Going to the town center meant heading into the heart of the festival.
Running at this speed made the changing atmosphere evident.
The Festival is the biggest celebration in this country. This time, it’s even larger, combining celebrations for the 97th and 98th floors, as advertised.
No matter how far I ran, people were drinking and dancing, welcoming the deepening dusk, and still going strong. Reaching the center only led to even greater excitement.
How should I describe the special air of the festival?
The surging emotions were purely joy and fun, even creating a sense of expectation, yet it felt precarious, unstable. The overwhelming energy felt unsteady, as if it might explode with the right spark.
It became impossible to ignore the slight directionality in the air.
The atmosphere swirled, with people stoking each other’s enthusiasm.
I heard it.
Dark map.
Dragon’s Wing.
Chronos.
Confirmed. It’s already spread. And something is happening.
What now? Will the military police act?
I need information. Should I listen?
Who to ask? Who can be trusted?
I scanned the surroundings, looking for the source of the rumors.
The higher density of people included adventurers. They were spreading the rumors. Following the threads led to more adventurers, then to gathered parties. These parties argued, the unstable heat intensifying, creating larger swirls.
Pushing through the crowd, I advanced, drawn forward. I ended up in a familiar place.
The street in front of the Adventurers’ Guild.
Stalls lined both sides of the road, filled with festival-goers and adventurers jostling together.
People like me, seeking information, crowded the reception. Recognizing some faces, I tried to approach, but progress was impossible.
“Please, let me through!”
My shout was absorbed by the crowd.
“Move aside, please!”
I raised my voice to keep up.
Responding to the heat, my spirits rose unnaturally.
“Vim Strauss here! Let me through!”
Shouting my name quieted those within earshot.
Seizing the moment, I forced my way through, reaching a familiar receptionist.
“What happened!?”
“Lord Vim!?”
“What’s going on!?”
The receptionist hesitated, unsure if she should speak.
But as a former member of the Dragon’s Wing, no one would say I’m unrelated.
She resolved to speak.
“A tip-off with evidence was sent to the military police and the Adventurers’ Guild, accusing the Dragon’s Wing of using the dark map.”
I knew it.
“But it’s just talk, right? Why such a commotion?”
“No, it’s practically public now. The recent actions of the Dragon’s Wing were clearly suspicious. The Adventurers’ Guild and the military police have been investigating for a while. They were prepared to move as soon as they had evidence.”
Wait, did she say they ‘were’ prepared?
Past tense?
“Does that mean—”
“Yes. The Adventurers’ Guild’s anti-personnel unit and the military police have headed to the Dragon’s Wing party house.”
The situation had already reached a point of no return.
I’ve walked this path hundreds of times, from the Adventurer’s Guild to the party house of the Dragon’s Wings.
I run through the crowd.
Even if I focus only on avoiding people, I won’t get lost.
My body remembers the way. There’s no way I could be confused.
I know every sight on this road.
Morning, noon, and night. Rain or wind. Sometimes carrying reports, sometimes books, and sometimes parts of defeated monsters as proof of conquest, I have walked this path many times.
It was never comfortable.
I was never really accepted.
But I always felt a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. Walking this road was my normal, and opening that door brought a certain relief.
And now, the difference is striking.
The atmosphere is unusual.
Something ahead is definitely the center of this disturbance.
The further I walked down the cobblestone path, the more the festival’s lively energy turned strange. The smell of alcohol mixed with something foul.
Laughter turned to shouting, curiosity and anticipation to malice, and even violence started to appear.
The crowd’s energy spiraled out of control, unaware of the danger, only getting more excited.
Around the corner was our party house. I needed to see what was happening with my own eyes.
I steeled myself and stepped forward. The hidden scene was now in plain view.
Around the corner, everything came into focus, undeniable.
What I saw was light and chaos.
The party house of the Dragon’s Wing was on fire.
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Half the building was engulfed in flames, with a huge crowd of onlookers.
There’s no way the military police or the Adventurers’ Guild would set it on fire. This blaze was either from combat or started by the crowd.
People in the front kept throwing stones at the house.
This was insane. The Dragon’s Wing may have done something unforgivable, but this was too much. I couldn’t believe the people of Villeborn would act like this.
The festival’s excitement had turned into something terrible.
People were unhinged, mistaking the special atmosphere for something sinister.
Instead of bonfires, there were fires. Instead of songs, there were shouts. Instead of dancing, there were stones being thrown. The only similarity to the Festival of Passage was the bustling crowd and energy.
I pushed through the crowd.
“Make way, it’s Vim Strauss!” I shouted to clear a path.
Finally, I reached the front.
The military police were holding back the crowd from getting closer to the burning building. Further in, I saw several squads and a mage in a standoff.
That was Maris.
Her raised staff kept the squads on alert, creating a stalemate.
