by Fujino Omori
I gulp at the god’s declaration.
Having said what he needed to say, he steps back and smiles kindly if ambiguously.
“You know, I’ve been involved in the Xenos incident myself, at Ouranos’s request,” Hermes says.
“…! At Ouranos’s request?”
“Yes. I’m trying to track down where the Xenos have gone.”
My shock does not subside. Hermes seems to be showing all his cards.
“At the moment, Asfi and the others haven’t been able to track them down—though I’ve heard they were spotted in the sewers. The downfall of the Sage, I suppose you could say.”
The downfall of the Sage…How can I question Hermes when he even knows about Fels? I decide that he must share my knowledge of the situation.
“But when…?”
“For quite a while. I think I knew about the Xenos before you did. We’ve been acting quietly behind the scenes up until now.”
“So, then…What did your familia do when they found out about the talking monsters?”
“As you might guess, some were quite shaken by it. But now, they consider it part of their work. As long as they profess to be neutral, the word of the client is absolute. More than anything, though, it’s because their leader—me—is a certain type of guy.”
As I stand before the foolishly grinning Hermes, I imagine Asfi letting out an exhausted sigh. I can’t help a tight-lipped smile myself.
“We’re working independently, but you can consider us allies,” says the still-smiling god with a wink.
At the word allies, a sense of extreme relief washes over me. I suppose it’s a sign of just how far I’ve been backed into a corner…
“Oh, Beeeeell!”
The goddess is calling me.
“You’re all the way back here, are you? You never came back, so I had to go looking for you. Was everything all right?”
“Uh…Sorry, Goddess. I’m fine.”
“Oh, what a relief. I was worried…but why is Hermes here?”
The relieved goddess, who has walked up to us, looks at Hermes quizzically.
“Ha-ha-ha! So sorry, Hestia, I was just borrowing young Bell for a moment to have a conversation.” He laughs as if he was just joking around. “Well, I’ll let you take over the role of guard. Hestia, keep him safe!” he says and walks off.
“…Bell, what were you talking with Hermes about?”
“Well…”
As I explain our conversation, the goddess strokes her chin.
“I’d heard that Hermes and his familia had received a request from Ouranos, but…”
“Oh really?”
“Yes. So I guess they’ve been working to help the Xenos…”
The goddess’s words trail off, and she looks in the direction that Hermes disappeared. She appears to be suspicious of the god for not even trying to have a proper discussion with her. I follow her gaze, myself.
As we stand there, a single bead of water falls onto my shoulder.
An instant later, the blanket of clouds covering the city bursts into the sound of rain.
The droplets begin descending, each to its own destination, changing shape as it falls.
“Ugh, rain again…”
The werewolf Bete snorted and shook his head at the patter of raindrops.
“If only it hadn’t rained after the commotion, the animal people might have been able to use their noses to find the monsters by now,” said the Amazon Tione.
“This damn rain has totally washed away the scent…Shit,” Bete replied.
“Werewolves are always useless just when you need them most.”
“We’re better than Amazons, who just stand around doing nothing.”
““What did you say?””
At their encampment in the Labyrinth District, members of Loki Familia paused for a moment as the downpour began. The faction’s leaders were gathered there for a meeting.
The dwarf Gareth sighed at Tione and Bete, who were glaring at each other with unveiled irritation. Next to them, Tione’s sister, Tiona, was flopped down on the stone pavement with arms and legs outstretched, soaking in the shower.
“What’s with you, Tiona? Are you worn out or something?”
“I’m not worn out, but my hands and arms are killin’ me from banging on that adamantite wall for so long. Then, as soon as we dug through it, we got ordered to fill it in again! Finn’s a real slave driver.”
“That’s just the kind of situation we’re in. Put up with it,” Finn said. He had returned to the encampment just as Tiona was waving around her red hands and complaining about him.
“How did it go, Finn? Were you able to talk to Bell Cranell?” asked Riveria, who had been waiting for him.
“Yeah. We met, but we were interrupted before we finished,” he answered, walking into one of the tents that had been set up.
“He wouldn’t say anything…but I’m fairly certain he’s hiding something. He knew about Knossos, although he doesn’t seem to have the key.”
The question-and-answer session may have ended unsuccessfully, but Finn had been watching Bell carefully, and now he spoke with confidence. Unlike the still-green captain of Hestia Familia, the prum was able to make off with quite a bit of information after even a short exchange.
“There’s no question he’s at the center of this mess,” he declared, addressing the faction leaders gathered in the tent.
“…”
The golden-haired, golden-eyed Sword Princess Aiz responded with stony silence to the words of her leader.
“So…” Riveria said.
“Yes,” Finn answered with a nod as the others looked on intently. “As we planned, please watch Bell Cranell’s movements.”
“The Xenos, and then Knossos…”
Outside the windows, rain veiled the street. The Amazon Aisha glanced at the unceasing downpour before returning her gaze to inside the room.
“So you’re saying the mess with those two things forms the crux of the events that took place four days ago?” the elf Lyu asked.
“Yes, exactly,” answered the human Asfi, her aqua-blue hair shimmering as she nodded.
