'Bell, I want to go home. I don't want to leave you alone in that cabin. I want to see you grow up. I want to see what kind of man you become. I want to see you become a hero... I don't want to die... Please... I... I—'
'I want to live...'
Yuuya stood entirely frozen in the empty air, his spectral form completely paralyzed by the sheer, crushing weight of her distress.
The authors of the stories back on Earth had never written about this.
They had never detailed the agonizing, hidden terror of her final moments.
But as he looked down at her falling form, the realization struck him like a physical blow.
This timeline was different.
She hadn't spent her final years stewing in hatred and regret in the dark corners of the world.
She had spent them in a quiet, warm cabin, being loved unconditionally by a little white haired boy who called her his mother.
Bell's pure, gentle innocence hadn't just given her a reason to protect the world—it had taught her how beautiful it was to actually be alive.
It had given her a home she desperately wanted to return to.
And because she finally had a life worth living, death had become the most terrifying monster she had ever faced.
As the frantic, weeping thoughts of the dying mage continued to echo directly into Yuuya's mind, suddenly, the dark walls of the Dungeon seemed to blur.
The agonizing screams of her inner consciousness pulled something else out from the deepest, most guarded corners of his memory.
A face flickered against the darkness of the abyss. Akari.
The image of his fiancée filled his mind with a sudden, aching clarity.
She stood there just as he remembered her—slender, standing at exactly 5'3, with a cascade of soft silver hair that framed her face.
But it was her eyes that always caught him; they were a pair of brilliant, vibrant emerald greens, the exact same striking shade as Alfia's right eye.
Yuuya remembered the days back in Japan, sitting at his desk and scrolling through the DanMachi wiki, thinking how utterly bizarre and surreal it was that a fictional character shared such a remarkable resemblance to the woman he loved.
But now, existing as a weightless soul detached from a physical brain, the realization hit him with a much deeper, terrifying weight.
It wasn't just a coincidence of facial features or hair color.
As a spirit, he could feel the subtle, ambient texture of a person's life force.
Alfia and Akari didn't just look the same—they "felt" eerily, unnaturally similar.
It was a lingering feeling in the air, a profound spiritual similarity that made it feel as though Alfia was a long lost sister of Akari, separated only by the boundaries of entirely different worlds.
Yet, despite the shock running through his core, Yuuya remained completely still.
He hovered at the crater, his phantom form locking up as a wave of bitter helplessness washed over him.
'I'm just a soul...' His mind argued, a desperate, silent plea against the horror unfolding below. 'I can't touch the stones. I can't yell for help. I am a ghost. What am I supposed to do against the absolute gravity of the world?'
'Please... it hurts... I don't want to vanish...'
Alfia's distressed, panicking thoughts tore through his hesitation again, cracking with a raw, breathless terror.
The sheer despair in her mental voice instantly dragged another ghost out of his past.
Haruka.
The memory hit him like a physical blow, transporting his mind back to a cold, sterile hospital room filled with the sharp, rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor and the overwhelming scent of antiseptic.
He remembered standing beside the bed of his childhood friend, watching her frail, pale form diminish beneath the white sheets during her final moments on Earth.
Haruka had cried the exact same way.
She had gripped his hand with a weak, trembling ferocity, her eyes wide with horror.
She hadn't said it herself nor admitted it, but her eyes clearly show.
She was also afraid of death.
(Reference to chapter 20 - Serene dream. At the beginning of the chapter.)
The parallel was too much, too similar.
Yuuya imagines Haruka, how her mind must've been the same as the frantic, weeping mind of the falling warrior below him.
It was the exact same terror of the dark.
Then, a suffocating wave of guilt and grief crashed directly into Yuuya's soul.
Before he had died, he had been a man sent off to war.
He had held Akari close, looking into her emerald eyes, and he had given her a firm promise that he would survive and return to her side.
He had broken that promise the very moment his life ended on the battlefield.
In a twisted, selfish way, he had considered himself somewhat blessed back then—blessed because he had been spared the sight of her breaking down.
He never had to see the look of absolute, crushing despair on Akari's face when the official notice of his death finally arrived at her door.
He had been shielded from her tears.
But looking down into the fiery, churning abyss of the lower floors, watching the silver hair of the dying mage whip through the rushing wind, the illusion completely shattered.
He wasn't being spared anymore.
Seeing Alfia's face twisted in absolute terror, hearing her frantic mind beg for a chance to go home to Bell, felt like he was breaking his promise to Akari all over again. As if he was watching her despair when the news of his death reached her.
Except this time, a cruel fate was refusing to let him shield his eyes.
This time, he was being forced to stand right there, completely conscious, forced to watch the horrific, terrified consequences of a departure firsthand.
The weeping face of Haruka and the imagined despair of Akari were melting directly into the form of the falling woman below.
Yuuya's core—a nature built on a simple, stubborn kindness that absolutely refused to sit idly by while someone suffered—completely snapped the invisible chains holding him back.
He couldn't just stand there and watch a woman who carried the very essence of his fiancée burn into ash while crying out for her family.
He wouldn't do it.
He didn't care about the laws of the universe, he didn't care about the script of the timeline, and he didn't care if he was just a weightless, invisible ghost.
'I... Had to... I have to try.' Thought Yuuya.
With a silent, fierce surge of absolute determination, Yuuya threw his hesitation aside and plunged straight down into the yawning darkness of the abyss after her.
The wind did not roar against Yuuya's ears; it roared against his very soul.
He plummeted through the shattered crust of the 18th floor, a streak of invisible energy diving headfirst into the yawning, pitch black throat of the Dungeon.
Below him, Alfia's black gothic dress flapped violently like the broken wings of a dying crow. She was falling fast, her unconscious or dying form succumbing to the absolute gravity of the abyss.
Yuuya pushed himself harder, screaming internally as he chased the fading glint of her silver hair. But as his phantom hands reached out, they slid right through the fabric of her dress.
He was still smoke. He was still nothing.
'System!' Yuuya roared in the silent chambers of his mind. 'Give me a body! Right now! Let me manifest!'
A cold, mechanical blue light flashed violently across his vision, fracturing the darkness of the pit.
[WARNING: EXTREME RISK DETECTED.]
[Host Yuuya is attempting a Forced Physical Manifestation prior to the required soul synchronization period.]
[This action violates the primary parameters of the transit protocol. A severe, unalterable penalty will be levied upon the Host's soul. The nature of the penalty cannot be disclosed at this time.]
[Do you still wish to proceed?]
'I said do it!' Yuuya's mental voice cracked with an absolute, unyielding fury as he watched Alfia drift closer to the glowing orange heat of the lower depths. 'I don't care about the penalty! Pile whatever you want! Just give me my hands!'
