Countless wagons were crossing the Heizen Plains.
Around here, that was a common sight after the Full Moon Bazaar.
Some of the wagons were enormous, and not everyone in them was a delver.
The Forest Wave.
One of the big events of Dungeon Heizen.
From my memories of my past life, the closest thing would be a stampede.
A massive horde of monsters pours out from the dungeon.
The Forest Wave is an event inside the dungeon.
A horde of monsters comes from the third floor of Heizen toward the first floor.
And it's split into three stages.
First Wave. Second Wave. Last Wave.
The waves gradually get bigger. Apparently, you can just think of it as the monster horde growing larger.
The main stage of the Forest Wave is the Heizen Plains.
The plain between the Heizen Great Forest and the trade city of Heizen.
It takes about four days to cross even in a straight line.
There are almost no monsters on the Heizen Plains.
There are also plenty of ruins — remnants of fortresses and old villages stand out everywhere.
Traces of past Forest Waves.
The Zenzera family's pride: the state-of-the-art giant wagon, the Blue Storm.
In that room, Galad Jinryu was explaining the Forest Wave to us.
Present were me, Bidd, and Hoss.
Mineha was supposed to show up later — she was still busy fine-tuning her spear.
It had quite a few quirks, and the witch had been pulling consecutive all-nighters too. Cerberus Turn would catch up later.
Galad Jinryu.
That's right — Galad, the second son of the Jinryu family.
I'd thought he was dead, but he was alive.
And he'd once entered the Forbidden Land together with the Poor Man's Club.
— "From the Heisen Great Forest, there's a subjugation village about one or two days' travel away."
— "A village?"
— "When I say village, it's really just facilities for subjugators. There aren't any people you could call villagers. An inn, a general store, a tavern, and a guild branch — that's about it. There are five subjugation villages in total."
— "That's not many."
— "The subjugation villages are on Finger Rock."
— "Finger Rock? What's that?"
— "A massive rock formation shaped like a finger. Even during a Forest Wave, the villages on Finger Rock don't get attacked."
— "If there are five of them, they really do sound like fingers, huh."
— "I figured it was just a lucky location, but it's probably a feature of the dungeon itself. When there's no Forest Wave, subjugation villages appear near the Heisen Great Forest too."
Still, traveling one or two days just to reach your hunting grounds is rough.
— "So where are we headed?"
— "…Of the five subjugation villages on Finger Rock, three are owned by the Three Great Families. The rest belong to the guild. We're heading to the Jinryu family's village — no, the Zenzera family's now, I guess."
Garado gave a wry smile.
Right now, he wasn't wearing the Mirror Face.
At the auction, the Zenzera family had won the subjugation village held by the Jinryu family.
The people of that village didn't even know the Jinryu family was gone.
"............"
After the match, Garado told us everything.
His father's sudden death. Jinji's death. He had grown suspicious of Barou and Raada.
Not informed about Raada's intelligence, he entered the Forbidden Land with the Poor Man Club and a handful of elites.
There, he triggered an anomaly in the dungeon that had been lying dormant.
During the escape through the great forest, he encountered Raada. While they were fighting, he fell from a cliff.
He thought he was dead... but he was saved.
Garado sensed that it was Heisen's will.
After that, he reunited with the Poor Man Club and, hiding his true identity, became Mirror Face.
The Mirror Face helm was legendary, and he was recognized as the man with the mirror face.
Then, learning of his younger brother Barou's deeds, he joined a certain plan by the Zenzera and Gouro families.
That plan was carried out at the Full Moon Bazaar.
While searching for Raada to exact his revenge, he learned about the auction.
The auction... the Witch's handiwork.
Surprisingly, Garado didn't seem to have much to say about any of that.
"Well, up to here — is there anything you'd like to ask?"
«Got somethin' I wanna ask.»
Hoss, who'd been quiet this whole time, finally spoke up.
"What is it?"
"What're you gonna do about the Jinryu family?"
"Not much of anything. It's over. Besides, I always planned to leave the family once Jinri took over. I'd already decided to make it as a delver."
"So you got no attachment to it?"
