The Guild's headquarters — the Pantheon.
Even at this late hour, the building blazed with light.
The main hall was a roar of noise. Adventurers fresh from the Dungeon queued in long lines to exchange Magic Stones or turn in the Guild's commissioned subjugation quests.
The metallic clatter of coins and the din of haggling drifted from the counters in a constant hum.
Magic Stone exchange was, after all, the beating economic heart of this city. Everyone orbited that system whether they liked it or not.
Haimer didn't spot the half-elf at any of the usual inquiry counters.
He moved to a window where the foot traffic was thinner.
Behind the counter sat a young human girl with pink hair. A Guild employee — Misha Floret. At the sound of his approach she looked up, eyes widening slightly.
"C-can I help you with something today?"
"Is Miss Eina available?"
"Eina?" Misha blinked, then quickly gestured toward a corridor branching off to the side. "She's in the VIP room down that way, working through files for one of the major Familias…"
"Thanks." Haimer left it at that and turned away.
He followed the direction Misha had indicated.
It was a different world entirely from the chaos outside. The VIP wing was laid with soft crimson carpet, and incense drifted in the air with a faint, calming fragrance.
Because of the late hour, most of the reception windows had been shuttered, their heavy dividing curtains drawn. Only the innermost semicircular counter still had a light burning — a high-wattage Magic Stone lamp casting a bright pool across the workspace.
A figure was perched on a tall stool within that glow.
A thick stack of folders sat piled at her elbow.
At the sound of the door, the figure bent over her writing paused. The pointed ears half-hidden beneath her short brown hair gave a sharp, instinctive twitch.
"Welcome, this is the VIP—"
Her clear, pleasant voice had barely carried two words into the quiet room before it cut off.
She raised her head.
Took in the tall, lean silhouette standing at the far end of the crimson carpet.
Eina's eyes — bright as emeralds, clear as polished gemstones — went wide in an instant, Haimer's reflection caught in their depths.
"H-Haimer-sama?"
Eina all but vaulted off the tall stool.
A flicker of flustered panic crossed her fair face. She hastily straightened her uniform, then came hurrying around from behind the counter.
The Guild's regulation black vest — utterly devoid of any flattering shape — paired with a white long-sleeved shirt. On most people, the combination would have been unremarkably plain. On Eina, it did absolutely nothing to conceal her tall, well-proportioned figure, and somehow only made her natural air of quiet intelligence stand out more.
But right now, Haimer noticed something else.
Dark circles. Pronounced ones, smudged beneath both of Eina's eyes. And several strands of her usually impeccable shoulder-length brown hair had come loose from their careful arrangement, clinging lightly to her cheek with the weight of exhaustion.
It was, unmistakably, the look of someone running on severely too little sleep.
———
"Good evening, Miss Eina," Haimer said, coming to a stop and offering an easy greeting.
His gaze passed briefly over the obvious shadows under her eyes. "You still haven't been getting proper rest, have you? Guild business is still running you ragged, I see."
"I'm… I'm doing alright, really…"
Having her exhaustion called out so directly, Eina's cheeks flushed pink at once.
She lifted her right hand and tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ear — a small, automatic gesture to hide how flustered she was.
"Actually, thanks to you, Haimer-sama, Guild Master Royman transferred most of my miscellaneous duties to other staff the day before yesterday."
"My dedicated role at the Guild now is to handle all affairs related to your Familia. I don't have to deal with all the small, scattered tasks I used to manage before."
"It's just that I felt there were some files on the latest developments in the Dungeon's middle floors that I hadn't finished sorting through yet."
"Your Familia members are leveling up so quickly — I knew they'd need the more detailed information on the deeper levels before long. I didn't want to fall behind, so I stayed to get it done myself…" Eina explained quietly, her gaze drifting toward Haimer for just a moment before dropping away again.
Haimer gave a mild, helpless shake of his head.
"There's no need to push yourself this hard, Miss Eina." He paused. "I'd rather not see you collapse from overwork. That would be losing more than you gain."
"And I have no interest in watching you drive yourself into the ground at a Guild desk."
"Understood! Haimer-sama!"
Eina nodded at once, then pressed both palms firmly against her own cheeks, physically bracing herself back to attention. She pulled herself into the posture of a dedicated advisor and got straight to the point.
"Right — you've come this late, so there must be something important you need to take care of?"
"Whatever it is, I'm ready to assist you at any time."
As the dedicated liaison, Eina slipped into professional mode quickly. Watching her work so hard to maintain her composed, diligent image, Haimer gave another small, quiet shake of his head.
"I'm here to see your Guild Master."
