Chapter 409: Respective Adventures (Patreon)

Riveria remembered what had come before.

On the way to the bottom of the Crimson Mountains, they had passed through many forests, snowfields, deserts, mountain ranges, and abandoned towns…

Quite a few of those scenes had looked strangely familiar. She just hadn't paid attention at the time.

Now that she thought back, every landscape they had crossed on the way down held something that resembled her own memories.

One stretch of the road in particular was very much like the Alf Royal Forest. So was the small town outside the forest.

And so was the road leading out of the forest, where the towering trees gradually thinned until they gave way to endless flat fields, with only a few scattered houses and hills in the distance.

Riveria remembered that road vividly.

Only, inside the Dungeon, those places had been "scrambled," as if crushed to pieces without any awareness. There was no way to tell how to fit them back together into a complete road.

There was one more important change.

The Dungeon probably had no concept of "life." Every house, every place that showed traces of habitation, was in a state of total "emptiness."

The houses were always ruined, the farmland always scorched, and even when she saw a "person," it was only pale bones.

Why was that?

Riveria's guess was that it most likely had to do with the Monsters that had once ravaged the surface.

The Dungeon itself had no memory. Everything it knew had been brought back from outside by those Monsters, so in its understanding, the world above was a world without life.

Then why, once they reached the bottom of the Crimson Mountains and passed through those doors, did the world become whole and clear?

Riveria thought that was because of Isagi, too.

That world had been built by the Dungeon directly from the boy's memories. That was why it had turned out that way.

"So that's how it is!"

At the big tables of the tavern, everyone wore the look of sudden understanding.

Which brought them to the real question.

"Was Isagi taken by the Dungeon?"

"Probably…"

"Then how do we save him?"

"Hmm…"

Riveria was turning over the same problem. Even if her guess was right, it was obvious that none of them could open the door Isagi had been pulled through. Did that mean they had to "clear" the other doors?

"I heard Isagi say that those are all 'games,'" Ryuu said softly.

Isagi had once explained the origin of the Dark Hall in the boy's dreams, along with those bizarre scenes and enemies.

He'd said it was a kind of "game." In a world without phones or computers, the girls couldn't truly grasp the concept, but they could at least tell that such a thing had "a beginning and an end."

"So we just have to clear it, right?"

"That's all we can do now, isn't it?"

As veteran adventurers, Finn, Hedin, and the others stayed calm and clear-headed about the situation.

In truth, that was all anyone could do right now.

"In the worlds behind those doors, there's clearly a path guiding us forward, just like adventuring in the Dungeon. And through that [save point] thing, we can come back here to resupply and rest."

"The Dungeon's really kind, huh…"

"Or maybe it's because of the Appointed Time she made with the gods."

As the longest-lived Elf among them, Riveria knew a few secrets.

Because of the Appointed Time, the Dungeon couldn't be "too cruel." Or, in Isagi's words, "a game has to be fair." There couldn't be a stage that was impossible to pass no matter what, or the whole thing would be meaningless.

"In that case, the first thing is for everyone to recover their strength and stamina, rest well, and then go back to clearing it!"

Ryuu stepped forward.

She was calming everyone down, mainly the Astraea Familia side: Lefiya, Tiona, Haruhime, and Ais.

Charging blindly into the world behind that door right now was absolutely the wrong choice.

The difficulty there was extremely high. If they weren't prepared and forced themselves to fight on exhausted bodies, it would backfire, and they might even get hurt, or worse…

So the more it felt like a time for panic, the more they needed to stay calm.

"Let's go back to the surface for a bit," said Lefiya, who had finally calmed down.

Gods could sense whether the children of their Familia were still alive, so they would go back and confirm.

And getting from Rivira to the surface now only required the Artificial Labyrinth's Elevator, which made it very convenient.

"Mm," Riveria agreed with the plan.

So, after a brief rest, everyone rode the Elevator and soon arrived at Daedalus Street in the city. More than half of it had been torn down by now, and around the Elevator, a large, Central Park–like plaza seemed to be under construction.

It was meant to serve as the Dungeon's "second entrance."

Finn, Ottar, and the others each went straight back to their own Familia homes.

Ais, meanwhile, went with Lefiya and the others to the Court of Stars first, intending to find Goddess Astraea and see whether Isagi was still there… That was the worst-case thought, though the girls didn't really believe it would come to that.

And the result?

When everyone reached the Western-style house where the Golden Tree was planted, they found a familiar figure of a boy standing in the yard, who had just turned to look at them and was waving hello.

Isagi had come back to the surface ahead of them?

What was going on?!

*

Isagi didn't really know what was going on either.

