"Flora…? What are you doing here?" Arnold asked after staring at her for a few seconds in silence.
"I should be the one asking you that! Shouldn't you be at the academy!?"
Castacia then spoke:
"So it's true that the two of you know each other. We met her on the second world floor yesterday."
'She told me that she'll be hunting monsters after becoming a mercenary. That plate on her chest is definitely from the mercenary guild. But how did she end up at a dungeon that's in another country?'
"Why didn't you tell us on the transmitter that she's with you?"
"We met her a few hours after we were done speaking to Arthur. We saw no point in sending out another transmission."
"...I see..."
'Well, it would be rather pointless to contact us just to tell me that someone that knows me is with them.'
It took Arnold about 5 days to get to the forest while fighting through the leftover monsters from the waves. His horse ran at full speed and he only rested at night or when he finds a port town(he found two port towns on the way here so far). Resting only lengthened his journey here. If Flora was doing quests then there was no way she'd have the time to travel cross-country. It takes way too long. Also, new mercenaries have to take a mandatory exam to gain their license and chest plate.
How did she manage to do that in a few weeks' time?
'Hmm, maybe she followed the monster waves that headed for all the major nations. The trail leads back to this dungeon because of Vetis, after all. Did she run all the way here after killing the monsters on her own? If it's her then it's possible. No horse can outrun her.'
Arnold didn't know what brought her here exactly so he decided to just ask her.
"I'm here looking for something… What about you?"
"To fight monsters, obviously."
Arnold wanted to facepalm himself.
'Why did I think so deeply about it? Am I stupid? This woman just wants to fight, after all.'
"Why did you come here specifically? Mercenaries have a strict rule that they never raid dungeons because it will impact the adventurer guilds' profits."
Mercenaries and adventurers were like seller and buyer. Meaning that they differed from one another. Both professions had different rules. Boundaries are also in place to avoid interfering with each other's business.
Adventurers can have the dungeons while mercenaries are free people who aren't tied down to a nation's laws, but the laws of their respective guild. The rules they need to follow aren't as complex as those for adventurers.
"Well, I heard that there will be strong monsters here. I'm having a hard time believing that, though."
Arnold turned to Castacia, "Would you mind if I speak to her alone?"
"Oh, not at all. I've taken too much of your time already. I'll let the others know about what you told me."
"Okay."
Castacia left.
"Hey! What the hell!?" Arnold pulled Flora into the living room and closed the door.
He rubbed his temples, "I'm sure you're aware that the thousands of monsters that appeared out of nowhere in the empire came from here, right? Why would you want to put your life at risk like this?"
"To fight—"
Arnold put up a hand to stop her.
Flora has never been good in anything other than fighting. It was the only thing she excelled at.
Arnold knew that the Flora from the game was also a battlefreak who loved fighting, whether it was against humans or monsters. This was something she had in common with the person who taught her swordsmanship.
Of course, she wasn't a merciless killer who harms innocent people. In fact, harming others for the sole purpose of one's enjoyment was the thing she hated most. That was evident when she accompanied Arnold back then to kill Ruile and his gang.
She's tortured countless people for the evil that they've done. If the person deserves it then she'll have no regrets.
She had even stood against her own party members in the Hero Party if she felt that their actions were wrong.
"I don't have time for this. Flora, you need to leave with my seniors."
"Huh? Why? Is it because of that monster wave? Ooooh, I'm so scared~~ Kyaaah! Whatever will I do if the monsters attack me, sir Knight? Will sir Knight save me~?"
"…."
"Tch, don't think I'm so weak that I can't protect myself. I can probably kick your ass right now. Don't think I'm that same weak girl who you blackmailed."
'Can't protect yourself?'
That wasn't what he was thinking at all. Flora being in this dungeon was the worst thing to happen.
She was the kind of person who likes fighting strong adversaries. A dungeon—well—it's the perfect place for simpletons who only want to fight.
Hunting monsters was once a popular sport in Luthial Kingdom. It happened every season. The location where the hunt usually takes place is the Mountain of Wails—or the forests surrounding the mountain—that had the most dangerous monsters out of any monster zone. Flora participated sometimes to fight against the monsters in that monster zone. Her parents disapproved of this behavior but Flora never listened to them.
What Arnold was worried about was what will happen if Flora encounters beings like the mysterious Lady Knight, the Divine Titans and… the offspring of the Star Beast.
Flora Luthial was a very important character to the story. She's supposed to fight with the Hero, not die in some dungeon so early on. Losing a demon lord-level character early on was no small matter.
Arnold tried to persuade her, "Look, I know where you can find some strong monsters outside the dungeon. I can tell you but you need to leave the dungeon first."
"No, the dungeon will do. I want to fight a monster boss no matter what."
