Secret Friend (3)
“This is driving me nuts.”
The layer guardian on the 1st floor is a little special. After all, it’s the first layer guardian the protagonist ever defeats in the labyrinth. That’s why I gave it all sorts of special settings to make the protagonist stand out and feel unique, and the guaranteed authority gacha is exactly one of those.
Normally, the first party to defeat a layer guardian has a low chance of obtaining a portion of that floor’s god’s authority. From the second time onward it becomes impossible, so you’d have to go after guardians on other floors. For example, even if you defeat the 2nd floor’s Cyclops guardian but fail to obtain the authority, you’ll never get the War God’s authority no matter how many times you kill the respawned one. If you still want a god’s authority, you’d either have to be born with compatibility to the War God, luckily find a place where divine power has accumulated, or aim for the authority of a god from a different floor.
But if you defeat a layer guardian that has appeared for the very first time in the labyrinth—unlike the respawned ones—you’re guaranteed to obtain an authority. Of course, it’s not like everyone who participates in the fight gets one. It’s limited to a few people with high contribution. You also have no idea what kind of authority you’ll get. Still, it’s far better than the already-cleared floor guardians where you might or might not get anything. Whether you receive one or not, and what kind of blessing it is, doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s guaranteed. It’s like a gacha game giving a guaranteed 5-star ticket to the top 1% of players in competitive content. It’s an infuriating and unfair system, but when I’m the one receiving it, it suddenly feels like the most righteous system in the world.
The protagonist accidentally summons the 1st floor’s layer guardian, ends up in a one-on-one situation with no help, somehow defeats it, and obtains an overpowered authority that lets them grow explosively. That was the setup I had planned for the protagonist.
…I didn’t plan out any of the important details, so it looks ridiculously convenient, but that’s fine! The protagonist is allowed to get some free wins! Regardless of what kind of monster the 1st floor guardian is, that’s why I set up a way to summon it. The first time the 1st floor guardian is summoned is basically the real start of the story, so I figured I should put more thought into it.
That’s why I came up with the idea of killing countless monsters in front of the World Tree’s illusion and leaving the corpses without extracting the magic stones. I have no idea how they figured out this method. I wondered if there was another possessor like me, but this novel’s author never even wrote the first sentence. Even if there was a possessor, they wouldn’t have been able to discover how to summon the 1st floor guardian. There must be something going on with Those Who Swallow the Twilight. And because of that something, my bet reward—the wish ticket—is about to fly away.
“…I don’t know what they’re trying to do, but it’s definitely something horrifying, evil, and something that absolutely shouldn’t be allowed!”
“I agree with Yona-nim’s words. That’s why they attacked the moment they saw me and Ian’s faces.”
I tilted my head at Karen’s words.
“So even if they didn’t know you two were Heretic Inquisitors, they attacked first anyway?”
“That’s correct. If it weren’t for Yona-nim’s help in strengthening the Goddess’s favor, we would’ve been taken out together in the first surprise attack.”
“Huuuh.”
That means if Karen had never met me, she would’ve died alongside Ian in that previous battle. It’s a really messed-up thought, but maybe the fact that Karen and I met, and that she had that misunderstanding and gained enlightenment, was something the Goddess of Love had planned all along.
“Could you explain in a bit more detail? I have a guess, and it seems like it might be pretty important.”
“Of course. I’ll start from when we first discovered them.”
According to Karen’s long, winding explanation, it seemed Those Who Swallow the Twilight really were attempting to summon the layer guardian. However, they didn’t know the exact method. They knew they had to offer sacrifices in front of the World Tree’s illusion, but they didn’t know what kind of sacrifices or how to offer them, so they were just killing everything in sight.
“At least that’s a relief…”
“Does that mean what they’re planning isn’t a big deal after all?”
“No. It is a huge deal, and if we leave them alone, it could really become dangerous.”
My wish ticket, that is.
“It’s just fortunate that they haven’t found the exact method yet.”
“…As expected, Yona-nim has already seen through Those Who Swallow the Twilight’s objective.”
Karen’s eyes sparkled as she said that. Feeling my body itch from her blind worship, I poked Rydia’s side repeatedly.
“Rydia-nim, Rydia-nim.”
“What.”
“How strong are you exactly, Rydia-nim? Could you win if you fought Those Who Swallow the Twilight?”
“If it’s just the small fry, it doesn’t matter how many come. But starting from the Mentor class, the individual differences are huge. Ah, Mentor class is…”
“It’s fine. I already know their organizational structure roughly.”
