by Fujino Omori
There was none of his usual nervousness, or earnestness, or bashful little smile.
Aiz could tell that something was wrong, and it tugged on her heartstrings. Of course, she didn’t show it on her emotionless face, but she was rattled.
“Ah…” He finally noticed her, lifting his face to look at her blankly.
“Miss Aiz…” Bell mumbled, as if entranced by her eyes.
The two of them had stopped in place—one looking down, the other up. Passing adventurers gawked at them on their way by.
Bell took his time picking his words. Aiz stayed silent.
“Are you…headed into the Dungeon…?”
“Yes…”
“…Um, Miss Aiz…”
“…”
“Do you…um…Right now…” he mumbled incomprehensibly, speaking haltingly as his attention drifted to his feet.
It was as if he couldn’t get a handle on his feelings.
Aiz realized that she’d started talking to him. “Let’s go.”
“What…?”
“Let’s go somewhere we can be alone…” she continued, extending her hand.
Bell’s eyes snapped open wide. He considered the thin fingers stretched out in front of him before nervously placing his hand in hers. He had on the expression of a lost child abandoned in an unfamiliar part of town.
Aiz called off her plans for the afternoon and left Babel.
To find a quiet place, they advanced past Central Park, ignoring the gazes of the city folk gawking at the pair of top-tier adventurers.
Through his hand, Aiz could make out a mix of emotions—that he was feeling slightly flustered about holding hands, and pathetic, and that he couldn’t let go.
Aiz pretended not to notice.
They cut through a number of roads before stopping in an empty area surrounded by houses.
“…Um, sorry. For, you know, taking up your time.”
“It’s fine…”
There was no one else around, save for the two of them. Bell let go of her hand and looked at her head-on. His eyes drifted downward again, but he stopped himself, gazing directly into Aiz’s golden eyes.
“…”
“…”
How long has it been since we’ve looked at each other this closely? Aiz thought in the back of her mind. There was a nostalgic quality to him for some reason.
His white hair and rubellite eyes did remind her of a white rabbit. But he was visibly distressed, a departure from his usual vibrancy and emotiveness—which was enough to cover her own share of emotions, too. It made her sad to see him in this state.
Anguish. Conflict. Indecision. She could almost see these feelings ooze out of his eyes, begging her for support.
Is something wrong…? Aiz asked internally—not that he could answer.
I want to get rid of the source of your worries, she thought, in the same way as she wished to eliminate the monsters and soothe the general public.
“…What’s wrong?”
What happened? Why do you look lost? Aiz pleaded, as if knocking on the door to his heart, asking him to let her inside. And Bell clutched his right hand to his chest, grasping at his wavering heart.
“Miss Aiz…”
“…”
He gulped, taking his time to spill it out. “If monsters had a reason to live…If they had feelings like you and me…what would you do?”
Upon hearing the question behind his gaze, Aiz was met with one emotion: bewilderment.
What are you talking about? she asked in all honesty.
What a meaningless question, a pointless hypothetical.
But his eyes bored into her earnestly, and Aiz found herself pursing her lips—considering the meaning behind his question, coming to grips with it in her own way, while avoiding an answer.
“…”
She was thinking:
Let’s say a monster could smile, like a human.
Or be consumed by worry, like a human.
Or shed tears, like a human.
Could I still swing my sword?
Time passed by them in silence. The trees let streams of sunlight through their branches and onto the street, and their shadows transformed as the breeze shifted its leaves. The infernal summer wind swept between the two adventurers.
Aiz thought, and thought, and thought. And at the end, she was left with a totally simple answer.
“If monsters hurt someone…No, that’s not it.” Aiz paused, shaking her head before continuing.
“If anyone cries because of a monster—I’d kill it.”
She left no traces of doubt in her answer.
“Ngh?!” Bell was trembling, at a loss for words, broken.
Out of all his emotions, one bubbled to the surface. It was a look of despair.
But Aiz’s gaze didn’t waver in the slightest, piercing straight through Bell as he turned pale, confused by the look in his eyes. She asked through eye contact: Wouldn’t you?
A tremor ran through Bell.
Wave after wave of emotions came and went from his face, like his life were flashing before his eyes—or as if he was questioning the state of the world. He was standing between Aiz and something with a despondent look, as if he were caught in a paradox.
As for Aiz, she was no longer plagued by confusion, staring straight back at him, questioning him.
But there was something that sounded like…shattering glass, as if she were hearing their two paths snapping in opposite directions.
“I—” A drop of sweat ran down his narrow chin, and Bell started to loosen his frozen mouth.
Clang! Clang!!
A bell rang out from a tower, breaking the moment between them.
““Hgn?!”” Aiz and Bell both snapped their heads up.
This sounded different from when the clock struck noon, and it continued to ring louder and louder—as if expressing its suspicions of this tranquil state. No one would believe there was peace on earth upon hearing this sound. As gonging filled the sky and canceled out all other noise in the city, birds batted their wings and took flight.
It wasn’t from the eastern bell tower but from the northwest.
