CHAPTER 3
THE TRUE INTENTIONS OF GALE WIND
Flames of rage.
That was the only way to describe the impulse that seared her heart.
The feeling that overtook her when she saw him from behind.
The instant she glimpsed his profile.
The moment her eyes met his.
The emotion in the depths of her heart surged upward.
He’s alive!
He’s alive!
He’s alive!
It’s him—that man!
Who could snuff out the flames of rage that flared within her the moment she realized?
The hand that gripped her wooden sword shook, and the weapon itself let out an indistinct cry of rage.
That was the spark. She shrugged off the cloak of justice and became no more than a beast chasing after the group of men as they screamed in terror.
She did not know how many times silver flashed.
She could not remember how much blood spurted into the air.
She was spurred by righteous indignation from the instant she realized.
No, righteous indignation was just a front. In truth, she may simply have wanted to hurl her wildly raging emotions against them. Already, she had lost sight of which was her true self.
All she knew was that she was being driven forward. Driven by the flames of rage. By the black emotions.
She told herself, conveniently, that it was “a sense of mission.”
This time. This time I will be sure.
Her blade was ravenous, and her heart was raging.
Her memories of the past screamed for her to settle things, once and for all.
As she sped through the Dungeon as quick as the wind, a thought occurred to her.
Her first friend seemed to have said something to her hotheaded self.
Her second friend seemed to have forgiven her despite her mistakes.
Her third friend, the boy…What would he think if he saw her now?
That was her one lingering concern as fiery resentment burned fiercely in the back of her mind and the pit of her stomach.
And there was something else.
She pretended not to notice that her hand, the hand that had gripped theirs, was throbbing as if weeping.
Only the most skilled adventurers in the hunting party and those with a certain amount of experience in the Water Capital have been selected to continue on to the twenty-seventh floor.
I am joining this elite group led by Bors as a representative of Hestia Familia. At first, he looked upset that I was the only member of our group to volunteer, but when I explained about needing to move quickly—and after Aisha gave him a few threatening words—he agreed.
I head out of the twenty-fifth floor, the Goliath Scarf from Welf and Cassandra wrapped around my neck and the parting words of Lilly and the others at my back.
“UOOOOOOOOOO!”
Atrocious roars echo through misty air.
Monsters rush toward us, their yellow eyes flashing.
Mermen.
The half-fish, half-human monsters are covered in blue scales. Like humans, they walk on two feet, and their hands with fins running down the backs skillfully handle landforms, the nature weapons of the Dungeon. With scales covering their whole body, the monsters remind me of an underwater version of lizardmen. They’re among the stronger opponents we’re likely to encounter on the twenty-sixth floor.
The half-fish warriors scramble out of the stream that runs through the passageway and climb onto land one after the next, gripping crystal maces, a type of lower-level nature weapon.
“Errrgh!”
I leap aside to avoid a mace that smashes into the crystal floor and bring down Hakugen above the merman’s head.
The blindingly quick blow I release as I twist my hips away easily slices through its neck.
The featherlight, glittering knife continues in a perfect curve, like it’s swimming through the air, and knocks down the other crystal maces on their way toward my body.
“?!”
I dive into the center of the horde, and the mermen flinch at my acrobatic battle moves. I take advantage of their momentary weakness to place a hand on the ground and let loose a spinning kick that all but skims the ground.
The kick lands powerfully on the legs of several mermen, causing them to stumble to the ground, tangled together.
“Bors!”
“Yeah!”
An instant later, Bors and the other adventurers are beating their weapons against the collapsed mermen. The rain of greatswords and hammers literally beats them to a pulp.
Essentially, the battle strategy of the mermen is to move in groups. But once their leader is killed, the group falls into chaos!
This is my first encounter with mermen, but thanks to Eina’s lessons, I already know about their habits and attack methods. I’m putting into practice the textbook methods for taking them down, but I also add in my own lightning-quick attacks.
My eyes zero in on the leader, who is being protected by other mermen, as he lets out a series of hideous screeches. I head straight for him.
Is the Goliath Scarf slowing me down? Maybe, but not too much!
The item is the polar opposite of Hakugen, and I can sense it pressing down on my body as I kick into gear.
Ignoring the reactions of the monsters surrounding me, I head for the gaping merman leader, drawing the black knife from my waist as I move.
“Yah!!”
“Gya?!”
The Divine Knife that I’ve slipped from its sheath rips through the leader’s body. The fierce blow lands like a spear piercing his chest, and the mermen’s kingpin disintegrates instantly into ash.
“Shit, it’s a light quartz!”
“!”
A second later, I’m whipping my head around in response to Bors’s yell from behind me.
Several purple crystal forms about the size and shape of bucklers are floating in the passageway, which is around five meders tall. In the center of each one is a single pale-yellow organ that appears to be an eye.
Light quartzes are inorganic monsters that float about adventurers’ heads, and as their crystalline outer appearance would suggest, they have no means of engaging in close combat. Instead, their single but extremely menacing means of attack is to shoot out beams of light!
“!”
“Ack!”
We leap back in unison as a light quartz shoots a narrow beam. The amber ray of light burns a line into the Dungeon’s crystal floor and walls as it passes over them. Bors and the others scramble for shelter. Then they wait for their chance.
The typical way to defeat a light quartz is to get it to emit all its power, then attack it while it’s recharging. And indeed, no approach could be more correct.
But me—I fly right into the gushing beams of light.
I figure the golden beams are never going to end.
“Hey, Rabbit Foot?!”
As the confused voices of the upper-class adventurers beat at my back, I speed up.
My enemy is floating in midair.
It’s too far to reach with my knife.
A Firebolt might work…
I think I’ll try something else first.
Obeying the voice in the back of my mind, which is almost like a flash of inspiration, I put my right hand on the scarf around my neck.
The next instant, I’ve ripped it off and am swinging it through the air like a weapon.
It’s sure heavy enough!
I’m wielding it like a whip, or rather a chain.
It blocks and repels the beams from multiple light quartzes before crashing straight into them!
“—?!”
The black scarf accelerates like a whirlwind, smashing some crystal forms to smithereens and sending others crashing to the floor.
The crushed light quartzes either go silent as the light disappears from their eyes or lose their magic stones and turn to ash.
“Yesss…!”
This protective gear fashioned from the Goliath Robe is really something. It’s so tough it can defend against anything, be it blade or flames, but on the flip side, it can also be turned into the toughest of weapons. I silently cheer the scarf for the excellent job it did in repelling every single one of the light-quartz rays.
“Ouch…”
I rub my right arm as I continue to grin excitedly. The unaccustomed movements and weight of the scarf may have injured my tendons. As I rub a generous amount of potion onto my arm, I tell myself it might be best not to use this particular weapon too much until I’m used to it.
In contrast to the Firebolt, which is a long-distance weapon that moves in a straight line, the scarf is a midrange, indirect weapon. It just might help me add variety to my attack methods. I feel slightly bad about using the item Welf made as a protector in this way, but…
“Hey, Rabbit Foot…is this really your first time on this floor?” Bors asks, walking up to me.
Since I’ve killed all the monsters, the other adventurers are putting down their weapons and squinting at me like the sun is in their eyes.
“What can I say…? You’ve gotten stronger. I’m gonna move you up to the front guard. I’m sure you’ll do a great job!”
“Bors…”
“Go get ’em! I’ll leave all the tough work to you. Oh, and we divide rare drop items fifty-fifty.”
“Uh, sure,” I answer, breaking into a sweat. The sincere, fatherly look on Bors’s face has been replaced by a sleazy smile, like he’s just stumbled upon a lucrative windfall.
Around us, the other adventurers are cleaning up from the battle. In order to prevent the emergence of enhanced species and other Irregulars, the supporters hastily collect magic stones. I look around at their faces.
There’s a wicked-looking elf with a double sword, an ax-wielding animal person with a piece of cloth covering his mouth, and a dwarf with a massive shield and battle hammer.
They demonstrated plenty of battle prowess on our way through the middle levels…But even if their Statuses are higher than that of Welf and the rest of our party, they definitely aren’t working in sync with one another.
That’s one reason I risked making the call to take on the monsters myself. In such a quickly formed party, the shifts between offense and defense, fast and slow don’t play out how I’d expect. Sometimes we’re even holding one another back.
