Beyond a Thousand Darknesses Part 2

These undiscovered flowers, absent from the illustrated guides detailing the Dungeon

kept at the Guild, were quite likely the only plants in the White Palace. Lyu stopped at

Bell's suggestion and plucked a flower, then tasted it.

It was sweet. She offered one for Bell to try. She was right—it had a faint, nectarlike

flavor that melted on his tongue. Even if he stuffed his mouth with them, he suspected

he would regain very little of his stamina. Still, they were a temporary solace, and

better than nothing. In fact, for someone like Bell who hadn't tasted sugar in ages, they

were a delicious treat.

Then he looked up and noticed that the ceilings were lower than anywhere else on the

thirty-seventh floor. He could see the uneven surface clearly. It reminded him of a

rocky cave.

The place felt like a groundwater vein, or a ravine with the sky blocked out overhead.

Those were the impressions the passage gave him.

"This passage goes on forever… all I can hear is the water…"

The passage and its stream stretched out before them like a blue pathway.

Compared to the Under Resort on the eighteenth floor or the Water Capital on the

twenty-fifth floor, the scene was incredibly bland. But to Bell and Lyu, who had been

wandering the dark world of the deep levels, the glowing blue stream was more

precious and mysterious than anything they could imagine.

This, too, was the Dungeon.

It bared its cruel fangs to adventurers, but it also showed them fantastical landscapes

like this one. This was the Dungeon's one act of mercy within its endless darkness, or

so it seemed to Bell.

"…"

"…"

The blue road stretched on interminably.

Inevitably, conversation had dried up between Bell and Lyu. The journey was long.

Where would it end? What awaited them ahead? Now and then Bell stumbled, the

price of his blood loss. Would he be able to escape the deep levels in this condition?

Anxiety was always with him.

But he and Lyu held onto hope as they continued down the blue road. Presently…

"A dead end…"

Beyond the end of the road was a small spring. An uneven circular space announced

the end of the passage. Unlike the clear spring in the center of the passage where water

bubbled up, here the water was sucked into the bottom of the spring, as if completing

a cycle in the Dungeon.

There were no tunnels or stairways in sight. As Lyu looked around wondering if they

really would have to retrace their steps, she noticed something.

"That stone… its composition is different from the others."

The pure white ore brought to mind quartz more than stone.

With a tense look on his face, Bell drew the Hestia Knife and thrust it into the mass

Lyu was pointing at. No sooner had a crack spread across its surface than the entire

lump of ore shattered. Beyond it was a cave and a stairway leading up.

Bell and Lyu exchanged glances, nodded, and crawled through the cave. They could

hear the mineral repairing itself behind them. The cave was just wide enough to fit

two people shoulder-to-shoulder, and pitch black. Lyu took out one of the jars she had

filled with water from the stream. It gave off a faint blue glow. Using it as a lantern,

they climbed step by step.

When they had climbed about one hundred steps, they came to a ceiling blocked by

the same ore that had been at the cave's mouth. Bell boldly broke through it.

"This is…"

They were looking into a room on the thirty-seventh floor.

It was a cul-de-sac with only one doorway. The ground was littered with rocks as tall

as Bell. The chunk of ore leading to the passage with the stream was hidden among

these rocks.

They could sense monsters in the maze beyond.

Adjusting to the fact that they were now back in the Dungeon's cruel reality, they

stepped out of the room with every nerve on high alert.

Contrary to their expectations, however, they did not encounter any monsters in the

straight, unbranching passage before them.

Presently they came to a larger passage. Immediately, a huge wall sprang into view.

"…Ms. Lyu, that's not…"

"Yes… a Ring Wall."

As Bell craned his neck to peer at the looming wall, Lyu confirmed his guess. There

was no doubt about it, the enormous, smooth surface was one of the White Palace's

five Ring Walls. It was perhaps one hundred meders beyond the point where Lyu and

Bell had come from the side passage into the larger passage.

On top of that…

"This passage… yes, I'm sure of it. It's the main route."

"!"

"That Ring Wall is gray. In other words, it's the Fourth Wall."

As she spoke, Lyu looked around like she was piecing together a puzzle made of

memories. When Astrea Familia was still alive and well, Lyu had come to the deep

levels a number of times. Although she did not have a full picture of the sprawling floor

in her mind, her body knew the main route instinctively because she had traveled it

so often on her way to and from the surface.

The Colosseum was situated on the inside of the Third Wall, which meant the stream

directly below it—the Blue Road—led straight to the Fourth Wall.

Bell and Lyu had suffered greatly, but their suffering had brought them incredible good

fortune.

"S-so if we get past that wall…!"

"Yes, only the Fifth Wall will remain. And if we get past that, there is no maze between

there and the connecting passage to the thirty-sixth floor."

Beyond the Fifth Wall lay a vast wasteland. It was quite a distance to the southern edge

of the floor, where the passage was located, but if they got that far there would be no

chance of losing their way. Only the White Palace within the Ring Walls had a maze

structure.

For the first time since Bell had been plunged into the deep levels, true hope

illuminated his face. Lyu's expression was forbidding, but she, too, felt the same.

It was as if a lighthouse had shone its beam on a ship pummeled by the rough waves

of a storm. That single beam of light was more than enough for them to cling to.

"Let's go! While there are no monsters around!"

"…Yes!"

As Bell said, no monsters were to be seen. This was a perfect opportunity.

The darkness peered down on them from far above as they headed straight ahead

toward the Ring Wall.

We sure are lucky…! No—we snatched luck ourselves because we didn't give up!

Bell did not commit the fool's crime of making a racket in his rush. Advancing with

even more caution than they had so far, he stepped boldly forward. One step behind

him, Lyu, too, looked around warily as she bounded energetically ahead.

The maze between the Fourth and Fifth Walls is called the Beast Zone… If we can just get

through here…!

The region between the Second and Third Walls, where the Colosseum was, was the

Warrior Zone. The area they were currently traversing was the Soldier Zone. Aside

from a few spots, the main route on the thirty-seventh floor was several dozen meders

wide. Once they got onto it, they wouldn't likely lose their way, unless they encountered

some irregularity.

As Bell racked his brain for bits of information Eina had taught him, he ground his

molars together as if to squeeze out an extra drop or two of energy.

I can go home… I will go home! To the surface! To where my friends are! With Lyu…!

Bell was running toward the future. He blended into the dusky darkness, moving ever

farther from the monsters lurking nearby.

He did not let down his guard.

Neither did Lyu.

Still, they should have realized.

As they frantically tried to take advantage of their good fortune, they should have

thought about that luck more deeply.

Why weren't they encountering any monsters?

Why hadn't the monsters they had sensed as they emerged from the Blue Road found

them yet?

Why were they hiding as if they were afraid of something?

"The Fourth Wall…!… We made it!"

Having arrived at the towering wall, Bell and Lyu squeezed into the squared-off hole

at its base. They pressed forward without hesitation toward the faint phosphorescence

beyond the pitch-black tunnel.

They stepped out.

They were on the other side of the Fourth Wall.

They were in the last maze between them and the connecting passage to the lower

levels.

They were in the Beast Zone, the final battlefield.

"—"

Bell sensed it.

As soon as he emerged from the Ring Wall, he knew.

He sensed it the second he stepped into that zone.

A piece of rock fell with a soft patter from above.

A gaze pierced his head.

The crimson, murderous gaze of calamity.

"—"

The monster was there.

Far above Bell's head.

Clinging by those terrible claws to the towering Ring Wall.

Waiting for its sole target to come walking beneath it.

Waiting for its prey—that is, Bell and Lyu—to pass through the Fourth Wall and enter

the Beast Zone.

The grotesque form pulled its claws from the wall and silently descended.

Giving the adventurers little time to track its movements, it kicked off the ground.

As the claws of destruction closed in, Bell grabbed Lyu's hand and leaped with all his

might.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

An explosion.

As if it had been struck by a meteor, the ground where Lyu and Bell had stood an

instant before shattered. Bedrock fractured, stone shards hailed down, and a brutal

dust cloud swirled. They tumbled awkwardly over the ground. When he finally

stopped rolling, Bell snapped his head up, dumbfounded.

"ooo…!"

The purplish-blue shell glowed faintly.

There was that distinctive form, reminiscent of a dinosaur fossil in armor. The monster

of calamity had wandered in search of the prey that got away and eventually settled

in here to lay in wait for it.

"The Jugger… naut…!"

Looking once again at that unforgettable nightmare, Bell uttered its name for the first

time. As if responding to his call, the monster turned its left side, which was shrouded

in darkness, toward Bell and pulled its glittering purplish-black claws from the

ground. Its presence was all the more overwhelming since it was injured; there could

be no greater symbol of death for Lyu and Bell.

