Snap
"Whn?"
Leaning toward Bell's hand, Wiene bumped her nose right into his palm.
Lyd's claw kept tapping against his chin. His eyes drifted from Wiene back to the hand that had just snapped.
"Bell-chi, why the snap? Did you get a new idea after naming Wiene?"
After his gesture, Ray hadn't blinked. Along her wings and shoulders, every feather stood rigid, their tips trembling as she stared at Bell's fingers with vigilance. Her monster instincts had blared the instant he had snapped them.
Let's gaze flicked back and forth—Wiene, the hand, Wiene, the hand—before he adjusted his hat and looked away.
Not even glancing up at that sound, Arles kept her focus on plucking tufts of grass with her paws.
As for Alfia?
She was looking at him with narrowed eyes, especially the way he had smiled while snapping his fingers. About how for an instant, a part of his shadow had twitched like something mid-movement.
"Idea? No, I was just reminded of fireworks. You have never seen them, right? I'll show them to you and your people someday." Bell replied to Lyd after a moment.
"You mean those things that set the sky alight? And create patterns overhead?" Lyd's eyes lit up, and he spun his claws a full circle through the air.
Bell nodded.
"You're my best friend from now on, Bell-chi!" Grinning broadly, Lyd let his tail sneak over to wrap around Bell's waist.
Before it could, Bell smacked that tail aside.
"No weird tail stuff." He said, shifted toward Alfia, away from him.
"Sure. Sure." Lyd's tail retracted, but his grin didn't falter.
A tug at his cloak drew Bell's attention. Wiene stared up at him, eyes wide.
"T...a...i...l?"
"Ta-il."
He put a hand on her head and patted it gently. She closed a single eye, head bobbing up and down with the motion, forgetting what she was trying to say.
Ray spoke up.
"So... who is going to take Wiene back to our village? We can't have her accompany us, since we'll be fighting others soon."
Wiene's closed eye snapped open. Her arms tightened around his neck on their own, her forehead pressing against his collarbone as tremors once again ran through her body at the thought of being away from Bell.
"Besides, we need more reinforcements if we want to free all of the captured Xenos. Someone who can capture so many of our brethren won't be weak." Ray continued.
Silence fell at her words.
"She is right, Mister Bell. We should bring more Xenos with us just in case. It's better to be fully prepared than to go in blind." Let said, turning to store the earlier whetstone in his backpack.
"Why didn't you both say anything about preparations before?" Lyd asked.
"There was no need. We didn't have a reason before to go back to the village. And besides, I don't think they would be able to put up a fight against even our current group." Let said, glancing once at Alfia.
"But, now that we have a reason to go back, let's inform everyone and take our whole force just in case."
"And what if they take hostages? Bell, even your Aunt might not be able to save all of them in time if many are taken hostage together." Ray pointed out.
Bell didn't answer. His eyes dipped to Wiene's hands, watching her fisted knuckles on his cloak and feeling the heat of her breath against his collarbone.
"Alright." He said.
"But put on your cloaks first and follow me, I want to take you all somewhere."
All of them looked at him with varied reactions. Nonetheless, they put on their cloaks without protest.
...
..
.
Floor eighteen.
Trees brushed past as the group walked through a forest, moisture from leaves above leaving droplets of water on their cloaks.
"Does this place lead to those traffickers' hideout?" Ray asked from behind, her wings tucked beneath her cloak, eyes scanning their surroundings.
Bell didn't answer immediately, his steps carrying the confidence of someone who had already walked this path before.
"We're almost there." He finally said.
Lyd followed behind them, rubbing one of his eyes while looking around. "Almost where?"
Bell stopped.
Ahead of them, the forest thinned into a clearing where three mud hills clustered together, the largest of them bisected by a narrow fissure. Air here was different, carrying a faint mineral tang.
Let's hand drifted to his hat, adjusting it lower. His eyes moved across that clearing, cataloguing details—a cracked stone near that fissure's mouth, multiple boot prints pressed deep into mud, and a splatter of red spread across a stone just inside its entrance.
Arles' legs stopped moving. Her clock stilled against her chest.
"What is this place?" Let asked quietly.
"An entrance." Bell stepped forward, his boots finding stone. "To Knossos."
Lyd's tail went rigid. Ray's jaw tightened, still visible through her cloak.
"Knossos? What is that?" She repeated, her voice dropping lower.
Taking their reactions in, Bell stepped through the fissure.
