The puppet plunged fast. With its presence already suppressed, it drew almost no notice from the Amphisbæna.
"Haa—"
Just before impact, the ring on the puppet's hand flickered. A cushion of wind formed over the ground and caught it safely.
"Oh—nice feature," Finn remarked. "A wind pad at the last moment to cancel fall damage."
He took such gadgets seriously; in the right situation, a small tool could yield outsized results.
"If your creations could function entirely beyond your visual control, the goddess Hephaestus would probably court you hard," Finn added.
He had long since deduced the present limits of Tsunayoshi's power: anything that operated out of his visual range rapidly lost performance. That was why the items given to Ais and the others had manual toggles, rather than being fully autonomous constructs.
"For Hephaestus, I'd be a headache," Tsunayoshi said. "My ability skips 'forging' altogether—if I can imagine a function, I can manifest a 'magical beast' that does it. My compatibility with the forge goddess is worse than it sounds."
"Not just her," he went on. "Any commerce-oriented Familia would be a poor fit. My power can undercut the whole business model."
"Fair point," Finn conceded. He pictured the ease with which Tsunayoshi could mint utility beasts and then imagined the sweat and coin that powered a trade Familia. Too easy a path to profit would sour a clan's culture fast.
"Tsunayoshi, can your 'beasts' really hold their shape and function—and be used by others?"
"Absolutely."
Plenty of evidence suggested artifacts responded to their bearers, shifting to fit intent.
"But Finn," Tsunayoshi added, "how long have I even been an adventurer? You think I could already master every nuance of my power? Expectations or not, I can't perfect everything in this short a time."
"It's just hard to see you as a true novice with abilities like yours," Finn chuckled.
"'Magical Beast Creation' helps me too much. As a 'newcomer,' I don't look like one," Tsunayoshi said, shaking his head. He glanced upward.
The floor boss was still above. It hadn't sensed a thing. That was a relief—this was his first time testing presence-suppression under a mutated floor boss's nose.
Even so, they needed to clear the Great Waterfall fast. He steadied his breathing.
"Guide me from here."
"Keep following the river downstream," Finn said. "You'll reach a broader chute—lots of water pouring through it. Right at the rim is the entrance to the next floor."
With the route in mind, Tsunayoshi sent the puppet forward.
Inside the sub-dimension, he could see shapes tucked into shadow all along the way, like hunters waiting in ambush for prey to blunder past.
"If we fight here, the Amphisbæna will likely rush us from behind," he murmured, a thin sweat at his back. The mid-levels were full of "monster alarms."
"It's mainly like this in the mid-levels," Finn said. "Down below, in the lower and deep floors, they usually don't hide—they charge."
Just hearing it gave Tsunayoshi a taste of the front line's grind: cheek-to-cheek with monsters, waltzing with death every hour.
"The vanguard lives hard."
"It's normal," Finn replied. "The Dungeon isn't a vacation spot. Life and death are everywhere. The friend you were chatting with a moment ago can die in a monster's jaws the next."
Tsunayoshi fell silent. Finn wasn't joking, and they both knew it. The stories he knew had always cut away from the worst; what got shown was sanitized for approval. The real thing was bloodier.
Finn noticed the silence and looked ahead. "Can't accept it?"
"…No. Not easily," Tsunayoshi said softly. "I'm just an ordinary person from a safe world. If someone I was just talking to died in front of me and I could accept it—then I'd be insane."
Finn nodded. There was no shame in that. The ones who accepted it too easily were the odd ones out. Even veterans with years in the Dungeon struggled with the immediacy of it.
"If you can't accept it," Finn said, "use your power to change it."
He placed a heavy charge on Tsunayoshi's shoulders. This world was what it was; if you couldn't bear it, you had to force it to be otherwise.
"We don't accept it either," Finn continued. "Every loss hits like a hammer. That's why we move carefully—slowly. We could push faster, but the faster you go, the less safe it becomes.
"Our strength isn't overwhelming, so we advance together, inch by inch. Your arrival changed that a little. Your power suits the Dungeon's twists, so we can speed up."
Change it…
Tsunayoshi stared ahead for a few breaths, then lifted his chin.
"I don't know if I can change the whole picture," he said. "But I won't let the Dungeon devour the people I've come to know."
Finn smiled. "That answer is good enough."
(End of Chapter)
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