Aiz said nothing, but her thoughts raced.
An Irregular that she knew nothing about on floor twenty-four…why was she being asked to look into it? Judging from how she’d received this invitation, this mysterious character had sought an opportunity to speak with her specifically.
She still hadn’t the slightest clue about the identity of her “client.” If Aiz believed this person’s claim about being a mage, that meant it was a member of a familia and receiving a Blessing from a deity. Why would it be so involved in looking for help from another familia?
The blond knight studied her guest, searching for an indication of its true motive.
“Another Irregular appeared on the thirtieth floor—the same place that Hashana was sent not too long ago. The similarities between the two events are uncanny.”
“!”
Aiz’s shoulders trembled, and her expression changed.
The figure shifted its balance, as if to say, Need I go on? The robe’s hem swished as the strange voice reached the heart of the offer.
“The woman who led the attack on Rivira…The possibility she is connected with the orb is rather high.”
Aiz gulped.
This was clearly bait to seize her interest. She knew but was still shaken.
The orb—the strange crystal object whose contents had made her feel physically sick…And the red-haired woman who had called her Aria…
Memories of those moments played across her mind.
“The situation is grave, Sword Princess. Please lend your strength.”
Aiz was troubled.
The content of the black figure’s request stirred many thoughts within her…After a few heavy moments, she raised her thin chin.
“Understood…”
She agreed to take on the quest.
Whatever this person’s scheme was, luring her into a trap wasn’t part of it. After considering all the details and possibilities, Aiz relied on her gut feeling and reached a decision.
Above all else, she wanted to know more about the red-haired woman and the orb.
“You have my gratitude,” said the black-hooded figure. “If at all possible, I would like you to set off immediately. Is that all right?”
Aiz wasn’t sure how to respond.
That would mean she would be proceeding all by herself…There was nothing to lose, so she decided to make a request of her own to this incredibly suspicious character.
“Um, may I send a message? To my familia…”
“Hmm? Oh…I see. No problem. You can leave it with me.”
The hooded figure must have understood Aiz’s concern about making her companions worry and agreed, unlikely as it had seemed.
While a little surprised, Aiz immediately thanked it and began writing a letter. She reached into her belt pouch to retrieve a small feathered pen—a slightly expensive magic item that could turn a small amount of blood into ink—and a piece of paper. Addressing her message to Loki, she wrote down a few details and signed her name using hieroglyphics to prove authenticity. The hooded figure held out its hand, and she set her dispatch directly into the glove.
If there was one loose end bothering her, it was concern for the white rabbit. However, she chose to trust in what she had witnessed. The adventurer had grown so strong, he seemed a completely different person.
“First, go to Rivira. Allies are already there.”
“Understood.”
Then he gave Aiz directions to a specific bar as well as a password. She nodded.
After saying all that needed to be said, the hooded figure didn’t waste any time on small talk and promptly disappeared back into the fog.
Aiz watched it go. Then she faced the other direction and set off, her boots thudding against the ground.
Her first destination was the eighteenth floor. Once she met up with the “allies” the mysterious client had mentioned, they would all journey to the twenty-fourth floor.
Thoughts of the redheaded tamer and the orb circling in her mind, Aiz sped off.
CHAPTER 2
LET’S PARTY?
The sun was high in the sky. Clocks all around the city read just past ten.
The adventurers who had stopped by the Guild on their way to the Dungeon were long gone, and the lobby was mostly idle.
Passing by a fully equipped party off to a late start, the remaining adventurers crowded in front of a large bulletin board to find a quest they could manage. In the meantime, many shared their best Dungeon stories, though their audiences were unsure how far they could trust the narrators.
Amid all that, one young woman walked straight up to the bulletin board without so much as a glance at the others.
She was a beautiful elf with long, silky black hair and stark white skin. Her combat gear resembled what priestesses wore in isolated temples, mostly white with very few accents. A high collar around her neck hid all the skin beneath her chin from view. She was a walking example of how elves should look and dress.
Her red eyes swept across the bulletin board, checking each posting individually.
After a thorough examination of each quest on the board, she frowned slightly. She was after specific information—as soon as she realized that none of the available quests involved the twenty-fourth floor, she stepped away from the bulletin board.
She continued on to the reception counter.
“May I have a word? The quest to investigate floor twenty-four isn’t on the board. About the alarming number of monsters?”
She chose her words carefully, implying she had made such a request in an attempt to trick the receptionist into confirming her suspicions. The animal person behind the counter froze on the spot.
The floppy ears on top of her head twitched. “Please wait a moment.” With that, she disappeared into the office behind the counter. The Guild worker cautiously emerged after a few minutes and meekly returned to her spot.
“That’s under deliberation as we speak…I apologize for the inconvenience.”
The young elf turned on her heel after that and left without another word.
As she made her way through the white marble lobby, the elf cast a subtle glance over her shoulder and saw that the receptionist appeared to be confused, muttering the words under deliberation to herself.
