by Fujino Omori
After a long silence descended upon the chamber, Ouranos slowly opened his lips.
“What do you think happens to monsters after death, Hestia?”
“……?”
Hestia frowned at having her question answered with another question.
The elderly god didn’t wait for her response and carried on.
“The souls of our children return to the heavens, are judged and sorted by our kind, and then many are reborn into the world…So what about the souls of monsters? No, it would be better to phrase it as…If these monsters who are not our children have souls, where do you think they would go?”
Shudder.
Hestia felt her heart tremble.
“Could it be…?”
“This is only my speculation, but I also have confidence it is correct.”
Ouranos was gaining momentum.
“After death, monsters return to the mother from whence they came, the Dungeon…They’re given new form somewhere deep inside the labyrinth and then are born again.”
A cycle of death and rebirth—monster “souls” were in constant circulation inside the Dungeon.
The motionless, elderly god declared it while his deep-blue eyes narrowed.
“Monsters have…souls…?”
“Yes. They have shown change during their centuries of death and rebirth.”
Specifically, they became self-aware and capable of learning.
The “change” started to manifest itself in individual monsters after so much time had passed that the Ancient Times felt like a distant dream. Strong feelings of attachment and desire accumulated in each soul as it completed countless revolutions in the cycle.
Hestia’s dumbstruck voice tumbled out.
“I can’t believe something like that…What could possibly be the cause?”
“The driving force is either the monsters’ strong yearning and desire…or—the Dungeon’s will.”
Ouranos’s words vanished into the shadows enveloping the chamber.
The banquet at the Xenos Hidden Village was coming to an end.
Bell and the others were making preparations to return home. Lido and the rest of the Xenos were planning to move to another Hidden Village soon after.
Haruhime and Mikoto wore awkward smiles as they shook hands with their dance partners and said their good-byes to monsters who had become something close to friends.
The magic-stone lamps were extinguished one by one until only the glow of quartz illuminated the area.
“……”
Enveloped in their green radiance, Bell watched his allies exchange words with the Xenos around the dim cavern.
He hadn’t had time to think about it before, but the monsters with human characteristics were all genuinely attractive individuals. Some spoke with ease while others couldn’t say anything at all. It was just as Lido said. Every one of them was different. Even their body types were incredibly varied. They each had their own personality, their own way of living.
He had learned that they had aspirations. He had heard they had hope.
And he had also discovered that before they gained these feelings, they were bloodthirsty beasts incapable of even shedding a tear.
That was just as true for the openhearted Lido as it was for the beautiful Rei.
—Can I point a blade at monsters the way I used to ever again?
The thoughts he’d been keeping locked away started resurfacing in the corners of his mind.
As Bell stared into the palm of his hand, he could almost hear the whirlpool of anguish inside him.
“…Bellucchi!”
Lido spotted the boy lost in thought. He waved one hand high above his head and approached him.
Bell looked up to see the lizardman warrior slowly wagging his thick tail back and forth as he pulled something out from beneath his breastplate.
“You know what this is?”
“That’s a magic stone…isn’t it?”
Lido nodded as he pinched the purple stone between his claws.
Suddenly, he brought it to his open mouth and plopped it inside like candy.
“!”
“Do you know what happens when we Xenos…we monsters eat magic stones?”
Crunch! Crunch! Bell wasn’t sure how to react as he watched Lido purposely chew louder than necessary.
At the sight of a lizardman gulping down a magic stone, one of the facts that Eina had drilled into him rose from his memory.
“Enhanced species…”
It was like how adventurers became stronger by receiving excelia and updating their Status, but for monsters.
They gained a power boost by consuming another monster’s “core”—a principle of the monsters’ world where only the strongest survived. The ones who gorged themselves on magic stones and became too powerful were identified by the Guild and subsequently marked for extermination via missions.
Bell couldn’t respond as he watched the phenomenon firsthand.
“We kill any monsters that aren’t our comrades. Then we pluck out their magic stones and eat them.”
“!!”
“I’m sure you already knew that other monsters attack us on sight. We aren’t about to lie down and let them kill us without a fight. We kill to survive and eat to see tomorrow.”
They had meticulously honed swordsmanship and the potential to match top-class adventurers…Bell reflected on their earlier battle, the strength and power the lizardman possessed, and knew at once that Lido was telling the truth.
The Xenos were forced to commit cannibalism every day to stay alive in the Dungeon.
Purely because their lives depended on it.
Blood drained from Bell’s face as Lido made his point.
“So please don’t waver. Don’t hold back for our sake. Those things are scary as hell, and they’ll kill you if you hesitate for even a moment. You’ll die, Bellucchi.”
“Lido…”
“And even if they can speak, if they attack you, kill them for me.”
This den of monsters is already littered with corpses and ash.
While he didn’t say it directly, the lizardman warrior truly wanted Bell to prioritize his life above anything else.
“Don’t you ever die. I want to see you again.”