Once again, I realize just how skilled and valuable Lilly, Welf, and the other members of our party are in the way they adjust to support me.
Plus, the monsters here…they’re just different from the ones in the middle levels.
The long-distance light-quartz attacks were a bother, and totally different from the flames that hellhounds release…But more importantly, the monsters down here, like the merman leader, are really intelligent. Way more so than in the upper and middle levels.
They may not be very good at it, but the fact that monsters here can coordinate their actions at all makes them an immeasurable menace.
I absolutely can’t let myself get overly confident.
“Okay, I’m gonna split up the party again! We’re too inefficient when we move as a single group! If anyone finds Gale Wind, try to drive her into the cavern! Worst-case scenario, we confirm she’s here and pull back to the twenty-fifth floor! If we take up positions there, Aisha will have to come help us at some point!”
Bors shouts these commands as we pass through the tunnel connecting the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh floors, bypassing the plunge pool on the twenty-sixth floor, which forms the middle step in the three floors connected by the Great Falls.
We’ve charged down to the twenty-seventh floor all at once, and now it looks like we’ll be splitting up to search for Gale Wind…that is, Lyu.
“You, Rabbit Foot! Come with me!”
“Uh, um, okay.”
Bors makes the executive decision to take me, a Level 4 adventurer, along with him. The other adventurers boo and jeer disapprovingly.
Is he using me as a kind of all-rounder?
In any case, our group of five turns off onto a side passage. It’s one of several main routes leading to the passage that connects to the twenty-eighth floor. This part of the Dungeon is comprised of faintly striped deep-blue crystals. A wide waterway flows directly next to the dryland path. It’s flowing way faster than the rivers on the floors above us. A dim light emanates from clusters of white crystal, illuminating the darkness.
Everywhere we go, I see the remains of old passageways that have collapsed in on themselves, and piles of crystals that appear to be the result of cave-ins block our way. This must be the aftermath of the explosions we heard earlier.
I’m leading our group, but all of us are constantly on the lookout for monsters. We press forward as the path leads down countless stairways and slopes winding through the multilayered floor.
“Hey, Bell Cranell. Do you remember when we fought the Goliath?”
“Yeah, we charged that whopper with you.”
“You can count on us, Rabbit Foot!”
“Uh, yeah. That’s great!”
The skilled upper-class adventurers in our group are bantering back and forth to keep us all from getting too tense.
There are a pair of cheerful animal-person siblings and a masculine Amazonian warrior. I really admire their friendliness.
Probably thanks to the battle with the Black Goliath, residents of Rivira have tended to treat me amiably. The other upper-class adventurers often ask me about my epic clash with the minotaur Asterios in Orario and generally seem to admire me.
It’s a huge honor to be accepted in this way by the senior adventurers, and I can’t help smiling to myself about it…But I also feel bad that I’m going to have to slip away from this group in the near future.
I need to do it, though, for Lyu’s sake.
I think it will be easier for me to move around if I look for a chance to break off from them…But I won’t find her by searching at random…
The long series of explosions we heard on our way here has fallen silent now.
The roar of the distant Great Falls echoes even here, drowning out softer noises that might give away her location. Finding Lyu alone on this immense floor is going to be extremely difficult.
Still…it’s not like I don’t have a goal.
I convinced Aisha and the others to let me go alone, and it would be wrong to say I have no strategy whatsoever. I’m leaving it all up to manpower…or monsterpower?
I’m busy thinking about how I can get them to find her when—
“B-B-Bors?!”
One of the animal people, who has been peering into a passageway that branches off our current route to the right, shouts out.
He sounds terrified, like something unusual is going on. We rush to his side.
“What…?”
I lose all words when I see it.
“What in the world is this?”
Bors and the rest of us look up.
We see a hole.
A huge vertical hole leading to the floor above us.
It’s not a tidy hole like those in the Stone Cavern Maze. Instead, it looks like something has forcefully dug its way through the ceiling.
A stream is trickling noisily down like a miniature waterfall.
“…I’ve never seen a huge hole like this on the twenty-seventh floor…” Bors groans in a low voice.
Something unusual is happening in the Dungeon—something even these upper-class adventurers who have passed through the Water Capital many times have never seen before.
In a corner of my mind, an alarm bell starts to chime softly.
“I don’t mind staying back…but it sure as hell looks like we’ll be camped out here for a while.”
Welf rubbed his throat as if to thaw it.
He was standing on a cliff at the far southern end of the twenty-fifth floor. The space was about the size of a small “room,” big enough to fit several dozen adventurers. In fact, it was the exact spot where Lilly had suggested setting up a base when she and the others had been separated from Bell by the moss huge, and indeed, it was plenty large enough for that purpose. It was also a perfect location for fending off attacks by winged monsters.
Several hours had passed since the hunting party, including Bell, set off in pursuit of Gale Wind. Now, the adventurers who had stayed behind were each absorbed in their own tasks.
Which is to say, they were either arguing over who would be on guard duty or relaxing.
“They don’t have much fighting spirit, do they? Of course, I suppose that’s to be expected.”
“Well, it would be hard to find something to do right now. You wouldn’t want to go off hunting monsters to kill time and then be too tired to help at the critical moment.”
Mikoto and Ouka were chatting as they watched the other adventurers. Those remaining on the twenty-fifth floor represented the group Bors had not selected for his elite hunting party, and some were sulking over their exclusion. These individuals did not think they were Gale Wind’s equal in battle, but they had hoped to somehow steal a portion of the spoils. It wasn’t hard to guess how they felt about being made to wait for the prize that had been dangled before their eyes. Most didn’t know what to do with themselves in the meantime.
For Lilly, Mikoto, Chigusa, and Daphne—who weren’t yet accustomed to the Water Capital—just gazing out from the cliffs at the magnificent Great Falls was enough to keep them from getting bored.
“…”
Normally, Cassandra would have felt the same, but now, tormented by her prophetic dream, all she could do was pray desperately for the future and for Bell’s safe return. And so she stood by the edge of the sheer cliff, gazing out at the Great Falls that continued on to the twenty-seventh floor.
“…Nothing suspicious so far, it seems,” said Welf, who was sitting down.
“You’d better not be too obvious about it; he might notice you,” Lilly warned casually as she distributed travel rations.
Welf had been watching the werewolf who Bell was concerned about.
“His name is Turk Sledd. I asked around a bit, and it seems he’s been living in Rivira for about three years,” she said.
“What’s his Status?”
“Assuming he hasn’t made any false reports, he’s a Level Two. He hangs around second-tier adventurers, but I hear he’s been down to the lower levels himself a bunch of times,” Lilly said unhesitatingly in response to the question from Welf, who along with the others was tearing off pieces of the salted meat with his hands to eat.
The residents of Rivira seemed to place a certain degree of trust in Turk, she added.
The others didn’t know quite what to make of this information. Suddenly, Aisha—who had been lying down with her eyes closed—jerked up.
“I’ve rested enough…Should I attack?”
“What are you talking about?”
The whole group was staring at Aisha, whose words seemed completely nonsensical.
“We’re just wasting time sitting around being suspicious of people. Don’t you think the fastest solution is for me to beat him to a pulp?”
Ouka and the others grimaced uncomfortably at the unreasonably aggressive words of the Level 4 Amazon, who was clearly the strongest adventurer present.
“Whew, that’s a real Amazonian way of thinking…But if he’s actually hiding something, I doubt you’ll be able to torture the information out of him. And you’ll probably turn his buddies against us, too,” Daphne said in a bored tone.
“All right, I don’t have a choice…The rest of you keep a watch.”
“Wh-wh-what are you planning to do?” Mikoto asked tensely, once again having a bad feeling about Aisha’s intentions.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m gonna pull him into that cave and devour him. His lips will be looser after I’ve straddled him and made him howl—”
“Aiii! Aiii! Aiii!”
Tossing aside her manners, Haruhime—who was blushing to the tips of her ears—let out a series of shrieks and flapped her hands in frantic denial of Aisha’s suggestion. Aisha clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction.
Not only Mikoto, Chigusa, and Cassandra but even Lilly and Daphne were blushing. The two lone males, Welf and Ouka, looked extremely uncomfortable. The other adventurers standing around nearby shot the mixed-faction party dirty looks for making such a ruckus.
