"If you've heard something you shouldn't have, the proper thing to do is die quietly — that's the rule Daddy taught me."
The childlike voice echoed between the cold, damp stone walls, carrying with it a chilling, guileless innocence.
Two small jet-black kodachi carved blinding silver afterimages through the air; the crimson light rippling along their edges stood out like open wounds in the dim corridor.
"Clang——!"
The clash of steel exploded without warning.
Dazzling sparks scattered in every direction through the tunnel of the sixteenth floor.
The muscles along Reed's arms swelled an entire size in an instant, the rough, hard scales covering his body straining to their absolute limit.
His greatsword was jammed in place — held barely three inches from his own throat.
Two short blades, each a fraction of the greatsword's size, were pressing down on the flat of its blade with merciless force.
Good gods, the strength in them.
Reed ground his teeth. His scale-covered feet gouged two deep furrows straight into the solid rock floor.
Using the recoil of the impact, he wrenched himself backward — only after more than ten metres did he manage to steady himself at last.
His gaze swept rapidly over the surrounding space, and Reed's breath caught.
Aihara Enju, twin tails swaying. Tendou Kisara, weight sunk low, fingers curled around her blade, already coiled like a spring — her iaijutsu's killing stance locked onto him in the faint glow of the fluorescent moss, absolute and immovable.
Onigawara Rin and Kikakujou Mary flanked him left and right, each gripping a gleaming longsword, every avenue of retreat along the stone walls sealed completely.
Amou Kirukiru stood further out at the perimeter, idly rolling her neck, a dangerous curve playing at the corner of her mouth.
Surrounded on all sides. Every escape route cut off.
These girls, who looked so slight, so human — the seamless coordination they had shown in a single exchange was countless times more lethal than the monsters of the deep floors who killed on instinct alone.
Reed had no doubt whatsoever: if he so much as twitched toward his sword again, the next second would see him cut to pieces without a shred of mercy.
"Wait! Wait a moment! Stand down!"
Reed made his decision in an instant, wrenching both hands from the hilt.
"Clang!"
The heavy greatsword crashed against the rock floor with a dull, resonant boom.
He thrust both hands high above his head, palms slicked with cold sweat turned outward and open, terrified of being even half a beat too slow.
"We're not enemies! I know who you are — I know Kami-sama Haimer! And Rei, too! Our people are at your base right now!"
The moment Reed's urgent shout faded, the killing intent that had been thickening into something almost solid seemed to stall for just an instant.
The girls exchanged a look.
Tendou Kisara's fingers slowly uncurled. The blade slid back into its sheath with a quiet whisper of steel.
Hiruko Kohina tilted her head to one side; the crimson light flickering in her eyes rapidly faded. With a deft flourish of both wrists she spun the twin kodachi in a clean arc and slotted them neatly back into the sheaths on her back.
"Lower your weapons."
Reed let out a long breath, turned his head, and growled the order back at the two companions who had been standing frozen with terror behind him.
Two more dull clangs followed in quick succession.
The weapons in the other two Variants' hands hit the floor as well.
Onigawara Rin slid her tachi fully home into its scabbard, eyes still sharp and fixed on the lizardman in front of her.
"You know Kami-sama?"
"Yes." Reed swallowed hard, steadying the violent hammering in his chest.
"Haimer-sama met with us just last night, and took Rei and Rania and the others up to the surface."
"I didn't expect it would actually be you."
"The blood-smell here is too thick — monsters will respawn soon."
Reed raised one arm and pointed toward a natural fissure in the rock wall behind them, half-hidden beneath a dense curtain of vines.
"Come to our camp first. Hisari is just ahead — it's safe."
And so it was.
Sixteenth Floor — Hidden Safe Zone: Hisari.
The glowing crystals clustered across the ceiling of the cave cast a soft, diffuse light that filled the enclosed underground space.
Reed leaned back against the rough stone wall, his expression complex as he watched the girls in the corners quietly cleaning their weapons and sorting their gear.
A woman with monstrous strength who could punch bare-handed clean through a monster's chest.
A red-eyed little girl whose speed outstripped anything the Dungeon could throw at her.
And a black-haired swordswoman who could draw and loose a sword-aura in the same breath, slicing a massive stalactite to rubble.
"Haimer Familia's children…" "They really are an unreasonably monstrous bunch."
Reed split his jaws in a wide grin — a mouth full of sharp teeth — and let out a low, rumbling sigh.
"Kami-sama has always taught us that in this brutal world, strength is the only currency that can defend everything worth keeping."
