A pillar of black-violet light rose from the town like a column.
"......"
"There's something over there!"
Narsess said brightly.
Agaro, in contrast, looked grim.
"Is that a town? It must be ruins, but still, it's strange. I've never heard of there being a town on the 44th floor."
"......"
"Hey, isn't that Relic in that town?"
"The, the, the other three are definitely over there too!"
"Yeah... shall we go check it out? Wof?"
"......"
"Wof. Hey, what's wrong?"
"The, the, the, Lord Wof?"
I snapped back to attention, realizing I was being called.
The three of them were looking at me with puzzled expressions.
"Ah, yes, we're heading to the town."
"Did you eat something weird?"
"The, the, the, Lord Wof. Are you feeling unwell?"
"Hey. You okay? You don't look so good."
"...Actually, I'm not feeling too great. I saw something incredible through my Relic."
"What did you see?"
"Um... something incredible?"
"Your Relic. You gave us a quick explanation, but it tells you about enemies and such, right?"
Before entering the dungeon, I'd given them a brief explanation of the Relics I possessed.
That said, I hadn't mentioned the Wheel of Fortune.
"Yes. My Relic, Danger Discernment, shows white for safe, red for danger, and black for mortal danger. I can see a pillar of black light rising from that town."
When I explained, all three of them were stunned into silence.
"Mortal danger, huh?"
"Yes."
"So if we go, we die."
"Yes. There's a risk of death."
"Um, Lord Wof... is that a monster?"
"I don't know. Whether the danger of death comes from the town collapsing, or from monsters powerful enough to register as mortal danger, or from some other deadly threat entirely—I can't tell that far."
"But there IS mortal danger."
"Yes. There is."
A heavy silence settled over us.
I decided to keep quiet about the purple light.
The ultra super rare blue light beyond that, in the zone of mortal danger.
Now wasn't the time to bring it up.
"...You guys. Sorry about that. Dragged you all the way out here."
Suddenly, Agaro forced out an awkward smile.
Then he turned his back to us.
"From here on, I'm going alone."
"Agaro!?"
"You could die if you go."
"Um, uh, wait—Agaro, you can't!"
"'Doom Sword.' Get a hold of yourself. There's a real risk of death here. You might not come back alive!"
"That's exactly why I'm going."
Agaro's resolve was absolute.
That was when Narcissus's gaze sharpened. Her expression turned frightening.
"I'd rather not let you die, then—"
"Na!"
Out of nowhere, Dagaa leaped onto Agaro.
"Whoa—what the hell are you?!"
"Na!"
The little thing clambered onto Agaro's head and started smacking his eyepatch around.
"What are you, get off me!"
"Na!"
"Cut it out."
"Huh?"
"That's what I'm saying."
"Na!"
"You're not thinking about how the people who'd grieve your death would feel."
"Na!"
"No, I'm not planning to die or anything."
"Na!"
"You're going to make Arifa cry?"
"Wait, Narcissus. Is he actually saying that?"
"Na!"
"If you're going to die, then I'm going with you!"
"Wait, wait."
Wof and Agaro's lines overlapped.
Actually, yo? You seriously use yo as your first-person pronoun!?
"Um, um, um, woof. Let's all go together!"
"Juicy."
"Miss..."
"Um, woof. We're a party. An improvised wolf band! You're not alone! So we are absolutely not letting you go alone!"
"That's right. 'Doom Sword.' I'm absolutely not letting you go alone."
Juicy and Narcissus's resolve was unwavering.
Agaro showed a bewildered expression.
"I'm coming too."
"Wof... ——Yeah. Alright. Let's all go together."
We'd go as an improvised wolf band.
Gazing at the waterfall, we headed cautiously toward the basin below.
"...His name was Robert. The leader of the 'Cover of Tartarus'."
Agaro began to speak, bit by bit.
"Robert once passed out from a drinking contest with me. I won. He never beat me even once. He was a good guy — every time a job wrapped up, we'd go drink together."
"So you were drinking buddies."
"Milko was the same. He treated us all the time. The next morning we'd be so hungover we were useless, and Remika would chew us out."
"All you ever did was drink, huh."
"Come to think of it, we never met anywhere other than the tavern."
The three whose names he'd mentioned must have been delvers who turned into zombies.
Among the zombies, two had been men and one a woman.
Agaro grumbled.
"I just can't get used to it. Delvers live right next to death, and it's not exactly rare for acquaintances to lose their lives in a dungeon like this. But even so... I just can't get used to it..."
He turned his face away from us, his voice on the verge of tears.
"Um, um, do you *want* to get used to it, Agaro?"
"There have been times I've thought that."
"Agaro..."
"There are people like that, sure. But I'd say it's less that they've gotten used to it and more that they've made their peace with it."
Arverld certainly seemed like he'd made his peace with it.
Narcissus sighed and, leading with her usual "idiot," said:
"Just because you've made your peace with it doesn't mean you've gotten any stronger. If I had to, like, use the Doom Sword to put down someone I knew who'd turned into a zombie, I'd spend three days and three nights crying my eyes out, be useless for about a month, mope around and get all gloomy for about a year, and even now I'd still break down in tears every time I thought about it... and... *sniff*... *sob*... *hic*... *waaaah*..."
"Sure, but—hey!?"
