CHAPTER 3 UNSHED TEARS
The slight chill brushing across his skin was his morning wake-up call.
“…”
Bete slowly opened his eyes to find himself next to the window. As he went to move his limbs, stiff from staying in the same position all night, he noticed the blanket that had been draped across him. Glancing farther down toward the carpet below, he saw Lena fast asleep, her breaths soft, deep, and even. On top of the velvet chair nearby was a bowl of soup with a few vegetables breaking the surface, along with a meat sandwich—the dinner she must have made last night.
Gazing for a moment at the now ice-cold meal, he brought a spoonful of the soup to his mouth.
“Blech…” he half whispered before giving the rock-solid bread a nibble as well.
Still munching on the stale bread, he gave the girl at his feet, currently curled up like a cat in her blanket, a kick.
“Gwuaaah!” she yelped in surprise.
“It’s time for that info you promised,” Bete demanded, now out in the back garden (sorry as it was) and dousing himself over the head with a bucket of water. The werewolf had stripped to the waist, and more than a bit of drool had pooled in the mouth of the young Amazon watching nearby.
“Huh? Ah! I, uh…S-sure! Right!” Lena sputtered out, red-faced, before bringing herself back to the present. “It’s, well, you see…Phryne and the other girls were always pushing me around, right? Sending me running all over the temple on this errand or that. Well, one day, that old frog tasked me with something really crazy! ‘Find me Lady Ishtar’s weak point!’ she said.” Her impression of the toad-like woman in question left something to be desired as she watched Bete give his skin and ears a rough rubdown with his towel. “’Course I knew I’d be skinned alive if I was caught, so I waited until Lady Ishtar was out one day and snuck into her room…where I just so happened to catch sight of a hidden door that’d been left ajar.”
“Hidden door?”
“Yeah! And behind it was all sorts of crazy stuff—gorgeous veils, golden crowns! It musta been Lady Ishtar’s secret vault. But anyway…That’s where I saw it. On top of the desk in there was a small box, and inside the box was this little ball thing made of ingot. Definitely some sort of magic item.”
Bete’s ears perked up at this, and he threw a glance in Lena’s direction.
“I didn’t see if it had any kinda symbol or whatnot on it, but…Was the ball you’re looking for made of a silvery type of metal? ’Cause this one was made of mythril, and it sure sounds like the same one from your drawing.”
“What’d you do after you saw it?”
“Erm…I got caught by Tammuz. He was our vice captain. And you should have seen the look he gave me! Chased me right out of the room demanding that I ‘forget everything I saw.’ He’s normally pretty quiet unless he’s dealing directly with Ishtar, so I guess he decided to let me go, but…” She gave a little shiver from where she was seated cross-legged atop a nearby box, no doubt reliving the memory in her head.
“So this Tammuz fella. Where’s he now?”
“Haven’t seen him since Freya Familia attacked us…Considering he was Lady Ishtar’s right-hand man, I wouldn’t be surprised if he followed her up to Heaven, so to speak…”
“Which means…that thing’s probably still there.”
“Yeah, either in Lady Ishtar’s secret room or in Tammuz’s room.”
This news got Bete thinking.
While there was no guarantee Ishtar or Tammuz hadn’t taken it with them (or at the very least removed it from that room), there would certainly be value in checking it out.
Now that his head was considerably clearer after the cold water and crisp morning air, Bete made up his mind with a soft “Let’s do this!” He would head toward the palace towering in the distance—Belit Babili.
“Hey, hey, hey! It’s all right if I come, too, isn’t it, Bete Loga? I mean, it’d probably be pretty difficult to find that secret room without me there, huh?”
“…Whatever.”
“Yippee!”
Bete shot the now happily spinning girl a sidelong glance as he shook off the remaining water on his skin and slipped his battle jacket on again. And then he was off, leaving behind the high-class brothel with chipper Amazon in tow.
“You never went back there after your familia went under, huh?”
“Well, everything in the familia vault got evenly distributed out to all its members, you know? ’Cause Ishtar Familia had a lot of girls who weren’t fighters. And everything got pretty crazy what with Aisha trying to take care of it all and, well, I guess I forgot to even go check…Ah-ha-ha.”
The sky above them was cloudy as they walked, the ash-colored clouds completely obstructing the light of the sun. Bete couldn’t help but imagine the rain that was likely on its way as he glanced up at the thick veil settling down over Orario’s rooftops.
It was a ways away from the center of the attack, but even this small backstreet had suffered its own fair share of damage. The stone underfoot was cracked, and the magic-stone lampposts stood at awkward, bent angles—even part of the roof of a nearby brothel had been blown clean away, likely by some sort of magic, and others still had errant scimitars protruding from their walls. All manner of broken debris now littered the path in front of them. The fact that Freya Familia’s swath of destruction extended even to these outer buildings was evidence enough as to the power behind Freya’s divine will—there was no way she’d planned on letting Ishtar escape.
And the carnage only increased as they made their way farther down the path.
Truly, the sight of the wreckage surrounding them might well have belonged to an impoverished slum.
“Careful, Bete Loga! The guards the Guild left here might be few and far between, but they’re still adventurers, and we’re in broad daylight. They won’t need to be close to see us.”
“Yeah, especially when someone’s climbing around on all the rubble like a crazy monkey.”
“Eh-he-he-he! I’m a monkey! Eek! Eek! Eek!” Lena stuck her tongue out at the werewolf, atop a pile of rubble as he’d described. “Meh, I’m not too worried about the guards. Just don’t wanna get into any legal trouble or whatever if they figure out who we are. Plus, some of them might be Ganesha’s guys, since they’ll do work for the Guild every now and then,” she added, jumping down from the dilapidated building.
