“You think it’s just you? I hate all you wimps! Sleeping with any of you’d just make all that weakness rub off on me.”
“Hmm? But Bete Loga, is there even a woman stronger than you out there?” Lena asked, currently curled up among the sheets.
“…”
Bete went quiet. Rolling over, he closed his eyes.
“…I hate weak women most of all,” he muttered in irritation.
Goddammit. I should have known this would happen.
From within the floating depths of his consciousness, a tangible sense of dread came to him.
He knew this feeling. He was about to dream of his past—
It had been half a werewolf’s lifetime ago.
Bete Loga had been born into the world in the land to the north—to a tribe of wandering animal people with no ties to any city or country, let alone the Labyrinth City of Orario. Unlike typical nomads, they were a people focused solely on hunting, the Beastmen of the Plains, and Bete was the son of their chief.
It was just him, his powerful father, his bighearted mother, and later, his sister. And if he left the large tent his family had been allocated, he had his peers, the smiling faces of his many werewolf brothers awaiting him. The entire tribe was his family.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, Bete, so keep those fangs polished.”
His father, stronger than anyone else he knew, had drilled that into him time and time again.
As a tribe without a god to worship, everyone had to be strong, even the women and children. They’d fight off the monsters that roamed the surface, crush rogue caravans along with their guards, and do it all without the blessings of a Status. More than anything else, their power as a race of people who awoke under the light of the moon came from their untamed skills and knowledge—the techniques and strategies they’d long cultivated as a tribe. They were the Beastmen of the Plains, capable of taking on even low-level familias, and though many envoys from their surrounding countries and familias solicited their aid, Bete’s father had always heeded the teachings of his ancestors and refused them.
They lived as nature; their bodies turned to dust and, from that dust, new life emerged.
And young Bete revered them all, from his tradition-honoring father to the staunch, brave warriors of his tribe.
“Good morning, Bete!”
There had been a girl, too—born on the same day, she’d been a friend of his growing up. Her long, softly golden hair was rare for a werewolf, and she was beautiful, standing out from among the others of her generation like a brilliantly glimmering jewel. Like clockwork, as Bete had grown, so had his feelings for the girl, and so had the scuffles with his male peers over her.
“You want it? Take it!” That had been the simple rule hammered into him by the tribe, and Bete had heeded the call, training day in and day out until he was the strongest among the tribe’s children. Until, finally, he could claim her for his own. It was her warm sigh, fading into the wind, “…Even with you, I can’t be strong…” that had left the strongest, most genuine impression on him to this day.
For you see, the uncommonly reserved girl had been weak. Frighteningly frail, almost.
Which had forced Bete to train even harder, knowing he had to protect more than just himself. Going to his father, he’d asked to be treated as one of the tribe’s warriors, venturing out with the adults on their many hunting missions. It even got to the point where he could take on goblins, orcs, and other similar monsters completely on his own.
That was how he’d spent his youth: roaming those green hills surrounded by majestic mountains, the gaze of his childhood friend watching over him, joined every once in a while by his precocious sister, and simply training with everything he had.
Then, Bete’s twelfth birthday had arrived.
And all of that had changed.
“Father…Mother…Luna…”
The moon had been positively golden that night.
The night everyone in his tribe had been killed.
It had been a massacre.
A strange new monster had suddenly appeared on the plains, slaughtering everyone.
Everyone except for Bete.
Though he would only come to know this later, the beast had come from one of the world’s three great frontiers—the Valley of Dragons to the far, far north.
The colossal, flightless dragon boasted scales that could ward off any attack. With one mighty roar, it had punctured the very eardrums of the plains people, and it had devoured even the tribe’s warriors in their awakened beast modes. His father and mother had been torn to shreds. His sister had been crushed to death. Bete had been more fortunate: After a swipe to the face from the beast’s claws, he’d been sent hurtling into a nearby outcropping of rocks, the impact knocking him out cold until the battle was over.
When he’d crawled out later, dragging his battered body across the ground, nothing but rivers of blood and lumps of gnawed flesh remained; the black shadow of the creature was disappearing along the far horizon.
It was the new Master of the Plains. It had devoured the weak and robbed the once strong of their privilege, turning them into nothing more than food.
Bete had lost everything that day.
In that one merciless attack.
It was a tragedy the gods were all too used to: an everyday occurrence in that vast, sprawling world, not even warranting a glance of interest.
Survival of the fittest.
The values of the dog-eat-dog world that Bete’s father had long impressed upon him finally hit home. It was just how the world was. Divine providence. The real truth. The weak could have their happiness taken away from them in the blink of an eye. Bete’s tribe had finally had the tables turned, becoming nothing more than the same prey they themselves had hunted. It was simple, really. So simple, everything in his stomach came bubbling up right then and there.
The strong could get away with anything. They could take anything.
And the weak could do nothing against them. Nothing of theirs was safe.
The weak couldn’t survive.
His father had been weak. The warriors in his tribe had been weak. His mother; his sister, Luna; Bete himself; and yes, even she—currently scattered into hundreds of fleshy, bloody chunks across the ground—had been weak.
“Renee…!”
