An Eldritch Audience
A suffocating silence hung over the office of Alteon, Patriarch of the Drake Family.
More than a dozen high-ranking retainers were gathered in the room, yet not a single breath could be heard.
"So."
Alteon turned his head, his face an impassive mask.
He was a man ordinarily given to frank and tempestuous outbursts, but today he seemed entirely transformed.
"What was their response?"
"..."
None of the core family members dared step forward. The one who finally broke the stillness was the head butler, a man who possessed Alteon's absolute trust.
"All three organizations flatly refused."
"Refused, did they?" Alteon murmured under his breath. "To think the Mercenary Guild and the Adventurer Guild have grown bold enough to defy our word. Haha, how could I have failed to notice?"
Even the ever-composed head butler found himself at a loss for words, simply bowing his head in silence.
"If the Mercenary Guild and Adventurer Guild wish to do as they please, then who are we to object? After all, what is our humble family compared to such mighty institutions? We couldn't possibly push back, could we?"
Unable to bear the oppressive atmosphere, one retainer spoke up without thinking.
"W-We are deeply sorry, My Lord!"
"Then why the fuck did you create a mess to be sorry for in the first place?!"
The rage pent up within him detonated in an instant, unleashing a massive storm of mana.
Crash!
Shards of shattered window glass cascaded outward into the courtyard below, drawing screams from pedestrians passing beneath the manor. The antique desk splintered cleanly in two, and the retainers who had been standing with hands politely clasped were flung backward against their will. Several tumbled to the floor, coughing up blood from the concussive pressure.
"The Mercenary Guild, the Adventurer Guild, and the Free Mage Association, you said?"
"Yes, My Lord. There were whispers of other factions being involved, but our inquiries proved those were groundless rumors—most likely a deliberate smokescreen planted by those three."
Alteon's eyes narrowed into venomous slits.
"Then we only need to deal with them."
"My Lord, that would be..." the head butler ventured cautiously, attempting to dissuade him.
"You expect me to sit back and take this? After they treated us with such blatant contempt?"
"If the Drake Family takes direct, overt military action, our rivals inside and outside the city will seize upon the opportunity the moment our back is turned."
Alteon cut him off with a sharp flick of his hand.
"I know. Those scavengers will use any excuse to make a nuisance of themselves, and our current ventures would be compromised. But physical retaliation isn't the only weapon at our disposal."
Realizing the patriarch already had an alternative in mind, the head butler bowed deferentially.
"Please enlighten us with your wisdom, My Lord."
"We expose their vital secrets, one by one."
"Expose their secrets...?"
"Information their guilds have deliberately swept under the rug, scandals their leaders have painstakingly concealed—we leak every shred of it to the public."
The head butler blinked in surprise before a thin smile spread across his lips.
"Indeed, that is a brilliant maneuver. No individual or syndicate is without skeletons in their closet. It is an inspired design."
"Spare no expense, whether in gold or material assets. Dig up the most lethal dirt you can find. Anything that strips the guilds of their standing or tramples their leaders' reputations into the mud overnight."
"I shall ensure your expectations are met, My Lord."
"See that you bring me good news."
Alteon addressed the head butler, but every retainer assembled in the wreckage understood the command was meant for them all.
"Now get out, every last one of you. Until we repay this insult in kind, you are nothing more than vermin in my eyes."
Despite the scathing dismissal, the retainers sighed in quiet relief, bowing low before scrambling out of the room. The last to leave pulled the heavy door shut with meticulous care.
Only two men remained in the ruined chamber: Patriarch Alteon and his confidant, the head butler.
Alteon stared through the broken window frame at the city below for a long time before speaking again.
"Exposing their secrets is one matter."
"Yes, My Lord?"
"There must be an architect who orchestrated this entire offense. That person must die."
The head butler opened his mouth to advise caution, but catching the cold resolve in Alteon's eyes, he simply inclined his head.
"...It shall be done, My Lord."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
The butler turned to take his leave, then paused in his tracks.
"Ah, there is one more item I have yet to report."
"What is it?"
"The decrypted data has arrived."
A gleam sparked in Alteon's gaze—not of fury, but of keen curiosity.