"Aaa…!"

The trauma dwelling within Lyu rose again at the breathtaking sight.

As she struggled fiercely against the terror, Bell grimaced.

Of all the times…!

Surging emotions roiled his chest as his left arm recalled the hell it had been through.

His flesh throbbing with hot pain beneath the scarf wrapped around it, Bell drew the

Hestia Knife.

He neither gave in to absurd anger nor moaned uselessly, but instead prepared to fight

back so he could live.

The Juggernaut narrowed its eyes at this prey that still had not lost the will to fight, its

piercing eyes glowing in the dark. The claws on its feet screeching across the floor of

the maze, it slowly rotated its body so it was facing Bell.

"Wha—?"

Bell could not believe his eyes.

"It has its right arm?"

The right half of its body was turned toward Bell.

Through the veil of dusky darkness, the silhouette of its right arm was clearly visible.

What was going on? During their deadly fight on the twenty-seventh floor, Bell had

risked his life to take that arm. He had used Argo Vesta, his lethal skill, to erase the

arm along with its claws of destruction—or so he thought.

But now that he looked closely, he saw that the Juggernaut's tail was back to its original

length as well, despite having been severed during the fight.

Had it self-regenerated? Did it have the same ability as the Black Goliath?

As Bell was lost in confusion over the regeneration of the arm he had stolen at such

great cost, he heard a noise.

"…?"

Something was writhing in the darkness.

It was coming from where the monster's right arm was, from the shoulder down.

Perhaps the Juggernaut was making the unpleasant creaking sound intentionally. It

reminded Bell of insects devouring one another inside a jar. That, or two gears that

didn't quite fit being forced to turn with a chunk of meat stuck between them.

A subconscious alarm bell began to ring in Bell's mind.

Finally, the monster called calamity took a thundering step forward.

Beneath the phosphorescence, it shook off the darkness.

"—"

Time stopped for Bell.

Lyu, too, froze.

The now-exposed right arm—was made of countless masks of bone.

"…Skull sheep…?"

From the monster's shoulders all down the side of its body, sheep skulls were packed

close together. The sheep of death that Bell had fought so many times on this floor had

become part of the Juggernaut's body.

"No way. It…"

Lyu's lips quivered as she shuddered uncontrollably. Bell spoke the abominable words

that she could not.

"…Ate those monsters…?"

That was the answer.

It was different from an enhanced species.

It had not eaten only magic stones.

It had eaten those monsters alive from top to bottom.

And by eating them, it had absorbed their bodies.

It shouldn't have been possible. It was incomprehensible.

But there was no other way to explain the monster before them.

It was an Irregular like none before it.

It was an unknown being unforeseen by even the Dungeon herself.

Adventurers, monsters, maze.

When she spoke, Lyu expressed the horror that possessed all that existed in that place.

"It's impossible… it can't be…!"

The Juggernaut simply raised its grotesque arm as if to show it off. The right arm made

of white bone contrasted eerily with the purplish-blue armor covering the rest of the

monster's body. Innumerable sheep ribs, femurs, and twisting horns fit together like

a puzzle into a warped curve. Pink scraps of muscle showed through here and there.

Most likely, the large sinews, still glossy with blood, came from barbarians.

The humanlike skeletons mixed in among the assortment of bony parts were without

question spartois.

The sizable scales covering the long, curving tail belonged to lizardmen.

The chunks of stone reinforcing the severely cracked magic-reflecting shell came from

obsidian soldiers.

Skull sheep were not the only monsters the Juggernaut had incorporated. Lacking a

magic stone of its own, it had taken in every type of monster inhabiting the deep levels

and made their bodies its own.

The hideous form had grown even larger than before.

Every monster Bell had fought on this floor had become a single being that now

loomed in front of him.

A chimera.

Bell couldn't help thinking of that monster that appeared only in made-up stories—

that fairy-tale monster that contained the bodies of a hundred beasts, that powerful

goblin he had believed was only a product of inventive imaginations.

But now that nightmare had taken on the form of the Juggernaut and appeared before

him.

"Haaa…!"

The Juggernaut breathed out a gust of white mist that could have been mistaken for

steam, as if the monster could not contain the billowing volume of heat produced

within its trunk.

With a hiss, some of the bones making up the right arm melted out. Bell's and Lyu's

faces twitched as skull-sheep heads coated in sticky liquid rolled toward them.

It was like a human body rejecting a transplant.

The monsters were resisting their unnatural fusion.

To Bell, the sound of the various parts rubbing against one another with terrible

creaks and groans sounded like screaming—like living monsters sobbing in pain.

The Juggernaut, too, was likely suffering from this armor of persistence. By devouring

its fellow monsters and using their bodies in place of its own, it had gained a new

weapon.

The sole purpose of that weapon was to kill the white prey—that is, Bell.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

The Juggernaut signaled the start of the battle, shattering Bell and Lyu's moment of

shuddering horror. Bending its left reverse joint, it leaped abruptly toward Bell.

"Whoa!"

As the Juggernaut sped through the air like a bullet, Bell shielded Lyu behind his back

and repelled the claws of destruction in the nick of time. He'd used the Goliath Scarf.

Sparks flew and pain shot through his brain, but at this point he couldn't complain.

His enemy's mobility had declined. He was quite sure of it.

Aside from crushing the reverse joint in its knee, Argo Vesta had severely damaged its

entire lower body, reducing its jump speed to the point that even in his depleted state

Bell could follow the monster with his eyes and parry its attacks.

But…

"HAA!"

The Juggernaut landed on the passage wall and stuck out its composite right arm. As

if imitating Bell's Firebolt, it fired off several pointy white bones.

"—"

A total of four white javelins flew from various sections of its right arm. Bell gaped as

the sharp projectiles soared in an arc toward him.

"Pila—?!"

He and Lyu narrowly managed to evade the deadly weapons.

Bam-bam-bam-bam!! The four javelins pounded noisily into the ground.

Bell, whose right shoulder had been grazed, could not hide his agitation.

"Were those skull-sheep pila…?!"

Bell was flabbergasted. It seemed his enemy had acquired the attack methods of the

monsters it absorbed, including the pila the skull sheep had tormented him with.

Bel returned the monster's glare with his own shuddering gaze.

"——!!"

The Juggernaut's fierce offense had begun.

With a rolling thunder, it shot off pila from its spot on the passage wall. Sixteen of

them. Each was a different size and drew its own arc through the air as it raced toward

the Juggernaut's prey. As Bell and Lyu contorted their bodies to escape harm, the

rapid-fire barrage of sharp projectiles crashed into the floor, sending up a rain of stone.

The crimson eyes tracked the two adventurers on the other side of the dust cloud as

they dashed frantically back and forth. Suddenly, the Juggernaut bent its knee and flew

forward.

"?!"

Shifting from shooting to direct attack, the monster turned itself into a shell hurtling

forward.

Bell moved to defend himself from the huge, rapidly approaching form. Although he

managed to narrowly evade the surprise attack with skill and tactics, the monster

began shooting pila again the instant it landed.

Bell didn't have time to catch his breath, let alone feel shock.

The elongating pila were coming both from the ground and the air following jumps.

They flew toward Bell at like a phalanx rushing forward with the force of an angry

wave. Bell was forced onto the defensive by the constant threat of a deadly blow from

the terrible claws combined with the Juggernaut's insistence on piercing him like a

piece of grilled chicken.

He couldn't use a Firebolt because he feared the monster's magic reflection.

"It's using projectiles…!"

Lyu narrowed her eyes at the spectacle before her.

Under normal circumstances, the pila would be worse than useless for the Juggernaut.

Missiles that moved more slowly than its legs would be nothing but baggage. But since

Bell had crushed its reverse joint, they were the ideal weapon for making up the

deficiency.

Hard as it was to believe, the monster was carrying out a hit-and-run made up of

repeated missile attacks followed by lunges at Bell. It had come up with a strategy to

beat the adventurers at their own game.

The massive body of the Juggernaut zigzagged across their field of vision along with

countless flying pila.

They're too fast!

I can't track them—!!

As the glowing red eyes streaked through the darkness trailing a tail of light, Bell and

Lyu screamed out silently. The pila were coming from every direction, including above

their heads, in a ferocious three-dimensional attack. Forced to intercept them, Bell was

tossed from left to right, up and down.

The terrain was unfavorable for them as well.

The passage was wide, with no obstacles. The Juggernaut was able to leap freely in all

directions around the space as wide as a room, breeding chaos. Even if its astounding

jump speed was somewhat reduced, a closed-in space would have allowed Bell to

track it more easily.

