by Fujino Omori
Barca did not move. He was no longer able to react in the blink of an eye to the strategy unfolding before him. The blood dripping from his neck created a pool on the floor, plinking against the stone tiles as if a clock ticking down to the end.
“…—!”
From one of the entrances connecting to the rest of Knossos, Loki Familia adventurers appeared: the squad led by Finn, including Tiona and Tione, along with Amid and the other healers from Dian Cecht Familia . Their main fighting force.
It was a group of ten—less than when they’d entered Knossos, because they had dispersed their forces to gain full control of the ninth floor. However, with Tiona and the rest, their collective strength was more than sufficient. There were far too many of them for Barca to take on his own.
Everything that had happened in their absence must have been shared via the oculi. There was no visible surprise on their faces as Finn faced off with Barca, who was unable to even move.
“This is the end, Barca Perdix—no, the remnant of the Evils. We shall be taking our revenge…for the murdered members of our familia in the Dungeon,” Asfi said as she readied her shortsword.
Barca lowered the hand that pressed against the cut on his throat. With his arms dangling at his sides, a sense of resignation filled his eyes, which were hidden behind his white hair.
“…This is where I meet my end, huh?”
As he let the blood flow out, he moved his hand to his belt, drawing his hidden shortsword, his cursed weapon.
Amid’s eyes narrowed when she saw the pitch-black blade with a tip that was far more sinister than any of the ones held by the regular soldiers of the Remnants. The other adventurers were on guard and readied themselves.
In the face of them, Barca raised his cursed weapon.
“?!”
And he stabbed that cursed blade into his own body .
“Wh—?!”
“I-into himself?!”
“Wh—…? Suicide?!”
He did not stop there. He unsheathed another cursed shortsword and gored himself again. Over and over and over.
Alongside Tione, Tiona, and Asfi, everyone was shocked at the sight. Even Finn and the healer Amid were unable to peel their eyes away in disbelief.
He punctured his stomach, shoulder, legs, arms. He was avoiding his vitals, but it was clear this would be lethal. After sustaining these curses, he coughed up tarry blood.
“As you said…it’s our loss. The Evils will be crushed here,” Barca announced in an empty voice, plastered in blood, as his death approached.
Loki Familia and Hermes Familia were taken aback by his ominous figure as the man struggled to breathe. The eye with an inscribed D opened wide.
“But—Knossos shall not die.”
In the next instant, he took something out of the bag hanging from his belt: a green jewel.
“Wh—…? The fetus of a crystal orb?!” Asfi shouted in surprise.
The chienthrope Lulune, the prum Merrill, and the war tiger Falgar were taken aback. It was a seed of the corrupted spirit—the one seen by their fallen comrades in the twenty-fourth-floor pantry, the one that parasitically fed on monsters and turned into its powerful female form before evolving into a demi-spirit.
Barca took out a crystal orb that was far bigger than the one Asfi remembered, pulsing with a thick, veiny thing that was entwined on its surface. The fetus inside it opened its bloodshot eyes, staring down the adventurers.
“The six seeds have already been released. This is an extra . Ironically, it’s the same crystal orb that Hermes Familia offered their blood to on the twenty-fourth floor,” Barca choked out, hacking up blood.
He looked intently at Hermes Familia , speaking as if it was all fated to be. As they reacted to the “twenty-fourth floor” in rage, he roared back—with even greater fury .
“Our glorious dream shall not be crushed! Our obsession shall not come to an end! In order to complete the chaos as dreamed by our ancestor, I will bring as many of you with me as I can!”
That was the final cry of the human known as Barca—the man who had never achieved self-awareness, who had always been unclear on the line between self and other. He established a definite selfhood for the first time, raising a wail, full-throated and clear.
A newborn’s first cry.
It established a direct connection between him and his lineage’s undying curse.
—It can’t be. Asfi realized what he was about to do but was too late.
Barca raised the crystal orb and pressed it into his own chest.
“Gu—geeeh—gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
“—Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
The man’s howl and the fetus’s cry overlapped—in a fusion, not with a monster but with a human.
The fetus of a crystal orb could parasitize more than just monsters. With the possibility that she’d mulled over happening before her very eyes, Asfi’s train of thought derailed as she was locked in place.
Veiny tubes of leaves expanded from its fusion site on his chest. The fetus’s tentacles ran across his whole body, mercilessly eating away at his flesh, overrunning it, rearranging its composition.
The man’s right arm swelled hideously out of shape. His left arm snapped out like a whip, stretching and losing all human form. His legs rotted away as he assumed the shape of a slug. The veiny structures turned pitch-black, as if absorbing all the curses that he had inflicted on himself, causing the fetus to cry out. But the blackened veins kept pulsating, carrying the darkness to the crystal orb on his chest, staining it black as well.
The room filled with the disgusting squelches of flesh blending and cracks of bones breaking as the shape of Barca’s body was rearranged with terrifying speed. It was the birth of a powerful being, formed from a body that rivaled an upper-class adventurer—from a body of one who wielded the Enigma ability.
The members of Loki Familia and Hermes Familia turned pale. The Amazonian twins moaned in disgust, the eyes of the prum hero narrowed, and the jack-of-all-trades pursed her lips.
