lefiya, though she would not explain herself, only begging her “to not die .” She could have forced the matter. She could have knocked Lefiya out and locked her away. There were any number of solutions to this problem. But she had not done any of them. 
“When you told me that the magic I shared with you had saved your friends…I desperately regretted sharing it. But at the same time…I was happy.” 
“!” 
“Because you proved that my magic was something for protecting precious people. I was saved by you, Lefiya. You’re a noble elf, achieving something I could never again do myself.” 
It was because Lefiya had always been Filvis’s hope. For Filvis, for the corrupted, sullying Lefiya’s virtue was the one thing she could not do. The last fragment of Filvis’s elven heart had dulled her judgment to the very end. Her red eyes filled with tears, trembling like the surface of a moonlit lake. 
“…!” 
Faced with Filvis’s fragile and teary smile, Lefiya was hit by yet another torrent of emotions. She was somehow able to squeeze out a response as she braced herself against its impact. 
“Let’s fight together, Miss Filvis! There is still time! One more time! Like we did before…!” 
Her voice was loud as she pleaded with Filvis to abandon Dionysus—to fight together again, if she wanted. This mad wish burned itself into the back of Lefiya’s mind: a dream where they were walking together in the sunlight, exchanging smiles. 
But Filvis responded quietly, as if she had already anticipated that. 
“That’s impossible, Lefiya…” 
“Why…?!” 
“Because I’m Lord Dionysus’s follower…” 
“…But he’s just using you as a pawn! He doesn’t think of you as a follower! Didn’t you just say so yourself?!” 
“…” 
“You’re being deceived!” 
“…I suppose so…I suppose I am.” 
“If you know that, then why are you still…?!” 
Ein’s dark, clouded eyes watched silently as the corrupted girl looked down at the floor. Pressured by Lefiya’s sustained pleas, Filvis was at a loss for words, but she still managed to listlessly shake her head. 
“I can’t…” 
“Why not?!” 
“It’s already too late…” 
“No, it isn’t!” 
At some point, they started to repeat themselves, but this time, Filvis looked up with a decidedly different kind of sorrow. 
“Because you already know my true nature!” 
“!!” 
“You know about my sullied body. My corrupted soul!” 
In the next instant, Filvis’s hand thrust into her chest. Lefiya was at a loss for words as she tore into her skin and peeled it up . As the clothes, skin, and flesh were stripped off her body, blood pumped out, spraying far. The adventurers paled at the sight, and Lefiya saw something as she was frozen in place. In the girl’s chest cavity was a vibrantly colored magic stone, one that was sickening. 
“Lord Dionysus said I was beautiful! He was the only one! He’s the only one who would hold me! Even though my body is like this!” 
Filvis was crying. Her eyes were opened wide. A broken smile crossed her face as tears streamed down her cheeks. 
“Well, Lefiya? You said I was beautiful before, too. How about now? Can you still say that after seeing me like this?!” 
Lefiya saw Filvis’s repulsive inner body, the magic stone and the undulating green flesh. She saw the reality of the defiled girl. Lefiya desperately tried to say something, to express her thoughts about Filvis, but nothing came. 
“—There’s your answer.” The former elf hung her head like a puppet with undone strings. 
“This farce is over, huh,” said Ein, the twin who had quietly watched on from the side. “You don’t have any more regrets. Now there will be no more disruptions to Lord Dionysus’s plan…Oh, Filvis, you fool. Our path was set long ago.” 
Ein soberly handed down Filvis’s fate. 
“Even if he is using you, he loves you. Even if it is twisted, his love is real. He’s the only one who will accept us as we are. Isn’t that right?” 
“…” 
“And what are you even blabbing on about? Rage, despair, hatred…You foisted all of that on me. Quit acting like some tragic heroine. You pushed all the dirty work onto me. You were never as pure as you pretended to be for Lefiya.” 
Ein approached Filvis from behind with wild eyes as she ridiculed the girl, as if claiming her pound of flesh and reopening the wounds. It must have been the effect of the cloning magic—or of her personality. Ein, the second Filvis, had a blackened heart. As if Filvis Challia had separated from her darkness. As if that body had absorbed all her negative emotions. 
“Miss Filvis, please wait! I…!” Lefiya pleaded, trying to stop it. 
“It’s useless, Lefiya.” 
But for the first time, a smile seeped onto Ein’s face. Her lips curled into a sneer as she continued. 
“From the start, we have already killed too many people.” 
“? ” 
Banshee. That nickname wasn’t for nothing. She had killed innocent adventurers who wandered too close to the trail of the corrupted spirit out of curiosity and those who happened to get too close to Enyo’s plan by chance. They had been eliminated in a way to make it seem like an accident. 
All told, it had happened four times. More if she counted the ones who had never been discovered. Her role as a party killer was not some tragic fate. It was something that she had brought on herself. 
“Can you cover for the monster that watched on as Aura’s group died, Lefiya?” 
Ein had even killed members of her familia—the people who had realized that they’d been converted to Penia’s followers. 
“There is no turning back for me,” Ein said, delivering the conclusion in Filvis’s stead. 