[Request acknowledged. Initiating Forced Manifestation...]
Instantly, an agonizing sensation ripped through Yuuya's entire existence. It wasn't the pain of a physical wound, but the terrifying feeling of thousands of hot needles stitching through his very soul, forcing raw flesh, muscle, and bone to coalesce out of pure spiritual energy.
His lungs suddenly snapped into existence, violently gasping as the freezing, stale air of the deep Dungeon rushed into them. Blood began to pump through a newborn heart, roaring in his ears with a deafening sound.
Weight. Friction. Mass. He was human again.
Yuuya kicked his legs through the rushing air, altering his trajectory, and threw his newly formed physical arms around Alfia's waist. The impact was brutal. The solid mass of her body slammed against his chest, sending a jarring rattle straight down his spine, but his arms locked around her like iron bands.
He pulled her close against his chest, shielding her fragile body.
The sudden sensation of being held caused Alfia's eyelids to snap open. The frantic, weeping panic in her mind suddenly stuttered, replaced by a wave of pure shock.
She looked up through the veil of her silver hair, her heterochromatic eyes wide and trembling as she stared at the unfamiliar face of the man who had tightly wrapped his arms around her in the middle of a terminal plunge.
"Who...?" Alfia hoarsely whispered, a fleck of dark blood splashing from her lips against his cheek. "Who are you...?"
Yuuya gripped her tighter, his teeth bared against the rushing wind as he looked down at her pale, terrified face.
"Just a wannabe hero." he growled out, his voice raw and straining against the force of their descent. "A guy who absolutely hates standing still and watching someone die!"
A blinding, furious orange light erupted from the darkness below.
Yuuya looked down, his heart freezing. The incinerating flames of the deep floors—the very same flames that were meant to kill Alfia—were rushing up to meet them like a roaring tidal wave of liquid fire.
The sheer ambient heat began to singe the edges of his clothing, the smell of burning fabric filling his nose.
'System!' Yuuya yelled, his eyes reflecting the approaching inferno. 'I need protection! Give me something to shield us from the fire, and something to neutralize the impact of this fall! Now!'
[WARNING: Additional system interventions will compound the existing soul penalty exponentially. The Host's ledger will enter a critical deficit—]
"I told you, I don't care!" Yuuya screamed, locking his gaze onto the sea of fire below them. "Put it all on the tab! Just keep her alive!"
[Compounding penalties approved. Activating: Divine Aegis & Kinetic Dampening.]
A brilliant, spherical barrier of translucent blue light erupted around Yuuya and Alfia, sealing them away.
A heartbeat later, they plunged straight into the sea of fire.
The world outside the barrier turned into a roaring, apocalyptic hell of pure heat and liquid magma. The flames lashed against the blue sphere, hissing and crackling with a terrifying hunger, but the shield held, absorbing them completely.
Inside, Yuuya couldn't feel a single spark. He kept his eyes wide open, watching the walls of the great pit blur past.
The numbers began to tick through his head as the system mapped their trajectory. They were bypassing the middle floors entirely.
Floor 37 passed in a flash of white stone.
Floor 50 passed too fast, almost making Yuuya unable to notice it.
Floor 59 swept past, a frozen wasteland of deep sub-zero tunnels that flashed briefly outside the fire.
The descent felt endless, a terrifying free fall through the deep center of the world. Yuuya's newborn muscles ached from the sheer tension, his fingers buried deep into the fabric of Alfia's dress as he held her against his chest, refusing to let the chaotic turbulence rip her away.
Finally, the fire died out, replaced by a heavy, suffocating darkness that felt heavy, and distinctly malevolent. The blue barrier flickered violently, its kinetic dampening matrices groaning under the immense buildup of velocity.
"Brace yourself!" Yuuya barked.
They hit the ground.
BOOM!
The blue shield shattered into a million glittering fragments upon impact, completely absorbing the lethal kinetic energy that should have flattened them into a pair of red smears.
The residual force threw Yuuya and Alfia rolling across the rough, pitch black stone floor. Yuuya tucked his head in, spinning wildly across the jagged ground, absorbing the bruises and scrapes with his own shoulders until he finally came to a sliding halt against a massive, crystalline pillar.
Yuuya pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, gasping for breath as a sharp pain flared through his ribs. The air down here was different—it tasted like iron, old dust, and an overwhelming, oppressive aura of malice.
He wiped a streak of sweat and blood from his forehead and quickly looked over.
Alfia lay a few feet away, her silver hair scattered across the dark stone like spilled silk. She was breathing, but each breath was a shallow, agonizing rattle.
The internal hemorrhaging from her battle with the Astraea Familia was rapidly filling her lungs, and her skin carried a translucent, deathly grey color.
Yuuya dragged himself over, carefully lifting her upper body off the cold stone.
"Hey... hey, stay with me. Can you hear me?"
Alfia's eyes slowly unjoined, her mismatched eye dull and glazed with an immense, exhausting pain. She looked at his face, her hand weakly lifting to touch the fabric of his sleeve, as if confirming that he was actually made of flesh and bone.
"The... the deep floors..." she rasped, her voice incredibly faint, a mere echo of the grand mage she used to be. "Why... why did you save me? I am... a monster who brought ruin to the city... I chose to die..."
"I don't care what you chose." Yuuya said firmly, his thumb gently wiping away a fresh line of blood from her chin. "A family is waiting for you in the mountains. A little boy who can't cook is waiting for you to come home. I'm not letting you leave him."
Alfia's eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter, the mention of Bell striking a deep chord within her fading consciousness. But before she could speak, the very foundations of the cavern began to violently tremble.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A series of heavy, rhythmic vibrations shook the stone beneath them. From the deep, pitch black shadows of the massive cavern, dozens of glowing, crimson eyes began to ignite in the dark. The monsters of the 70th floor had detected the sudden intrusion of fresh, mortal blood.
Massive, quadrupedal abominations with hides as dark as obsidian and jaws lined with rows of teeth began to creep out from the recesses.
Each one born in the deepest, most uncharted depths of the Labyrinth, carrying an aura that could easily crush a lower level adventurer into dust from pressure alone.
Alfia's instincts instantly flared.
With a desperate, frantic burst of willpower, she tried to push herself out of Yuuya's arms.
She lifted her left hand, her fingers trembling violently as she tried to form the chant for her magic.
"Gospe—!"
"Cough!"
Blood erupted from her mouth before she could even complete the chant.
Her hand dropped instantly, her entire body collapsing back into Yuuya's chest as her lungs locked up, the incurable disease relentlessly clamping down on her remaining life force.
She was entirely depleted; her mind was completely dry of mana. It was an absolute miracle she hadn't lost consciousness from the sheer agony of it all.