After being sucked through that door, he had indeed met the "Dungeon" again.

She was the same as before.

In the darkness, the petite girl showed only a pitch-black outline, impossible to make out clearly.

[Let's go on an adventure together.]

She had no intention whatsoever of asking for his opinion.

In fact, Isagi was being dragged along, moving forward once more.

The difference was that, in that earlier dream, she had seemed to want to drag him into a pitch-black underground where there was nothing at all.

This time, the Dungeon seemed to have changed her mind.

Maybe after he'd refused her last time, she'd come up with a new idea?

Anyway.

Past that door, besides seeing the "Dungeon," Isagi saw a sky full of stars and vast stretches of grassland.

A gentle breeze drifted by, leaving him refreshed and at ease.

But the sky before him was far too fake. The stars were too brilliant, the bright moon too perfect, as though made by human hands. It was not a real "sky" at all.

Isagi understood. He and the Dungeon were still underground. She had simply used his memories to create the world before them.

He had no idea how many floors down this was.

At the very least, Isagi realized the place was unbelievably vast, though that was how all the deep floors were.

It was said that the 61st Floor, where Miss Riveria and the others had slain the Corrupted Spirit, was wide enough to hold several Orarios.

Some people used to say that the deepest part of the Dungeon might encompass the entire world.

Many treated it as a joke, but many others believed it was true. Even now, no one knew how many floors the Dungeon had at its deepest, or what kind of vast world lay there.

Isagi realized that he and the "Dungeon" were standing on a hillside, looking down at the boundless ruins of a city.

Houses, castles, churches…

The enormous buildings were so staggering that it was hard to believe any human hands had made them.

Isagi, though, found it all very familiar.

Everything before him looked far too much like a "game scene." Not from any one game, but stitched together, as if countless games had been blended into one.

Right in front of him, a narrow dirt road wound onward and down the slope.

The "Dungeon" was tugging him along, wanting to go forward.

Before long, Isagi spotted a golden Site of Grace floating in midair.

That was a save point. The Dungeon stopped pulling him forward and instead stood quietly beside the Site of Grace, waiting.

Isagi noticed something else, too. When he stepped up to the Site of Grace, a [Return to Town] option appeared before his eyes.

[Do you want to go back?]

The girl's voice sounded right beside his ear.

It was as though someone were whispering into his ear with their lips against it, and he could even feel a cool, delicate touch.

[Remember to come back and adventure with me.]

Isagi decisively chose to return.

But unlike Riveria and the others, he didn't end up in the adventurer town on the 18th Floor. He landed in the city, right in front of his own Familia's home.

And if he wanted to go back, he wouldn't need to go through the Dungeon at all. He could go directly through the Golden Tree in front of him.

What was going on?

Isagi didn't quite understand it either, but he didn't choose to go back in. He waited there for the girls instead.

"So that's how it was…"

"Something about all this feels off somehow."

Seeing the boy back, the girls naturally let out the breath they had been holding.

Everyone went into the living room together and began discussing the present situation. Listening to the accounts from Lefiya, Ryuu, and the others, Isagi finally understood.

The situation seemed to be this:

The Dungeon had read his memories and directly created several "worlds," then sent the girls to adventure in each of them.

Not only that.

He had one of his own as well.

And his "world" was a hodgepodge, so vast it had no end, and even…

For some reason, thinking of the "yandere" side the Dungeon had shown before, Isagi couldn't shake the feeling that "Let's go on an adventure together" sounded a bit like "Let's adventure together for the rest of our lives."

That was quite possible!

But for now, at least he could still come back. And he had to go, anyway.

After all, he still had levels to gain.

The group talked in the living room for a long time. The final decision was, of course, to continue.

"But be careful," Isagi said.

He deeply understood just how absurd and brutal the "stages" the Dungeon had set for the girls were.

So, following his memories, Isagi decided to draw rough maps for the girls, along with some simple walkthroughs: where the BOSSes were and roughly what they could do. They had surely been strengthened by the Dungeon, but he doubted they'd been changed beyond recognition.

It took a lot of time. Before he knew it, several days had gone by…

*

Late autumn was cold.

After writing at his desk in his room for what felt like forever, Isagi finished the final walkthrough in his hands and stretched, unable to stop himself.

His body felt stiff all over.

It was deep into the night again. Outside the window, the Golden Tree still shed its golden leaves like fine drizzle.

Isagi got up and went to Lefiya and the others' room to hand the girls the last walkthrough he'd just finished.

These past few days, they hadn't been idle either. While he wrote, they studied, and whenever they had a question, they came running to ask him, looking quite serious about it.

