CHAPTER 258: CHAPTER 257: A GENERATION’S DUTY, ALFIA’S BET

[Adventurers’ Guild Headquarters, Underground Altar]

The sky god Ouranos, as always, prayed to the Dungeon day and night. He used his mighty divine authority to suppress the Dungeon, preventing monsters from coming and going from the surface as they did in the "ancient" era.

After a long time, this city’s most important altar once again received an uninvited guest.

"Ouranos, what on earth is going on?", Loki walked into the dim chamber. The goddess crossed her arms over her chest and asked.

This time Loki’s tone was not a sharp accusation but a calm inquiry.

"Even your ’great god’ authority can’t suppress It anymore?", the goddess asked.

The "It" Loki referred to was the Dungeon.

The "Dungeon" is a transcendent existence on the same echelon as the gods; this is not a secret among the deities.

However, the vast majority of gods, Loki included, do not know the true identity of the Dungeon, what exactly it is.

An incomplete deity condensed from a "world will"? An artifact left behind by a careless great god? A god that lost its divine soul and intelligence, leaving only instinctual divine husk?

Or more directly, perhaps some god buried themselves in the earth as a "divine sacrifice" for fun, and the so-called Dungeon is simply their millennia-long dream?

Divine power is omnipotent; only gods can contend with gods.

Adventurers who possess a "Falna" are, in a sense, extensions of a god’s will. Only, the divine persona they share is but one part in a billion or a trillion.

On that basis, even if the Dungeon had only one percent of a true god’s potency, in this lower world where gods’ power is sealed, that would still be an existence beyond everything else.

"I have never been able to completely suppress It," Ouranos said slowly.

"If my divine authority could suppress the Dungeon, there would be no so-called ’abnormal incidents’," The sky god continued, "What I do is only buy time."

Loki was silent for a moment. Though her face did not outwardly show much respect, she felt reverence for Ouranos’s efforts.

Seeing this great god admit his own powerlessness made her feelings complicated for a while.

"I know the Dungeon has been getting stronger," Loki said, "but overall the trend should be very slow."

Over millennia, within the same Dungeon tier, the number and strength of monsters have been steadily increasing. Only the process is so long that a human adventurer from joining to retiring across decades would not notice the change.

Only gods like Zeus and Hera, who have watched the Dungeon for a thousand years, could perceive the Dungeon’s changes. Slow like tectonic shifts, like species evolution: extraordinarily slow, but continuous.

But recently, the Dungeon’s changes have nothing to do with "slow."

It’s like a violent earthquake, earth splitting, magma erupting, towering waves sweeping, the land is rapidly reshaped by immeasurable force.

"Why has such a huge change occurred all of a sudden?"

"Because the ’Ancient Beasts’ are returning," Ouranos said heavily, "Those Ancient Beasts are, in essence, fragments of the Dungeon."

To this goddess who now had the most right to become the city’s "leader," Ouranos revealed this secret.

"...Fragments?", Loki slowly chewed the word.

The "Ancient Beasts" differ from ordinary monsters. Back in ancient times, the beasts that rose from the Great Hollow to the surface numbered far more than a few dozen; most, however, could not survive so long even if humans did not slay them.

Those monsters that survived through the ages and still live today earned the name "Ancient Beasts," which already reflects their special nature.

Ouranos: "The authority to devour worlds, the power to convert parts of heaven and earth into their own domain, creation of subspecies and subordinate monsters... almost every Ancient Beast possesses partial attributes of the Dungeon."

And the most powerful among them is the final "ancient monster", the One-Eyed Black Dragon.

It was the last Ancient Monster to escape before the Babel Tower that suppressed the Great Hollow was completed. From another angle, that black dragon carried the Dungeon’s last hope.

"These Ancient Beasts left the Great Hollow and continuously transformed the world, expanding themselves," Ouranos said, "Until the moment they die, they give everything back to their mother, the Dungeon."

Like the Dungeon’s monsters, those beasts leave magic stones and drops when they die. But compared to bodies as enormous as mountains, such drops are but a trifling thing.

"So...is it because Shirou and the others hunted the Ancient Beasts?", Loki’s expression was ugly.

"Their actions were correct," Ouranos answered seriously, "The problem was that it was not handled earlier."

