Prologue: THE LOST ONES

In the passageway dominated by darkness, lights gleamed at regular intervals.

The shining points continued along the walls into the distance, just bright enough to

dimly illuminate the walkway. Every so often, a cool draft wafted through the gloom,

making the lights flicker.

A line of figures advanced down the corridor.

One after another, strong shoulders and muscled arms bearing sheathed knives

passed before the weak glow. The clanking of the fasteners on their armor blended

with the pounding of their shoes and boots.

They were adventurers.

There were perhaps ten or twelve in the group, led by a dwarf with a helmet pulled

low over his eyes. Each held a magic-stone lantern and used it to search the

surroundings carefully.

They were not in the Dungeon.

The tunnel-like hallways they walked through were made of rock, hewn by human

hands. Magic-stone lamps nearing the end of their life spans were affixed to the walls,

while water rushed down the center of the passageway with a hiss.

It was an underground sewer.

"Prey is always first come, first serve. No hard feelings, right?" said an animal person

in the group.

"Just try touching one of my kills and see what happens," an Amazon responded.

The armor of each adventurer was engraved with a different familia's emblem; they

were a mixed-faction party. It was clear from the extreme lack of unity that the group

had been formed in haste. The animal person responded to the uncompromising

Amazon with spit and a curse.

These rough, poorly behaved individuals were all experienced adventurers.

Among them was Mord Latro, as well as the two human companions who always

accompanied him.

"Hey, Mord," called one.

"Are you sure this is okay?" asked the other.

"What are you talking about? The guys from the Guild are leaving no stone unturned

on the surface, but they haven't found a thing. They must be in the sewers."

Mord had a rugged build and a fierce visage, with scars on his forehead and cheeks.

He looked every bit an overbearing scoundrel. In fact, about two and a half months

earlier, he had even tried to give a certain extremely fast-growing rookie an

adventurer's baptism.

He withdrew a scroll from his pocket.

"We'll kill these monsters before anyone else can catch up. The prize money is gonna

be ours!"

The illustrations on the scroll depicted armed monsters, drawn based on what was

known about them. Among them were a fiendish lizardman and a gargoyle.

Three days had passed since the monsters appeared on the surface as a result of the

disturbance instigated by Ikelos Familia. After shaking off the adventurers pursuing

them, the escaped monsters scattered across Orario. Even now, they were hiding

somewhere in the city.

Guild Headquarters took the situation very seriously, ordering several familias to

quickly subjugate the monsters and placing a bounty on their heads as an incentive.

Tempted by the generous reward, adventurers abandoned their exploration of the

Dungeon and were currently in a frenetic search for the monsters believed to still be

on the surface.

"No, that's not what we meant, Mord."

"These armed monsters look really strong. I heard they even got away from Loki

Familia…"

"It won't be a problem. The Sword Princess beat them up pretty good from what I hear.

They're probably so tuckered out they can't even move right now. For a bunch of

monsters that only know how to go on a rampage, they've been awfully quiet. I'd say

that's proof enough. It'll be an easy win."

As Mord loudly guffawed, the men accompanying him exchanged uneasy glances.

A group of upper-class adventurers from a different familia was also talking among

themselves.

"By the way…Did you hear the latest about the Little Rookie?"

"Yeah. Townsfolk seem to be giving him the cold shoulder. He's really done it now, eh?"

They laughed as if they were recalling the scene.

"He must have gotten a hankering for his vouivre friend. What an idiot."

"I think it's because he let all that special treatment and flattery about being a record

holder go to his head. Serves him right!"

The adventurer had become a laughingstock—no more than an amusing subject for

ridicule.

Other adventurers listened to the disparaging conversation and joined the sneering.

That was when Mord broke in.

"…Hey, you! What's so important you can afford to forget the business at hand?" he

said, his scoundrel's face twisting into an even grimmer expression than usual. "Right

now, we're a lot like him ourselves, I'd say! So stop picking on the Little Rookie!!"

"Hey now, Mord!"

"What's the matter all of a sudden?"

His companions rushed to stop him, but he flew at them, spitting.

His outburst threw the party of unfamiliar adventurers into confusion.

"That little brat attacked other adventurers because they were killing a vouivre. I'd say

that's going too far!"