"We have received his salvation and his shelter. The least we can do is pour every last thing we have into becoming the sharpest blade in his hand — and cut down whatever stands in the way."
Tendou Kisara ran a clean white cloth carefully along the length of her blade, wiping away every trace of dust, then returned the sword to its sheath. The soft "click" rang out with particular clarity in the quiet cave.
She turned around and met Reed's gaze directly.
Reed opened his mouth. Something complicated passed over the lizardman face beneath its covering of hard red scales.
He reached up one clawed hand and scratched the back of his head, producing a rough, scraping rasp.
"Hard to argue with that."
Reed muttered the words quietly to himself, his gaze sweeping over the girls in the cave — young in appearance, yet formidably powerful each one. Then he turned, walked over to his two companions who were still standing in a daze, and clapped them on the shoulders to urge them to relax.
Onigawara Rin hooked a thumb under the guard of her tachi and let it rise a fraction, then came to a stop not far from Reed.
"Reed… -san?"
Onigawara Rin hesitated a moment before she spoke.
"Are there only the few of you Variants surviving in this area right now?"
Reed blinked, then shook his great snout of a head from side to side.
"No — not only us."
Reed raised one thick arm and pointed toward the depths of the tunnel.
"The three of us were only out here on patrol, checking whether we might find other Variants. We happened to overhear from some adventurers that you'd already entered the Dungeon to explore, so we came looking for you on our own initiative. The others are gathered in the safe zone on the twentieth floor — that's our main settlement at the moment."
He lowered his arm and looked at the girls before him.
"If you don't mind, I can take you there to have a look."
"Ever since Haimer-sama took Rei and the others away last night, everyone has been worried — and at the same time desperately hoping for news from the surface."
"If they see you, they'll be overjoyed."
"The twentieth floor…" Onigawara Rin glanced over at Amou Kirukiru and Kikakujou Mary.
"Perfect."
Amou Kirukiru twisted her wrists; her knuckles cracked twice.
"We can check on the way whether there are any monsters that might put up even a halfway decent fight."
"Since Haimer-sama chose to take them in as Familia, going to see them seems perfectly right."
Kikakujou Mary smoothed the creases from her hem with one hand and gave a nod of agreement.
"Then we'll trouble you to lead the way, Reed-san."
The Holy Emperor placed both hands folded neatly before her abdomen and dipped into a slight bow.
Reed hurriedly waved both hands and stepped back half a pace. Faced with the Familia of a god who had solved in a single night what they had been unable to resolve for decades, he found himself rather at a loss.
"No need to stand on ceremony — just follow me."
Reed turned, snatched up his greatsword from where it leaned against the wall, set his broad feet moving, and led the way with his two Variant companions at the front.
With that, the girls fell in behind Reed and the others and set off along the narrow natural tunnel, heading down toward the twentieth floor.
As they went, the glow of the fluorescent moss grew ever sparser, the light dimmer and dimmer.
They had barely crossed into the seventeenth floor when the sound of heavy footsteps came from around the bend ahead.
Two massive Minotaurs came charging forward.
Reed was already raising his greatsword to meet them.
Aihara Enju drove off her legs. Red pupils flashed bright in the darkness.
Her metal boots struck the ground and punched a crater into it; she launched herself off the impact, spinning once in midair, then brought her right leg swinging down with the full momentum of her descent — crashing straight onto the skull of the foremost Minotaur.
"Boom!"
The Minotaur's heavy skull caved and shattered on the spot, its enormous body driven flat to the ground — and dissolved into black ash.
The second Minotaur had only just begun to lift its stone axe.
Amou Kirukiru was already stepping in front of it.
She didn't so much as glance at the falling axe. She drew her right hand into a fist, the muscles of her arm pulled taut, and drove a straight punch squarely into the Minotaur's abdomen.
The fist punched clean through the Minotaur's chest and out the other side.
Amou Kirukiru withdrew her arm, and the monster crumbled with it.
From the moment of contact to the end of the fight — the entire exchange had not lasted five seconds.
Reed stood there with his greatsword raised mid-swing, staring at the two Magic Stones on the ground, then staring at the girls who had not so much as drawn a single extra breath. He swallowed.
…
He kept leading the way.
After several hours of travel, the party at last reached the depths of the twentieth floor.
Before a seemingly ordinary stretch of massive rock wall, Reed came to a stop.
He reached out and gripped several protruding stones along the surface; a firm pull, and a narrow passage opened up.
"This is a hidden path adventurers haven't discovered yet. Stay close behind me."
