Chapter 30: The Good Part of Living
Before delving any deeper into her thoughts, Freya opened the chat, just to see what was stirring within her own faction, and whether the news had shaken them one way or another.
[ Private Faction Chat ]
[ RamsèsTheGreat ]: Bro?????? this new quest is completely insane!! — +1... +15... +76...
[ Kalypso ]: So the system expects us to kill each other now?? — +15... +49... +145...
[ BunnyGirl ]: Yeah, or at least it’s dropping a pretty heavy hint. — +8... +33...
[ BlackFlame ]: But careful, don’t forget that among us, it’s forbidden! — +1... +15... +68...
Ooooh, what a loyal little soldier this BlackFlame is. Thanks for the assist. Now’s the moment for me to step in too.
Freya set about typing her message.
[ Maid ]: Exactly. Don’t forget our one and only rule. And for the craftier ones among you, keep well in mind that I can see the mana of everyone present here — which means anyone whose yield suddenly doubles, too. — +17... +84... +198...
And yet Freya knew perfectly well she’d never be able to actively check the mana of her whole faction, and had no desire to, either.
The message served above all as a deterrent, an extra precaution against members killing one another, and she hoped it would have its little effect all the same.
After all, if one member of her faction killed another and reaped their mana in their place, it didn’t affect her directly, and she didn’t much care, since the share of mana that came back to her would be the same either way.
But openly condoning that sort of practice would breed a climate of distrust among her own, which would turn disastrous the day a real war broke out, whether between factions or against this world. Allies incapable of granting one another even the barest minimum of trust were worse than enemies.
She concluded she’d done what needed doing on that front, closed the chat, and returned to her thoughts.
So, what is the system’s goal where the Dungeon Lords are concerned? Its expectations? Its desires? Its own greed? What does it want, in the end?
Freya sat down, mulling the question over at length.
Before her, Naïa and Mei stared at her with incredulous eyes. They’d just watched her type at thin air, pace in circles, let out cries, and run through every emotion under the sun before dropping down to sit.
They knew it now: in this dungeon, not a single soul, not one, was perfectly normal. Their mistress included, at least in their eyes from here on.
Then Freya grabbed at her hair, wringing her head every which way.
"Aaah... It’s completely unguessable. The more I dig, the more the questions multiply."
Because while she lamented aloud under the girls’ dumbfounded stares, her brain was already running at full tilt, a thousand leagues from here.
If their goal is a war between Dungeon Lords on top of conquering this world... maybe it’s just entertainment they’re after? A source of amusement?
She rose without even noticing, starting to pace again.
Like in the novels, where a kind of constellation blessed humans in exchange for a spectacle...
She stopped dead, one hand raised.
No, that’s nothing but speculation. It could just as easily be that their goal was never the conquest of the human world, and that we extrapolated from the very start.
She began walking again, more slowly.
It might be nothing more than the creation of beings equal to the gods themselves, like Aria mentioned. Maybe they never wanted this many Dungeon Lords, but only a few — ones who’d possess several Hearts and grow through them until they became gods.
She frowned, her gaze drifting.
But to what end? A shortage of manpower? Someone to rule this world in their stead?
Yet another hypothesis that opened onto nothing but more hypotheses. So she forced herself to stop.
Breathe, Freya. Breathe.
She exhaled, inhaled, breathed out calmly, gathering her wits and letting the excitement of the moment ebb little by little.
There. Don’t rush things. Let them come, and learn more when I need to, and when I can. One thing at a time, Freya.
That was how she pulled herself together, setting all her ruminations aside, surfacing at last into the real world and coming out of her trance, with one final sigh — disappointed all the same to have drawn nothing from it.
"Aaah..."
She looked at the girls planted in front of her, staring at her as though they had an alien before their eyes.
Well, they probably don’t even know what one is. Never mind.
With that, she checked her mana, which had climbed back up in the meantime.
[ Mana: 54/1000 ]
Enough for what she had in mind. She headed down to the lower floor and, right beside the servants’ quarters that already stood there, laid her hand against the wall.
"Here, the second servants’ quarters, please, System."
[ Spend 30 mana points to designate the construction site and cause the materials needed for the servants’ quarters to appear? ]
"Yes!"
At once, the zone was marked out, the materials piled up on the ground, and the order was passed along to the Mycofoxes.
She then made her way back up to the upper floor, where Aria and Laïa had just returned, laden with an absolutely outrageous amount of food. Plenty to feast on tonight, but above all a fine stock of provisions that would keep, to last while Aria was off on her expedition into the world below the next day.
