P/N let me know if there's any mistakes and I will try to fix them
PROLOGUE
THE LOST ONES
In the passageway dominated by darkness, lights gleamed at regular intervals.
The shining points continued along the walls into the distance, just bright
enough to dimly illuminate the walkway. Every so often, a cool draft wafted
through the gloom, making the lights flicker.
A line of figures advanced down the corridor.
One after another, strong shoulders and muscled arms bearing sheathed
knives passed before the weak glow. The clanking of the fasteners on their
armor blended with the pounding of their shoes and boots.
They were adventurers.
There were perhaps ten or twelve in the group, led by a dwarf with a
helmet pulled low over his eyes. Each held a magic-stone lantern and used it
to search the surroundings carefully.
They were not in the Dungeon.
The tunnel-like hallways they walked through were made of rock, hewn
by human hands. Magic-stone lamps nearing the end of their life spans were
affixed to the walls, while water rushed down the center of the passageway
with a hiss.
It was an underground sewer.
"Prey is always first come, first serve. No hard feelings, right?" said an
animal person in the group.
"Just try touching one of my kills and see what happens," an Amazon
responded.
The armor of each adventurer was engraved with a different familia's
emblem; they were a mixed-faction party. It was clear from the extreme lack
of unity that the group had been formed in haste. The animal person
responded to the uncompromising Amazon with spit and a curse.
These rough, poorly behaved individuals were all experienced
adventurers.
Among them was Mord Latro, as well as the two human companions who
always accompanied him.
"Hey, Mord," called one.
"Are you sure this is okay?" asked the other.
"What are you talking about? The guys from the Guild are leaving no
stone unturned on the surface, but they haven't found a thing. They must be
in the sewers."
Mord had a rugged build and a fierce visage, with scars on his forehead
and cheeks. He looked every bit an overbearing scoundrel. In fact, about two
and a half months earlier, he had even tried to give a certain extremely fast-
growing rookie an adventurer's baptism.
He withdrew a scroll from his pocket.
"We'll kill these monsters before anyone else can catch up. The prize
money is gonna be ours!"
The illustrations on the scroll depicted armed monsters, drawn based on
what was known about them. Among them were a fiendish lizardman and a
gargoyle.
Three days had passed since the monsters appeared on the surface as a
result of the disturbance instigated by Ikelos Familia. After shaking off the
adventurers pursuing them, the escaped monsters scattered across Orario.
Even now, they were hiding somewhere in the city.
Guild Headquarters took the situation very seriously, ordering several
familias to quickly subjugate the monsters and placing a bounty on their
heads as an incentive. Tempted by the generous reward, adventurers
abandoned their exploration of the Dungeon and were currently in a frenetic
search for the monsters believed to still be on the surface.
"No, that's not what we meant, Mord."
"These armed monsters look really strong. I heard they even got away
from Loki Familia…"
"It won't be a problem. The Sword Princess beat them up pretty good
from what I hear. They're probably so tuckered out they can't even move
right now. For a bunch of monsters that only know how to go on a rampage,
they've been awfully quiet. I'd say that's proof enough. It'll be an easy win."
As Mord loudly guffawed, the men accompanying him exchanged uneasy
glances.
A group of upper-class adventurers from a different familia was also
talking among themselves.
"By the way…Did you hear the latest about the Little Rookie?"
"Yeah. Townsfolk seem to be giving him the cold shoulder. He's really
done it now, eh?"
They laughed as if they were recalling the scene.
"He must have gotten a hankering for his vouivre friend. What an idiot."
"I think it's because he let all that special treatment and flattery about
being a record holder go to his head. Serves him right!"
The adventurer had become a laughingstock—no more than an amusing
subject for ridicule.
Other adventurers listened to the disparaging conversation and joined the
sneering.
That was when Mord broke in.
"…Hey, you! What's so important you can afford to forget the business at
hand?" he said, his scoundrel's face twisting into an even grimmer expression
than usual. "Right now, we're a lot like him ourselves, I'd say! So stop
picking on the Little Rookie!!"
"Hey now, Mord!"
"What's the matter all of a sudden?"
His companions rushed to stop him, but he flew at them, spitting.
His outburst threw the party of unfamiliar adventurers into confusion.
"That little brat attacked other adventurers because they were killing a
vouivre. I'd say that's going too far!"
