Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 11

by Fujino Omori

  “I had our group split up into two earlier, but the surroundings are entirely under control. There are no signs of Remnants or ambushes here. It’s safe to assume we’ve severed any escape to the lower floors. What should we do? Continue on and try to confirm the demi-spirit’s location ourselves?”

  “Yes, please…Sorry, I’m going to break off now. If anything happens, contact me.”

  Upon noticing someone approaching, Finn ended the transmission with Fels.

  “Captain Finn…I’m sorry for causing trouble.”

  “Amid, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I can move now.” Amid had walked over on her own two feet.

  She had been bathed in a potent curse, but once she finally dispelled it, she had been able to restore herself.

  But peering into her face, Finn knew what he had to order: “Amid, take the other healers and leave Knossos. Pull back out to the Dungeon.”

  “But—”

  “We won’t run into that strong of a curse again. Each squad has the anti-curse medicine to deal with anything we might encounter.”

  “…Understood.”

  She had won a grueling battle, but considering her body had been eaten away by a serious curse, he recommended that she retreat a bit early. Amid did not try to fight it, staying in her lane. Even though she had recovered, the healer recognized from an objective point of view that she would simply become a burden without her Mind and stamina at peak condition.

  Amid was to go back with the group heading out to resupply. Until they were ready to depart, she spoke with Finn.

  “Do you think there will be resistance from the enemy from here?”

  “They can’t turn things around through normal means for sure. To have a chance, they would have to unleash the demi-spirit to go on a rampage. But if they do that, it’s our victory. We can simply pull back for now and prepare ourselves to finish it in the second attack.”

  All according to plan. If the enemy played their trump card, they would just follow their prepared plan. Finn had never expected to wipe out all their underground forces in the first attack. The goal of this first strike had always been to round up the Evils and get a firm grasp of Knossos’s layout. The latter was basically complete now that they had Daedalus’s Notebook, so if the stretch goal of dealing with the demi-spirit was pushed to the second operation, it wouldn’t be a problem.

  There was no need to get greedy now. Finn had no intention of stirring up trouble before the second attack.

  From their conversation, Amid looked as though she understood. They had managed to basically achieve all they had set out to do with the first attack. There was no longer any way of changing that fact.

  …That’s how it should be…

  But while he was speaking with Amid, he could not ignore the unease lurking in the back of his mind.

  The enemy still hasn’t made a move, even though it’s come down to this. What’s going on? Loki and Gareth are already closing in on Thanatos. At this rate, the Evils will be destroyed.

  The enemy was responding too slowly. Even if they were to use the demi-spirit, it would be meaningless at this stage, now that Loki Familia had finished sealing off the floor. With escape routes secured, their alliance could either retreat or push onward at any point. Finn had planned for the possibility of the demi-spirit running wild and had put together various ways of countering, but all that effort had been wasted.

  Maybe the enemy had not been able to deal with the speed of their advance—

  Would it be fine for him to take this optimistic standpoint?

  Then…internal turmoil? Maybe the underground forces and the creatures betrayed the Evils…But there’s no reason to abandon them. To discard your own fighting force…

  He combed through his mind, seeking out reasonable possibilities, but he could not find an obvious answer.

  All that’s left from their fighting force is Levis. Is there some way they could use her to turn things around? No, that just isn’t realistic. And even if that wasn’t what they were after, it would just be a tactical victory. The overall strategic trend is clearly in our favor.

  None of it fit. They were all losing moves. All foolish plans.

  Braver could not predict what the enemy was plotting. All the possibilities in his mind would be blunders, and yet he could not entirely discard them for one simple reason.

  …My thumb…

  Glancing down at his right hand, he maintained his silence. His right thumb was aching, an omen of something to come. Nothing intense, but it had been a continuous gnawing for a while now.

  “…Amid, pull back the battle lines. Gather all those who have been wounded and bring them closer to the escape routes.”

  “Pull back? Are you sure?”