The wavelike attacks lapped closer to the adventurers with each passing second.

Although it scattered shards of its shell with every leap and shed melted-off monster

parts, the Juggernaut did not ease up. With its hideous roars and flashing claws, its

unbendable determination to kill was clear.

Even without its incredible mobility, the Juggernaut was a slaughterer. Clad in an

"armor of persistence" made from countless other monsters, it was carrying out a new,

unprecedented campaign of destruction.

Faced with this deadly calamity, the adventurers recalled their despair. The apostle of

murder had blotted out the light of hope.

My hands are shaking. This calamity is terrifying…!

Lyu's spirit was the first to be worn down. Although the situation now was different,

the Juggernaut's insane behavior, so unlike that of any ordinary monster, summoned

a gray scene to her mind—Astrea Familia, trampled, stripped from her, lost. That same

trauma still tortured her.

The past hounded her. The nightmare was trying to rise from the ashes.

She could not stand it. She could lose anything but Bell. Determined to ward off the

return of tragedy, she tried desperately to infuse her terrified limbs with the will to

fight.

"HAAA!!"

But the Juggernaut did not wait for her limbs to respond. It pushed its cruelty to the

limit in a drive to slaughter the enemy that had escaped its grasp before.

"Ah!!"

As it dropped to the ground, it swung down its scale-covered tail, throwing both Lyu

and Bell backward. As the white rabbit's stance crumbled, the monster roared

triumphantly.

Its bony right arm crashed to the ground.

Its palm smacked down.

The ground shook.

Deep fissures raced across the stone at lightning speed.

The instant the cracks reached Bell and Lyu's feet, they exploded.

"—"

A great thicket of bone stakes rose from the ground directly beneath them.

Two rubellite eyes and two sky-blue eyes were glued to the mountain of enormous

needles that burst through the ground.

The Juggernaut had fired its bony javelins through the ground. There were so many of

these pila—or rather reverse pila—that they could not count them.

Bell's and Lyu's gazes had been focused upward because of the rain of pila launched a

minute earlier. Now they were coming from below. It was a surprise attack intended

to catch them off guard. They had become accustomed to looking up for incoming

attacks when they lost their footing, and so they were not able to dodge this one.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaa!"

It was like a super-sized land mine. The tsunami of pila thundered ominously as it

exploded around them.

They shaved away strips of Bell's side armor, arm, and cheeks.

They gouged out pieces of Lyu's mantle, right leg, and ear.

The hideous mountain of swords swallowed up the two adventurers.

Damn—this is the floor boss Udaeus's attack—

Lyu shuddered as time spun out to its limit like a revolving lantern.

A new level of despair descended on her as she wondered if their enemy was equal to

the Monster Rex of the thirty-seventh floor. Even as she thought this, pila continued to

shoot up like grave markers, gouging her skin as they formed an ever-denser mountain.

"—————!!"

The Juggernaut thundered its terrible roar, not lightening its attack in the least. It shot

one barrage of pila after the next in a continuous attack.

Within the hideous armor, "he" uttered a monologue.

—Look.

The prey is struggling uselessly, using what protective gear it has left, spraying red

sweat. It will not succumb willingly to the spikes. It will fight to the end.

I know, I know. That's what they're like.

They are supreme prey, refusing to die no matter how I crush them. All the more reason,

all the more reason—

The monster of calamity howled and continued to produce its deadly pila.

On went the thunder of firing so loud it made ears meaningless.

On flew the pila that sent up their rain of blood and flesh.

Finally…

"—Rgh."

The final "reverse pilum" hit Bell.

Beneath the tattered side armor with its broken clasps, it found his stomach.

The pointy crimson projectile pierced his flesh.

The artillery fire had been concentrated on him.

The clutch of pila aimed at the white prey that had stolen the Juggernaut's right arm

did not let that prey escape.

Time froze for Lyu, who was also covered in wounds.

As Bell hovered unnaturally in midair and the pilum fell to the ground, she reached

toward him.

But she could not rewind time.

Instead, as if to shatter the frozen flow of minutes, blood began to seep from the hole

in his stomach.

Blood bubbled from his mouth, staining his lips red.

It was a perfectly lethal wound.

An irreversible, decisive blow.

——

Bell responded correctly to this worst of all possible situations.

Before his guts spilled pitifully from the hole, he acted.

He made the immediate decision to close the wound.

"—Firebolt!!"

As he pressed his left hand to the opening, a small explosion erupted.

His stomach was burning.

The pain was hellish, a flash of light running across his field of vision followed by the

sensation of his insides on fire.

His eyes were so bloodshot it was like they had turned into pomegranates.

Lyu gaped and the monster stiffened.

His stomach smoking, Bell raised his left hand and fired wildly.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

The first and second shots hit the ground.

The third shot on went into the air directly in front of him.

A wave of heat and wind billowed out as the ground exploded. Abandoning his usual

habit of stomping down to withstand the recoil, he grabbed Lyu's outstretched hand

and they both shot backward.

Pulling the surprised elf along with him, he flew far from the sword-mountain, as if

that had been his plan all along.

"!!"

For a second, the Juggernaut was caught off guard.

Billows of smoke swirled in the air, a curtain concealing the prey. From beyond this

veil, flames streaked wildly toward the monster. Magic reflection was meaningless if

it didn't know where the prey was. Worse, its attempts to reflect the shots nailed the

monster in place.

The space between the monster and its prey widened.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!"

Bell was shooting off firebolts indiscriminately as he flew through the air.

The price of searing his stomach was an inability to aim properly. Sparks filled his field

of vision. It was like he was broken, simply releasing his magic in the blind hope that

it would keep his enemy away, buying time and distance.

After a second or two he and Lyu crashed to the ground and tumbled over and over.

"Bell?!"

They had been blown to the edge of the large passage. Lyu screamed as she stood up.

Convulsing from the extreme pain, Bell flickered in and out of consciousness.

"…Hrk!"

Lyu only paused for an instant.

She saw the smoke swirling behind them and understood their high-risk escape.

Dragging Bell behind her, she dashed toward a side passage she could see in the

distance.

"—!!"

The instant the electrical fire ended, the Juggernaut roared in fury.

The huge purplish-blue form hurtled toward the adventurers.

Lyu kicked off the ground even harder as the monster broke through the smoke and

raced toward them. Just as the claws reached her long cape and ripped into it, she dove

into the side passage.

It was about two meders wide, enough to fit two adventurers but not an extra-largecategory monster. The three-meder-high Juggernaut could not squeeze itself into the

tunnel. In terms of width, the parts it had absorbed from other monsters turned out

to be its curse.

"OOOOOOO!"

"…?!"

All the same, it twisted and turned, trying to catch the adventurers. Its left arm reached

forward, yearning to shred Bell and Lyu where they lay collapsed on the ground. But

it could not quite reach. It was like a rampaging giant attempting to rake a dwarf from

the hole into which it had fled. Lyu felt the purplish-blue claws persistently scraping

the tips of her boots.

Shivering at the tremendous noise of claws attempting to break through walls and

ground, she lashed herself into standing. Now it was she who supported Bell. Sweating

from head to toe and breathing raggedly, on the verge of stumbling and falling at any

moment, she fled deeper into the tunnel, away from the crimson eyes tracking their

every move.

The path was straight and unbranching. She felt as if the walls on either side were

closing in on her. The ceiling, however, was so high she could not see it, making the

passage feel like an alley at night.

"GAAAAAA!"

"OOU, OOOUN!"

Lizardman elites, loup-garous, and spartois blocked their way forward.

The monsters might have been cowering as they instinctively hid from their

calamitous kin, but if an adventurer landed at their feet they would show no mercy.

Lyu and Bell could not turn back; the only road to salvation lay ahead. Lyu brandished

her shortsword, grimacing.

"—!!"

At that very moment, however, the Juggernaut—whose left arm had been plumbing

the tunnel—stepped back and beat the adjacent wall with its bony right arm. The

passage shuddered as deep fissures spread through it.

Dozens of pila shot through the wall to the right of Lyu and Bell.

"?!"

"Ahh!"

The hellish javelins targeted adventurers and monsters alike.

The lizardmen, loup-garous, and spartois were all torn to shreds. Lyu's right leg and

hand, which was gripping the shortsword, were pierced and the nape of her neck was

gouged. Red splotches swam before her eyes as she collapsed to the ground beside the

ripped-open monster corpses.

Fresh blood splattered the walls of the tunnel and pooled like springs on the ground.

