Is it wrong for slimes to be in dungeons? (revised)

Chapter 32: Betrayal of Trust

(3rd person Lily POV)

Lily sat silently in the dimly lit cell of a room, her arms were bound and several bruises were visible on her face.

I suppose this means I failed...She frowned slightly at the thought. This wasn't the first time she had approached Soma about her release. She had actually just done it recently, right before the entire situation with Apollo had started. That was probably why Soma Familia was involved with Apollo Familia in the first place. After the incident where Bell saved Lily, she faked her death to escape the Soma Familia and live peacefully, but with her showing up to attempt to leave the Soma Familia she was forced to reveal herself to her former Familia. Worse yet she couldn't get Soma to even look at her. All he did was sit in the corner of the room and mumbled under his breath.

And when Zanis, the commander of the Soma Familia, and the one responsible for turning it into the hell hole it was, found the two of them all he did was tell her that if she wished to leave she'd need to pay the fee of 10 million Valis. An exorbitant price that only really existed to block the Familia members from leaving. Soma, who didn't really care either way, simply told them to "do what they want," not even really lifting his gaze to meet them. Lily promptly left after that unsure of what to do.

When telling Ciel about this she seemed rather unconcerned with how Soma treated their first interaction and insisted that this was the best way to deal with the Soma Familia.

This time around when she had tried to talk with Soma about gaining her freedom from his Familia, forget talking with him, she wasn't even able to meet with him this time around.

She had roughly predicted things would go this way, Ciel's pacifistic wishes were nice, but they were naive in nature.

Ciel said she would save Lily after a day but... Lily anxiously looked around at her surroundings.

Was I...too hopeful? In this cell there was no way to see the sun and thus no way to know how much time had passed. It could've been well passed a day already or maybe not even a few hours, but not knowing only made Lily more anxious as moment by moment seemingly dragged on.

She recalled what she saw when she had first met the Amaterasu Familia. The absolute defeat that Ciel had supposedly inflicted on the Apollo and Soma Familia by herself.

Supposedly...

Just who the hell is Ciel? Lily now recalled the question that had been nagging at her since she met the mysterious woman.

A charismatic, powerful, sweet, smart, and beautiful woman, who had seemingly flown under the radar of every deity and mortal of Orario. Someone who had just so happened to appear at a perfect time, was strong enough to completely single-handedly subdue two mid-tier Familia's with seemingly no injury, smart enough to come up with a strategy that would allow a low-tier Familia like Hestia Familia to single-handedly defeat a mid-rank Familia like Apollo and kind enough to do all of this without complaint for no other reason than her god's whim.

It just felt...strange to Lily.

What if Lily couldn't be saved? Or what if Ciel didn't actually plan on saving her, but simply let Lily go to keep the Soma Familia at bay?

As time went on her restlessness began to grow slowly with an endless wave of doubts and questions floating around her head.

"How are you Arde?" A voice asked suddenly cut through Lily's thoughts.

She stared up at the man before her.

Zanis... she thought bitterly.

Zanis was the commander of the Familia and as one of the few level 2s in the Familia, it was only natural that he would end up at the top. But well, being honest that wasn't why he was the commander. The things that truly made him dangerous were his intelligence, shrewdness, and willpower. He was one of the few people able to keep his mind after having drunk the god of wine's liquor. Granting him the respect of the Wine God and allowing him to take full control of the Familia using his God's authority.