by Fujino Omori
“…Not going to watch it to the end?”
“I already know what Bell Cranell will accomplish. Now that the monsters are gone, I’ve no use for this place.”
As Finn made to leave, Ottar looked a bit surprised, though only those who’d known him the longest would recognize this expression.
It was a day filled with odd expressions for him.
Finn smiled like a child again, satisfied and exhilarated.
Yes, he already knew in his bones the result of this battle.
Just like that time before, the boy would ignite a fire in people’s hearts and demonstrate his way of life—drawing in, fascinating, and urging everyone.
Like a page in an epic.
“I should take a risk…no, go on an adventure, too.”
“And so you’ve gone, Finn…” Loki whispered when she heard the report from the messenger.
The encampment was devoid of the main members of the familia. Raul had lost his cool and shouted “Whaaaaaat?!” at the report that Finn was taking Lefiya and the other familia members to the Dungeon. When Gareth had gotten the order to withdraw from the underground passage and meet at the Dungeon, he dashed away, grumbling, “Oy! You’re really dwarf-handling me here!”
Watching it all from the spire, Loki raised her head and looked out over the northwest of the Labyrinth District as she sat cross-legged in front of the window.
Now that Dionysus had met up again with Filvis and left, Loki was alone, thinking back on what had happened a few hours before.
“—Hey, old man.”
Before the battle had started in the Labyrinth District, Loki had gone to Guild Headquarters, meeting the old god alone at the underground altar.
“I heard it all from Hestia. About the monsters yer callin’ Xenos.”
“…Is that so?” Ouranos’s expression didn’t change in the slightest as he lounged on his seat, almost as if he’d anticipated the information would get to Loki from Hestia. He didn’t panic or welcome it.
“You got yerself a real bomb there, with what y’all are hidin’. It might even be a bigger deal than the city destruction scenario that we’re chasin’ right now.”
“…”
“Dionysus’s instinct was right, in a way.”
It was a world-class Irregular that wouldn’t stop with just Orario.
With his secret exposed, Ouranos closed his eyes, almost as if in resignation.
The old god was presumably about to ask, What do you intend to do now?
“But right now, I don’t give a shit about that one way or the other.” Loki spoke first. “If Finn happens to come to the answer that y’all are hopin’ for—when that time comes, you damn well better not get in his way,” she warned with a straight face, to Ouranos’s surprise.
“Right now, that child is tryin’ to change. He’s been moved by the uproar y’all brought, he’s worryin’, and he’s tryin’ to reach a different answer than he had up until now!”
Loki saw the wavering heart he’d hidden when he heard Ikelos’s answer.
Loki had watched over it, as he was shaken by Bell Cranell’s actions, as the hero had constantly questioned himself in anguish.
She had not intervened.
She left Riveria and Gareth to get close to him, watching over him as a parent while he tried to come to his own answer. She knew better than anyone that he didn’t want the advice or guidance of a god.
“I don’t know which path he’ll choose, either! No one can predict it, and he might run down a rugged, high path! But that’s his story and his choice!”
Because Finn wanted to weave the ballad of his own heroism.
“If you try to take advantage of that, I’ll kick yer ass in the blink of an eye! If you try to extort him, I’ll damn sure beat yer ass!” She berated Ouranos vehemently as he opened his eyes wide.
Finn had crushed the fear he’d let slip in front of Riveria and Gareth, the seed of destruction on the path of Braver, the collar that would force him into Ouranos’s camp by extorting him into making a deal with the monsters.
Loki was telling the old god not to get in Finn’s way.
“Tell that playboy, too! If you get in his way, the rules of the mortal realm be damned: I’ll be comin’ to murder ya! Try to run to heaven—see if I care. I’ll chase ya until I destroy you and there ain’t even a speck of dust left! And that goes for you, too, old man!”
That shout, verging on bluster, contained all of Loki, all of her love for Finn.