Lyu and Bell were both as red as if they'd bathed in blood. The passage looked like the

scene of a brutal murder. The monster corpses stank terribly. Bell and Lyu were

drowning in a revolting sea of intestines and flesh—as if they themselves were

corpses.

"…!"

Pila were still shooting through the wall to their right and battering the wall to their

left. However, they did not reach Bell and Lyu where they lay. The angle was off.

Eventually, the Juggernaut stopped its barrage, as if it had realized the projectiles were

not reaching their target.

The crimson eyes stared down the tunnel.

After observing the perfectly still lake of blood for several moments, the monster

vanished silently into the darkness.

"...Ugh, ahh."

Lyu, who had not moved at all, exhaled with a soft moan.

She was still alive.

Ironically, the pack of monsters that had intended to kill them had become a wall that

protected them from lethal wounds.

Lyu stopped playing dead and opened her eyes. All she saw was red. Tepid, nauseating

bodily fluids and soft lumps violated her senses. The powerful stench made her want

to vomit even though her stomach was empty.

Her wounds were open again. Signals were flashing from her whole body, telling her

if she didn't do something she would die.

She had to use her recovery magic—no, it was no use.

She'd lost too much blood. Her magic could not bring that back. Even if they survived

this particular moment, they were—

"…Bell…"

Steeling herself against the picture of hell surrounding her, Lyu turned her head. Her

eyes fell on Bell, who lay faceup beside her. He must have heard her, because his finger

twitched slightly.

"Cough, cough…!… Ms. Lyu?"

He began to convulse again, as if he had forgotten for a moment and then remembered

again, and coughed violently several times. He flopped his head to the side and looked

at Lyu, who was lying on her stomach.

"…Did the Juggernaut…?"

"It's gone… it's not in here…"

Their voices in this red world were so faint they nearly vanished.

His gaze still locked with Lyu's, Bell turned the corners of his mouth up ever so slightly.

His smile didn't even look like a smile.

"So it's given up on us…"

"…Yes."

No.

In all likelihood it had not given up but rather was looking for its next opportunity.

The Juggernaut would not stop pursuing them until it had killed them with its own

hands. Lyu sensed its persistence and understood that terrible truth.

"So… we can go home now, right…?"

Bell probably understood as well. But he was pretending he did not so that he could

lie to Lyu.

He was pretending they could return to the surface—that they could overcome the

darkness of the maze and bask in the warm sunlight.

"You can go back… to Syr and your other friends…"

Their odds of returning home were worse than terrible.

As long as the Juggernaut remained, Lyu and Bell would never be able to leave the

thirty-seventh floor.

Bell understood, but he told Lyu a kindhearted lie.

He promised her a future in which they walked together through the door of The

Benevolent Mistress, were greeted by an angry Syr, punished mildly, and then spent

the evening laughing and talking together.

He promised her so she would not be afraid even though she had lost Astrea Familia.

What a kind lie it was.

What a happy dream.

Lyu smiled.

A light sheen of tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she smiled peacefully.

"Yes… we can go home now…"

The lie tricked her.

As she lay on the boundary of life and death, sinking in a pool of blood beneath the

gaze of the darkness, she drowned in a happy dream.

The boy and the elf smiled at each other.

"Bell…"

"Yes…"

"…Will you hold me?"

At the very, very, end, she had finally grown honest. She was finally able to lay bare her

feelings for her friend, and her elf's pride, and the heart that she had kept concealed

for so long.

Bell looked surprised at first, but then he reached a shaking hand toward her. Lyu

reached her own hand toward him and he drew her into his arms.

He's so warm…

She smiled as they prayed and held on to each other.

She basked in his warmth and let the tears spill from her eyes.

The world truly was cruel.

Of all the people in the world, Bell was the one she hoped would live on, and yet the

Dungeon had made him her companion on this journey. Her heart had been broken,

her hopes eaten away by that monster. She could struggle no more.

She could not let go of this warmth.

She pressed her cheek to his bloody chest. He smelled of iron. She saw a vision of pure

white snow. She saw the two of them embracing as the snow buried them.

When she pulled her face away, the beautiful snowy field disappeared and all that

remained were the two of them wet with each other's blood.

I wasn't able to do anything, and yet these last moments… are so tender.

Lyu could not help feeling that way.

At this moment, she was closer to him than anyone else.

No matter what anyone said, she could tell them this with confidence.

Right now, for this one brief moment, Bell and Lyu were tied more closely together

than anyone in the world.

She was so glad of it, and so sad.

So happy, and so lonely.

"Bell… I'm going to sleep, just a little…"

Slowly, she closed her heavy eyelids.

Was she bidding life farewell?

Or when she opened her eyes, would she still be here in this cold, dark reality, the

warmth vanished from beside her?

Or would she meet Bell once again, on the far shore of the light, beside Alize and the

others?

"Okay… I'll wake you up soon."

Bell's voice caressed her gouged ear gently.

She pulled his hands to her chest so that she would not forget the warmth, and drifted

off to sleep like a baby.

…

Lyu slept.

Bell smiled faintly as he watched her drift off.

She had let him fool her.

This way, he was sure she wouldn't have any nightmares.

That was all he wished for.

He wanted her to dream sweet dreams until everything was over.

She has suffered so much already…

As she had suspected, he had lied to her.

But it was not a kindly lie. To the contrary, it was a terrible betrayal prompted by selfrighteous egotism.

Bell had not given up on returning alive.

I remember the look on her face when she told me everything…

He had not forgotten the expression of long-suffering pain on the face of this elf who

had lost her companions.

That was why he did it.

"…!"

The wretched spasms were already subsiding. In their place came unbelievable pain.

He touched the stomach wound that he had seared shut.

Sparks danced before his eyes.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

He wanted to scream and wail and break into a hundred pieces.

He wanted to howl until all his energy was gone.

But if he could feel pain, then he could move.

If his body was screaming that it would die, then he had the energy he needed to cling

to life.

If his heart was insisting with its rapid beat that he run from death, then he had the

strength left to escape.

He would not use that strength to escape death—he would use it to defeat death.

"!!"

He heard his instincts screaming. He ignored them.

He heard his body shouting a warning. He ignored it.

He heard his heart sniffling that it was impossible. He ignored it.

His whole self, every element that made up that human called Bell Cranell, was fighting

against his decision. He ignored it.

He heard his soul crying for him to stand up. He affirmed it.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa…!!"

He gave the cry of an animal.

The adventurer became a beast and chewed up the shards of life so it could stand.

As light flashed before his eyes, what remained of his human rationality recalled a story.

It was the tale of Belius the Guard.

The elf's guardian was a sorrowful and unyielding knight loved by an elf of the lake. A

martyr to love till the very end, he died in her arms.

Bell begged the elf's hero to give him the strength to protect what was important to

him.

…I have no light to concentrate. Most likely I only have one charge left. I cannot summon

the heroic blow.

But the desire to be a hero is here in my heart.

He stroked Lyu's hair softly, his smile gone.

The lone male stood.

The Juggernaut was moving.

Having given up on penetrating the passage Lyu and Bell were in from its entrance, it

circled around to the exit. The Juggernaut had exquisitely refined senses. This immune

ability was a gift from its mother, the Dungeon, to enable it to exterminate foreign

viruses. It was able to rapidly track any adventurer on the same floor as it. This was

one reason the "banquet of calamity" had unfolded with such speed on the twentyseventh floor.

Here on the thirty-seventh floor, it knew where Bell and Lyu were. The reason it chose

to lay in wait in the Beast Zone was because it disliked narrower passages and did not

want to risk letting its prey escape.

The Juggernaut—he—also knew that Bell and Lyu were still alive.

He would crush them when they came out the exit thinking he had disappeared. This

was the plan he had concocted with his hunter's instinct. With a speed out of

proportion to his large size, he raced to a large room adjacent to the main route. There

were four doorways in the room, and he hovered by the one that led to the passage his

prey had fled into.

He still sensed life inside. From his position, he would be able to send pila through the

walls to where they were, which meant he would be able to smoke them out. He

exhaled a hot breath and peered down the passage with his red eyes.

"—Firebolt!"

The next instant, a river of flame erupted from the darkness.

"!!"

He jumped backward, his left reverse joint creaking. Electrical flames erupted from

the passage and carved a path of raging fire to the middle of the room.

Slowly, the boy followed in this path of flame.

Trailing swirls of sparks, his white hair swaying, the adventurer appeared.

He stopped close enough for the Juggernaut to reach him at a single leap. Then he let

out a war cry and lunged forward.

"——"

In the middle of his lunge, he froze.

The prey looked up and smiled.

A dark, fleeting smile.

