Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka - Volume 8 Chapter 0 PROLOGUE ATTACK OF THE WAR GOD

—The Kingdom of Rakia’s army is advancing.
That news spread like wildfire through neighboring nations.
Warriors clad in thick metal plates, as well as thousands of armored horses, traveled beneath partly
cloudy skies, ranks of spearheads glinting. Many merchants and travelers caught a glimpse of them in long
columns as they passed beyond the outer limits of their territory.
The Kingdom of Rakia.
A monarchy that was situated on the western side of the main continent. It was said that at least
600,000 people currently lived under its rule. A large castle loomed at the center of its largest settlement,
complete with its own castle town surrounding it. Lush and green, Rakia possessed a great deal of fertile
land but very little culture, its people living under constant martial law.
Everything went according to their king’s wishes, which were one and the same as their only god’s
divine will.
Ares, the God of War. He sat at the very top of Rakia and controlled every part of the country.
Ultimately, the Kingdom of Rakia was actually much like the many other familias but on a completely
different scale of size and complexity, operating as its own country.
Every Rakian soldier had been blessed with Ares’s Falna. The subjects of Rakia who were tasked
with running the industries of the kingdom were the equivalent of noncombatant members of other
familias. Being the one and only deity, Ares had chosen its king—the leader of the familia—throughout the
country’s history.
A familia that started with Ares and only a handful of followers had overcome many struggles to
become its own country and now stood as a powerful nation with a rich history.
Due to their god’s love for war, the Kingdom of Rakia had been the aggressor in many wars over the
centuries. But the idea that this conflict was caused by Ares’s warmongering was solely the opinion of the
other nations watching these events from the outside.
The advancing troops numbered around 30,000.
This army was once called invincible when armed with a certain type of magic sword, and now their
target lay even farther to the west, on the periphery of the continent. A city that held the world’s only
Dungeon and had therefore come to be known as the “Center of the World”: Orario.
High walls and a white tower that looked tall enough to pierce the heavens appeared on the horizon.
The heavy footsteps of fully armored warriors drew ever closer. The plate armor that encompassed their
bodies was decorated with an extravagant, larger-than-life emblem as crimson-red flags rippled in the air.
It wasn’t long before the army advancing straight west entered the lands surrounding the city.
Rakia’s army arrived unannounced on their doorstep, but inside the city itself—.
“You won’t believe your eyes! An entire dodobass for only two thousand valis! That’s right, two
thousand valis!”

“From weapon repairs to custom orders, we do it all!”
“Would someone please join my familiaaaaaaaaaa?!”
“Excuse me, young elf maiden. I see you’re an adventurer. Please accept this potion as a gift from me.
It would be tragic for your beautiful face to be burdened with a scar.”
“Th-thank you…!”
“Miach’s making girls fall for him without realizing it again…!”
“““It’s Miach, what do you expect?”””
—Nothing was different.
No citizen of Orario showed even the slightest concern. The sky over the city was bright and clear, as
opposed to the dark clouds approaching from the east.
Amid their normally busy days, there was one thought that they all shared during the time before
Rakia’s arrival:
Ahh, it’s happening again…
While the citizens were going about their daily lives inside the city walls, yells echoing from outside
the wall signaled that the battle had begun.
The cries of horses were thunderous.
But that sound was drowned out almost immediately by thousands of hooves slamming into the dirt as
they charged across the plains.
The open grassy field expanded thirty kirlos east of Orario. Thousands of red flags whipped about in
the air as the soldiers carrying them raced forward.
It’s said that knights are the roses of the battlefield. Armed with lances and shining armor, mounted on
horses as heavily armored as their riders, the knights charged forward, trampling everything in their path.
The tips of their weapons thrust forward, their formation could carve a path through any battlefield.
A wall of silver lances raced across the plain, the weapons glistening in the sunlight.
It was a sight that would make any foot soldier on the same battlefield weak in the knees. But—this
particular unit of cavalry was shaking in terror.
The color drained from their faces beneath their helmets.
Every set of eyes was wide open and locked on the single dwarf who stood in their path. Every
muscle in his stout figure bulged beneath layers of thick armor. A cape hung from his shoulders.
His helmet sat low over his eyes. An incredibly large battle-ax rested on his shoulder, just waiting for
action.
The dwarf swung the ax into position the moment echoes of the horses’ hooves reached his ears. Then,
as soon as the cavalrymen came within ten meders of his position, he charged out to meet them head-on.
Holding the ax out to his right, the dwarf tensed every muscle in his body to bring it forward.
“Ngahhh!”
A moment later, the “invincible cavalry” was launched skyward.
“GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Airborne knights and horses dotted the horizon. The unbelievable spectacle could be seen from all
around the open plain.
Tears fell from the knights’ eyes as their helmets and pieces of their armor fell away from their bodies
in midair. What’s worse, the expressions on their now-exposed faces revealed they knew full well this
was going to happen. Screams of agony filled the air as they fell to the ground, crashing down one by one

