"Damn it! Why didn’t she come with us!” I cursed, slamming my fist.

“M-master, what’s wrong?’ Lydia asked worriedly.

“Celeste, she’s on the 29th floor. She went to the last library instead of this one.” I explained, immediately trying to think of what skills I had.

“Party Status!”

{Condition: Injured.}

“Injured… no, she couldn’t have…”

“Master?” Miki asked.

“It looks like she’s in a fight. Her party condition is injured. If she was just in the 29th floor, I could use it to our advantage. We could switch position and I could register everyone, but if she’s already entered the boss room…”

I had used party status first exactly in the hopes to determine if she had entered the boss fight. Anxiously, I used party status again. It had only been about twenty seconds so far.

{Condition: Bleeding.}

“N-no…” I shook my head in disbelief.

Was she losing that badly? No, that wasn’t even the question. If this was just a drone fairy to the fairy queen, why was she attacking what was essentially an extension of herself? What was going on? What was I missing? More than that, what was I going to do now?

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“Party status…”

{Condition: Near Death.}

A cold feeling shot through me. Near Death. It had barely been a minute… and the fairy I had spent weeks together with was about to die. I had convinced myself she was just a drone and the fairy queen was the true mouthpiece, but none of that mattered right now. The fairy I knew… the one I had even kissed and slept next to and cooked for… was about to die.

There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could waste. I tossed the backpack down on the ground.

“Make sure she gets plenty of water of life. Head up. Return to the surface.”

“M-master…”

“Although I wasn’t able to allow your bonds to break upon my death, I made sure the bond switched to the Guild Master. I’ve made sure he knows to release you from those bonds. The town will take good care of you.”

“Master!’ Miki’s tail was sticking straight up.

After taking some fairy dust I dropped the rest of the bottle of fairy dust. “Sell it, it’ll be enough for all three of you to live comfortably.”

Lydia’s eyes filled with tears. “No… No!”

“Goodbye.” I could see both girls leaping toward me, but I could use switch position with a thought.

I wish there was time to say more, or prep, or do something to change the course of events. Of course, I planned to fight with all I had, but I didn’t think I could take the fairy queen on my own. Realistically, this was it. My body disappeared, and the next thing I knew I was flying across the room. I slammed into a wall with full force. Any thoughts of defensive spells abandoned my mind from the vicious blow. I spit out blood and looked up.

Floating in front of me was a full-sized woman. Her wings were those of a bat, and she had massive horns on her head. Dark miasma around her, and her face, while beautiful, also contained enough uncanny valley to come off as creepy, especially given the hateful glare on her face.

“Human! What have you done with that spawn? I was finally going to end this lore! No matter, her fate was sealed the day she was born. As for yours, yours was sealed the second you stepped into my chamber. It’s time to die!”

I stood up, Ghostbane shaking in my hand. “Then… bring it!”

I began to run forward, my sword raised to strike as her spells began to race toward me.