“Bete hasn’t changed a bit since they got back,” Raul muttered, thinking back to his show of arrogance—par for the course for him—back in the manor.
Gareth, however, remained quiet. He knew that the werewolf had actually been training harder than anyone else the last few days.
Blaming himself entirely for what happened, and stubbornly hating to lose, he’d been exercising on his own in secret, careful to make sure Raul and the others had no idea what he was doing.
And Gareth had been helping him train in a little shed just outside the city in the wee hours of the morning.
“Haah…Kids these days…”
“?”
Gareth let out a deep sigh, to which Raul eyed him curiously.
Before long, they made it to the counter where a young receptionist sat waiting.
“Report from Loki Familia. Just wanted to let ya know we’ll be settin’ off on our expedition in two days like we tentatively reported. Here’s our application.”
“Wonderful! Understood.”
Misha Frot cheerfully replied as she accepted the application parchment from Gareth.
She was a short little thing, reaching only 150 celch, topped with a mop of pink hair. Answering Gareth with a youthful voice that matched her cherubic face, she rose from her chair and straightened her posture.
Placing one hand over the other with a smile, she gave the dwarf a deep bow.
“We will be awaiting your safe return. May the fortunes of war shine upon you.” It was a prayer for the brave adventurers’ triumphant return, spoken not only as an employee of the Guild but as a fellow citizen of Orario.
Then she stamped the expedition application form with the crimson Guild seal.
“Loki Familia’s expedition will be carried out as planned.”
The nearby torchlight responded with a spark.
The voice of the elven Guild master, Royman Mardeel, echoed throughout the dim underground space. The floor was covered in large slate blocks and four torches illuminating its large altar, giving off the feeling of an ancient temple.
His corpulent, fleshy body, completely unbefitting of an elf, knelt in front of the colossal two-meder figure of Ouranos. The old god nodded slowly from his seat at the center of the altar.
“You may leave.”
“Y-yes, my liege.”
As the austere voice of Orario’s founding god boomed around him, Royman’s bulbous body quivered. Silently, he stepped back from the altar, making his way out of the chamber and back up the stairs to the surface.
Ouranos remained motionless in his spot atop the great stone pedestal, his blue eyes staring after Royman’s retreating form long after the other man had left.
“…They’ll be going through with it after all?” came a voice from the darkness once Royman was out of earshot.
It was Fels who stepped forward, dark robe slicing through the veil of concentrated darkness in the corner of the chamber.
Blackness shrouded the cloak all the way down to his ornately patterned gloves, leaving absolutely no skin visible. Fels was like a ghost in the flickering torchlight—appearance, race, sex, every possible aspect was left as an enigma.
“Indeed. It would seem Loki, too, desires information on the recent string of violence,” Ouranos replied without even turning his head.
Thus began the colloquy between the venerable god and his closest adviser, deep in the prayer room below Guild Headquarters.
“What do you think, Ouranos? Could the key to everything truly lie within the Dungeon’s depths? On its fifty-ninth floor?”
“That is what I believe, though I cannot be certain.”
“A god’s hunch, sir?”
“Yes.”
Their words were short, punctuated with flickers from the nearby torches.
At Ouranos’s terse response, Fels nodded.
“Understood. Shall I arrange for a set of eyes to watch them? I’m sure whatever is down there will be of great interest to us.”
“See that you do,” Ouranos replied to the black-robed Magus’s suggestion.
“Allow me to go over all our information. Let me know if I’m missing anything.”
At the old god’s nod, Fels continued from within the folds of the shadow-filled hood.
“First, we have what was revealed to us on the twenty-fourth floor by that creature-woman with the red hair, Levis.”
“The one manipulating the viola and protecting the crystal orb…”
“Indeed. In addition, if we believe what we learned from the ringleader of the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare, the reanimated Olivas Act…both the fetus and the vibrant magic stones within that new species of monster all originate from the being referred to simply as ‘her.’”
“She” was the one who had revived Olivas Act from the abyss of death by implanting within him a vivid magic stone, giving birth to a new human-monster hybrid. The red-haired woman, Levis, was also such a creature. By assimilating magic stones, she and her kind could morph into all-powerful enhanced species—beings that surpassed the limits of both mortal and divine knowledge.
It seemed these creatures, “her” especially, had used their ability to control monsters and set off this string of incidents dating all the way back to the Monsterphilia.
“‘She’s sleeping deep within the earth,’ ‘She wants to see the sky’…That is what Olivas Act said according to Hermes Familia. From that we can infer ‘she’ inhabits the Dungeon’s lower depths…”
“Then is she like the monsters of the Ancient Times, craving the light of the upper world?” Fels responded to Ouranos’s words with a well-placed conclusion.
There was a high chance that whatever awaited Loki Familia on the fifty-ninth floor, where the creature Levis had directed Aiz, had something to do with “her.”
“The relationship between Aiz Wallenstein and the crystal orb is but one piece of the puzzle.”
