“We’ll Definitely Come Back to Save You!” — It’s Been Three Years Since I Was Left in the Most Difficult Dungeon, Isn’t It About Time for Help to Arrive...? - 54-55

Chapter 54: Getting Used to It Is Scary

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The Glacial Wolf skillfully hooked my robe on its lower fangs and gently pressed it down from above to keep it from slipping off as it raced through the dim dungeon. With every blink, the blackness before my eyes subtly shifted. I had no idea where we were anymore. All I could do was surrender myself to this monster and watch the scenery pass in fragmented glimpses.

Where it finally took me was the dungeon’s deepest floor—the last stronghold of Niflheim that we had barely reached before.

“—Heeey! Midi~!”

Athos, who had gotten separated from me, came running up.

“Athos…?”

“Sorry! I got too used to taking shortcuts like usual… Oh, wait. So it was you who brought her here?”

“Woof!”

“Whoa—Good boy!!! Come here! You’re getting all the scratches you want!”

“Awoooo!”

Glacial Wolf dashed over like a dog released from a “stay” command. Up until Athos said “come,” it had been absolutely motionless like a statue, which made the contrast all the more intense… I never expected it to actually guide me here.

“Haaah…”

Relieved, I found myself burying my face into Athos’s chest. He accepted it silently, gently stroking my hair. I did notice that Glacial Wolf’s gaze had grown a bit sharper since earlier, but for now, I focused on the happiness in front of me.

“Sorry for leaving you behind. …But really, it’s all because—”

Athos shot a sharp glance behind him, and sure enough, there stood Hel and Lazuli, bickering as usual.

“I’ve held my tongue until now, but you keep trying to pull Master Athos to your side every chance you get…! You really ought to learn some restraint!”

“I-I’m not doing that! You’re just overthinking it and panicking over nothing! Besides, when you sent me back to town, didn’t you try to get rid of me?! If you’re that scared of losing him to me, why don’t you put a collar on him and keep him glued to your side or something?!”

“Fine, then! I’ll go put one on him right now!”

“—Like hell you will!!!”

In a flash, Athos jumped between them and slammed their heads together. A dull thunk echoed through the room as both girls clutched their heads and dropped to the floor in a crouch.

“…Now that these two can talk like people, I’m seeing all kinds of things I didn’t before and I just realized that I’ve been walking a dangerous tightrope this whole time…”

“T-That sounds tough…”

Athos’s voice, directed into the void, sounded distant and exhausted. His eyes looked vacant, like the worn-out guild clerks you’d see in the middle of the night.

“…Well, it’s too late to change anything now, so I’ve got no choice but to get used to it. More importantly, let’s go rest. You’re tired too, right, Midi?”

“Eh…? Y-Yeah…”

So I helped the two dazed girls up and followed behind Athos as he headed deeper into the dungeon. Beyond the particularly heavy doors we passed was a boss room—one we never got to see the last time we attempted the dungeon.

At the center sat an empty throne, clearly meant for the boss. Scattered around it were makeshift bedding made from rags, broken wooden crates, and cracked water jars—proof that someone had been living here for quite some time.

“…Wait, this is really the boss room…?”

“Yeah. It’s surprisingly comfy, once you get used to it. Though it takes a little adjusting—whoa.”

Saying that, Athos casually sat down on the throne.

“So, with that said—welcome to Niflheim!”

Athos welcomed me with the air of a homeowner.

Since arriving in Niflheim, I had been welcomed with one surprise after another. I thought I couldn’t possibly be shocked any more—but who could have imagined that the comrade we thought dead had actually been living in the enemy’s stronghold all this time…?

“…I wonder when I’ll finally get used to Athos…”

Once again, I was reminded of how incredible he truly was, with his unconventional thinking and nerves of steel.

“…Well, I guess I’ll just get used to it little by little. After all, from now on, we’re going to be together… Forever, right?”

Blushing at the sweet, rising desire bubbling from within me, I walked toward the throne where he waited.

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Chapter 55: Anonymous Magic

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“…Alright. It’s great that we made it back to Niflheim safely, but now what should I do…”

I tried once more to organize the situation. The first and foremost thing I needed to address was how to return Eishia and Ripley to normal.

