This was the 18th Floor, right before the entrance to Rivira.
"Oh my god...!"
Lefiya could not hide her shock at the scene before her.
Broken palisades, collapsed caves, goods strewn everywhere, and the air filled with echoing groans and shouts.
"What on earth happened here?"
Returning to the Dungeon after some time, the sight that greeted her was the wreckage of Rivira, already reduced to ruins.
She was not the only one bewildered by the chaos.
"Long time no see, Bors. Though it looks like things have taken a turn for the worse."
"Keh! I wondered who it was. The 'hero' of the Loki Familia, huh? What brings you here?"
"That's what I want to ask. What in the world happened?"
"What happened? It's exactly what you see. Monsters attacked, and the village got smashed to pieces. It's just the old days repeating themselves."
At Bors's words, Finn could not hide his confusion.
The barriers and the batteries installed in Rivira.
Finn was well aware that these had been set up in the village sometime over the past two years.
According to the information gathered by Riveria and the other mages of the Familia, they were highly sophisticated tools, possessing enough power to repel any monster found in the Middle Floors.
He had even witnessed their effectiveness with his own eyes.
And yet, they had been breached?
This was not something that could be brushed off lightly.
"An abnormality in the Dungeon? My thumb is starting to itch."
"Well, how should I put this..."
"I'll handle the explanation, hero."
"And you are?"
"Hashana. A member of the Ganesha Familia. Level 4."
"Quite a capable man. And even with you here, it still ended up like this?"
"Yeah, it was insane. Someone like me was no match for her."
Hashana's story went roughly like this.
A short while ago, he had received a secret commission from an unidentified individual.
The request was to secretly retrieve an item from the 30th Floor.
Consequently, Hashana had descended into the Dungeon alone, keeping the mission a secret even from his own Familia members.
After successfully retrieving the item, he came to Rivira to meet a courier at the midway point.
That was where the incident began.
"On my way, I met a lovely young woman. She claimed it was her first time on the 18th Floor and asked me to guide her to Rivira. I had a slightly strange feeling about her, but I figured it was just my imagination and decided to be helpful for once. I mean, she was seriously beautiful."
"That wasn't helpfulness. That was lust."
"Ahem! Cough, cough!"
"That's enough, Tione. Sorry, please continue."
"Uh, right, so..."
And so, the two of them arrived at Rivira.
Hashana intended to hand over the item to the courier waiting inside the village.
The woman followed closely behind him.
"That's when it suddenly triggered."
The moment Hashana fully crossed the village boundary and the mysterious woman attempted to follow.
The magical batteries installed in the village suddenly pivoted toward them.
Consuming the magic stones embedded within, they fired a concentrated blast of magical energy.
The target was precisely the mysterious woman following Hashana.
"At first, I was terrified. I thought the batteries had malfunctioned. I actually felt bad, thinking some innocent beauty had just been killed for nothing."
But to his astonishment, the woman did not die.
Instead, she slapped the incoming magical blast with her bare hand, deflecting it effortlessly to the side.
It was a feat far beyond the capabilities of any novice adventurer.
Even Hashana, a Level 4 who prided himself on his strength, could not have done such a thing.
This meant the woman was a powerhouse, possessing the strength of at least a first-class adventurer—Level 5 or higher.
Tch, so I've been found out. How annoying.
Ignoring the stunned Hashana, the woman clicked her tongue and cast off the ragged robe she had been wearing.
The face revealed beneath was a mixture of icy coldness and savage ferocity.
She looked nothing like the fragile woman who had just claimed to be a novice on the 18th Floor.
"Want to know the most shocking part? That woman wasn't human."
"Not human? Don't tell me...!"
At Finn's shocked exclamation, Hashana nodded.
A living being with a magic stone in its body.
A monster of the Dungeon.
That was her true identity.
"That's impossible!"
"Yeah, I get it. Honestly, if I'd heard this from someone else, I would've said the exact same thing."
Facing the disbelief of the Loki Familia, Hashana and Bors simply shrugged.
It was an absurdity they wouldn't have believed themselves if they hadn't witnessed it firsthand.
"The village batteries kept firing. Eventually, she decided she'd had enough and pulled out a weapon—straight from the floor of the Dungeon."
The armory of the labyrinth, [Land Form].
A monster's ability to seize any part of the Dungeon's terrain and transform it into a weapon.
