Outside the Garden of Stars “Crack—!” The sharp sound of impact rang out across the empty courtyard.
A clash that should have been evenly matched was settled in a heartbeat.
The wooden sword was flicked out of her grip.
Her hand still numb from the shock, Ryuu could only watch as the tip of Kaguya’s blade came to rest less than an inch from her throat.
“You’ve got attention to spare for other things while you’re crossing swords with me?” Kaguya pulled her wooden sword back and looked down at the elf kneeling on one knee, undisguised mockery in those wine-red eyes.
“Looks like our [Gale] really has been getting too comfortable lately.
Even her sword’s gone blunt.” “Grrrgh—” The defeated elf ground out a bitter, unwilling noise between her teeth, but she had nothing to say in her own defense, and could only stew in her own frustration.
For Ryuu, a magic swordsman, losing a close-quarters blade exchange to Kaguya was hardly shameful.
Kaguya was a specialist who had devoted herself entirely to swordsmanship; in terms of raw combat technique she was even more polished than their captain, Alise.
The problem was that this time, Ryuu had lost far too quickly.
It was hardly the first time the golden-haired elf had sparred with Kaguya like this.
For two people who each regarded the other as her rival, these bouts had long since become routine, and wins and losses were traded back and forth often enough.
But a one-sided rout like this one was genuinely rare.
Ryuu hadn’t shown even half her usual standard.
She hadn’t lasted more than a few exchanges before Kaguya seized on an opening and finished it with a single stroke.
“…I was worried about Alise.” Ryuu rose in silence and picked up her fallen wooden sword, offering no excuse for her own lapse.
“Even if she went up to the upper floors on a whim, she’s been gone far too long.
Counting the trip there and back, Alise should have returned ages ago.” “Hmph.
What a stubborn, one-track elf.
You’re worrying over nothing.” Kaguya let out a cold snort, tossed her wooden sword back onto the weapon rack without looking, and turned away, leaving Ryuu with nothing but a view of her retreating back.
“Whether she ran into some kind of trouble or just got carried away and lost track of time… even facing a Floor Master, that idiot would never lose.” “After all, she’s the captain of our Astrea Familia.” “Kaguya, you know, even Alise could—” Ryuu had barely begun before Kaguya cut her off.
“What’s this?
Can’t beat me, so you fob your excuses off on our dear captain?
Seems even after climbing to Level 3, you’re still the same useless stinking elf you always were.” “Wha— useless elf?!
Kaguya, you said it again!” “Well?
If you’ve got objections, then don’t use your mouth.
Convince me with your sword.” “Hmph, that suits me perfectly.
I won’t be losing this time—!” Riled up by Kaguya’s attitude, the elf failed to notice something.
In the eyes of the very woman who had provoked her, there lay a faint worry much like her own — though born of an entirely different reason.
… Guild Headquarters — Underground Prayer Hall In the stone hall, solemn as a temple, torchlight cast wavering shadows across the walls.
The enormous crystal set off to one side reflected a scene from the depths of the Dungeon — Floor 17.
The entrance to the safe floor.
Across the blue surface of the crystal, the staggering events of that floor played out: A red-haired girl swinging a sword of roaring flame, cleaving the giant’s body apart, while a pitch-black figure in a bone mask unleashed a devastating beam of dark crimson.
For two who had only just met, their coordination was seamless — as though they had drilled together countless times.
“Truly hard to believe.” Watching the scene unfold, the black-robed figure — the sage Fels — let out another sound of astonishment.
A Xenos and an adventurer, felling a Floor Master together.
Even Fels, who had maintained contact with the Xenos for so long, would have called such a thing pure fantasy without hesitation, had she not seen it with her own eyes.
That Floor Master had almost certainly been a special [Enhanced Individual].
On the surface its stats had shown no difference from an ordinary Goliath.
But it had gained the one thing large monsters most conspicuously lacked — regenerative power.
On that basis alone, the Guild would have been justified in raising its potential threat rating by several grades.
And even a Solitary King of the Labyrinth like that had failed to halt those two.
“It’s true that the ferocious assault of the [Crimson Blossom], Alise Lovell, inflicted considerable damage on the Floor Master.
But to seize that opening — I doubt an ordinary Level 2 adventurer could have managed it at all.” Fels’s gaze fixed tightly on the pitch-black figure in the white mask within the crystal.
In truth, she had discovered this Xenos called Artorias a very long time ago.
The reason she hadn’t made contact at once was simple — among all the Xenos, this one was far too abnormal.
Most Xenos were met with malice from every direction the moment they were born.
Monsters of their own kind attacked them without a second thought, and adventurers regarded them as targets that had to be destroyed.
Among the upper-floor monsters, whose species were weak to begin with, the situation was especially dire.
So Fels always tried to reach the newborn Xenos before any adventurer noticed them, protecting them and bringing them back to the Xenos settlement in the middle floors.
But Artorias was different.
From the moment of his birth, this strange Xenos seemed never to have passed through a stage of fear or confusion at all.
With no allies to help him, he attacked any monster that provoked him of his own initiative — and later, he even went so far as to set up a pot and build a fire inside the Dungeon, turning the monsters he killed into cooked dishes.
Compared to an ordinary Xenos fumbling blindly toward some way of surviving down here, he looked far more like an adventurer who had lived alone in the Dungeon for years.
It was too strange.
From that point on, Fels’s primary surveillance area in the upper floors became wherever Artorias happened to be active.
And precisely because of that, she was the first to notice the first adventurer ever to exchange words with him — Adi Varma of the [Ganesha Familia].