As the path opened up in front of them, Lena beckoned Bete over to the side, and the two of them slipped between a gap in the buildings. Now that they were on the actual territory itself, it made sense to avoid the gardens, but as a bit of added protection, she guided the two of them through small back alleys and byways that were away from human eyes, as well.
Bete was suddenly quite glad he’d allowed her to come along.
Wonder if Finn and the others are searching here, too…Prolly not in the middle of the day, though. That’d certainly draw attention, Bete mused, the faces of his comrades floating to the back of his mind. Certainly, as one of the leading familias in the city, their presence anywhere was sure to turn heads, so the chance of Bete running into them here was slim at best. Even if they’d determined Belit Babili to be the main target of their investigation (as they likely had), it would take them days to scour the entirety of Ishtar Familia’s former home. There was no way they’d have reached the hidden room in Ishtar’s chambers that Lena had mentioned yet—nor the room of a certain Tammuz, if it came to that.
That reminds me—when should I go back? I know Finn told me to give it a little while, but…Ah, shit! Now I’m thinkin’ about yesterday again! Not goin’ back! No way…!
Given that Aiz had already witnessed him, it was likely his status in the familia had already taken another nosedive. Meanwhile, the undying rage of those Amazonian sisters was probably growing like an inferno. Just imagining Aiz attempting to tell the story in her awkward fumbling way, how it would get exaggerated and overembellished, made his heart drop. Nope, he definitely didn’t wanna see them.
He cursed under his breath, hiding his thoughts behind his usual mask of hostility.
Here I was just supposed to lone-wolf it up a bit…And now ’cause of this chick, I’m up to my neck in crazy, he grumbled silently, throwing the girl in question a half-lidded glance as she walked along beside him.
“How come you went and fell asleep last night, huh, Bete Loga? After I went to all the trouble of making dinner for you!”
“I’ll go to sleep whenever I goddamn well please, thank you very much.”
“Yoooou! Werewolves never think about anybody but themselves! What about when I put that blanket on you, though, huh? Did you feel your heart skip a beat? It was almost like we were newlyweds!”
“Oh, shut yer mouth already, would ya?” Bete snarled, attempting to quash the overly familiar attitude the girl was taking with him. This game of “let’s pretend” Lena kept pushing on him would end today. Once they’d finished their investigation, Lena would be out of his life for good. He refused to let her manipulate him anymore. Sure, the lovelorn Amazon would probably try to follow him back to his familia, but, well, he’d just ignore her. Yes, that’s what he’d do.
He didn’t like that being with her made him think back to things he’d rather not.
Everything that had led to the fang on his face.
…Finish this up. Get rid of her. Get rid of her for good…
And then—never again. That’s what his heart decided. Only then.
His ears suddenly perked up on his head.
“…”
“Bete Loga?”
The two of them had emerged from a narrow passageway and were currently walking along one of the district’s backstreets. Bete came to a stop in the middle of the wide road, rows of brothels on either side.
Someone’s watching us…
He narrowed his eyes, directing a sharpened gaze at his surroundings as Lena turned around curiously.
One of the Guild’s guards? No. There’s no way. They’d be all over us already. That and they certainly wouldn’t be shootin’ us a death glare or whatever this is.
Certainly, the feeling of malice emanating from whatever was looking at them didn’t belong to an ordinary adventurer. Whoever this was was different, much different. Filth that had crawled its way out of the darkness.
And what’s more, their numbers seemed to be—growing.
“Wh-what’s wrong?” Lena asked, herself more than a little flustered at the intensity of the first-tier adventurer behind her.
“Hey! You two! What do you think you’re doing?!”
The voice came from in front of them.
Turning toward the sound, they found themselves face-to-face with two men, a human–animal person pair of adventurers, donning the all-too-familiar armbands and yellow scarves indicative of Guild affiliation—the guards Lena had claimed were few and far between.
Grabbing ahold of the whistles dangling around their necks, the two adventurers who’d been placed in charge of patrolling the restoration zone began making their way toward them.
“—Ngh! Hey, morons! I’d stay away if I were you!” Bete shouted, his fur bristling. The two guards, however, merely looked at him in puzzlement. Then, as one would expect, they brought their whistles to their lips, fully prepared to sound the alarm on these trespassing reprobates—
“—Nngah?!”
That one move was all it took.
All of a sudden, the necks of the two guards split open in twin waterfalls of blood.
The man behind them, shrouded in black and moving without a sound, had severed both their carotid arteries with one sweep of his dagger.
“Wh-what’s…What’s going on?!” Lena screamed as another dark figure leaped from the nearby roof to land next to the animal person, their own rapier drawn. Meanwhile, the two adventurer guards, not even knowing what hit them, sank to the crumbling cobblestones with a gurgling slop.
“Y-you killed them…!”
“Ngh…!”
As Lena struggled to find words, Bete growled next to her, jaw tight and teeth grinding against one another. His eyes were focused on one and only one thing: the hooded assassin, swathed in black, who was leisurely turning to face them as they pointed the bloodied black dagger at the pair.
It was then that the shadows appeared, a multitude swarming across the rooftops to either side of them.
“Wh-what’s happening? What’s going on…?”
“Get yourself a weapon!”
“Wh-what?”
“I said get yourself a goddamn weapon, you ignoramus! Or are you gonna just stand there and let them kill you?!” Bete snapped, causing Lena’s shoulders to jump. But she did as she was told, snatching up a spare scimitar that had been left behind after Freya Familia’s attack.
The swarm of enemies around them had appeared in a flash, almost as though their every move had been coordinated, and Bete’s face twisted into a snarl as he watched them form a ring.
More of those Evils bastards? The assassins who attacked Tione?!
He remembered the other Amazon talking about them after they’d escaped Knossos.
But why were they here? Why now? What did they have to gain by attacking him like this?
Even Finn and the others had always assumed the Evils would never launch an attack like this on the surface. His suspicions about the group that had appeared before him now, completely undercutting all their previous assumptions, simmered in the back of his mind like a rufescent flame.
