by Fujino Omori
“…What next, Bell? Is there somewhere you want to go?” she asks.
The truth is, there isn’t. I have no idea where Wiene and the others are or even where I might find some information about them.
Normally when I’m at a loss, I go to the Guild, but now…
Eina’s teary face and confused words flicker across my memory.
I don’t believe you…! I could never…believe you…!
I haven’t seen her since then. I’ve been too ashamed.
Still pitifully unable to muster the courage to see her, I mentally cross out the option of going to Guild Headquarters. The weight of my thoughts pushes my gaze downward, but I lift my head.
“Goddess…Please let me go to Daedalus Street…”
Surprise crosses her face. She locks eyes with me for a moment, then nods.
On the way from West Main Street to East Main Street, we pass Central Park, which has been encircled by adventurers. More accurately, Babel itself has been surrounded.
Members of Ganesha Familia and other factions have joined together with Guild staff to prevent monsters from passing through the great hole that leads to the Dungeon. Even Lido and his group will not likely be able to force their way through security this tight. If they do, the Xenos will certainly suffer losses.
In addition to the adventurers, a lot of gods are walking around the streets. Some are accompanying parties of adventurers, and some are on their own. In contrast to the townsfolk of Orario, it seems they are secretly enjoying the current situation and searching for excitement in a totally different sense of the word than we are. When they see me, the laughing gods seem to want to cause trouble, but thanks to Hestia’s growled warnings, we manage to pass through without incident.
Finally, we arrive at Daedalus Street.
“There are so many adventurers here as well…”
I’ve passed through this entryway with the goddess before, at the Monsterphilia. Now, as we enter, I see that the chaotic residential district is packed with adventurers. Animal people with double swords slung at their hips, elves carrying bows and quivers of arrows, dwarves hefting sledgehammers over their shoulders—these figures wearing gear fit for the Dungeon are far more brazen than the adventurers we saw on our way here. They seem prepared for a monster to leap out at any moment. Some are even stopping townsfolk who walk by and pressing them for information.
“Have the traps been laid?”
“Are you closing in on the Xenos?”
As if to answer my unspoken thought, the goddess turns toward me with concern.
“Even if they don’t know what it is, exactly, everyone seems to realize that something fishy is happening here in Orario…”
Is it that they vaguely sense the connection between this place and the Dungeon?
It’s sensible, but it also makes me anxious. The only hope for the Xenos who remain aboveground is to return to the Dungeon. But with so much security between Babel and Daedalus Street, where Knossos is located, the prospect of Wiene and the others sneaking through seems hopeless.
Most adventurers are probably after the huge bounties…But still, as I watch them pass by, it’s difficult to breathe. I bring my hands to my throat.
“Um, Goddess, what do you think about the bounties? The ones that the Guild—that Lord Ouranos has offered…?”
“Well, Ouranos has his own position to consider. If he didn’t do something to get the situation under control, I think he’d lose his authority.”
I’m worried that Ouranos, who is something like the god of the Guild, has forsaken Wiene and the others. But my goddess crosses her arms and insists that my concern is unfounded.
“To the contrary, by offering a bounty, isn’t he preventing adventurers from cooperating too closely?”
By setting them in competition down to the last man, Ouranos is preventing familias from combining their strength while also ensuring that they don’t share intelligence. I have to agree that the scariest thing for the Xenos would be if the various factions freely exchanged information to form a seamless net around them.
On the other hand, by offering a large bounty, the Guild gives the appearance that it’s fully committed to the cause and will stop at nothing. Even within the Guild, it must be difficult to doubt Ouranos’s intentions.
Listening to the goddess explain all this in a quiet voice, I feel everything begin to make sense.
“…”
We continue to search blindly for information, wandering along Daedalus Street, which is a complex multilevel tangle of up, down, left, and right—much like the Dungeon.
From the shadows along the streets and the windows of the buildings, countless dark stares pierce me. I have been glared at and slandered plenty before arriving here…But now it feels stronger. The malice. The hostility.
It even feels as if the residents of Daedalus Street—the Labyrinth District—hate me. They suffered direct harm during the incident, and I am the adventurer who intentionally threw the fight to control the monsters into chaos. Of course, they don’t go so far as throwing stones…
“And to think, he once killed monsters that rampaged through our neighborhood.”
“The Little Rookie turned out to be nothing but another typical adventurer after all, didn’t he?”
I hear despairing voices around me. New grudges seem to be emerging with every passing moment. Concerned for me—I’m still pressing my hands to my chest—the goddess reaches out to squeeze my hand. That’s when it happens.
“!”
I run into the one person I least want to see.
“Miss…Aiz…”
The golden-haired, golden-eyed Sword Princess has just rounded the corner with a number of lower-level members of her familia.
As we bump into each other unexpectedly, Aiz, who I respect so much, gapes for an instant with surprise. Then she looks me squarely in the face.
Is Loki Familia investigating Daedalus Street, too? No, they must be—
The events of the other day suddenly come back to me.