"Huh?"
"*Sniff*... Potsu-tarō... *waaaah*..."
Narcissus suddenly burst into tears.
No way. Because she remembered. You've got to be kidding me.
"Potsu-tarō?"
"*Sniff*, *sob*... it was my pet... my sliiiime..."
"Oh boy."
"My pet... and a slime, at that..."
There were way too many things to unpack there.
Narcissus wiped her tears with her hand. But they wouldn't stop.
"Na?"
"Um, woof. Please cheer up."
"*Waaaah*... *sniff*, *sniff*, *sob*... why are you barking all of a sudden?"
"Wof?"
"*Waaaah*... it was Potsu... *sniff sniff* *sob*..."
"Ruff!"
Juicy and Daga comfort Narses.
Caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, Agaro and I could only exchange glances, dumbfounded.
Agaro speaks to me.
"Well, y'know..."
"Yeah."
"I don't go cryin' about it or nothin', but sometimes I think back on it and end up having a drink on my own."
"Is that so."
"That's how it goes sometimes. Some nights are like that."
Agaro gave a wry smile.
Maybe last night had been one of those times for him too.
After that, Narses somehow managed to stop crying.
We descend into the waterfall basin. On the way to the town, we fight zombies.
None of the three people we're looking for were among them.
We repeat the cycle — cutting down zombies as they appear and pressing forward — without much hardship.
Finally, we arrive in front of the town.
The town was enclosed by massive gray walls.
The gate at the entrance had rotted and been left wide open.
On closer look, the once-grand walls were faded, cracked, and crumbling in places — a dilapidated ruin.
"Wof. What do you think?"
"It's black."
The whole town was abnormally, pitch-black. And that wasn't all.
"That town is giving off some kind of awful pressure. What is it?"
Narcissus's face was twisted with discomfort and revulsion.
Juicy scrunched up her face and said.
"A-an, um, it reminds me of the King of the Death Wind."
"Nah!"
"Yeah, it's close to that."
Right. It was just like that time.
"The King of the Death Wind — come to think of it, you guys went to a death dungeon, didn't you?"
"Was that about a month ago?"
"Somewhere around there."
"Alright... shall we go?"
"Yes."
"A-an, yes. Woof."
"Why'd you bark just now?"
"Wof?"
"Nah!"
Weapons ready, we passed through the gate. The moment we did, it appeared.
A massive body bristling with long limbs, filling the gaps between buildings and blocking the road.
It looks like a centipede, but its limbs are human arms and legs—all different lengths, some male, some female.
Eyeballs bulge from every joint along its body, and perched at the top is a woman's upper torso.
Her skin is pallid and lifeless, her long black hair curtaining her face.
Only occasionally does a purple light glimmer through the gaps.
In her delicate hands, she clutches something black, twisted, and elongated.
Suddenly, our eyes met.
At least, I thought they did.
When eyes meet, you just know. She had purple... murky, clouded eyes—the eyes of death.
In that instant, as if something hurled the words out of me, I reflexively chanted.
"—False Apotheosis Relic, Generous."
My hair and eyes turned to a faintly shimmering deep purple in the blink of an eye.
Without missing a beat, I spoke aloud.
"Rave Form."
A strange pain raced from my forehead across my entire face.
"Guh—!"
But that, too, vanished in an instant—and suddenly my perception and thoughts expanded beyond all reason.
It felt as though the very rank of my existence had shifted to a different dimension entirely.
If I reached out, I could truly grasp the stars in the night sky and everything else.
And all of it was nothing more than child's play.
"GYIGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"Guah!?"
"W-what is this, it feels awful"
"Eek!"
"Na!"
It screamed upon seeing me.
Agaro and the others writhed in agony.
"How noisy. [Phantasmagoria Lore]"
I raised my hand, attempting to erase it.
But something blocked me—a barrier—so I erased just the barrier.
Even so, the residual force was enough to send it flying.
Several buildings crumbled.
"Dagaa"
"Na!"
Dagaa leaped high, spun around, and transformed into a knife.
I caught it and gripped the handle—it shifted form. A peculiar triangular knife with a hollow center.
A slightly pointed triangle like an arrowhead, split open in the middle like a two-pronged fork.
At the center of that fork, a large teardrop-shaped jewel—the True Eye—blazed purple.
"[Lore of the
Universe
of the
Arm
]"
When I enchant it onto Dagaa, a blade extends — purple-black, gleaming as though the universe itself were sealed inside.
«GYIGYAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR»
That thing rose up with a piercing shriek and lunged at me.
It brings down a black, twisted, elongated shape.
That is
the abstraction of death.
Some part of me just knows.
This is the same treasure-class as the Decatant — the one the Witch had to reshape the world just to finally defeat.
I meet the abstraction of death with the blade of the universe, drawing it in, absorbing it.
Then, with[Lev Move]perpetually active, I leap high and slash it.
Strictly speaking, I severed the upper half of the woman on its head.
Slain by the blade of the universe, That thing vanishes — sucked into the wound.
And exactly one minute has passed.
I stick the landing.
I'm still in[Generous]. Right — is everyone okay?
"Woof! Wawoof! Woof — Master Wof!"
"Wha—!?"
Juicy, now in[Fenrir]form, came bounding in.