Valda was the first to shatter the silence.
“Historically… Vanir has never had a king named Khnum,”
she said flatly, no sugarcoating, no hesitation.
Khnum’s expression snapped into irritation at once.
“Then what am I, huh? I’m sitting right here in front of you, plain as day, and you’re telling me I don’t exist?!”
Romeo’s eyes swept over him—over the wrappings, over the hollow sockets that somehow still carried a hard, unyielding glare—before he gave a faint nod.
“…Yeah. I’ve never heard that name either.”
Two simple statements. That was all it took—like they’d poked a buried ember and watched it explode.
Khnum cursed, voice booming through the cramped chamber.
“After the Hero’s party defeated the Demon Lord, two thousand years passed, and I became king! How can you not understand… you lowborn trash!”
The moment the word lowborn slipped out, another voice slammed back like a blade.
“What the hell did you just say? Who’s lowborn?”
Sight barked the words instantly. The calm, even tone he always wore was gone—as if someone had ripped it clean off for a heartbeat.
Khnum froze.
And then, as if he’d only just remembered who exactly he was standing in front of—the ones who had opened his coffin—his posture loosened. The sharp edge in his presence dulled. His voice dropped, sinking so low it almost sounded like he was trying to explain himself.
“No, that’s not what I meant… I mean… I am the King of Vanir. I was appointed after the Hero’s adventuring party succeeded in defeating the Demon Lord. I didn’t want to believe it either, but… it’s written in the records. It’s in the texts truly.”
Ace tilted his head, a new suspicion surfacing across his face.
“Then what did the Hero look like?”
Khnum’s expression twisted with annoyance.
“How would I know? It’s been over two thousand years. All I’ve ever had is the statue in the middle of the city.”
Valda still didn’t let go.
“The statue in the city… yes, that is a statue of the Hero,”
she said evenly.
“But the part about you being king still doesn’t add up. Not at all.”
Romeo shifted—subtle, but unmistakable—like he’d slipped into interrogation mode.
“Fine. Then tell us this. The year you became king what year was it?”
Khnum answered more slowly, as if dragging the memory up from somewhere far too deep.
“Uh… Saberuv, year 2049.”
Ace blurted out immediately.
“There’s no such year!”
The words hadn’t even finished fading when Khnum’s body began to crumble—starting at the tips of his arm—into dust, like an image being erased piece by piece. A dull, ashen powder drifted down in silence, spreading across the floor.
But his voice remained.
“Then… what is the king’s name now?”
Valda replied without a hint of hesitation.
“King Odinir the Thirteenth.”
It was as if that answer came down like a hammer straight onto Khnum’s skull.
He let out a stunned, broken sound.
“W-What…? That name… isn’t that from thousands of years ago…?”
The instant the last syllable left him, everything that remained collapsed at once—crumbling into nothing but fine sand. All that was left was a heap of burial wrappings on the floor, utterly still, as if no one had ever been sitting there in the first place.
“Hey wait!”
Sight reached out as if he could grab him back.
Too late.
In the small hall on the 99th floor, only a pile of bandages remained… and a question hanging in the air.
But Khnum’s words were what stayed lodged in everyone’s mind—
Thousands of years ago…?
Ace scratched the back of his head and muttered under his breath, half complaining, half thinking out loud.
“That guy said it was from thousands of years ago… so what, did we end up in the future or something?”
“There’s no way, you idiot.”
Lily shot back instantly—no dramatic pose, no chant, just pure reflex.
“There isn’t a single spellbook that says time travel is possible. The best you get with time magic is movement-related stuff… or delay spells. Slowing things down. That’s it.”
Sight lifted his bottle and took a casual sip, like he was watching two strangers argue in the street.
“Then what did he mean by thousands of years ago?”
Earp’s voice came from the corner—calm and clipped, but it dropped like a stone into still water.
“Well… it’s possible,”
he said politely,
“that we didn’t jump into the future at all.”
He paused just long enough for the idea to land.
“What moved through time… might be the entire pyramid itself.”
Valda froze for a beat, then gave a small nod, like she was running the numbers in her head.
“If that’s the case… then this is serious,”
she said quietly.
“But… it actually does sound possible.”
Romeo immediately turned to Sight.
“Back there, Sight… you said these stone walls were about three to four thousand years old. Right?”
“Just a guess.”
Sight answered in the same flat tone, taking another sip.
“And if it turns out to be true?”
Mary swallowed hard—her hands were still trembling, even now.
“If it’s true…”
She forced the words out.
“Then that means… this is a pyramid that hasn’t even been built yet. Not for another few thousand years.”
