Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 11

by Fujino Omori

  “Who? Who is it?!”

  Shakti’s shout rang out over the cries and confusion that raced through the familia in the blink of an eye.

  “—Is it…?”

  Hermes stood up, as if drawn in by the pillar. With just a couple of bodyguards by his side, the god watching over Knossos from the rooftop in the Labyrinth District looked on with eyes wide in surprise.

  The giant pillar of light looked as though it had come from inside Knossos, not aboveground.

  Its brilliancy was visible throughout the city, observable everywhere.

  White and beautiful and grimly magnificent, the pillar of light stole the eyes of people and gods alike.

  “ Gh?!”

  A jerky rumble rocked the labyrinth. An enormous tremor, as if Knossos were at the epicenter of an earthquake. Everyone in the labyrinth staggered under this shock, regardless of location.

  “I can’t stand!” Asfi cried out as she struggled to stay on her feet.

  “What haaappened?!” Falgar shouted in confusion, trying to cover Merrill and the others.

  A collapse. An explosion. A flash of light. An overwhelming flow of information blotted out the adventurers’ senses as a tsunami of destruction crashed through Knossos.

  The stone slabs placed atop the adamantite structure crumbled, pitching down one after the other from the ceiling and the walls. The tremor shaking their vision up and down was incomparably more powerful than aboveground. An untold number of screams was drowned out by the intense swell of light.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”

  “Oooooooooooooh ?!”

  The vividly colored monsters on the eighth floor and above that happened to be standing where the pillar of light had passed through were erased. All the violas and vargs, with no exceptions. Even the orichalcum gates were smashed to bits.

  The torrent contained the most energy of anything that could be observed in the mortal realm. It was a heavenly phenomenon that transcended logic, a divine pillar that combusted everything that existed above it, destroying all in its wake.

  The wave of light connecting heaven and earth diffused through the entirety of Knossos.

  “Whoa, whoa, whooooa?!” Tiona shouted.

  “Captain?!” Tione roared.

  People collapsed over one another, and the prum leader thrust his spear into the stone floor and shuddered at the chaotic irregularity.

  My thumb—!

  An unrivaled ache throbbed in his finger.

  From a temporal standpoint, it didn’t last that long.

  But for those caught in the epicenter, the roaring rush of light felt endless before the radiance rising to the heavens finally faded and reached its end.

  “Is…it over…?”

  The thundering quieted down, and the quakes subsided.

  In a large passage, Lefiya had managed to endure the shock and lifted her head. The surrounding scene was ghastly. Other than the floor, all the stone slabs had been shaken loose, and the metallic luster of adamantite sparkled all around them. The magic-stone lamps on the walls had all shattered on the ground, giving off a blue phosphorescence at their feet. Lefiya looked around in awe at it all.

  “Lefiya, prepare yourself! The enemy is still here!”

  “—Gh?!”

  And though the battle had been paused, the enemy stood before her, appearing unfazed.

  Lefiya could feel Anakity’s shout pelting against her back. The masked figure leading the violas stood there as if a shadow, facing them. Ignoring the monsters whose dull roars of fear or excitement hung in the air, the creature showed no sign of withdrawing. In fact, they were calmly observing the adventurers of Loki and Dionysus Familias . As if everything was going exactly as planned.

  Behind her, Anakity drew her sword with a sharp scrape, and the others followed her lead, as Lefiya immediately readied herself, preparing to deal with the danger before her even though she still had not processed the situation.

  “Ah…Aaaah…” Next to her, a single girl trembled.

  “Miss Filvis…?”

  She was staring down at both her hands, eyes wide. Lefiya could not understand what it meant at first. But noticing the state of the members of Dionysus Familia in the surroundings, she ceased all movement.

  “No way…”

  “Th-this is…You’re kidding me…?”

  “It can’t be…?!”

  The color drained from the faces of Dionysus’s followers. Some were looking down at their hands, as Filvis was, some were holding themselves tight, and some were frozen, as if despairing over something that had been lost.

  As if something important had been taken from inside them—

  “A god’s disappeared.”

  When Lefiya froze, the masked figure let their purple robe billow.

  “What?”

  “Loki or Thanatos…or Dionysus.”

  Those words carried a certain meaning.

  Time stood still for Lefiya as she realized what had happened.

  But there was no way to turn back the clock.

  “Aaaah…aaaah…aaaaaagh…!” Filvis let a scream fall from her lips, hit with reality, crushed by despair.

  And after the scratchy scream managed to force its way out of her parched throat, her body started to convulse.

  Was it with rage or hatred—or sadness or anguish?

  Lefiya went rigid. Next to her, the elf shrouded in white took a step forward, taking the form of a ghost—or Banshee, her taboo name.

  It was as if she were possessed by something. As if she had lost her home and gotten beaten down.

  “Everything is according to Enyo’s will. Rejoice, sisters—the farce is at its end.”

  In the next instant, the girl let out a piercing shriek from the back of her throat.

  “—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!”

  In her startled state, Lefiya was unable to react quickly enough to stop her. Her outstretched hand caught air as Filvis lunged at her sworn enemy.

