One second passed.
Two seconds passed.
Three seconds passed.
The support team slowly lowered their arms and lifted their heads, looking toward the green horizon in the distance.
Whoosh...
The next moment, a violent shockwave carrying a deafening roar swept over every single one of them.
"Holy shit!"
"Damn!"
"What the hell is that!?"
Their cloaks and clothing snapped wildly in the sudden blast. The women's long hair was instantly whipped into disarray.
Riveria tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ear, narrowed her eyes, and stared at the massive mushroom cloud rising from the dense forest ahead. Her heart tightened.
Is it him? Probably not. I'm familiar with his Fireball. Among quick-cast spells, its power is considerable, but compared to wide-area annihilation magic with long or ultra-long Chanting, it's simply not on the same level.
If it wasn't him, then what caused this explosion?
Could it be that besides us and Evilus, a third party has stepped in?
The thought made Riveria's expression sharpen.
"Something's wrong. Pick up the pace!"
"Understood!"
At the elf royal's signal as temporary commander, the support team broke into a sprint.
"Heith, is your body holding up? Your stamina and mental strength should already..."
"I'm fine!"
Before Riveria could finish, Heith cut her off in a firm tone.
"If you can't keep going, tell me the moment it happens."
Heith pressed her lips together and silently fell in behind the rest of the group.
...
Inside Jeanne's barrier.
Having witnessed the ultra-long-charged flame "nuclear blast" from front-row seats, Leon and the other two were a little stunned themselves.
Jeanne and Rose stood there blank-eyed, their minds completely stalled.
It took a long moment before the billowing dust choked them enough that the suffocating sensation snapped them back to their senses.
"Leon... next time... could you not cause such a huge commotion?!"
Still shaken, Rose made the suggestion in a measured tone.
Leon just raised an eyebrow and gave Rose a sidelong look, unapologetic.
Seeing him like that, Jeanne let out a helpless sigh, propped one hand on her hip, and dismissed the barrier.
"The entire forest has been turned to scorched earth, and the ground's been blasted into a crater this deep..."
She swept her gaze over the devastation around them and said softly:
"I remember you said that once the Dungeon takes damage beyond a certain threshold, its cleanup mechanism activates. You put on quite the firework show this time, but luckily it was only a ten-meter-class Fireball. You didn't blow a hole through the ceiling, at least."
Leon's heart jolted at the reminder.
Right... I almost forgot about that!
He sucked in a cold breath, sweat pouring down his back.
"Hiss... thank god, thank god the blast radius wasn't larger."
Just then, Jeanne's expression shifted, and she quickly alerted Leon and Rose:
"Your skill is picking up a lot of people heading this way!"
Leon nodded, glanced at the ahead where the monster wave had been utterly vaporized, Magic Stones and all, and sighed helplessly:
"Let's go. Best if we don't run into them."
Rose and Jeanne exchanged a glance, both agreeing with his call.
...
By the time Riveria's support team finally arrived on the scene, the place was already deserted.
Forget Adventurers, they couldn't even find a single fragment of a monster's Magic Stone.
"They've already left?"
Riveria crouched down partway, her gloved palm brushing the scorching scorched earth. She pinched up a bit of dust, rolled it between her fingers, and brought it close to her eyes for a careful look.
No moisture in the soil at all, every bit boiled off by the heat...
Magic? A Magic Sword? Or some other method I don't know of?
She stared at the blackened particles between her fingers, lost in thought.
Nearby, Ais and Heith stood shoulder to shoulder. Their eyes met, and both fell silent, each caught up in her own thoughts.
Power like this couldn't be that man. But my intuition is telling me...
Heith's gaze flickered, her expression complex and hard to read.
...
...
Orario, Seventh District, Adventurers Way, Guild Headquarters.
SLAM!
A thick, fleshy palm crashed down onto the ornate marble round table!
The Guild's de facto authority, "Guild Pig" Royman Mardeel, hunched his corpulent frame and roared at the various familia representatives seated around the table, spittle flying:
"You bastards! Is this how you protect Orario!?"