The three women were alone in an outbuilding of The Benevolent Mistress that served as Lyu’s room. Asfi had arrived with Aisha in tow, saying she had something to talk to Lyu about. Since Lyu didn’t have any customers needing her attention at the moment, she had asked permission of Mia, then led them to the room where they currently sat. Asfi had begun by telling the other two about the events on the eighteenth floor that instigated the disturbance.
“But what about those circles under your eyes…Are you okay?” Aisha asked her, noting the impressively large, dark puffs.
“…I’m fine. It’s just that our selfish deity is always driving me so hard. He’s even doing it right now! Don’t worry, Aisha, you’ll get used to it,” Asfi replied, a nihilistic smile momentarily spoiling her beautiful face. Uneasy at her exhausted appearance, Aisha backed away slightly.
Lyu had been observing their exchange.
“So why are you telling us this now?” she asked in order to move the conversation along, looking grave.
“Hermes is making unreasonable demands again…Ahem, in any case, he wants to calm down the current situation, but he doesn’t have enough people to do it. He wants your help.”
“Why didn’t he tell us everything during the mission?” Aisha said with a mixture of disgust and dissatisfaction. Asfi’s reply was straightforward.
“With regards to the Xenos, he just decided that was extraneous information. At the time, the monsters were wild with rage, and even the clients were unable to control them or figure out what was going on. Even if a confrontation was inevitable, the clients didn’t want anyone to be killed because knowledge of the creatures had distracted them. As for the latter…We only found out about it after the incident.”
After all, the second entrance to the Dungeon was the product of Daedalus’s obsessive determination.
As Asfi discussed Knossos, Aisha and Lyu listened silently. They both seemed at the very least shocked by this news of talking, intelligent monsters. Aisha, however, frankly expressed her feelings—which were in line with the aversion to monsters latent in all humans.
“…Those Xenos—is that what you called them? They may be able to talk and they may be intelligent, but I still can’t understand why someone would save a monster. They’re not the kind of creature a person wants to empathize with…especially ones like that black minotaur,” she spat out provocatively.
Aisha rubbed her left arm and her ribs. Although she was fully recovered now, the bones in her arm had been pulverized in the incident, and her ribs had also been broken. She narrowed her eyes sharply. They revealed no terror of the glossy black creature that had dealt her a crushing defeat, only anger and humiliation.
“…It is the desire of the clients, who are also our source of information, that we aid the Xenos. As long as you are a member of Lord Hermes’s familia, please comply without a fuss.”
“I’m not a very quick study, you know, and if I don’t like something, I just may throw a fit. And by the way, who are these ‘clients’ you keep mentioning?”
“Let’s just say they are part of the Guild,” Asfi replied to the rebellious Aisha. She squeezed one eye shut as she spoke, her head aching.
“By the way, these monsters that we’re talking about…Bell Cranell has also taken pity on them,” she added.
“…Ah, I see,” Aisha said, tugging at her long black hair as if Bell’s name had led her to a realization. The reason for his ejection from the mission team and his actions on Daedalus Street all suddenly made sense.
“Understood. I’ll do as you say,” she said with a sigh. The Amazon still felt she had not repaid her debt to the boy.
Asfi stepped closer to Lyu, who had been absorbed in silent thought.
“Leon, I have a bargain to make with you.”
“…”
“If you cooperate with us, we will give you information on the remnants of the Evils.”
“!”
“It seems the last dregs have been hiding out in Knossos. As soon as the current situation is resolved, we’ll search the Dungeon and collect the information you want.”
“…Can you really do that?”
“Sooner or later, Lord Hermes will order a survey. I assure you we will do it,” Asfi answered, pushing her silver glasses up with one finger.
Lyu considered her offer, then nodded quietly. She believed Perseus.
Asfi looked hard at Lyu and Aisha.
“I will provide detailed instructions very soon. For the time being, please wait.”
“—Yes indeed, I am Ganesha!”
The god in the elephant mask struck a bizarre heroic pose as he made this announcement.
“I know that, Ganesha,” replied Shakti Varma, sounding fully accustomed to her god’s eccentric behavior. The beautiful indigo-haired woman was sitting up in bed in a room in Ganesha Familia’s home, known as Iam Ganesha. She took the basket of fruit her god was holding out to her in his chosen pose and placed it on the sideboard.
“How are you feeling, Shakti?! I’ve come to check on you!”
“I’m already fully recovered. I believe you know that, Ganesha.”
Shakti had been spending her time in this room ever since the recent string of incidents. She had been seriously injured during the mission to the eighteenth floor and was still recuperating.
Or at least, that was what she had told the others.
“I can move just fine. Why don’t you tell me why you’re keeping me in this place for days on end?” she continued.
“Because all you’ve been doing lately is working! I don’t want people to think my familia is some kind of labor camp. So this time, I thought you’d better do some extreme recuperating—”
“Ganesha,” Shakti said, interrupting her leader’s peculiar words.
At the captain’s quiet voice, Ganesha dropped his joking attitude.
“…I felt like you needed some time to sort things out. Especially after I told you about the Xenos,” he said.
