CHAPTER 6
MEETINGS AND OATHS
Lyu Leon was once a girl who lived in an elven village.
To say that she was “just” a girl, though, would be misleading. She was a member of the clan that had protected the village’s holy tree for generations, and almost from the moment she was born she had been trained in the ways of the elven warriors. If outsiders should ever invade, she would defend the village alongside the adults. Despite lacking any deity’s blessing, their skill with bow and blade meant they were entirely capable of dealing with any of the monsters that inhabited the surface of the mortal plane.
That day, Lyu and the other warriors had driven off a foreign caravan that had gotten too close.
“Those filthy animal-people merchants!”
“Did you see their disgusting faces? It’s like the ugliness just oozes out of their souls. They’re nothing like us.”
Lyu’s face was hidden under her cloak, which obscured the rest of her small form beneath its swaying drape. As they returned to the village, she overheard the adult elves speak of their scorn for the beings they’d just repelled.
The elven settlement was covered by the thick canopy of the foliage overhead. Even in the current era—the so-called time of the gods, when deities walked the land and human and demi-human exchange flourished—the elves alone shunned the other races out of pride and hid themselves away in the forests.
With the holy tree in its very center, Lyu’s home was one such place—Lumirua Forest.
“…”
“Hideous, inside and out. How vile they are, how unlike our own beautiful selves.”
Lyu silently watched the other members of her clan discuss the other races.
Elves were famous among the mortals for their extraordinary beauty.
They were prideful, fastidious, and eschewed revealing themselves to any they deemed unworthy. But looking at the supposedly attractive members of her own race, Lyu felt that it was the beautiful-seeming elves who were, in fact, the vilest of all.
With scornful smiles on their lovely faces, they flattered one another with flowery rhetoric. As she’d watched them and walked among them, Lyu had come to harbor doubts.
She couldn’t remember when they’d started, but over the eleven years since she’d entered the world, those doubts had grown in her young heart.
And eventually, those doubts had turned into revulsion.
To the elves, who took such pride in their race, such thinking was heresy. But once the seed had been planted, Lyu could not stop them from growing. The arrogance spouted by elven men and women alike only spurred her shame and dejection onward, eating away at her self-respect.
The young Lyu knew nothing. She had never left her village, and her world was too small.
And yet she was certain that what she saw around her was terribly distorted.
Every day, her heart grew more and more distant from her family and the other elves in her village. She was ashamed of them and ashamed, too, of herself.
One day, she separated from the other elves in her party and eventually came to a clear forest stream. As she brought its cool water to her mouth to slake her thirst, she caught sight of her reflection in her cupped hands.
Those pointed ears and sky-blue eyes.
The same long golden hair and fine, delicate features as everyone else in her village.
That day as she looked down into her small hands, Lyu made up her mind.
“…Good-bye.”
Cloaked in the dark of night, Lyu ran away from her home—alone, taking only some seiros ore to use as traveling money.
She bid farewell to her home’s night sky that she’d loved so dearly, and the holy tree that she was duty bound to watch over her since the moment of her birth, setting off for the outside world, her mind full of what its vastness might hold.
She hoped she could be freed from the yoke of the elven name.
And yet—
It was raining.
Gray clouds covered the sky, and the hood that hung low over her face became damp in the drizzle. Lyu trudged along, her every step splashing as she gazed out over the deserted street that had turned almost foggy with mist.
This was Orario, the Labyrinth City.
Lyu had left her home and come all the way here, to the place known as “the center of the world.” Despite struggling with her ignorance of the wider world, the reputation of the Labyrinth City had reached even her isolated village, and with significant effort she had managed to pass through its vast gates.
She had heard that Orario was a place where gods, mortals, and spirits all came together, overcoming the barriers of race.
She hoped that she could find something rare here—something impossible for her to have in her village. She hoped to make friends from other races, and to meet true comrades that she would value for life.
Such were Lyu’s hopes for this city and the Dungeon that lurked beneath it.
But her hopes were quickly dashed.
And they were dashed by her own hand.
—Don’t touch me!
Lyu recoiled from every single person who approached her: Humans inviting her to join their familia. Drunken animal people. Prum merchants with lecherous grins. A dwarf adventurer looking to share a tale of woe. Whether they had good intentions or evil ones was irrelevant—Lyu brushed all of them aside.
It was a common elven disposition to shun the touch of anyone unworthy. The custom that seemed stamped into the hearts of her race compelled her strict behavior. That had been the cost of growing up surrounded by a village full of elves certain of their own superiority; her own personality had never reached the surface.
