Chapter 440

The cool nocturnal breeze of the west main street brushed against Draco’s cheeks, carrying with it the familiar scent of Orario after dark…….a blend of roasting meat skewers, ale, and fried treats.

As he made his way toward the Guild headquarters, his thoughts inevitably drifted back to his chance encounter with Lili.

And a quiet, lingering sense of melancholy settled into his chest.

Draco could only imagine how difficult things must have been for her all this time, surviving in the cracks of a city that rarely showed mercy to the weak.

Five years ago, he had actively tried to alter her fate.

Yet, looking at her tonight, from his perspective, depressingly little had changed.

She was still a level one.

There was, of course, nothing inherently wrong with being a level one; every adventurer started there, and many chose to stay there.

Yes chose!

Draco believed that with enough effort and the will to take high risks, anyone could reach level two.

However, remaining a level one for over a decade was not a good sign.

It was stagnation…….a slow, grinding erosion of potential in a city that demanded constant growth.

‘Perhaps if I had been a bit more insistent that she joined the Bahamut Familia back then, maybe...’

Draco shook his head, physically discarding the thought as it formed.

Forcing her onto a path that he, in his arrogance, had envisioned for her would have been no different from applying a different kind of shackle on Lili’s wrists.

She needed to walk her own path, no matter how thorny.

"Perhaps fate has other plans in store for her, sadly it might not be by my hand," Draco mused aloud, the bright, earnest face of a certain white-haired rabbit suddenly popping into his mind.

‘Speaking of fate, I probably need to check up on Haruhime,’ Draco thought, his stride smoothing out as his mind shifted gears.

Due to his sudden, unavoidable departure from Orario five years ago, his hands had been completely tied regarding the fox-girl’s tragic predicament.

He had been powerless to change her trajectory.

But now that he was back……..there were several aggressive courses of action he could take to dismantle her gilded cage.

Yet, as practical as his intentions were, a logistical nightmare stood in his way.

Draco and Haruhime possessed no connection whatsoever.

Even if he were to march into the pleasure quarter and physically force the Ishtar Familia’s hand through intimidation, his actions would ultimately be pointless if Haruhime herself did not feel truly saved.

Liberation without agency was just a change of masters.

"What an absolute headache," Draco muttered, rubbing his temples.

Speaking of headaches, Draco mentally cataloged the various friends, allies, and old acquaintances he had entirely neglected to pay a visit to since returning to the city.

Shakti, Adi, Tsubaki, Lyra, Demeter…..the list went on and on.

"Come to think of it," Draco realized, his red eyes widening slightly in sudden comprehension, "aren't they all beautiful women?"

That realization, uncomfortably sharp and untimely, instantly triggered a cascading memory of the independent, easily agitated women currently awaiting his return in the Bahamut Familia’s estate.

The volatile, highly combustible state in which he had left things over a week ago flashed vividly behind his eyelids.

"Ugh," Draco groaned, a very real, very splitting migraine blooming behind his eyes.

He instinctively raised a hand to clutch his aching head, only for his fingers to graze against something completely unexpected near the base of his right horn.

He paused, his hand tracing the rough, jagged edge.

"Huh? It's broken..." Draco muttered, a deep frown marring his features.

The damage must have occurred during his battle with Alfia, though the heat of battle had completely masked the injury at the time.

‘Guh. I must look rather silly right now. This is so deeply embarrassing’ Draco thought, his dignity momentarily fracturing.

In a rare display of panic, he subconsciously yanked the collar of his shirt up over his head in an awkward attempt to hide the defect……an act that only made him look vastly more suspicious and entirely ridiculous to any passerby.

Dropping the shirt with a huff of self-deprecation, Draco channeled his energy.

Pouring strength into his stride, his form blurred, instantly vanishing from the sight of a cluster of curious onlookers who had been eyeing his odd behavior.

Bobbing and weaving seamlessly through the late-night foot traffic, Draco reached the vicinity of the Guild.

It was deep into the night, and the towering main building of the Guild was entirely dark and closed to the public.

However, that hurdle was easily bypassed.

Fels was already waiting quietly in the shadows of a narrow alley beside the Guild's western wall.