When all of a sudden…
“Oh, of all the—! And here we were just hopin’ to do a bit of lookin’ around!”
“That voice…!” Bete growled, his tone low as he turned toward the new, decidedly feminine shadow that had just jumped down from off the roof.
That same fur-lined overcoat, that same undershirt that covered nothing but her chest, that same pair of leather pants. Yes, Bete remembered the woman standing in front of him now, waving her sinister-looking oversize sword.
Valletta Grede.
The Evils commander who’d set all those traps for them down in Knossos.
“What? You alone, Vanargand? And what’s that Amazon brat for? Don’t tell me a mutt like you is actually trying to breed?”
“Oh, go to hell, you pink-haired worm! What are you even doing here anyway?”
“I could be asking you the same thing. Running into a first-tier adventurer like you wasn’t exactly in our plans!” The anti-aging effects of Valleta’s Status made her look more like a woman in her late twenties than her actual age—somewhere in her late thirties. Her face was beautiful but severe, and at the moment, it was scowling as she gave her lips a rather disconcerting lick. “…But no bother. No, in fact, this might be just what the doctor ordered,” she added, eyes narrowing like a snake on the prowl as she eyed the two adventurers. “The city’s always so noisy this time of day anyway…”
Bete understood all too well what the roseate-haired woman was implying, a murderous aura already radiating from the giant sword in her hand. There would be no running away from this fight—that much was for sure.
Damn! And now the brat’s gonna get caught up in it, too…! he lamented silently, throwing a glance at Lena next to him. It was too late for her to run away now.
Almost as if emphasizing his reproachful thoughts, the clouds overhead seemed to tremble, first one, then two, then drop after drop of rain spilling from the haze of gray. All it took was a second more, and then the sky opened up.
Rain pelting his body, he cursed himself and his own ineptitude. “You need to get away from here, you hear?!” he shouted at Lena.
“O-okay!”
But Valletta’s voice was right behind hers, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Sic ’em, boys!”
The response was immediate; every one of the black-robed assassins readied their weapons—jet-black cursed blades—and launched themselves at the duo.
“It’s raining…” Finn murmured as he glanced out the window of his office in Twilight Manor. The storm had come on fast, and rain was now bombarding the surface of the glass while thick, heavy clouds turned the city sky an ashy gray.
…What’s this feeling? It’s as though something dreadful is about to happen.
Standing at the window and watching the rain patter the streets, he felt the most peculiar sense of foreboding wrap itself around his heart. With a start, the thumb of his right hand began to throb.
Then…
“Captain!”
Raul burst into the room. Drenched from head to toe and breathing heavily, he looked as though he’d just seen a ghost.
“What happened?”
“I-it’s terrible…” he started, lips trembling. “Down in the city, it’s…!”
“GYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”
The party that formed outside in the streets appeared as though summoned by the rain itself.
“Wh-what is it?!”
“Dead! They’re d-dead!!”
“Someone was killed?!”
Almost instantaneously, the previously empty side street was overtaken by screams and chaos. The blood painting the stone cobbles swirled together with the rainwater, forming red rivers that flowed down through the cracks.
“Move, please! Let me through!” Lefiya pushed her way through the crowd, having heard the shouts while out and about with one of her friends. When her eyes landed on the carnage, she could hardly find the words to respond.
“I-it can’t be…!”
Riveria encountered similar pandemonium upon arriving at Dian Cecht Familia’s hospital.
“Miss Amid! Over here, quickly! I need your help!”
“W-we can’t stop the bleeding!”
The panicked cries of the healers seemed to harmonize with the thundering echo of the rain. Blood coated their clothes, hands, and skin as they rushed to carry in the wounded one after another. Hearing the screams of her own familia members, Riveria bolted to Amid’s side, the healer herself stunned by the developments.
“A wound that can’t be healed…Don’t tell me!” Riveria took one look before nearly flying back out of the hospital, long silver staff in hand.
“G-guuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!”
“Th-the adventurers, they’re…they’re killing each other!”
A crazed battle was taking place to the tune of the rain in the city’s back alleys.
The sound of metal on metal, blade on blade, echoed ceaselessly off the stone along with wild, bestial cries. Metallic sparks interspersed with flying spatters of blood as they fell to the ground below.
It was a merciless, violent attack right in the middle of the day, shrouded beneath a curtain of tempestuous rain.
“Somebody get the Guild! No, get an adventurer!” came the piercing shrieks as flustered civilians scrambled away from what seemed to be a familia dispute. Even the free people of Orario were all too familiar with the overwhelming power of their adventurers. Meanwhile, the maddened shouts of Loki Familia’s members continued behind them, echoing throughout the streets.
“Ngh!”
Aiz wove her way through the crowd and splashing puddles, unsheathing the sword at her waist as she flung herself into the dance of shadows beyond.
The screams and shouts continued all throughout the city, muffled by the pouring rain. Blackened blades descended like reapers’ scythes, claiming their new blood.
Bete’s metal boots, Frosvirt, smashed through the faces of his enemies, taking them out one by one together with their cursed weapons.
“Grrraaaugh!”
The assassin who’d just come flying at him went to the ground hard, tumbling back across the cobbles. But like clockwork, another appeared in his place to launch another attack at Bete.
“Shit!”
They came at him in waves, a veritable sea of robed assailants.
Cursing under his breath, Bete launched kick after kick at the incoming tide of enemies.
“Bwa-ha-ha! Get him, you miserable pieces of scum! Get hiiiiim!” Valletta shouted from the nearby rooftop, looking more and more like a tourist ogling the city’s most popular attraction.
Down below, her laughter enveloped Bete’s every blow.
And around him, stifling the entirety of the restoration zone, the rain continued to pour in a perpetual deluge. The soggy haze acted like a film, separating them from the outside world, nothing but the gray sky watching over their isolated fight.