More than anything else, it was the inquisitive gazes that she couldn’t stand. The looks—of interest, of envy, of curiosity—were unlike anything she had ever experienced in her village, and they embarrassed, confused, and terrified her. And all simply because of her attractive elven features.
The dread she felt had gotten so bad that she couldn’t walk around outside without hiding her face beneath a hood.
The only option left to her was to depend on other elves whose names she didn’t even know.
But Lyu refused. Her youthful pride precluded such a path.
Her shame of and aversion to elves—herself included—blocked her only avenue of retreat.
“…I’ve become quite the laughingstock.” Lyu found herself draping herself in a cloak such that none of her skin was exposed, including wrapping it about her face.
Despite fleeing her village over her disgust for its ways, the outside world so frightened her that she walled herself off from it. Lyu hated this about herself.
She was miserable.
It was comical—a farce.
She paused her walk over the cobbled streets. Looking down at her reflection in the puddle there, she was seized by the urge to stomp on it.
She was terrified of people she didn’t know and helplessly unhappy. And yet she was dominated by the suspicion that she was regarding others with the same prejudicial gaze she so hated. All her loathing for elves had come back full circle.
A voice addressed Lyu in her moment of despair. “Pardon me, but is something the matter?”
She flinched and looked over her shoulder to see a beautiful woman standing there.
Whatever her age, the woman was at the height of her feminine beauty, her face even finer than Lyu’s elven features. Her long, walnut-brown hair was tied elegantly back. Her eyes were the indigo blue of the deep sea. In the kirtle—an elegant long skirt—she wore, she seemed every bit a virtuous noblewoman.
The faint aura of divinity that emanated from her made it clear what she was: one of the deusdea.
She seemed to be returning from some shopping, with a veil draped over her head to keep off the rain as she smiled softly at Lyu.
“A goddess…” Lyu murmured, making a face.
Lyu had not come to hold gods and goddesses in particularly high regard.
The deities she’d met thus far in Orario had been frivolous beings, prone to saying inexplicable, maddening things—“It’s an elf girl! Yes!” “Damn, if only she were a little younger…!”—which had been quite astonishing to Lyu. She couldn’t imagine ever turning to them for help.
It had gotten to the point that she was beginning to wonder if her people had had the right idea after all, spurning both other races and the gods themselves, opting to hide away in the forest. The feelings of disillusionment and despair rose up in her chest, as though they were about to overwhelm her.
To Lyu and her splintering heart, these gods who seemed to live only for their own amusement were deeply irritating beings.
“You’ll catch a cold standing there like that, you know.” The goddess’s voice was velvet soft, with a gentle quality that seemed to envelop Lyu.
But Lyu had already decided that she had no more good will for this goddess than she had for any other deity. “…It’s none of your concern how wet I get. I’d prefer you mind your own business.”
“Oh, but it is my concern. It would make me very sad indeed if an innocent girl like yourself were to fall ill. I would ask myself why I’d left her in such a state,” said the goddess, her gentle smile never wavering. She continued, “Would that I could be your shelter from the rain—at the moment, you look quite like a lost child.”
A lost child.
As she heard the words, something snapped inside Lyu.
—Did this goddess not realize whose fault that was?!
Lyu was unmistakably, completely off the mark; this was a childish tantrum. But in that moment, she knew of no way to stop herself from the rage that overwhelmed her.
“All of this is your fault!!” Lyu cried out, louder than she had ever raised her voice before, speaking just as the raging emotion inside her told her to. “You gods created elves! You made all these races that refuse to accept anyone different from themselves, people who only care about appearances!”
It was the deities in the heavens who created the humans and demi-humans who lived in the material world. In what to their children was the distant past, the gods in their capriciousness gave all the mortal races different characteristics. The mortals believed this to be true as well, unquestioningly.
Lyu squeezed her eyes closed in helpless frustration as she put a final demand to the goddess. “Why did you make us like this?!”
Her grief-stricken voice echoed in the otherwise deserted street.
The goddess fell silent at the elf girl’s angry rant.
The rain began to fall harder, as though in reprisal for Lyu’s words.
It was a terribly misdirected outburst. In screaming so, Lyu had only hurt herself, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
She was miserable.
It was comical—a farce.
She was such a fool. She couldn’t bear anyone to see her this way.
Lyu slumped as it dawned on her what she’d just done, losing herself in a vortex of self-loathing. Her small body shivered like she was trying to hold back her sobs.
