That same night. The dark had grown deep, and the autumn wind had chased off the last faint warmth left over from the day.
After a lively, lavish dinner in the [Loki Familia], the girls set off together, following their god back to the mansion in the upscale residential district.
Along the way, by the dim glow of the Magic Stone streetlamps, one could still hear the half-drunk adventurers in the taverns lining the road, pounding on tables as they gossiped about the news of the newly appointed Constable who, the previous evening, had bathed a cancerous Familia in blood with a single stroke of his blade.
Tsukuyo walked at the side of the group, her waist-length silver hair stirred gently by the night breeze.
Her ears twitched, as if she'd caught some other sort of motion amid the tangle of wind.
Still, Tsukuyo said nothing. She only tightened the arm cradling her sheathed longsword a fraction and kept pace with the others into the mansion.
A short while later. The upscale residential district.
The Haimer mansion, the second-floor study. Haimer sat leaning back in a single-seat sofa, idly flipping a bright silver coin. It tumbled several times through the air, dropped back into his palm, and gave a crisp, muffled thud.
"Heads."
"Kami-sama."
"You called for Lili alone. Is there something you need?"
Right after, Lili pushed the door open, a little nervous.
This was the first time since she'd formally joined the Familia that the god she admired had summoned her, alone, into the study at so late an hour.
On top of that, there were all those scenarios she'd been dreaming up on her own — the ones where a Familia had to serve its god.
Lili's cheeks flushed faintly, and she stole a cautious little glance at Haimer.
"It's nothing to make a fuss over."
Sensing Lili's stiffness, Haimer didn't beat around the bush and cut straight to the point.
"That transformation magic of yours, Lili. 『Cinderella』."
"Can it disguise you flawlessly as one of the [Ishtar Familia]'s combat courtesans?"
The moment the question landed, Lili froze for two seconds.
Then her chestnut eyes blinked, and every trace of awkwardness swept away in an instant, her expression snapping taut. The instincts she'd honed scraping by at the bottom made her seize the heart of the question at once.
She lifted her face and nodded hard. "If it's only changing my appearance, racial traits, and build," she said, "then as long as Lili has seen the target's face with her own eyes and memorized her figure and voice, Lili's magic can copy her perfectly."
"Even a check of the voice wouldn't turn up a single flaw." Lili sounded exceptionally certain.
"Good."
Haimer drew out a folded sheet of parchment.
He laid it on the desktop.
Lili leaned in a step without thinking. She rose onto her toes and craned her neck toward the desk.
On the parchment was a sketch drawn in charcoal, the marks still fresh, some spots even smudged where the charcoal dust had blurred.
Plainly it had been drawn only moments ago.
It was a rough map of the terrain around the Pleasure Quarter, sketched offhand by Haimer from the memory of the maps he'd committed to mind when he'd first come down to the Lower World.
Though it was only a handful of strokes, the lines were extraordinarily precise.
The dense routing of the sewers, the height differences between rooftops large enough to hide a person in — even the blind angles of the several large brothels with their great red lanterns hanging out front — all of it Haimer had marked out clean and clear on the paper.
"Take a look at this."
Haimer nudged the sketch toward Lili.
"I'm going to test you now, Lili. Judge from your own past experience."
"If, within this district hemmed in by high walls and hidden sentries, someone wanted to move a living, breathing person out beyond Orario's outer ring without anyone noticing —"
"which route do you think they'd be most likely to take?"
This wasn't a question to ask on a whim.
After all, in Orario, anything involving the secret transfer of a living person almost always meant filthy dealings that couldn't stand the light.
Slave trafficking, for instance.
Zanis had once done exactly that — hauling off people drowning in debt, selling them on the black market to the mines.
Hearing the question, Lili stood at the edge of the desk, both hands pressed to either side of the parchment, her eyes fixed close and earnest on those complicated routes.
The study went so quiet that only the ticking of the hourglass could be heard.
A full two minutes passed. Then Lili reached out a finger and jabbed hard at three spots on the sketch.
"If it's about moving something alive — meaning you have to account for bulk and staying hidden on the move — then these three places are absolute blind spots."
