by Fujino Omori
Their very existence is evil.
Even in this incident with the humanoid monster hiding out and living somewhere in Orario. It’s enough to stir a commotion.
Aiz wasn’t speaking about justice, but she was entirely sure that the monsters doing as they pleased was indisputably a disaster. It would be impossible for happiness to come out of it.
Underneath the blue sky, time passed as she locked eyes with the goddess. After a few moments, the old goddess readjusted her smile.
“…Heh-heh. I guess you’d call this the fundamental difference in the point of view between a god and a mortal. But that’s interesting in itself, too.”
“Ngh…”
“Well, gods are prone to know-it-all sorts of utterances. From your point of view, it might sound wrong or even illogical.”
That’s fine. It’s better that way. Penia looked in adoration at the girl defying her.
There were too many emotions in Aiz’s heart, and she leaned in, trying to say something.
“Ahhhhh?!”
The repulsive shout of a beast roared out, sounding almost like the shrieks of a girl whose throat had been torn apart.
“?!”
“Oh my…Isn’t that a monster? Could that be the thing you’re searching for?”
Penia’s smile deepened at the sight of Aiz frozen in place. The Sword Princess glanced at the goddess’s upturned lips, enduring the irritation welling in her heart, and pivoted away from the smile. She broke into a run before kicking off the banister.
“Live like your life depends on it—no matter what’s waiting for you. Because that’s something the gods can’t copy, the way the inhabitants of the mortal realm ought to be.”
Aiz could hear Penia say that from behind her the moment she leaped into the air. Soon, she was descending into the townscape of Daedalus Street, pulled down by gravity.
Below her, she could see fleeing people and a half-human, half-dragon monster rampaging in the city.
Finn was the first one to arrive on the scene.
“!!”
He broke into a sprint before anyone else the moment the scream rang out, and the site of the commotion quickly came into view.
Dust rose into the air from the demolished corner of a building as the residents of the Labyrinth District struggled to flee. An unsightly monster stood beneath the open sky of the surface.
Finn was slightly startled to see some adventurers standing against the monster, but he didn’t waste another second before readying the long spear in his right hand, cocking it behind his back like a loaded ballista. As he leaped across the rooftops, he stepped in with all his might and unleashed the golden spear.
A single line flashed.
The spear accelerated with enough speed to not give the monster any time to react—or the adventurers protecting the residents, for that matter—striking its target deeply without the slightest error. It pierced the monster’s raised left hand, knocking the beast back.
“A—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhh—?!”
Losing out to the momentum behind the Fortia Spear now buried in its hand, the monster crashed into the building behind it.
There was a roar and the echoing crash of impact, the deserted house collapsing, the dragon’s undulating, long body. The spear smashed into the ground along with the monster’s left hand, pinning it down like a live specimen.
Significant damage to the neighborhood but no casualties.
Finn’s top priority was to keep the people as far from the monster as possible. He quickly analyzed the situation as he landed atop a wide roof.
Thump! Thump!
With Aiz leading the way, Bete, Tiona, Tione, Riveria, and Gareth all arrived next to him. The tumult quieted as if the moment was frozen in place, creating a blank moment in time. Finn’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the half-human, half-dragon monster.
“So that’s what’s been causing all the commotion, I take it?” he murmured.
Loud cheers broke out an instant later.
“Gh!!”
“Hurray! Hurrrrray!”
“Adventurers!”
It was hasty but prompt—it was a flash of glory when they saved the populace consumed by terror at the sudden shattering of their peaceful lives. The residents of the Labyrinth District exploded in cheers at the sight of the city’s strongest taking the stage.
It was a preemptive surprise attack—fast enough to not allow the concealment of a certain boy. The faces of the adventurers and goddess filled with despair as he rushed into the frame.
“The residents haven’t sustained any casualties yet.”
“What’s this? Somebody got here before us.”
“Wait a sec, isn’t that…?”
“It’s Argonaut!”
“That rabbit bastard again…?”
As Loki Familia continued to gather, Gareth, Tiona, and the others noticed the adventurer standing in the street.
Bell Cranell.
And Hestia Familia with their patron goddess.
They made it here faster than we did—No, were they on Daedalus Street this whole time? Finn was suspicious of the coincidence but disregarded it in the face of his top priority.
“A vouivre…That matches the reports of a winged monster.”
A reasonable analysis suggested that the monster before their eyes was the same as the one involved in the incident five days ago: the humanoid monster that had shaken the city. Its female dragon body and tail were a bit much to call humanoid, but the wings sprouting from its back matched eyewitness reports.
A subspecies? Or maybe a variant?
And what’s with this timing?
Finn predicted that was the real trigger of this incident.
“That monster…Do you think it’s connected to the thing on the eighteenth floor? It looks like it’s got a restraint on it, but is it armed?” wondered Tiona.
“I can’t be certain about that…But the Guild must have planned for this possibility when ordering all familias to stand by,” suggested Riveria.