"Yeah, it's…I know, it's the debt! It's all because of that unbelievable debt his familia

has!"

Their voices were choked with a mixture of scorn and hostile criticism toward the boy.

Mord turned his back on them emphatically and began walking forward again.

"What's with him?"

"Yeah, what's his problem?"

Mord could hear the murmurs behind him, and he snorted with irritation.

Just when the atmosphere of the group was growing perilously stormy, the dwarf at

the head of the line yelled out.

"Stop."

The upper-class adventurers reacted in unison to his tensely spoken order.

The dwarf was glaring straight ahead.

Deep in the gloom, a pair of yellow eyes glinted.

Then, with a fat, undulating tail covered in scarlet scales, the monster showed itself.

"It's…the lizardman!"

"Finally showed yourself, eh!"

No sooner had the adventurers moved into battle formation than the monster, clad in

armor, charged toward them.

"UOOOOOOOOO!!"

The sturdy dwarf had braced his shoulders in an attempt to absorb the shock, but he

was thrown backward by the frontal attack.

"What…? What's going on?"

The shocked voices of Mord and the others rained down on the dwarf, who had

become entangled with the adventurer behind him as he fell backward.

Oblivious to whom he was attacking, the lizardman rampaged through the group.

"Swoooosh!!"

"Oooooooof?!"

Along with its flashing longsword and scimitar, the creature also swung its tail about

like a flail.

Unable to defend themselves against their foe's terrible battle prowess, the trampled

party let out a series of screams. The tail hit an animal person, knocking him into the

air so that he lost his footing and fell into the waterway.

A spray of liquid blasted the adventurers, sending them running without a single

backward glance.

"Guess he wasn't so weak after aaaaaaaaaall!!"

With a chorus of wretched screams, Mord and the others fled at full speed.

"…Mmmm."

A pair of pointy, misshapen ears quivered at the sound of low screams echoing in the

distance.

The dragon girl fluttered her ashen eyelids and slowly opened her eyes. She could just

make out a dark stone ceiling above her.

"Where…am I…?" she mumbled to herself.

"Are you awake, Wiene?"

The gentle voice had come from right beside her. Slowly turning her eyes in that

direction, Wiene saw a beautiful siren with a relieved expression on her face.

"Rei?…?!"

As soon as she uttered the name of the siren, her fellow Xenos, the vouivre leaped up.

"Bell! Where is Bell?!"

"Please calm down, Wiene. Bell is fine."

Rei wrapped her wings around the frail body of the girl, speaking slowly to calm her

frantic worry over the boy's safety.

"Really? Oh, I'm so glad…But when I was at his side, didn't I…?"

"Fels brought you back to life."

Wiene unconsciously touched her hand to the red stone on her forehead, tilting her

head in confusion at Rei's words.

"Maybe it would have been best if she'd slept a little longer."

"Gros…?"

It was the gargoyle, standing by their side, who had spoken.

Wiene looked confused. A moment later, Lido appeared.

"I'm back!" he announced.

"Lido!"

"Oh, you're up, are you, Wiene? I'm so glad!"

"Yes. Where were you just now?"

"…I chased off some adventurers."

With that, he turned to speak with the black-clad mage Fels, who had come to greet

him.

"Are you okay, Lido?"

"I am. Thanks to your magic, my body is perfectly healed. I can move around just fine.

The adventurers came rather close, though. It would be best to move from here."

"Oh, I see…"

Wiene did not know what to make of this grim conversation between Fels and the

others. She looked around. They were not in the Dungeon or in Knossos, the manmade labyrinth that the hunters had brought her to. Instead, they were in a forgotten

chamber of a sewer, where she could hear the sound of flowing water.

About fourteen of her brethren were there with her, including lamias, trolls, and Lido.

Even to Wiene, the group looked small. Timidly, she spoke up, her profile illuminated

by the light of the half-broken magic-stone lanterns.

"Where…are we…? And where are the others?"

"…Let's explain. Listen well, Wiene," Fels answered.

As the girl's amber eyes shifted uneasily, the mage explained clearly and concisely that

they were on the surface, where townspeople were chasing her and the other Xenos

in an attempt to kill them. For that reason, they were moving around Orario so as not

to be found. In the process of fleeing from the adventurers, some of the Xenos had

been separated from the group.