Lili's fingertip pressed against the first black dot.
"Here. A covered drainage outlet at the southeastern edge of the Pleasure Quarter."
"That outlet mostly takes the household wastewater from Daedalus Street and the slag from some of the factories. The stench is overpowering — even the lowest of the lowlife thugs won't go near it."
"The sludge underneath is piled up to about waist height on an ordinary person. It's easy to sink your feet in and lose time walking through, but the sound of the current scouring the walls down there is so loud it can completely mask the scrape of dragging something heavy."
Then Lili's finger slid up along a long line and pressed hard on an abandoned area. "The second spot is here — the old reservoir on the west side of the Pleasure Quarter, right up against the edge of the ruins outside."
"It's been dry for ages. Once the new reservoir was built, this one was abandoned."
"If you feel your way forward along the rusted old copper pipe network beneath it, you can bypass the street blocks aboveground entirely and reach the outskirts."
"As long as you don't run into a changing of the gendarmes at the exit, then even with the sentries lined up shoulder to shoulder along the whole street up top, there's no way anyone belowground could be searched out."
Finally, Lili's finger shifted up once more and came to rest among a cluster of buildings outlined in squares.
It was exactly the concentrated area of the several large brothels marked on the map.
"Last, there's this line."
"If you want speed, and the target being moved can't be soiled, there's no need to travel on the ground."
"Using the staggered heights of the several large brothels' rooftops, and the crossbeams they hang their signboards from as footholds, you can leap straight across the blind-angle zone in the line of sight of that tower on South Main Street."
"A route that goes across the sky like that — as long as your skills are good enough, and you can vault over in the gap while the patrol sentries turn their heads, you can basically get through."
Having laid out all three routes in one breath, Lili drew her hand back and honestly retreated half a step.
Haimer looked at the three dots, a shade of approval surfacing in his eyes.
"As expected of you, Lili. That's a sharp head on your shoulders."
Hearing the god she admired praise her, the tips of Lili's small ears flushed red in an instant.
But Lili clearly didn't relax at that.
She slowly tilted her head up and looked at Haimer.
"Kami-sama… are you preparing to move against the Pleasure Quarter?"
Even asking it made Lili tense.
After all, the Pleasure Quarter was, plain and simple, the turf of the [Ishtar Familia].
It was Orario's famed money-pit, and the Lv.3s stationed within numbered well over a hundred.
Among them was even Frunyi — the Lv.5 captain rumored in the streets to be ugly as a toad and especially vicious in her ways with men.
"Rooting them out is only a matter of time, but it's not yet the moment to tear off the mask and flip the whole table over."
"There's still a portion of the district I haven't gotten to the bottom of. So, Lili —"
"I need you to make a run out there."
"The danger isn't too high, but this is something only your ability can pull off."
Lili bit her lower lip and waited for what came next.
"Slip in with your magic."
"You don't need to get too close. Disguise yourself as anyone you think you can, then carve into your mind the faces of everyone going in and out of those hidden doors during this stretch of time."
"And while you're at it —"
"help me confirm which tower, or which exact room in the Pleasure Quarter a renard girl named Sanjouno Haruhime is currently being held in."
A renard? Named Sanjouno Haruhime?
Lili was taken aback at the words.
Renards were an exceedingly rare breed in the Lower World. They were only fairly common in the Far East. And nobility, at that.
For one to be dragged into a place like the Pleasure Quarter was by no means as simple as just plying flesh for coin. The price paid behind it all — often not so much as a splinter of bone would be left.
But.
Actually infiltrating the Pleasure Quarter was by no means easy either.
After all, even if she had magic that could reshape her outward form — the moment the combat courtesans had some private signal she didn't know about, or she happened to run headlong into the real person —
the instant those combat courtesans caught a hint of something off, with her mere Lv.1 frame —
any lowly Amazon gatekeeper could reach out, give a squeeze, and snap her neck like strangling a sparrow.
I'll die… But…
As the fear crept up in Lili's chest, it was replaced by the image of when she'd once infiltrated the [Soma Familia]'s wine cellar.
