Chapter 45

After leaving, Ryuu ran around the city. She felt distraught and confused, she needed answers to her questions but couldn't still face reality. She stopped running after running into Ardee. Ardee was helping with the distribution of supplies to people. She felt that Ardee might understand her and maybe give her some answers.

"Ardee, can I get some of your time??" Ryuu asked while approaching Ardee.

"Sure, but I can only talk for a short time. I have work to do" Ardee replied. Hearing this Ryuu felt a bit bad for running away from her familia members in the middle of work but she needed answers now.

Ryuu then proceeded to explain the series of events that brought her here. Her story somewhat resonated with Ardee.

"I understand everything you said Ryuu, but I learned the hard way that justice cant save everyone" Ardee said to which Ryuu frowned at. Ardee then proceeded to tell Ryuu what happened during her raid on the evilus base. Ardee assumed that she hadn't heard of it from Alise and Kaguya yet.

"So you see how foolish my actions were" Ardee said after concluding her story.

"No you did the right thing. It was not a foolish action". Ryuu vehemently replied. She refused to believe that Ardee's actions were wrong.

"Then like Draco, let me ask you a question. Are you willing to sacrifice a familia members life to save a stranger??" Ardee asked. This question stomped Ryuu, she didn't know what to answer back. Seeing Ryuu was still lost in thought, Ardee wanted to say more before being interrupted.

"Ardee get back to work and stop slacking off" Shakti yelled as soon she noticed Ardee was missing.

"Sorry Ryuu, talk later, Duty calls" Ardee said as an apology to Ryuu before leaving. With no one left to talk to her, Ryuu also left while dazed.

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Meanwhile at the gates, people continued to complain about their condition. Falgar Batros being the one in charge of this area was swamped with work.

Falgar is a member of the Hermes familia, he is reliable, realistic and humble. He could analyze a person's abilities and those of others while not being afraid of saying if someone surpasses him in abilities.

"Hey calm down, the supplies will soon be distributed so wait your turn ok" Falgar said for the nth time. The civilians weren't giving him any breathing space. If left alone he wanted to just relax and slack off.

Asfi on the other hand was thinking about the current situation when she noticed that Hermes had arrived.

"Hermes sama, you can't keep moving around without protection, especially after what happened to those gods" Asfi said upon noticing Hermes arrival.

She soon noticed that Hermes expression didn't look right. It was as if something or someone important had been lost.

"Asfi from now on, you are the captain of the familia" Hermes said. This confused and shocked Asfi as she couldn't come to terms with the fact that their former captain, Lydia, was dead.

——————

In another location, Ottar could be seen fighting a large number of evilus and finally just succeeded in breaking through their encirclement. The evilus members tried to take advantage of his condition after facing Zald to kill him. The evilus were relentless but Ottar managed to kill them all with his strength.

"Huff, Huff, Huff. Damn evilus" Ottar muttered as he was heavily injured and exhausted now. He felt weak and needed to redeem himself by defeating Zald so he mustered all the strength to leave before suddenly being stopped by Allen, a member of the Freya familia.

"Where do you think that you are going in that condition??" Allen asked.

"To kill Zald" Ottar replied. Hearing this Allen suddenly attacked Ottar.

"Why are you doing this??" Ottar asked while emitting some bloodlust.

"Tsk, since you intend to throw your life away. Might as well kill you-to gain some extra Excelia" Allen replied in an annoyed tone. They fought for a short while, soon Allen brought Ottar to his knees.

"When did the great Ottar become so weak" Allen said mockingly.

"Can't believe that I gave up everything to defeat you but look at yourself now" Allen added.

This surprised Ottar as the old Allen would never say something like this.

"Are you doing this for me??" Ottar asked as he realized something.

"Never, this is Freya Sama will but now that you are a disappointment, I will have to defeat Zald by myself" Allen replied.

"No I will be the one to accomplish that feat" Ottar yelled while getting up once more.

"Hahahaha, ridiculous" Allen said, then suddenly his demeanour changed into a serious one.

"Now we shall have a fight to the death to prove who is right" Allen said while entering a battle stance.

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In another location, Ryuu had run around in a dazed state and accidentally arrived at the evilus base that her familia members raided along with Draco and the Ganesha familia.

The one that Ardee spoke about, she was then brought back to reality by the presence of someone there. It was Ais of the Loki familia. Ais challenged Ryuu to a fight because she looked suspicious to her.

Ryuu already in a bad mood decided to accept the challenge.The fight lasted for a while before Riveria of the Loki familia arrived at the scene.

Riveria quickly went to stop Ais because she had been looking for Ais for a while. With fear of being seen in such a state by Riveria, Ryuu fled before she could be recognized by Riveria.

———-

Kaguya and Lyra were looking for Ryuu everywhere but to no avail. They still didn't give up and kept walking around till they stumbled upon Syr, who was giving out food to people on the street.

"Please come to the hostesses of fertility, it's a safe place to stay" Sry said, but no one believed her words. They were all on edge and had lost hope in everything.

"What's the point in hiding, the evilus will kill all the adventurers and us soon after. The adventurers can't protect us" a random man said suddenly.

This made the surrounding much gloomier as the nearby civilian looked like all was lost. Syr quickly thought of encouraging words to cheer them up a bit.

"The adventurers are doing their best and have suffered for all the lives that they couldn't save. If you the people whom they are trying to save give up on them, what reason do they have left to save you" Syr said which cheered up a few of them but reality sucked.

A group of evilus members attacked the civilians of that location because there were no guards protecting them. Lyra and Kaguya seeing this quickly stepped up and defeated the evilus around.

"See, if you don't give up on them they won't give up on you" Syr said making the civilians feel guilty on how they treated the Astraea familia.

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Later that day at the h.q. located at the center of the city. Asfi could be seen trying to come to terms that she was now the captain of her familia. She was unable to give orders to her familia members due to how sudden it was and she was incredibly nervous.

"Sigh don't worry, I will take care of some of them. Just get yourself sorted out soon" Gareth said to Asfi. Taking a bit of pressure off her back. She had tried to give the position to Falgar earlier, feeling that she was not appropriate for the job, but he refused and even encouraged her to calm down and accept it. She soon managed to get a grasp of her duties as time wouldn't wait for her.

At the same time, Astraea, Bahamut and Bahamut familia members were helping some guild employees and other volunteers to gather and treat the wounded.

"Aren't you a god, why can't you fix all our problems with your power" one of the wounded civilians lashed out. Bahamut was angry at this. What did the mortals think gods were, after all they didn't descend just to fix the problems of mortals.

"Should any of the gods use their power the evilus gods would do the same causing the dungeon to break its oath before the promised time" Astraea calmly replied. She understood that the civilians were just looking for who to pour their frustrations on.

I was listening in on the conversation too and was shocked to learn of such information. The dungeon was gonna still break sometime.

I wanted to know more but it didn't seem like Astraea was going to say anymore in the topic. I had been chilling at the Hq to protect Bahamut because I was afraid of what might happen if I wasn't there.

12 gods just ascended so I had to be careful but still helpful in doing minor tasks with my familia and also healing the injured with magic.