“Guild Headquarters is in that direction…Is this a warning bell?” Aiz asked.
Bell snapped out of it.
The great bell tower maintained by the Guild would be rung for a citywide warning—an emergency announcement.
Aiz’s eyes widened in silence.
“Is this the great bell of the Guild?!”
At that same time, Lefiya’s elven ears perked up and she stopped in her tracks in the street along with all the other people around her.
“—Emergency alert! Emergency alert! All familias based in Orario are to follow the Guild’s instructions!” boomed a loudspeaker system carved from magical stones.
The thumping of panicked footsteps blended with the reverberations of the bell shaking the air.
“The Guild will issue a mission!”
“Raul!”
“A mission…? For all the familias?!”
It seemed that the broadcaster couldn’t even hide their unease. Anakity and Raul and every other member of Loki Familia around the city froze in place, hit with an ominous premonition.
“The monsters equipped with armor and weapons have destroyed Rivira on the eighteenth floor!! We’ve confirmed large numbers of them on the move!!” screeched the Guild employee, voice turning into an urgent scream as they informed the adventurers.
“Armed monsters?”
“B-Bete Loga, isn’t a mass migration of monsters, like, superbad? What if they break through Babel…?!”
“Tch…What the hell is going on?!” Bete asked no one in particular, ignoring the questions of the Amazonian girl tagging along with him to reexamine a deserted building in the restored area of the red-light district.
“The Guild is ordering the immediate deployment of all adventurers to exterminate—What? R-really?…U-understood.”
The situation was in fl
ux, breaking into chaos.
“Do I hear panic in the broadcaster’s voice?”
“Did something happen?”
Tiona and Tione had leaped to higher ground, observing the stirring city from above.
“All citizens, including adventurers, are hereby forbidden to enter the Dungeon!! The Guild will contact familias directly. Please stand by at your respective homes!! I repeat—” The announcement crackled, recovering its pace and forceful tone as it emphasized the urgency of the situation.
“A change in orders, huh.”
“I bet the Guild’s confused, too. They can’t even keep their plans straight. That, or…”
“There’s a big guy buttin’ in. One or the other.”
Riveria, Gareth, and Loki were listening intently out the manor’s open window, quick in their attempts to piece together their next moves based on the incoming announcement.
“Is this fanfare marking the destruction of Orario or a gospel to guide us?…Which will it be?”
The blue eyes of the prum leader narrowed as he listened to the destruction of life as they knew it.
Orario transformed into a city of upheaval—the destruction of Rivira, followed by a great migration of monsters.
If the monsters emerged aboveground, it would obliterate the entire concept of safety, which was the pride of the Labyrinth City. The town had fallen into calamity, starting with the wise people who foretold danger and the merchants with a good nose for trouble. The unrest spread from the main streets to the smaller roads to the plazas. In some parts of the city, they could hear a chain reaction of screams and shouts when the populace realized the gravity of it all.
Lefiya, Bete, Tiona, and Tione witnessed peace in the city start to cave in real time.
And there was nowhere more chaotic than Guild Headquarters.
They were overwhelmed by the refugees from Rivira on the eighteenth floor. Incoherent bellows flew back and forth in the offices. According to the escapees, a swarm of armed monsters of varying species descended on Rivira, coming up from the floor below and passing through the Central Tree, stamping out the upper-class adventurers and conquering their base in the Dungeon in no time.
If their reports were true, the armed monsters were subspecies with potential incomparable to their normal counterparts. The Guild members turned pale when they saw the brutal wounds of the adventurers and finally faced reality.
In front of the Pantheon was full-on pandemonium as adventurers and citizens crowded Guild Headquarters, demanding some sort of explanation.
Aiz and Bell felt the urgency of the situation as they slipped through the crowd straight to Guild Headquarters.
The gods were the only ones not in disarray.
There were a few who were concerned, or anxious, or worried, but they were in the minority. The overwhelming majority of them could not conceal their excitement, on the edge of their seats for the adventure and stimulus to come.
In this unprecedented situation, the Guild immediately announced a mission: Ganesha Familia was to form a punitive expeditionary force and head for the eighteenth floor.
And every other familia was ordered to remain on standby.
“Standby? What kind of bullshit is that?!” scoffed Bete in a gruff voice that resounded in the parlor of Twilight Manor.
The principal members of Loki Familia followed the Guild’s broadcast, trudging home and gathering in the parlor. The secondary forces were patrolling the neighborhood to pacify the civilians under the command of Alicia and Cruz and in concert with the other familias.
“It’d be faster to send us in to clean up the mess!! No use in leaving it to Ganesha’s guys!”
“Zip it, Bete!!…Do we really have to wait around? The broadcaster seemed confused, too.”
Next to Bete as he roared in frustration, Tiona frowned, rattled by the unusual situation.
“But Rivira has been destroyed how many times now? Why’s everyone freaking out?”
“Yeah, it’s an overreaction to issue a mission to the entire city…Are the monsters with weapons and armor really a big deal?”
“I’ve seen the bulletin board at the Guild saying something about monsters carrying adventurers’ weapons…” Aiz chimed in to Tiona and Tione’s conversation.