The pure-blood Divine Wine up on the high stand, mouth full of that fishy sweetness, the pain of having to bite down on her own tongue just to hold on.
She'd gritted her teeth and forced her way through even Divine Wine that could corrode her very soul. Compared to that, scouting out a few crossings — what was that, really?
Most crucial of all — this was the first genuinely formal commission the god had entrusted to her since he'd taken her in.
In this Familia crowded with monsters, if she couldn't prove her own worth, then what right did she have to stay?
At that thought, Lili shut her eyes hard and drew in a deep breath.
When she opened them again, not a trace of the earlier timidity remained. "Lili… Lili absolutely will not let Kami-sama down!"
Lili bent deeply at the waist, a ninety-degree bow.
Right then. "Knock, knock, knock." A knocking suddenly sounded.
It cut through the somewhat heavy atmosphere in the study.
Lili turned her head, puzzled. When she pulled the door open —
the one who pushed it open and stepped in was Inaba Tsukuyo.
The girl's waist-length silver hair still carried a hint of half-dried dampness.
She'd already changed into a set of clean, thin, pure-white underclothes.
The fabric at the collar was faintly soaked through by the moist steam, giving off the fresh scent of someone just out of a bath.
"Kami-sama."
Tsukuyo walked in and called out softly.
She was barefoot, treading on the thick red velvet carpet, her steps extraordinarily steady.
Not only that.
She wasn't carrying the sheathed longsword she always kept by her side and used as a blind-woman's cane.
Clearly, her grasp of the contours of the surrounding terrain had reached a point where she could walk about freely on hearing alone, without any hindrance.
Carrying the sheathed longsword along as a cane was nothing more than a way to throw others off.
"Finished bathing?"
Haimer looked at Tsukuyo coming in from outside, his tone gentle. "Mm."
Tsukuyo gave a light nod.
Then, seeming to notice there was someone beside her, the corners of her mouth on that delicate, somewhat pale little face pulled to either side, offering a friendly, faint smile toward Lili standing off to the side.
Then Tsukuyo walked a few more steps forward and came to a stop at the side of the mahogany desk.
She folded her hands together quietly in front of her.
She lowered her voice.
"Kami-sama."
"About when Tsukuyo was bathing just now in the bathhouse — she noticed that around the outer perimeter of this mansion, there are two different groups of people, staking out and keeping close watch in staggered shifts."
A stakeout?!
Lili had been all wrapped up in gathering intel on others just a moment ago.
At that word, her nerves jolted.
To brazenly come and stake out, in the midst of Orario's many districts, the base of a newly appointed Constable who'd just been granted the highest Guild ruling's special right of adjudication and had several homicides on his hands —
that wasn't a job any half-witted small-time thug would dare take.
"Two groups?"
Lili couldn't hold it in and blurted out, picking up the thread.
Tsukuyo's small head turned slightly in Lili's direction.
"That's right."
"The first group keeps rigidly fixed spacing between their movements."
"When they move about, the sound of their boot soles striking the flagstones is very regular, and the rasp of their armor plates is that dull, run-together clatter unique to standard-issue equipment."
"Judging from the character of those sounds… it should be the Ganesha Familia gendarmes that Miss Shakti asked to stay here on regular protection watch."
"What made Tsukuyo feel something was off is the second group."
"The second group — because I've never heard sounds with these traits before —"
"I can't tell their identities simply by their features. But…"
"Tsukuyo can roughly sketch out their builds."
"They should be four Pallums."
"Because their breathing is very shallow, which means their body weights are all light. And what's more —"
"Beyond that, Tsukuyo can also hear the distinct, faint clashing of interlocking metal plates, which means they're all wearing complete sets of heavy armor."
"And the four of them move in step as if pulled by a single thread — their synchronization is very high."
Tsukuyo laid out everything she'd found, holding nothing back.
— Four Pallums. Elite in armor, movements synchronized.
And able to evade the [Ganesha Familia] gendarmes — there weren't many like that in Orario.
Hearing this, Lili blinked, as if she'd already faintly guessed who it was. Those who could muster this kind of fighting strength in Orario —
there was only that one.
