Menesteil (10)
The only ones entering the Menesteil Dungeon were the three of us who'd been together all along.
Me. Karl. Alsaetin.
Originally, we'd planned to round out the party with a water-attribute mage that Nick had scouted for us, but that plan had fallen through.
Word of what I did to Meg had spread all through the streets of Menesteil.
The eldest son of a count's family suffering a public humiliation wasn't the kind of thing people gossiped about openly, but that was beside the point. Everyone living on these streets knew exactly what had happened.
Under the circumstances, it was only natural that the people working around the Menesteil Dungeon had started avoiding me.
Meg was a repulsive piece of trash, sure, but he was still the heir of House Georg.
Get on his bad side, and life in Menesteil gets very difficult indeed.
I was only passing through — but the adventurers of Menesteil had built their lives here. None of them could afford to risk earning Meg's ire.
And so my search for a mage ended in failure. Not that it mattered much; a mage had only ever been a convenience for the breakthrough. If I didn't have one, I'd just have to work a little harder.
Standing at the entrance of Floor 46, I quietly surveyed our surroundings.
"So we're heading toward the place where the Evil God is sealed."
"Nervous, Alsaetin?"
"Of course I'm nervous. What's strange is the way you're smiling like you're having fun, Karl."
I had explained our destination to the two of them in advance. After all, if we'd suddenly reached the Evil God's seal without warning, they'd have been in for quite a shock.
When I told them I'd received a revelation from the Chief God and was to journey to the place where the Evil God lay sealed, Alsaetin's reaction had been exactly what I'd expected. He was clearly bewildered — but when I added that only by going there could he hope to meet his master again, he'd nodded and accepted it.
Karl's reaction, on the other hand, caught me off guard.
Look, the guy is a little weird in general, but I'd assumed the word Evil God would at least put some fear into him. It didn't.
'The young miss is headed there regardless, is she not? Then of course this Karl must accompany her!'
Karl, bellowing that with his chest puffed out, looked for all the world like a loyal mastiff strutting at its master's heel. He was so dependable in that moment that I almost found myself patting his head.
Replaying yesterday's events in my mind as I scanned our surroundings, I spotted the marker I'd been looking for and nodded. Good. I had a rough idea of where we were now.
Let's move.
<The farther in we go, the fouler the aura becomes.>
Grandpa spoke up as we pressed onward toward the Evil God's seal.
'Are you not used to it, Grandpa?'
This was a man who'd once clashed with the Evil Gods on the very front lines. Surely that aura was old, bitter news to him.
<Right you are. So used to it that I've grown sick to death of the stench of it.>
There were deep, settled emotions steeped into those reminiscing words — feelings so thick I could sense them without him saying a word more.
<To speak honestly, I still do not know whether this is the right thing to do. It is far too dangerous.>
'The Chief God Himself sent the revelation. It'll be fine.'
Grandpa really does worry too much.
Every time I'd been in danger so far, it was because some unforeseen variable cropped up. Has a properly prepared plan without any variables ever put me at risk? Especially this time, when I'd made contingencies for every last thing that could go wrong. There was no room left for problems.
'It will be, I said.'
Reassuring Grandpa as I walked, I soon found a wall blocking our path.
"So even Lady Alrn has moments of tension after all. To think you'd make a mistake like this."
Confronted with a dead end leading nowhere, Alsaetin seemed to have concluded I'd simply taken a wrong turn.
'It's not a mistake.'
"Looks like one to a dim-eyed scrub like you, though, doesn't it? Info broker. Honestly, pathetic."
I'd run this route more times than I could count on my way to the true ending speedrun. Like I'd ever forget it.
I shot Alsaetin a light scoff and pulled a bottle from my inventory.
Inside was holy water infused with Phoebe's blessing.
It was true that the Church had made her into a saint — but it was equally true that she possessed abilities well beyond the point where the title would have suited her naturally. Holy water carrying her blessing was, without question, the most potent force in existence for purging an Evil God's aura.
I uncorked the bottle and splashed its contents onto the wall. Almost immediately, the stone turned soft and mushy, then scattered across the floor like ice cream melting away.
"This is... what...?"
Alsaetin blinked rapidly at the passage that had appeared without warning. This was a man of the rogue class, confident he could detect nearly any hidden door there was. No wonder a gimmick he'd never seen left him stunned.
I'd been the same way once.
A passage that couldn't be found no matter how high you maxed out a rogue-class build — a place that only revealed itself if you'd completed every last piece of related story content. When I discovered it in my mad dash to be the first to see the true ending, I was furious.
WHO puts a hidden passage on the second-to-last floor instead of the final one?! I remember screaming that at my monitor until a noise complaint came in from the neighbors. Even now, it wasn't a fond memory. It genuinely sucked.
Before stepping inside, I pulled one more item from my inventory.
Earrings that shielded the body from an Evil God's aura.
Phoebe had made these too. Normally I'd have had to pay a fortune for something even half as good, but I asked her and she solved it in one go. Something even the game wouldn't let you do — and here was the Saintess of reality, an even bigger cheat character than her game counterpart.
'Let's go.'
"Let's go."
The dungeon where the Evil God was sealed counted as a standalone hidden dungeon.
