Above the shattered crystalline dome, whether it was the Dungeon's naturally glowing moss or faint light filtering down from the upper floors, a dim radiance struggled through the drifting dust like stage lighting, illuminating the three figures leaning against one another.
A short while later, Xien finished treating everyone.
Seeing the way they looked as if they wanted to ask something, Xien knew exactly what was on their minds. But the power of Abundance was not something he could openly explain, so he merely told them that his strength had broken through at the edge of life and death.
No one doubted that explanation in the slightest.
Or rather, they all found it perfectly reasonable. For adventurers, gaining new power in a life-or-death situation was hardly uncommon.
Though the way it had manifested had definitely startled them, once they saw that Xien himself had not changed and was still the same bright, sunny young man as before, they did not press further. After all, he had just saved them. Questioning him too much now would only make them look ungrateful.
Only one certain elf was now looking at the boy in an even stranger way than before.
With that settled, it was time to deal with the real matter at hand.
The four of them walked over to the giant tree and looked through the crystal at the beautiful girl sleeping within. For a moment, none of them knew what to do next.
"Riveria, do you have any ideas?"
Faced with something he did not understand, Finn chose to hand the decision over to the one among them most knowledgeable in such matters.
The royal elf let out a helpless sigh.
"I appreciate you thinking so highly of me, but unfortunately, I've never seen anything like this either. This seems to be an incredibly mysterious—no, something that could practically be called miraculous—seal. Even I don't know where to begin."
"So after defeating the enemy, how exactly are we supposed to bring this beautiful lady back with us?"
The dwarf sounded rather frustrated. They had overcome such a terrifying foe, only to get stuck here? That would make them a joke.
As for using the method dwarves excelled at best—brute force...
Please. He was a dwarf, yes, but he was not an idiot.
Something like this was clearly not meant to be smashed open.
No one knew what the consequences of forcing it open might be. And from what they could sense, the crystal and the girl inside seemed to be one whole. The only thing they could perceive was a single flow of magic.
That was why they had not dared break the ice and pull her out by force.
"According to what the gods said, she should be able to leave this place. The inheritance of a hero... then this young lady could indeed be called a 'princess'... in that case, maybe..."
At that, Finn suddenly lifted his head and looked toward the young man beside him, who had also been deep in thought.
"Xien, why don't you try?"
"Me?"
Xien blinked, startled.
So this involved him too?
Ordinarily, shouldn't it have been the Loki Familia's business to figure out how to rescue her and bring her back?
Then again, on second thought, when they brought her back in the original story, they obviously had not run into this sort of "special situation."
Otherwise they'd all be dead already.
The butterfly wings he had brought into this world had already changed far too much.
"That's right. A sleeping princess awakening when touched by the fated hero—this is one of the oldest setups in heroic picture-books, isn't it? And among everyone here, aren't you the one who fits the title of 'hero' best, Xien?"
The royal elf frowned and complained,
"Hey, isn't that a bit too childish...?"
"With no better option at the moment, isn't it worth testing?"
"Although it sounds a little absurd, I have to admit it's quite interesting. Letting the princess decide who the real hero is? As a little post-battle entertainment, it's not entirely unacceptable."
The dwarf joined in with a grin.
Seeing this, Riveria could only sigh again.
Men really were hopelessly childish sometimes.
Still, she had no intention of stopping them. As Finn had said, there was no better method right now. Since they had no leads anyway, trying this would not hurt. Touching it certainly would not damage anything, and rather than stopping them, she ought to use the opportunity to look for a real solution herself.
So the others stepped aside, leaving the front open to the young man who could unquestionably be called a hero.
Xien, for his part, seemed rather intrigued.
It was not because he wanted to prove anything, but simply because the whole experience sounded genuinely fun.
"Awakening a sleeping princess" was the sort of thing that only ever happened in epic tales.
And now he actually got to try it?
How could he possibly resist?
(Then let me see, Miss Ais Wallenstein... just what exactly are you up to?)