  “Miss Filvi…” She trailed off partway.

  Slow. Too slow.

  Filvis was so slow that it was almost laughable.

  Her patron god had returned to the heavens. Her Status had been sealed.

  The followers of a late god could not wield their enhanced abilities without first converting to a new deity. The Blessing engraved on her back had fallen silent in accordance with the contract.

  The fairy consumed by fervid emotion had become nothing more than a normal person.

  Seconds stretched out. Sounds grew distant. For some reason, Lefiya was confronted by all her memories with this girl, flashing through her head, with no logical connection between each scene.

  Their first encounter when the girl had rejected her, the callous way she had tortured and defiled herself, smile that had bloomed when Lefiya had taken her hand—

  Why?! Why?! Why am I remembering this now?!

  Lefiya refused to acknowledge what this phenomenon meant, howling in her head as she kicked the ground with all her might, stretching her arm toward Filvis’s back.

  But before she could reach her, the masked figure’s metal glove flashed, closing around the girl’s slender neck.

  The five metal fingers snaked around, interlocking in place.

  The svelte legs of the elf lifted from the ground, yanked up by a single hand.

  “Gragh—”

  As time ticked forward in slow motion, that was the only thing Lefiya could still hear clearly.

  She didn’t even realize there was incomprehensible garble pouring from her own mouth.

  Dangling the girl by the throat, the masked being looked almost bored as force entered that grip.

  And just like the culprit who had slain Dionysus’s other children, approaching from the front, gripping their necks, and snapping them—as if this enigmatic enemy had taken their lives that very same way—

  “Stoooooo—!”

  In that moment, for just an instant, Lefiya felt the gaze of her scarle
t eyes through her swaying black locks.

  Almost as if she was apologizing.

  Crack.

  Tragic. Simple.

  A snap rang out.

  Her head tilted forward unnaturally.

  Her limbs dangled as though they belonged to a doll whose strings had been cut. The murderer’s devilish hand squeezed tight, covering her slender neck from view.

  The members of Loki Familia trembled.

  The members of Dionysus Familia went rigid.

  And total emptiness filled the mind of Lefiya Viridis.

  Time stopped. Color drained from the world. Every last emotion bled out of her, and she lost control of herself.

  And then the creature tossed Filvis’s body aside, as if losing interest. She was flung through the air, her arms and legs trailing behind her like a rag doll.

  The creature had fed her to a viola.

  In one gulp—it swallowed her whole, like a red fruit.

  Under a light shower of blood, something fell between Lefiya and the creature.

  A single arm.

  Filvis’s slender arm in its white sleeve.

  And then her open wound suddenly sprayed a fountain of blood, as if remembering it was no longer attached to her body.

  A moment of silence.

  The final tick before the frozen seconds burst forward at last.

  In the next instant, Lefiya’s heart shattered.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!”

  An earsplitting wail, ripping apart her vocal cords. A lamentation, nothing like a requiem. A shriek, unleashing unformed magic power even though she hadn’t chanted anything.

  Anakity and the others were forced to cover their ears.

  The masked figure did not stir in the slightest. Instead, the arm that hit the ground sent ripples across the surface of pooling blood.

  And as if responding to her grief—or rather, in sync with the god’s return , the altar was activated.

  “Laaaaaaa … ” echoed twistedly beautiful singing voices.

  Despite their corrupted forms, the spirits exchanged a chorus that trembled as if they were receiving a divine edict. The six voices overlapped in harmony.

  The demi-spirits that had been placed around Knossos were connected along the perimeter of the giant pillar of light—causing their bodies to swell disgustingly.

  A hideous noise burbled as green flesh poured out of their colossal bodies as though wombs giving birth.

  In the next moment, the green flesh started to erode its surroundings at a dreadful speed.

  “H-hey! What’s that?!”

  “Is that…a monster?!”

  The first to spot it were the adventurers from Dionysus Familia who had taken up positions at the stairs leading down to the tenth floor.

  The grotesque mass of flesh seeped up out of the stairs as a tremor shook the labyrinth.

  “Hah—Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh?!”

  Those who drew their swords and those who turned to run faced the same end, as it was all futile.

  From the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the rushing stream of flesh filled every nook and cranny, swallowing up adventurers. Gulping them down and turning them into nourishment—absorbing and hunting. It was overrunning everything. To the fleeing adventurers, it was the jaw of a man-eating monster that cackled in delight as it consumed more people.

  “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”

  The surviving soldiers from the Evils’ Remnants were consumed without ever knowing what was happening.

  The same scene unfolded all around the labyrinth.

  Once one was swallowed by the wave of flesh, there was no hope of escape.

  A male animal person and the elf girl he’d been attempting to help, who’d tripped over her feet, were ground up together. A human boy sacrificing his comrades to try to get away was gobbled up by the wall of green flesh closing in from the front. The green mass pervaded the passages at an abnormal rate, a torrential flood in an enclosed space, drowning out the death throes of adventurers and cries of monsters as it turned the enormous labyrinth into a fleshy casket in the blink of an eye.

