LAST CHAPTER

TO ADVENTURE

It was noisy as they set up camp.

Voices called out orders here and there, and boots hastily clomped about to fulfill those orders. Iron stakes were thrust into the ground and laced with rope as tents popped up one after another.

They’d made it to the Dungeon’s fiftieth floor.

Loki Familia was busy setting up their camp at a monster-free safe point—a large-scale respite between the legs of their expedition.

As planned, the two parties had reconvened on the eighteenth floor before making their way to the depths—this fiftieth floor included—together.

The vast forest around them was dyed gray as though covered in the volcanic ash of a recent eruption. Clear, branching streams of green like veins on a leaf flowed among its mighty trees, and high above them, dozens of meders or so, an abundance of great stone pillars like stalactites shone down on them with a soft phosphorescence.

The spot Loki Familia had chosen for their base camp was atop a giant boulder looking down on the ashen forest.

From within that dim twilight, as magic-stone lanterns swayed atop tents and stacks of cargo, a commotion far different from the usual hustle and bustle of work was brewing.

“What is up with Bete and the others?”

“That’s what I wanna know…”

“They’re even more intense than normal…”

Raul, Aki, Leene, and the other second-tier members could be seen with their heads low, furtive whispers passing among them. In their sights were the Amazonian twins, the werewolf, and the others in the collection of first-tiers.

Tiona was pacing back and forth, Urga in her hand as she let out one frustrated moan after another. Tione, too, was silently spinning her Kukri knives around and around and around. And Bete was busy terrifying Hephaistos Familia’s High Smiths with his menacing expression.

All of them were on edge, no one saying a word as they simply paced about the perimeter, which, in turn, was making the lower-ranking members restless. Finn and the others, currently issuing orders just outside the headquarters, heaved weary sighs at the young first-tiers.

Even Lefiya, busy hauling cloth for the tents, threw a worried glance at them—and Aiz.

“…”

Aiz paid her no heed, gazing down at the scenery below from her spot atop the boulder a short way from camp.

As her eyes took in the vast forest, her mind was somewhere far different—lost in memories of the event she’d witnessed up on the ninth floor.

—The minotaur was defeated.

The boy Bell had fought the great bull on the ninth floor.

That accomplishment, performed by a lower-level adventurer, left everyone in silence. Nobody moved. Nobody could look away. And Aiz’s eyes were glued to his back.

The boy had spent his entire self and had fainted right then and there, yet remained standing.

As he stood, frozen like a statue, his bare back revealed his Status.

Through his tattered linens, through the blood and dirt, the Falna revealed something extraordinary. Aiz’s eyes sharpened like swords.

Every single one of his abilities had reached S.

It was a Status that defied every rule in the book.

The lingering vibrations of the shocking truth of hieroglyphs refused to dissipate. He had broken past all limits. As the reality struck home, the pounding of her heart and rush of her blood buzzed in her ears.

Not even realizing it, she took a step toward the boy.

She took one step, then another. The grass folded beneath her feet. Her breathing stopped. The Dungeon’s phosphorescent light washed over her face. The boy’s back grew larger and larger in her field of vision.

Finally, she came to a stop.

Next to the boy, the young prum girl had collapsed onto the ground, her strength depleted from loss of blood. But Aiz paid her no mind, her golden eyes focused on the spectacle in front of her.

At the ability and skill slots of his Status, hidden by blood, dirt, and bits of torn undergarments.

She wanted to know.

Her one true wish drove her to learn about the secret to his growth, and she raised her arm.

Ever so slowly, Aiz extended her hand toward the frozen boy’s back.

“—Don’t. To go any further would be improper.”

“!”

Riveria appeared next to her, grabbing her wrist.

Aiz’s shoulders gave a start. She’d been so absorbed in those hieroglyphics, she hadn’t even noticed the elf draw near.

She turned her head to meet Riveria’s jade-colored gaze.

Eyes moving back and forth like a lost child’s, she finally hung her head.

“…I’m sorry.”

“…”

Relaxing her arm, she let it drop, and Riveria released her wrist.

Tiona, Tione, Bete, and Finn simply watched in silence as the two women hid the boy’s secret from view.

Riveria immediately began tending to the boy, and Aiz did whatever she could to help. She covered his bare shoulders with a light tunic, averting her gaze from his cut and bruised features behind his bangs, as if in apology.

Soon, Aiz had him on her back, while Riveria carried the prum girl in her arms.

They went to Finn, asking if they couldn’t transport the two wounded to Babel’s infirmary.

Upon receiving his permission, they started for the surface, and Finn and the others headed back to the main route to meet up with the others.

Aiz said nothing as they made their way to the infirmary, concentrating on nothing but the weight of the boy on her back.

Once there, they laid the two of them on a pair of infirmary beds before leaving them in the charge of the clerk. Then they instructed the messenger sent from the manor to relay the information about the minotaur’s appearance in the upper levels and accompanying details to the Guild.

Just as the messenger was leaving with Riveria’s report, a certain young goddess came barreling into the infirmary.

“Where’s Bell?!”

Struggling to breathe and completely exhausted, Hestia looked back and forth between the two beds containing Bell and the prum girl.

She must have heard he’d been carried out of the Dungeon, because she was still dressed in her shop uniform. With giant, sloppy tears she clutched the boy’s peacefully sleeping face to her chest.

Aiz and Riveria were already at the door, ready to leave, but they turned to the newly arrived goddess and explained the situation.

“…Thank you. Both of you,” she said after listening quietly.

Then the two of them left her in peace.

It hadn’t taken them long to reconvene with Finn and the others down in the Dungeon, now accompanied by Gareth and the rest of the rearguard troops.

After reorganizing their expedition party on the eighteenth floor, they had departed for the depths.

Witnessing Bell’s adventure had lit a fire in the bellies of the first-tiers—Tiona, Tione, Bete—and they’d practically launched themselves on every monster they’d come across. As a result, they’d progressed much faster than anticipated, reaching the fiftieth floor in only around six days. This intensity and complete disregard for the lower-ranking members baffled Raul and the others—they knew nothing about what had happened on the ninth floor.

I…

The ceaseless soliloquy had dominated Aiz’s mind since that day.

The boy’s gallant figure. His driven heart, burning bright.

That back the same as her father’s from her memories.

His Status that defied limitations—and the possibilities it entailed.

Aiz’s heart swirled with emotion as the scenes raced through her head.

Once they were finished setting up camp, everyone in Loki Familia settled down for dinner.

Making a large circle around the campfire in the middle of the tents, they helped themselves to their meal as they’d done many times already throughout the expedition. The food was lavish—a show of appreciation and a morale boost to the members who’d made it all the way to the fiftieth floor that included such luxuries as mruit and other Dungeon-grown fruits and dried meats, as well as soup from a giant pot.

Even Hephaistos Familia’s High Smiths had joined the circle of boisterous eating and drinking.

“Why’s everyone been so weird for the past fifty floors?”

As a few guards patrolled the environs, Tsubaki sat herself down with a thud in front of Aiz and the others, jerky hanging from her mouth and bowl of soup in her hand.

It turned out that the High Smiths under her command were plenty strong enough and had no need for protection. As they deftly dodged the occasional surprise attack with a variety of martial arts, they always calmly followed Loki Familia’s commands, and not even Irregulars could throw them off guard. Tsubaki would sometimes even stray from the group upon catching sight of rare monsters in hopes of snagging their drop items and had no trouble bashing the poor creatures to smithereens with her tachi. Eventually she did stop, but only after ignoring so many warnings that Riveria finally gave her a wallop with her staff. At any rate, despite everything, the whole group managed to make it to the fiftieth floor without losing a single person, High Smiths included.

In response to the unabashed question from the half-dwarf in black, Tiona paused between greedy gulps of food to open her mouth.

“We saw this amazing adventurer on our way to the eighteenth floor. Haven’t been able to sit still since!”

“That so? Who was it?”

“Uhh…Crell Banell?”

“Ho-ho…I’ll make a note of that one.”

The weapons master jotted down the “amazing adventurer’s” name at Tiona’s half-baked response. All the while, Aiz simply sat next to them, silently replenishing her nutrients.

Still deep in thought, she ate nothing but one of the ration blocks Lulune had given her.

“Let’s begin our final meeting, then, shall we?” Finn said, and the group, now finished with their meal, started making their final checks.

Everyone in the circle cleaned up their utensils, ears keen.

“As was communicated previously, only a select few will be continuing on past the fifty-first floor. Everyone else, Hephaistos Familia included, will remain here to guard the camp.”

They wouldn’t be able to take anyone below a certain level of ability, not even supporters. The larger the group, the more time and energy it would take to dole out orders. They needed a party that would be light and agile, which was why only the familia elites would be making the trek to the untraversed depths.

The rest of the crew would stay back to protect the base camp, which would serve as a sort of depot for the departing party.

“The party will include Riveria, Gareth…”

They wouldn’t set out until tomorrow, once they had gotten plenty of rest.

After Finn finished listing the seven names of those who’d take part—the familia heads and elites, all of them first-tiers—the supporting members were called forth.

“As for support members, those joining include Raul, Narfi, Alicia, Cruz, and Lefiya…”

Lefiya had already known she’d be joining, but somehow, hearing her name made her throat buzz with an inaudible scream.

In a lineup of Level 4 supporters, the Level 3 elven magic user couldn’t help the butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

“For those remaining in the camp, should any of those new species of monster spawn nearby, fend them off from afar via magic swords and spells. Do not let them close to the camp. I’m leaving you in charge, Aki.”

“Yes, sir!”

They would need to be on the watch for the caterpillar monsters and their acidic venom, Finn continued.

The catgirl, who had been assigned to a position of leadership as opposed to support like Raul, rose to her feet in acknowledgment.

“Tsubaki will also be joining the party to tend to our weapons.”

“Leave it to me, boss!” Tsubaki replied with a smile and a nod. Rather than fearing the unknown, the Level 5 smith’s heart appeared to ache with excitement at the opportunity to explore the Dungeon’s unexplored depths.

Once all the directives had been issued, Tsubaki rose from her cross-legged position on the ground with a burst of energy.

“Well, then! Shall we go ahead and hand things out?” she proclaimed abruptly to Finn and the others, her eyes directed at the baggage of her fellow High Smiths. The group began pulling out cloth-wrapped weapons and handing them to their respective owners.

There were five of them. One for each of the first-tier adventurers, excluding Aiz and Riveria.

“As requested…your Durandals.”

Finn, Gareth, Bete, Tiona, and Tione each took hold of a bundle, pulling away the cloth to reveal the weapons underneath.

They were met with the glimmer of finely honed silver.

“I call it the Roland series. Each one of them comes exactly as ordered.”

None of the first-tier adventurers could tear their eyes away from their weapons.

Finn with his long spear, Gareth with his mighty ax, Bete with his twin blades, Tiona with her giant sword, and Tione with her halberd.

It was a set of gleaming, indestructible armaments that only a master smith like Tsubaki could ever hope to create. Five beautiful works of art, their blades imbued with hidden power and durability.

As the weapons’ owners tried out the feel of the Roland series in their hands, those around them let out sighs of wonder at the beautifully crafted Superiors.

“Thank you, Tsubaki. These are exactly according to specification.” Finn shouldered his long spear with a smile.

“Durandal, huh? A lot lighter than I expected!” Gareth exclaimed as he held his giant ax aloft with one hand.

“What, you didn’t request something like that other stupid thing you call a weapon?” Bete mused, sheathing his twin blades as his thoughts went to Tiona’s oversize (and nonstandard) weapon, Urga.

“Didn’t have much of a choice! Got told she wouldn’t be able to finish everyone’s stuff on time for the expedition if she had to make something like my Urga,” Tiona responded with a frown as she swung her large Durandal sword through the air.

“A-a halberd, Miss Tione? Really?” Raul eyed Tione’s two-meder-plus weapon as beads of sweat formed along his hairline.

“Well. You know. Figured something like this’d be better against the critters we’ll be up against past the fiftieth floor,” Tione replied, nonchalantly giving the mighty weapon a test slash. It cut through the air with a crisp slice. “It really is light,” she murmured, eyes narrowed.

“I used only the best materials! And took care to make each one as powerful as could be. There’s a few differences here and there depending on the shape, but I can guarantee at least second-tier attack power outta each one of ’em,” Tsubaki said with a satisfied nod, watching them hold her weapons.

While Durandal weapons could maintain their sharpness after countless violent battles, their attack power wasn’t as high, which was the reason she’d waited until right before their main mission—their advance to the fifty-first floor and beyond—to pass them out.

While their new weapons were still attracting lingering excitement from the other familia members, Finn finally opened his mouth.

“Very well. We should adjourn to make final preparations for tomorrow. We’ll set out during the guard change at four AM.”

At the prum’s orders, the group began to disperse.

Some of them left for their assigned tents, some went to check on the status of the guards, and still others made their way to the High Smiths for a bit of discourse.

Aiz, too, got to her feet, fully prepared to vacate the premises. Until.

“Sword Princess,” Tsubaki called out before walking over to her. Her finger was pointed at Aiz’s waist, the uncovered red eye honing in on what dangled there.

“Lemme take a look at that weapon of yers. It could use a bit of servicin’,” she said, referring to Desperate, Aiz’s weapon of choice for the past fifty floors. While the Dungeon’s monsters had done their fair share of work on it, it was the fight with Ottar that had really worn the blade down. A craftsman like Tsubaki could tell with a single glance that it needed repairs.

“…Thank you,” Aiz responded with an obedient nod.

With the meeting adjourned, the middle of the camp was empty.

Surrounded by tents, Tsubaki procured her portable furnace and whetstone before taking Desperate from Aiz. She first stripped from her armor—down to nothing but her usual hakama and chest wrap—then got to work, ample cleavage and tanned skin bare.

Aiz found a small pedestal and sat herself down in front of the weapons master.

“So that little girl’s all grown up and representin’ the city, huh?”

Around them, others were starting to do the same. Groups of adventurers came to the High Smith in hopes of sharpening their weapons, watching over her as she did her work.

Among this assemblage of weapon-fussy adventurers, Tsubaki started up a conversation.

“I shoulda called dibs on ya, yeah? What a waste,” she said with a laugh, busying herself with the blade. She explained that she’d never been able to get herself a skilled customer like Aiz, even outside her normal contracts. Despite the words of remorse, she didn’t seem particularly regretful.

The craftsman who’d made a name for herself long before Aiz had even joined Loki Familia seemed to be in a rather nostalgic mood.

“Ten years ago—wait, was it nine? Anyway, back then you were like a naked sword.”

“…”

“Fighting, fighting, fighting no matter how much damage your blade took. I remember thinking to myself, That girl’s gonna get herself killed! Such a little tyke, you were…”

Aiz listened in silence as Tsubaki talked.

“I’m gonna be frank with ya, Sword Princess. Back then, I would never have imagined wantin’ to craft a weapon for you,” Tsubaki confessed, looking down at the dulled sword in her hand. “Most adventurers of character’d be champin’ at the bit for a smith the moment they found somethin’ glittery to make it from, but not you, Aiz,” she continued as she honed Desperate’s blade. “Which is only natural! Haven’t you ever wondered why those folks who’ve never handled more than one sword don’t make themselves new ones?”

“I…”

“I’ll tell ya why! ’Cause those folks don’t think of themselves as weapon users. They themselves are the weapons under construction!” Tsubaki continued before Aiz could finish her hesitant thought. “You know, all the gods found it very ironic when they gave you that alias, ‘Sword Princess.’”

“…”

“They just wanted to see when you’d finally break,” Tsubaki said with a rather malicious grin, glancing up from the sword to the girl.

The girl who, until only a few years ago, had kept fighting and fighting with that worn-down, chipped sword.

All of a sudden, the words Loki had instilled in her rose from the back of Aiz’s mind.

“Those who push while runnin’ full-out will always trip.”

The memory of her goddess’s advice playing in her head, she glanced up at the woman in front of her now, her gaze meeting Tsubaki’s right eye.

“But you’ve changed now.” Tsubaki laughed softly.

“Huh…?”

“You’ve mellowed out. People who don’t know you might still say you look like a doll, but your face really is softer.” Tsubaki’s eye narrowed as though she were some sort of all-seeing oracle.

Aiz’s expression, on the other hand, clouded at the smith’s words.

Even Aiz had come to realize it—the fact that she, herself, was no longer a sword.

Hearing from someone else that she’d “changed” was more evidence than any that the girl she’d once been, who’d fought and fought and fought without looking back in order to achieve her heart’s desire, was somewhere in the past.

She couldn’t help the anxiety bubbling in her belly. Her attachment to her dream was waning, though she’d once have done anything to achieve it.

Her thoughts drifted back to her fight with Ottar, to the boy’s limit break, and, finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Do you think I’ve grown…weak?” she asked Tsubaki.

If she wasn’t a naked sword any longer, did that make her nothing but a beast with broken fangs?

“You’ve gotten stronger, haven’t ya? Just look at yer level! Up and up and up.” The half-dwarf guffawed.

“That’s not what I mean,” Aiz responded, her voice unusually hard.

That expressionless exterior referred to as a “doll” by so many was cracking.

I…

—I wonder if I’m paying for my past.

She thought back to her father, how she’d seen him along with the boy’s back, and how happy that made her. Is this enough? Is this truly all you can do? asked the impatient voice in her head.

As Aiz’s gaze turned downward, Tsubaki just smiled, eyes closed as she continued sharpening the girl’s sword.

“Well, you’re plenty sharp enough now, I’d say. I think it’s just that you found your scabbard.” Tsubaki continued with a smile as Aiz raised her head. “When you’re safe in your sheath, you don’t need to stay as sharp as a tack. Then, whenever you cross an enemy to kill, you can flash right out at ’em.”

A scabbard. A place to store a blade. A place of rest for a sword like Aiz.

Tsubaki’s eyes bored into her as she spoke.

“What it all comes down to is yer friends.”

Loud noises clashed against the Dungeon ambience.

Grunts accompanied the whp, whp of a large silver blade sweeping through the air. The copper-skinned girl’s long pareu fluttering, she practiced her dance of swords beneath the starlike phosphorescence of the Dungeon’s domed ceiling.

“Grrr…It’s just not right! This isn’t Urga!” Tiona grumbled, the large Durandal sword, Roland Blade, in her hand and her head tilted in displeasure.

She was training by herself atop the flat rock overlooking the underground woods along the camp’s eastern border, forcing her muscles to adjust to the new weapon she’d be using against the caterpillar monsters.

Each of her lightning-fast test slashes left afterimages hanging in the air.

Blood rushed to her tanned limbs with the effort, tinting them a faint pink, and the muscles of her abdomen tensed as sweat tickled her belly button. Finally, with a breathy sigh, she brought an arm up to wipe at her face.

“Didn’t I tell ya to get some rest, Missy?” a dwarf asked, exasperation evident on his face.

“Huh? Oh, Gareth.” Tiona glanced over, resting her sword on her shoulder. “But I can’t help it! I’m all wound up. Can’t sit still.”

“…’Cause of that lad you saw, hmm?”

“Yeah!” she responded with a happy nod.

Gareth hadn’t been with the vanguard group at the time, but he’d heard about what happened from Finn. He could only sigh at the girl in front of him overflowing with even more energy than usual.

Though Gareth had no idea who this mysterious adventurer could be who Finn and the others kept talking about, he had a couple of choice words he’d like to share with him. Mostly in regard to what he’d done to his companions.

“I mean, it was just so amazing! Like a hero straight out of legend!” Tiona continued boisterously, unaware of the dwarf’s inner grumblings. “He went up against that big thing even knowing he was no match! And, and guess what? He beat ’im!” Her cheeks red and her face alight, almost as if she’d been the one to perform the feat herself, she laughed skyward.

Beyond the mass of phosphorescent columns lining the domed ceiling.

Toward that floor high, high above them where the boy had proved victorious.

“No matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what enemies we come across, I’m gonna fight—just like that boy!…And I’m gonna protect them. Aiz. Lefiya. Everyone.”

Her eyes narrowed as she gazed up at the stardust radiance.

Defeat wasn’t an option in her mind. They would return to the surface. Every single one of them.

As Gareth looked at her, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Seems I’m just worryin’ for nothin’, huh?” he muttered with a wry smile, hand going to the ax on his back.

As he readied the mighty Durandal weapon in his grip, Tiona looked at him curiously.

“Shall we have a go, then, eh? Come!”

“Really?!”

“Only if you promise to cool off afterward and get some sleep.” Gareth chortled lightheartedly, to which Tiona responded with a wide grin.

“Okay!”

With a mighty swing of her sword, she was off, and the practice bout between Amazon and dwarf began in an instant.

It wouldn’t be a lullaby that rocked her to sleep that night but the violent clashing of weapon on weapon.

“I will not slow down Aiz and the others…I cannot slow them down…”

Mumble, mumble.

Lefiya was alone in her tent, talking to herself.

She’d been chosen. She would accompany them on their trek to the unknown. The unexplored depths where nothing but danger awaited, and where she’d have to provide protection for Aiz and the others.

Again and again she mumbled the words to herself, like a mantra, her eyes closed in meditation. She would need to be able to put everything she had on the line tomorrow. She needed to be perfect.

“…I cannot fail…I simply cannot fail…Not tomorrow…” Her concentration had already derailed, the curse-like words spilling from her mouth only building the pressure inside her.

Her every muscle had locked itself in place. Her heart felt liable to burst from her chest. Anxiety flooded her entire being.

“A little tense, are we?”

Lefiya let out an “Eep!” as two hands came down on her shoulders.

She sprang to her feet, whirling around in a flurry of surprise.

“Miss Tione! When…When did you get here?!”

“I’ve been here a little while now…” Tione responded, somewhat bewildered at Lefiya’s reaction.

“W-well, uh…Why are you…here?”

“Mmn, was feeling antsy. Thought I might go swing the iron a bit like that idiot sister of mine, but, well…the captain needs me,” she replied, fingers threading through her long black hair.

When Lefiya shot her a puzzled look, Tione peered back at the elf in an equally inquisitive manner.

“So…what were you doing, hmm?”

“Me? I, well…I was…meditating…to ensure I do not fail tomorrow…” she responded somewhat vaguely, head pointed toward the ground. Realizing her abilities might not be equal to those deep floors, her voice grew smaller and smaller, trailing off into nothingness in front of her first-tier companion.

Tione could only sigh at her worked-up subordinate. Drawing close, she took Lefiya’s cheeks in her hands.

“Huh…?”

“Lefiya.”

“Wh-what is it?”

Lefiya’s face reddened at the sudden touch. Tione’s fingers curled softly against her skin.

