by Fujino Omori
Beneath quivering black robes, the cursed skeleton recalled vividly what it felt like to sweat. It was then that the mage heard the voice.
“Hey there, Xenos!”
The cheerful voice came from directly behind them.
“!”
“Pleasure to meet you. Please don’t be afraid. My name is Hermes. I’m just an ordinary god.”
The god had red-orange hair and was wearing a feathered traveling cap. His eyes, the same color as his hair, crinkled as he smiled kindly at the astonished Xenos.
“God Hermes…?! What are you doing here?” Fels asked.
“It’s quite simple, downfallen Sage. I’m ambushing you.”
“A-ambushing…?!” the Sage sputtered in confusion. The Xenos shared his bewilderment.
What was Hermes talking about? What did he mean by ambushing? What was his aim? Fels’s mind refused to understand the situation they found themselves in.
The Xenos, who were pinned in place, sensed something cold in the god who stood before them. The black-clad mage gripped the map as he asked a question.
“God Hermes…Why is there no door here? Weren’t you the one who obtained the plan of Knossos? This plan, Daedalus’s Notebook—”
Hermes grinned from ear to ear.
“You didn’t really think Daedalus’s Notebook existed, did you?”
CHAPTER 6
A DEITY’S SCHEME
As Hestia held the soaked book in her hands, the blood drained from her face.
“The writing isn’t disappearing…The ink isn’t bleeding…!”
The letters weren’t even blurred.
The truth struck Hestia like a shock wave.
There was even something strange about the texture of the pages, which hadn’t been warped at all by the water. If thousand-year-old paper remained unchanged after absorbing water, then this notebook must be—
“Is this whole thing a magic item…? It’s not impossible, and it’s certainly not unimaginable, but…?”
The master craftsman Daedalus had supposedly created this cursed book. Hestia had heard that he was one of Ouranos’s few children and one of the first generation of humans to be blessed with Falna. But even in the latter part of his life, which fell in the early years of the Divine Era when the deities descended from the heavens, there was no way the technology for magic items could have been this advanced. The skills to manifest abilities—not to mention knowledge about magic items—had been accumulated over the past thousand years. Maybe Daedalus could make an orichalcum door that did no more than open and close, but it was impossible to imagine his creating a book like this.
It dawned on Hestia that someone must have deliberately forged the notebook to look like it was from the Ancient Times—specifically as a deception.
“And this ink that doesn’t dissolve…I recognize this.”
It was the same type of ink as in the letter that Fels’s familiar owl had delivered. That crimson writing hadn’t bled in the rain, either.
Fels had written the letter with a Blood Feather, a magic item that allowed blood to be used in place of ink. The red feather pens were popular among adventurers in Orario these days.
And who had invented them? None other than Perseus.
“Of course I didn’t get the Notebook from Ikelos,” Hermes announced to the dumbstruck Fels and Xenos.
“Dix Perdix owned the original Notebook. But now he’s dead. More likely than not, the real one is lying around somewhere in Knossos,” he continued.
The heritage of Daedalus was passed on to his descendants. That was true of the Notebook as well as Knossos. Even a patron deity couldn’t take it away from them, Hermes explained, still smiling.
His smile served only to enflame Fels’s confusion and anger.
“Then what is that book?!”
“A fake. One of my children forged the book that Hestia received. She did a darn good job of it, too, wouldn’t you agree? I had her use all sorts of magic items to create the illusion of a thousand-year-old book.”
A beautiful woman with aqua-blue hair and dark, tired circles under her eyes stepped out from behind Hermes. It was Perseus. She had responded to her patron deity’s entreaty, and in the space of a few short, sleepless days forged a replica of the book that Daedalus had poured his crazed obsession into.
The only truth Hermes had spoken when he came before Ouranos was that he had thoroughly surveyed Knossos. His familia had searched the same places Loki Familia had. In other words, everything in the plans below the first underground level was nonsense—and the maps Hestia and Fels had used were interlaced with lies.
The spot where the Xenos stood now was one of those falsehoods.
“So you drew doors that didn’t exist and lured us down here…?!”
“Put it that way if you like. Since Loki Familia was guarding all the other doors, I knew you’d be forced to take the bait and try your only other escape route.”
A dead end with a nonexistent door.
Fels and the Xenos had followed the Notebook headlong into the god’s trap. In that light, it was only natural that Finn had read the situation incorrectly. Of course his instinct for danger hadn’t set alarm bells ringing. The Xenos had gone right down the wrong path.
“As long as I knew whether you were heading east or west…all I had to do was trust in my plan and wait. Wait right here, I mean,” Hermes explained, rubbing the brim of his traveling cap. “Don’t blame Ouranos for this. I commandeered his help, so to speak, in return for everything he’s asked of me in the past.”
But why hadn’t Hermes given the Notebook directly to Bell?
The answer was simple. He didn’t want to raise suspicion. By putting Ouranos in the middle, he’d softened the doubts of Hestia and Fels. Ouranos had served as his cover. They had trusted the book without reservations because it came from the strictly impartial old deity.