There was a small distance between Lefiya and Filvis. If she stepped forward, it would have been closed, but there was something there—an unbridgeable gulf between them. It had become too vast. For their positions were— 
“Let’s begin the fight to the death. I’ll bury you along with all my lingering attachments to this world,” Ein said without any trace of compassion. 
Filvis remained silent, entrusting herself to her copy’s words. Tension ran through the crowd of adventurers, and Lefiya’s heart broke when it was time for the unavoidable battle. 
“Ah, Lefiya—” 
It was Ein who spoke—not Filvis. With a sneer still curling her lips, a tear ran down one of her cheeks. 
“If only I had met you before Lord Dionysus…” 
“? ” 
Time stopped as Lefiya felt the weight of complete powerlessness. The two Filvises did not look back at their fellow elf again as they chanted. 
““At the end of illusion, the spirit returns—forming an unbreakable bond.”” 
They chanted the spell to undo their magic . Both Filvises spoke the name of the spell. 
““Einsel.”” 
There was a flash of light. A gleam that melted black and white together. Lefiya immediately covered her eyes with her arm, but she saw it. Ein transformed into particles of light, absorbed into Filvis’s true body. 
The two silhouettes became one. 
In an instant, a wild rush of magic wind swirled around the chamber. On impact, the blue circlet that bound Filvis’s hair shot off her head. But that wasn’t all. As the two returned the magic power that had been split into the clone, the creature’s flesh—Filvis’s body—became active. Her raven-black hair extended to the ground. The exposed magic stone blinked violently. The overflowing power that she could not keep inside her generated a pale-crimson organ at the center of her chest like roots. It violated her white skin, creating a vessel that covered her body. 
Her eyes became sunken, and her beautiful red irises became a clouded green jasper. Her white skin became sickly pale. And finally, as the tremendous magic howl settled, the particles of light dispersed with the smoke. Everyone was at a loss for words as she slowly lifted her head. 
“Is that…the real Miss Filvis…?” Lefiya murmured. 
Joined with her clone, Filvis was far removed from the girl Lefiya knew. She was the elf eaten away at by despair, the epitome of corruption, the personification of a fallen fairy who had become a monster. 
“…Let’s bring this to an end.” 
There was now a dark tremor in her voice, as if the void were speaking. That was all she said as she stood across from them, her gaze entirely dark. 
“…Get ready, dumbass!” 
“M-Mr. Bete…!” 
With his gray hair swaying, Bete stood in front of Lefiya. 
Though they mixed as well as oil and water, Bete had the longest relationship with Filvis out of anyone in Loki Familia after Lefiya. Knowing her true motives now, the werewolf had nothing more than an intent to kill. He had moved to battle preparations to bury the enemy before his eyes. 
“W-wait, please! There’s still—!” 
“Cut the crap.” 
“…?!” 
“That’s a traitor. An enemy. That’s all it is,” Bete said, mercilessly brushing away Lefiya’s entreaty. 

Bete had watched their discussion without interrupting, only now bringing his own harsh words to bear. They were filled with an anger of a different sort from what he usually expressed. His hostility was intense, and the adventurers who had been standing by watching instinctively readied their weapons. 
“Hey, elf. Hey, traitor, how are you feeling?” 
“…” 
“Me? I’m feeling awful after listening to your sob story.” 
“…” 
“Why bitch about it now?” 
The fact that Bete would bother to berate Filvis before fighting was proof that he was feeling some sort of doubt and anger, because he usually attacked without any questions. He would normally never talk about himself or lend an ear to the nonsense of a weakling. He would just have scorned Filvis’s weakness and cursed the world’s irrationality. The tattoo etched into his cheek warped as he shouted at her at the top of his lungs. 
“I don’t give a shit about your stupid pity party!” 
“…” 
“Just keep festering for the little left of your life!” 
Bete started sprinting, not hiding the annoyance in his howl, winding up to land a full-strength punch on the transformed fairy monster. However, he made a slight miscalculation— 
“—You were always like that, werewolf.” 
The girl in front of him was currently more powerful than he was. 
“?!” 
She easily caught his attack as he bore into her with his whole body, an attack from a Level-6 adventurer. Bete’s eyes were shocked as she caught his fist with a single hand. A tremor of unrest shook the room. With floor-length hair the color of night, Filvis spoke quietly as Bete’s fist creaked. 
“You were always looking down on me…but you never abandoned me.” 
“Gh…?!” 
“You always tried to break down my walls with that foul mouth, trying to encourage me. You are kind .” 
Bete was surprised again at the physical strength he could feel through his fist. Even as she was talking indifferently, her force kept increasing dramatically. He pushed and pulled, but he could not budge her. His amber eyes became bloodshot as it felt like she was trying to crush his fist. 
And then a crack rang out, the sound of the bones in Bete’s fist fracturing. 
“I had always looked down on you for that and mocked you in my heart.” 
She unleashed her power. Clutching his fist, she swung her slender arm, tossing him down with arm strength alone. There was no trace of any refined technique. Yet Bete could not do anything to resist her as he was slammed into the floor. 
“—?!” 
On impact, cracks webbed out on the stone floor, and stone chips bounced into the air as a crater formed where Bete had hit the ground. The shock against his spine left him paralyzed and speechless for a second— 
Letting her long black hair flutter like a wild yaksha’s, she unleashed a simple kick, tearing into Bete’s stomach. 
