She must have been truly startled.
Pakira bristled from ear to tail, her eyes wide open.
"Wh-wh-wh-why are you here...?!"
She was so startled that part of it came out as "nya." Cute.
Her hair was pale green with white streaks woven through it, and a pair of white cat ears poked out from between the strands.
Her hair covered one eye, but the visible one was large, with distinctly feline pupils.
Her features were cute and well-proportioned, with a subtly alluring quality.
She wore a black-patterned robe, and two white tails of different lengths swayed gently behind her.
A beastkin — the rare cat-folk race — and a beautiful girl at that.
"Long time no see, Pakira."
"Y-yes, it has been."
Pakira seemed flustered.
I chuckled softly.
"Yo, Pakira!"
"Bid — you too?!"
"I'm here too."
"Hoss? What are you doing here too...?"
"Well, a lot happened."
"Yeah, that's about right."
"That was something, huh."
Pakira gave a wry smile at our conflicted expressions.
"Looks like nothing's changed, huh."
"The Witch and Mineha are over at Hydrangea too."
"Those two as well, huh."
Her white cat ears twitched, and both white tails—one long, one short—fluttered.
"Shaldina and Anna Kreutzen are here too, y'know."
"Oh my. That's quite the rare gathering."
"Pakira, are you by yourself?"
Riv and Lupinus were nowhere in sight nearby.
"That's right. We're off duty right now. Each doing our own thing."
As she spoke, Pakira gazed out at the Hydrangea Great Forest.
I naturally followed her line of sight.
"Quite the view."
"Mm. That monster forest looks so docile from here."
Beyond where Pakira was looking lay a sea of green.
Bid leaned against the iron railing and asked.
"So how is it? The Hydrangea Great Forest."
"Well now. The monsters are off the charts. All kinds of varieties too—never a dull moment."
"Any money in it?"
"So it is. You can make a living well enough. Actually, more than delvers do."
"Is that so?"
"But the danger is real, too. Since we came here, quite a few have died already. More than in Hydrangea, body-count-wise."
"That's rough."
Bid-san lets out a sigh.
The higher the reward, the greater the risk.
"Just my personal take, but I feel like the monsters in this great forest are tougher than the ones around Hydrangea or in dungeons."
"Really?"
"That's just my impression, mind you."
"Sounds about right, though. I thought the same thing when I came to Hydrangea."
"Hoss, do you know Heizen?"
"Used to live there, way back."
"Oh. By the way — are you lot here for the Forest Wave too?"
At that, we exchanged glances. I spoke up.
"No. We're here to deal with an anomaly in the dungeon."
I looked straight at Pakira-san as I said it.
"...Huh?"
Pakira-san blinked in confusion.
The Zeenzera family's latest-model great carriage, the "Blue Storm."
It was a magnificent carriage in a pale, almost silvery blue. How should I put it.
It looked like a perfectly square white cheesecake.
The kind with blueberries scattered on top.
"Hmm… long time no see…"
"What a surprise, running into you here."
Riv was her usual self. Lupinus looked somewhat relieved.
A room inside the "Blue Storm." The one Garado had explained to us.
I managed to meet up with the two of them without any trouble.
Riv had been wandering around, and Lupinus had been in a general goods shop.
We had plenty of catch-up to talk about, so I guided them to the "Blue Storm."
When I showed them inside, all three of them had their eyes wide at first.
But why did they just accept it because it was me?
"Okay, so let me start by explaining why we're here. It all started with a letter. My uncle wrote to say he had a hideout in the trading city of Hyzen. So I invited the witches and headed over on the witch's giant horse-drawn carriage. We fought bandits along the way, fought a daughter of the sword goddess in a port town, fought river pirates on the river, and then arrived in Hyzen."
"…What is a daughter of the sword goddess?"
"They're daughters born from fragments of the sword goddess. They take the form of a sword, but they can take on human form or possess people."
"Are they monsters?"
"No. Technically, they're gods. They're not that strong, though."
"Hmm… Riv has… destroyed one… before."
"What did you say?"
"You have?"
"I have?!"
"There was one, apparently."
"Yeah... clear as day... absolutely clear."
Heh, so there was one.