"Has it been forwarded to our scholars?"
"Yes, it is already in their hands."
"Where do they believe it will lead this time?"
"We must await their final analysis, but two sites appear highly probable. Each corresponds to..."
As the butler briefed him on the details, Alteon nodded in satisfaction.
"Both sound quite promising."
"Either location possesses the potential to yield immense fortune for our house."
"Make sure our preparations are flawless this time. We cannot afford another humiliation like the Closed Police Headquarters, letting the prize slip into the hands of those dwarf bastards."
"...On that matter, I have no excuses to offer. It was my oversight, and I am deeply sorry."
Initially, they had assumed their exploration team had simply gone missing in the depths. Only recently, through an internal contact, did they discover that the recovered firearm had found its way into the hands of the Dwarf Kingdom.
They had never uncovered the exact channel by which the Dwarf Kingdom—which officially dispatched no expeditionary forces to the dungeon—had managed to seize the weapon, but one reality was undeniably clear: the same blunder could not be repeated.
"Others will undoubtedly swarm the site again. There is no chance they missed what our scholars deciphered."
"Indeed, My Lord."
"Then deploy sufficient forces—no, deploy an overwhelming surplus of military might. When it comes to the dungeon, excess is far better than deficit."
"All right, repeat after me. Poong. San."
"Pong-ssan?"
"No, it's Poongsan."
"Poh-oong-san?"
Bennett was teaching his younger sister how to command their robot dog, Poongsan. While he could bring the quadruped along into future dungeons if necessary, for now, he intended to leave it by Bella's side as a dedicated bodyguard.
For her to handle the machine during his absences, she needed to memorize at least a handful of Earth Korean command phrases.
Unfortunately, the unit had no comprehension of the continent's Common Tongue.
Judging by its behavior, the machine would likely respond autonomously in an acute emergency, but Bennett disliked relying on such unpredictable variables.
"P-Poong-ssan."
"...Good enough."
"Bennett, you know there wasn't an ounce of sincerity in that, right?"
"I'm always sincere."
Tutoring his sister was proving to be a challenge. While Bennett had acquired foundational linguistic knowledge in a single stroke via the system's language pack, Bella had no such shortcut.
She had to learn from square one, and the alien phonetics were a persistent hurdle.
"Retreat. Hu-toe."
"Ho-twe!"
"Hoo, twe."
"Hoh-woo, tay!"
Bennett let out an involuntary sigh.
So this is how Marco felt.
It was exasperating, but there was no helping it. He had to see it through.
"Let's run a live test."
"A test?"
Having spent the better part of the day wrestling with unfamiliar pronunciation, Bella asked with a thoroughly drained expression. Bennett simply unfastened his sub-space pouch and summoned Poongsan.
The moment its power surged online, the quadrupedal robot swept its single optical sensor across the surroundings.
Spotting Bennett and Bella, it crept forward and lowered its chassis in a submissive posture. Balduin's repairs had clearly done wonders; the metallic grinding that had previously accompanied its every step was almost entirely gone.
"P-Protect! Boh-ho-woo!"
"It's Boh-ho."
"Boh-ho!"
Fixing its sensor on Bella, Poongsan cast a hesitant glance toward Bennett. When Bennett offered a slight nod, the machine bounded swiftly to her side.
It expanded its stance to maximum width, shifting into a high-vigilance defensive perimeter. Bella continued running through her vocabulary.
"Bite! Mool-eo!"
Though her pronunciation remained clumsy and accented after only a day of practice, Poongsan interpreted the commands surprisingly well. Even with roughly mangled syllables, the unit seemed to grasp the general intent.
"Keep practicing your pronunciation while I'm away."
"Fine, fine..."
Next, Bennett walked her through the operation of the fixed repeating crossbow mounted on Poongsan's back.
Fortunately, she picked this up much faster. While Bella could not wield Shooting Star with Bennett's lethal precision, she already understood the fundamentals of handling a crossbow. Although the mount was substantially larger, the mechanical principles were identical, making the lesson straightforward.
"These bolts have armor-piercing tips with substantial kinetic force," Bennett explained. "They carry enough penetrative power to punch through the defense of an ordinary mana practitioner."
