Either way, Loki was satisfied with the fruits of her investigation.
Coming to a stop at the foot of the stairs, she took a quick look over her shoulder.
The god illuminated by flames maintained his silence. His imposing frame hadn’t even shifted on the throne.
The crystal-filled “sky” of the Dungeon’s eighteenth floor was changing from “afternoon” to “night.”
The millions of white crystals growing out of the ceiling stopped emitting light one after the other. The blue crystals scattered among them also grew dimmer. The blanket of soft, white light that covered the forest and plains became visibly weaker with each passing moment. The dark shroud of night took its place.
The town of Rivira, on the island in the middle of a large lake in the west, was overtaken by the darkness as well.
“Haaah…haaah…!”
A young animal person made her way between intricate rock formations as the area around her grew dim. Crystals sprouting from the ground glinted around her feet.
She fought for breath, even as she frantically looked over her shoulder. She caught a glimpse of her pursuers, a female knight with golden hair glinting in the darkness and an elfess with darker yellow hair carrying a magic staff. Her eyes shuddered as their reflections grew in her irises. She nearly tripped over a crystal in her path and faced forward again in her desperate attempt to get away.
She ran northwest, away from Crystal Square in the center of Rivira. At this rate, she would reach the city wall outside an isolated corner of town.
Bounding down slopes and staircases, she used her innate reflexes as an animal person to gracefully kick off stones and crystals that jutted out from the cliff face. The pouch over her right shoulder swung to the side as she tried to confirm that she was still being followed. Sure enough, she still saw the movement behind her.
But she could only see an out-of-breath elf with a staff in her arms. The other one was gone.
The animal person frowned, getting suspicious. So she made a sharp turn around the next corner and raced forward.
She entered a narrow passageway that was framed by the cliff face and a wall of large blue crystals. It was as if a valley had opened up to create an isolated one-way path.
She ran down the long and mostly flat route—only for the blond knight, Aiz Wallenstein, to appear right in front of her.
“Eh?!”
The blonde stood in the middle of the path, barring the exit. The animal person was in shock.
Aiz had instructed the elf, Lefiya, to keep up the pursuit and looped around in front at breakneck speed in order to cut her off.
Aiz slowly walked toward the girl from the front; Lefiya ran up from behind. The two had their target caught in a pincer. With nowhere to escape, the girl collapsed to her knees in the middle of the narrow path.
“Haah…haa…We caught her. That was amazing, Miss Aiz.”
“Not really. It was thanks to you, Lefiya.”
The two caught their breath and nodded to each other before looking down at the girl sitting between them.
She was a chienthrope with long black hair and two floppy dog ears coming out of the top of her head. Her skin was a healthy wheat color, and the streamlined muscles on her thin arms and legs looked just as powerful as an animal person’s should.
She was wearing a thin, one-piece battle cloth and long boots that laced all the way up to her knees. On the other hand, she didn’t have a scrap of armor anywhere.
“It might be a good idea…for the others to ask the questions, rather than us.”
“I agree. Let’s go back to the square.”
Their suspect apprehended, Aiz and Lefiya didn’t take their eyes off her as they attempted to bring her back—but.
“No!”
Floppy ears pulled all the way back as the girl looked up at her captors, tears streaming from her eyes, and made her plea.
“Please, no, anywhere but there! If I show my face there again, I-I…!”
“U-umm…!”
“Wh-what…what are you doing?!”
The chienthrope latched herself firmly onto Aiz, arms wrapped tightly around her waist as she looked straight up at her.
Aiz wasn’t sure how to react, but Lefiya dropped her staff and immediately tried to pull the girl off her ally. “Please, please, please…!” The girl pleaded once again and buried her face in Aiz’s stomach. Despite Lefiya’s best efforts, she wouldn’t budge.
The panic and desperation in her voice made the human and the elf exchange confused glances.
“Wh-what shall we do?”
“…Take her somewhere without any people.”
“Are you sure that is okay?”
“Yes. She seems too frightened right now…We’ll listen to what she has to say after she calms down.”
Aiz returned her gaze to the terrified captive and made her suggestion.
Realizing that they would get nowhere like this, Lefiya nodded in agreement. Each girl took one of the chienthrope’s hands and led her out of the passageway.
They guided her toward a storage lot closer to the town wall toward the northwest.
Hundreds of cargo boxes used to bring large amounts of items in and out of the Dungeon were being stored here. Looking around, they saw no shortage of pickaxes, shovels, and lumber scattered among them. Most likely, all the items used to build Rivira were stored here. Since everyone was at Crystal Square, the storage lot was eerily silent.
Each cargo box was taller than any of the girls. They had been lined up in rows or stacked on top of each other in a way that made the storage lot look like a fortress.
Aiz and Lefiya brought the girl all the way into the back of the lot and found a place that was protected by the boxes on all sides. Then, they turned to face her.
“Are you okay now?”
“…Yea.”
Lefiya turned on a portable magic-stone lamp she had picked up on the way in.