Reed called back over his shoulder to the girls, who nodded and filed in one after another behind him.
As they pressed deeper in, the view ahead suddenly opened wide.
——An enormous oval plaza.
Tiered ledges rose in rows around the perimeter.
Dozens of Variants of every conceivable shape were scattered across the various corners of the space.
At the centre, a bonfire burned.
The moment Reed led the girls in through the entrance —
The entire plaza fell silent in an instant.
Every last monster's gaze snapped immediately and in unison to this group of human girls.
Variants that had been lying on the ground asleep rolled upright at once, snatching weapons from their sides.
Gurosu beat his wings and surged to the front, his dark-yellow eyes locked hard onto Amou Kirukiru and Tendou Kisara and the others.
"Reed!" "Why have you brought these adventurers here?"
Gurosu's challenge rang out.
More and more Variants were converging, the encircling ring beginning to close.
The girls tensed in an instant.
"Everyone, weapons down — now!"
Seeing what was happening, Reed rushed to position himself between the two sides, both hands thrown up, and shouted toward his alarmed companions.
"They are not ordinary adventurers — they are Haimer-sama's Familia! The children of the god who came and took Rei and the others away last night!"
The moment Reed's voice rang out —
The wary movements of the Variants froze.
The memory of the previous night surfaced; Gurosu's expression went slightly rigid. He looked at Reed, then looked at the group of girls standing behind him.
"They are truly Familia of the god from last night?"
"Absolutely certain. They are that god's children."
"We found them in the tunnels on the sixteenth floor — they came to explore the Dungeon."
"If that is so — if they are Haimer-sama's Familia."
Gurosu swept a hand back toward the others in a gesture of signal.
One after another, weapons clattered to the ground.
The tension dissolved in an instant.
Several Variants hurried to the woodpile, grabbed tinder, and quickly kindled a large number of bonfires in the corners of the cavern.
The orange firelight rushed outward and lit the surrounding area bright.
Reed moved beside the central fire and spoke at length — recounting the events of the previous night, and the news he had just confirmed from these girls: that Rei and the others had already settled in at Haimer-sama's estate on the surface.
The Variants erupted in a wave of outcry and exclamation.
Because the Variants were so eager — falling over one another in their rush to ask Haimer Familia's girls about life on the surface — Reed and Gurosu, worried that a few of the more frightful-looking Variants might scare them, permitted only several of the half-human harpy girls, whose upper bodies were those of human women, to approach Onigawara Rin and the Holy Emperor and the others.
The harpy girls folded their wings away and gathered close around Onigawara Rin and the Holy Emperor.
"What does the wind feel like on the surface? Do you all go out together and walk the streets sometimes?"
"Is the sun on the surface really scorching like fire, warming you all the way through?"
The questions came one after another without pause.
The girls who had come to the Dungeon fully prepared for wholesale carnage now found themselves entirely at a loss, surrounded by a chattering flock of harpies who were extraordinarily curious about life above ground.
Hanasaka Warabi, perched on Kyoubou's back, rummaged frantically through her pockets and produced a handful of sweets from the surface, which she passed around among the harpies to share.
Just as the girls were managing the torrent of harpy questions —
The stone wall at the cavern entrance shifted again.
Everyone turned to look.
A figure stepped in from outside, swathed head to foot in a voluminous black cloak, the heavy black fabric nearly brushing the floor.
——It was the Guild's "Sage."
——Ouranos's emissary, Fels.
Fels reached up one black-gloved hand and pushed back the hood draped over its head.
"Whoa — a skeleton that walks."
Aihara Enju and Hiruko Kohina had by now grown reasonably accustomed to the horrifying creatures of the Dungeon; they gave a startled jump at the sight of Fels, then leaned in a little closer with undisguised curiosity, craning their necks to peer at the skull.
Fels made no reaction whatsoever.
It simply reached a hand into the wide folds of its black robe and drew out a transparent crystal sphere that pulsed with a faint blue glow.
"Reed. Gurosu."
"I bring good news."
"This is a specially enchanted speaking-orb. The other one has already been given to Rei and the others."
"Through this, you can speak briefly with Rei and the others up on the surface."
The moment Fels finished that sentence, the entire cavern erupted.
Reed stepped forward quickly, and with careful hands accepted the softly glowing crystal sphere from Fels.
A few seconds passed.
A faint hiss of static crackled from within the orb; then its surface began to brighten gradually.
A familiar voice followed.
"Hello? Is that Fels-sama?"
____
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🔥 New history: Jujutsu x Mieruko: Oh no, am I a villain too?
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