Calamity Arrives Part 2

At the very least, Bell had believed it was. Certainly, it was the strongest armor Welf

had ever forged for him. But now the dir-adamantite shield that had withstood even

the blows of the black minotaur was demolished.

It couldn't fend off the blow.

Bell had intended for the claws to slide along the metal, but the moment they made

contact, the force of the blow had crushed the armor.

That was how strong the Juggernaut's claws of destruction were.

They extended ominously from the end of the six fingers that signaled a monster. The

fingers themselves were as thin as bones, but the tips were thick and sharp and

curved. They glinted like purple jewels, just like Bell's Divine Knife.

Only Lyu and Jura knew the truth: that one must never tangle with those claws. One

had to somehow fight without letting them bite into one's flesh. Only they, paralyzed

by the return of their worst nightmare, knew that defense against the claws of

destruction was completely impossible.

Shaped more like fangs than claws, they were a gift from the Dungeon, stronger than

any armor and honed to points sharper than any weapon.

"—"

The monster advanced mercilessly on Bell as he stared in a daze at the crushed back

of his left hand.

It brought its claws up into the air, then down.

That was enough to split open his armor.

Somehow managing to avoid a direct blow, his one-armed body crumpled. All hope

drained from his heart as he watched the fragments of silver swirl in front of his eyes.

His shoulder guards, his hip guards, his knee guards, and his chest guard all split into

fragments and flew off him. Even the leg holster on his left leg burst off, spraying blood

into the air.

Whether from the extreme pain or from fear, Bell realized something through the haze

of blood and tears.

The reason the monster's defenses were so low was that it had no need for them.

It had magnificent strength, all-destroying claws, and an overwhelming, unparalleled

ability to kill. Why would it need to defend itself against prey it could slaughter in a

single second? The entire purpose of its specialization in offensive attacks was to

crush its enemies.

The monster before his eyes was catastrophe incarnate.

It was an apostle of murder let loose by the Dungeon.

Like a marionette with its strings cut, Bell was performing a clumsy dance. A black

shadow was corroding his heart, even though he had managed to stay alive this long.

He could practically hear his heart being crushed.

It was the sound of a despair far deeper and more devastating than what he had felt

when he faced the one-armed minotaur.

Pitilessly, the Juggernaut swept its tail—that all-destroying weapon of death—toward

the prey that had stumbled in its battle stance.

It landed on Bell's neck.

"—"

A cracking sound came from a place that should never have made that sound.

—Death.

Bell heard the sound of his own life coming to an end.

He lost consciousness.

Launched into the air by the monster's tail, the boy's body flew forward like an arrow.

Blood flying from the joint where the severed arm had been, it rolled over and over

across the floor and finally came to a rest where land met water.

It lay there completely still.

"…Mr… Cranell!"

Standing stock-still, Lyu was barely able to whisper those two words.

Time slowed to a crawl.

The world went flat—the scene before her very eyes, a lie. Even the water seemed to

have stopped flowing. The screams of the other adventurers and the sound of her own

heartbeat grew distant.

Only the horrible figure of the boy lying faceup where he had landed was fresh and

bright.

"—Bell?!"

Lyu's scream was like silk being ripped. Tearing off the chains of trauma that had held

her back, she half dove, half ran toward him.

"…?!"

She kneeled beside him, dumbstruck.

In addition to the severed arm, his whole armorless body was covered in deep cuts

and bruises, indicating broken bones. Blood dribbled from his mouth. There was no

sign of consciousness in the pair of eyes behind his bangs. Still, it was a miracle that

his head was even attached to his body after suffering that fierce blow from the

monster's tail.

The word death flitted across Lyu's mind.

Shivering and pale, she placed one finger on Bell's neck.

"…! He's still alive…?!"

Surprised, she leaned toward him. She could just barely make out the faintest sound

of breathing.

The Goliath Scarf had allowed Bell to take the massive blow to his neck without

suffering even a scratch. The material fashioned from the giant's wall of steel had

stopped the deadly blow and saved the life of its wearer.

Although it had repelled direct damage, however, it had not been able to soften the

impact. That alone had inflicted enough damage to make Bell himself think he was

dying. Most likely, some of the vertebrae in his neck were fractured.

I have to stop the bleeding from that arm! No, I better do something for his neck first!

Dripping sweat, Lyu began to chant a spell.

"I sing now of a distant forest. A familiar melody of life!"

She had used up all her potions during the battle for Knossos and her pursuit of Jura's

gang. The spell felt like it stretched on forever, but it was the only recovery magic she

had on hand.

"Noa Heal!"

A gentle light like the dappled sun of a forest surrounded the base of Bell's neck. It was

an all-purpose magic with the power to heal surface wounds, as well as other types of

damage, and restore strength. However, it did not work immediately like a potion; the

length of time required for full recovery was its main drawback.

As she waited for it to work, Lyu used her teeth and one arm to tear off a piece of her

cape and tie it around Bell's right arm to stop the bleeding. Cursing her own failure to

act at the crucial moment, she tended to the boy as if she was paying off her sin.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!"

"!"