“This is not Ishtar Familia!” Haruhime said, covering her red face with both hands and looking almost on the verge of tears.
“—Okay, let’s get going!”
Just then, the subject of their argument shifted into action.
“I can’t stand leaving everything in Bors’s hands! For the sake of my murdered friend, Jan, I’m going to slaughter Gale Wind!”
“If we get carried away, we’ll probably end up being beaten by our intended victim. Anyway, didn’t Bors tell us to guard this area?”
“We’re still adventurers! Don’t you at least have the guts to kill the fugitive and make a name for yourself?”
“…I’m going with Turk. Sitting around here twiddling our thumbs is a joke.”
Reactions to the werewolf’s call to action were split: Some opposed him, while others sided with him.
The latter group was far smaller than the former.
“We don’t want to make Bors mad. But if you want to go, then go.”
“I’ll go and show you all how it’s done!”
In the end, a group of four set off for the twenty-seventh floor. Although Bors’s supporters quarreled with the departing group, they did not stop them from leaving, and so Turk and those who had taken his side headed down the path that led west along the cliff’s edge.
“Let’s go,” Lilly said, standing. Welf and the others nodded silently in response to her brief words.
Cassandra alone was filled with worry. She could not let them go off without her, however, so she, too, followed the group into the maze of the twenty-fifth floor.
We can’t take our eyes off the huge hole. Water is falling from it in a thin stream and pooling on the floor.
As we stand here still as statues looking upward, I notice something.
“It’s beginning to repair itself,” I whisper.
The Dungeon is starting to reestablish its composition. The process is so subtle you wouldn’t notice unless you stood here staring at it, but gradually, the crystal ceiling is filling back in, and the hole is closing.
Judging by the state of things, the repair has just begun. That means the hole was probably made recently.
In other words, whatever made the hole is…
“…It’s still nearby, isn’t it?”
At Bors’s words, the temperature in the passageway seems to drop. At the same time, our group takes up defensive positions. We scan the surroundings and grip our weapons tensely.
It’s possible that some unknown Irregular with the ability to gouge through the stone walls of the Dungeon is on this floor. My eardrums throb with the sound of rushing water that echoes through the passageways.
Something cold drips onto my back.
“…This isn’t the work of Gale Wind, is it…?”
“I doubt she could do this even with magic…It seems like something dug down from the top, rather than blasting through.”
Speculation flies back and forth among the adventurers, who have finally let down their guard after several uneventful hours. I realize that the whole party is disturbed.
There’s an iron rule among adventurers: If something unusual happens in the Dungeon, run.
Bors is struggling to make a decision, a deep wrinkle etched between his brows. Should we continue on toward our goal or flee this floor?
All of us sense that this isn’t an Irregular we’ll be able to ignore.
…Why now…?
I don’t know why, but suddenly I think of Cassandra’s face, worrying and worrying about something.
“What do we do, Bors?”
“Normally I’d haul ass out of here…but we can’t forget about the rest of the adventurers we split off from. Whether or not we keep chasing Gale Wind, I want to tell them about this.”
I feel increasingly distressed as I listen to their conversation. There’s a good chance Lyu is on this floor. If some sort of Irregular is creeping around here, she’ll be at risk, too. I’m just thinking that I need to find her as quickly as possible when—
“…?”
Are we being…watched?
I’ve gotten very sensitive to the feeling of other people (or things) looking at me, and I sense eyes on me right now. But it’s not an unpleasant feeling…I don’t know quite how to put it…but could it be someone I know?
I look up in surprise. Just then—
“Hey, did you hear that…?!”
“What’s that song?…Is Gale Wind singing? No, it’s…”
“…‘The Song that Echoes in the Dungeon.’”
The animal-person siblings and the Amazon forget everything as they listen to the beautiful melody. Bors, too, stands agape and murmurs the name of a song that adventurers whisper about among themselves.
I dash away from them as if I’ve been hurled forward.
“H-hey, Rabbit Foot?!”
“I’ll go check it out!”
The voices of my companions trying to stop me are already far in the distance.
I can sense them chasing after me in a flurry, and I run even faster. I feel bad, but in order to ditch Bors and the others, I race randomly through the passageways.
Whenever I encounter a monster, I try to get around it. If I can’t avoid it, I put on a show with my knife, and when the monster shrinks back in fear, I rush past it. Sometimes I avoid a fight by leaping right over their heads.
The song is moving!
Whoever is singing is watching my actions and moving toward a place where we can meet.
The voice drifts in and out, but it’s always beautiful. The quiet song is like the seashore on a moonlit night, leading me forward. Finally, I arrive in a large room with a spring in it.
In the center of the spring, sitting on a crystal rock and continuing to sing, is a stunningly beautiful mermaid.
“Mari!”
I call out the Xenos mermaid’s name. The last time I saw her was the day I fought the moss huge. It’s hard to believe that was only two days ago.
She looks just as I remember, her long emerald-blue hair adorned with ornaments made of shells and pearls. She’s put on a bikini top made of shells out of consideration for me, which is a relief. We first met on the twenty-fifth floor, but I suspect she can move freely anywhere within the Water Capital.
It feels strange to meet again so soon, but I step into the spring up to my waist and walk toward her. She turns to face me and pushes off the crystal rocks with both hands.
Then she hugs me fiercely.
“Bell!”
She throws herself at my chest like a child and wraps her arms around me. I start to blush at the soft sensation of her body, but then I notice something.
“Mari…?”
She’s shaking…
I can feel her fear, and it surprises me. I put my hands on her shoulders.
“What’s wrong, Mari? Did something happen?”
“…”
I speak in a gentle voice to calm her.
Although I had wanted to call on her to help me find Lyu, she was the one who called out to me. Why? She was even willing to risk being discovered by Bors and the rest of our group.
She looks down for a moment, then moves her petite lips.
“Something is here…that shouldn’t be here…”
Something that shouldn’t be here…?
Right away, I think of the huge hole we discovered just a short while ago.
Is whatever made that hole lurking around the twenty-seventh floor?
“Mari, do you know something? What did you see?”
“I don’t know…I don’t know when it came, and I don’t know where it went…I never saw it before…!”
Mari’s speech and actions make her seem younger than Wiene, and she speaks human poorly. I can tell that she herself is frustrated by her inability to describe what she saw.
But what she says is enough.
Something that scared Mari this much is on this floor. I squeeze her shoulders and ask another question.
“Mari, I’m looking for someone. Have you seen an elf girl?”
“Elf…?”
“Um, her ears are longer than mine, and she has a wooden sword, and she’s definitely hiding her face…and she’s really fast.”
I tell her all the concrete details I can think of.
“I really, really want to meet with her,” I add.
Mari looks up at me for a few moments. Then she nods.
But the next minute, she’s burying her head in my chest and rubbing it back and forth, as if to say she doesn’t want to tell me because it’s dangerous.
“…Wait.”
She moves away from me slightly, closes her eyes, and begins to sing again.
This time, it’s not an enchanting melody but a discordant one: her own special song to charm not humans but fellow monsters. Mari has the ability to control monsters with lower abilities than hers.
As waves ripple out from where she sits in the water, howls echo back to her from various directions. She opens her eyes wide as she listens to the voices of the monsters giving her information about the missing elf.
“I know now, Bell…She’s over there!”
“Thank you!”
As Mari dives into the spring and starts to swim, I climb onto land and begin running.
Just like before, I move through the water-and-crystal-filled maze guided by the mermaid.
What will I do when I meet up with Lyu? Should I ask her about what happened on the eighteenth floor? But can I really take the time to do that with irregularities occurring on the floor? Bors and the other adventurers are at risk…!
All sorts of worries and questions are flying around inside my head. Thinking about everything I need to do is driving me crazy.
Just then, a powerful shock thunders through the floor.
“An explosion?! Again?!” I shout as the reverberations rock through me.
The explosions had stopped for a while, but now they’ve started again.
Mari, who’s in the water, flinches at the sound. Waves rise in the stream she is swimming down—evidence of the explosion’s strength.
The sound and shaking seem to be coming from nearby!
I run faster, guided by reverberations and sounds that seem to be coming from collapsing crystals.
