Chapter 157 - Sweeping Clean

At around 4 p.m., a short distance from one of the entrances to Knossos that were located in Daedalus Street, an almost middle-aged man clad in a red robe observed the Sword Princess from afar as she made her way back into the manmade labyrinth. A heavy sigh escaped his lips, but he quickly shook his head and turned around to face his subordinates, some of whom were clad in the same red robes that he was sporting, but most of whom were wearing regular adventurer gear that would enable them to blend into any crowd in the city seamlessly. If there was one thing that made them stick out currently, it was the inordinate amount of bags, ċhėsts and backpacks that they were all carrying.

"Captain, are you sure that we made the right choice?"

A young-sounding woman whose exact features couldn't be made out due to how thoroughly she was wrapped in her robes approached the nearly middle-aged man, Gael, and inquired cautiously.

Thinking back upon the choice that they had been faced with just half an hour earlier, Gael's expression grew resolute and he responded with a vigorous nod, before leading his around 50-strong group to another part of the city.

-----

"It's an emergency! Our outpost has been surrounded from all sides. Captain, come quickly!!"

Startled by his fellow Red Blade member's outcry, Gael charged out of his office and towards the one who had rang the alarm. On his way there, he unsheathed the dagger that he always kept at his hip and got combat-ready. Considering how serious his subordinate had made the situation out to be, he couldn't afford to waste any time.

"Identity of the enemy?"

The succinct query of his Captain didn't faze the Red Blade member at all, but he couldn't hide his nervousness entirely, despite how thoroughly he had been trained for emergencies just like this one.

"It's the Loki Familia. Nine Hell is leading them! They have only surrounded us so far, cutting off all escape paths. It seems like they're waiting for our response before making a move."

His lips turning into a frown, Gael grasped his dagger more tightly and stayed silent for a few seconds to deduce the optimal course of action. Once he had made up his mind, his face turned tranquil but serious.

"I'll meet with Nine Hell. Maybe, we can avoid a battle. Let us find out what they want from us. Lead the way!"

Accompanied by the one who had delivered the news as well as close to ten of his other subordinates who had managed to ȧssemble in the meantime, Gael rushed towards the entrance that the Loki Familia's Riveria Ljos Alf was reported to be waiting at.

When the group finally arrived and walked out of the adamantite door that had separated them from the intruders, Gael froze up, his steps halting abruptly. It took him little more than a single glance to realize that Riveria, who he had occasionally observed from a distance over the past few years, had grown far, far stronger than ever before. He couldn't quite tell what heights that she might have reached, but he was certain that she was now so far ahead of him that he wouldn't even be able to touch the corner of her clothes if they were to battle.

'Did she finally rank up to Level 7?! This is big news. A second Level 7 has appeared in Orario again… wait, that's not it! There are more important matters to worry about right now. Get your shit together!'

Shaking his head very slightly, the veteran Level 5 Gael's shock subsided and he returned to normal. It had only been a fraction of a second since he had stopped walking, so nobody had taken note of his momentary distraction - at least as far as he could tell.

"Lady Nine Hell, what brings you here? Why is the Loki Familia surrounding us and pointing their weapons at us?"

With a composure that not many people would be able to showcase under these circumstances, Gael's respectful words broke the tense silence that had been maintained so far.

"You're the Captain of the Red Blade's Orario branch, I ȧssume?"

The very first sentence that the stern-faced High Elf spoke made Gael widen his eyes in unconcealed surprise, but he quickly extinguished the sparks of panic and gave a short nod of confirmation.

"Good. Then, as the authority figure who is in control here, I will leave the decision to you. We're here to clean out Knossos so that it can properly be put under the Guild's jurisdiction. Most familias involved with this place have been confirmed to have committed unspeakable crimes, but your Red Blade is one of the few that hasn't overstepped any boundaries aside from your repeated illegal entry into the dungeon - at least according to our knowledge. We ask you to grab your belongings and vacate the premises within ten minutes. You will then be led to the surface. Will you resist, or will you comply?"

The expressions of Gael's subordinates had grown dark over the course of Riveria's words. This situation, in which they were faced with such an abrupt ultimatum, left a bad taste in their mouths. Their Captain wasn't in much of a different position himself, but he was also aware of the weight of responsibility that had now been placed on his shoulders.

'If we resist, we'll definitely lose. Either we'll be caught, or we'll all die. The outcome most likely depends on how desperately we fight. But giving up our outpost just like this…'

Right as his indecision was vexing him, Riveria spoke up once more.