Having put an end to Bell, its first target, the Juggernaut had turned its attention once

again to the remaining adventurers. The reason it turned toward Bors's group rather

than toward Lyu or Jura was simply that there were more of them.

The storm of slaughter rose again.

"H-h-help!!"

Lyu's heart trembled at the pleas for assistance.

—I want to help them, but if I leave Mr. Cranell now—

Lyu was unable to finish her anguished thought.

In an interval too short even to call a moment of hesitation, the monster had finished

its massacre. Aside from Bors and a few others who had run in the opposite direction,

all the adventurers were now no more than gruesome corpses. Among them were the

animal-person siblings and the Amazonian warrior Bell had tried to save.

Lyu hadn't even been granted the opportunity to make a choice.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"

The moment the healing light faded, Lyu howled and dashed toward the monster,

which was turned away from her. Like an insane animal, she charged forward and

drove her wooden sword into its purple-blue back.

"—"

The Juggernaut responded simply.

Releasing the energy stored in its back-bent knees, it leaped momentarily out of sight.

Then, clinging to the side of a crystal column, it peered at her with glowing crimson

eyes as if to say, You next?

The next instant, it was charging her.

She dodged the razor-like claws by planting her hands on the ground.

As the hem of her long cape was shredded, she pushed away her panic and flew beastlike toward the monster, which had just landed back on the ground.

It blocked her blow with its tail, but she aimed relentlessly for its chest, drawing close

to the body that caused her such powerful physical revulsion.

Tucked in where its long arms could not easily reach, she jabbed the monster again

and again with her sword.

"!"

"—!"

But the extraordinarily agile monster leaped from side to side and then backward,

lashing out at her in return, and very soon Lyu found herself on the defensive.

This was the reason she had so stubbornly avoided Bell at first. If the Juggernaut was

once again spawned, she didn't want him to become its target.

It was a passive strategy totally unlike the normal Lyu. This was the underside of the

terror that had been imprinted onto her very core. This was how deeply she was

tormented by the calamity that had stolen everything from her five years ago.

"Aaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

The ashen scene rose before her eyes once again.

Her companions were collapsing.

Their weapons crushed, her friends were being ripped to shreds.

They screamed as the monster ground them between its fangs.

The vicious claws had torn through the bodies of her companions.

The scenes seared into her brain, stirring up her terror and crushing her will to fight.

And so she screamed.

She screamed to cheat her fear, to obliterate the past, and to spur her body on to action.

When this scream, this outpouring of raging emotion, went dead, Lyu would no longer

be able to fight. Her heart would collapse before this overwhelming being, and she

would hug herself and sob like a helpless child.

Because she knew that, she flourished her wooden sword and screamed her battle cry.

"—Ha!"

The Juggernaut responded with a short breath almost like a sigh and a fierce swipe of

the claws on one hand.

It was enough to send Lyu's sword flying.

"—"

Alvs Lumina, her second-tier weapon fashioned from the branch of a holy tree, burst

into pieces. Following the same path as Bell's armor, it bid her good-bye.

The merciless strength that had destroyed her weapon generated an impact that

fractured the fingers gripping the sword's handle. Lyu went flying through the air and

landed with a crash on the crystal floor, faceup.

The breath was forced from her lungs in a single gust.

"Gaaarrr! Now! Now's your chance! Get that bastard!!"

Far away from her, Bors let out a battle cry.

The remaining adventurers knew escape was hopeless. In the time that Lyu had

bought them, they began to chant—in other words, to release a Concurrent

Bombardment. Bors, too, took part, wielding his magic blade even as terror pulled him

downward.

"No, stop!!"

Lyu's words did not reach them. She could barely even breathe.

As her futile cry faded, the purple-blue shell encasing the Juggernaut's huge frame

glowed.

Just like a replay of what happened when Bell tried to use a Firebolt on the monster,

the magic attack bounced back toward its source. Only this time, it was not a single

Firebolt but a far more powerful Concurrent Bombardment.

"—"

It hit them head-on.

The Juggernaut's protective shell had the power of magic reflection. It was the sole

shield of this monster that had traded defense for the power of annihilation. Even if

an adventurer was to release automatic homing magic, which was ordinarily a failproof method of hitting a target, it would not make contact with the Juggernaut.

The adventurers were thus cut off from the magic they had counted on as their

ultimate safety net. Anyone would lose heart under these despairing circumstances,

just as Astrea Familia had done five years earlier.

Fortunately, Bors was at the back of the party and avoided a direct hit. He stared in a

daze at his charred companions. His eye patch had been torn off and his empty left eye

socket was exposed, but he had no time to worry about that. The monster was bearing

down on him, its own eye sockets glowing.

"Stoppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp!!" Bors sobbed.

Thrusting both hands in front of him, unable even to stand up, he pissed his pants.

Even for a second-tier adventurer like Bors, this monster was too much to face.

The claws descended toward him.

"—aaa."

Drawing a vivid arc, they moved from the top of his head straight down.

He didn't even have time to think back on his life. But his brain registered the sound

of his own body splitting into two halves. He heard his head being crushed, his flesh

being torn, and his bones being pulverized.

It was over in an instant. Bors was dead.

"Stand up!"

"—!!"