Mari is leading me in the same direction, and I follow her tail fin as it cuts through the water.
An ominous feeling runs down my neck.
I desperately try to ignore it.
Turning a corner littered with fragments of crystal, I realize we’ve reached the source of the shaking.
“Oh no…!”
Everything is a big mess. The ground has burst open and is totally unrecognizable, while the crystal walls have avalanched into the river alongside the path, blocking its flow. Water has started to gush from the cracks in the ceiling, pouring down in a waterfall. The destruction etched into the crystal maze looks like the aftermath of a barrage of explosions.
Smoke is drifting through the air, as if some kind of item or magic was used, and beyond the smoke is…a humanoid figure.
Mari, who’s come with me this far, dives in a panic to the bottom of the water.
My body stiff, I stare ahead of me for several seconds.
The smoke wavers and begins to clear—
“—”
Words fail me as the scene comes into focus.
A dwarf lies collapsed on the ground. He’s on his back, convulsing and bleeding.
And there, standing with one foot on the dwarf’s shoulder, is a woman.
The very woman who has come to our rescue so many times is standing with her back to me, the hem of her long mantle-like cape flapping.
She’s thrust her wooden sword into the ground right next to the dwarf’s face. In the other hand, she holds up a bloody shortsword.
I glimpse her sky-blue eyes beneath the hood pulled up over her head. They are wide open, and they make my blood run cold.
My heart quivers at the sight of her profile, which reveals her emotions so nakedly.
“Miss…Lyu…?”
I call her name, half in doubt. I have seen this expression on her face only once before.
Her ears twitch.
Time stops as she turns and pierces me with her sky-blue eyes. As astonishment spreads over her face, I know. It’s Lyu.
Before my eyes is the unmistakable, beautiful elf I know so well.
“Miss Ly—”
“Why are you here?!”
I stop breathing as she scolds me fiercely.
I’ve never heard her speak in such an angry voice.
I’ve never seen her glare like this.
It’s the expression of…a bloodthirsty murderer.
“Why. Are. You. Here?”
A moment later, her face crumples with a range of different emotions.
What is spilling from her blurred eyes? Suffering? Sorrow?
Or regret?
“Mr. Cranell, leave this floor. Immediately.”
She speaks in a low voice, her tone devoid of emotion.
My hand shakes as if an electric current is running through it, while the rest of my body remains frozen.
“You must not be here. Leave now.”
“M-M-Miss Lyu, what do you mean—?”
“Just do as I say!!”
She’s screaming at me again.
Her words are not a request but a demand that leaves no room for questions, let alone opposition. Meanwhile, she continues to pierce me with her sharp gaze as I stand frozen.
“You don’t need to do anything. Or know anything. Don’t get involved.”
She says each sentence in rapid succession, then pulls her sword from the ground, takes something from the fallen dwarf, and makes a move to leave.
“Miss Lyu…Please wait, Miss Lyu! What is going on? What are you doing?!”
Time begins to slide forward again. I’ve finally managed to move my frozen lips and get out a few words.
I feel all turned around, and I have no idea what to say to her, but nevertheless I keep talking.
“What in the world happened to that dwarf…?!”
Lyu looks irritated by my shaking voice and glances down at the body.
“For all I care, this bastard can serve as food for the monsters.”
She spits out the statement and then takes off running, leaving the battered dwarf behind.
The voice that spoke her parting words was full of hatred. I’m so shocked I can’t move. I’m left behind, completely useless.
“Miss…Lyu…”
I want to know what your true intentions are.
But that question did not reach you. Far from it—instead, you rejected me and fled.
I cannot begin to understand what I just saw.
My mind isn’t even churning—it’s just blank. It’s useless.
I’m standing here in a daze.
“Bell…Bell!”
Mari’s voice brings me back to myself.
I must have been standing here for quite a few seconds, or rather minutes.
The sound of running water fills my ears again, and color returns to the scene before my eyes.
“…!”
With my mind as confused as ever, I kick the ground. After wavering for a moment over whether to chase after Lyu or stay with the dwarf, I decide on the latter and crouch next to him.
“Oh boy…”
The collapsed dwarf adventurer has already lost consciousness. His protective gear is half-destroyed, and his short trunk is covered in blood. He’s marred by long, thin gashes, as if he has been slashed repeatedly.
“…!”
I can’t just leave him here, so I start to treat his wounds. Every now and then he twitches, as if his body is recalling the violence inflicted on it.
All through this, though, the only thing I can think of is Lyu.
The image of her back turned to me in rejection won’t leave my mind. My hands are shaking so badly, I can’t properly administer first aid.
I’m more in shock than I realized.
“Miss Lyu…!”
I finish up the urgent-care measures that can’t be put off, then I tuck the dwarf under one arm and start running. As the dwarf’s limp arms and legs swing back and forth, I head in the direction that Lyu disappeared to, leaping over chunks of crystal that have fallen from the walls and ceilings. Mari hurries to follow behind me, dipping down to the river bottom and then popping her face above the water’s surface.
“Huff, puff…”
Sweat flies backward off my body as I run at top speed, still thinking about what just happened.
I arrived on the scene just moments after the explosion happened. Lyu’s magic is definitely powerful enough to cause this much damage to the passageways. Thinking back on the situation, I believe the string of events fits together.
A violent assault using magic?
A bombardment that was impossible to defend against?
Did Lyu attack this dwarf with the clear intent to kill him?
It’s a lie; it can’t be…Not her…!
I want to believe Lyu is not the kind of elf who would do something like that.
But what do I make of the dwarf under my arm, breathing so faintly I can barely feel it?
Did she just happen to pass by after he was attacked by a monster? And I happened to be unfortunate enough to find them both a moment later? It’s such a ridiculous idea that I feel like crying.
The dwarf’s deep cuts look very much like those on the corpse in Rivira.
It seems nearly incontrovertible that she inflicted these wounds on the dwarf.
Why did she attack him? What in the world could make her do this?
I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
My unsettled mind is unable even to piece together a theory to console myself.
I thought the incident in Rivira was some sort of mistake.
I still don’t know the truth of it. But…
The look on Lyu’s face, the feeling in her heart…that murderous intent…Were they real?
I shiver as I recall the expression on her face as she stood there with her wooden sword thrust into the ground, looking down on the dwarf with terrifyingly cold eyes.
Even if someone else’s schemes are involved—even if she’s been pulled into something—if Lyu’s feelings, her intent to kill, are genuine…
If the motive driving her forward is real, then—
“!”
I shake my hair back to stop the thought in its tracks.
I’m being tormented by these speculations that appear and disappear in the back of my mind, by this illusion that I’m being strangled by my own hands.
If I don’t get a handle on myself, I’ll drown in my own thoughts.
As if the Dungeon is jeering at my inner conflict, another explosion thunders in the distance.
“…?!”
I change direction and head toward the explosion.
The roars of monsters mingle with shock waves. And was that a human scream I heard very faintly just now?
I have a bad feeling about this. The uneasiness won’t go away. I want to tear out my heart as it beats so harshly and noisily. I readjust the dwarf under my arm and rush toward the echoing explosions.
Mari struggles to keep up with my anxious steps as she swims along the waterway beside the path.
“Mari, you can’t come with me!”
“I want to come!”
Mari shakes her head like an unreasonable child in response to my warning.
I’m painfully aware of how concerned she is for me because of my strange behavior. But her concern is a problem right now. I can’t drag her into a dangerous situation.
I frown, then sadly make up my mind to change course, heading toward a passageway where the dryland path continues but the waterway dead-ends.
“Oh!”
Mari gasps in surprise. Her jewellike jade eyes pool with tears.
“Dumb Bell!”
Her words fly at my back as I continue to run forward, whispering my apologies to her. I’m encountering so many monsters, it almost feels like they’ve caught wind of the explosion and are heading for it themselves. Devil mosquitoes, blue crabs, and even large-category crystal turtles block the road.
Aside from the winged harpies and sirens, the aquatic monsters of the Water Capital are scarcely impacted by fire-type magic. I limit my use of Firebolt to keeping them in check, but while my left hand is closed in a fist, my right hand grips Hakugen and slices through the enemies in my way.
Having dodged the monsters bearing down on me, I arrive at my destination…and see the same scene I came across a little while earlier.
“…!!”
