Chapter 103: Conclusion?

From her box, Freya looked out over Evangel, lit by daylight once again.

The fires were going out one by one in the districts. The last of the flying abominations were leaving the city to the north, or being shot down on the way by the adventurers who hadn’t taken part in the raid.

She couldn’t help feeling happy. Simply happy about all of it, about this conclusion.

After all the work she had put in, her whole role, everything she had set up, it had all been to arrive here. And it had been done perfectly.

Even the other characters had all played their parts.

Aria, whose ancient magic had conjured the apocalyptic atmosphere and held the entire staging together from beginning to end, and who by now had surely already caught the shadows standing behind Baron Frarken and was busy working on them.

Kaguya, who had served just as much through her magic of space as through her magic of time, at every key moment.

Freya herself, who had died a martyr and played her part to the very end.

And above all Paydragon, perfect from start to finish, who had faced the demon alone again and again, who had pushed the others to do the same, who had been this people’s hope and their symbol, to the point of becoming a true hero.

It was beautiful. An incredible scene.

She was of course deliberately setting aside the small details. Like the man who had been there every single time to stir things up. Or the ones she had placed in exactly the right spots, including the adventurer who had suggested the idea of the raid to the others. And so on.

Anyway. Everything had gone exactly as arranged, and the result was beautiful.

"Isn’t it beautiful, Kaguya?"

Kaguya was lying along the edge of the balcony, flat on her stomach, feet swinging above her and her chin in her hands, busy examining a fly.

"Mhmm..."

Completely uninterested in the situation.

Freya couldn’t help letting out a small sigh. She would have liked to celebrate her victory with someone else, but that was how it was.

To Kaguya, all of this probably amounted to a game of ants. A human watching an anthill, entertained for a while, then losing interest entirely.

"Well, thank you for your help again!"

"It’s nothing, big sister~! But you know, this fly, she’s strange!"

This time it was Freya who lost interest entirely, leaving Kaguya to her odd hobbies.

And she went back to her own thoughts.

So, in this sort of story, after a great success and a small conclusion, the usual finishing touch is a look at the status, isn’t it?

But first, a little introspection~!

Because she knew, and she wasn’t stupid.

Her brain had been improved by being bound to the dungeon, and every time the dungeon rose a level, her brain rose with it, making her smarter, stronger, and so on.

But at the cost of one thing. Her humanity.

She certainly wasn’t foolish enough to take offence at it, but she did think it mattered to know it, and not to forget it.

After all, before any of this, she had only been an ordinary office worker, a bit of a geek around the edges. With a calculating, cold streak, certainly, but only up to a point.

Now she could see it, after arranging this final act and watching it with her own eyes.

I’m not the same anymore.

She still remembered the moment she had panicked in front of the Dungeon Overlord crowd, her shyness getting the better of her. She remembered the empathy she had felt seeing Naïa and Laïa left alone without their mother.

She remembered herself crying over Kyu.

She stopped on that one for a while.

She could see the whole scene. Where she had been standing, what she had done with her hands, the sound she had made while crying. All of it was there, intact, filed away somewhere and perfectly accessible.

But no matter how long she looked at it, she couldn’t find what had been underneath it anymore.

She knew it had hurt. She remembered having known that. But the pain itself was gone, and when she tried to call it back deliberately, placing herself in that spot and in that moment, nothing came at all.

Just the memory of a woman crying, watched from a distance, the way you watch someone else.

She remembered all of it.

But with those memories, she understood. Almost all of that had gone.

Her shyness first, wiped out completely. As though it hadn’t been useful to the dungeon’s development or to her plans, and had therefore removed itself. The proof being that she had performed for weeks in front of entire crowds without the slightest shyness or hesitation.

Then her empathy. And there it was simple, she felt none of it anymore toward her former species.

And perhaps that was where everything hinged.

As a Dungeon Overlord now, perhaps her brain, or her new way of thinking, had turned humans into a kind of ant in her eyes. Things whose deaths didn’t so much as touch her feelings or her emotions, so insignificant were they to her.

As though wiping out a city of humans amounted to pouring water on an anthill in your garden.

Wow! What a terrifying comparison, Freya!

But she knew it. She was right.

What reassured her all the same was that she still felt something for those close to her, for the members of the dungeon, whom she looked after.

After all, maybe it’s better this way. Simply moving toward my goals, with the people I love beside me...

She said maybe, but she was certain. And to tell the truth, she rather liked being this way.

There she is, the new Freya. The one I am now!

Not a human office worker with a bit of a geeky side, but a Calamity of Greed. A plague upon the species she had belonged to in her old world. An invader in this one.

And on that conclusion, rather pleased to have taken stock all the same, she opened her status.

[ Name: Freya ]

[ Unique Skills: Gacha | Enchantment Gacha | Skill Gacha | Rune Gacha ]

[ Normal Skills: Perfect Replica | Quantimana Control ]

[ Dungeon Lord Titles: Madame | Mistress | Maid | Dungeon Overlord | Calamity of Greed | Big Sister | The White Saintess | Evangel’s Martyr | The Mischievous Curious Soul | The Hypocritical One | The Real Yandere? | ... ]

[ Dungeon Titles: None ]

"...huh?"

Her eyes stopped on the fullest line. She already knew what was in the others, so that was the one that caught her attention.

Most of them she understood. They were titles she had been called at one point or another.

Except the last three.

The Mischievous Curious Soul was fine. She actually found it rather sweet, even if she had no idea who was calling her that, and therefore no idea where it could have come from.

But the other two.

The Hypocritical One? The Real Yandere?

Seriously?

Having no idea who was calling her that, she turned to the only person who might be able to explain it. If she played it right, maybe she would give up whoever was calling her that inside the dungeon.

She made her system visible to everyone with a mental command, and started talking.

"Kaguya? Could you come and look at this for two minutes, please~~?"

"Mhmmm..." she answered, still sprawled out, playing with the fly.

"Please."

"But hang on, she’s really—"

"Just drop that damned bug, I’m begging you, Kaguya, come and look!" she said, raising her voice out of impatience.

"Ugh, fine..."

She got up, dragging her feet and clearly put out, and came over to read Freya’s status, the fly coming along with her.

Freya pointed at the three titles, wearing the most innocent expression she could manage.

"So, do you know where these titles come from, Kaguya, or not? Have you heard anyone say them? Tell your big sister everything~~"

Kaguya brought a finger to her lips and thought about it, the way she always did.

"No... I don’t know... Can I go now?" she said in a completely uninterested tone.

Freya was stunned.

"Why on earth are you so interested in that damned bug?!"

Kaguya stopped.

She suddenly seemed rather irritated, for a reason Freya didn’t understand.

She didn’t head back to the edge of the balcony. She folded her arms, her lips pressed together, her tail motionless behind her, with the sulking, wounded look of a child nobody ever listens to.

The wind passed between them, carrying the silence of the moment, and Freya waited for an answer.

Then it came.

"You know, ’that damned bug’ is very reductive."

Freya’s brain stopped working. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Something disconnected. Something outside all her forecasts, all her calculations, something she could never even have begun to suspect.

Kaguya looked at Freya, who was still completely lost, with an expression that said see?

"Even for me."

"Huh?"

It was the only thing that came out of the new Freya’s mouth. The improved Freya, the calculating Freya, the Calamity of Greed who had concluded with satisfaction, only moments earlier, that she was no longer the same and that she rather liked it that way.

That Freya. The new one. The best version of herself.

Or maybe not.