The fog of hallucination cleared.

As Bors recovered from the vision his petrified brain had produced, he found himself

alive, with an elf fighting in his place. Before the all-destroying claws had reached him,

the elf had intercepted the blow with one of her own, delivered to the monster's

forearm. She was now fighting it desperately with two daggers.

At that very moment, the elf was protecting Bors.

"Escape, quick!"

"Y-you…"

Bors's word trailed off as he stared at the profile of the female adventurer, from which

the hood and mask had fallen away.

It was the very same brave elf he had seen before on the eighteenth floor. The precise

elf who had fought single-handedly against the terrifying black giant.

Just then, the monster brought up its claws with ferocious speed.

Lyu bent backward, just barely avoiding a direct hit, but the claws nevertheless grazed

her, ripping open her shoulder.

A geyser of blood spouted from the elf's thin body.

As the warm liquid spattered Bors's face, Lyu clenched her teeth and resisted her

body's urge to crumple to the ground.

"Hurryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!"

Bors fled, his feet flapping noisily against the ground.

Stumbling repeatedly over himself, he was making no progress whatsoever. To protect

him, Lyu—her face covered in a gory makeup of blood—took the brunt of the

Juggernaut's attack herself.

"!!"

"Oof!"

Its long tail beat against her legs.

Although it lacked the menace of the claws, the hard appendage covered in its black

and purplish-blue shell was no different from a cudgel.

Lyu's right leg, encased in its long boot, snapped like a twig under the blow. Her

shinbone let out a dry popping sound as she flew into the air.

"Ah—!"

Lyu gripped her awkwardly bent leg with one hand as she cried out in wordless agony.

She felt she would faint from the unbelievable pain. But she knew she could not.

Stomp! The horrifying sound of the monster's immense body advancing toward her rang

through the room.

"No…!"

As a crystal fragment bore into her left cheek, she lifted her trembling face.

Aside from her writhing form, there was no other sign of life in the sprawling room.

Even Jura was gone. Had he escaped? She could no longer fully understand what was

going on.

Destruction advanced.

Despair bore down on her in the form of the Juggernaut.

She was covered in wounds from head to toe. As it landed before her eyes, she realized

she had no way left to defend herself against it.

I couldn't stop Jura's schemes, and now here I am, my shameful failure exposed…

She felt humiliated. She wanted to scream and cry. She wanted to place a deadly curse

on herself for once again making a mistake that led to calamity.

She still hadn't explained anything to Syr and her coworkers. She hadn't done anything

to repay them for giving her a home. She had to survive, if only to explain herself to

them.

…Oh, but…

If I die here, I can be with Alize and the others…

At last, she could be beside her companions once again.

At last, she could apologize to them.

At last, she could let them castigate her.

Finally, this sin of killing them will be…

At last, she would be free of the guilt she had hidden in the furthest depths of her heart.

For Lyu, that would be a kind of salvation.

It would be a sort of ceremony in which she buried the self whose dishonor had been

exposed.

A smile of resignation curled her lips.

A tear fell from one sky-blue eye.

The scale of her heart tipped from attachment to life toward the peace of death.

"Huh?"

Just then, something caught Lyu's eye.

Shrieks were ringing out—the death songs of adventurers.

Screams were echoing—the will of the elf who fought and suffered yet refused to

succumb to fear.

Bell's finger twitched at the sounds of the battlefield.

A tremor slightly stronger than the others carved a crack in the crystal ground,

shattered it, and sent Bell's body sliding from the border between water and land into

the water.

Below the surface, sounds were muffled. A crimson fog spread from his severed arm.

He sank toward the cold depths of the waterway.

"—Bell."

A tearful voice reached him as he drifted slowly downward.

Her emerald-blue hair swirling, the mermaid reached out her hand toward the

pitifully wounded boy. She was hugging his right arm, still gripping the knife, to her

chest. She sank her teeth into her own wrist. As she pressed the arm against the

surface from which it had been severed, it absorbed her lifeblood.

Healing bubbles floated around Bell's body as it regained its missing limb.

"Bell… Bell."

The mermaid's tears were unending.

Placing a hand on the cheek of the boy whose eyes remained closed, she took his knife

and slashed herself over and over again. She held the sinking body tight against her own.

Her blood ran into Bell's wounds, melting into him. Surrounded by a haze of crimson

produced by their intermingled blood, his battered body began to recover.

"Live," the monster girl whispered over and over again.

"Open your eyes," she murmured into his ear.

He responded.

"Oh!!"

He clenched his hands into fists, opened his eyes, and spewed out countless bubbles.

The black knife glittered with renewed life.

He stared into the tear-drenched eyes of the mermaid, so close to him their foreheads

were touching.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I have to go.

The boy who mouthed these words, the boy whom Mari loved, was not a prince on a

shipwrecked boat.

He was an adventurer.

For the sake of his companion who was still fighting, he had to revive his despairriddled heart. He had to light the flames of recovery.

Tears trickling down her cheeks, Mari reached out a hand to stop him and then drew

it back.

The boy was stubborn. He was an adventurer. Mari would do the same thing to save

the family she loved. So instead of holding him back, she hugged him one more time.