Bete had cried.
His wound still carved deep into his face, he’d cried tears of salt and blood.
He was all alone now. Sitting there beneath the light of the moon, he’d howled at the heavens.
After that, Bete, the only surviving member of his tribe, had washed his hands of his homeland. Directly disobeying the teachings of the Beastmen of the Plains, he’d sought out places with people. He had no intentions of trying to revive his tribe—they’d been weak. Even banding together, weaklings were still weak. Natural selection would weed them out. So he’d tossed them aside, together with all the feelings he still had for them.
What he craved was strength. Fangs that couldn’t be broken. He vowed to cast off his weak flesh so he could fight back against the strong, to take down the Master of the Plains.
It was from a passing peddler that he learned of another of the world’s three great frontiers: the Dungeon. It rested on the westernmost tip of the continent, within a city known as the Labyrinth City. And it was in this city that the strongest of adventurers and their gods gathered. Thus, Bete’s journey for power began.
As a lesson to himself and to his frailty, he had a reminder carved into his face, a symbol of his past self that he would never forget. And with that, his hunger grew—hunger to grow strong, to never have to lose anything anymore. The first time he saw it, the bolt of lightning the artist had tattooed across his face from his eye to his cheek, he’d laughed. It looked almost like the very same unbreakable fangs he so craved.
His hunger for strength and his symbol of weakness had become one—the fang of a wolf.
“…Shit.”
Bete grimaced th
e moment he opened his eyes.
Shaking off the lingering thoughts of his past and the phantom pain running up and down the length of his tattoo, he furrowed his brow.
But then…
“Ah.”
The girl who’d creeped over next to him froze, as though she believed the grimace had been directed at her.
More importantly, though, she wasn’t wearing a thing.
“…What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Eh-he-he…he-he-he-he…Dropping by for a nightcap? Or I guess it would be a morning-cap in this case…”
Bete didn’t even wait for Lena to finish, kicking her and her long, dangling hair away.
She gave a startled “Guphwah!” as she was sent sailing toward the far corner of the room, then shot him a series of death glares as she righted herself.
Outside the window, the light of dawn was just beginning to warm the sky. Its faint traces could be seen ever so gently wrapping themselves around the Pleasure Quarter from their position in their hideout along the city’s walls. For a moment, Bete let himself watch the transition, silently cursing the dream that had seized his attention so thoroughly he hadn’t even noticed Lena’s approach.
Can’t go home yet, but that doesn’t mean I can just sit around on my ass all day. Guess I’ll head to the Dungeon, see if I can make myself a valis or two…Maybe check around for that thing Finn and the others are looking for.
His eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of the soaring temple on the other side of the window—the former castle of the Goddess of Beauty.
Finally, he turned around and looked back toward the still-groaning girl on the other side of the room.
“Hey, brat.”
“What is it nooooow?” she moaned back, tears in her eyes.
“You ever seen some sorta red key? With a weird symbol thingy carved into it?”
A cold wind whistled against the stone path underfoot.
It was in a tunnel deep underground, in a labyrinth untouched by the sun up above.
As a multitude of water spiders scuttled about, conducting a revolting symphony of pitter-patters with their legs, an angered shout cut through the air.
“That goddamn shithead of a goddess!”
The voice came from a human girl dressed in a fur-lined overcoat. It was Valletta Grede, one of the upper echelons of the Evils’ Remnants, and she was currently stalking about the mural-adorned hallway of relics deep within the maze of Knossos, her maddened screams bouncing off the walls.
“After all we did for her, she goes and lets herself get trashed by Freya Familia!”
“This was an unexpected move by Freya. If everything had gone according to plan, none of this would have happened,” the God of Death, Thanatos, responded in an attempt to placate the girl, a forced smile pulling at his lips.
Valletta’s raging refused to cease, the rest of the familia’s high-ranking officials watching from all sides.
“Oh, it would have, would it? A whole lot of good that does us now! And you know what’s even worse? We gave her one of our keys! And now it’s who-knows-where!”
Ishtar had been one of the sponsors the Evils had enlisted to help expand Knossos.
Thus, they’d provided her with a key to the labyrinth.
One of the appropriately named “Orbs of Knossos.”
They were magic items that could be used to open the many orichalcum doors littering Knossos’s halls.
Only now, with Ishtar’s sudden defeat, they’d lost track of the one they’d entrusted to her.
“Yes, yes, this is indeed a bit troubling, but we’re already searching the ruined Pleasure Quarter, are we not?”
“Yeah, and we haven’t found squat! Do you even realize the shit we’d be in if Finn and his little goons got their hands on it first…?!”
The man-made labyrinth Knossos had two main advantages: It was unbreakable, and it was inescapable. But as soon as the enemy possessed one of its keys, whatever edge they had would be reduced to nothing. Chewing viciously at her nails, Valletta positively radiated enmity as the face of her sworn rival, Finn, who’d just barely slipped past her fingers, flashed through her head.
Currently, Valletta was the only major player left in the maze. Barca, and his Daedalian pedigree, was gone, as was the creature Levis. They’d taken off, leaving Valletta and the others to deal with everything in the aftermath of Loki Familia’s attack. The former would do what he could to fix the decimated labyrinth, and the latter likely planned to protect the remaining spirits.
