"Ah, I can't shake the feeling that Lady Artemis and Duncan are hiding something from us."
Seeing the knowing smiles the two of them shared, Alise puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.
"Alise, that's terribly rude. My apologies, Lady Artemis. That's just how she is."
Ryuu hurriedly stopped her blunt, impulsive companion and apologized to Artemis again and again.
"Oh, come on, Ryuu, you're being way too formal. Lady Artemis knows us well enough. Back in Orario, didn't everyone help each other all the time? You don't have to be so stiff, right, Lady Artemis?"
Alise said breezily.
"That's true enough," Artemis replied with a nod. Then she looked at Ryuu with playful amusement. "But Alise I can understand. Ryuu, how did you end up like this? If I remember right, you used to be just like Alise. Astraea was always telling me the two of you gave her endless headaches."
"Haha, that's true," Alise jumped in at once, delighted to find an ally. "Lady Astraea told me the same thing, asked me to keep an eye on Ryuu and make sure she didn't get herself into trouble."
"T-That's not true!"
Ryuu protested in a panic, her fair face flushing so red it looked ready to drip blood. If the speakers had been anyone other than Alise and Artemis, the elven girl probably would have leapt up and argued them to the ground.
This was Duncan's first time meeting her, but she already struck him as the kind of person who was both easy to tease and irresistibly worth teasing.
Their laughter dispelled the gloom left by the wounds and the battle. Since no one had died, surviving such a powerful enemy and such a desperate situation with everyone still alive truly felt like divine protection—though, admittedly, the goddess in question was standing right there with them.
The upward tunnel wound around in twists and turns. Years of abandonment had left the passage cracked and crumbling, and the carpet of flesh that had invaded it only made the climb worse. Even so, after a great deal of effort, they finally made it back to the surface.
Having just clawed their way up out of that dark, foul underground hell, the sunlight and the fresh air felt unimaginably precious. Even the blackened, withered trees around them no longer seemed as offensive as before.
In Ryuu's words, even the Deep Floors of the Dungeon had never been that disgusting. It had been like crawling through the belly of a monster.
"Lady Artemis, what about the eggs down there?" Alise asked.
Though the two of them had destroyed every surviving egg cluster they encountered along the way, that had only been the ones on their route. Beneath a ruin that vast, there were bound to be many more. Perhaps what they had dealt with was only a fraction of the total.
"It's fine. Now that Andares is no longer supplying them with magic power and no longer breeding them, the Great Forest will strike back against that region. Just like the Dungeon, it won't be long before this place returns to normal."
Artemis was utterly unconcerned. As a goddess, she knew the deeper workings of the Lower World far better than mortals did. Andares had only been able to maintain its corruption by constantly drawing magic from the land. Now that Andares was dead, there was no way this land would continue to tolerate the existence of those eggs below.
No sooner had she said that than her words seemed to become the final straw that broke the temple's back.
The ancient sanctuary, which had stood for a thousand years without falling, began to shake violently. Cracks split open across the withered earth.
"Move! The temple is collapsing!"
Artemis's expression changed at once. There was no need for further explanation. Ryuu and Alise grabbed the more seriously wounded, while the rest sprinted forward with everything they had.
The earth yawned open like a monstrous maw, swallowing the temple, the surrounding stone walls, the paving, the blackened soil, and the dead trees whole. When the dust finally settled, nothing remained of the Elsos Ruins except a vast, gaping crater.
"T-That was close. So that's the backlash you were talking about, Lady Artemis? It came way too fast."
Aila, aggravating her injuries, finally dropped to the ground and gasped for breath. As a rear-line mage, both her stamina and durability were poor to begin with. After all that, once the tension left her body, she did not even have the strength to stand. Fortunately, the edge of the collapse had stopped some distance away.
"After this, you are going to train your stamina properly. If you can't even run for your life in a situation like that, what good are you?"
Artemis raised a brow, clearly displeased.
"Yes, Lady Artemis. But at least let me rest for a moment first."
Aila had no intention of standing back up. Even though the ground around them was as black and corrupted as charcoal, she no longer cared. At least, fearing it might be harmful, she still had the sense to spread her tattered cloak on the ground before sitting.
"Up. I'll carry you. I can't believe you'd sit down in a place like this."
Letsa clicked her tongue, lightly kicked Aila, then lifted her into her arms. The dead trees, the corrupted soil, the stench hanging in the air—everything about the place screamed that it was no place to rest. Even though they had only just come from somewhere far fouler, and their sense of smell had long since gone numb, Letsa still gave the order as their captain.
They pressed onward along the route they had used to come in. The farther they walked, the more hopeless Ryuu felt. Whether the wyverns had flown back to Orario after breaking free or had simply gotten lost entirely, there was no sign of them anywhere in the sky.
In the depths of the Great Forest, there was precious little that could be used as food. Yet they were still more than ten days away from the exit. Ryuu glanced at the Artemis Familia's baggage. There was no way they had enough supplies left to support everyone for that long.
When she and Alise had rushed in as reinforcements, they had not encountered any of Artemis's other members hiding in the woods. And since the two sides had met in the middle of a life-or-death situation, Ryuu had unconsciously assumed the remaining members must already have died. Not wanting to dredge up painful memories, she had never asked Letsa or the others about them. And so, without meaning to, she had stumbled into an absurd misunderstanding.
"What's wrong, Ryuu? You look miserable," Alise asked.
"And you have the nerve to ask? If it weren't for you—"
"Excuse me, are you Lady Artemis?"
Before Ryuu could finish her complaint, a delighted voice rang out from the sky. A wyvern descended out of the sunlight, and before it had even fully landed, Lanti leapt down and sprinted straight toward Artemis.
"Thank goodness! Lady Artemis, everyone—you're all safe!"
Lanti's gaze swept over the group. They were all wounded, but at least everyone still had all their limbs attached.
"Lanti?! Why are you riding a wyvern?!"
"While we were hiding in the forest, one of these suddenly dropped down from the sky. We almost thought it was a monster attacking us! Luckily, we saw the emblem of the Ganesha Familia. These two are tame, too. After hearing the commotion over here, I rode one over to check things out. I left the other one with the group, just in case. If something happened to me, at least someone could still go back and report to the Guild."
Lanti answered honestly.
"You did the right thing," Artemis said, patting her on the shoulder with clear approval. "How far away is everyone else? I want you to bring the other wyvern here as well. Liya and Noel are badly injured—they need to be rushed back to town and seen by a proper healer immediately."
Lanti, still flushed with excitement, nodded at once.
....
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