Prologue II

Location: 50th Dungeon Floor

Time: 0 minutes after Contact (a.C.)

Everything had been going as expected. Five days after entering the Dungeon and without any casualties, Loki Familia had reached the 50th floor. Safe zone that this floor was, the adventurers had begun to set up their camp.

That was when the tremors hit. Half-finished tents broke down, people fell, tools slipped out of the hands that had been holding them.

The more experienced and high-level adventurers put their guard up, anticipating the ground tearing or some sort of attack hitting them.

But intense though they were, the tremors were brief, and no attack or catastrophe arrived. The 50th floor became utterly silent. Slowly but surely, people stood back up and regained their bearings. Of course, far from forgotten, the tremors had caused a palpable sense of anxiety throughout the half-finished camp.

One that even Ais Wallenstein was subject to.

Even her expression, often hard to read, had noticeably tensed up. Being a Level 5 with plenty of experience, she had experienced powerful tremors before. The strongest adventurers and monsters sometimes caused them when they did battle.

But this felt…different. More powerful, more…profound? As though the tremors had in truth been significantly more devastating than any produced by adventurers or monsters and she and her comrades had simply been far enough away to experience a mere fraction.

But that alone wasn't it. Ais had sensed something – something unlike anything she had ever encountered before.

A thought that filled Ais with trepidation.

She turned around to face her superior Riveria, seeing an expression similar to her own.

"Yes…this was strange.", the high elf affirmed Ais' feelings without even needing to hear them.

"Finn." Riveria addressed the Familia Captain.

Said Captain had been absent-mindedly rubbing his right index finger and thumb together but ceased when Riveria called out to him. He took a deep breath.

"Everyone, get back to work! Prepare for a small group to head out shortly!", Finn Deimne shouted his orders for his comrades. Effortlessly, they reached all, and in a combination of discipline and lingering agitation, everyone resumed work on building the camp even faster than before.

"Executives, to me!" was the final command.

"Come on, let's wait inside." The Pallum gestured the two ladies to enter his tent.

They both nodded and followed him.

In short order, all of the other executives had joined them. The dwarf Gareth stood next to fellow top executives Finn and Riveria, while the werewolf Bete and the Amazoness twins Tiona and Tione were standing next to Ais.

"So…" Gareth's voice cut through the silence, "I'm guessin' you wanna talk about those tremors, Finn?".

"That and the makeup of the party that will go to the 51st floor.", Finn responded.

"About that…", Riveria interjected," Are you sure we should go ahead with that? I know we have Dian Cecht's quest to think of, but if we don't know what's happening…"

Finn nodded, "I understand your concerns, Riveria. But…I have a feeling we have to act boldly here.", the captain demonstratively put up his thumb.

"Your instincts always have been very reliable…", Riveria sighed," Alright, no further objections from me."

"Can we talk about those tremors now?!", Tiona's excited voice chimed in.

"Yeah. That was so damn weird, it's got me all riled up.", Bete agreed with an irritated tone, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.

Tione scoffed at the werewolf. "Isn't that what you're always like?"

"Shut up!", Bete shouted, "I'm being serious here. That shit sent shivers down my spine!"

"Aye, mine too." Gareth added. "To me, it felt like somethin' very powerful, very far away."

Agreeing murmurs went through the tent.

Ais' eyebrows furrowed slightly. "You felt nothing else?"

"Oh?" Finn tilted his head. "Did you feel something different?"

The eyes of the Sword Princess grew distant. "It's hard to put into words. All I can say is that it wasn't magic or even divinity. Maybe…foreign is the word?" She returned to the present. "Maybe I just imagined that."

Finn's gaze was piercing. "Do you really think that could have been your imagination or are you just saying that?"

Ais closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, recalling that moment. That inscrutable emotion. Then, she gave her answer: "No…I think it was real."

"Alright. I'll keep it in mind then." The Braver leaned the back of his head on his hand." Hmm, foreign, huh? ...Has something about the Dungeon changed?"

"Then we really have to go!" Tiona exclaimed loudly." Discovering something new, that's exactly what an adven-ouch!" Only to be interrupted by her sister smacking her on the head.

Tione sighed. "This is serious, Tiona. This isn't the time for your ramblings."

Tiona rubbed her head, quietly muttering in pain.

"Actually, she may have a point." Finn plainly stated.

"Really?" Tione and Tiona looked at him wide-eyed.

"Really. This is still an expedition after all. We went in intending to go beyond what we knew before anyway, this is just more of that."

"Hah!" Tiona grinned at her sister, who scowled in response.

"That said" Finn continued." We should certainly exert more caution than we would have otherwise. Which brings me to the topic of the party going down to the 51st floor: given the many unknowns of this situation, I want six of us to be there and ready, with two supporters."

"One of us will stay back to guard the camp then." Gareth surmised. "Guess that'll be me. You want Riveria's magic in case things get heated, don't you, Finn?"

Finn smiled at his old comrade. "What you said. Any other thoughts, Riveria?"

"Perhaps…" Riveria caught herself, becoming distant for a moment." …Nevermind. I'll go myself."

"Oh? Did you have something in mind?"

The high elf sighed. "Just that it might be a good opportunity for Lefiya to gather some experience…but it's as you said. It would be too risky to send her in now."

"I see." The captain scratched his chin." Yes, normally this would have been a good occasion for that. Oh well, we have to work with what we have."

Bete's agitated voice made itself heard again. "What about the supporters? I better not have to babysit some wimps."

"I was thinking of Anakitty and Raul. They're both Level 4 and have some of the most experience, us aside." Finn answered.

The werewolf didn't protest, but a small growl could still be heard.

"Perhaps you would prefer to be the supporter yourself, Bete?" Riveria had a strained smile on her face.

"Ugh, I get it, hag!" Riveria's eyebrow twitched. "Don't need to rub it under my nose, I'll protect the small fry, even if it annoys me."

"Now, now." Finn slowly waved his hand up and down. "Me and Riveria will be the rearguard, so protecting the supporters will be mostly up to us anyway. But I appreciate your enthusiasm, Bete."

The young man grumbled yet caused no further commotion.

"Does anyone have anything left to say?" The captain addressed the whole tent.

The shaking heads affirmed that was not the case.

"Then get ready at once and inform Anakitty and Raul to do the same!"

Following the instructions of their leader, all of the executives made to leave the tent quickly.

Time: 20 minutes a.C.

The tunnel leading to the next floor was dark. As the group continued to descend down the slope, the warmth of the 50th floor gave way to a dreary cold. The more they advanced, the more the noises made by their comrades at the camp faded, replaced with utter silence.

In that silence, the stewing thoughts of Ais Wallenstein inevitably returned to that strange tremor and that even stranger feeling that had accompanied it.

What could it have been? Why was she the only one who noticed it? Did it have something to do with her own nature?

An immense roar tore through the silence, ripping Ais out of her thoughts. By now, they had reached the end of the slope, light entering their vision once more.

"What was that?!" Raul shrieked.

"Must be Cadmus." Finn reasoned. "But why- "

The slight shaking of the ground and faint sounds of destruction in the distance provided the answer to the question the captain had been about to ask.

Which naturally brought up a new question: What was Cadmus fighting?

"…Let's keep moving." Finn concluded.

So, the party entered the 51st floor, their path forward mired with uncertainty – and a group of running Black Rhinos.

Bipedal creatures with a black hide and two horns jutting out of their faces, standing over two meders tall. As monsters born on the deep floors, they were of course rather powerful. Hence, the fact that they seemed to be running away only added to the confusion of the current situation.

However, Ais drew her blade regardless, determining that she would be able think about it later.

The Rhinos halted, now realizing the threat that was before them. Unfortunately for the monsters, it was far too late to save themselves.

Their thick black hide, impenetrable to ordinary adventurers, was more akin to paper to the three that stepped forward.

Ais' rapier Desperate, Bete's Frosvirt boots and Tiona's massive double-bladed sword Urga, sliced, shred and tore through them, spreading their pieces all across the ground.

In mere moments, the group of Rhinos that would have been an immense danger to anyone else was annihilated, split into bits or dissolving into dust after having their magic stones destroyed.

Ais looked around, checking the perimeter. After ensuring there were no more monsters around, she sheathed her sword, nodding at the others who had been behind her.

"Wow." The cat girl that was carrying half of their supplies expressed. "Seeing that just doesn't get old."

Raul nodded. "It's scary too."

Anakitty scowled. "No, that's just you. Anyway, why were these Rhinos running?"

Another rumble.

"Maybe because of that?" Raul suggested.

"That's possible." Finn inserted himself into the conversation." But the 51st floor is as large as Orario and the Cadmus Spring is still fairly far away. It would be a bit odd for these monsters to panic so much because of something that doesn't affect them."

The young man sweated nervously. "You mean there's something else?"

Finn shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

Raul and Anakitty deftly picked up the magic stones that were loose, before the party started moving again.

Ais kept her guard up, expecting that more monsters would appear that she need to cut down. Yet, as they ventured further through the winding hallways, no attack came. Indeed, there seemed to be no indication that anything had ever existed on this floor at all.

Finally, Ais picked up on a sign of activity. That sign was neither in her vision nor her hearing, but instead…her nose.

"Ugh!" Bete held his nose, surely perceiving the smell more strongly than her.

Finn took a sniff as well. "I'm smelling something too. Bete, can you tell us what it is?"