Shakti was one of the few familia members he had told about the Xenos. When the Guild ordered her to tame the monsters during the mission, too, she had obeyed only after taking into consideration the divine will of her god.
Ganesha sat down on a chair and looked Shakti in the eye.
“I’m sorry.”
He placed his hands on his knees and bowed deeply.
“I made an unreasonable request, and it’s been a burden on you.”
Shakti shook her head.
“Ganesha, don’t apologize. We were the ones who fell short. We were unable to stop the monsters when they were out of control.”
Ganesha raised his head and looked at her from the depths of the elephant mask.
“What did you feel when you faced the Xenos?”
“…Fierce anger, and also sympathy,” Shakti explained frankly, returning Ganesha’s gaze. “After I heard Ikelos Familia was capturing monsters and selling them off, I understood it very clearly—the nature of that unfamiliar sympathy I had felt in the midst of trying to tame them, I mean.”
“…”
“Those monsters are capable of rage over what’s done to their brethren…just like us, like people.”
Perhaps it was her long experience as a tamer that allowed her to understand the monsters’ feelings and sympathize with them.
Shakti looked out the window into the rain.
“Ganesha, you were right that I needed time to sort things out. I’m upset right now. About the very existence of such monsters. And then the fact that when Ilta and her group learned about it, too, they faltered over what to do…That moment of hesitation cost our friends their lives…It scares me.”
She accepted Ganesha’s attitude of friendship toward the Xenos, but still, she was frightened. She was right to be at a loss.
Should they abandon the Xenos or save them?
If she were forced to choose, she would of course pick the former. She was not a fool.
Ganesha had been quietly watching the faint reflection of his familia member in the mirror as she lowered her eyes. Now he spoke.
“The road to Neo Ganesha, mastery of man and monster, is a difficult one.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Her serious reflections were abruptly interrupted by an absurd phrase she’d never heard before, Shakti turned toward Ganesha as if she had just woken from a dream.
His mind elsewhere, he continued in a solemn voice.
“I am still Ganesha, man of the people.”
Shakti widened her eyes.
“I regret doing this to Ouranos, but at the moment, the safety of the children is the absolute priority.”
“Ganesha…”
“We will no longer participate in the search for the Xenos. Instead, if violence erupts between them and the adventurers, we will protect the civilians. We will protect the smiles of the children.”
Ganesha rose from his chair, walked over to Shakti, and looked down at her as if to ask whether she was ready to go. She nodded energetically and stood up from the bed.
“We’ll increase the number of people working security to cover the whole city. I will join them as well! I will dispel their worries with my happy-go-lucky appearance!” Ganesha exclaimed.
“No, Ganesha, we’ll be fine without you. Ilta and her group are still at home, right?”
“Yes. When I left them to their own devices, they very proudly announced they were going out to chase the Xenos again! I told them, ‘Since Shakti is resting, you guys rest, too!’ I said if they broke their promise, I’d magically remodel our home again!”
“So that’s why they’ve been so quiet…”
Shakti and Ganesha left the room and walked around the home shaped like a giant, peculiar elephant. As they checked to make sure the familia’s core force were all present, including the first-tier a
dventurer Ilta, they discussed their next moves.
Suddenly, Ganesha lifted his head and gazed out the window of the hallway they were walking down.
“What concerns me is how the other gods and goddesses are taking the current situation,” he said.
“Do you think the other deities are aware of the Xenos?”
Miach turned his back to the rain outside the window as he addressed Hephaistos and Takemikazuchi.
The three were in Hephaistos Familia’s weaponry store on Northwest Main Street. Leaving the information-collecting to their familia members, Miach and Takemikazuchi had come to see Hephaistos in her third-floor office.
“Perhaps not clearly…I don’t think they’ve realized yet that these are monsters with intellect. But they do sense that they are out of the ordinary…”
“Or rather, they’re expecting to find something different about them…”
The three gods had learned about Wiene, along with the main events of the past week, from their friend Hestia. Now all three were frowning and speaking in concerned voices to differing degrees.
“What if they do learn about the Xenos?”
“If you think about it in terms of who’s currently in Orario…”
“Not many of the deities are as inflexible as Ares, but then again not many are moderates like Hestia, either. I’m thinking twenty percent will call for expelling them, ten percent for protecting them, and the other seventy will stir up trouble,” Miach said.
Takemikazuchi and Hephaistos continued to frown.
“Who knows what they’ll do in pursuit of their personal entertainment. There’s a high likelihood that things will spiral out of control. It may be best to conceal as much information about the Xenos as we can…”
“I see…You’re saying it would only invite unnecessary chaos.”
The implication was that very few deities in Orario actually acted the part—although these three didn’t go so far as to claim they were model gods, either.
“Damn,” Hephaistos grumbled as she rubbed her eye patch. Next to her, Takemikazuchi slumped wearily, and Miach sighed.
“Bell is a source for worry these days, too. To have gone and acted that flagrantly…I’m sure the other gods know he knows something, and they’re watching him,” Miach fretted. The other two deities shared his concerned expression.