She hesitated, like she wanted to say more—but the words Hero and Demon Lord caught in her throat.
Valda smoothly picked up the thread, patient as ever.
“We’ll only know for sure once we find out when this pyramid was originally built… and how many years after its completion it ‘reversed’ back to us.”
Ace blinked, looking dazed—like someone had shoved a math problem into his face the second he woke up.
“…Yeah. I’m not getting any of that.”
Romeo let out a long sigh—the kind you make when you’ve had to re-teach the same lesson to the same friend in every single subject.
“Alright, Ace. Simple version,”
he said, voice patient in the most exhausted way possible.
“Let’s assume this pyramid is about three to four thousand years old. That guy said the Demon Lord was defeated two thousand years ago.”
He continued in one breath, like he was reading straight off a lecture slide.
“That means if the Demon Lord gets defeated today… then two thousand years from now, he becomes king. And a few decades after that, they build this pyramid to bury him.”
He didn’t even pause.
“We can skip the few decades part. Then two thousand years after that… the pyramid reverses and comes back to us. That’s the idea.”
Romeo finally took a small breath and wrapped it up.
“That’s assuming someone defeats the Demon Lord today, of course. The point is we’d need to know what year the pyramid came back from, and honestly… that sounds pretty damn pointless.”
He swept his gaze around the room like he’d decided the meeting was over.
“So let’s just gather what we can and report it to the guild. Let them deal with the rest.”
Through that whole long explanation, Ace still looked just as blank as before—blank in the specific way of someone who’s suddenly realized:
…Wow. I really should’ve studied harder as a kid.
“But if… hypothetically,”
Ace said, turning to Lily with bright eyes like a kid spotting a brand-new toy,
“it really can time travel… What would you want to do?”
Lily lifted her chin at once, like a grand archmage unveiling her glorious vision for the future.
“Obviously,”
she declared,
“I’d buy up every rare limited-edition figure from this era.”
She jabbed a finger forward, utterly confident.
“Then we jack up the prices and sell them later. Boom rich before you even notice.”
Laughter burst out almost all at once across the party.
That kind of laughter.
The kind that said, Yep. That’s Lily for you.
Because Lily could always be dead serious about the weirdest things.
The laughter didn’t last long.
The dust that had been Khnum—piled on the floor—began to move.
It wasn’t just drifting anymore. It flowed. Thin streams of sand snaked across the stone, tracing lines and patterns as if an invisible hand were shaping it. The grains gathered, condensed, swelled—growing larger and larger until a giant form rose up, golem-like in size.
Except… that body wasn’t stable.
Its surface shimmered and blurred like rippling dunes. Tiny grains never stopped shifting, never stopped crawling—like a sandstorm that had been forced into a humanoid outline.
Sand Man.
One of the most infamous boss-class monsters—terrifying precisely because it had no true body. Even if you destroyed it, it would always gather itself back together. And its physical power hit far harder than its appearance suggested.
Worse, it had sandstorm skills…
and the ability to drain moisture from living creatures.
No one even had time to steady themselves.
BANG!
A giant sand fist slammed into the ground. The impact sent a shockwave up through everyone’s soles, rattling bone and balance alike. The entire party jumped back—almost in sync.
BANG! BANG!
It punched again and again, like it meant to smash the room into rubble. Each blow forced them to scatter on instinct—frontline, backline, everyone flung into different corners without even thinking.
“Sand Man, huh…?”
Ace spoke while his feet kept moving, dodging the rhythm of the strikes.
“I’ve never actually seen one in my life.”
“Of course you haven’t.”
Sight snapped back without even looking up.
“It’s a special-grade boss. Not something that just spawns naturally.”
Using the split-second gaps between tremors, Earp shot in like a shadow. His blade flashed—slashes landing in rapid succession across the sand torso.
But it was like cutting into a beach.
The gashes split open…
then the sand simply flowed back and sealed them shut in the blink of an eye.
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Valda didn’t hesitate either. She swung her hammer with full force—
CRASH!
The Sand Man’s body exploded into dust, like a statue smashed into powder.
And yet the scattered sand immediately spun, spiraled…
and gathered itself back into shape.
“This is nothing, honestly.”
Lily spoke up over the relentless thud—BANG—thud as the floor kept shaking in rhythm with the Sand Man’s punches.
Ace turned toward her immediately.
“You’ve fought a Sand Man before?”
“Obviously.”
Lily answered without a flicker of doubt.
“Back when I was a student at the magic academy, this thing was literally part of the exam for anyone aiming to become a Warlock. Everyone has to face it.”
