Chapter 7: Aid from the Darkness (Patreon)

What he had to do — he'd known that all along.

Fels kept reminding himself of that.

A sudden roar shattered the deathly silence among the ruins.

"Aaaaargh!"

"What was that? Is someone hiding there?!"

"I can't see anything! Where's the attack coming from?!"

A pale blue shockwave swept across the shattered street, hurling several Evilus soldiers off their feet at once. One slammed into a rotting support beam; another crashed into a ditch choked with filthy water. The last man barely managed to raise his shortsword before a second blast slammed into his breastplate — he never found where the attack had come from.

The metal armor caved in with a dull crunch.

He fell backward and lost consciousness.

Silence settled over the street again, broken only by the faint sound of a loose brick rolling off a wall.

Fels held his right arm raised.

Set into the tip of his jet-black gauntlet was a magic tool shaped like a cannon muzzle — the [Roaring Fist]. Wisps of overheated white smoke curled from its barrel, quickly scattered by the damp wind.

Once he confirmed no other enemies were nearby, Fels reached up and undid the clasp at his cloak's collar.

The scenery wrapped around him rippled and warped.

The effect of the [Double-Faced Cloak of Invisibility] faded, and the black-robed mage — who had blended seamlessly into the surroundings — slowly materialized from what had looked like an empty street corner.

"Another patrol squad."

Fels crouched beside the unconscious enemies and checked what they carried.

Two Flame Stones, a few vials of antidote, and a rough map sketching part of the northern sewer routes. Beyond that, nothing pointed toward Evilus's main stronghold.

This fight hadn't yielded much.

Looking around, though, far too much had already been lost.

The entire street had been wrecked the night of the the Great Feud. Houses were punched through by magic, walls had collapsed in fires, doors and windows reduced to charcoal. Some residents who hadn't escaped in time were still buried beneath the rubble.

Fels tucked the map into his robe.

A deep blue crystal in his chest pocket lit up.

"Fels, how does it stand?"

A low, aged voice reached his ears through the magic tool, the [Oculus].

The crystal's surface reflected a solemn face.

He was the Guild's presiding deity, the founding god of the labyrinth city — Ouranos.

"Found eleven Evilus members, all subdued. None of them carried anything important."

Fels moved to a collapsed intersection and looked down into the standing water.

"The sewer entrance on the map is nearby. The enemy hasn't sealed it, and they've posted men patrolling around it. Your guess must be right — this place is worth investigating."

"Don't rush in."

Ouranos's voice grew heavier.

"If Evilus has hidden its base beneath the city, they'll have set their tightest watch inside the tunnels."

"I'll use the cloak of invisibility."

"Concealment only fools sight and smell. If the enemy has set detection magic in the tunnels, or rigged some device covering the whole area, invisibility means nothing."

"I've already weighed that much risk."

"I know. That's exactly why I'm telling you not to go in alone."

Fels didn't answer right away.

Since the the Great Feud began, he'd never really stopped.

The night before, a stampede and riot had nearly broken out near the West Gate. Fels, hidden above the crowd, had used a magic tool to knock out the residents surging at the front, buying the Ganesha Familia time to restore order.

After that, he'd slipped into three makeshift medical stations, using recovery items he'd stockpiled over the years to save the wounded. Even patients the Dian Cecht Familia's healers had given up on — he'd pulled several of them back from the brink of death.

His owl familiar, Gafiel, had circled endlessly above Orario the entire time.

It watched the Evilus soldiers' rotation routes along the city walls, confirmed the blockade situation toward Melen, then passed the intelligence through the Guild to Finn.

No one knew where that information had come from.

And no one had seen a black-robed figure racing along the edges of the battlefield.

Fels didn't mind in the least.

Concealing his name and deeds, holding up the stage where the heroes couldn't see it — that had always been his duty.

He'd long since lost his flesh and blood. He never hungered, never thirsted. His skeletal body felt none of the ordinary fatigue; he could go without sleep for days on end and never collapse.

This body, cursed in his pursuit of immortality — at least it could still be of use here and now.

And yet Fels didn't move toward the sewer entrance.

"Fels?"

The old god in the crystal noticed something wrong.

The black-robed mage slowly turned his head.

Behind the collapsed house lay dozens of bodies.

Rescuers hadn't reached this street yet. Rain had soaked through the dead's clothing, and dried blood had spread across the ground, mixing with standing water into a dark red.

Some were adventurers, others ordinary residents.

Closest to Fels lay a young elf child.

The child lay on his side by a broken wall, hollow eyes staring toward the street's mouth, a dust-covered right hand stretched forward. Perhaps in his final moment he'd heard someone passing nearby and had used the last of his strength to cry out for help.

But that person never noticed him.

"Ouranos."

Fels's voice had gone very quiet.

"There are many dead lying before me."

