“Yer bein’ rather generous for a man who’s merely carryin’ out a request.”
“Ha-ha, well, I did also have Hephaistos come to me right before I left, asking me to help out her little Welf, you know?”
This god’s really good at negotiating.
Aiz thought this to herself about Asfi’s patron deity as she watched him. Expressing both his true motives and polite regard for the other party, then pressing with just enough awareness of the situation to ensure they would be disinclined to refuse. He knew that Loki Familia couldn’t possibly abandon a member of an allied familia. Hearing this, even Gareth couldn’t help but sigh.
“I do apologize for any trouble this may cause you, as I know that you must be tired after your expedition…but I hope you’ll consider it.”
Hermes…He was famous for his tendency to aid not only random strangers on the road but merchants, as well. He was also a god known for falsifying the levels of followers in his neutral familia. His skill with words was of an entirely different variety compared to Loki.
As Aiz stood there now observing this deity, having just returned from the trip he’d taken immediately following Denatus some ten days ago, she couldn’t help but think him quite shrewd.
“Lord Hermes, if you would, I don’t care much for needless haggling. So long as you and your followers don’t cause any sort of trouble around here, you’re welcome to stay and leave with us for the surface. After all, it would be cruel of us to simply abandon those we’ve already taken under our wing.”
“Oh, you are too kind, too kind! You have my utmost thanks.”
Finn gave in to Hermes’s request. He hadn’t exactly left them with much choice, which had undoubtedly been the god’s intention.
Once the deal had been struck, Finn went on to explain their current situation—the poison-vermis attack and their stopover here on the eighteenth floor, all of which Hermes took in with an understanding “I see…” Finn continued by relaying their estimated time of departure and allocating the newcomers tents for the night, keeping the conversation rolling.
“Oh dear, I’d almost forgotten! Though I may be a bit late, congratulations on a successful return from your expedition…at least, I assume it’s a successful return?”
Hermes’s comment came right as the discussion was wrapping up, the god’s characteristic smile back on his face.
“Thank you. We are returning with zero casualties.”
“Amazing! I should have expected no less from Loki Familia,” Hermes began, excitement creeping into his voice, before continuing. “Then I do have to wonder…What might you have found down on the fifty-ninth floor, hm?” he mused, clearly probing. While the smile on his lips never faltered, his thin, bow-like eyes widened eagerly.
Those all-seeing eyes seemed to stare straight through them, and Aiz couldn’t help but give a little start. Even Tiona’s and Tione’s faces instantly stiffened, though of the group, only Raul showed any obvious outward signs of discomfort.
Finn’s, Riveria’s, and Gareth’s composure, however, never cracked.
“We are followers of Loki. We have no duty to disclose familia matters to gods with questionable intentions.” Riveria was the first to speak, one eye closed as she shot Hermes down.
Behind Hermes, Asfi reacted to the sudden tense atmosphere with the aura of someone who had gone through much hardship, one hand gently cradling her abdomen.
“Right you are. I do apologize. It’s simply that you’re the first ones to tread on such ground since Zeus’s party did so long ago. The entire city is watching you, so I’ll admit I was a bit curious myself,” Hermes responded, unfazed, seemingly aloof toward the goings-on of the city and its people. “Ah, right. Have you heard that I’m now in an alliance with Loki and Dionysus?”
“!”
“The three of us have come together as victims of the same crimes. To take a stand against those vibrantly colored monsters and the remnants of the Evils,” he continued with a blasé attitude as Aiz and the others attempted to digest the latest piece of surprising news.
Finn, however, remained as cool as ever. “I’m afraid we’ll have to confirm this with our own goddess before we can fully believe you, Lord Hermes.”
“Of course, of course! In that case, feel free to ignore what I’m about to tell you now, hm?” Hermes began before continuing. “Though you may have already noticed, Braver, Finn Deimne…somewhere aboveground, there is another entrance into this mighty Dungeon besides the one found in Babel. That’s the conclusion your goddess and I came to.”