"Guild Master Royman — is he still in the building?"
Hearing that Haimer was asking for the Guild Master by name, Eina blinked — then nodded quickly.
"Yes, he is. Given certain recent developments that triggered a chain of reactions among several major Familias in the city, Guild Master Royman has been working late tonight as well, auditing the Familia tax records from recent weeks. He's in the executive office at the far end of the second floor corridor."
"Shall I escort you up, Haimer-sama?"
"No need, Miss Eina. I'll find my way." He glanced at her. "Take a break for a bit."
———
And so, Haimer made his way to the second floor.
Royman Mardeel's office.
The moment Haimer stated his purpose, Royman didn't dare ask a single unnecessary question. He personally seized the key and broke into a near-trot, leading the way.
He guided Haimer through the Guild headquarters' labyrinthine network of concealed internal passages.
Down, and further down.
Ten minutes later.
They stopped before an enormous stone door.
"Haimer-sama, Ouranos-sama is inside."
Royman stood with his back bent, forehead beaded with sweat, voice carefully deferential.
Haimer paid him no attention.
He stepped forward.
And pushed open the heavy stone door.
— A deep, grinding rumble echoed through the stone.
A chill breath from somewhere far underground swept outward to meet him.
Inside the dim subterranean altar, torchlight flickered against the tall stone pillars.
The ancient deity who had spent untold ages seated at the heart of this altar, holding the Dungeon in check with his Divine Might.
— Ouranos.
He slowly opened his eyes — fathomless, without bottom.
His gaze passed through the firelight and settled on Haimer as he walked through the stone door.
"You've come, Haimer." His voice was unhurried. "I trust this isn't a social call over something trivial."
"Now that is an honest thing to say." Haimer nodded.
"The materials you people sent over were thorough enough, I'll give you that. Monster compendium, drop items, ore-vein distribution — all very complete."
"But."
"I went through every last page of that pile you sent."
"And I didn't find so much as half a word about the Xenos."
"Where did you hear that term?"
"Where I heard it doesn't matter." Haimer spread his hands.
"What matters is that my Familia had some decent luck wandering around the Dungeon today."
"They didn't just hear the word."
"They also happened to pick up some rather interesting trade talk along the way."
"Someone has been treating these sentient monsters as merchandise — catching them and selling them on."
"The hunting ground is somewhere around the eighteenth floor."
"And the ones doing the dirty work are men in transparent goggles."
"Ikelos Familia."
"Well then."
"Old man — you've been sitting down here all day burning Divine Might to watch over this Dungeon. Don't tell me your eyes have gotten so cloudy you can't even see the rats coming and going through the alleys of Daedalus Street."
"This is not something you should involve yourself in, Haimer."
After a long pause, Ouranos finally spoke, his voice low and heavy.
"Since you already know of their existence, you should also understand why the Guild has chosen to keep them hidden."
"Whether it concerns the Xenos, or the quiet operations of Ikelos Familia — the Guild has its own reasoning."
"Orario's current situation is like a city built on top of a volcano."
"There are balances that, once broken, will produce consequences neither you nor I can afford."
"The fact that those Xenos can avoid adventurer subjugation parties and maintain a refuge somewhere deep in the Dungeon — that is already the best possible outcome we have managed to walk out of along the edge of that cliff!"
"If you go and blow this up right now—"
"They will face far more complete destruction than they do now!"
Faced with Ouranos's appeal to the grand scheme of things, Haimer raised an eyebrow.
"Balance?"
"And what exactly is your balance?"
"Standing by and watching a handful of creatures with unusual horns, capable of speech, who look up at the surface sun with longing — getting clapped in reeking iron chains by a pack of smugglers."
"Dragged out of Orario to satisfy the depraved fetishes of some degenerate nobles."
"And then you — the puppet master running this whole city from the shadows — sit comfortably in this lightless little shrine, consoling yourself with the thought: 'It's fine. A few had to be sacrificed, but the majority are safe'?"
"Ouranos."
"A thousand years ago."
"When you decided to leave the Heavens and come down to the Lower World, to build this labyrinth city on this land — did you throw your dignity as a god into the sewer along with the rest of the garbage you didn't want?"
"You sustain your stability by turning a blind eye while a pack of lowlife scum run a trafficking operation right under your nose."
"If that is your method of governance, then I can only say — the longer you've lived, the more pathetic you've become."
"Even if everything you've said is true — even if you've stripped the current order down to nothing."
"Provocation tactics won't work on me, Haimer."