Then, quietly, she let him go.

Released from the mermaid's arms, Bell kicked and surged upward.

"Promise me—"

Mari cried as she watched the figure move farther and farther from her. Reaching her

hand toward him, she sent her wish into the world of water.

"—Promise me you won't lose."

Bell extended a fist and broke through the water's surface where the light filtered in.

Lyu saw everything.

She saw the drops of water flying, the form bursting powerfully through the water's

surface, and the foot stepping firmly onto the crystal ground.

She saw the boy standing on land.

She saw the light of determination in his rubellite eyes.

"Thank you, Mari."

Mermaid lifeblood. The mysterious drop item was said to have the power to heal

wounds. And truly, Bell had fully recovered. Smoke rose from the wounds that had

been bathed in the blood of her self-sacrifice.

To Lyu's eyes, the scene looked like a beacon for a counterattack.

His right arm restored, Bell steeled his will and tightened his grip on the black knife.

"—"

Behind the Juggernaut, who stood stock-still, before Lyu, who looked on in astonishment,

and beside Mari, who poked her face from the water, Bell flew into a rage.

"!!"

He raced toward the Juggernaut, his body—just moments before on the verge of

death—transformed now into a speeding bullet.

"!!"

The monster spun violently around as Lyu watched. It had determined that this

revenger, whom it had destroyed beyond all recovery but who now came dancing back

to life, was no mere bit of prey but rather its prime enemy, worthy of complete

annihilation.

As the boy charged toward it with terrifying speed, the monster flourished its claws

powerfully, as if to say, This time, you must be crushed.

"—!!"

Faced with this deadly blow that approached at lightning speed, Bell chose not escape

but direct advance.

He tore the scarf from his neck, wrapped it around his left hand, and shot forward.

"?!"

Astonishment flickered in the Juggernaut's glowing orbs.

The black scarf that Bell had wrapped around his hand in place of the demolished

gauntlet threw off a shower of sparks as the monster's claws slid over it.

The devastating weapon bestowed upon the monster by the Dungeon was deflected

by the ultimate defensive armor born of that very same Dungeon.

As if to pay back the monster in its own currency, Bell snatched its brief moment of

hesitation to attack.

With a suddenness and speed that left no room for escape, the Hestia Knife glinted

backhand toward the monster's chest.

"?!"

Next it was Bell's turn to be astonished.

He had ripped into his enemy's chest. Yet the response did not suggest he had crushed

its core.

In other words, it had no magic stone?!

Shuddering at each other's menacing presences, boy and monster slid cleanly past

each other.

Instantly, both turned on their heels. Their gazes clashed. Their respective blows met

thin air.

This was when the life-or-death battle truly began.

"—!!"

"Yah!"

As the Juggernaut howled murderously, Bell gave a spirited shout and charged headon toward the monster, Goliath Scarf and Hestia Knife at the ready.

The monster sprang away rapidly with a series of jumps fueled by the energy stored

in its reverse-joint knees.

I'll be slaughtered before I can blink if I let it use those legs to its advantage.

Bell chose instead to engage in a bullfight.

Pouring every drop of his strength into the opening blow in hopes of getting a head

start on his opponent, he turned his body into a pure-white arrow of light.

"—?!"

The monster charged forward even as its enemy's lancing attack shaved the surface of

its neck and shoulder.

Blood, flesh, and skin flew.

As Lyu looked on, dumbfounded, and Mari clapped both hands over her mouth, Bell

launched a special attack propelled by his surging blood.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"

The black knife was aimed at the monster's right knee joint.

With inhuman speed, the blade cut into its target.

"?!"

The Juggernaut's right leg dropped slightly with a loud thump.

Although its battle stance and ability to continue fighting had not been impacted in

the least, it was no longer able to fly about at lightning speed like a hurricane. Bell's

single blow had landed perfectly on the source of those powerful jumps: the monster's

reverse-joint knees.

It stared intently at Bell, who had already suffered serious damage in their clashes.

Though the left half of his body was soaked in blood, the adventurer's eyes sent a clear

message: We're just getting started.

"Game on!"

Bell raised his knife, his rubellite eyes flashing.

"—Ooo!!"

The monster's crimson eyes burned. For the first time, it howled with rage.

It charged forward, the exploding swirl of crystal fragments from the floor obscuring

its opponent's form.

Just as Bell had anticipated, the close-range fight began.

"Mr. Cranell?!" Lyu screamed as she propped herself into a sitting position, her broken

leg beneath her, and watched his reckless venture unfold.

Lyu knew the terror of the Juggernaut better than anyone else.

What Bell was doing may have been his only choice, but nevertheless it was crazy to

place oneself within the monster's sphere of slaughter. Moment by moment, she could

see his body being battered and wounded.

Blood and chunks of flesh flew as his undershirt—stripped of its protective armor—

was ripped to shreds. With every passing second, he was being shaved away. Mari

watched in pale silence.

But—

"…?!"

The claws of destruction did not pierce Bell's body.

Using the scarf wrapped around his left hand exactly like a gauntlet, he deflected the

Juggernaut's claws by sliding them over its tough surface.

Again and again, the monster brought down its deadliest weapon, as if to say, Stop

playing with me.