“Wait long enough and even Loki Familia will find you here, although they would never expect you to walk into a dead end of your own accord.”
“…!”
“But please don’t worry. There’s still a way out. If you can get that far, you’ll most likely make it to the Dungeon.”
Having cornered Fels and the Xenos, Hermes stood in front of them dangling despair and hope before their eyes.
The meaning of the situation was clear.
Their lives were in his hands.
The Xenos looked even more shocked than Fels as the god’s smile pinned them in place. Fels’s gloved fingers rustled as they rubbed together. Alongside the anger, an overwhelming impatience welled up inside the mage.
This Sage who had lived for eight hundred long years was forced to realize what was happening.
The god was toying with them.
“—Fels, something weird is going on! I dropped the Notebook in a puddle, but nothing happened…It’s a fake! Ouranos—no, Hermes—he did something…!”
Hestia’s shouts echoed through the oculus and into the fear-laden air of the dead end. Hermes looked at the blue crystal, and Fels, obeying his unspoken command, crushed it. Hestia’s voice was silenced.
“What is your objective, God Hermes…?” Fels asked in a voice saturated with resentment.
“I want to make a deal—or rather, a request,” Hermes responded, narrowing his eyes.
The Xenos could not refuse.
As his follower stood behind him, Hermes looked over the monsters before him and slowly curled back his lips.
“Die for me, maverick monsters.”
Bell and Haruhime stood on a hilltop in the northern section of Daedalus Street. After saying good-bye to Wiene and the other Xenos, they had left the back garden of the orphanage and headed here.
“The town feels quieter now, doesn’t it…?” Bell said.
“Yes, you’re right. By now the Xenos must be back in the Dungeon…” Haruhime replied.
The waves of chaos seemed to be receding from the sprawling slums beneath the railing where they stoo
d side by side. The black mist that had filled the western sector was entirely gone, and they could tell that the excitement was dying down.
As they looked out at the tangled streets of the Labyrinth District, Bell and Haruhime felt a sense of accomplishment but also a certain loneliness.
“…The final Xenos who’s still here…we can’t save him, can we?”
“Master Bell…”
“He’s here of his own free will, and it may be none of my business…but…”
Bell was thinking of Wiene and the others. He wanted the final Xenos to survive if at all possible, but he hesitated to express that thought directly.
Haruhime was giggling at the younger boy’s evasiveness when the goddess’s voice suddenly rang out from the oculus on his gauntlet.
“Bell, Haruhime! Can you hear me?!”
“Goddess? What’s the matter?”
“We need to talk! I want to meet up with you two. I’ll head toward you, so just follow my directions!”
“Uh…um, okay. I understand.”
The desperation in the goddess’s voice bewildered Bell. As he and Haruhime looked at each other, they both realized something was very wrong.
Forgoing any explanation, Hestia immediately began giving them directions. Eventually, they found themselves in a plaza on the west side of the Labyrinth District.
Hestia tottered toward them under a backpack stuffed with the magic map and other items. Without even pausing to thank them for their hard work, she plunged into an explanation of what had happened.
“Daedalus’s Notebook is a fake! And I can’t get in touch with Fels and the others!”
“A f-fake…? And you can’t contact the Xenos…?”
“Wh-what does this mean, Goddess?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, but…I have a bad feeling about it…!”
The goddess twisted her ponytails anxiously as she responded to Bell’s and Haruhime’s panicked questions. From her expression, they could tell how serious the situation was.
“Bell, I’m sorry to ask you this, but can you go into the underground passage and see what’s happening? I know Loki Familia is still around and it’s dangerous, but I want you to check out the situation!”
“Y-yes, okay!”
Without further explanation from Hestia, Bell grabbed his Reverse Veil and was about to run off when she stopped him.
“Wait a minute, Bell!”
“What?”
“Just to be safe, let’s update your Status…We don’t know what could happen.”
Hestia rustled around in her belongings, pulled out her Ichor needle, and drew Bell into the shadows where no one could see them.
“Um, but…everyone just did it together…”
“You fought the Sword Princess, so it’s gonna really—Uh, anyway, it’s fine; just sit still.”
Hestia didn’t want to say any more about that particular skill, so she simply ordered Bell to obey.
“Yes, Goddess?!” he said, and began removing his gear.
“Haruhime, tell Lilly, Welf, and Mikoto to come here.”
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
Hestia had prioritized meeting up with Bell so that she could strengthen his Status. Now she hurriedly finished up the procedure as she gave orders to Haruhime.
“What the…?! Just how badly did that little Wallen-something-or-other beat you up?”
“Uh, is anything wrong?”
Bell sweated nervously as Hestia gaped at his back. He wanted to know what injuries he’d suffered, but they had no time to waste. He put his gear back on and gulped down several dual potions that Hestia gave him to get back in top form. He was just about to head for the underground passage ahead of Welf and the others when—
“UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—!!”
The hideous battle cry of a monster thundered across the night sky.
“…Huh?”
At first, Bell didn’t understand what had happened.