Or perhaps it was the scream of a goddess trying to protect her child.
“If you try to get in the way of his goal, I won’t forgive you.”
It was the one and only time Loki would interfere, a divine will stepping in to ensure that Finn would be able to walk his chosen path without any gods getting in his way.
“If you can abide by that, then…I’ll keep quiet about your bomb, the Xenos.”
“…Very well.” Ouranos accepted after a few moments of silence, judging the deal to be sufficiently of value.
The four large torches on the altar crackled.
After the two gods made their deal in secrecy, Ouranos asked, “Loki…why are you going so far to support Braver?”
“Huh? That’s easy. Like that playboy might put it—”
Almost contemptuously, almost boastfully, she couldn’t help responding to the old god.
“—because I’m that hero’s first fan.”
The cool night air brushed Loki’s cheeks as she descended into thought, warm wind blowing from the northwest.
The pulse of the hero who had returned.
“Finn, don’t get left behind.”
Remembering her response to Ouranos’s question, Loki narrowed her eyes.
“Carrying out your initial goal is a great thing. I love that unwavering side of you. But ya know…if you get too caught up in that, you’ll be overtaken in a flash.”
She sent good wishes to her follower who was continuing to worry, struggling to come to an answer even then.
“But you’re best when you’re sticking to your resolve and duty, carrying all of that even as you move forward. You won’t lose to anyone, not even that shrimp’s kid. Win for me.”
Loki opened her vermilion eyes and smiled.
“Win this hero’s race.”
“For our dreeeeeam—!”
Another one of Thanatos’s followers blew themselves up, shaking the passage with more explosions.
Inside Knossos. The twelfth floor.
The three-sided battle among Loki Familia, the Xenos, and the Evils raged on.
It was a melee in a passage the size of a room in the Dungeon. Under Riveria’s command, the elves sang as beads of sweat scattered and they fired off magic. The intelligent monsters desperately pushed their battered bodies, rampaging with the aid of the black-robed mage.
The Evils’ Remnants and the richly colored monsters tried to crush both forces at once. The followers of the God of Death charged with beastly howls as the violas’ feelers and the vargs’ fangs danced without restraint.
The sheer number of enemies encircling them was more than enough to make the elves, including Alicia, uneasy.
A raiding unit that normally used Concurrent Casting to attack with long-distance hit-and-runs couldn’t unleash its true strength in a giant free-for-all with no real way to move around. That was what happened when they stripped the Fairy Force of its advantage of high-speed combat.
Taking wounds to her cheeks and arms as she endured the fierce attacks of the Evils, Alicia was struggling to breathe.
“—! Don’t get close to me, you heretical monsters!”
“Kuh?!”
She swung around, lashing out at the siren that had unintentionally drifted close to her in the shock wave from the explosion.
The Xenos fell to the ground, its beautiful golden feathers severed.
“Repulsive! Know some shame! Trying to pass yourself off with the words of people!”
“—Gh…!”
“Do not…deceive us!”
The siren’s face warped in sadness, stung by the high-minded elf’s sharp rebuttal.
Loki Familia was attacking the Evils, of course, and striking back at any Xenos that approached them. The lizardman and troll had no intention of attacking, trying to defend themselves as best they could.
But even as both sides recognized this as the intent of the Evils, even in this precarious situation, the adventurers refused to join hands with the monsters.
It was a profound testament to the relations between monsters and people.
As the God of Death chuckled, watching the scene unfold from his seat beyond the board, he grinned at the predetermined performance he’d arranged.
“Kuh—?!”
“Lady Riveria?!”
Amid a melee that didn’t allow time for predictions, Riveria was exposed to the intense suicide attacks conducted by the Evils’ Remnants.
They turned themselves into weapons, blowing themselves up in an attempt to stop the artillery fire of the city’s strongest mage. With them weaving in close by using the chaos of the brawl to their advantage, their sacrificial attacks forced Riveria to stop Concurrent Casting. They didn’t even balk at engulfing their allies in their attacks, creating an absurd chain of explosions.
