Puzzle

Before they entered the Door of Memories, the space on the 71st floor had been a bizarre place where all manner of things were jumbled together.

A landscape where time was mixed up in chaos.

Night and day coexisted, buildings of the past and buildings of the future occupied the same space,

and summer and winter existed side by side.

But when Hio returned from the Door of Memories and opened his eyes again, what he saw was a desolate land.

If the previous 71st floor had been strange, even grotesque, but still mystical, the 71st floor he opened his eyes to now was not so different from the floors he had experienced before.

A barren land that somehow left his heart feeling empty.

The Abyssal energy lay thick and tenacious over it.

It was no longer mystical, but the typical sight of an Abyss floor.

“You’re awake, magician.”

A voice came from behind Hio as he opened his eyes.

“You look as though you had a long dream. I’ve never seen you with such a dazed face.”

“……Vitalianus.”

Vitalianus approached Hio with a smile.

Around him, Airaitz, Regarda, and the others could be seen still lying there with their eyes closed.

“It seems the others still have a long way to go before they wake.”

“Looks that way.”

“To think we would stop in the middle of a raid to sleep. Who ever heard of such a thing?”

At Vitalianus’s rather cheerful tone, Hio’s gaze turned toward him.

“Vitalianus, did you not pass through the Door of Memories?”

“Of course I did. I myself only woke a little while ago.”

Unlike Hio, whose expression was complicated in all sorts of ways after waking from having shared Abelard’s memories until just moments ago, Vitalianus looked quite at ease.

“For reference, I was the first to wake, and you were the second. As expected, being first in anything feels good.”

Hio had seen and experienced the memories of Abelard Pavlenko.

His growth, his relationships, and Kreutzwald.

Then what had Vitalianus seen and felt?

“Vitalianus, what did you……”

Just as he was about to ask that.

“……Hah!”

With a tense gasp, Antiphus shot upright.

He had sprung up the moment he opened his eyes.

What sort of terrible memory had he seen?

Starting with him, then Freyja, Regarda, and finally Airaitz, all of them opened their eyes and came to their senses.

Every member of the expedition had escaped from their own memories, or someone else’s, and once again stood upon the 71st floor of the Abyss.

They wanted to share what each of them had seen and talk it over, but that would likely require quite a long time.

“For now…… we should finish the raid.”

“It might be more accurate to say we need to begin the raid.”

First, they had to complete the raid of the 71st floor.

Even if it felt like not much time had passed, raids were the sort of thing where the faster they were finished, the better.

The abnormal phenomenon known as the “Door of Beltesia’s Memories” was likely a kind of arrangement left behind by Beltesia, and probably had little to do with the actual raid of the 71st floor.

So, just as Vitalianus had said, it could be said that the proper raid was only beginning now.

“The objective remains the same as at the start. Finish the raid as quickly as possible.”

“……Right.”

Perhaps because each of them had much to think about from the memories they had experienced, their expressions were deeply subdued.

All but one person.

Vitalianus.

“Then let us set out.”

The full-scale raid of the 71st floor began at once.

* * *

Four hours and fifty-two minutes.

「Abyss — You have successfully cleared the 71st floor.」

That was the time it took to clear the 71st floor.

Needless to say, it was the shortest record in history.

There were not so many people that movement took time, nor was there any need to be mindful of protecting each and every individual.

It was an expedition that simply had to advance quickly and kill every aberration that appeared before them.

What they encountered from the very start of the 71st floor were not Abyss monsters, but unmistakable aberrations.

Even so, what use were they before overwhelming power?

Hio had merely warned them that an aberration capable of ignoring the rules might appear from time to time, and after that, everything proceeded without a hitch.

There were two people who, though still novices, bore the title of “god.”

There were also two knights who handled Will, each having reached the pinnacle with the sword and the spear.

With the last existing dragon and a top-tier Awakened as well, even if dozens of lower-grade aberrations swarmed them, they could not even slow them down.

“It may have been harder when we were in that Door of Memories or whatever it was.”

With such figures gathered in one place, the raid was almost absurdly easy.

That did not mean they could afford to be careless or take it easy.

This damned abyss would never provide an easy environment.

「Abyss — The ‘71st floor’ sinks into the deep abyss.」

「Returning to the original location.」

It was only after they exited the gate that a proper meeting could begin.

A meeting convened immediately after they succeeded in the raid and came out of the gate.

Even though the black Abyss Gate had not yet completely disappeared, they gathered in front of it without anyone needing to speak first, and the discussion began.

Naturally, the first thing they needed to discuss was what they had seen and experienced inside the Door of Memories.

“What I saw was……”

The first to speak was Freyja, who had returned to her human form.

“It was the memory of Ariel, who was me and yet not me. And it was an incredibly ancient memory, so old that I couldn’t even tell when it was from.”

Freyja had seen Ariel’s memories.

Through that, they learned that the dragons had known about the Abyss’s invasion long before.

The gods had not answered the dragons’ questions, and though the dragons had planned to enter the Abyss themselves, for some reason the passage they had prepared had instead been used for a counterattack, and they had been forced to perish in an utterly futile manner.

“That was…… all of the memory I saw.”

When Freyja finished speaking, a brief silence descended.

Freyja and Hio looked at Regarda, but his expression was as calm as ever.

