by Fujino Omori
“The demi-spirits are already at work. You can try to escape, but that won’t do anything, Loki. Even if you have no clue what’s happening…you can at least realize that it’d be futile, right?” Thanatos smiled dully.
Unable to say anything in response, she gritted her teeth.
“Loki!!” thundered out the prum.
“Finn?!” Loki’s eyes were wide as she swung around.
The party of Loki Familia ’s elites had set out for the labyrinth master’s room to save their patron god and had made it all the way to this place.
“A gross meat thing is closing in!!”
“If we don’t hurry, there won’t be any way out!!”
Tiona and Tione were more uneasy than they had ever been before.
The low rumbles of the labyrinth never ceased.
The others, including Gareth, were totally lost, but they could immediately piece together that something big was happening. As if responding to their confusion, it burst into the room with force.
“C-Captain?! Incoming!!” someone shouted as the green flesh pushed through the passage.
“Close the door!!” Finn roared.
That was enough for the others to immediately understand everything.
Loki was stupefied by the shock. The familia member with the Daedalus Orb held it out, lowering the orichalcum gate. The door slammed shut, halting the invasion of the flesh by a hairbreadth. Of the five passages leading into the room, four doors crashed down with a BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“What a shame, Braver. One of the entrances to this room doesn’t have a door.”
“ Gh!”
The green flesh rushed into the room from the remaining entrance as Thanatos mercilessly handed down their death sentence.
The prum’s blue eyes went unfocused; the familia members paled; the first-tier adventurers realized their end was upon them. The flesh expanded out as if a malignant tumor, filling the pillar room within seconds and pressing into Loki Familia .
“I-is it swallowing up weapons, too?!”
“Our magic blades don’t do anything!”
The desperate resistance of familia members was meaningless. Even as lightning and explosions overlapped, the green flesh did not slow its advance in the slightest. They retreated bit by bit until they were finally forced back onto the altar where Thanatos stood.
As they heaved ragged breaths, sweat pouring from their brows, despair was evident on everyone’s faces. The heart made of iron and bronze and the emblem with the black wing, the symbol of the God of Death, hung over them, as if proclaiming their impending doom.
“—If Loki gets bounced out of the mortal world here, Orario will be destroyed without too much trouble.”
That was when Thanatos shut his eyes and started his monologue.
“…?”
“If I leave the destruction of the city to Enyo, the mortal realm will be restored to its former chaos. The souls returning to the heavens will heighten, and my desires will come true, too,” he spoke eloquently.
His calm voice sounded out of place in their current situation. It was almost like he was delivering an oracle. As he turned away from the altar, everyone bore their eyes into his back.
Was it a verse offered in tribute to the adventurers before they met a tragic fate? A proclamation of victory?
It did not sound like either to Loki. It was as if—
“—This shit isn’t funny.”
Sure enough, when Thanatos opened his eyes, there was a smoldering rage burning in them.
“Even I’ve got some pride, Enyo. I hate getting manipulated and cast aside.”
“Thanatos…?”
“All that’s left is…retaliation.” At that, the God of Death broke into a smile. “A little payback for doing this to the dream of my dear Barca.”
Loki caught her breath. At the end of it all, she had gotten a glimpse of Thanatos’s love for his followers.
In the next moment, Thanatos drew a shortsword. As Finn and the others looked on in horror, he grinned and plunged it into his own chest.
“Wha—?!”
With a cough, blood started to ooze out of his mouth. The blade was thrust deep into his chest. While they speechlessly watched, the fatally wounded body of a god activated his Arcanum that was forbidden to him in the mortal realm, as if rejecting death.
“—Go, Loki. A present from me.”
Her eyes opened wide. In the end, as he was surrounded by light particles and his figure blurred by the light that he emanated, Thanatos raised a single hand, pointing to the sky.
BOOM!
A second return pillar pierced the ceiling and rushed out of Knossos.
The force created a cascade moving in reverse up toward the heavens. As if shriveling back from a god’s divine authority, the green flesh’s encroachment slowed while the white light illuminated the shocked faces of the adventurers.
And then, because the giant pillar of light had burst through the labyrinth to the sky, it had opened a route to get back aboveground .
“—Escape through that hole! Noooooooooooow!” Loki shouted as she confirmed the big hole in the ceiling from the fading pillar.
The first-tier adventurers started moving, perhaps even before she had said anything. It was a reflex to escape the threat of total annihilation. Without thinking, Tiona, Tione, and Gareth instinctively grabbed the familia members with the lowest Statuses. Accelerating fast enough to shatter the stones as they kicked off, they leaped up into the hole filled with snowy particles of light.
“Loki!!”
“—!”
As the other adventurers dropped their gear and followed the trio, Finn yanked Loki and charged above. In the next instant, the invasion of the green flesh started anew, as if intent on not letting them escape.
“Jump! Jump! Juuuuump!”