Those two golden eyes looking down on me as I protected Wiene. My knife confronting her sword.
How does she see me now? What will she say?
I stand next to the surprised goddess, as if Aiz’s stare has pinned me in place.
“…Little Wallen-something-or-other! Bell and I are on a date right now. Let us pass, will you?”
The goddess uses her back to shield me from the obvious distrust and hostility from the other members of Aiz’s party.
Aiz glances briefly at the goddess, then returns her gaze to me.
“…”
In contrast to my own unease, neither her blank expression nor the look in her eyes has changed. After what feels to me like an eternity of silence, she slowly parts her lips.
Right then, a cheerful voice rings out.
“Heeey, Aizu! What’re you guys doing standing around over there?”
It’s the goddess Loki, leader of Aiz’s familia. Poking her head around the corner from another street, she’s found Aiz and the others stopped next to Hestia and me. She widens her narrow eyes.
“…Aha, you’re with Itty Bitty!”
She turns up the corners of her mouth, smiling like a child who’s just discovered a toy.
“You have some business with Finn, don’t you? You’d better hurry up!” Loki says to Aiz and her companions.
Aiz looks indecisive for an instant, then accepts Loki’s suggestion with a docile “Yes.” Just before she disappears with the others, she looks once again in my direction.
“…What do you want, Loki?”
My goddess stands firmly in a corner of the street boxed in by dark bricks, cautious now that Loki’s cleared the area. But Loki walks straight toward her and slips smoothly past.
“Young man. You really did something funny this time, didn’t you?” she says.
Ignoring Hestia’s shouts, she brings her face within a hairbreadth of mine as I stand there in shock.
/> “Beats me why you did it, but now ya know what happens to people who protect monsters, huh?”
“!”
“All those guys who used to make such a fuss over you are giving you the cold shoulder…How do you feel now?”
Like a snake, her thin arm slithers around my stiff shoulders. She peers into my face.
Her actions seem to lack any malice. It’s pure curiosity. Nothing more, nothing less.
All I can do is stare at my feet as she grins and whispers in my ear.
“Loki, get off him! What the hell do you want?”
“Ha-ha! To mess with him, obviously!”
Outraged, Hestia tries to pull Lady Loki away from me, but she dodges and takes two or three steps backward.
Then she sticks out her tongue, as if she couldn’t care less about the red-faced goddess.
“The deities’ve got their eyes on you in more ways than one,” she says to me. “‘Oh look, the White Rabbit’s done it again!’ That’s what they say. There’s no shortage of gossip when it comes to you, young man. Of course, my Aiz can beat ya any day!”
“…”
“But actually, I’m interested in you these days, too. You’re pretty feisty for one of Itty Bitty’s kids.”
Loki continues squinting at me with her vermilion eyes. She sees me as no more than an amusing child. I’m certain that one phrase sums up her opinion.
My unsettled emotions confuse me. I feel I’m once again witnessing the gap between the unfathomable deusdea—the gods and goddesses—and the residents of the mortal plane.
“You’ll be destroyed if you take an interest in him! You’re already making enough trouble for other deities. Keep your hands off Bell!” my goddess shouts.
“You’ve got some nerve talking to me like that! You’re real low-class for a goddess, ain’tcha.”
I can hear the goddess breathing heavily next to my shoulder.
“Goddess, are you all right?” I ask, trying to calm her down. As I do, I notice something out of the corner of my eye.
What’s that?
Several figures are crossing the end of an alley. I recognize them from somewhere.
My attention divided, I find my gaze jumping back and forth between the two goddesses and the alley where the figures passed.
The goddess notices my behavior and seems to guess something has caught my attention.
“Bell, if something is bothering you, go ahead and check it out. I’ll wait for you here.”
“B-but…”
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to get into a fight…Anyway, I want to talk to Loki.”
The goddess looks up at Loki, her attitude completely changed from a moment before. Loki tilts her head with a questioning look. I hesitate briefly, then give in to the goddess’s indulgence.
“Excuse me, then. I’ll be right back.”
I nod to them both and dash off down the alley so I don’t lose track altogether.
I’ve been here before. As I chase after the figures—who I can now see are young children—I think back on the events that took place in this very same Daedalus Street.
Finally, I arrive at a plaza where a large church stands.
“Uh…big…brother.”
The fountain is broken and dry, and several of the church windows are shattered.
In front of this desolate orphanage in the depths of the Labyrinth District, I once again find the children I’ve met here before.
“Lai, Fina, Ruu…”
I murmur the names of the three children, who by now have noticed that I followed them.
“Big brother…”
A brown-haired human boy, his face covered in scrapes and scratches.
A chienthrope girl with long, straight cream-colored hair.
And the youngest of the three, an androgynous half-elf child.
They are the orphans whom I met about a month earlier, the time I followed Syr. They look surprised to see me. Perhaps returning from an errand for the orphanage, since I can see packages of food in their arms.