“Gaaah?!” 
The rough kick landed directly. Coughing up blood, Bete was blown away to the back of the chamber like a piece of trash caught in a tornado. 
“Mr. Be—?!” Lefiya’s scream was cut off because the shadow started moving with an unbelievable speed, rampaging through the rest of the adventurers. 
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!” 
It raised its hands and mowed them down with its arms. That was all it took to finish them off. Armor was shattered. Arms and legs broken. Adventurers cried out as they were swept aside like dust. It was over in the blink of an eye. The shadow passed right by Lefiya, and it felt like a whirlwind tearing at her earlobes. As she felt the wind blow by, Lefiya immediately turned around, but by the time she did that, she was the only one left standing. 
“What?!” Lefiya shuddered. 
“While Einsel is active, my Status is halved ,” Filvis said simply after wiping out all the upper-tier adventurers with her bare hands. 
That was the requirement for activating the cloning magic. Because it was not just an illusion but actually created an entire second self, there was a strict restriction to accompany this incredibly powerful ability: The user was granted only half her Status. 
Lefiya immediately understood what that meant and froze in place. That meant that Filvis, who had worked with Lefiya’s group, and Ein, who had fought with Finn’s crew, had had only half their original strength. Her battle strength was no less than Aiz’s when she was cloaked in wind. That was the true strength of the girl who had become a creature— 
“Ironically, it seems I was made for this…Right now, I’m even stronger than Levis.” 
“? ” 
Lefiya’s thoughts were cut off by that declaration. The implication of those words filled her with despair. 
It was not just Lefiya, either. The adventurers collapsed on the ground. Even Bete was frozen, halfway through struggling to stand up. The strength to handle a Level 6. The movements that had blown away an entire squad of upper-tier adventurers. All of it lent credence to what Filvis was saying. 
“Why did you come, Lefiya? Why did you have to come here…?” Filvis moaned as she looked down. A sorrowful murmur crossed her lips. 
“…?!” 
The green eyes befitting a servant of the corrupted spirit were concealed behind her hair. Her bitter words sounded like a curse. 
“I did everything I could…I even hurt you…I even killed myself to keep you away from here.” 
Immediately after that, the girl-turned-monster raised her head and screamed as tears fell from one eye. 
“I didn’t want to have to kill you!” 
As her emotions boiled over, Filvis turned into a blur. She closed in on Lefiya in an instant. Her fist encased in a metal glove clawed into Lefiya’s stomach, causing blood to burble past her lips. 
“Gah—?!” 
Lefiya had immediately launched herself backward, but despite dampening the impact, Lefiya’s vision was still rocked. The shock felt like an explosion going off inside her body. In an instant, she crashed into the wall. 
“There is no letting anyone go anymore! I can’t let anyone leave alive! For the sake of Lord Dionysus’s wish, I will kill everyone! Everyone!” 
Lefiya rose to her knees as she hacked up blood. As she gazed before her, she saw the creature that was stronger than everyone flailing its hair wildly, tears pouring down its face as it wept. 
“All of it! Everything! All shall perish! Aaaaaaaaaah! ” 
It was the cry accompanying the birth of the strongest monster, the howl marking the beginning of a feast of violence. 
 
They had been forced into an overwhelmingly disadvantageous battle. 
In the chambers spread around the tenth floor, everyone was engaged in combat. 
While the main bodies of the demi-spirits were continuing their chant apace, the three faces on the pillars’ lower halves were activating the spirit altar’s magic and rapidly launching wave after wave of spells at the adventurers. 
It was a literal storm of attacks. The chain of flashes containing the power of each element poured down on everyone indiscriminately. Dealing with high-powered magic from all angles was a first even for the top-tier adventurers, and it created a hell that could not be just described as “the unknown.” It was far more threatening than the Dragon’s Urn below the Dungeon’s fifty-second floor. 
In the blink of an eye, the comrades who were running were blown away. In the very next moment, a party up front was completely dashed from view. In the middle of hell, the adventurers howled. Even knowing they would be lost in the thunderous boom from magic, they screamed with their entire body and spirit, leaving behind their friends who had fallen to break through the enemy’s barrage and take down the altar’s defense mechanism. Encased in stout armor, their bodies pooled with blood and tears. 
They pushed on—even as the advance was blown apart. Mages chanted even as their staff and arm were blasted away. The adventurers were paying a horrific toll, shaving away at their lives as they continued to attack. 
“Eat this! Aaaaah! ” 
The fourth squad. 
Tiona’s Urga landed. Her whole body was covered in burns, and smoke was coiling off her skin, but she managed to land a heavy blow to the left-most face on the spirit altar, slicing through its thick lips. Once there, she unleased a reckless rain of attacks with Urga. It looked almost like a dance, or perhaps like a spinning top. 
Using both her Skills, Berserker and Intense Heat, to create a combo attack with maximum output, Tiona immediately carved away at the giant face, creating dozens of huge gashes. 
“Graaaar?!” 
The spirit altar’s left face coughed up a stream of blood as it cried out its death throes. In an instant, it suddenly swelled, popped, and then scattered. Tiona had broken the magic stone of the Treent at its core. 