A narrow corridor awaited them, forcing their group into a single-file line. Bell led, Wiene with him. Alfia followed close behind, her footsteps silent on stone. Then Lyd, Let, and Arles, with Ray bringing up the rear.
The walls around them bore unmistakeable marks of an artificial construct, deliberate stonework compared to the Dungeon's own uneven ones. Patterns ran alongside them in geometric repetition, too precise for anything natural.
Let traced a finger along one pattern as he passed. "This looks human."
The corridor soon opened into a small chamber. A dead end, save for a door carved into its far wall. Complex patterns ran across that surface, converging on an empty circular socket at its center.
But the chamber's floor was where every eye snapped as they stepped in.
A crater was visible on it. Stone had been blown outward from a single point, cracks radiating like a shattered mirror from an impact zone roughly two paces wide.
Good work, Gran.
Ignoring the crater, Bell stepped to a corner, bending forward to pick up a red, spherical object pulsing with slow, rhythmic movements.
Nearby, Alfia looked down at a small piece of vaporized bone. When her gaze lifted, it met his as he turned back with the orb in hand.
Wordlessly, she shifted her feet, crushing that fragment into powder under her heel.
"On the other side of this door are multiple passageways which go parallel to the Dungeon floors. Your people are being held somewhere in there."
Lyd's tail lashed behind him, striking a wall to his left with a crack. "Then let's go in right now and—"
"Not yet." Bell cut him off, voice calm but carrying enough weight to stop him mid-step. "Ray was right, if we want to sweep through every single roach in there, we have to gather everyone and bring out as much fighting force as possible."
He pocketed the Daedalus Orb, its glow dimming against his cloak.
"But we need to be quick. We know exactly where they are, while they will be wholly unprepared for us."
Ray exhaled slowly, her wings shifting beneath her cloak. "What about you? Will you follow us back?"
"No." Bell turned toward that corridor leading back out. "I need to go back to the surface and get my Falna updated."
He paused just before walking out, Wiene's breathing soft and even against his shoulder—she'd been tired from earlier and had fallen asleep at some point during the walk, her small frame trusting him to rest even here.
"We'll meet again just outside after three hours. That enough for you all?"
Let ran calculations in his head, reaching a conclusion in moments. "It won't be enough, Mister Bell."
"Then make it enough." Bell said without turning.
Let adjusted his hat once more, accepting the instruction with a shallow nod.
Bell then moved, walking out through that corridor and the fissure, halting out into open.
Behind him, the others filed out one by one. Ray first, her eyes fixed on his back. Then Lyd, who stretched his arms wide enough that his joints creaked. Let followed next, quiet, calculating. Arles padded out on all fours before rising to stand. Alfia emerged last, arms folded beneath her chest.
None of them spoke for a moment.
Bell looked at Lyd.
"Take her."
Lyd blinked. His usual antics vanishing as he looked between Bell and Wiene with careful eyes.
"Bell-chi—"
"I can't take her to the surface with me. She would be safer with her own people."
His fingers found her fists, curled tight into his cloak. Even in sleep, her grip had locked itself around him with desperate strength.
Bell worked one hand free. Then the other.
Wiene's face crumpled. She remained asleep, but her body seemed to register the separation before her mind could, and her hands shot back up, grasping at air, cloth, anything at all.
They found his forearm and latched on. Her nails tried to bury themselves in skin to hold but could not, his body was too tough.
She whimpered. A sound too raw for a child's throat.
"N...O!"
Bell's hand stopped mid-pull.
Sighing, he placed a finger on her head. His vitality burned as he poured it into her.
The effect was immediate.
Wiene's whimpers stuttered. Her mouth, which had been mid-syllable on another protest, softened into a relaxed mumble.
Not waiting, Lyd slipped an arm around her shoulder and the other under her knees. He lifted her away from Bell's chest in a single, fluid motion, careful not to jolt her awake.
Then, he cradled her against his own chest now, just as Bell had done moments prior.
Straightening his back, Bell met the eyes of everyone.
Ray. Let. Arles. Lyd.
"Three hours. Be ready."
No goodbye. He just turned and walked.
"Let's go, Aunt."
Alfia fell into step behind him.
She always did.
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Alright. We're finally gonna get updated stats, then a raid. And then something big I have in store. I won't spoil much, just that I haven't really dived into Bell's fighting style as much as everyone else like Izuru and Artoria. So, its probably time to write how he will actually fight in his own unique style.