At those words, Haimer — who had just begun to turn away — stopped.
His gaze settled on Inaba Tsukuyo's delicate face.
"The Dungeon is a gathering ground for Orario's adventurers. Running into another Familia's party is perfectly normal."
"But since you're bringing this up right now, Tsukuyo, that tells me it wasn't ordinary at all." He paused. "What happened? Did they give you trouble?"
Haimer's tone remained as calm as ever.
But when he said those words, the air in the hall seemed to drop several degrees.
"Nothing like that," Inaba Tsukuyo said, shaking her head. "The one leading them was very strong — Lv. 4 at least, probably higher."
"But their god seemed deeply wary of Kami-sama's name. The moment they saw us, they gave us a wide berth and walked away. No confrontation."
"Though…"
Inaba Tsukuyo paused.
"Once they'd gone far enough, I caught them talking quietly among themselves."
"They said they were looking to capture some monsters — ones that had kept their reason."
"And on top of that — they mentioned they were already running a business. Buying and selling monsters."
At that, Haimer considered for a moment.
He had already pieced together the key detail, and asked almost offhandedly:
"The one leading them."
"Did he wear a pair of semi-transparent smoky-crystal goggles — upper half of his face hidden — and carry a spear that gave off a dark-red aura?"
Hearing their god say this, Onigawara Rin instantly replayed the figure she'd brushed past in the corridor, and gave a firm nod.
"Yes."
"And it wasn't just the spear — that guy had this deeply unpleasant bloodlust rolling off him. Even with it deliberately reined in, you could tell right away he was the type who lived for killing."
Onigawara Rin added.
At that, Haimer simply said a name.
"The captain of [Ikelos Familia]. Dix Perdix."
"If nothing has gone sideways, then the group you ran into was almost certainly them."
That landed like a stone in still water.
Now it was the girls' turn to stare in disbelief.
They had only just returned from the depths of the Dungeon's nineteenth floor — even without lingering on the way back, this had happened not long ago at all.
As for the man leading that group, all they had given was a brief, offhand description of a few physical details.
And yet.
Their god had not only named the man's most distinctive features exactly — he had also rattled off the man's name, his Familia, and his rank as captain, all without a moment's hesitation.
"Kami-sama."
"Did you already know who those people were?"
Kikakujou Mary stared at her god with wide, water-blue eyes, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and awe.
"I've just heard the occasional rumor, here and there," Haimer said evenly.
"What I didn't expect was that you'd manage to stumble right into them."
"And in the process, quietly dig up everything they'd been trying so hard to keep buried."
"Though thinking about it — it makes sense."
His gaze shifted to Inaba Tsukuyo, standing quietly to one side.
"With Tsukuyo's hearing that defies all logic — layered on top of the Developmental Ability [Mind's Eye] she's already awakened —"
"There isn't another soul in all of Orario, aside from us, who could ever imagine that someone could stand more than a hundred meters away and catch every word of a conversation being deliberately kept to a whisper."
Called out and praised by her own god, directly, in front of everyone — Inaba Tsukuyo's cheeks flushed with a faint, soft pink.
The hand that had been resting on the hilt of her famous blade [White Heron] lost its certainty. Flustered, she tucked her hands back into the wide sleeves of her miko robe.
"Kami-sama flatters me…"
"I only happened to hear it. They'd gone far enough that they thought no one was around, so their guard had dropped considerably."
Inaba Tsukuyo said quietly.
Then — as if something she'd overheard in that corridor had just come back to her — she pressed her lips together and finally couldn't stop herself from asking.
"But, Kami-sama."
"About what those people mentioned —"
"Do monsters with genuine reason actually exist inside the Dungeon?"
"From the way you reacted — did you already know about this?"
As Inaba Tsukuyo put that central question back on the table, everyone else in the hall — including Amou Kirukiru and Tendou Kisara — turned their eyes in unison toward their god.
Because this shattered everything they had come to accept as common sense since arriving in Orario.
By their current understanding —
Monsters in the Dungeon were simply that: creatures born from the labyrinth walls, carrying no thoughts beyond pure killing instinct, existing only to attack any adventurer they encountered.
Kill. Harvest Magic Stones.
That was the basic operating logic of every Dungeon monster.
Haimer, however, answered with a question that seemed to come from nowhere.
"Do you remember that morning, when the Guild master came to us personally to deliver something?"
"Could it be…"
Nomura Satori, who had been listening in silence, was quick on the uptake.
"The Guild — those people at the top who actually govern Orario — they've known about these reasoning monsters all along?"
"They have, to some degree," Haimer said, nodding.
"However."
Haimer's tone shifted.
"At present, within all of Orario — including the Guild itself — the number of people who are aware is vanishingly small."