“Hiii-yah!”
“G-guuuwwwah?!”
“—GET DOWN!” Bete shouted as Lena lashed out with the broken scimitar she’d picked up off the street. Lena did as she was told, stooping down just in time to avoid Bete’s spinning kick. The incoming assassin was launched away just before his blade could reach Lena.
“Gwghhh?!”
“Th-thanks…”
“Don’t just stand there! There’s more of ’em coming!”
This was no time for words of thanks.
Even now, another swarm of black shadows was lunging toward them through the blurry haze of the rain.
“Those weapons of theirs are cursed! Do not let them hit you!” Bete growled as he stared down the approaching enemies.
“C-cursed?! O-okay! I’ll try!”
The assassins were uniform in their attire: jet-black robes topped by equally dark hoods. And they didn’t carry themselves like normal adventurers at all; their movements were surprisingly deft. In less than a second, they’d simply be gone. There was something inhuman about the perfectly emotionless eyes staring out from underneath their masks.
No matter how many of their comrades Bete and Lena took down, they seemed completely unaffected, coming at them again and again without an inkling of hesitation.
These guys aren’t Evils! They’re hired assassins!
He’d heard of them before—a familia more like a criminal association, talked about only in hushed whispers. They carried out the dirty dealings of their Goddess of Slaughter, but nobody knew where they came from or how many they numbered—an organization of cold-blooded assassins. Bringers of blood and death in the underworld, who killed in exchange for coins.
Almost as though confirming Bete’s suspicions, he caught sight of the insignia on one of the assassins’ fluttering cloaks: Sekhmet, veiled in a hood and mask of her own. The assassins themselves didn’t seem to boast high Statuses compared to a typical Orarian adventurer—Level 3s at the very most—but Bete wasn’t fighting them one-on-one, now, was he?
“Ggggh—grraaaaagh!”
Every single one of their attacks was a finishing blow, attempting to reap the very life from their opponents.
There was no uncertainty in their movements as the fresh waves of assassins attacked everything in sight with their long-bladed cursed weapons, even the bodies of their wounded comrades. Bete responded with a rush of his own, eyes flashing as his right leg lashed out, taking them down in one giant sweep. The sheer amount of friendly fire happening—and the assassins’ lack of concern toward it—grated on Bete’s first-tier-adventurer nerves.
These were an entirely different type of enemy from the Evils they’d faced in Knossos, who had at least still feared death when they were blowing themselves to smithereens. No, these men must have been brainwashed through years of sadistic training and upbringing, to the point where they didn’t even flinch at using their own lives as a weapon—a band of true cold-blooded killers.
Then…
“Waltz of blood!”
The chants came at him one after another, morphing into waves of black energy and reddened mist.
Curses and…anti-Status Magic…?! These guys are starting to get really annoying!
One after another, they layered the curses and spells meant to lower the Statuses of their opponents. And they didn’t care if these hit their comrades, either, which made them seem particularly low. In their attempt to weigh down Bete and Lena, they sent wave after wave of curses even if it meant sacrificing their own companions to do so. Annoying was an understatement.
And I’ve got my own baggage to deal with, too…!
He threw a glance behind him to where Lena was still struggling to deal with the assassins’ erratic fighting style. While the girl’s Status may very well have been higher than that of her opponents, their constant underhanded approach had her consistently coming up short.
Bete couldn’t go on the offensive so long as Lena was there. He had to be constantly on guard, ready to grab her arm and pull her out of harm’s way at a moment’s notice, especially when the assassins began shooting off those spells.
On and on the battle raged under the watch of the crumbling brothels on either side.
Between the cursed weapons coming at him from every side and the throwing knives now flying toward him, he didn’t notice the darkened shadow fluttering overhead until it was too late.
“Ugh!”
“Shit!”
One of the throwing knives grazed past Lena, drawing a small spatter of blood. The assassins didn’t miss a beat, quickly moving in on the stumbling girl, but Bete beat them to the punch and kicked the whole lot of them away.
Just how many of these guys are there? It’s like they’re never-ending!
Bete cursed, realizing that they weren’t making any progress.
“Gnngah…!”
Lena yelped.
“Unnnguugh…?!”
And again.
“Gah…!!”
And a third time.
“?”
Suddenly, Bete realized what was happening.
The attackers were leaving him—and, instead, focusing on Lena.
What the hell?!
Why weren’t they attacking him, one of the upper echelons of their most-hated Loki Familia? Why else would they go to all this trouble to drag these assassins out of Knossos? Weren’t they trying to keep him from finding that key?
Then again, what was it Valletta had said earlier? That they hadn’t planned on running into any first-tier adventurers—?
Bete began focusing all his movements around Lena.
Using his body as a shield to protect the girl from any more wounds from cursed weapons, he met the incoming assassins head-on and sent them soaring one after another.
What the hell what the hell what the hell.
Why were they coming at her en masse, almost as though that had been the plan the whole time—
—Wait, don’t tell me!
Bete’s heart gave a jump as a strange possibility crossed his mind.
What if he’d been wrong about this all along?
He hadn’t gotten Lena mixed up in anything. In fact…
—Oh, for cryin’ out loud!
No, Lena hadn’t gotten mixed up in anything at all.
The only one getting pulled into things that didn’t involve him—
And the true target of those assassins was—
“He-he-he.”
Valletta’s lips curled into a grin as she watched the battle play out from her vantage point on the roof.
“He-he-he-he-he-he.”
Laughing, she watched Bete grow more and more anxious.
“He-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he!!”
But when she looked at the girl, pained and suffering, she licked her lips with a wicked grin.
Jumping back for a moment.
“Thanatos…Just what do you plan on doing with so many cursed weapons?”