“…”
Aiz had reacted so strongly upon first coming into contact with the fetus back in Rivira on the eighteenth floor, she’d collapsed. The fetus, too, had responded to Aiz’s magic.
At Fels’s words, Ouranos ever so slightly averted his eyes.
Enshrouded in deep shadows broken only by the flickering torches, he stilled his tongue as though searching his thoughts for an answer.
Fels continued in spite of the old god’s brooding silence.
“Next, we have the remaining Evils. While we do know they’re ghosts from ages past, we don’t know who is leading them. All we can confirm is that they were seen capturing violas on the twenty-fourth floor and carting them off to who-knows-where.”
The many factions that sided with both them and the Guild had conspired against and destroyed this radical group.
Under the direction of gods who referred to themselves as “evil,” they’d stood for the downfall of order, inciting rebellions all across Orario with schadenfreude as their one clear objective. They simply wanted to watch the world burn.
The Evils familias had been eradicated, and every single one of the “evil gods” sent back to the heavens. It wasn’t clear whether these newly discovered “remnants” were actual survivors of the group or simply recent followers eager to carry on their work.
Everything about the group remained a haze—how many familias were connected to it, the organization’s scale, and even the gods leading it were a mystery.
“Forces on the surface cooperating with ‘her’ and her followers below to obliterate Orario…Could this be what’s tying all these events together?”
“It would come as no surprise to me if the remnants of the Evils had an alliance with the underground powers…or perhaps were being used by the underground.”
Fels’s voice reverberated across the altar, then Ouranos’s.
It could very well be that the two groups, Levis’s followers and the Evils remnants, were both using each other, but before Fels and Ouranos could reach a conclusion, there was an interruption.
“…May I ask you something, Ouranos?” Black robes swishing, Fels turned toward the venerable god in his spot atop the altar.
Ouranos replied affirmatively with a simple turn of his head.
“During the incident on the twenty-fourth floor, the red-haired woman uttered the name of a person…Well, the name sounded very much like that of a god—Enyo.”
It had been among the information they’d received from the chienthrope.
“—While not complete, it’s grown enough! Take it to Enyo!”
That was what Levis had said to that figure in the mask and hood—possibly one of the Evils—upon acquisition of the crystal orb.
“This ‘Enyo’ is probably an important character. Does the name ring a bell?” Fels asked in an attempt to confirm Lulune’s report.
“…I don’t recall ever having heard of a god by that name,” Ouranos replied before continuing. “However…the word enyo does exist in the language of the gods.”
His blue eyes narrowed.
“It means ‘destroyer of cities.’”
It was the day before the expedition.
Which meant it was the last day of training.
Two shadows overlapped atop the stones of the great wall on the city’s outer rim, bathed in dawn’s first light from the east. The woman, long golden hair spilling out behind her, struck forward again and again, and the boy, white hair fluttering this way and that, followed her every movement in fierce pursuit.
They performed violent back-and-forth offense and defense between scabbard and dagger as they had each day before.
As the magnificent dawn cresting the far mountains painted Aiz’s face, she studied the boy in front of her.
Each time she went for an opening, he blocked.
As she raised the speed of her attacks, the number of his blocks increased.
It was the defensive technique she’d taught him.
Repelling enemies’ attacks from the side or an angle, rather than from the front.
In terms of defense, he’d certainly met his goal for their training.
The boy put everything he had behind his strikes, behind the technique he’d seen, felt, and learned over the course of their duels.
“—Nngh!”
There was a kind of brazen vigor imbued in his skill with the dagger.
Even as the relentless string of attacks carved away at him, he kept up his blocks, deflecting blow after blow.
And then.
The boy did more than defend. He attacked Aiz for the very first time.
“…!” Aiz’s eyes opened in surprise.
Bell’s dagger streaked at her, its blade flashing beneath the morning sky.
It was easy to block, but that didn’t change the fact that the boy had been able to get a strike in at all.
Aiz stared at him wordlessly. The boy’s breathing was haggard, and his dagger arm hung limply at his side.
His body was littered with bruises, but his face held the same look of determination he’d had since their first day, rubellite eyes shining with an unfading brilliance.
All of a sudden, the morning sun beamed toward them, the resulting radiance flooding Aiz’s field of vision with white.
The boy stood there, haloed in pure-white resplendence. A sort of euphoria escaped Aiz’s lips at the sight, and she smiled from the bottom of her heart.
“That’s it, then, I guess…” Aiz whispered with a sigh.
The sun was already peeking over the majestic mountains of the eastern sky, almost like a signal that their week of training had come to an end.
Aiz turned toward that sight, squinting at daybreak’s glorious fire. The boy did the same before turning back to her and bowing his head.
“Thank you. Thank you for everything,” he said, bending at the waist and facing the stone beneath his feet.
Their one week together had been short. Too short, it seemed, and as Aiz looked back over their seven-day tryst, she felt her heart and mind flood with emotion.