"Yeah, it's…I know, it's the debt! It's all because of that unbelievable
debt his familia has!"
Their voices were choked with a mixture of scorn and hostile criticism
toward the boy. Mord turned his back on them emphatically and began
walking forward again.
"What's with him?"
"Yeah, what's his problem?"
Mord could hear the murmurs behind him, and he snorted with irritation.
Just when the atmosphere of the group was growing perilously stormy, the
dwarf at the head of the line yelled out.
"Stop."
The upper-class adventurers reacted in unison to his tensely spoken order.
The dwarf was glaring straight ahead.
Deep in the gloom, a pair of yellow eyes glinted.
Then, with a fat, undulating tail covered in scarlet scales, the monster
showed itself.
"It's…the lizardman!"
"Finally showed yourself, eh!"
No sooner had the adventurers moved into battle formation than the
monster, clad in armor, charged toward them.
"UOOOOOOOOO!!"
The sturdy dwarf had braced his shoulders in an attempt to absorb the
shock, but he was thrown backward by the frontal attack.
"What…? What's going on?"
The shocked voices of Mord and the others rained down on the dwarf,
who had become entangled with the adventurer behind him as he fell
backward.
Oblivious to whom he was attacking, the lizardman rampaged through the
group.
"Swoooosh!!"
"Oooooooof?!"
Along with its flashing longsword and scimitar, the creature also swung
its tail about like a flail.
Unable to defend themselves against their foe's terrible battle prowess, the
trampled party let out a series of screams. The tail hit an animal person,
knocking him into the air so that he lost his footing and fell into the
waterway.
A spray of liquid blasted the adventurers, sending them running without a
single backward glance.
"Guess he wasn't so weak after aaaaaaaaaall!!"
With a chorus of wretched screams, Mord and the others fled at full speed.
"…Mmmm."
A pair of pointy, misshapen ears quivered at the sound of low screams
echoing in the distance.
The dragon girl fluttered her ashen eyelids and slowly opened her eyes.
She could just make out a dark stone ceiling above her.
"Where…am I…?" she mumbled to herself.
"Are you awake, Wiene?"
The gentle voice had come from right beside her. Slowly turning her eyes
in that direction, Wiene saw a beautiful siren with a relieved expression on
her face.
"Rei?…?!"
As soon as she uttered the name of the siren, her fellow Xenos, the
vouivre leaped up.
"Bell! Where is Bell?!"
"Please calm down, Wiene. Bell is fine."
Rei wrapped her wings around the frail body of the girl, speaking slowly
to calm her frantic worry over the boy's safety.
"Really? Oh, I'm so glad…But when I was at his side, didn't I…?"
"Fels brought you back to life."
Wiene unconsciously touched her hand to the red stone on her forehead,
tilting her head in confusion at Rei's words.
"Maybe it would have been best if she'd slept a little longer."
"Gros…?"
It was the gargoyle, standing by their side, who had spoken.
Wiene looked confused. A moment later, Lido appeared.
"I'm back!" he announced.
"Lido!"
"Oh, you're up, are you, Wiene? I'm so glad!"
"Yes. Where were you just now?"
"…I chased off some adventurers."
With that, he turned to speak with the black-clad mage Fels, who had
come to greet him.
"Are you okay, Lido?"
"I am. Thanks to your magic, my body is perfectly healed. I can move
around just fine. The adventurers came rather close, though. It would be best
to move from here."
"Oh, I see…"
Wiene did not know what to make of this grim conversation between Fels
and the others. She looked around. They were not in the Dungeon or in
Knossos, the man-made labyrinth that the hunters had brought her to. Instead,
they were in a forgotten chamber of a sewer, where she could hear the sound
of flowing water.
About fourteen of her brethren were there with her, including lamias,
trolls, and Lido. Even to Wiene, the group looked small. Timidly, she spoke
up, her profile illuminated by the light of the half-broken magic-stone
lanterns.
"Where…are we…? And where are the others?"
"…Let's explain. Listen well, Wiene," Fels answered.
As the girl's amber eyes shifted uneasily, the mage explained clearly and
concisely that they were on the surface, where townspeople were chasing her
and the other Xenos in an attempt to kill them. For that reason, they were
moving around Orario so as not to be found. In the process of fleeing from
the adventurers, some of the Xenos had been separated from the group.