But the scarf would not shatter. The number of scratches on its surface increased, but

the armor of the Goliath—the "shield" that Cassandra had requested and Welf had

made for him—did not break.

And as long as it did not break, Bell could keep fighting.

As long as he had the shield his friends had made for him, he could face this strongest

and most terrible of calamities.

If he could withstand the deadly blows that no adventurer was supposed to be able to

withstand, then he could extract the tiniest of chances at victory, and therefore he

could defeat his own despair.

Screech!!

The Hestia Knife let out its own battle cry as it deflected the course of the claws. A

fountain of sparks danced into the air as the blade screamed. Still, the Divine Knife did

not crumble. It continued to clash with the monster's weapon.

The Juggernaut was mad with destructive rage. Bell, too, was acting out a desperate

battle armed with the strongest of all blades and shields.

It's just like I suspected.

As his wounds spurted fresh blood, Bell squinted at his opponent.

He's faster than I am.

He was not only stronger but also quicker. Compared to the Juggernaut, everything

about Bell was inferior. In the past, no matter how much higher his opponent's level

had been, Bell had always had the upper hand in terms of speed and agility. Now even

that advantage was gone.

Yet he did not give up in the face of this hopeless analysis. Instead, his heart cried out

unyieldingly.

How could he resist this monster that surpassed him in every way? Of course, it was

obvious.

By using the skill and tactics he had cultivated so far.

This was the true weapon and shield given to him as an adventurer—this determination

burning in his chest. Adventurers took the trial called "despair" and transformed it

into great achievement.

Its power and potential are unbelievable for its size—

If he had been asked to compare the Black Goliath and the Juggernaut, Bell honestly

wouldn't have been able to say which was superior.

Comparing them was meaningless.

They worked in entirely different ways.

The Goliath had an extraordinary ability to suppress armies, while the Juggernaut was

a slaughterer who excelled in inflicting deadly damage on individual adventurers. In

terms of getting the job done with a single weapon, the claws of destruction most

likely outdid the Goliath's hammer and howl.

On the other hand, in terms of ability to endure attacks, the Juggernaut couldn't hold

a candle to the floor boss.

This monster was best able to exercise its full potential—its highly developed

strength, speed, and ability to kill—not in a wide-open room but in the passageways

and other closed-in spaces of the Dungeon. This made it the ideal apostle of murder,

designed solely to wipe out "viruses" that damaged the Dungeon.

Is it even faster than my greatest rival?

There was the fierce, swift speed of its attacks and the constant vibrating shock waves

that made his feet and hands go numb.

In a corner of Bell's burning mind, fragments of logic compared the beast he faced now

to the black minotaur.

In terms of destructive power, the Juggernaut was superior because of its claws.

But perhaps Asterios was the victor when it came to physical strength?

That time, the massive bull had been on the verge of death. His true strength was

probably much greater—

Bell cut off the irrelevant thoughts that flashed briefly through his mind. In this

desperate battle, any unnecessary mental noise could lead directly to death. The

tiniest mistake on the part of either combatant could cost them their head.

"—!"

Even as Bell's storm of knife blows wounded its body, the Juggernaut showed no sign

of easing its own attack.

His whole body was screaming. His overheated limbs and trunk felt like they were

about to burst apart.

His left arm might as well be shouting its death cries. Inside the Goliath Scarf, his hand

had been pulverized by the force of the repeated claw attacks it had deflected. Pain

was the only sense he had left. The blood was sloshing around noisily inside the

wrapping. Still, Bell knew that the moment he stopped deflecting the claws, he was

done for.

His shoulder and neck burned where the flesh had been gouged out.

His once-healed wounds were torn open again, gushing blood.

Still, the light glowed in his eyes, and he moved forward.

If he fell now, he was sure the Juggernaut would kill Lilly and the rest of his party.

Every adventurer in the Water Capital would be exterminated.

He couldn't let it happen. He had to defend them to the death.

In other words—

You're going down!!

Even if this monster had been called forth by an Evil and Bell had never wanted to fight

it, he could not leave something so destructive to its own devices.

Was he going to let it kill more people? Was he going to let the death continue?

Bell donned the mask of the hypocrite.

For the sake of the people he wanted to protect, he would kill the being in front of him.

"!!"

His enemy's attack began. Crystal fragments flew. Bell was forced into a defensive stance.

Claw swipe, dodge, biting fangs, intercept.

A counterblow from Bell, blocked by the enemy. Too shallow. Not yet. Another blow.

Pieces of the enemy's shell fell away. I'll bury it in blows.

Bell Cranell still has fight left in him yet. Yes! Go on! For her sake! Why did I come to this

floor in the first place?

In a moment that stretched on for an eternity, Bell speeded up at the literal cost of

shaving away his own life.

Faster, faster, faster!

He was determined to put an end to her nightmare.

"AAAAAAA!!" Bell howled, blood streaming from his entire body.

He slashed toward the hurricane of death, a single piece of cloth—his only safety net—

wrapped around one hand.

He faced head-on the beast that for Lyu symbolized pure despair.

He understood only a fragment of the suffering she had endured. But it was enough to

set his own once-despairing heart on fire.