Down in Knossos, and back in the long hallway with mosaics covering the walls, a man appeared. Only one eye was visible through the swath of his bangs. His hair and skin deathly pale, as though never having seen the light of the sun, he was a ghost of a man with large, dark bags underneath his sunken eyes. It was none other than Barca, a man driven by the desire to fulfill the legacy of his ancestor, Daedalus.
“You plan to challenge Loki Familia…?” he asked the god now standing unaccompanied in the hall, his tone incredulous. “On the surface? Are you mad? To do so would be nothing short of suicide.”
Thanatos was silent for a moment, then simply shrugged. “Those were my thoughts at first, but…it seems we may have been mistaken.”
“Mistaken…?”
“Indeed. Dear Valletta seems to have really lost her head this time—not that I wouldn’t generally say the same thing about you. Yes, she’s in quite a tizzy.”
“…”
“Even I, the God of Death, was taken aback.”
He wasn’t exaggerating, either. He’d truly been impressed. With a shake of his silky, deep-purple hair, he narrowed his similarly colored eyes, turning toward the still-silent Barca.
“You see, our dear Valletta is going hunting”—he paused with a smile, almost as though sanctioning her actions—“for Amazons.”
“Amazons are being attacked all over the city?!” Finn shouted.
“Y-yes! Even now, they’re…There are already so many bodies…!”
“…Their affiliation. Is there any connection?!”
“At least right now, they’ve all been from different familias, but…it seems like all the victims so far were originally from Ishtar Familia…! The ones closest to Lady Ishtar—the Berbera!”
At this, Finn furrowed his brow. “They must be trying to silence them to keep us from finding the key…!” he realized in a flash, as even then, the sound of clashing weapons began making its way in through the window. This had to be the work of the Evils.
Then their enemy must have given up on finding the key themselves. With no clues to go on, Loki Familia’s own investigation efforts must have had them on pins and needles, to the point where they’d decided to use brute force. Not even Finn would have thought they’d stoop to this level.
If they couldn’t get their hands on it, they were going to make goddamn sure no one else would. And that meant eliminating the one source of info that might lead anyone to it.
It was a bold, immoral, inhuman, and altogether merciless plan.
“Who would do such a thing…?”
But already in the back of Finn’s mind, the sadistic smile of a certain woman had sharpened into focus.
“Valletta…!”
“Lord Dionysus!”
“An attack out of nowhere, shrouded in shadow…A mass assassination?”
Back on one of the backstreets, still reverberating with the sound of rain and screams. Dionysus and Filvis were kneeling beside the slain corpse of an Amazon, a group of white-faced onlookers behind them.
The dead Berbera’s eyes were staring blankly at the sky, evidence enough as to the warning-less strike that had taken her life. Blood was still dripping from the laceration that refused to heal; from what they could tell, the attack had taken place sometime last night.
“They’re trying to wipe Ishtar’s followers off the map…Thanatos and his lot have certainly chosen a disturbing route,” he murmured, hia graceful features twisting in apparent distaste. Behind them, Lefiya pushed her way through the crowd.
“Miss Filvis! Lord Dionysus…”
“Lefiya…”
“Thousand Elf…You’d best look away.”
But Lefiya’s gaze had already fallen to the sprawled-out corpse on the ground, and her words left her. The demi-human lying there, being battered by the rain same as everyone else, was someone she had seen alive and well only last night.
“She’s…one of the Amazons we asked for information…”
“Come back here!”
Tione shrieked, her Kukri knives flashing as she furiously wiped her sopping-wet bangs out of her eyes.
“Grruuaaaaagh?!”
“You bastaaaaaaaard!”
The black-robed figure fell to the ground as, nearby, Tiona slammed one of his peers and his jet-black weapon against the wall with her Urga.
“You…monsters…”
“Tione! Are you okay?!”
“Just what the hell is going on here, huh?! Amazons are getting attacked all over the city!” Tione howled, hands pressed to the torn skin of her arms as her sister, Tiona, ran over to her. Having heard the screams and rushed out to help, they were just starting to realize the gravity of their situation.
“Hey! Shit-for-brains! You know something, huh? You better spit everything out right now…!” She turned toward the assassin still lying on the ground, yanking him up by his collar. But it was too late—he’d already cracked something with his teeth, and in an instant, his eyes rolled back in his head. A bubble of blood popped between his lips as a scalding smoke hissed its way out of his mouth.
A strong acid, no doubt, to kill them quickly in just such a situation. They clearly didn’t want any information on their plans getting out.
Tione ground her teeth together in maddened futility at her assailant’s abrupt end.
“Goddammit…!!”
“Get the wounded to Dian Cecht’s hospital! Quickly now!!” Gareth thundered, his voice practically shaking the cobbles underfoot as he slammed his great ax into a swarm of incoming assassins.
Amazons with blood leaking down their faces. Amazons with stab wounds in their guts. Amazons whose wounds simply would not heal, the blood flowing, flowing, flowing. Loki Familia worked together, shouting back and forth as they hurried to carry every wounded Amazon they could find off to the hospital.
“Every one of their attacks is a suicide attack…!”
Neither the Amazons, covered in blood, nor the adventurers helping them were simply standing there. In fact, there were quite a few hero figures who had stepped up to the plate, facing off against the onslaught of assassins. However, their enemies had no regard for their own lives, and all they had to do was land one strike on one of their Amazonian targets to succeed in their mission.
After all, they fought with cursed weapons.
A single hit was all it took to inflict what might as well have been a deadly poison, spelling doom for the victim.
“Our numbers are dwindlin’. We don’t have enough to protect ’em all…!”
It was a single, coordinated assassination attempt on the Berbera. And considering those Berbera were currently scattered about the city in their new respective familias, Gareth and his crew couldn’t even begin to imagine the full scale of the attack. The rain was surely swallowing up more screams all across Orario.
Gareth narrowed his eyes beneath the low-hanging rim of his helmet.