Finally, the still unnamed goddess spoke, as though she’d seen right through Lyu. “I think what you need right now is not the voice of any god or goddess but a friend and equal.”
Lyu looked up with a sharp intake of breath and saw only that same kindly smile.
“Gods, you see, are surprisingly powerless. Even if we could use our power here in this world…I’m sorry,” said the goddess apologetically, but at the same time, her indigo eyes narrowed tenderly. “I shall pray for you to meet someone wonderful, someone who will brighten your wandering with their laughter.”
She approached Lyu and briskly handed her a map.
“If you like, come and visit. We may be able to help you,” said the goddess, and just like that, walked away.
Lyu stood there, holding the map, along with some bread and fruit wrapped in cloth.
“…”
No one had ever approached the naive girl with pure intentions. And even if they had, Lyu would have rejected them.
Which made this the first bit of kindness Lyu had accepted since coming to Orario.
As the rain began to let up, the girl continued looking in the direction the goddess had gone for some time.
The energy of the city had been somehow lacking for several days. Or at least that was what Lyu thought. While it was certainly still more than active enough for an elf who’d previously only known her own village, it felt as though a shadow had fallen over everything.
It was palpable in the sudden sighs of the residents, the dark looks that passed over their faces, and the series of scuffles that would ensue from a single provocation or cry. When fights broke out, the ordinary residents, by now used to them, would either hide or try to escape somewhere. Not a day went by without seeing Guild employees out on patrol trying to rein in the chaos or the heavy traffic of people who seemed to be adventurers.
Civic order was nonexistent. As she wandered aimlessly around the city, Lyu couldn’t help but sense its tense, edgy mood.
Which was why, when it finally happened, some cold part of her mind mused that it had been bound to sooner or later.
“Hey, you’re an elf, right? I got you dead to rights.”
“And without the protection of any god, so there ain’t no need to worry about anybody backin’ her up…this’ll be easy.”
Lyu had been cornered by a group of villainous-looking demi-humans in a back alley that was otherwise devoid of people.
It had been two days since her encounter with the goddess. The funds she’d been so thrifty with were running low, and she could see the quickly approaching end of her stay in the cheap inn she was using, so Lyu was agonizing over whether to go to the place indicated on the map.
Right as she was considering how it was difficult for her as an elf to ignore the possibility of further humiliation, these demi-humans had suddenly herded her into this alley as though they’d been planning it.
From the way they were talking, they’d marked Lyu as an easy target because she was both a beautiful elf and a country bumpkin. It also seemed like they scouted out the area in advance.
“And she’s right on the edge between bein’ a brat and a real woman. She’ll fetch good money in the Pleasure Quarter.”
—So they were kidnappers. No, slavers.
Did this sort of thing happen often in Orario? A shudder of revulsion ran through the noble Lyu’s body. Typically she saved her worst judgments for herself, but in this moment, she finally felt righteous indignation.
Lyu gave the apparent leader—a middle-aged cat person—the most vicious glare she could muster.
In all likelihood, her opponents were all adventurers carrying some god’s Falna. While an elven warrior could easily outmatch any ordinary person, she stood little chance of doing so here. Especially given the numbers.
As the adventurers reached for her, Lyu prepared to draw the shortsword she carried for self-defense, but then—
“Hey, you there! You’ve got some nerve, trying this in broad daylight!”
A dashing figure appeared.
Taken by surprise, the men all turned to look—and saw a human girl in combat gear.
Her beautiful red hair was tied back and left to sway in what the gods were always calling a “ponytail.” At her side she carried a rapier.
Her tapered green eyes glittered with the power of her will as she watched the wrong-footed men closely.
“Alize Lovell…!”
“You again, Jura? If you think you’re gonna pull some scheme off, think again!” The cat person and the girl glared at each other, using their names as though they’d met before. “You guys know what they call you around town? Thugs! You heard me—thugs! You came all the way to Orario to seek fortune in the Dungeon and ended up as small-time crooks! Aren’t you embarrassed?!”
“Y-you bitch…!” The men started to look murderous, but the instant they started to move—
“Oh, you wanna go?” The girl’s eyes sharpened like blades, and she drew her rapier faster than the eye could follow.
The men gulped at the sharpened tip of the blade that was pointed at them.
The leader’s face twisted into a sneer, and he spat. “Tch…One of these days we’re gonna kill you, I promise you that. Let’s get outta here!” he roared.
The ne’er-do-wells scattered, leaving behind a stunned Lyu along with her triumphant savior.
“I swear, they never learn. You okay?”