He howled a long howl, because that sound was the flame of his spirit that would burn

away tragedy and calamity.

"Mr. Cranell…"

Even the rather insensitive Lyu knew who he was yelling for. The hotness in the depths

of her chest expanded.

"…You're so much…"

Her final whispered word—"stronger"—disappeared into the din of the battlefield.

She felt pitiful lying there doing nothing. But still this feeling burned in her heart.

For the first time, she understood why Bell liked those hero's tales so much. For the

first time, the elf saw how noble heroes looked when they challenged despair itself.

"…?"

The Juggernaut was puzzled by this totally new feeling it was experiencing. The white

flame that had been extinguished roared back to life, had been slashed but was now

charging forward, had been beaten down but rose once more in defiance. The

newborn monster was unable to grasp the fact that its enemy's spirit was dominating

its own.

Finally—either because it recognized the unending series of slashing attacks as a

menace or because it was overwhelmed by the boy's determination—the monster for

the first time retreated.

It had folded first in the life-or-death contest of endurance.

Perhaps it was due to instinct, or perhaps it was the inevitable outcome. In any case,

it saw no need to risk its own life for a bit of prey that had nearly died once and was

already half-dead again. And so, the monster stepped back from the close-range fight

into which it had been tricked.

It was, without a doubt, an advantageous move. But Bell saw a chance for victory.

It's retreating.

Delirious and covered in blood, he nevertheless felt his hunger for battle burn with

fresh ferocity. He let his mind follow the path of that desire.

His greatest rival had not retreated.

His idol would always fight to the end.

The monster before him was neither warrior nor adventurer. Bell smiled.

He had lured the Juggernaut into close combat in order to wrench this one moment

from it. Although it was faster than Bell, it had been forced into the defensive for the

first time in order to retreat.

He thrust his scarf-wrapped left hand toward his backward-leaning enemy.

"Firebolt!!"

Seventeen successive shots.

He concentrated his mind into those seventeen shots, loading every last drop of

magical power he had into the rapid-fire attack.

The all-out, instantaneous firepower erupted before the eyes of the surprised monster.

"!"

Of course, the Juggernaut pulsed its shell to exercise its power of magic reflection.

Bell's magic was pitilessly repulsed by the invincible shield.

"Yeah!!"

It fell for it!

Letting out a yell of victory, Bell dove toward the whirlwind of electrifying flames that

came hurtling back toward him.

"?!"

Lyu couldn't believe her eyes. Mari yelped, and even the monster stared in shock.

The barrage of seventeen Firebolts sped toward him. An instant later, his body was

engulfed in deep-red light.

Even as his own fire seared his flesh and pierced his flank, Bell sped forward, shouting

victoriously.

A single shot.

A single, carefully aimed Firebolt exploded into his black knife.

He was charging his weapon.

The Juggernaut saw it—saw that instead of scattering like it should have when it hit

the knife, the Firebolt was pressed into place by a white light and focused.

A Dual Charge.

Bell had anticipated that his Firebolt would be repulsed and used that to prepare for

his deadly strike.

The massive barrage of fire provided a cover. In the moment that the raging electrical

fire obscured his body from the enemy's view, he drew close to its massive frame.

The Juggernaut, frozen for just an instant, understood everything.

It had been lured into using its magic reflection by a barrage of firepower strong

enough to inflict deadly injury even on a monster. It had been attacked with the aim of

provoking that tiny moment of immobility caused by the use of its armored shell.

Time froze for the Juggernaut as it stared at the raging Divine Knife encased in an

armor of flames.

It knew it was in a bad situation. Things were moving fast. Still, it had time. If it

gathered all its strength, it could intercept the attack, defend itself, and escape.

But a kind of static was interfering with the monster's instincts.

Was that magic, or was it a knife attack? Should it deflect it with the invincible armor

or destroy it with the deadly claws?

The apostle of murder was confused.

It chose escape.

Using its one remaining reverse-joint leg, it sprang forward—not perfectly but

adequately.

"—"

To get straight to the point, the monster of calamity lost its bargain with the adventurer.

The second or two it spent deciding what to do was, for the Juggernaut, a most

regrettable opening that it should never have yielded to the lightning-fast rabbit.

"—Yaah!"

Bell suddenly unfurled the scarf wrapped around his left hand, launching it forward.

Unlike the Firebolt, this was a midrange, indirect attack.

The black strip of fabric undulated through the air like a whip, landing on the

monster's long tail.

"?!"

There was a tremendous shock as the scarf unfurled to its full length and Bell planted

both feet on the crystal ground.

The Juggernaut froze unnaturally in midair. Then inertia brought it hurtling toward

Bell's left hand, which still gripped the scarf.

There was the sound of muscle ripping and the snap of an arm bone popping out of

place.

Bell's eyes bulged.

Still, he gathered his remaining strength and drew his left arm in toward his body.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"

The Juggernaut—its tail entangled in the scarf—was pulled toward him. As the

enormous form landed at Bell's feet, it shuddered. The monster realized the nature of

the emotion it had been feeling for the past few minutes.

This was the terror that its prey experienced.

"—?!"

