"Ready, Ryuu-senpai?"
"Yes!"
"Then let's try."
Night had fallen. In the courtyard of the Garden of Stars, Isagi stood beside the elven girl, preparing to return to the past.
Before them lay the relics of her friends — items Ryuu had brought back from Under Resort, the settlent on the 18th Floor of the Dungeon known as Rivira.
The elven girl proceeded just as she had before. On the far side of the rear courtyard, beneath a great tree not far from Cecil's smithing workshop, she had buried the relics beneath a small mound of earth.
The adventurers' second-tier equipnt still glead with a sharp, cold luster even after all those years of weathering.
Sumr had long since passed. Autumn was quietly settling in.
Isagi had accumulated enough Divine Power once more, and had switched his character card to "Puppet Kingdom."
He stood fully ard beside the elven girl — supplies and provisions included — as if setting out for an expedition into the Dungeon.
For this day.
Ryuu had been waiting a good while. Even to the naked eye, the slender girl was trembling faintly in the crisp autumn breeze.
Not from cold. From anticipation.
She wanted to save them — no matter what.
Everyone knew this was Ryuu-senpai's obsession. And so Lefiya and the others hadn't even co along.
「If that monster appears — please let be the one to handle it, Isagi.」
That had been her request.
Rejoining the adventurers. Returning to her Familia. Growing stronger, step by step, until now.
Beyond simply wanting to catch up to her juniors as their "senpai" — to fight alongside those younger boys and girls — Ryuu had always known, sowhere deep within herself, that there was one other reason she kept pushing forward.
She wanted to personally defeat the thing that had once killed her companions.
Though.
Slaying the monster would be entirely aningless.
Adventurers killed by monsters in the Dungeon almost never sought revenge on the specific creature that had done it.
Because monsters respawned.
What was the point of defeating one, when the Dungeon would simply produce a brand-new copy without a second thought?
But Ryuu couldn't quite let it go.
The pure white light-butterflies drifted forth once more, gathering slowly before the mound until they coalesced into that exquisitely crafted ring.
The respawn point had appeared.
Darkness swept in all at once — just as it had before — in what felt like the blink of an eye.
When the world ca back into focus, a breathtaking night sky spread out before Isagi and Ryuu, vast and unadorned.
Autumn nights always carried a certain chill.
A full moon. Stars blazing bright.
The Milky Way swept across the heavens in cascading rivers of silver light, a sight so overwhelming it defied description.
They were on Orario's city walls.
The great stone blocks beneath their feet were worn and mottled — familiar, sohow. Both Isagi and Ryuu recognized this place; for a ti, they had trained here regularly with Ais.
Beyond the city walls, vast golden fields stretched in every direction — and among them —
Fire.
Soone was burning the farmland outside the city.
Walls of scorching red spread outward in every direction, racing toward the horizon. Strange howling cries accompanied the blaze.
Yet within the city, it was as though none of it was happening.
Isagi turned around.
He found that the entire city at night felt utterly lifeless. The streets were empty of people — only scattered groups of two and three adventurers moved through them in small parties, hurrying along in silence.
Of those, the Ganesha Familia were by far the most nurous.
Where exactly... had they arrived?
「The Great Strife.」
After leaving the city district together with Ryuu-senpai, they tracked down a Ganesha Familia mber and asked about the situation.
Thanks to the Astrea Familia's reputation — the mber had recognized the elven girl as 「Gale」 — things went smoothly enough. The only unexpected mont was when he looked puzzled, wondering why Ryuu was in the city at all.
"Hasn't the Astrea Familia left for an expedition into the Dungeon?"
"Ah..." Ryuu blinked and waved the question off with a vague excuse.
Soon after, Isagi led her away from the main street and into a deserted alley. Sothing about it vaguely reminded him of the tis he and Ryuu-senpai had investigated the Dark Familia together.
"It's the Dark Period," Ryuu said with quiet certainty, as though sothing had just co back to her.
"Not the seven days themselves, but... mm."
The so-called 「Dark Period」 referred to the era that followed the departure of the Zeus and Hera Familias from the city — when the once-suppressed Dark Familias rose up and waged open war against the Guild and the allied righteous Familias.
The most notorious event within that era was the seven days known as the 「Great Strife」 — also called the 「Seven Days of Death.」
Orario's most famous "First Cetery" held the graves of tens of thousands of adventurers and city residents who had perished during those seven days. There was even a dedicated holiday to mourn and commorate them.
And right now —
They were one month before the Great Strife had even begun.
"Why here... why this mont..."
Ryuu couldn't make sense of it.
She rembered this period clearly. During this ti, the Astrea Familia had been given a 「mandatory expedition」 commission by the Guild — tasked with descending into the deep floors of the Dungeon, with no specified limit on how far they were to go.
