Gran's pupils constricted to pinpoints.
His grip crushed into the greatsword's hilt, biceps straining as he hauled his massive blade overhead—yet his legs continued to shake with relentless tremors, thighs rooted in place.
Bell watched him with that same gentle smile. Crimson Order hung loose at his left side, those dark fingers resting casually around its handle. His right arm still cradled the girl, her face buried against his shoulder.
Gran's mind was screaming more than thinking now.
That thing held a monster with one arm and erased three Level 3s with the other.
What do I do? What do I DO?
"Haah!"
With a shout, Gran lunged, bringing his greatsword down in a vertical strike.
Bell moved, stepping inside the arc of his swing.
But Gran's swing was already wrenching sideways—feet slipping, momentum violently turning—before Bell had even finished stepping. His greatsword carved air near Bell's chest and continued in a full circle.
"G-Gra—?"
Behind him, an adventurer on the ground only had a moment to register a blur of metal before that blade cleaved his skull in two with a crack.
Gran didn't look at him.
"What the f-fuck are y-you doing, Gran!?" The last adventurer shrieked, scrambling backward with his back grinding against soil, nails clawing at earth as he dragged his unresponsive legs with him.
Gran turned his head toward that voice. Then looked back over his shoulder at Bell. Then to that voice again.
His breathing was rough, chest heaving, greatsword held with enough force to leave finger imprints on its hilt.
He took a step toward that crawling man.
"No—no no—" The adventurer's hand found a root, pulled, dragging himself away for another inch. "We're Familia, Gran, we're—"
Gran drove the blade through his heart.
That man opened his mouth, blood spurted down his chin, and his fingers went slack on the root.
Gran held the sword there for a moment. His fingers loosened on its hilt, then tightened again, knuckles whitening. He pulled the greatsword free with a squelch and let it hang at his side, tip dripping.
With a slow turn, he faced Bell and moved toward him, greatsword dragging behind him through dirt, carving a thin red line in its wake. He stopped two footfalls away—and the blade clattered out of his hand.
The gentle smile receded from Bell's face; he looked at Gran wordlessly, expression flat.
Gran's gaze dropped. From Bell's face. To his chest. To his boots. His jaw moved, teeth clicking together behind closed lips.
"I..."
His voice cracked.
"I killed them."
A shallow breath.
"Both. I—" His chin trembled. "I did. For you."
His eyes stayed on Bell's boots, hands dangling at his sides, fingers curling into fists like a child caught stealing.
"So..."
His mouth opened, closed, opened again. His shoulders hunched inward, making him look small.
"Don't kill me."
Gran's shoulders shook, breath stuttered, every part of his body looked broken.
Except his eyes. Those irises fixed on Bell's boots were still. They were measuring the distance between those boots and his own, counting the seconds between each of Bell's breaths, tracking Crimson Order's edge.
His body begged.
His eyes calculated.
"Please."
That word came out softer than everything else, like an afterthought, tacked on because it felt like the kind of thing someone begging for their life would say.
Bell took a step forward—not toward Gran, but around him.
"Gran. Level 4."
Crimson Order carved a semicircle into soil as Bell moved, its edge trailing through dirt beside him.
"Ikelos Familia."
Gran's eyes stopped calculating. That stillness inside them—the quiet, ruthless measurement of distance and angle—wavered, pure panic cracking through his composure.
"Dix Pendrix's loyal dog."
Bell kept walking. Each footfall producing no sound when his heel met earth, just like Alfia.
The ravine's dim light threw their shadows long across ground—Gran's hunched and broad, Bell's split down the middle, one half stretching thin and human, the other writhing with no fixed shape.
As Bell passed behind Gran, those shadows overlapped for an instant.
And where they met, a crimson streak bled from Bell's shadow into Gran's, vanishing within as if it had never been there.
"Your Familia's people are also trafficking Xenos to the surface."
Gran's mouth opened. No sound came out. That rehearsed tremble in his jaw turned genuine, those crafted shudders in his breaths became ragged. His act was becoming indistinguishable from something real.
Bell completed his circle and stopped where he had started, Crimson Order's groove closing into a perfect ring around Gran.