Silence fell on the other end of the crystal.

"I should be used to sights like this by now.

Fels walked to the elf child's side and knelt on one knee.

Over eight hundred years, he had witnessed countless deaths.

Adventurers who never returned from the Dungeon, civilians caught in Familia conflicts, the elderly worn down by sickness, children who fell in disasters.

Before him, the lives of short-lived races always seemed impossibly brief.

People he'd once known had aged one by one, becoming names on gravestones. Eventually even the gravestones crumbled, and the long years buried the names completely.

Fels had once believed his emotions were spent.

He had no heart, no blood, and had lost the eyes that could shed tears. The long years should have worn his grief down to nothing, leaving only bones cool enough to carry out divine will.

But the mound of bodies before him proved he had overestimated himself.

"Regret. Loneliness. And longing.

Fels lowered his hood.

"They're looking at me through this child's eyes."

He extended his right hand, sheathed in a black glove.

His warped bone fingers stopped before the elf child's forehead.

A spell even the gods couldn't fully comprehend lay dormant within his body, one long since drained of the warmth of life.

It was the secret art Fels had spent his entire lifetime's wisdom pursuing.

Resurrection.

Defying the world's order to call a departed soul back to the Lower World.

It had succeeded before.

But only a handful of times.

Far more often, no matter how much magic power Fels poured in, no matter how intricate the incantation, the fallen never opened their eyes again.

"Why did I ever seek immortality?"

He seemed to be asking Ouranos — or perhaps his past self.

"Why did I long to revive the dead?"

Before becoming "the Fool," Fels had once been an arrogant sage.

He'd believed magic could explain every law of the world, believed that death would one day bow to his wisdom. That arrogance hadn't come from mere greed for eternal life.

He'd simply witnessed too many partings.

He'd wanted to keep the people he couldn't save.

He'd wanted to hold on to that outstretched hand and never let go.

In the end, he never achieved true immortality, never mastered a miracle reliable enough to save lives. The curse had stripped him of flesh and blood, leaving him stranded outside time, watching still more lives slip away.

Fels's fingertips drew closer to the child.

"If I chant the resurrection spell here, could I save just one person?"

"No."

Ouranos's verdict came at once.

Fels's hand froze.

"I forbid you to use resurrection magic."

"Even for a child?"

"Even then."

The old god's voice was cold, almost harsh.

"You know better than anyone that the spell's success can't be predicted. Casting it will drain your magic power completely, and Evilus's stronghold remains unlocated. There are still more living people in Orario waiting to be saved.

"So you're telling me to abandon a life that might have been saved."

"I'm the one ordering you to abandon it."

Fels raised his head.

The god reflected in the crystal stared straight back at him.

"The responsibility for this child not being saved falls on me, who gave the order."

"Ouranos."

"Don't think too highly of yourself, Fels."

The old god gave him no chance to continue.

"You can't save everyone, and you have no right to carry every death on your own shoulders. Your grief isn't wrong, but what Orario needs right now isn't an uncertain miracle."

The god's tone softened slightly.

"Follow my divine will. Go do what only you can do.

Fels stayed silent for a long moment.

In the end, he withdrew his hand.

"Understood."

He closed the child's eyes, then picked up a still-intact plank of wood nearby and laid it over the body, so falling debris from the ruins wouldn't harm it further.

"I'm sorry."

Those words were for the child he hadn't been able to save.

"Thank you."

Those were for the god willing to bear the weight of his choice.

Fels stood and pulled his hood back on.

What he had to do hadn't changed.

Investigate Evilus's hidden underground base, find the enemy's troop deployment, and get the intelligence into the adventurers' hands.

As he was about to put on the cloak of invisibility, Ouranos's voice came through the crystal again.

"One more thing, before you enter the sewer."

Fels paused.

"Something to do with the Xenos?"

"You'd already guessed.

"This sewer connects to the area where they usually operate. If I keep going, I'll likely run into Xenos sent to scout."

"They've offered to take part in the fighting up above."

Beneath his hood, the blue glow flickered faintly.

"I thought so."

Ouranos sat upon his throne at the underground altar, hands folded.

"Both Gros and Lyd have expressed the same wish. They know Artorias has regained his human form, and that he's been drawn into the fighting in Orario.

At the mention of the black-haired boy, Fels glanced once more toward the sewer entrance.

"They regard Artorias as their kinsman."

"Which is exactly why they can't just stand by and watch."

Though Artorias had regained his human form, traces of a monster's scent still clung to him.

It wasn't an ordinary scent one could pick up by smell alone.

The Dungeon had carved its mark deep into his soul, his flesh, even the depths of his magic power. The Xenos wouldn't take him for an ordinary human, nor could they simply regard him as a monster.

To monsters with reason and emotion, Artorias existed somewhere between the two.

