"I know you're still wary of me."
Liza's expression remained calm, without the slightest trace of panic. "That's only natural. But I'm willing to trade. I'll give you the information I've gathered in exchange for what you know."
Arthur didn't respond immediately, so she continued, "I'll start first."
Seeing the faint shift in their expressions, she spoke more openly. "Over the past month, I've explored the entire orphanage. I can't disclose exactly how I did it yet, but I can confirm something important. Aside from Mama's room, there are no surveillance systems or special-purpose rooms anywhere inside the building."
Arthur frowned. "That alone isn't enough to justify an exchange."
Liza smiled faintly. "Of course not. I'm not finished."
She folded her arms lightly. "Didn't I say 'except for Mama's room'? All the rooms in the orphanage are built with identical dimensions. You can measure the interior length simply by counting your steps."
"I haven't been inside Mama's room," she admitted, "but I compared its external dimensions with several vacant rooms on the same floor."
Her eyes sharpened slightly. "Mama's room is about two meters longer than the others."
Saeko's gaze shifted.
"The entire building follows a uniform blueprint," Liza continued. "There's no logical reason for one room to be significantly larger—especially not by that margin." She paused deliberately. "So what does that suggest?"
Yako, who had been silent until now, suddenly stiffened. "You're saying… there's hidden space inside?"
A faint smile curved Liza's lips. "Exactly."
She looked at Arthur directly. "There's most likely a concealed chamber in Mama's room."
"Although I don't know what's inside that hidden room yet, I'm confident I can figure it out before next month," Liza said evenly. "Is that enough to trade for what you learned tonight?"
Arthur studied her for a moment. "…What do you want to know?"
"I want everything you saw and heard. No omissions." Her gaze was steady. "I arrived late. All I saw were the dead monsters in that building… and Mom. I won't ask how you killed them. But there are things I need clarified."
She raised a finger. "First, what's Mom's relationship with that creature? She brought Nina there herself. Was she delivering her?"
"If that's the case, was the monster intelligent? Or just a beast? Was it a sacrifice… or a transaction?"
Her questions struck directly at the core. Arthur and Yako exchanged a glance before Arthur answered.
"Mom handed Nina over willingly. There was no coercion." His voice was flat. "And that thing, let's call them Demons, has intelligence. Personality, even. If you ignore how they look, you could mistake them for humans."
He paused briefly. "As for sacrifice or trade… it's closer to trade. This orphanage is a Farm. It exists to raise children as food for the Demons. Mom is simply their caretaker."
The words settled heavily in the night air.
Liza had prepared herself for something grim, but the reality was worse. A warm, gentle orphanage that was nothing more than a livestock facility. Children raised carefully, educated, nourished… only to be consumed.
"Demons with intelligence… capable of operating something this elaborate," she murmured. "That means they have structure. A society."
Her thoughts accelerated. "If they can sustain farms like this, invest years into cultivation, enforce hierarchy—then they likely have civilization. Social classes. Systems."
She looked up slowly. "In the worst-case scenario, the outside world isn't ruled by humans anymore."
Silence followed.
As a reincarnator, she had seen similar worlds before, places where humanity had fallen from the top of the food chain. But this was different. Mindless monsters were dangerous, but predictable. Intelligent predators with culture and organization? That was an entirely different threat.
Facing them wouldn't mean fighting a creature. It would mean opposing an entire world order.
Now she understood why the dungeon's objective was simply to survive until the day of "adoption." That was the realistic limit. Overthrowing an entire species that ruled the world? Impossible.
"There's one thing I'm curious about, Eren." Her eyes returned to Arthur. "You already know all this. You even killed a Demon. So why didn't you kill Mom?"
"She's their accomplice. If you were an ordinary child raised here, hesitation would make sense. But we're reincarnators. Don't tell me you spared her out of sentiment."
If that were true, her evaluation of him would drop.
Arthur didn't hesitate. "It's not that I couldn't. It's that I shouldn't."
He spoke calmly, but firmly. "Keeping Mom alive benefits us more than killing her."
"If she died alongside that Demon, whoever oversees this place would immediately investigate. They'd focus on the missing child and the killer. But if Mom survives, she becomes the shield. The responsibility falls on her."
He continued, "We also need to remain at the orphanage for now. We understand her behavior patterns. We can predict her reactions."
"If she's replaced, we lose that advantage."
There were still dozens of children inside those walls. If something happened to Mom, the higher authorities would simply send another caretaker.
"And a new one," Arthur concluded quietly, "would be far harder to control."
That would make things far more complicated for them later.
If Mom were still alive, she would likely prioritize maintaining order inside the orphanage, making sure none of the children sensed anything unusual or panicked. At worst, security around the perimeter might be tightened, with more watchers posted outside. But it was unlikely anyone would openly install surveillance or plant spies inside the orphanage itself.
After weighing the risks and benefits, Arthur chose not to eliminate her.
Deep down, he understood something else as well. Most of the caretakers weren't masterminds. They were trapped in the same system, people who had made impossible choices to survive.
In that sense, they were pitiable too.