"No..." Alfia choked out, her fingers weakly clutching Yuuya's tunic as she stared at the advancing wall of monsters. "I can't... I can't cast... My body is... done."
She looked up at Yuuya, her expression shifting into a desperate, pleading look of defeat.
"Leave me... stranger. Take your own strength and run. I am a corpse anyway. Do not throw your life away for a ghost."
Yuuya didn't answer.
Instead, he slid his right arm beneath her knees and his left arm securely behind her shoulders, effortlessly scooping her up into a secure, bridal carry.
He pulled her close against his chest, ignoring the sharp protest of his own bruised ribs as he stood perfectly upright against the approaching horde of monsters.
"I already told you, Alfia." Yuuya said, his voice dropping into a calm, unyielding tone that cut straight through the growls of the beasts. "I don't leave people behind."
He locked his eyes onto the darkness ahead.
'System! Map out this floor! Find me a safe zone, a hidden room, a crevice—anything we can use to hide and recuperate! And give me a repulsive force field! Something to blast these things away from us while I run!'
[Compounding soul penalties reaching critical threshold.]
[Activating: Shockwave Repulsion Field.]
[Mapping local terrain... Safe zone identified at 400 meters east. Displaying guide path.]
A bright, pulsing blue line ignited across the dark stone floor, visible only to Yuuya's eyes. At the exact same time, a visible ring of kinetic energy exploded outward from his body.
BANG!
The shockwave slammed into the front ranks of the advancing 70th floor monsters, sending the massive beasts flying backward through the air, their heavy bodies crashing into the stone walls with loud roars of confusion and pain.
Yuuya didn't waste a single millisecond. He turned on his heel and sprinted along the blue line, his boots pounding furiously against the obsidian stone.
Every time a beast lunged out from the side tunnels to snap at them, the system's repulsion field would automatically pulse, a sharp *crack* of blue light throwing the monster back and clearing a path through the dark.
Alfia could only watch in absolute, silent bewilderment. She rested her head against his shoulder, her gray and emerald eyes fixed on the profile of his face as he ran through the literal jaws of hell for her sake, completely defying the logic of the world she knew.
"Left turn ahead." Yuuya muttered to himself, his breath coming in heavy gasps as his human legs began to burn from the exertion.
He ducked beneath a low hanging stone archway, sprinting down a narrow, twisting fissure that the massive 70th floor monsters were too large to enter.
The roars of the frustrated beasts who just lost their prey began to echo distantly behind them.
The blue line led him straight to a small, concealed fracture in the rock face, hidden behind a cluster of giant, dark crystals.
Yuuya squeezed his body through the narrow opening, carrying Alfia carefully through the tight gap until the space suddenly opened up.
They stepped into a small, completely isolated stone chamber. It was roughly the size of a typical bedroom, quiet, dry, and entirely cut off from the main paths of the floor.
The entrance was so narrow that no monster could possibly breach it, and the thick stone walls completely muffled the terrifying echoes of the deeper levels outside.
Yuuya carefully slid down against the far wall of the safe spot, gently lowering Alfia into his lap so her head remained elevated, keeping her clear of the cold floorboards of stone.
He let out a long, shuddering breath, his chest heaving as the physical exhaustion of his newly formed body finally began to catch up with him.
They were safe. For now, the deep floor had been beaten back.
Yuuya leaned his head back against the rough crystal veined wall, his chest heaving as he slowly calmed his racing pulse.
Having a physical body again was entirely overwhelming; his heart pounded against his ribs like a trapped bird, and every scrape on his arms stung with sharp, living heat.
As the adrenaline began to drain from his system, he looked down. Alfia was still resting in his lap, her head on his shoulder, her tall frame uncharacteristically limp.
Her silver hair was fanned out across his shoulder, and she was staring up at him with a piercing, unwavering intensity. Her heterochromatic eyes—tracked the movement of his throat as he swallowed.
Yuuya rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish, bruised hand.
"Right... I realized I never actually gave you my name. I'm Yuuya. Yuuya Mitsukuji."
Alfia's lips parted slightly, repeating the foreign syllables in her mind, but she didn't speak.
Yuuya looked directly into her emerald eye, his expression softening into a serious, grounded gaze. He didn't dance around the subject. He knew why he had plunged into the abyss, and he wasn't going to let her hide behind her legendary mask anymore.
"I know you probably have a lot of questions..." Yuuya said, his voice quiet but incredibly steady in the small room. "But... I know. You're... you're afraid of death. That's why I interfered."
Alfia's body went completely rigid in his arms. The sudden shock seemed to override her physical exhaustion for a split second, her eyes widening as a flash of sharp, defensive pride flickered across her pale features.
She instinctively tried to push herself up, her jaw tightening into a familiar, cold line.
"Do not presume to speak for me, stranger." she rasped, her voice trembling as she tried to force her old composure back into place. "A adventurer of my era does not fear the end. I chose my demise. I chose to burn out so that—"
"Stop." Yuuya cut her off, his voice flat and direct, completely shutting down the lie before she could build the wall any higher. He placed a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder, anchoring her down. "Look at me, Alfia. Be honest with yourself. You don't have to play the villain here. There are no gods watching us, no adventurers to test. I heard your thoughts when you were falling. I felt how terrified you were."
Alfia froze.
The denial died on her tongue. She stared at him, her chest rising and falling in shallow, trembling hitches as the realization sank in that this strange man had somehow looked straight into the deepest, most vulnerable corner of her soul.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. A minute ticked by, then two. Slowly, the rigid tension left her shoulders. The icy facade of the "Silence" completely shattered, leaving behind only a woman who had spent her entire life suffering in the dark.
Her eye drifted away from his face, staring blankly at the dark stone wall of the safe zone. A single, heavy tear escaped her gray eye, tracking a clean line through the dust and dried blood on her cheek.
"I am..." she whispered, her voice cracking into a small, fragile sound that made Yuuya's chest ache. "I am terrified. It was... so dark. And the thought of never seeing him again... of just vanishing into nothing... I couldn't bear it."
Yuuya let out a soft breath, deliberately shifting his position to make her more comfortable.
He didn't want to keep the atmosphere this heavy; she was already on the brink of collapse, and dwelling on the terror of the abyss wouldn't help her body heal. He needed to change the subject, to give her mind something else to anchor onto.
"Hey..." Yuuya said, offering a faint, gentle smile to ease the tension. "Since we're stuck down here for a bit... tell me about your life before the mountains. What was it like growing up? What was it like in the Hera Familia?"
The moment the words left his mouth, a sudden jolt went through Yuuya's brain.
His own photographic memory violently betrayed him, pulling up some lore details he had read back on Earth.