"Whoa."
"Even an Elite Rank might find themselves caught off guard if they dismiss them as mere arrows."
It might have sounded like excessive detail, but Bennett held nothing back.
Since his sister was the one who would be operating it, she needed an exact understanding of its range, firepower, and tactical limitations.
"Just one last drill."
"...What now?"
The final step was the riding test.
Unfolding the auxiliary saddle fixed to Poongsan's chassis, Bella climbed aboard—whereupon the machine began tearing across the estate's courtyard like a hound possessed.
"Aaaah! Bennett! Help!"
Watching his sister scream at the top of her lungs for the first time in years brought a strange warmth to Bennett's chest, though he kept his expression perfectly flat.
"Get used to the velocity! In the worst-case scenario, you'll have to fire the crossbow while retreating at full gallop!"
"Aaaaargh!"
When the brisk thirty-minute maneuver drill finally concluded, Bella looked utterly soul-crushed.
"I think... my soul just left my body..."
"That's a normal physiological reaction."
"No, it's not?!"
"Completely normal."
As Bennett clicked a freshly charged battery pack into the robot's compartment, he suddenly froze.
"Bennett?"
"...Someone is here."
Aware of how sharp her brother's senses were, Bella gasped and whipped around.
"Should I get ready to run?"
"No, not yet."
His Detection skill picked up only a single signature outside. For now, there was no trace of hostility or bloodlust.
Having allocated the eleven stat points he had accumulated, Bennett flexed his fingers and strode toward the entrance.
Knock, knock, knock!
The quiet rapping ceased as the visitor evidently sensed Bennett's presence approaching from behind the wood.
"Who is it?"
"Are you Sir Bennett?"
Bennett's brow furrowed.
He knows me?
The circle of people Bennett knew in the Dungeon City was exceedingly narrow—essentially limited to Balduin and his party members. If pushed, he could add professional contacts like Walker to the tally, but none of them were close enough to show up unannounced at his private residence.
Gripping the handle of Shooting Star beneath his coat, Bennett pulled the door open.
Standing on the porch was an oddly familiar middle-aged man, looking nervous and deeply uncomfortable.
"I-It has been a while. My name is—"
"York, wasn't it?"
Recalling the man's identity, Bennett cut him off. York's eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
"You... you remember my name?"
"I remember you because you're a rare case, York."
"...Pardon?"
"You crossed me and lived to tell the tale."
"Gasp."
Every once in a blue moon, there were men like him—those who got off on the wrong foot yet somehow managed to slip through the jaws of death by an uncanny stroke of fortune. Considering that virtually every hostile party Bennett had ever encountered ended up dead or met an equivalent fate, York was an exceptional anomaly.
"It's been some time," Bennett said evenly. "What brought you here?"
"..."
York stood petrified until Bennett snapped his fingers right in front of the man's nose, jarring him back to reality.
"O-Our priest wishes to speak with you, Sir Bennett."
"...A priest?"
As Bennett tilted his head, his gaze drifted downward toward York's clenched fist. Catching sight of the animated lip brand etched into the skin, Bennett instantly pieced the puzzle together.
York hastily threw both hands into the air.
"I harbor absolutely no ill intent toward you, Sir Bennett! To be honest, I argued against getting involved with you at all, but that lunatic priest insisted it was the will of 'That Person' and commanded me to bring you in!"
"That Person?"
"T-The one who bestowed greater power upon me! Simply put, a god, like the ones worshipped by the churches or those bastards in the Holy Alliance! Except... except this one hails from another world!"
So it's connected to that brand.
After eliminating the swordsman who had ambushed him back then, Bennett had discovered a lip-shaped tattoo on his own flesh and used his Psionic Energy to scrub it away. It seemed this 'That Person' York spoke of had taken notice of his existence precisely because of that act.
"Lead the way."
"Y-Yes, right away! It isn't far from here."
Though Bennett did not comment on it, York guided him through the alleys with a deference far exceeding the respect he showed his own cult's priest.
Before long, they arrived in front of an unassuming private home.
"The priest instructed me to bring you to his personal quarters..."