“They intend to take care of us by any means possible, huh?!”
More detonations went off, violas’ giant bodies collapsed, and elves screamed. Fels’s black robes trembled as the battlefield turned to pure chaos.
A huge free-for-all among the three forces mashed up together in the enclosed space.
And as if to announce their death sentences, a door slammed open.
“This is where you were—pest.”
“—?!”
There was crimson hair, the color of blood. Deep amid the battle, Riveria shuddered, recognizing the green eyes that locked onto her.
It was Levis. She’d finished healing her wound and missing arm, raising her ominous, cursed weapon now that she had reached the feast that Thanatos had prepared for her.
Visible unease lit Riveria’s face.
Now that they no longer had a path to retreat, total destruction was inevitable.
“Die.”
Levis didn’t give Riveria an opportunity to respond. Cocking one of her twin blades behind her back, she threw it with inhuman strength.
The wind roared and a dull clap of thunder boomed as Levis’s blade split the air. The violas and vargs in its path exploded into fragments of meat like burst balloons. The indiscriminate attack sent the heads and arms of Evils flying like toys.
A spray of blood rained down in its wake as the blade cut through the battlefield, rushing full speed toward Riveria.
But before it could reach her—a single elf was destined to become its prey first.
“—Alicia!” There was only enough time for Riveria to call her name.
As she knocked away one of the remnants, Alicia looked up and immediately froze as the assassin’s missile approached her at sonic speed. The pitch-black cursed sword reflected in her eyes, silently, mercilessly handing down her death sentence.
It was going to crush her head without even allowing her enough time to let out a dying scream.
“Guh. Aaa—”
“—Huh?”
Right before it hit, a golden wing spread across Alicia’s field of vision, moving into the path of the cursed sword. The siren had crossed her arms and wings, absorbing the impact of the blow.
It pierced her folded wings, burrowing all the way into her right shoulder.
The siren put all her strength and awareness into her torso muscles, keeping the sword from tunneling through her body any farther.
“Rei?!” yelped the lizardman, along with the other Xenos, as the siren was knocked back, tumbling into Alicia, who was right behind her.
“…Why?”
Alicia had landed hard on her back. Sluggishly pushing herself up to a sitting position on the floor, she barely managed to whisper that much.
The siren lay powerlessly on her chest, shoulder and face stained crimson. Her long lashes quivering, she opened her eyes and smiled.
“Your hair is prettier than my wings. I just thought that…I didn’t want it…to get dirty.”
“—Wha…?!”
“I had a dream…that if you could ever…somehow forgive me…I wanted to be friends with you…”
Alicia’s face cracked as she looked down at the siren whose breathing was ragged even as she flashed a peaceful smile on her face.
The elf could no longer control the whirlwind of emotions that appeared on her face: an infant on the brink of tears, an enraged fairy, a lost child who didn’t know where to go.
There was no proof. No evidence. No plan. No sincerity or logic to convince those who despised monsters.
There was earnest love—one-sided, but it was a precious philia. Friendship.
This was a monster: a noble being, starved for affection, who put herself on the line and willingly threw away her own life for the sake of others.
Was this a beast?
If it was, then what would that make Alicia, the one who wouldn’t lend that noble woman an ear and swung a sword at her instead? Did it make her a far more depraved monster?
This shocking revelation summoned a storm of emotions that overflowed from her heart. Her value system was shattered at its core: The idea of monsters as a symbol of absolute evil was gone. Alicia’s eyes darted around. She was unable to hold the siren’s body close, even as she looked down at her chest, where death was approaching the being by the second.
Loki Familia’s elves saw that, too, and Riveria’s face warped, displaying the agony in her heart as she stood still in shock.
The Xenos were on the verge of tears as they watched the actions of their comrade.
“Missed, huh…? Well, whatever,” Levis commented, watching their drama play out without a trace of emotion.
