...Wh—

What just happened?

Simultaneously, a question appeared in the mind of the adventurers who witnessed Eden’s impossibly casual act of pacifying a rampaging monster.

—A little girl was able to stop a three-headed Cerberus just by talking to it? How did she just—no, w-what did she even do?

“H-hey, Miw.”

Feeling a tap on her shoulder, Miwari turned around to see Boss, Kevin, and Bell as bewildered as she was.

“You’re not doing one of your puff-puffs right now, right?” Boss spins her hands by the side of her head in order to simulate; whatever the puff-puff thing was supposed to be.

“No… I-I’m not doing anything.” Miwari answered absentmindedly, still shocked by the scene in front of her. Which was why it took her a second to process what was actually said.

—Three seconds, to be precise.

“Wait, hold on… Stop calling it that!”

“But why? Don’t you use your puff-puff to puff-puff people as our ‘puff-puff girl’?” Boss asked.

“You’re making it sound way more inappropriate than it actually is!"

“Wait, can you actually make that spell more inappropriate than it actually is?” Bell said.

“Yeah, now that I think about it, its original purpose is for that, isn’t it?” Kevin said, rubbing his chin.

“E-enough, already!” Miwari screamed, standing on the tips of her toes and trying to appear more intimidating. “If-if you guys keep talking about this she’ll, she’ll…”

“—What’s... puff-puff?”

““““Ah—!!””””

The four adventurers immediately screamed and retreated a few steps, not because of Eden’s voice, but because of what was right behind him—a terrifying, fire-breathing, three-headed monster.

“E-Eden, don’t come any closer!” Miwari says, putting up both her hands while her comrades desperately hide behind her.

Eden looked at the four of them confusedly, then at the beast behind him, then back at the four of them.

“His name is... Bery,” Eden introduced the Cerberus. “He’s very friendly.”

The four glances at the carnage that was the ruined street, at the wreckage of their van, at the half-bent street light, and at the turned-over cart of grilled Kebab that caught on fire right when they looked at it and concluded:

—Nope. Doesn’t look like it. Doesn’t look like it at all.

Noticing that they still haven’t let their guard down, Eden continued to ask, “Is he not... a local here?”

They all shook their heads.

“No, no, no, definitely not,” said Miwari.

“While mythical beasts are not that rare in the Realm of Gods, there weren’t any in the Undercity as far as we know,” said Boss, still using Miwari as a shield.

“That being said…” Bell poked his head out to look at the Cerberus. And when he did.

Grrrr—…

All three of its heads sent out a low growl, fire seeping from its mouths, causing the ‘adventures’ to flinch.

“Bery… Sit down.”

“Hong!”

But immediately after Eden gave it instruction, the Cerberus sat down and started wagging its three tails like a well-trained puppy.

After that, Eden put on his large, round hat and turned back to the four of them.

“What… were you saying?”

“““‘...‘’’’’

The four ‘adventurers’ were momentarily speechless. But at least they were now somewhat convinced that the Cerberus might be harmless after all.

Bell coughed twice to clear his throat.

“That being said... Why would a random Cerberus be running around here? If the rumors were true then it has been here for a while.”

Eden pinched his chin, pondering the question. But then he realized he could just turn around and ask the Cerberus itself for answers directly.

“Bery… why are you... here?”

Again, seemingly understanding of his words. The three-headed Cerberus quieted down, let out what sounded like a sigh from one of its heads, and began to narrate its story.

“Hong… Hong.”

—Too bad the four adventurers could only stand there, having no idea what it was saying.

—————……….

[ The City of Anorlon - 3rd District Market Street ]

From what I can recall from memory, the Holy War was an era of confusion and violence.

Regardless of whether they were originally Order or Chaos-aligned, all races and factions tried their best to scheme and control every piece on the board. Allegiance to either side can be used against you. Or even forcefully taken away.

The Chaos Angels are the very best example of this.

Some 2000 odd years ago, the River of Styx flooded, and countless Order-aligned souls that had just recently become angels after emerging from the River of Styx were captured and then converted to the Chaos side.

‘Fallen Angels’, that was what they were called back then. Not quite Devils, not quite Angels—blackened messengers of the ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’ Order Gods.

