"What the hell is going on here!?"
Inside the prison cells at the Light Eagle headquarters.
Tami furiously rattled the iron bars, his eyes practically spitting fire.
"Give it a rest. You can't reason with mercenaries."
Seven or eight other adventurers were locked in the cell with him, all unfamiliar faces.
"But what right do they have to lock us up?"
The moment he'd stepped out of the dungeon, he found himself standing in open wilderness. The Light Eagle had completely surrounded the teleportation gate and caught him on the spot.
They'd barely given him any time to speak. The mercenaries, known for their heavy-handed methods, threw him straight into a cell — and since then, not a single person had come to explain what was happening.
Tami ground his teeth and shouted:
"When my captain gets here, she's going to beat the hell out of every last one of them!"
"Who's your captain?" someone asked, curious.
He straightened his back, crossed his arms, and declared proudly:
"Black Bat Luluwo!"
He genuinely admired Luluwo, and he felt no embarrassment saying so out loud.
But the expressions on the other adventurers' faces shifted in a strange way.
"If the Luluwo you're talking about is the same one we're thinking of…"
"What?" A bad feeling crept over him.
"She was here not long ago too. But they took her away."
"Hah!?"
Captain, don't collapse right when I'm bragging about you!
Tami dropped to his knees. He simply couldn't picture the lawless, untameable Luluwo sitting in a prison cell.
And why had they taken her away? Was she in danger?
That thought sent him back to the bars, shaking them frantically, panic written all over his face.
The Light Eagle's prison had been built by an earth-construction mage with over fifty years of mastery. A dragon's charge wouldn't easily bring it down — let alone Tami, whose strength currently sat at Silver-rank.
Inside the dim cell, even one's sense of time grew hazy.
Nobody knew how long passed. Adventurers kept being thrown in, a steady trickle that never stopped — some looking completely bewildered, some bearing the marks of a struggle, others too frightened to move.
Gradually, the cells grew packed. Even the mercenaries standing guard started grumbling to each other:
"Why are there so many intruders today? Where is the captain?"
Before long, the sound of arguments broke out beyond the prison walls, growing louder and louder until it bordered on open conflict. Shouts from mercenaries rang out in every direction.
Tami was completely lost.
Had another country's army invaded?
The noise stretched on for a long time, but no new adventurers were thrown inside. Then came another long stretch of silence.
Just what was happening out there?
After waiting a while longer, the prison door slowly groaned open, and someone stepped in.
The imprisoned adventurers were already drawing breath to start cursing — Tami among them — but the words died in their throats the moment they saw who it was.
Luluwo.
And not just Luluwo. Leon's entire group as well.
All of them, however, bore the marks of battle, and none of them looked particularly good.
"Captain — you're okay! Thank goodness!" Tami rushed to the bars.
"You got locked up too?" Luluwo looked genuinely surprised. "Where are Belto and the others?"
"We got separated."
"Then it sounds like their survival instincts are still working fine."
Luluwo produced a key and unlocked the cell door, then tossed it over to Tami.
"Let everyone out. Oh, and — only the adventurers from Bedford City."
Once everyone had been freed, Tami followed the swelling group up out of the underground prison, blinking into daylight. Morning had already come.
The Light Eagle mercenaries watched from a distance, but none of them moved to interfere. He spotted Sali and Elsa among them — familiar faces, at least.
Surrounding the prison were adventurers from Bedford City in large numbers — well over a hundred. Anyone capable of making it this far had survived at least ten minutes against the Undead Legion, and gathered together like this, that was a force not to be taken lightly.
"Captain, what exactly happened here?"
"A misunderstanding." Luluwo shot the mercenaries a withering look. "One that could've been resolved peacefully from the start if anyone had bothered to talk."
"?"
Only later did Tami piece together the full picture.
The area surrounding the teleportation gate was actually the Light Eagle's headquarters. The adventurers who had wandered through were immediately branded as enemy spies — because the Kingdom of Yanor had long-standing friction with a neighboring nation, and tensions had been running especially high of late.
Mercenary companies were violent by nature, and the Light Eagle more than most. The sudden appearance of a dungeon within their territory had already put them on edge; the arrival of outsiders pushed them over it.
But the adventurers could hardly be blamed either. Who could have known that after dying once, instead of reviving at the Firelink Shrine, they'd find themselves standing before an unfamiliar bonfire — with a teleportation gate right beside it capable of flinging them thousands of miles, practically to the steps of the royal capital?
That was even more outrageous than the trek from Bedford City to the ruins of Val City.