A wall has been deeply gouged out, and crystals are raining down from the cracked ceiling.
The only difference from the earlier scene is that a large number of adventurers are screaming and shouting.
“What is going on?!”
“Everything is totally destroyed…What could have done this?!”
The site of the explosion is hellish.
The various hunting parties that split up on the twenty-seventh floor have followed the sound of the explosion and gathered here. They are clustered around an adventurer lying on the broad main route, which is scattered with crystal chunks of varying sizes.
“Eh…? He’s been killed.”
“But I don’t recognize him from our hunting party!”
Sharp claws grip my heart at the word killed.
The victim is either a human or an animal person, covered in blood and severely burned all over his body. His charred eyes will see no more. The smell of burned flesh invades my nostrils, and a wave of nausea overtakes me.
My hands and feet are cold.
My chaotic emotions are making my brain go haywire.
I reel backward in shock.
I feel like I’m being baptized by the lower levels. This is different from the middle and upper levels—to have this many encounters with death.
Incoherent thoughts are born and die as I try to escape from the reality confronting me.
“…?!”
A victim here as well?
Was this, too…the work of Lyu?!
The dwarf under my arms seems to have grown heavier. Suddenly I notice that my body is covered in sweat.
“Rabbit Foot! Where the hell did you go off to?!”
“…Bors!”
As angry howls fly back and forth in the Dungeon, a voice even louder than the others calls out to me. I put the dwarf down and turn to Bors and the rest of our group, who have walked up to me.
“I’m sorry for going off on my own. But what is going on…?!”
“…We just got here, too, so we don’t know, either. But it’s obviously not the work of a monster. The only one who would go and do something like this…”
At this point, Bors notices the dwarf lying on the ground covered in wounds from some sort of blade.
“Hey, what’s with the dwarf?”
“Th-th-this guy—”
“Don’t tell me Gale Wind got to him…?!”
“Uh…”
I can’t confirm or deny Bors’s guess.
I find that I’m unable to stand up for her this time.
But what should I have said? “Lyu inflicted all these wounds, but she’s not a bad person” probably wouldn’t go over very well.
All I can do is stand by as Bors and the others snatch the injured adventurer away and begin treating him.
“It’s no use; he’s not opening his eyes. Is there anyone around who can tell us what happened?”
“Bors! There’s a survivor over here! He’s coming to!”
“!”
Bors and I both go pale at those words. We rush toward the adventurer who shouted to us. Collapsed on the ground next to a crystal wall is a catman.
“—”
I’m so shocked at the condition he’s in that my stomach seems to flip upside down.
First of all, he’s missing an arm.
Where a forearm should be protruding from the blood-soaked sleeve beneath his mangled upper arm, there’s nothing.
His face is covered in burns, slashes, and blood, and as for the ears that mark him as an animal person…one is missing.
He has so many wounds I want to turn my eyes away.
“Hey, can you talk? What happened here?”
Bors’s question is more like a shout.
The animal person has the fingers of his left hand in his mouth, dulling the chattering of his teeth. He looks up at Bors as if he’s just noticed he’s there. Then he curls his body—which is extremely tall and thin even for a catman—into an exaggerated cat’s pose.
“G-G-Gale Wind…Leon did…”
“You say it was Gale Wind?!”
“She threw her magic at me, and I saw a flash of light, and everything went white…!”
“…!”
Bors is fixated on the second name the catman mentions, while I’m in shock over the rest of what he said.
As I stand there frozen, Bors leans forward and is about to ask where she is now when our Amazonian party member stops him.
“Wait, Bors, we should treat him first—”
The catman widens his eyes as she reaches out a hand.
“Don’t touch me!”
“?!”
“Don’t touch me, please…!”
He collapses farther onto the ground in an attempt to move away from her. With his one remaining hand, he clutches his head and repeatedly flinches as if in fear. It makes for such a miserable sight that Bors and the others are at a loss for what to do.
They seem to have descended into chaos…No, more like panic.
“…? Hey, aren’t you…Jura Harma of Rudra Familia?”
As the catman rubs his disheveled hair against the floor, a vulgar ear ornament made from a monster’s bone comes into view, and Bors widens his one eye as the catman’s identity dawns on him.
The catman jerks in surprise, too.
“Bors, you know him?”
“Yeah…He usually goes by the name Slaver Cat. He belongs to a gang of Evils called Rudra Familia…The faction that entrapped and slaughtered the very same Astrea Familia that Gale Wind belonged to…”
My heart gives the loudest thump it’s made all day.
So this is the enemy of Astrea Familia…of Lyu?
“Five years ago, when Gale Wind went wild, she annihilated Rudra Familia. Massacred all their members. At least we thought she killed them all…but it seems this one survived.”
Bors ignores my dumbfounded look and glares down severely at the man he called Jura.
“Y-yeah…I was the only one who survived her attack—the attack by Leon, that piece of shit!”
The catman, who’s shaking violently, doesn’t deny he’s an Evil.
He seems upset, but he looks at Bors and the rest of us pleadingly.
“But I haven’t done anything bad since then…! Honestly, I’ve just been hiding out in that gloomy dungeon…!”
“…!”
“But then Leon found me, and I fled here…!”
As Bors and the rest of our group digest this surprising information, I’m the only one who seems to realize that the “dungeon” he’s referring to is not this one. It’s Knossos.
Just like the violent hunters of Ikelos Familia said, the man-made dungeon was both a breeding ground and a hideout for Evils. And this guy was hanging around down there.
But…Oh, okay…Now things are falling into place.
Even I can make a guess at what this whole thing is about.
Lyu discovered that an enemy of her former familia was alive, and as the flames of rage flared once again, she gave herself over to the desire for revenge.
And now she is pursuing him exactly as her wild emotions dictate: not with tears or blood but instead with the cold cruelty I witnessed on her face.
“Was Jan killed in Rivira because he was connected to this guy…?”
Bors and the others have their hands over their mouths, like they finally get it. I replay in my mind the scene we’re all imagining.
“I’m begging you—help me…! I won’t do any more evil. Hand me over to the Guild, anything, just protect me from her…!”
The catman flattens himself to the ground in prostration and entreaty. It doesn’t look like a performance. No, that terror of Gale Wind and those quivering eyes and body are definitely real.
I’m stuck between the reality before my eyes and the scene playing in my mind.
I can’t decide what the truth is.
I just keep asking the image of Lyu that floats in my mind, Is it really true?
“…You’re still following us?”
“Stop it with your weird questions. We’re gonna beat Gale Wind to a pulp, right? Obviously it’s better to move in a group.”
Aisha smirked, unembarrassed, as the werewolf Turk craned his neck around to look at her.
They were on the twenty-fifth floor.
Lilly and the others had started out following Turk’s group of four, but very soon they had merged together.
Following someone undetected in the Dungeon was just about impossible. As soon as a monster discovered an adventurer, it would start howling and thrashing, which put an end to any sneaking around. It might have been slightly more possible for a solo adventurer, but Lilly and the others wanted to avoid splitting up their party, so that option had been ruled out.
The simplest option was just to join up with the group they wanted to follow. That way, if the group did anything suspicious, they could monitor them or rein in their actions.
“After all, we’re hunting a Level Four adventurer,” Aisha said, driving home her point.
Turk turned back toward the path ahead of him. The other adventurers in his group kept throwing suspicious glances backward and whispering.
Lilly’s group was following Turk’s through the Dungeon at a distance of about three meders.
“They’re definitely watching us, too.”
“Well, it’s only natural to be irritated when another party latches on to you like this…But still, the way his temper flares up worries me.”
Welf and Lilly were speaking in low voices. Meanwhile, Ouka was keeping half an eye on Turk as he watched for monster attacks. The whole group had a nervous tension about it that was different from usual.
Cassandra alone was sunk in thought.
She was thinking of Bell on the twenty-seventh floor.
I wonder if I should have told him about my dream…But if he knew the contents of the prophecy, he would definitely…
The reason she hadn’t told him was that she had sensed she wouldn’t have been able to alter his strong will, which was equivalent to his destiny. Plus, there was something else.
If Gale Wind is at the root of everything…
Cassandra’s thoughts grew frightening.