“Raaaaaaaaah!” Tione quickly followed up. Her body was just as wounded as her little sister’s; she jabbed with her twin Zolas, obliterating the right face with her fists of steel charged with fury. 
“ ? Gh!” 
“Aaargh?!” 
“Damn it! After all we did to break it…!” 
The two Amazons were pushed back from the spirit altar by the central face that screamed as it swung its enormous tentacle. Its defense mechanism was half-destroyed. But to make up for that, the remaining face redirected its resources to dealing with intruders in passages to the chamber, focusing its attention on exterminating the troublesome ants. It howled with rage as it unleashed a rain of magic. 
“Healing droplets, tears of light, eternal sanctuary—!” 
Even in a formation that didn’t afford them any protection, the healers did not stop their casts. On a battlefield that would inevitably end with annihilation, the only reason the adventurers could still keep fighting was because of the efforts of the healers of Dian Cecht Familia —because they continued to chant for recovery until their throats were rubbed raw, because of their well-timed use of items. The adventurers managed to maintain their battle lines, and all the parties were managing to cling to life. If it were not for them, Tiona and Tione’s squad would have long ago bitten the dust. 
“Aaaah?!” 
“Amid?!” 
Amid’s pure-white magic circle flickered. The enemy’s magic had landed right at the feet of the girl who was practically maintaining the entire squad’s constitution by herself. Dea Saint had the frightening ability to sustain a battlefront by herself, but even she could not continue healing at this scale if she was being attacked herself. The tanks protecting the healers had reached their limit, which would mark the beginning of the end. As the adventurers holding up big shields steadily lost their strength, Amid started getting exposed to the enemy’s barrage, along with the healers in the back lines. 
“Gareth, the healers are down! This is bad!” 
“Damn it! Gimme a shield!” 
The same scene was playing out elsewhere. In Gareth and Tsubaki’s third squad, the healers had taken the brunt of a blast, forcing Gareth to fall back from the front lines to handle the defenses. 
“Lady Riveria?!” 
“Don’t leave my defenses!” 
In the second squad, Riveria activated her defensive barrier and endured the full artillery assault. However, she could not counterattack while she was turtled up, defending against the monstrous magic attacks from every direction. Riveria’s jade eyes focused on the spirit altar as she analyzed the situation. She understood that trying to challenge the spirit altar with its enormous reserves to a test of endurance would end only in defeat. 
It was not a coincidence that the healers were being targeted on each battlefield. 
The colossal magic circle and the six pillars of the spirit altar connected by that circle had a singular mind. Upon discovering the heart of the adventurers’ resistance, the defense system prioritized aiming at it. The three faces learned the subtleties of the battlefield quickly, inorganically, smiling, raging, weeping—as they turned their nigh-unlimited magic power into spells to launch at the adventurers’ back lines. 
“It’s no good, Lido! The trolls can’t hold on any longer!” the red-cap goblin warned. 
“Damn it…! We’re all monsters here, right?! We should be fighting with claws and fangs, not magic!” Lido said as he wildly swiped the blood from his face with an arm that had lost most of its scales. 
The only squad that had not been affected by the spirit altar’s focus on the back lines was the Xenos’s sixth squad. However, because they did not have any healers to begin with, they had less ability to recover than the adventurers, leaving them already in worse shape than any other squad. 
They were running out of the elixirs made by Fels to heal up Wiene the vouivre and all the other monsters with lower combat abilities. 
“Where the hell did Fels take Gros anyway?!” 
The lizardman cried out, telling the gargoyle to hurry up and get back as the enemy’s rain of magic continued without pause. 
The spirit altar was more militant than imaginable. To the first-tier adventurers of Loki Familia and Tsubaki, they estimated the six pillars’ abilities to be lower than those of the demi-spirit in the unexplored territory of the fifty-ninth floor, but they also noticed the labyrinth itself that made up the altar provided an effectively inexhaustible supply of magic. Like the passages covered in green flesh, the pillars had a regenerative ability to recover if they were wounded. Even though most of the magic power was being used for the spell to destroy the city, the spirits’ vitality was extraordinary, and to top it off, they even had a petal armor protecting their bodies. The spirit’s actual body was protected from a knockout blow. 
The only effective place to aim was the three Treents whose magic stones were embedded in their faces, but now that their collective consciousness recognized the adventurers were aiming for that, they were on guard against those targeted attacks. Between battlefields, they had managed to take out two of them, but they could not finish the final face. 
The assault coming from all directions was menacing to say the least. With the aid of the spirit cloths, the adventurers could barely hold their ground, but it took all they had to maintain this position. With the healers starting to fall, the moment of annihilation crept closer. 
“Captain! This is the fifth squad! We can’t attack the target!” 
“…!” 
“Even if all five other spirits are taken down, if there is still one left…!” 
They were short on forces. There was a decisive lack of firepower. Because they had been split into five squads, each group of adventurers was lacking in power to break through the monster’s defenses, and Bete’s fifth squad had been split in half. As she came through the oculus to Finn, Anakity sounded uneasy. 
“The tanks have been wiped out!” 