Hestia and Haruhime were stupefied, too. They looked up in the direction that the cry had come from.
A grotesque form was flapping its way across the moon behind a veil of clouds.
“Where is it? Where the hell is that sound coming from?!”
Mord Latro turned red and spit on the ground.
A Guild employee had flagged down him and his companions, and they were now in the midst of very reluctantly carrying out their assigned task. At the sound of the monster’s roar—surely the fiercest of the entire day—the rogue upper-class adventurer looked around with a terrifying scowl.
The two ghost-white humans standing next to him pointed at the sky.
“Mord…”
“It’s up there…”
“Huh?”
Several forms were visible in the direction they indicated. All of them had wings. As they soar across the sky, their silhouettes grew steadily larger.
They were heading straight for Mord and his companions.
He stared at them intently. The moment the indistinct silhouettes came into focus and he realized that one of them was a gargoyle, he opened his mouth wide and screamed.
“Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”
“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”
As the monsters crashed to the ground with a battle cry, Mord and his companions jumped backward as fast as they could.
The monsters landed one after the next, sending up a cloud of dust. Their stone claws ripped through the cobblestones with a terrific roar.
Everyone watching fell completely silent.
Mord and his companions were in the northwestern sector, on the outskirts of Daedalus Street, near the large crowds of evacuees.
“Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekk!”
As time once again began to move forward, angry yells consumed the district.
People shrieked and screamed as the heinous winged monsters invaded from the sky. The terror that the helpless townsfolk had been suppressing exploded all at once, and a tidal wave of demi-humans tried to flee the scene.
“A-adventurers!! Beat them back!” a Guild employee shrieked.
“Down with the monsters!” they shouted in return.
The adventurers in the crowd started running, weapons in hand.
Four monsters—a gargoyle, a crimson eagle, an iguaz, and a deadly hornet wearing armor—had landed in the large oval plaza. The adventurers split into a rearguard that hung back to protect the townsfolk and a vanguard motivated by a mixture of courage and greed for the bounties on the monsters’ heads.
The first line of troops consisted of animal people who moved with their race’s characteristic agility.
But the gargoyle’s stone eyes knew no reason as he mowed them down across the troops.
“Yaaaaaah!”
“Ooof!”
A single swipe of his sharp claws sent the animal-person adventurers tumbling across the cobblestones. Humans and dwarves met the same fate. The rearguard fired a volley of arrows, but the solid stone wall of the gargoyle’s wings deflected all of them. Forgetting that they were smack in the middle of town, sorcerers began preparing their magic, but chants turned to screams as the other monsters attacked them.
The sight of adventurers being kicked about spurred the crowd to panic. Adults were paralyzed with fright, Guild staff cowered, and children hugged one another. As people ran barefoot toward East Main Street, the roads became clogged and the evacuation ground to a halt.
“Captain Shakti!”
“…!”
Ganesha Familia’s captain was guarding the townsfolk at the site, but she was flustered for a different reason than they were.
Idiots! Now, here…?!
Shakti, who knew about the Xenos, couldn’t believe her eyes. She was unable to hide her agitation over the strange behavior of these supposedly intelligent creatures. They looked exactly like ordinar
y monsters on an indiscriminate rampage.
She gritted her teeth and shouted an order to her faction members, who were looking to her for direction.
“The safety of the townsfolk comes first! Obey the divine will of Ganesha and continue assisting with evacuation and protection!!”
“Understood!”
That was her only command.
Meanwhile, Ouka was desperately shouting a different order.
“Chigusa! Work with Asuka to get those kids out of here!!”
“Uh, okay!”
Ouka and several other members of Takemikazuchi Familia were among the crowd of totally overwhelmed adventurers. Ouka was trying to beat back the attacks of the winged monsters with the side of his battle-ax, and he clearly had his hands full. Following his instructions, Chigusa shielded the children she’d brought back to the plaza and tried to lead them toward safety.
“Uh-uh…”
“Lai, we have to get out of here fast!”
“…!”
Lai, Fina, Ruu, and the other children were not responding to Chigusa’s and Maria’s calls. They had frozen at the sight of the hideous monsters.
Screams led to more screams, and the plaza succumbed to the downward spiral of terror and chaos.
“What are they doing?!”
Bell had climbed to a rooftop, and he shouted in disbelief as he surveyed the chaotic scene.
“Th-the Xenos are rioting in the plaza…”
“…?!”
Haruhime pressed her hand to her mouth, and Hestia gaped in astonishment. They could not make sense of the nightmarish scene before their eyes. The creatures flailing violently about like common monsters were unmistakably Gros and several other Xenos.
“W-wait a second, Bell!” Hestia shouted.
The boy ignored her and, tossing aside his veil, leaped toward the crowd. He headed straight for the plaza as if the screams of the townsfolk were pulling him forward.
“Lady Hestia!”
An instant later, Welf, Mikoto, and Lilly arrived on the rooftop. They had heard about the chaos, but when they saw it for themselves, they were just as shocked as Bell.
“Hey, this must be a joke…What’s going on?” Welf yelled.