'Wait, crap.' he thought, his internal panic flaring. 'The Hera Familia wasn't a happy home. Hera was notoriously cruel and treated Alfia like a literal tool because of her monstrous talent. At least from what I've read.'
Yuuya opened his mouth to quickly backtrack, his hands waving slightly.
"Wait, sorry, forget I asked—you don't have to answer that if you don't want to—"
"It is fine, Yuuya." Alfia interrupted quietly, her voice drifting through the room before he could take his words back.
She remained resting against his shoulder, her gaze fixed on the ceiling as her mind drifted back into the past.
"Meteria and I... we did not have a normal beginning." Alfia began, her melodic tone carrying a detached, nostalgic weight. "When we first gained awareness of ourselves, we were already orphans. Goddess Hera never explicitly mentioned where she discovered us, or what blood ran through our veins. All that my sister and I ever knew were our names. Hera simply told us that 'Alfia' and 'Meteria' were the names attached to us when she took us in. As for the details of our birth, or who our parents were... she never spoke a single word."
She paused, taking a slow, cautious breath to avoid triggering another coughing fit.
"Life within the Hera Familia was... unique..." she continued, a faint, cynical smirk touching her lips. "Goddess Hera was a deity of extremes. She looked at my talent, she looked at the incurable rot in my lungs, and she chooses to treat me primarily as a weapon. An instrument of absolute silence to be wielded against the Dungeon. She did not offer motherly warmth, nor did she care for the pain the Falna caused my body. But... the Familia itself was not entirely unendurable."
(The experiences that Alfia is saying here is my interpretation from the informations I've read on the internet, which I now forgot where I found. If I'm wrong, sorry. Let's just pretend it was like that if I was indeed mistaken.)
Yuuya listened quietly, keeping his physical movements entirely still so she wouldn't have to strain her neck to look at him.
"I never truly got along with my fellow Familia members." Alfia admitted, her emerald eye flashing with a hint of genuine annoyance. "I did not view them as family, nor did they look at me with soft eyes. We were colleagues. Workmates bound by the same divine contract. But more than that... they were thoroughly exhausting to be around."
She let out a low, weary sigh that sounded like rustling paper.
"They were a collection of deeply possessive, obsessive individuals." she murmured, a look of profound disgust crossing her pale face. "Every single one of them seemed to inherit the goddess's worst, most volatile traits. If a man from another Familia so much as looked at one of our captains, they would plot to level an entire district just to eliminate the distraction. Worse yet, every single man that they like? They try to take it for themselves. They would also hunt down anyone who drew too close to the things they claimed as theirs. Zeus used to call them a nest of 'yanderes' whenever he thought Hera was out of earshot."
A brief, raspy chuckle escaped her throat before she could stop it.
"He was an old fool, but he was not wrong. It was a completely disgusting environment to grow up in. Constant surveillance, endless jealousy, and an overwhelming obsession that dictated every single hour of the day. Compared to that madness... the quiet of the cabin was the first time I ever truly breathed."
Alfia's gaze remained fixed on the jagged ceiling of the safe zone, the tension in her frame completely dissipating as her mind drifted deeper into her memories.
The harsh, icy edge of her voice softened into a tone that Yuuya had never heard her use in the presence of others—a tone laced with a profound, aching warmth.
"The only good thing in that entire wretched place..." Alfia murmured, her mismatched eye shimmering slightly in the dim light of the chamber. "Was Meteria. She was the absolute antithesis of everything the Hera Familia stood for. In a nest of monsters, she was an angel."
A incredibly faint, genuine smile touched the corner of her lips, a rare and fleeting sight that completely transformed her pale face.
"She was physically frail, weaker than anyone else, yet she possessed a strength that none of us could ever hope to replicate." Alfia continued, a soft, raspy chuckle escaping her throat. "Even the Goddess herself was entirely helpless against her. I still remember the day Meteria managed to bring Goddess Hera to her knees, weeping and begging for forgiveness. Hera had accidentally eaten a slice of cake that Meteria had been wanting to eat for a long time. When Meteria silently burst into tears out of anger and sadness, the sheer guilt of it turned the deity of our Familia into a pathetic, apologetic mess on the floorboards. It was the only time I ever saw that arrogant goddess entirely defeated."
Yuuya smiled gently, listening to the lighthearted memory. But as the echo of her laugh faded, he noticed the sudden, heavy shadow that crept back into her eyes.
The mention of her twin sister was a double edged sword; it brought fond memories, but it always carried the crushing weight of her tragic death.
Her fingers subtly tightened against the fabric of his sleeve, a telltale sign of the grief always lingering just beneath the surface.
Recognizing the shift, Yuuya decided to step in before the air grew heavy again. He needed a safer memory for her mind.
"She sounds like she was incredible." Yuuya said softly, shifting his weight slightly to ensure she remained comfortable against his lap. He offered a warm, casual smile. "But hey, what about after that? What about your life up in the mountains with Bell? Tell me what it's like living with the little guy."
Though Yuuya already knew many of the details from his unique perspective, he wanted to hear it directly from her. He wanted to give her a reason to talk about the life she was so terrified of losing.
Alfia's expression softened instantly at the mention of her nephew. She leaned her head back against Yuuya's shoulder, her breathing slightly more stable as she allowed herself to ramble about the quiet, mundane routine they had built far away from the world's chaos.
"He is a handful." Alfia sighed, though there was no real annoyance in her voice. "He follows Zeus around like a shadow, absorbing all of that old fool's ridiculous stories. But he is... a sweet child. Every morning he wakes up early just to gather wild berries from the forest edge, presenting them to me as if they were rare treasures."
She paused, her gaze drifting as she recalled a specific memory from a some time ago.
"There are times where I attempted to take on the domestic duties." she admitted, her voice carrying a hint of stubborn pride. "Just before my illness began to peak, I decided to handle the dinner preparations myself. I spent hours in that small kitchen, selecting the ingredients, stoking the fire, and ensuring everything was perfectly measured. I wanted to provide a proper, home cooked meal for the family."
Yuuya's lips twitched.
He remembered that exact day. He had been a floating, invisible spirit in the rafters, watching in absolute, silent horror as she approached the kitchen like a general preparing for a bloody siege.
"Oh, really?" Yuuya teased, a playful, mischievous glint entering his eyes as he looked down at her. "You handled the cooking? Because according to my sources... you are absolutely horrendous at domestic stuff. Especially cooking."
Alfia's rambling cut off instantly.
The soft, nostalgic warmth in her eyes vanished, replaced by a sharp, icy glare that would have frozen a lesser adventurer solid. She slowly turned her head, her gray and emerald eyes locking onto him with an expression of profound offense.