And how were they supposed to get back? Traveling from the royal capital to Bedford on foot would take over a month — unless Sein Dungeon, in some moment of mercy, saw fit to leave them a way home.
For once, the adventurers found themselves sincerely hoping Lord Sein would show a little compassion.
"So how did you clear up the misunderstanding, Captain?"
"Heh." A cold smirk crossed Luluwo's face. "We fought our way to it."
Fighting?
Luluwo — who never stopped preaching harmony and mutual profit — actually had that side to her?
Wait. Had she taken on all those mercenaries by herself?
Luluwo caught the direction of Tami's thoughts and pointed at the strategy team beside her.
"They fought. I cheered."
That explained why Leon was covered in wounds.
Still — needing an actual brawl before anyone would sit down and talk civilly. The Light Eagle really was something else.
Across the way, Elsa stood among the mercenaries, staring at Leon's back with a distinct unhappiness. Sali hovered nearby, quietly trying to smooth things over.
So it was clear enough who Leon had fought.
As for the outcome, nobody said.
Watching the tension stretched between the two sides, even Tami couldn't help feeling on edge.
"How is this supposed to end?"
Adventurers were still arriving in a steady stream, every single one of them thoroughly confused.
The Light Eagle cordoned off an area and ordered them to stay within it. That sparked the next round of protests, and another wave of conflict began building.
Before it could boil over, Sali stepped forward alongside several mercenaries whose bearing made it immediately clear they were captains. The group put a firm stop to any escalation, then invited Leon, Luluwo, and several of the most respected adventurers into a hastily erected tent.
Negotiations, presumably.
Nobody knew what was discussed inside, but Luluwo emerged shortly after and announced three things to the assembled adventurers.
First: the Light Eagle would no longer attack adventurers on sight, but adventurers were equally forbidden from venturing deeper into the headquarters. That was the non-negotiable point.
Second: the Light Eagle could provide horses for a fee. Those who wanted to travel to the nearby royal capital or elsewhere were free to do so, provided they paid.
Third: anything valuable recovered from the dungeon could be sold to the Light Eagle's logistics team, who would appraise and purchase it.
Sali also dispatched people to deliver compensation to every adventurer injured during the conflict. Most of them, once they had something in hand, found it hard to stay angry.
"To think the third young master of House Bedford would end up out here," Luluwo said, something wistful in her voice. "Back then, I even thought about trying to get close to him."
Tami asked, "So what are we doing next, Captain? Going to see the royal capital?"
As a boy who had grown up in the countryside, he had never laid eyes on the capital.
"Are you tired?" Luluwo asked.
He was, a little — but he figured claiming otherwise would make a better impression, so he shook his head with conviction.
"Not at all!"
"Perfect." Luluwo's grin sharpened. "Then we're going back into the dungeon."
"Eh!?"
While the adventurers' side churned with noise and motion, the Light Eagle's side was no less chaotic.
"Things have been messy enough lately without a horde of adventurers making it worse," a rough-looking vice-captain muttered irritably. "If it were up to me, we'd drive every last one of them out."
"Having them camped nearby really is a liability," another captain agreed. "There's no way we can have outsiders wandering freely around headquarters. But as long as that dungeon portal stays open, they'll keep coming, and we have no way to shut it down."
"So what are we supposed to do? Just sit here and watch these brats turn our home into an amusement park?"
"Nobody's saying we indulge them." Sali shook his head. "But everything has to wait until the captain returns."
"Can't he hurry up already…"
Hearing that, Sali allowed himself a quiet smile. Privately, he thought it might actually be better if the captain took his time.
Eliphis, captain of the Light Eagle, was currently away with a detachment of troops — escorting a figure of considerable importance. A true princess. The lost bloodline of King Anz III. For a king who had never fathered any children, this princess stood to become his successor.
The future queen.
The captain really is sharp, Sali thought, with genuine respect. Getting close to the future queen before anyone else thinks to.
At that moment, a mercenary came sprinting in.
"Message from the captain!"
Every captain in the room was on their feet instantly. Sali stepped forward.
"What does he say?"
"Sir! The captain says they've run into an unexpected situation on the road and will be delayed several days before returning. He says there's no cause for concern — the situation isn't dangerous, and they can manage it."
"And the dungeon?"
Uncertain glances passed between the captains.
Without Eliphis present, none of them were willing to make a move on their own.
"Captain Eliphis addressed that as well. His exact words:"
The mercenary drew himself up and delivered it plainly:
"Throw everything you have into exploring that dungeon. Whatever it costs — the Light Eagle will be the first to clear it."