Then, later, Gojouno Kaguya of the Astrea house.
And now Alise Lovell had joined the list as well.
“Anything involving Artorias always manages to astonish me…” The sage murmured beneath her black hood.
“Working together with an adventurer like today, and crushing an enhanced Floor Master that should never have been born at this point in time… this goes well beyond anything I anticipated.” “Fels.
Change the plan.” “Have the Xenos waiting on the designated floor withdraw first.” Just then, a low, resonant voice filled the hall.
Having completed today’s [Prayer], the great god Ouranos, seated upon the throne at the center of the hall, spoke slowly.
“The planned test for Adi Varma of the [Ganesha] Familia is also withdrawn for the time being.” “We may have been mistaken about something.” “What truly warrants our attention is not the adventurers who associate with that abnormal Xenos.” “It is the Xenos himself.” Ouranos’s eyes, radiating divine light, remained on the black figure in the crystal.
“During my prayer, I felt the Dungeon’s presence change.” “What Artorias used to suppress the Floor Master’s regeneration was not mere strength.” “What he wielded was the [Divinity] of the Dungeon itself.” “…What?!” The exclamation escaped Fels before she could stop it.
He carried the Dungeon’s [Divinity] — and yet he was on friendly terms with the adventurers who delved into that very Dungeon?
She half-doubted whether her ears had heard correctly.
In answer to the bewildered sage, the god nodded.
“The reason remains unclear.
But of all the monsters, the Dungeon’s presence clings most thickly to Artorias.” “Do not attempt to interfere with his activities any further.
Simply continue offering appropriate support whenever he needs help.” That was the whole of the instruction Ouranos gave in the end.
“Understood, Ouranos.
I shall follow your divine will.” The sage drew a deep breath, swept her black robe around her, and bowed slightly.
Then her figure vanished into the depths of the darkness.
Silence settled over the hall once more, broken only by torchlight swaying across the walls.
“Adi Varma.” “Gojouno Kaguya.” “Alise Lovell.” “And… Artorias, who is a Xenos.” Alone at his throne upon the altar, the great god murmured to himself, the images within the crystal reflected in his pale blue eyes.
“A [hero candidate] born of monsters, who befriends humans.
A miracle of the Lower World the likes of which has never been heard of before?” Ouranos closed his eyes and shook his head.
For beings like them — all-knowing and utterly powerless — the only thing left to do was to watch over their children’s futures in silence, from the shadows of this underground hall, as gods.
… Dungeon, Floor 20 — [Large Tree Labyrinth] An immense forest buried in gloom deep below the earth.
The air was thick with the smell of rotting leaves and moss, and huge tree roots twisted over one another, forming a maze of tangled passages.
After dealing with Goliath, the Solitary King of the Labyrinth that guarded Floor 17, the remaining floors posed no real problem for Alise and Artorias.
Without stopping at the safe floor, Floor 18, the pair pushed swiftly through Floor 19 and soon arrived at Floor 20 — the place known as the [Large Tree Labyrinth].
And at this very moment, the hero candidate Artorias — the one Ouranos and Fels had rated and hoped for so highly — was sprawled flat and utterly undignified atop Alise’s head.
He had reverted to rabbit form, his belly bulging round and taut, the whole of him dazed to the point of no longer knowing which way was up.
“Ugh… so full—” Artorias let out an extremely feeble groan.
The strain this round of [Hollowfication] had inflicted was undeniably far greater than the first time, when he’d blasted that Infant Dragon off the tenth floor with Cero.
But the sorry state he was in now wasn’t caused by the across-the-board stat drop that came as a side effect of Cero.
Quite the opposite.
It was because he’d devoured an entire Floor Master in one sitting, and eaten far too well doing it.
Before this he had barely managed to completely devour even a Level 2 monster — and in one go he had swallowed a Goliath that, by his own reckoning, differed from an enhanced Floor Master by only the subtlest margin.
“Hang in there, Ari!
We’re almost at our destination — just don’t throw up on my head, all right?” Alise reached up to steady the wobbling rabbit on top of her head, her tone somewhere between amused and exasperated.
“Which way next?” “…Turn right up ahead.
There’s a strange smell about fifty meters along.” “Got it!” The flames of [Crimson Flower Stitchwort] flared to life around Alise once more.
With enchantment magic that boosted nothing but speed, she moved freely through the densely wooded labyrinth.
Fels’s coordinates had been somewhat vague, but guided by Artorias’s sluggish yet still reliable instincts, she reached her destination without trouble — an open clearing hidden behind an enormous hollow tree.
As for how she knew this was the place?
One look at what stood before her, and any adventurer with a shred of common sense would have understood at once.
“Hey, you’re here, you’re here!
You two are the odd pair Fels mentioned, right?
A [kinsman] and an [adventurer]?” A tall figure stepped out from beneath the shade of the trees.
He was clad in hard scales of crimson red, a thick tail trailing behind him, and — looking every bit the part — he wore light human armor over it all.
It was a lizardman.
A lizardman who, rather than roaring and lunging like an ordinary monster, raised a claw in a thoroughly human greeting.
“Ohh, so there really are monsters in the Dungeon who can talk, just like Ari.” “I’m Lyd.” “Pleasure to meet you, human girl — and you too, [kinsman], sprawled up there.” “I know the two of you probably have a mountain of questions.” Lyd the lizardman split his broad mouth into a grin that looked a touch ferocious, yet still carried unmistakable goodwill.
“Anyway, since everybody’s here — how about we eat first?” ____ 👻🔥Want more?
P*treon: Walnut-chan🔥👻 🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: