DanMachi: How did my dungeon turn into a Soulslike game? Chapter 237: The Former Seniors

"Good grief... this is just absurd..."

Morning sunlight spilled down.

It was a dim autumn morning, the sky over the city thick with clouds that looked ready to break into drizzle at any mont.

Deep in the slums of the Third District, the winding, labyrinthine alleyways had beco, in every aningful sense, the stronghold of the Dark Familias.

Adventurers rarely ca here on a normal day. Most of the civilian population had already been evacuated, leaving the area desolate and hollow — a place that felt buried under a suffocating pall of gloom, save for the distant silhouette of the Ishtar Familia's compound rising beneath the grey clouds.

On the East Main Street just beside it.

What had once been a bustling thoroughfare was now choked with barricades and checkpoints. Adventurers organized by the Guild held the line there in tense formation, facing off across a single street's width against the Dark Familias lurking in the shadows.

Behind them lay the city's most vital zone — the Magic Stone Factory District.

After Isagi and Ryuu-senpai's warning during their last visit, the Guild and the righteous Familias had reinforced their defenses here substantially, making it nearly impossible for the Dark Familias to slip inside. And as a result — just as the two of them had anticipated — when infiltration failed, the Dark Familias had resorted to outright assault on the factory district. Both sides had clashed here multiple tis, and for now, the righteous Familias held the advantage.

Even so.

The Guild had no good answer for the Dark Familias entrenched deep within the Third District's alleyways. Pushing into that maze wasn't feasible yet — the terrain inside was too complex, and their positions too unknown. Any reckless advance risked walking into an ambush from every direction at once.

And just monts ago.

The girls of the Astrea Familia had watched as the boy transford into a massive iron-black wolf and hurled himself like an unstoppable force of nature straight through the wall of a building.

Crashing, shouting, shrieking —

For Alise and Kaguya, it was the first ti they had ever seen an adventurer fight like that.

Lyra, who served as the squad's tactical brain and commander, could only shake her head in disbelief — the pink-haired Pallum simply could not conceive of combat being conducted in such a fashion.

Just a short while earlier, their goddess had told them to follow the boy here, saying they were launching a surprise raid on the Dark Familias.

The target was the notorious [Slaughter Empress] — Valetta Grede.

Brutal to her core. Ranked alongside the Dis sisters of the Alecto Familia, she was responsible for the deaths of more adventurers and innocent city residents than almost anyone else — and one of the individuals that Orario's adventurers most desperately wanted to see dead.

That she had survived this long despite her infamy was, naturally, a testant to raw power — a Lv.5 first-class adventurer, possessed of considerable cunning on top of her strength, and one of the rare Dark Familia "commanders." She had even, at one point, been considered a true rival to Finn Deimne, the [Braver] and captain of the Loki Familia.

Vicious and sharp-minded both — in ordinary circumstances, simply locating this woman was no easy feat, let alone defeating her.

And yet.

Right before all their eyes.

Only a few minutes after the boy — this Isagi of unknown origin — had charged into the building, the screams had stopped.

What replaced them was a silence like death, and the unmistakable copper reek of blood seeping out through the wreckage of the shattered walls.

Kaguya, whose sensitivity to the scent of blood was particularly acute, furrowed her brow.

Then, taking the lead, she fell into formation with Alise at her side. The girls moved as a unit, making their way toward the crumbled building.

Under normal circumstances, even if they had pinpointed Valetta Grede's location, they would never have charged in like this.

As mbers of the Goddess of Justice's Familia, Alise and the others were no fools — with most of their group at Lv.3, taking on a Lv.5 first-class adventurer was simply not in the cards.

The mont they received solid intelligence on Valetta's whereabouts, the correct move should have been to imdiately contact the Loki or Freya Familias. At the very least, they should have alerted the Ganesha Familia.

But their goddess had told them — everyone else was occupied with their own affairs for now. This ti, all they needed to do was follow the boy.

Just who was he? Was he really that strong?