"... You have it, right? The Daedalus Orb."
Gran's hand moved before his mind caught up, fingers digging into his belt pouch, fumbling past coins and supplies until they closed around a sphere. He pulled it out.
A blue orb. Small enough to sit in his palm, its surface radiating a soothing but artificial light.
He held it out, arm extending, hands fighting to be steady.
"Here."
One word. The closest thing to his real voice he'd used this entire time.
His other hand stayed at his side, pressing against his thigh—fingers twitching toward his greatsword lying in dirt just beside him.
Its pommel was buried in soil.
The real orb sat inside it. Red. Heavier. Unscrewed and swapped in seconds between pulling his blade from his comrade's chest and turning to face Bell.
Bell looked at that orb and stayed still.
"And the entrance to Knossos. Where is it?"
Gran's throat tightened. His mind latched onto the first lie it could build.
"Sixteenth floor." His words came out too quick. "There's a corridor. East side. A dead end with a fractured wall, hidden behind it is a socket where you can insert this orb."
He swallowed hard.
"I can show you. I know the way." His chin dipped lower, eyes still on Bell's boots, fingers pressing tighter into his thigh.
Bell buried Crimson Order tip first into ground, then took the blue orb from Gran's hands, saying nothing.
But, that darkness from his left side started to rush inward, back into him, as human skin surfaced from beneath, enclosing all the darkness within.
The left half of his face returned being human.
He smiled. A small, knowing smile, like he knew something no one else did.
"Go."
Gran blinked.
A single word, but he stood there, his mind struggling to accept that it was actually over—just like this. Then his legs moved before his brain caught up, snatching his greatsword from below, pommel clutched tight.
He ran.
His boots pounded earth, blade bouncing on his side, mouth gulping in air that still didn't feel enough. Trees blurred past on either side. That stream from before rushed alongside him.
Gran didn't look back, his footsteps grew distant. Fainter. Then gone.
Bell stood in place, the girl still pressed against his shoulder, her trembling having faded to an occasional hitch in her breath.
His fingers were wrapped around that blue Daedalus Orb. He shifted his grip on it from a hold to a crush—and a brittle crunch rang out, the orb shattering into pieces in his palm.
Bell flipped his palm downward, all the remains of that orb fell down onto soil, and he watched them with that same knowing smile.
Then, his fingers wrapped around Crimson Order's hilt.
With a pull, it came free.
And Bell walked away in the opposite direction.
...
..
.
Some distance away.
"—And then, I jumped into their fight with tail swishing, claws flexing. The Juggernaut directly took two steps back, scared by my ferocious aura." Lyd sat on grass, digging his rear deeper into it to find a more comfortable position.
Two bumps were visible on his head, but he continued babbling like they didn't exist.
"But that Amphisbaena was really rude. It used its neck as a whip and flung me away, nearly destroying my entrance."
Alfia sat some distance away on the same grass, cracking her knuckles. She looked between those two bumps on Lyd's head, then down at her own two knuckles.
"Yet, luck seemed to be with me. I crashed straight into a solid rock, head stuck in it for a two whole seconds."
Her eyes drifted to her third knuckle—then to the small space between Lyd's bumps.
Under the shade of a nearby tree sat Let, a whetstone in his hand as he sharpened Lyd's scimitar in broad strokes.
"Oh! Oh! Now comes the lucky part—"
Ray leaned against a rock, yawning into her wing.
"After pulling my head out of that rock, my gaze landed on a piece of cloth nearby. Probably from some adventurer who had gone even above the surface—to that place, what do you call it again? Hea-ven? Heaven? Yea, that."
Arles whirled on her hind legs near Let, her clock swinging with her.
"That cloth looked like a cape, so I put it on my back and rushed back into the fight. Though, while rushing back, I had this unusual urge and screamed—"
Alfia opened and closed her fist, each movement producing more sound than the last.
"FOR SPARTA!"
Ray glanced once at Lyd's dramatic declaration and sighed.
"When will Bell come back?" She asked to the air.
Lyd seemed to have caught her words, and he replied without being asked.
"Bell-chi seems quite late. Does he have liver problems like some Xenos do?"
