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

PROLOGUE A MID-SPRING NIGHT’S DREAM 

Her vision trembled. 
A sound buzzed in her ears. 
The moment she realized what had caused the shock and constant tremors in her body, the first thing she felt was nausea. 
A murderous roar echoed around her as the sound of hundreds of thousands of feet shook the earth. 
The world of stone and rock quivered along with that distant bellow. The blue sky and the light of the sun seemed so far, far away through the iron latticework of her small window. All she could smell in the cold, dank room that served as her prison was the stench of mold and rust. 
Abandoned in a corner of the room sat her two cutlasses, blades clinking as she waited for her turn. 
The scene changed. 
Suddenly, her field of view shrank—she was wearing a mask. Before her stood an odious gate, light filtering through its bars. The moment she passed through it, leaving the darkness behind, she found herself enveloped in a thunderous cacophony of screams and shouts. All around her, spectators howled as she stepped into the arena. 
She saw her enemies come charging from the opposite gate, and she rose to face them, weapon gripped tightly as she sprinted forward. 
Each opponent was different from the last as they came one after another. First, a pack of white wolves, saliva dribbling from their mouths in great heavy globules; then, a cudgel-wielding gladiator; and after that, a chained dragon—finally, there was a girl just like her. Weapons collided, but in the end, it was she who was left standing. 
As her fallen opponent lay at her feet, around her the arena erupted as the sun blazed overhead. 
“—Se wehga! Se wehga! Se wehga!” 
Shouts in a language that wasn’t Koine poured down on her. 
The praises of her fellow female warriors engulfed her as the twilit sky trembled and shook. 
Face turned up toward the heavens, she lost herself in that never-ending sea of red. 
The scene changed. It always did. 
She saw the blurred smile of a goddess. 
Then a female warrior was looking down at her, beating her into the ground over and over. Laughter rang loudly in her ears. 
Excitement mixed with rage in an endless frenzy. 
Within those emotions was a mumbled scream and splattered blood. 

On the gleaming surface of the weapon, she could see her own eyes blurring. 
Still it repeated, over and over, as the world faded around her. 
That was when she glanced down, only to see her own hands, stained the deepest red— 
Then Tione woke up. 
 
“…Great,” Tione murmured as she stared up at the ceiling of her room in Twilight Manor. 
It was dark inside, and the world outside her window was still dim. Glancing in the direction of her clock, she saw that the short hand had only just passed four. 
“Haven’t even gotten any decent rest since the expedition…” 
She frowned, a crease rising to her brow as she continued to stare listlessly at the ceiling, eyes heavy. 
All of a sudden—boof! 
A pillow arced toward her. 
She quickly snatched the cushion out of the air. 
Sitting up without so much as a noise, Tione turned to where her sister currently slept soundly, spread-eagled on her own bed with the blanket kicked off. This was Tiona. 
That innocent face, that unconscious pillow toss—Tione felt anger bubbling up inside her. She chucked the pillow back at her snoozing sister. But even in her sleep, the younger Amazon was able to deflect the shot with ease. 
Tione clicked her tongue in annoyance as her projectile simply tumbled across the bedding. 
“…She hasn’t changed at all,” she muttered, half in jealousy and half in irritation, as she glanced over at her sister’s serene face. “Guess I’ll take a shower or something…” 
With a long sigh, she slid out of bed. 
Then, grabbing a change of clothes and dressed in nothing but her undergarments, she made her way out of the room. 
“Tioneeee…mmghh…” 
Mere minutes later. 
Tiona rolled over in bed, her sister’s name on her lips as the very same dream invaded her own thoughts.