Without hesitation, Xien placed his hand on the crystal—
And in the next instant, his consciousness was drawn into a strange place, where he vaguely saw something entirely different.
That person had been like a breeze.
Or perhaps like a child, innocent beyond even her young daughter.
She knew nothing of human malice, and no one would ever let her know it.
She was like the air current drifting together with white clouds beneath a clear sky.
That person had been like a breeze—freer than anyone else.
And she herself...
She had once loved that carefree, gentle, tender woman who was like the wind.
And she had dearly loved that mother with the bright, innocent smile.
She still remembered how those hands had stroked her head, the warmth of fingers brushing her cheek, the beautiful sound that tickled her ears.
She still remembered the gentle, happy stories her mother told her over and over again.
She remembered how, after listening to the stories in her mother's lap, she would be carried back in those arms, and when she looked up, she would see that innocent smile.
Her cheeks had reddened. A smile had spread across her own face too.
Back then, she had believed her mother must truly be some kind of magician.
Anyone would smile in front of her. She had the power to make everyone smile.
"So happy—"
When that loving gaze looked down at her, she had spoken in her childish voice.
"I want to become like you too."
I want to become like you—a person as free as the wind.
"But you are you. You can't become me, you know?"
Her mother tilted her head and said so in a voice just like hers.
"That's not what I meant," the little girl puffed out her round cheeks in protest.
For some reason, her mother laughed so happily at that. And she too, seeing that smile, began to laugh along.
They embraced gently, both of them smiling, laughing together.
Soon after, her mother turned around.
Peeking over her shoulder, the little girl saw a young man standing there.
A black scarf, light armor, and a silver longsword still sheathed at his side.
The moment her mother saw his face, she stopped holding her daughter, set her gently on the ground, then gave her one last pat on the head before slowly rising to her feet.
She smiled at the young man—a different smile from the one she gave her daughter.
He smiled too, awkwardly, then nodded, as if telling her something.
He noticed the lonely look on the child's face and smiled that same awkward smile at her again.
"Sorry, Ais... we need to leave for a little while..."
She did not understand.
Her father had apologized.
Then he turned and called to her mother.
"Come on, Aria."
She still did not understand.
Those two, leaning on each other, walked away into the white light and left her behind.
In that moment, everything changed.
Warmth and peace, light and hope—all of it vanished.
The world became an inferno.
A deafening roar shook everything, and far away she seemed to see her father's figure charging toward a "black dragon" shrouded entirely in darkness.
Then all became cold silence and blackness—
"Daddy, Mommy, where are you? It's so dark, I'm scared... p-please... don't leave me all alone..."
Curled up on the spot, she had screamed with all her strength.
But every cry was futile.
No answer ever came.
Time gradually lost all meaning.
She did not know how long she had stayed there.
A few minutes?
Hours?
Days?
"Someone will come... they will..."
The little girl muttered to herself, burying her face in her knees and trying to remember the warmth of her mother's embrace, the clumsy smile on her father's face.
But those memories grew more and more blurred, like a painting soaked in water, its colors spreading, fading away.
Hope slowly broke apart, piece by piece, and each break felt like another cut across her heart.
"Why haven't you come back yet?"
"Did I do something wrong?"
"Am I not good enough?"
"Won't someone... save me?"
In that darkness, the frail little girl's heart had cried out like that.
She remembered what her mother had once told her.
Every princess has her own hero.
Then if my hero is out there somewhere...
please, save me...
But no one ever answered—
Day by day, time passed.
She learned not to cry out anymore.
Not to hope anymore.
That child who had once believed in magic, who had wanted to be as free as the wind, was dying little by little.
"No one is coming. Daddy and Mommy are dead."
"No one cares about me."
"I... don't need anyone. I'll avenge them myself..."
As those thoughts took root in her heart, a strange feeling began to rise from within.
Not warmth.
But a cold kind of peace.
Like someone who had wandered through a blizzard for far too long, eventually giving up on finding shelter, allowing the snow and ice to cover them completely, and in that bitter cold finding a kind of release.