"Waiting until the era of the ’Grand Saber’ to start... it’s too late."

Loki was speechless; she understood Ouranos’s meaning. Many Ancient Beasts were neither slain nor simply left alone; they were sealed or exiled, and there were reasons for that.

Leaving the Ancient Beasts alive would cause tremendous harm. Those monsters, as tentacles of the Great Hollow, would constantly erode the world and grow stronger; even sealing them only delays the process, and when they return to the mother’s womb, the impact will be greater.

But if they were slain outright, the already precarious defenses on the Great Hollow’s side might immediately collapse.

Caught between progress and retreat.

In the end, the ancient heroes chose "seal" and "banishment."

That is, they trusted the wisdom of future generations.

In the short term, sealing a monster born from the Great Hollow and preventing its return could be seen as weakening the Great Hollow, easing the pressure on the defense a bit.

Now a thousand years later, even with Ouranos’s suppression, the Dungeon’s core keeps growing stronger, and those monsters that were sealed or exiled have merely been sleeping and accumulating energy.

Top-tier beasts like Behemoth, Leviathan, and the One-Eyed Black Dragon have been stirring trouble.

Until a decade or so ago, two of them were eliminated; the remaining one is still alive, and its dragonkind followers increasingly escape Dragon’s Valley, threatening the world’s safety.

In the past year, Emiya and others hunted Antares, the lake monster Lochness, the celestial bull Gugalanna, the sea beast Cetus... those monsters returned to the mother womb upon death, causing the Dungeon to begin to riot.

But not killing them was not an option. Letting them continue to erode the world would only make things worse; that would be like trying to put out a fire by feeding it wood.

"...What is this," Loki murmured.

She did not mean to criticize the ancient heroes and fairy sages who sealed the Ancient Beasts. They too sacrificed to accomplish that; doing so was necessary for humanity’s continuation.

Yet the situation was despair-inducing.

"For now, the Grand Saber and their generation can still suppress the Dungeon," Ouranos said, "Among the Ancient Beasts, the strongest, Gugalanna, cannot be compared to the Three Great Calamities. After their stirred effects slowly subside, the Dungeon’s riot will ease... at least partially."

"The key problem is still the black dragon, that last Ancient Beast."

"Wait," Loki lifted her gaze; her usually narrowed eyes opened wide, "Speaking of the ’Three Great Calamities’...is the black dragon really the strongest among them?"

The One-Eyed Black Dragon is considered the strongest of the Three Great Calamities, now that’s the common view. The reason is simple: the allied forces of Zeus and Hera’s familias failed to defeat the black dragon while defeating the other two.

Over the past decade, the black dragon caused the most damage. Although its core remains trapped in the storm seal of Dragon’s Valley, the dragon monsters that continuously escape the seal have already wrought great disasters.

As the only victor against the Three Great Calamities, and the most dangerous monster today, people naturally assume it is the "strongest."

However—

"Before that battle, we all believed the black dragon wouldn’t be much stronger than Behemoth or Leviathan; if anything, Leviathan caused greater harm," Loki said.

Before those two familias challenged the Three Great Calamities, the Loki Familia had already been in the Dungeon City; a mere decade or so is a reliable stretch in the goddess’s memory.

"Because earthquakes and tsunamis cause more damage than hurricanes. Back then, far more people died because of Behemoth and Leviathan than the black dragon. At that time the black dragon’s ability to produce offspring wasn’t as strong as later," Loki continued.

"Only after the battle with the black dragon, when two familias were annihilated...did we realize its terror. But now, I think of another possibility."

The goddess looked at Ouranos seriously.

"Did Behemoth and Leviathan really return to the Dungeon—"

’Or did their powers get absorbed by the black dragon, that most peculiar Ancient Beast?’

"They did not return to the Dungeon," After a long silence, Ouranos answered slowly, "After they died, the Dungeon gave no response."

"...So if the kids, if they killed the black dragon," Loki smiled with unreadable meaning.

Ouranos: "The Dungeon would enter an unprecedented riot. Perhaps Babel Tower, perhaps even the city itself, would be turned to ashes."

If the black dragon is not killed, that monster will lead to world annihilation.

If it is slain, the Three Great Calamities’ authorities would all return to the Dungeon, what might be reborn could be calamities with true god-tier rank.