The Xenos themselves had killed countless other Dungeon-dwellers and would continue to do so.
So don’t you hold back, either. So we can meet once more.
Bell’s eyes trembled at Lido’s argument.
“Bellucchi.”
“……?”
“Let’s shake hands.”
Reptilian eyes smiling, Lido stuck out his right hand.
Bell paused for a moment, looking between the lizardman’s face and his hand…but then he managed a grin.
Hearing the same words as when they first spoke, the boy smiled at the row of fangs right at eye level.
He took the hand offered to him.
Bell felt Lido squeeze back, scaly skin rough on his own.
“…So, why did you arrange for us to meet them, exactly?”
The prum was busy tying an item pouch to her waist when she caught a glimpse of Bell and Lido’s handshake. Then she turned to the Magus standing beside her, looking up at the concealing hood as she spoke.
Fels didn’t meet her stare, but a response emanated from deep within the dark confines of the robe.
“We wanted you to know them. That’s all…at least for now.”
At the deep, cryptic answer, her chestnut-colored eyes narrowed.
Her glare said it all: We’d rather not have more trouble to deal with, so please excuse us and leave us out of it.
The black-hooded figure shrugged good-naturedly.
“I don’t think I need to remind you, but please keep what you saw today to yourself.”
“Would anyone believe Lilly if she told them?”
Clenched fists trembling in frustration, Lilly stomped away toward the center of the room where Welf and the others
were waiting.
Bell and Lido weren’t far behind. The people and monsters gathered at the quartz pillar before going their separate ways.
“Bell, let’s go home.”
Wiene immediately broke away from her conversation with other Xenos as soon as she saw him coming.
Turning around with a smile on her face, she reached out to take his hand.
Bell weakly smiled in return and was about to let her.
However, Lido got in the way.
“Your place is here, Wiene.”
“Huh?”
He grabbed hold of her bluish-white arm and dragged her back toward the Xenos group.
Shocked, Wiene yelped and started struggling.
“Lido! No! Let me go!”
“No. You’re staying here in the Dungeon.”
“I don’t wanna! I want to be with Bell!”
Her thin arms stood no chance of breaking Lido’s grip. Tears of desperation began forming in her amber eyes.
Bell watched, unable to speak as the lizardman knelt down to the girl’s height.
“If you’re with them, Bellucchi, Lillicchi, everyone will wind up crying.”
“!”
“Bad things happened to you on the surface, yes? Only this time, that might happen to Bellucchi.”
All those angry, jeering voices. Cold, hard stones striking her skin and the weapons maliciously pointed her way.
Wiene’s slim shoulders trembled as memories of that night came to mind.
“…We cannot live on the surface yet. But no one will be cruel to you here. You can live here with us.”
The siren’s voice reached them. The young girl’s dragon wing, the feature that clearly identified her as a monster, quivered.
A flurry of emotions flooded the vouivre girl’s mind as she looked at each of the other monsters in turn.
“Lady Wiene…”
Bell didn’t move.
He heard Haruhime behind him as she did her best not to cry. The moment of separation came much more abruptly than he’d expected, and surprise was written all over his face.
No—it was just an act.
The moment he met Lido and the other Xenos and learned there were others like Wiene who considered her a friend, he had done his best to ignore the possibility. Immersing himself in the new discoveries and revelations had allowed him to run away from reality.
The reality that Wiene had a place here.
That saying good-bye would be the obvious conclusion.
“There is a group of hunters that indiscriminately try to capture the Xenos.”
“!”
“After all, they’re monsters who can communicate with language. The ones with humanoid features possess enticing beauty. If they’re rare enough, anything becomes exciting for these hunters. After capturing Xenos, they apparently smuggle them out of the city and sell them to gourmets.”
Lilly and the other adventurers were as genuinely shocked as Bell at Fels’s explanation.
The black-robed Magus spat out the words with disgust.
“They put out tidbits of information, calling the Xenos ‘monsters wearing armor’ and the like, but they never leave a trail to follow. They must have a base of operations, a place to hold their captives, but…”
Fels cast his gaze toward Bell from beneath the concealing hood.
Staying with Wiene will only result in disaster. Bell got the hint.
Ikelos’s ominous smile appeared in the back of his mind, sealing off his last hope of escape from the reality. He turned to face the young girl.
“Beeeell…”
As the lizardman and siren gently held her shoulders, tears rolling down her face, Wiene cried Bell’s name as though hanging on to him.
A realization hit Bell as Lilly, Welf, Mikoto, and Haruhime watched with worried eyes.
—I won’t let her be alone. I won’t let her die.
He could keep the promises he made to himself without being there to protect her personally.
“Bell! I…!”
A large group of intelligent monsters stood directly behind her.
Behind him was the family he’d gone through so much with up until now.
Bell was surrounded by those precious to him, before and behind.
For this girl’s happiness…
And his familia’s, everyone’s, his goddess’s—
“…See you, Bellucchi. We’ll head out first.”
