I Was Summoned to Die, so I’m Climbing the Pantheon for Revenge!

Location: Frontierra Nation - Cyanis Hollows Dungeon, Floor 50

Loop 7: The Silence

The colossal bronze doors slammed shut, sealing the anomalous forest in an idyllic, artificial morning glow.

There was no screaming this time. There was no frantic scrambling, no casting of futile magic, and no metallic clatter of dropped weapons. The absolute peak of human terror had been breached in the previous loop, and what remained on the other side was a suffocating, bottomless void.

Shiori Asano sat in the dewy grass. She did not cry. Her breathing was completely shallow, her chest barely rising. She just stared into the deeper woods without blinking once. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated, locked in a state of absolute, unadulterated suffering. The phantom sensation of her bones splintering and her blood vessels detonating still pulsed beneath her skin, but she lacked the energy to even flinch.

Slowly, without moving her shoulders or her torso, Shiori turned her head to observe her companions.

The party was entirely broken. They looked like a graveyard of living statues. Gareth ‘Ironhide’ did not reach for his dagger to end his own life this time. He simply sat slumped against the bronze door, his large, scarred hands resting limply in his lap, his eyes completely hollow. Elara knelt beside him, her arms wrapped tightly around the veteran vanguard’s broad shoulders.

"At least... at least we are together again," the elven ranger whispered, her voice devoid of any melodic warmth.

Boran sat next to them, staring blankly at the dirt. Saintess Evelyn, Shota, Yua, Mei, Kazura, and Yoshi were scattered across the clearing, sitting in the grass like discarded dolls. Their eyes were painted with the same universal brush of pain, defeat, and infinite exhaustion. They had accepted that this was their eternal tomb.

Shiori slowly stood up. She did not draw her broadsword. She left it lying in the grass.

Without a single word to her paralyzed companions, Shiori began to walk. She stepped past the tree line and ventured deep into the illusionary forest. The weather was perfectly fine, the morning air crisp and fragrant. The contrast between the beautiful environment and the blood-soaked memories of her previous deaths made her stomach churn, but she forced her legs to keep moving.

After twenty minutes of silent marching, she found it. The colossal, glowing tree at the center of the world.

Shiori walked to the center of the clearing and simply sat down, crossing her legs, folding her hands in her lap. She waited.

From the dark canopy above, the black obsidian piano slowly descended. The little girl in the tattered Victorian mourning dress sat upon the velvet bench, her silver hair cascading over the keys. The Witch of Loneliness landed softly on the grass, just a few meters away from Shiori.

The little girl did not immediately strike a key. She tilted her head, her dead, silver eyes staring at the lone teenager who had come without weapons, without companions, and without the frantic stench of hostility.

"Finally," the little girl whispered, her multi-layered voice echoing softly in the quiet clearing. "You are going to enjoy my playing, right?"

Shiori simply nodded. Her face was completely expressionless, a mask of pure endurance.

A tiny, almost imperceptible spark of light flickered in the anomaly's dead eyes. The little girl folded her hands politely in her lap.

"Before I play," she said, her voice sounding a fraction more human, "I apologize for introducing myself so late. It is rude of a host. I am Aria. Aria Nanami."

Shiori’s breath caught slightly in her throat at the surname, but she maintained her absolute stillness and nodded once more.

Aria turned back to the ivory keys. She raised her delicate, pale hands, and began to play.

She did not play the decapitating note. She did not play the grinding chord of internal rupture. Aria played the Moonlight Sonata—fully, softly, and with a devastatingly beautiful perfection.

The environment itself seemed to hold its breath. The rustling leaves silenced themselves; the gentle stream stopped bubbling. The entire forest became an absolute acoustic vacuum, designed solely to funnel the tragic, sweeping melody of the piano.

Shiori just listened. She closed her eyes and let the Adagio sostenuto wash over her. The emotional weight of the song pressed against her mind—the overwhelming sadness, the crushing isolation—but she did not resist it. She let the sorrow flow through her, accepting the pain instead of fighting it. The playful but eerie Allegretto danced through the trees, and finally, the frantic, tempestuous Presto agitato stormed through the clearing.

Through it all, Shiori did not move a single muscle. She was the perfect audience.

When the final note faded into the morning air, a deafening silence reclaimed the forest. Shiori slowly opened her eyes.

She was still breathing. Her head was intact. Her bones were whole. She had survived.

Aria looked over her shoulder, a deep, genuine satisfaction radiating from her small frame. She had finally found a guest who didn't scream, who didn't attack, who didn't try to run away. Just someone who sat and enjoyed the quiet, beautiful song.

"May I... know about you?" Shiori asked, her voice raspy and dry. "Your name... it is Japanese, isn't it?"

Aria’s silver eyes widened slightly, and she turned completely around on her bench. "Yes! I am! You recognize it?"

"I do," Shiori said softly. "Why are you here? I mean... why are you the Dungeon Boss of Floor 50?"

Aria swung her bare legs back and forth beneath the piano. "I will tell you. But... what is your name?"

"I am Shiori. Shiori Asano."

"Shiori..." Aria tested the name on her tongue, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "Then, I will call you Shiori-onee-san."

Aria looked down at her hands, the atmosphere in the clearing growing heavy with an ancient, unresolved grief.