She hadn’t uncovered a single thing about Bell’s uncanny growth. However, without even noticing it, she’d learned how enjoyable it was watching him improve from one day to the next, what it felt like to have her heart flutter, and the pure bliss that came from knowing she could teach another.
And for Aiz, who’d known nothing but combat for as long as she could remember, this made her happy.
It had been a path of joy and sorrow, frantic worrying, despondent wallowing, profound thinking, and utter happiness that had brought the two of them to this point.
She embraced this time, this irreplaceable moment they had shared, deep within her heart.
After a while, Bell rose, his white hair fluttering in the breeze and making him look even more like a rabbit than usual.
Their eyes met.
“I would also like to thank you. It was…fun,” she said quietly, voice reverberating with a warmth that surprised even herself as her eyes softened.
She smiled once more, the two of them bathed in morning’s first light.
Bell’s face instantly reddened, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly as he stared at his feet. Seeing this only made her smile widen. If there was one thing that hadn’t changed during their week of training, it was his constant embarrassment.
Who knew the white rabbit could be so shy?
“…Good luck…with everything.”
“…Thank you.”
Aiz slowly tore her gaze away before turning around.
It was time for the two of them to begin running again. With those last few words, she began to pull away, knowing she’d regret it if she allowed herself to pause here.
This wasn’t good-bye.
From here on out, the two of them would be facing their own objectives, aiming for their own separate peaks.
“…”
Aiz walked a few steps along the top of the wall glowing in sunlight, then slowly turned back around.
The boy had already turned his back to her, far off now as he ran along his own path.
Inhaling a deep breath of all that vast morning blue, she curled her lips into a smile.
“…See you again.”
And then, turning her back to the boy, she ran.
Her sunny-blond ponytail spilled out behind her as she dodged.
Deep below the surface, closed off from the sky, her voice sang out, reverberating off the Dungeon walls. Again and again the sword flew at her, but her voice never faltered.
Staff clenched in her hands, Lefiya wove her spells, her lips constantly moving.
Stepping, evading, dodging the relentless attacks of the golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman, she took advantage of every opening she found, taking only the minimum hits necessary to keep the incoming strikes from influencing her chants.
Just like the first day of their training, she refused to back down or close her eyes in fear.
She focused on every attack, vision wide, picturing her next movement in her mind to ensure the words of her chant remained unbroken.
Deep inside her she could hear the words of her many teachers.
The soul of an unshakable tree and the chanting techniques she’d learned from Riveria.
The Concurrent Casting Filvis had helped her master.
She threw everything out in front of her in a single attack on the swordswoman she so revered.
“Loose your arrows, fairy archers. Pierce, arrow of accuracy…”
In a dance, she wove her song between the steps of her opponent’s sword waltz.
As the magic circle formed beneath her feet, Lefiya completed her chant, unleashing the spell.
“—Arcs Ray!”
A brilliant arrow of light shot forth from the circle.
Aiz stepped deftly out of the way as it shrieked by to explode against the Dungeon wall.
Chunks and pieces of the wall went flying as smoke rose up from the resulting rift. The damage was great, greater than before—evidence of her increase in magic strength from her
training with Filvis two days prior.
“Whoa…” Aiz let out an awed mutter of surprise as the two of them stared at the wall.
The elven magic user herself just smiled faintly at the improvement in her Concurrent Casting, her breath still ragged.
“Impressive, Lefiya. You’re really getting the hang of this.”
Lefiya laughed bashfully. “Only…thanks to everyone’s help, truly. The credit isn’t mine to claim…”
She wouldn’t have been able to master the skill if even one of her teachers had been missing.
Everything was a result of her practice duels with Aiz and Filvis as well as Riveria’s tutelage. They were the women who had guided her as she’d fought so desperately to keep up.
“Of course it is,” Aiz countered with a smile in response to Lefiya’s red-faced modesty.
Aiz’s heartfelt praise, however, made Lefiya only more embarrassed.
“Miss Aiz…I have been working very hard so that I can support you and the others in the expedition,” she explained, hugging her staff to her chest as she met her tutor’s gaze directly.
She didn’t want to waste what Aiz and everyone had done for her or slow them down. She wanted to be helpful and make a difference.
“I know.” Aiz nodded at the elf’s bold-faced oath of determination.
Lefiya could see her own conviction reflected in those golden eyes.
Then finally, her lips parted. “Could I ask…What’s become of that human?”
The area around Aiz’s eyes softened. “He’s also been trying very hard.”
It was the day before the expedition, so this would be both Lefiya’s and the boy’s last day of training.
Aiz’s face had appeared refreshed, almost invigorated after ending her early morning training session with that boy. Her usually stark, emotionless features were tinted with joy.
“I see…” Lefiya answered quietly at Aiz’s response, both verbal and visual. Lowering her gaze, she focused instead on the bluish-white pallor of the magic stone affixed to her staff.
She’d never quite been able to erase that boy from her mind.
Even now, at the end of her training, she couldn’t keep herself from thinking about him.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 4 Page 12