This is a dream. It should be a dream.

  The swordsman was now facing a great peril, one that he might not be able to get out alive.

  A rge monster from the mountains had been terrorizing an innocent vilge, a typical tale in a heroic legend; one which the outcome had already been written the moment the swordsman entered the vilge.

  And yet, he had not been prepared for this monster.

  For this monster, it was unlike any other he had ever faced before.

  Its hide was so tough that his sword could not penetrate it, its fangs and cws easily tore through his armor like it was made from paper; but most of all, its ferocity was absolutely overwhelming.

  In the few moments since their encounter, the monster had caused the swordsman to resort to hiding from it.

  So here he was, hiding in a small cave with a broken sword, all while the roars of the monster bellows outside.

  As someone that had been seeking death for the past decade or so, this was by all means the perfect scenario for him, to die fighting a formidable monster.

  In all sense and purposes, he should be happy to have found what he had been searching for.

  But instead of joy, all he could feel was frustration.

  Frustrated that he would soon die hiding from a monster of all things.

  Frustrated that he ran instead fighting it to the death.

  Frustrated that it would be some no-name monster that would kill him in the end.

  Frustrated… that he ended up wanting to live.

  “Then fight.”

  A voice called out from deep within the cave; an ethereal voice that rang loud as thunder itself.

  “Thou wish to live, yes? Then thou must fight.”

  “But… What can I do? Nothing I have could hurt it.”

  All he had was a broken sword; its bde having snapped in half from his futile attempts to break through its hide.

  “Then get a better weapon; one that can hurt the beast.”

  “Where am I supposed to find such a weapon!?”

  He was in the mountains far from any smithy of any renown, talking with some voice in a cave; he was starting to wonder if he had finally gone mad.

  “I’ll give one to thee. Come into the cave.”

  The swordsman was skeptical about this; and yet he could see no other option.

  He entered deeper into the cave, and came across what looked to be a small shrine in a form of a hastily piled mossy rocks

  Sitting on that pile of rocks was a flickering visage of a human, yet the being emitted a familiar presence that he had not felt for a long time.

  “A spirit…!”

  “Thy name is Indra; warrior, if thou wished for a weapon to pierce the beast, I shall grant it to thee.”

  The spirit then transformed itself into a weapon, a glowing longsword crackling with power.

  Looking at the sword in front of him, the swordsman couldn’t help but wonder if it was fate that brought him to these mountains, that he had been led here for a reason.

  Perhaps this was the reason he had survived all those years ago, to find this pce and meet Indra.

  The swordsman reached out and grabbed the spirit sword, and thunder and lightning erupted from the cave.

  “Emma, kobold on your left!”

  “Hyah!!”

  The pink haired newbie spun around and swung her short sword into the bipedal canine, sshing a deep gash across the monster’s chest; she then avoided a strike from another kobold before stabbing into its chest, turning it into ash.

  *Ribbit*

  “Oh no, you don’t!!”

  A frog shooter unched its tongue from behind her, which I quickly intercepted; I then pulled it with its slimy appendage, swinging it around like it’s a meteor hammer and smashing it into another of its species.

  “Geh, I forgot how much I hate those things…” I let out a grumble as I shook the slime off my hand.

  I then tilted my head to avoid another tongue projectile before lunging at it and swinging my foot into its head, sending it crashing into a kobold that Tetra had knocked silly with her staff and sending them sptting against the Dungeon wall.

  “Yeah, those slimy tongues are the worst.” Tris gagged as she raised her shield and blocked a tackling horned rabbit, its trademark horn bouncing off it and causing it to glow with her Skill.

  After crushing the monster with her mace, she turned around and knocked a club out of a sneaking goblin’s hand, before smming her glowing shield into it while activating her new Skill.

  Tris’s new Skill was called ‘Counter Aegis’; it allowed her to store up to three physical strikes worth energy and release it on command.

  “Counter!”

  The glow intensified before a thunderous boom exploded from it, the force of it sending the monster towards Emma which she quickly sshed into without hesitation.

  It had been about a week since Emma joined the Hecate Familia as its newest Adventurer and began diving into the Dungeon with us.

  The girl had a somewhat rocky start; her first venture with us had her somewhat struggling with the back to back death fights against the nearly endless spawning monsters, her first encounter with a goblin being particurly rough as she barely managing to kill the monster with a desperate stab to its torso.

  “Not every newbie Adventurer can immediately punch a goblin to death like you.” Was Tris’s remark to my observation; one that had Emma looking at me with a mix of awe and fear.

  Though now, she had grown a bit accustomed to our daily dives into the Dungeon and was now managing to hold her own remarkingly well against the monsters; at least on the first few floors.

  “How do you all keep doing this?” Emma asked after we had sin the st of the monsters and began collecting their magic stones, “Coming into this dark pce day after day; isn’t it hard?”

  “It’s a matter of getting used to the environment, I supposed.” Tris told her with a shrug of her shoulders as she extracted the magic stone from a goblin, and getting pleasantly surprised when something was left behind within the ashes, “Oh, lucky; we got a Drop Item!”

  “I’m honestly still impressed that you managed to persuade Drake to let you go, Dae.” Tetra stated, I letting out a sheepish ugh in response.

  Drake had freaked out when Tris and Emma had brought my unconscious body back to the Arcane Manor a few days ago; though thankfully, I woke up a couple of hours ter and was feeling just as fine as before my little episode.

  But as I expected from him, Drake didn’t want to take any chances with me and had me confined in my room for the rest of the day; and he would have confined me for longer if I hadn’t managed to convince him that I was alright now, a feat that took me hours to achieve.

  “Though he made me swear that I would not go beyond the Upper Floors for the next couple of weeks.” I sighed with a shrug of my shoulders.

  I had already pnned on doing that for Emma’s sake anyway, so it was no skin off my back; though we were making good progress and had reached the seventh floor without much trouble.

  “Well, we win some, you lose some.” Tetra noted.

  “I guess so…”

  Still, it made me wonder as to why I had passed out all of a sudden, especially the massive headache before then.

  Those images that fshed through my head the moment I interacted with the Sword Princess, they shown the swordsman that I had been seeing in my dreams that kept showing up since my Level Up; his origins, so to speak.

  Especially that st image before I passed out; the visage of a bck dragon.

  When I had asked around on what that dragon could be, they all said there was only one such monster that would fit the description; the One-Eyed Bck Dragon.

  The st of the Three Grand Quest and a monster that not even the legendary Albert the Great or the Zeus and Hera Familia were able to defeat.

  I had no idea why the image of that legendary monster appeared with such crity, and why it would appear when I met the Sword Princess.

  But it was clear that my lost memories might have a connection to that dragon, or at least the swordsman that had been appearing in my dreams.

  *Crack**Crack*

  The sound of the walls cracking open signaled the end of our break as we all got ready to intercept whatever monsters the Dungeon was spawning.

  “Kree—!!”

  “NOPE!!”

  My fist flew the moment the head of a Killer Ant popped out from the cracks, smashing it into a gory green sludge; I did the same for every Killer Ant that spawned from the surrounding cracks.

  Never again! No way in hell was I to deal with those annoying bastards!!

  “Uh…”

  “We had a bad encounter with them a few days ago.” Tris expined to a confused Emma.

  We stayed on the floor for a few more hours and syed at least a dozen or more monsters before heading back to the surface with a bag full of magic stones; the orange evening sun greeting us when we exited the Tower of Babel.

  “You have improved quite a bit, Emma.” I told her as we made our way back home after exchanging all the magic stones I had gathered.

  “Thanks; I think I am getting the hang of fighting monsters.” She stated before sighing, “But I still have no idea how to use my Skill, though.”

  When Emma received her Falna, she had also received a Skill of her own; one called Rein Amur.

  According to its description, the Skill caused a Rhapsodia among people of the same Falna as her; which probably meant everyone in the Hecate Familia.

  None of us knew what it meant to cause a Rhapsodia, or what a rhapsodia even was; according to Lady Hecate, rhapsodia meant to stitch together a song or a poem, so she hypothesized that her skill had something to do with collecting something from each of us.

  We would know once she activated the Skill, but we had tried various ways to help her figure out the conditions to activate it, and it was all for naught.

  “It has only been a week.” I told her, “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

  “I sure hope so…”

  “Non-passive Skills are often the most difficult to figure out; I honestly lucked out with mine.” Tris stated, “But it probably means that your skill is quite powerful. At least, that’s what I think.”

  “There are passive skills that are pretty powerful too.” Tetra pointed out, “Like Dae’s.”

  She was most likely talking about my Skill; ‘Dreamer’s Duet’.

  It had pretty much allowed me to gain excelia way faster than usual, which goes to raising my parameters by a lot per update; the most recent one revealed that three of my stats had already reached the H rank.

  And it had only been a month since I’d Level Up!

  “That’s true; I kill to get a skill like hers.” Tris stated, “Dae, you sure are lucky to end up with it.”

  “Hahaha…”

  I wasn’t sure if luck was a factor in me getting such a rare Skill.

  From what I’d heard, what Skills an Adventurer could get were reflected upon their past and present actions since getting it; like how most full-time Supporters often get the Astel Assist Skill due to all the heavy carrying they had done.

  It was probably the same for the Dreamer’s Duet; my wish to carry on Leos’s dream was what that skill manifested from.

  “Guh!!”

  I was snapped out of my ponderings when something smmed into me; luckily, I was able to keep my bance and not get knocked over.

  “What in the—hey, aren’t you…?”

  “Y-You’re…!!”

  On the ground was one of the Adventurers that we had saved more than a week ago; the green haired pallum named Coco if I remembered correctly.

  She looked to have gone through a hell of a lot since we parted ways; her clothes were ruffled with tears all over, there were also bruises on her limbs, with a particurly big fresh red on one of her cheeks.

  It didn’t help that her eyes spoke of desperation and fear; was she running away from something when she bumped into me?

  “Is everything—?”

  “Please! You have to help me!!” The pallum cried out as she grabbed onto my clothes, “M-My friends!! They’re in trouble!!”

  “Please, calm down!” Tris assured her, “Could you expin what you mean?”

  “S-Some bad guys are attacking us; I barely managed to get away from them!”

  “An assault!?” Emma cried, “This is bad! We have to help them!”

  “Where are they?” I asked her.

  “Down by t-that road! Alley on the left!”

  “Tris, take care of her! I’ll go on ahead!”

  She gave me a nod and I immediately dashed down the road as fast as I could, following the pallum’s direction as I turned into the alleyway.

  In the alley were three-armed thugs wearing pieces of metal armor; the sword wielding one was pushing back against the katana of a heavily injured hume bunny who was standing protectively in front of her equally as badly injured renard friend.

  It was pretty obvious what they were doing, and there was no way I was going to let them go through with it!!

  “Hah!!”

  “Grgk!?”

  With a leap, I crossed the distance between me and the swordsman within seconds; he wasn’t able to react to me smming my fist right into his jaw; the joint dislocated with a satisfying crack as he fell to his side.

  “J-Jon!”

  “Who in the hell!?”

  I stood in front of the two girls, gring at the thugs and cracking my knuckles, "Leave, or else.”

  “Huh!? Why should we—Guh!?”

  With the predictable answer received, I dove right in and struck hard into the gut of the thug, forcing him to his knees.

  “Smith! You bitch—Hrgk!!”

  “Get out of here!”

  “G-Got it! Thank you!”

  I dodged a fist from behind before smming a spinning kick into the thug’s side, forcing him to his knees like his comrade and allowing the hume bunny to pick up her friend and quickly run off.

  With both girls now no longer in any immediate danger, I turned my full, undivided attention to the perpetrators of the attempted kidnapping; the rest of them had drawn out their respective weapons and were gring daggers at me.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” The swordsman growled as he lunged forward and swung his sword down at me.

  I easily dodged his attack and attempted to counter, before quickly tilting my head to the side to avoid getting pierced by his friend’s spear; the thug had somehow managed to remain hidden behind him.

  Their st friend then swung his massive axe at me which quickly ducked under, the weapon embedding itself deep into the brick wall with a heavy crack; he then struggled to remove his weapon, giving me the chance to dash away to put some distance between me and them.

  They are definitely a lot trickier to deal with than their appearance dictates; their teamwork was a foreign concept for someone like me, who had only dealt with mindless and over-aggressive monsters till now.

  Even so, they weren’t as strong or tough as any of them.

  “You’re not getting away!!”

  The spearman charged forward with a stab, I twisted my body to avoid the strike before grabbing the weapon’s shaft and swinging my elbow down onto it, snapped the spear in two and left its wielder staring in shock at his now broken weapon.

  His sword wielding friend quickly came in clutch for him and charged forward to swing his sword at me, an attack that ultimately did no good as I used broken spear tip to parry the attack away, knocking the sword out of his hand.

  With him left wide opened for me, I sent him smashing into the wall with a back kick into his chest, before lunging at the still stunned spearman and smmed my fist into his face, sending him crashing into the wall, knocking him unconscious as he slid to the ground with a broken nose.

  The axe wielder quickly retaliated with a downward swing; I moved my hand and redirected his strike next to me and forced him to overextend and then proceeded to jab into his knuckles and broke his first two fingers.

  The attack forced the thug to let go of his axe with a loud cry, which I then used as a footstool to leap up and nded a spinning kick into his neck; the momentum of the strike knocking the rger man off his feet and onto the ground headfirst before falling into unconscious.

  “Guh…you won’t…get away with this…!” The swordsman grunted, the only thug currently not knocked out and currently struggling to get up, “You will regret ying a finger on us…!”

  “That’s my line.”

  “Hrgk!!”

  I jumped and dropped my heel onto his head as hard as I could, forcing him to join his friends on the floor and unconscious.

  “Dae, we’ve come to assist—ooor maybe not.”

  Tris and the rest of our party soon arrived at the scene, Tetra looking ready to jump into the fray only to be disappointed when she saw the three unconscious thugs around me.

  Meanwhile, the rookie Adventurers were looking at me with great awe.

  “High Css Adventurers really are something else.” The hume bunny added; Kaede was her name, if I remember correctly.

  “This is the strength of a High-Css Adventurer…” Emma noted in awe.

  “Hey, Dae! I recognized them!” Tris called out as she knelt next to one of the unconscious thugs, “They are the bastards that did a Pass Parade on us st week!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah! Damn it, I should have come sooner! I’ve wanted to give them a piece of my mind!!”

  I think getting beaten up by me should be plenty for them… though I was surprised that she still remembered their faces so clearly.

  “Hey! I know that emblem!!” Tetra cried out, “They are from the Soma Familia!”

  Following her pointed finger, I took notice of the emblem embroidered in one of his sleeves, one that depicts a crescent moon with a goblet; the emblem of that ever-infamous Familia.

  “Soma Familia?” Emma asked, “You mean the Familia Lady Hecate had warned us about?”

  “That’s the one.”

  There was no one in Orario that hadn’t heard about the Soma Familia.

  Aside from being the sole manufacturer of the alcoholic beverage of its namesake, their Adventurers were known to be extremely problematic and causing all kinds of troubles for their fellows.