“So what do we do?”
Sight cut in at once—no warm-up, no wasted breath.
Lily raised her staff. Her posture snapped into place so perfectly it looked like she’d stepped onto a stage.
“Weather Control.”
She swung the staff once, then pointed straight ahead.
“Downpour.”
In an instant, dark clouds gathered under the ceiling of the hall—despite the fact they were inside an underground pyramid. Rain crashed down immediately, heavy and merciless, like it meant to bury everything beneath it.
“It’s weak against water,”
Lily said flatly.
“After that, you destroy its magic core inside the body. Try to find it.”
The Sand Man—once free-flowing and unstoppable—began to stutter, as if bound by invisible chains. Its movements slowed. The sand that had been surging like a storm started to clump, compacting under the unending rain until it turned into heavy, sludge-like sand-mud.
“Dead Shot.”
Earp’s voice rang out from the side in the same instant. He activated a weak-point detection skill—his eyes locking onto something—and lunged forward without hesitation.
“Don’t destroy it!”
Valda’s shout cut across the hall in a split-second.
Earp’s blade was about to slice through a golden-yellow magic core flashing inside—
He halted mid-motion and switched instantly. From a slash to a snatch.
In one smooth, lightning-fast movement, he grabbed the core out with his bare hand instead.
“Soul Drain.”
Lily rushed in immediately after. Her palm pressed to the core, siphoning mana out of it until the glow visibly dropped—like snuffing a flame before it could spark the body back into existence.
“Use this to store it instead.”
Valda spoke as she rummaged in her bag, pulling something out—a small chest-shaped box, like a treasure box, but perfectly sized for one hand.
She flipped the lid open.
Inside…
There was no gold. No jewels.
Just fangs—
and a long tongue lolling out, drooling shamelessly.
A Mimic.
“You carry a Mimic around with you?!”
Romeo’s shout echoed through the hall, loud enough to nearly drown out the rain.
Valda answered instantly, unfazed.
“Yep. It’s my pet. I keep it around to help me run around and pick things up.”
Romeo whipped his head away like he was trying to protect his eyesight.
“You’ve been raising something that ugly this whole time…? Ugh no, no, no…”
Before Earp carefully slipped the Sand Man’s magic core into the Mimic’s mouth, Valda bent down and gently patted the lid—like she was petting a puppy.
“Good girl. Good job.”
The Mimic cooed back.
“Mumi… mumi…”
Obedient to an infuriating degree—obedient in a way that made it hard to believe it was a monster most people would want to set on fire along with the entire chest. No one knew when she’d started raising it, and judging by everyone’s faces…
no one wanted to know.
The little Mimic slowly revealed its eyes—one pair of them—glowing pure white like lightbulbs. They blinked on with a cheerful click right on top of the treasure chest lid, utterly unbothered by reality, as if it were smiling at Valda with its gaze.
The scene in front of them looked like a sweet older sister doting on an adorable pet.
But for Romeo…
it was a waking nightmare.
Not long after, the rain Lily had summoned began to fade. The dark clouds dissolved, and the pyramid returned to its usual dry, silent stillness.
All that remained was the sound of breathing…
and a roomful of stares that had no idea what to do with that box.
Romeo pointed at the Mimic with maximum disgust.
“There are so many normal pets in this world! Dogs! Cats! Why would you choose to raise a Mimic, Valda?!”
Valda didn’t even flinch. If anything, she teased it more, like she was playing with a puppy.
“I already told you. This kid helps me when I’m hunting down loot. And her instincts for valuable items are no joke.”
The Mimic’s eyes sparkled even brighter, looking so proud it seemed ready to roll around—if it could roll.
Earp spoke up from the side, calm as ever, as if Romeo’s horror didn’t even register.
“Does it have a name?”
Valda answered immediately, beaming with pride.
“This kid is called Michan.”
The second Romeo heard it, his face went blank—like he’d been hit with a stun spell.
Then he screamed across the hall:
“I CAN’T ! I CAN’T ACCEPT THIS!”
After the chaos in the pyramid finally settled, the party returned to the guild to file their report—standard procedure.
Except this time, it wasn’t a simple Dungeon cleared, job done.
The moment the guildmaster saw the contents, he called for a private meeting immediately.
Only Ace, Valda, and Romeo were allowed into his office. The others were told to wait in the guild hall and relax—everyone except Sight, who peeled off toward the guild bar with practiced familiarity, like it had become his second home.
Inside the office, the atmosphere was so serious it felt like you could hear people breathing.