"I was from Japan, too. In the early 21st century," Aria began, her voice losing its ethereal echo, sounding more like the little girl she used to be. "My family was very wealthy. High society. I was loved so much by my mother and father. Everything I ever wanted, they gave me. When I asked for a piano, they bought me the grandest one they could find. My dad... he taught me how to play."

Aria’s fingers ghosted over the obsidian keys. "I practiced every day. Soon, I could play the Moonlight Sonata perfectly, without ever looking at the sheet music. It was my father's favorite. But then... the light came."

Shiori’s eyes narrowed slightly. The summoning.

"The Goddess Kamiya brought me to this world," Aria said, her voice trembling slightly. "I don't know what year it was in this world when I arrived. It was so long ago. But I was just a little girl. I was too young to fight monsters. I was too young to be a Hero. But the Goddess gave me a blessing anyway and dropped me in Frontierra."

Aria looked up, her silver eyes pooling with an ancient, bitter resentment. "I tried to be brave. But I was so homesick. When I was traveling, I found a piano in the Kingdom of Sunderland. It was beautiful. I immediately tried to buy it, but they said Sunderland pianos were only for the high society of this world. They told me... if I did my duty as a Summoned Hero, if I helped their elite adventurers map out the Cyanis Hollows Dungeon, they would reward me with the piano."

Shiori felt a cold knot form in her stomach. She knew how the native adventurers treated the summoned—as disposable tools, as walking treasuries of divine items.

"I trusted them," Aria whispered, her tears threatening to fall. "I went into the dark with them. I wasn't physically strong. I depended entirely on the magical artifacts the Goddess gave me. When we reached the lower floors... they turned their blades on me."

"They murdered you," Shiori breathed out, the horrific realization settling in.

"Yes," Aria nodded, wiping a tear from her porcelain cheek. "They stabbed me in the back. They took my artifacts. They took my gold. I died on the cold stone of this floor, crying for my father, crying for my piano. I still don't know why they did it. Why were they so cruel, Shiori-onee-san?"

Shiori couldn't answer. The greed of humans was a universal constant, spanning across both Earth and Frontierra.

"I don't know how it happened," Aria continued, gesturing to her tattered Victorian dress and the glowing forest. "The dungeon... it absorbed my soul, I think. Because I was a summoned anomaly, the dungeon's core mutated around my despair. I woke up like this. I never aged. But I became powerful. The dungeon gave me the piano I was promised. And when those Sunderland adventurers tried to leave..."

Aria’s expression darkened into something entirely terrifying. "I played for them. I played the note of death. The dungeon's time magic rewrote them, just like it rewrites you. They resurrected. And I killed them again. And again. And again. I tortured them for years. Eventually, their minds completely broke. They begged me to kill them permanently. They screamed that they couldn't feel the pain anymore. So... I finally let them die."

Aria looked at the dense woods, shaking her head. "But they kept coming. Year after year, century after century. More greedy humans, coming to steal the treasures of Floor 50. I killed them all. I don't understand why humans are like this. Why do they only want to take?"

Aria looked back at Shiori, her silver eyes suddenly narrowing with suspicion. "What are you trying to do, Shiori-onee-san? You know my story now. You know what I am. Are you looking for a weakness? Are you trying to trick me?"

Shiori did not answer. Instead, she stood up from the grass.

"What are you doing?" Aria asked, her voice spiking with panic as Shiori took a slow step forward. "Step back! I told you to sit! Do you want to die again?!"

Shiori took another step, her eyes locked onto the little girl.

Aria’s hands slammed onto the keys. Plink.

It was a soft note, a conceptual warning.

A sharp, agonizing spike of pressure hit Shiori’s skull. Bright red blood instantly burst from her nose, dripping down her chin and staining her collar.

But Shiori did not stop. She didn't raise her hands to defend herself. She just kept walking, her boots crunching softly against the grass.

"Stop!" Aria screamed, her mature, terrifying aura fracturing as she scrambled backward on the bench. She raised both her hands, hovering them over the grinding, dissonant chords of absolute death. "I'll kill you! I'll tear you apart! Stay away from me!"

Shiori closed the distance. Just as Aria’s hands forcefully descended toward the obsidian keys to end the loop—

Shiori lunged forward, wrapping her arms around the little girl, pulling her off the bench, and holding her tightly against her chest.

Aria gasped, her eyes going wide with absolute, paralyzing shock. The death chord was never struck. The little girl froze in the older teenager's embrace, her small hands hovering uselessly in the air.

"You didn't deserve any of this," Shiori whispered fiercely, burying her face into Aria's silver hair, staining the girl's tattered dress with the blood from her nose.

"To be betrayed like that... to be trapped here alone in the dark for so long... it was too painful for such a little girl."

For a long, agonizing moment, the SS-Rank Anomaly, the Witch of Loneliness who had slaughtered thousands of elite adventurers without a second thought, simply stood there in the embrace of a stranger from her homeland.

And then, the dam broke.

Aria’s hands fell to Shiori’s back, gripping her shirt with desperate, trembling strength. The terrifying dungeon boss vanished, leaving only a homesick, heartbroken child from Japan. Aria buried her face into Shiori’s shoulder and began to wail. She cried like the child she was meant to be, her sobs echoing through the sunlit forest, pouring out centuries of unchecked, agonizing loneliness into the arms of the only person who had ever stopped to just listen.

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