"Not every floor has a boss, you know? A minority of the worlds have normal human civilizations like this world. Others are barren. Even if you do find a world that has a boss, it's unlikely that you'll encounter it. Won't you be wasting your time?"
"Yeah, I know. I couldn't sense any strong auras nearby except you and that Arthur guy. Speaking of that Arthur guy, is it true that he's the new hero?"
"…."
'Why can't his classmates keep their mouths shut?'
Arthur's life will be placed in danger if it's publicly announced that he's a hero. Not everyone will appreciate a hero being born, after all. There was also a worry that the Theocracy will try and take Arthur from the Empire's grasp.
If that's the case then Arnold couldn't keep an eye on what Arthur does or who he associates with.
If Arthur manages to get the holy sword and is taken by the Theocracy then humanity is doomed since the Pope will use Arthur as a tool to rule over other nations and not to fight against calamities.
The nation that the hero resides in is considered the strongest nation in the world. That's what many people believe and it's not far from the truth at all.
'I want to contact Liumiala and tell her to watch him but that will be impossible if the Theocracy decides to butt in.'
If the hero was taken or killed then there will be no Hero Party. The Demon King will also be free to invade their world whenever she likes.
Even if Arnold doesn't recognize Arthur as the real Hero, that doesn't mean that he'll bet that Luke will be chosen by the Holy Sword anytime soon.
The Semi-Star sword in his possession won't be enough to fight an enemy stronger than 9th star powerhouses.
"Yeah… He's the hero." Arnold replied.
"That's strange. I thought he'd be stronger."
"…I thought so as well."
Arnold would've found their fight harder if he didn't have his memories back. His memories allowed him to remember all his training and the way he always fought. Dodging Arthur's attacks was way easier than he thought it would be. Of course, just because he's stronger doesn't make him immune to Arthur's power. Arthur can still kill him with White Aura.
"Anyway, why should they leave the dungeon? None of them explained to me what's going on. They just said that they have to hurry to this world."
"It's related to the monster wave I mentioned before."
Arnold began explaining everything he told Arthur and the others. He also included what he heard from the witch. Flora silently listened to Arnold.
Flora crossed her arms and tilted her head.
"So some crazy strong knight took the holy sword and gave it to divine beings to keep it from being misused? Hmm, she sounds like trouble. Even I wouldn't want to fight against a former archangel. They're the kinds of beings not even demons lords can defeat. My mother used to read me stories about them. So, what will this Arthur do about the sword?"
'I doubt it'it'll be easy to gain access to this dungeon again in the future without revealing to the Fairy Country what his plans are.'
The Fairy Country should lock the dungeon down once every single student escapes successfully. This will make it harder to come to the dungeon again to get the sword so it's inevitable that Arthur has to tell people that he's the hero and he needs to get the holy sword.
"He's clearly not ready. If he can't even control his own blessing to draw out more aura then he doesn't deserve the sword. He'll have to go get it once he's ready."
"I see."
"What will you do about Luke's training if you're going to go on some monster hunting adventure? He won't have an instructor if she's playing in a dungeon in the Fairy Country."
"Hngh… I completely forgot about him…" Flora put her hand on her chin and hummed, "W-Well, it hasn't been that long since I came here. There should be a few weeks left until the academy closes. Yeah, I can stay here for about a week."
"Time doesn't flow the same in the dungeon as it does outside. In fact, every world has a different timeflow. It's called time dilation. Some worlds have the same time dilation as ours while others don't. Arthur told me that he's been here a month but he left the second floor a week or so ago."
"What!? I didn't know that!"
'.…'
As expected. She didn't have any knowledge about dungeons whatsoever.
"Shit, I promised the kid that I'll help him find the perfect swordsmanship for him… What am I going to do…? Shit…"
Every academy student in the knight class needs to have their own martial art and weapon art. Sebas will probably teach Luke his own martial arts. But Luke still needs his own swordsmanship.
The Berkley Family has their water style swordsmanship(which Arnold and his grandfather used) and lightning spearmanship(which Marcus uses). Luke wasn't capable of using either of the above since he didn't have the blood of the Berkleys.
Peak Hero Luke could use tens of swordstyles and many other weapon arts. It was unknown to many which weapon art Luke first learned.
But Arnold knew.
However, the name of the weapon art held no meaning since it hasn't been invented by Luke yet.
Luke will invent a weapon art with the help of his sword instructor.
"You should've stayed in the empire, Flora."
"Shuddup! Who are you to tell me that!? Shouldn't you be writing your exams or whatever?"
"I should but I don't really care about that at the moment."
"Oho, look at Mr. Delinquent over here! Saying something like that doesn't make you cool, you know? Your face is still punchable."