Marick, the Adventurers’ Guildmaster of Vanir, sat still for a long moment after finishing the report. His expression looked like he was trying very hard not to blurt out something along the lines of What the hell did you people run into?
In the end, he exhaled and spoke.
“So… can that dungeon be fully surveyed… one hundred percent?”
Valda answered at once, crisp and exact.
“Technically, yes we can now,”
she said.
“But only if it’s a party of Rank A adventurers or higher, or at minimum under the protection of the royal knights. That’s the only way I’d feel confident.”
She didn’t soften her stance.
“But opening it up for unrestricted entry… I can’t recommend that.”
Romeo picked up the thread in the tone of someone seeing the bigger picture.
“It’s true the monsters may not be that terrifying, and the boss has been dealt with… well, yes. Dealt with.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully, then continued.
“But the real problem is the numbers. Even though the spawn rate has dropped significantly… it’s still faster than normal dungeons by a wide margin.”
Marick nodded, starting to piece it together.
“Mm. In that case, anyone who wants to go in would need to apply for permission first.”
“That would be best.”
Ace agreed immediately, then added—his voice more serious than usual.
“Because we can’t guarantee anyone who goes in will actually make it back out. Adventuring is risky, sure… but risk on that level, without proper preparation, is basically throwing your life away.”
The words throwing your life away made the room fall even quieter.
Marick tapped a finger lightly on the desk before bringing up the point that clearly bothered him the most.
“And that whole from the future thing…”
Valda shook her head.
“We can’t confirm it,”
she said plainly.
“This needs real experts. People who specialize in this kind of phenomenon.”
“Mm… then we’ll have to request cooperation from… the authorities.”
Marick continued as if he were laying out steps in his head.
“And we’ll need members from the relevant scholarly branches as well. Especially with the rumors going around lately bad ones.”
Valda looked up immediately.
“What rumors, exactly?”
Marick’s eyes moved from one of them to the next before he answered slowly.
“You’ve probably heard some of it already… the rumor about a new Demon Lord.”
Romeo frowned.
“A Demon Lord… is that actually real?”
“I can’t say for sure, Mr. Alfonso,”
Marick admitted.
“But the talk is getting louder by the day. And even the royal palace… seems like it’s preparing for something.”
Ace raised an eyebrow at once.
“And you’re telling us all this… is that really okay?”
Marick chuckled softly, the way a veteran worker tries to smother stress with habit.
“Well… if it is true,”
he said,
“then right now you’re probably the only group that has the ability to deal with it. So telling you doesn’t really hurt.”
A corner of his mouth lifted.
“And who knows… the palace might even send for you themselves.”
That didn’t sound like a joke.
It sounded like an early warning.
The guild hall was as chaotic as ever.
Chaotic in the specific way where if the room stayed quiet for more than five seconds, it would basically count as a violation of local law.
In one corner, a fresh new recruit had just signed up—face glowing with excitement like they were about to become a Hero tomorrow morning.
In another, two adventurers were arguing red-faced over how to split the rewards, as if their lives would collapse if they didn’t shout.
A few people were bent over the quest board with deadly seriousness.
And of course… there was always that type—leaning on the counter and flirting with the female staff like it was their daily mandatory quest.
Mary scanned the scene and let out a long, exhausted sigh.
“Ughhh… I’m bored. Is there seriously nothing else to do?”
Lily snapped her head around instantly, eyes gleaming like she’d just found a new recruit for her secret club.
“Then why don’t you join my cult of Chaos’s devoted servants… heh. Heh.”
“Absolutely not!”
Earp cut in at full seriousness.
“You’re the future Archbishop, ma’am. You can’t join a cult. You really can’t.”
“N-no, no, no! I’m not joining any cult!”
Mary waved both hands like she was trying to ward off a ghost.
“And I’m not a future Archbishop anymore either! It’s like the Church hasn’t brought it up even once since I left… they haven’t talked about it at all…”
The noise of the hall continued, constant as a heartbeat.
But then—suddenly—the atmosphere shifted.
As if someone had lowered the volume of the guild without using a single spell.
A party of adventurers walked in.
Five members.
And the entire hall unconsciously… paused.
First—a man in full plate armor. Handsome. Sun-bright blond hair. A massive sword strapped across his back. He walked in like the scene belonged to him by default.
Second—an elderly man in a cloak, with long white hair and an equally long beard, gripping a staff that clearly wasn’t mass-produced. That thing had been commissioned. Custom-made.
Third—a female archer with long, flowing hair and striking features. Her outfit was simple, understated… but her gaze was so calm and steady it warned everyone not to get careless.