“I’ll just hunt down those defective monsters, too.”
She swung her blackened sword, signaling the tragedy about to begin.
The real monster was the woman who had been given free rein over the whole of the battlefield. A moment of silence fell as everyone, even the monsters, stopped moving, sensing the icy chill and intense bloodlust of the overwhelmingly powerful creature.
The elves paled, the Xenos recoiled, and even the Evils gulped.
Riveria moved faster than anyone else to resist, beginning to sing a spell. Fels’s robe quivered as if to say I can’t die yet when the mage moved to break the deadlock. And Levis coldly narrowed her eyes, ready to kick off the ground.
“Sorry, but I’ve no interest in watching a tragedy.”
Bam! A door slammed open on the opposite side from the one through which Levis had entered the room.
A hero with billowing golden hair stood at the entrance to the large passage.
“Especially not after seeing the real-life epic of a hero.”
It was Finn, holding out the key in his right hand and his long spear in his left.
“Finn!” Riveria shrieked upon spinning around and recognizing him and the other members of their familia.
Her jade eyes filled with light. The high elf had never given up hope or lost faith in her old friend.
On the other hand, Levis kicked the ground with a sharpened gaze, leaping out to cut Riveria’s neck before she could resist.
“Like I’ll let ya!”
“—Gh!”
She was stopped by the battle-ax of a dwarf flying in at a right angle from behind Finn. Gareth had dashed to the scene upon being summoned by Finn at the main base, and he crossed blades with Levis now.
Upon impact, a massive shock wave rippled out, causing the air to tremble as the dwarf warrior clashed head-on with the creature who’d defeated both the Sword Princess and Braver. Levis scoffed as Elgarm grinned ferociously.
“Everyone, support Alicia and the others. Secure a path for retreat!” Finn
barked his orders as he dashed.
When Levis relied on speed over power to swipe at Gareth, Finn butted in from the side with his Fortia Spear, challenging her even though he’d been cut down once before. He weakened the momentum behind Levis’s sword, supporting Gareth through teamwork.
““Riveria!”” They called for the high elf, seizing the advantage in this fight.
“Heh!!”
“Tch…Three Level Sixes!”
Wielding her long staff, Riveria joined the front lines with Finn and Gareth, adding to the raging battle.
The teamwork among Loki Familia’s three leaders was divine, assaulting Levis from three different sides to create a storm of continuous attacks. The Xenos, who’d been swept aside in the flow of events, were filled with awe.
Even though she was a mage, Riveria was keeping up in speed and working in perfect unison with the prum and dwarf in close-range combat. She’d always had more skills and tact than anyone else, working with Finn to nip Levis’s counterattacks in the bud while Gareth’s top-tier strength made up for their lack of power.
These three had fought together longer than any other team. That was the reason they were called the strongest fighting force in Loki Familia.
“—Harbinger of the end, white snow!”
“—Rg?!” Levis’s shoulders trembled as Riveria decisively started Concurrent Casting while attacking with her staff.
As the creature acted cautiously, wary of the blast that had stolen her arm, Gareth stepped in, seizing the advantage.
“Yer full o’ openings!”
“Guh?!”
His battle-ax swung up, hitting the side of her cursed sword, just barely managing to block it. Levis’s body was knocked back in an arc as her sword shattered, landing some distance away from them.
Riveria cut off her spell mid-chant.
By drawing the attention of their enemy to her chants, Finn and Gareth had attacked. Their original plan to ambush a decoy.
“It’s my first time doin’ it with a creature, but…it’s certainly dangerous. That woman is full of energy!”
“That’s what I told you, isn’t it? Fighting her head-on’s not a good plan.”
Gareth’s tone was rougher than usual—perhaps because it was the first time in a long while that the three of them were fighting together. Finn responded with a complaint reminiscent of old times. Riveria finally got her taste of relief since this battle had started.
