Chapter 14: I Still Prefer the Way You Unruly Lads Were Earlier
Leaving the [Guild], Shirou headed straight toward the Dungeon.
The [Babel] tower stood ahead, acting as the "lid" of the dungeon.
In the center of the vast city stood a white-walled skyscraper whose height reached straight up to the sky.
Surveying the entirety of Orario, no building could be found taller than it; the giant shadow standing tall and cleaving through the darkness presented an overwhelming sense of majestic might.
The very first thing anyone visiting Orario would see was this tower, and it would temporarily steal away all their attention.
Centered around this skyscraper facility known as [Babel], which functioned as the dungeon's "lid"—in other words, taking the city's name and starting from the labyrinth known as the "Dungeon"—a scene of prosperity unfolded all around.
Because Orario possessed the dungeon, this characteristic caused it to gather far more adventurers than any other city or country.
The dungeon was the root source of the fierce monsters scattered across the entire continent, known as one of the three great secret places of the world, sleeping within it was the "unknown" that no one had yet touched.
And the "unknown" would always attract adventurers who cast aside thoughts of life and death and possessed an insatiable desire for exploration.
Naturally, there were also plenty of adventurers obsessed with greed; the magic stones and drop items infinitely generated from endlessly spawning monsters could forge immense fortunes, while defeating powerful monsters like heroes in stories could generate renown.
The capricious gods of Orario found this amusing and praised their glory; ignoring the will of the adventurers, their reputations would spread across the entire world in the blink of an eye.
Countless people came here to gain the excitement known as the unknown, colossal wealth, brilliant and dazzling glory, and power.
The surrounding adventurers occasionally let out noisy clamors.
Generally speaking, adventurers heading to deeper levels always formed parties; only those lower-level adventurers who could only operate on the first or second floors would go alone.
Now, Shirou's action of heading to the dungeon all by himself could only look like that exact situation to the other adventurers.
"I saw it just now, that punk went to the [Guild], he's probably a newcomer who just became an adventurer."
"Why don't we pull him into our party and make him do our odd jobs, hahahaha!"
"Forget it, a guy this weak, I couldn't be bothered to look after him."
"Hey, hey, look at his face. You can tell at a glance he hasn't been through many battles—he doesn't even have a single scar. He looks super weak!"
"That's right, that's right. What good is having good looks anyway? Do you think those monsters in the dungeon are going to show mercy just because of that?!"
"When he gets so scared he wets his pants, let's see what he plans to do. Is he going to try and dazzle those monsters to death with his pretty face, hahahaha!"
After all, there were only so many famous adventurers, and everyone remembered their faces. Fresh faces like Shirou's were naturally treated as newcomers.
However, the news about a god coming from another world had spread all over Orario, and people in both the upper and lower districts had some impression of the physical descriptions of the otherworldly god.
"Hey, hey... Why do I feel like I've seen that guy somewhere before?"
"No way, isn't this guy an exact match for the description in those rumors? Last night someone at the tavern was specifically talking about this!"
"Are you saying we just mocked a God?!"
"We're done for, we're done for, we're done for, aaaahhhhh—!!!!"
"Hmph-hmph-ahgghhhhhhh——!!"
Watching these adventurers suddenly plunge into an expression of panic and anxiety, Shirou shook his head with a smile.
As expected, he still preferred the way those unruly lads had acted just a moment earlier.
Wearing a tattered cloak with a hood that covered most of her cute face, the extraordinarily slender and petite Pallum girl carried supplies that were vastly larger than her own body.
"Hurry up! Don't dawdle!"
The adventurers walking ahead of her, carrying only weapons and moving with ease, would scold the girl from time to time, telling her to speed up.
To them, this weak Pallum girl, who had been inside a familia ever since she was born, was destined to have nothing more than this kind of fate.
As weaklings devoid of strength, they had to rely on powerful adventurers like themselves.
"Allowing you to tag along is already an act of mercy on our part. If you don't pick up the pace, we're just going to leave you behind here!"
Liliruca Erde, born as the child of a couple within the [Soma Familia], had her fate firmly nailed down within this familia from the very moment of her birth, destined to serve the [Soma Familia] for her entire life.
This world was not gentle in the slightest toward the girl named Lili.
Her Pallum parents ignored young Lili, urging her over and over again to make money for them without ever showing her an ounce of care, until she realized one day that they had already passed away.
It was only later that Lili learned the cause of her parents' death from conversations among the other members.
Supposedly, in pursuit of the Divine Wine, they had entered a dungeon floor unsuited for their strength and were simply slaughtered by monsters.
Within the [Soma Familia], where people competed fiercely against one another for the Divine Wine, Lili naturally ended up isolated and left entirely on her own.
The familia members always bullied tiny Lili. Only after she finally managed to drink the Divine Wine distributed during a familia expansion did Lili finally acquire magic power.
With no trustworthy companions to rely on, she learned and struggled on her own until she finally earned a substantial sum of money. She originally thought she could finally lead a slightly better life, but fate refused to let Lili go.
Because Lili lacked the talent of an adventurer, she was reassigned without any room for appeal within the familia to become a supporter.
Then, while acting as a supporter for adventurer parties, those familia members would always say things like "You hid magic stones, didn't you!" or "You embezzled Valis!"—using such excuses to find every possible way to rob Lili of the money she had painstakingly accumulated.
Lili desperately tried to explain that she had never done such a thing, but they would merely flash mocking smirks and kick Lili away.
Whenever Lili was on the verge of being killed by monsters, these people completely ignored her, yet if Lili lost any luggage, they would undoubtedly kick her flying.
The people in the [Soma Familia] were hopeless from the start; the only thing waiting for Lili upon returning from the dungeon was the ugly plundering of her earnings.
Lili hated adventurers.
After acquiring the magic power from the Divine Wine, Lili had once fled from the familia in a flood of tears.
She discarded her title as a familia member, became an ordinary person, and managed to find a job by scraping by. But the stable life she had finally managed to touch upon was quickly
shattered when her companions destroyed the shop where Lili worked, completely cutting off any possibility of her escaping the familia.
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