Chapter 69: [Ganesha's Staff] and [Demon Slayer] (Patreon)

The town of Rivira.

A blue-haired woman was surrounded by several members of the dark factions.

Her name was Shakti Varma, captain of the Ganesha Familia, known as the "Elephant God's Staff." Her Falna level was Lv5.

Under normal circumstances, she was an absolute pillar who could take part in any dangerous incident in Orario.

That day had been the scheduled day for the routine inspection of Rivira. She and the rest of the Ganesha Familia had descended to Floor 18 of the Dungeon, and in town they had warned and punished a number of merchants who were planning to cross, or had already crossed, the line of Orario's laws.

By Shakti's plan, they were supposed to spend one night in the town and return to the surface the next day.

She never expected that, just moments ago, the inn where her party was staying would be blown up with a huge number of fire crystals.

Shakti had reacted fast enough to pull out the Shield Scroll she carried and activate it. The other members of the Ganesha Familia weren't so lucky, and more than half of them had died in the blast.

The two who remained lay on the ground with their flesh torn open, groaning without pause.

If someone could pour a panacea down their throats in time, then even if they could never be adventurers again, at least their lives could barely be saved.

Unfortunately.

Just as Shakti was about to do exactly that, she was hit by the second wave of the attack the dark factions had planned.

An army of monsters that had no business being on Floor 18 suddenly began invading Rivira, drawing away the vast majority of the adventurers living there.

That wasn't all. Valletta, the "Slaughter Emperor," a front-line powerhouse of the dark factions, had slipped into the town at some point, and as Shakti moved to rescue her comrades, he ambushed her.

The "Elephant God's Staff" was a first-tier adventurer, after all, and her combat experience was immense.

A single sideways roll took her clear of Valletta's strike.

But the teammate she had meant to treat wasn't so fortunate. Cut by Valletta's cursed weapon, his condition took a sharp turn for the worse, and he looked beyond saving.

Shakti stood in front of her last surviving teammate, her expression grim.

She swept her gaze around and saw that, besides the Slaughter Emperor, several more members of the dark factions seemed to be lurking in the shadows of the alley.

Off to the side, Valletta, who had always been a madwoman, couldn't help bursting into laughter.

"Didn't see this coming, did you, Elephant God's Staff? That we'd strike at exactly this moment."

"Then again, who told the Loki Familia and the Astraea Familia to suddenly decide on a joint expedition?"

"With those two meddlesome factions out of the way, and the Freya Familia's morons only caring about pleasing their goddess, doesn't that leave nobody but you Ganesha Familia?"

"Though I never imagined you'd come to Rivira in person. That's truly..." Here Valletta wrapped her arms around herself, a strange flush rising on her face. "Wonderful!"

Shakti didn't answer.

She had nothing to say to the dark factions.

Even if she was at a disadvantage now, in the end it came down to nothing more than death.

From the day she became an adventurer and joined the Ganesha Familia, Shakti had been prepared for it.

...That said.

She had no intention of surrendering quietly either.

She meant to rip one more bite out of the dark factions before she died.

As the thoughts flickered through her mind, Shakti drew another scroll from her breast and held it in her left hand, ready to activate at any moment.

Because gods could see through lies, planting spies inside other Familia was a tactic that didn't work in the world of DanMachi.

For that very reason, this was the first time Valletta had seen the parchment in Shakti's hand.

She might be a madwoman, but she wasn't stupid.

Given Shakti's state, how could she fail to guess that the woman had come through the earlier explosion unharmed precisely thanks to the scroll she was gripping?

Her eyes narrowed at once. She swung her right hand forward and gave the order.

"Use the fire crystals!"

One after another, red gemstones filled with magic power were hurled out of the alley. Their target, needless to say, was Shakti and the teammate she was shielding behind her.

Shakti didn't hesitate. She turned, scooped up her comrade, and fed mana into the Shield Scroll to activate it.

The detonation of a fire crystal roughly equaled the full-power attack of a Lv3 Mage.

Normally, against a high-level adventurer who had prepared in advance, it couldn't possibly hurt them.

Shakti was no exception.

Even carrying a wounded man, she never took the fire crystals' blasts head-on.

As for the remaining shockwaves, they were all blocked outside the invisible shield the scroll had created.

Seeing this, Valletta's face darkened slightly. "Keep going!"

The parchment the "Elephant God's Staff" carried had to be limited. If her scrolls ran out before their fire crystals were used up, then tonight's ambush would be a complete success.

Of course, to guard against accidents, after giving the order Valletta kept needling Shakti with words to rattle her.

"Are you waiting for someone to rescue you?"

"Hahahaha, give it up. Before we slipped into Rivira, we blew up the passage to Floor 17. You, the other adventurers in Rivira, all of you, now there's nowhere left to run."

"So wouldn't it be better to just die obediently?"

"Or is it..." Valletta suddenly slapped her left palm with her right fist. "Oh, I get it. You want to die saving someone, just like 'Ivory Poem'! Fine, then I'll give you that chance!"

At the mention of the sister who had died years ago during the era of the Great Struggle, Shakti's expression turned dark.

She badly wanted to throw caution aside and charge straight at the Slaughter Emperor.

But her duty as captain wouldn't let her ignore the comrade in her arms.

Just then, a faint voice rose. "Cap... tain... put... me down... and... run... yourself..."

Adventurers are fated to die in the Dungeon in the end.

Many people know this.

The members of the Ganesha Familia knew it even better.

To keep Orario stable, they offended countless forces in their daily work.

Being killed in revenge one day was entirely normal.

Shakti understood this. The comrade in her arms understood this. The rest of the Ganesha Familia, who had already died in agony, had understood this too.

But understanding never meant accepting!

Shakti lowered her head and snapped, "Quiet!"

Her comrade: "..."

Dodging attacks while carrying another person was, without question, far harder than moving alone.

In barely six minutes, all twenty Shield Scrolls that Shakti and her companions had carried were spent. And that was with her dodging whenever she could and using a scroll only when she couldn't.

When she reached into her breast and her expression shifted, nothing coming out in her hand, the smile on Valletta's face grew even more deranged. "Ahaha~ Looks like you're going to die here tonight."