“Gngh!!”
Aiz’s sword went whistling through the throng of leaping assassins, sending countless bodies tumbling across the stone and the shattered remains of weapons spiraling through the air.
“Aiz! Don’t let their weapons touch you!” Riveria called out from her position a short distance away. The high elf’s long silver staff was mowing down a multitude of enemies of her own. Her jade-colored hair clinging to her forehead in clumps and the last thread of her composure all but vanished, she finished off her remaining opponents before dashing to the side of the Amazon they’d been defending.
“Are you unharmed?”
“I’m fine! And I never asked for your help, either! Just leave me alone!” the prostitute Aisha Belka shouted back as she thrust her large podao sword into the ground for support. Indeed, the ground was already littered with the bodies of the assassins she’d taken care of herself. Having narrowly avoided being wounded, the lone female warrior was breathing hard as she tossed a glare in Aiz and Riveria’s direction.
“Aisha!”
“Samira?”
Another Berbera, this one with ashy-gray hair, ran over to the trio.
It was the same Amazon Tiona had been interrogating only the day before. Her skin scored with shallow wounds, like Aisha, she quickly filled in her fellow Berbera on the situation: what was happening all over the city, the scope of the wounded, and everything they knew at the present time. Once Riveria added in her own short explanation, Aisha brought a hand to her forehead and tightened her fingers.
“An assassination attempt…on the Berbera? Goddammit! Even with that Goddess of Beauty out of the picture, she still finds ways to make our lives a living hell…!”
“What do we do, Aisha? Even some of the high-class courtesans who were employed at the palace were killed…Ah! That’s right! You haven’t seen Haruhime, have you?!”
“Calm down! She’s not on any familia list. Not even the Guild knows where Lady Ishtar hid her, so there’s no way they’ll find her!”
“Right. Then…erm…Phryne! What about Phryne…?”
“You really think that frog would let herself be killed by the likes of this lot? Don’t make me laugh!” Aisha barked loudly at the frazzled girl, her responses a harried mixture of irritation and comfort. As the chaotic questioning continued, Riveria stepped forward with a request of her own.
“Our efforts to stop the attack are falling behind. By the time we heard the commotion and rallied our forces together to help, we were already too late. If you know of anyone who might still be targeted, you must let us know.”
“Gimme a second! Let me think! Anyone else who might be attacked…?” Aisha snapped, her hand still on her forehead as her face twisted in frantic thought.
But her answer came in less than a second.
Her head snapped up, and a name left her mouth.
“Lena…”
“Huh?”
“Lena…!” she said again, her face a picture of horror as she dashed in the direction of the Pleasure Quarter to the city’s southwest—and the location of Lena’s secret place.
“Lena’s in trouble!”
It was a knife to the shoulder that finally sent the girl to the ground.
“Unnggahhh!”
“Dammit!!” Bete howled as he sent the rapidly approaching black shadow sailing into the air with a high-speed kick. Repelling the white blades flying in his direction with his armguard, he focused everything he had on protecting the girl behind him from the bevy of cursed swords. His cheeks already bore a jagged pattern of wounds.
“Gnfph! He-he-he… Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! After the woman, assassins!” Valletta howled from atop the roof, sending the remaining manpower after the fleeing girl. Bete felt a searing heat shoot through his body as he watched the bat-like swarm descend on Lena.
“?Ngh!”
As everything bubbled up into a wordless grunt, he took off after them.
“Did you forget about me, you overgrown mutt?!”
“Hngh?!”
But his pursuit was cut short when Valletta jumped down from the roof to land neatly in front of him.
“I’m the only girl you need to be concerned about here! I’ve got more to offer than that brat anyway!”
“I’LL KILL YOUUUUUUU!!” Bete practically exploded as the alluring Evils chieftain gave him a twisted, lascivious grin. He shot forward in a maddened rush at the woman standing in his way as she pulled a new cursed weapon from her fur-lined overcoat.
“A bit desperate, aren’t we, Vanargand?”
“Shut the hell up!”
“Is that little vixen soooo important to you?”
“I said shut up!!”
Valletta flourished her jet-black dagger as she deftly blocked Bete’s every attempt to move past her, enjoying herself thoroughly. It didn’t help that the layer upon layer of anti-Status spells were turning into chains around Bete’s arms and legs.
He was strong enough that even in his weakened state, Valletta couldn’t land a hit.
But she didn’t need to. She only had to stop him.
With every second that ticked by, his face twisted into an even more distorted grimace, which had his sadistic opponent giggling in glee. There was nothing that gave her greater pleasure than snuffing out the twinkle of life in her opponents’ eyes.
“Have you found my little present yet, hmm?”
“?!”
“Those precious friends of yours! Gift-wrapped for ya in their own blood down in Knossos!”
Bete’s hackles snapped to attention.
Her words were like the knife grinding further into the wolf’s already tumultuous heart.
“It was me! All of it! I slaughtered those sniveling shit-for-brains where they stood!”
“…You…”
“I did! Woulda liked to take more time with ’em, though. Make it really grisly. But you little ass-biters were hot on my heels, so I had to be quick and dirty!”
“…I don’t wanna hear it…”
“Killing that little healer was the best, though. So weak! Yet she kept trying to protect the others until the very end!”
“Shut your mouth!!”
Bete met Valletta’s rapturous cry with an enraged howl of his own.
She’d killed Leene and the others. And that thought alone was enough to make Bete’s entire world erupt into flames.
“How did Finn take it, huh? —Probably looked as pathetic as you do right now, huh? Like your precious little kitty just died or somethin’?!”
And then Bete’s anger imploded.
Right into that smiling face.
“?RRUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHH!!”
His foot moved so fast it seemed to melt into the falling rain, shattering Valletta’s dagger right in her hand.