Let's grip on his stone slipped, nearly chipping the edge of the scimitar. He looked up from his work to see Alfia already rising from her position, and Lyd, who seemed utterly clueless.
May mister Bell save you.
With a small prayer, Let resumed his work.
"Huh? Alfia-chi, what are you doing? Hey! No punches allowed!"
BAM
"I—I said no punches!"
BAM
"Bell-chi! Where are you!? Save me from your aunt!"
BAM
Two minutes passed like that, and then Lyd lay on grass with both eyes purple, many scales scattered around him.
Alfia walked away, shrugging her shoulders after making short work of him.
It was at this moment that a nearby bush parted, and Bell stepped through, a Vouivre Xenos in his hold.
"Bell-chi, couldn't you have come like five minutes prior? I could've been sa—" Lyd's voice went lower with each word, dying in his throat by the end, his eyes locked on the Xenos cradled against Bell's chest.
Ray straightened from her leaning position, back leaving that rock, expression grave.
"Where did you find her?"
The whetstone dropped from Let's grip, nearly tearing his finger open on the scimitar's edge.
Arles stopped swinging, her clock nearly flying off her neck.
Alfia gazed at the girl in Bell's hold, then back at his face, her brows furrowing.
"It's a long story. I'll tell you all..."
Bell replied and took a step forward.
...
"I was walking through the jungle after answering nature's call, when I heard a stream moving nearby, so I headed toward it to drink some fresh water."
Lyd stayed silent for once at his side, his eyes fixed on the Vouivre. She refused to leave Bell's hold, her arms locked around his neck as she made herself comfortable there.
She peeked once at Lyd. His tail climbed up from below gently, hovering near her cheek. Her gaze drifted between his face and tail.
"But just when I reached that place, I heard the sound of someone crying and shouts of adventurers."
Careful not to scare her further, Lyd brought his tail's tip down and bopped her cheek. The girl jerked away, tightening her arms around Bell's neck and burying her face back into his shoulder, trembling like a scaredy cat.
"They were chasing her, probably for her tear and to sell her to someone on the surface." Bell's words made Ray's feathers bristle and Lyd's claws flex.
Nearby, Let's nails dug into his palm. Even Arles' small paws clutched on the grass beneath her.
"Where are they? I'll tear them to shreds." Ray demanded, her wings tensed to take flight right then.
A moment later, the Vouivre peeked around Bell's other side. Alfia sat there, hands folded in her lap.
They exchanged a single glance, and the girl flinched back, shrinking even further into Bell.
"Do you think I would leave even a single one alive?" Bell asked, indifference bleeding through his voice.
Ray froze, then nodded twice.
"Now, that is the Bell Cranel I remember."
The Vouivre pulled her face from Bell's shoulder and looked up at him, her lips parting as she forced words to form.
"B—B—"
Alfia snapped her gaze toward them. Her eyes flicked from Bell's face to his head, then slowly back to her own knuckles.
A tinge of jealousy flickered across Lyd's face. He brought his claws up, stretching and contorting his face into ridiculous shapes.
"Blaagh! Wuaah! Come on! Say Lyd! Lyd!"
Ray held her head, a headache brewing.
The girl stared at Lyd's antics for five long seconds.
"Lyd! Lyd!"
Then she turned her face in the opposite direction, ignoring him completely.
"Lyd! Lyd!" Lyd didn't give up, continuing without a care in the world.
A chuckle slipped from Bell's lips. Then another.
He pointed a finger in Lyd's face, his chuckles breaking into full blown laughter in moments.
"Hahahaha!"
She peeked at his laughter from the corner of her eye, the way she always did.
"Ah?"
Her mouth moved, opening and closing.
"Ahha. Ahha. Ahha."
She was trying to mimic him.
"Hahahaha!"
"Ahha! Ahha! Ahha!"
...
..
.
Floor eighteen.
Trees blurred past. Roots caught his boots and released. Branches whipped his arms and face—thin red lines opening across his cheeks and forearms. Gran didn't blink.