"And where, exactly, did you acquire such slanderous information, Yuuya?" she demanded, her voice dropping into a dangerous, melodic whisper. "We have been in that house for years years. Yet, no one outside of that cabin knows anything about our daily arrangements."
Yuuya chuckled, entirely unfazed by the legendary glare of the Silence. He leaned his head back against the wall, maintaining his playful tone.
"Let's just say I heard it somewhere. A little bird told me. A source from my past life, you could say."
Alfia let out a sharp, dismissive huff, turning her face back toward the wall with her chin raised defiantly.
"Your source is entirely unreliable. I'll have you know that my culinary skills are perfectly adequate. The stews and soups I prepared were nutritious. Bell never complained a single time. He ate every portion I placed in front of him."
"Of course Bell didn't complain." Yuuya shot back, a wide grin spreading across his face. "The kid is the definition of pure kindness. He would eat a bowl of literal charcoal if you handed it to him with a smile, just because he loves his aunt too much to hurt her feelings."
Alfia remained silent, her jaw set rigidly.
"But I am absolutely certain that Zeus had a thing or two to say about those soups the moment your back was turned." Yuuya continued, leaning in slightly to whisper dramatically into the quiet room. "In fact, I'm pretty sure the old man was secretly complaining to the trees that you were already a complete disaster at laundry—somehow managing to set the washing water on literal fire—and now you were bringing that same chaotic energy into the kitchen to terrorize their dinners."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Yuuya waited for her to snap back, to unleash another sharp retort or defend her pride as a.
But the retort never came.
Instead, Alfia went entirely, dead silent. She slowly averted her gaze, her eyes darting away from Yuuya's face to look at the far corner of the dark stone floor.
A subtle, unmistakable crimson flush began to creep up her pale neck, coloring her cheeks with a deep, furious blush of pure embarrassment.
She looked like she wanted to physically disappear from the conversation.
Yuuya stared at her for a second, his eyes widening as the realization hit him. He let out a loud, sudden burst of laughter that echoed brightly against the chamber walls.
"Wait... you actually did it?!" Yuuya laughed, his shoulders shaking. "The laundry thing is real? How do you even set water on fire, Alfia? You're one of the few, level seven mage in existence! Your magic control is supposed to be flawless!"
"Be quiet." Alfia mumbled weakly and incredibly tense as she refused to look him in the eye. "It was... an anomaly. The temperature was improperly regulated, and the chemical composition of the lye soap reacted unpredictably with the steam."
"You set the washbasin on fire. And get this, you didn't even cast a spell, you just stared at it and it caught fire." Yuuya repeated, grinning from ear to ear, thoroughly enjoying the rare sight of the terrifying Silence being completely defeated by a domestic chore.
"I said, be quiet." she muttered again, her mismatched eye flashing with a mixture of intense embarrassment and reluctant amusement.
She squeezed her eyes shut, leaning her head heavily against his chest to hide her burning face, finally surrendering to the ridiculous reality of her own domestic failures.
Alfia remained pressed against his chest for a long, quiet moment, the ambient heat of her blush slowly fading.
Realizing that she couldn't win a battle of domestic wits, she shifted her weight, using his shoulder to prop herself up.
Her expression smoothed back out, the temporary vulnerability hardening into a look of deep curiosity. She was a woman who had spent her life reading the intentions of gods and monsters alike; she wasn't about to let him keep the upper hand for long.
"You deflect with humor, Yuuya." Alfia said, her eye narrowing slightly as she latched onto a phrase he had carelessly dropped. "But my ears did not miss your words. You mentioned a 'source from your past life.' You know of Bell's name even though I have never mentioned it. And earlier, you spoke as if you knew exactly what transpired in our cabin before I departed."
Yuuya's smile faltered slightly. He rubbed the back of his neck, realizing he had let his guard down a bit too much in the warmth of their banter.
Alfia leaned in closer, her gaze pinning him to the stone wall.
"Tell me... the sudden drafts in the kitchen when the air was perfectly still. The strange, lingering warmth near the sofa when Zeus and Bell were asleep. The distinct sensation of an invisible pair of eyes watching over the boy while he played in the yard. That was you, wasn't it? You were the spirit lingering in our home."
Yuuya let out a soft, defeated sigh, his shoulders slumping.
"Yeah. You caught me. I was a wandering soul, completely invisible and weightless. I drifted into your home a long time ago, and since I didn't have a body or a place to go, I just stayed. I watched over all of you."
Alfia's posture didn't harden with anger; instead, a profound sense of bewilderment crossed her face.
"A spirit... without a god to tether you. How is such a thing even possible? Where did you come from?"
"That's the thing." Yuuya replied, leaning his head back against the dark rock. "I'm not exactly from this world. I didn't die in some village in the Empire or a kingdom across the sea. I came from a place called Japan. If you want a comparison that makes sense in your world, the closest thing to it would be the Far East. The architecture, the names, the culture—it's very similar to that."
He paused, looking down at his own physical hands that were free, flexing his fingers to feel the foreign sensation of skin stretching over knuckles.
"But my world didn't have a Dungeon. It didn't have gods walking among mortals, granting Falna, or turning people into level seven. We built towering cities of glass and iron, lit up the night with electricity instead of magic stones, and fought our wars with engineering and science rather than swords and spells. It was a completely different existence."
Alfia listened in absolute silence, her analytical mind processing the concept of an entire world detached from the divine order.
She didn't dismiss his words as the ramblings of a madman; the sheer fact that he had manifested a physical body out of thin air and dragged her down to the 70th floor was proof enough that he operated on laws entirely foreign to theirs.
"A world without the gods..." she murmured, her gray eye reflecting the faint, pulsing light of the safe zone's crystals. "A world where mortals rely entirely on their own hands. If there was no Falna to elevate your status, how did you live your life there, Yuuya? What kind of existence did a soul like yours lead before you became a ghost in my rafters?"
Yuuya's expression shifted into something complex—a mixture of nostalgia and a deep, lingering weariness that mirrored her own history.
"Honestly? I lived my life under a constant, suffocating restraint." Yuuya said, his voice dropping into a quiet, candid tone. "In my world, everyone is supposed to be relatively ordinary. There are limits to what a human body can do without magic. But for some reason, I was born completely wrong for that environment. My physical body was... what people there would consider superhuman."
Alfia's eyebrows raised slightly. As a woman who had been born with a monstrous talent that eclipsed everyone and anyone, she understood the weight of being a abnormal.