“Captain, we can’t defend against the magic! If Amid gets taken out, we…!” 
“Do any squads have anyone to spare?! Can anyone back us up?!” 
A variety of different voices echoed through the oculi as their forces encountered problems on every front. The reports coming in almost sounded like cries for help as they merged with the shouts of adventurers from behind Finn. 
As the overall commander, Finn was trying to maintain control of six different boards at once. While listening to the unending stream of reports, he gave accurate commands to battlefields that he could not see, all while still maintaining control of his own fight with the first squad. He was effectively playing chess blindfolded on five different boards even as he wielded his spear and crossed blades with the enemy before his eyes. 
It was a deific level of multitasking. He must have been the only one in all of Orario who could pull off that kind of stunt. However, it also put an extremely heavy burden on Finn. 
“Gh…!” 
The spray of the lightning blast singed his cheek as he slipped past it. He continued firing off orders without a break, even as his lungs screamed for oxygen. His breathing was ragged, and he could not get it under control. 
His body begged him to activate Hell Finegas as it started to lose its luster, but Finn immediately dismissed that option. If he turned into a berserker now, the squads on every battlefield would lose their commander. That would mean defeat for their alliance of forces. In something as insane and menacing as an entire labyrinth, the adventurers were all relying on Finn for support. 
A bead of sweat trickled down Braver’s cheek as he kept revising the situation for each squad in his head and firing off order after order. 
“…Overlap your attacks! If it’s focusing fire on the back lines, then the barrage hitting the front lines has to let up some! I’m calling all squads! I don’t care how you do it, but crush that defense system!” 
He was laying out a command to attack together. 
Throwing his spear, he pierced one of the faces on the lower pillar, but the return fire of magic was immediate. The soldiers were putting their faith in him, but their morale wavered like candlelight in the wind. 
 
While the adventurers were struggling on a battlefield out of sight, there was a change aboveground. 
“What is that?! What’s happening?!” 
On her way back from her part-time job, Hestia noticed something—a red ray of light rising from the ground. It was dim, but as time passed, the amassing rays shone from crevices in the stone pavement, from below buildings, and from the sewers. Polluted by an odious red fog, the dark-blue night sky was nowhere to be seen. 
“And…do I hear a song?” 
Accompanying the fog, a singing voice seemed to reach her ears. It was distant, but the tone seemed like a calming lullaby to put everything to sleep. Or maybe it was more like a solemn requiem to purify all. There was a destructive intention hidden behind its melody. 
The song resounding belowground had finally started to be transmitted aboveground, too. 
“No way. Is this…a chant?” 
Right when Hestia murmured to herself, there was a commotion nearby. The wave spread through the crowded streets, taverns, and other shops, caused by the mysterious light that was visible for all to see. 
Adventurers and deities realized behind the scenes that “that time” had come. However, the adventurers were blown away by the scale of what was happening, and the deities recognized just how bad it was as it dawned on them that this was no joke. 
Six singing voices merged in the red rays of light, a dissonant sound accompanying the warning bells. There were tremors rocking the ground. The singing was starting to melt into the earth beneath them. They finally noticed the footsteps of destruction that were hidden in the shadow of the tranquility that had cloaked the city, and panic began to spread. 
“What is this? Why do I have a feeling that this is really…reaaally bad?” 
Hestia started to sweat, expressing what all the deities were feeling at that moment. 
“Ouranos, we’re at our limit! We can’t hide it from the residents anymore!” 
The city’s core, Guild Headquarters, was intense with bustling bodies as Royman’s ragged voice echoed in the underground altar. 
The head of the Guild, who had worked together with every familia and secretly taken the lead in supporting the second assault on Knossos, looked ghostly pale. To avoid unnecessary panic, he had not told the lower-level members of the Guild what was going on, but that selective information was threatening to lead to the worst possible result. Royman’s overweight body was drenched in sweat as he barged in, but Ouranos remained silent, staying in his seat. 
“…” 
There was one last oculus sitting within reach of his hand, but it had not yet buzzed with victory cries. It had not made any noise at all— 
 
“It’s too late…Dionysus’s plan was perfect,” Demeter cried. 
Watching from her second home in the mountains, she saw Orario transforming into a different realm. From a distance, it was clear to behold. There were crimson waves emanating from the ground around Orario. They even enveloped the city walls. From a distance, the innumerable red rays of light rising into the sky looked like a prison surrounding the city. 
It was as though the city itself was being transformed into a magic circle. 
The monstrous spirit’s ring taking shape underground was emerging on the surface. The final countdown was closing in on them. 
Defeat in this battle would mean the destruction of the Labyrinth City as prelude to the complete annihilation of the mortal realm. And as Orario approached its fate, Demeter was overcome with grief. She crumpled into tears. 
“Because of my weaknesses…because of my betrayal…the city…the whole mortal realm is going to be destroyed,” she sobbed out, as if confessing her sins. 
The night air carried a warm breeze from the direction of the illuminated city, causing the balcony to sway slightly. 
With no more reason to hide themselves, the members of Hermes Familia were standing there, gazing at the city, unable to move as the crimson scenery filled their vision. 
As Demeter and the adventurers watched, it looked like Dionysus’s plan of destruction was about to reach its completion. 