  It didn’t help that they were crazily obsessed with making money in recent years, up to the point that they would argue with the Guild employees over the price of Drop Items among many other things.

  “Did those guys do anything else to you?” Tris asked the three girls.

  “No.” The hume bunny shook her head; Kaede was her name I believed, “They just suddenly stopped us and demanded we hand over our money.”

  “And they had a gall to use the excuse as being in the same Familia…!” Her friend, the renard named Momiji added with an angry growl.

  “Wait, same Familia?”

  Looking closely, the same emblem could be seen on the clothes of the three girls too; theirs looking particurly brand new in comparison to the thugs.

  “You guys are members of the Soma Familia as well!?”

  “Yes, unfortunately…”

  “Why would you even join them!? There are plenty of Familia you could have joined!”

  “W-We came to Orario only recently.” Coco expined, “They were the only F-Familia that accepted our a-application.”

  “In hindsight, the signs have been btantly clear since day one.” Momiji noted, “But I hadn’t expected it to be this bad…”

  “I honestly thought those three jerks were among the few good people in the Familia.” Kaede added with a groan, “But we were completely fooled.”

  How desperate were they for money to shakedown their own Familia members!? I was surprised they hadn’t colpsed in on itself from all that infighting.

  “But in that case, you don’t have anywhere to go back to.” Emma pointed out.

  She was right; with how they described their Familia to be like, it would be a death sentence for them to returned there now. They would get mugged once they entered their Home.

  But considering that they were newcomers to the city, they hadn’t the resources to survive outside their Familia’s aid either; they would be homeless.

  “It’s okay; we will manage somehow.” Kaede assured Tetra, “It’s not the first time we have to sleep without a roof over our heads.”

  “Can’t say I looked forward to that…” Momiji sighed, “But it’s better than having to look over our shoulders every night.”

  “I-It’s tough… but I-I’ll endure it for now.” Coco noted.

  “But…”

  Personally, to leave these girls out in the cold night wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing, and to leave them after just saving them from peril was kind of a jerk thing to do.

  Besides, rescuing damsels in distress was what a hero would do, right?

  With those in mind, I gave the suggestion I had in mind to the party.

  “…And that’s why you brought them back here.”

  “That is correct.”

  “…Could you at least act a little remorseful over your actions?”

  Jeanne let out a huge groan as she alternated between observing the three girls standing at the corner of her office and gring at the me as she made me recount the events leading up to now, all the while I was forced to sit on my shins in what the Far East called a seiza.

  As expected, the captain was not happy at my actions; I mean, I did just bring three strangers over unannounced and asked to let them stay overnight in the Arcane Manor.

  I was a bit annoyed that the rest of my party weren’t in trouble as well; though to be fair, it was my idea to begin with.

  With her were Garos and Jirou, the two of them fnked her on either side with the former looking rather peeved at what I had done while the tter let out an amused chuckle after hearing my recollection.

  “Look, I get that you want to help, but you can’t do such a thing without discussing it with us first!” She shouted at me.

  “I can’t not help them!” I argued.

  “Dae, there are limits to what kind of help you can offer to others.” Garos told me, “And this is way beyond what you can hope to offer them; this can be interpreted as us kidnapping their members!”

  “Guh…!”

  He had a point; the Guild had ws the Familias in Orario had to follow, with one of them explicitly saying that Familias could not get into conflict with each other outside of invoking a War Game.

  And what I had done had viote that w and would no doubt bring the Guild down upon the Familia.

  “But still, they are in such a predicament because of me!” I pointed out, “It is my responsibility to at least see it through!”

  “You’re still not—!!”

  “Alright, calm down; no point bursting a vein over this.” Jirou calmly told them, not even flinching at the death gres they were giving him, “No amount of scolding is going to undo what Dae has already done; it would be for the best to deal with the present situation.”

  “Hah… you have a point there…” Jeanne let out a tired sigh before turning to the girls, “On account of Dae and your current circumstances, I’ll allow you to stay; but only for tonight, am I clear?”