More than that, he was a kinsman they had once recognized as one of their own, in the form of a white rabbit.

"How far do they want to get involved in the fighting?"

"At the very least, to protect Artorias and the adventurers around him."

Ouranos paused a moment.

"Lyd proposed leading a small group of Xenos to sabotage Evilus's supply routes underground. Gros wants to scout every area they can reach, and pass the information to the adventurers above."

Fels didn't agree right away.

"If humans discover them, things will only grow more chaotic.

"I know."

"Orario's residents are already in a panic. Even if the Xenos show themselves with good intentions, they'll be taken for monsters that broke through the Dungeon's containment. The adventurers will move to hunt them down immediately."

"So they won't come up to the surface."

"They'll act only underground?"

"That's the minimum they're willing to accept."

Fels raised a hand and touched the edge of his mask.

When Zald had taken Artorias into the Dungeon, the Xenos had already offered to help.

Fels hadn't refused them then.

What actually kept them away was Zald himself.

"That Overlord's presence — even remembering it now is staggering.

Fels looked toward the crystal.

"During the time Artorias was taken into the Dungeon, Lyd and the others tried to track them. But while still several hundred meters from Zald, the Xenos in front lost the ability to move at all."

Ouranos closed his eyes for a moment.

"Behemoth."

"Yes."

One of the three great adventurer commissions, the land's overlord once slain by the Zeus Familia.

Zald had devoured Behemoth's flesh.

That forbidden act had granted him strength beyond ordinary reckoning, but it also let a terrible poison invade his body. From that moment on, his lifespan began to shorten — power and death lodged together in his very flesh.

Even years later, the land overlord's oppressive presence still clung to him.

An ordinary person would just find Zald's presence overwhelming.

But monsters born of the Dungeon could clearly recognize that scent.

It was a fear etched into the deepest instincts.

The strongest Familia's Overlord had consumed flesh powerful enough to make countless monsters submit. The closer the Xenos got to him, the stiffer their limbs became, until even breathing and thought were suppressed.

"Lyd barely managed to hold onto consciousness. The other Xenos could only lie flat on the ground.

Fels went on.

"They couldn't take even a single step, let alone snatch Artorias away from Zald. Forcing themselves closer would only have exposed their settlement's location.

"They blame themselves for that.

"It wasn't their fault."

"Because of his own uniqueness, Artorias accepted them. For the Xenos, failing to lend a hand when he was in danger is something hard to forgive themselves for."

Fels looked down at the standing water.

"They didn't do nothing, though."

While the adventurers above searched everywhere for Artorias, the Xenos had stayed hidden underground the whole time.

Unable to approach Zald, they'd instead used their familiarity with the Dungeon to scout the surrounding routes ahead of time.

Sometimes it was a magic stone nudged to the center of a fork in the path.

Sometimes it was claw marks left in a corner of a wall.

Some Xenos had even deliberately startled distant monsters, steering Adi and the others tracking Artorias away from dangerous areas.

Those hints had been extremely subtle.

The human adventurers only thought they'd made the right choice, or happened to stumble on a shortcut to the next area.

"If the Xenos hadn't been quietly guiding them, Adi and the others wouldn't have found Artorias so quickly."

Fels pulled a smaller Oculus from within his robe.

"They've already paid whatever price you'd call an exchange."

"They don't think of it as an exchange."

"I know."

Fels stood before the sewer entrance and cleared away the rubble covering it.

A cold wind, thick with the smell of sewage and moss, gusted up from the darkness.

"To them, it's simply helping a kinsman."

"So, what's your answer?"

Fels gazed into the depths.

"I'll allow them to take part."

The old god in the crystal showed no surprise.

"However, their operations must be confined to underground. No initiating contact with adventurers on the surface, and no fighting anywhere that might leave witnesses."

As he spoke, Fels checked the entrance's interior for magic traps.

"Gros will watch the routes Evilus uses to reach underground. Lyd will lead members who can conceal their presence to sabotage the enemy's unguarded supplies. The rest of the Xenos will keep guiding adventurers, but without revealing themselves."

"And if Artorias is in danger again?"

Fels's hand stopped against the damp wall.

"If the enemy isn't on Zald's level, they can lend support from where no one can see.

"And if the only way to save him is by showing themselves?"

This time, Fels stayed silent longer.

The moment the Xenos appeared before adventurers, the secret they'd guarded so carefully for years could be exposed.

Humans wouldn't easily believe monsters possessed reason.

Still less would they believe those monsters had shown themselves to save someone.

In that moment, the Xenos would find themselves under attack from both Evilus and the adventurers. And Artorias, tied to them, might be suspected of being some anomaly threatening Orario.

That was the outcome Fels least wanted.

But if he let Artorias die, the fragile bond just beginning to form between the Xenos and humanity would break as well.