“No,” Hermes said. “Not yet.” 
 
A violent crash jostled Knossos. It was the aftershock of the extreme artillery blitz the spirit pillars were still firing at the adventurers. 
That tremor was incomparable in power to the aftershocks of the ritual that were being felt aboveground. The green flesh continued to undulate, and the visible magic circle running along the floor of the passages was glistening. 
Amid all that, a single shadow appeared noiselessly. 
“—I’m a little ashamed to be able to move around in secret while Braver and Lido and the rest of them are fighting for their lives…” 
Fels appeared like a ghost, dropping the reversible veil, which granted invisibility to its user, much like another item maker’s handiwork. Following the instructions that Finn had provided before the operation, Fels had been moving around Knossos alone. To accomplish those orders, the mage had made liberal use of magic items, avoiding not just sight but each and every manner of detection. Because of that, Fels had not been noticed by the green flesh or exposed to the bombardment of magic, despite moving all around through the depths of the labyrinth. 
“But thanks to that, I found it.” 
Fels was in a stretch of a passage that seemed absolutely ordinary. However, looking closely, the lines of the magic circle on the floor were entangled, merging with a side path, gathering by the keystone. 
“There are several points on the tenth floor where the magic circulates. This is the last one.” 
All told, there were eight locations. Using Daedalus’s Notebook, the blueprint of Knossos, and the information about the composition of the spirits’ ritual gathered from the gods, the mage had quickly found the targets. 
They were the hearts that circulated magic through the altar, so to speak. 
“With the six demi-spirits at its core, this won’t stop the ritual to destroy the city, but—” 
Small gold and silver orbs scattered along the lines of the magic circle. The mage in the black robe matter-of-factly proceeded with the preparations, and finally, a black glove clenched around a magic stone. 
“—I can at least disturb the altar covering Knossos.” 
And then the mage set off an explosion, smashing a jewel. A crest shone on the black glove, igniting a ray like a lightning bolt and blasting into the magic filling Knossos. 
In the next instant, all eight points were consumed in a giant explosion, knocking out the hearts. 
“?!” 
The demi-spirits’ real bodies all reacted, looking up as one as they realized the change that had occurred inside the altar. The synchronized explosions that Fels had set off in the hearts had temporarily blocked off the pipes circulating the magic. The supply of magic power to all the altar had been severely disrupted. 
“Braver, I’ve finished up on my end.” 
“—! Really?!” 
“The chambers housing the main bodies of the demi-spirits won’t run out of magic, but the same can’t be said for everywhere else.” 
The spirit altar was attempting to repair the hearts as quickly as possible. But all the circulatory features had been destroyed at the same time. Even if it tried, it would not be able to distribute the magic power well enough, and it would slow down its process. 
And because most of the magic power was relegated to recovery, the storm of magic blasts hitting each squad would be forced to weaken. 
However, that was just a convenient side effect. 
“With this, the obstacles that might hinder our follow-up have been removed, just like we planned.” 
Fels spoke into the oculus. 
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Ouranos. The time has come.” 
 
“Huh?” 
“I said ‘not yet,’ Demeter. It’s far too soon to give up.” Hermes tipped the brim of his hat up with his finger. “The wedge has been shoved in. Now is when Ouranos will give his order.” 
His eyes narrowed, and a smile appeared on his face. 
“They’re going to move now. All our forces. ” 
 
“It’s here, huh?” 
The exchange with the mage was short. Ouranos opened his eyes. 
“Send in all the forces.” 
As he stopped wailing, Royman hurriedly knelt in acknowledgment and dashed out of the Chamber of Prayers, conveying his master’s divine will through the city. 
“Go, Ottar.” 
The queen’s order was quiet. 
“—Milady!” 
And the warrior’s response was short, as if he had been awaiting that command from her. There was no doubt in his eyes. Behind him, the chariot’s silver spear shimmered. The four prums’ weapons chattered like a beast’s fangs. The black-and-white fairies’ weapons gave off a bewitching gleam. 
They were all filled with militance—the fighting spirit of the goddess’s followers who devoted themselves to the pursuit of being the strongest. 
“F…Freya Familia …” someone murmured. 
As panic enveloped the city, the strongest army gathered in Central Park at the base of Babel, imposing and inspiring. The scene caused the residents who had been thrust into confusion by the mysterious red light to forget their fear and agitation for a moment. 
Standing before the strongest warriors was the embodiment of the world’s beauty, with her silver hair swept up by the wind: Vanadis, the Goddess of Life and Death, Battle and Victory. It was almost like a page had been taken out of myth and brought to life. The scene was burned into the eyes of the onlookers. 
“Th-they’re here!” 
“Freya Familia really came!” 
The reserve force from Ganesha Familia cheered the appearance of the goddess’s army of more than eighty troops, counting those who were not first-tier adventurers. The reserve force had been desperately hoping for the appearance of the reinforcements, causing a stir: a quarter in awe and three-quarters joy. 
“With the stage set with precision…there’s no way we wouldn’t come,” Freya said. 
The goddess’s eyes narrowed in amusement as she watched her followers descend the stairs from the tower while basking in the roars of Ganesha Familia ’s reserves. 