In the end, that number had stopped at Floor 41.
It was the Astrea Familia's expedition record from those days — and the single most indelible mory all those girls shared of the deep floors.
And the city at this mont was in the thick of the Dark Period's turmoil.
The Dark Familia's mbers had swept up a large number of the city's gangs, rchant guilds, and rcenary companies, wreaking havoc throughout the city and beyond — clashing with the righteous Familias in fierce, relentless combat that seesawed back and forth.
As for why the Guild had still seen fit to force the Goddess of Justice's Familia into the Dungeon for an expedition during such a crisis —
The answer was "to stabilize the confidence of the city's residents."
The Loki Familia and the Freya Familia had accepted similar commissions before. Even at this critical juncture, the Guild still had to project a sense of composure — to demonstrate that the Dark Familia's attacks had achieved nothing, and that the city was continuing to function normally, rather than being thrown into a full defensive posture with every available resource locked in constant combat against the enemy.
In plain terms: optics.
The Guild's Guild Master, Royman Mardeel, was particularly fond of this sort of thing. Though he was an Elf by birth, he was indulgent and pleasure-seeking — forever gorging himself on fine food and sweets, short and heavyset in a way that bore absolutely no resemblance to Elves in the conventional sense. He was a true oddity among his kind, and plenty of residents and adventurers openly cursed him as a 「fat pig.」
But why had they returned to this mont in particular?
Ryuu couldn't figure it out no matter how hard she thought.
Her goal had been to save Alise and the others. The ideal scenario would have been arriving on the very day they set out — to intercept her companions before they walked into the Dark Familia's trap, to defeat and destroy that monster, to prevent the deaths of the friends she'd once had.
Or, alternatively —
To talk them out of going. Though Ryuu felt deeply pessimistic about that option, because Alise was exactly the kind of person who would step into a trap even knowing full well it was one.
Because that was "justice."
If the blade of justice flinched in the face of evil and treachery, what was even the point of it?
So rescue was still the only path — going with her current strength, and defeating that thing herself —
「The Juggernaut.」
But what was this?!
She had arrived a whole month before the Great Strife — and Alise and the others had already entered the Dungeon for their expedition. Was she supposed to go find the Astrea Goddess as she was right now, and ask her to talk Alise out of it later...? That was even more impossible!
Because the gods couldn't interfere with their children's own decisions.
And the more righteous the god, the truer that was.
"What if we just take out that Rudra Familia beast tar in advance... mm, what was his na again?"
Isagi had clearly forgotten Goro's na.
But that raised its own problem.
Where was the Rudra Familia right now? And where was Goro?
They had learned the location of the Rudra Familia's secret base before — but that base, without question, no longer existed in this era. The city of the future and the city of now were worlds apart.
At this ti, the Dark Familias actually held a slight upper hand — otherwise they'd never have launched a full-scale war against the Guild with the intent to overthrow and destroy the city entirely.
That included the rchants drifting in the gray zone. If they hadn't believed the Dark Familias would co out on top, why would they have placed their bets on them?
The Rudra Familia at this point were at the height of their power. They wouldn't be hiding in so small abandoned church.
And there was sothing else — sothing more important.
"Based on last ti, we only have one day, Ryuu-senpai."
When they'd returned from a thousand years in the past, roughly an entire day had passed. Isagi's current read was that his Divine Power's ti-travel operated on a fixed duration — not by seeking out so "respawn point."
So.
"If this trip doesn't work out, the next ti we cross over might land us at the sa point again — or push us further ahead. Hard to say."
For all they knew, the next jump might land them right in the middle of the Great Strife.
That still needed to be verified.
But it was unlikely they'd end up back on this exact day again.
Of course, whether they could even return at all was another open question — just as Isagi had no idea whether he could travel back to the era a thousand years past again. Everything still needed testing.
So this might be the only "day" he and Ryuu-senpai would ever have in this particular mont in ti.
"Then we have sothing more important to do, Isagi," Ryuu said softly.
The girl was no longer a child. She was a seasoned adventurer.
At this point, going into the Dungeon to find the expedition party — to find Alise and the others in the deep floors — was simply not possible. Especially not with Isagi along.
Even if Ryuu went alone, it would be no different.
Finding the Astrea squad sowhere in the deep floors would be like searching for a needle in the ocean.
If that was the case — well, they had made it back here once. They should at least do sothing that would matter for the city's future.
Including —
The bright, innocent smile of another old friend surfaced in her mind.
Ryuu blinked. Perhaps, she thought, this was fate guiding her — pointing her toward soone she was ant to save first.
「Adi Varma.」
____
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