  Diverging paths, stairs, pits—there were no exceptions to where it filled.

  “Retreeeat! Retreeeeeeeeeeeeeat!”

  All the adventurers sprinted away as fast as they could, accompanied by pandemonium. Casting aside their weapons and shields, abandoning their positions, they lost their minds as the green flesh closed in from the sides, thrusting themselves into whatever paths remained to escape.

  “B-Beeeeeeete?!”

  “Get outside!” bellowed the werewolf from the middle of the squad of animal people.

  “Hurry! To the Dungeon!” shouted the holy woman who had abandoned her composure.

  “Fels?!”

  “Retreat! To the gate! Quickly!”

  “—Gh!”

  “Wh—?! Wait! Rei!”

  Even the heretical monsters beat a retreat at full speed.

  “Th-this is…the same stuff that we saw at the pantry on the twenty-fourth floor…?!”

  “Lulune! Ruuuuun!”

  Hermes Familia had seen something similar at the pantry on the twenty-fourth floor. It was the plant that the creature Olivas Act had spoken about.

  The main difference was that this was more violent, overwhelming, and merciless than that plant. It was squeezing the life out of every single living thing in its range.

  It started re-forming Knossos from the tenth floor, completely ravishing Daedalus’s thousand-year obsession.

  Barca Perdix had been fortunate. Even though he had not been able to see his delusion through to its completion, at the very least, he had managed to die without seeing it end in this manner.

  “Run! All of you, run!”

  The green mass was closing in on Aiz and the rest on the twelfth floor. Riveria had shouted as the surging wave of green erupted from the various passages connecting to the room. She shoved the backs of the screaming familia members away from it. As they rushed into the one remaining open passage, Aiz flashed a glance at the red-haired woman with a trembling gaze.

  “You knew it would end up like this from the start…didn’t you?!”

  Levis had only stared at them the entire time, never once attempting to cross blades with them in the end.

  She scoffed disinterestedly. The onrushing wave of flesh approached her from all sides, but the moment it got within a certain distance of her, its movement slowed. It avoided her, forming a gap of space, as if to avoid hurting its own kind.

  “It would be inconvenient for these clones to absorb you for food…They’re disposable, after all,” Levis coolly announced as Aiz gazed in wonder. “I was told it didn’t matter if you were dead or alive, but it wouldn’t be satisfactory to bring you back all withered up. Hurry up and scram, Aria.”

  “…?!”

  “I’ll finish this next time.”

  With that, Levis melted into the green flesh.

  “Aiz, what are you doing?!”

  “…Gh!”

  Riveria’s yell came at her from behind.

  Unleashing her wind to full, Aiz darted away from the oncoming wall of flesh.

  The adventurers scrambled—dashing away from a nightmare from which they would never again wake.

  They leaped out of the gates connecting to the ninth floor of the Dungeon that they had secured. With Finn’s instructions—or rather, with his intuition—they had pulled back their battle lines, allowing many adventurers to escape by the skin of their teeth.

  However, there was one exception: Dionysus Familia . With their Falna sealed, they had lost their superhuman abilities, rendering them unable to avoid the green flesh’s unrestrained approach. In a deadly predicament that even upper-class adventurers struggled to get through, it was logical that those who h
ad become normal people would not make it out.

  “Aaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh?!”

  “No! Lefiya?!”

  In the main passage, Anakity desperately stopped Lefiya, weeping hard, as she stretched out her hand toward the tragic arm on the floor.

  Wrapping her arm around the girl losing herself in an unending torrent of tears, Anakity darted her eyes around when she saw the green flesh finally approaching them.

  The first victims were, of course, Dionysus Familia . Their screams of despair rang out as they were taken in by the maelstrom of flesh.

  “Help! Loki Familiaaaaaaaaa ?!”

  The exit was right there. It wasn’t far to get into the Dungeon.

  The masked being wasn’t attacking, only observing them quietly, letting them go, as if savoring this moment.

  And yet, and yet, and yet, saving everyone was impossible.

  If they tried to carry the people from Dionysus Familia , who had effectively become dead weight, Anakity and all the familia members behind her would—

  “—Gh!” Faced with that decision, Anakity abandoned them.

  As she bit her lip, heartbroken, she deafened her ears to the voices begging to be saved, turning her back on their outstretched hands. Lifting Lefiya, she sprinted.

  It wasn’t just her, either.

  In many places, people were forced to abandon the comrades next to them, shedding untold tears, apologizing over and over.

  “Wait! Waiiiiiii—?!”

  “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?!”

  It was a chain reaction of cries.

  “It can’t b—…Everyone…Filvis…Lord Dionysuuuuuus?!”

  Their second-in-command, Aura, was devoured by the green flesh.

  The fates of all those who had borne the name Dionysus were no different.

  And that included even the dismembered arm that had been left behind.

  “The return of a god was the switch to activate the altar…It didn’t matter who blasted off.”

  In a room where round columns soared high, Thanatos had mumbled aloud as Loki and the others were knocked around by the tremors of Knossos, trying to process the current situation.

  “A switch?! A god’s return?! What are you talking about?!” Loki yelled.