"Just leave the dungeon already, Flora. A rescue party was assembled to save the seventh year students. Just tell the rescuers that you stumbled upon this dungeon. They might let you tag along."
"How will they even leave?"
"Teleportation, obviously."
A knock came from the door.
"Make up your mind, Flora."
Arnold went towards the door and opened it.
"What do you want?"
The witch was standing on the other side of the door.
"When are we leaving? The king's army just reported that the barbarians are marching towards this kingdom's lands. If those guys find out what I did then they'll kill me, you know?"
"Who's this?" Flora peeked around Arnold's shoulder.
"This person is the reason I stayed on this world for this long. She's also the cause of all this chaos. She hasn't told me her name yet. I just call her 'Witch' because that's what she is."
"We should really get going!" she impatiently pulled Arnold's arm.
Arnold didn't budge.
"Wait. I'm not done talking to—" Flora suddenly walked past Arnold when he was about to finish, "—Where are you going?"
"You said I should choose, right? I'm going with your seniors. I can't say it's been a pleasure running into you here."
She walked down the hallway after a single wave goodbye. Her heels hitting the floor faded away after a while.
'Hm, I thought she'd be stubborn about leaving. Is her promise with Luke more important than her desire to fight?'
"What are you grinning about? We need to leave!" the witch kept pulling Arnold.
"Alright. Let's go find Rafaela first."
-◇-
Five hours later.
Arnold, the witch and Rafaela left the kingdom without anyone's knowledge.
The final battle was already commencing at this moment.
Rafaela was the one in the lead so Arnold was following after her. The nameless witch was next to him.
Arnold looked to his left, down at the battleground. There were thousands of people engaging in battle. Arthur and his classmates were part of it.
Why save people you hardly know? It's strange. Arnold would also save someone in danger because he can't stand another human being dying when he could've done something but he wouldn't go out of his way to fight a war.
"Shouldn't you have made sure that they're safe first?" Rafaela spoke while they were walking along the mountain range.
"Why would I?"
"That young man, Arthur and his sister are your family, right? Even if you're younger than them, you're still the strongest so you should make sure they leave the dungeon safely."
'Family, huh…'
The only family he had were the Berkleys and Victoria. He didn't consider some branch household to be his family. Arthur and Anais weren't even Berkleys by blood. They were made orphans after a tragedy hit their village, leaving them without parents.
They were lucky to be part of the great Berkley family.
"Arthur can take care of himself. I'm sure he'll protect Anais with his life. Plus, I can tell all his classmates will make sure nothing happens to him. That's a burden off my shoulders."
'Flora is also there to protect them.'
Being a Transcendent means that her stats were extraordinarily higher than people on the same level and with the same class as her.
Who knows how much stronger she's grown during the time she went monster hunting? She was probably much stronger than him right now. Arnold couldn't quite take out his hologram card to check so he could only guess.
"I see."
"How much longer do we have to walk to reach the entrance to the next floor, Rafaela?" Arnold asked.
"We should be there by nightfall." Rafaela replied without looking back.
Arnold asked the witch a question this time, "You mentioned being from the divine realm. Tell me something, is it easy to get an audience with the gods?"
"No, most of the people live and die without ever hearing their voices or seeing the gods. The nation I grew up in was ruled by a goddess named Melis. I've never seen her before. All I know is that she's so beautiful that the mortal mind cannot see her true form. Some even say your head explodes if you catch even a glimpse of her."
"What a load of shit. How can they rule the people if they don't show themselves?"
"There is a group of people who rule in their place. They are like a council of priests or worshippers."
"Sounds familiar."
Arnold suddenly remembered the High Priests union serving the Pope. They were always feeding him all kinds of things to start trouble. They were like parasites.
'I wonder what kind of bizarre scheme Caljer is cooking up right now.'
"What about your family? How were you separated from them?"
"Why are you interested in my life?"
"It's going to be a long journey. We might as well spend our time talking, right? I told this low-ranking angel the same thing and look at us now. We couldn't be more comfortable with each other." He then jokingly said, "We even sleep together."
Arnold could hear Rafaela mutter "Did you have to say 'low-ranking angel'… And what was that about sleeping together...?"
The witch went quiet. She looked towards the horizon. The sun was beginning to set.
"My name is Tanaera. I'm from a normal family who owned a small house in the common district."
"So, Tanaera, how did you end up in a dungeon world and get separated from your family?"
"Have you ever heard of the Goddess of Magic? She's the goddess in charge of giving people the gift of using magic."
"Goddess of magic? Hmm, it's my first time hearing about this person."
'That's strange. I thought magic is just something you're born with and not given by some divine being.'
The game didn't focus on the reason behind magic but there were countless clues that made players come up with their own theories as to why magic existed on the continent of Diacree. Whichever writer that explained how magic came to be never got the chance to fully explore their ideas and make it public in the game.