Of course, simply being Chaos-aligned doesn’t automatically make anyone evil. So most of the angels that were converted would later betray the Chaos side and join the Judgementor’s Neutral Faction which promotes equality and balance.

After the Holy War ended, they were offered a place to resettle in the Realm of Gods. And obviously because the name ‘Fallen Angels’ sounds very condescending, they changed it to ‘Chaos Angels’ instead. And it’s been like that ever since.

[Most new Chaos Angels nowadays are either angels who choose to worship a Chaos God, or people whose soul has a very specific mix of Chaos and Order. But they’re pretty good at keeping it to themselves most of the time.]

“So an incident like this is very unusual?”

[You could say that.]

Lady Athena’s voice resounds in our heads as Vena and I walk along the street of Anorlon, jam-packed with traffic. The street lamps illuminate our path as the crowd of people coming to the nearby night market pass by us.

Ruby's here as well, as this is also the same route to her store. But probably due to the whole thing with Eden, she doesn’t seem that eager to return to her home just yet.

“Lady Athena, do you really not know where this ‘Undercity’ might be?” Vena, who's walking beside me, speaks up in a low voice.

[Not really, no. It’s not like I keep tabs on everything that goes on in the Realm of God. Besides, Lucianna she's… rather special.]

“As in, she's an extremely eccentric goddess?”

[That too, I supposed.]

Lady Athena hums softly. She’s being rather vague with her choice of words. A habit of her when trying to avoid a question, or hiding something important from us. Though, she usually has good reasons for her actions.

That’s why even though what she said about Eden being somehow mortal worries Vena and me quite a lot—we both decided to trust her and leave the hows and whys for later.

As we continue to walk along the street of Anorlon, Lady Athena lets out a sigh.

[Haaa~ So far there isn’t anything interesting in this book of yours after all. Aside from some really terrible pickup lines, I mean.]

“Lady Athena, the words contained within that book are my commandments, please be respectful.”

[I am your god, Altarin. My words are your commandment.]

“Alright then, that’s it, I’m changing my faith the next chance I get.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Stop joking around. We need to find Eden before it’s too late.” Vena reminds me. “Don’t you at least know where that book was made? Or how it got to you?”

“I don’t, actually,” I said, scratching my cheek.

“Didn’t you buy the thing?”

“They were either ordered or a part of the monthly subscription service. I get them in the mail every week.”

Ruby, who has been partly listening in on our conversation, speaks up, “The letter I received also came from an anonymous address too.”

“In the end, we have no choice but to ask around?”

Just in time, the three of us arrive at our first stop to gather information regarding Eden’s whereabouts—a three-story tall flower shop building at the very end of the market street called Audrian’s Garden.

As we approach the shop, we are greeted by a kind-looking lady with green hair and green eyes carrying a huge flower basket.

“Welcome to—Ah! Miss Vena, Mister Altarin, and Ruby as well. Good evening.”

Ruby smiles and returns the young lady of the flower shop a small wave.

“Good evening, Miss Hall.”

The young lady, Miss Audrian Hall, is an angel from House Terra. She’s also the source for all the flowers that decorated the garden of Lady Athena’s Mansion, though we've only met a couple of times before.

After exchanging greetings, Ruby decides to help Miss Hall carry the baskets of flowers into her shop. Since we are going to ask her some questions anyway, Vena and I decided to help her as well.

“Thank you very much. These were recently delivered from Yorna, you see. They are quite delicate,” Miss Hall says as she puts her basket down on the shop’s counter.

The inside of her store is quite colorful, as one would expect. The usual floras such as Roses and Lilies are neatly arranged by the large, transparent glass windows, but rare and unusual flowers like Dreamer’s Bells and Winter Thorns are also being displayed.

—Winter Thorns, in particular, seeing them brings back quite a lot of memories.

Vena, who shares my sentiment, walks over to admire the cold-blue flowers, leaving me to talk to Miss Hall alone.

“It’s okay. We would also like to ask something of you too, Miss Hall.”

“Of course. Are you here to buy flowers for Lady Athena’s garden?" Miss Hall says as she claps her hand gently. "Or are you looking for little Eden?”

“Um, you are—familiar with Eden, correct?” I ask cautiously, ignoring how Vena’s ears are perking up.