Damn ingrates! she seethed, her anger only rising.
“Where’d that little Tammuz shit run off to, huh…?!” she growled as the face of Ishtar’s manservant popped into the back of her mind. The goddess’s most trusted right-hand man, he came with her time and time again on her visits to Knossos. Only, he’d gone missing the night of Freya Familia’s attack.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Valletta dear?”
“…We’re gonna look for that key. Turn over everything in that shitty woman’s home if we have to. There’s no way I’m letting Loki Familia get the drop on us! Get out there and search, you good-for-nothings!”
There was a resounding “Yes, ma’am!” from the rest of Thanatos Familia before the whole lot of them went racing toward the exit.
Valletta shot a look of contempt at Thanatos. The way the god’s eyes were narrowed in what seemed to be amusement rubbed her entirely the wrong way.
CHAPTER 2
DID SOMEONE ORDER A WOLF?
“We need to get our hands on one of the keys.”
It was morning at Loki Familia’s home.
They were conducting a meeting in the dining hall, and Finn was speaking to the rest of the familia.
“While most of them certainly are secure within the Evils’ grasp…there is one we may still have a chance with.”
“You think that Ishtar Familia might have had one? They were the ones hauling the violas to Meren, after all,” Tione pointed out.
“Indeed. Considering the close relationship between Ishtar and the Evils, there’s a strong possibility she may have been given one of the keys,” Finn confirmed. “Due to the surprise attack from Freya Familia, Ishtar should no longer have any contact with the Evils. The key may have gotten lost in the attack. There’s also a chance one of her ex-followers may know of its location. We have no choice but to take our chances…Which is why, from today forward, we’ll be putting all our efforts into finding that key.”
The air in the dining hall grew tense.
“I’d like everyone to start by gathering as much information as possible. Scout out the Pleasure Quarter; interrogate any former members of Ishtar Familia you can find. Do try to keep things on the down low, though, if you would. Does anyone have any questions?”
“I do; I do!” Tiona’s hand shot up just like always. “This is about something else but…where’s Riveria? I haven’t seen her anywhere.”
“Riveria has already left on an errand.”
“I see…Well! That stupid wolf! Where’s he?”
“Worried about him, are you?”
“As if! Just wondering if he was skippin’ out. Totally in-ex-cusable!” Tiona hurriedly added, unable to hide her petulance. Neither she nor the rest of the familia members knew Bete had been placed on leave.
Unsure if it was for better or for worse, Finn shot the Amazon a smile all the same, deciding it would be best to cover for the wolf for the time being. “Bete is, well…Let’s say he’s probably out sniffing around for something on his own at the moment, hmm? Anyway, if that’s all the questions for now, let’s go ahead and split into teams: I want a search team and an interrogation team…If you would, then, Loki?” Finn added, his last comment whispered in the goddess’s ear.
“Roger that, boss! Leave it to me!”
As everyone in the hall rose to their feet to start forming their teams, Loki wove through the hustle and bustle, surreptitiously sliding up next to Aiz.
“Got a favor to ask of ya, Aizuu.”
“Loki…? What is it?”
“Keep an eye on Bete for me, would ya? No reason to go outta your way, though—just while yer out ’n’ about doin’ yer own stuff is fine.”
Aiz’s eyes widened ever so slightly.
“Poor thing may have gotten the boot ’n’ all, but, well, Bete’s still Bete. He’ll be out there lookin’ for clues on his own. Doesn’t matter how he talks in front of y’all.” Loki’s eyes were filled with nothing but trust in her lupine follower. It was a different kind of trust than Aiz and her peers had in one another. This was the unconditional faith of a mother.
“Now, I’m pretty sure the enemy’s not gonna try anything aboveground. I also don’t think Bete’s stupid enough to go wandering about Daedalus Street on his own. But still. Look for ’im for me, would ya?”
“…But I…”
“Huh? Somethin’ wrong, Aizuu?”
“I told Bete that I…hate…him…” Aiz mumbled, her gaze pointed downward.
Hearing this from the girl of few words was enough to make Loki bring her arms to her stomach in a giant belly laugh.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha!! Now you’ve done it! Poor Bete’s prolly lyin’ dead in the street right about now!”
“S-so, I…I just think that…maybe it’s not so good if…we see each other now…” Aiz continued despondently.
Calming herself, Loki turned toward Aiz, speaking as she would to a child. “Whaddaya think, Aizuu? About Bete? And the rest of the familia?”
“…Well, I…Maybe I told him I hate him, yes…but I…” Aiz started, searching for the words inside her as though attempting to take another look at what was really in her heart. Loki watched gently all the while. “…I can’t help but remember before…when Tiona and Bete would fight, and…Raul and Lefiya and the others would all panic, trying to stop them, and…everyone would laugh…”
“Right.”
“…I want it to be like that again…The way it used to be…” she finished, her golden eyes turning momentarily toward Tiona and Tione. Even with Raul and the others there, it felt like there was something missing. The familia just felt off.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 8 Page 5