"Look at what's happened these past few days!"
"First, indiscriminate attacks, one after another! How many innocent civilians and Adventurers have died!?"
"And now, at this very moment!"
"Even Rivira, the safe haven on Floor 18 of the Dungeon, has been hit with a precision strike by that trash!"
"You Adventurers, the face of Orario! Is this how you carry out your duty!?"
"Are you having a laugh at our expense!?"
Faced with Royman's bellowing, the veterans around the table didn't so much as flinch. His abuse went in one ear and out the other, not stirring up the slightest ripple.
Of course, where there are unflappable old hands, there are also hot-tempered young ones with no grip on their emotions.
Take, for example, the vice-captain of Freya Familia: Allen Fromel.
With the captain Ottar executing a Dungeon mission for their goddess, this meeting was being attended by him as vice-captain and by the strategist Hedin Selland in Ottar's place.
Allen, hot-tempered to begin with, had his chest instantly ignited by Royman pointing a finger in his face and abusing him in public.
In all his life, not even Goddess Freya had ever scolded him like this!
Allen had one leg planted arrogantly on the seat of his chair, his body leaning forward with overwhelming pressure, one arm slammed down on the edge of the table. Those cat eyes flickered with cold killing intent, locked dead on Royman:
"Hah. Since you want to prioritize cleaning up that trash, then don't fucking force us to fight Evilus and push deep-level Dungeon exploration at the same time! What is this, have your cake and eat it too, get everything at once? Nice fantasy. If you're so capable, why don't you head down there yourself? Quit shoving this brainless bullshit onto us, you dead fat pig!"
He slammed the table so hard the teacups rattled, spittle practically flying onto Royman's grease-slicked face:
"Huh!? You really think Freya Familia is your personal servant, coming and going at your beck and call!? We hadn't even caught our breath after getting back from our expedition, and you were already forcing us onto high-intensity patrols through the city, at several times the normal intensity! Did a Violas gnaw on your brain or something?"
Pinned under those cat eyes seething with killing intent, feeling the terrifying bloodlust radiating off an opponent fresh from a Dungeon expedition, steeped in the blood of countless monsters and not yet faded, Royman, the head of the Guild, felt his scalp prickle under the almost physical weight of that pressure. Beads of sweat the size of soybeans soaked through his collar instantly.
Trembling, he pulled out a handkerchief and uselessly dabbed at the cascade of cold sweat, forcing his voice up as he stretched his invisible neck and shot back:
"Th-these are extraordinary times! I, I have, have no choice but to do this!"
"In this dark age, with Orario having lost both Zeus Familia and Hera Familia, the top priority is to showcase Orario's strength, achievements, and glory to the entire world!"
"Otherwise... otherwise, the moment we lose our prestige and influence, even if we put out Evilus for now, second, third, countless more opposing factions will rise up in the future!"
"Which is why!"
He waved his fat arms, trying to lend weight to his argument.
"We must break through the Dungeon's unexplored territory! Declare the city's power to the world with our fists! Otherwise, those lawless scum will only grow more rampant than they are now!"
Hearing Royman's tired rhetoric, everyone present, including the Astraea Familia representatives Alise and Kaguya, showed open, undisguised contempt on their faces.
Allen let out a scornful laugh, his venomous tongue sparing nothing:
"Tsk tsk tsk. Smelled that your precious little power base is about to slip through your fingers, have you? It's a real ugly look, clinging to the Guild's authority with all that blubber of yours, even at a time like this."
"Heh heh."
He said it with a spiteful curl at the corner of his mouth.
Under Allen's rapid-fire venom, the "Guild Pig" who ordinarily stood lofty above others was now reduced to trembling in his seat like a spooked guinea pig, uselessly mopping the sweat from his brow and neck with his soaked handkerchief, utterly routed by the Cat Person's sharp momentum.