After that they cooked all together, even shy little Mei setting to the task, before heading to the chamber where the Mycofoxes, drawn by the smell like last time, were quick to join them.
Everyone ate their fill, amid a cheerful din of laughter and sated little "Kyu"s. Even Mei was starting to smile for real, just barely, her shell cracking ever so gently as she opened up a little more sincerely to them, going so far as to sneak a piece of meat to a delighted Jūyon, whose cap turned pink at once under the table.
The evening stretched on like that, warm and light, everyone full and easy at heart, and when the last of the laughter finally died down, it was the girls’ turn to catch her off guard.
Laïa was the first to broach it.
"Aria should make the most of her last night, comfortably, in the bed, so she’s well rested before she leaves."
Naïa caught something Freya herself didn’t grasp in the moment, and added to it.
"Yes~~ We’ll sleep with the Mycofoxes tonight." And she was already drawing Mei and the foxes off after her.
But... we don’t even need to sleep. Isn’t it completely counterproductive to do this?
Then Freya saw Laïa shoot a discreet wink at Aria, while letting slip a little "Good night, girls!" before closing the door behind her.
So that’s what they were plotting during the hunt...
Understanding at last, Freya couldn’t hold back a small laugh.
Well, it’s not so bad after all.
And as Aria’s gaze rose slowly to meet hers, the two women found themselves alone.
Freya wasn’t quite sure what to say. So it was Aria who led the dance.
"You may not have noticed, mistress, but your clothes are still covered in blood."
Ah...
She suddenly thought back to Mei’s summoning, which surely hadn’t helped matters. Then her mind slid toward whose blood it was.
Kyū.
Aria, who must have seen her mistress’s gaze tip toward a hint of sorrow, understood what she was feeling. She stepped closer, laid a hand against her cheek, and gently drew her head onto her shoulder to comfort her.
"Madam... I know you were still only human not long ago. I understand, too, that all of this is new to you — that you were just an ordinary woman, before."
For a reason she couldn’t have named, those sincere words touched Freya’s heart, more than she’d have thought.
"And that is precisely why I am here — to support you. You can lean on me, and you owe it to yourself to do so. This accident with Kyū is unfortunate, but it will repeat itself many times over the course of your design."
I know. I know that, and yet... it hurts so much, losing someone dear.
And despite herself, her mind drifted back, far further than Kyū.
It drifted back to her mother. That woman who had never known how to say no to anyone, who had worked herself to death for others until her body gave out, carried off by her own kindness like by an illness. Then to her sister, barely an adult, who had shouldered everything overnight — her, the bills, all of it — and borne that weight in silence, without complaint, until the day she too had finally given way, to the point of...
Aah... Stop. Stop thinking about it. It hurts too much.
She tightened her embrace around Aria, burying her face against her, seeking there, in her warmth, all the comfort she could still find somewhere.
"Mistress... You’ll grow used to it all the same, as with everything, over the years."
Freya knew she spoke true. That she was well placed to know it, as a demon who had lived thousands of years, who must have lost an incalculable number of loved ones, more than anyone. And yet a part of her whispered that she would carry this pain all her life long, that it would never truly fade.
"I know what you’re thinking, mistress. But you’re wrong. Life isn’t only that. Look around you. The meals, the girls, their smiles... and me. All of that forms the good part of our existence, and we owe it to ourselves to live it to the fullest — despite the heartache, despite the accidents."
She took Freya’s face in her hand, drew it back to meet her eyes, and went on.
"And more than anything in the world... I want you to live it. Because you deserve to, mistress. Because from the instant you called me to your side, there has been nothing left, in any of the worlds, that I place above you." Her violet eyes didn’t waver. "Because I love you. More than my own existence."
The words struck Freya square in the heart, somewhere she never let anyone in, and before she could even think to answer, the distance between them had vanished.
Their lips met.
It was no timid kiss. In it lay everything neither of them could put into words — the grief and the comfort, the longing and the hunger — and they lost themselves in it at length, as if nothing else in the world existed but the warmth of the other.
When they finally broke apart, breathless, a thin thread of saliva still linking their lips, Aria kept her forehead pressed against Freya’s a moment. Then, with a flick of her gaze, she gestured toward the corner of the room where the bath lay.
"Let me take care of you tonight, madam." Her hand slid gently from Freya’s cheek to the first button of her jacket. "Your mana body doesn’t get dirty, I know. But this will ease your mind. And I’ll take the chance to wash away this blood that has no business being on you anymore."
And so it was that Freya and Aria made their way toward the bath.