Those guys had simplified their hierarchy to an extreme degree under the reasoning that everyone is equal beneath the Goddess of Love. Mentees were at the level of ordinary low-ranking adventurers. They were still receiving teachings and mostly handled odd jobs. They weren’t very dangerous.
Next were the Mentors, who possessed strength ranging from mid to high-ranking adventurers. Their role was to help the Mentees grow through the previous ones… It was a title only obtainable by those who possessed at least one authority or equivalent power. They were also the main force causing incidents in Pan Grave.
After that, there were Masters, but that was more of an honorary position. Those Who Swallow the Twilight operated in fragmented cells, and the leaders of those numerous branches were called Masters. It was a position given to Mentors who were skilled at organizational management or had particularly deep faith, so it wasn’t a title related to combat strength.
Finally, among the same heretics, there was the Grand Master, also called the Pioneer—the old monster who gave rise to the organization’s name, Those Who Swallow the Twilight. There was the first traitor, Baneus… but by now he should be barely clinging to life deep within the labyrinth, so there’s no way he’d suddenly appear on the 1st floor.
Anyway, because the organization operated this way, you couldn’t accurately estimate their strength just from hearing their titles. But we had Karen, who had fought them directly and come back, even if we lost.
“Inquisitor Karen. What was the enemy’s level like?”
“Their scale itself was small. There were only about a dozen Mentees and two Mentors. However, one of them was abnormally strong.”
“The one who turned Inquisitor Ian into that state, I suppose.”
“Correct. I could’ve handled the rest alone, but that one was a cut above me.”
“…If they’re that strong, wouldn’t their appearance or characteristics be known?”
No matter how good Those Who Swallow the Twilight were at hiding their identities, people who appeared frequently were bound to be remembered. If you knew their face, you remembered their face. Even if you didn’t, you could make up a codename based on gender, build, voice, abilities used, main weapon, estimated age, and so on.
I hadn’t set any of that up myself, but living in Pan Grave, there were a few names you heard around. Master of Chimeras, Battle Maniac, Harlot, and the like. But Karen shook her head with a serious expression, indicating this one didn’t fit any of them.
“It was someone I’d never heard of. They were wearing a mask so I couldn’t see their face, but their voice sounded very young.”
“A new Mentor, huh. This just got annoying.”
I let out a deep sigh and continued.
“You already reported to the temple, right? What did the Pope say?”
“…He said he would prepare reinforcements, so we should wait.”
“Uh, hmm. If we wait, it feels like they’ll achieve their goal and disappear again.”
They didn’t seem to know the exact method, but they were close to figuring it out. In a few days, they’d probably succeed in actually summoning the 1st floor guardian. Karen nodded heavily at my words.
“I think so as well.”
“Requesting help from the guild… probably won’t work.”
“Yes. The entire guild belongs to the temple. As Yona-nim said, if the Pope is helping Those Who Swallow the Twilight, he would’ve already made some kind of move.”
“Huuu. Then what should we…”
There was no option to just hand over the 1st floor layer guardian and its authority. Forget the wish ticket—if that happened, the protagonist’s growth, who was supposed to be somewhere in this world, would be blocked from the very beginning. That would mean losing a national-level talent who could splendidly resolve the countless incidents that were going to happen in the future. I knew exactly how many foreshadowings I’d planted, so that was unacceptable.
The point was that I needed a powerhouse stronger than Karen, someone willing to risk their life fighting alongside us in the near future…
While I was deep in thought, someone tapped my head.
“Yona. Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Rydia-nim? I mean, I know Rydia-nim is strong, but from the atmosphere when you get serious, you seem about the same level as Inquisitor Karen. Maybe the two of you together would be fine, but it still feels a bit risky and makes me uneasy.”
“…You’re not wrong, but I’m annoyed.”
Thwack!
“Kkyaaang!”
Rydia suddenly gave me a knuckle to the head. Gritting my teeth from the sharp pain, I looked up at her. Just as I was about to prepare a loud protest from the depths of my stomach against this unreasonable violence, Rydia shook her head and opened her mouth.
“There’s Senior Elly.”
“Huh?”
“Even with one arm missing, she should be stronger than me or that Heretic Inquisitor.”
“…That strong?”
“Yeah.”
Good grief. Then why did she retire…
“Ah.”
Right. Elly didn’t retire because she couldn’t make a living as an adventurer. She retired because she wanted to spend her remaining years in debauchery, enjoying all the lewd things she’d never been able to do before. It didn’t seem like she’d had any lewd events beyond groping my stomach yet, though.
…Suddenly, Elly felt pitiful.