“Tsk, a heads-up would’ve been nice,” snapped Bete.
The three stared at the wide street below them.
When Riveria said the Guild, she really meant Ouranos. Finn deduced that her statement was probably half-right. This situation was the worst possible outcome for Ouranos’s side. That monster was the secret that Orario’s creator god wanted to hide—without a doubt.
As Tiona said, there were manacles on its arms, right where chains had been torn off—proof that it’d been captured by humans. Were those captors Ikelos Familia?
There are still some unresolved questions, but for now…
As the breeze tousled his golden hair, Finn looked down at Hestia Familia standing stock-still in the street and past them at the suffering monster.
“Captain, the monster…” started Tione.
“The stone in its forehead is missing. Dispose of it immediately.” Finn made a snap decision.
Vouivres were a rare species of monster. They possessed a drop item, the Vouivre’s Tear, said to bring wealth and fortune. But when they lost it, vouivres were known to go into a rage and rampage until they got the stone back. Using the latent potential of a dragon, they became a whirlwind of destruction. With the residents of the Labyrinth District around, the only option for dealing with it was elimination.
But a corpse would do. It would be more than enough physical evidence to use against Ouranos. And it would be more important to preserve the lives of the general public. That was Finn’s conclusion.
But…why are you there?
A single boy raised a trembling gaze up at Finn.
It was Bell Cranell.
Why are you looking at me like that?
Upon exchanging a glance with those quivering rubellite eyes, Finn noticed something: an unmistakable unease.
Bell…? At the same time, Aiz felt it again as she stared at his pale face.
She felt an odd chasm. It was the same with the rest of Hestia
Familia, too. While the residents were celebrating Loki Familia’s arrival, they were uniformly speechless, in despair.
She couldn’t understand why her eyes were fixed on Bell and not the monster that had appeared aboveground.
“If monsters had a reason to live—”
She suddenly recalled their earlier conversation. Aiz didn’t understand why, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the boy standing at the threshold of an internal discord.
“Aaaarghh…?!” shrieked the monster, letting out ugly lamentations while its blood ran free.
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!”
The people cheered in expectation that the monster would be struck down, erased from the surface of the world.
The second hand on the clock advanced slowly as the Labyrinth District roared.
The deities in the vicinity silently watched the progress from outside the playing field.
The goddess’s followers froze in despair, losing the will to fight back.
The strongest adventurers prepared to eliminate the monster.
And that boy standing on the border of it all.
That boy.
That boy.
That boy—
“”
Aiz would never forget that scene.
It would never disappear for all eternity, a scar etched into her heart.
Aiz’s golden eyes opened wide.
On that day. At that time. In that location.
A single decision took place, a resolution that loved destruction, too irredeemable, too foolish, the gods would say of it later.
On that day, at that time, in that location, it was a turning point that made a historic impact—the unknowable moment in between eras, as the gods would lament.
On this day. At this time. In this location.
A widely respected up-and-coming hero would fall—and in his place, a fool was born.
“Ooooooooooooo…?”
The thunderous anticipation of the crowd turned to a stunned murmur and then to silence.
“Huh?” Bete furrowed his brow at the sight.
“Wait…what’s…that?”
“A-Argonaut…?”
Tione and Tiona became flustered.
“Are my eyes playing tricks on me?”
“Finn…”
“…What is he thinking?”
Gareth, Riveria, and Finn coolly narrowed their gazes.
“”
And Aiz was at a loss for words.
“…Ngh!!”
The boy confronted them, turning his back to the writhing monster and challenging Loki Familia attempting to subdue it.
He shielded the monster, as if to protect it—sweating bullets, breath quivering, turning pale.
Brandishing his jet-black knife, he stood before them, blocking their way.
What are you doing…? For the life of her, Aiz couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
Somewhere along the way, the boy who’d been so close to her had ended up so far from her. There was nothing she could do. The only thing Aiz knew was that the two of them were perfectly at odds with each other.
Bell Cranell—
As for Finn, his thoughts were kicking into overdrive—despite his composed tone of voice.
A human was protecting a monster.
But that’s exactly what was happening in the scene unfolding before his eyes, in a series of events that shouldn’t have been possible. It was the real motive of the boy blocking his way.
Even with his mind clear, he could only process an error. Finn was faced with an answer that he couldn’t have predicted or deduced and focused on those rubellite eyes.
What if?
Seriously. What if?
If he worked from the hypothesis that Bell Cranell actually intended to protect it…
He couldn’t accept this in the current situation. It would be a meaningless discussion. But hypothetically, if it was just the two of them and the monster had any value, some kind of negotiation might have been possible.
But they’d been seen by a bunch of people. As the hope of the prums, Braver had no choice left except summary execution. There was no acceptable reason to let the monster live.
Meaning if Bell Cranell intended to save the vouivre, then his decision was the correct one—and an irredeemable folly leading to his own destruction.
“You really are foolish,” murmured one of the gods, the faint whisper fading into the wind.