That carried a lot of implications, but only one of them mattered: there were no adventurers here.
Which meant I could control every single variable in this place myself.
Befitting a lair that hid a secret boss, the monsters dwelling here were roughly as strong as the ones on Floors 60 through 70. Even Karl couldn't handle a swarm of them alone.
But so what if they're strong? I had no intention of fighting them in the first place.
Behold — the route I forged through countless hours of research!
It was bizarre.
"The piece-of-junk rock up ahead is going to raise its arm — ignore it and RUN!"
Alsaetin thought this even as he desperately chased at Lucy's heels.
"Sunken floor trap ahead! Jump it!"
Lady Alrn had told them her master was in this place.
When he'd heard that, Alsaetin had assumed his master was laboring here to keep the Evil God's seal from breaking. She was one who had pursued the light from within the darkness, after all. If she lived, surely she was working for the sake of the world.
"Scrubs! Freeze for two seconds! And then—"
He had even considered that he might find his dead master's corpse.
No — he'd been denying it, but privately he'd judged the odds far more likely this way. The trail of anyone who had ever visited the Evil God's seal had been severed completely. There could only be one meaning in that.
And Lady Alrn had warned them not to be shocked, whatever they saw. In practice, then, he ought to consider his master already dead.
"RUN! Scrubs!"
Either way, Alsaetin had decided it didn't matter. If she lived, he'd be overjoyed. If he found her body, it would surely grieve him — but he could lay her to rest properly and find closure in his own heart. So long as he could see her again, however it ended, that was enough. That was what Alsaetin believed.
"On three, jump down! You scrubs aren't such gutless cowards that you can't even manage that!"
And yet — strangely — since entering this place, Lady Alrn had not mentioned the master even once. Her attention fixed solely on carving through the dungeon.
Why? For the first time, the thought that surfaced in Alsaetin's mind was suspicion.
That Lucy had invoked his master's name merely to use him.
But Alsaetin quickly shook his head. If that were the case, she'd never have offered to let him meet his master at all.
The next thought was a question. Did Lady Alrn herself not know the exact location?
He shook his head again. This woman had shown her abilities without concealment at every turn. There was no way she didn't know what existed inside this dungeon.
Which meant—
"Info broker! What are you doing?!"
Lucy shouted at Alsaetin, who had fallen behind while turning the question over and over in his head.
Only then did he notice the rain of fire descending toward his head.
Oops. Too late to dodge.
Then I'll take it on my arm and minimize the—
Just as Alsaetin steeled himself to absorb the flames, Lucy yanked him by the collar and thrust a shield up in front of them.
BOOOM!
The fireball slammed into the shield with a massive shockwave — but the shield held firm.
"You pathetic scrub of an info broker♡ What, you get insulted on purpose so you can zone out?♡ Turns out you're even more of a pervert than my loser-dog here♡ Want me to put a collar on you and drag you around instead?♡"
"My apologies. I will focus."
...Right. Focus on the dungeon first. I refuse to sink any lower than that perverted knight.
Thanks to Lucy Alrn's near-miraculous command, they reached the boss room without fighting a single battle along the way. Once there, Alsaetin approached Lucy, who was leaning against the wall catching her breath.
"What? Masochist info broker."
"...Lady Alrn. There is something I wish to ask."
"About that idiot master of yours, right?"
"Yes. Not that I would dare doubt you, my lady."
"You'll see soon enough. Impatient scrub."
Lucy said this, her gaze drifting toward the far side of the boss room door.
Alsaetin was hardly so oblivious that the meaning escaped him.
"My master... is beyond that door?"
"Oh, so you CAN understand things. Better than the dog, then. Still subhuman, but progress."
His master was beyond the boss room door.
Ha. So that was it.
She fell in battle there, then. Lost her life chasing the ideals she believed in. Working for the world's sake from within the shadows, and—
...You stubborn old fool, to the very end. You were always the quick-witted one, the one who taught me to be the same. I don't understand what you were thinking.
Having grasped the situation, Alsaetin asked Lucy nothing further, and Lucy did not volunteer more. Instead, she explained what to do once they entered the boss room — how to take down the boss they were about to face, how to counter each of its attacks, what to do if the unexpected happened and they found themselves in crisis. Her strategy was so clear and precise that not only Alsaetin but even Karl couldn't help but marvel. This raid too, it seemed certain, would end as effortlessly as all the others.
"Scrubs. Up. Time to move."
With every explanation finished, the hour of the boss room had come. Karl wrapped his sword in aura and drew a deep breath; Alsaetin checked his arrows and his tools, then pressed his lips together; and Lucy, wearing the same impassive expression as always, pushed open the boss room door.
"Ignorant wretches. Have you come to interfere with me?"
And in that moment, Alsaetin came face to face with his master — just as Lucy had told him he would.
He had no choice but to. The woman standing at the center of the boss room was unmistakably—
His master.
Karia.
"Lady Alrn. What in the world is—"
"Shut it. You're giving me a headache."
Alsaetin, who had spoken out of sheer bewilderment, turned his head at the cutting edge of Lucy's voice.
Lucy Alrn was biting her lip.