The next day, in the throne room of the Divine Tower, a heavy atmosphere lingered.
Rozen, Mash, Anna, and Merlin stood in the room, all with furrowed brows.
Gilgamesh sat on the throne with his arms crossed, clearly displeased.
Siduri, holding a clay tablet, was delivering a report.
"...That concludes the findings compiled this morning."
Her voice carried a hard-to-describe tone of sorrow as she finished.
Everyone fell silent.
Including Rozen.
He quietly began observing the current state of Uruk using his Wise Eye and Mind's Eye abilities.
Through these eyes, he could see that Uruk was more bustling than ever, filled with vitality and energy.
It was proof that the one hundred thousand humans rescued earlier had now settled in and begun integrating into Uruk.
With such a large influx of labor, it was only natural for the city to grow livelier than before.
And yet—who would have thought that beneath this lively scene, a deadly crisis was brewing?
At the very least, Rozen could sense it: the miasma that had started to spread since yesterday had grown more than tenfold in this increasingly active Uruk.
As a result, the number of dead spirits lurking in the shadows and underground had also increased. Uruk was now like a land split in two: a thriving city above and a dark, perilous hell below—an unsettling contrast.
Gilgamesh voiced his displeasure with a scowl.
"Only a single night passed, and already 113 people have collapsed and died from exhaustion. How brazen they've become."
So he said.
Yes.
Last night, 113 people suddenly collapsed and died from exhaustion. They were only discovered this morning.
"It was probably due to the effects of the scent of death draining their stamina until their souls were taken by the Garula spirits," Merlin said, stroking his chin.
"Even though the situation at the northern wall and southern gate continues to improve, I didn't expect this…" Mash muttered, her face clouded with sorrow.
Even Anna looked visibly disturbed.
Among those who died from exhaustion, one had their soul taken right before Anna's eyes.
According to her, last night, while everyone else was asleep, she had stayed on the embassy's rooftop, lost in thought.
There, she witnessed the appearance of the Garula spirits. She saw with her own eyes the messengers of the underworld enter a building across the way and take someone's soul.
Anna had immediately chased after them, but failed to catch up—she could only watch helplessly as they vanished.
Her mood had been gloomy since morning.
"Why are there so many Garula spirits in Uruk?" she demanded, glaring at Merlin. "Didn't you cast a barrier? Isn't that barrier supposed to confuse the undead?"
It was clear she was taking out her frustration on him.
"You wound me," Merlin sighed helplessly, replying, "Even if my Flower Field can deceive most undead creatures, the Garula spirits are an exception, aren't they?"
"An exception?" Anna blinked in surprise.
"Exactly," Merlin nodded. "Unlike other undead beings, the Garula spirits are messengers of the underworld. Their duty is to ferry the souls of the dead into the underworld, so they are everywhere. Wherever humans live, they will appear."
In other words, Garula spirits couldn't be expelled. Their very nature required them to wander among human settlements to retrieve souls.
"In your modern era, with the disappearance of True Ether, beings like them can no longer walk the earth. But this is the Age of Gods. Here, the heavens, the earth, and the underworld are all connected. Even the strongest barrier can't completely keep them out—because that would mean eliminating 'death' itself from within the barrier. Such a thing is neither allowed by the world nor by the gods."
Merlin continued his explanation calmly.
"The only way to eliminate the Garula spirits is to ensure that no humans reside in a given area—no souls to take, no death, no presence of life. Only then would they have no reason to appear. But so long as life and death exist, they will never be driven away."
And so, even as the battle conditions on the northern and southern fronts improved, even as the undead were kept at bay by Merlin's flower formations, only the Galla spirits could still move freely through Uruk.
They couldn't harm the living, but they silently ferried away the souls of those who had been worn down and killed by the scent of death.
As a result, 113 citizens of Uruk lost their lives in a single night.
In truth…
"This isn't the first time something like this has happened," Siduri interjected at just the right moment. "Before this, there were already numerous cases of people in Uruk whose souls were taken by the Garula spirits, dying quietly in their sleep. The same applies to other cities—many have experienced various levels of mortality. Especially Kutha. After the emergence of the Three Goddess Alliance, the citizens of that city appeared to fall into a slumber and simply stopped breathing."
"Kutha?"
The group exchanged glances.
Rozen also looked up.
"Kutha, huh?" he said calmly. "If I recall correctly, that's a city northeast of Uruk—within Ishtar's territory and bordering the demonic beast lands, right?"
"Yes," Siduri nodded. "Although its population wasn't large, the city was advanced in terms of society and culture. They worshipped the goddess of the underworld, making her the city's guardian deity—essentially the opposite of Uruk, which worships the goddess of life."
"The goddess of the underworld…" Mash hesitated for a moment before asking tentatively, "Then… does the underworld really exist?"
It wasn't Merlin, but Gilgamesh himself who answered.
"If the underworld didn't exist, then where do you think I searched for the herb of immortality?" he scoffed. "In your era, mystery has faded, and the underworld has become legend. But in this age, heaven, earth, and the underworld are one and the same."
This was something he had explained before.
In the Age of Gods, the world was unified.
The gods lived in the sky, and the dead were beneath the earth.
These were physical realities—not metaphysical realms.
In other words…
"It's only natural that Kutha's guardian deity is the goddess of the underworld. After all, the underworld lies directly beneath Kutha. I entered the underworld from there—and returned from there as well."
Gilgamesh rapped the armrest of his throne.
"Now, with the Garula spirits running rampant and Uruk cloaked in the scent of death—deaths piling up and souls being stolen—this undoubtedly has something to do with Ereshkigal."
—Ereshkigal.
The goddess of the underworld. The very name carried dread and mystery.