Guene complied without protest.
She crossed her arms and gave a somewhat dejected nod.
"Fine. What do you want to know?"
"Well… compared to earlier when we fought, you're remarkably… gentler, I guess? More cooperative. What's the deal?"
The contrast with her earlier high-energy demeanor was so sharp it was almost unbelievable.
"Hmm, let me see. I was probably influenced by whatever was inside that giant spider."
Guene spoke as though she didn't entirely understand it herself.
The giant spider was an anomaly within the dungeon.
So Guene's strange behavior had been caused by that?
"Whatever was inside… the queen?"
"Mm… the queen…"
"The queen?"
The giant spider could indeed be called a queen.
"Right. When I first encountered it and made it my vessel, I sensed two orbs inside that spider — one white, one black. The white one did nothing. The black one merged with me, and, well… that's what happened. What an embarrassing lapse! I can hardly lecture the other girls now, can I?"
White and black orbs.
Those were obviously souls, weren't they?
"Speaking of which, Guene — what do you actually think of humans?"
She looked down on them, yet she'd bluntly declared Raada's actions to be cruel.
I couldn't tell what she really thought. At least, that's what Guene said.
"I honestly hate them. And why wouldn't I? Back when I had the sword, I was treated as nothing but an experiment. I hold grudges. And in that sense, yes, I look down on them."
"Well, that's fair."
If you're treated like that, you're not exactly going to feel fond of humans.
Looking down on them — I get that too.
"Can't be helped. They were scum."
"Yeah… I understand the feeling."
"But that doesn't mean I think it's okay to do horrible things to humans. And I understand that not every human is one of those who treated me as a test subject. Both humans and gods have their share of good and bad."
"So that's why you turned against Raada."
"I was prepared to tolerate a certain amount of impurity. But one daughter after another kept getting killed, and I was running out of options. I'd also underestimated Raada — I figured I just had to pretend to obey quietly. But… that was different. He truly regarded humans as insects. His words were gentle, but his actions — controlling Barou — told the real story… When Barou, calm and unrepentant, abducted innocent female slayers, raped and tortured them, I was furious and charged at him. Raada stopped me, and I flew into a rage and attacked him. The result was… a crushing defeat."
Guene spoke bitterly, as though the memory had resurfaced.
But Barou… partly Raada's doing, I'm sure, but he was even more depraved than I'd heard.
"By the way, I was the one who took Raada down."
"Wha—…!? That man had reached the pinnacle!"
"He was incredibly strong."
It felt like just as much of a struggle as the fight against Alberto.
Also, it was the first time in a while I thought I might actually die. First time since that Black Knight in the forest.
"Hm… really? That bad?"
"He used a Relic called 'True Godhood,' and that was the real problem."
"…Seriously…? …And you actually won… huh. Kid."
Huh — so Riv knows about it.
Because it's Riv, after all.
"Never heard of a Relic like that, I guess."
"A Relic that leads to godhood... I see. So Raada is dead."
"Yes."
"My thanks to you."
Gwene dipped their head slightly.
I panicked.
"N-No, it's fine. I only did what anyone would have done."
If anything, I only killed him because he was about to kill me.
In this world, that's just how things go. A perfectly natural outcome.
"Actually, the reason I tried to obtain a Relic that erases other Relics here was to get revenge on Raada. I used the giant spider as a vessel for the same purpose. But then things turned out like this... That giant spider was abnormal. It's no ordinary dungeon monster."
"Well, of course. It IS a dungeon anomaly."
"Dungeon? Anomaly?"
Ah, so that's where this starts. Figures.
Gwene and Thousand Faces both tilted their heads.
The two of them looked so alike—it was honestly kind of adorable.
I explained it to the two of them.
The entirety of Heizen is an above-ground dungeon.
That giant spider was the result of a dungeon anomaly.
"Oh, is that so, I guess. That's pretty surprising, I guess..."
"So this is a dungeon, and it's a dungeon anomaly. No wonder it had so many weird Relics on it."
"It was sealed away in the Forbidden Land."
"So Biggs was the one who broke the seal, huh."
"Raada was involved too, wasn't she?"
"That's more or less correct."
Well, I could tell they weren't uninvolved.
You could almost blame everything on Biggs.
Senmensou wore a look of utter exasperation.
"Biggs. You're beyond saving, huh."
"What was Raada thinking, releasing a dungeon anomaly?"
I bet that was probably unexpected on her end.
She was the type to pull strings and scheme from the shadows, not the type to go around annihilating things.
There were even signs she was trying to escape from Heizen.
"So the enemy really is the dungeon anomaly, huh."
Staying true to the original goal, I see.