No human could possibly possess such a power.
As if to confirm this, the bombardment from the village continued relentlessly.
It was an abnormal situation by every definition.
"Around then, we noticed something was wrong too. Usually, those things fire once or twice and stop, but they just kept blasting away. We couldn't ignore it."
The attention of all of Rivira shifted toward the mysterious woman.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Hashana screamed at the top of his lungs to warn the village of the impending crisis.
"Enemy! Human-type monster! Estimated Level 5 or higher! Target is Rivira! Move it, now!"
His roar shook the village, prompting the other adventurers to snap into action and move in a frenzy.
Hashana quickly retreated to join their ranks.
Finding the entire village suddenly in combat formation against her, the woman frowned, her expression one of genuine annoyance.
How troublesome.
"Aaagh!"
"W-what is this strength...!"
The woman charged into the village without hesitation.
The adventurers fought back with everything they had, doing their absolute best to stop her.
But not one of them could last a single second.
Useless.
"Gah!"
After single-handedly crushing the bulk of the village's defenses, the woman pursued her target with cold indifference.
She quickly caught up to Hashana and subdued him in an instant.
As a veteran, Hashana tried to resist, but it was futile.
Level 4 strength was simply not enough to stand against her.
The only difference between him and the others was that he didn't die immediately.
Farewell.
D-damn it!
Just as he faced the brink of death...
"And that's where I stepped in and saved the day at the perfect moment!"
"Haha, I really was grateful then. I honestly thought I was a goner."
The two of them shared a hollow laugh.
At first glance, Bors seemed like a dim-witted brute and an outlaw.
However, he was the leader of the organization that had managed and maintained the village.
Even in a place like Rivira, where might makes right, they wouldn't let an incompetent man hold the crown.
The fact that he had kept the rough elements of the village in line was proof enough of his capability.
Thanks to his keen instincts and quick thinking, Bors had recognized the severity of the situation faster than anyone else.
Without hesitation, he deployed a trump card he had kept secret from everyone in the village.
"The guy who installed the batteries told me: 'For safety, only use the lowest-grade magic stones. But if a crisis comes that you can't handle, switch the batteries from automatic to manual, stuff in the best magic stones you have, and fire at maximum output.'"
Recalling that advice, Bors shoved every high-grade magic stone he owned into the battery's magazine.
He then manually operated the battery and unleashed a magical blast at the attacker.
"Uh, wait. What was the firing chant again? Let's see... right! Stellaaaaaa!"
In that instant.
"What?! What is this...!"
A colossal pillar of light obliterated the woman instantly, and the resulting shockwave sent the captured Hashana flying backward.
It was a piece of support that could only be described as fantastic.
He had been plucked from the jaws of death.
"The power was unbelievable. It didn't just take out that freak; it pierced straight through the wall and hit the Floor Boss, Goliath, in a single line. Look at this magic stone! It's rare to get one this pristine after taking down a Floor Boss!"
"Hmph! If I paid a fortune for it, it should at least do that much. That's why I kept it... ugh, damn it! What a waste! I should have thought about it more before firing!"
"Hey, Bors. If you had, I'd be dead."
"Damn it, who cares! I was shocked too when the battery exploded! Uwaaaaah!"
Bors burst into genuine tears.
Everyone around him looked at him with cold, dead eyes.
Even Hashana, the man whose life he had just saved.
As a side note, after unleashing that devastating power, the magical battery was shattered beyond repair—completely obliterated.
It was as if the machine had simply fallen asleep after fulfilling its purpose.
"Hmm..."
"Yes? What is it, Captain?"
"Nothing. It just doesn't feel right."
Finn remained lost in thought.
According to the two men, the situation had been resolved.
And yet, for some reason,
why was his intuition—his "thumb"—still itching so intensely?
It felt as though the incident was far from over...
—GROOOOOOOO!
"What!?"
"What was that? What is that sound?!"
A beastly roar echoed from the distance.
Following the sound, unidentified attackers began to emerge one after another.
"Captain! Look...!"
"It's the same pattern as during Monsterphilia!"
And then, an inevitable encounter that could neither be refused nor avoided.
"That wind just now... I see. You are 'Aria,' then."
"Who... are you?"
The actors were all in place.
Every coincidence was merely an inevitability.
At last, the predestined wheel of fate began to turn.