The werewolf groaned but still complied with the request: "I'm not sure, but it kinda reminds me of the forges of that smithing geezer."

The forges? "Like molten metal?" Tiona looked towards Bete.

"Yeah, that."

Tione frowned. "So, that means something's melting close-by?"

Riveria stretched her hand out, seemingly feeling the air. "It doesn't feel particularly hot though. I doubt there's a powerful fire around here."

Shaking his head, the captain addressed the whole group.

"Whatever the case, we should keep going. Seeing as how there don't seem to be any monsters around, I think we can pick up the pace a bit. Everyone, stay focused!"

The party got moving again, now with much greater speed than before. Bete and Ais remained in the Vanguard, putting even more effort into keeping watch on their surroundings.

Naturally, the more they advanced, the louder the sounds of battle and the stronger the rumbles became. Cadmus' roars grew wilder, the noises of explosive blasts underpinned by strange, repeating and thundering sounds painting a vivid picture of a violent struggle.

Ais found that Bete's assessment of the smell had been accurate. The stench had gotten stronger as they approached the Cadmus springs and with her own experiences visiting Goibniu for his weapons, she too was reminded of the smell the active forges gave off.

Soon enough, they came across the cause of the scent: holes in the walls and ground, filled with recently molten rock and slag, now in the process of hardening. Yet, as Riveria had observed before, there wasn't any residual heat.

What could have melted the floor without fire?

With no way to ascertain the truth for themselves, the party carried on, another mystery in the back of their minds.

Ais stretched her senses to their absolute limits. Every little noise has picked up, each slight movement in the corner of her eyes scrutinized. And she was certain, all of her fellow party members were doing the same. Making sure they could not be caught off guard, steeling themselves for whatever awaited near the Cadmus Spring.

Until finally, taking another corner to the spring, they laid eyes on most peculiar creatures: long and thick green bodies with no limbs and colorful spots on their exterior. They moved by crawling across the ground and in fact were headed towards the same destination the party was, the stage of that enigmatic clash.

And much like the party had been distracted by the presence of those creatures, so too were the monsters distracted by the party.

They wriggled around, pointing what were presumably their faces at the party and changed their direction to crawl towards the adventurers instead.

Said Adventurers all drew their weapons, taking a combat stance. Bete snarled, "The hell are those things?!"

Finn spoke firmly, though not aggressively: "Leave the questions for later!"

Immediately after those words left the captain's lips, purple liquid shot out of the monster's faces. Instinctively, the adventurers leapt away, letting all of the liquid splash on the floor – and observed how that spot began steaming, the fluid digging into the ground.

The question of the source of those holes had been answered.

As they had done before, Ais, Tiona and Bete rushed forward, the other three executives staying behind to observe and to protect the supporters.

Deftly evading the acid bursts, the Sword Princess was the first to reach the caterpillar-like monsters. A swift slash later, a caterpillar had been horizontally bisected. In that same moment, Ais herself was nearly turned into an eroding mess, as more of that acid came spraying out of the monster's stump. Only another evasive maneuver on her part saved her from that gruesome fate. Her blade itself was steaming, still intact due to its Durandal trait.

"For real?!", Tiona exclaimed as she arrived at her own target. She switched up her grip on Urga, opting to smack the caterpillar with the flat of the blade instead of slashing it. The massive greatsword slammed into the monster's mid-section, deforming it along the blade's shape and sending it flying through its brethren.

Bete already preferred to use the blunt force of his kicks to inflict damage and as such had no need to change his approach. However, he quickly found that the exterior of those monsters, though flexible, was surprisingly resilient. Without the weight of something like Urga, he lacked the sheer force to achieve the same results. Snarling, the werewolf drew his Durandal short swords, slicing through the monsters in a manner not unlike Ais herself.

Despite the initial surprises, the three weren't having too much difficulty dealing with the monsters. The caterpillars simply didn't have the physical attributes to deal with them, regardless of their acid.

But for the adventurers that stayed behind, there was still reason to worry. For one, the caterpillars' corpses were not disappearing, even though they had primarily been hit in their center. With most monsters, their magic stone was in their chest and when the magic stone was destroyed, their bodies immediately turned to ash. So, the fact that this was not happening to these creatures indicated that their magic stone was located elsewhere or potentially, that they didn't have one in the first place.

Perhaps more pressingly though, were the large number of caterpillars that had turned around and were now crawling away from the spring, where the roars and blasts continued relentlessly, and instead went towards them, threatening to surround the three that had gone ahead. As such, Finn determined it was time to step in.

"Let's go." Simple words, but enough for his allies to understand. Tione moved forwards aggressively, seeking to reinforce her sister. Finn and Riveria were close behind, positioning themselves more to block the incoming group of caterpillars. Raul and Anakitty followed at a healthy distance, outside of the monster's attention, but not too far to supply the fighters with what they needed.

