Seeing Filvis react so strongly, Cid could already guess it:
Who she needed to suspect was someone extremely important to her.
Thinking of Lyra's past, Cid decided he should be the guide for the little elf in front of him.
That, too, was his justice.
So he reached out—and pinched Filvis's ear.
An elf's ear! He'd wanted to do that for ages!
Unfortunately, Ryu had never given him the chance.
After he mentioned it once, the look Ryu gave him was like he was some kind of animal.
She wouldn't even give him a "pinch-the-ear" opportunity as a farewell gift before he left the Familia—how stingy could she be?!
If he ever got the chance, he had to try.
And when Ryu inevitably retaliated, he'd deploy the background-character secret art, the 360-degree spin-flip collapse from the 48 Forms—
A win-win, meaning: Cid wins twice.
"…What are you doing?!"
Filvis had been lost in her doubts. When she realized her ear was being pinched, her face instantly turned bright red.
But she didn't overreact—she simply took a step back.
"I'm just proving something to you," Cid said. "I, Shadow, am not a righteous man. That's why I let those sisters go."
"Even if a hundred million people died somewhere in this world, I wouldn't care."
"But I won't lie to someone standing right in front of me."
Cid wasn't like ordinary people.
Most people, as they grew up and met more people, ended up caring about more people.
He was the opposite.
He kept deleting names from his heart.
And when there was nothing left to delete—
Whoever remained would be the people he would protect no matter what.
The little elf in front of him wasn't that heavy a presence in his heart yet.
Still… he had to admit he was biased in favor of elves as a race.
If he ever built his own organization, he even hoped his right-hand would be an elf.
From the bottom of his heart, he hoped this deceived little elf could return to the right path.
And even if she couldn't… following him in the future wasn't bad either.
With that, Cid turned and left, waving his hand behind him without looking back.
"Shadow…"
Filvis stared at his retreating back, unable to come back to herself for a long time.
Yes—her body hadn't rejected Shadow.
It hadn't rejected his touch.
To be honest, Filvis wanted to complain: he could've just shaken hands to make her believe him—there was no need to go that far.
But the result was already achieved.
Her wavering heart had tilted toward Shadow.
Someone her body didn't reject… couldn't possibly be lying to her.
"G-God… Dionysus… what should I do…?"
On the other side, following the map's guidance, Cid planned to return to Orario by the normal route.
This operation:
He crushed two Level 5 elf sisters.
He saved a lost little elf.
If he had to score this mission out of ten, he'd give himself a zero.
"No map, got lost—me, Shadow, returning empty-handed because of something like this!"
Cid clutched his chest. It hurt—literally painful.
Using that eyeball-like cursed item, he had entered the Dark Faction's base.
But he hadn't expected the place to be unbelievably huge.
In the short time he had, he couldn't properly scout it—yet even his rough estimate suggested it was almost as large as the Dungeon itself.
Adventurers could navigate the Dungeon because generations of people had walked it and drawn maps.
Without a map, getting lost in a place the size of the Dungeon was perfectly normal.
If anything, not getting lost would've been weird—so it definitely wasn't because Cid had a bad sense of direction.
As a result, besides a large number of monsters controlled by the Dark Faction, Cid found nothing.
He'd wasted a full two hours!
And after getting lost that long, he didn't even see a single person. Was that reasonable? What were the Dark Faction even doing?!
"Seriously… who dug out something this huge for no reason?"
The more Cid thought about it, the less he understood.
To excavate a space that big would require generations—dozens of generations—of relentless work.
With that kind of perseverance, what couldn't you succeed at?
Why would you insist on copying a space almost as big as the Dungeon?
What was the point?
For a moment, Cid even suspected the builders had dug this "second Dungeon" for the sole purpose of making him return empty-handed today.
"I'll remember this."
Cid decided he would find whoever built this artificial labyrinth and demand to know:
Why dig out something this enormous?
It couldn't really have been to screw him over… right?!
Meanwhile, back with Loki Familia—
Finn, returning from a major victory, met with Riveria.
After hearing her report, Finn didn't even know whether he should be happy.
"It was an ambush, and we did win," he said. "But the Dark Faction isn't easy to deal with. Everyone's injuries are severe—we can't form a sufficiently strong force in the short term."
Learning the enemy's base was, of course, good news.
But with their current condition, they truly couldn't launch an immediate assault.
Adventurers were human; they couldn't fight two major battles back-to-back.
And that place was the Dark Faction's nest—no one could say what was waiting inside.
"Then we send elites—top-tier specialists—to keep pushing deeper," Riveria insisted. "We can't miss this chance."
Riveria didn't agree with waiting.
If they gave the Dark Faction time to react, with Valletta's level of viciousness, the opportunity could slip away.
They needed lightning-fast action to land a decisive blow.
Finn didn't decide immediately. He stood there thinking for a long time.
Then he licked his thumb.
"No," he said. "Their base has been exposed, and the Firestone crisis has been resolved. From here, we slowly pare down their operating space. Our odds will keep improving."
He rejected Riveria's suggestion—this time, not because of manpower shortages.
"Pare down?" Riveria frowned. "At this point, do we still need to be this cautious?"
She understood the reason behind the order.
And precisely because she understood, she couldn't accept it.
Finn had just led a force that heavily damaged the Dark Faction. "Braver" Finn's name was being praised throughout Orario.
Now wasn't the time to press the advantage?
Instead, he wanted to keep increasing their odds slowly?
It felt overly cautious—almost like he feared the Dark Faction.
When Orario clearly had the upper hand.
"…Fine. We'll do it your way," Riveria said at last.
She didn't press further.
They'd worked together too long. She knew Finn wasn't a coward.
And she knew what it meant when he licked his thumb.
If he believed something was wrong—then something truly was wrong.
"By the way," Finn said, smoothly changing the subject, "this victory… was it also thanks to that righteous boy you mentioned? An outstanding junior. Riveria—can you poach him into Loki Familia?"
Finn praised the young man he hadn't even met.
In the past, even when he gained the upper hand against Valletta, it was often razor-close.
This time, a decisive victory felt exhilarating.
As a would-be hero trying to prove the worth of the Prums, Finn yearned to be seen as a hero by everyone.
And this victory, he believed, should belong to that righteous boy.
Unfortunately, the boy's strength wasn't enough to take the spotlight.
Knowing that his own victory was, in a sense, taking someone else's fruit, Finn wanted to compensate in another way.
For example—
Raise the boy as a successor.
Thinking of Cid, Riveria shook her head repeatedly.
"No. That—absolutely not."
"Why?" Finn asked.
"I'll tell you," Riveria said. "But you're not allowed to laugh, and you're not allowed to tell anyone."
"Go on," Finn promised. "I won't laugh. And I won't tell."
"…He might like me."
"...Huh?"
....
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