"It didn't matter what the activity was." Yuuya continued, a faint, self-deprecating smirk touching his lips. "Martial arts, athletics, stamina, reflexes—if it required physicality, my body automatically excelled at it without even trying. The sheer talent and potential packed into my body was completely absurd. To put it into perspective... if I had actually wanted to, I could have walked onto an Olympic track or a race on a random Tuesday morning, completely half asleep, and still completely beat everyone and even shatter the fastest speed or time so profoundly that no human being would have been able to break it for at least five hundred years. Perhaps even forever. Or until this talent of mine finds another person to bother."
He shook his head, his gaze drifting to the narrow entrance of their stone sanctuary.
"But I chose to do absolutely nothing with it." Yuuya admitted. "I spent every single day holding myself back, walking on eggshells so I wouldn't accidentally hurt someone or draw an immense amount of unwanted attention. In a world of ordinary people, being a freak of nature doesn't make you a hero—it makes you a target, or a tool for governments and corporations to dissect and exploit. I didn't want the spotlight. I didn't want the world looking at me like I was a god or a monster. I just wanted a quiet, normal life. I wanted to protect the small circle of people I cared about, and leave the rest of the world to its own devices."
Alfia closed her eyes, a heavy, understanding silence settling over her features.
"We were... More alike that I thought, Yuuya." She said as she rested her head back against his chest, the sound of his newly formed heart serving as a steady anchor in the dark.
For the first time since they had met, she realized that this strange man wasn't just a random savior who had dropped from the sky.
In a strange, twisted irony of fate, he was exactly like her—a person cursed with an overwhelming power they never asked for, forced to navigate a world that would never truly understand the burden of holding it all inside.
Alfia remained perfectly still against his chest, the steady rise and fall of her shoulders the only indication that she was listening.
Her heterochromatic eyes opened, tracking the faint, ambient glow of the crystals on the wall, her brilliant mind working through the implications of what he had just shared.
To a woman who had been raised in a world where power was a currency of status, survival, and divine favor, the concept of someone willfully burying such immense physical potential out of a desire for normalcy was entirely alien.
She shifted slightly, her pale fingers curling tightly into the fabric of his sleeve as she looked up at his face, her expression a mix of suspicion and genuine bewilderment.
"Then how did you use your strength?" Alfia asked, her voice a low, raspy whisper that carried the sharp precision of an interrogator. "Did you use it for your personal gain? Did you stay low so that no one would notice your actions when you did something for your own benefits? Is that... is that why you saved me? Do you have some hidden purpose for dragging a dying mage to the bottom of the world?"
Yuuya let out a soft, amused chuckle, his head leaning back against the rough stone wall of the safe spot. He looked down at her, his eyes warm and completely devoid of the deceit she was looking for.
"Nope. Like I've said before, I did nothing." Yuuya said simply, shaking his head. "I didn't, and I don't want to. You know, I have this firm belief in myself. A personal rule that I've carried with me through two lives now. It says: the stronger you are, the kinder you should be."
Alfia's eye widened by a fraction of a millimeter, the raw simplicity of his words catching her entirely off guard.
"I know and understand this better than anyone else." Yuuya continued, his smile fading into a more serious, candid expression as he looked at his own calloused hands. "To be frank, I'm afraid. Power isn't just something you flaunt; it's a massive responsibility. Because what if I suddenly forgot to restrain myself during a simple handshake? If I let my guard down for even a single fraction of a second, I might crush their hand accidentally. When you are built to break things, you have to be infinitely more careful with how you touch the world."
The quiet returned to the bedroom sized chamber, the distant, muffled roars of the 70th floor monsters serving as a reminder of the nightmare waiting just beyond the narrow crevice.
Alfia studied his face for a long time, searching for any flicker of falsehood, any sign that he was playing a part.
But there was nothing. There was only the steady, grounding warmth of a man who had broken the laws of existence just to hold her steady.
Yet, her pride—the fierce, unyielding dignity of the Hera Familia's strongest asset—still pricked at her thoughts.
She had spent her entire life being looked at with fear, awe, or profound grief because of her fading health.
She hated being viewed as weak.
"Then why did you save me, Yuuya?" she asked quietly, her gaze dropping to the dark stone floorboards between them, her voice laced with a bitter, fragile edge. "Is it because of pity? Did you look at a broken, rotting woman falling into the dark and decide to throw yourself into hell just to satisfy your own conscience?"
The atmosphere in the room instantly shifted, turning heavy and solemn.
Yuuya didn't answer immediately.
He fell dead silent, the quiet stretching between them for a second or two as he simply watched the way the dim crystal light caught the silver strands of her hair.
He felt the ache of his old memories pressing against his chest, but he locked them away, choosing his words with absolute, deliberate care.
"No." Yuuya said, his voice dropping into a tone that was incredibly gentle, yet entirely unyielding. "For me, being a human, an abnormal, or even the Incarnation of Talent itself has absolutely nothing to do with saving someone. Your status in this world, your sins, or your legendary reputation don't mean a thing to me when it comes down to a matter of life and death."
He reached down, his thumb gently wiping away a stray speck of dust from her cheek, forcing her to look back up into his eyes.
"I saw someone who isn't ready to die. I just can't stand still. I had to try, if someone could be saved, I have to try." Yuuya whispered, his gaze steady. "I saw a person who is afraid of the dark, who still wishes to see the light of the sun of a new day, and who desperately wants to see her little Bell grow up and become a hero. For me, Alfia... that's good enough of a reason."
Alfia's lips parted, but no sound came out. The sheer sincerity of his answer seemed to strike her like a physical blow, completely dismantling the last defenses of her cynical mind.
She slowly closed her eyes, her head resting heavily against his shoulder as she processed the reality that someone had saved her simply because they wanted her to live.
As she remained quiet in his lap, Yuuya let out a silent, slow breath, keeping his features completely calm.
Deep within his own mind, he was deliberately hiding the full truth. He hadn't mentioned Akari. He hadn't spoken a single word about how the eerie, supernatural similarity between Alfia and his fiancée had made his soul ache with a terrifying sense of familiarity.
He didn't tell her about Haruka, or how the frantic, weeping panic of her final thoughts in the abyss had perfectly mirrored the heartbreaking cries of his childhood friend passing away in that sterile hospital bed.
Those memories were two of the primary catalysts that had forced his hand, snapping his hesitation and driving him to plunge into the abyss.
But as he looked down at the fragile woman resting in his arms, Yuuya knew he could never admit that to her.
It felt entirely inappropriate for the moment, a heavy burden that would only clutter the raw honesty of their current survival. More than that, he felt a deep, private sense of embarrassment about it. If he told her that she looked and felt like the woman he loved from another world, she might have misunderstood his intentions.
She might think he had only leaped into the furnace to chase a phantom, that he was using her as a substitute for the promises he had broken back on Earth. He didn't want her to feel like a ghost in someone else's story.