And faced with a blasphemy of life itself, the holy woman gripped her staff, causing the blood to drain out of her hands.
“Ogoo, ah, ah, ah, ah…ga, ah, ah, ah, ah……aaaaaaaaaaa…!”
As the corrosion reached his mind, his face transformed into that of a monster. As his eyes streamed tears of blood and his right one rolled back, the left one with a D tenaciously maintained its form.
His crimson eyes focused, glaring at the enemies standing in front of him. Just before Barca Perdix’s sense of self melted away entirely, he entrusted his final resolve to the fetus.
“You will die…here…adventurerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs!” he managed to bellow.
No sooner had that escaped from its throat than its body swelled. It had transformed into a giant figure beyond human recognition.
With that, the descendant of Daedalus, the man keeping a monster in his heart, stood against the adventurers, having been reduced to a true monster.
“Ready yourselves!” rang out the order in a speed faster than lightning.
With Finn’s call, the familia members shook themselves out of their natural instincts to retreat. They could feel Braver’s courage in his voice, managing to overcome their terror and point their weapons at the repulsive monster.
“Goooooooooooooooooooooooo! ” roared the monster that no longer had the ability to speak, sending shivers through the adventurers.
The being that had once been Barca Perdix had already completed its transformation. Its right arm was enlarged, its left arm an elongated tentacle, and its legs had morphed into a sluglike tail. Its head looked like a collection of insect eggs. While every other part of it had morphed, inducing a visceral disgust, its left eye, inscribed with the letter D , remained unchanged and blazed without the light of intelligence. Its cloudy white body had pitch-black veins pulsing all over it, creating a gnarly contrast. It was over five meders tall, on the same scale as a large monster.
That was the result of offering his own body to the crystal orb fetus. If it was to be given a name, it would have to be simple: the Barca Monster. He had chased after that desperate dream too long, going to the point of discarding all human form. It was the manifestation of Daedalus’s obsession.
“Ew! Disgusting! Groooooss! I don’t even want to touch it with Urga!”
“Don’t be stupid! What are you going to do—punch it with your fist?!”
“I don’t want to do that, either!”
Tiona readied her Urga and Tione held out her twin Zolas, not losing sight of their goal even as they shouted back and forth. They were paying the utmost caution when faced with an unknown enemy unlike any they’d fought before.
Just when it seemed that the Barca Monster was finally standing still, it suddenly started moving without any notice.
“Incoming!” Asfi warned, just as it unleashed an attack with its left arm.
The white tentacle covered with black veins swung down from above, crashing into the center of the room, causing the two familias to rush to either side. Lulune had been exchanging reports using the oculi throughout all of it and lost her cool as she scrambled. The vanguards rushed in as the room started to quake.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! ” erupted a baritone howl as the Barca Monster swung its enlarged right arm at them.
The limb was shaped like a gourd, but the force behind it was brutal. It sent a spiderweb of cracks to break through the ground, shattering the stone flooring and causing even those who boasted high dexterity to stumble. It used that opportunity to start flailing its left tentacle at random, pushing them back away from it.
“Guh…?!”
“Falgar! Thane! Leave the vanguard to Loki Familia ! We’ll focus on supporting them with Merrill!”
As the war tiger and elf were repelled, Asfi took out three Burst Oils and threw them. Three crimson explosions flared. The damage was minor, but it created an opening. With the help of the other familia, Tione and Tiona closed in through the smoke of the explosion, hounding it like wild animals.
“Its movements are sluggish! Tiona, knock it back !”
“Got it!”
Taking notice that the fused legs of the enemy weren’t agile, Tiona took the lead. As she closed in, she swung Urga up, attempting to slice into its right arm.
“—Gh?!”
An audible thud echoed through the room. The full force of her charge had been stopped. The herculean strength pressing back against her caused Tiona’s eyes to snap open in surprise, but she was all smiles again.
“Gareth iiiiiiis…even stronger…than thiiiiiis…!”
With a sharp pivot of her waist, she knocked it away, serving it as ordered. Tione immediately cut in as the Barca Monster stumbled back, wobbling off-balance as its giant right arm went whizzing past its head.
“Rot in hell!”
The sisters’ teamwork would secure them an instantaneous win.
“!!”
But feeling an ache in his thumb, Finn was the first to react. “Tione and Tiona, get away!”
““?!””
They doubted their ears when they heard his order, but they obeyed him immediately as a rule. And a split second after they beat a hasty retreat, the black veins stretched around the monster’s body bulged with an audible creak.
“ ”
All the adventurers in the room, those who had crossed through a multitude of situations with their lives on the line, felt a shiver go down their spines. In the next instant, its veins burst, unleashing an immense shower of blood.
“Whaaaaaat?!”
“Gah?!”
Tiona and Tione were the closest to it and swung their weapons, evading it as first-tier adventurers, but the others in the vanguard fell prey to the attack.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh?!” shrieked those in the perimeter who’d been pelted by the black rain.