Gale Wind—“the fairy fated to guide all to ruin”—seemed to be the prime source of the misfortune in her dream. And indeed, weren’t her actions behind everything from the murder in Rivira to the “great calamity”?
If Gale Wind was the cause of all misfortune, then Bell’s attempts to save her would be meaningless. Even worse—the person he had believed in would betray him, and he would face a harsh reality.
It was truly a cruel fate for the boy.
It’s always the same. I worry, I waffle, I suffer, I fail…and I regret.
Anxiety and sorrow filled Cassandra’s face as she stared absently at the waterway running through the Dungeon.
No one noticed her, and no one understood.
What should I have done to help him?
No answer came to her.
The adventurers around me are still in an uproar.
The assembled group winces at the smell of burned flesh. The whole passageway is in ruins, a testament to the destructive power of the violent explosion. Some monsters seem to have been caught up in the disaster as well, as evidenced by the corpse of a merman lying on the ground, its upper body crushed.
Some adventurers are hurling abuse at the monsters that wander in from other passageways, but those of us gathered around the victim are cloaked in heavy silence.
The catman called Jura is still terrified of Gale Wind. His actual age is unclear, probably due to the effects of his Status, but he looks to be in his mid-thirties. Perhaps from exhaustion, he has sunken black circles around his almond-shaped eyes, which are filled with fear.
“Bors…Wh-wh-what do we do?”
“Not much, I’d say…If we turn him in to the Guild, we’ll make off with a tidy bundle of reward money and that’s it. If he’s killed by Gale Wind, it all disappears,” Bors answers boastfully, as if proclaiming his disinterest in justice. “What are we here for? To kill the elf who murdered our fellow townsman, right? Our job hasn’t changed. Just a question of whether we get more money or not.”
Bors’s firm stance wipes the indecision from the faces of the other adventurers. For me, though, it’s a terrible decision. My face stiffens.
But I, too, am wavering.
I can’t read Lyu’s true intentions.
Has she really been overtaken by her desire for revenge?
Was she driven by rage to kill these adventurers?
And…
My mind is catching on something else.
I don’t know what it is…but something about this situation, this course of events, makes me feel sick to my stomach.
In the back of my mind, a voice is shouting that something here is off.
A memory is struggling to rise to the surface of my consciousness.
…But I can’t grab hold of it.
My thoughts and emotions are all mixed up. I have no idea what is true or what I should believe!
However much the deities have told me I’ve grown, I’m still the same old Bell Cranell.
I get confused easily and can’t make decisions on my own. I’m still the same old pitiful me, constantly unsure what to do—
“—?”
As I press my hand to the side of my head to push out this feeling of despair, I stamp my boots on the ground—and hit something.
“It’s a…”
Scarlet fragment.
It seems to have originated inside the Dungeon.
I pinch what appears to be a small piece of deep-red crystal between my fingers and stare at it intently. Finally, I open my eyes wide.
“It’s—Gale Wind?!”
At almost the same instant, someone thunders out Lyu’s name.
“?!”
I whip my head around toward source of the yell.
Far in the distance, down one of the many side passages, I glimpse something flying alongside a waterway.
It’s a long cape, whipped by the wind, charging at lightning speed toward us.
“Get her, troops!!”
Bors is yelling so loud, his veins are popping out. He seems to think the critical moment has come.
I have no time to stop them. No one is about to listen to an excuse or explanation. In response to the order from their leader, who’s just spit on the ground, the adventurers raise a battle cry and flood toward the lone elf.
But she doesn’t even glance at them. Instead, she roars straight toward us, a bloodcurdling expression on her face.
“JURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”
It’s hard to believe such a massively powerful roar of anger could have come from such a delicate form.
Her cry reverberates all the way to where we stand, quite a distance from her. It shakes the Dungeon’s crystal walls.
Although she might not have intended it to, the sound makes every one of the adventurers who had been racing toward her tremble with fear, as if they’ve just heard a monster’s roar.
She keeps charging straight toward the man whose name she has screamed.
“Get out of the way!!”
““Aaah!!””
The scene before my eyes is unbelievable.
Gale Wind pierces the wall of upper-class adventurers—including some Level Threes—like an arrow.
Her wooden sword topples a dwarf on the front line and then, on its return blow, smashes against a wall an animal person who was flying toward her. Amazons and humans alike are trampled as they try to hold back her charge. The sword literally throws off a blue-green glow. It pulses along with the light of her sky-blue eyes, and each time it does, another hardened warrior is thrown into the air.
Is she going to take down all twenty upper-class adventurers…?!
“JURAAAA!”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
As the masked elf glares fiercely from the depths of her hood and repeatedly screams his name, the catman goes as pale as if the world is ending. Then he turns away from her and flees.
I watch his receding form in surprise, but Bors’s party is doing the opposite: Weapons raised, they’re licking their chops at Gale Wind, who’s broken through the wall of adventurers.
“She’s using some kind of magic or skill! Stop her! If we can just slow down her momentum, we can beat her with numbers!! Don’t let her take advantage of us!”
Bors is not only the head of Rivira, he also displays the confidence of a top-grade Level Three adventurer, and his commands are swift and precise. He’s confident that with this many resources on our side, we can beat her. His orders fuel the fighting spirit of the animal-person siblings and the Amazon, who rush forward.
But.
“—”
The instant before they make contact, the elf’s body shifts suddenly from a full-force forward charge to a whirling maelstrom.
As she spins around like a top, her cape letting out sharp popping sounds as it cuts through the wind, she slips splendidly past their outstretched arms. Then, as they stand dazed at having been played this way, she hits them on the back of the heads with her wooden sword as she completes her turn. They go flying, knocked unconscious.
Her skill is so tremendous, it takes my breath away and makes me gape in a way that’s not quite appropriate for the current situation.
“What, you think you’re in Loki Familia or something?!”
Bors, who’s rapidly becoming the last man standing, flings spit and curses as he brandishes his huge battle-ax. But just before he’s about to bring the blade down on this extraordinary elven warrior, who truly embodies the storm and drive that inspired her nickname—
“—? Huh? You’re the same elf who…Ergh!!”
Bors pauses for an instant as if he’s remembering something—most likely the battle they fought side by side on the eighteenth floor. In that moment of hesitation, Lyu brings her wooden sword crashing mercilessly into the side of his face.
My own face twitches as I watch his massive body crash against a wall, blood spurting from his nose as his face meets the hard surface.
“Uh…wait! Please wait!”
I’m left alone now, and I cry out as Lyu charges toward me.
I don’t want to fight. I want to listen. I want to hear your story in your own words.
Those are the only thoughts on my mind as I stand blocking her way forward.
“You’re in my way.”
She doesn’t seem to have the time for any of that.
She narrows her blue eyes deep within her hood, and the next moment, the delicate foot inside her boot is stomping the ground.
“?!”
She’s just leaped over my head.
—She’s outwitted me!!
I’m amazed that she was able to take the last of her momentum and use it to clear my head, barely grazing my hair. She doesn’t turn around when she lands on the other side—just takes off running like the wind.
“After her, Rabbit Foot!!” Bors yells as he peels his head from the wall.
I hear his angry voice battering my back; I have the highest ability of anyone in the hunting party, and he wants me to pursue her.
Practically before he’s finished his sentence, I’m kicking my own feet against the crystal floor to pursue Lyu for my own reasons.
“Yaaa!!”
Already, I can barely make out her long cape. I race after her as she chases the catman. A moment later, she disappears, probably because she’s turned a corner in the passageway.
I come to a halt before the multitude of branching passages, unsure where to go. Very quickly, though, I make my choice. The one I choose echoes with the menacing roars and screams of monsters. Following what I assume to be the cries of the beasts that have met with Lyu’s sword, I keep running. As if to confirm my guess, I pass the writhing bodies of monsters she has cast aside and piles of ash arranged like footprints.
There’s a limit to this method, though, and soon enough I’ve completely lost track of the incredibly fast elf within the massive Dungeon.
“Where did she go…?”
My sense of urgency increases the panic I feel, and an uncomfortable sweat covers my body.
At that very moment, I hear a song.
“Now, far away—in the infinite heavens—”
I stop in my tracks.
The fragments of song continue to echo from somewhere in the Dungeon, unconcerned with me.
“Come to my foolish self—to the one who has abandoned you—”
Magical power swells.