“Yes, quite,” Miss Hall replies. “Little Eden’s a frequent visitor of the store, you see?”

“That doesn’t sound good. He doesn’t happen to owe you anything, does he? Eden, he… doesn’t really understand the basics of transactions.”

Miss Hall chuckles softly and waves her hands in denial.

“Oh no, not at all. You see, usually, when little Eden visits the shop, I ask him to stay and chat over some tea. And when people around here noticed and came to play with him I was able to convince them to buy some flowers. As a result, my revenue went up quite a bit this month.”

“I… see.”

—So this is how Eden became the darling of the market street.

[What is he? A fortune cat?]

—Well, he certainly does have a character of one. Curious, eccentric, troublesome. Also strangely sassy for whatever reason.

[I wonder why. Could he have gotten it from some people?]

Ku-hum—!

Vena clears her throat loudly before turning around to ask Miss Hall some questions of her own.

“By any chance, did you see any signs of him in the last few hours? Presumably with some suspicious people.”

“Oh my. He was kidnapped again, wasn’t he?”

“Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened,” I tell her.

“Hmm...” Miss Hall lifts up her chin with her finger. “Now that I think about it, yes. Only about an hour ago no less.”

Oh? Interesting... Perhaps, this will be a much simpler matter than we thought?

“I was freshening the flowers on the storefront display when it happened,” Miss Hall continues. “I saw a very old van pull over on the other side of that street and open its door. Little Eden was inside that van, along with some suspiciously-clothed people.”

She then points outside the glass window of the shop to the sidewalk that is now filled with bicycles and cars that were parked there by the people coming to the night market.

“But in the end, I didn’t think much of it.”

Vena, I, and Ruby all raise our eyebrows. Miss Hall shows a troubled smile.

“They pulled up for maybe a minute. Someone opened the door from the inside, I saw little Eden with his hat and dictionary sitting there. But after he said something to the hooded person next to him, the door was closed and the van drove away.”

“Wait, hold on. Eden was delivered here. Someone even opened the door for him. But he didn’t get out?”

Miss Hall smiles again, even more troublingly. “It did seem like that, yes.”

“But why would he do that?”

I hold my chin and wonder. Could he have been threatened? But then why did the van stop there in the first place? Was it to intentionally leave behind a trace as some kind of red-herring?

“Was he under some sort of influence?” Vena says, eyes turning sharp. “Or maybe he was seduced?”

[That shouldn’t be possible... My contract should protect him from all types of influence, as long as he doesn’t break it.]

“But there has to be a reason Eden didn’t step out of the van.”

As Vena and I rack our brains trying to come up with an answer, Ruby speaks up from behind us.

“Um, this is just my guess but.” She looks at us with uncertainty. “But what if Eden just wanted to go with them? To the ‘Secret Underground City,’ I mean.”

““...””

In our minds, the image of Eden’s sparkling eyes as he talks about the prospect of exploring a mysterious and potentially dangerous city flashes by.

—Curious, eccentric, troublesome.

“...That, that actually does sound like something he would do,” holding her chin, Vena helplessly concludes.

[...Haah, that little troublemaker. Didn’t he say he would always come back before dinner?]

—Actually, about that, Lady Athena, Eden’s been saying something about being angry at you. So he could also be doing this out of spite.

[Angry? What did I do?]

—I have absolutely no clue.

“Regardless, we still have to find him,” I say to Vena before turning to Miss hall. “Can you perhaps tell us the general description of the van and which direction it went?’

“Yes, of course. I’m happy to help,” Miss Hall says, smiling kindly like always.

Before leaving the flower shop, we try asking Miss Hall whether she knows anything about the ‘Undercity’, but as expected, she never even heard of the name.

After that, we went around asking more people in the area. Because it wasn’t that long ago and the night market was still bustling, we thought that there might be more people who had seen the van. And the results are surprising, to say the least.

You would think that the task of tracking a rogue group of Chaos-worshiping criminals would be a difficult one since the Valkyrian and Captain Tamaria have been on the case for a while and made little progress.

—But apparently no.

It was actually really easy. Literally, everyone we asked had seen the van. It’s starting to make me think that the Chaos Angels who are kidnapping Eden this time are either extremely confident that they wouldn’t be noticed or just a bunch of morons. Furthermore, that’s not even the most surprising thing.