That body so battered it was hard to find a place without a wound was displaying a

smile that seemed ready to flicker out at any moment.

The shadow of death was on the boy.

The god of death had drawn near and given the boy his gift.

In other words, the promised end.

Victory or defeat mattered little to the prey before the Juggernaut.

Even if he, the monster, did not deliver the final blow, this human would—

"—OOOOOO!!"

But it didn't matter.

Even if the boy were fated to die anyway, he would slaughter him with the full brunt

of his strength.

The Grim Reaper's scythe would not take the prey's life—his own claws of destruction

would.

He would throw all he had against this human.

That was the raison d'e tre of the Juggernaut now that it was free of the Dungeon.

"…I will end you."

But neither would the boy embrace a meaningless death with open arms.

"I will return to the surface… with Ms. Lyu…"

If he did not win—if he did not return to her—she would die.

So he had to win. He could not lose.

He brandished his jet-black knife, his breast full of unspoken feelings.

The monster understood neither his words nor his feelings.

What it understood was his will.

The boy was intent on killing him. He would try to beat him.

He would turn the Juggernaut to white flame and burn him to ash.

The monster's breast quivered.

A monster of calamity who spread massacre mechanistically wherever he went should

not have felt that emotion.

Joy.

The Juggernaut gave thanks for having met this human.

He was moved deeply by the fact that this male was offering himself up.

"Let's do this."

The monster welcomed the boy's words with a roar of joy that split the heavens.

When Lyu woke up, she was sitting in the darkness.

It was a familiar darkness.

This was the darkness that had tormented her for the past five years. This was the

boundary between life and death where she had been stalled.

No one was beside her. That person was gone. She felt that was a pity.

She did not know why. She could not remember anything. But her cold hands struck

her as sad.

Suddenly, light pierced the darkness.

Beyond the light, she saw her irreplaceable companions.

Astrea Familia.

Alize, Kaguya, Lyra, and all the others were standing with their backs to her.

No matter how she shouted, they would not turn toward her. Lyu knew that. The gulf

between her in the darkness and them on the far shore of the light was too wide.

Suddenly, she realized she could walk forward.

She could walk out of the darkness. She could walk to the source of the light, to the

place where the companions she longed for so deeply were standing.

Joy filled her.

No matter how much she called to them or how bitterly she cried, they would never

turn toward her. But if Lyu walked toward them, they would welcome her.

At first they would be angry. Kaguya would scold her and Lyra might crossly pull on

her ear. Maryu and the others would probably push her around. Alize would definitely

stick her finger in the air and give her a half-baked sermon.

And then, she was certain, they would break into smiles.

They would all gather round to welcome her back and praise her for how she had

soldiered through these five years.

They would throw their arms around her shoulders and stroke her head.

Her wish would finally be granted.

Her sins would finally be atoned for.

She would finally be able to pass away.

Lyu began walking toward the light, searching for salvation.

One step, two steps, three steps.

She passed the boundary of the darkness. Only a little farther now until she reached

the distant shore—

You can't.

At that very moment, one of the forms that had never before turned toward her finally

showed her face.

"—"

The red hair swayed and the green eyes pierced Lyu.

She had been seeking the light, but now her feet stopped.

Leon, you can't come here. We won't let you.

The eyebrows rose in flat rejection.

The lips that were always so just denied her.

Alize spoke as if she were trying to make Lyu realize something.

You must not run away.

Alize's gaze skipped past Lyu into the darkness beyond.

The monster's horrible roar pounded against Lyu's back. It was the same roar of

despair that terrified her, robbed her of the mask of wind, and turned her into a

wretched elf.

But within that hair-raising roar was the sound of resistance—a brave war cry like

raging flames.

If you come here, you will regret it!

Alize's powerful voice made Lyu's hands shake.

Finally she was able to go beyond the light where she had so longed to go, but now she

was beginning to question her decision.

Her dried-out heart that yearned for her friends was competing fiercely with the mad

desire to seek out that battle cry of flame.

"I can't do it anymore…"

Lyu's voice was quiet now. To stop the fight in her heart, to give up on everything, she

spoke in the unfeigned voice of her heart.

"I just can't, Alize… I can't fight anymore. I can't resist the past."

The Juggernaut. It was the beginning of everything, the source of all misfortune. A

symbol of the past that tormented Lyu. She knew that if she returned to the darkness,

harsh reality awaited her. It terrified her. She was crippled by her fear of facing the

past.

Lyu gave a miserable bleat and hung her head.

Liar.

But Alize responded with a single word.

"—"

Lyu opened her sky-blue eyes and looked up. Her friend's face was before her, with its

firm gaze that saw right through her.

You claim you don't want to lose hold of justice.

Alize did not explain anything. She did not admonish Lyu. She did not lead her.

She simply presented her with the truth.

Her words shook Lyu to the core, sending out ripples in her heart.

Justice is still alive within you!

What was "justice"? What was "right"?

Lyu had never known. She had never been able to find an answer.

All she knew was that Astrea had told her to forget about justice. She assumed that

she had lost all right to it.

But Bell had told her something different.

He had said she still had justice within her.

Now Alize, too, was confirming Lyu's justice.

The words of the boy and the girl linked up in her mind so that finally she understood

their meaning.

Your justice—your hope has not died yet!

It was true.

The justice Lyu had been seeking since the day her companions died was hope.

When Syr saved her, she decided to live so she could make sure the justice of her

companions was fulfilled. She wanted to believe that what Astrea Familia had

bequeathed her would connect to hope. She wanted to believe it would bring order

and peace to Orario and smiles to the faces of its people. Lyu had been pursuing that

vision since the day they died.

It was like Bell had said:

Lyu had brought them help and salvation and hope.

Lyu's actions had led to hope for someone.

That's what Bell had been saying all along.

There was no such thing as universal justice.

But this was Lyu's justice.

A hope that illuminated the future, not the past.

Finally, finally, Lyu realized what the justice that lived within her meant.

As she did, the other members of Astrea Familia turned toward her, as if to compound

the change in her heart.

Go.

Next to Alize, Kaguya shooed Lyu toward the dark.

Don't run away!

Lyra smiled spitefully, her hands laced behind her head.

Do your best.

Beat 'em!

Each of her familia members had their own words of encouragement for Lyu.

Unable to bear their words and kind gazes, Lyu frowned and shouted back at them.

"I… I've wanted to apologize for so long! I wanted to say sorry to you all!"

At long last she spoke the words weighing on her mind.

This was the true wish she had harbored since the day she lost everything.

"I stood by and watched while you died, and I didn't do a thing. I wanted you to judge

me! I wanted you to blame me and curse me and condemn me!"

On the far shore of the light, neither Kaguya nor any of the others spoke a word.

They simply looked back kindly at her as if to say, But you knew!

Yes, she did know.

She knew they would not have blamed her.

It was only Lyu who could not forgive herself. She could not accept her past.

By thinking of it as a crime, she was trying to punish herself so she could stop

suffering.

Lyu's fists relaxed and hung limply at her sides.

Leon!

The voice of the girl she loved so dearly rang out high and clear.

What does justice mean to you?

Lyu's throat quivered.

Before she realized it, she was weeping uncontrollably.

Desperately holding back her wails, she answered with her truest desire.

"I want… to save him…"

Not the gentle light on the far shore, but the depths of darkness where cruelty awaited

her.

Not by the sides of Alize and the others, but by the side of the boy who was alive now.

"I want to go back to the tavern with him… to where Syr is!"

Not to the past where her familia was, but to the future.

Alize smiled.

Her smile was like the sun telling her she had done well.

Leon, you must not run away! You must not let go!

Lyu smiled.

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

There was no sorrow in her sobs, and no darkness.

She turned her back on her companions and walked toward the darkness.

We will meet another day, Leon.

Their words sent her softly on her way.

She would go, and come back one day.

I loved you, my dear friends.

"—!!"

Lyu opened her eyes.

The first sensations she felt were a burning pain and a will-crushing lethargy. Then

the loneliness of having been left by herself. The warmth that had enveloped her was

gone.

Bell had vanished. In his place, in the darkness at the end of the passage, was a fierce

song of battle.

Bell had not given up in the least.

He was thinking of Lyu and trying to fulfill her hopes.

He did not want her justice to be lost.

"Bell…!"

Lyu drew together her strength and made a fist.

She knew what she had to do.

The vision was gone. The hallucination had vanished. Alize and the others were nowhere

to be found. Perhaps everything she had seen on the far shore of the light was no more

than a delusion that suited her own fancy.

Still, they had taught her something.

Justice was alive within her.

She must not throw it aside. She must seek hope.