"It's not that I don't feel anything, but I never intended to inherit in the first place. Dad made my brother the heir pretty early on. It's not like I was brushed aside or anything. Barou was the same way. Well, Barou was different, I guess — but I was never cut out to be a clan head. I've got a lot of thoughts about what happened. Saying they deserved to be destroyed might be going too far… but the arrogance of the three great families was definitely real."
The witch had pointed that out — spectacularly, and with a fair bit of edge.
Hoss looked at Garado.
"…Yeah, I suppose that's right. Well, if you say so, that's good enough for me. I ain't gonna nitpick. If it breaks Luma's curse, I don't care what it takes. But is it for real? Not some 'marked one' — this thing came from the forbidden zone… you're saying if you defeat the dungeon anomaly, the curse lifts?"
"Yeah. I can guarantee that. The source of the curse is the dungeon anomaly."
"Now that you mention it, I don't think I ever asked about this dungeon anomaly. What does it look like? What shape is it?"
"A spider."
"…A spider?"
"Yeah. It was definitely a spider."
A spider, huh.
Bugs really aren't my thing.
Although, if I remembered right, spiders technically weren't insects.
"I kinda get the image of spiders showing up in, like, huge numbers."
"…Yeah, probably."
"......When I fought it, that wasn't the case, but now that you mention it, I suppose so."
The air grows heavy.
I don't like that either, but well, I'm a spider.
"Um, I've been wondering about something — what exactly is the 'Wounded One'?"
The Wounded One, a creature that always comes up whenever the Heizen Great Forest is mentioned.
A bounty of fifteen billion oro. It possesses a Relic that can erase other Relics.
Sounds seriously overpowered.
The only monster that fought the "Sword of Swords" and drove it back.
Though our goal is investigating the dungeon's anomaly, so we probably won't be fighting it.
"They say it's the ruler of the Heizen Great Forest... but I've never fought it myself."
"...Hoss, you've fought it before, right?"
"I have. A long time ago. I fought the Wounded One and lost my Relic."
"Huh?"
"Wait, what?"
"...I see."
A shiver ran through me. Hoss had possessed a Relic?
Come to think of it, I'd heard that Hoss's halberd was an OOPArt.
"...We formed a subjugation team, aiming to strike it rich. We gathered the best of the best back then, and not one of us doubted we could take down the Wounded One. We were the hottest thing going, you might say. In the end, it was a total rout. Only a handful survived. Every last one of us lost our Relics."
"And that's why you left without saying anything to Ruma?"
"My partner back then was Ruma's lover. The plan was to make a fortune off the Wounded One and propose... I couldn't face Ruma after that. So I ran. I was sure she'd already married someone else, that she was living happily... that's what I believed."
But that wasn't the case. She thought she was happy, did she.
Or maybe she was just wishing to be happy.
Hoss carried the guilt.
If only Ruma had ended up happy—at least then the guilt might have eased.
But that wasn't it. She wasn't happy at all.
"Sorry."
Galad apologized to Hoss.
"What's this about?"
"You wanted to kill Barrow, didn't you."
"—Yeah. I was watching. I know you're the one who killed him."
Hoss said it straight.
I realized that was why he'd been in the Mobile Palace.
"So it was you after all. The one hiding there back then."
"You noticed, huh. Yeah. I was the one who was supposed to assassinate him."
"I'm the one who derailed that plan. Hoss was supposed to be the one to kill him. He had the right to it... and I stole that from him."
"What do you mean?"
"Zen Zera and Go Ro were against it, but... I had to settle things. The one to close the curtain on Jinryu should have been Jinryu himself. No—I wanted to do it. I wanted to kill Jinryu with my own hands. The moment I drove my blade into Barrow, Jinryu came to an end."
Galad spoke in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.
And then the giant horse carriage Blue Storm arrived at the Subjugation Village.
"Hm... a beautiful, pale... giant carriage... discovery recorded..."
That — that family crest. It belongs to the Zenzera family.
"Well now. How peculiar. This is Jinryuu's Subjugation Village, mind you."
"Hmm... the scent of a conspiracy..."
"Quite so. This is a Forest Wave through and through, isn't it?"
"Will you two cut the nonsense and get moving already? Both of you."
"Mm... got it."
"Hm."
After casting only the briefest glance at the pale, beautiful giant horse carriage, the three of them turned and walked away.