“Remember what Aiz said back on the fifty-first floor? That we’ll protect you, so you can just lie back and take things easy.”

Lefiya found herself gazing up in wonder at the other girl, the warmth from her hands filling up her cheeks.

Tione’s words were like a gentle whisper, an older sister’s admonition.

“And what is it that’ll save us?”

“…My magic,” Lefiya replied, bringing a smile to Tione’s lips.

Soon, Lefiya was reaching for her in an embrace considerably more restrained than Tione’s, to which Tione responded by running her hands through the girl’s hair with a gentle coo. Despite her embarrassment, the tension left Lefiya’s shoulders at the Amazon’s words, at the warmth radiating from her skin.

The contact between them was like that of close sisters. “Th-that tickles!” Lefiya giggled, leaning backward, before both of them went tumbling to the ground with flustered eeps.

Golden hair mixed with black atop the cloth of the tent floor, their gazes turned skyward, and mirth lit up their eyes.

“If you’re feeling nervous, I could sleep here with you?”

“I…That is…are you sure?”

“Of course! I can never get any sleep in that tent with Tiona talking the way she does and moving around in her sleep.”

Tione brought her forehead to Lefiya’s with a little clunk, returning the flush to Lefiya’s face and eliciting a smile.

Perhaps, for just a moment, she could forget about tomorrow and the journey into those uncharted depths.

And then she’d fulfill her role in hopes that she’d be able to play and laugh and joke just like this once more.

“If you want, we can sneak into the captain’s tent. I’d definitely be able to fight my best tomorrow after a night with him in my arms.”

“I am not so sure that’s a good idea…”

“Not good…This is not good!”

Frantic muttering came from within one of the camp’s large shelters.

It was a group tent for the familia’s male members, and one of them, Raul, was currently fretting even more than a certain elven magic user.

He was off in a corner by himself, legs trembling as he sat in a chair. The mix of men and women in the tent, currently taking a break with a card game, threw him occasional looks of concern. Raul was currently the only person in the tent who wasn’t part of the defense party that would stay behind to guard the campsite.

Indeed, he was the only one of them who’d accompany Finn and the others into the uncharted depths.

“Take it easy, Raul! Pull yourself together!”

“A-Aki…”

The catgirl had been inspecting her one-handed sword and round buckler when she’d taken notice of Raul’s pathetic visage, and the sight prompted her to approach her male companion. Her slender hand gripped his shoulder, drawing his glance upward.

Raul’s face was pale, almost ghostly. Aki’s brow furrowed.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve gone past the fifty-first floor, yeah? And you came back alive, didn’t you? Have a little faith in yourself!”

Raul could only hang his head at the black catgirl’s forceful words of encouragement.

“I’m a mess…” came his choked reply.

Anakity Autumn.

She was a Level 4, second-tier adventurer of Loki Familia, the same as Raul, and known by her friends as Aki on account of her name being hard to pronounce.

Her shoulder-length black hair matched the alluring black fur of her ears and tail. Her slender elegance was enough that the womanizing goddess Loki had scouted her personally. Highly capable, with the Status to prove it, she’d been tasked by Finn to lead the party that would remain in the camp.

Raul had always thought her a far superior adventurer to himself. Calm, cool, and collected, with guts like iron, and always available for a little advice and encouragement, even now—it was easy to see why she’d been put in charge while the first-tiers were away.

“But…but last time one of those new species almost killed me! What if…What if this time they finish the job? Aki…If I don’t come back, would you…send the money I’ve been saving in my room to my family back home…?”

“Not this again!”

Having been inducted into the familia at around the same ages, Raul and Aki made up what was known as the “second team,” which supported and sustained Aiz and the others in the main party. They’d been called upon their fair share of times to accompany the first-tiers on whatever venture they were planning.

Overhearing their conversation, another girl in the tent timidly raised her hand.

“Is…Is it really so dangerous down there? Past the fifty-first floor?”

Leene raised the question, her braided pigtails dangling behind her.

Her inquiry sparked another series of tremors all across Raul’s body.

“It doesn’t matter how many lives you have, it’s never enough,” he replied, voice trembling. “Descending into the fifty-second floor is like descending into hell itself. Everything you thought you knew about the Dungeon is rendered completely moot.”

There was gravitas in his voice that plunged the entire tent into silence.

Every one of the lower-ranking members had shut their mouths. Even Aki had zipped her lips, saying nothing.

It was so quiet, you could hear someone gulping toward the back.

“—Raul, you shouldn’t scare them like that. It’s your duty as their superior to encourage, not start a panic.”

“M-Miss Riveria! I’m…I’m sorry…”

The high elf pushed open the flap of the tent before entering.

Every elf in the tent snapped to attention as the vice-captain’s eyes scanned the room. Raul just hung his head apologetically.

“You have nothing to fear, I assure you. Even if one of those new species were to appear, you’ll be able to pick them off from afar before they can draw near. Or are you saying you won’t be able to handle that?” she asked provokingly, staff in her hand and jade-colored hair swaying. “All you need do is wait patiently for us to return. In fact, you should be excited, I would think. We’ll be bringing back souvenirs from the fifty-ninth floor, after all,” she added as a playful aside quite removed from her usual demeanor.

The tent was silent for another moment. Then its occupants burst into laughter.

“We’ll be looking forward to it, Miss Riveria!”

“Yeah! Bring me back a giant bone, please!”

“You nitwit! How are they gonna carry that back?”

The bustle returned to the tent in an instant. Riveria just smiled at the boisterous group.

It appeared the vice-captain had come specifically to ease the tensions of her fellow colleagues. She’d known the unease would be even greater than normal among the lower-ranking members, what with the Irregulars looming over their heads—the caterpillar monsters they’d encountered on the last expedition especially.

No doubt Finn and Gareth were also making their rounds, offering advice and calming words to the other members and younger first-tiers.

At least that was what Raul presumed, and considering how long he’d known the trio, he was probably correct.

Next to him, Aki nodded, probably thinking the same exact thing.

And then there’s me…Raul thought. He’d never be able to do something like that.

He had no backbone. No ambition. But even as that unshakable sense of inferiority permeated his very being, as he looked up at Riveria, something changed. He could be like that. He would be like that. Like the great leaders of their familia.

Curling his hand into a little fist, he mouthed a silent “I can do it.”

Then he rose to his feet with a sudden burst of energy. “We’re starting a card tournament to celebrate the eve of the raid! Everyone, place your bets—you might go home with the jackpot!”

Taking advantage of Riveria’s encouragement, he took control with a surefire strategy—no one could resist a bit of morale-boosting gambling.

And it worked. All around him came cries of affirmation as his fellow colleagues latched on to the idea.

“Don’t get carried away!”

“Nngah!”

The high elf’s staff came down sharply on the crown of the misguided youth’s head.

“I-I’m sorry!” The pathetic apology was followed by peals of laughter.

“…”

Bete was glaring at the scenery in silence.

He was standing along the western edge of the large, flat boulder that formed the foundation of their campsite. Standing alone, perpendicular to the cliff face, he gazed at the landscape below.

Reflected in those amber eyes was the mighty opening in the Dungeon’s western wall.

“If you’re here to gimme a pep talk, don’t even bother,” he suddenly spoke upon sensing the nearing presence behind him; he didn’t even turn around.

Finn’s small shoulders hunched slightly in the ceiling’s dim light.

The young werewolf could already sense the prum’s intentions, cutting him off before he could think of offering him a word of advice or encouragement.

“What are you looking at?”

“You can’t tell? Where we’re headin’ tomorrow—the nest of those filthy, disgusting monsters.”

Bete continued to stare at the passageway leading to the fifty-first floor, not even glancing his way, so Finn changed his line of questioning.

“Where have you been looking these past six days?”

—Bete’s fist clenched with an almost audible choke.

Six days ago. The day of the incident on the ninth floor.

It was the back of that boy, the boy who’d overcome adventure, that was seared into Bete’s amber eyes.

Both his fists were clenched. A fierce light bloomed in his gaze, directed at that opening.

“I wanna be on the front line tomorrow, Finn.”

What with his quick speed, Bete was usually placed on the midline as a sort of shortstop.

The front line was reserved for Aiz and Tiona. Bete’s request meant one of them would have to switch.

“I wanna be able to let loose. I wanna plow through them with everything I’ve got and not have to hold back and lead the way. And if any of those new species or that creature-lady shows up? Hah! I’ll kill ’em. I’ll kill ’em all!” He followed up with an almost bestial laugh.

Finn just nodded. “All right.”

They stood there, the two of them, gazing off into the eternal blackness of that looming passage.

That great tunnel to the unknown was quiet, like the calm before the storm.

“…”

Aiz glanced about at her companions and fellow familia members, before returning her gaze to Tsubaki in front of her.

“It’s not that you’ve gotten any weaker, per se. You’ve just got more to protect now. And you don’t like bein’ protected yerself,” Tsubaki continued with a smile, finally putting down her portable furnace and whetstone as she finished up her maintenance work.

Aiz took the proffered sword from the smith.

“…”

She looked down at her hands, then at the newly sharpened blade and its restored luster.

Then, silently, she slid the gleaming silver sword back into its scabbard.

There was a mighty roar.

The death cry of a monster in the darkness reverberated loud enough to split eardrums. Then came the sound of fresh meat being torn and ravaged, followed by cries of pain that were just as quickly cut off.

Cries, then silence. Cries, then silence.

Amid the unsettlingly frequent monsters’ screams, all that was left was the countless bluish-purple crystals shedding their soft light in the darkness.

A slender set of fingers reached out to pluck one such crystal from the clumps of ash, and a pair of jaws closed around it with a crunch.

“What are you doing?” demanded a sudden voice in the darkness.

It had an eerie, disquieting tone, as though multiple voices had been layered on top of one another—at times male, at other times female. The woman it was directed at turned with a flick of her bloodred hair.

“Exactly what it looks like I’m doing: eating,” Levis responded coldly, her green eyes turning toward the visitor.

They were occupying an unknown room in the Dungeon, with naught but a single passage offering them entrance. The phosphorescent light emanating from the walls was anemic at best, and everything was masked in boundless shadow.

A sea of ash coated the ground beneath their feet.

Monsters’ carcasses. A multitude of them. The remains of unlucky beasts, magic stones stolen from their bodies and their bones turned to mountains of ash, piled on top of one another. They’d been captured, then slaughtered, and their executioner was currently grasping one of the bluish-purple crystals before nonchalantly popping it into her mouth.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. The sound was dreadfully unappetizing as she ground the stone between her teeth.

The monsters’ cores had become her meal.

Her visitor—a mysterious hooded figure in a bluish-purple robe and strangely patterned mask—lashed out in irritation at the spectacle.

“The Sword Princess and her friends have already begun their descent. Why have you not done anything?”

“You know as well as anyone that this body consumes dreadful amounts of energy,” Levis replied languidly to her companion’s criticism.

“…”

She turned her back on the visitor, slender limbs and ample chest on display beneath tattered battle clothes that appeared to have been stolen off the corpse of a dead adventurer.

The masked figure gazed in silence at the collection of dragons impaled atop greatswords from their backs to their stomachs, littering the environs like test specimens. They writhed in agony, unable to escape the deeply buried blades.

Levis thrust a hand into the bodies of the monsters still in captivity, ignoring their screams and freeing them of their magic stones as blood gushed from their wounds.

“I was gravely injured thanks to Aria and her friends. I need to rest,” she finally added, implying that fighting against Aiz now would only lead to defeat. “I consumed a great deal of energy up on the twenty-fourth floor. These monsters will help me recover my strength.” As a human-monster hybrid and an enhanced species, she had the ability to consume other monsters’ magic stones.

The callous creature-woman returned to her meal of bluish-purple crystals.

“Do what you will. But if problems should arise…”

“They’re strong, those brats. They’ll make it to the fifty-ninth floor where that awaits, mark my words…even if we have to bring Aria’s corpse there ourselves.”

The masked figure’s tongue hissed in response. “You intend to defy Enyo?”

Levis spun around, her eyes narrowed. “Use me all you want, I don’t care. But in return, I shall do as I please.”

“You…!”

“Do let Enyo know, as well, would you? That I may need to act on my own from time to time.” She turned her back on the hooded figure and made her way toward the center of the room. “We’re done here. Leave me.”

Drip, drip. Droplets of blood landed at the hooded figure’s feet as though punctuating Levis’s words.

The heads of viola flowers writhed atop the ceiling, monsters ensnared in their countless tentacles.

Vines squeezed around one of the pitiful offerings, oozing blood, before dropping it at Levis’s feet with a dull thud. Then she began to feast, both on the monsters caught in her violas and the dragons impaled atop her weapons.

The masked figure turned away from the ghastly meal, bluish-purple robe trembling in disgust as the screams began anew.

From the midst of the camp and its many tents enshrouded in the dim phosphorescence of the Dungeon’s walls, the lid of an elven pocket watch, emblazoned with a leaf and tree, closed with a snap.

The eyes of a great many adventurers went to their weapons.

Swords, wands, double-bladed edges, scimitars, silver boots, staves, axes, spears.

As the Trickster flag smiled comically over the headquarters of the camp once more, a certain prum captain opened his mouth.

“We leave…now!” The quiet order issued from between his lips, and soon Loki Familia’s elite party, led by Finn, was off, leaving the camp.

Accompanied by the shouts of their comrades and High Smiths who would stay to guard the base, they made their way down the flat rock face and toward the great forest of ash.

Their party totaled thirteen—seven fighters, five supporters, and one smith.

Bete and Tiona would form the front line while Aiz, Tione, and Finn would cover the middle.

Behind them in the rear guard were Riveria and Gareth. Despite a few alterations to the lineup, it was still Loki Familia’s first-tiers’ golden formation. Two supporters had been added to every line, carrying extra weapons and items. Tsubaki, who’d be looking after everyone’s weapons, was positioned along the midline with Finn.

The whole lot of them, including supporters loaded down with giant backpacks that contained oversize weapons and shields, made their way to the giant opening in the Dungeon’s western wall.

“How come I have to be with Bete, huh?” Tiona grumbled, giant Durandal sword atop her shoulder and supporters nervously silent next to her.

“Ah, shut it, ya stupid Amazon,” Bete snapped with his own disgruntled frown, not even looking at her. With Frosvirt on his feet, new twin Durandal blades—Dual Roland—strapped to his waist, and over ten magic daggers filling both leg holsters, he was equipped from head to toe.

“Geez, you guys are sure a lively bunch at all hours, aren’t ya!” Tsubaki laughed at the two bickering attackers as she placed her hand on the hilt of her tachi.

“I’m afraid it’s not our best side…” Finn wryly responded from next to her.

“Lefiya, your breathing is awfully shallow. Loosen up a bit, all right?”

“R-right, Lady Riveria!” Lefiya responded, doing as the high elf next to her in the rear guard instructed.

On the outside, Riveria appeared every bit the calm, composed high elf she normally was, but the glint in her single opened, jade-colored eye seemed to remind Lefiya not to forget her “unshakable tree.”

“Sure, you don’t need to be actin’ like those clowns at the front, but you do still need to be ready as a primed cannon, so to speak. As a magic user, ye’ve gotta have nerves o’ steel. To be ready for action when the time comes. You, too, Raul!” Gareth added with a stroke of his beard from behind the two elves, his loud voice directed toward Raul’s slinking back on the midline.

“M-me?!”

They truly never changed, all of them. Among the usual banter of their fellow first-tiers, the long-haired Amazon and the golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman occupying the party’s midline turned back toward Lefiya. Tione shot her a wink without breaking step, and even Aiz flashed her a small smile.

Lefiya responded instinctively with her own smile and a happy nod, readjusting the cylindrical pack on her back and devoting herself to the party’s progress. The magic stone atop her staff emitted a soft pale-blue light.

“That’s enough idle chatter. Focus on preparing for the battle ahead,” Finn instructed as the group emerged from the ashen forest in front of the large opening.

The passageway connecting the fiftieth and fifty-first floors slanted sharply just inside the gaping hole in the western wall. Staring down what could almost be described as a cliff face, they could already make out the shapes of monsters in the darkness below.

Everyone quietly readied their weapons. Then Finn gave the order, long spear in his hand.

“—Bete. Tiona. You’re up.”

And they were off.

The ferocious duo of werewolf and Amazon went speeding down the slope.

The rest soon followed, and with that, their attack on the unexplored depths had begun.

In the blink of an eye, Bete’s silver boots and Tiona’s greatsword took care of the monsters that had spawned just outside the safety point.

“We’ll continue down the main route as planned! Don’t let any of those new species get close!”

The Dungeon’s layout took a turn for the unusual between the fifty-first and fifty-seventh floors—in the so-called deep levels. The flat planes that made up the ceilings and walls were drawn in a deep graphite color, stretching out between rooms in an intricate series of halls and passages.

It wasn’t the architecture itself that differed so greatly from the upper levels at the start of their journey, it was the sheer scale of it all. The floors down here were in a league all their own, spreading out in front of the racing party as they heeded Finn’s every command.

They couldn’t afford to fight unnecessary battles or waste items.

They sped through the Dungeon with nothing but the unknown, the fifty-ninth floor, in their sights.

“They’re coming from the passage up ahead.”

“Front line, keep moving! Aiz, Tione, they’re yours!”

“Roger that!”

Aiz’s honed swordswoman’s intuition had already anticipated the monsters spawning up ahead as Finn called out.

Just as Aiz had predicted, a fissure formed on both sides of the passage as the front line passed by, bursting open to reveal a swarm of black rhinos. Not wasting a moment, Tione’s twin Kukri knives and Aiz’s Desperate made quick work of the spawned rhinoceros monsters.

“There’s a few strays back here, gents!” Gareth shouted from the back of the group as he dismantled the incoming monsters with his ax.

The Dungeon roared around them. Monsters came at them from all sides in an effort to hinder their progress.

From the side, from intersections, from the ceiling, from the walls.

Encounter after encounter. The menace of the Dungeon’s depths. The rate at which the black rhinos and deformis spiders attacked them from every angle was incomparable to anything they’d had to face on the upper levels.

Again and again they came, but the party of adventurers refused to back down.

“Grrrraaaaaaaaaaaarrrgghhhh!!”

Bete flung himself at the monsters blocking his path, his flying kick melding seamlessly into a whirling mass of flashing boots that sent the surrounding monsters sailing. The feral wolf Vanargand mowed them down one after another, paying no heed to the carcasses piling around him.

With relentless speed, he went from one monster to the next, hitting and running, hitting and running. His kicks flailed wildly and carved the way forward for the rest of the party, leaving decimated monsters in his wake.

“M-Mister Bete is even worse than usual…” mumbled his fellow frontline supporter with a shudder as blood sprayed and corpses practically rained down from the sky.

Just as the gulp left his lips, a raging Amazon flew by, her own sword swinging wildly. “Stop acting like you own the place, Bete!!”

“Heh. He’s even more impressive in real life!—Oh! Lucky!” Tsubaki watched the scene unfolding along the front line as she deftly took care of an incoming black rhino with her tachi, then grabbed the black rhino horn it dropped. The smith tossed it into her backpack with a smile of delight.

There was a flash as she whipped her tachi from its scabbard with a speed and artistry that made the draw a technique all on its own.

It was so fast not even Raul, running alongside her, could see the movement of the blade.

“Miss Tsubaki, how are you so strong when you’re just a smith…?!” He groaned.

“Come now! A craftsman has to test her work, don’t she? Gotta see how many monsters that weapon of yours’ll cut through and make sure it’ll cut and cut and cut all the way to the innermost depths! Getting stronger just happened along the way.”

“That’s only mildly terrifying,” Raul replied in horror to the natural-born smith’s explanation.

Tsubaki, however, had nothing but drop items on her mind and darted in and out among her surrounding supporters at will, only aware enough to the point that she wouldn’t impede the group’s progress.

“Lefiya, don’t cast your spells at random—you’ll only draw the attention of those new species. Leave the fighting to Aiz and the others for now. Wait until the new species finally arrive, then unleash your magic!” Riveria advised Lefiya as the two of them ran side by side along the rear guard, surrounded by their fellow party members.

“U-understood!”

Keeping the aspiring magic user under her close supervision, Riveria turned her ever-watchful jade-colored eyes toward their surroundings. The two magic users would act as the party’s firepower, but for now they could only have faith in their companions and wait until the time was right.

“Narfi! My Urga!”

“Coming up!”

Tiona tossed her large Durandal sword behind her without even turning around. The Level 4 supporter girl accompanying her on the front line responded by passing her the double-bladed Urga.

Wielding the massive adamantine sword in her hand, she stared down the impenetrable wall of monsters in front of her and then charged.

She screamed past Bete, taking out a good twenty monsters in a single thrust.

“Leeeeeeeeeet’s do this!!”

Using her entire body, she used every drop of strength in her bones to perform a massive circular swipe.

She became a spinning top, bisecting every monster in the passage with her mighty double-edge blade.

Cries of agony filled the room as a whirlpool of blood rose up around the Amazon. From the newly cleared path, she could already make out the raucous noise of more monsters on the move.

“—Here they come! The new species!”

The wide hall quickly filled with yellow-green blobs.

Their skin was a ravishing swath of colors, their bodies like wide, flat arms, resembling stingrays. And their fleshy legs, multitudes of them lining their either side, sent them careening forward like battle tanks on the move. On top of all that, within those bodies was corrosive acid capable of melting anything and everything.

They’d finally encountered them. The caterpillar monsters Loki Familia had prepared for the most.

“Change formation! Tiona, pull back!” Finn shouted through the din. His orders were immediately carried out.

No sooner had the words left Finn’s mouth than Aiz was leaping forward, switching places seamlessly with the retreating Tiona.

“Awaken, Tempest!” she called out with a lunge, activating her Airiel and running shoulder to shoulder with Bete.

“Aiz, send some my way!”

“—Winds!”

At Bete’s request, she focused the power of her wind into his metal boots.

The werewolf, his Frosvirt now wrapped in Aiz’s current, grabbed the twin swords from his waist.

Armed with Durandal blades and protected by the wind, the two of them launched themselves at the massive swarm of caterpillars.

“Gwwwwwwwwuuuuuuoooooooooooooohhhhh!”

A thunderous scream shook the walls.

Corrosive acid shot from the caterpillars’ mouths, only to be deflected by the armor of wind as Aiz and Bete dashed forward. Durandal weapons sliced the monsters’ bodies into countless pieces.

They didn’t allow the acid to reach their companions in the back, either. Nothing the caterpillars tried worked—whether shooting everything they had straight at the incoming adventurers or exploding in bursts of sprinkling acid. Bete’s lightning-fast legs took out caterpillar after caterpillar as Aiz’s equally quick sword strikes split their large bodies in half. Their Durandal weapons held strong, showing no signs of breakage.