My adventurer’s intuition quivers in fear as the reverberations from some kind of bombardment reach me, even from a distance, like water overflowing from a vessel.
And then, it is clear that the magical power has reached its critical point.
“Pregnant with the light of stardust, defeat your enemy!”
No way!!
My intuition was right.
“Luminous Wind!!”
There’s a thundering noise, and the passageway in front of me is blasted apart.
“?!”
A huge ball of light crosses the path before me, bringing with it a storm of wind.
I throw my arms in front of my face as a meteor shower of debris flies from right to left.
Along with the savage roar of magical power, the Dungeon fills with screams.
“…It pierced the Dungeon walls?”
I shake off my surprise at this ridiculous power and walk into the newly formed tunnel. Strangely enough, the track of the explosion leads me to Lyu.
Once I make my way past four crumbled crystal walls, I find myself in an enormous room. There’s a lot of dry land, but a number of waterways also flow into the space. Perhaps due to the lingering heat from the huge ball of magical light, steam is rising from the water and forming a light mist.
As I burst through the broken wall into this room, I find the catman at my feet, curled insect-like into a ball.
“You…”
“…R-Rabbit Foot? H-help me! Save me from her!!”
Of course I don’t need to ask who he means by her.
All of a sudden, the faint shadow of a humanoid form steps out of the mist in the center of the room and comes into focus.
It’s an elf, a wooden sword in her hand and a perilous look in her eyes.
“Miss Lyu…!” I cry out, squinting.
“…So you’ve followed me here, have you, Mr. Cranell?”
Lyu looks at me with her sharp gaze, as if she’s just noticed I’m here.
That alone is enough to make me unsure what to say. I almost miss the words she whispers from behind her mask.
“…Why are you always doing this?”
Then, more loudly—
“Move over. You’re in the way. I can’t get to him with you there.”
She looks past me to the catman.
Brandishing her bloodied sword, she slowly approaches us, her long boots scraping the ground loudly.
The catman, still crouched on the ground, groans at the terrifying sight.
“My only mistake was that I didn’t put an end to you last time. I was arrogant to assume I’d killed you without properly checking, and I regret that.”
Lyu’s voice is full of resentment as she curses her own poor work. The whole time she’s reciting this monologue, her eyes are piercing the catman.
“…I should have made sure you were dead that time.”
As the word dead falls from her lips, I almost faint. Like her cold, clouded eyes, her face has changed.
It’s not the face of the serious elf who worked at the tavern nor of the gallant adventurer who came to our rescue so many times.
It is the face of an avenger.
Is this really Lyu?
No, this is…
…Gale Wind?
When we were on the eighteenth floor together, she told me something about her past. Now the character from that story seems to have appeared before me. A different elf, one I’ve never met before.
“But we’ll clear that debt here and now—your calculations and all,” Lyu says resolutely as she pulls the mask from her face.
The catman screams as she walks steadily toward him, as if he can no longer stand his own terror.
“Rabbit Foot! Kill her; I’m begging you! It’s awful; my whole body hurts; the blood won’t stop…! The arm she cut off…!”
He seems to be in anguish as he hugs his bleeding body with his remaining arm. I shiver as I stare at Lyu’s dagger.
“I-is it true? That you cut off this man’s arm…?”
“…Yes, I was the one who severed his arm. I sliced off his ear, too. And what of it?!”
Anger and regret are blended inseparably in her voice. She has clearly confessed her deeds. I sink to the floor as my knees collapse beneath me.
“Move aside immediately!”
“M-Miss Ly—”
“I said move!!”
The tip of the wooden sword is pointing at me.
Her rage is enough to make me shrink, Level Four or not. The heartbeat thundering in my ears and the sweat pouring from me are near their peak.
“If you interfere, I’ll throw you aside, too…I don’t have time for it.”
Her words freeze my throat.
“Please, Rabbit Foot…Save meee…!”
The catman’s wail drives my anxiety even higher.
In front of me is an ultimatum, behind me a plea.
It’s just like a scene in a drama. There’s the criminal starving for blood, and here, facing her, is the detective, and there the victim pleading for help.
It’s me, in the role of detective, who’s been driven relentlessly into a corner. What a poor actor I am. Or to borrow the words of the deities, how wretchedly I have been miscast in this role.
I can hardly bring myself to watch.
“…Please tell me.”
Although I feel on the verge of being crushed, I draw up all my emotional strength and speak.
I have to know. I have to understand.
The whole story, and Lyu’s true intentions.
If I don’t, I’ll never be able to arrive at an answer.
So I buck this tremendous pressure and ask her.
“Did you kill the man from Rivira?”
“I don’t have time to answer your questions!”
“A body was found outside Rivira! People saw you fleeing the scene!”
“How many times do I have to say it for you to understand?!”
She’s full of irritation, determined not to give in.
“Miss Lyu, I’m begging you! Please answer me!!”
I pour all my yearning to hear her side of the story into my next four words.
“Did you kill him?!”
“It wasn’t me!!”
We’re yelling so loudly it’s like we’re fighting.
My eyes meet the sky-blue ones that have lost their calm.
Her shout is like that of a frenzied criminal.
The bitter words hurled at me contain no explanation or excuse, only emotion.
But—it’s enough.
“…I understand.”
At least for me.
“Rabbit Foot, what are you doing? Hurry up and save me! Hurry up and…?”
The catman is screaming at me as I let the tension drain from my body.
My physical body is still standing opposite her, but in my heart, I’m no longer opposing her.
Jura notices the change.
The scene is no longer composed of a criminal, a detective, and a victim.
Instead, there are two detectives and one true criminal.
And Jura knows it.
“Will you show me your wounds?” I ask him calmly.
“Huh? What are you talking about…?”
“Please show me where your arm was cut.”
It just so happens that I very, very recently saw a man whose arm had been cut off—the elf Luvis, who had been attacked by the moss huge.
I didn’t want to look at it, but the wound where the monster tore his arm off was really awful. The endless blood, the clothes and equipment stained deep red, the overwhelmingly strong smell of fresh blood.
The sight of his severed arm was so awful I felt the blood drain from my head the moment I glimpsed it.
But this guy doesn’t have any of those symptoms.
Sure, his clothes and equipment are covered in blood, but not so much that it would cause irreversible necrosis of the upper arm. The smell of fresh blood that invades one’s nostrils is missing, too.
That’s what my memory has been trying to tell me all along. That’s the sense of incongruence that was flashing in my mind.
Until a minute ago, I’d been so upset I hadn’t realized.
But now I see.
That missing arm—
“That wound…It’s old, isn’t it?”
He glares at me angrily.
Lyu said she herself severed his arm and sliced off his ear. But what if she did it in the past, when she was fully consumed by her desire for revenge—during that regrettable period of time she told me about with such grief on the eighteenth floor?
It makes sense. And it explains a few things.
This catman got upset and refused treatment for his wounds. Could that have been because he was worried about what we would discover if we examined his body? Was he afraid we would notice his wounds were old?
In other words, he inflicted his fresh wounds himself.
Lyu hasn’t even attacked him yet.
There are some other odd things as well.
Actually, quite a lot about this whole situation strikes me as unnatural.
If Lyu was using magic to cause explosions, then her victims would all have burns on them. But that didn’t hold true for one of them: the dwarf I encountered.
He alone was marked with dagger wounds and nothing else.
I’m guessing that dwarf was the only one of Lyu’s enemies whose whereabouts she discovered. And she probably took out her weapon because he resisted.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while now…but your claims don’t add up.”
“What are you talking about? I explained…!”
“Okay then, why are you alive right now?”
“…?!”
“If your arm was cut off, your ear was cut off, and you were the victim of magic…why are you not dead?”
His opponent is Gale Wind.
She destroyed a massive faction single-handedly. She is a legendary Level Four warrior with a bounty on her head.
It doesn’t make sense that she would capture him but let him escape in the end.
“At first I thought maybe she was deranged…because there’s no way Lyu would leave that place where Bors and the other adventurers had gathered after she had attacked you.”
That is, if they were indeed attacked, as this man claimed.
Why would Lyu create an explosion but then purposely not put an end to things?
—Because she hadn’t been attacking anyone in the first place.
Why hadn’t we found any signs of magical power or heard any spells, like I did this time?