“B-big brother…” says Fina, the chienthrope.
“…”
She tucks her tail between her legs and steps backward.
The half-elf Ruu, who is usually lost in a daydream, shifts his gaze nervously back and forth.
They’re afraid of me…Could things get any worse?
As I stand there silently, Lai, the human, leans forward as if to protect the other two.
“…Why are you here?” he asks.
His sharp look and words reveal a newfound hostility.
I can’t breathe or even move a finger.
The three children live here in Daedalus Street. They probably know what I did. They may even have watched with their own eyes as I protected a monster and attacked other adventurers.
“Why did you do it?” Lai asks me, his voice full of the same judgment, hatred, and disappointment as the other townsfolk.
“Our neighborhood was a wreck, and…I thought adventurers were supposed to kill monsters!” he spits out. “Traitor!”
I can practically hear my heart splitting open. Lai’s words hit me harder than any of the other criticisms I’ve heard today. That, and the sad look on Fina’s and Ruu’s faces as they stare at the ground.
I’ve tainted their memory of me and betrayed their youthful admiration for adventurers. The choking sensation in my throat and the excruciating pain drilling into my heart are almost too much to bear.
A sense of true loss floods every corner of my body.
“I’m out of here,” Lai says. He turns and walks into the orphanage.
Fina and Ruu glance at me. Then, without a word, they follow Lai.
The door of the church slams shut with a bang, as if to throw their rejection in my face while I stand there frozen. As if it’s telling me not to come in and never to come back.
I’m drowning in unthinkable misery and a bitterness that cuts into my very flesh. This despondency goes beyond simple lethargy, and my knees buckle under it. I collapse like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
I have never felt more dejected.
The sky, thickly blanketed in clouds, stares down on my miserable self.
“…Bell?”
The words abruptly break my train of thought.
That door that I thought would never welcome me again has opened, and someone is walking toward me.
I slowly look up—and see Syr.
“I’ve been talking to Maria and some others about whether they might be able to evacuate from Daedalus Street.”
I am sitting with Syr on a brick bench in a little garden near the orphanage, where a few bushes and flowers have been planted.
“Because of what happened in the Labyrinth District…Well, it would be dangerous if the monsters showed up again.”
Lyu had said Syr was taking some time off work, and apparently she has been using that time to discuss her options with Mother Maria, the head of the orphanage. She tells me the two of them have been visiting the other orphanages in the Labyrinth District and urging them to evacuate.
For the past few days, she says, Daedalus Street more than anywhere else in the city has been full of adventurers coming and going, and the air is charged. It’s easy to see why she’s worried the area will end up as a battleground again.
Whatever my reasons were, the fact that I caused all this weighs heavily on my heart.
“I guess it would be rude…to ask what happened,” Syr says.
“…”
“Lai and the others have been pushed to the limit. Sometimes they’re quiet; sometimes they put on a brave front…I think they’re at a loss for what to do.”
I haven’t made any attempt to speak, so Syr has been talking nonstop. She’s wearing a white dress I’ve seen her in before.
She looks straight ahead, a smile on her face, and does not pry in the least. Even though she must know what I did…
Maybe it’s because she looks so completely unchanged that I
can’t help blurting out a question.
“You’re really not going to ask me anything…?”
“I will if you want me to,” she says with a pleasant smile.
“No, no…” I say uncertainly.
“Are you trying to make up your mind about something?”
Am I?
No…What I must do is clear. I have decided. I will save Wiene and her fellow Xenos.
The scales have already tipped. I will lend my strength to Lido and the others who even now are in such danger, even if it means making many more enemies.
Even if people I care about, like Lai, hate me for it.
So this is not indecision I am feeling after all…It is terror of being completely isolated.
“Something really seems to be bothering you…It’s better not to keep your troubles to yourself, you know!” Syr says.
“…”
“You have a familia, don’t you, Bell?”
Her words shake me. I don’t care what happens to me. I’m afraid, and I will probably tremble when it happens, but I made the decision myself. It doesn’t matter if people throw stones. I have to take it.
But the members of my familia…that’s another story.
Before the goddess and I left home, I stood by the door listening to her conversation with Mikoto and the others. Because of me, they’re being treated as a disappointment.
My chest feels like it’s about to explode.
I will not regret my decision. I must not. I know this, yet I’m on the verge of being crushed by self-reproach.
It’s how I felt when I met Aiz and also when I saw Lyu. I’m…
“…I’m afraid to ask,” I blurt out, unable to keep the thought to myself. “I’ve gone and acted so selfishly, caused so much trouble for everyone…I’m afraid to ask what Welf and the others think of me…”
Now that this pitiful confession has spilled from my mouth, all I want is to disappear.
As I hang my head in extreme self-loathing, Syr reaches out and cups my face in her hands.
“Huh?”
“Pardon me.”
When she pulls my head, my listless body is unable to muster the least resistance, and I topple over sideways.
In other words, my head is now on Syr’s lap.
“Um, uh, wha—?”