In front of the civilians, adventurers, a monster, and the gods, a single boy threw himself into ruin.
“I saw this vouivre first; it’s mine…!”
That was the only excuse he could wring out for all those people.
“Hands off…!” Bell threatened Loki Familia, taking on the mask of a simple, greedy adventurer.
As the vouivre pulled the spear out of its hand and fled from its restraints with a shriek, the white-haired boy pursued it by himself.
“Ummm…Say what?” Tiona cocked her head in confusion as she watched Bell run away from them.
“It’s against the rules for one adventurer to steal a kill from another…”
Aiz was barely able to say that much. It was the only possible explanation excusing his actions, but she said it as though she was trying to convince herself.
“Ah…Well, vouivres are rare, I guess,” Tiona empathized.
“Are you kidding me…? That only matters in the Dungeon. You can’t bring that weak shit up here!”
Tiona sounded as though she could be convinced that was a reasonable explanation, but Bete closed his eyes and scratched his scalp with his right hand as he made his retort.
His response was the most obvious and natural one. It was absurd to bring up the regular rules of adventurers in this kind of crisis. In the blink of an eye, animosity spread among the members of Loki Familia and the residents of the slum.
Aiz couldn’t stop it. There was no way it could be stopped. She could not even put the brakes on her own bewilderment.
“Captain…” started Tione.
“We’ve no responsibility to go along with a child’s selfishness. Follow the vouivre.”
As Tione looked to their leader with some hesitation for their next instructions, Finn maintained his poise as the commander and immediately responded. The rest of the familia nodded at the decision of their unwavering prum leader and started to chase them down.
“—Ooooooooooooooooooooh!” roared the monster at a volume that assaulted their ears, as if it was trying to discourage their pursuit.
The vouivre and boy disappeared down the wide road as monsters started appearing one after another.
“Armed monsters!”
“It looks as though there was a connection to Rivira’s destruction, after all…”
There were more than twenty of them in total. The majority of them had armor without access to weapons: a lizardman with bloodshot eyes and a monstrous appearance, a gargoyle screaming without pause leading a flock of winged monsters, a red-cap goblin wielding an ax that dwarfed its diminutive body, an al-miraj straddling a hellhound. It was a jumble of species.
Tiona and Tione couldn’t believe their eyes, which tensed sharply.
Bringing up the rear, a golden-winged siren danced through the air.
“Bows! Loose!”
“Let’s go!”
The residents of Daedalus Street began to scream at the sight of the monster swarm.
The leaders of the secondary forces—the Level-4 chienthrope Cruz and human girl Narfi—moved to protect the noncombatants, loosing arrows at the monsters in the sky as the rest of the familia dashed out in the wake of Narfi’s charge.
Seeing them respond on their own judgment without hesitation, Riveria turned to Finn for a confirmation that would be unnecessary in an emergency.
“Finn, what shall we do?”
“…If at all possible, capture them alive,” Finn said after a moment of contemplation.
“Alive?” Bete parroted.
“Yeah, I’m curious about something.”
Just as he was about to dash off himself, Bete whipped around, the wind taken out of his sails. Finn had not once stopped looking ahead and noticed the damage done to the armed monsters. The bulk of them had sustained wounds, as if they had already fought a battle before their arrival.
Finn had hastily and naturally judged that these armed monsters were the same ones that had appeared on the eighteenth floor. And if they’d come from that floor to the surface, that meant they had traversed Knossos.
Had they been unleashed by human hands or had they opened the door themselves in their march to the surface?
Either way, a Daedalus Orb must have been involved. Finn was working under that assumption.
“Tione and the other vanguards, intercept them. Avoid using magic if possible. It’ll cause too much damage to the surroundings.”
“Understood!”
“Got it!”
“This is a pain in the ass…”
“The rearguard mages, protect the townspeople and help them evacuate. The safety of the civilians is our top priority. Now go!”
“Yes, sir!”
The orders were to obtain the key or information concerning it and protect the citizens. He handed down these instructions in the hopes of accomplishing both at the same time.
Barred from the use of artillery and supporting fire, the mages focused on rushing to the residents while Tione, Tiona, and Bete descended onto the battlefield.
“Arcus! Don’t use the main road. That way, the monsters won’t notice you. Take a four-man squad and follow the vouivre. Bring Lefiya with you.”
“Eh? Uh, yes, sir!” Lefiya was shocked by the follow-up order but obeyed immediately.
They moved toward the rear, entering a hidden back alley once they could no longer be seen by the monsters.
After every other member of her familia had sprung into action, Aiz moved for the first time in a while, shaking her head slightly as if to switch gears.
“Aiz, you stay here.”
“…?”
“Riveria, prepare a barrier. I know what I said, but there’s no way the townspeople will be able to get away that quickly.”
“…Too much renown poses its own problems. I understand. We must be cautious.”
“Thanks. Gareth, sorry, but can you set up a perimeter over there?”