The adventurers gave no thought to appearances, screaming as they kept leaping, like a bolt of lightning zigzagging between floors, going up through the openings, pushing farther and farther upward. They were all desperately aiming for the light above their heads, for the starry twilight, for an escape from the lair of demons.
“Gah…!”
The air was electric, and the atmospheric pressure tugged at his skin.
Finn’s shoulder creaked as it held Loki, on the verge of dislocating. But he did not have any thought to spare to protest or cry out in pain. There was no point in groaning.
As he looked down, he could see the repulsive green flesh hounding them, an eruption bursting before his eyes.
It would end if they got caught in it. It would all have been for naught.
“Finn!”
“Hurry!!”
Tiona and Gareth were at the head of the escape, calling back to Finn, who was bringing up the rear. While the other familia members desperately tried to put distance between themselves and the onrushing flesh, the prum supporting Loki managed to find another reserve somewhere in his small frame and accelerated again as he leaped.
And they finally closed in on the surface, right as he was crossing over to the second floor of Knossos.
“Oooooooooooooooooooh—!”
The howl of a monster thundered from his side.
“ ”
In the second-floor passage, a single viola had managed to escape the pillar of light. Right as Finn and Loki were passing through, almost as if it was a trap that had been set for them, the monster opened its mouth to take a bite out of them.
“ ”
As Loki tensed, Finn arrived at a decision faster than light, executing his next actions immediately. He heaved his patron goddess into the air above his head with his right hand, leaving her to Tione above him in one second. And in the next, he used the Fortia Spear in his left hand to disembowel the approaching viola.
As time stood still for everyone else, those two seconds were fateful for Finn. The green flesh closing in from behind roared as the pitiful prum sank into its inescapable range.
“ ”
>
To deal with the attack, his upward momentum had slowed slightly. With his body weightless in the air for a split second, there was no possible movement that he could make to overcome it.
Gareth’s eyes widened as their gazes met.
Tiona looked aghast as she exchanged glances with him.
Loki’s gaze pierced through his as she tried to scream something.
Tione locked eyes with him as a chill ran up her spine.
And in the end, the ache in his thumb stopped entirely, as if finally giving up on everything.
“Captaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!!” shrieked Tione.
Paying her grief no mind, the green flesh closed in.
The blue eyes of the prum filled with regret as he looked up, and all too quickly, it started to swallow him.
“ I won’t let you.”
In the last moment, a pair of golden wings swooped in and snatched his body from the clutches of the green flesh.
“Huh?” Tione whispered as Finn’s eyes opened wide.
Loki and the other adventurers were all stunned.
A single Xenos had appeared.
The winged monster had accelerated from the room at the bottom through the tiny gap between the erupting flesh and the wall, saving Finn from a certain death.
Casting off Fels’s restraint, Rei the siren had used her echolocation to search for survivors and, upon reaching the room with the altar, rushed to the adventurers. Whizzing through the air to avoid the green flesh’s menace, her talons gripped firmly into Finn’s arm.
“We’re getting out of this!”
It was an explosive speed, something that only a being with wings could achieve. Tione and the others gazed in wonder as the siren burst past them in an instant with Finn in tow—and then put in every last bit of energy and leaped.
To the end of the tunnel, hurtling out aboveground.
“—Gh!!”
They passed through the gaping hole and up into the night sky. The half-human, half-bird silhouette flapping her golden wings floated together with the silhouette of a prum, the full moon shining behind them.
“ !!”
The green flesh flooded out of the hole with a thunderous clamor as though a monster’s roar. The crater opened up by Thanatos’s return to the heavens was completely closed off, filled with its unsightly meat. As Tione and the others landed in the Labyrinth District, they frantically scurried away from the geyser of green mass burbling out of the hole.
“…It…stopped…”
The repulsive mass spread out to a radius of about ten meders before coming to a halt. As if perfectly sealing a lid over the altar.
“…”
With his arm gripped by the siren’s talons, Finn squinted as he looked down from the sky. It was his first time observing the city from a bird’s-eye view, but the scene before him was a bitter one.
Finally, he turned his gaze above his head and opened his mouth.
“…My thanks.”
“…It was nothing.”
The human and monster exchanged words of gratitude. However, even that could do nothing more than resound hollowly across the night sky.
On that day, the first attack of the Knossos assault operation succeeded—and failed .
They had achieved their goal of crushing the Evils. And Thanatos, the patron god of the Evils, had been sent back, too. But the cost had been the destruction of Dionysus Familia .
The alliance of familias had retreated—no, they had been routed. Far too many lives had been lost to call it a fair trade.
The den of demons cleared by adventurers had turned into the stronghold of a new devil.
EPILOGUE
WHODUNIT
Approximately eighty people and one god.
That was the number of casualties in this operation.
Loki Familia and Hermes Familia both suffered losses, but they had managed to keep their death toll down to zero. It could be said that they had minimized losses as best as possible when faced with an unforeseen Irregular—but that had been achieved only at the cost of abandoning Dionysus Familia . There was no helping the drop in morale. Though it was the first time that their familias had teamed up, losing an entire familia was far too heavy of a burden.