After all, there had been fake reports of armed monsters among adventurers before. In fact, they were a dime a dozen. But seeing that this situation had escalated, the trio was thinking that maybe these beasts were a threat—maybe they were strong enough to break out aboveground. The misgivings were clear on all three of their faces.
“They’re a strange species using actual adventurers’ armor, not just nature weapons. It’s obvious they’re exceptional. I bet they’re enchanted. En masse, at that,” observed Riveria from her place near the wall.
“All the more reason we should be down there.”
“Cool it, Bete. These ain’t yer regular ol’ Irregulars…Well, regular in air quotes. But yeah, it seems fishy.” Gareth chided Bete for pouncing on Riveria’s explanation.
But the dwarf was furrowing his brow, sensing the intentions of someone—or something—behind the current state of affairs. Despite the situation, the Guild had not yet shared all their information with each familia.
It could be that they hadn’t yet gathered enough information to go public, but it seemed too passive.
It was almost as if…
“…It feels like they’re trying to hide something,” Gareth murmured, as though talking to himself.
“Well, whatever’s going on,” Finn added, slicing through the discussion from his chair, “it’s not going to end if things keep going like this…That’s just my hunch, though,” he asserted, licking his thumb.
A smile even spread across his face.
“Yeah, bein’ out of the loop annoys me, but…I’m with Finn,” noted Loki from the table, slightly opening her vermilion eyes. “It ain’t gonna end with this. And it’ll keep Orario rumblin’ as it goes.”
The goddess’s proclamation brought on a moment of silence. Everyone watched the corners of their patron’s lips curl up.
The one to break the silence was Lefiya, who’d been quiet until then.
“U-um…Do you think the Evils’ Remnants are involved with this…?”
“Don’t you think it’s too convenient to blame them for each and every thing?” replied Anakity.
“But, Aki, I don’t think Lefiya’s observation is unfounded…Like, this is a huge deal. It’s possible that it’s part of their strategy…” followed Raul.
Anakity and Raul responded with their respective opinions to the suggestion of the elven girl who’d timidly raised her hand before speaking.
Smack! Tiona pounded her fist on top of her palm to express that she’d come up with a new idea.
“Oh, I get it! That’s why the Guild isn’t making the information public—because it’s all part of the Evils’ plan! If they said the Evils were back, people would get scared.”
“It’s already annoying enough without you opening your trap, ya dumb Amazon,” Bete erupted.
“Hey!”
“Use your head. If the Guild knew that, it would be weird that they haven’t told us or Freya Familia,” added Tione.
“If they’re dealing with the Evils, it’d be better to work with the strong familias…” explained Aiz.
“Oh…” Tiona froze. “B-but, but even if the Guild hasn’t made the connection, it could still be the Evils behind it, like Raul was saying, right?! I mean, it’s turned into a big enough deal and all!”
“Now you’re just grasping at straws.”
“Am not! All righty, my vote goes to Raul and Lefiya’s theory!”
““Huh?”” Raul and Lefiya were taken aback when Tiona raised her hand.
“Then I’m with Aki,” said Tione.
“Me too,” added Bete.
“Erm, I didn’t say anything worth noting…”
“What about you, Aiz? Whose side are you on?!”
“All right! That’s four to three! What about you guys, Riveria?!”
“Who said you could decide this with a majority vote…?”
Anakity was at a loss for what to do with Tione’s and Bete’s votes, while Tiona was getting all riled up about Aiz joining her side. Riveria clutched her forehead, as if she had a headache, as they started trying to resolve the discussion by voting.
Gareth offered a shrug, and Loki grinned at Tiona’s airheaded-ness, which unarguably brightened the mood.
And inevitably, Finn was thinking, There’s no way this is a trap by the remnants of the Evils, and discarded that chain of logic, descending into a sea of thought while the others kept yapping on.
And it’s not part of the underground forces of the creatures. They’re already holed up in Knossos, waiting. When the time comes, they’ll unleash the demi-spirit, and that’ll be enough to destroy the city. They have no reason to increase tension and vigilance in the city or put themselves in danger now.
Seconds ticked by. He held up his right hand, covering his mouth, while he pensively looked at the ground.
No, this is…a terrible event that’s unrelated to everyone or intended by anyone.
Finn was looking for a third possibility, far removed from the two choices the group was voting on. In other words, he’d realized that this incident might be the effects of an Irregular.
As Aki said, we’d be selling this incident short if we connected this to what we’re chasing, but…at the very least, there’s a chance we can catch a glimpse of the enemy’s tail.
The first step was to examine the data.
The Guild—or rather, Ouranos and Hermes Familia are connected…If we go off Loki’s investigation, they’re keeping some kind of secret. Based on the fact that they’ve no intention of making it public, this incident isn’t part of their calculations…But, given the cover-up, it’s safe to say they aren’t unrelated, either.
The mission had changed mid-broadcast not from the brass at the Guild but from Ouranos’s divine will. Finn was suspecting the same thing as Loki.