Loki Familia would not be brought down by this new species. Not after all the measures they’d taken. Not with their coordination and teamwork. They mowed through the caterpillar monsters with their tremendously effective armor of wind, delivering wave after wave of killing blows.

They brought the enemy’s attack to a screeching halt.

“Fading light, freezing land. Blow with the power of the third harsh winter—my name is Alf.”

“Everyone, evacuate!”

From behind the combatants, Riveria finished her Concurrent Casting in the blink of an eye.

At Finn’s cry, the front and midlines scattered, forming what could only be described as a living gun muzzle.

And forming the body of the gun was a jade-colored magic circle.

From the silvery white staff there—from the first-tier magic user’s weapon Magna Alf—surged a brilliant flash of snow.

“Wynn Fimbulvetr!!”

Three snowy tendrils shrieked through the passageway.

Every monster caught in the bluish-white blast froze instantly. Aiz and Bete watched the long, straight passageway in front of them transform into a glacial world of blue from their places of refuge within one of the side tunnels.

The frozen caterpillars and other monsters caught in the blast became a gallery of ice sculptures.

“Damn, that was intense! If only we could produce that kind of magic from a magic sword, yeah?” Tsubaki remarked as she gazed out over the ice-hardened Dungeon floor. She rubbed her arms with a shiver. “Wow, it’s cold.”

“The day that happens is the day I lose my job,” replied Riveria with a little smirk.

Once Aiz and Bete had rejoined the others, the whole party took off down the pass, shattering the petrified monster statues just in case as they ran.

No new monsters could spawn from the ice-and frost-covered walls, either, so the group made their way along the main route quickly, continuing down the stairs to the lower levels.

“There’ll be no replenishing from here on out,” Finn said as he turned back toward the rest of the party making their way down the wide, long staircase leading to the fifty-second floor, implying that if any of them had any items to use, they needed to do so now. As none of the adventurers had taken any damage, however, none of them moved.

They stood there quietly, offering him nothing but shared looks of tension.

Tsubaki, on the other hand, the only one not of Loki Familia, glanced dubiously at her anxious companions.

“Let’s go.”

With the short command from Finn, they continued down the stairs.

The Dungeon walls of the fifty-second floor boasted the same graphite color as the walls of the floor above, and the party sped past them at an even faster pace.

“Avoid combat wherever possible! Simply repelling the monsters is fine!” Finn never stopped giving instructions.

The relentless encounter rate from the floor above had yet to change, but they continued their dash all the same.

“Ooh, lookit that drop item!”

Tsubaki brought down a monster with her tachi in mid-run, her eyes sparkling at the tantalizing prize that fell from its carcass. Raul, however, would have none of it.

“No stopping!” he called out and grabbed her wrist as she attempted to break from formation.

“Nnguh!” the smith grunted as the item on the floor stayed right where it dropped. “But whyyyyy?! S’not like I’ve ever been down this deep before. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“We’re going to be sniped,” Raul replied, cold sweat working its way down the sides of his face.

“Sniped?” Tsubaki threw a wandering eye at the changing Dungeon landscape around them as they continued their dash.

Glowing phosphorescence. Countless tunnels. Plenty of monsters attempting to get close to them. But at least with her quick glance she couldn’t make out any suspicious characters waiting to pick them off.

Just as she was about to question what Raul could possibly mean, she noticed it.

It wasn’t just Raul. All the supporters looked scared to death as they struggled to keep up with the first-tiers.

Their faces were pale, and almost tangible panic was building just beneath their skin.

“Keep up the pace!” Gareth shouted from the very back, urging them on.

No one said a word. They didn’t even breathe. The only sounds were their thundering footsteps constantly plowing forward and the roars of monsters they warded off one after another. A very strange, very disconcerting unease had settled over the party.

It was then, just as Tsubaki was finally picking up on the sense of malaise, that she heard it.

An ominous scream reverberating up through the ground.

“…A dragon’s howl?”

The ear-splitting roar of the king of monsters.

Though Tsubaki could sense the mighty beast’s presence, it was true that there were no signs of it in their immediate vicinity.

“Finn,” Riveria called from the back of the group, to which Finn responded with a nod.

“Right—we’ve been spotted.” The prum’s eyes narrowed to an infinitesimal degree. “Run! RUN!!”

The shout propelled them forward, further accelerating their pace.

As the front line heedlessly warded off monster after monster, Tsubaki’s eyes scanned the vicinity. “Where’s it comin’ from…?” The ceaseless cries of the mighty beast were throwing everything into chaos. Riveria’s heavy breathing behind her sounded practically in her ear.

But the source of the roars wasn’t around them. No, it was coming—

“—From below?” Aiz’s mutter from the front of the midline completed her thought. “It’s coming.” The Sword Princess’s eyes turned as sharp as swords.

“Bete! Change course!” Finn urgently commanded, and the werewolf at the front led Tiona and the rest of the following party away from the main route and into one of the tunnels.

It was then that it happened.

“”

The ground exploded.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”

Flames erupted from the earth, followed by a crimson shock wave.

The backs of the front line, the faces of the midline, and the weapons of the rear guard—everything was bathed in a fiery red hue.

Tsubaki’s right eye widened as far as it would go, her face and eye patch wreathed in a fierce conflagration.

It was as though an enormous land mine had just detonated beneath their feet. Flames enveloped the Dungeon floor, swallowing the monsters in front of them and extinguishing them without a trace.

The pyre wound all the way to the ceiling and then burst through the rock of the fifty-first floor above their heads.

With the massive explosion right in front of them and the waves of heat pushing them back, the supporters had to stifle the screams of terror building in their throats.

“Make a detour! To the western route!!” Finn’s commands pierced through the din, directing the party farther away from the main route and down another wide passageway—only to be met with another sudden explosion that shook the Dungeon’s walls.

“Riveria, hurry! We need a protection spell! If we draw more of those caterpillars, so be it!”

Forgoing a verbal affirmation, Riveria began casting her spell. “Tree spirits, hear my prayer. Gown of the forest!”

“How many of them are there?”

“Six? No, seven at least!” Tione shouted back as her eyes focused on the ground below.

The vibrations practically knocked them off their feet as the relentless waves of heat came at them from all sides.

Again and again the explosions continued, blazing-hot winds and flaming fragments driving them back as Finn gave command after command in rapid succession.

Finally, the dragon’s roars became all too distinct. The next series of explosions shook not only their current floor but no doubt every surrounding floor, as well.

The floor opened up; large sheets of rock crashed down to the floors below. A massive crimson fireball lit up the adventurers’ vision, bursting through the ground to perforate the ceiling overhead.

“So that’s what y’all were talkin’ about…!!” Tsubaki exclaimed, a smile overtaking her face as though she finally understood.

Lefiya, on the other hand, currently running for her life a short distance away, was so pale it seemed as though the color had been drained from her face.

This…This is…

She’d heard about it. She’d even prepared herself for it.

But seeing it right in front of her, right here, right now, she couldn’t stop shaking.

Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest as the rest of the rearguard party scrambled about her in mass confusion. Even first-tier adventurers could do nothing but run for their lives from the roar of this abominable beast. As the raging tide of blazing heat continued and continued, she felt a scream of panic build up inside her throat—until her blue eyes saw it.

“Raul, get outta the way!” Gareth called out from the back, already having noticed it as well.

“Huh?!” Raul cried out, but it was too late. As the bundle of thick thread shot out from one of the tunnels in the side wall, he didn’t have time to react.

Lefiya quickly extended a hand as the spectacle unfolded in front of her.

“Mister Raul!”

Right behind him, she shoved him out of the way, backpack and all.

He stumbled forward and the incoming thread wrapped around Lefiya’s arm instead.

It had her. With an almost audible yank, she was snatched away from the group.

“Lefiya!” Tione screamed as the massive thread of the deformis spider dragged her toward its hole.

Lefiya’s face distorted in panic as the giant spider monster reeled her in, its jaws open wide—only to burst into flames.

One of the many explosions causing the floor to swell had erupted beneath it, disintegrating the spider in the blast.

“”

Lefiya was left suspended in the air.

Then she plunged toward the gaping hole in the floor below as waves of smoldering heat assaulted her body. After a moment of weightlessness, she fell headfirst, as if the thread from the blazing spider was pulling her into the mouth of that endless abyss.

It was then that she saw it.

Deep. It was so deep. Too deep.

The hole created by that giant fireball had punched through floor after floor after floor, creating one long vertical descent into oblivion.

And as she fell, she saw the bottom—from which red dragons gazed up at her, smoke hissing from between their countless fangs.

Her azure eyes trembled. Her body began to shake. A very real, guttural terror overtook her entire sense of being.

It was true. All of it.

The volley of explosions assaulting the party again and again and again—were coming from far below them.

They were being targeted by enemies some hundreds of meders beneath their feet.

They…really…

The ominous roars had been a harbinger of the dragon artillery to come.

The enormous flares, capable of blasting through countless layers of thick rock, had been picking off the expedition.

Monsters even more powerful than those inhabiting their current depth were attacking them.

Monsters that ignored the ability levels required to reach each floor.

That ignored the very floors themselves.

Urrghh…

As the dragons eyed her from far, far below, the voice of her companion floated through her mind.

—“Everything you thought you knew about the Dungeon is rendered completely moot.”

—“Descending into the fifty-second floor is like descending into hell itself.”

Lefiya finally understood what Riveria and Raul had been talking about.

Compared to the Irregulars of the upper levels, this one was in a class all its own. An unbelievable phenomenon.

It was of a different scope.

A different scale.

An entirely different level of peril.

Was this even the Dungeon anymore?

It wasn’t possible!

This was beyond ridiculous—it was insane!

They’d truly descended into hell!!

“Guuuuwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!”

Lefiya’s face morphed into an expression of pure despair as the mighty dragon roars shook the air around her.

In the midst of the nightmarish scene, her body hurtled down toward those monstrous dragons.

The impossibly long, impossibly wide tunnel created by the countless flares trembled.

—In the past, it had been Zeus Familia that had ruled over Orario from on high.

It was they who held the record for farthest floor reached. It was they who’d nicknamed this area of the Dungeon “The Dragon’s Urn.”

It was so named because of the valgang dragons inhabiting the fifty-eighth floor, the bottom of the “urn.”

They were monstrous red dragons boasting heights of some ten meders when standing on their hind legs.

She fell toward those dragons now. They awaited her as she sliced through the air, her bangs whipping back and forth as she plunged in a free fall down that massive hole.

Other monsters caught in the blast fell, too, tumbling around her as she froze in fear.

I’ve seen this before. In a dream…

A terrifying dream where she’d fallen from a great height.

Only now, in reality, there was something even more horrifying awaiting her than the hard surface of the ground.

She couldn’t move. Not even a single finger. She was overcome with a primeval fear as one of the valgang dragons below opened its massive jaws.

Its maw was like a gun barrel, only it wasn’t bullets loaded in its magazine but a blazing red ball of flame that dyed the dragon’s mouth a brilliant crimson as it aimed directly overhead.

It was going to destroy them all in one giant flare—every one of the falling monsters, and Lefiya with them.

“ “LEFIYA!!” ”

“?!”

In that instant.

She heard her name breaking into the impossibly long stretch of frozen seconds.

Looking up, she saw them practically throw themselves over the side of the hole.

“You’re not slowin’ us down, you big, ignorant blockhead!”

Tiona, Tione, Bete.

They launched themselves off the side of the tunnel walls, speeding down toward her.

The sight of the first-tiers racing to save her made her eyes fill up with tears, warping her vision.

“Veil Breath!!” The translucent, ringing name of Riveria’s spell came from the fifty-second floor less than a second later.

The four of them, Lefiya and her three rescuers, were quickly surrounded in warm green gowns of light—Riveria’s protection spell that would safeguard them against all incoming attacks.

Armed with the blessings of Orario’s strongest magic user, Tiona, Tione, and Bete raced down the wall to make it to Lefiya’s side.

“Aaaaahhh!!”

In that same instant, however, the mighty red dragon released its flame.

The massive fireball, boasting a diameter of over five meders, launched from the dragon’s mouth and bathed Lefiya and the others in a fierce vermilion hue. Tiona leaped from the wall, giant silver sword at the ready.

“Ya bastaaaaaaard!!”

In a swipe that utilized her entire body, she gripped her Durandal sword in both hands and aimed it at the incoming fireball.

The explosion that followed was astronomical.

The two forces had offset each other.

In a crushing blast, the inferno came to a screeching halt in front of Lefiya’s eyes.

“Miss Tiona—?!” Lefiya began to scream, but before she could even finish, the Amazon appeared from within the brilliant flash.

“Yeeoouch!” was her only reaction; otherwise she was completely unharmed and wreathed in embers. Lefiya’s eyes widened in surprise. The logic-shattering berserker was as lively as ever even as steam rose from her skin.

With Riveria’s Veil Breath canceling the majority of the fireball’s damage, she’d pulled through without a single scratch. Her Durandal weapon, too, was unharmed. The silver glint of its surface was no less brilliant than before.

“Tione! Bete! There’s a wyvern coming!” Tiona cried out, sensing movement from not only the valgang dragons down on the fifty-eighth floor but on the fifty-sixth floor, too.

Dragons began flying out of the tunnels lining the hole like ants crawling out of their nest, mighty wings flapping.

These ill wyverns, bluish-purple dragons boasting heights of some three meders with their tails included, only further emphasized the Dragon Urn’s name. As the great red dragons on the fifty-eighth floor bombarded the adventurers with fireballs, these flying creatures took advantage of the resulting tunnels to launch their own direct attack.

Dragons poured out from the fifty-sixth and fifty-seventh floors one after another, and Tiona and Bete took off running.

“Tione, protect that numbskull!”

With a speed that seemed to ignore the fact that he was falling, Bete kicked off from one of the large stone sheets and shot upward like an arrow to bring his twin blades down on one of the wyverns.

He drove both swords into the monster’s eye sockets and then kicked off its body as it let out a scream of agony. He sprang from one dragon to the next with jarring blows that sent them spinning into their nearby brethren.

He used the momentum from his jump to land on the wall, dodging the wyverns’ rapid salvo of fireballs before leaping back for another attack.

Tiona, equally undaunted, launched her own attack and sliced an incoming wyvern’s wings from its body.

The falling wyvern bodies acted as a shield that protected them from the second wave of explosive fireballs from the valgang dragons down below.

“W-wuaah…?!”

Tremendous explosions. Plummeting monsters. The painfully loud cries of howling dragons.

The out-of-this-world spectacle taking place before her made Lefiya shake so hard she couldn’t stop.

“Breathe, girl!” screamed Tione, currently falling alongside her.

“!”

“Don’t be afraid! We’ll protect you!”

The halberd-wielding Amazon and her intense look caused a flutter in Lefiya’s chest.

She thought back to the night before and the time they’d shared in her tent. Now surrounded by Riveria’s green armor of protection and touched by the indomitable mettle of the first-tiers refusing to allow this predicament to play out, she let out a grunt to banish the fear from her body.

Nodding in Tione’s direction, she tightened her grip on her staff.

She stared down into that infernal abyss at the monstrous red dragons lying in wait, her hair whipping wildly in the wind.

“Aiz, don’t!!”

—Meanwhile, back on the fifty-second floor…

Finn commanded Aiz to hold back as she prepared to follow Tione and the others into the great hole.

“If Raul and the others fall in there, we’ll never be able to protect them all! You’ll stay with us as we continue along the main route to the fifty-eighth floor!”

“…!”

Her lips curved into a tormented frown, her feet still poised on the edge of the hole, but she did as she was told.

Even if Lefiya and the others did land somewhere midway down the tunnel, there was no guarantee they’d be able to find them in the complex labyrinth of the Dungeon. If they could all just make it to the fifty-eighth floor, which comprised nothing but a single grand hall, they’d be able to reconvene without troubling themselves. Tiona and the others knew this, too. Or, at least, they should.

In addition, the tremendous strength Aiz could employ against the caterpillar monsters would greatly hasten the party’s descent. It was essential that she remain with the main party if they had hopes of making it to the fifty-eighth floor quickly.

“Gareth! I’m leaving Bete and the others to you!”

“Roger that!”

Already armed with his standard battle-ax and grabbing his Durandal ax from one of the supporters, Gareth took off after Lefiya and the others in Aiz’s stead.

Finn quickly set forth reorganizing the rest of the party, not even waiting for Gareth to leap into the hole before ushering them onward.

“It…It’s all my fault…” Raul fretted, unable to shake off his own failure and the horrifying turn of events it had caused.

“No need to fret. Save that for when you receive your punishment later. For now, though, focus, yes?”

The thought of Riveria’s punishment sucked the color right out of Raul’s face, leaving him no room for self-reproach. Even the remaining three supporters could do nothing but send him looks of pity.

With Aiz now in the front line, the party sped its way through the passageways of the fifty-second floor.

“Ha-ha-ha! Looks like I’m stuck in a crazy place again!” Tsubaki hacked away at an incoming monster with her tachi, ever-present smile plastered on her face.

One party had become two.

The two parties followed two separate routes, racing their ways to the fifty-eighth floor.

Tiona continued her assault on the wyverns amid the barrage of valgang dragon fire from down below.

The walls, the floors, the very neck of the Dragon’s Urn itself grew increasingly more damaged with each of the mighty fireballs, and the actors in the airborne skirmish—both the adventurers and their twenty monster enemies—were dyed a deep red as the flurry of attacks continued.

“Gah! One of those beasties is fast! Nngh!”

“Shit, it’s not one of those enhanced species, is it?”

Jumping from wall to wall, Tiona and the others waged a splendid fight worthy of their Statuses, but even they had their limits. They couldn’t fly, after all.

The wyverns, boasting a pair of wings as forelimbs, were incredibly fast, but there was one that was especially swift, even among its own kind, and it was currently waging war on Tiona and Bete. As they attempted to block the claws and teeth that accompanied each of its lunges, the wyvern would simply switch to its tail, knocking their weapons out of the way and barraging them with bullets of fire. As the protective Veil Breath surrounding them visibly withered, they found themselves hacking away at the air more often than not as cuts started to litter their bodies.

An enhanced species was a creature that had attacked a great many other monsters and stolen their magic stones, and this king of the skies—fiercer, more powerful than its fellow wyvern brethren—had its flightless adventurer prey in its bloodshot eyes, intent on ripping them to pieces.

The rest of the bluish-purple-scaled dragons doubled back for another counterattack.

“Tione! Toss me!” Lefiya called out, noticing the dragons congregating around Bete and Tiona below her.

“!”

Tione responded by grabbing her hand and flinging the newly fearless girl in the direction of the wall.

Generously bending her knees, Lefiya mimicked what she’d seen from the first-tiers and somehow managed a successful landing before running down along the wall’s surface.

“Unleashed pillar of light, limbs of the holy tree. You are the master archer,” she began, weaving her spell as she fought against the pummeling pressure of the wind. Her eyebrows bristled.

She couldn’t only be protected. She didn’t want that.

She had to save them. Her magic had to save them!

Calling upon the unshakable tree inside her, she chanted concurrently as her feet pounded against the wall.

“Loose your arrows, fairy archers. Pierce, arrow of accuracy.”

The wyverns noticed her chant and aimed their stones of flame in her direction. She kicked off from the wall, narrowly avoiding the rain of fire while doing everything possible to keep from releasing her net of magic.

She raced, voice ringing loud and sonorous as she thought back to her training with Aiz and Filvis.

Tiona and Tione were flabbergasted at the sight of the magic user moving and dodging, never breaking her chant. Even Bete was in shock, his lips curling upward in a laugh.

She could do it!

She could do it!

She wasn’t afraid!!

Her heart trembling, she pointed her staff, and a magic circle lit up with a glimmer.

“Arcs Ray!!”

The maximum-power arrow of light blasted out in a brilliant flash.

The enormous, needlelike flash of magic careened straight down toward the flock of dragons.

But she had only one target in sight.

The bloodshot eyes of the enhanced wyvern widened as the light arrow veered toward it.

Beating its massive wings, it attempted to escape the incoming bolt.

“—TUUUUUUUUURN!!” the magic user roared, causing the arrow’s trajectory to warp.

What was once a straight path became curved, the auto-follow properties of the projectile spell sending it chasing after the dumbfounded dragon.

It evolved into a sort of dogfight, a high-speed midair skirmish. The arrow of light nibbled and gnawed at the great wyvern king, taking out the wings of any other dragons that got caught in its path.

Finally, it connected.

“Guuuuuwwwwwwooooooooaaaaaagh!”

With a dazzling glare and an agonizing scream, the wyvern king turned to ash, its magic stone destroyed.

Ash rained down the neck of the Dragon’s Urn to the base below. Tiona gave Lefiya a fist pump of victory, and Bete threw her a momentary smile before the two of them returned to their attack on the remaining wyverns.

Her body instilled with a fiery passion, Lefiya moved immediately to her next chant herself.

“Don’t think we’re gonna let you outshine us!” Tione licked her lips with a smile at the young magic user. She ran along the wall as she once more let loose with her throwing knives. One of her blades impaled the eye of a wyvern, sending it careening to the ground with a scream of anguish as she flourished the halberd in her other hand.

She’d already been having a hard time smothering the fire in her belly at witnessing that boy’s adventure up on the ninth floor. This new predicament was only throwing kindling on the fire, and she liked it.

“Guuwoohh!!”

One of the wyverns blew flames in her direction as she propelled herself from the wall and tumbled through the air before zipping toward the beast like a speeding bullet. Halberd whirling wildly, she deflected every flaming hailstone in the incoming storm.

“This is pretty convenient!” she said with a smile. The Durandal weapon dispersed the approaching fireballs before she continued with a downward strike.

The stupefied wyvern’s skull exploded upon impact, spraying spinal fluid everywhere. Tione used its carcass as a stepping-stone to propel herself farther, using the long reach of her halberd to take out all the nearby enemies with a single strike.

“Though lacking a little on the power side of things,” she added as the blade of the halberd got stuck in the body of a wyvern halfway through its swing, eliciting a distressed moan from the unfortunate beast.

Using the pole arm to pull the wyvern toward her, she snatched a Kukri knife from her side with her other hand before driving it into the beast’s long neck, relieving it of its head.

“WUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!”

“I thought you were dealing with those fireballs, Tiona!” she yelled in exasperation as a valgang dragon on the fifty-eighth floor roared, sending up another flare.

“There’s only one of me, y’know?” Tiona shot back, her body singed as she went from one fireball to the next, offsetting each one.