“Oh, hey! Are you Vim Strauss?”
a middle-aged man next to me shouted.
His eyes weren’t bloodshot yet. Maybe he was here out of curiosity. If so, he might have useful information.
“What’s going on?”
I yelled.
“Some surrendered, but the leader, Chronos, is holed up inside! That girl fired a big shot, and now the military police are on high alert!”
he replied.
So that’s the situation.
But Maris can barely control her magic. If she had any mana left, she’d be firing more. She’s probably pretending she can still fight.
“Why haven’t they stormed the place yet?”
“Not yet! Probably worried about the crowd!”
The military police were indeed struggling to control the crowd. With the distance between the burning building and the crowd, any sudden move could injure someone. This put the police in a tough spot.
It was ironic. The people mocking the Dragon’s Wing were the reason they hadn’t been overrun yet.
“Hey, Vim Strauss,”
the man said with curious eyes.
“Are you involved in this?”
I realized what he meant. He suspected I had a part in this chaos.
His precise meaning was unclear, but it was deeply unsettling. He saw my presence as intentional.
But I felt too uncomfortable. I was sure that he found some intention in the fact that I had rushed to the scene.
Of course, it made sense. I was indeed connected to this, and to someone uninformed, it was suspicious.
I hid my emotions, not showing any sign of being rattled.
I questioned myself.
I should have known this could happen. I had no real reason to be here.
So why did I come?
If the Dragon’s Wing had been accused, there was nothing I could do. Yet, I came anyway.
The military police, realizing Maris could no longer attack, closed in and captured her.
Through the shouts, I could barely hear her screams. It sounded like “No” or something similar. It had been a long time since I heard her voice.
With Maris captured and only the burning party house remaining,
I remembered what the man said: Chronos was still inside.
“Lord Chronos! Surrender! The fire is spreading! You don’t have much time!”
A military police officer, who appeared to be a negotiator, shouted.
The crowd responded with calls for surrender or death.
Chronos had no choice. He couldn’t remain an adventurer anymore, so resistance was futile.
But the police’s taunting was dangerous.
Chronos wouldn’t leave everything to Maris. Her role was to buy time, likely for Chronos to prepare—either to heal or something else.
In the flames lighting the night, a blue glow appeared.
That was Nikura’s healing magic. The most powerful kind.
They still intended to fight.
Another battle might be coming.
And then, the blue glow blinked out.
The flames flickered.
A gust of wind blew in.
The party house walls exploded, and a massive gust hit the military police.
They were blown away together, because they could not see the source of the wind, and they had no time to prepare themselves. In addition, the aftermath of the wind supplied oxygen to the flames around them, made the flames roar even higher.
I knew this technique.
Wind Fang.
Chronos’s strongest move. A wind-imbued sword to deliver a huge blade of wind from the upper part of his body, striking his opponent with a slash from the lower part of his body. It is a great all-purpose technique that can also be used as a long-range attack, depending on how it’s wielded.
In the rising dust, a figure appeared above.
Chronos had used the wind to lift himself.
He landed on the cobblestone with a thud.
Seeing him, I felt a strange, indescribable feeling.
It was the first time I’d seen him since being expelled from the Dragon’s Wing.
I remembered his face clearly from that day.
It was terrifying.
A familiar face, usually confident, turned fiercely hostile, showing how cornered he felt.
But now, that face was different.
Despite his more ornate armor, his entire body was sooty, marring his once-clean appearance.
Breathing heavily, with no composure, he looked desperate, unable to hide his survival instinct.
Most striking were his eyes, bloodshot and glaring wildly,
He was glaring like a cornered animal, nothing like the gentle smile he used to show women. He now looked like a cornered beast, ready to crush everything around him.
His eyes met mine.
We locked gazes.
Just as I was intently observing him, Chronos seemed to see me clearly, too. A dense moment of mutual recognition passed.
—I’ll kill you.
I understood his whispered words.
Chronos then directed wind at the cobblestones.
Using the recoil, he leapt back, disappearing into the night of Villeborn with a light tap.
“Chase him! Stop him!” the crowd shouted, but they did nothing. They kept repeating that he’d fled.
Meanwhile, the flames raged on.
Villeborn’s buildings were mostly wooden, including the party house.
The first sound was the groaning of bending beams.
The Dragon’s Wing party house collapsed. A series of dry cracks followed, and the fallen walls and roof burst into sparks.
A mix of screams and cheers rose.
The military police rushed to rescue anyone trapped in the burning debris. The crowd cheered them on.
All restraints seemed to have been lifted.
Unconcerned with danger, the crowd’s fervor grew, fueled by the flames.
The festival chaos didn’t end. Even this event became part of the Festival of Passage’s peak.
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Bastard keeps blaming Vim for his failures even after expelling him. Peak inferiority complex performance.