"Loki, what are you thinking?"

"I want to burn that dragon and the entire Dungeon away...", Loki said.

As a goddess of fire, Loki’s mastery of destructive flame surpassed even Hephaistos’s in the realm of annihilating fire.

If she were to use divine power, burning not just the black dragon but the whole Dungeon would take only a great magic ritual.

But she could not do that.

If Loki were permitted to use divine power for such an aim, then Ishtar could snap her fingers and throw the whole world into apocalyptic war, or other evil gods might casually enact world destruction, and that would be justified.

"We must still kill the black dragon. Even if the city is destroyed, there would remain a sliver of hope; but if the black dragon lives, it will inevitably mean the world’s end," Ouranos said.

As the city-creating god, his affection for Orario was deepest, and he made the decision without hesitation.

In the end, Loki left the underground altar with a heavy heart. Only after her figure vanished did another goddess slowly appear.

"You didn’t tell the whole truth, Ouranos," the goddess said.

Ouranos had not lied to Loki. Deceiving the "goddess of lies" by lying would be like lifting a stone to smash one’s own foot; that was unquestionable.

But hiding part of the truth was not the same as deception.

What Ouranos said, that the Dungeon’s riot was due to the return of Ancient Beasts, was correct, but the present events were not only because of that.

The fundamental reason was, a certain goddess had come to the lower world.

Her presence caused the Dungeon, or rather the Great Hollow, to shift into a completely different state.

"Tiamat, I do not understand why you came to this world," Ouranos asked softly.

The mother-creation goddess answered quietly, "As a mother, I could not bear to watch my children suffer forever, that is all."

———

"In the end, you were convinced by that child after all," Emiya looked at the silent Alfia and said.

Alfia: "That pathetic goddess...is not entirely useless."

After watching Emiya and Alfia slay the Ancient Beast Cetus, Bell awakened a new skill.

[Single-Hearted Admiration: Accelerates stat growth and unlocks stat caps. Maintains the feeling of admiration simultaneously. The stronger the admiration, the greater the effect. Nullifies "charm" from non-admired targets.]

This is the third skill in the world that unlocks stat caps. The first two being Alfia’s [Gif Blessing] and Emiya’s [Oath under the Snow].

However, Hestia’s reaction surprised Alfia: when Bell had not yet activated the skill and was simply an obviously untalented rookie girl, Hestia firmly wanted to keep Bell and even dared Alfia with threats to her life.

But when Bell activated this exceptional skill, one that could point toward the pinnacle, Hestia relented.

Hestia was willing to give up custody of Bell and transfer the girl to Hephaistos’s Familia. In exchange, Hephaistos would give her a large sum of money.

The goddess hoped by this means to change Bell’s impression of herself and make the girl agree to leave.

But truthfully, the pathetic goddess’s acting was awful; she ended up crying as she spoke. Not even Bell could be fooled, let alone Alfia.

In the end, Alfia gave up.

On one hand, though pathetic, Hestia’s intentions were at least genuine.

On the other hand, more importantly, Alfia’s original thought was that Bell was an ordinary girl who should live safely under a strong protector.

But if Bell was a hero-seed with talent, being the first captain of a newly founded familia might actually be the better choice.

Bell’s character differed from Emiya’s and Alfia’s. The two of them had spirits firm enough to stand out anywhere, but if Bell ended up under a domineering captain, she might become increasingly weak.

Although a soft, squishy little Bell was also nice, Alfia decided to respect her wish to become a hero.

However, the man beside her was destined to be her protector and the vast wing that shaded her.

To Emiya, although the girl was only a little younger than Ais, Bell was practically the next generation of adventurer.

Emiya, Alfia, Riveria, Ryu, and Ais all felt the same. They did not intend to leave the problem to the next generation.

Whether it was the black dragon or the Dungeon, these were the duties of their generation.

Emiya gazed northward; most of the remaining seals on the Ancient Beasts were in that direction.

At that moment Alfia slowly spoke.

"Although I’m not happy...I lost the bet," Alfia flipped her hair and said, pretending to be annoyed.

"You’ve got it wrong. The reason I indulged you was because you lost the bet..."

═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═

patreon.com/AmbitiousTranslator

🥳Joining Patreon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance Chapter through Patreon.