The gulps were almost audible this time.
Even the gazes of Riveria and Gareth hardened.
“Which is why we were hoping…for you to perform a systematic search all throughout Orario and its periphery upon your return to the surface.” Hermes’s orange eyes narrowed, his gaze never leaving that of the tiny, motionless familia captain in front of him.
After an extended pause, he turned away.
“Consider it compensation for our lodging, small as it may be. Do take care of it, hm?” he added before making his way out of the tent.
Asfi was quick to follow, giving a short bow before leaving the group, and the tent, in silence.
“C-Captain…?” Raul finally uttered. Hermes’s offhanded information was still hanging over their heads.
The others responded by turning their gazes toward their small prum leader, faces a varied mixture of emotions. Finn brought his right hand to his mouth, giving his thumb a little lick.
“Though I somehow expected this…it seems we’re not going to be getting much rest once we return home,” he sighed with a shake of his head.
“This thing is big…very big…”
The quiet murmur resonated louder than expected within the large tent.
Lefiya and the others turned toward Tione anxiously, the Amazon currently standing near the tent’s far edge.
Immediately after their meeting with Hermes had ended, they’d rounded up everyone who’d taken part in the fifty-ninth-floor raid, and they’d all congregated here, in one of Loki Familia’s female tents. Lefiya and the other Level-4 second-battalion members, and even Aki, were all present. Raul and the men, however, were still outside giving orders, and Aiz and Riveria were nowhere to be found.
“Y’know, uh…as honored as I feel to be here…is it really okay? I mean, I’m totally an outsider,” Tsubaki piped up from within the women-only tent.
“It’s fine. You were there on the fifty-ninth floor, too, so you already know everything…Besides, it’d be best to hear opinions from everyone,” Tione responded with a drop of her shoulders.
The half-dwarf just laughed. “Then let the party begin!”
Since the moment the familia leaders had concluded the meeting, Tione and the others had been racking their brains, trying to come up with an explanation for this string of strange events. They hadn’t had much of a chance to discuss things, what with their expedition and other happenings, so it seemed like a good chance to do so after hearing Hermes’s info.
“B-but…it just seems impossible, right? For there to be another entrance besides Babel?” Lefiya asked timidly.
“Yeaaah, but this is straight from the gods themselves…” Tiona answered from where she was seated on the floor nearby.
“It does make sense. I mean, how else would somebody be able to lug those giant flowers up to the surface without being seen? Remember during the Monsterphilia and the sewers? If there was only one entrance, we’d have no choice but to suspect the Guild and Ganesha Familia,” Tione continued, adding in her own two cents.
If there really was a second entrance to the Dungeon besides the great chasm of Babel, it would turn everything they knew on its head. As the scope of the issue grew larger and larger, Lefiya brought her hands to her own head with a tiny moan, unable to wrap her mind around the consequences.
“Though…I’m mostly worried about the thing with Aiz,” Tiona began slowly.
The dem
i-spirit, for instance, what with its strength and its ability to cast magic, was entirely outside the realm of the ordinary. This powerful abnormality could easily surpass even the crimson-haired woman Levis and her other creature friends.
And it seemed Aiz was, in fact, its target.
It had even called her “Aria.”
“As I recall, Aiz was the first to recognize that thing as a spirit.”
“And she got all weird when she saw it, yeah?”
Alicia and Narfi shared their observations in turn.
Aiz had yet to say anything about what had happened down there, nor did she explain the name the demi-spirit had called her. She’d simply averted her eyes when anyone asked, responding with a quiet “I’m sorry…” before letting the issue die.
“Well, she always has been a bit of an odd duck, if ya ask me,” Tsubaki mused, stroking her chin.
“M-Miss Tsubaki!” Lefiya balked.
Tione turned toward Aki. “You’ve known her the longest, right? You wouldn’t happen to know anything, would you?”
