Evil Avalon
A vast jungle stretched all the way to the horizon, overgrown with dense tropical rainforest. Cutting it cleanly in two was a gigantic river, several hundred meters wide, winding like a serpent through the land.
This was the 26th floor of the dungeon.
A tropical region commonly known as the “Jukai of Beast Fangs.”
On the riverbank, thousands of adventurers had gathered, drinking alcohol and raising celebratory toasts.
At the center sat a massive lump of meat the size of a large bus, being carved into blocks by cooks.
It was a drop item from the boar-type floor boss known as “Truff Truwis.”
The chunks of meat, portioned into roughly one-kilogram pieces, were skewered one after another and roasted over open flames, spreading the mouthwatering scent of sizzling fat throughout the area. Adventurers holding beer in hand cheered joyfully as they eagerly awaited their share of the spoils.
Watching over the noisy celebration from a tent erected on higher ground were several figures.
Illuminated by orange bonfire light, a woman dressed as a maid opened her mouth with a gentle smile.
“Even a floor boss from the deepest reaches of the dungeon becomes nothing more than food once it falls into the hands of our Ten Rakshashas. I hear the dropped meat is exquisitely delicious. Apparently, it’s worth more than the same weight in gold.”
“...”
The maid pointed at a meat dish garnished with vegetables and urged, “Please, eat.”
The one she spoke to was another maid who looked nearly identical to her.
Their facial features and physiques were astonishingly alike down to the smallest detail, but unlike the smiling maid, this one wore a harsh expression. She neither touched the food nor even glanced at it, only returning a cold glare.
There was one more person present.
A shaved-headed man sat nearby with his upper body exposed, flaunting his swollen muscles. Tearing into the meat with savage bites, he voiced his admiration for the taste.
“No matter how many times I eat this stuff, it’s damn delicious! Guess the fat’s just built different. Munch... Anyway, Captain, I checked out that fortress in the new area on the 7th floor. There were only some weak-ass golems there. Didn’t find anything.”
“Thank you for your efforts, Kodai. Then perhaps the Kinrankai truly was only attempting to build a training facility...”
Hearing the report from the man called Kodai, the maid addressed as captain placed a finger to her lips and sank into thought.
A new dungeon area had been discovered for the first time in decades.
The Kinrankai had apparently been trying to establish a base there. Suspecting some hidden secret, they had requested an investigation, yet nothing had turned up.
Of course, it was possible the exploration time had simply been too short.
“Perhaps next time we should have one of the subordinate organizations investigate it more thoroughly...” she murmured to herself before asking if he had noticed anything else.
“Every damn one of them was obsessed with searching for Gates... Ah, right. Some bratty noble kids picked a fight with me.”
“Did you kill them?”
“I coulda, but one of the brats’ companions looked interesting—”
Apparently, one of those arrogant noble sons had actually fired an arrow at Kodai, one of the Rakshashas.
Kodai laughed while rubbing his bald head as he explained that he had intended to deflect the shot and kill him in return, only for the attack to be perfectly blocked by something like an invisible barrier.
However, even high-ranking adventurers found it difficult to defend against Kodai’s counter skill—especially on first encounter.
Which meant there must have been a remarkably skilled individual on the opposing side.
The Rakshasha way dictated that anyone who attacked them should pay with their life to ensure it never happened again.
Still, even the maid wished to avoid having high-level adventurers rampage recklessly in a crowded area, so all she could say was:
“That was a wise decision.”
“Arrogant nobles bring a hundred harms and not a single benefit. I’d like to eliminate them as soon as possible... but to achieve that, we too must ascend to even greater heights.”
With that, the maid turned her eyes outside once more.
Thousands of adventurers were eating, drinking, laughing, and making merry.
They had effortlessly slain the famous floor boss that inhabited this area—“Truff Truwis”—and proudly displayed their overwhelming strength.
And yet, the force gathered below was merely one division of the organization.
Their even more powerful main force was being led elsewhere by the clan leader, Kaede Takamura.
Boasting proudly to the maid who looked exactly like herself that no organization in Japan possessed such military strength, she soon lowered her brows and shook her head.
“Even so, we still lack the power to freely shape everything as we wish. The long conflict continues, and even among the Rakshashas who lead the organization, several vacancies have appeared. I had hoped Yurika would fill one of those gaps... but it seems her strength is still insufficient.”
“I have no intention of becoming a Rakshasha—”
“But you’re more suited for it than anyone else.”
Since its founding, the large-scale conquest clan Ten Rakshashas had been run primarily by ten top executives known as the Rakshashas.
However, repeated conflicts had left two seats vacant.
Even so, after a long selection process, one successor had already been chosen.
Though slightly inferior in strength compared to the other Rakshashas, the plan was to let that candidate gain experience leading groups during this Gate exploration mission, then allow them to earn the universally recognized achievement of “discovering a new Gate” before publicly announcing them in grand fashion.