Fels made their presence known with a soft call.

Spotting the familiar, cloaked figure, Draco slipped into the gloom of the alley.

"Should I assume that Lord Ouranos is expecting me?" Draco asked, his voice dropping to a low murmur.

"Yes. Please follow me," Fels replied.

Without missing a beat, Fels led Draco toward a heavy, magically warded stone door cleverly disguised as part of the alley's foundation.

Following closely behind Fels' steady pace, Draco was guided through a labyrinth of subterranean corridors.

Within minutes, they found themselves standing within Ouranos’s underground temple.

Draco had visited this sacred sanctum in the past, so the towering stone statues, the dim, flickering magic lamps, and the echoing expanse of the chamber were not jarring to him.

Yet, the density of Ouranos's divine presence remained palpable, pressing down on the air like a physical weight that forced even a veteran adventurer to mind their posture.

"I have returned, Lord Ouranos," Draco greeted, offering a respectful, light bow of his head.

"Welcome back, Draco. It is good to see that you have returned to the surface alive……though, by the looks of it, not exactly in one piece," Ouranos replied.

The ancient god’s piercing eyes slowly narrowed as he took in Draco’s physical state, his gaze zeroing in on the jagged stump of the broken horn.

"I had only asked that you track down and retrieve the jewel fetus," Ouranos continued, his deep, resonant voice echoing off the stone walls.

"What manner of catastrophe occurred to drive one of your caliber to such a state?"

At the direct inquiry, Draco let out a long exhausted sigh.

Abandoning all pretense of formal posture, he unceremoniously plopped down cross-legged onto the cold stone floor of the temple.

"Honestly, it is a depressing story……one brought upon, I must admit, partially by my own hubris," Draco began, staring up at the vaulted ceiling as he gathered his thoughts.

He recounted his initial descent and methodical search for the jewel fetus, a journey that had eventually led him into the 45th floor.

There, he had discovered that the target had already rapidly matured, hatching into a mobile, humanoid female body type.

Intrigued and bound by his objective, he had given chase, relentlessly tracking the anomalous entity all the way down to the 49th floor, where he finally cornered and engaged it in combat.

But before the grueling fight could reach its natural conclusion, a ghost from Orario’s darkest history had forcefully inserted herself into the theater of war.

At the explicit mention of Alfia, Fels visibly recoiled.

Even encased within thick, concealing robes and stripped of living flesh, the skeleton shuddered, proving just how much of a headache Alfia was.

Unfazed by the reaction, Draco pressed on, describing the apocalyptic scale of his prolonged clash with Alfia.

He detailed the collateral destruction of the lower and deep floors geography, the overwhelming disparity of their skills, and the eventual, hard-fought conclusion……which had ended in a mutual, destructive draw.

Furthermore, Draco carefully broached the unsettling topic of the shadowy, malicious force that had been subtly manipulating and pulling Alfia’s strings from the periphery.

He walked a razor-thin line.

Draco knew he could not lie directly to a deity, as divine perception easily pierced through falsehoods.

Yet, he also could not completely disclose the true, multidimensional nature of how he had recognized the corrupted spirit without raising impossible questions about his own origins.

Thus, Draco spoke with deliberate precision, constructing a narrative that omitted the deepest truths without technically uttering a single lie.

Naturally, Ouranos was far too wise not to notice the suspicious gaps and carefully curated phrasing in several points of Draco’s story.

However, because none of it constituted an outright deception, and because the core threat was undeniably real, the ancient god elected to let the omissions slide for the time being.

As the tale unfolded, Ouranos’s expression remained largely unchanged, carved like stone in the dim light.

But Draco could clearly perceive the subtle, volatile fluctuations in the god’s aura……clear evidence that the news was deeply unsettling the patron deity of Orario.

When Draco finally fell silent, the underground temple plunged into a heavy, suffocating quiet, broken only by the intake and exhalation of breath.

"You have done well to survive," Ouranos finally spoke, breaking the long stretch of silence with a tone of heavy appreciation.

"I appreciate the comforting words, Lord Ouranos, but surviving a monster doesn't magically resolve our current predicament," Draco retorted dryly, resting his chin on his palm.

