Prytaneum
Sitting
Abruptly, we emerged from the darkness into a clearing, riding Mrs. O'Leary straight to the eighteenth floor. The crystal light that served as an artificial sun down here had repaired itself since it had shattered to give birth to the Black Goliath, so the illumination was back to daytime levels instead of the tail end of dusk. In fact, all the damage we'd done, to everything from the cliff side to the very forests, was gone without a trace. That's the Dungeon for you, I guess; everything down here was part of it, one way or another.
"See?" I said to my passenger. "Told you we'd get here fast."
"Yes," Ryuu acknowledged, holding onto me tight—not like she was scared, really, but like she was honestly worried about what might happen if she let go and was flung off and trapped for all eternity in some kind of strange shadow dimension. And, hey, fair enough; I didn't let go of Mrs. O'Leary, either. Once we appeared, however, she held on as we'd agreed, in case a quick change of location was necessary, such as if a giant monster decided to fall from the sky again.
Speaking of which…
"No reaction, huh…?" I murmured, turning to frown at the central crystal in the floor's 'sky.'
"How long did it take to appear previously?" Ryuu asked, following my gaze and narrowing her eyes at the light.
"A minute?" I guessed, having been a bit preoccupied at the time. "Might not have noticed us yet. Or maybe the Dungeon's decided to play nice today."
I paused for a moment to consider that, rolling the words around in my head to see if I believed either of those things.
Nope, I decided. But the fact remained that nothing seemed to be appearing and somehow, I was pretty sure nothing would.
"Not going to spawn when I was prepared for it, huh?" I murmured to myself, shaking my head as I sighed in irritation. It made sense, though. As far as I could tell, my skill 'Despair' pretty much boiled down to 'the Dungeon actively hates me and tries to get me killed whenever possible,' presumably as part of the whole demigod thing. Or maybe it was something more like 'the Dungeon notices and pays attention to me,' I honestly wasn't sure. But while it wasn't afraid to mob me with hordes of monsters whenever the opportunity presented itself—probably because it never took more than a day to spawn replacements for normal ones—it apparently had a harder time doing some things than others. There was a big difference between the normal attacks and things like my first trip to the seventh or the Goliath, even beyond the preparation that had probably gone into them; they weren't just an attempt to tire me out and make me make a critical mistake at a potentially fatal moment, they were honest, serious attempts on my life.
But apparently, it wasn't going to bother with something like that today. Maybe it was because, instead of being exhausted and unprepared, I was in perfect condition. Maybe it was because I'd brought high level backup and brought two of the weapons that had killed it last time. Maybe it was even just the fact that Mrs. O'Leary was in good enough condition that escape was an option. But whatever it cost the Dungeon to spawn something like the Black Goliath, I apparently wasn't worth wasting it right now. Despair apparently lived to make my bad days that much worse, so I guess last week's clusterfuk had been a good day for the Dungeon.
I wasn't sure how to feel about that honestly. On the bright side, it meant not dealing with a Goliath right now or having to fight for my life any time I tried to visit this floor, which was, you know, nice. On the down side, that meant that I'd inevitable run into the most problems when I wasn't equipped to deal with them. Which made strategic sense, from the Dungeon's point of view, but was a huge pain in my ass.
Problems for later, I decided.
"You want me to stay back here or go with you towards the town?" I asked Ryuu, changing the subject and focusing on the mission. "I don't know where our bad guy is or where the monsters he brought are likely to be hiding or even how close I have to be to get them to attack me. I mean, not getting attacked has never really been an issue for me."
"Hm," Ryuu considered for a moment, closing her eyes. "Let us consider what the killer must be planning. Assuming, for the moment, that they haven't already found what they wanted and left—"
"Meaning Lulune and whatever she's transporting."
"—Then there are only so many places they are likely to be," She continued. "Namely, wherever they consider the item they're after is most likely to be. We know they were in the town when they murdered Hashana—though, of course, we should go verify that as soon as possible to confirm that we've been given accurate information—so it's simply a matter of where they were most likely to go after realizing Hashana didn't have the item any longer."
"Well, hopefully they don't know exactly who they're after," I said, as much to myself as to Ryuu. "I mean, if they had some way of automatically knowing where the item was, they wouldn't have gone after Hashana, right?"
"Assuming they didn't simply wish to kill any witnesses," Ryuu replied. "It's dangerous to make such assumptions when Fels claims he wasn't able to contact Ms. Louie."
"Yeah, but if they've already won, we've already lost," I replied. "But if they did think Hashana had it and they were wrong, then…?"
"If they're searching for an unknown on a schedule, they have few choices," Ryuu said. "Depending on how recently Hashana arrived—which was presumably shortly before his demise—then there would only have been so many chances he would have had to exchange the item with Ms. Louie without drawing attention, especially as he was presumably being tailed. If they correctly guessed that the item had exchanged hands, then it could have been taken up towards the surface, down to the Middle Floors again, or it could remain on this floor."