As if to shake off the feeling, it pulsed its shell with purplish-blue light. In the face of

the flaming knife in its enemy's right hand, it brandished its own weapon—its alldestroying claws, the claws that nothing could withstand.

A moment earlier, it had wondered whether the knife would deliver magic or an

ordinary slashing attack. The answer was neither. The deadly blow it held in wait

would allow for neither reflection nor defense.

It was a sacred flame that would turn all to ash.

Bell had charged it for nine seconds.

As the Juggernaut towered over him with claws bared, Bell unleashed the blow.

"Argo Vesta!!"

A blast of light.

"—"

Thundering flames swallowed the enormous fang-like claws.

A flare extinguished the flashing purplish-blue light.

The claws of destruction shattered. Black and purple fragments flew everywhere.

Bell had been thrown backward, but he kept his right arm extended. This time, it was

the Juggernaut's right arm that would be obliterated.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAA!!"

The monster wailed.

Its right arm had vanished, claws and all, in the roar and flash of the sacred flame. The

shock reverberated through its shoulder and into the right half of the towering body.

Its speed and aggression were extraordinarily developed, but its endurance and

defense were correspondingly low. Fissures ran down its flank and back, and chunks

of shell clattered onto the floor. As its fossil-like form crumbled, the Juggernaut

crashed into the crystal floor.

Its right arm blasted off and its tail finally freed from the bonds of the scarf, it rolled

and scraped across the floor, finally coming to a halt in the center of the room.

For the first time in its life, the Juggernaut howled in grief.

I didn't charge enough…!

Bell squinted at the writhing, shrieking monster. Although it was inevitable due to the

short amount of time he'd had, the blow hadn't been deadly.

But he could do something about that. He could bury a silver round in the hideous

beast.

"Owwwwwwwwww…!!"

A terrifying jolt of pain shot through Bell's left hand.

His mind had robbed his body of strength in its tremendous effort to achieve both

Swift-Strike Magic and a Dual Charge. His legs were shaking. His arms felt like they

were about to be torn from his shoulders. He now couldn't feel his left hand.

But he had to fight. He had to pull together his last drops of strength. He had to put a

stop to that monster and its whirlwind of calamity.

As the maelstrom of pain forced a tear from his eye, Bell gripped the Hestia Knife and

turned toward the Juggernaut, still prone on the floor.

"—Mr. Cranell?!"

Lyu, who had been watching in a daze as this scene unfolded, shuddered and let out a

cry.

Bell noticed, too, but it was too late.

A one-armed shadow leaped from behind a crystal column and fell over the Juggernaut.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! I did it!"

It was Jura.

The tamer had been hiding and waiting for this moment to reappear.

The magic collar, still encircling the monster's thin, bony neck, pulsed with a strange

crimson light.

"I didn't expect you to bring it to its knees like that!"

"Jura…!"

"But with this, it's mine!"

Trembling with joy, the catman grinned at the dumbfounded Bell and Lyu.

This was the long-cherished moment he had been waiting for. Sneering, he pulled out

his crimson whip and lashed it powerfully against the ground.

"Stand, monster of mine! Kill Leon and that brat!!"

The collar pulsed with a bright light in response to the whip. As the magic item flashed

wildly, the Juggernaut's half-destroyed body convulsed again and again… until finally,

slowly, it rose.

The crimson light in the depths of its eye sockets bore into Bell and Lyu.

Bell grimaced, unable to hide his fear in the face of a monster whose eyes—as if

insensate to all the injuries it had suffered—were filled with pure bloodlust.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yes, kill them! Kill them both! With those claws of yours—"

The next instant, the monster swung the remains of its tail, as if in irritation.

Chunks of flesh flew. The catman's body was cleaved in two.

In the end, Jura never knew what had happened. The upper half of his body flew

through the air and landed with a splash in the waterway flowing through the room.

As if realizing its fate, the lower half toppled over. Red bubbles frothed as the upper

half sank into the water.

Bell and Lyu gaped in silence.

The end of the Evil had come so abruptly.

"—, —, —…!!"

But the collar kept pulsing with light.

As if illuminated by the dead man's last wish—or, rather, his rancor—the collar continued

to flash, animating the Juggernaut's body. The battered legs took a step toward Bell.

"Uh…!"

In the face of this destroyer who seemed to take no notice of its own injuries, Bell

flourished the Hestia Knife. He let out a battle cry, as if to whip his exhausted body

toward one last battle.

"Huh?"

Just then, he heard a crumbling sound. Or more accurately, the sound of piled-up

rubble being swept aside.

Something pulled at Bell's mind. Even though the Juggernaut was right in front of him

now, he obeyed his adventurer's instinct and turned his head toward the sound that

indicated something abnormal in the Dungeon.

Directly behind him was Lyu, still unable to stand.

Behind her, slithering from the pile of crystal rubble, was a giant serpent monster.

"—"

The lambton was supposed to be dead.

But there it was, as huge as ever, the pulsing collar around its neck clearly responding

to the tamer's command. Its multiple bloodied eyes glared as it obeyed the last

command of its master.

Kill Leon and that brat!

The near-dead serpent roared and bore down behind Lyu, scattering crystal fragments

as it approached.

