[Revive].
As the green characters appeared above everyone's heads.
Both Isagi and the girls understood what had happened — just moments ago, every single one of them had died, only to be resurrected in an instant. No — it would be more accurate to call it a curse.
A curse born of "immortality."
Darkness had swallowed everything. Alfia's final magic had all but annihilated the entire floor.
And so, for now, there was only black.
Isagi kept a careful watch on their surroundings. According to Guild intelligence, the upper floors posed no risk of a [Juggernaut] appearing — but the 18th floor was a different matter, and so he had to remain vigilant.
As it happened, his worry proved unfounded. The reason, perhaps, was that the one who had wrought such destruction upon the Dungeon was [Alfia] herself.
The Dungeon regarded her as its own child — and so it had not reacted.
Instead, it had entered a state of rapid "regeneration."
The holy city wrought of crystal, the hillock floating in midair — Rivira, the adventurer's town, was naturally gone, of course, since it was no part of the Dungeon's own "architecture" — and then the tower and temple where they now stood.
All of it was slowly, steadily returning to what it had been.
"Where is everyone?"
The fog gate had vanished.
And so Lefiya and Riveria, who had been resting outside, came rushing in.
"Is it over?"
"Yes."
"But just now I thought I saw—"
Once the temple had finished restoring itself, Alfia was nowhere to be found. In the place where she had stood, all that remained was something resembling a magic stone — a fragment of equipment.
[Eternal Hope (Fragment):
The supreme sacred relic of the elven race. Said to be the very first magic stone ever brought into being — the very "essence" of magic itself.
It is commonly held that the power of magic is directly tied to Spirits, and that Spirits are the messengers of the gods — and therefore that magic, too, is the power of the divine.
But this is not so.
The magic wielded by the gods is not the same as this. Nor are Spirits the creations of the gods.
The elven race, blessed with extraordinarily long lives, has always been privy to histories long since forgotten by others, and has carried them forward across the span of a thousand years.]
"How can this be—"
Riveria stood frozen.
Within that shattered magic stone, she clearly glimpsed a figure from an age long past — Sertia, the sainted maiden of the elven race.
And on the other side.
Ais, too, felt something familiar radiating from it.
In particular, now that she thought back on it — the blizzard just moments ago, the one that had seemed to freeze even time itself — had stirred in her something inexplicably like fondness.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough…"
Ryuu-senpai let out a quiet cough.
She was not alone.
Everyone except Isagi was showing signs of fatigue, coughing softly every now and then — and visibly, threaded through the girls' fine, silken hair, there had appeared a scattering of white strands.
But now was not the time for that.
Because.
"I think I just saw Alfia leave."
Having been the farthest away, Heith had clearly seen the woman's departure through the darkness that had preceded.
What?
"Are you sure?"
"Positive!"
"Could it be—"
Isagi blinked, turning the thought over in his mind — could it be that the curse of immortality from the "Land of Reeds" had been indiscriminate, sweeping up everyone present — including Alfia herself — in its embrace?
...
Somewhere within the city.
A woman wrapped in a worn grey robe lifted her gaze to look at the distant Babel, and felt — inexplicably — as though she were seeing it from across another lifetime entirely.
Which, truly, was not far from the truth.
Alfia blinked, and knew with absolute certainty: she had died, and then "lived" again.
A great many memories were being unearthed from within her.
The woman sat in silence.
She remembered how, after Zard's death, she had spent some time at the side of her sister's child — and then, several years ago, had returned to the city.
She had come back here to see Orario one last time in the final hours of her life.
But there was one more thing she had to do.
It had been on a certain night, several years ago — around wintertime, she recalled. The city had been dusted with snow, and there was a chill in the air.
The taverns lining both sides of the long street were as lively as ever, full of adventurers who had spent the whole day toiling in the Dungeon, drinking and making noise and venting every emotion that had built up over the course of the day.
Alfia had gone into the Dungeon alone.
She remembered.
By that time, the Dark Familia within the city seemed to have been completely suppressed — word from passersby indicated that even the Artificial Labyrinth, the Dark Familia's final stronghold, had been thoroughly cleared and taken over by the city.
The one thing that puzzled her was that she had heard nothing further about the young man who had defeated Zard.
He had apparently been a member of Astrea Familia.