"If you comply, you will have this place returned to you after all official matters are dealt with. You'll only need to visit the Guild and sign a few documents to formalize the ownership."

Gael's hand, which had been tightly grasping his dagger before he heard this, finally relaxed and a small self-deprecating smile played across his lips.

'This carrot is too sweet. I can't possibly bring myself to choose the stick now, can I?'

He had never truly considered for his people to face the Loki Familia head-on. Rather, he had been contemplating how they could talk their way out of this entire mess peacefully. He wouldn't just throw away his subordinates in vain, after all. Now, with such a tempting offer on the table… there really was only one reasonable decision that he could make.

"Alright, we'll comply. Everyone, pack up as quickly as possible and meet back here within five minutes! Tell everyone about this arrangement, and only grab the essentials."

After a quick nod in the direction of the staff-wielding High Elf, he rushed back into the outpost and returned to his office, where he hastily put any and all documents as well as items that he could find into various ċhėsts, backpacks, bags and pouches.

Due to the considerably high stats of nearly everyone in the Red Blade's outpost, they could gather their possessions many times faster than regular people. Only four minutes had passed by the time that they had all arrived in front of Riveria's group, carrying with them pretty much everything that hadn't been nailed down.

"We're ready."

Upon getting Gael's confirmation, Riveria nodded and led the way through the twisting, complicated hallways of Knossos' tenth floor. Meanwhile, the Loki Familia members that had been blocking off all possible escape routes reconvened with the group that Riveria was with and surrounded the fifty or so Red Blade members, observing them carefully, just in case any of them tried to do something 'funny'.

Once they reached the eighth floor, they met up with another one of the Loki Familia's parties that were roaming around Knossos - the one that was under the command of Ais.

"Our Sword Princess will take over escort duty from here on out. Follow her without making a fuss, else I can't guarantee your safety."

It took Gael far longer that he would like to admit to mentally process Riveria's instructions this time - after all, when he had laid his eyes upon the Sword Princess, an even more overwhelming terror than the one that he had felt when he had come face to face with Nine Hell had chilled him to the bone.

The young woman who appeared mostly emotionless under regular circumstances stood at a height that he couldn't even comprehend any longer. His gut feeling told him one thing: If she wanted him to die, then he wouldn't even have an opportunity to move a single muscle in defense. He would bite the dust before he knew what hit him.

'... a third Level 7?!'

-----

With a helpless sigh, Riveria lowered her staff, the Magna Alfs, and took in the aftermath of her Magics. Tens of bodies had turned to ash, whilst an equal amount had been shattered into shards of ice that were quickly melting in the remaining heat. She had frozen them into icy statues before the mechanisms within their hearts had activated and had caused them to explode. If the walls in this place hadn't been this exceptionally durable, then they would have malformed or even cracked due to the rapid change in temperature that her hellfire- and ice-based Magics were responsible for.

Contrary to what had happened with the members of Orario's branch of the Red Blade, when her party had encircled the outpost of the White Blade on Knossos' eleventh floor, their offer had been met with violence.

Perhaps, this was due to the fact that neither the Captain nor the Vice-Captain had been present this time, with the remaining Executives not having had enough wisdom and experience to properly judge the circumstances that they had found themselves in - or maybe, these members of Orario's branch of the White Blade had simply been a more aggressive bunch.

In any case, once they had lashed out in an attempt to kill members of the Loki Familia's party to defend their outpost, any and all diplomacy had been taken off the table.

Because she had already expected it to turn out this way, Riveria had been making use of a new technique that she had grasped over the past few days: Pre-casting her Magic and keeping it on standby until it was needed. This could be done by manually halting the normal activation of a Magic and continuing to circulate the mana in a state just before the very last step, which was the one that would result in the manifestation of the Magic. When the Magic was needed, one simply had to let go of the reins and let it follow its regular course of activation once more.

Her Rea Laevateinn's flames had enveloped the charging enemies as soon as they had gotten too close to her party, then she had quickly chanted her Wynn Fimbulvetr to finish off the last few opponents.

"I'll leave the rest to you. Always stay clear of any corpses and all incoming enemies. Don't get caught up in the explosions!"

The last tens of White Blade members throughout the outpost couldn't put up any kind of successful defense before being obliterated by the overwhelming might of Riveria's party. She didn't even have to lift another finger during the five minutes that it took for the sounds of battle to die down.

Compared to most other familias that had settled down in Knossos, the three Blades' bases didn't contain anyone who needed to be saved, so the clean-up and post-battle procedures went a lot quicker than usual. Despite that, all 21 party members below Level 4 were left behind to organize the White Blade's belongings and to search through their files for valuable intel.