“Afraid not. Back then, Aiz was even more of a recluse than she is today…I’ve asked the bosses about it before, but they just tell me she has her reasons.” The black catgirl’s shapely eyebrows bowed in apologetic futility.
“Aria, spirits…somehow I can’t help but think about that legend Dungeon Oratoria.” Tiona’s eyes rose toward the tent’s ceiling in far-off thought.
Tione, however, just frowned. “Then what, are you saying that Aiz is a spirit or something? That legend’s centuries old, from back in the Ancient Times, right? To think they’d have any connection is ridiculous.”
“I didn’t mean it like that…”
“It’s true, though, Miss Tiona. Spirits aren’t supposed to be able to have children…right?” Lefiya chimed in somewhat skeptically.
The fairy-tale-loving Amazon crossed her arms in deep reflection. “Hmmm…I guess not. Guess it’s probably nothing after all…”
Aki and the others exchanged glances.
Almost all the stories they’d been told as children included this “spirit.”
But could that spirit of legend really have anything to do with Aiz—some sort of link between humans and demi-humans?
“Puttin’ aside kids’ stories for now…You do realize there is someone with spirit blood runnin’ through their veins, yeah?”
Tsubaki’s question hit them like a ton of bricks.
Every head in the tent popped up with a simultaneous “What?!”
The Hephaistos Familia high smith just laughed.
“I guess that answers that, huh? Why don’t I bring him here?”
“…Can I ask why I’m here?” the red-haired boy said incredulously from his position at the center of the tent. He didn’t even try to disguise his malcontent, sitting cross-legged on the ground as his eyes took in the wide circle of girls surrounding him.
“As y’all already know, this whelp here is the smith in Bell Cranell’s party. He’s also one of the grunts in my familia.”
The boy Tsubaki had brought back with her was none other than the young smith Loki Familia had picked up together with Bell.
“What the hell is going on here, Tsubaki?!” the boy furiously responded, clearly irritated at being dragged here and not afraid to make his displeasure known, even to the captain of his own familia.
Tsubaki, however, ignored him, moving right along even as Lefiya and the other girls looked on in stunned embarrassment.
“This kid’s name is Welf Crozzo.”
“…Crozzo?”
“Why do I feel like I’ve heard that name before…?”
Lefiya and Tiona cocked their heads to the side in simultaneous inquisition.
Suddenly, Aki’s tail stood straight up. “Wait, you don’t mean, like…that cursed magic-sword smith Crozzo, do you?”
“The very same!” Tsubaki responded somewhat triumphantly. “The maker of the invincible swords of legend for the Kingdom of Rakia!…This kid’s a descendant of that very smith nobleman.”
A shocked silence settled over the tent.
The Crozzo Magic Swords were weapons of legend known not only throughout Orario but the entire world. Originally, magic swords were capable only of producing weak magic in exchange for not requiring chants to cast. Crozzo Magic Swords, however, went far beyond that, producing magic even stronger than the originals, which was why the Kingdom of Rakia of old had long used them in their battles, at least according to the many records left behind.
These weapons were, beyond a doubt, the strongest magic swords in existence, reputed to have lit the sea itself on fire.
And now, Lefiya and the others sat facing a descendant of that smith.
All eyes were glued to the young man with the fiery hair, this Welf Crozzo, although he was glaring daggers at Tsubaki.
“Is…that all true?!”
Someone suddenly shouted.
It was loud enough to make the shoulders of everyone in the tent jump.
“But the Crozzo family, they…they’re the ones who burned my home! So many elven tribes have no forest, no village to return to thanks to his family!” screamed the elf Alicia, her face red with rage.
Lefiya found herself at a loss for words. She, too, had heard of the terrible, destructive power of the Crozzo Magic Swords and their use in the Rakian War—stories of battlefields turned to wastelands with nary a blade of grass left. Those flames had reached even the forest of the elves, who were uninvolved in the war but deprived of their homes all the same.
The number of elves who’d lost their villages due to the heedless embers of those magic swords was almost uncountable.