But at the time, the children of the Goddess of Justice had clearly consisted of women only — including that golden-haired girl who went by the name "Ryuu," who had undeniably been present at the "battlefield" alongside the rest of them.
And yet she had claimed not to know the boy.
Alfia found it strange — but the question could find no answer, for the "Dark God" who had likely been the sole keeper of that secret had also disappeared.
She did not dwell on it overmuch.
She had then gone to Loki Familia's quarter, taken a distant look at Ais from afar, and after that had descended into the Dungeon alone — pushing ever downward, carrying barely any supplies — for she knew that this adventure would be the last of her life.
Alfia's destination lay in the deep levels.
Past the [White Palace] on the 37th floor, through the 38th, and then to the safe floor of the 39th — the [Labyrinth Ashbridge]: an enormous bridge suspended in the darkness, stretching from exit to entrance with bottomless abysses yawning on either side, and no one knowing what lay below.
Mist drifted thick on both flanks, but that very mist cast a faint, pale luminescence across everything.
Many birds made their home in the air above — quite a few of them species found nowhere else but the Dungeon — and adventurers often hunted them for provisions.
And beyond that.
Through the ruins spanning floors 40 to 43, one would arrive at the [Crimson Mountain] — the interior of an active volcano, all scorching red-hot magma wherever the eye could see.
And at its deepest point — the 49th floor known as the [Great Wildlands] — was where the Monster Rex Balor held dominion.
Alfia did not encounter that Monster Rex.
Her journey had therefore proceeded without incident, and she arrived directly at the safe floor of the 50th level — a place of endless grey forest, lit by countless points of bioluminescence like scattered stars.
It was utterly hushed. Quiet pressed in from all sides to a degree that felt almost absolute.
For good reason.
These days, even Freya Familia had not mounted expeditions this deep. The goddess's warriors typically fought alone, and at most advanced as far as the [Great Wildlands] of the 49th floor — rarely going deeper.
Only Loki Familia had ever reached this place.
Alfia found traces of an encampment — and on a small hill near a cliff's edge, she even discovered a tent bearing the image of a jester's flag.
She borrowed it, and slept properly for the first time in a long while.
The days of continuous descent had pushed her body to some kind of limit.
But before she died.
She had a desperate, overwhelming need to confirm that place one more time.
The expeditions of Zeus Familia and Hera Familia had once plunged into depths far beyond what even Loki Familia — the strongest in Orario today — had reached with their record of the "50th floor."
And so Alfia pressed on downward still.
Through the grid-like labyrinth of the 51st floor, and then onward into the [Dragon's Crucible] spanning floors 52 through 58 — a stretch of dungeon that could almost be considered a single continuous space, something akin to the interior of a great mountain, teeming throughout with dragon-type monsters.
Until, at last, the 59th floor.
Which should have brought her to a snow-blanketed "ice garden."
"?"
But when Alfia set foot on the 59th floor, the sight that greeted her made her briefly wonder if she had taken a wrong turn.
All around her: grey-white "flesh."
Masses of meat and sinew tangled together like vines — and the moment she stepped onto it, the warm, viscous sensation underfoot was enough to turn the stomach utterly.
She also saw tiny points of pale green taking root and sprouting, accompanied by impossibly vivid blossoms that exuded a sickly sweet fragrance, almost like rot.
Revolting.
Deep within that uncanny darkness, Alfia sensed the presence of something malevolent.
But it did not seem inclined to stop her — and in fact, actively used the grey bioluminescence to guide her onward, pointing the way downward.
This allowed the woman to proceed without difficulty, and she ultimately reached her destination.
It lay in the space between the 60th and 61st floors — one of the Dungeon's hidden places, though in a sense it did not belong to the Dungeon at all. Rather, it was the [Thousand-Ashen Ice Garden].
The figure of a woman who had stood vigil there since time immemorial seemed to have remained in that place for ages beyond reckoning.
She had erected a barrier capable of freezing time itself, and with the bodies of countless heroes as her mausoleum, she protected the "treasure" enshrined at its very heart.
By now, that treasure had long since been claimed by Zeus Familia — and it was none other than the one now known as Ais, the [Sword Princess] of Loki Familia.
What Alfia had returned here to seek was something different.
As a mage.
Its presence was utterly impossible for her to ignore — one might even say it blazed so brightly it eclipsed everything around it.
It was the original — the very essence of magic.