“To think Braver himself would come to me,” she marveled as she reflected on their meeting that had occurred after the end of the strategy meeting with the others, including Shakti and Fels. 
“Goddess Freya, I’d like you to hear my request.” 
The prum had gone directly from the meeting room on the thirtieth floor of Babel to its highest floor, apologizing for the sudden visit before he had gotten straight to the point. 
Freya could not help but be intrigued and a little surprised when he had causally explained that Loki was very busy, which was why she couldn’t make it here and why he had come directly himself. Finn was not so foolish as to fail to recognize what it meant for the leader of a hostile faction to enter Freya’s castle without any protection. 
“I’m sure that Hermes’s letter has reached you, so you should understand the situation.” 
It was true that there was a letter in Freya’s hands. It was one of several that Hermes had left with Asfi to be delivered to several groups of reinforcements. Basically, it was “an invitation to the banquet where the fate of the mortal realm will be decided.” 
But Freya had no intention of heeding Hermes’s request. She had no interest in being dragged around by another god’s divine will. She would use her forces at her own leisure and intended to take down Knossos in her own time. She would wipe out the vermin infesting her garden, but she would do it herself. 
“You are going to tell me that you can win on your own, I’m sure. Even still, I would ask you to please fight together with us.” 
“!” 
“That way, we can be absolutely certain that we defeat this enemy. And most importantly, we can win this battle where there will be no wealth or glory to be won,” Finn said grandly. “There are those of us who have sworn to protect the innocent people in this city and those of us who have sworn to protect this place where they belong. But whatever the motivations, we must win this together with everyone.” 
For the sake of lost comrades. For revenge for those who had died. Finn left those other reasons unspoken as he boldly stood before Freya. 
“That became clear the moment the enemy chose the name ‘city destroyer.’” 
From Freya’s side, Ottar’s rusty eyes watched on as Finn faced the goddess. 
“Like the heroes of the past who brought peace to the mortal realm, we are going to weave together another Oratoria .” 
Freya was silent as the room fell quiet, but there was a smile on her lips. 
“Braver. You’ve changed.” 
The old Finn would never have spoken of something as idealistic as the Oratoria created by the true heroes. Even though Finn was one of Loki’s children, Freya still understood his true nature. But Finn just shrugged and grinned back. 
“It is hard to become the real hero the gods wish for,” he responded fearlessly. 
“This is not for Loki but out of respect for your honor, Braver. I shall heed your request. That child came before me all alone and demonstrated both the resolve to achieve victory and the temperament befitting a hero…To fail to acknowledge that would render me more naked than an emperor with new clothes.” 
In addition to love, heroism and bravery were some of Freya’s most valued things. And because Finn had so embodied both, Freya had given him her word—for the sake of a united victory. 
“Ganesha? Loki’s vanguard has already cleared the path to the demi-spirits. So my children can just hit them to their hearts’ content…Correct?” 
“I am Ganesha, the one who rises to the situation when the city is in danger! Because we are Ganeshaaaa! ” 
“Ganesha?” Freya’s eyes narrowed coolly. 
“Yes, that’s correct!” The god behind the elephant mask dropped his needlessly excited boasts and snapped to attention. 
She smiled at the cat person beside her. 
“That’s all there is to do, so I’m asking you as well, Allen.” 
“…” 
“Or are you still going to throw a tantrum?” 
“…I will not. If you say that prum has demonstrated the capacity of a hero, then I will demonstrate an even greater allegiance to you.” 
As Freya’s smile widened, Vana Freya, Allen Fromel, readily obeyed. His silver spear rang as he charged into the Dungeon ahead of everyone else. 
Ottar watched as he slipped from view with an unbelievable speed, an almost visible aura of the desire to fight around him, and then the boaz called out with a booming voice. 
“The goddess loathes rotten flowers! Do you know what that means?” 
“Raaah!” 
“The goddess did not extol us but Braver! Do you understand what that means?!” 
“—Raaaaah!” 
The taciturn warrior spurred on the warriors whose utmost desire was their goddess’s favor. The Goddess of Beauty’s followers roared again, the flames of militancy fanned even higher by the respect she had paid to Braver. As the goddess lovingly looked on, the Warlord raged. 
“We are going to exterminate the weeds wreaking havoc on our goddess’s garden! Let’s go!” 
“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” 
A thunderous shout roared out. Vowing an unshakable, absolute victory, the strongest army moved out. 
“Heh-heh-heh…Heh-heh-heh-heh! What a wonderful night!” 
As the adventurers’ terrific shouts rang out under the sky, a young girl—a goddess—licked her lips in anticipation. 
“A supreme night filled with the battle cries of powerful warriors!” 
Eyes peered out from the holes in a mask and through wavy red hair. Kali trembled in excitement as she looked to the sky and clapped. In her hand was the same letter that Freya had received. Granted the ability to enter the city freely—Asfi had arranged for the city gates to be opened—the goddess turned back to her followers and shouted. 
“This will be the greatest feast! To make up for a fight against Freya! Let’s run wild!” 
“Yes, Kali.” 
“Wait for me, Finn—the strong male who defeated me!” 