"You don't understand the scale of the powder keg sitting underneath all of this. The reason this city has flourished to where it stands today — the reason it has managed to gather so many races who can't stand each other — is that its deepest foundation is a single shared cause: every person above ground united in the conviction that the monsters pouring out of the Dungeon are an enemy to be utterly annihilated."
"That conviction has been carved into the bones of the surface-dwellers for millennia. It is the faith they live by."
"If you act on impulse and go muddying those waters — letting that belief, built on the blood and tears of countless adventurers across thousands of years, develop cracks…"
"That would not be salvation for the Xenos. It would be the opposite."
"So the Xenos who are being captured — as far as you're concerned, they are simply the necessary sacrifices that must be paid to maintain this teetering balance?"
"Don't make cowardice sound so noble, old man."
"..."
The words landed.
Ouranos fell silent.
But the next voice to break that silence was not his.
"As an outsider who hasn't even made it into the Dungeon more than a handful of times — who has been in this city for less than half a year—"
"What gives you the right to stand here and lecture us on what we've been doing?"
The robed figure that had been crouched in the shadow of the thick stone pillar at the base of the high platform finally could hold back no longer.
She emerged from the darkness with a rapid step, her voice carrying the tremor of something long suppressed erupting all at once.
Fels.
The Sage — the one who had once pushed the art of mystery to its ultimate limit and successfully created the Philosopher's Stone. Who now survived with nothing more than a skeleton's frame beneath a wide black robe.
Even so, the bones beneath that robe were visibly trembling with barely contained fury.
How could she not be furious?
Over the past decade and more, she had descended day after day into the peril of the Dungeon — defying Guild regulations, guarding against the eyes and ears of every major Familia, risking being cut down without mercy like any ordinary monster — just to make contact and communicate with the Xenos.
It was she who had spent every ounce of her resources and ingenuity, exhausting herself beyond measure, to carve out that pitifully small sliver of survival space for those creatures in the cracks between the great powers.
Every inch of this situation had been purchased with her life, walking on ice thin enough to crack with every step.
And now a god who had been in the Lower World less than half a year — who had barely finished settling in his own Familia's base — was dismissing more than a decade of her painstaking work with a few offhand words. Reducing it all to worthless cowardice.
It was easy to offer criticism from the outside looking in.
As far as Fels was concerned — no matter how great a name this person might have had in the Heavens — until you had experienced firsthand the despair of being pushed out by the entire world's common sense, you had no right to judge what they were doing now.
"Do you think we actually want to stand there watching them get taken?!"
"You have no idea what kind of powder keg would ignite if we forcibly moved against Ikelos Familia and exposed the existence of the Xenos to the public — it would only make them die faster!"
Fels's black-gloved hands clenched into fists, as though she intended to pour out every word she'd bottled up inside. "And even if you really—"
"Fels!"
Before Fels could hurl the second, sharper half of what she had to say at Haimer, a voice cut through everything.
From atop the high platform.
Ouranos's voice cracked out like a muffled thunderclap, severing Fels's words cleanly.
The reprimand came so fast and so sharply.
That the foot Fels had been about to step forward with froze in mid-air.
Her whole body went rigid.
Her hood tilted slightly upward — as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing — toward her god above.
Ouranos offered no explanation whatsoever. He simply held her with those fathomless eyes from above.
And so.
In the end.
Under Ouranos's silent pressure, Fels conceded.
The arm she'd held clenched into a fist lowered, going slack.
She had no choice but to seal her mouth shut.
With a reluctant half-step backward, she let her body melt once more into the shadow behind the pillar, beyond the reach of the firelight.
Silence settled back over the altar. Only the faint crackling of torches remained.
And so.
Having weighed the disasters that could unfold.
Ouranos ultimately chose to yield.
"What exactly do you want?"
Ouranos asked.
"Simple."
"I want to meet the Xenos being hidden in the Dungeon myself."
"Don't bother making excuses about the Dungeon rejecting gods, or how dangerous it is."
"I'm not demanding they trust me immediately. But I need to see for myself whether these creatures, hiding in the dark and managing to attract my children's attention, are worth reaching out a hand to."
Arranging for a god to personally make contact with the Xenos?
Hearing that demand, Ouranos's eyebrow gave an unmistakable twitch.
But he held his tongue and chose to hear the rest.
"Additionally—"
"I want your authority within the Guild. The power to issue directives in the Guild's name."
After those words fell, the shoulders of Ouranos — who had remained as immovable as a mountain in his stone seat — finally rose and fell in a single visible breath.
"Haimer."
"Are you truly not concerned about pushing things to a point of no return?"
"Your children still have to live in Orario, you know."
Haimer was unmoved.
"Of course. What needs to be done, how far to take it — I know exactly where my limits are."