Fourth—a tall, powerfully built woman with dark skin and sharply defined muscles. She wore practical, minimal armor, and casually rested a huge wooden hammer on her shoulder like it weighed less than a sack of rice.
Fifth—a small-framed man in a robe stamped with the seal of the Church, walking silently at the rear.
They didn’t say a word.
But the moment they entered, the entire guild felt like it was automatically about to begin a new chapter.
The chaos from moments ago was like someone had pressed a pause button. The shouting match about money vanished. The counter-flirting went quiet. All that remained was whispering—spreading in small ripples through the hall.
“That’s Finn… an S-Rank adventurer who’s taken countless high-level quests.”
“The others are all Rank A too… that party is insane.”
“They say he’s the closest thing to a real Hero we’ve got right now.”
“Someday… I want to be like that…”
The whispers circled the hall. Everyone was trying to speak softly—
but the silence made every word carry.
The five of them headed straight for the receptionist’s counter, indifferent to the stares drilling into their backs. The blond man with the greatsword spoke first, his tone so polite it sounded like casual small talk.
“Hey there, miss. We’re just passing through town got any interesting quests for us to pick up?”
The receptionist recovered fast. She flashed a professional smile.
“There are three S-Rank quests available at the moment, Mr. Finn.”
“Then we’ll take all of them.”
Finn answered instantly, without thinking twice.
“We’ll handle it.”
He didn’t even know what the quests were yet.
And still, the whispers flared up again—like someone had tossed kindling straight into the guild hall.
“Wait… he just took all the S-rank quests?”
“He didn’t even ask what they were…”
“So this is what real talent looks like…”
“Taking jobs without even checking the details…”
The receptionist quickly lowered her eyes to her paperwork, then looked up again, ready to start explaining.
“Um so, the three S-rank quests are as follows. First…”
“It’s not necessary, miss.”
Finn cut her off politely—so calm and certain it felt like the answer had already been written somewhere.
“We’re adventurers. If there’s a quest, we do it. That’s our duty. It doesn’t matter what we’re being sent to do.”
With that, he turned and walked away from the counter toward an empty table in the hall—like a wealthy patron who’d just swept up an entire display of luxury goods far beyond what ordinary people could ever reach.
Finn strolled through the guild without any hurry, until his gaze caught on a particular table.
He stopped short.
Then smiled and approached with the kind of courtesy you’d use for an old acquaintance.
“Oh… Ms. Bernadette. It’s been a long time.”
Finn greeted her, then bowed with formal precision.
“Your future Archbishop.”
“Drop the ceremony, Finn.”
Mary shot back at once, her tone leaving no room for jokes.
“I’m not a future Archbishop anymore. And why are you even in the capital? Weren’t you supposed to be farming quests in the frontier towns?”
Finn gave a small shrug, as if it were simpler than that.
“I just travel wherever the road takes me. I happened to pass through, so I thought I’d stop by and see if there was any work for wandering adventurers like us.”
On his other side, the elderly man in the cloak stepped forward slightly and greeted them in a gentle, mellow voice.
“Ms. Ursula… you’re here as well, I see. How have you been lately? Are you doing well?”
“If I weren’t doing well, would I be sitting here with my face out in the open like this?”
Lily answered as if she hadn’t wanted this conversation from the very first syllable. Then she turned and looked him straight in the eye.
“And you, Gustav… you still not dead yet?”
The old man gave a dry chuckle—the kind that comes from someone long accustomed to being stabbed with words.
“Oh my, my, my… Ms. Ursula,”
he said, amused.
“I’m only an aging Archwizard. Not a Rank S Warlock one of only three in the entire world like you.”
“That was when, exactly?”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“Warlock or Sorcerer, I’ve cleared them both already. Honestly, at this point I don’t even know what I’m supposed to call my class anymore.”
Earp, who had been listening for a while, asked bluntly—as was his style.
“Who are these people?”
Mary turned and answered immediately.
“This is Finn… no, not Finn.”
She emphasized the full name, clearly intending everyone to remember it.
“Frederic Alfonso. Sword Master. Rank S same rank as Ace.”
That surname made Earp frown without meaning to.
“Alfonso… Are you related to Rome?”
The moment the question left his mouth, Finn’s expression shifted—just slightly. As if something inside him had snagged for a split second.
But he quickly smoothed it back into place and replied in the same polite tone as before.
“We share the name Alfonso, but we’re not siblings.”
Finn made his wording even clearer.
“We’re relatives… though, put simply, we’re a branch family.”
The answer sounded simple.
But the look in his eyes a moment ago…
wasn’t nearly as simple as his mouth made it seem.