  “Y-Yes, ma’am!!” Coco squeaked out.

  “I apologize for troubling you with our matters.” Momiji said to the elf, “We’ll do our best not to trouble you any further.”

  “Good to hear; Dae, guide them to the guest room on the first floor.”

  “Okay—”

  “And you are on bathroom duty for a week.”

  “Gek! …understood.”

  It was a small price to pay to do the right thing.

  Jeanne colpsed in her chair the moment the half-elf left her office with the three newbie Adventurers in tow.

  ‘To think even their own members are getting screwed over…’

  The Adventurers of the Soma Familia weren’t always notorious troublemaking bastards; at least, to the extent that it had been in recent years.

  They were more like violent alcoholics that caused ruckus whenever they were in withdrawal or in a drunken stupor; not a real threat to anyone but themselves.

  It was when their current captain came to power that the Familia began to change drastically.

  Their once unruly members became more organised, but they also became increasingly obsessed with making as much money as they could in any way possible, ethical means or not.

  “Urgh… and for her to get involved with such a troublesome bunch…! What is she thinking!?”

  “She probably didn’t even consider the consequences.” Garos noted on her remark.

  The captain could only let out a heavy groan in response to his words; already dreading the fallout their upcoming rookie’s actions were going to have on the Familia.

  Jirou had told her what Dae had procimed to him st month, of her desire and resolve to fulfil Leos’s dream for him, a dream of becoming a hero.

  While she knew it would eventually bring trouble to the half-elf, she had not expected for her to go so far as to antagonised another Familia; even if they were a bunch of money obsessed punks.

  ‘Still, we can’t exactly ignore their plight, either.’

  Jeanne was not someone who could avert her eyes from people in need of help or aid; especially when they were within her power to assist.

  Thankfully, the Hecate Familia was one of the stronger Familias in Orario; the Soma Familia wouldn’t be foolish enough to challenge them just to take back a couple of rookie Adventurers.

  As long as those girls were under their protection, they would be safe from harm.

  Even so, that was only a temporary fix to their predicament; and housing Adventurers of another Familia would draw unwanted attention from the Guild.

  ‘The best pn is for them to leave the Familia all together, but…’

  “…You’re going help them, aren’t you?”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  “Nah, I just know you far too well.” Her old friend chuckled, “And I am already pnning to help them too; it will weight on my conscience if I didn’t at least try to.”

  “Is that so?” The elf noted with a small smile, “Good to know that you still have one.”

  “Do you really have to diss me at any chance you get?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Yeah, walked right into that one.”

  “In my opinion, this is a bad move to make.” Garos pointed out with a shrug of his shoulder, “But it is the right thing to do.”

  “That it is. So, any ideas?” Jirou asked.

  “The best pn of action for them is to convert to another Familia.” Jeanne stated, “But since they are rookies…”

  “They can’t leave the Soma Familia until at least next year.”

  “Exactly.”

  While not common, Adventurers were free to convert to another Familia if their respective patron gods consent to it; that was how Drake came to the Hecate Familia to begin with.

  However, they were required to stay for at least a year in that Familia before being allowed to convert again.

  “We can just match up to their Home and force them to leave the girls alone.”

  The elf responded to Jirou’s suggestion with a deadpan gre, “The Familia’s reputation is already low enough as it is; so, let’s not add more bad rumors into the rumor mill, please.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair.” The eastern swordsman nodded in agreement, “Still, it would be the most effective.”

  “At this point, we have too little information to go by.” Garos pointed out, “Let’s ask one of the girls tomorrow morning; the renard girl seemed level-headed enough.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  This would mark the start of the Hecate Familia’s ill-fated retionship with the Soma Familia.

  …To be continued…

  Man, the ending of this chapter was pretty hard to do; hopefully what I have done is good enough.

  With that, I thank you all for reading this!