  “Don’t break the perimeter. Maintain it just enough so that the enemy can’t escape. Gareth’s squad is searching out the ringleaders, and we obviously can’t pull them back, but…we should set up a line as a precaution for dealing with the demi-spirit, too. Tell everyone from Hermes , Dionysus , and Dian Cecht Familias .”

  “Understood,” Amid said as she bowed and left. Watching silently, Finn licked his thumb. He was unable to think of a plan that could resolve the mysterious unease lurking in his chest. He just could not picture the person moving the pieces on the other side of the board.

  …Either way, pulling back our own forces at this stage is impossible.

  They were in a position where they had no choice but to attack.

  No choice but to push on to the end.

  “…Tiona, Tione. Gather the best of all those who can still fight. We’re going to attack with that group alone.”

  “Yes, sir! Leave it to us!”

  “Collect the most hyped! Got it!”

  Handing the Amazonian sisters their orders, Finn made his own preparations. He put together a squad with sufficient fighting strength to deal with any trap that might be lurking up ahead. Leading the familia members who had been gathered in an instant, Finn dashed off to the labyrinth master’s room, where Gareth had headed with his squad.

  Loki faced off with Thanatos.

  With his long locks of deep-purple hair and androgynous features, he could pass for either a man or a woman. But more than anything, he gave off a uniquely degenerate vibe as the God of Death.

  Standing there with no followers remaining, Thanatos smiled cynically at the situation.

  “This is the first time we’ve met.”

  “Guess so. We didn’t have any ties in the heavens, and I was always cooped up inside, managing the flow of souls.”

  “Well, this is a weird thing to say at our first meeting, but…this is the end, Thanatos.”

  “Yes, it’s game over.” He met Loki’s sharpened gaze with a flippant smile.

  While Gareth watched the gods’ exchange in silence with the rest of the members of Loki Familia , Loki was getting suspicious. He’s too calm.

  Something was off about Thanatos. He was taking it too well. They had cornered him with ease, so she’d readied herself, assuming there was a hidden trick up his sleeve, but resignation seeped out of his every word. As if he had already abandoned the chessboard.

  I can’t put it into words, really, but…Yeah, it’s like there’s no reaction.

  “Were you the one going by the name Enyo?” Loki questioned while carefully trying to conceal her doubts. But Thanatos just smiled and shrugged.

  “Did you not ask dear Lefiya? I’m not Enyo at all.”

  “…”

  “…Concealed from sight with a voice never heard. A god who may or may not even exist…An entity who may or may not even be a god. That isn’t me…Speaking of, that enigmatic douche really pulled one over on me.”

  “…What?”

  His smile took on a hint that he was mocking himself or maybe facing despair. Loki opened one of her eyes in surprise.

  “Yeah, Enyo got me. Hook, line, and sinker. I wondered if they were playing some kind of game when they wouldn’t
even appear before me, but…it was all so I wouldn’t notice. It’s obvious, really. You can’t get anywhere trying to probe someone’s intentions if you never once meet them. Because we couldn’t even begin to outwit each other as gods .”

  Couldn’t outwit each other?

  —Wait…“Got” him?

  As Loki’s thoughts ground to a halt, trying to process what he had said, Thanatos continued, “Enyo never thought of this place as a fortress. It was an altar. For a sacrifice.”

  Her body temperature dropped. A chill shot up her spine at the hint of a possibility that neither Finn nor she had been able to predict.

  Her heart pounded. Hard.

  An altar? A sacrifice? Where? Who? Here? Us?

  In the back of her mind, a series of scraping noises rang out, chipping away at her feeling of discomfort—and giving way to a bright, flashing red warning of impending doom.

  “Looks like we were all outwitted here, Loki.”

  Her eyes snapped open wide. The oculus in Gareth’s hands suddenly let out a loud blare.

  “Mr. Gareth! The masked being…! It’s controlling…monsters…too, and man—…! The squad i—…falling back…!”