"Wait... so the real enemy is... the Queen...?"
"That's right. More precisely, the black one."
"What about the white one?"
"No clue."
"Almost like split personalities, huh."
Memories of a past life... Jekyll and Hyde, huh. Good and evil. Two hearts.
"Hey... Gwene... the Queen's Relics... tell me about them."
"I don't know everything about them, but very well. First is [Dimensional Distortion Barrier]. To put it simply, it's an absurdly tough shield. Next is [Follower Creation]. It creates followers, just as the name suggests."
"Um, about the followers being spider women...?"
"The Sword Goddess's daughter is a sword, but she's also a shard of a god. She can take human form. It's not easy, but she was originally capable of it. That's probably what led to the spider woman form."
"I see..."
So Gwene's mixed human form had an effect on the followers too.
"This body is also based on the spider woman form. However, I don't know why it turned out this way. When I noticed, it was already like this."
"Hmm. How curious."
"...And you...?"
Gwene was eyeing Senmensou with suspicion.
"I am Senmensou. This is just a disguise from a Relic."
"There are things like that, too? Hmm."
"Never mind that... go on... with the rest."
"That's right. [Unreal Kingdom] makes Relics unusable within a certain range. However, some Relics, such as Constraint Relics, are exempt."
"...Offensive ones...?"
"There are [Nia's Claw Strike] and [Atrak's Thread]. The Claw Strike moves a giant spider leg to attack. If it strikes, a curse poison that devours your life takes effect."
"That's..."
The curse that Luma and the Poor Man Club girl are afflicted with.
"[Atrak's Thread] is a highly adhesive thread. It immobilizes you completely."
"Curse poison is real scary, eh."
"Mn... this is bad..."
"Do you know the cooldown for each one?"
"That I don't know."
She said it bluntly.
"I see. Gwenet, do you know about a Relic called the Kingdom of Reality?"
"Don't know... the Kingdom of Unreal has a similar name, though."
She didn't know, huh.
"Does that mean anything, eh?"
"It's the Relic that caused us to end up like this. The effect is probably Relic cancellation or nullification."
And that was no small thing, either.
It must be powerful enough to even dispel my condition back then.
All the Relics in that place should have been canceled for sure.
"...That could be possible."
"Mn... unreal... reality... black is unreal... white is reality... maybe."
"How many Relics are there, eh. That spider."
I had no right to talk about others, but if the black and white ones had different Relics, just how many were we dealing with.
"It's because of the dungeon's anomaly, you know."
Now that I thought about it, that voice I heard in my heart back then — it might have been the white one.
Was it the white one that brought Gwenet, who'd been freed from her curse, together with us?
Talking it out, huh.
Well, maybe talking it over wouldn't have been so bad.
"You lot. If you're going to take down the Queen, I'll cooperate."
Gwenet said.
"Is that really okay?"
"Mm... Kukkorotsu..."
"I'll admit defeat is defeat. I never intended to be your enemies in the first place, and you have my thanks for taking down Laada, who was a disgrace to our own."
"Understood. We'll be in your care."
"Mm... likewise..."
Riv held out a hand.
Gwenet glanced at it.
"But don't get the wrong idea. I hate humans."
She turned away with a huff.
Tsundere, huh.
Kukkorotsu, tsundere, and a rough, manly way of speaking—
How come she's not a female knight?
"Come to think of it, what is it you want to do?"
"A knight. Since I was born with a sword, I want to be a knight."
"O-Oh..."
Close. So painfully close.
"A knight, gess? I hold a peerage, so it's not impossible, gess."
"Oh, really?"
"Gesuo... noble... a lowborn noble."
A lowborn noble... that was quite the oxymoron on paper.
Gwene looked puzzled.
"Hmm. So you need to be noble to become a knight?"
"Huh?"
"You didn't know that, gess?"
"How could I? Then, Gesuo, make this Gwene a knight in exchange for my cooperation in defeating them."
The condescension was off the charts.
"Thousand Faces" was flustered.
"I-I'd like to think it over, gess."
"Take all the time you need."
Did this person know absolutely nothing about knights?
Gesuo — or rather, "Thousand Faces" — was genuinely at a loss.
What was going on? It felt like she was about to get steamrolled.
"Well... once we've... sorted things out... then... let's go..."
"We haven't sorted anything out, gess!"
"Right then. Let's go. I know which way we should head."
Why was Gwene calling the shots?
I know that already, but still.
Even so, what was it, exactly?
This nagging sense that Narcesus was some kind of kindred spirit.
Well, I guess he is a killer, after all.
And so, the five of us headed toward the final enemy — the giant spider.