Tione simply stuck out her tongue as she gave another swipe of her halberd.

Tione Hyrute—the Jormungand.

A first-tier adventurer who was feared by even the gods themselves and who got stronger the angrier she became.

Ignoring the look of disbelief from Lefiya, she charged the incoming fireball head-on.

“You’re really starting to get on my nerrrrrrrrrrrves!!” she screamed. The incensed Amazon smashed the red-hot ball of flame to pieces with her Durandal weapon.

“—I’m gonna kick yer heads in, ya big red bastards!” Bete continued his own attack against the wyverns as the explosion lit up the sky over his head. His eyes were focused on the very bottom of the long vertical tunnel.

He could make out four valgang dragons some two hundred meders below him on the fifty-eighth floor.

Returning his twin swords to his sides, he prepared for his arrival at the base of the Dragon’s Urn.

“Hey! Do somethin’ about those fireballs, would ya? Even just one of ’em!” he shouted at Tiona, who was currently falling alongside him.

“You ask as if it doesn’t hurt like hell when those things hit you!” she screamed back in annoyance, sword flying. Already having taken out a good number of the massive flares, her body and armor both were looking considerably charred. Her tanned skin was practically cooked in some places, smoke rising in tiny wisps from her countless burns.

“Aw, shut up an’ just do it!” Bete barked indifferently. “Here we go!”

“You’ll pay for thiiiiiiiiis!”

Two pairs of eyes met four as they set the dragons in their sights. Bete pulled one of his magic daggers from his leg holster.

The amber blade atop a golden hilt crackled with an electrical spark as he attached it to his right Frosvirt. The topaz embedded in his long boot absorbed the electrical shock, and the magic dagger crumbled in his hand.

Almost instantaneously, a sheath of lightning crackled to life around the silvery white boot.

“WUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!”

Four fireballs came at him at once.

The four valgang dragons, their necks craned straight upward, shot off simultaneous blasts of pure flame.

The gaps between them were infinitesimal. Kicking off one of the stone sheets, Bete dodged the first one, and as the second one threatened to swallow him whole, Tiona smashed it away with an upward swing of her sword.

“Aaaalley-oop!!”

The explosion was massive. Using the Amazon’s assistance, Bete landed back on the wall.

Then he bolted forward in a burst of speed.

He aimed for those tiny, tiny gaps, gauntlets singeing as he broke through the incoming wall of fire. The surge of electricity crackling from his Superiors seared the startled eyes of the valgang dragons.

But he didn’t stop.

Drawing a path of light behind him, he sped along the wall and came at the dragons like a supercharged bolt of lightning.

He covered the distance in an instant—the whole of that great, gaping hole that spanned the entire way to the fifty-eighth floor, the Dragon’s Urn.

With an enormous spurt of energy, he launched himself.

Setting his sights on one of the mighty red dragons directly below him, he practically morphed into a flash of lightning and drove his Frosvirt into the beast’s body.

“Die.”

It exploded.

The heel of his Frosvirt dug into the valgang dragon’s face as the resulting flash lit the tunnel on fire.

It was massive. The attack power of the magic dagger together with his Frosvirt combined to form an electric kick that instantly disintegrated the dragon’s head. Its body fell with a slow slump.

Like a crumbling tower, the dragon’s monstrous ten-meder frame sank toward the ground and caused the walls, the floor, and the ceiling to shake with a thunderous roar.

Bete landed just off to the side, his gaze turning upward as the other dragons howled in confusion.

“I’m back, you bastards…”

The fifty-eighth floor. The deep levels.

Similar to the forty-ninth floor—the Moitra wastelands—it was one big, wide-open space. No labyrinthine tunnel. No maze. Nothing to block their view. The graphite-colored walls and ceilings came together to form one massive rectangular room.

This fifty-eighth floor was the deepest floor Loki Familia had ever reached.

The last time they’d been down here, they’d been completely depleted of stamina and items (equipment included), and had had to abort their raid.

Faced now with the overwhelming sight of the valgang dragons looming high overhead, coupled with the other innumerable monsters littering the fifty-eighth floor, the lone werewolf simply let out a sadistic laugh.

“Aaaaaaand…second!” Tiona landed next to him on the ground of the fifty-eighth floor.

The eyes of every monster on the floor turned simultaneously toward the two adventurers—valgang dragons included.

In less than an instant, a new shadow appeared overhead.

“Fall like rain, burn the savages to ash.”

“Run!!”

From above their heads came the majestic call of a chant, followed by a sudden shout of warning.

Bete and Tiona looked up just in time to see Tione and Lefiya appear through the hole in the ceiling, the former fending off an attack from a wyvern while the latter pointed her staff toward the floor.

Bete and Tiona cleared the area immediately, ignoring incoming attacks from the surrounding monsters as the midair spell reached its culmination.

And then.

“Fusillade Fallarica!!”

A torrential deluge of fire arrows rained down on the fifty-eighth floor.

Agonized screams swelled amid the storm of magic. While the red scales of the valgang dragons seemed to simply absorb the legion of fire arrows, the other monsters weren’t so lucky. Pint-size, midsize, and even the giant monsters of the depths found themselves wreathed in flame under the powerful, Mind-heavy area attack that raised the bar when it came to skills.

Tens if not hundreds of monsters turned to ash around them, their carcasses joined by the wyverns falling from the sky with rustling wings. The whole of the fifty-eighth floor transformed into a bed of corpses.

“Lefiya! Tione!” Tiona ran over to the two girls, somehow having managed to escape the blast radius of Lefiya’s spell.

“W-we’re alive…” Lefiya muttered in blank amazement. Tione’s arms swept around her as she landed.

“That’s what you have to say after that magic you just used?” Tione responded with a smile.

Their happiness, however, was short-lived.

“Those damn dragons blocked it, though. We can’t let ’em attack Aiz and the others,” Bete informed them, his twin swords at the ready. He was prepared to take on anything, his sharp amber eyes scanning the perimeter.

Embers continued to dance in the black smoke rising from the charred wasteland of the fifty-eighth floor.

Lefiya’s spell had taken out a good portion of the monsters, and there was no chance of them reviving, but there were still plenty more enemies scattered about the great room. Wyverns began popping out of the many holes littering the ceiling, and even more important, the remaining valgang dragons were still standing strong—seven of them.

The awesome, floor-disregarding firepower of those dragons was still a threat. They needed to keep the beasts from hunting down the rest of their party, who were no doubt making their way through the Dungeon passageways above their heads at that very moment.

“Agreed. Like I would ever let someone attack the captain.”

“Lefiya, heal up if you need to,” said Tiona with a growl. The two Amazonian sisters stared long and hard at the valgang dragons, Durandal weapons—halberd and sword—resting on their shoulders.

“S-sure!” Lefiya responded. She grabbed the cylindrical backpack from off her shoulders and hastily rummaged through it. Her breaths growing shorter and shorter, she finally found it—the high-magic potion with the Dian Cecht Familia seal—and gulped it down.

“B-but…will we really be able to take out seven of them?” Lefiya asked hesitantly, eyeing the scene in front of them.

“If we can’t, we’re pretty much done for, so why talk about it?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Bete and Tiona replied similarly.

The ominous red dragons practically radiated enmity; the wyverns circled overhead, their great wings flapping; and the myriad other monsters still lurked about the floor—even a large group of Moitra formoires were coming at them.

As Lefiya looked out over them, she found herself more than a little overwhelmed. Bete and Tiona, too, despite their casual responses, knew there was no room for error.

The group of first-tiers stared out across that landscape of certain death, their faces taut.

“…How long do you think we’ll still have Riveria’s Veil Breath?” Tiona mused, her voice low.

“That old bag’s spells usually last about an hour…so maybe two or three more fights?” Bete replied.

The repeated, fierce attacks from the valgang dragons and wyverns had considerably chipped away at the gowns of light currently protecting the group and left them visibly dimmed. One more direct hit from one of those fireballs would obliterate it completely, no doubt, and fry Tiona and the others in the process.

“…Once we’ve taken care of those dragons, we should probably hide out in one of the tunnels on the fifty-seventh floor until the captain and the others get here, yes?” Tione proposed, eyes veering first to the northern staircase leading up to the fifty-seventh floor and then to the southern staircase leading down to the fifty-ninth floor.

Sticking around only to face the murderous wrath of the monsters on their every side wouldn’t be a wise decision.

Lefiya and the others nodded in agreement.

“WUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!”

One of the valgang dragons finally let out a roar, signaling the start of their second battle.

The monsters moved almost simultaneously, and Tiona, Tione, Bete, and Lefiya readied their weapons before taking off at a running dash.

Only then—

“Gwuuoooh?!”

A shadow appeared from overhead, flying down and instantly shattering the head of one of the valgang dragons.

“”

There was a thunderous boom as the beast’s giant frame came crashing to the ground.

The red dragon’s head went flying. All movement came to a halt. Not only the adventurers but also every monster in the room stopped in confusion.

Silence filled the room. Then the falling shadow, the dragon’s killer, rose from the carcass of the dead beast, slowly pulling his ax from the remains.

“You buckwheaters still alive, are ye?”

The old dwarf soldier peered out at them from beneath his helmet. Lefiya and the others simply stared at him in surprise, eyes wide.

“Ga…”

“…reth?” Tiona finished Lefiya’s hoarse murmur of wonderment for her.

Tione and Bete, too, were rooted to the spot in amazement as the two axes of the first-tier adventurer, Gareth Landrock, glinted in the dim light.

“W…wuuuuuuuaaAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!”

One of the other valgang dragons let out a roar of fury at the death of its kin.

Almost as if on cue, every monster in the hall began rushing toward the lone dwarf who’d appeared at the center of the dragon cluster.

“Gareth!”

“Gramps!!”

As Tione and Bete let out simultaneous screams, Gareth flourished his mantle—then vanished.

Kicking off the ground with enough force to crack its surface and uncanny speed for a dwarf, he was suddenly at the feet of a valgang dragon.

The first-tier adventurer was a Level 6, and it showed. Eyes flashing, he plunged his twin axes into the dragon’s foot.

“Gwwuh!”

In a burst of flesh and blood, the dragon sank to the ground, unable to so much as retaliate.

It was so quick and so sudden that Tiona and the others could only let out audible gulps.

The valgang dragons, boasting enormous wings for forelimbs just like the wyverns, had no way to fight back. They possessed no means of attacking at close range. They specialized in long-range magic salvos with nothing but their long fat tails to swing around when it came to close-quarter combat, which made the area in front of them the one place a hopeful attacker could be safe. In addition, jumping atop one of the dragon’s chests supplied protection from fireballs, as its fellow monsters wouldn’t want to risk friendly fire.

The dragons found themselves at a loss, and Gareth took advantage of those few moments to launch forward once again.

In one hand was his Grand Ax, its weight rivaling even that of Urga, and in his other, the Durandal-made Roland Ax—both of which he suddenly tossed aside.

His hands now free, he took hold of the tip of the fallen valgang dragon’s tail.

“Hnngh…Gnnngh…Huuuuwoooooaaaahh!!” he grunted, using every muscle in his body to haul the tail, dragon and all.

Fingers digging into the hard red scales, he lugged the giant frame of the valgang dragon step by step by step.

His face flushed a brilliant red, veins bulging out across his forehead. The incoming hailstones of fire from the wyverns overhead didn’t so much as faze him.

Then he let out a mighty cry of bravado:

“…HnnnnnnnnnnnggrrrraaaaaAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!”

As his upper half twisted beneath the weight, the dragon’s body rose from the ground.

—He couldn’t possibly be…?!

But he was. The awed premonitions of Lefiya and the others were right on the money.

Gareth began to spin. And with him, of course, spun the valgang dragon, the dwarf’s hands still clenched around its tail.

The monstrous ten-meder frame of the beast was whirling through the air at the hands of a lone dwarf.

“Gw-gwwwuuoooohhhhh!” the creature screamed in response.

The dwarf spun that great dragon like a giant hammer, his already awe-inspiring might further amplified by the unique strengthening skill characteristic of the dwarves.

“Oh, crap!” Tione cried out.

Which was quickly followed by a scream of “Everybody down!!” from Bete, and the four adventurers dropped to the ground.

?!

Three times. Four times. Five times. Six times, Gareth spun that dragon around.

And with each spin, his speed increased, along with his destructive potential, knocking back any monsters that tried to approach. The cyclone even repelled other valgang dragons that got too close.

Gareth Landrock. First-tier adventurer.

A veteran soldier of herculean strength who truly embodied the dwarven race. His power and endurance rivaled not only the strongest in Loki Familia but all of Orario itself, and despite being a natural-born attacker, he’d come to rule the very back of the rear guard as an impenetrable wall. His fists were like hammers, smashing every enemy in his path, and his burly frame was like the world’s sturdiest shield.

His ability to plow through enemies and absorb any attack was what had inspired the gods to give him his alias—Elgarm.

It was said that he could carry a damaged galleon to shore single-handedly—a great dwarf soldier worthy of standing alongside Braver and Nine Hell.

“GwwwwuuuuuuoooooOOOOOOOGGGGGHHH!”

The sounds of pulverized monsters, echoing death cries, and the ferocious vortex filled the room.

Gareth and the dragon had transformed into a veritable tornado, driving back every monster in their vicinity.

“Off yooooooooou…GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” he shouted, releasing his grip on the dragon’s tail.

The enormous centrifugal force sent the enormous missile flying at an upward angle to collide with the flock of wyverns overhead.

The hammer that was that great flying dragon drew an arc in the sky, smashing through the wyverns and into the wall with a giant explosion.

There was a thunderous crash, almost indiscernible from a meteorite strike, and the stone crumbled at the place of impact.

“…N-no way!”

Tiona raised her head from the ground and wiped at the dust covering her cheeks.

She saw the five remaining valgang dragons splayed out with their tongues dangling from their mouths. She saw the scattered monsters, already barely resembling their original forms. And she saw the final crimson dragon, its head stuck in the rock along the far wall.

The others—Bete, Tione, and Lefiya, the three of them still flat on the ground—could only stare at the storm-strewn landscape, their faces twitching.

“I could use…a really strong drink right about now…Some proper dwarven stuff…” said the storm bringer himself, breathing heavily, before taking out a high potion and gulping it down in place of liquor.

Roughly wiping off his mouth, he turned his gaze to Tiona and the others, who were still hugging the ground with befuddled expressions.

“What do ye think yer doin’ down there, kids? They’ll be comin’ again soon enough. On yer feet!”

As though in response, a crack appeared in the far-off wall.

The holes in the ceiling were steadily growing in number, and another wave of wyverns was already on its way.

Gareth grabbed his two axes from the ground and prepared himself for battle.

“…Are you…sure you cannot handle things yourself, Sir Gareth?”

Lefiya got to her feet unsteadily before joining the rest of the group.

“Don’t be an ass! Ye think I can pull somethin’ like that off again?” Gareth brushed her off. “’Twas nothin’ but a fluke.” He crossed his twin axes in front of his chest. “We’ve gotta hold out till Finn and the others get down here, ye hear?” His armor was visibly charred from wyvern fire, his mantle tattered and torn. Cuts and bruises adorned his skin.

As Bete and the others saw the damage he’d taken from that outrageous feat he’d just accomplished, they came to a realization.

The reason he normally didn’t display this magnitude of strength was because he was always in the rear guard, making room on the front line for them.

And the reason he did this was to protect Bete and the other first-tiers, as well as Raul and the other younger members of the familia.

Gareth turned around to glance at Bete, at Tione, Tiona, and Lefiya, his teeth bared in a broad grin.

“Come now, lads ’n’ lasses! Where’re those terrors I’m so used to, huh? Up and at ’em! Raise some hell! Or are ye gonna let some old man show ye up?”

At the dwarf’s challenge, Bete and the others each raised an eyebrow before responding in kind.

“You gone senile or somethin’, Gramps?”

“As if I’d lose to you!”

“After seeing that, I realize more than ever that I am in no shape to be a leader.”

Their respective words of youthful vigor prompted a laugh from Gareth.

“Kids these days.”

Seeing the others flourishing their weapons, Lefiya, too, readied her staff.

“Hmph. Those our new species?” Gareth muttered, watching the northern staircase leading to the fifty-seventh floor. Repulsive shadow after repulsive shadow gushed from the entryway, and he narrowed his eyes at the sight of their unsettlingly vibrant yellow-green skin.

“The…the path to the fifty-seventh floor…” Lefiya moaned, her voice hoarse.

“Completely plugged up, yeah? Ye gods, if it’s not one thing, it’s another…Stay close, you lot!” Gareth replied before bounding off with a burst of energy.

While the terrors of the uttermost depths nearly robbed them of their breath itself, the first-tier adventurers had no choice but to follow along after the dwarf.

“We’re changing formation! Aiz, you’re on the front line!” Finn ordered almost immediately after Gareth dropped down the hole to save Lefiya.

The two groups now separated, Finn and the others in the main party began making their way through the fifty-second floor, taking out swarms of monsters along the way.

“Raul, you and the others stay on the midline and provide assistance to Aiz! Riveria, you’re now in the rear guard!”

“R-roger!”

“Understood.”

Finn flourished his Durandal spear as he sprinted alongside them, backing up Aiz on point and attacking everything beyond the reach of her sword. Quickly ordering the emergency change in formation from his spot on the midline, he used his cultivated leadership to propel the party continuously forward. Despite the situation developing around them, the powerful voice of their leader helped assuage the unrest and low morale enveloping the party, guiding the adventurers along the path.

Knowing all too well that following his instructions was the surest way of staying alive, Raul and the others made the change without fuss.

“I apologize, Tsubaki, but could I borrow your strength?” Finn asked, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

“No problem, boss!” Tsubaki nodded in response. She slid her tachi from its scabbard in a flash, bisecting a nearby monster and joining Finn in supporting Aiz from the midline.

Aiz led the way with Raul and the other three supporters directly behind her. Finn and Tsubaki guarded the group on its sides while Riveria protected them from the rear.

The supporters now forming the center of the party, they upped their pace to race down the tunnels of the fifty-second floor even faster than before.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

Still dodging the incoming fireballs from below, they took out only the monsters directly impeding their way forward.

They couldn’t leave anything to chance when it came to beasts that could attack without regard to floors. The flares of those valgang dragons would take care of any monsters they failed to kill.

Getting to the fifty-eighth floor was their top priority, and every move was to that end.

The depths of the Dungeon were vaster than the entire city of Orario. As map data unfolded within his head, Finn tossed out order after order, leading them through the complex maze via the shortest route possible as they continued to dodge salvos from the dragons beneath their feet. Meanwhile, Raul and the other supporters had free hands, so they gathered around the one supporter toting the large-scale weapons and used daggers and spears to provide continuous support to the front line.

Riveria’s Veil Breath enveloped the entire party. Just as it had with Lefiya and the others, the full-body protection magic glowed along the surfaces of their bodies, warding off critical attacks from their surrounding enemies time and time again.

“WUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!”

An array of atrocious monsters blocked their path.

Venom scorpions, thunder snakes, silver worms—the threat of these monsters was so clearly different from that of the previous floors, it was as though they’d passed some kind of invisible line of demarcation. Together with the fireballs of the dragons some multiple floors below, the sheer number of these powerful beasts was what had kept Aiz and Loki Familia from progressing farther into the Dungeon’s depths…until today.

“Finn! Nine of them!”

“We’ll break through here! Aiz, they’re yours!”

Following Finn’s carefully calculated shortest route, Aiz shot forward.

The roars of the incoming monsters blasting her from all sides, she responded with a scream of her own.

“Awaken, Tempest!!” she shouted, activating her Airiel before swinging her sword into the mass.

It slipped past the oncoming needles of poison, past the electrifying sparks of lightning attacks. In the blink of an eye, she’d mowed down all nine enemies.

The flash of her sword morphed into an undulating wave of air, and their bodies exploded upon impact, scattering into the wind. Her armor of wind, now coupled with the green light of Riveria’s Veil Breath, screamed as she shot forward.

“Aiz’s level-up is really saving our skins,” Finn muttered, watching as the Sword Princess plowed her way through the wall of monsters, then proceeded to annihilate every other obstacle in one relentless wave after another.

“I’ve seen her do some foolish things, so the matter is rather complicated,” Riveria replied as she thought back to Aiz’s defeat of the floor boss Udaeus.

Aiz’s Level 6 abilities, coupled with the output of her strengthened Airiel, gave her an uncanny strength when it came to breaking through enemies. She plowed through the cumbersome venom scorpions and thunder snakes in a manner resembling Gareth’s. Wrapped in winds and bearing the bulk of the front line all by herself, Aiz carved her way through the passageway, leaving piles of monster carcasses behind her.

“Are…are we even necessary at this point…?” Raul mused as he and the other supporters gazed at the sight with a shudder.

“Raul, ready a magic potion!” Finn barked, prohibiting them from turning into mere spectators.

“R-right!”

The rate they were exhausting themselves wasn’t even comparable to the previous floors. If Aiz continued mowing down monsters at her current speed, her power would be gone in a flash. Sensing the condition of their sole vanguard fighter, Finn ordered for replenishment. Raul responded by quickly fishing through his bag for the item in question.

“Narfi, Alicia, Cruz! Your magic swords!”

“Roger!” the three responded in unison.

“The moment Aiz pulls back to recover, attack!” Finn commanded while taking out more monsters with his spear.

The three other supporters—human, elf, and beastman—readied their equipped magic swords. Following Finn’s command, they flourished said swords the moment Aiz, covered in sweat, retreated to the midline.

The instant, chant-less bursts of magic exploded across the path in front of them, wiping out any monsters there.

Aiz grabbed the magic potion from Raul mid-run, finishing it off quickly before returning to the front line. The blazing fires from the magic swords had swallowed up the monsters during her brief respite.

“Those attacks from below have stopped. Y’think Gareth and the others…?” Tsubaki murmured as they continued along tirelessly, with Aiz at the helm. And it was true: the quakes, shudders, and shocks had stopped.

“Most likely. We should take advantage of the opportunity and make haste.” Finn nodded in response.

It would seem Gareth’s group had fallen all the way to the fifty-eighth floor and already mopped up—or at least drawn the attention of—the valgang dragons deep beneath their feet.

In their place, however, wyverns were starting to emerge from the deep vertical tunnel made by the dragons’ blasts and closing in on the party. The winged dragons came and went as they pleased via the neck of the Dragon’s Urn.

Despite the continuous attacks from above as they moved between tunnels and rooms, Aiz’s wind and Finn’s commands helped the party fend off the dragons until, finally, they found the staircase leading to the floor below.

In a flash, they descended to the next floor.

“The fifty-third floor…!” Raul let out a breath of air that could have been excitement or could have been fear, still haggard from their inordinate speed.