Their skin turned a revolting jet the instant they made contact with the droplets, and as blood spurted out of their eyes, noses, and mouths, they writhed in agony. Regardless of whether they were members of Loki Familia or Hermes Familia , they collapsed to the ground and rolled around in pain. Moans of broken spirits permeated the room.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye, leaving everyone rigid with shock.
“Poison?! No…it can’t be…A curse?!”
Asfi’s eyes opened wide in disbelief at this indescribable scene. Even those with Status abilities that resisted afflictions suffered the same symptoms. It was indiscriminate. The Loki Familia members were taken aback, then started using the anti-curse medicine on those who were afflicted.
“Gaaaaaaaargh…?!”
“I-it isn’t working?! The anti-curse medicine won’t break them free?!”
They kept coughing up blood, cries piercing through the ears of everyone in the room. Tiona, Tione, and Finn were motionless. Amid, standing by at the back, caught her breath.
It was an extremely powerful curse. The blood splattered the floor, giving off a black smoke. Filling the room with its toxic miasma, the Barca Monster started spraying its black blood again.
The attack gave rise to a chain of screams from the vanguard.
Its unnatural convulsions continued as the adventurers dragged the comrades at death’s door away from the black rain. But the spray from the enemy was not something they could easily avoid while holding those who were immobile. Its ceaseless pelts caused many more people to collapse. The perimeter around the monster crumbled in an instant.
“Dia Frater!” Amid activated her magic with a high-speed chant.
A pure white light poured down on those who had collapsed, granting them protection. The bloody adventurers coughed as their convulsions died down. While their wounds healed, they looked as though they’d suddenly woken up from a bad dream.
“A-Amid’s magic can heal it!”
“But that means…!”
In contrast to the relief in Tiona’s voice, Tione sounded uneasy.
Its curse could be healed only by the city’s greatest healer. In other words, it was effectively a one-hit kill. If Amid had not been there, they would not have been able to maintain their battle lines. Losing her would guarantee defeat.
“Protect Amid!” Finn issued an immediate order.
The frontline tanks responded with all their strength, creating a series of walls to cover the healer from Dian Cecht Familia . What was to come was hell on earth.
“Uh…Waaaaaaaaah?!”
The scattershot of the curse sowed suffering in all directions. Regardless of vanguard or rear guard, its range could reach as far as the walls in any direction. Those who were slow to evade were inflicted with an otherworldly level of pain. The mages trying to cast spells faced a particularly tragic end. They could not move immediately because they were chanting, leading to them becoming drenched in the revolting curse.
“Gaaaaaaaaaah?!”
“Merrill!” screamed the war tiger, covering Hermes Familia ’s prum mage in the midst of preparing a barrage with a large shield.
“The recovery isn’t fast enough…! Captain Finn, my healing power can’t keep up !”
For the first time, Amid looked anxious as she held her staff and cast her magic.
If anyone could have seen the battle from the outside, they would not have believed their eyes. A monster and holy woman—the boundary between light and dark, cursing and healing—were ruthlessly butting heads with a miasmic damnation and a storm of white radiance. Their two domains clashed for supremacy, splitting the battlefield in two.
Those healed by Amid were soon being eaten away at by the curse again. The party members were in a state of confusion at the world of half destruction that ruled over the battlefield as an unending loop of regeneration and devastation continued. If even one thing went wrong, the adventurers’ formation would collapse entirely in the blink of an eye.
“Barca Perdix…! Did he know this would happen when he stabbed himself?!” Asfi groaned as she
protected her skin with her white mantle.
There was a reason why he had stabbed himself with the cursed weapons with such tenacity: to have the crystal orb fetus parasitize a body that had stored up curses, giving rise to a monster with an ability that it should have had no way of developing.
Namely, a monster that could weaponize curses.
Asfi’s face tightened at that horrifying concept.
In the midst of the adventurers scrambling to escape, Lulune was balancing the notebook and a handful of oculi as she yelled out, “A-Asfi?! At this rate, shouldn’t we get some other—?”
“—Absolutely not!” Finn snapped, cutting off her desperate plea.
Lulune and Hermes Familia , plus Amid and the healers and the rest of Loki Familia , were all shocked by his bark as he spun his spear like a windmill to protect his comrades.
“If Amid is the only one who can heal this, it won’t matter if we bring more squads into the fight! All it will do is increase the casualties!”
“—…?!”
It would be meaningless to call for backup. As Lulune and several others despaired, Finn continued, “What was the goal of this operation?! Don’t forget! We cannot fail to capture their ringleaders! We can’t allow all our forces to be concentrated in one place!”
“!!”
“Gareth’s squad is closing in on Thanatos! Meaning we—alone—must defeat this enemy!”
His pronouncement was resonant and unwavering as he spoke strategically rather than tactically. His voice was enough to help them recover their morale, even though they were between a rock and a hard place.
Calculating that the enemy’s attack was letting up for a second, Finn held his golden Fortia Spear in one hand, raising aloft the weapon whose very name was the embodiment of courage.
“Let’s charge!”
It wasn’t a call for them to advance on their own, but he’d added that they would all rush forward. Meaning Finn himself would be joining the front lines. It was a bombastic exhortation as he set aside his role as commander and stood at the very front, showing them the way to clear a path.