Lido said his good-byes before turning his back on the adventurers.
Bell couldn’t stop him, couldn’t even take a step forward.
The monsters began to disappear into a corner of the cavern shrouded in darkness, Wiene with them. She looked around one last time.
He could see her amber eyes glistening with tears. Bell clenched his hands and shouted even as his expression was on the verge of breaking.
“This isn’t good-bye! We’ll see each other again!”
He left her with that reassuring promise, unsure if he could keep it.
Wiene sobbed, mouth opening and closing as if trying to tell him something, but she couldn’t turn her feelings into words.
It wasn’t long before every Xenos faded into the darkness.
“……”
With his allies silently watching over him from behind…
Bell only stared at the spot where he last saw the vouivre girl.
Morning fog filled the air.
The puddles dotting the stone pavement suggested rain must have fallen the previous night. Wide-leaved trees appeared to be shedding tears as water droplets fell from their branches every so often. Another one splashed on the stone surface and vanished.
The sun wasn’t out yet. Only the smallest traces of light were starting to appear on the horizon.
Silence hung over the sleeping city.
It was early morning at the base of Babel Tower.
Bell’s party returned from their mission a little more than a full day after their departure.
Fels, who accompanied them to the surface, had already disappeared. The party of five stepped out from beneath the white tower’s entrance.
Hestia waited for her followers outside the gate alone before sunrise.
Noticing that they numbered one fewer than when she saw them off, the goddess’s shoulders sank in sadness as she said, “Welcome back,” with a weak smile.
“Goddess…”
“…What is it, Bell?”
The group was completely alone in Central Park. Bell opened his mouth to speak.
“What…is the Dungeon?” he asked, turning to face Hestia.
Welf and his other friends quietly watched as she averted her eyes.
“The Dungeon is…the Dungeon…”
She gave him the same response deities had given the children of the world from the beginning.
The goddess wouldn’t say more than what had already been said.
Bell stood like a statue as her words faded away.
The boy stared at the ground as if the world itself weighed on his shoulders.
Dawn broke on the other side of the city wall, ushering in a blue sky.
EPILOGUE
BOUNDLESS MALICE
“Damn bastard!”
Wham! A loud kick landed on the cage.
The sound of the rattling chains that restrained four limbs and shrill screaming halted at precisely the same moment.
The one who had been howling and pleading, saying “It hurts, let me out from here,” had fallen completely silent as though fearful of its master’s furious voice.
A man’s sharp, angry breaths echoed off the stone walls.
“Glenn, keep it down, would you? Want me to feed you to the monsters?”
“Gah…s-sorry, Dix. But come on, we were so close to finding their nest…!!”
A hulking human named Glenn howled in frustration, fists clenched at his sides.
The goggled man, Dix, sat on top of a black cage while resting the shaft of his red spear against his should
er.
“Tailing Hestia Familia and the vouivre monster was going so well, too!”
Surrounded by a ragtag group of animal people, humans, and Amazons, he let out a sigh loud enough for all to hear.
Thanks to his deity investigating Hestia Familia, as well as assuming that the female vouivre had caused the ruckus in town, Dix had instructed his subordinates to stake out Hestia Familia’s home.
Of course they noticed when Bell’s party left the building with the disguised vouivre in tow. They had planned on jumping them right away, but they quickly deduced that the group was headed for the Dungeon after seeing their equipment. So they had decided to wait. Returning the beast to the Dungeon—had the vouivre told them where the talking monsters’ nest was located? Were they on their way there? That was Dix’s theory and why they hadn’t made a move.
In fact, they almost hit the nail on the head. They followed the party into the Dungeon, drooling at the idea their target would lead them directly to the nest.
Unfortunately—
“Burn in hell, Hermes Familia! Who would’ve thought we were being followed?”
Dix and his companions had been denied their prize by a second familia tailing them.
They were so focused on Bell’s party that another group of adventurers went unnoticed.
Since Hermes Familia members were equipped with magic items, Dix noticed their pursuers only by lucky coincidence. Bugbears were known for their keen sense of smell—and a few of them seemed to be looking for someone who wasn’t there. Getting a bad feeling, he ordered them to give up the chase and split up.
Once the enemy’s presence was revealed, they had scattered through the Colossal Tree Labyrinth to make a clean getaway. Now they had regrouped.
That was the true identity of the many “eyes” Bell had sensed outside Babel Tower before the mission began.
Some of them belonged to Dix’s group, members of Ikelos Familia; the rest were Hermes Familia’s.
“Damn that god of ours. Just when he finally makes himself useful, he pulls shit like this.”
Dix grumbled and complained about his deity.
“Hermes’s kiddies may have noticed…” Ikelos had mentioned in passing, smiling in anticipation. However, the deity was not present now. Most likely, the idea of a three-sided struggle enticed him—and he was keeping a close eye on the show involving his own familia from someplace close by. The god thought of his followers as nothing more than pieces on a board that he could manipulate for his own amusement.