Next to him, Finn narrowed his green eyes, studying the perimeter.

“I don’t see any of those new species…?”

Apparently, the magic from Aiz’s Airiel wasn’t enough to draw the magic-sensing caterpillar monsters out of hiding.

Finn gave his thumb a little lick as the party dashed their way through the temporarily encounter-free—and unsettlingly quiet—Dungeon floor.

“Who’s going to join us, then, I wonder.” A small smile rose to his lips as the throbbing of his thumb foreshadowed the coming Irregular.

Almost as if on cue, a swarm of caterpillar monsters appeared to block their path.

“Th-there they are!” Raul cried out.

“No, wait. There’s something…” Riveria’s face turned grim as she eyed the scene in front of them.

From among the deluge of caterpillars filling up the wide passageway, an especially large one appeared, bearing a figure in a bluish-purple hooded robe.

“The guy from the twenty-fourth floor…!” Aiz’s memory flashed at the sight of the figure shrouded completely in cloth and its mask decorated in strange, ominous designs.

A conspirator of that creature Levis, no doubt, who’d appeared during their earlier fight and absconded with the crystal orb.

“Is that a…person?” asked Tsubaki, her right eye narrowing in suspicion at the eerie figure standing, unshakable, atop one of the monsters.

With boots on its feet and silver gloves on its hands, it seemed every bit a human.

It raised its right hand at the incoming party.

In sync with the movement, the herd of caterpillars arranged themselves into line after line, adjusting the heights of their heads into low, medium, and high, almost like a flight of stairs.

“Kill them.”

The entire herd opened their mouths, releasing a simultaneous flood of corrosive acid.

“Nghh!”

“Alter course! Find a cave and run!!” Finn called out the second the tsunamic wave of acid came toward them. The rest of the party responded equally as fast, diving into the nearest hollow they could find.

Behind Riveria, the last to evacuate, the passageway filling up with corrosive acid looked like veins flooded with thick, dirty mud. In a mere moment, the walls, the ceiling, everything began melting upon contact with the monsters’ fluid. An acerbic hisssssss joined the resulting plumes of smoke and strange, nostril-stinging aroma.

“A…A mass acid attack…?!” Raul groaned, his face tight.

To think those monsters could be manipulated to pull off a massive concentrated attack. Not even Aiz’s wind would be able to absorb all that.

The faces of the supporters paled as they watched the indefensible attack wash through the passageway, melting away the very Dungeon itself.

“Everyone, on your feet. They’re coming!”

Raul and the others leaped up at the sound of the multitude of legs scrambling toward them through the corroded tunnel. At Finn’s command, they dashed toward the front of their small cave, Aiz at the lead.

“Controlling those new species as if they were soldiers…Could our hooded friend be the same as that woman?” Finn muttered under his breath as he shot forward, spear in hand.

“…!” The words made Aiz’s brow tremble.

That woman could only mean Levis. If this being was the same as Levis, that would make it another creature.

Her heart cried at the thought that Levis might have a partner also able to control the vibrantly colored monsters.

“Strange place for whoever he or she is to turn up, though,” Finn continued.

“Then what the hell is this person?”

“Simply put, a tamer,” Riveria responded, not bothering to mince her words.

“You gotta be shittin’ me! They can control monsters like these?!” Tsubaki replied in shock.

Raul and the other supporters couldn’t contain their own gulps of surprise at the thought of someone able to control such a giant army of monsters from the depths. No sooner had the short hitches of air left their throats, however, than said army of caterpillars reappeared from the direction of their route.

“Hit the dirt!”

The sound of the massive acid attack swallowed up the supporters’ screams. Aiz and the others were forced to change course once again as the spectacle from before repeated itself all over again.

“A-again?!”

“They’re coming from that direction, too?!”

—Raul and the other supporters screamed as the caterpillar monsters closed in on them from all sides. The hissing noise of the acid shooting from their mouths, the smell of decay, and the anguished screams of other monsters caught in the attack echoed around them as Finn gave order after order, leading the party through the fifty-third floor at an incredible speed.

“Don’t let them escape, my virgas.”

The hooded figure continued doggedly behind them together with its army of caterpillars, now joined by a swarm of violas.

“We’re being herded…!” Riveria grimaced, taking note of the way their every path kept getting blocked by monsters.

“To think we’d end up having to deal with strategizing monsters,” Finn added with a nod.

The army of caterpillars and their hooded ringleader were most certainly shepherding the party, and the net encircling them seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller as they stopped the party’s advance again and again. It was almost as if they were being driven into a corner, and the thought that this could all be a part of that creature’s plan brought cold drops of sweat to the foreheads of the entire party.

…The question now is, what is that thing looking for? Aiz, perhaps? Finn thought, throwing a glance behind him as anxiety settled over the group.

He saw the hooded figure giving orders from atop one of the large rushing caterpillars. He could feel the focus of the being’s gaze, despite the mask that seemed to block its vision.

Could it be it was targeting the golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman hidden in shadow at the front of their desperately racing group?

Was it attempting to take her alive, the same as Levis and her friends?

Or did it simply regard Loki Familia as an enemy and wish to annihilate them?

For a brief moment, their gazes met—Finn’s and the hooded figure’s—and the prum’s eyes narrowed.

“Finn, we’re being cornered!” Riveria cried out upon realizing their enemy’s intentions herself.

“…” Finn laid out the map of the fifty-third floor in his mind. The moment he determined their current position and its nearby locations, he raised his head. “Aiz! Turn left!”

Aiz darted into one of the countless byroads and tunnels splitting off from their current path, leading the party down a long, straight tunnel.

Halfway through their reroute, however, Finn called out again.

“We’ll ambush them! About-face!”

Raul and the others were taken aback at the sudden order but did as they were told all the same—they had faith in their leader.

Bearing with him, they forced themselves to a screeching halt and then turned on their heels. The moment Aiz and Riveria found themselves in their new, reversed positions, the hooded figure appeared with its army of monster soldiers along the way they’d come.

Aiz strengthened her Airiel at the sight of the overwhelming swarm of monsters.

“I need three shields lined up now!” their captain cried, to which his party members quickly complied.

The supporters other than Raul peeled off the large shields attached to their backpacks, bringing them together in front of the incoming monster army to form a gapless three-man barrier.

“Aiz!!” Finn shouted again, not wasting a single instant.

Aiz threw a glance back at him in confusion. Then, suddenly, she understood.

Grabbing her knees tightly, she somersaulted backward.

Leaving behind a crack in the Dungeon floor, she flew through the air to land not on the wall but on the supporters’ shields.

The moment her feet slammed onto that wall of shields, she readied Desperate, and the massive air current around her undulated as she flourished her sword of silver.

It took a moment for the shock of it to reach the supporters, who cringed as they stooped with a sort of fixed determination. Raul even lent his own support, using his shoulders to help prop them up.

An instant later, Aiz let it out, the name of that skill passing her lips.

“Li’l Rafaga!” She kicked off from the shield to unleash a missile of wind.

“?!”

The oncoming hooded figure gave a surprised shudder.

Leaping forth from the shield, Aiz released that great, spiraling arrow of wind. The creature, realizing it had nowhere to run, could only let out a cry at the approaching attack:

“Virgas!”

The response was immediate: the caterpillars released another of their simultaneous acid attacks.

Acid met wind in a violent blast, but the wind won.

“”

The hooded figure beat a hasty retreat as Aiz’s attack forced back the caterpillars’ acidic onslaught.

Leaping into a corner of the ceiling, it watched as the vortex swallowed the massive swarm of caterpillars.

It made a clean sweep of the entire column, tearing through it in one giant blast, then continued on toward the hooded figure as a powerful, raging gale.

“No way…” the figure muttered beneath its mask as the shock waves hit it and whipped its cloak about.

“We’ve bought ourselves some time!”

“—ngh!”

It was a long spear that came at the figure this time. Finn, not allowing the enemy to find its footing, followed right on the heels of Aiz’s Li’l Rafaga as the swordswoman raced deep into the passage with a mighty explosion.

The hooded figure somehow managed to ward off the incoming Durandal spear with a flourish of its metal gloves.

“Seems that even among you creatures, some are stronger than others.”

“—Ngh!”

Finn continued his close-range assault as his opponent kicked off the wall and landed on the ground.

The hooded figure defended itself desperately, its metal gloves coming up to block the onslaught of thrusts again and again, unable to land an attack of its own against the prum’s overwhelming spearmanship.

Finn could tell instantly that the creature in front of him couldn’t hold a candle to Levis. He’d fought against the red-haired woman on the eighteenth floor, after all.

The hooded figure, unable to keep up with the increasing speed of the attacks besieging the lower half of its vision, let out a shout.

“Violas!!”

Countless yellow-green tentacles rose from the ground to thwart the relentless spear strikes.

Finn took a step back as the flowers surged toward him. From the ceiling, from the walls, from the ground, their innumerable tentacles punched through the earth and rose from holes, coming at him like a sickening green rain. And as he blocked those incoming attacks, his spear a raging whirlwind, the hooded figure lunged forward to counterattack.

It was a rapid-fire back-and-forth as the two opponents set aside everything else in their immediate vicinity. Amid the sounds of Aiz finishing off the caterpillar monsters farther down the long path, they relocated the battle to a side passage, silver spear meeting silver gloves in a violent riposte.

The hooded figure summoned forth a massive tentacle strike from its viola allies, about to add his own attack to the mix—when…

“Gggnh!”

It came like covering fire. A single arrow plunged into the figure’s shoulder.

“I…I hit him…” Raul murmured in wonder. He stood a considerable distance behind the two duelists with his bow readied to fire.

The hooded figure yanked the arrow from its shoulder, fingers curling around the wood and breaking it with a fierce snap.

“It…It didn’t even faze that thing!” Raul cried out despondently.

Finn, however, just smiled as he wiped out the remaining tentacles. “You did well, Raul!”

An instant later, a figure in a red hakama shrieked down the cleared passageway.

“Mind if I take a stab at this fella?”

“!”

Her black ponytail fluttering behind her, Tsubaki sprang forward, landing directly in front of the masked creature.

The hooded figure, still off-balance from the earlier attack, didn’t have time to react before the half-dwarf, her right eye narrowed, unsheathed her tachi at godlike speed.

It was a direct hit.

“Guuwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrghhh!!”

The creature’s right arm went flying, metal glove and all.

It let out a scream of anguish as the limb danced through the air. Tsubaki readied herself for a second strike. The killing blow had failed only due to her opponent’s split-second dodge.

But then.

“—Devour!” it shouted, drawing one of the violas toward it.

And before Tsubaki’s blade could reach its target, the repulsive flower had swallowed the hooded figure whole.

“What the—?!”

The flower let out a scream as the sword sliced at its long body, before scuttling away with the creature in its mouth.

One of its tentacles snatched the arm still flying through the air before the whole thing disappeared into a nearby cave. Tsubaki, befuddled as ever, made to follow, but not before a certain high elf finished casting her spell.

“—Wynn Fimbulvetr!!”

Out shot the three tendrils of icy snow.

The magic froze the entirety of the cave, all the way to her main target deep within its confines.

The escaping viola, its back turned to the cave’s opening, was instantly encased in a world of solid blue ice.

Tsubaki dashed forward in high spirits, her prey now frozen in its tracks.

“…Huh?”

“What is it, Tsubaki?”

Tsubaki had cracked open the flower ice sculpture, tachi at the ready and looking for the hooded figure, but she now stood rooted to the spot in wide-eyed surprise.

Riveria raced over, leaving Finn, Raul, and the others to fend off the remaining monsters, only to be met with the same astonishing scene.

“Nothing but a…robe?”

“How could it possibly have escaped?!”

Indeed, as the two of them stared into the shattered mouth of the viola, all they found was an empty robe and a frozen, cracked mask. Even the severed arm was gone; nothing remained but the metal glove and strip of cloth that had once covered it.

“Could it have escaped during that one instant our vision was obscured by my blizzard?” Riveria mused in pure amazement.

“There’s no way! That’d be the fastest escape I’ve ever seen…” Tsubaki muttered somewhat bitterly next to her.

The two women raised their heads to find another ever-so-narrow path shooting off from the side of the tunnel, connecting itself to the intricate remainder of the Dungeon.

“Riveria. Tsubaki,” Finn said from behind them. The prum was followed by Raul and the other supporters, along with Aiz, having returned from her caterpillar extermination. Riveria and Tsubaki turned to face him.

“I apologize, Finn…we’ve allowed it to escape.”

“Whadda we do? Follow it?”

Finn glanced down at the frozen body of the viola, studying the bluish-purple robe and metallic glove for a moment before shaking his head.

“Our priority now is to reconvene with Gareth and the others. We should hurry to the fifty-eighth floor.”

“Understood.”

None of them were about to argue, not when their companions’ safety was at stake.

And so, with the presence of the creature they’d let escape still on their minds, the group began making their way down to the lower floors once more.

“Aiz, if you could take the front line again?” Finn asked.

“Of course,” Aiz responded with a nod.

The adventurers raced off, leaving the hooded robe hidden beneath snow and frost behind them.

A fierce battle was raging on the fifty-eighth floor.

The group of adventurers clashed against monster after monster in an attempt to survive, but the path to the fifty-seventh floor—their only path of retreat—was blocked by the incoming swarms of giant caterpillars.

The caterpillar monsters had formed a multitudinous herd, attacking not only Gareth’s party but other monsters in the vicinity, as well. Their innate ability to sense magic and magic stones was leading them to the battlefield in droves.

From the caterpillars spitting out their corrosive acid and devouring their unlucky prey whole—magic stones and all—to the ferocious monsters attacking with teeth and claws, indifferent to their own dissolution, to the flock of wyverns overhead, pelting them with salvos of fireballs, it was an outright free-for-all.

Thunderous roars, bestial cries, and dragons’ breaths mixed throughout the fifty-eighth floor.

“Is this normal for the floors down here?!”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?!”

As friendly fire pervaded the area, Tiona and Bete mowed down the monsters around them to advance on the newly spawned valgang dragon that had just burst through the Dungeon wall. In an attempt to prevent its massive fireball from obliterating friend and foe alike, they charged the great red beast and took it down with an icy kick from Bete’s magic-charged boots and a series of killing blows from Tiona’s massive Durandal sword. If they had to thank those caterpillar monsters for one thing, it was that they’d made it a lot easier to move about the battlefield.

The two of them deftly dodged the incoming blasts of corrosive acid as the brutal three-way battle continued.

Lefiya, currently under Tione’s protection, avoided casting anything too recklessly lest she draw the attention of those caterpillars.

At the same time, Gareth was fighting with a sheer intensity, his mantle fluttering wildly. “Do these brutes ever stop fighting?” he mused, taking out one enemy after another with his two axes. Each mighty swing of his weapons made an impact like a bomb.

A nearby swarm of caterpillars responded by unleashing a burst of corrosive acid.

“Show me somethin’ I haven’t seen before!” he shouted before quickly dodging, slamming his Grand Ax into the ground with a brilliant flash.

The sheet of rock crumbled, bits and pieces of stone flying off to hit the caterpillars like explosive missiles. Their bodies crumpled, riddled with holes and leaking acid on the ground below.

The dwarf soldier’s Durandal ax took care of the remaining caterpillar with a massive upward swing.

“Grrraaaagh!!”

“Gunngh!”

The beast didn’t even have a chance to respond. The longitudinal swing cut it in half.

They’d been fighting for nearly eight hours now, and the dwarf’s ferocity had yet to wane. And yet, these uncanny beasts…Gareth eyed the monsters suspiciously from beneath his helmet. He was studying their movement. Comin’ from the northern tunnel they might be; we’ve somehow reached the hall’s center. We’re movin’ south.

He threw a glance behind him to where the droves of caterpillars continued to pour out of the tunnel leading to the fifty-seventh floor.

Ahead of him and to the south was another tunnel—the path that would lead them to the next floor down.

These brutes aren’t fixin’ to reach the fifty-ninth floor themselves, are they? Tryin’ to move even farther downward?

Could the caterpillar monsters rampaging about these depths be attempting to return home?

Gareth narrowed his eyes at the entrance to the unknown, shrouded in darkness, then wrenched his gaze away, his thoughts returning to the battle at hand.

“Th-they’re still coming!” Tione cried out with a curse, sweat forming along her neck and temple as another of the great red dragons spawned on the Dungeon floor.

The young adventurers couldn’t hide their fatigue as the long battle continued. Bete’s tongue practically lolled from his mouth, Tiona’s wrists trembled, and Lefiya’s breath sounded ragged and strained.

Gareth, however, as tough as ever and showing no signs of weariness, dashed forward toward the newly spawned valgang dragon breaking through the floor—until.

“Wynn Fimbulvetr!”

The massive blizzard descended on them from the northern tip of the hall.

It froze everything: the valgang dragon and the massive swarms of monsters still littering the area. And as Tione and the others watched in awe, a golden flash reflected in their saucerlike eyes.

“Ngh!!”

A golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman shot forward like an arrow, shattering the valgang dragon ice sculpture.

Desperate sliced through the frozen dragon’s neck, separating its head from its body and sending chunks of ice to the ground below in great, thunderous crashes.

“Miss Aiz!!”

“Riveria!”

Lefiya and Tione cried out in simultaneous jubilation at the sight of their companions.

Aiz came to a stop in the middle of the hall with Riveria, Finn, and Tsubaki hot on her heels. Even Raul, completely unharmed along with the other three supporters, dashed forward to join them.

“Captaaaaaaaaaaain!!” Tione called out, her energy restored in a flash.

“Save the celebration for later!” Finn replied, only half acknowledging her before barking out commands to the others. “We still need to finish off the remaining monsters!!”

The powerful sound of their leader’s voice stoking their spirits, Bete and the others joined forces with Aiz and set their sights on the monsters still roaming the open space.

The supporters’ protection glowing bright, it didn’t take long for the carcasses of the caterpillars and wyverns to pile up, mountain upon mountain of ash littering the ground.

“Miss Aiz! You aren’t hurt?” inquired Lefiya.

“I’m fine, yeah…You guys made it through?”

“By the skin of our teeth! All thanks to Gareth.” Tiona, this time.

There wasn’t a presence to be felt; the party had seemingly reached a long break from the encounters. Even the many holes perforating the ceiling thanks to the valgang dragons had sealed themselves up, leaving the fifty-eighth floor in silence.

The reunited Aiz, Lefiya, and Tiona brought their hands together joyfully.

Finn and Riveria checked on Gareth while Tsubaki, laughing about one thing or another, gave Tione and Bete a resounding series of pounds upon their backs. Tione just smirked, though Bete shot her a look of hate. Meanwhile, Raul and the other supporters passed out healing items from their backpacks, tears trembling in their eyes.

“Oh-ho-ho! This a fang from one of those crazy dragons that kept blastin’ away at us? And what’s this? A scale?! You’ve just gotta let me take these back!” Tsubaki pulled out first a valgang dragon fang and then a red scale from amid the plethora of drop items littering the strewn monster carcasses, her face alight with excitement.

Finn, however, didn’t share her exuberance. “I apologize, Tsubaki, but you’ll have to wait. Something that big will only prove a hindrance as we explore further. Perhaps on our way back?” He kindly reminded her of what should have been obvious.

The party made their way toward the southern end of the room where Finn instructed them to take a short break.

“Though we were forced to take separate routes, the entire party made it to the fifty-eighth floor. I’m not sure whether this is a good sign…or quite the opposite,” Riveria mused.

Bete just snorted. “So what? It’s not like it’s our first time down here.”

“You say that as if you weren’t gasping for breath about five minutes ago,” Tiona sarcastically replied.

“Pretty sure that was you!”

Lefiya, Raul, and the other supporters let out a chuckle as the duo went off on each other as usual. A relaxed atmosphere had settled over the party.

They drank leisurely from potions and magic potions. Aiz finished off the last of her block-shaped rations from Lulune. And Tsubaki whipped out her smithing tools to perform emergency maintenance on the adventurers’ weapons.

It was a momentary respite for the group as they sat in a circle, the uncharted depths right in front of their eyes.

“…”

“Captain? Is something wrong?” Tiona piped up as Aiz and the others enjoyed their moment of downtime.

The prum was standing with his back to the group, spear at the ready as he stared down the gaping darkness of that large hole to the south.

He seemed fixated on it, gazing deep into the void that would lead them to the fifty-ninth floor.

“According to the records left behind by Zeus Familia, the Glacial Territories await us beyond that passage…”

“I-indeed. It’s said that glacial streams run across the land, making it hard to advance, and bitterly cold winds make it hard to even move your body…” Tione continued his thoughts.

“W-we brought plenty of salamander wool! We had to request some from other factions, but we should have just enough for all of us, supporters included.” Raul stood up in a hurry, snatching the crimson fabric from his backpack. Salamander wool was a type of fire-element armor with cold-resistant properties.

Finn didn’t move, his green eyes, like the surface of a lake, still fixated on the passage in front of him. Finally, he spoke.

“If the cold is so intense it can freeze even first-tier adventurers…why can we not feel it now? Sitting here with the entrance in front of our eyes?”

Tione and Raul shuddered in simultaneous bewilderment at Finn’s inquiry.

It was true. They were waiting right in front of the passage that would lead them to the fifty-ninth floor, yet none of them felt even the slightest breeze of chilled air from the large hole before them.

Listening in on their conversation, first Aiz, then the others, rose one by one with their weapons readied.

“You sayin’ somethin’s up?” Bete mused, staring at the dark hole.

“No idea…but I wouldn’t think Zeus Familia to be one for exaggeratin’ things,” Gareth replied as he adjusted his helmet.

It was evident from everyone’s faces that this wasn’t something they could just ignore.

“…”

Just as a strange feeling of tension began to brew within the party, Aiz remembered something.

What someone had said to her some twenty days ago up on the twenty-fourth floor.

—“Aria, go to the fifty-ninth floor.

—“Things are getting interesting right now. Should answer a lot of your questions.”

That was what that redheaded non-human woman had told her.

That there was something down there on the fifty-ninth floor.

Something she sought.

As she stood before the hole that led to the very depths of the earth, she unconsciously adjusted her grip on the handle of her sword.

The crystal hanging from its chain around her loin guard gave off a faint glow, almost as though humming to life.

“Wh-what do you think we should do, Captain?”

“…The salamander wool should prove fine. We leave in three minutes.” Finn gave his thumb a little lick. His gaze was still sharp as he took in the tunnel before them.

The rest of the party quickly finished up their preparations, bringing their moment of rest to a close. Then, equipped with their weapons and reestablishing their formation, they approached the giant hole.