  “Lefiya?! Lefiya! What’s going on?! I can barely hear you!”

  Her transmission cut between bloodcurdling screams, the violent clangor of battle, and the fiendish howls of monsters.

  Loki did not take her eyes off Thanatos as she listened to it. Her thoughts were whizzing around her head at full speed. Imagining the board where they had commenced their fame, she scrutinized thousands, tens of thousands of moves in an instant. They had intended to put the enemy in check, but were they being manipulated by someone else? The board had been clearly pointing to their victory.

  So who had stabbed their sword down from outside the board?

  As if empathizing—or sympathizing—with Loki’s internal revelation, a hint of compassion seeped into Thanatos’s smile.

  “Loki, were you by yourself when you came here? Didn’t you have an important friend with you?”

  “!”

  His question made Loki finally realize that Dionysus was missing. After looking around in shock, she whipped out her oculus.

  “Hey, Dionysus?! Where are you?!”

  “Hey, Dionysus?! Where are you?! ” rang the goddess’s voice.

  Dionysus brought the shining crystal to his mouth. “In one of the diverging passages…I apologize for moving by myself without consulting you. Please forgive me. I…am going to exact my revenge.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?!”

  He tightened his grip on his shortsword as he spoke. In the jet-black passage, he relied on the faint flickering from the oculus for light, but he proceeded deeper without any fear.

  “They’re here. Up ahead. The mastermind behind it all…The accursed god who killed my children.”

  He was sure of it—of the fact that his enemy was almost before him.

  His features were colored by rage. Knocking away the silence that coiled around him, he cut through the darkness with the light of his blade and kept moving.

  Forward. He continued, as if sidling up to them, making sure not to lose sight of his target.

  “…—?! Wait! Just wait, Dionysus! ” she wailed, desperately trying to stop him in an uncharacteristically shaken voice from the crystal.

  But Dionysus could not be stopped. He tailed the darkness beckoning him onward, as if driven by the flames of his wrath.

  “Come back! It’s seriously bad! I know something—something is about to happen! You can’t be by yourself!”

  The light from the crystal flashed brighter, as if strobing with the god’s intuition. Loki’s pleas rang hollowly in the open space. This place was filled with darkness—a somber, impenetrable black. And inside stood Dionysus’s enemy.

  “It’s not a problem. I have Filvis,” he said, fixing his gaze on the darkness ahead. “Right, Filvis?”

  “Yes, Lord Dionysus.”

  Hearing the voice from behind him, he nodded.

  “…Wait. Wait! Dionysus?!”

  Checking his grip on his sword, Dionysus was about to launch out, hounding down the shadows—

  “Just who were you talking to just now?!”

  Her shout finally caused him to stop in his tracks.

  “Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!”

  “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaagh?!”

  Voices cracked. Roars exchanged. A swarm of monsters with flailing tentacles and hideous jaws snapping routed the adventurers.

  “Loose your arrows, fairy archers! Pierce, arrow of accuracy! Arcs Ray!” Lefiya tried to fire back, but it was just a single drop in the bucket. Obviously.

  After all, the masked being had descended on them with a giant flock of violas without any warning.

  “Go.”

  “ Aaaaaaaah!”

  The horde of monsters obeyed the fluttering purple robe, writhing in their serpentine way as they attacked the adventurers. Lefiya intentionally dispersed her magic power, trying to cover for the scattering adventurers by drawing the monsters’ attention to her while using Concurrent Casting to finish them all off.

  “!”

  “Ugh?!”

  The masked figure caught on and concentrated their attacks on her. With the enemy’s attacks intensifying, Lefiya did not have the chance to continue talking to Gareth. The oculus picked up the sounds of the hectic clash between people and monsters.

  A series of retreats caused the battlefield to keep shifting backward. She somehow managed to block the metal gloves, but the force behind them was inhuman, and she kept getting blown back.

  “Lefiya?!”