Light illuminated the containers around them as the chienthrope slowly nodded in response to Aiz’s question.
“And your name is?”
“Lulune…Lulune Louie.”
“And your Level and familia?”
“Third tier, Level Two. I’m with Hermes Familia…”
Lulune slowly calmed down and caught her breath as she answered Aiz’s and Lefiya’s questions, cooperating without making a fuss. She had a face that would have looked friendly under any other circumstances, but she still shook visibly in the dim light.
Aiz looked her square in the eye and got right to the point.
“Why…why did you run away from the square?”
“…Because I thought someone was going to kill me.”
“Why did you think that?”
Aiz pressed even further to get answers out of the quiet girl.
“Because you’re carrying something that belonged to Hashana?”
That question got Lefiya’s attention, too. Her eyes as wide as the chienthrope’s, the two girls followed Aiz’s line of sight to the pouch on her shoulder.
Both of Lulune’s hands reflexively went to the medium-sized bag. She nodded after a few moments, almost like she was confessing, without releasing her white-knuckle grip on the strap.
“Why would you be carrying anything that belonged to him…? Did you…did you steal it?”
“N-no! I just…accepted a quest.”
Both Aiz and Lefiya jumped when they heard the word “quest.” Images of Hashana’s blood-soaked form flooded into Aiz’s mind as she looked at the girl in front of her.
Aiz asked the next logical question.
“What did it say?”
“To come here and pick up a package, then bring it to the surface…to the client.”
“In other words, make a delivery?”
Lulune nodded again.
“I was supposed to meet a guy with the package at a predetermined bar. I didn’t know who it was, but they told me what he would be wearing. When I saw an adventurer in
full-plated armor, I knew it was him right away.”
All she had to do after that was make contact and say the password.
The adventurer in full plate armor—Hashana—would have immediately realized that she was the one he had to give the package to, passing the item to her on the spot. It must have been finished in the blink of an eye, over so quickly that the robed woman didn’t know about it.
Then, free from the stress of his quest, Hashana let his guard down and lost his life to the woman who invited him to the inn.
“Employing two adventurers for different roles, from different familias even…”
One quest had been issued to retrieve the package; another had been issued to deliver it to the surface. Whoever their client was, he or she paid extreme attention to detail. Even if the retriever were followed, having the exchange point among the hundreds of upper-class adventurers in the always busy Rivira would have made it difficult for the package to be tracked.
Lefiya couldn’t help but be impressed with the lengths the mysterious client had gone to in protecting this delivery.
“Who is the client?”
“I don’t know…Really, I don’t. A little while ago, I was walking down a deserted street in the middle of the night and this really weird person just came out of nowhere…”
Lulune’s eyebrows rose slightly as she recalled what had happened.
“They had on a thick black robe. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman. Of course I thought it was suspicious when they handed me the quest form…But the reward, oh man, that reward…And they paid most of it up front.”
Lulune looked away in embarrassment, rubbing her neck with her right hand.
It wasn’t hard for Aiz to envision the girl in front of her accepting a large amount of money from someone in a black robe, her tail happily swishing back and forth.
“Huh, wait a minute…Miss Lulune? You said you are Level Two, yes? From what you said, you accepted this quest on your own…Isn’t it a little too dangerous for you to come to Rivira by yourself?”
Rivira was located on the eighteenth floor of the Dungeon—an adventurer’s Basic Abilities needed to be between G and D to reliably reach the middle levels safely.
Therefore, a third-tier adventurer would have to be extremely capable to make it this far into the Dungeon solo, without any party members to protect them. Which meant that she had to be above a certain threshold to guarantee a safe arrival in Rivira.
Add in how careful the mysterious client was, and it was highly unlikely they would entrust a Level 2 adventurer with a matter this important.
A twinge of fear crossed Lulune’s face the moment Lefiya asked her question. It took her a moment to form a response.
“W-well…Lord Hermes asked me to keep the rank-up a secret, so…S-sorry, I, um, I’m actually Level Three.”
““…””
Aiz and Lefiya didn’t know what to say. Lulune did her best to look as small as possible as she backed away from the two girls. She was more than likely one or two years older than them, but right now, she looked like a child being scolded by her mother.
However, this brought something else to light.
The mysterious client had access to information that enabled him or her to figure out Lulune was Level 3.
“…I should’ve just gone back to the surface rather than hang out down here. I recognized the armor in the square, so I knew it was the guy I got the package from. Once I heard he’d been killed…The killer was probably after what was in his bag, and I…”
Aiz had witnessed the moment in Crystal Square when Lulune connected the dots and started to panic.
The chienthrope’s voice became quieter with each word. The girl didn’t look up from the ground as she spoke. Aiz and Lefiya didn’t say a word, only making eye contact with each other.
“Miss Aiz, our general really should hear this…”
“—NO!”
Lefiya had only meant to point out the limits of what they could do, but her choice of words sent a tremor of fear down Lulune’s spine and she cried out.
“Large groups of people are scary! Hashana’s killer is still in there somewhere! If they figure out that I’ve got the goods, this time I’ll be the one that…!”