“Strange. It’s not cold at all…” Tiona observed as Raul and the other supporters lit their portable magic-stone lanterns to ward off the enveloping darkness.

“…In fact, I would almost say it is…muggy,” Lefiya finished her sentence, the inklings of sweat dotting their skin.

None of them knew what to say about this unexpected humidity, and a vague apprehension shushed the group. They continued down the long, long staircase to the floor below, senses keen to even the slightest noise.

Clink, clink.

Their footsteps echoed throughout the stairwell.

Farther and farther they descended into the darkness.

Toward a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Finn, this is…” Riveria began.

Finn nodded at the voice of the high elf from behind him. “Indeed. From here on out, we enter a land that no one, not even the gods themselves, have witnessed—the unknown.”

And with that, they reached the light.

Descending the last stair, the group stepped out onto the fifty-ninth floor and into the unknown depths.

“”

They found themselves at a loss for words as they took in the scene before them.

There were no glacial streams.

No soaring mountains of ice. No frozen rivers of blue.

No. Reflected in their eyes were masses upon masses of the strangest plants and vegetation they’d ever seen, a landscape altogether divergent from the floors above.

“A…jungle?” Tione gazed around at her surroundings in wonderment, still gripping her Kukri knives.

This room, even bigger than the fifty-eighth floor above their heads, overflowed with green trees and vines. Immediately in front of them was a forest of soaring trees. At their feet were a lush green bed of grass and trembling rings of richly colored, poisonous-looking flowers. It was an enclosed room with four far-off greenish walls towering high, and all shapes and sizes of flower buds dangled from the greenery.

“Is this like the…twenty-fourth floor…?” Lefiya murmured, her voice trembling as she hugged her staff to her chest.

Even Bete narrowed his eyes as he looked out across the spectacle. The sight closely resembled the pantry on the twenty-fourth floor after it had been taken over by violas and become a plant.

Aiz was quiet as she gazed across the landscape. Meanwhile, Raul raised his gaze from among the flustered supporters.

“Do you…hear that?”

A strange noise was coming from the floor’s center.

It sounded like something chewing. A crumbling noise followed by an occasional high-pitched, trembling voice.

As the mysterious noise continued, obscured deep within that dense jungle, all eyes of the frozen party went to their prum leader.

Spear in hand, Finn gave the order:

“Forward.”

That was all it took for the group to move.

Bete and Tiona took the lead as they made their way along the jungle’s one road, almost like a pathway carved through the trees.

Everyone’s eyes shifted back and forth from one tree to the next, keeping watch lest something spring forth. Lest they lose their wits.

A phosphorescent glow shone down on them from the ceiling some ten meders above their heads. This tiny glimpse of the Dungeon walls peeking out from so much green thickness was all they had to remind them that this strange floor was even in the same labyrinth they’d come to know.

Minutes passed as they continued through the trees, the ever-loudening sound in front of them drawing them forward.

Then, all of a sudden, the jungle disappeared around them, opening up to reveal—

“…What…is that?” Tiona asked as she readied her Urga.

It was a large, open hall of ashen earth, devoid of trees.

And at the center of that barren wasteland was a multitude of caterpillars and violas.

It was a nauseating, gut-wrenching amount, and they were all gathered around something—a woman with a giant plantlike lower half.

“Is that one of those crystal-orb monsters?” Gareth asked, wrinkles forming in his cheeks.

“Has it…absorbed a titan alm?” Riveria added, identifying the large, vegetative monster that called the deep levels its home. Known as the Corpse Flower King, it preyed at will upon adventurer and brethren alike.

The caterpillars were extending tonguelike organs from their mouths, offering up the vivid magic stones at their tips to the female body of the titan alm. The violas, too, had opened their giant, gaping jaws to reveal the magic stones in their mouths.

The woman fed upon the stones with fervor.

Her body very much resembled the female caterpillar they’d encountered up on the fiftieth floor. As its countless tentacles devoured the vibrantly colored offerings, the caterpillars and flowers, now devoid of their magic stones, rotted and turned to ash, one by one.

“You’re kidding! It’s already gobbled up that many monsters?” Tsubaki’s right eye widened as she took in the monstrous pile of ash, almost like salt, around the creature.

It was then that Lefiya and the others noticed it.

The ashen ground they were standing upon at that very moment was actually the countless carcasses of monsters turned to ash and piled up beneath them.

“Shit…!” Finn’s face skewed as the rest of the party trembled in fear.

“An enhanced species…?!” The tattoo on Bete’s face twisted with his grimace.

“”

And Aiz.

She could hear her own heartbeat.

It was screaming, so loud her ears felt liable to burst.

Her blood was churning at the sight in front of her.

Only then.

Something changed. Just as Finn and the others were about to respond.

“Ah.”

The faintest noise rose from the creature’s grotesque head as it raised its upper body.

Only halfway through its feast on the surrounding monsters, it began to writhe like a worm.

“Ahhhh.”

The repulsive-looking upper half still trembling and squirming, its flesh suddenly bulged.

She released a sigh of ecstasy. Finn and the others watched in amazement as the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen was born, emerging from all that ugliness like a butterfly from its cocoon.

“AhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” came the scream of pleasure.

The adventurers had to slam their palms over their ears at the overwhelming, high-frequency sound waves that threatened to rupture their eardrums.

The woman, having risen from that husk of flesh, bent backward and directed her eyes to the heavens.

Long glossy hair descended along the curve of her back.

Covering her supple arms, her curvaceous chest, and waist was a gown of brilliant colors.

The gorgeous face of the woman gazing up at the ceiling, still shuddering with pleasure, could rival even a goddess’s.

She was green. Every inch of her, from her hair to her skin.

Everything apart from her eyes, which were pools of gold that lacked pupils and irises.

It wasn’t only her upper, human half that changed, either. Her abnormal lower half also underwent a transformation, now sporting enormous petals and a multitude of tentacles.

From the middle of that fifty-ninth floor, the gargantuan half-monster, half-goddess let out its first cry.

“Wh-what is that thing?!” Tione groaned, still holding her ears against the creature’s raucous cries.

But no one knew what it was, even as it continued its song of rapture. All anyone could do was look on in horror.

“…No way,” Aiz said from among the din.

Forgetting to cover her ears, she simply stood there in blank astonishment.

Her lips were trembling, her ears buzzing, the rapid churning of her blood having reached its peak.

There was no way. Could that…? Could it possibly…? Could it really be—?!

The questions ran through her head one after another, her body swaying in resonance with the blood pounding through her veins.

Could she be feeling the same thing? Could she?

“She” turned away from the ceiling, head swiveling on her neck as she directed her eyes toward Aiz.

“Aria—! Aria!!” she shouted, her voice filled with joy.

Again and again, that strange, abnormal creature screamed the name.

And when Aiz’s eyes met those golden ones, she knew.

Her body froze in terror as her trembling lips parted.

“A…spirit?!”

“—Ouranos!” Fels whirled around at the image reflected in the crystal—the “eye” currently fastened to Aiz’s loin guard.

They were in the Chamber of Prayers beneath Guild Headquarters.

Ouranos simply narrowed his eyes from atop his pedestal, both at the black-cloaked figure’s cry and at the scene taking place within the crystal.

“It is true, then,” he muttered. “I hadn’t wanted to believe it. Could this really be one of the spirits of old that descended alongside us to Orario’s surface? That carried out our will and assisted the heroes?” His brow furrowed as he took in the sight of the laughing woman in the crystal.

—The spirits had acted as an antenna for the gods, carrying out their will between the time of their descent and the Ancient Times.

They were weapons released by a number of the gods to act as the civilized people’s guides, to expel the monsters from the surface world.

Something like the Falna of the present day.

The spirits bestowed humanity and many of its heroes with their divine protection. The voices of those women accompanied those heroes as they exterminated monster after monster.

Many of the spirits were sent into the Dungeon, into old Orario, the main source of the monsters, which was how the labyrinthine epic—the Dungeon Oratoria—came into being.

Its tales, still passed on today, recounted the history of those heroes who were guided by the gods via the spirits.

Fels took everything in with a strained gulp and returned his attention to the crystal.

Powerful spirits of the Ancient Times. Then this creature here, in the crystal, could only be—

“—A being that descended into the Dungeon, was presumably consumed by a monster, and yet has maintained its own sense of self for all these years.”

“That would mean it’s been alive for over one thousand years!”

“Indeed. And its current state depends on that of the monster that consumed it…”

It was survival of the fittest. Monsters had always followed such reason.

This spirit absorbed by a creature, too, had become a monster governed by primordial desires—feeding, stealing, indulging.

“An amalgamation of a child of the gods…and a monster. Is this, too, what this world holds in store?” Ouranos muttered, eyes closed as though holding something back.

Finally, his eyelids rose to form a narrow gaze as he took in the visage in the crystal.

“That which you see there…is already corrupted.”

“A spirit?! That freaky-looking thing?!” Tiona exclaimed in response to Aiz’s muttered words.

The group of adventurers couldn’t help but tremble as they took in the sight of the hauntingly, venomously beautiful woman.

It was almost as if she’d forgotten who she really was, wrapped up in her gown of many colors and residing atop the colossal chassis of a monster.

It was a strange combination of repugnant beauty and odious sanctity.

The party found themselves at a loss against the sheer dignity of the corrupted spirit and the overwhelming sense of aversion it engendered.

“Those new species…were they merely more of that thing’s tentacles?” Finn narrowed his eyes at the some ten-meder aberrant standing before them.

It was a good guess, considering how the caterpillars and violas had focused their attacks on other monsters. Perhaps magic itself was the necessary energy for this creature to survive.

Preying on monsters, collecting magic stones, and finally returning her to her true form. They really were nothing but “tentacles,” extra appendages doing the spirit’s dirty work.

Across from Finn, she continued to laugh. Again and again she called out to that certain swordswoman.

“Aria! Aria!!”

Her voice, almost like a child’s, faltered as she awkwardly formed the words.

“I missed you! I missed you!”

“…?!”

“Don’t you want to be together forever?”

Tiona’s and the others’ heads turned instantly at the words. Lines of tension appeared across their faces as though they already had an idea of where this was heading.

“—Won’t you let me eat you?”

And then the spirit smiled.

Instantly, the remaining caterpillars and violas turned toward them with ferocious jerks, setting their sights on the adventurers—on Aiz—as though manifesting her dark will.

At the same time, there was a thunderous boom from the direction of the exit as the opening closed up with green flesh.

“Everyone, prepare for battle!!” Finn instantly commanded.

It was enough to stir them despite the confusion, and the party was unwavering despite their lost escape route. Tiona and the others readied their weapons.

She let out a sharp peal of laughter, and the battle began.

“Ruuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhh!!”

The mass conglomeration of well over fifty caterpillars and violas rushed the group with a mighty roar.

The adventurers responded by unsheathing their Durandal weapons at the vibrant yellow-green masses.

“You want me to move up, Finn?” Gareth shouted as he jumped forward.

“Like this is any different from before! Time to squish some bugs!!” Bete followed suit, the two of them dodging the incoming acid and slicing the caterpillars into bite-size pieces.

Among the cacophonous cries of agony, Aiz remained rooted to the spot, heart pounding painfully against the walls of her chest. Quickly, she shook off the feeling of dread and forced herself back into the proper headspace before diving into the battle.

Flourishing her Desperate, she flew into the swarm of enemies, her body and sword a vortex.

“Lefiya, aim for that woman! Raul and the others will assist the rest of the group with their magic swords!!” Finn rattled off command after command with the same precision he enforced against floor bosses.

“U-understood!”

“R-roger!” Raul replied before he and the other supporters took off.

Staff at the ready, Lefiya began her first chant. Simultaneously, the group of supporters brandished their long magic swords and unleashed a volley of instant magic attacks.

Using the salvo as cover fire, Aiz dashed forward, pushing back the swarm of caterpillars.

“Like hell I’m just gonna stand around like some spectator!” Tsubaki announced as she plunged her blade into the throng of violas, her hakama fluttering.

“Heh.”

There was movement from the direction of the reborn spirit as her army of monsters was slaughtered around her.

Myriad tentacles rose from her titan-alm lower half, whipping forward with a wild celerity.

Tiona and Tione responded to the tentacle onslaught with a swift counterattack of their own.

“ “This thing’s tough!” ” The faces of the twin sisters twisted in identical grimaces at the speed and power of the incoming attack.

The shock was enough to rival Udaeus’s pile-driver attack, and both sisters’ hands tingled around the grips of their weapons. Even as they went to work pruning the raging appendages, the massive feelers remained unscratched.

The true deluge of tendrils was focusing its attack on Aiz some one hundred meders away. Combining their attacks with their companion’s, the two sisters fought back unforgivingly against the relentless cat-o’-nine-tails-like thrashing.

“Riveria, hold off on your spells!” Finn called out, stopping Riveria as she moved to join the battle.

“What?!”

The prum hadn’t even turned around. His back was to her, and his right thumb ached. There was a hint of distress permeating his voice.

“My thumb! It won’t stop throbbing…Something’s coming!” Finn’s usual mask of leadership was beginning to crack. “We have to be prepared for anything!”

His instincts weren’t to be taken lightly. He was the one person there most attuned to the battle.

And the creature—that goddess-like beauty—just smiled coyly in affirmation.

“Arise, flames.”

In an instant, the spell was cast.

“A chant?!”

A kind of stupefied terror shot through the group like a bolt of lightning as a magic circle formed around the spirit’s massive chassis.

In a flash, the brilliant red light of her spell rose up from the ominous pattern on the ground, enveloping her entire body.

“A monster? Casting a spell?! You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Tione cried out in exasperation.

It was impossible. It was unthinkable that a being that survived on instinct and brutal destruction possessed the ability to cast any sort of magic.

The reason and intelligence required of magic was a domain limited to people and people alone—it was not a realm where monsters could tread.

It might have been a spirit, but this thing still had the body of a monster!

The magic circle of crimson widened.

Then it burst, an outpouring of magic power surging forth from its light.

Finn’s eyes widened in surprise, but he formulated an order all the same. “Riveria! A barrier!” His voice had an edge to it the others had never before heard.

Instantly, Riveria began casting a spell, the desperation evident on her face.

“The rest of you! We need magic! Throw out everything you’ve got!” Finn’s commands continued one after another. Raul and the other supporters let out a roar with their magic swords as Lefiya voiced a spell.

“L-let her have it!!”

“FUSILLADE FALLARICA!!”

The supporters unleashed a simultaneous barrage from their magic swords as Lefiya released her fire arrows by the hundreds, all of them careening toward the spirit.

The entire floor was bathed in light. In response, the creature gathered its ten gargantuan petals frontward to protect her lower half. Smile never faltering, she continued her chant, and in front of her erupted a thunderous explosion, its shock waves leaving behind flash after brilliant flash.

Lefiya and the others peered through the din of stray blasts tearing the ground and hurling fragments of hard earth, only to find the flower petals—and subsequently the spirit herself—unharmed and untroubled.

Tsubaki laughed. “Didn’t work, huh?”

They’d failed.

Not even Lefiya’s tremendous firepower could penetrate that thing’s exterior, and that thought alone was enough to convince them their every attack was useless. Lefiya, Raul, and the other supporters could only look on in terror as Tsubaki stared daggers at the creature’s impenetrable armor of flower petals.

“What’s that thing made of, anyway…?” she murmured under her breath.

“Rage, rage, RAGE! Vortex of fire! The crimson wall! Hellfire’s roar! May the ardor of the gale plunge the world into grief and misery! The sky shall burn! The earth shall ignite! The seas shall boil! The fonts shall churn! The mountains shall erupt! All life shall turn to ash! May the lives of the great ones serve as atonement for the coming choler and grief—!”

“Dance, spirits of the air, keepers of the light! Forge thy pledge with the forest’s protectors and envelop us in the psalm of the earth! Surround us!”

The two spells were chanted at the same time.

The ominous song met the sweetly ringing translucence of Riveria’s protection spell—both elves’ eyes trembling in horrified wonderment at the length of the spirit’s chant.

It was a protracted spell song.

Unbelievably long yet so fast, it overcame even Riveria’s rapid-fire words. A colossal mass of magic power surpassing human knowledge, unattainable by humans, cocked and loaded with the utmost of swiftness.

As the spirit’s alluring features crinkled in delight, the high elf’s visage twisted in alarm.

“We can’t even get close to it…!!”

Aiz, Tiona, and the others were still attempting to attack the creature directly, struggling to ward off the throng of tentacles as the magic shook the entire floor. The great, sweeping assaults mowed down everything in their path, monsters included, not allowing the adventurers to advance even one step forward. They already had their hands full keeping the tentacles and monsters away from Riveria.

The monster still chanted. “Your envoy beseeches you, Salamander! Incarnate of fire! Queen of flame—!”

Tiona and Tione slashed again and again at the oncoming tentacles.

Gareth, Bete, and Tsubaki faced off against the swarm.

Raul, Lefiya, and the other supporters unleashed arrows and magic in fruitless onslaughts.

And Aiz. The rain of whipping tentacles still approached her, relentless in its pursuit.

The spells and endless throng of tendrils made for an impenetrable wall of armor protecting the spirit.

Everything came at them at once—an opponent that could attack, defend, and chant all at the same time—and as Finn took in the battle before him, he could feel his teeth grind with increasing ferocity.

“—Retreat! Pull back to Riveria’s barrier!!” He gave the order, knowing all too well where things were heading.

Still backed by Lefiya’s and the other supporters’ cover fire, those on the front line made their way back to Finn. Riveria completed her chant the moment they arrived, almost as if she had planned it.

“Materialize, mighty barrier of forest’s light, and lend us your protection—my name is Alf!” With a wave of her hand, Riveria completed her chant—the ultimate protection spell. “Via Shilheim!!”

A jade-colored magic circle formed beneath Riveria’s feet, the light gleaming before transforming into a dome-like green structure. It surrounded all thirteen of the adventurers, Riveria included.

It happened at the same time. The exact moment that the high elf’s physical-and magic-attack-canceling barrier erected itself around them…

The spirit finished her own chant.

“Fire Storm!”

The world turned red.

“”

It was a massive inferno, akin to a fire elemental.

A raging, broiling wave of wind. A tsunami of flame. A river of incendiary crimson that closed in on Riveria inside her barrier.

It swallowed everything. The monsters. The magic dome with the adventurers inside. The entire floor itself.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”

The impact was sensational. A thundering boom as hellfire met barrier, joined by Riveria’s anguished cry as she struggled to support her staff with both hands.

Screams of agony surrounded them as everything outside the barrier fried instantly, and Riveria’s jade eyes dilated to their limit.

The party found themselves petrified as they watched the world turn to a living hell past the safety of their barrier.

And then.

Crack.

A splinter formed in the barrier of the strongest magic user in all of Orario.

“The shield…?!”

In front of them, above them, to their left, to their right, spiderweb-like cracks ran the entire length of the wall of light. Raul’s and Lefiya’s faces lost all color.

The explosive wave of hellfire closed in on them from all sides.

“—Gareth! Protect them!!” Riveria screamed, the scorching heat all but consuming her.

Gareth responded in an instant and snatched two large shields from the supporters before leaping behind Riveria.

There was a high-pitched shriek. Riveria’s Via Shilheim shattered.

“RIVERIA—?!”

Riveria went first.

As she was swallowed up by the massive stream of raging crimson fire, Aiz’s scream disappeared into the roiling swell.

Then it hit Gareth with a colossal impact as it slammed into the two giant shields.

“GrrrruuuuooooooooooooaaaaAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!” the dwarf soldier groaned as Riveria disappeared into the swirling inferno.

Behind him, Tiona threw Aiz to the ground. Finn and the others were already hugging the earth in Gareth’s shadow.

But it wasn’t enough. The two shields melted at a laughably rapid speed. Gareth’s helmet and armor liquefied around him.

“GRAMPS!!” Bete cried out as the shields disappeared entirely.

Gareth had no choice but to fling his arms out, using his body itself to block the relentless conflagration.

“GGGRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

The dwarf’s titanic roar met the incoming inferno—

The explosion was immeasurable.

Everything went red. The blast sent Aiz and the others flying back with an incredible force.

Their skin and armor sizzled and charred as the crimson cyclone tossed the first-tier adventurers about, yet somehow they still managed to hold on to their weapons. They couldn’t even scream. The charred hiss of flaming destruction enveloped the world around them. Again and again they tumbled along the ground, Lefiya, Raul, and the other supporters escaping the brunt of it thanks to Finn’s protection.

The flame purged everything.

“Grrn…hnn?!”

The storm finally cleared to reveal Aiz and the others scattered about like corpses atop the scorched earth.

Nothing remained but charred ash as far as the eye could see. No monsters. No magic stones. Not even the jungle behind them was left. Everything had turned to cinders and dust. The floor of the Dungeon around them had become a different world with nothing but the spirit at its center unchanged.

They’d escaped the full force of the wave, but even the aftershocks had left them in disrepair—their armor and bodies were marred with cuts and burns. Moaning in pain, they shakily peeled themselves off the ground, no one saying a word.

Riveria lay facedown, the magic gem of her silvery white staff cracked. Her robes, made from holy fabrics of considerable magic resistance, were burned to a crisp and lying in tatters around her.

Gareth had tumbled a short distance away, his body charred and lying faceup. He’d held out to the very end in order to protect Aiz and the others, and his armor was painted black.

The elven magic user and dwarf soldier lay motionless. Silent.

Lefiya, Raul, Tiona, Tione, Bete, everyone could do nothing but look on, a kind of crippling despair twisting and contorting their features.

They were gone. All the familia’s leaders save Finn.

Two of Loki Familia’s strongest warriors had passed.

They’d reached an unprecedented state of emergency.

“Riveria…Gareth…” Aiz’s voice was hoarse as the two names passed her lips.

They’d lost their familia’s two pillars of support. Morale had hit a new low.

The sight in front of them was enough to break the hearts of the young adventurers.

Even Finn, holding himself up by his charred arms, found his green eyes tightening.

“Moan, mighty earth—”

But it wasn’t over yet.

“”

The spirit began her next spell, a coy smile playing on her face.

—it was too fast.

Already, the black magic circle was forming beneath her, a deep obsidian color different from the one before.

She hadn’t paused even a moment to allow the post-magic rigor to abate before her next chant was well on its way, and the unbelievable spectacle rooted Aiz and the others to their spots.

“Rise, rise, RISE! Husk of the earth! Sheen of iron! Hammer of the cosmos! May genesis’s pact upheave rock and stone! The sky shall burn! The earth shall split! The bridge shall rise! Heaven and earth shall become one! May the axes of the ether rain down and bring about calamity’s ruin—!”