Thus, magic remained a mystery.
Wait, didn't Tanaera just say that the goddess gives people the ability to use magic and not that she's the creator of magic? That must mean that there are two entities involved. The goddess being the one who gives and another mysterious entity that created magic.
'I should do some research on this. Freya might know.' It was probably because he had a sorcerer build and used nothing but magic spells in the game, but magic fascinated him a lot so he wants to know its origins.
Arnold made a mental note to ask Freya.
He then continued listening to Tanaera's full story.
"—She's a small goddess in the order of gods but she has a very important role. What people don't know is that she's the child of a very infamous god…"
"And that god is…?"
"The goddess of death."
"!" Arnold stopped.
"She was known by all as the guide to the end. Someone who wielded unbelievable magic that could potentially kill or negatively impact the realm of gods using the power of dark magic. Her own kind despised her for her power."
Her other name was literally the Goddess of Dark Magic. Arnold knew her well.
"I am one of her incarnations." Tanaera spoke softly, "I've heard that there are more out there who are scorned and loathed by their own people for being born with her power. Their families ostracize them, their friends scorn them, their people persecute them as if they're monsters. This is all because we're born with power we never wanted."
"Incarnations…" Arnold looked at Tanaera closely.
Incarnation means when a mortal takes the form of a deity. Elizabeth(if her face is healed) looks like the splitting image of the Goddess of Death. In fact, people sometimes mistook her for the Goddess of Death. The illustrations of the two look exactly the same.
She had long silky black hair, porcelain skin and blood-red eyes coupled with a tall nose and a tall neck.
Arnold didn't notice it before but Tanaera and Elizabeth looked almost the same. Tanaera was just a little older.
"No wonder you look familiar."
"Familiar…?" Tanaera tilted her head.
"The acquaintance who I mentioned before is the same as you. Though, she's a little special."
Tanaera's eyes widened slightly, "There are people like me where you come from?"
"Yes. In fact, it isn't taboo for people to learn or teach dark arts. Dark magic is taught by academies because of the benefits it offers us. But you don't just see incarnations of gods walking around everywhere. It's rare to find people like you."
An incarnation is capable of inheriting the powers of the Goddess of Death. It would be a major problem if people like incarnations appeared everywhere. They're almost like demon factors.
"It's not taboo, huh… Why couldn't I just be born in that world instead…"
"Were you born with your power?"
"I'm not sure if I was born with it but I could reanimate small animals when I was little."
'Hmm, it sounds similar to Elizabeth's childhood. Though, the difference is that Elizabeth could hide her powers pretty well.'
Being able to revive dead animals without prior training at a young age was anything but normal. One could call it a natural talent. Elizabeth tested her power a lot on dead animals like rats and birds but never humans. She vowed to use her power on only one person.
That person was deceased.
It was Elizabeth's mother.
Elizabeth was in search of her mother's corpse so that she can find out who killed her and why.
"I was taken to a temple in the higher districts when my parents found out about my magic. They called it witchcraft. A person from a temple tried to get the power out of me but… the power rejected their temple's rituals. The one who conducted the ritual was killed by my power and the ritual circle was destroyed."
"…."
"I was banished not just from my home but the entire realm. They used [World Transfer Magic] to send me away. Whichever world I might've ended up in was going to be my prison for all eternity."
"World Transfer Magic"is a spell used by gods to banish prisoners to other dimensions. They're cursed with immortality and must suffer if luck isn't on their side. Well, immortality itself might make you wish you want to die since no one can bear living forever.
Harming or even killing a servant of a temple which worships a god was reason enough to use the spell on you.
How long has Tanaera been down here considering the fact that she's immortal now?
"The only thing I'm grateful for is that I ended up in a world with humans like myself and not just nightmarish monsters at every corner. Still, my life wasn't peaceful. In fact, I had to learn how to use my power to not get eaten by monsters whenever I travelled alone. The humans who accepted me scorned me not long after they took me in because they feared my power. Maybe they didn't know what dark magic was? Or maybe they thought I was a freak because I could reanimate their dead and allow them to speak to the souls of dead? It had probably been years since then before I ended up in the barbarian territories."
"At least you got one good thing from all that." Arnold looked at the necklace around her neck.
"A cursed child with a cursed item. What a fitting pair, right, Rafaela?"
"You should comfort a lady when she is sad. Didn't you just hear the harsh things she had to endure all these years?"
"Does she look like someone who needs the comfort to you?"
Rafaela looked at Tanaera after what Arnold said.
Tanaera was looking at the horizon. She was fiddling with the necklace with a smile on her face.
"Yes… I guess we are a fitting pair."