His legs pumped on their own, greatsword bouncing against his hip, pommel clutched in a squeezing grip. His lungs burned, throat raw. The stream's sound had long since faded behind him, replaced by a constant thrum of his own heartbeat in his ears.
Sixteenth floor. He'd told that thing sixteenth floor.
His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
Eighteenth. The real entrance was on the eighteenth floor.
His boots hit stone as his surroundings gave way to a cluster of low hills, the air thick and damp with moisture.
There.
Three mud hills clustered together, the largest of them bisected by a fissure narrow enough that most adventurers would walk past without a second glance.
Gran's knees buckled, but he caught himself, one hand pressing down on his blade's pommel.
Two figures stood near that fissure. Ikelos Familia. One leaned against the hill's base, picking at something under his nails. Another sat on a rock, scratching his scalp.
They looked up at his approach.
"Gran? What—" That standing one straightened. His eyes dropped to Gran's greatsword, to those bloodstains still dripping from its edge. "Is that blood? Whose—"
"Shut up."
Gran drove past both of them, shoulder shoving the standing one, and staggered toward that fissure.
Beneath his boots, his shadow stretched across mud, and deep within that shadow, where his skull's shape should have ended in darkness, something else opened.
A crimson eye.
It blinked once.
Then it began to take in its surroundings—the hills, those two adventurers, a gate now visible as Gran walked toward a corridor connected to that fissure.
The crimson in that eye intensified.
...
..
.
"What should we name her? We can't keep calling her 'she' and 'her' right?" Lyd said, tapping a claw against his chin. "How about Lily? Or maybe—"
"Bell." Ray cut him off, her voice flat. "She's attached to you. You name her."
Alfia said nothing. Her eyes lingered on the girl for a moment before drifting back to her fingers.
Bell looked down at the Vouivre in his arm. Her face was still buried against his shoulder, but one eye had peeked out—watching him, waiting.
I'll be naming her instead of you this time, Goddess Hestia.
"Viene."
His voice was soft, almost tentative.
"V—Vi—" The girl's mouth moved, brows furrowing with effort.
"Wiene." Bell corrected gently, pronouncing it slower. "Wi-e-ne."
"Wi...e...ne."
Her eye lit up. Something bright and fragile flickered across her face—recognition, maybe. Or belonging.
"Wiene!"
She said it louder this time, like the word itself was a gift she couldn't stop unwrapping. Her arms tightened around Bell's neck, and a sound came from her throat, a half-laugh half-sob.
"Wiene! Wiene!"
Bell's lips curved.
His arm came up.
Thumb met finger.
Snap
...
..
.
Gran's fingers tore at the pommel of his greatsword. It came free with a metallic clank, and inside—nestled in a hollowed chamber—sat the real Daedalus Orb.
Red. Heavier than that fake. Its surface caught what little light was nearby and swallowed it, pulsing slowly like a living heart.
He pulled it free.
Dix has to know.
His legs carried him through that fissure, into the corridor beyond.
Those two adventurers had followed him in.
"Gran, what the hell is going on?" The one who'd been sitting on a rock—his footsteps echoed behind, hand resting on his weapon. "You come back covered in blood, talking about—"
"Dix." Gran didn't turn. "I need to find Dix."
"You're not making any sense. Did something happen—"
"Shut it."
Their surroundings widened into a small chamber. A dead end for most—but not for them. Carved into the far wall was a door running with complex patterns, and set at its centre was a circular socket.
Gran's legs stopped just before it.
His hand rose.
Daedalus Orb sat in his palm, its pulse quickening as it drew closer to its socket.
Dix will know what to do. Dix always knows. I just have to—
His finger was an inch away.
Suddenly, his mind flashed to Bell's knowing smile.
He froze.
His shadow had nearly faded in the dark surrounding them, only a small part of it still visible.
And precisely on that part, a crimson eye was still peering out.
Daedalus orb slipped from his hold unconsciously, rolling away to a corner.
"Everything will be fine, Gran."
"Yea, relax."
That crimson eye closed.
Then it snapped open.
Right between his brows.
Motherfu—
BOOOOOOM!
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Our bro Gran was already dead before he even started running back. Bro just didn't know it yet.
Have a fabulous day, everyone!