“Shit!…Well, guess that ends things here,” Valletta cursed as she jumped up and away from the werewolf, throwing a quick glance down at her shattered blade before tossing it behind her. “Though if you keep it up, you’re gonna get yourself killed!” she added with a stiff laugh at the werewolf’s now bloodshot eyes. Despite the cautionary nature of her words, her voice itself was full of amusement. “Go on, then, Vanargand! Though it might already be too late! Ha-ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
And with that, the woman disappeared into the rain.
Bete didn’t even wait until she was fully gone—he was off in an instant.
The rain flooding his vision only further propelled his fury. Outta my way! Beat it! Get lost! he screamed to himself as his legs thundered against the ground below so sluggishly it nearly drove him mad. And the rain seemed to respond, losing ever so little of its fervor as though scared into silence by the wolf’s advance.
He caught sight of an all-too-familiar scimitar lying abandoned on the cobbles.
All of a sudden, the curses that had been binding his body came loose, and he felt infinitely lighter even as his heart squeezed in his chest.
Faster, faster, faster.
Following the strewn bodies of the assassins Lena must have fended off earlier, he propelled himself even faster through the rain-swept ruins.
Down, down that ruined city street, he ran.
And then.
“…”
The road opened up in front of him, and there she was.
The rain was pelting her body, sprawled across the crumbling stone.
She must have fought it out until the very end. Her copper skin was painted red with blood, and her arms and legs were a tangled meshwork of cuts and gashes. Protruding from her stomach, almost like a gravestone, was a black dagger.
Blood dribbled from the wound slowly, steadily, and silently into the puddles below.
Bete stood there frozen for a moment, then dashed to the girl’s side, kneeling next to her. The splash of water he sent up painted her cheek, causing her eyelids to flutter open, ever so slowly.
“Is that…you…Bete Loga…?” she murmured through red-stained lips, one hand rising unsteadily into the air. “I can’t…see very well…Everything is a…blur…”
Without even realizing it, Bete reached his own hand out to meet hers, gingerly, carefully. Lena’s hand responded with a soft squeeze, almost as though her slender fingers themselves were smiling.
“…Hey.”
Bete urged.
“…Hey.”
Bete began to tremble.
“…Hey!”
He couldn’t seem to say anything else, almost as if his lips were broken.
Lena’s blurred dark eyes began to droop as the softest, slightest smile crossed her face.
“Bete Loga…I’m sorry for being so…weak…”
“?”
“I couldn’t keep my…promise…”
As the words faded, so, too, did the last bit of warmth from her body.
Time stopped there.
With the last ounce of her strength, Lena gave him one more silent smile.
“I really wanted to…stand alongside you…”
Those were her final words.
As the last of her strength ebbed away, her thin fingers slipped from Bete’s grasp. Almost as if on cue, another gurgle of blood trickled from her body, the last spark of life inside her fizzling into nothing.
“…”
The rain sounded so loud around him. Was Heaven weeping?
Bete didn’t make a sound.
He didn’t laugh.
He didn’t cry.
He simply stared down at the girl on the ground, her wet hair clinging to her face. Time seemed stuck in an endless loop.
“Lena!”
When the girl’s name was finally called, it didn’t come from him.
It was Aisha, out of breath as she dashed over and followed by a startled Aiz and Riveria.
Bete acknowledged the girls’ arrival by turning his head to the side and slowly rising to his feet. The three rushed forward in an instant. Aisha took the lead and pushed past him without a word, but she stopped before she could kneel beside the girl on the ground.
She’d directed a trembling hand only halfway toward the girl’s body before her fingers curled into a fist.
Aiz and Riveria both took a knee beside her, their faces grim as they removed the dagger and began preparing vials of medicine and healing spells, as useless as they both knew they would be.
And Bete watched all of it, eyes dark.
“It’s cursed…!” Riveria murmured as she observed the jet-black dagger.
Aisha’s gaze snapped up at this, her voice terse as she directed her anger at Bete. “What did I tell you, Vanargand?! If you let anything, anything at all, happen to her, I’d…!!” she hissed, her eyes boring into him.
But Bete didn’t have a response.
He simply stood there, the rain soaking his skin as he returned Aisha’s incensed gaze.
Then, finally, his lips moved—forming a smirk.
“Heh. And just what was I supposed to do, huh? Damn brat ran away on her own.”
Aisha’s eyes tightened.
“She was just gettin’ in the way anyway. Annoying as hell.”
“Bete…”
“It’s like I’ve always said. Can’t do nothin’ for a piece of fish bait.”
“Bete…”
But now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop, the words coming back to him like a rushing waterfall. Ignoring the looks from Aiz and Riveria, he simply kept talking, kept sneering.
He continued laughing.
“They’ll all end up like this. Dead on the sidewalk and helpless to do a thing about it…And don’t say I didn’t warn ’em!”
Aisha erupted, sparks alight in her eyes.
“NGH!!”
Overcome with rage, she grabbed Bete by the collar, fury building up like an inferno as she launched her fist straight toward his stupidly smirking face.
Only, in that split second before her fist connected…
“?”
It came screeching to a halt.
The only thing that ended up hitting Bete’s face was the pouring rain, forming rivulets that cascaded down his cheeks.
Aisha simply stood there, frozen, her eyes wide.
And for the life of him, Bete couldn’t figure out why.
Why?
Why did her fist stop?
What was that look she was giving him?
What was that shock coloring her eyes?
The hell you lookin’ at?
I’m smilin’, ain’t I?
Just like I always am!
“You…”
Hey! Just whaddaya think yer lookin’ at, huh? I got somethin’ on my face?
Can’t ya see I’m laughin’ at ’er?
So why stare at me like that?
Why aren’t ya layin’ in to me?
“…”
Aisha wordlessly lowered her fist, releasing her grip on Bete’s collar.
With one final pitying glance, she turned away.