"Transporting it down wouldn't make any sense," I said before pausing. "Unless Lulune was that scared that she'd do it just to throw people off, which…is possible. But it's more likely she'd do one of the other ones. If it was me, I'd head straight to the surface, but I have Mrs. O'Leary."
"Yes," Ryuu said, voice like she was trying to teach me something. 'Hunting Criminals in a Dungeon 101,' I guess. "And we must also consider that the enemy is rarely the only one operating in the dark; it's very likely that Ms. Louie wasn't entirely aware that someone capable of murdering a Level 4 was after her. In order to make preparations for the trip back up and to avoid drawing attention, she may have originally planned to wait. Given that an exchange took place, it's very likely that Hashana was originally intended to be bait, as the one most capable of dealing with threats, and so would have gone up first, with Ms. Louie following sometime after with the package that needed to be protected."
"And then the bait got eaten," I said. "So that plan went to hell. So…she's probably still here, then."
Ryuu nodded, again acting like a teacher who'd received the correct answer. As she did, though, I looked around and pursed my lips.
"Here is a relative term, though," I said. "I mean, this floor's kind of big."
"But where is she most likely to be on it?" Ryuu asked, looking at me inquisitively.
…I'm not being groomed for the Batman position, am I?
"She'd want to stay somewhere safe," I said at once. "But that could mean either staying in town or hiding in the forest."
"Does it?" Ryuu asked. "Think about it from the perspective of the hunter, instead of just Ms. Louie. Imagine that you're chasing someone who has something you want; what measures would you take, knowing they might try to escape?"
That gave me pause for a moment--not so much because of the suggestion as because of how easily the answer came to me and how little I liked those answers.
"If it was me…" I considered before trailing off a bit reluctantly. "It depends on how much I want it, I guess."
"And if you wanted it badly enough to kill for?" She pressed.
I imagined if someone had the key to saving one of my friends—no, a way to magically save all of my friends, a way to fix my mistakes and reunite with them, even though it seems impossible. If something like that existed, if someone had it, and if there was no other way to get it…
That would be, quite simply, the most important thing in the world to me. I could do a lot if it meant getting it. Could I kill people like this over it? I wasn't sure, but mostly because I didn't really want to think about it much.
People do all sorts of things when they're desperate. And maybe I was.
"I'd put Mrs. O'Leary by the way up and tell her to keep track of anyone going in and out," I said after a long silence. "People coming in is no big deal, but I wouldn't let anyone leave. After I was sure no one would try anymore, or if I had someone else to help me, like you, I'd move her over to the forest, which are a lot less safe if you're trying to hide from monsters. Anyone who's that out of the way, I could probably get rid of without drawing too much attention until afterwards . Meanwhile, I'd patrol the city. Even if they don't know who I am and I don't know who they are, word would speak that Hashana had just been murdered and they'd know it was for carrying the item. Given how small Rivira is, word probably travels fast; in an hour or two, everyone would know, and I'd betting that the person who's carrying what I want is probably going to get nervous. All I'd need to do is keep a lookout; if she tries to make a break for it or meet up with allies or anything like that, I can just kill everyone involved or distract them or even find them later. Right now, knowing where the item is takes priority."
"So, assume that Ms. Louie was chosen for a reason," Ryuu said. "And that she would be able to guess that, too. What would she most likely do, then?"
"Assuming Lulune was smart enough—or at least scared enough—to guess all that, then she'd want to avoid attention and stay near other people. The forest would make her harder to find in theory, but there are plenty of monsters in it that might draw attention her way and, more importantly, if she does get found, she's dead. Running deeper into the Dungeon might let her escape for a time, assuming she does so unnoticed, but then she's deeper in the Dungeon, so it's not really a solution. Her best bet would probably be to do what we were planning to do when we fell down here; wait for a powerful group of adventures to head up to the surface and ask to tag along. She'd probably figure that even if I killed Hashana to get the item, I wouldn't go so far as to kill everyone and just attack her in the middle of town."
"And would you?" Ryuu asked. "If it was important enough to you?"
Would I?
...I really wished she wouldn't ask things like that about something like this. So much so that a tiny, bitter part of me wanted to ask what she'd do, given her circumstances.
But no. Even leaving aside how that'd be a dick thing to do and how she was a friend, I knew what she was doing. A lot of people might make assumptions about what they might do, but even putting aside the matter of Rivira, the Ganesha Familia was an S-rank Familia and one of the strongest in the city—and they hadn't hesitated to piss them off by murdering a high-ranking member of their Familia in a public place.
Even leaving aside what I would do, it was clear they didn't care who got involved.
"…We should find Lulune," I said.