—Because she hadn’t been blowing up the floor.
So what’s the big picture?
Even this miscast detective can figure that out.
The answer is simple.
Everything is a performance created and acted out by these people.
“I found this in the other passageway.”
I flip the scarlet fragment toward him. It’s still giving off heat, and I’ve seen that before.
“It’s an Inferno Stone, isn’t it?” I say.
I think back to something that happened four months ago, right after I met Welf. He’d brought me to see his workshop, and he showed me a device made for use in the furnace. In order to forge minerals from the Dungeon, he had to use a powerful explosive that enhanced the heat of the flames.
The catman’s face twitches.
“Miss Lyu said she didn’t kill anyone…and I believe her.”
The only thing I still don’t understand is the murder on the eighteenth floor.
If her rage truly drove her to kill that man…
I need to know the answer to this last question.
If she has once again reverted to a blood-soaked avenger, then all my reasoning will crumble under the force of her overwhelming desire to kill.
—It wasn’t even justice.
Lyu once said those words to me, her voice filled with regret.
“Mr. Cranell…”
But Lyu said she didn’t do it.
She told me that with unclouded eyes—eyes filled with an elf’s fierce pride, hatred of lies, and strong sense of duty. With the sky-blue eyes I know so well.
That was enough. More than enough.
With my back to the catman, I turn my face toward him and stare intently.
“If Lyu isn’t the one who caused the explosions…then it could only have been you and your gang.”
All the explosions so far have been their destructive work.
I still don’t know why they’re blowing up this floor. But finally, all the different strands have come together in a single rope.
“Please show me the wound on your arm.”
If he shows me that, I’ll feel sure.
Show me the wound she gave you as proof of her guilt.
I’m aware that my own eyes are cold, red, and glittering.
I scowl at him, speaking in a tone that leaves no room for argument.
Lyu is staring at me, the one person who believes her.
The catman gulps.
Then, unmistakably, he clicks his tongue.
As he glares at me, the drained face of a severely wounded victim transforms into that of a brutal villain.
The next instant, the hand that had been stretched out by his side flashes forward.
“So I’ve been discovered!”
“Ah!”
I fly back to avoid the stroke of red that suddenly cuts through the air.
He is gripping a scarlet whip in his left hand.
“You and those idiots from Rivira are worthless! Even if you didn’t kill Leon, I thought you’d at least slow her down!”
“Jura…!”
Lyu and I are standing side by side facing our opponent. He rests the whip on his shoulder, then draws an elixir from his pouch, deftly removes the lid with his single hand, and pours it over his head. The top-grade item heals his bloody self-inflicted wounds and sends smoke rising from the scars.
“Turk did well, but he slipped up at the end. He got nervous about you, Leon, and let off the explosion too soon.”
Like a magician giving away his secrets, he throws the Inferno Stones he’d been hiding onto the ground around us.
There must be at least twenty of them. He definitely could have caused that much damage to the Dungeon with this many stones.
“I’m sorry, Miss Lyu, for doubting you even a little…!”
“…No, I got hotheaded and wasn’t discreet enough. I was trying to avoid you for your own sake…but I was wrong.”
We’re talking side by side, without looking at each other. Lyu mutters softly to me, her eyes glued to the man in front of us.
“Thank you, Mr. Cranell, for believing in a fool like me. I am deeply grateful.”
I’m not sure if it’s joy or happiness, but warmth floods my chest.
“I want to stop this villain…Please, help me.”
“Of course!”
I nod, a smile spreading over my face as I continue to look forward. Keeping my gaze carefully fixed on our enemy, I draw the Divine Knife.
“Jura, accept your fate. You very nearly incited the people of Rivira to kill me, but your plans have crumbled. You have no one left.”
Taming her rage with reason, Lyu speaks to Jura as if she is delivering a final decree. Her eyes drilling into him, she slowly closes the gap between him and us.
In response, he smiles.
Then, brandishing his scarlet whip, he laughs at us.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha, heh-heh-heh…! Don’t make me laugh!”
“…”
“Have you forgotten, Leeeon?”
Lyu’s rival—her sworn enemy—lets out another loud laugh.
An instant later, the whip lashes against the ground, gleaming with a scarlet light.
“I am a tamer!”
A second later, a massive shadow breaks through the ceiling and falls to the ground.
“Huh?!”
Both Lyu and I kick off the ground. She leaps to the left and I to the right; the enormous form crashes right between us. As the whole room shakes, I throw my arms in front of my face to block the flying fragments of crystal.
“Meet my pet.”
Astonished, I look up at an enormous writhing body.
Its gaping maw is searching for anything whatsoever to gulp down.
The long, swollen form has no arms or legs. Where the face should be, there are three pairs of eyes.
It’s a gigantic multi-eyed serpent.
“What the hell are you doing?” Aisha asked, her fearless smile belying her words. She glared at Turk and his companions as they drew their swords while lunging at her.
“So it wasn’t just one of them…” Welf said.
“Yeah, seems all of them were on the dark side,” Ouka answered. As their four opponents drew their weapons and exchanged murderous glances, the two young men pulled out their own weapons.
The enemy party was comprised of two humans and two animal people. All but Turk were wearing large packs. All four had finally shown their true colors.
“Since we’re pressed for time and you won’t leave us alone…we’ll kill you here! For the sake of Jura’s plan, of course!”
The next instant, Turk pulled out a scarlet whip and summoned a monster.
“?!”
Aisha and the rest of the party leaped back as its long body burst through a wall. Lilly gripped Daphne and Haruhime gripped Mikoto, and the four fled the crumbling passage.
Strangely enough, at the very same moment that Bell and Lyu were facing the huge serpent, another of the same monster was appearing before the rest of his party.
“What the…?!”
“A lambton…!”
The long, massive serpent is an extreme large-category monster, definitely imposing enough to be a floor boss. It measures around five meders high and at least ten long.
For a second, my mind goes blank before the overwhelming presence of the beast.
Despite its awesome appearance, I can’t recall anything about the monster before my eyes. Even when Lyu shouts what must be its name, I can’t remember anything. What happened to all that information Eina drilled into me before I left on our expedition for the lower levels?
“—Oh yeah.”
Finally, from the depths of my memory, I manage to extract some information. The instant I do, my breath stops.
“No way…!”
“Ouranos.”
The black-clad figure gripping a crystal ball spoke into the surface of the magic item.
“As you expected, I have discovered a storeroom full of monsters.”
“Are any Xenos imprisoned there?”
“No, none. Just ordinary monsters.”
The figure talking with Ouranos was his closest assistant, the eight-hundred-year-old fallen sage, Fels. The mage had used special powers to invade Knossos on a top secret mission and was now reporting back via an oculus.
“It seems they were transporting other types of monsters captured in the Dungeon as well, not just Xenos.”
“How many?”
“Let’s just say there are too many for me to count.”
The cold stone room was filled with black cages of varying sizes containing different kinds of monsters. There was a plant-type monster with yellow-green skin, a group of large-category monsters captured as a herd, and a dragon with drool dripping from its razor-toothed maw. They seemed to have been suppressed with some kind of tranquilizer, perhaps a magic item, so that even when Fels drew close, they reacted only dully.
The mage held a magic-stone lamp up to the cages one by one. Even without human flesh, the wise skeleton felt a vague chill.
“Are Lido and the others with you?” Ouranos asked.
“No, we split up. Some of the Xenos were imprisoned like this in the past. Even if they’re not of the same species, I decided it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for them to witness this…Also, the enemy’s attacks are quite brutal.”
“Can you dispose of them?”
Glancing over a hastily drawn-up list of the monsters, Fels answered Ouranos in a straightforward manner.
“To be honest, it would be difficult. Their numbers aside, quite a few of them are hard-to-handle specimens.”
Most of the middle- and lower-level monsters generally considered formidable were represented in the group. The documents Fels had discovered suggested that Ikelos Familia and other Evils’ Remnants had been conducting some sort of experiment on them.
Fels stopped in front of several large cages at the back of the hall.
“All the same, this is hard to believe…”
The voice that came from the depths of the black hood was part moan, part whisper.
“I didn’t expect them to have brought up monsters from the deep levels…”
There were two enormous cages. The bars of both had been bent out of shape from the inside.
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