The quarrel escalated further. Just as it looked like what should have been a serious meeting was about to degenerate completely into a farce, someone finally stepped in.
In the end, it fell to 'Braver' Finn to intervene.
"Allen, enough. Quit it. If this keeps up, we won't be able to push the agenda forward. There's no need for us to tear off the masks so early."
What answered him, however, was Allen's undisguised disgust:
"Don't call my name with that mouth of yours, little Pallum."
Allen shot Finn a loathing glance, his tone viciously cutting:
"You make me sick."
With Allen now turning his spear tip on Finn, a second round of verbal clashes looked ready to erupt.
The representatives of the other familia seated around the table exchanged glances, only able to shake their heads helplessly and sigh.
On the Astraea Familia side, Alise and Kaguya sat shoulder to shoulder.
Kaguya watched as Allen held his own against two opponents at once, without losing an inch of ground, and made no effort whatsoever to hide his hostility toward Loki Familia.
Covering her mouth with her furisode sleeve, she narrowed her eyes and sighed softly:
"Ahh, so this is the familia conference the Guild finally convened after so long? How dreadfully boring."
"It's just barely started. The first item on the agenda hasn't even been tabled yet, and the air's already thick with hostility and killing intent."
"How is this meeting supposed to continue?"
Alise, absorbed in polishing her beloved sword without lifting her head, responded:
"You'll get used to it. Is there anyone in all of Orario who doesn't know about the relationship between those two familia? Loki Familia and Freya Familia being at odds is nothing new. There's nothing we outsiders can say that'll change anything. Best to just play the bystander. Sit back and watch."
As she spoke, she lifted her head and swept her gaze across the familia representatives attending the meeting.
Loki Familia and Freya Familia went without saying. As the two pillars of the city, the Guild could forget to invite anyone else, but it would never leave these two off the list.
After all, the city's only Level 6 and most of its Level 5 Adventurers were concentrated within these two factions.
In this city of Adventurers, when all was said and done, even the most perfect plan carried out by the most all-capable operator would still amount to a castle in the air without overwhelming power to back it up.
And these two unmistakably held the strongest "fists" in all of Orario, and indeed in all of the Lower World.
After the two pillars anchored to Orario came the next tier: Ganesha Familia.
The representatives attending were the famous Varma sisters:
Shakti Varma and Adi Varma, one Level 4 and the other Level 3.
Combined with the ten-plus Level 4 combat-focused members within the familia, their strength was second only to the city's twin pillars.
Beyond sheer power, as the city's military police, the responsibility weighing on Ganesha Familia's shoulders was no less than that of the top two.
Or rather, it should be said that in this dark age, their burden was even heavier.
After all, the city was being hit by Evilus's indiscriminate attacks over and over, and as those fighting on the frontline, the pressure on them could only be imagined.
After the top three came the many middle-tier factions.
Foremost among them was Astraea Familia, symbol of the sword and wings of justice.
Though the justice familia was small in scale, counting as a minor faction, it walked the elite path.
All eleven members of the group were Level 3. At full power, their captain Alise Lovell could even match a Level 4. They were hero candidates whom countless people and gods had placed their hopes upon.
...
Looking around, the representatives of the other factions were all present as well:
Hermes Familia, in attendance: Captain Lidith Caverna and rookie Asfi Al Andromeda.
Modi Familia...
Apollo Familia...
And so on.
Those who were normally the backbone of Orario were now reduced to mere spectators, watching helplessly as the two great factions quarreled without end, with no room to cut in.
Kaguya glanced at her friend in the neighboring seat, Hermes Familia's Asfi, whose body had gone stiff under the tense atmosphere of the room, her eyes darting around, completely at a loss for how to react.
The corners of Kaguya's mouth lifted into a smile that looked gentle and harmless on the surface but carried more than a hint of amusement, and she offered her advice at a leisurely pace:
"Asfi, if you don't know what to do, just remember one thing: shut your mouth, and watch quietly."
"Huh?"
...
...
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