Lyu planted her shaking hands on the ground and peeled herself off it.

"Aaaaaa…!!"

In the pool of blood, she gave a newborn cry.

She broke with the self that had huddled in the shadow of her departed companions,

imprisoned by the past, and gave birth to a new self.

She had to face it.

She had to face that past she had hid from for so long.

She had to fight.

She had to fight the symbol of her past she had feared all these years.

The Juggernaut, the monster of calamity, was her past personified.

If she wanted a future, she had to overcome that past.

If she was determined not to lose anyone else, and to live out her justice and hope,

then she had no other choice.

"Aaaaaaa!!"

She stood up.

She grabbed a weapon from the pool of blood—the skeletal sword of a spartoi—and

thrust it into the ground.

Pushing the pain away, she took a step forward. That step gave birth to another,

stronger step. She called forth the strength to move ahead.

Ignoring her screaming body, Lyu walked down the dusky path.

She walked toward the song of battle.

Toward the place where the roars of the monster and the war cries of a human

reverberated.

Beneath the phosphorescence that illuminated the darkness, Lyu threw herself

toward the place where calamity and cruelty waited.

——————————————————

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Beyond the passage, a fight to the death was under way.

In the center of the room, the monster and the human were clashing, intent on killing

each other. Bell was crossing swords with the Juggernaut. Where did that strength

come from? It was as if he was literally pouring the last dregs of his life itself into their

fight.

He had pulled the monster into a pure contest of strength.

With the gleaming white knife in his right hand, he was fending off every pilum the

monster shot at him as they ricocheted relentlessly off the walls, floor, and ceiling.

The enemy's pila were slower than iguaçu. Of course, that meant he could counter

them. He had faced a storm of those murderous swallows before, and now Hakugen

knocked down the barrage of evil pila without missing a single one.

When the Juggernaut, with its hatefully joyous roars, shifted to close combat, Bell

switched to the Hestia Knife. It was a high-speed weapon with a double edge. By

alternating between the dark purple blade and the sparkling white one in his right

hand, Bell successfully shut down the monster's hit-and-run strategy. He even found

time to slash its tail and slice off some of the lizardman scales.

There was a regular pattern to his enemy's jumps now that it could not move with

complete freedom. With his adventurer's instincts, Bell registered the relationship

between the angle at which it landed and the time needed to prepare for its next jump,

and by doing so he managed to withstand the savage attacks.

Determined to use his earlier loss as the basis for victory this time around, Bell roared

and launched a counterattack.

The knife and the claws flashed purplish-blue, drawing countless arcs through the air.

Sparks swirled amidst the deafening clatter. It was a circle dance of fiercely clashing

light.

To Lyu, it looked like one raw life force being hurled against another.

"—! Ms. Lyu?!"

Bell had noticed her presence.

At the same time, the Juggernaut twirled around and looked straight at her.

Her chest shuddered. She could not hide it. Her trauma creaked with fear.

But now there was something that scared her more than having her past wounds

opened afresh.

That was the prospect of once again losing something irreplaceable.

For a brief second of concentrated time, her heart was calm.

This perfect stillness was followed by a tempestuous gale wind.

This was the wind of her will driving her forward.

"—!!"

Lyu leaned forward and took off running.

She kicked off the ground, danced through the air, and landed a terrific blow on the

astonished Juggernaut.

She plunged the blade of white bone into the monster's raised right arm, above its

protective armor.

"Bell! I… can't be the elf of the lake."

Knocked aside by her enemy's forearm, she hit the ground rolling and shouted at the

dazed Bell. Since he liked heroic tales, she was sure he was familiar with the one she'd

mentioned. Elves respected the story greatly. Young elven girls dreamed of living that

story. But Lyu was rejecting it.

Bell stared at her.

"I will not allow those who I care about to protect me while I sit by and do nothing! I

will not let you walk into the jaws of death alone!"

Bell smiled as her strong words reached him. He nodded back to her with his bloody,

scarred head. The hieroglyphs on the Divine Knife gripped in his hand pulsated with

light, as if it was burning with a renewed passion to fight.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, the human and the elf launched their counterattack.

"AAAAAA!!"

The Juggernaut was wild with rage.

He was terribly put out to have his fight to the death with Bell spoiled.

The clock was ticking for this monster who had incorporated so many of its own kind

and now wore its unnatural "armor of persistence." He had decided to pour every last

remaining second of his life into the battle against this one male. He absolutely must

kill the white-haired boy.

This worthless being was interfering with his reason for existing despite being

nothing but a distraction. At the whim of his anger, the Juggernaut prepared to squash

the offending bug.

"!!"

"!"

But Lyu dodged. And that was not all; she fought back.

Her movements were incomparable to those of a few moments before. It was hard to

believe they came from the same adventurer. Blood was still flowing from her right

arm and right leg, and indeed from her entire body. She was wounded from head to

toe yet still she had found the courage to face her past, her trauma. Gale Wind was

back to her old outstanding self. More than that, she was set on overcoming her past

limits.

The beauty with which she fought set her apart from the rabble the Juggernaut had

slaughtered so far.

"I will end you!!"

She screamed the same words as the white-haired boy, with the same look in her eyes

and the same will.

The Juggernaut had recognized this before. Like the boy, the elf was worth hunting.

She was worth giving of himself body and soul to massacre.

Therefore, he would kill both of them together.

The Juggernaut gave a fearsome battle cry and devoted every ounce of his being to

murdering them.

"Ahhh…!"

The accelerated onslaught consisting of a series of jumps and a storm of pila pushed

Bell to the limit.

Five minutes had passed since the battle began. But in their tattered state, it would

not have been surprising for either Bell or Lyu to lose their equilibrium at any

moment. Their bodies were well beyond their capacity. When their flames of life had

flickered out, the journey would end. Although the Juggernaut was paying for its

transformation into a chimera through the rejection of body parts, the physical

strength of this nonstandard monster exceeded that of the adventurers. When the

waiting game was over, it would destroy them.

When Bell was fighting alone, he had constantly been on the lookout for a chance to

land his lethal blow. The Juggernaut, however, seemed aware of this. The evidence lay

in the fact that while it still used its claws, the pila were now its main weapon.

In the current stage of the battle, there was no such thing as a decisive blow.

"Distant forest sky. Infinite stars inlaid upon the eternal night sky."

Against this backdrop, Lyu began to chant.

"!"

"!"

Both Bell and the Juggernaut had the same reaction to the elf as she began to sing in

the midst of running and brandishing her sword.

Concurrent chanting.

By carrying out attacks, movement, evasion, and chanting at the same time, the user

called forth the necessary moment for a lethal blow.

"Heed this foolish one's voice, and once more grant the starfire's divine protection."

It was also a song of regret.

Lyu had sung the same song as she allowed Alize and the others to protect her without

saving them in return. Succumbing to despair and terror, she had frozen, able to move

only her lips.

"Grant the light of compassion to the one who forsook you."

Now she sang that detestable song as she fought.

She was determined not to lose what she cared most about. This time, she would not

only be protected, she would protect in return.

"…!"

Bell sensed the intention behind her actions, as well as their strategic meaning.

The removal of the Juggernaut's shell.

The shell that still remained on the left side of its body was endowed not only with

magic reflection, but also with the stone body of the obsidian soldiers it had

incorporated. Lyu's Luminous Wind could not deal a lethal blow as long as their enemy

wore this stony armor capable of reducing the strength of magic. And she did not have

the mental strength left for two attacks.

"…!"

The Juggernaut interpreted the cutthroat speed of Lyu's chanting as a threat. Given

the compromised state of its armor, there was a slim chance the attack could hit home.

There was a small possibility this could open the door to defeat. Thus the Juggernaut

was determined to destroy Lyu first, before her magic swelled to its full strength.

"—Firebolt!"

Bell fired off a shot—not at the monster, but at his own black knife.

"!"

The electrical fire converged on the blade, followed immediately by the sound of a

chime. He was preparing to activate Argo Vesta. He was summoning what strength he

had left to charge for the last time.

The Juggernaut could not help reacting to this omen signaling the same attack that

had taken his right arm. There was no way he could ignore the lethal blow that had

almost killed him.

This was what Bell had been aiming for.

In front of the monster was a human carrying out a concurrent charge; behind him

was an elf chanting as she ran. The one in front was clearly a decoy, yet he could not

ignore it. His attention split, the Juggernaut stopped moving for a second.

"Come, wandering wind, fellow traveler."

Behind the monster, Lyu belted out her chant.

In front of it, Bell charged forward with his flaming knife.

Their plan was to strip the Juggernaut of its shell and then blast it with magic.