Seeing as how Bete, Tione and Tiona had that outlier group well handled, Ais chose to go towards Finn and Riveria instead. She readied herself to support her seniors against the coming onslaught, running across the room.

Yet, nothing occurred when she reached them. No words were exchanged, no battle was done. The reason was yet another roar, this one far surpassing the others in its length and in the sheer sensation of pain it communicated. Even the caterpillars that had been approaching them until now halted.

Ais' brows furrowed. Was the roar getting closer?

Then the roar dramatically weakened and died out, only to be followed by a loud irregular noise coming from behind the monsters. A strange shape came barreling through, crushing some of them and knocking down many more.

After passing through the monsters, the object slid across the ground, slowing down until it stopped right in front of them.

It was steaming, having obviously suffered from the monsters' acid. Charred, black clumps contrasted golden scales. From the long head, a tongue hung limply.

Despite the fact that its majestic exterior had been marred, and all of its limbs had been reduced to mere stumps, there was no mistaking it.

This was the corpse of Cadmus.

Ais' eyes widened at the realization. But before she could process further what she was seeing, a new sound entered her ears. It sounded like…fire?

Another strange shape flew through the tunnel that the monsters had been coming from. It illuminated its surroundings in pale blue light as it drew closer in astonishing speed. Indeed, its speed was even more impressive when considering how large it was. She couldn't see it clearly as it passed by the monsters and seemed to rush straight at them, but still she raised her sword to face this new threat.

Suddenly, what she could now recognize as blue flames coming out of the thing's back ceased and came out as a short burst out of its legs instead, causing the vaguely humanoid object to stop before them and Cadmus' body.

"_%&(&(?*§&_"

A sharp pain went through Ais' head, a strange ringing filling her ear. She hunched over, held her head and let out a short grunt that caused Riveria and Finn to turn around.

"Ais?!" The elf in particular had a worried expression on her face.

The Sword Princess held up a hand. "I-I'm fine." While neither the pain nor the ringing had completely subsided, they had become more bearable. As such, she could identify another underlying sensation that had been masked by the pain: the exact same odd feeling she had gotten during those mysterious tremors that made them come down here in the first place.

She gazed up at the apparent cause of the sensations. It was a bit taller than she had first estimated, roughly 10 Meders perhaps? Not as tall as the mansion that her Familia called home, but certainly taller than most buildings she had seen. Its exterior was clearly metallic, yet instead of the shine she was used to from metal, it was gray and discolored. The surface wasn't smooth either, with there being countless small ridges and many strange structures jutting out of it. Small lights were visible all across its body, especially on the rather flat head, where a single horizontal light resembling a visor was quite literally looking down on them. The plates on its left hand and arm were clearly damaged, but beyond that it appeared to be in good condition.

It was holding something triangular on its right hand and had a strange U-shaped object on the back of its left hand, attached in a way Ais couldn't quite see. Strange boxes seemed to be mounted on its shoulders. Perhaps it was her years of adventuring experience or sheer instincts as an organism, but Ais knew immediately: those were weapons.

No, this entire…Golem, for lack of any other word that could even remotely describe it accurately, was a weapon. An implement of battle, created to meet utter destruction upon all of its foes. Even that seemed like understating it. She felt like she was looking at the very embodiment of war itself; cold, uncaring, brutal and merciless. She was certain it was responsible for Cadmus' fate. Though it could be seen that the caterpillars had attacked it too, if they had killed the beast, the body would have vanished. The fact that this Golem had taken out a monster of that caliber while taking fairly little damage itself, spoke volumes about its combat capabilities.

Was it an enemy? Where had it come from? How was it connected to those feelings? Did it have something to do with that initial tremor? Was it maybe even the cause?

She looked back at Finn and Riveria. Their faces were inscrutable, but she could tell that for all of their experience, they were just as much at a loss as she was.

The Golem seemed to be the same. It kept looking at them, as though it was just as confused about seeing them as they were about seeing it.

Ais continued to hold her weapon raised in the air, unsure of whether to make a move or not. All of her comrades were in that position, held up by the multitude of emotions they felt.

For a moment time seemed to be frozen, everything fully unmoving. Until, like a dropped pin in the silence, a crackling noise emanated from the Golem. Ais tensed up even further, anticipating something to happen.

Instead, the noise distorted multiple times, before becoming coherent:

"Who. Are. You?"

Author's Note: Hello again with another Installment! A thing I forgot to mention last time, I am actually crossposting this story on the Forum Spacebattles, so if you want to join the conversation there, you are more than welcome to do so. I have the same Username as here and of course, the story also has the same name.