However, perhaps even he found it difficult to control the emotions leaking out of him, for they trembled ever so faintly.

Freyja nodded to herself in relief.

It was fortunate that she had not gone out of her way to tell them Ariel’s final memory.

That, even as she was being encroached upon by the Abyss in her final moments, the only person she worried over, cared for, and thought of was Regarda—words like those were better left unsaid.

It was likely the right decision for Freyja alone to keep such a memory.

“……I saw my own past. It was a memory from immediately after I sealed Ariel.”

Next, Regarda opened his mouth.

As if nothing had happened, he had gathered his emotions, and he continued speaking in his usual calm and steady manner.

“Perhaps because it was my own memory, I was not merely retracing it. I was able to move my body directly.”

What Regarda experienced was also quite shocking.

His original body, from before he met Kreutzwald.

He said he had moved it directly and acted within the memory.

Even so, however, nothing would have changed greatly.

He was the Dragon Knight, and at the time, it was just after the dragon had been sealed.

He would have protected the dragon the same way, and he would have fallen all the same before the endless assault of the Abyss.

And the one who appeared then was none other than Kreutzwald.

The one who allowed Regarda to continue his former mission and granted him a new body.

“I met Kreutzwald again.”

From that point, the situation flowed strangely.

Since he was inside a memory of the past, Regarda had tried to use this opportunity to extract information, but Kreutzwald had instead realized that the place was not reality.

“He asked me what time period I had come from. Immediately after that, I clashed with him, and the memory ended there.”

“That’s…… far too unexpected.”

They already knew that Kreutzwald’s existence itself had long since left the realm of humanity behind.

But that was clearly Kreutzwald of the past, before he became the master of the Abyss.

And yet the fact that he had deduced it from just a few words of conversation suggested several possibilities.

For example, Kreutzwald may have seen the future of that time accurately, and so immediately realized it was not reality.

Or perhaps, even then, he had already been the master of the Abyss.

“I’m next.”

After Regarda’s story ended, Airaitz stepped forward.

The memory Airaitz had glimpsed belonged to Venus, the previous Goddess of Love.

A divine conversation that began with the story of Venus and Rifyue.

Each and every word contained a great deal of meaning, so Airaitz had no choice but to recite the entire conversation from beginning to end without summarizing it.

And the conclusion drawn from it was rather cruel.

“They knew that all the dragons would perish, and still they left them be.”

Though they knew that the dragon race, which had protected the world since its birth, would all perish in an instant, the gods left it as it was.

Yet no one could point a finger at them for it.

“And they themselves also volunteered for eternal extinction.”

To dispel the darkness cast over the world.

For the stronger the light, the deeper the shadow it created.

Without a single voice of opposition, every god had willingly chosen extinction.

How could such hearts be judged by human standards?

“Besides, the fact that the conversation between the two goddesses remained as a memory means that Beltesia ultimately permitted it……”

It meant she had judged it more likely to be beneficial to leave it behind.

She must have thought there was something she wanted them to do based on the information they had obtained.

In order to know what that was, they needed to hear all of the remaining memories and piece them together.

“I…… saw a war.”

The next to step forward was Antiphus.

He said he had seen the war between the master of the Abyss and the gods.

It was, by their guess, something that happened after Airaitz’s memory.

However, they could not accurately infer the timing.

That war, he said, had been terribly vast and majestic, and at the same time silent.

How could that be, amid the clash of all kinds of power and authorities?

It might have been a kind of authority or aberration, or perhaps Antiphus had simply been unable to comprehend it.

What was certain was that the gods had truly carried out their plan and produced the result they intended.

“What I saw was the memory of the Master of the Magic Tower, Abelard Pavlenko.”

Hio began explaining what he had seen.

It was the second-longest memory after Freyja’s, whose memories had spanned hundreds of years.

As such, there was a great deal of information related to Abelard, but Hio excluded the unnecessary parts and conveyed only the important information.

The location where the door leading to the Abyss existed.

Information related to the death squad.

“Based on the memory, my guess is that the end of the world, the path to the Abyss, can be found in places where certain specific dragons are located.”

“……Because the Abyss invaded through the passage the dragons had prepared for a counterattack. You mean that passage may still remain?”

“It’s only a guess. So we’ll have to confirm it for certain.”

Those pieces combined with the memories of the others, and the puzzle began to fall into place one piece at a time.

“Let’s hear the final memory first.”

Now only Vitalianus remained.

And so everyone’s gaze turned toward the Sword Saint, Vitalianus.

“Hoho…… What to do about this.”

Vitalianus merely scratched the back of his golden head and laughed awkwardly.

“I simply looked at some memories from my childhood and came back. That is all.”

“Huh? Sword Saint mister, that’s all?”

“It seems so, Lady Freyja.”

“Eh…… why?”

“Would it not be because I am an ordinary human?”

Freyja tilted her head, Antiphus sank silently into thought, and Airaitz showed no particular interest.

Only Hio and Regarda, the two who could handle Will, observed Vitalianus closely.

Then, shifting their gazes, they looked at each other for a moment before reaching the conclusion.

“Hoho…… I’m sorry I could not be of help. Still, it is embarrassing, so let us quickly move on.”

Vitalianus was lying right now.