Another long, protracted chant. But they knew that destruction was imminent.

“Your envoy beseeches you, Gnome! Incarnate of the land! Queen of the earth—!”

There was no hesitation. No pause. She sang the melody bestowed unto her with an incredible facility, bringing it to completion.

It was partly shock that triggered the first-tiers’ instincts. The moment they hit the ground running, the spirit let out her final note as a dark cloud of blackest light enshrouded her body.

“Meteor Swarm!!”

The circle flashed, and light shot straight up to coat the ceiling in shadow.

The magic converged, and thousands upon thousands of meteorites formed in the mass of darkness.

“Protect Raul and the others!!” Finn shouted, dashing forward to grab one of the supporters’ arms.

And in that moment, the storm began.

“WhuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Raul’s scream echoed throughout the fifty-ninth floor as they were caught in a vortex of destruction and exploding bedrock.

Bete grabbed hold of him as the two were knocked off their feet. Aiz grabbed Lefiya, holding her tight as they disappeared into the inky blackness. Tiona and Tione flung themselves toward the remaining two supporters, and Tsubaki used her body as a shield to protect them. The entire Dungeon shook around them as the glimmering black meteors pummeled the earth over a tremendous radius.

Aiz felt her gauntlets go flying, but she paid them no heed, never releasing her grip on the magic user in her arms. As they rode the shock wave, she saw Riveria’s and Gareth’s bodies being pelted mercilessly by the swarm of black comets.

She screamed, but no sound came out.

Everything was under the control of those savage chains of light.

“…ghn…ah.”

“D-dammit…!!”

Bete dug his fingers into the already scorched earth, Raul moaning listlessly in his arms.

A giant crater had formed. The adventurers lay sprawled out a short distance from the massive hole, smoke and inky black particles marbling the air above their bodies. The spirit smiled sweetly at them from atop her massive chassis as first one, then two, then the rest of them began to stir, somehow managing to push themselves shakily to their feet.

Their quick instincts and expeditious defensive maneuvers had allowed them to weave their way through the massive storm of meteorites and narrowly escape with their lives.

“Everyone alive back there?” Tsubaki smiled weakly, her right arm completely carbonized and hanging uselessly at her side.

“Just barely…” Tione responded as she pushed herself free of the supporter she’d been protecting.

Tiona, too, hazily cracked open her eyes. Narfi, in tears, administered a restorative potion for the pain.

“M-Miss Aiz…?”

“Hnngh…hah…hngh…” Aiz could reply to Lefiya’s plea only with stilted gasps. The instinctive cast of her Airiel had lasted mere seconds against the direct blast of meteors, and the mix of golden hair atop the two girls’ heads was smattered and disheveled.

The golden pools of the spirit’s eyes narrowed as she took in the scene before her. Spreading her supple arms, the two great flower buds along her lower half began to bloom.

“Is she…”

“…absorbing magic power?”

First the inky black particles floating around the room, and then the red particles, almost like embers, began drifting back toward that colossal, vibrantly colored ring.

Tiona and Tione could do nothing but stare in wonderment as the spirit recharged her consumed magic power. It was unthinkable—she should have used up almost all her magic reserves by this point, but by reabsorbing the scattered particles, she’d have a full tank. The hearts of every adventurer there dropped into their guts. The spirit devoured everything. Every single particle. Even the jade-colored magical residue left over from Riveria’s shattered Via Shilheim.

Once she was fully recharged, she’d be able to ravage them with her dreadnought-like, wide-range annihilation spells once more.

As beautiful as the spirit looked with those particles of light around her, all Aiz and the others saw was the grim reaper’s scythe about to bestow the finishing blow.

“Laa—…”

The spirit lifted her slender chin, a new melody lilting from her lips.

The high-pitched voice weaving its cherubic song seemed so childlike and innocent, and as she sang, a multitude of shadows formed behind her.

“Are those…monsters?” Lefiya’s eyes trembled with anguish as she took in the sight of that vivid yellow-green skin.

They were coming from a massive hole behind her—a hole reaching all the way to the sixtieth floor—a legion of caterpillars and violas all summoned by the singing spirit.

The sight of that great army, of that spirit wrapped in her gown of many colors, dispelled what little strength the adventurers had left.

“Is this the…end?” Tsubaki murmured, supporting her useless arm as her right eye blurred with an unspoken truth.

The others knew it, too. Bete, Tiona, Tione, all of them still kneeling on the ground. The last thing they’d wanted to do was abandon hope, but the current situation appeared beyond dire. Lefiya felt her eyes well up with tears as she bit down on her lip. Raul’s and the other supporters’ eyes refused to leave the ground.

Still on the floor herself, Aiz kept her hand around Desperate’s hilt, her eyes trained on the writhing mass of approaching monsters.

All around her, the weapons of her fellow adventurers lay strewn across the ashen earth.

Swords. Spears. Axes. Staves. Shields.

A desolate scene that brought back memories of her dream.

Though the unbreakable weapons still retained their shapes, their luster had faded to a dull sheen, as though resonating with their owners. With disgusting sounds, the swarm of monsters gathered around their queen, simply staring up at the sea of stars that was the drifting particles of light.

Aiz was silent, unable to so much as lift her blade.

“…”

It was then that it happened.

Finn rose to his feet, wiping his soiled face vigorously.

Step by step, the golden-haired prum advanced.

Farther and farther he continued, past Raul with his head raised, past Lefiya in her bewilderment, past Bete as he turned around questioningly, past Tsubaki with her right eye trained on him, and past Aiz, staring at him wordlessly.

He picked his spear up from off the ground and stood defiantly before the spirit and her army, his back to his companions.

Then he thrust the head of the spear into the ground.

“We’re going to destroy that thing.”

He made his declaration, green eyes flashing as they stared down the sweetly smiling spirit in front of him.

Tiona and the others let out audible gulps.

He shot a glance back at the stunned adventurers.

“I ask you for courage. Tell me, what is it you see before you?”

A repulsive amalgamation of spirit and monster.

A being that surpassed human knowledge with the ability to command an army of monsters.

“Do you see fear? Despair? Ruin? I see nothing but an enemy we must bring to its knees. We can surely prevail.”

A tremble passed through the shoulders of the entire party.

He continued. His tiny frame was all that stood between them and the horror that awaited them.

“We’ve never needed an escape route. And we don’t need one now. I’ll clear a path myself with this very spear!” he exclaimed, eyes filled with determination as he looked back at his companions. “I vow in the name of Phiana herself that we shall prove victorious! So follow me!”

Their whole bodies were shaking now. Tiona’s, Tione’s, Bete’s—all of their chests and eyes, their arms and legs quaked violently.

As they gazed at the figure standing before them, Raul curled his hand into a fist, and Lefiya felt her heart well up with courage.

If the ability to incite armies, to uplift, to promote, to demand inspiration no matter the time, no matter the place was a requirement for herohood, then truly, the “Braver” Finn Deimne was more hero than anyone else.

“Or is following in the steps of that boy Bell Cranell too much for you to handle?”

More than anything else, Finn was a prodigy when it came to lighting fires in people’s bellies.

“”

In an instant, Bete and the others were transported to the scene of that decisive battle.

The crazed bull and the lone boy carving away at each other’s life force. That true adventurer, wagering everything, his body, his soul, for that one fight.

The lingering memory of that brutal match set their very souls alight.

There was nothing more passionate. Nothing more pure. Nothing nobler.

It was a page in the great epic.

Aiz’s eyes widened as the sight of that boy’s back played across her mind once more.

The back of that boy overlaid on her father’s.

“—Hell if I’m gonna let some pipsqueak like this take me down!!” Bete howled in fury as he rose to his feet.

“…A little full of ourselves there, are we?” Tione responded as she swept her bangs out of her eyes before joining him.

“This is our adventure, too!” Tiona jumped up, a giant smile plastered across her face.

Aiz rose, too, a glint in her eye as she adjusted her grip on her silver sword.

They snatched their weapons from off the ground. Twin blades, halberd, greatsword—they all shone with a renewed brilliance as though filled once more with their owners’ fighting spirit.

Raul and the other supporters could only gaze in wonder as, one by one, the first-tiers swelled up with an invigorated dynamism. Gone was the grief and hopelessness. There was only their brilliantly burning spirits.

Bell Cranell…!

Lefiya’s heart ignited with a fiery passion as that name graced her ears.

In her mind, she could see him running out ahead of her, and the thought of it stoked the coals already ablaze within her chest. Following in line with Aiz and the others, she tightened her hands around the grip of her staff and rose to her feet.

Raul and the other supporters looked on in mute amazement and then pulled themselves together and leaped off the ground, jaws set.

A kind of immeasurable energy that went beyond limits had seized the party.

“Raul! You and the others will stay behind and back us up! The rest of us will charge that thing! You, too, Lefiya! You’re with us!” Finn shouted at the reawakened adventurers, returning his eyes to the spirit still at work absorbing magic power from the air, while the supporters scrambled about to retrieve their scattered weapons.

“Understood!”

Once their armaments had been speedily returned to them, Lefiya and the first-tiers readied themselves for their first—and last—charge.

Finn stood with his back to them as they rushed about. Once he’d received his second Durandal spear, he approached the bodies of the elf and dwarf still lying on the ground.

“Riveria…Gareth…Is this the end?” He averted his eyes, having no desire to see his two friends splayed out like lifeless corpses.

No, the only direction he looked now was forward, at the enemy in front of them.

“If so, then rest. My story hasn’t finished.”

Voice filled with ambition, with determination, he stepped forward.

He would continue, even if it meant leaving them behind.

“Forward!!” He turned around to issue the command to his companions, now that their preparations were complete.

And then they were off, their hearts raging as they rushed that teeming mass of howling monsters.

Twitch.

The left hand of a certain dwarf trembled at the sound of those rushing feet.

Five fat fingers dug into the ground before grasping it tight.

“Damn cheeky little…prum!” Gareth pushed himself to his feet, a genuinely chagrined smile playing on his face.

He turned to the elf next to him, her own hand stirring as she raised her gaze.

“And what do you think you’re doing, elven wench? You think this is the time to be sleeping?!”

“…Silence, you abominable dwarf.” Riveria drew her staff to her, chuckling with a bold audacity.

They were back. They were leaking blood and at each other’s throats the same as when they’d first met, but they had returned.

“Sir Gareth…Miss Riveria…!!” Raul cried out, tears threatening the corners of his eyes at the tenacity, the fortitude, the unbreakable bond the leaders of their familia shared.

“My ax, boy!!” the dwarf bellowed, and the supporters were quick to toss the legendary warrior his Grand Ax. Then he dashed off after Finn and the others with a raging howl, completely undeterred by the wounds all over his body.

“You all—protect me!” Riveria instructed as she readied her staff, her own body covered in lacerations. She was already summoning a jade-colored magic circle beneath her feet.

“Roger!!” Raul and the other supporters responded in sync, quickly doing as they’d been told.

There was a vivid flash. Her strongest spell began to take shape.

Abandoning all unnecessary movement, the most powerful magic user in Orario focused solely on her chant.

“…Well, I’ll be damned!” Tsubaki’s eye narrowed as she took in the sight of the reinvigorated Loki Familia. “Better be gettin’ your act together, too, old girl!” Right arm still dangling at her side, she readied her tachi in her left hand and dove headfirst into the throng.

The final battle had begun.

Light swirled around them in a raging vortex toward the ghastly vessel at its center.

Two hundred meders. That was all that remained between them and the corrupted spirit still greedily devouring magic power, and they made a beeline toward her, weapons flashing.

They moved like the wind. A thunderous howl rose up to meet them the moment they clashed with the massive army of monsters.

“Aiz, save your strength! We’ll need you to land the finishing blow! The rest of you, protect her!”

One strike.

They were betting everything on a single strike.

Finn knew that against an enemy like this, one that had countless methods of attack and defenses like a fortress, any chance they could finagle would be momentary at best.

Aiz needed to save up her power, and he and the other first-tiers needed to get her next to that thing at all costs, even if it meant a few sacrifices along the way.

They’d use every ounce of their power to cut a way through the teeming mass and guide Aiz toward the corrupted spirit.

She nodded and activated her Airiel.

“Awaken, Tempest!!”

The flowing armor of wind quickly encircled her body.

The rest of the party changed formation, moving Aiz and her winds of enchantment to the center and placing Finn at the head to form an arrowhead shape.

A silver bolt to pierce the heart of that creature.

“Lefiya, begin chanting something! Anything!” Finn shouted as Aiz began amassing her wind power.

“Understood!”

And then Finn himself began to chant.

“Spear of magic, I offer my blood! Bore within this brow—” The ultrashort chant on his lips as he ran, his left hand was quickly dyed a deep bloodred as it amassed magic power.

He closed his eyes and pressed his thumb, now a brilliant red, against his forehead like the sharpened point of his spear. The moment it touched, the glowing magic power rushed inside him.

“Hell Finegas!”

Finn’s emerald eyes burst open, now stained a murderous shade of crimson.

“—Gggwwwwwwwwuuuuuuuuooo oooooGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!” The usually taciturn prum leader screamed with all the strength and savagery of a feral warrior.

Hell Finegas was Finn’s spell for bolstering fighting spirit.

It gave him a lust for battle, drawing out a bloodthirsty passion from deep within him while greatly boosting his abilities.

At the same time, however, it greatly reduced his rational thought processes.

—Finn was done giving orders.

Aiz and the others realized that all too well the moment they saw their leader transform into that barbaric soldier.

Everything now was to get Aiz to that spirit, which meant prioritizing abilities over orders.

From here on out, each one of them would be giving their own commands.

Tiona, Bete, and Lefiya silently adjusted their grips on their weapons. At the same time, Finn took back the Durandal spear he’d entrusted to Tione.

He flung himself headlong into the oncoming monster swarm, his tiny frame looking even smaller next to the two long spears in his hands.

All alone he rushed forward, away from the rest of the party, war cry straining his lungs.

“HNNGHH!!”

The slaughter began.

Before the caterpillar at the front of the horde could even think of releasing its corrosive acid, the upper half of its body was forcefully wrested from its frame by the prum’s Durandal spear. Legs went flying, followed by a hail of fleshy chunks. The spear continued, hitting the monsters to its left, its right, behind it—all of them exploding and scattering in pulpy pops with that single swing of his spear.

The prum hardly took notice of the carnage he’d created, moving fluidly into frenzied slashes of his two spears.

“Wuuuuuuuuuuuuoooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhh!!”

The long silver pikes plowed through caterpillar after caterpillar. Finn’s scream shook the walls as acid sprayed and splattered. The relentless slashes dug deep into the caterpillars’ flesh, all the way to their cores, shattering their magic stones and sending clouds of ash dancing through the air.

He destroyed every one of them in his path. Nothing could touch him. Not the caterpillar’s acid. Not the violas’ tentacles. He crawled the ground like a crazed beast, bypassing every incoming attack as he robbed the fiends of life with each flash of his spear.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Finn like this…!” Tione murmured as she and the others witnessed the bloodbath occurring before them. Though this certainly wasn’t the first time they’d witnessed Finn’s berserker form, the inhuman butcher in front of them was so far removed from the leader they knew that they could only look on in awe, eyes trembling. Even the Sword Princess, still surrounded by her armor of wind, found the color draining from her face at the sheer power of their prum leader. In only a matter of seconds, a mountain of carcasses had formed in front of them.

The lancer’s howl continued unbroken, his reddened eyes desperately craving, desperately lusting for blood.

He single-handedly plowed his way through the teeming throng, the true point of their arrowhead formation, while Tiona and the others took out any other monsters that drew near.

“Ah-ha.”

Still in the process of recharging, the spirit turned her gaze toward Finn and the group in their rapid approach and unleashed a flurry of thick tentacles.

Bete and the other first-tiers fought them back in an effort to protect Aiz. Finn, on the other hand, neatly chopped three of them in half. The sound of it reverberated off the walls as the three fat whips recoiled and twitched. A look of disbelief crossed the spirit’s face.

Braver had both a golden spear and a silver spear.

In his right hand was his tried-and-true weapon of choice—the Fortia Spear. Often called the “Brave Fortia Spear,” it was a Superior weapon with a golden tip.

In his left was the silver Durandal spear—Roland Spear. Armed with these two spears, Finn was a veritable whirlwind.

“—But it all ends now,” the spirit said with pure scorn after her moment of surprise.

The multicolored ring she’d been using to absorb the magic power closed, and she returned her two great flower buds to her lower half. Then she raised her arms, her gown shuddering with the movement.

“Arise, flame—”

Once more, the repulsively ethereal voice began to sing. Once more, she began casting her spell.

“More magic?!” Tione cried out in alarm.

“Shit!!” Bete immediately responded as the two of them watched the magic circle begin to form beneath the spirit’s feet, accompanied by a brilliant red light.

There was still a good hundred meders left between them and the creature, and a wall of monsters yet blocked their path. There was no way they’d make it in time.

In front of them, the spirit raised her armor of flower petals—ten colossal shields she kept stored behind her lower chassis. Aiz, Bete, and the others could only watch in despair as she began uttering the same protracted chant as before, her iron-wall-like defenses already in place.

“Your envoy beseeches you, Salamander! Incarnate of fire! Queen of flame—!”

The spell was finished before they knew it, magic light swelling up around her. The hearts of not only Aiz and the other first-tiers but Raul’s and the supporters’ in the back, as well, dropped into their guts.

Then Finn jumped.

Gripping his gold-tipped spear and grinding his teeth together, he hurled himself at the spirit, a prum cannonball.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!”

There was a brilliant flash of golden light as Braver shot forward.

Then, with a flash of his red eyes, he launched his weapon. The Fortia Spear hurtled forward, puncturing the very air itself and transforming into a beam of light that rocketed straight toward the spirit.

The distance between them might as well not have even existed considering the speed at which that spear traveled. It was to her in an instant.

“Gngh!”

The spear plunged into the spirit’s face just as she was about to release her spell.

It sailed past the armor of flower petals so fast it was nothing but a single point as it dove straight into her open, chanting mouth.

It was a direct hit. Passing all the way through her head, the golden tip of the spear protruded out the back near the lower half of her brain stem.

The spirit bent backward from equal parts shock and awe—Finn had triggered an Ignis Fatuus.

“?!”

The unexpected impact left her faltering, unable to control the magic so close to release.

And then she lost it. The massive net of magic power broke, spilling out unchecked, and she erupted in flames. The explosion was colossal. A giant blast, large enough to mask her entire body, detonated from inside her, and the crimson magic circle she’d summoned fizzled into nothingness.

Aiz and the other first-tiers found themselves in stupefied awe as Raul and the other supporters behind them let out cries of joy.

“NOW!!” Tione screamed, stepping in for Finn, and everyone took off.

Bete and Tiona eliminated the remaining caterpillars and violas surrounding them, allowing the group to finally break through the teeming army.

Fleshy chunks of meat flew around them as a path opened up straight to the spirit.

“Please—give me strength! Elf Ring!!” Lefiya shouted, finishing up her Concurrent Casting the moment they ploughed through the monster obstacles.

Her summon burst was ready. A small, golden magic circle formed around her running feet, waiting for her next command. In a constantly changing battle such as this, she needed to be ready for anything, so she simply held her breath, siphoning more and more power into the spell as she waited for the perfect time to release.

She and the rest of the party upped their speed with the flaming spirit in their sights.

“…”

From within the rising smoke, the spirit swayed, her skin charred and blackened.

A single tentacle rose, curling around the spear currently skewering her throat and tugged it out with a jerk. There was a snap as the spear was broken in two.

The pieces of the gold-tipped spear dropped to the ground with a clatter, and then the spirit healed herself with an ignition of magic power. In only a matter of seconds, the gaping hole in her throat was filled with flesh. She smiled.

Still scattering residual magic power from her auto-regeneration, she turned the golden pools of her eyes toward Finn and the others.

“Pierce, spear of lightning! Your envoy beseeches thee, Tonitrus! Incarnate of thunder! Queen of lightning—!”

A golden magic circle appeared in front of her eyes.

“A short chant?!” Tiona cried out at the almost instantaneous spell.

Short chants excelled when it came to pure speed, and considering this was a spirit they were dealing with, the power behind it would be nothing to balk at, either—not even comparable to the spells of a normal magic user.

No, this was a spell that could stand up to even the best of the best, and the sight of that loaded magic gun made the eyes of every adventurer there—Finn and his Hell Finegas included—widen in terror.

Brilliantly sparkling beams of lightning burst forth from the midair magic circle.

Time itself seemed to stop as an electric glimmer seared the adventurers’ faces.

“Thunder Ray!” the spirit screamed.

The all-powerful spell, reserved for the spirits of the Ancient Times, enveloped Aiz and the others with a deafening roar.

“—Shield me, cleansing chalice!”

She had to stop it!

The moment the words burst from her throat, Lefiya leaped in front of the others.

The golden magic circle at her feet transformed into a circle of pure white, filled to the brim with the power to save the people she loved the most.

Lefiya unleashed the ultrashort chant of her friend with a speed that surpassed that of her enemy’s.

“Dio Grail!!”

A snow-white, circular barrier surrounded them.

Less than a second later, the two magic spells collided.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~gnh?!”

Lefiya’s body began to sink, both hands tightly gripping her staff.

The massive thunder attack pummeled the round barrier. Then, just like with Riveria’s spell earlier, there was a high-pitched screech, and a crack formed across its surface.

It couldn’t take much more. Though the spirit’s current spell didn’t come close to the power behind the earlier protracted chant that had shattered Riveria’s Via Shilheim, it still contained incredible force. Lefiya let out a scream of anguish as the white fissure grew with every passing second.

Aiz and the others could only watch as their fields of vision went white. The spirit’s magic—magic that could easily swallow them whole—was fully prepared to crush the spell of the tiny elf in front of them.

Lefiya’s knees began to give; sparks flew as her barrier screamed.

Then.

“LEFIYA!!”

“You can do iiiiiiiit—!”

Two shadows ran past her, colliding with the barrier.

It was Tione and Tiona. Durandal halberd and greatsword crossing, they slammed themselves against the white shield.

They were supporting her Dio Grail in its attempt to hold back the lightning.

“Tiona! Tione!” Aiz cried out as Lefiya’s eyes slammed shut.

The two brave first-tier adventurers used their own bodies as shields, not even caring as their skin instantly scorched under the full brunt of the sparking electricity.

Lefiya’s knees screamed at her, so close to giving out beneath her.

Was this it, then? Was this the best she could do?

“—I can do it, too,” she whispered as Aiz, Bete, and Finn stood behind her.

In front of her were Tiona and Tione, blocking that omnipotent spear of thunder with their bodies.