"Asterios, too, was unable to make it back to us."
"If only he were here, we may have been able to do something, but…"
Hearing the unfamiliar name, Wiene followed the gazes of Lido and Rei.
When she saw what they were looking at, she froze.
A powerful jet-black limb had been set on the floor. It was a severed arm,
the massive muscles practically as thick as Wiene's torso. Now it was
encased in ice to keep the flesh from decaying. The vouivre gulped at the
sight, which spoke to not only the violence of the battle that had nearly cost
Lido and the others their lives but especially to the importance of the
minotaur's presence.
"To survive, the only choice is to return to the Dungeon. But the entrances
to Babel and the labyrinth are all shut tight, so as matters stand, there's
currently no way to get back," Fels said from the depths of the torn hood.
Alone and unaided, surrounded by enemies on all sides. They were in the
worst situation imaginable.
The mage paused for a moment, then continued.
"If we have one hope, it's…"
The whispered words melted away into the silence.
Surrounded by her brethren, who were also now hushed, Wiene slowly
looked upward into the darkness that enveloped them.
"Bell…"
He was born hungry.
The first thing he did when he set foot there was to massacre everyone.
Countless members of his familia were present. They tried to attack him,
and he was hungry. They showed him no mercy. He thought of them less
than the morning dew. He beat them to death with his hands, stomped them
to death with his feet, crushed them with his body. Within the boundless
maze, he threw himself into endless battles.
He didn't know exactly when he first became aware of himself. There was
a sense that it had been when he was born, but he also felt like it was long,
long before that. That his self had hovered within some sort of dream. The
one thing he remembered very clearly was the scene so vivid it had made him
conscious of his self.
He was still hungry for that feeling.
Always hungry. Always fighting.
Even when his skin was torn, his bones crushed, and his flesh melting,
rotting away, he continued to move from one place to the next, slaughtering
his familia members.
The turning point came when he finally fell to his knees, bereft of energy.
The figures that appeared before him at that moment were not his familia
members but his brethren.
They protected him and rescued him from the jaws of death. After
bringing him to their home, they soothed his body.
As they had helped nurture something within him other than hunger, he
saw the brethren as a positive presence. They were also widely
knowledgeable and taught him the true nature of his hunger.
"It is a powerful yearning," the fighter who was kin had said. "It is what
you desire."
His yearning? He didn't really know what that was. But he understood
that it was his "desire."
In the dream that visited him incessantly, there was no sound or smell,
only light. A will so strong his body shook from it, an ecstasy that filled his
empty shell, something that affirmed his very existence.
He learned many other things from his brethren. Wisdom, strength, and
the use of weapons. Eventually he separated from them and once again threw
himself into the place where he had been born. The far graphite depths of the
Dungeon.
This is not it. This is not it.
Having learned the true nature of his hunger, he could no longer feel
satisfied. Even if he honed his strength and massacred his kin, he would
never be able to reach his dream. At some point, he even began to feel
irritated. Perhaps you could call it impatience. His hunger grew and grew. He
carried on the search for his dream and remained lost on his way.
"AH—AAAAAHHHH?!"
The hunter fled, screaming.
A number of other hunters lay on the ground, their arms and legs twisted
at impossible angles. A pool of blood had formed around them. They had
very cleverly discovered his hiding place. So he destroyed them. The victim
destroyed the would-be aggressor.
This is not it. This is not it.
The hunters resembled the something he searched for. Yet they were
completely different from it.
That thing—the dream—would never have run from him in terror.
These hunters had fled after taking a single step toward him. He had
caught up with them and grabbed them around their necks with his groaning,
powerful arms before slamming them against the wall. Countless fissures had
spread through the decrepit ruins. Spewing red liquid, the hunters' eyes rolled
back in their heads. The sound of breaking bones came all too easily from
necks he grasped like twigs in his palms. He remembered the promise he'd
made to his brethren and withdrew his hands.
After the last of his enemies had collapsed onto the floor, he left the ruins
where he had been hiding.
It was not deep in the Dungeon but rather close to the surface.
Feeling no emotion whatsoever toward the night sky covered in its thin
blanket of clouds, carrying just a single weapon, blood dripping from his
entire body, he continued to wander lost, with resolute steps.
He kept searching.
To find the dream. To meet again.