"Besides."
"The game of checks and balances — you should be no stranger to it, from your time in the Heavens."
"The Guild authority I'm asking for is simply an official shell I can use at any moment to knock on the heads of those restless troublemakers on the surface of this labyrinth city."
"The people of the Lower World don't know me at all right now. But they all know you are the one who truly holds the reins at the Guild."[GT_PBREAK]"As for handling whatever the other gods get up to in the shadows, once I'm acting in the Guild's name — I have my own ways of dealing with that."
"So long as they have no desire to end their long-awaited playtime in the Lower World this soon, they'll naturally choose to turn a blind eye to everything."
Hearing this.
Ouranos stared down at Haimer with a fixed, unblinking gaze.
He sank into an extraordinarily long silence.
How could he not understand what Haimer was saying?
This was a plan to use the Guild as a shell, to openly put pressure on the patron gods standing behind every Familia — and in doing so, forcibly seize the initiative across all of Orario and hold it in his own hands.
If he agreed to this, the downside was obvious.
The moment he handed over the key of Guild authority to Haimer, his own position as the power behind the Guild would be stripped out to the maximum degree.
In the eyes of every god in Orario, it would be tantamount to announcing that he, Ouranos, had fallen entirely into Haimer's camp — that he had become his accomplice.
This was a complete and utter act of political hostage-taking.
But there was no road back.
Because he had no other path left to choose.
He had been caught.
The existence of the Xenos had been traced and seized upon by Haimer, following the thread all the way to its source.
He had spent over a thousand years carefully building Orario.
And those Xenos — surviving on borrowed time in the cracks of the Dungeon — had been living in fear for over a decade.
The signs of collapse in this order that had appeared so stable were now beyond all suppression — every one of them laid bare.
Whether he agreed or not, Haimer would proceed in his own way and clear aside every obstacle himself.
He had no choice.
"Fine."
And so.
After a very long silence.
Ouranos's slow, heavy voice rolled through the wide underground altar.
A concession representing the total collapse of every last line he'd held.
Even Fels, standing in the shadow, gave an involuntary, violent start — though there was nothing she could do.
"I will have Fels take you to meet the Xenos."
"The time — let's say tomorrow."
Hearing Ouranos make the decision that cleanly, Haimer found his opinion of the old man rising by a notch.
At least he hadn't calcified into something beyond all hope.
"I have some business of my own to see to during the day tomorrow."
"Tomorrow night will do."
———
And with that, everything was arranged.
When Haimer walked out of the Guild headquarters building, the night outside had deepened further still.
The Guild's main hall — which had been a roar of noise earlier — had gone noticeably quiet with the late hour.
The foot traffic on the streets had thinned out considerably as well, fewer pedestrians than when he'd arrived.
Most of the weapon shops and item stores had already gone dark.
Only from the pleasure quarter in the distance, and from the direction of South Main Street, did occasional waves of raucous noise still carry through the night — adventurers spending freely from the day's haul.
Haimer walked alone along one side of the street.
The warm amber glow of the Magic Stone lamps stretched his shadow long behind him.
Things had moved more smoothly than he'd anticipated.
With the Guild — the official authority of the labyrinth city — now behind him,
whatever came next, whether it was clearing out the sewer rats of Ikelos Familia, or delivering a firm knock on the heads of those idle troublemakers at the coming Divine Banquet — all of it would now carry the weight of legitimacy.
And at least his more drastic moves wouldn't bring any unnecessary worry down on the heads of the younger ones in his Familia.
He himself didn't care what the world thought — he could cut through anyone who stood in his way without a second thought.
But those girls would still want to make friends in this labyrinth city. To slowly grow accustomed to living the kind of lives that people here were meant to have.
His thoughts settled there.
Haimer got his bearings, quickened his pace through a few intersections, and headed in the direction of West Main Street.
When he thought about the timing — he'd been delayed at home for a while, and then spent all this time going back and forth with Ouranos at the Guild.
By now.
The lavish dinner that Hephaestus was treating everyone to was probably winding down.
And so, before long, Haimer cut through a few quiet alleyways.
The tavern hanging the sign of [The Benevolent Mistress] came into view at the end of the street.
Unlike the quiet stillness elsewhere in the city, even as the hour pressed toward midnight, the atmosphere inside was at its most lively of the entire day.
The dull thud of wooden cups knocking together, the rough, booming laughter of adventurers — all of it blended into a rolling, boisterous tide.
Even from a good distance away, you could still hear the bold, uninhibited crash of cup against cup spilling out into the night.
…
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Arknights Endfield: Picked Up a Gugugaga
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