“So it went along the main street and disappeared somewhere around...”

“Here?”

Vena and I find ourselves standing in front of a two-story building facing the main street. The only store during the bustling night market that has preemptively fallen asleep.

—Coincidentally, it just happens to be the little place called Fairwright General Bookstore.

“Wow, what a coincidence. Haha, hahaha...”

Ruby tries to laugh it off. But her laughter dries up as Vena and I continue to stare at her.

“Yes, what a ‘coincidence,” Vena says, completely expressionlessly.

“I-I mean, my store is right next to the main street, you know? A lot of people pass by here all the time.”

“Calm down, Miss Fairwright, we’re not suspecting you or anything like that,” I tell Ruby while searching the nearby streets with my eyes. “The streetcleaner and a couple of others we talked to said that the van just kind of ‘vanished’ from the main street right here."

“Vanished. They were very specific with their choice of words,” Vena remarks as she does the same.

This part of the market district’s street's a straight road all the way through, so the only way that van could’ve vanished from sight is for it to travel all the way to the end before slowing down and turning at the next intersection. To specifically describe that the van vanished in the middle of the road, is strange. Though there are a few possibilities for how that could be possible.

First: the van sneakily took a turn into some unknown passage, causing every angel who was nearby to lose sight of it. And second: the van uses some kind of magic to make itself invisible.

At the moment, we think that the first possibility is more likely.

“But where could it have gone?”

“Um, it probably went into that alley over there, right?”

“Alley? What alley are you talking abou—”

When Vena turns to look at where Ruby's pointing, what she sees causes her to be temporarily lost for words.

“Has that always been there?”

On the other side of the street, a narrow passage situated between two commercial buildings reveals itself to us. It’s narrow and unlit, but wide enough for a car to go through.

The strange thing is, neither I nor Vena can recall that it was ever there.

—It’s as if the alley appeared out of thin air.

[As expected, huh...]

“Lady Athena?”

[That should be what we’re looking for.]

After saying that, Lady Athena goes silent, seeming to be deeply contemplating something.

I glance at Ruby, who smiles sheepishly in return. Vena then looks at me. I shrug and nod my head in the direction of the alley, telling her that it wouldn’t hurt to investigate.

Vena sighs tiredly and walks toward the entrance. I follow her, with Ruby not being far behind.

Wooosh—!

As soon as we step foot inside the alleyway, the previously noisy background of Anorlon's night market suddenly disappears, causing the danger sensors in our bodies to go on full alert.

There is nothing noticeably strange about the place, except perhaps for the fact that it’s very dusty and dirty in comparison to the rest of Anorlon. Yet there is a sense of unshakable incongruity that permeates the space.

It's as though we have suddenly stepped into a place that operates under a different set of rules, ruled over by the whim of an entirely different force of authority.

Vena and I know this feeling too well.

“This is an entrance to a domain,” Vena says.

“Like Lady Fortuna’s ship?” Ruby asks.

“Um.” I nod my head, agreeing with Vena’s judgment.

The Chaos Angels running rampant. Several kidnappings and disappearances of young angels over the last few weeks. A hidden alley in the middle of a bustling market that could potentially lead to a domain of a hidden divine existence.

—Everything about this screams danger.

“It’s a dead-end… right?” Ruby states as soon as we reach the end of the path.

Vena and I quickly search the back alley’s dusty concrete walls with our eyes and soon find that there is a large monitor embedded in the wall to the right.

Vena and I glance at each other. I can faintly hear Ruby gulping nervously in the back.

After some consideration, I reach out and press the button on the monitor. And as soon as I do...

The screen lights up, displaying an image of some kind of mascot character while an overly enthusiastic greeting blasts out from the monitor’s built-in speaker.

[Hi-h-h-hiiiiiiiiiiii~! You are now talking to the Undercity’s automatic response system!]

[Congratulations on finding the 3rd District Entrance, Your Highness Vena, Your Highness Altarin, and Miss Ruby Fairwright.]

[If you wish to be granted a pass, all three of you must offer us three secrets which you hold close to your heart! Now then, let our heart racing, blood pumping, incomparably moving striking and exciting questionnaire-ing begin~✰!]

“““...”””

—Yep, everything about this still screams danger.

—————……….