A Request Before the Storm
After that day, the visits stopped—and so did the surveillance.
Honestly, it did feel a little strange for them to come charging in like that only for everything to end without incident... But these were gods, after all. Perhaps they'd picked up on something from the information I'd let slip without ever realizing it.
It left me a bit uneasy, I'll admit... Still, a loss you never notice isn't really a loss. It takes a working head to even recognize a loss; anything that happens where I can't see it is best left unexamined. It wasn't as if anything had actually changed.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Oh, this and that."
In the end, I decided to run the Dungeon with Miss Ais as usual. Lady Riveria, for once, couldn't make it out.
When it came to Miss Ais, that woman would normally drop everything in a heartbeat—so why couldn't she come? It worried me a little, but surely nothing was wrong.
"Oh, and Finn asked me to have you stop by when you have a moment."
"Huh? Me?"
"Mm."
Why me?
"I see... Then let's go together today."
"...Okay."
I was a little puzzled, but it hardly sounded like anything difficult, so I agreed without fuss. Miss Ais, wearing her usual blank expression, accepted it just as calmly.
"Jagamarukun..."
"You've already had three..."
We bought our usual Jagamarukun and headed for the Loki Familia home. Having made the trip back and forth so many times now, the members greeted me with something like genuine warmth.
...Was this really okay? Every so often I caught myself growing so comfortable in this era that I forgot I was in the past at all.
Whether or not I ever made it back to my own time, shouldn't I at least secure a way home first? I'd have to get in touch with Fels sooner or later.
"What are you thinking about?"
A gentle tug at my sleeve. Miss Ais asked, her fingers pinched around my cuff.
Every so often, those golden eyes of hers gave me the feeling that they could pierce straight through silence and see the truth beneath it. This was exactly one of those times.
Her expression seemed to have seen right through me, and for a moment the words caught in my throat.
"No. It's nothing."
"I see..."
With that, Miss Ais hurried on ahead. I followed silently after her back.
An awkward silence settled between us, lingered a while, then faded away.
"Sorry for calling you out. Was it a bother?"
"No, not at all."
A short while later, Miss Ais and I arrived at Finn's study. Miss Ais promptly laid her head on my lap and drifted off to sleep, while Finn set out tea and took a seat across from me.
"Haha. Ais still adores you, I see."
"...I'm honored."
Watching Finn laugh so cheerfully, I could do nothing but answer awkwardly.
I still hadn't gotten used to situations like this. The Loki Familia carried no small weight in my heart—that made it all the harder.
Finn had been someone special to me in his own right, so sitting across from him like this, I sometimes wondered if I was dreaming.
And if this was a dream, it was a wretched one. I never wished for a dream like this.
Because if a dream like this ever broke, all that would remain was emptiness.
"It's just the two of us, so I'll come straight to the point. I called you here because I have a request for you. Will you hear me out?"
"...I'll listen first."
A request from the Loki Familia... I hadn't expected them to suddenly come to me with one in a situation like this.
What are you planning?
I was still a suspicious character, as far as I knew. I'd built up a reasonable amount of trust, or so I believed, but surely not enough to be trusted with anything real...
"The Three Great Quests begin next week."
"...I heard the Three Great Quests wouldn't begin until after the Harvest Festival."
The abrupt declaration flustered me, and doubt crept in on its heels. When I'd faced the Colossus, I'd been told the quest would begin after the Harvest Festival... Had I misheard?
"That's right. That was the plan, originally. But circumstances changed all of a sudden."
"Changed how?"
"You know about the alliance of Egyptian Familias gunning for the Zeus and Hera Familias, right? The quest was set for after the Harvest Festival so they could crush them thoroughly first, then turn to the quest."
"..."
Crush them, he says... Every single one of his word choices is still terrifying.
"But for whatever reason—maybe a change of heart—they decided not to break the Egyptian side but to bring it under their heel. Without so much as the Guild's permission, they ambushed the Egyptian Familias and absorbed them on the spot."
"Huh?!"
"Once the other side grasped the gap in power, they surrendered... Whether that surrender was sincere or not, who knows. Either way, they've joined the quest as-is."
Finn took a sip of tea as he finished. His words set my thoughts churning.
Wait... Was this how it originally went? If my memory served, the Egyptian Familias were supposed to suffer damage bordering on annihilation here, and even decades into the future they'd never recover their strength, left scrambling and trembling on the sidelines.
Because of... me?
Was it narcissism to think this was the result of that conversation with the Colossus?
Because in my own mind, it was a hundred percent because of that.
The future has changed!
I'd steeled myself for this, but I never imagined it would shift like this. A little ball I'd tossed up without thinking had come rolling back as an absurdly massive snowball.
Okay, fine—I had considered the possibility! But still, this was way too sudden!
I didn't regret it, but I couldn't stop a cold sweat from breaking out. Guilt over having changed the future bubbled up in surges.
What if this changed the future I knew...? What if the people I knew came to harm because of it?
The worries came flooding in. Maybe it was just my imagination, but my head ached, and a wave of dizziness seemed to wash over me.
"They're a Familia with power enough to set their sights on the Zeus and Hera Familias themselves. With a fair number of Level 7s joining them, their strength was bolstered in a single stroke. There's no reason left to wait for the Harvest Festival."
So, in other words: originally they'd planned to annihilate the alliance after the Harvest Festival and then take on the quest, but absorbing them had made that unnecessary?
They'd have to accept the headache of a possible betrayal, but their forces were more than sufficient. If this was true, then yes—there really might be no reason to wait for the Harvest Festival.
Which meant the schedule had slipped because of me. Thankfully, the subjugation of Behemoth was supposed to succeed from the start, so there shouldn't be a problem... But what if something like a betrayal made it fail? No—they wouldn't fumble things that badly. It would probably be fine.
"I follow the story, but... what does that have to do with...?"
It was certainly startling news, but what did it have to do with the request? Surely he wasn't about to ask me to join the subjugation of Behemoth.
"...I hear you've been at Ais's side a lot lately."
"...? Yes, well..."
"Then has anything struck you? Anything you've noticed?"
"Noticed?"
What was he getting at?
Going by the context, something seemed to be wrong with Miss Ais... A problem with Miss Ais? The way she threw herself recklessly into fights, the way she wouldn't listen... the way she ate too many Jagamarukun?
Ah—come to think of it, there was one more thing, wasn't there.
"The strange... gazes."
Every time we entered the Dungeon, I could feel them—a peculiar, lingering attention. Some of it was aimed at me, but for the most part it was a gaze that seemed to be observing Miss Ais.
It was unpleasant, but with no way to tell where it came from, I'd let it be... Could that have been the problem?
"I see. So you'd picked up on it in your own way."
"Do you know whose gaze it is?"
"I do. The gaze you felt almost certainly belongs to the Evils."
The Evils...? Why were they coming up now?
"Ais is being targeted by the Evils."
"What?!"
At those sudden words, even I couldn't help but recoil.
Miss Ais was being targeted by the Evils? This was the first I'd heard of it!
The Evils—people with ties to me as well. Or to be precise, ties to Ryuu far more than to me.
Bad ones, of course.
Why would a criminal syndicate like that set its sights on a young Miss Ais? Was it a matter of stomping out a promising bud before it could bloom?
"The reason is... difficult to explain."
"...Well, if it's difficult, you don't have to tell me."
It left a sour taste in my mouth, but these two weren't villains, and there was no need to press the matter right now.
"More importantly, this request of yours..."
"Right. You've probably guessed already, but... while we're away on the subjugation, I'd like to ask you to guard Ais."
Could I even do it? Swallowing the rest of his words, Finn looked at me, and I—