Slowly, she raised her head, her gaze empty.
In the darkness, she thought she saw her mother's silhouette.
But this time, she did not reach out.
She did not call.
She really was a princess.
But now...
she no longer needed a hero.
It was then that a sigh echoed through that darkness.
A sigh that did not belong to her.
And facing the person who had suddenly appeared beside her, she asked calmly:
(So... are you my hero?)
(No. I'm just an ordinary person. I came here because I was curious. I wanted to ask if you'd like to leave this place with me.)
(Leave?)
Hearing that word—familiar, yet distant—the girl could only stare blankly.
(That's right. It's far too dark here. Let's go outside together. Maybe you'll like the world out there.)
(Can I really? Can I leave this place?)
(Mm... I don't fully understand it yet either. But since I could come in, I should be able to go back the same way. Do you want to come?)
The boy held out his hand.
Looking at that bright, confident smile—one that tugged at the deepest part of her memories—the girl slowly reached out her own hand.
Crack—
Starting from the point where Xien's right hand rested, flawless translucent crystal began to fracture.
"This is—"
Before anyone could react, the cracks spread wider and wider, branching out in all directions, until within a single second they had covered the entire giant crystal tree.
And then, in the next moment, it exploded into countless fragments of ice crystal.
At the same time, Xien opened his eyes and instinctively caught the pitiful girl falling toward him.
Sensing that she was not seriously harmed and only needed more sleep, he quietly let out a sigh of relief.
Then he turned and flashed the others a brilliant smile.
"All done. We can head back now!"
That single sentence gave every hardship along the way a bright, satisfying end.
A day later, they returned to Orario.
The victorious party was met with enthusiastic cheers from the citizens nearby—especially once everyone learned they had truly succeeded in their expedition and opened up a new floor.
As for what to do about the little spirit girl, they had already discussed it back on the eighteenth floor.
For the time being, she would be settled with the Loki Familia. Once she woke up, the two familias and the girl herself would discuss what came next together.
Xien had no objection to that.
To him, she was simply a little girl who needed help. There was no deeper entanglement there. Even if she was the "heroine," he had no desire to bind her to him or anything of the sort.
As long as she was safe, then as a healer he did not care where she ended up. Her life was her own. He was an outsider; he had no right to force her into an environment she might not even like, just because he had been the one to bring her out of the seal.
In this world, she had the right to choose what kind of life came next—whether that meant joining the Loki Familia, the Astraea Familia, or deciding she did not want to be an adventurer at all.
He would respect whatever choice she made.
Since everything had already changed, the most important thing now was to keep moving forward.
That was also why, despite having gained such a huge "hidden danger," he still did not appear especially flustered.
When they returned to their own home base, before they even reached the entrance, Xien saw a familiar figure waiting there.
At once, the gloom that had lingered faintly in his heart brightened.
That's right.
He still had them.
As long as he had family, then nothing was truly a problem.
Walking up to her with a smile, he slipped an arm around her waist as naturally as breathing and entered their home together.
The elf girl did not reject him.
She only felt that something about the boy before her had changed. But seeing that his eyes still held the same confidence as always, she chose not to ask.
She knew his personality well enough. If there were something he truly could not solve, he would tell them himself.
By then it was already deep into the night.
After reassuring the girl a few times and making it clear he was fine, Xien exchanged a few words with the goddess and the captain, then headed straight back to his room to rest.
Whatever needed discussing could wait until tomorrow.
Lying down on his bed, the familiar scent around him brought a deep sense of peace.
Though he had not stayed here for several days, the room looked as though it had been cleaned every single day.
And that was not an illusion.
It was the truth.
A certain elf girl had been coming in every day to tidy up. She had even taken the bedding out to air under the sun.
As he lay there now, Xien could faintly smell flowers and sunlight on the covers.
That quiet, wordless care soothed the agitation and exhaustion in his heart, at last easing them away.
....
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