“The Guild is purposely withholding information concerning the twenty-fourth floor…?”
The elf tried to guess the Guild leadership’s intentions based on the employee’s reaction.
An irregularity in the Dungeon—there were some who wanted that information to stay under wraps. She quietly whispered to herself, “…Lord Dionysus must be informed.”
A member of Dionysus Familia, the elf Filvis exited Guild Headquarters.
In a block off North Main Street in Orario’s first district…
On the street was a flower shop with a decent amount of traffic, run by a group of demi-human girls who weren’t members of any familia. A cute wooden sign hung above the door that read DIA FLORAL.
The store was currently filled with adventurers—unshaven and rugged—who didn’t seem the type to have much interest in the rows and rows of beautiful blossoms. Their true motives were transparent, but it was good for business either way.
A certain deity happened to be visiting the flower shop.
“Sorry to bother you, but would you pick some good ones for me?”
“Ah…Y-y-yes! Right away!”
A young prum girl found herself lost in the deity’s dazzling eyes for a moment, turning bright red before finally blurting a response. As she frantically waved to her coworkers, several of the girls cooperated to assemble a bouquet.
All the while, each of the staff members tried to steal glances at the golden-haired god standing at the front of the store. Dionysus had the presence of a prince from a far-off kingdom, and it made their hearts skip a beat.
He wasn’t like the other gods with their sick sense of humor. The balance of his perfect facial features was enough to indicate
that Dionysus possessed exceptional dignity and grace. A mere mortal could never rival him.
In front of the shop overflowing with beautiful flowers, the deity’s every move caught everyone’s attention.
His bouquet complete, Dionysus paid in full and thanked the girls for their hard work. It wasn’t long before the staff surrounded him and worked up the courage to talk to him.
“Is this a gift for a lady?”
“I would loooove for a god to give me flowers.”
“Oh-ho? But you are more beautiful than any flower. In that case, why don’t I treat each of you to a bouquet of your own?”
The girls had only been joking, but the deity’s response sounded sincere. Their expressions lit up, as if their wishes had come true.
Dionysus narrowed his glass-colored eyes and leaned in closer to the group of excited girls.
“Making faces like that—I might just help myself right now.”
The girls squealed with delight at Dionysus’s soft voice, like honey, but then—
They looked behind the deity, and everything stopped.
“……………”
A beautiful elf, appearing out of nowhere, stared at them with a perfectly blank, emotionless face.
Crick! Crick! Crick! An unnatural sound came from her tightening fists.
The girls came to their senses and scattered back to the safety of their shop. Dionysus was alone, the charming mask fading with each heartbeat. Slowly but surely, he turned to the member of his familia behind him.
“Th-that was fast, Filvis…”
“Yes. I acquired some valuable information for you, Lord Dionysus. So I returned as quickly as possible, Lord Dionysus.”
Dionysus tried to keep his voice from trembling as a point of pride as a god, and Filvis responded in a cool, even tone.
A dark emotion swirled quietly deep within her crimson eyes. Her heavy silence surging over him, Dionysus grew tense…But the moment passed. The deity let his shoulders relax and smiled at her.
He removed a single flower from inside his vest, completely separate from the bouquet in his left hand.
“While I don’t know how long you’ve been standing there…everything that transpired is what we deities refer to as ‘lip service.’ They helped me pick out this flower for you as well.”
Filvis’s eyes widened as Dionysus presented her with the blossom.
In a complete turnaround, the elf became so docile that she seemed a completely different person from the girl who had arrived just moments earlier.
A faint dusting of pink appeared on the elf’s cheeks as she looked at the white gift in her hands.
“You may be a deity, but using misleading words…Such superfluous requests for affection are unbecoming.”
“What’s this? Are you jealous?”
“…Lord Dionysus is the only person to show affection for someone like myself.”
Filvis seemed to shrink as she mumbled quietly. Dionysus smiled again and spoke up.
“Ha-ha-ha, how cute.”
“……”
The elf turned even redder as the deity caressed her bangs. His touch practically melted her from the inside out.
Flashing another grin, Dionysus looked up.
“Now then, shall we get going? I’ll listen to whatever information you brought me, as well as anything else on your mind once we arrive.”
Dionysus flagged down a horse-drawn taxi with the bouquet of flowers cradled in his arm. He and Filvis climbed in a moment later.
There was a graveyard filled with countless headstones located in the southeastern part of the city.
Officially dubbed the First Graveyard, it was commonly referred to as the Adventurers Graveyard, devoted to those who lost their lives every day in the Dungeon. With more stones being added constantly, two more graveyards, the Second and Third, were constructed on top of a small hill to the north outside the city wall to accommodate them all.
Adventurers who had left their mark on history—those known as heroes, dating back to the Ancient Times—were given more grandiose memorials in front of Guild Headquarters. Large monuments built in their honor decorated the grounds. People of all races and familias gathered here to pay respects to their forebears by leaving bouquets of flowers.