The answer awaited them inside the collapsed building — and what they found left them utterly speechless.

Dark Familia mbers lay strewn across the floor.

And Valetta — that notorious Dark Familia officer, the scourge of the city — was pinned beneath the boy's foot as he stood over her like a great iron wolf. She wasn't dead, but she was barely clinging to consciousness.

"...Hah?"

It made no sense.

The boy had only been inside for a few minutes. How had he reduced a Lv.5 adventurer to this state so quickly?

Alise and Kaguya and the rest could not have understood, of course.

The pure stat amplification granted by the elixir and the forbidden technique was simply incomparable to that of any ordinary first-class adventurer.

"Are we taking her back with us?"

"Yeah."

Isagi gave a short nod.

Valetta Grede was a high-ranking officer within the Dark Familias — which ant she was privy to a great deal of intelligence. Even though he and Ryuu-senpai already held plenty of key information from their future vantage point — including, precisely, how to locate this woman and capture her here and now — there was no question that Valetta knew things they didn't.

Once they brought her in and had Goddess Freya use a single [Charm] on her, information about the Dark Familias would flow freely into the hands of the Guild and the righteous Familias.

This, too, was part of the plan he and Ryuu-senpai had laid out.

Leading the city's current adventurers in raid after raid against the Dark Familias themselves was simply too inefficient. The real priority was to ignite the adventurers' own initiative — and the truth was, Orario's righteous Familias had the power to defeat the Dark Familias already. All they lacked was intelligence. Given accurate information, and with several Dark Familia officers already out of commission, the balance of power would tip quickly.

The city's dark age would vanish far faster.

Isagi bound the barely-conscious Valetta. The woman — her hair a close-cropped ss of reddish strands — had already passed out cold.

He had a faint mory of her. When they had raided the Artificial Labyrinth, this woman had been one of the few Dark Familia officers present — a major combat asset. But that had been years ago now. Back during what beca known as the "Great Conflict," she had been soone even Finn considered a genuine rival.

By the ti that era ca around, she'd been nothing but a footnote by the side of the road.

A Lv.5 going up against the [Braver] who had long since reached Lv.6 — the outco didn't need to be spelled out.

"Let's move."

§

The girls' eyes at that mont were filled with awe, fear, and longing — the unguarded expressions that the weak will always show in the presence of the strong.

Isagi said nothing.

With these forr seniors of his Familia, his policy was to speak as little as possible. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally alter the tiline sohow — and for that sa reason, Goddess Astrea hadn't brought the Ryuu-senpai of this era along. She had deliberately kept her back at the Familia's base instead.

He needed to use his remaining ti efficiently. He had roughly half a day left here — the more Dark Familia mbers he captured in that window, the less blood the city's other adventurers would have to shed.

Isagi moved quickly, withdrawing with Alise and the others before reinforcents from the Dark Familias could close in. They made it back to the Guild's temporary forward base in front of the Magic Stone Factory on the East Main Street side — and then he personally escorted Valetta to Babel Tower.

This was the largest stronghold for the city's righteous Familias during the dark age — the last "fortress," one could say, that still stood.

Isagi went directly to Hedin, the senior officer of the Freya Familia, and wasted no ti bringing him before Goddess Freya herself.

What happened next was no longer his concern.

From here, the plan was simply to repeat the process as many tis as possible — striking at the Dark Familias' strongholds throughout the city from mory, capturing as many of their officers as he could, and bringing them back to extract more intelligence.

And not just him.

Ryuu-senpai and Adi were doing the sa thing elsewhere.

Once the Dark Familias' main combat strength had been swept up entirely, the lower-ranked mbers that remained — along with the gods on the dark side — would pose no real threat. The forr could be dealt with easily by high-level adventurers. The latter would be handled by the city's own gods, who would send them back up to the heavens.

Of course, what Isagi actually wanted was to find an opportunity to send all those dark-sided gods into the Dungeon instead.

But that would require a separate plan.

Maybe he could carve out a dedicated day to make it happen —

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