"What do you mean, the Blades of the Darkmoon invades people who invade others?"
In Liurnia of the Lakes, Luluwo met up with Belto, who'd already been waiting for her at an inn. He filled her in on everything that had happened while she was gone.
"While I was stuck spending every waking hour trapped in the Irithyll Dungeon, how did this dungeon manage to pull off this many major developments at once? A little boy destined to die? A covenant that thirsts for ears? Damn it — no wonder I've been getting invaded so much more lately. Leon, Fingri — you two have made my life miserable!"
Just thinking about her ordeal in the dungeon left Luluwo with an overwhelming urge to strangle Leon.
You might wonder why Fingri wasn't on that list too.
Well —
"Captain, why'd you come out alone? Where are Tami and the others?" Belto asked.
Luluwo let out a long, melancholy sigh. Her entire presence seemed to have withered along with her spirit.
"We got invaded one too many times. Then a heavyweight showed up, and right after that we got caught in a monster tide — everyone scattered. I barely made it out myself."
Belto stared, genuinely stunned.
What kind of invader could scatter a party led by Luluwo?
"Fingri. From the Hasavi Party. The Gold-Rank one."
Luluwo ground the name out through gritted teeth.
"Ah."
Well, that explained it.
Wait.
Something still didn't add up.
Belto suddenly remembered something and dropped his voice.
"That Hero — Elsa, the one going by Guts — wasn't she traveling with your party, Captain? How did she end up losing to Fingri too?"
"Lower your voice."
Luluwo rapped her knuckles against the table.
"You're the only one I've told about this. Whatever her reasons are for using a false name, that information does not leave this table. Don't wreck her plans for her."
As a genuine intelligence expert who'd spent considerable time in Bedford City, Luluwo had recognized Elsa's true identity the very first time she laid eyes on her. But broadcasting that information would gain her nothing and would only earn Elsa's resentment.
So Luluwo simply watched, and said nothing.
"Ah — right, right."
Belto nodded.
"So why couldn't she beat Fingri, then?"
"Just talking about it makes me angry all over again."
Luluwo pulled out a Memory Stone and tossed it to him.
He activated it and looked in.
Pitch black.
Unmistakably Irithyll.
The recording had clearly been made in a full panic — the image shook constantly. Combined with the environment, it produced a genuinely unsettling atmosphere.
The footage crept forward. Slowly rounded a corner.
Then —
Two red points of light ignited in the darkness.
At the same moment, a sound like a red-hot branding iron hissing against skin cut through the recording.
"Hiss—!"
Belto flinched backward hard.
The image on the stone froze on that exact frame — the instant of coming face to face with an Irithyll Jailer.
"I've got a genuinely bad feeling about this, Captain."
Belto shut the Memory Stone off immediately.
"Just looking at it, I feel like my life force is draining out of me. Is this the monster from your letter — the one that steals life force indiscriminately?"
"That's the one. No magic stops it. No dodging it either. Doesn't matter how strong you are — you can't just power through it."
"Not even Elsa could."
The Irithyll Jailers ranked among the more genuinely disgusting enemy designs Wade had pulled from Dark Souls III. Their defining trait: the moment they locked eyes on a target, that target's maximum HP began collapsing rapidly, bleeding down toward almost nothing — a faithful translation of the original mechanic, where their line-of-sight attack tore straight through maximum health.
Rendered into this world's terms, that meant life force draining away until a person's body went as powerless as a dying elder's.
Talking through it, Luluwo's expression cycled through several distinct shades of misery.
"It was entirely Fingri's fault. We were sneaking past a cluster of Jailers — I had a good feeling that clearing them would put us at the lowest level of the prison. Then that bastard invaded and hit us with a Stealth Nullification effect. You genuinely cannot imagine what it feels like having a dozen-plus Jailers all locked onto you at once."
Just recalling it, Luluwo wrapped both arms around herself involuntarily.
A dozen-plus overlapping gazes. Life force vanishing almost instantly.
Even Elsa had only managed to hold out marginally longer, thanks to her greater raw vitality compared to the rest of them.
"Longer" had still only meant a handful of extra seconds.
The Irithyll Jailers had, in Luluwo's mind, joined the exact same category of loathing she'd once reserved for the Basilisks back when she first encountered them.
She hated, above all else, enemies whose strength came from cheap mechanical gimmicks.
After that, Fingri had picked them off one by one, calmly harvesting the heads of her companions while they sat helpless on a sliver of remaining health.
His expression had stayed so relaxed the whole time he might as well have been a farmer casually harvesting vegetables from his own garden.
Luluwo had never felt humiliation quite like it.
But if she'd actually challenged him in a straight fight, she knew perfectly well she couldn't win.
Power.
She wanted power. Desperately, right now.
One more thing worth mentioning: once adventurers reached Irithyll and joined the Blades of the Darkmoon, most of them immediately reached for the Deep Blue Eye Orb.
Roughly two out of every three did.
Which raised an obvious question. Who, currently, held the title of "greatest villain" in all of Irithyll — the person with the deepest invasion history on record?
Luluwo: Yours truly.
"Let's just drop this topic. It's ruining my mood."
She swallowed a large mouthful of the beer she'd just bought.
"You write, I'll talk. I've got a fairly complete picture of the Irithyll Dungeon by now."
She'd managed to map out an entire dungeon while getting invaded over twenty times a day on average?
Genuinely superhuman.
Luluwo walked through the map she'd explored so far — the traps, the monsters, every distinguishing quirk of each one. Her account came out remarkably thorough.