Lyu looked again at the girl who approached her.
She was beautiful. Even without speaking to her, Lyu could sense her bright spirit and straightforward personality.
The girl seemed to be roughly the same age as Lyu, who was fairly mature for her age by elven standards. Taking the fact that she was human into account, this girl was probably a year or two older.
Lyu watched her closely, at which the girl cocked her head, then smiled as though something had occurred to her. She thrust out her chest and placed her right hand over it. “Oh, I haven’t introduced myself yet! I’m Alize Lovell. I’m a beautiful adventurer who plans on being Level Two very soon!”
Lyu’s eyes widened at the girl’s introduction.
“Wh-what? It’s true, I say! I’ll have you know that I’m the object of quite a few rookies’ envious gazes!” the girl added hastily.
Lyu said nothing in response and turned her back. As she began to walk away, the human girl—Alize—furrowed her brow. “Are you seriously just going to walk away without so much as a word? I’m not saying I want a reward, but it’s a little rude to just ignore me.”
“…If you only saved me for your sense of self-satisfaction, then you shouldn’t need anything from me at all. I didn’t ask for you to save me,” replied Lyu, giving Alize a glance.
Normally Lyu would never say such a thing, but her heart had been ground down by her continuing suffering in Orario. More than anything else, she feared brushing the girl’s hand away and the accusing gaze that would follow.
Instantly, Alize met Lyu’s reply with a flatly candid one of her own. “Oh, I see. You’re just pigheaded.”
In that moment, the blood rushed to Lyu’s head.
At the sensation of being rightfully skewered, humiliation and rage took over her body. Her sky-blue eyes sharpened and glared out from under her hood. “And you’re calling me that because I’m an elf?”
“Huh?” The other girl made a confused face, which only inflamed Lyu’s anger further.
“Well—I wasn’t born an elf because I wanted to be one, okay?!”
It was the second time her emotions had gotten the better of her since coming to the city. She let her normally carefully controlled speaking slip and aired her feelings using words that were far more typical for a girl her age.
She breathed heavily; the sound echoed in the alley.
The two girls glared at each other.
After a brief moment, Alize made a satisfied “Ha!” under Lyu’s accusatory gaze. She sniffed ostentatiously. “What are you talking about? You really are just clueless.”
“Wha—?!”
“Not one word of what I said had anything to do with you being an elf. Not one! Single! Word!” She continued briskly and loudly. “If you’re pigheaded, obstinate, and stubborn as a mule, that’s just your personality, right? So don’t make this about you being an elf!”
The girl closed in on the stunned Lyu. She thrust out her index finger and pointed directly at Lyu’s face, continuing her rant at extremely close range.
“There are dwarves who are refined gentlemen and elves who are revolting hoodlums! Race has nothing to do with it! I’m gonna be honest, you’re being a pretty lousy person right now!”
The words hit Lyu like a backhanded slap. They shook her to her very core.
She couldn’t say anything in response. The blows had just kept raining down on her. Starting when she’d arrived in Orario, and right up through today, it was as though her every action was being condemned, including her explosion at the goddess.
Lyu listened to the sincerely offered words of the girl, and finally accepted her mistakes.
There was a long silence.
“You’re absolutely right,” she finally murmured. “I’m a coward. I blame anything that doesn’t go well on race. I’m just…just a child.”
At some point Lyu had made everything the fault of her race, lamenting it as unfair, unreasonable. She had found the world beyond her village bewildering, and with her emotions constantly in disarray, she had been simply lashing out.
She knew she had been utterly wrongheaded, and it was so embarrassing she couldn’t stand it.
Her gaze fell to the cobblestone paving at her feet.
“Oh, so you can admit when you’re wrong. Most people either turn red and lose their temper or just never accept it. You’re…pigheaded, sure, but at least you can be reasonable. No, not just that…you’re honest ,” said Alize, her own anger completely disarmed. “But…I like people like that.”
And then she smiled.
Lyu looked up into that carefree smile, and her eyes went wide.
As she thought about what a strange girl she was, her red hair caught the light of the clear blue sky overhead. Lyu had never met anyone like her.
“Anyway, you conceded to my righteousness! Ha-ha! Way to go, me!”
…Evidently she also had a tendency to be a bit excessive.
Lyu began to realize that her own face was in a somewhat delicate state, so she removed her hood and mask.
She met the other girl’s eyes and spoke with all the sincerity she could muster. “Thank you very much for saving me. I owe you my gratitude.”