"Continuing the story. Once we arrived at my uncle's hideout, we discovered something extraordinary. It was the very secret of Hydrangea itself. A Junkyard. There was a Junkyard beneath my uncle's hideout."
"Wait just a moment!?"
"Hold on!?"
"...Whoa..."
I waited. Pakira held her head in her hands, and Lupinus wore a troubled expression.
Riv was her usual self. As expected of Riv.
"A Junkyard, you say..."
"Wof. There are limits to jokes. A Junkyard, of all things."
I was glared at by Lupinus.
An elf's glare. When she's beautiful, it's scary.
"It's true! There really was a Junkyard!"
"Now that's something."
"What did you say?"
"......Indeed, bodies disappear in the Hydrangea Great Forest, just like in a dungeon. But the Hydrangea Great Forest isn't a dungeon. So how can there be a Junkyard?"
"No, Pakira. It is a dungeon. The trade city of Hydrangea. The Hydrangea Plains. The Hydrangea Great Forest. And the Forbidden Land. All of Hydrangea—it's a dungeon."
"That's absurd!"
"Truly... extraordinary... utterly inconceivable..."
"Could it be—an above-ground type?"
Lupinus said, as if the thought had just occurred to her.
"Yes. An above-ground type."
"I've heard of such things. Where the land itself becomes a dungeon. I never imagined that this Hydrangea was one of them."
"So that's what the anomaly in the dungeon is all about, then."
"Hm… an anomaly… is happening…?"
"Yes. EVENTS have been occurring frequently, and it's become quite the situation."
"EVENTS… if Hydrangea is a dungeon, I suppose that's only natural."
"Now that I think about it, both the Full Moon Bazaar and the Forest Wave did seem like EVENTS."
"Also—on top of that, the Jinryu family, one of the Three Great Families, is gone."
"Huh?"
"Eh?"
"Wha—"
The three of them reacted in their own way.
I continued in a flat tone.
"The next head, Baarow, is dead too. And I've defeated the mastermind, Raada."
"Baarow. He's dead, is he? I suppose that's only to be expected."
"It's in poor taste, but I'm truly delighted."
"Hm… thank you… for dying…"
Judging by those reactions, something must have gone down between them and those people. All three of them were rare beauties and quite well-known.
It was inevitable that Barow would make his move.
"Something happen?"
"Indeed. He was dead set on getting his hands on us, one way or another."
"Sending assassins, trying to abduct us — he was as relentless as a snake."
"Mm... kept coming one after another... dealt with them... came here to take shelter."
"If that's the case, why not stay at the Jinryu family's subjugation village?"
"Well, the ones attacking were Jinryu, and the ones helping were Jinryu too."
"The Jinryu family's supporters of Jin-gi and Galad don't side with Barow. You could even call them his enemies, frankly. Especially since a lot of delvers count among Jin-gi and Galad's supporters — this subjugation village was practically their stronghold."
"In reality, it was more of a refuge for the victims, though."
"They didn't rebel?"
"The thing was... there was no one to carry... no figurehead."
That's probably why Galad became a Mirror Face — he didn't want to end up that way.
"So the witch obtained Barow's corpse and put it up for auction at the Full Moon Bazaar's VIP auction."
"...Huh?"
"What is that witch even doing..."
"Mm... as expected of a witch... thrilling... makes me envious..."
"But more importantly, when you say 'obtained'..."
"She recovered it before anyone else could."
As one of the conspirators, the witch naturally knew about the assassination plan.
And yet Galad —
Baarow.
She probably knew about killing him, too.
She'd outsmarted the person who'd outsmarted Galad and gotten her hands on the body.
Truly befitting of a witch.
"And then, well, various things happened, and the Jinryu family's entire fortune became the witch's property. She put it all up for auction. The Zenzera family and the Gorou family bid against each other, and this subjugation village ended up as the Zenzera family's property."
"…………"
"…………"
Pakira and Lupinus turned into space cats.
Especially Pakira — she was already a cat in every sense of the word.
"Hn... This is... too much..."
Riv muttered, expressionless.
Right. Anyone would think the same.
For some reason, I had the feeling that pressing on here would actually reduce the damage.
"Oh, and this is a blue-green crystal."
I placed it casually on the table.
A lump of crystal that glowed blue and green.
"……………"
"……………"
"—————"
One more space cat joined the ranks.