Then, near the end, she asked, almost offhand:
"You said membership in the Blades of the Darkmoon keeps growing, right? And because they get to hear Gwyndolin's voice personally at the altar, that goddess's popularity's been climbing fast too?"
Luluwo's grin widened, sudden and sharp.
"I found something. A unique cell tucked into the deepest, most hidden corner of that underground dungeon. Yorshka's former prison cell."
"Yorshka... isn't that the name of the Blades of the Darkmoon's captain?"
"There was actually someone real behind that name?"
"That's right. Second leader of the Darkmoon Knights. Gwyndolin was the first."
Luluwo's smile got even brighter.
"The Irithyll Dungeon was where Pontiff Sulyvahn locked away anyone who opposed him."
"If Yorshka was imprisoned down there once..."
"...then what about Gwyndolin?"
Belto's breathing sped up noticeably.
"Captain — if we release that information, every single Darkmoon Knight is going to lose their mind."
"Relax."
"The Blades of the Darkmoon only just appeared. Nobody's had time to build real emotional attachment to the covenant, or to Gwyndolin specifically. And I can guarantee — right now, I'm the only one who knows this."
Luluwo turned one of the chess pieces on the table over between her fingers. She and Belto had been playing to pass the time earlier.
"Irithyll's final boss is almost certainly Sulyvahn. Release this now, and every adventurer alive is going to be desperate to kill him. But if we sit on it — let the Blades of the Darkmoon's membership swell further, let the covenant get even more popular first—"
"—then we get ourselves a genuinely entertaining show."
"Captain, that's genuinely brilliant," Belto said, with real admiration.
"Heh. That bunch of idiots messed with me. Time I mess with their heads right back, using exactly this."
Luluwo let out a villainous laugh — the kind that sent a real chill down the spine.
Once she'd finished handing over the most critical intelligence, it was Belto's turn to report on everything happening outside — including the latest exploration progress across Irithyll.
Because of the "Little Boy Rescue Plan," adventurers who'd made it into Irithyll recently had thrown themselves into testing every conceivable method to save him.
Actual map exploration had suffered for it.
Luluwo skimmed through the collected "rescue methods" Belto had compiled.
Her expression twisted into something close to horror.
"These aren't rescue methods. This is basically A Hundred Ways for the Little Boy to Die, isn't it?"
She set the pages down and rubbed her temples.
"Still — knowing everyone's exploration progress is roughly on par with ours is at least a little reassuring."
"Should we push further into the underground dungeon next, or head back to the surface?" Belto asked.
"I don't want to set foot in that pitch-black hole again for the rest of the year."
Luluwo shuddered visibly.
"Back to the surface. I've got a feeling that once we go in through the Road of Sacrifices, we'll run into this area's final boss soon enough."
"Are we going for the first-clear title again?"
Luluwo clapped a hand on his shoulder and delivered the answer with complete sincerity.
"Belto, I've had a realization recently."
"Please, enlighten me."
"I've figured out that 'first person to encounter the boss' sounds genuinely impressive on paper. Makes it sound like you're miles ahead of everyone else in exploration progress. In reality — in reality, that title basically just means 'first person to get the absolute hell beaten out of them by the boss.' I'm exhausted. I don't want to get pinned to the ground and worked over like a dog by some total stranger of a boss ever again. Starting today, I'm taking a break."
Belto didn't have a response ready for that.
He'd genuinely never expected Luluwo — someone who'd always thrown herself into dungeon exploration with total enthusiasm — to hit a day this deflated.
"But don't worry. I've already lined up a sacrificial lamb. He'll take the first look at the final boss's real strength for us."
"Who?" Belto couldn't help asking.
Luluwo grinned, thoroughly mischievous.
"Obviously — Guts's commanding officer. That guy who's currently wildly popular across the Royal Capital. Eliphis."
Luluwo had already passed Elsa everything she needed to know — and had specifically told her the information was fair game to share with Eliphis directly.
Knowing that girl's personality, wouldn't the Light Eagle Corps be marching on Irithyll by tomorrow?
For the record, Luluwo wasn't doing this out of any particular kindness. She still carried real hostility toward that whole class of high-and-mighty people.
And Eliphis, specifically, gave off a distinct, unmistakable air of polished hypocrisy that she couldn't stand.
"Now I just need to figure out how to plant a few Memory Stones somewhere useful. I absolutely have to see Eliphis looking miserable with my own eyes."
Meanwhile, right as Luluwo was gearing up to "cause some real trouble" —
In the Royal Capital, Eliphis was in the middle of a thoroughly staged "date."
"Is that Lord Eliphis? He's so handsome!"
"Princess Serina is beautiful too! The two of them really are a match made in heaven!"
Eliphis met the crowd's attention with a flawless, effortless smile. Every so often, he leaned toward Serina beside him with a small, thoughtful gesture of concern.
His performance was, by any measure, immaculate. He looked exactly like every girl's dream of the perfect man.
Serina's performance held up equally well. She played the role of someone hopelessly infatuated with Eliphis without a single crack showing.
Anyone watching the two of them together would have assumed, without question, that this future princess was destined to marry him.
In reality —
This walking mannequin actually dragged me out for a public stroll and now I'm supposed to play doting girlfriend? You have got to be kidding me. I am going to be sick.
Serina's eyes narrowed slightly as she surveyed the crowd around them.
Then something caught her attention.
Her smile turned genuine.
She couldn't outright resist Eliphis. But nothing was stopping her from making him thoroughly, quietly miserable in the meantime.