"So far, I have managed to tightly suppress and keep this information under wraps. But it's only a matter of time before Finn notices the anomalies and pieces things together."

Draco paused, letting his eyes meet the god's ancient gaze.

"What does the Guild intend to do? I fully intend to inform my own goddess and the Bahamut Familia executives of the situation, but the exact volume and depth of the information I disclose will depend entirely on what counter-strategy the Guild is planning to deploy."

Ouranos did not offer an immediate reply.

He closed his eyes, processing the information.

"I will bring this critical matter up for formal discussion at the next Denatus," Ouranos finally declared, opening his eyes.

Draco scoffed softly, shaking his head.

"Hmm. With all due respect, Lord Ouranos, wouldn't it be far more prudent to hold an immediate, confidential closed-door meeting amongst Orario’s top-tier Familia leaders instead? I'm talking about the captains and executives who actually lead deep-level expeditions past the 50th floor. Although I severely injured Alfia and bought us some breathing room, there is no telling how long it will take her abnormal physiology to fully recover. It could be a week, a month, or even years. Sending our strongest combatants down there blindly without warning is a recipe for disaster."

Ouranos listened to Draco's pragmatic, unvarnished reasoning without interrupting.

"You make a painfully fair point," Ouranos conceded after a moment of internal debate.

"I will strongly consider a targeted council of the elite and get back to you tomorrow.......For now, you may leave."

The god’s tone turned remarkably wistful.

It was a clear, dismissal; Ouranos did not possess the energy to entertain further debate tonight.

Taking the subtle hint, Draco nodded once and smoothly rose to his feet, the joints of his muscular frame popping softly in the quiet air.

With a light, reflexive flick of his tail, he spun on his heel and began making his steady, unhurried way toward the stone stairs exit.

However, before he could clear the chamber, a soft call halted his progress.

"Please wait a moment..." Fels called out, their voice tinged with an uncharacteristic hesitation.

Draco stopped dead in his tracks, tilting his head back over his shoulder.

"Hmm? What is it, Fels?"

Fels stood motionless in the gloom, seemingly wrestling with an internal impulse.

The skeletal entity glanced toward the throne, where Ouranos silently turned his head toward them and gave a slow, permissive nod of assent.

"I have just one question to ask you..." Fels began, the words halting and brittle.

"If you were to track down and confront Alfia again... can you actually win?"

Draco stood completely still for a heartbeat.

He closed his eyes, recalling the devastating force of her magic, the white-hot pain of his injuries, and the foolishness of his choices.

"If it is as I am right now, in this exact state?" Draco paused, the silence stretching taut before he suddenly raised his head, staring straight up at the vaulted ceiling of the temple.

"Then, honestly? Probably not. It would likely end in another stalemate, or worse."

Fels’s shoulders slumped slightly beneath their heavy robes at the sobering assessment.

"However..." Draco continued, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a sudden, electric shift in tone.

He lowered his head, turning back to face the robed figure with an expression of absolute confidence.

"...if it’s the me of tomorrow? Then I will undoubtedly win."

Fels froze, entirely baffled by the cryptic phrasing.

"What... what do you mean by that?"

A wide grin spread slowly across Draco’s face, parting his lips to flash a full row of sharp glinting canines.

"Just know this, Fels," Draco whispered, his eyes burning with conviction.

"Before this time tomorrow......I will become Orario’s only Level Eight."

Simultaneously, as if punctuating his audacious declaration with divine timing, the massive mechanical gears of Orario's central clock tower shifted overhead.

The deep, resonant hand struck midnight.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

The heavy, sonorous chime of the midnight bell tolled through the city, its sound waves echoing down through the stone foundations, penetrating deep into the underground temple.

It was a mesmerizing, almost haunting sound……the literal acoustic signal of a new day beginning, the official reset of the calendar, and the immediate, scheduled reopening of the dungeon's gates to the daring and the damned.

As the final, lingering reverberation of the bell slowly faded into silence, Draco didn't wait for a response.

He turned cleanly on his heel, climbed the stone steps two at a time, and stepped out of the temple, ready to claim the power that awaited him in the dawn.

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