“M-Miss Alicia…”
Compared to Lefiya, who’d grown up under the teachings of both her home and the Education District and had developed a more open-minded way of thinking (or perhaps “naive” was another way of putting it), the truly elven Alicia, whose pride in her people was fiercely intact, looked practically rabid.
The young elf didn’t even try to disguise her vehement rage at the smith of those cursed magic swords, who’d brought such destruction to her land. The relatively young Lefiya and Narfi held their breath at the drastic change in the normally calm, composed, and sisterly elf.
Welf, however, merely scowled as the enraged elf leaned forward in unmistakable hatred.
The sudden tension in the tent seemed liable to explode at any moment, and Tiona and Tione stepped forward to quickly bring the situation under control.
“Hold your horses, there, Alicia. Let me finish talking first.” Even Tsubaki, rather flabbergasted herself, tried to rein things in. She directed an open palm at the elf, whose green eyes blinked in response. “This kid actually disowned his Crozzo lineage.”
“He what…?”
“For reasons I sincerely, honestly, and wholeheartedly can’t fathom, little Welfy here loathes every bit of his own heritage. More than that, he despises his own abilities. Y’see, he can forge circles around me when it comes to magic swords, but he won’t even touch one to save his life. Talk about wasted talent!”
Considering the fact that the Crozzo line had already fallen into decline and lost its ability to forge the magic swords of the past, hearing that there was someone more talented than a high smith at crafting weapons was shocking to hear for Tione and the others.
“But when he was forced to make ’em, he wound up leaving Rakia and his home behind. So you see, Alicia? He ’n’ you may have more in common than ya think!” Tsubaki let out a childish laugh as Alicia simply stared in bewilderment.
The boy in question, on the other hand, only seemed even angrier than before. “Hey! Would ya let a guy speak for himself for once?” he barked in irritation.
“Just tryin’ to clear up the confusion was all.”
“Yeah, confusion thanks to you and your big mouth!” he shouted with renewed zeal.
Alicia grew visibly uncomfortable as she watched the scene unfold, though Welf continued to ignor
e her and didn’t even bother to spare her a retort. It was almost as if he knew doing so would be completely pointless.
Welf was a true craftsman, untroubled by trivial matters. Or at least that’s what Lefiya made of the boy, watching him as she and the others in the tent gave sighs of relief now that the trouble had seemingly passed.
“Goddammit…whatever! Just get to the point and let me outta here,” Welf finally implored somewhat desperately, clearly fed up with Tsubaki and her aloofness, showing no signs he cared at all what Loki Familia might think of him.
“Then I’m just gonna come right out and ask it, okay?” Tione began. “…Do you or do you not carry the blood of a spirit in your veins?”
“…Just a second here.” Welf’s eyebrows rose as he immediately looked toward Tsubaki.
“C’mon, it’s fine, ain’t it? You got nothin’ to lose, and these folks here’d really like to know. You can tell ’em!”
Welf simply glared at her, his eyes narrowing in a look that screamed, How much have you told them?! Tsubaki responded with a somewhat nonchalant apology.
The boy let out a long, sustained sigh before he nodded.
Identical expressions of shock crossed the faces of everyone in the tent. “…But you better not go spreading rumors! I hate people prying into my business,” he warned.
“But…but how could the blood of a spirit…be in a human…?” Lefiya asked in disbelief.
“…I’ll skip straight to where it counts. A long, long time ago, back in the Ancient Times, Crozzo the First saved a spirit from a bunch of monsters. In doing so, he ended up badly wounded, and the spirit offered some of her blood as a way of thanks,” Welf explained succinctly.
“The spirits’ miracle…” Tiona murmured, awestruck.
By sharing her blood with him, the spirit was able to save the man’s life. In doing so, she had also shared her magic, giving him the ability to use spirit-borne magic for the rest of his life, imbuing within him her blessings and endowing him with her miraculous powers.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 5 Page 9