It had already been proven with Midi that they were acting strange and that it was possible to reverse it. But judging by the extent of their transformation, it was clear that they were pushing themselves far too hard. For their sake, I had to find them and bring them back as soon as possible. Also, I needed to thoroughly investigate the cause—why exactly they had gone into that berserk state.

On top of that, there was another important matter: my original goal of “returning to the city.”

To accomplish that, I had to do something about the rumors spreading in town, but with things blown so out of proportion, just waiting for them to settle naturally was out of the question. 

Worse, if things continued like this, there was a real possibility I would be forever labeled the “Demon Lord.” In order to clear up the misunderstanding, I would need to take some kind of action myself.

“So, that’s the general gist of it.”

“No matter what, I think we’ll have to go back to Calzeria… Whether we’re searching for the two of them or trying to find the cause…”

Midi looked up at me, swinging her legs from where she sat near my knees.

“…We’ve always used Calzeria as our base of operations… So, it makes sense to start investigating the city we’ve spent the most time in first…”

“But wouldn’t going back right now be a bad idea? I’m not good at holding back. If some humans come at us, I’ll probably kill them. Like—snap.”

Lazuli clapped her hands with a sharp pan. It wasn’t a threat—one glance at her expression made that clear.

“Don’t say such scary things… Listen, even if we end up in a fight with other adventurers, don’t kill anyone, alright? Unless someone is in serious danger, just focus on driving them off. Keep your strength at that level at least.”

“That kind of control is hard, but fine. I’ll keep it in mind.”

I felt bad for putting so many restrictions on them just because of my situation, but if we ended up killing someone, it’d be impossible to undo. I had to handle this with care.

That said, what Midi had brought up earlier also made a lot of sense. Rather than aimlessly searching outside the city, it would be much more efficient to focus on a location where we at least had a chance of running into them. And when it came to gathering information, as an adventurer, using the guild was the obvious choice.

The guild was a hub for all sorts of information, true or false, important or trivial. I could likely find eyewitness reports about the two, records from the past three years I knew nothing about, and even get a sense of how the guilds viewed the so-called Demon Lord.

“If I can sneak into the city without being recognized as Demon Lord Athos and gather information at the guild while waiting for the two of them—that would be the best case scenario. But… Is there a way to pull that off…”

“—There is, Athos.”

Midi tugged at the hem of my clothes, looking up at me.

“Really? You mean, like a spell that interferes with people’s perception or something? But those kinds of spells don’t usually last that long, right?”

“Yeah… So I’ll use a different spell… It’s called—‘Anonymous Magic’…”

“Anonymous Magic…? What’s that?”

“I don’t know that one… Have you heard of it, Master?”

“No, I haven’t. And I’m not exactly well-versed in magic to begin with… Midi, what kind of spell is it?”

“You’ll understand if I show you… Lazuli, come here for a second…”

“Huh, me? I guess that’s fine…”

Midi walked over to Lazuli, who stood up, and pointed her staff with a small amount of magic gathered at the tip. She gave the signal to cast the spell.

“…Here goes—‘Anonymous: Sightline’.”

“Whoa!?”

With a soft pop, something burst, and white smoke enveloped Lazuli’s face. When the smoke cleared, the person standing there was clearly no longer recognizable as Lazuli.

“…So, this is that Anonymous Magic thing?”

“…Yeah, it is.”

“At a glance, it’s hard to tell who it is, but… Isn’t that just a black bar over her eyes?”

“Yup. This way, it’s easy to hide your identity. So, what do you think?”

“Well, I mean… Look at that…”

“—Hey! Hey! What did you do to me!? Everything suddenly went pitch black!”

Apparently, the black bar over Lazuli’s eyes was visible to her too. Now trapped in a world of darkness, she stumbled around, bumping into things.

“Is this for real!? Are you sure you didn’t cast the wrong spell!? I can’t even walk properly—wait, hang on? If I move my body, I can kind of see under it! So if I tilt my head like this, the black bar shifts and—”

“Rejected.”

“Ugh, too bad…”

Right when things started going wildly off course, I had Midi dispel the magic. As she regained her normal vision, Lazuli groaned in frustration, muttering to herself. 

 “Even though I almost got the hang of it…”

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