Alize Lovell grinned. “Your face says you’re still worrying over something. What happened? I’m happy to listen, if you want,” she said with an honest, candid smile.
It occurred to Lyu, as she was half-forced out of the alleyway and guided into an open square, that Alize would probably have treated anyone this way.
The two sat beside a decorative fountain spraying arcs of water, and before she knew it, Lyu was admitting all the heartache and distress that had resulted from her constant rejection of others.
“Hmm…I’d heard of these elven customs, but I suppose they can be quite serious for some people.”
It was a strange sensation, to open her heart to a girl she’d only just met. Lyu didn’t know exactly how to express the feeling it gave her.
Alize listened attentively, and as soon as Lyu was finished speaking, she leaned suddenly closer. “In that case, you just need to practice! So that when someone takes your hand, you don’t just pull it away!”
“Wh…?” Lyu found herself stunned by how casually Alize had laughed off the anguish that had defined so much of her life.
“Wanna start right now? Here, give me your hand.”
“W-wait a moment! I’m not—”
“I plan on being a third-tier adventurer soon! Don’t worry, no matter how much you hit me, it won’t even sting. Here, see!” Alize tried to take Lyu’s hand as Lyu, though trying her very best not to reject her, still leaned away.
But the self-proclaimed upper-class adventurer easily caught Lyu’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
“—”
Their fingers interlaced.
Their hands remained connected.
Lyu felt the warmth of the other girl’s palm in her own.
“Oh, you’re totally fine. I almost feel let down.”
“No, that’s not—”
Lyu’s sky-blue eyes were fixed on their clasped hands. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
As Alize watched Lyu’s flustered expression, she broke into a wide grin. “Hey. You wanna join my familia?” she said, still holding Lyu’s hand.
“Wha…?”
“The thing is, I like you. You might be a little too serious, but you’re an elf who can admit when she’s wrong. And the most important thing is that you hate it when something’s just wrong , don’t you? I’m the same way!”
“B-but, I’m…”
“I won’t force you, don’t worry! But just come by and have a look, won’t you?” Alize stood from the fountain’s edge, pulling Lyu to her feet as she did so. Lyu couldn’t have freed her hand if she’d wanted to.
She suddenly felt very reluctant to pull away from this rare, unlikely thing she’d found.
“Oh, by the way, I never asked your name! So, what do they call you?”
“…Lyu. Lyu Leon,” answered Lyu hesitantly as she was dragged along by Alize.
The red-haired girl looked back over her shoulder and smiled a carefree smile. “Your name’s Lyu? It’s kinda hard to pronounce, so…I’m gonna call you Leon!”
The girl’s sudden familiarity with her name made them feel that much closer, and a strange warmth rose in Lyu’s chest at the sensation.
Alize brought her to a house in the southwestern quarter of the city.
“Lady Astrea! We’re home!”
Just as the thought suddenly occurred to Lyu that the route had been awfully similar to the one described on a certain map she’d recently received, they passed through the entryway into a parlor, in which sat a certain indigo-eyed goddess serenely attending to her knitting.
“Welcome home, Alize. Oh my, that’s…” The goddess—Astrea—giggled, her walnut-brown hair stirring. “I see. Yes, of course.” She smiled warmly at Lyu.
Lyu stood there awkwardly, her cheeks flushing. This was, in fact, the second time she’d met this kindhearted goddess, and she bowed a deep, stiff bow of apology.
“Captain, who might this elf woman be?”
“Jeez, you brought another one of your strays in?”
“You oughtta fix that habit of putting on airs when you meet someone for the first time, Kaguya. And Lyra! She’s a proper candidate hoping to join our ranks, so show some respect!” said Alize to the two girls who spoke up—presumably other members of the familia—and then led Lyu to the center of the room. On the several other couches lounged other girls of a variety of races.
Alize began her introduction. “Leon! This is the home of Astrea Familia . There are ten of us, and our goddess is, of course, Lady Astrea over there,” said Alize, adding proudly, “and I’m the captain, by the way!”
Lyu heard this and understood immediately that if this was so, the familia must have been founded fairly recently.
“In addition to our Dungeon activities, we also work to keep the peace in Orario.”
“Keep the peace…? I thought that was the Guild’s job…”
“No! We operate according to our own sense of justice!”
“Justice?” echoed Lyu uncertainly.
Alize gave a decisive nod. “That’s right. In the name of Lady Astrea, Goddess of Justice and Order, we right the wrongs of the world! We erase all things unreasonable and unjust! Our justice comes from Lady Astrea and from our own ideals! So long as she is with us, we will never lose sight of what’s right!” she exclaimed proudly.