"Every trace of intelligence regarding their existence has been suppressed entirely by Ouranos, the founder of the Guild, from the underground altar."
"It has been classified as the highest-order secret — one that could ignite Orario into chaos at any moment."
"And as for these peculiar monsters — born in defiance of everything the labyrinth is supposed to be —"
"They share a common name."
"They are called [Xenos]."
"Xenos?"
"Yes. Xenos."
Haimer gave a nod.
"Not only do they possess the same level of intelligence as any surface-dweller."
"The more highly evolved among them can even speak the languages of the surface, wield weapons and equipment, and communicate with surface-dwellers completely and without any barrier. Every emotion a surface-dweller can feel — they feel it too."
"Even those at a somewhat lower stage of evolution —"
"Even if their monster-built bodies cannot produce the sounds of surface speech, they can still understand most of what surface-dwellers say, and think on it."
"You could call them a third race — one that straddles the boundary between surface-dwellers and monsters, those two eternal enemies."
When Haimer finished speaking, an unsettled disbelief settled over the girls.
They could speak.
They could use weapons and equipment.
They could even think.
This wasn't a monster at all — it was a new sub-race wearing a monster's skin.
Hearing this —
The Holy Emperor, in her pale dress, had already taken an involuntary step forward.
An extraordinarily complex emotion flickered through those faint-violet eyes.
Because — as someone who had once ruled the Tokyo Area in another world, and spent every single day wrestling with the unresolvable tension between humanity and the Cursed Children — she carried the instinct of a leader who could not help but think in terms of society.
The Holy Emperor opened her mouth, her voice slightly hesitant, but threaded through with a stubborn determination to press all the way to the bottom of it.
"If they possess reason — if they can even communicate with surface-dwellers normally, and carry every trait of a sapient being —"
"And if the Guild, and the Guild's creator, Ouranos-sama, have already known about them for some time —"
"Then why must they continue to hide, tucked away in a Dungeon that never sees the light of day?"
The Holy Emperor's hands were clasped tightly together in front of her.
"Why can't their existence simply be made public?"
"Draw up new laws, or declare their special status."
"Let them live on the surface like the elves and beast-people and other sub-races — normally, openly."
Why couldn't coexistence be possible — even now?
Why, when faced with something different, couldn't people simply talk and let the prejudice go?
It was not only a question about the Xenos' circumstances.
It was the obsession she had carried throughout her entire life in her original world — the question she had chased for so long without ever finding a perfect answer.
And so, at this moment — having come to this world, standing now before a group of beings known as the [Xenos] — the Holy Emperor found herself instinctively layering them over the image of those displaced, homeless children from her original world.
But.
Hearing that question — guileless as it was — Haimer's voice came through.
"Holy Emperor."
"Do you know what the founding cornerstone of this labyrinth city — built above the Dungeon's entrance — actually is?"
Haimer held her gaze.
"For thousands of years —"
"Even before the gods descended to the Lower World — the monsters that poured out of the Dungeon were always the mortal enemies of all who lived on the surface."
"They tore through human towns, trampled the forests of the elves, devoured the parents and siblings and children of countless adventurers."
"That despair — the kind that nearly dragged the entire world into darkness —"
"Turned hatred of monsters into something primal. It has been carved into the bones of every race on this land, deep and permanent."
"Because of that, to the people here —"
"Any creature that wears a monster's face is prey to be traded for Magic Stones — an enemy to be cut down on sight."
"If someone were to go out now and tell the surface-dwellers there's a group of perfectly reasonable, well-meaning monsters in the Dungeon — tell them to put down their swords and open their arms?"
Haimer shook his head.
"That is a fantasy."
"From the very beginning of life — huddled around ancient fires in the age before memory — living things have held absolute hostility toward anything in the dark that did not belong to their own kind."
"That rejection instinct, hardwired into the genes for the sake of a group's survival — no matter how many millennia of civilization pass, it cannot be fully erased."
"The moment something's shape falls outside the boundary of 'self,' fear arrives before understanding ever can."
"And from fear, prejudice is born."
"And from prejudice, walls are raised that nothing can cross."
"So regardless of whether the Xenos down in the deep levels have reason or not — regardless of whether they can speak —"
"So long as they continue to be defined as monsters —"
"Without an unseen hand pressing things down —"
"Making their existence public would lead to only one of two outcomes."
"Either it throws Orario into immediate chaos, and every major Familia is forced to organize an expedition at once — driving into the Dungeon to exterminate every last one of the beings called Xenos without exception."
"Or Orario's Familias fracture into two factions — an acceptance faction and a rejection faction — and tear each other apart from within.
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Arknights Endfield: Picked Up a Gugugaga
Let's achieve our community goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 extra chapter for everybody