The rest of the party set out once more, with their new destination being the 13th floor - the Black Blade's outpost on the 12th floor was already being taken care of by another party.

-----

Just like Riveria, Gareth was also a leader of one of the Loki Familia's Knossos raid parties. Around the same time as the High Elf had entered the manmade labyrinth from the 10th floor of the dungeon, he had arrived in Knossos from the entrance found on the 14th floor.

Instead of facing opponents that belonged to the sentient races, his party was confronted with a monster species that had never been seen before. They were around one meter tall water spider-like creatures with six legs instead of eight. The hairs that covered their bodies were greyish-brown in colour and appeared velvety from afar, but were actually far more resilient than they seemed at first glance. There were multiple small red crystals lodged within the main bodies of these water spider monsters, which always lit up around half a second before they shot corrosive acid out of their mouths.

On their own, they weren't much of a threat, despite them being Level 4 monsters that had reached D-500 / 13,450 in all stats. However, they almost filled up the entirety of this floor of Knossos with their stupendous numbers. There were more than tens of thousands of them on the 14th floor alone! According to Isaac's reports, they also inhabited the 13th, 16th and 17th floors. Because of that, Gareth's party only consisted of five members, all of whom were at least at Level 4. Sadly, anyone weaker than that would only drag them down unreasonably in this place. Even the four Level 4's were a legitimate hindrance to the Level 7 Gareth, but they had been brought here because they could still defeat the spiders and earn some excelia during the battles.

"Carmilia, you'll support me in blocking the acid. Narvi, Coco, Anju - you attack as soon as you see an opening!"

The stocky Dwarf grabbed the massive shield that he had brought with him and hoisted it in front of him, then he moved in front of the party and quickly caught three of the acid attacks by minutely changing the positioning of his mobile defensive barrier. Both his and Carmilia's shields were extremely expensive, sturdy products that wouldn't get damaged by the water spider monsters' corrosive spit in the slightest - fortunately, they had obtained information about them via Isaac before they had come here.

A mere moment of hesitation later, Carmilia, who was one head taller than the Top Executive that led her party, followed in Gareth's footsteps and defended her companions as well. They were only faced with a few tens of the spiders at the moment, so it wasn't too difficult for her to anticipate which of them would attack them from afar next, and where they were aiming at.

With a mere casual movement of his right arm, Gareth pushed away the five monsters that had charged at his shield, then he glanced over at the youngsters in his care and gave an approving nod.

Carmilia staunchly blocked any and all ranged attacks by the spiders and even occasionally managed to dispatch one of them with a swing of her club. Narvi was agilely stabbing the monsters whenever they showed an opening, just like a snake lying in wait. Anju's halberd found its target very consistently as well, its rhythm as steady as her breathing. As for Coco, her arrows flew from behind their unwavering wall and quickly picked off the rest of the spiders that they were battling, including the five that Gareth had just pushed back.

Once the party had left the area in which they had previously fought in, the corpses of the water spider monsters disappeared into thin air, as if they had never been there in the first place. Gusts of wind that were mixed with flames cleaned up the gruesome mess that were left behind all over the ground, floor and ceiling, erasing the last evidence of the spiders' existence.

Minor battles like this one repeated for close to ten minutes, before the Dwarf gave the party new orders.

"Now that you've grown accustomed to them, we'll speed up a little. According to Isaac, there are still 21,203 of these pests on this floor, and we'll be taking care of every single one of them. I'll be putting in more effort from here on out as well."

Although the four girls were a bit nervous, they nodded firmly and followed along the quickened steps of their familia's Top Executive without hesitation.

The next group of monsters that they ran into consisted of more than a hundred individuals, but half of them were killed within seconds. Like flies that had hit a windshield, the spiders burst into pieces and gore once they came into contact with the enormous shield that the charging Gareth held in front of himself. The Dwarf completely ignored the acid and other disgusting fluids that flew all over. Even upon direct skin contact, he was immune to the corrosion due to his extremely high Endurance stat. In all honesty, sending Gareth against these water spider monsters was simply overkill.

Under Isaac's directions, the group of five ran around the entirety of Knossos' 14th floor over the course of the next two hours, after which they met up with another group of five - Riveria's party.

"All done?"

In response to the short question of the High Elf, Gareth nodded and glanced at the eight Level 4's that were currently lying on the ground, overwhelmed by their exhaustion. Every one of them had slain at least 1,000 of the spiders in rapid succession, and they had now finally been blessed with a long-desired moment of rest.