Still, Isagi reminded them.

They couldn't be sure that the "game worlds" the Dungeon created were exactly like those in his memories, so they shouldn't rely entirely on the walkthroughs. They were just a reference.

The girls knew that, of course.

In fact, what worried them more now was Isagi's side.

Because he had no reference.

He'd called it a "hodgepodge of everything," but that was only Isagi's guess. More importantly, he'd be alone. No, wait, the Soul Teardrop was with him too.

"And the Dungeon," Isagi added.

It might sound absurd, but the Dungeon was actually quite strong.

The "Avatar of the Dungeon" from before had displayed a terrifying level of Strength. So, since she had said "Let's go on an adventure together," Isagi didn't think she'd just stand to one side and watch.

She might even help him fight Monsters.

Counting the Soul Teardrop, that made his side a three-person party of sorts, didn't it?

Reasonable!

"That's still just a guess!"

Lefiya, Ryuu, and the others remained anxious.

Probably because of the unknown.

Isagi told the girls not to worry. It couldn't be helped, after all, and he'd just treat it as adventuring on some floor of the Dungeon. He could come back whenever he wanted.

The boy's mood was as simple as ever.

He even felt relaxed enough, once the walkthroughs were done, to go rest for a while at Goddess Demeter's place outside the city.

That had become something of a "tradition" before starting an adventure.

Under the night sky, the boy left the city alone and followed the wide road ahead. He turned, quite familiarly, onto the tangled dirt paths between the fields and walked for a long time beneath the quiet sky until he finally reached the farmhouse where Goddess Demeter lived.

With the other girls away, the place was very quiet.

Isagi took out his key with practiced ease, opened the door, passed through the entryway and corridor, and went straight to the living room.

It was already past eleven at night.

Knowing Goddess Demeter as he did, she would have just finished her wine and bath and would be sleeping in the living room or her bedroom.

After all, once the busy autumn harvest was over, the beautiful woman generally had plenty of free time.

It was much like winter.

With nothing to do each day but eat and sleep, the Goddess herself took on a lazy air, almost like a hibernating animal.

Sure enough.

Isagi found the Goddess sound asleep in the living room.

In the fireplace, the embers were still faintly burning, filling the room with a warm, scorching air.

The Goddess smelled of bath soap mixed with red wine, and lay on the sofa as though she'd long since fallen into a deep sleep.

She obviously hadn't known he would come tonight.

Isagi simply walked over to the icebox, took out the chilled wine inside, and poured himself a little.

He meant to relax properly.

Sipping his wine, he watched the darkness outside the window.

Even from such a great distance, he could make out Babel in the night, far away.

It was the symbol of the city's "victory."

Isagi had talked with the Goddesses about the Dungeon before.

Rationally speaking, the Dungeon was "strong," "extremely, extremely strong," so strong that even the gods had no real way to deal with her.

She could even give birth to "black Monsters" that completely ignored Arcanum.

Of course.

Isagi wasn't foolish enough to think the gods truly had no answer to the "black Monsters" in the Dungeon. After coming down to the mortal world, they had always been restraining themselves, trying not to use that kind of Strength.

But one thing was certain: the Dungeon was most likely an existence on par with the gods.

That was why Isagi had never once heard anyone talk about "destroying" the Dungeon.

It was probably impossible.

In the thousand years since the gods came to the mortal world, all they had ever brought up was the so-called Three Great Quests.

Probably.

That was the Appointed Time between the gods and the Dungeon.

Isagi had already speculated about it. He figured that if adventurers defeated the Black Dragon, the Dungeon would keep behaving herself like this…

Hm?

As if he'd suddenly realized something, Isagi recalled a line the Xenos had said to him earlier.

[Mother no longer wants to see the sky.]

The Dungeon.

She seemed to have given up the "dream" she had once been determined to achieve at any cost.

If that was the case, then… could it be that completing the Three Great Quests wasn't just the gods' long-held wish, but the Dungeon's own wish too? To clear out the strongest Monsters still left on the continent?

Had she always thought that way?

Or had it changed only recently?

Isagi felt he had stumbled onto something extremely crucial.

He thought it over and over.

But he didn't dwell on it, because it was simple: with this many questions, why not just ask the Dungeon directly?

She was right there by his "side," wasn't she?

All he had to do was go back to that fake underground world with its sky.

Mm-hm…

Isagi promptly found paper and a pen and wrote down everything he wanted to ask.

After that, he went to take a bath. Buoyed by a pleasant buzz of wine, he turned off the living room lights, skipped going back to his room, and simply crawled into the Goddess's incredibly warm embrace on the living room sofa…

*