  At the sounds of battle, Anakity’s squad ran to the scene, but it was too late. The masked figure was pressing in, pushing Lefiya all the way back to the entrance of the Dungeon that was secured by the squad of animal people.

  “This is the end.”

  Support from Anakity’s squad wouldn’t make it in time. The creature’s tight fist was about to pound Lefiya with a fatal blow.

  “Dio Thyrsos!”

  A bolt of lightning flashed through the air, repelling the masked figure’s attack just in the nick of time.

  “Are you okay, Lefiya?!” asked a girl standing before her, barring the creature’s way like a knight.

  “Miss Filvis!” Lefiya rejoiced.

  “ ”

  Time stopped for Dionysus. When he halted and whipped around, the girl named Filvis Challia was not there at all.

  All that was there was darkness .

  The follower carrying a conversation with him had dispersed as though an illusion.

  “She isn’t by your side at all! She’s with Lefiya! She can’t be there! ” Loki shrieked vehemently, parroting the news she had gathered from Lefiya’s oculus.

  Dionysus could not move. Dionysus could not understand.

  She disappeared—just vanished.

  No. Had she even been there to begi—?

  “Yes, Lord Dionysus ,” rang out a voice in his ears, accompanied by an unpleasant static, before crumbling away like a sugary sweet illusion.

  His expression cracked, warping his features in freakish confusion.

  —Hah-hah-hah-hah.

  An unpleasant gasping, a chaotic noise rustling against his ears.

  He finally realized with a cold sweat that he was hyperventilating. That he was the source of the sound.

  There was an entrancing darkness at Dionysus’s side, creeping up on him. The labyrinth garbled as it bent, coiling its arm around Dionysus’s body.

  “…What…? What was…? What is…? How? ”

  Is this a hallucination? Or a daydream?

  Impossible. I’m a god, one of the deusdea, omnipotent. There’s no way sorcery should work on me. No way something of the mortal realm could deceive me. It isn’t feasible. That would be impossible.

  —It’s not possible! Not possible! Not possible!

  “Dionysus?! Dionysus!!”

&nb
sp; He didn’t know what was happening to his body.

  Who is this place? What time am I? Where is the hour? Who are you?

  The whole world flipped on its head. Context became unconsciousness. Order became chaos. And he became lost.

  It was the beginning of a comedy, the start of a drama, an opera, a pantomime, a farce, a tragedy, a parody.

  Dionysus the performer and Dionysus in the audience. Dionysus was the scriptwriter, the director, the stagehand. A bout of laughter accompanied thunderous applause. Ridiculing Dionysus from Dionysus’s lips.

  A toast! A toast! Here’s a toast!

  Tears dribbled onto his cheeks; drool streaked from the corner of his mouth; his cheeks blushed bright like a girl in love for the first time.

  A headache that roared in the pitch of an animal. His personality ripped to shreds. His facade obliterated into smithereens.

  Drink more. Drink more. Drink more.

  Drunk on the darkness. Drunk on the darkness. Drunk on the darkness.

  Ah, it’s as if I’ve become…

  Become a true fool.

  “ ”

  And then, the darkness trembling, after keeping him waiting for so long.

  Straight ahead. From the front. Right before his eyes.

  The foe who Dionysus had been chasing gradually appeared before him, clutching a dagger.

  Reflected in his eyes was a single divine figure.

  “How ridiculous ,” the figure said, lips curling into a condescending crescent. The bewitching flash of the blade in their hand burned into Dionysus’s eyes.

  Impossible…It can’t be…

  The foe he’d pursued, the revenge that he’d sought, the true identity of Enyo…

  “Dionysus!! ” called out the goddess in the end.

  Dionysus responded hollowly back.

  “I’m sorry, Loki.”

  BOOOOOM!!

  “What?”

  Hestia saw a pillar of light reaching toward the sky, breaking through the labyrinth and shooting up into the heavens.

  “The return of a god?!”

  Aboveground on Daedalus Street, Ganesha was at his familia’s camp, bellowing as he looked up at the pillar.