Meanwhile, Riveria took the motionless girl on the ground into her arms and carried her away.
Leaving Bete behind.
“……Bete.”
Only Aiz remained, looking unsure how to approach the werewolf or of the right thing to say.
So she simply watched him, standing there with his back to her.
The rain never stopped.
“…What the hell was that?”
Why hadn’t she hit him?
Why?
Why had she looked at him like that?
You think you can just look at me however you want, huh—?
It was humiliating, was what it was.
Letting what should have been his scornful grin slide from his face, he ground his teeth together so hard they were liable to break.
Rage—and other emotions—were churning through his veins like fire.
And yet, he was powerless to do a single thing.
Unable to so much as scream, he turned his gaze toward the sky above.
And toward the unfeeling rain, beating against his skin.
It had been raining that day, too.
The Master of the Plains vanquished, Bete started his triumphant return to the Labyrinth City.
However, all that awaited him upon his arrival were the weeping faces of his familia—and the corpse of his beloved.
“?”
Bete suddenly found himself overwhelmed, the dry rattle of the ground trampled beneath his feet crashing down around him.
It wasn’t supposed to have been anything special. They were just going into the Dungeon, same as normal. Just the typical Dungeon raid, same as normal. Then suddenly she’d wound up dead.
It had happened so fast. The Dungeon had bared its fangs and taken her before she’d even had a chance to resist.
The woman who’d been trying to get strong for Bete’s sake; who’d done everything she could to shed the skin of her former, weaker self; who’d disregarded her own strength and paid the ultimate price. And Bete hadn’t been there to protect her.
“B-Bete…”
The rest of his familia was an equally sorry sight, whimpering and wounded. Some had lost limbs, some whose bodies hadn’t even recovered from the excursion into the Dungeon, and others with tears running down their faces as they apologized to Bete over and over again. No one blamed him. No, they blamed no one but themselves and their own lack of strength, cursing the world in hopeless melancholy.
Her corpse had been so pale, as though free of regret or pain, as though nothing had happened at all.
Why?
Why?
Why couldn’t she have been stronger?
Why did she have to be so weak?
Too weak to fight off the world, to fight off fate, to fight off truth.
These weaklings.
They can’t do anything without me.
Without one of the strong there to protect them.
Didn’t I grow stronger to escape all this?
So why is it still happening? Why are the things I love being taken away from me?
A ridiculous number of questions tumbled around in his heart before fading into nothing. A whirlpool of thoughts he couldn’t turn into words, despair cutting deep into his very being.
Glancing at his comrades, still weeping helplessly on the ground, he absentmindedly rose to his feet.
“Bete…I’m sorry.”
The voice came from Ví?arr this time, the god turning his gaze toward Bete.
Something inside Bete snapped.
Before he even knew it, his hands were gripping Ví?arr’s collar and holding him aloft.
“Don’t you say that to me! A god ain’t supposed to apologize!”
“Bete, stop!!”
“A god—a god ain’t supposed to admit it!!”
Bete continued to scream, tears running down his face even as his fellow familia members raced forward to pull him away. He wouldn’t let Ví?arr apologize, not when those words were an acceptance of the sacrifices made by the weak.
It felt like the entire world was affirming Bete’s despair. The tears—the anguish—refused to let him go.
What was Ví?arr even apologizing for?
Why was he apologizing to Bete?
Bete didn’t understand. All he could do was howl, the raw emotion coursing through him like a raging river.
It was decided that Ví?arr and his broken familia would leave Orario.
Bete didn’t go with them.
He’d washed his hands of them. As though hoping to make them hate him, his daggerlike words practically drove them out of the city, like he wanted to keep them far from the Dungeon. And the Guild had no choice but to allow their departure if they wanted Bete, now a second-tier adventurer, to stay in Orario. Bete didn’t even see his former friends off on the day they left.
With Ví?arr’s half-withdrawn blessing still on his back, making it possible for him to convert, Bete kept on fighting, throwing himself into battle after battle. He dove solo into the Dungeon, injuring himself, losing blood by the bucketful but still cutting down monsters left and right. He’d become a wolf starved for even more power, even greater strength.
But still, the phantom pain radiating from the tattoo on his cheek, his fang, refused to let up.
In fact, if anything, it got worse. He’d destroyed his enemy, so why did the pain continue to follow him wherever he went?
The slow burn that plagued his entire body could not be cooled.
It was around this time that Bete began to lash out, his tongue as sharp as a knife.
—Beat it, fish bait!
—Know your place!
—I’d say yer all bark and no bite, but you don’t even got the bark!
He berated everyone and everything, and those around him grew to despise the lone wolf without a familia. And they’d attack him, again and again, trying to take him down, only to ultimately be bested. His despair simply couldn’t be stopped.
Not a day went by that he didn’t pick a fight. Like clockwork, almost, he was wreaking havoc at the pub beneath the red-wasp sign. Not even the disgruntled dwarf who ran the place could be mad at him, almost as though taking pity on Bete’s plight.
Bete wasn’t going to be taken down by the strong.
No matter how much they hurt him, how much they stole from him, how much the despair hounded him, he would keep fighting, keep moving forward. Because he’d promised himself that he would feast on their flesh and grow strong himself.
Yes.
What had finally dethroned Bete was not the strong—but the weak.
The powerless beings unable to fight back against a world where only the strongest survived.
And no matter how strong he became, his strength could do nothing to change that.
No matter how strong he became, he couldn’t save those fragile beings.
Before he’d even realized it, he’d come to despise the weak, powerless to change their fate, with every fiber of his being.
Hating them, loathing them, berating them with words of ridicule and scorn.
Thus, the lone werewolf, broken and friendless, continued his ravenous quest for strength, spurning all those around him. Alone, he fought his way forward along his own path.
Until, despite not having a familia, he took on a new name—Vanargand. Yes, that’s what they called him.
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