"Yes. By the way, Isaac. Is everything still going according to plan? Are we needed anywhere?"

As he was talking to the empty air, Gareth took out a handkerchief and wiped off some of the various monster fluids that had stained his face. He didn't have to wait long for an answer to his question.

"There are only three more floors that need to be conquered, so make your way to the 19th floor whenever you feel like it. Maybe you'll still make it in time to take part in the last few battles. Only you two should go, though. Everyone else is already weary enough and might be in danger if we let them go down there. I'll lead them safely back to the surface once they catch their breath."

Exchanging excited glances, the High Elf and the Dwarf felt the corners of their lips rise a little. Of course, they were happy that the depravity in this place was about to be taken care of, but they were even more thrilled at the prospect of getting to fight in a potentially slightly challenging battle. Ever since they had reached Level 7, they hadn't had any chances to truly run wild, and although today wouldn't be much different, they might be able to warm up a little. That alone was already something to look forward to.

"You heard what he said, right? We'll be joining the others down on the 19th floor. Follow Isaac's instructions as soon as you're ready to move again."

Nodding at Riveria's words, the tired Alicia shot her a reassuring smile and leaned against the cold wall behind her, calmly observing her surroundings out of habit despite the fact that they were about as safe as they could possibly be.

Satisfied by her vigilance, both Top Executives proceeded to descend the nearest staircase, eager to partake in the crescendo of this 'spring cleaning'.

-----

"Are you certain about this, Gael?"

An emotionless, female voice resounded in the main office of the Red Blade's Orario branch's home. It originated from a relatively tall woman who was sitting behind the most prominent desk in the room, partially buried underneath mountains of paperwork. There were a few secretaries that were helping her persevere through her workload - they all had their own desks in this office as well.

Although the woman's figure was quite muscular overall, this only served to spice up the trademark beauty of a deity. The only thing that marred her image was a ghastly scar that ran all across her face, from the upper left of her forehead to the lower right of her chin. Usually, beings like her could easily get rid of such an imperfection with little more than a single thought, but for some reason, she had chosen not to do so. Her hair was as black as the night and tied together in a ponytail, while her yellow-green eyes peered at her familia's Captain through a cheap pair of glasses. Her attire consisted of a simple blue long-sleeved blouse and plain grey trousers that could be found in the most economical of clothing stores. Clearly, she was a frugal individual who didn't waste any money on looking fashionable.

"Yes, Lady Adikia. The Sword Princess and Nine Hell should have reached Level 7. I can confirm that they are significantly stronger than they have ever been before."

Bowing respectfully, Gael calmly waited for his next instructions in the center of the room, which was one of the few spaces that had not yet been encroached upon by the towers of documents. Even though many mortals and deities alike, for solely superficial reasons, would make fun of the goddess that he served, he had nothing but undying respect for her.

"I see. Then it's safe to ȧssume that Braver and Elgarm have also become Level 7's. The three Top Executives were bound to arrive at that point sooner or later, but the Sword Princess' progress is truly astonishing. Most likely, this has some relation to Isaac Blackshaw's appearance."

Mumbling to herself, Adikia analyzed the situation as proficiently as she could and made a few educated guesses. Considering that the Red Blade that she was a member of was the division of Váli's organization that was mainly responsible for information gathering, the judgements that she could make were leagues more sophisticated than what could be expected from other deities that were part of the Blades.

"You've made the right choice, Gael. According to Vidar, everyone who was stationed in his White Blade's Knossos outpost… died. You would have met the same fate had you been obstinate. Thank you for bringing everyone back home safe and sound."

The very faint, almost imperceptible smile on his goddess' face wiped away all residual worries from Gael's mind. He was just about to allow himself to fully relax when he heard her speak up once more.

"In any case, now that you're here, get back to your desk and help with our work. Also, Rosa, contact operative LI-1. We need as much information about today's Knossos raid as can possibly be uncovered."

His shoulders slumping weakly, Gael nodded his head obediently and made his way to one of the unoccupied desks in the relatively big office. He was both intimately familiar with it and dreaded it more than any other piece of furniture. Seconds after he had taken a seat, the secretaries who had been sorting through papers and reports with bloodshot eyes happily placed a few thousand pagers worth of documents in front of him, causing him to almost tear up in despair.

He would never actually admit this, but the main reason as to why he hadn't been all that happy after leaving the Knossos outpost was because he was terrified of the amount of paperwork that he would have to tackle once he returned home.