Stepping ahead, York tapped on the door. Perhaps under the crushing weight of Bennett's presence, the knock sounded unusually desperate.
"Father, I have brought Sir Bennett."
An otherworldly aura drew near from within, and the door swung open.
Standing on the threshold was a young man in casual civilian attire. On the surface, nothing about him appeared out of the ordinary. Yet sweeping him with Detection, Bennett knew better.
The man was anything but normal.
"I am Syd, a priest in service of 'That Person.'"
"Bennett."
"Please, step inside so we may converse in peace."
Bennett gave a slight nod and crossed the threshold. The ever-deferential York moved to follow behind—
"Brother York."
Syd raised a hand, halting him in his tracks.
"It would be best for you to return home now."
"Pardon? But—"
"It is the will of 'That Person.'"
"...Understood."
The interior was just an ordinary dwelling.
Unlike Ra'al's sanctum, there were no grotesque statues or bizarre ritual traps waiting to be sprung.
Bennett sat down across from Syd.
"The reason you were summoned here today is entirely the will of 'That Person,' whom I serve," Syd began. "I understand you slew one of our faithful within the dungeon?"
Bennett simply nodded. He saw no reason to offer excuses or defend himself. He had not survived a decade as a mercenary by sparing people who drew steel against him.
"I am also told you erased the divine brand. It appears that feat piqued the interest of 'That Person.' He desires to share a brief word with you."
"A conversation... with a god?"
"Would you be open to it?"
Converse Directly with 'That Person'
🎁 Reward: 50 EXP
☠ Penalty on Failure: ??
Judging by the modest experience payout, the interaction did not appear immediately perilous. After a moment of calculated contemplation, Bennett gave his assent.
Unlike his encounter with Ra'al, this situation was vastly different, and his curiosity was undeniably stoked.
"I'll hear what he has to say."
"Then give me a moment."
Placing both hands over his abdomen, Syd shut his eyes. Almost instantly, a bizarre, alien presence began to bloom from within him.
Bennett's eyes naturally drifted to the priest's midsection.
Beneath the naval lay a tiny, condensed core—an energy signature reminiscent of the fragment embedded inside Ra'al's stone effigy.
Huuung.
Light bled from Syd's stomach, coalescing into a thick, misty vapor that gradually assumed a humanoid shape.
Though vaguely human in silhouette, its proportions were grotesquely distorted.
Its arms stretched down past its knees, and what appeared to be its neck bent at an impossible, unnatural angle.
As the meditating Syd let his head slump forward, the apparition jerked its own crooked neck upward.
—It truly is you.
Faced with the sudden, disembodied utterance, Bennett responded flatly.
"What is?"
—The mortal who dealt that wretch Ra'al his humiliation. Everyone in the void has been whispering in curiosity, yet I am the first to lay eyes on you.
A faint, echoing sound resembling an uncanny chuckle vibrated through the air.
—I have a question. Will you answer it?
"...I'll listen first."
—How did you erase my brand? It is not an imprint that should yield so easily to mortal means.
It was actually pretty easy, Bennett thought, though he kept the comment to himself.
—And that unidentifiable force of yours... it stands entirely antithetical to mana. Where did you obtain such power?
"..."
Bennett maintained his silence, this time because he genuinely had no answer to give.
He had ended up wielding this Psionic Energy by pure happenstance, but he knew virtually nothing about its true origins. He had formed his own working theories, but he had no way of confirming whether they held any truth. His conjectures could just as easily be entirely wrong.
—Hmph. Unwilling to share, are we?
Fortunately, the entity did not press the issue.
—No matter. That was not my true purpose in calling you here. I brought you before me to present an offer.
"An offer?"
—I have observed the currents of fate closely. You are destined to cross paths with Ra'al in the near future.
Bennett's eyes narrowed.
The currents? Ra'al?
To an untrained ear, it sounded as though the being was claiming to possess clairvoyance.
"...Are you referring to another of his cultists?"
—No.
The entity whom the priest revered as 'That Person' stated with absolute certainty:
—I speak of Ra'al's true body.
"..."
—It is not imminent, but make no mistake: the convergence draws near.