The twin Amazons with sandy hair had responded. The younger Bache was calm, while the older sister Argana was overcome with excitement—of a different sort. The two of them were gone as quickly as the wind, and the rest of the warriors of Telskyura followed. 
“Ra wehga! Ra wehga! Ra wehga!” 
We are the true warriors. 
Paying no heed to the red rays of light dancing through the city, they raised a battle cry and rushed down the streets like wild beasts, causing the residents to dive to the sides of the road in an effort to avoid them. 
The intensity caused Ganesha Familia to panic a little as they directed the Amazonian reinforcements into the transformed Knossos— 
“You think we’ll lose to Kali?! Let’s go!” 
“RAAAAAAH!” 
Not wanting to lose to their fellow Amazons from Telskyura, Antianeira Aisha Belka and the Berbera of the former Ishtar Familia roared on Daedalus Street. 
After getting wrapped up in the incident caused by Valletta Grede and the Evils, they had been saved by Loki Familia . The hot-blooded Amazons had come to repay their debts and reclaim their honor. 
“Let’s go quickly, Aisha! To rescue Bete Loga!” 
“To save the city, you mean. Sheesh, didn’t that werewolf tell you to stay back?” 
“Like I would listen to him in a situation like this!” 
As Lena got particularly wound up, she spun her scimitar over her head. Aisha was exasperated, but the girl just smiled. 
“What kind of woman can’t protect her man?!” 
“Everyone’s getting all worked up…” Lulune the chienthrope grumbled to herself as she covered one of her ears to dampen the thundering shouts pouring out of the oculus in her other hand. 
“Well, shall we go quietly?” 
Inside, the Dungeon was filled with the same red rays of light, rocked by the same tremors as aboveground. 
While the other adventurers were turning pale and scrambling to escape to the upper floors, she turned to her companion. 
“I’m counting on you this time, Miss Helper.” 
“Yes, I’ll make up for the trouble I caused before.” 
The masked adventurer nodded quietly as she readied the gear that Hermes Familia had provided. 
The forces gathered, churning, becoming an amalgamated mass. 
Thanks to Ouranos’s order, Hermes Familia ’s influence, and Braver’s oath, every last influential force met up in Knossos—to save the adventurers who were already fighting and to defeat the evil that would destroy the city. 
The trail that Loki Familia had blazed would come to fruition on this night and become the blade to save the city. 
“Wh-what was that? Those voices sounded different from a panic…” 
Hestia froze in the middle of the street and looked left and right when she heard the battle cries. The Goddess of the Hearth could not grasp the subtleties of the battlefield, so she was confused at first, but she finally realized she was hearing the roars of adventurers: the battle hymn of the gallant people who charged to take down the danger threatening them all. 
Standing among the residents who had been kept in the dark, Hestia could feel the breaths of the people who embarked to fight in secret. 
“…Sheesh, and I already said I’d had enough of dangerous things…” 
After a little bit, Hestia pursed her lips. 
“Is it really going to go according to Hermes’s plan?” 
 
“That’s right. The world wants heroes.” 
In a place removed from the Labyrinth City, Hermes stared off into the darkness and murmured in his way. 
“Hermes…?” 
“There weren’t enough pieces on the board, so I had to play the ace up my sleeve. Even with all our forces gathered.” 
He was not facing Demeter, who looked bewildered, as he continued to speak, as though he was talking to himself. 
“To drive away darkness, you need a bright light. A resounding bell to save the chosen ones. The final hero who will someday shoulder the promised era.” 
The breeze caught his words and carried them toward the city where the battle was unfolding. His words could have been a realized prophecy. It was indefinite, vague self-righteousness. The words of an oracle, tinged with longing, conveying something that he alone could see. 
“The truth is, I wanted to keep this in reserve, but…I don’t see any other way around it. In a battle that will never be sung in the epics, please save the world—this one time.” 
And then Hermes smiled, like a child reading an unequalled tale. 
“For the sake of the world—I am playing the joker.” 
 
“Is this okay?” asked the final reinforcements quietly. 
“Yes, go ahead.” Asfi nodded in response to the young boy. 
They were in the dark Labyrinth District. As the voices of the other reinforcements surged, the final hero who Hermes sought was looking down at the hole leading into the distant abyss. 
“Sheesh. Getting into risky business right after we got back from the expedition…I mean, what can we even do down there?!” 
“It’s a mission, so there’s no choice but to go, Li’l E.” 
“Yes. Besides, if we can be of any assistance, we should help.” 
“I heard Miss Aisha’s voice…Let’s go.” 
Four more voices spoke up. In appearance and scale, this group was clearly inferior to the other reinforcements, and yet to Asfi, they looked more reliable than anyone. They had grown. The familia led by the boy her patron god called the “final hero.” 
“Orario is in danger. Miss Aiz and Loki Familia are already fighting. And I want to help them.” 
His determination was met with smiles from three of them, and the remaining prum girl nodded begrudgingly. 
He had white hair—the color of virgin snow. It rustled in the wind. His rubellite red eyes were filled with determination. His arm wasn’t fully healed, but he could manage to move it. 
The joker. The incomplete hero. Bell Cranell. 
He joined the fray with Hestia Familia . 
“Let’s go.”