"Saving him comes first."

Fels finally made his decision.

"If there truly is no other way, let them show themselves. Afterward, I'll take responsibility for erasing the traces and handling any witnesses' memories."

"Even if it endangers the Xenos's very existence?"

"The meaning of being a kinsman shouldn't only apply when it's safe.

The other end of the crystal fell quiet for a moment.

Ouranos nodded slightly.

"I accept your judgment.

Fels put away the small Oculus.

"I'll tell Lyd and Gros myself."

He stepped into the sewer.

The hem of his robe brushed the standing water, and his black silhouette quickly melted into the lightless tunnel.

A few dozen steps in, an extremely faint scraping sound came from ahead.

Fels stopped.

A pair of yellow eyes lit up in the darkness.

Then a second pair, a third.

Several shapes of varying forms emerged slowly from behind the drainage channel. They gave no growl, showed no sign of attacking, only waited quietly for the black-robed mage to approach.

At the front, a lizardman shouldered a bone katana.

"Fels."

Lyd lowered his gruff voice.

"Is Brother Artorias all right?"

"He's regained his human form, and his wounds are healing."

Fels walked up to face the Xenos.

"He's currently traveling with the Astraea Familia. The markers you left really did help them.

Several Xenos behind Lyd visibly relaxed.

Ray folded her wings.

"We couldn't save him from that terrifying human.

"You did everything you could.

"But he's our kinsman."

Lyd gripped his sword hilt tight.

"Our kinsman was in danger, and all we could do was lie there in the distance. That scent pinned our bodies down — I couldn't even lift my head."

Fels looked at him.

"That was Behemoth's lingering pressure. Being unable to move wasn't cowardice."

"I know that."

Lyd clenched his fangs.

"But knowing it doesn't make it hurt any less."

He stepped forward.

"Let us help this time. We won't show ourselves to humans, and we won't cause trouble for Brother Artorias. As long as it's something we can do underground, anything at all."

Fels looked around at the Xenos gathered in the tunnel.

They weren't after the title of hero, nor did they expect human gratitude.

Orario above didn't even know they existed.

They'd simply heard that a kinsman had been drawn into the war, and had come here at the risk of being discovered by humans.

"All right."

Fels took out the map Evilus had left behind and spread it on the ground.

"We've already confirmed the enemy is using the sewers to move supplies. Next we need to pin down the tunnels, the guard posts, and the base's location.

Lyd crouched his massive body down.

Gros dropped down from a pipe above, folding his jet-black wings.

"What do you need us to do?"

"Gros, head east and confirm every exit leading to the surface. Lyd, take two squads to the northwest area and search for tunnels not marked on the map."

Fels's fingertip traced along the underground waterways.

"If you spot the enemy, don't engage. Leave marks only we can recognize, then come back here to regroup.

"And if we run into Brother Artorias?"

Ray asked, unable to hold back the question.

"Guide him away from danger without revealing yourselves."

Fels folded up the map.

"If his life is in danger, every other rule gives way.

The Xenos exchanged glances.

Lyd bared his mouth full of sharp teeth.

"Got it."

Gros flapped his wings and vanished first into the darkness above. The rest of the Xenos scattered into different branching tunnels according to their groups, leaving only the faint sound of footsteps and scales brushing against stone walls.

Fels stood in place, watching the last pair of eyes fade away.

Above, the adventurers still fought to hold Orario.

Deep below, monsters who could never be understood by humans had begun to move as well.

No one would ever know what they'd done.

The rescue teams guided to safe routes wouldn't know.

The adventurers who unknowingly avoided ambushes wouldn't know.

Even Artorias might never realize his kinsmen had been watching over him in the dark the whole time.

But that didn't matter.

Devotion never needed applause.

Fels put the [Double-Faced Cloak of Invisibility] back on. His black silhouette gradually faded, leaving only the faint glow of the Oculus hanging in the tunnel.

"Fels."

Ouranos's voice sounded again.

"Have you made your choice?"

"I'll investigate Evilus's underground base, and I'll protect the Xenos and Artorias both."

Fels looked up into the boundless dark.

"If I can't do both at once, then I'll find a way to make it possible.

"That will be extremely difficult.

"It's exactly because it's difficult that it falls to a fool."

Fels started walking.

No one saw him.

Only the steady rhythm of footsteps through standing water echoed on, again and again, deeper into the sewer.

The dead couldn't open their eyes again.

The living were still waiting to be saved.

The Xenos had already begun to move, and the black-haired boy was still up above, searching for what he could do.

So Fels couldn't stop.

For this city of heroes.

For the kinsmen born in darkness who still yearned for the light.

And for that boy who straddled the line between human and monster, still searching for a place to belong.

"Let's go."

The black-robed mage's murmur faded into the depths below.

The Fool's devotion would continue.