Though they took care not show it to the lower-tier members, the second-string members charged with command during the operation, including Anakity, were steeped in gloom.
And the one who had been hit particularly hard was Lefiya.
Seeing her fellow elf and friend perish before her eyes had ripped out the young girl’s heart. With a broken spirit, she did not react at all to the beckoning of Aiz or anyone, simply sitting in her room like a lifeless doll.
Out of consideration for her roommate, Elfie, who had been reduced to tears trying to cheer her up countless times, Lefiya had been moved to a different room.
All the preparations for taking on Knossos had been lined up. And right when they succeeded, it had all been undone in a single devilish act.
There was no denying it. Not for the adventurers and not for the gods.
They had underestimated Enyo, who had not once stepped out onto the main stage.
Their enemy was exceedingly crafty: a devil incarnate.
“…”
The morning after the operation, Loki was on Daedalus Street. By herself, without any guard atop a building’s roof in the central area of the Labyrinth District—looking out at Knossos.
The green flesh from before had overflowed aboveground through the openings made from Thanatos’s and Dionysus’s returns. It was being covered up with a giant tent that had been erected under the pretense of building a forest park in the reconstructed zone—to prevent normal residents from finding out about any disturbances.
Its corrosion of Knossos was total. With a few others, Bete had worked quickly to close the orichalcum doors connecting to the Dungeon, stopping the hemorrhaging. It had overflowed in only two places: the two holes where the gods had returned to heaven in the center of the Labyrinth District.
The green mass had fallen entirely silent now. Or perhaps it was better to say that its growth had stopped.
“When Leene died with the others, I guess I went out on a lookout then, too…” she let fall from her lips, the whisper disappearing in the morning breeze.
Ganesha Familia was stationed around the edges of the tent, the subject of Loki’s attention, to investigate and observe it. She could see their leader, Shakti, shooting off constant orders to the other familia members without any sleep or rest, and even their patron god, Ganesha. If anything were to happen to Loki, they would surely come running. They were on their toes, and anything could set them off.
“……” Gazing over the Labyrinth District from the roof, Loki finally took her hand off the rail.
She headed down the stairs, slipping around to the back alleys to get away from the bustle of the adventurers.
“Yo, Loki. What a coincidence. What a way to start off the morning.”
“…” She ran into Hermes.
Loki did not respond to the god who appeared as if he had been waiting for the chance to talk. She just silently looked back at him.
“Care for some small talk?”
“Fine, I’ll bite. Just get to the point.” She shrugged.
After Hermes finished distancing his following guards, the smile on his suave face melted away.
“I’d like to hear your opinion on the identity of Enyo.” He met her gaze with a serious look in his orange eyes.
“Same as what you’re thinking. Not like there was that much to go off.”
“True. We know way too little. No leads on Enyo. No way to guess at a motive. It’s all a blank.”
The only thing they did know was Enyo’s screwy name: the city destroyer.
Their enemy’s existence was a vague shadow, some indefinite being. They weren’t even sure whether Enyo actually existed. Because of that, they had not really tried to track down Enyo.
/>
More accurately, they couldn’t.
But an actual enemy had now bared its fangs at them with malice, posing a real threat. As if loudly asserting its existence. As if cackling at them.
“All right, let’s say who we thought Enyo was on three?” Hermes suggested with a smile in an about-face.
But his eyes weren’t smiling. Loki nodded silently.
Without taking her eyes off Hermes’s lips as he counted down—“Three, two, one”—she answered.
““Dionysus.””
The same name hung in the air.
Their expressions didn’t falter at the fact that their guesses had been the same.
“Why him?” Loki asked.
“His timing was too perfect. His motive for getting wrapped up and involved with you…it all felt like an after-the-fact explanation. At the least, that’s how it looked to me,” Hermes answered without any hesitation. “Did you know? After the incident on the twenty-fourth floor, the very first person I contacted was Dionysus.”
“…You saying you suspected him from the start?”
“I wasn’t convinced by any means. But I poked around a bit.”
He was speaking with his usual nonchalance, but Loki had felt it, too.
Dionysus had been too active.
Before the Twenty-Seventh-Floor Nightmare, his faction had been one scrapping for the top spot in the city, but after, it was solid mid-tier, with its fairly numerous members as its only defining feature. He had apparently been very secretive with his familia and made a point of hiding their true strength, but he was still way out of his league to take on the remnants of the Evils and the creatures’ underground forces. That could be proven by the fact that he had the assistance of only the Level-3 Filvis Challia up until the assault operation itself.
“Dionysus and I come from the same homeland…sworn friends of Olympus. I probably know him better than you do.”
“You mean his sudden fits—getting into huge scuffles with folks?”
“Oh, you knew?”
There were other suspicious points, too: his extreme opposition to Ouranos that hindered their cooperation. They wouldn’t have been able to make a deal with Ouranos’s side while he was hiding the bombshell about the Xenos, but even then, Dionysus was stubbornly against them.