"Miss Lyu!!"

Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening, but it was too late. The lambton

was charging forward, its enormous maw wide open.

Bell ran toward it.

With the little energy he had left, he accelerated, grabbed Lyu's outstretched hand,

and pulled her close.

A moment later, both adventurers were engulfed in the serpent's mouth.

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!"

As it bellowed, the lambton burrowed its sharply pointed head into the ground. Its

corkscrewing body crushed through the bedrock as it drilled and gouged downward.

"—!!"

The Juggernaut followed. Roaring and scattering pieces of shell from its fractured

body, it dove into the hole that the lambton had made.

The heroic battle that had unfolded in the crystal room was over.

"Bell… Beeeell?!"

Just one living being remained.

The mermaid's sorrowful cry echoed through the now-quiet space.

"Please let me go, Miss Cassandra! Enough already…!"

Lilly's shout disappeared into the din of the Great Falls.

They were in the cavern on the twenty-fifth floor. Standing on the cliff near the mouth

of the falls that overlooked the cavern on the floor below, the adventurers argued

among themselves.

"No, you can't go…! Not to the twenty-seventh floor…!"

Cassandra was holding on fiercely to the prum's arm. She pushed away Mikoto, who

was tearfully trying to hold her back, and gripped Lilly's small hand. Her face was so

transformed as she struggled to keep Hestia Familia from moving on that they didn't

know what to make of it.

My dream has come true after all! I can't let them go! Their deaths have been foretold…!

All her actions were driven by that one thought. Guilt and despair overwhelmed her.

The countless souls she had abandoned to death were tormenting her conscience and

weighing on her heart. Her chest felt tight and warm, like her own thoughts were

chewing away at her. Tears spilled from her eyes.

But, but, if they don't go…

She could save them. As long as they stayed there, the people Cassandra cared about

would be safe. This would not absolve her of her sins, but the thought nevertheless

brought Cassandra some relief.

If she kept them there, she could avoid total destruction.

But then, as if the Dungeon were sneering at Cassandra, a tremor shook the ground.

"—"

An earthquake? No, a shaking caused by the Dungeon.

Welf and the others, who had been so troubled by Cassandra's strange behavior, froze.

The sound was unmistakable.

"Hey, that noise…!"

"You're kidding me…!

"It's impossible. I mean, one was just spawned two weeks ago!"

The Dungeon ignored the sudden paleness of Ouka's, Welf's, and Lilly's faces and

continued its groans.

It had only one thought.

It had sent out its apostle of murder, its equivalent of an immune system, yet the virus

remained alive. Even worse, the child of calamity had left the floor, despite the fact that

the contaminants destroying its mother's womb remained in the Water Capital.

Not just one or two but a number so large it couldn't be ignored.

The Dungeon could not overlook this.

So it made a completely improbable decision. Raising its voice in a howl, it spawned

that thing.

"Th-th-this is…"

Lilly and the others recognized something—something in the signs that an

unbelievably huge being was about to be spawned, in the tremors that shook the floor

and the sound of enormous fissures splitting the walls.

"It's coming!" Aisha screamed.

The next instant, the Great Falls on the twenty-seventh floor exploded. Huge jets of

water spouted up to the twenty-fifth floor, beating down onto the cavern like a

pounding rain.

This subterranean rain poured onto the thing that burst through the falls on the lowest

floor, wrapping its form in smoky white mist. Slowly, it sank toward the bottom of the

plunge pool.

A moment later, it burst up again.

Then it began to literally climb the several-hundred-meder-tall column of raging water

that was the Great Falls.

"—"

As Cassandra looked down on the chilling form that rose from the twenty-seventh to

the twenty-sixth floor, and then toward the twenty-fifth, she remembered something.

Oh, don't worry, monsters don't climb up the falls.

Well, most don't.

A certain Amazon had said those words just a few days before. The very same Amazon

who stood beside her now, podao at the ready and eyes filled with astonishment.

Cassandra finally understood what she had meant.

"Get baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!" Welf screamed.

The entire group sprang away from the cliff's edge that formed the mouth of the falls.

No sooner had they done so than it shattered apart. The tsunami that surged from it

swallowed them all and carried them toward the back of the bank.

One by one, they stood up; raised their drenched, coughing faces; and looked at the

two-headed dragon before them.

"The Monster Rex of the twenty-seventh floor—" Lilly whispered in a daze.

Aisha spit out the rest of the sentence.

"—Amphisbaena."

As if answering its mother's call, the huge floor boss writhing in the center of the

twenty-fifth-floor plunge pool looked up.

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

The Amphisbaena was an anomaly among floor bosses known to the Guild.

Contravening the rule that confined Monster Rexes to the guarding of a specific floor,

this one was mobile.

As her companions scowled and brandished their weapons, Cassandra stared

absentmindedly.

This was the Dungeon, the crucible of monsters.

The limitless Dungeon, for which the rebellion of a prophetess of tragedy was a mere

trifling matter.

The two-headed white monster roared with the will of that Dungeon.

Cassandra's face froze.

She and her party may have escaped catastrophe, but they were now facing—yes,

despair.