"Asterios, too, was unable to make it back to us."

"If only he were here, we may have been able to do something, but…"

Hearing the unfamiliar name, Wiene followed the gazes of Lido and Rei. When she saw

what they were looking at, she froze.

A powerful jet-black limb had been set on the floor. It was a severed arm, the massive

muscles practically as thick as Wiene's torso. Now it was encased in ice to keep the

flesh from decaying. The vouivre gulped at the sight, which spoke to not only the

violence of the battle that had nearly cost Lido and the others their lives but especially

to the importance of the minotaur's presence.

"To survive, the only choice is to return to the Dungeon. But the entrances to Babel

and the labyrinth are all shut tight, so as matters stand, there's currently no way to get

back," Fels said from the depths of the torn hood.

Alone and unaided, surrounded by enemies on all sides. They were in the worst

situation imaginable.

The mage paused for a moment, then continued.

"If we have one hope, it's…"

The whispered words melted away into the silence.

Surrounded by her brethren, who were also now hushed, Wiene slowly looked

upward into the darkness that enveloped them.

"Bell…"

He was born hungry.

The first thing he did when he set foot there was to massacre everyone.

Countless members of his familia were present. They tried to attack him, and he was

hungry. They showed him no mercy. He thought of them less than the morning dew.

He beat them to death with his hands, stomped them to death with his feet, crushed

them with his body. Within the boundless maze, he threw himself into endless battles.

He didn't know exactly when he first became aware of himself. There was a sense that

it had been when he was born, but he also felt like it was long, long before that. That

his self had hovered within some sort of dream. The one thing he remembered very

clearly was the scene so vivid it had made him conscious of his self.

He was still hungry for that feeling.

Always hungry. Always fighting.

Even when his skin was torn, his bones crushed, and his flesh melting, rotting away,

he continued to move from one place to the next, slaughtering his familia members.

The turning point came when he finally fell to his knees, bereft of energy.

The figures that appeared before him at that moment were not his familia members

but his brethren.

They protected him and rescued him from the jaws of death. After bringing him to

their home, they soothed his body.

As they had helped nurture something within him other than hunger, he saw the

brethren as a positive presence. They were also widely knowledgeable and taught him

the true nature of his hunger.

"It is a powerful yearning," the fighter who was kin had said. "It is what you desire."

His yearning? He didn't really know what that was. But he understood that it was his

"desire."

In the dream that visited him incessantly, there was no sound or smell, only light. A

will so strong his body shook from it, an ecstasy that filled his empty shell, something

that affirmed his very existence.

He learned many other things from his brethren. Wisdom, strength, and the use of

weapons. Eventually he separated from them and once again threw himself into the

place where he had been born. The far graphite depths of the Dungeon.

This is not it. This is not it.

Having learned the true nature of his hunger, he could no longer feel satisfied. Even if

he honed his strength and massacred his kin, he would never be able to reach his

dream. At some point, he even began to feel irritated. Perhaps you could call it

impatience. His hunger grew and grew. He carried on the search for his dream and

remained lost on his way.

"AH—AAAAAHHHH?!"

The hunter fled, screaming.

A number of other hunters lay on the ground, their arms and legs twisted at

impossible angles. A pool of blood had formed around them. They had very cleverly

discovered his hiding place. So he destroyed them. The victim destroyed the would-be

aggressor.

This is not it. This is not it.

The hunters resembled the something he searched for. Yet they were completely

different from it.

That thing—the dream—would never have run from him in terror.

These hunters had fled after taking a single step toward him. He had caught up with

them and grabbed them around their necks with his groaning, powerful arms before

slamming them against the wall. Countless fissures had spread through the decrepit

ruins. Spewing red liquid, the hunters' eyes rolled back in their heads. The sound of

breaking bones came all too easily from necks he grasped like twigs in his palms. He

remembered the promise he'd made to his brethren and withdrew his hands.

After the last of his enemies had collapsed onto the floor, he left the ruins where he

had been hiding.

It was not deep in the Dungeon but rather close to the surface.

Feeling no emotion whatsoever toward the night sky covered in its thin blanket of

clouds, carrying just a single weapon, blood dripping from his entire body, he

continued to wander lost, with resolute steps.

He kept searching.

To find the dream. To meet again.