But the truth is, even though the resemblance had shaken him to his core, the choice to save her had become entirely about her.
He wanted to save Alfia for the sake of her own life, for the sake of the little boy waiting in the mountains, and for the sake of the future she deserved to see.
So, he kept the secrets of his past locked tightly behind his teeth, content to simply sit in the quiet sanctuary of the deep floor, offering her his warmth.
Unfortunately... The quiet of the stone chamber didn't last.
A sharp, grating screech of stone tearing against stone echoed through the narrow fissure. Yuuya's head snapped up, his newly formed muscles instantly tensing.
Outside the hidden gap, the giant dark crystals that had masked their entrance were shattered into glittering black sand.
A massive, obsidian scaled snout pushed through the opening, its rows of jagged teeth snapping hungrily as a pair of burning crimson eyes locked onto them in the dimness.
The deep floor monsters hadn't lost their scent. They had hunted them down.
"Tch... they found us already?" Yuuya gritted his teeth, his hand instinctively tightening around Alfia's shoulder as he pulled her closer against his chest.
Alfia looked at the encroaching monster, her heterochromatic eyes reflecting the absolute despair of their situation. She could feel the heavy, sluggish flow of blood in her own chest; her lungs were completely filled with fluid, and her body was refusing to channel even a single drop of mind. She was a liability. A dead weight.
"Go..." Alfia rasped, her weak hand feebly pushing against his chest to shove him away. "The entrance is narrow... they cannot all enter at once. With your speed... with your luck... you just might be able to force your way out and escape to the upper floors. Leave me here."
Yuuya looked down at her, his dark eyes flashing with a fierce, stubborn anger that made Alfia catch her breath and completely silenced her.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Yuuya growled, his voice echoing sharply against the stone walls. "After everything—after diving into a hell and dragging you all the way down to the 70th floor—you think I'm just gonna leave you behind to die? No way. I told you, I don't leave people behind. If I can't find a way out of this, and if you're going to die here... then I'm dying right here with you."
Alfia stared at him, her breath catching in her throat.
"You fool... you do not belong to this world... why throw your life away for—"
"Because I chose to! Alfia..." Yuuya interrupted, as the obsidian beast tore another chunk of rock from the entrance, its massive claws widening the gap.
Yuuya didn't waste another second arguing. He closed his eyes, shouting into the frantic space of his own mind.
'System! Give me something to hold them off! A barrier, a wall, anything! I need a time window, right now!'
[Host ledger is in extreme deficit. Continuing to draw power will destabilize the current physical manifestation.]
[Emergency allocation granted: Aegis Barrier - Stagnation Mode.]
A thick, translucent wall of pulsing blue energy violently snapped into existence right across the narrow entrance, slamming directly into the snout of the obsidian monster.
The beast roared in frustration, calling upon the horde outside. Dozens of heavy, monstrous claws began to rain down on the blue barrier, creating a deafening sound that shook the entire room.
Large cracks began to spiderweb across the energy shield almost immediately.
'Think, think, think...' Yuuya slammed his fist against the stone floor, his mind racing at a million miles an hour.
He had a physical body now, but he didn't have weapons, he didn't have Falna, and his sheer physical strength wasn't enough to carry a dying woman through an army of level seven equivalent monsters.
'There has to be a way. System, look through your functions! What can I do to save her and get us out of here?'
The mechanical blue text flashed rapidly across his vision, scrolling through endless locked protocols until it finally stopped on a single, glowing red option.
[Analyzing alternative survival vectors...]
[One final option remains within the system's current authority. The system can lend one last power to the Host, under the condition of absolute emotional intent.]
[Spell Designation: Eternal Stasis Crystal.]
[Details: The target will be encased within a spiritually forged, completely indestructible crystal structure. Inside the crystal, time is perfectly halted. The target's incurable disease, internal hemorrhaging, and physical degradation will be completely frozen. She will remain in a state of suspended animation, perfectly safe from the Dungeon and the monsters, until Host Yuuya returns to personally break the seal.]
Yuuya's eyes lit up. It was a lifeline. A way to keep her breathing, to halt the clock that was rapidly ticking down on her life. But his gaze lingered on the final line of the text.
'And what's the catch?' Yuuya asked internally, his brow furrowing. 'What happens to me if I use this?'
[The penalty for this forced intervention, combined with your existing ledger deficit, will result in an immediate and absolute eviction from this layer. You will be forcefully removed from this physical body. You will be gone.]
Yuuya let out a slow, steady breath. The blue barrier at the entrance was groaning loudly now, the cracks widening as pieces of light began to flake off into the dark. He turned back to Alfia, lifting her up slightly so she could look directly into his eyes.
"Alfia, listen to me carefully." Yuuya said, his voice entirely calm despite the terrifying noise of the monsters tearing at their doorstep. "I have a plan. I have a way to save you, to stop the illness from killing you, and to keep you perfectly safe from these monsters."
Alfia weakly tilted her head, her gaze tracking the absolute seriousness in his expression.
"I can cast a spell that will trap you inside an indestructible crystal." Yuuya explained, summarizing the system's parameters. "The moment the crystal forms around you, time stops for your body. The rot in your lungs, the bleeding inside your chest—it will all hold completely still. You won't feel any pain, and no monster on this floor will ever be able to scratch it. You'll be safe."
He paused, his grip on her hand tightening slightly as he delivered the heavy truth.
"But... there's a cost." Yuuya said, his voice softening. "The moment I finish casting it, the penalty for using this power is going to pull me away. I don't know what the penalty is yet—the voice in my head won't tell me—but one thing is absolutely for sure. I'm going to be gone. You'll be left here alone in the dark, frozen inside that crystal, until I can find a way to come back down here and free you."
The blue barrier behind them let out a massive, shattering *CRACK*. A large fragment of the shield dissolved into smoke, allowing a monstrous, clawed arm to reach into the chamber, sweeping violently through the empty air just a few feet away from them.
Yuuya ignored the beast, keeping his eyes locked entirely onto her heterochromatic gaze.
"I need to know right now, Alfia." Yuuya whispered, the intensity in his dark eyes burning brighter than the crystals on the wall. "Do you trust me?"
Alfia stared at him, her mind completely reeling. She looked at this man—a stranger from another world who had watched over her family as a ghost, who had thrown himself into the abyss to catch her, and who was now offering to face an unknown, terrifying penalty just to give her a chance to live.
She looked into his eyes and saw no deceit, no personal gain, and no pity. There was only that stubborn kindness he had spoken of.
For a second, she hesitated.
The thought of being trapped in the dark depths of the 70th floor, frozen in a silent prison while waiting for an indefinite return, was terrifying.
But looking at Yuuya's face, the frantic panic that had consumed her in the abyss completely vanished, replaced by a profound, heavy sense of peace.
