DanMachi Vol.14

CHAPTER 7: POEM OF DESPAIR, POEM OF TRIUMPH

No matter what I do, it's always the same.

No matter what I say, no one listens.

No matter how I beg, my pleas reach no one. It's always the same.

The world always stomps on my hard work. The world always jeers at my tragedies.

Even when I gather my courage and struggle, even if I scream at the top of my lungs, I always bump up against absurdity.

So many times, my desperate warnings have been ignored.

So many times, my determination has crumbled like a sand castle. I have tasted defeat again and again.

Time after time, I have been hurled from the cliff's edge into the depths of darkness.

But what can I do? I'm surely cursed.

What can I do, what can I do...what can I do? When did those words begin to invade my heart?

When did I start feeling a shade of resignation even in the moments when I tried to change the future?

No one trusts me.

No one even tries to believe me. Not even my own familia members.

Not even her, whom I call my best friend. So I gave up.

I didn't really go all out trying to change the future. Just once, a boy appeared who believed my words.

I thought this time I have to succeed.

I took a step forward because I'd made some friends I desperately didn't want to lose.

But as usual, the world jeered at me. Ahh, in the end, all was useless.

Who could blame me for thinking like that?

Faced with such despair, who could punish me and my broken heart? Alone, the prophetess of tragedy drowned in sorrow.

It was clad in white.

Two rearing heads.

The huge, beautiful body brought to mind the phrase "dream dragon," but in fact, it was the embodiment of violence and destruction.

"The Monster Rex of the twenty-seventh floor—"

The dragon's double cry echoed forth. The two weaving heads blended hostility and murderous intent in perfect harmony.

"—The Amphisbaena!"

As a stunned prum looked up at the dragon, the Amazon beside her spat out the monster's name.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Its immense roar thundered across not only the twenty-fifth floor but all three floors of the Water Capital. The members of the alliance backed away in unison when they heard the battle cry of the Amphisbaena, the floor boss that had emerged from the Great Falls linking the three floors.

The alliance had been formed by multiple familias to carry out an expedition, with Hestia Familia at its core, venturing into the lower levels for the purpose of uncovering the truth about the murder that Lyu, the Gale Wind, was being blamed for.

They had parted ways several hours earlier with Bell, who had joined the elite party that went on ahead to the twenty-seventh floor. After that, there

had been a chain of explosions so great it seemed the entire Water Capital would be demolished, followed by the appearance of an irregularity in the Dungeon—the banquet of calamity—that had occurred only a scant twenty or thirty minutes earlier, although Lilly's party had been untouched.