Dionysus and Filvis made their way down the stairwell and walked among the graves.
“……”
They arrived at a plot of land the familia had purchased in a corner of the graveyard. There were already many headstones within. Dionysus took a step toward three of the most recent markers and placed the bouquet of flowers in front of them with his own hands.
In reality, there were very few bodies resting beneath the surface. It was rare that conditions in the monster-filled Dungeon allowed for the bodies of slain adventurers to be returned to the surface. Therefore, most of the graves were nothing more than symbols of the adventurers they represented. That wasn’t the case for Dionysus’s former children, who had met their fate aboveground not too long ago. Their bodies had been placed into coffins and laid to rest in a relatively unoccupied area of the plot.
As a deity, Dionysus knew that the act of placing flowers at a grave was ultimately pointless. The only things beneath the ground here were lifeless amalgams of flesh and bone. There were no regrets that needed to be soothed, no spirits fearing retribution. Their prayers should have been for the mercy of the deities in Tenkai. He made offerings mainly out of respect for the customs of this world.
But it was also Dionysus’s way of expressing his gratitude for his followers.
“Restricting information about the twenty-fourth floor, are they…?”
“Yes. Not a single relevant quest has been made available.”
After placing the bouquet in front of the gravestone, Dionysus stood still for a moment and asked Filvis to give the details behind his shoulder.
They were completely alone in the graveyard as the conversation continued.
“During my recent trip to Rivira, many were concerned with the alarming rate of monster sightings. They were of the opinion that it would be wise to avoid traveling below the twentieth floor until the Guild has proposed a plan to rectify the situation.” The reason that Dionysus Familia was aware of the events occurring on the twenty-fourth floor was because Filvis had journeyed to the eighteenth floor, a safe point, to acquire information.
The deity considered everything his follower had to say.
“I agree. It’s bizarre that the Guild hasn’t issued a mission under these circumstances…”
Muttering to himself, Dionysus added that it would be common sense for the Guild to investigate an Irregular of this nature.
The Guild was the closest thing Orario had to a governing body, and it held the authority to requisition the power and resources of every familia by issuing a “mission”—an urgent quest.
“The highest-ranking members of the Guild…no, perhaps Ouranos is behind it?”
Is this a way to prevent widespread panic? Or a plan to quickly solve this problem involving as few people as possible?
Dionysus frowned at the possibility that the god in command of the Guild, Ouranos, could have his own private army and that it might be mobilizing at this very moment.
“What shall we do, Lord Dionysus?”
Dionysus remained silent even after his follower asked the question. At last, he turned to face her.
“Why don’t we see what Loki can do?”
“Here we are again…”
Loki’s lips twitched as she forced herself to greet Dionysus.
Their reunion took place outside her familia’s home, Twilight Manor. Loki’s guards had informed her that the deity wished to speak with her. When she stepped outside, sure enough, the god stood with Filvis on the opposite side of the gate.
Dionysus grinned from ear to ear, his perfect white teeth sparkling.
“I have acquired relevant information—a great deal of it, at that—so why don’t we find some place to sit do
wn?”
While he hadn’t come out and said it directly, Dionysus was attempting to invite himself into Loki’s home. The goddess humorlessly cocked an eyebrow and said, “Skedaddle, why don’t ya?” It wasn’t until she caught a glimpse of the bottle of grape wine Filvis was carrying that she reluctantly let them pass. The guards rolled their eyes at her apparent priorities.
However, she wasn’t about to let them inside the actual building. Instead, a table and a few chairs were hastily set up in a secluded area of the garden.
“’Kay, then, spill the beans. What’s this ‘relevant information’ that’s so important?”
Loki had already removed the cork from the wine bottle as Dionysus started recounting the Guild’s suspicious behavior and its possible connection to the situation on the twenty-fourth floor. Then he shifted to discussing the unusual amount of monsters present in that area and everything else he had learned.
“Although very few people are aware, there was another occurrence much like this one not too long ago. On the thirtieth floor.”
That caught Loki’s attention, her eyebrows rising.
Thanks to her meeting with Finn and the other leaders, she knew that Hashana had picked up the mysterious orb on that floor before he was killed.
“So, when did that go down?”
“Three weeks ago…if memory serves me right. Due to its location in the lower levels, only the strongest upper-class adventurers caught wind of it.”
The lower levels were much more dangerous than the Dungeon’s middle levels, and only a select few adventurers ever made it that far down. Dionysus explained that there hadn’t been enough witnesses for rumors to spread.
Loki listened quietly as she sipped on her wine. Dionysus proceeded to talk about how the Guild was trying to prevent the dissemination of information.
“It’s my belief that the Guild is attempting to cover up the very existence of this incident.”
“So ya can’t trust the Guild after all, can ya?”
“…You are the one who spoke to Ouranos personally, so if you say they’re innocent, I have no right to object…But there’s something about them.”
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 3 Page 5