The monster of calamity reacted by slamming its right arm against the ground.

"—!!"

Pila erupted from below—but not only in one spot. They formed a circle measuring

ten meders in radius around the adventurers.

"Shit!!"

"Ahh!"

By sending the bone javelins underground, the monster had managed to attack Lyu

and Bell at the same time. The sword mountain rose with the monster at its center,

injuring both adventurers. Lyu's shoulder was torn and Bell's thigh gouged. With one

strike, the Juggernaut had shaved away at both of their lives. It intended to finish them

off by skewering them on another batch of pila.

"Cross the skies and sprint through the wilderness…"

But Lyu did not stop chanting. With an indomitable spirit, she maintained control over

her magic and seized a chance at victory.

Because she did, Bell did, too.

Even as blood spilled from his mouth, he narrowed his eyes and hit the ground with

his right hand.

"Argo Vesta!!"

He had charged for seven seconds.

The lethal blow was not aimed at the Juggernaut itself, but instead at the pila boring

through the earth.

"?!"

The ground exploded with a thundering roar as the reverberations shook the world

before the Juggernaut's eyes. The underground flare blasted every one of the bone

javelins into dust. The supply of pila had been cut off.

That was not all, however. The power and impact of the sacred fire was transmitted

through the pila to the Juggernaut's right arm. The limb made of the bodies of

countless monsters shattered.

"——?!"

The Juggernaut screamed as its right arm exploded from the inside out. As Argo Vesta

sent cracks racing across the floor and the entire room shook, the monster stumbled.

For a moment, its guard was down.

Bell did not let the opportunity slip past. He charged.

Without the strength left to keep a solid grip on his weapon, the Hestia Knife spun into

the air. He closed his hand into a fist instead, intending to dive into the monster's chest.

"Damn—!"

But he was far too late.

Using Argonaut to carry out his last concurrent charge had robbed him of his

remaining mental and physical strength. Even though he cursed his collapsing knees

and braved a close press, the threat was no match for a monster specialized in agility.

In the final moment, the limits of Bell's physical body betrayed him.

Having bounced back from the damage inflicted on him, the Juggernaut turned his

outraged red eyes on Bell.

He anticipated no trouble in intercepting the ragged rabbit that was flying toward his

chest. He raised his left arm, brandishing his six purplish-blue claws.

Raised at an angle above its head, the claws of destruction were without question

intended to finish off Bell by skewering him. No doubt they would color the world red

when they pierced his chest and exited his back. Just as Bell imagined they would. Just

like the attack that had stolen Lyu's friends five years earlier.

"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

Blocked from regaining her footing by the damage from the pila as well as the impact

of Bell's attack, Lyu howled.

To overcome the tragedy that had been seared into her eyes, she became the wind and

flew through space. She kicked her left foot against the ground and pierced the air like

a flash of light arcing toward the monster. Approaching from the side, she soared

directly to his upraised left arm.

"?!"

With Futaba already drawn, she used her two shortswords to dissect the claws of

destruction. The blades sliced through his wrist and finger joints.

Time stopped for the Juggernaut as it realized Lyu had just stolen its most potent

weapon, those claws so sharp they could be mistaken for fangs.

If I'd only done the same on that other day—

Within the still pool of time, memories of the past rose in Lyu's mind.

Again she saw Alize, her back pierced by those claws that she had welcomed in order

to protect Lyu.

If only Lyu had stood up.

If only she had fought beside them like she was fighting now.

—she would not have been defeated!

Regret and pain seared her body as her heart let out a scream that ripped through her

chest.

She knew she could not bring back the past.

Still, she looked back on that moment when she had been saved and cried out with a

heart full of a hundred different emotions.

All of this while she sailed past the dazed Juggernaut.

"—OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The next instant, Bell hurtled into the Juggernaut.

Lyu's support had allowed him to make the final leap toward the monster's breast.

The enormous skeleton froze as the space between Bell and him vanished and the

boy's right fist pounded down on his right side.

"FIIIREBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLT!"

The cry came an instant later. Swift-Strike Magic exploded into his body.

There was just one shot.

But one shot was enough.

The final dregs of Bell's magic raced through the Juggernaut's poorly defended body,

ruthlessly exploding it from the inside.

"?!"

The remaining shell on its left side flew off its body as the electrical fire detonated.

The obsidian soldier's armor, too, shattered to the ground in a swirl of sparks.

A single weak Firebolt did not have the force to take down the Juggernaut altogether.

Without a magic stone to be shattered, the unique monster remained standing. However,

the massive form was now completely naked and without armor.

"—swifter than anything."

The elf's song rang out, a beautiful melody of wind.

From the Juggernaut's perspective, she was on his right side. Having stolen his claws,

she now lay on the ground with both legs pressed into it.

She thrust her right hand toward the frozen Juggernaut and prepared to release a

torrent of magic.

"Imbue the light of stardust and strike down my enemy!"

This was the final line, the one that announced the spell's completion.

Bell had been thrown backward by his own attack. Astonishment filled the monster's

red eyes.

Lyu fired.

"Luminous Wind!"

The magic was activated.

Huge orbs of light swathed in green wind materialized.

Forty-seven of them.

The magic attack into which she had poured every drop of her mental strength had

begun.

"——!!"

The stream of light-orbs flew toward the monster.

There was no escape from this storm of destruction.

Yet the Juggernaut did escape.

"What?!"

Bell stared in disbelief.

The monster had leaped with such power it seemed his right knee would shatter as it

bent. The orbs of light swallowed up his tail and blew off his right leg from the shin

down, yet still he flew into the air.

Having lost their target, the storm of glowing orbs blasted past Bell as he screamed in

frustration and crashed into the wall of the room.

The monster had evaded Lyu's lethal blow.

Bell grimaced as reverberations shook the air. But not Lyu.

"I know your speed better than anyone else in the world."

She had kept ten of the forty-seven orbs by her side.

She had predicted this.

She had guessed that the monster of calamity would probably evade even the most

powerful magic released at the ideal moment.

Even with the sacrifice of her closest friend she had not been able to fully take down

the previous Juggernaut. She had looked at the current situation with coolheaded

realism and fully anticipated the monster's ability to evade her attack.

From its position on the far wall of the room, the Juggernaut stared along with Bell

below him at the ten glowing orbs.

Ten.

That was a special number for Lyu.

The number of irreplaceable battle companions she had lost.

These orbs, larger than all the others she had produced, hovered around her back.

"—Let's go."

With that, she dashed forward.

"?!"

She did not fire the orbs she had held in reserve but instead pulled them forward with

her toward the Juggernaut.

This would not be a long- or mid-range attack.

Just before Bell used Argo Vesta on the twenty-seventh floor, the monster had leaped

into the air. If Bell hadn't used the Goliath Scarf to pull him back, his blow would not

have hit its mark. Likewise, if Lyu didn't release her attack from extremely close range,

the Juggernaut would not be destroyed.

Lyu had learned from her repeated fights against the Juggernaut, and she chose a

"zero-range attack."

Although she could not accelerate as fast as she would have liked because a pilum had

wounded her thigh, she leaped forward with a scream.

"Noin, Neze!"

As if responding to the names, two of the glowing orbs exploded into the soles of Lyu's

boots.

"Huh?!"

The sound of the light slipped into Bell's ears as Lyu accelerated with explosive speed.

The wind-wrapped orbs of light had given her incredible forward momentum. Lyu

became a gale wind that cut through the air so quickly it left both the shuddering Bell

and the astonished Juggernaut in the dust. As if she was kicking off from the two orbs

of light, she hurtled straight toward the monster.

"?!"

The Juggernaut scrambled to thrust its right arm, which was now missing its lower

half, toward the flying elf.

A pilum volley erupted from the joint between its arm and its body.

"Asta, Lyana!"

Lyu once again howled the names of her companions and shot forth two large orbs of

light. One was released from her side and landed on her left arm, which she held close

to her, thereby changing her course midair.

"?!"

She turned at a near right angle, evading the rain of pila in the nick of time.

Immediately, the second glowing orb exploded into the sole of her right shoe, and once

again she flew forward.

The arc she drew through the air was like a bolt of lightning.

As the space between Lyu and the Juggernaut vanished almost instantly, the monster

kicked off the wall with its left foot in an attempt to escape.

"No way!!"

She followed.

Ignoring head wind and the law of inertia alike, she twisted her creaking body around

by pure force of will, landed on the wall where the monster had been a second earlier,

and took off flying again.

The Juggernaut's gaze wavered as it took in the form roaring toward it.

She was using her magic like never before to move through the air.