Her body ignited. Blood and magic churning, boiling, frothing within her, her azure eyes opened with an almost audible snap.

“I CAN DO IT, TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

The two spells neutralized each other.

“!”

Lefiya roared as light burst from the pure-white barrier, pushing back the incoming lightning and erupting in a giant explosion.

They destroyed each other, spirit and elven magic rupturing in a brilliant light storm that sent shock waves rippling from the impact. Tiona and Tione went flying, and even Lefiya herself was sent straight back at an incredible speed.

The other adventurers didn’t even look back as the three girls whizzed past them but pushed forward immediately.

“NOW!!” Bete howled as the three dashed ahead, Finn with his spear and Aiz with her accumulated wind power.

Tears pricked at Aiz’s eyes, her pupils trembling at the courage, at the sacrifice of her companions, but she stayed on target, nothing but that towering corrupted spirit in her sights as she shifted her grip on Desperate’s hilt. She was the Sword Princess.

And only three of them remained.

Only some fifty meders stood between them and the spirit.

“—Harbinger of the end, white snow.”

A clear, ringing tune rang out behind them.

From the giant magic circle over two hundred meders away. Standing at the center of that flowerlike magic circle of jade was Riveria, her silvery-white staff, Magna Alf, primed and ready.

The high elf’s eyes were tightly shut, her focus on nothing but the spell at hand.

This was it. The most powerful spell of the most powerful magic user in Orario. The true ultimate spell that would take every ounce of Mind she had.

“Get your magic swords ready!” Raul shouted at the other three supporters even as they warily eyed the building waves of magic power forming behind the elf. They needed to prepare for the multitude of monsters drawn to the massive magic power building around Riveria and approaching her without so much as a glance at Aiz, Bete, and Finn. The army of caterpillars and violas kicked up a storm of dust and smoke behind them.

“Aim for the caterpillars! Don’t let a single one through! Then we’ll take on the violas behind them!” Raul called, sounding more and more like Finn.

The three Level 4 adventurers nodded. They only needed to take out the acid-spewing caterpillars from afar with their ranged weapons. The remaining violas could then be taken out using any means possible.

Gripping their long magic swords with their superior power and endurance, they took aim, then let their power fly.

“Gust before the twilight.”

Flame, lightning, ice, then flame again—the rounds of magic ammunition hit the oncoming caterpillars with godlike precision.

Again and again they launched their elemental salvos, the sound of Riveria’s chant in their ears. One by one, the caterpillars exploded until finally Raul’s magic sword reached its limit and shattered in his hands. He quickly kicked open the backpack next to him and grabbed a bow and arrow.

A true jack-of-all-trades, he deftly aimed his arrow into the throng, shooting first one, then two, then three of the oncoming caterpillars right through their hearts, piercing their magic stones and turning them to ash.

“—Raul! Behind you!!” one of the other supporters screamed. Try as they might to take them out, the army of caterpillars was almost upon them.

“!”

Indeed, when Raul turned around he saw a new swarm of caterpillars and violas a ways behind Riveria but pressing closer every second.

The green wall that should have been blocking their path back to the fifty-eighth floor had gone up in flames together with the rest of the jungle thanks to the spirit’s earlier inferno, leaving the passageway open for monsters from the upper levels.

They were caught in the middle of a pincer attack, and they only had one magic sword left. Raul’s voice stuck in his throat—he had no idea how to proceed. It was at that moment that Tsubaki rose to her feet with a swish of her red hakama, her right arm fully restored.

“Leave those critters to me.”

“Huh?!”

“Toss me one of those, will ya?” she said as she motioned to the weapons left behind by Gareth and the others. Having stripped herself of her battle clothes to heal her arm, she stood now in nothing but a single cloth. She took first Gareth’s Durandal ax, then Tiona’s Urga into her hands.

Tan skin bared, she dropped her tachi to the ground and took off running.

“M-Miss Tsubaki, you can’t!!” Raul wailed as the smith headed straight for the swarm of monsters behind Riveria, ax in her right hand and Urga in her left.

It didn’t matter how strong the half-dwarf was, there was no way she’d be able to wield Tiona’s Urga and Gareth’s Roland Ax, two of the heaviest custom-made weapons around, at the same time.

Tsubaki, however, was not one to care about such matters. Ignoring Raul’s cry, she made a beeline for the oncoming monster mass, dodging a salvo of corrosive acid and promptly dismantling three caterpillars at once with a wave of her ax.

“Like hell I can’t,” she stated matter-of-factly before blocking another barrage of acid with her Durandal weapon. Or perhaps block wasn’t the appropriate word, as the mighty swing of the heavy blade never stopped moving and sliced through the skin of one yellow-green caterpillar after another.

Utilizing the subsequent inertia, she sent Urga spinning with nothing but her left hand, slicing and bisecting the incoming violas, tentacles and all.

“Just how many weapons y’think I’ve made, huh?” She laughed haughtily, continuing her double-fisted slaughter as Raul and the other supporters looked on in awe. “Each and every one of ’em got a thorough test run.”

The supporters’ faces gave simultaneous twitches. She was absolutely relentless—no doubt having experienced anything and everything there was to experience when it came to armaments in her effort to one day create the ultimate weapon.

They didn’t let their wonderment last long, however, and quickly returned to their defensive maneuvers as Tsubaki showed them just what a Level 5 could do, a grand smile playing on her lips.

“Fading light, freezing land,” Riveria continued, her eyes closed, as Raul and the other supporters—and Tsubaki the one-woman army—continued fending off the oncoming monster army.

Her words came out faster and faster as the spell of ice and frost formed on her tongue.

“Blow with the power of the third harsh winter—advent of the end.”

Only she didn’t stop. She continued, transitioning directly into another spell.

“A blaze shall soon descend.”

The jade-colored magic circle already formed beneath her grew in splendor as her chant shifted toward magic of complete and total annihilation—her inferno spell.

“Approaching flames of war from which this is no escape. Battle horns blaring on high, all atrocities and strife shall be engulfed.”

Concatenated Chanting.

It was a special magic characteristic possessed solely by the high elf queen, Riveria Ljos Alf. A type of chant that could encompass any of the three spells expressed in her Status.

Just as different levels could exist within a single Status, so, too, did three levels of spell exist within her Magic.

From ultrashort chants to short chants, from short chants up to long chants, and from long chants all the way up to protracted chants.

By connecting the respective levels of chants, one could bolster the total magic output, change the magic’s effects, and amplify their destructive power.

Offensive, defensive, healing—three different types of magic each with three different levels. This made for nine different spells the high elf could concatenate at will depending on the situation, which was where her alias, Nine Hell, had come from—a name of praise bestowed upon her by the gods.

And a name that struck fear and awe into her many elven brethren. It was the name of the strongest magic user in all of Orario.

“Come crimson pyre, merciless inferno. Become hellfire.”

This was no longer simply her ice spell, Wynn Fimbulvetr. With each additional word of the concatenated chant, she focused even more Mind, a colossal amount.

The chant she wove now was a second-tier spell, the longest in her arsenal and boasting the greatest range. It was a spell that would set every enemy within its blast radius ablaze in holocaustic hellfire. The sublimation of ice into flame, short into long destructive power doubling in a spell of catastrophic proportions.

“Purge the battlefield, end the war.”

Behind Raul and the other supporters, behind Tsubaki, her silvery-white staff stood ready. A brilliant light flashed from the cracked magic jewel at its tip as the mammoth magic power was released.

Her hair danced in the rippling waves of magic light flowing from her magic circle, and slowly, ever so slowly, she opened her jade eyes.

“Incinerate, sword of Surtr—My name is Alf!!”

It was complete.

As far, far ahead of her, a small white barrier offset the spirit’s lightning attack, the magic circle at Riveria’s feet grew to encompass the entire battlefield.

The adventurers, the army of monsters, and even the spirit itself—all of them found themselves standing upon glimmering jade radiance.

She had found it. The creature, in the middle of that massive army, threatening her companions even now. Then, she pronounced her spell.

“REA LAEVATEINN!!”

The eruption was immediate.

Inferno-like pyres of flaming destruction rose from the earth and burst forth from the magic circle.

They incinerated everything. The monsters attacking Raul, Tsubaki, and the other supporters, the army of monsters proliferating the perimeter, the violas approaching Lefiya, Tione, and Tiona on the ground—everything was swallowed by those swelling waves of pure hellfire.

And it didn’t stop there. The raging flames traveled all the way to the ceiling, to the walls, scorching everything and setting the very air on fire with enough power to rival even the corrupted spirit’s earlier firestorm and turning the Dungeon, once more, into a world of blazing red destruction.

“”

The spirit somehow managed to react as the radiating pillar of fire and brimstone erupted from the center of the magic circle, encasing her entire body in armor formed of ten giant flower petals.

Separating herself from her lower, titan-alm half, she prepared for the incoming attack.

Then exploded.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”

It hit her ten times. A ten-pillar colonnade of devouring incandescence rocked the spirit’s giant frame.

It was incalculably hot. Immensely powerful. Riveria’s genocidal spell burned, gouged, charred, then ignited the surface of the armor-like flower petals.

They crackled and popped. The very same petals that had stood up to the magic of Lefiya and the magic swords without taking so much as a scratch now burned whole before falling to the ground.

“Riveria…”

Aiz felt every crevice of her body radiate sensational heat as she watched, surrounded by the high elf’s flames of pure magic power.

Then she, Bete, and Finn took advantage of the magic user’s assistance and propelled themselves still faster, their eyes flashing.

“…!”

For the first time, the spirit’s smile vanished. Her defenses were gone.

Thirty meders remained. Nothing but a few short moments between them and the spirit. They hurtled through that world of fire, and as the spirit looked down on them, her lips tightened in rage.

Long green hair flowing, she opened her mouth.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!!”

And the earth responded.

From beneath their feet, from deep within the lower floors themselves, a multitude of green pikes burst through the floor as though summoned by that high-pitched call.

“!!”

The tentacles rose up, forming a mighty dome-like barrier some twenty meders wide around the spirit.

Bete’s and Finn’s eyes widened in surprise, and then the two of them zoomed forward, twin blades and silver spear whirling in an attempt to bring down the wall.

“ “Gngh!” ”

But it was no use.

Their blades sank into the green flesh but neither pierced nor cut the mighty shield. The sight of them rushing at it full tilt with absolutely zero effect made even Aiz shudder.

—All the speed, power, and force they’d built up during their charge was effectively nullified.

And now they’d given her a chance to cast another spell. The tables had been turned.

They’d lost their one chance, and time felt like it was screeching to a halt around them. Only then…

A giant whirling blade came rushing past them to collide with the massive green wall.

An ax?!

The mighty ax plunged into the fleshy bulwark, cleaving a massive fissure. Before they could so much as register the surprise, however, a certain dwarf soldier sailed past them and dove at the wall.

“What? Was all that just talk, Finn?” Gareth goaded, the corners of his mouth turned up in a ferocious smile as he yanked his Great Ax from the green tentacles and promptly plunged it back in with another zealous swing.

The rift in the bulwark widened, though Bete and Finn hadn’t even been able to make a dent.

And then Finn smiled. Eyes still red and all rational thought supposedly wiped from his mind, he shot his comrade-in-arms a wry grin.

“Don’t make me say I knew you’d come.”

“Hah! You wish!” Gareth guffawed before taking another whack with his ax.

The resulting clout was enough to shake the very ground beneath their feet. The rift grew larger still. There was so much force behind each swing of the ax that the blade was beginning to crack.

Aiz and Bete watched in wonder as Gareth abandoned the ax and clenched a boulder-like fist.

“Get outta my way!!”

He punched the great green wall of tentacles.

“I said BEAT IT!!”

Another punch. This time, a hole opened up in the fleshy barricade.

“!”

The spirit inside moved almost instantaneously.

And a multitude of tentacles suddenly burst through the ground at Gareth’s feet.

“”

They impaled him.

One, two, three, a whole throng of them pierced through his body and held him aloft as blood gushed out from the many holes.

But even as the red liquid poured from his mouth, the dwarf only laughed ferociously.

“You’ll have to do…better than THAAAAAAAAAAAT!!”

His bellow reverberated off the walls.

Plunging both his hands into the breach as if he weren’t leaking a waterfall of blood, he tore at the tentacles.

“Bete! Aiz!!” Finn screamed, and the two responded immediately by diving into the opening the dwarf had created.

Finn followed after, his comrade helping him through with a yank of his hand as he made it through the last of the barrier.

“Ngh?!”

They were a mere ten meders away now, and the spirit invested every tentacle she had into intercepting their attack.

The endless giant whips came at them in a frenzy, straight toward Aiz and the incredible wind power surrounding her, but Bete and Finn blocked them.

“Outta my way!” Bete shouted as he whipped out two magic swords from their leg holsters and slammed them down on his Frosvirt. The two boots ignited in the blink of an eye. Re-equipping his twin Durandal blades, he then threw himself at the flailing tendrils, pruning them whole.

“Burn in hell!!” His feet drew flaming arcs in the air as his two swords carved away with great silver gleams.

The four separate killing tools worked in sync, one on each of his limbs, whirling in a veritable blade dance that first lit the tentacles on fire, then severed them with the force of a raging wave.

It was do or die at this point. The two men fought back against the tentacle onslaught with everything they had.

“ “GuuurrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAARRRGGGHH!!” ”

Their war cries overlapped.

Their armor was gone. Their bodies were riddled with wounds. But somehow they managed it. Twin blades and spear cut a single pathway.

“ “Aiz, go!!” ”

She ran.

Down the single path of survival she sprinted to take on the spirit herself.

It was just her and that thing now.

The cyclone of her Airiel versus that massive, towering creature.

As Aiz turned her gaze upward, her eyes met those deep golden pools.

—I am not Aria.

She told herself as she thought back to those first trembling words of joy the spirit had directed at her.

—And I do not know you.

She knew absolutely nothing about this thing besides the fact that the sight of it made her blood boil.

—All I know is that you shouldn’t exist.

That much she knew.

Her golden eyes flashed as they took in the maleficent, venomous spirit of chaos before her.

Indeed, the blood running through her veins was already whispering to her.

Telling her to consign this monstrosity to oblivion.

With one swing of her sword, she was off, charging straight toward the spirit.

“…Ah.”

The world above her was bathed in red, embers floating in the rising heat.

Lefiya stared up into that oversaturated world as her arms trembled to life.

A searing pain ransacked her body; devoid of strength, her eyes grew hazy and clouded.

Weakly, she raised a bedraggled arm toward the sky.

“Unleashed…beam of light…limbs of the…holy tree…”

She would sing.

It was the only song she had left in her.

A song that she could hear, even as she waged war against that terrifying enemy so far, far away.

“Loose your arrows…fairy archers…”

Even if she didn’t turn around.

She would hear it, and it would soothe her, protect her, save her as it pushed back the enemy threatening her.

“You are the…master archer…”

Just like a fairy, dancing in the forest. Like a spirit, racing to save the one she loved.

Singing the song only she could sing.

“Pierce…arrow of…accuracy…”

She would deliver her song.

“…Arcs…Ray…”

“—Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Aiz leaped.

Finally, the distance between them was gone. Kicking off from the ground, she sailed toward the colossal frame of her opponent.

Then she directed her sword, Desperate, at the main body of the spirit sitting atop the titan alm.

The spirit herself could only look on in blank amazement as Aiz drew near, cyclone-like power coursing through her—and then…

—She laughed.

“”

She opened those smiling lips to reveal the inside of her mouth, which housed a tiny magic circle.

The dancing tendrils had been nothing but a distraction to keep them from noticing the magic light forming inside her, the tiniest chant summoning the tiniest cerulean magic circle.

Her silence and expression of shock had only served to camouflage her next attack.

Aiz’s features froze in terror upon realizing she’d been led right into a trap.

It was too late now. The spirit released her spell.

“Icicle Edge!”

The resulting pillar of ice was monstrous.

It struck instantaneously, leaving her no room to evade.

A massive blade of blue ice launched directly in front of her eyes.

An arrow of light shot forth from Lefiya’s outstretched arm.

The single beam of light rose straight above her head before curving to run along the ground.

“Go…” Lefiya’s voice trembled.

Find her. Fly to her.

“GO!!” She screamed it this time, her eyes closed.

The arrow’s speed increased, almost as though responding to Lefiya’s cry.

“REACH HER!!”

And it did. Lefiya’s song reached all the way to Aiz.

And exploded against the incoming blade of ice.

“!!”

Neither Aiz nor the spirit saw it coming.

The arrow of light appeared from nowhere, slamming into the icy pillar in front of their eyes and diverting its path.

The spirit’s attack zoomed straight past Aiz, tousling her golden hair, deflected by the final cover fire of a girl who’d refused to stop singing.

The moment Aiz realized what had happened, her eyes flashed. Facing the bewildered spirit, she swung her sword of wind with everything she had.

“Gnnnghhh!!”

“Nnngh!”

With an astonishing reflex, the spirit managed to bring her arms up to block the oncoming sword and its vortex-like gale.

The wind screamed.

As the spirit gripped the body of the sword in both hands, the squall tore her vibrant gown to shreds in an instant.

The sword trembled, imbued with all that massive current, then gave a flash as it plunged straight through the spirit’s body.

Crimson blood welled from the creature’s green skin.

“—NO!!”

Her face contorted in pain and agony as the sword, propelled by the tempestuous winds, bisected her whole. She flung up a single tentacle in immediate response.

The powerful whip was quick to break through Aiz’s armor of wind, sending the swordswoman flying.

“AIZ!!”

Tiona and Tione, holding each other up, watched as the golden-haired, golden-eyed girl rocketed through the air in a shower of blood.

As did Riveria, standing there weakly.

As did Raul and the other supporters, exhausted and spent.

As did Tsubaki, supporting herself with her weapon.

As did Lefiya, still splayed across the ground.

As did Gareth, down on his knees.

As did Bete and Finn, sent flying by the flurry of flying whips.

The girl’s body whirled as it crossed above the Dungeon floor.

“”

But even as blood poured from her head, her perception had not diminished. No, not even a single bit.

Eyes still as sharp as swords, she used the momentum of her flight to travel all the way to the Dungeon’s ceiling—then landed.

She stood there, upside down, and drew Desperate behind her like a bowstring pulled taut.

“Rage, Tempest!!”

She’d unleash everything.

All the Mind she’d collected within her, everything loaded into the cannon that was her Airiel.

A windstorm more powerful than a typhoon.

“!”

The bloodied spirit directly below her immediately began weaving together a new chant.

“Light, gleam! Tear through the darkness! Your envoy beseeches thee, Lux! Incarnate of light! Queen of refulgence—!”

The ultrashort chant summoned a giant massive circle above her head to oppose the lone swordswoman.

Aiz’s gaze met that of the spirit below her, then she pointed the tip of her sword toward the ground.

She was ready.

All eyes were on her.

“Aiz…” Riveria murmured.

“Do it, lass.” Gareth’s eyes narrowed.

“Go, Aiiiiiiiz!!” Tiona and Tione cried out in simultaneous encouragement.

“Crush that bitch!” Bete asserted.

“It’s up to you now,” Finn said with a smile.

“—Miss Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz!!” Lefiya screamed from her spot on the ground.

And then.

“Li’l Rafaga!!”

She released the storm.

“LIGHT BURST!!” the spirit said as she finished her own spell at the same time.

Spiraling arrow of wind met massive blast of light.

There was a momentary pause.

Then the whirling kamikaze blasted through the gleaming white light, eliminating it completely.

“”

The unbreakable sword impaled the spirit from her head to her chest.

A single flash of wind traveled from her seemingly feminine upper half to her monstrous lower half.

As the silver sword sliced her in half, the spiraling gale gouged out chunks of her flesh. The spirit’s high-pitched shriek echoed throughout the hall.

Desperate passed all the way through, collided with the hard earth—and then exploded.

The wind thundered as the spirit turning instantly to ash, her magic stone shattered.

The resulting shock waves made the entire floor quake.

Still, the tempestuous gale continued, all the ash rising and whirling like a massive dust storm.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”

The adventurers covered their faces with their arms in an attempt to protect themselves from the violent winds.

As the gale pushed them back, the brilliant flash painted their visions white.

The weapons thrust into the ground began to shake, resonating with the scream of Aiz’s sword.

And still the storm continued to rage and howl.

Then…

Once the trembling and the rumbling began to subside…

Tiona and the others looked up from their crouched positions…and saw a shadow moving in the center of that giant crater.

The young swordswoman slowly rose to her feet, pulling her silver sword from the ground.

She turned her golden eyes toward them, her long blond hair practically glimmering in the overhead phosphorescence—and they couldn’t hold in their cheers of pure joy.

“AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZ!!” Tiona shouted as she rushed forward, her body covered in cuts and bruises. How she still had any strength remaining was anybody’s guess.

Tione was soon to follow, and Aiz could only smile softly at the broad smiles of her two Amazonian companions. Tiona practically leaped on her as the sisters wrapped her in their arms.

“…Are you all right, Gareth?” Finn inquired as he made his way over to the dwarf.

Gareth glanced up from his spot on the ground, skin and armor stained a bloody crimson. “I seem to remember some prum tellin’ me the only thing I had goin’ for me was this great lug of a body,” he replied, the corners of his mouth turning up in a knowing grin. Next to them, Bete closed his eyes with a laugh.

Far, far behind them, the supporters were hugging one another with tears of relief—even Raul brought an arm to his eyes as he let out a waterfall of manly tears.

“Lefiya, are you all right…?” Riveria knelt down to take the magic user in her arms.

“Lady Riviera…is…is Miss Aiz…?” Lefiya replied from against the high elf’s chest as she directed her watery eyes upward.

Riveria turned her gaze toward the swordswoman in question.

“She’s fine…thanks to your magic.”

Lefiya looked over to see Aiz stumbling beneath Tiona’s and Tione’s overwhelming embraces.

Aiz, in turn, looked back at Lefiya, golden eyes meeting azure.

Thank you, she mouthed silently.

“Oh…” Lefiya’s vision blurred as it took in the sight of that smile.

It was a true, genuine smile from the depths of her heart.

A single tear worked its way down her cheek.

“Goodness gracious! I’d say I’ve seen about everything now!” Tsubaki rubbed at her eye patch from afar as she watched over Loki Familia in their celebration.

Then a childlike smile spread across her face.

The cries of victory echoed throughout the entirety of the fifty-ninth floor.

They’d done it. They’d overcome another expedition. And as the adventurers raised their voices, their weapons gleamed with a brilliant luster.

Aiz pulled her sword from where it stood protruding from the earth in the middle of the hall.

It glinted a dazzling silver in her hand.