Within this domain of ice and snow, even a first-class adventurer who stepped inside would inevitably be frozen solid the instant they crossed the threshold.
They might even be "consumed" — absorbed completely, becoming part of it forever.
Only Alfia could do this.
Drawing on her sensitivity to magical energy and the intelligence she had gathered, with all the necessary preparations made in advance, she was just barely able to move within it.
The malevolent presence that lurked outside had not encroached here — likely because even it could not withstand the cold.
The woman finally found what she had come for.
A fragment of the weapon once wielded by Sertia, the former sainted maiden of the elven race — a shard, and the sacred relic of that people.
Had it not been for her.
That broken magic stone would likely have been forgotten here forever.
[A hero yet to come?]
The image that rose in the woman's mind at that moment was the figure of the boy named "Isagi" — the one who had killed Zard.
Very well.
Then let her add one more log to the fire burning toward that future.
She did not know whether this elven sacred relic would be of any use to the boy — but fine things, as a rule, were never too many.
The woman decided to bring it back to the city. As for what happened after that — she couldn't say.
She could feel her life drawing close to its limit.
And so—
——
And then what?
Returning to the present, Alfia found herself a quiet tavern tucked deep within a back alley of the city and sat down.
The establishment was near the southern main street, close to the city gate, with a river cutting through the city and flowing past, dividing the district into several isolated "islands."
On the far bank of that long river, the casino called "Golden Continent" blazed with light — Orario's most famous landmark, built and funded by the entertainment city of Santeliouvega, and even endowed with extraterritorial rights. It was a city-within-a-city, quite unlike anything else in Orario.
The place where the woman now sat, however, was a small tavern on the riverbank.
It was tucked away in an out-of-the-way spot, remarkably quiet — only a seasoned adventurer would ever know of it. [Flamebee Inn]: it served a honey wine as translucently ruby-red as a gemstone, and Alfia had always been fond of it. All those years later, the taste hadn't changed in the slightest.
She first confirmed the reality of her own death and resurrection.
According to what the tavern-keeper had just told her, several years had now passed since she had last come to the city.
And as her memories continued to resurface, more and more of the past returned to her.
Alfia remembered: after retrieving the elven sacred relic, she had attempted to make her way back to the city — only to find that the moment she left the [Thousand-Ashen Ice Garden], she was set upon by that malevolent presence that had taken up residence on the 60th floor.
It was cunning and treacherous to the last, never revealing its true form, instead sending those strange monsters to assault her without cease.
Violas. Worms. And "female-bodied creatures" that used magic and were entirely parasitic upon monster hosts, present in numbers that verged on the infinite.
Among them were even several "adventurers."
And their strength was nothing to dismiss.
Alfia had even identified a Lv. 7 presence among them — but their Skills and magic were clearly of a lesser caliber, and they showed little will to fight, so they had posed no real threat to her.
Even so.
Fighting her way back up from the deep levels all over again had utterly exhausted what little life she had left.
Alfia's memories came to rest at Rivira.
By the time she had returned to the adventurer's town on the 18th floor, her body had reached its absolute limit.
In those moments close to death.
For reasons she could not explain, as Alfia looked upon the Under Resort spread before her — bathed in the radiance of crystal light — she had felt a strange and inexplicable "sense of fate," as though this place was inevitably destined to be the site of her end.
At that moment.
The woman's heart had been full of regret.
Because in the end, she had still failed to deliver the elven sacred relic fragment to the city above.
All that effort, and in the end, she had accomplished nothing.
But——
The memories continued to resurface, more and more complete.
Alfia drained the honey wine before her in a single swallow. The image that rose before her eyes was that of a boy clad in black wolf armour.
The thing had still been passed to him, in the end.
Though she had absolutely no idea how, nor why she had found herself fighting him in the Dungeon just a short while ago.
Or why she had, in this very final moment, come back to life.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough———"
Coughing softly.
Though she felt a certain fatigue in her body — the kind that came with aging, a decline in the body's own functions — even so, Alfia felt, for the very first time, something she could only describe as "wonderful."
How extraordinary — her body felt so remarkably vigorous!
The woman, for the first time in her life, discovered that she was brimming with vitality!!
So then — what next?
Alfia sat there thinking, and faced with the entirely new life she had been given, she found that there were so many, many things she now wished to do.
____
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