Her high-speed leap beat the astonished Juggernaut at its own game.

Of course, her reckless strategy of changing her magic into propellant force was

unlikely to lack consequences. The heels of her boots flaked off, exposing the blazing

red soles of her feet. The left arm she had blasted an orb into in order to change

directions was fractured as well.

Her body was not broken, however.

It might take all the abilities she had to withstand its evil power, but she would not

permit herself to die until she had shot that monster dead.

She shot herself with her own magic, making her flesh smoke and her skin burn, and

yet the "flight of the elf" continued.

—Friends, give me strength.

Together with her familia, she would shoot their enemy.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Correctly perceiving Lyu's intention, the destroyer sounded a blaring alarm.

Throwing caution to the wind, it shot all its remaining pila.

Having lost a great deal of its mobility, it was desperately trying to prevent the elf from

drawing near.

"Celty, Iska, Maryu!"

As if they were lending her a hand, the three orbs whose names had been called

redirected Lyu diagonally and smashed the pila speeding toward her.

As Lyu flew through the air buffeted by powerful wind pressure, she saw the faces of

her companions in war.

Her ten sisters in justice flew beside her, raising their voices with her in a battle cry.

It was a hallucination. A mere sentimental delusion.

A mirage to suit her whims.

She knew that.

And so she transformed that vision into the strength that drove her forward.

"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

The elf's roar shook the air.

Strangely enough, this was a dogfight between two wingless opponents.

As if drawn upward by this scene unfolding like stardust crisscrossing the night sky,

Bell rose to his feet. His eyes wide, he was like an animal unable to do more than stare

up at the stars in the heavens.

He saw:

The track of the elf as she danced through the air guided by ten orbs of light.

Her long cape fluttering like wings spread wide, truly a vision of the wings of justice.

The sword was the girl herself striving to overtake the monster.

At last, this girl with the name of Astrea, the goddess of justice, carved in her back had

the monster of calamity in her grasp.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!"

Strangely enough, all this was unfolding in midair in the center of the room.

As the monster raised its right arm of bone to intercept this pursuit that had left it no

escape route, Lyu released one of the three remaining orbs.

"Kaguya!"

As if responding to the cry of a companion in arms, the orb raced forward like a fencer

throwing off cutting wind.

The orb pulverized the monster's last remaining section of arm, its last weapon.

"—"

The impact of the explosion sent the monster's trunk swimming through space.

Lyu soared very close to it and then overtook it, dancing over its head. The instant her

powerful momentum vanished… her body slowly rotated, as if time had been cut away

from that patch of air.

Her legs were stretched toward the heavens, her head toward the ground.

The Juggernaut twisted its massive body so that it was looking up at her from directly

below her eyes.

"Lyra."

She called forth the glowing orb quietly and it approached her feet as she began to fall.

It was like an older sister pushing her forward with a smile.

Tears gathered in Lyu's eyes, and the next moment the impact hit her feet. She became

a shooting star falling downward.

And last:

"Alize."

The final orb of light flew to Lyu's palm.

She had wanted judgment.

She had wanted redemption.

She had wanted to die and join her friends.

She had been afraid to overcome the past.

She had been terrified of forgetting the past.

If she could have, she would have taken back her past and made it right.

But now.

Now she wanted the future.

For its sake—

The monster's huge form was approaching. It had lost both arms, but its red eyes still

stared up at her in a daze.

Like her, this symbol of her past was battered from top to bottom. Lyu held the orb of

light in her right hand and raised it.

She was sure that in the light of the beautiful glowing sphere, she saw her friend's hand

on top of her own. A tear fell from her sky-blue eyes as she spoke with quivering lips.

"—Good-bye."

Good-bye to the lingering shadow of her friends.

Good-bye to those bygone days.

Good-bye to the past that she must overcome.

Lyu said her farewell to everything, and then she roared.

"Luvia!!"

A violent explosion.

"—————"

The huge glowing sphere crashed into the monster's chest.

As if it were receiving all the skill of the girl who had protected Lyu and saved her, it

flowered into a circle of light.

Unable to defend itself, without even a dying scream or a roar of fury or resentment,

the Juggernaut burst quietly into pieces. A piercing melody of light and wind rang out

as the monster's body transformed into innumerable fragments.

Lyu watched the falling shards turn to ash like any other monster and then closed her

eyes, drained of every last bit of energy.

Her tears scattered into the air.

"Ms. Lyu?!"

Lyu and the remnants of the Juggernaut drifted down into the center of the room like

a meteor shower. As the monster's ash swirled in a smoky haze, Bell watched, unable

in his injured state to dash to Lyu's side. Instead he dragged himself slowly to the

center of the room and gazed at the purplish smoke hanging in the air.

"Aah…!"

He saw an elven form hovering at a distance. Gradually its silhouette came into focus

and the figure stepped forward out of the smoke.

It was the battered Lyu.

She met his eyes and curved her lips up ever so slightly. Bell smiled back in relief.

The room was entirely still aside from the two of them.

They had beaten the calamity.

Still smiling, they walked forward slowly, as if they were seeking each other out.

But before they reached each other, Bell stumbled.

His body tilted forward.

Lyu's did the same.

Although they were only steps apart, their knees buckled and with a crash they tumbled

to the ground.

"..."

"..."

Blood was erupting from their bodies, which were no more than walking wounds.

Their breathing was shallow.

They could hardly feel their hands and feet.

They could hardly see the hazy world.

They were close enough for Lyu to place her right hand over Bell's right hand.

They lay facedown on the cold Dungeon floor.

"…We won, didn't we?"

"…Yes."

"…And now we can go home."

"…Yes."

Their voices were faint.

They did not look at each other as they formed smiles that were not really smiles.

A future in which they returned to the surface had become no more than a dream that

they shared, its boundary with reality blurred.

No adventurers remained in that room.

There was only burned-out ash.

They were like birds that had flown to the heavens and back only to lose their wings.

White embers and the fading vestiges of an elf.

That was all.

The howls of monsters echoed in the distance. As if the stillness that the monster of

calamity had presided over was a lie, the darkness thundered. The pounding of

countless feet twined with roars heading toward the room where Bell and Lyu lay.

They could not stand. They could not move a muscle. The darkness stared down at

them.

"…Bell."

"…Yes."

"…I… you…"

"..."

Lyu did not finish her thought.

The light faded from their eyes as they gazed to the side.

As if they were going to sleep, they closed their eyes.

By the time the roaring monsters reached the room, their bodies had ceased moving.

Their adventures had ended.

They had beat the calamity but lost to the Dungeon.

They had failed to escape the maze.

Like many adventurers before them, Lyu and Bell were swallowed up by the darkness

of the deep levels—

"—, —chi, —llucchi!!"

Or so it had seemed.

"—Bellucchi!!"

The volley of the monsters' roars—the roars that sounded exactly like monsters

communicating with companions some distance away—turned into words in human

language.

Within the dimness of his world, Bell sensed a shadow falling over his body.

His eyelids fluttered open as his body was lifted in someone's arms.

"He's alive, he's alive!!"

"Tell the humans!"

Following an explosion of joyful roars, familiar voices echoed in his ears.

Bell understood that he had been turned on his back, and a pair of eyes was peering

down at him.

Those very same round amber eyes that he had wanted to see for so long.

"Bell, Bell!"

Tears spilled from the amber eyes and dampened Bell's cheeks. The sparkling red

stone in the girl's forehead glistened as if it, too, was crying. Bell tried to brush the

tears from her face, only to remember that he could not move at all. He tried at least

to smile, but failed at that as well. Finally he managed to move the muscles in his

cheeks and raise the corners of his mouth very slightly. The girl with the amber eyes

responded with a huge grin.

"Mr. Bell!"

"Bell!!"

"Lyu!"

"She's over there, meow!"

Bell could hear other familiar voices in the distance.

The voices of their friends who had found them.

The curtain had fallen on their adventure; they had lost to the Dungeon.

But Lyu's hopes had not been crushed.

She and Bell had not given up hope. Instead they had risked death to fight the monster,

and that fight had called their companions to their side. The ties of friendship they had

pulled toward them had beaten the Dungeon.

Moving quicky, the monsters who had gathered at their sides hurried away. Their jobs

were done, although they would continue to watch over the pair from the shadows.

Their presence remained near, as if to whisper their reassurances.

The only two Xenos who remained with the adventurers were the dragon girl and the

harpy disguised in hoods and robes. The harpy lifted Lyu and held her close.

"…Bell."

"…Yes."

The tearful, joyful voices of the friends who had called their names drew closer.

Lyu looked Bell in the eye and smiled.

"We can… go home.