Lulune clutched the pouch tightly to her chest and unleashed an impassioned plea.
Lefiya froze, unsure what to do. Aiz looked closely at the girl’s face in profile before lowering her gaze to the pouch.
“Give the package to us,” she said.
Lulune’s eyes shot open at the request.
Aiz looked at the blank expression on the girl’s face, her golden eyes radiating unwavering determination.
Lulune started to crumble under Aiz’s imposing stare. However, thoughts of collecting the rest of her reward were still alive and well in the back of her mind. She wavered, hesitating to answer for several moments.
She weighed the value of her safety against more money than she ever thought she’d have, but in the end, her life won. She set her jaw and nodded reluctantly.
“I was told not to ask about it, or to show anyone, but…”
She put the pouch onto the ground and opened the lid flap.
Reaching into a hidden compartment within the pouch, Lulune extracted a smaller bag shut tight with a pull string.
Beads of nervous sweat running down her face, she pulled the round bag off of the contents inside.
“…!”
“Wh-what in the world is this…?”
Lulune placed a crystal orb into Aiz’s outstretched hands.
The orb itself was light green. A clear outer shell encased a green liquid—and a fetus of something unsettling.
The eyes on the fetus’s face were disproportionately large to the rest of his body. They looked up at Aiz and Lefiya, unblinking. The head of the fetus had long hair that curled down to its shoulders, making it look female. Ba-dum, ba-dum. While the infant creature itself was silent, Aiz could feel its faint heartbeat through the shell.
“A drop item? Or perhaps a new form of monster?”
Lefiya voiced several more questions, but Aiz couldn’t take her eyes off the orb.
This feeling…
She suddenly felt strange.
Her heart sped up, matching the pulse coming from the creature in her hands.
Aiz could feel the blood racing through her veins, getting faster and faster every moment her eyes met its gaze.
What is this…?
She had no earthly idea what this crystal orb in the palm of her hands could possibly be.
A high-pitched whine rang in her ears. At the same time, she could have sworn hundreds of worms were tunneling around under her skin. Aiz was nauseous within moments.
She fell to her knees the second dizziness overtook her.
“Miss Aiz?!”
She felt the orb slip from her hands and roll across the ground.
Lefiya kept Aiz upright, supporting her with her right hand as Aiz took many deep breaths in quick succession.
Lulune was frozen on the verge of tears.
“…!”
Lefiya quickly deduced that the cause of Aiz’s breakdown had to be the orb. Snatching it up off the ground, she brought it away from the blond girl.
“Haah…haah…” Aiz’s shoulders rose and fell with each breath. However, each breath was quieter than the last and she began to recover.
Silence once again fell on the clearing between cargo boxes, lit up by the magic-stone lamp.
Lefiya and Lulune watched quietly as the blond girl sitting on the ground finally opened her eyes, her hand still on her breastplate.
Another set of eyes followed the three girls.
A figure shrouded in darkness was on top of the city wall.
From that position, it had a straight line of vision through the erratically placed cargo boxes and into the space where a human, an elf, and an animal person were conversing.
Keeping breathing to a minimum, the figure stu
died the faces of each of the girls in turn until finally falling on the human knight.
—Very strong.
Watchful eyes narrowed.
“That complicates things,” the observer whispered, looking at the saber at her waist and struggling to find a physical weakness on the blond-haired, golden-eyed girl.
The shadow observed them carefully until the animal girl opened her pouch and a crystal orb appeared.
A flame burned behind the irises that glared from afar. They were so focused on the fetus inside the green orb that they failed to see that the blond girl had collapsed.
They turned to look toward the crowded center of town before returning to the girl.
Finally, the figure reached underneath its chest plate and withdrew a reed pipe.
“—Come.”
The high tones of a flute came forth from the figure’s lips and pipe.
It spread far and wide, traveling through the air over the town.
“Are you feeling okay, Miss Aiz?”
“…Yes, just fine.”
Her voice weak, Aiz started to slowly climb to her feet.
Lefiya was taken aback; she had never seen her idol struggle to stand before. Masking her concern, the elf looked down at the orb still in her hand.
A disgusting fetus protected by a green shell was reflected in her eyes. She, too, began to wonder what in the world the orb was as she looked back and forth between it and Aiz.
“A-are we gonna be okay…? W-was this thing too dangerous after all?”
Lulune was losing her cool once again.
Lefiya didn’t have any answers. She took one more look at Aiz’s face and made up her mind.
“I will carry it to our general.”
While she had no idea why, she knew that the crystal orb had done something bizarre to Aiz. Perhaps it was because of their difference in race, but she felt no ill effects carrying the orb herself.
Of course, she wanted to be rid of the green sphere as soon as possible. She was determined to do anything she could to prevent Aiz from collapsing again, so there was no choice but to carry it.
After all, Lefiya had to help her fellow adventurer.
“Sorry, Lefiya…”
“Please do not apologize. At times like these I will do what I must…Miss Aiz, please stay back.”
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 2 Page 11