From the perspective of an outsider like Lyu, it all sounded somewhat blind and idealistic. If their goddess were to exploit them—as capricious deities were often known to do—they could all easily become nothing more than so many pitiful puppets.
And yet, some part of Lyu was certain that would never happen.
Even now, Astrea watched Lyu, Alize, and the other members with eyes full of kindness. She would neither betray their trust nor abandon them. She was a goddess of character, who clearly loved her children more than anything else.
The deep trust Astrea had earned from Alize and the others was, perhaps, something unique to her.
“Of course, sometimes our justice clashes with somebody else’s idea of justice! People have all sorts of ideals, after all!”
There were as many positions to hold as there were people to hold them, but they had the persistence of will to overcome that challenge. Conflict was inherent to the pursuit of justice, the girl explained.
“—But there’s nothing just about the people running around Orario right now!” Alize declared emphatically. “Leon, you’ve seen Orario these days with your own eyes, right? Are the people smiling?”
“…Everyone is terrified. It’s stagnant, like a choked river.”
“Exactly! Orario is in serious trouble right now! In the five years since Zeus Familia and Hera Familia failed to defeat the Black Dragon, evil is still running rampant!”
The failure of the two top familias to complete the Three Great Quests—the news of this tremendous event had reached even Lyu’s elven village. Alize explained that it had resulted in chaos descending on Orario, beginning with the Evils. “The two strongest familias right now, under Loki and Freya, are doing their best, of course, and lately Ganesha’s crew is coming up. There’s even Hephaistos and her smiths! But it’s still not enough!”
“…”
“We have to rise up and put an end to this era of darkness!” said Alize, flinging her arms wide. She was completely serious when she claimed it was up to them to personally end the reign of chaos in Orario. “They say Orario is the ‘center of the world,’ so if things are bad here, that influence is bound to spread. We don’t need chaos here!”
“Alize…”
“What Orario needs right now is proper order and way more smiles!”
They shone.
Alize’s eyes shone with a singular faith and pride. Lyu felt her heart stirred and drawn in by the girl’s energy and optimism.
Alize lowered her voice from the rousing volume she’d been using and looked seriously at Lyu. “And for that, we need comrades. Like-minded people with the same ambitions.”
Lyu returned her gaze, and as Astrea and the other familia members looked on, she closed her eyes.
She had indeed wanted to find friends and equals. She had wished for comrades she could respect and would be respected by. That was why she had come to Orario—to find something she had been missing in her home village.
But what about now?
What did she feel?
Listening to the thoughts of the first girl from another race who’d ever taken her hand, what did her heart say?
Lyu thought back. Back to when she had been cornered by the slavers. Or rather, back to the righteous indignation she’d felt in that moment.
She remembered the form of the girl who’d saved her.
Her eyes closed, she pictured Alize’s bright smile and Astrea’s tenderness and care.
“Could I…” Lyu opened her eyes and looked steadily into Alize’s. “Could I really aid your justice…?”
Alize’s lips split into a grin. “Of course! Welcome, Leon!”
The other members broke into cheers, and Astrea smiled benevolently. “Thank you for joining our familia, Lyu Leon.”
“No—I should thank you and Alize. I’d lost my way and had nowhere to turn, but you led me here…”
Astrea and Lyu went to a different room, where Lyu disrobed and sat with her back to the goddess.
Upon having a Status engraved on her skin, she was formally inducted into the goddess’s familia, and she received the group’s emblem as well—the wings and blade of justice.
There was a brief scuffle as, in spite of herself, Lyu instinctively tried to fling away the many familia members who came close to give her a friendly pat on the shoulder, but soon enough, Alize and the rest formed a circle in the central room.
“All right, now it’s time for the welcome ceremony! Everybody gather round!”
Noin, Neze, Lyra, Asta, Lyana, Kaguya, Celty, Iska, Maryu.
All girls, most of whom were about Alize’s age.
All of them friends, none of them elves.
As Astrea watched over them with a smile, they all—Lyu included—placed their hands on top of one another in a circle.
“We are Astrea Familia . We serve Lady Astrea, Goddess of Justice and Order. We swear to bring peace to Orario! By the wings and blade of justice!”
““By the wings and blade of justice!”” chorused the girls, following Alize’s lead.
And then, as her comrades looked on, Lyu smiled and followed. “By the wings and blade of justice.”
Until the day of their dissolution five years later, that oath would never be broken.
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