A soft, genuine breath escaped her lips, and she slowly closed her eyes, letting her head rest completely against his chest.
"I trust you, Yuuya." Alfia murmured softly, her fingers gently curling into his tunic one last time. "Do what you must... I will wait for you in the quiet."
The blue barrier cracked violently, a sharp, echoing snap signaling its imminent collapse. Outside, the crimson eyes of the 70th floor monsters pressed closer, their hot, foul breath seeping through the widening gaps of the stone fissure.
Time had entirely run out.
Yuuya looked down at Alfia, who lay quietly in his lap, her heterochromatic eyes closed in a rare moment of absolute surrender. Her breath was nothing more than a faint, raspy flutter against his chest.
"Alfia." Yuuya said, his voice cutting through the rumbling panic of the cavern.
He reached down, his fingers gripping the hem of his newly manifested shirt. With a sharp, deliberate jerk, the sound of tearing fabric ripped through the small chamber.
He tore a long, ragged strip of cloth from the sleeve—a tangible, physical piece of the body he had fought so hard to gain.
Gently, he pried open her weak, trembling fingers and pressed the scrap of fabric firmly into her palm, wrapping her hand closed around it.
"Keep this." Yuuya whispered, locking his gaze onto her face as her eyes fluttered open in mild confusion. "When this is over, when there are times you wake up and finding yourself waiting in the dark... I don't want you thinking I was just a hallucination your mind made up while you were falling. I am real. This happened. I'm coming back for you."
Alfia's throat hitched, her fingers tightening around the rough cloth with what little strength she had left.
She didn't speak, but the subtle tremor in her jaw said more than any chant ever could. She understood.
Turning his head toward the encroaching darkness, Yuuya roared in the chambers of his mind.
'System! Execute the spell! Now'
[Final authority approved.]
[Casting: Eternal Stasis Crystal.]
[Beginning structural encapsulation...]
Instantly, a blinding, pristine white light erupted from the obsidian floorboards right beneath Alfia's body.
The dark, oppressive aura of the 70th floor was pushed back as a beautiful, pale crystalline formation began to rise like liquid glass.
Alfia watched as the glowing structure rapidly grew, creeping up her legs and wrapping around her torso like an elegant, unyielding shroud.
She didn't fight it. She remained perfectly still, her hand still clutching the torn piece of his shirt against her chest.
Through the translucent, rising walls of the crystal, she kept her gray and emerald eyes fixed entirely on Yuuya's face.
"Thank you... Yuuya." her lips moved, though the sound was entirely cut off as the crystal sealed over her jaw, her melodic voice dissolving into the absolute silence of the structure.
Yuuya offered her one last, reassuring smile.
But the moment the crystal completely encased her form, cementing her into an indestructible, shimmering monument in the center of the room, the world violently tilted.
The blue repulsion barrier at the entrance finally shattered into dust.
With a deafening roar of triumph, the massive obsidian monsters surged through the narrow gap, their jaws wide and claws extended, ready to tear the intruders to pieces.
But they never got the chance.
In Alfia's point of view, from within the frozen depths of the crystal, she watched the monsters lunge forward.
But her eyes were fixed on Yuuya. As the beasts closed the distance, Yuuya's physical body suddenly began to lose its density. His skin turned translucent, flickering like a dying candle flame against the dark.
Without a sound, his temporary form completely phased out of existence, dissolving into a cloud of glittering, spectral dust that vanished into thin air before the monsters' claws could even graze his skin.
The beasts slammed into the crystal, their massive power levels unleashed in a furious barrage of strikes. But the system's magic was absolute. The claws scraped harmlessly against the pristine surface, unable to leave even a single scratch on the unyielding tomb.
Alfia was perfectly safe, entirely isolated from the claws of the Labyrinth.
And then, the physical world completely disappeared from Yuuya's senses.
The darkness returned, but it wasn't the weightless freedom of his previous spirit form.
It was a suffocating, crushing void that pulled his consciousness down into the deepest recesses of existence.
Yuuya felt himself falling back into the abyss of his own soul ledger. He couldn't move. He couldn't scream. He couldn't even form a coherent thought.
His mind felt entirely paralyzed, trapped in a bizarre, heavy state of twilight sleep. It was exactly like being entirely unconscious in a hospital bed—unable to wake up, unable to control his own mind, yet faintly, distantly aware of a voice echoing through the static of his subconscious.
The mechanical, cold voice of the system vibrated through his sleeping soul, delivering its final, unalterable verdict.
[Spell execution completed successfully.]
[Target: 'Alfia' has been successfully secured within the Eternal Stasis Crystal. Physical degradation and terminal illness halted permanently.]
[CRITICAL ANOMALY DETECTED:]
[Due to the amount of the hosts borrowed power during the final casting sequence, a minor parameter flaw has occurred within the stasis matrix.]
[The target's physical clock has been stopped, but her consciousness could not be entirely neutralized. Target 'Alfia' will remain fully awake, aware, and conscious inside the crystal for the duration of the confinement.]
Yuuya's sleeping mind tried to thrash against the words, a sudden wave of phantom panic flaring through his paralyzed consciousness.
'Awake? She's going to be awake in the dark for years?!'
But his thoughts were instantly suppressed by the system's protocol.
He couldn't voice his protest. He couldn't alter the script. He could only listen as the final price was extracted from his ledger.
[Calculating compounding penalties for Forced Physical Manifestation, Divine Aegis, Kinetic Dampening, Shockwave Repulsion, and Eternal Stasis...]
[Total soul deficit: Maximum Threshold Exceeded.]
[Penalty Protocol Activated: Absolute Soul Hibernation.]
[Host Yuuya will be placed into a deep, unyielding slumber to allow the spiritual ledger to naturally regenerate. You will be unable to manifest, interact, or observe the world during this period.]
[Slumber Duration: 7 Years.]
[Target Awakening Year: One month before Bell Cranel met Ais Wallenstein.]
[Initiating hibernation countdown... 3... 2... 1...]
The mechanical voice finally faded into absolute, dead silence.
The distant static of the Dungeon vanished, and Yuuya's consciousness sank into a profound, dreamless sleep, completely severed from the flow of time, while far below on the 70th floor, a silver haired mage began her long, silent vigil in the dark.
∆∆∆∆
Author:
And that's how Alfia survived.
Just a small heads up, Alfia will still retain her old personality and attitude in future chapters. Though, obviously, there would be some slight changes due to Bell's influence as shown in this chapter, as well as the changes and effects caused by the addition of Yuuya in her life.
Plus, seven years of entrapment, awake, is no joke. It will affect her state of mind no doubt.
Anyways, that's all for now, later folks.