"Besides, we haven't even played our trump card yet, have we?"
Trump card?
Valletta shuddered on instinct. Remembering that power which filled her with instinctive fear, she looked toward a certain corner of the hall with extreme wariness. There, two silent shadows stood side by side.
Unless you looked closely, it was as if they had never been there at all.
"Heh, that's right."
"The trump card!"
"Hee!"
...
Candlelight flickered on the table, illuminating a breathtaking profile beneath a hood. Alfia, the Witch of Silence, sat quietly on the edge of the bed with her hands folded on her knees, in the impeccable posture of a lady.
The atmosphere in the whole room was so oppressive it had nearly congealed.
Even an Overlord at the peak of Lv.7 had to be careful with every breath right now, afraid that the slightest displeasure from the witch before him would get him blasted out of the room.
Clearly, over the years, he had seen more than one person with a death wish try their luck in front of her, and none of them had ever come to a good end.
As the saying goes: once bitten, twice shy.
Zald, a man who had come out of the Zeus Familia, had a wariness of the witch before him that went bone-deep and was carved into his very soul.
Still, at the thought of the man Alfia had been paying attention to earlier, his eyes narrowed and an idea came to him. He decided to probe a little. After all, that was the man she had thought highly of, and the two of them didn't have much time left. If he didn't get something out of her, he wouldn't be satisfied, and it would help pass the time in these last boring days anyway.
With that thought, the corner of his mouth curled up, and he laughed heartily:
"Haha, Alfia."
"Looks like you misjudged him this time. That kid... isn't just some guy who wallows in the arms of women, spends all day chasing skirts, and reeks of money-grubbing greed. Tsk tsk tsk... if I'm not wrong, that bastard god's little toy, meant for dealing with Loki Familia, got intercepted by that kid in the Dungeon?"
As he spoke, he rubbed his stubbly chin with an amused look:
"Oh-ho! Right, what level was that thing again? Upper Lv.6, wasn't it? Add the boosts from being a dragon species and God's Assassin, tsk tsk tsk. That kid and his bunch of women do have some skill. If, with their Lv.3 and Lv.2 strength, they can get away alive from under that thing's claws, and if they can then make it back to the surface alive, what's the harm in me, Zald, acknowledging them for once?"
But then his tone shifted, and he let out a long sigh:
"But that's clearly a false premise. Lv.2s and Lv.3s against an upper Lv.6 dragon species? Heh, even we, the Zeus and Hera Familias with a thousand years of accumulation behind us, probably couldn't pull that off."
"I'm afraid they won't last that long. What a shame."
His words were dripping with mockery, but his eyes never left Alfia for an instant.
The way he saw it... after he had said this much, it would be stranger if this woman didn't react at all, right?
"Zald."
Here it comes!
The man known as an Overlord perked up. With a smile on his face, he looked toward her, until she slowly opened those heterochromatic eyes, rare in all the world...
The next second, a piercing killing intent struck him head-on, freezing the smile on his face. And what the woman said made his scalp prickle and sweat pour down his back.
Alfia eyed him from the corner of her eye, her expression cold:
"Zald, if you're in such a hurry to be reborn, I don't mind sending you on your way."
"..."
With that, she closed her eyes again.
Feeling the keep-away aura around Alfia, Zald wisely shut his mouth and carefully backed toward the door. Only after the door closed without a sound did he raise a hand to wipe the cold sweat from his brow.
He stood there dazed for a moment, then suddenly raised his hand and gave himself a loud slap across the face.
"That's what you get for probing, you idiot!"
"Sigh."
Shaking his head, Zald took out a flask from who knows where and, drinking and humming a little tune, melted into the pitch-black corridor.
"Leon, my boy, Leon, my boy, I hope you really do have what it takes. Otherwise... good luck to you."
...
Listening to the footsteps outside the door fade away, Alfia opened her eyes again.
She stared at the flickering candlelight, her gaze growing distant.
After a moment, as if remembering something, she picked up a file from the desk and flipped it open. In the dim candlelight, the photo on the title page was of the very man they had just been talking about.
Shadow of Sorcery, Leon Hart, Demeter Familia...
"Level: Lv.3? Heh... that idiot Zald."
She gave a soft scoff, tossed the file back onto the table, and closed her eyes again.
"God's Assassin, the Greatest Evil, Lv.6... If you and your women can survive its claws, perhaps the future of this world isn't beyond saving after all."
The candlelight cast her silhouette on the wall, swaying along with the flame.
"Unfortunately..."
"Cough, cough!"
She took out a handkerchief and covered her mouth, glimpsing a glaring smear of red on it. The beauty, already pale, lost even more color. Enduring the pain in her body that never stopped piercing her soul, she let out a soft sigh:
"Unfortunately, I don't have much time left."
...
...
The next day.
The Eighth District, Loki Familia's headquarters: Twilight Manor.
"Alise, are you sure... an unknown Irregular has appeared deep in the Dungeon?"
Finn sat in a custom-made high chair, his hands clasped beneath his chin, brow deeply furrowed, as he looked at the group from Astraea Familia visiting today.
"This is no joke!"
Alise exchanged glances with Kaguya and Lyra, and spread her hands:
"Finn, you know me. I may be a bit scatterbrained usually, but when it comes to something this big, I know what's serious."
"Besides, wasn't the mission to go support Rivira one you handed us personally?"
"So you're saying you felt the tremors coming from below while you were on Floor 18?"
"That's right."
Finn pressed his brow and sighed helplessly:
"Sigh, of all times. Why does everything have to pile up at once? The Evilus alone are enough of a headache, and now something's gone wrong deep in the Dungeon."
Everyone looked at him quietly, saying nothing.
After all, everyone knew what state the city was in right now. Even the slowest ordinary citizen could sense the oppressive feeling of a coming storm, to say nothing of Adventurers, who were far more sensitive to danger.
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