Haimer turned his head to look at the thought-caught Lili.
"From the traits Tsukuyo described, you've surely already guessed who's staking us out, haven't you, Lili."
Lili clenched her teeth and nodded hard.
"There's absolutely no mistaking it."
"To be able to show this kind of practiced coordination in Orario, and for the team to be made up of exactly four Pallums —"
"they can only be senior officers of the [Freya Familia]…"
"— the ones called the 『Four Warriors of Flame Gold』, the Gulliver Brothers."
"Then can Tsukuyo pin down their exact positions?"
Haimer asked back softly.
"I can."
Tsukuyo nodded without the slightest hesitation.
"They're currently positioned behind our mansion, atop a large chimney jutting out from the roof of a building."
Tsukuyo's positioning was precise to the centimeter, even clearly naming what their cover was.
Listening to Tsukuyo, Lili finally grasped just how terrifying Tsukuyo's perception was. To her, everything —
was practically no different from reading the answers straight off the page!
Tsukuyo, for her part, had no intention of showing off.
"Then do they have any moves toward further action?"
"Not for the moment."
Tsukuyo shook her head.
"Ever since they settled on those few spots, they've just stayed at their chosen stakeout points and haven't advanced a single step."
"In that case, then let's leave them be."
"When enough time has passed, whoever sent them will naturally come find us in person."
Haimer's words set the tone for this matter.
"Oh, right, Kami-sama —"
Having gotten Haimer's reply, Tsukuyo easily withdrew her thoughts.
But right away, she remembered something else. "Oh, right, Kami-sama." Tsukuyo's brow furrowed slightly.
"On Tsukuyo's way back —"
"Tsukuyo heard a bit of sound from underground again."
Tsukuyo paused. "And compared to when I passed by yesterday, the sound underground this time was somewhat different."
Haimer lifted an eyelid. "Tell me in detail."
"This time there were a lot of very heavy hauling sounds underground."
"From the sound of it, it seemed someone was transporting something very heavy."
"And while those people were hauling, Tsukuyo also heard some very crude, massive objects knocking against one another as they were moved."
"There was also a fine, rustling scrape. Those people underground seemed to want to move those things deeper down."
"From the sound, what they're hauling should be a large amount of powder."
In this otherworld where sword and magic held sway —
something worth mobilizing a large crew to haul in heap after heap, and taking the form of a powder —
even with one's eyes blinded, with just a little association, one could tell what it pointed to.
There was only one dangerous item!
— "Gunpowder."
"So they mean to… set off gunpowder down below?"
Hearing out Inaba Tsukuyo's description and connecting it to gunpowder, Lili's little face went instantly pale with fright.
After all, gunpowder was no small-time plaything.
Though in this world the uses of ordinary, primitive gunpowder truly weren't widespread — many adventurers even sneered at it —
that by no means meant it posed no threat.
Quite the opposite.
Compared to the pure, refined Magic Stones you had to shell out a high price for at the Guild or the large shops, gunpowder was outrageously cheap to produce.
Any mine of some scale outside the city would stockpile the stuff year-round to blast open roads and dig out ore veins.
And as long as the dose was large enough, gunpowder's explosive force was absolutely not to be underestimated.
If a pack of madmen with their backs to the wall really did haul down dozens, even over a hundred barrels of gunpowder —
below was the Dungeon!
With a normal geological structure, blowing it up would just blow it up — at most it'd cave in a few hollows.
But the Dungeon was alive!
If someone crammed in an excessive dose of explosives all at once, wreaking large-scale destruction on the skeletal structure of the labyrinth —
the enormous shockwave from the violent explosion would surely spread across several floors in an instant.
And more deadly still —
when the Dungeon suffered massive damage, the Dungeon itself would be enraged, triggering its most direct defense mechanism.
Commonly known as the "Irregular." At that point, the labyrinth would forcibly hatch an immune system meant to wipe out every intruder — the "Juggernaut."
— The "Juggernaut" not only possessed claws that could destroy an adventurer's hardened armor like slicing through tofu; even the highest-grade defenses couldn't withstand more than a few blows.
Character details
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