And the maid sitting there with a stern expression—Kurosaki Yurika—was the final candidate for Rakshasha.
Once this was revealed, Yurika immediately rejected the idea as absurd, but the shaved-headed man listening nearby quickly interrupted.
“The name ‘Kurosaki’ carries a special meaning within the Ten Rakshashas. Just having that blood flowing through your veins is enough for us to acknowledge someone as worthy of our loyalty.”
Back in the late Taisho era, when dungeons first appeared in this world—
People were terrified of the pitch-black entrances that reflected no light and the grotesque creatures roaming their dim interiors.
According to Japanese history books, nobody approached them besides the [Saintess] party.
But in truth, there were others who boldly challenged the dungeons.
The children from an old orphanage built near the dungeon.
Sneaking past the eyes of adults, they entered the dungeon, devised strategies against monsters and floor bosses, created maps...
And astonishingly, all of it was led by a small girl named Kurosaki Ayame.
Later, amidst a storm of violence too horrific to speak aloud, Ayame established Japan’s oldest clan:
The “Ten Rakshashas.”
At first, the members were only children from the orphanage.
But eventually they took in endless numbers of orphans from across Japan, and even became a refuge for society’s outcasts and failures.
They possessed a long history of saving countless people right up to the present day.
“The Kurosaki family has supported the enormous household known as the Ten Rakshashas from the shadows for generations—they’re our greatest benefactors. There are more people than you could count, me included, whose lives were saved by the blood running through your veins.”
Power struggles among nobles had always existed, both before and after the great war, and the ones who suffered were always the common people.
The government listened only to the nobles, never to the cries of the weak.
Generation after generation, the Kurosaki family took in those victims.
Many of them had now become vital core members of the Ten Rakshashas.
Kodai himself admitted that he too was someone saved by the ideals of the Kurosakis.
Before long, a town had formed around their base, developing into a massive economic sphere.
It was no exaggeration to say that the people living there also benefited from the ideals of the Kurosaki family—and by extension, the Ten Rakshashas.
The name “Kurosaki” carried immeasurable significance within the organization.
Returning to the matter at hand—
The maid with the severe expression and furrowed brows, Kurosaki Yurika, was unquestionably a member of the Kurosaki family.
She was also the twin younger sister of Kurosaki Riria, the Number Two of the Ten Rakshashas and supreme commander of this Gate search operation.
With the conflict against the Noble Alliance ongoing, Kodai passionately insisted that Yurika was the ideal choice to help rebuild the organization and lead it toward even greater heights as a new Rakshasha candidate.
Her older sister Riria slowly nodded, then informed her younger sister of the future plans with a gentle, embracing gaze.
“First, we’ll gather elites and conduct power leveling. Once the timing is right, we’ll grant you command of a new division, and then—”
“—And abandon more pitiful children again?”
“That incident couldn’t be helped.”
Originally, the reason Yurika had left the Ten Rakshashas despite serving as one of their division commanders stemmed from a crisis during a mission.
An enemy organization amid the ongoing conflict had launched a surprise attack, and she was ordered to abandon the unit under her command and escape alone using a Return Stone.
Naturally, she refused.
Instead, she chose to stay behind and create an escape route for her subordinates.
But from the perspective of the Ten Rakshashas, they could not allow someone bearing the Kurosaki name to die.
If that happened, morale would collapse, placing the entire organization in danger.
The Ten Rakshashas executive council hastily assembled a rescue squad.
They succeeded in saving Yurika through a lightning-fast operation, but the rescue squad itself was nearly destroyed.
Meanwhile, Yurika’s abandoned division was wiped out entirely.
Overwhelmed by the tragedy, Yurika lamented her own foolish decisions and weakness, while simultaneously losing faith in the organization that had made such a merciless choice.
And so, she decided to leave.
However, Yurika eventually found a new place where she belonged.
She met a warm and positive master, and gained comrades who had been wounded just like herself.
It was the first peaceful world she had ever experienced.
For the first time, she learned that someone as filthy as herself was allowed to live in a place so warm and radiant, and she cherished every fleeting moment there...
But the past did not simply disappear.
The Ten Rakshashas had pressured the Tenma family through displays of military force.
Believing that her presence would only hurt the master she treasured more than her own life, Yurika resolved to return to the world of darkness—and that was how matters had come to this point.
Because of that history, the younger sister’s attitude remained rigid.
Trying her best to sound gentle, the older sister attempted to persuade her with a compromise.
“—Of course, we swear to properly repay the Tenma family for protecting you. By now, the new Rakshasha candidate Shiramizu has likely concluded negotiations smoothly with the woman who served as your master.”
“...If anything happens to milady, the great being behind her... will not forgive you.”
“That again... Please, rest assured. Shiramizu is more than capable of restraining someone on the level of the Tenma family’s warrior class without killing them. Besides, we have no intention of going to war with the Tenma family.”
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