next to their horses and scraps of broken metal.
The next wave of knights halted their charge in the face of the thrashing, but the group farther back
didn’t notice in time and plowed straight into them. Both the second and third ranks of knights fell off from
their mounts into stunned disarray.
The dwarf—Loki Familia’s Gareth Landrock—watched the opposing soldiers fall over one another
and sighed to himself.
“Dammit, Finn…pushin’ this job on me.”
Two more companies of knights arrived on the battlefield but hadn’t learned from their allies’ mistake.
Gareth didn’t even bother to sigh again as he lifted his battle-ax back onto his shoulder. The new arrivals
charged in, only to meet the same fate. Once again, the bodies of horses and people alike decorated the
skyline, their tears sparkling in their wake.
Orario’s top-tier adventurer Gareth Landrock.
Having reached Level 6, his prowess and skill with an ax were known the world over.
Facing him in battle were companies of mostly Level 1 knights from the Kingdom of Rakia. Their
captains might have been Level 2 but no higher.
In terms of experience in strength, tactics, techniques, and the difference in Level, Gareth was too
powerful for them to overcome.
The Knights of Rakia now knew exactly how reckless their attack had been.
—The days when overwhelming numbers could win in war, especially in battles between people,
were coming to an end.
In the current Divine Era, “quality over quantity” reigned supreme.
The presence of one incredibly strong individual—a warrior who carried the Blessing of a deity—had
the ability to turn the tide of any battle. It had been said that a small group of warriors with a leveled-up
Status could take on hundreds, even thousands of enemy troops and come out victorious.
Should a Blessed person’s Status reach Level 6 in today’s world, they would be on par with, or even
exceed, the ferocious monsters that had rampaged through the world during the Ancient Times.
In other words, this dwarf—at least in the eyes of Rakia’s Knights—was no different from a dragon in
the days of old.
It was also true that an army that lacked a hero could never hope to slay a dragon.
The battle that unfolded was not much different from what happened to those armies in stories of
heroes or fairy tales: The lone dwarf mowed down the hapless knights with little resistance. There was
no way for the mounted soldiers to continue the battle.
“Tione, sound the gong. The retreating battalion is a feint. Circle around so that it’s trapped between
friendly forces.”
“You got it!”
“Also, that hill over there…There’s a squad of magic users firing on top of it. Tiona, tell Ganesha
Familia to surround and take them out without being seen.”
“Sure, sure…Delivering messages is such a drag.”
Screams of pain reached all corners of the battlefield, even to the clearing a good distance away from
the nightmarish scene unfolding at the hands of Gareth Landrock.
The prum Finn Deimne, field general of Loki Familia, had a spear in his grasp as he kept a keen eye
on several unfolding battles from well behind the front lines. He was quick to issue orders.
Orario had no choice but to meet Rakia’s invading army of 30,000 on the battlefield. The Guild had
issued a mission—a sweeping order for specific familias residing in the city to stop the Rakian advance
before it reached the city wall.

Their enemy had chosen to overwhelm them with numbers from the start. Therefore, this makeshift
alliance of Orario’s forces had chosen Finn as its commander. As someone who was in charge of the
familia that led the way in clearing the Dungeon, someone who possessed the insight and ingenuity to deal
with unexpected Irregular monsters and who was famous for his leadership skills, Finn was ideal for the
position on this battlefield. Even now, he was analyzing enemy movements and guiding the flow of battle.
“General, some familias aren’t listening to us…especially Freya Familia.”
“Our forces are just a loosely bound coalition of many smaller groups, but we don’t have to be the
most efficient of shepherds. Just give them a direction and let them be. I highly doubt Freya Familia is
worth worrying about.”
“Finn, there are reports that more enemy reinforcements are arriving from the east. What are your
orders?”
“Hmm…I’m a bit more concerned about the forest to the north. Riveria, I hate to ask you, but would
you take Aiz and that group up in that direction? It’s probably the main army.”
The prum issued orders to his slightly dejected subordinate and a high elf magic user. A quick lick of
his right thumb let Finn predict what was about to happen next and provided clues to the enemy’s strategy.
Many different familias, not just Loki Familia, were busy engaging Rakia’s forces on several different
fronts around the battlefield. Orario’s adventurers were making quick work of their opponents. It was as if
the mythical Hydra were standing in the clearing, with each of its many heads working independently as
Orario’s Alliance tore through Rakia’s advancing ranks.
“How very boring…”
“Yeah, an’ there’s so much waitin’ for me to do back home…”
Farther back from Finn’s command station, the gods and goddesses of the summoned familias watched
from the top of a hill as the battle unfolded.
A tent and chair had been prepared for each of them. Sitting beneath the most elaborate canvas and
drinking wine in her equally fancy chair was Freya. Meanwhile, Loki sat cross-legged in her own chair
under the next tent over. Both of them watched the incredibly one-sided battle while complaining that they
had nothing to do.
“It was over the moment they mounted their horses, don’t you agree?”
“The kiddos with higher Statuses are still faster anyway. Don’t know if they’re tryin’ to look cool or
somethin’, but it’s like tellin’ everyone their Statuses have a lot of growin’ left to do.”
There wasn’t even a hint of tension among the deities sitting under the tents. Their thoughts on this
battle were similar to their followers’.
The only other beings around the gods and goddesses were a few members serving as a private guard.
The flags of each familia waved in the breeze next to the tents of their god. Loki Familia’s and Freya
Familia’s flags—which also had a strong presence on the battlefield and among the adventurers—
particularly stood out. The sight of Loki’s Trickster and Freya’s Warrior Maiden emblems sent waves of
fear through Rakia’s soldiers.
As a result, the soldiers’ coordinated movements became sluggish as their will to fight vanished. Even
their charges lacked enthusiasm. The very presence of those symbols dealt a serious blow to the invading
army’s morale.
“Puttin’ it another way, us not bein’ here would put a li’l more pep in their step…Haa! Havin’ the title
of ‘best’ is such a pain in the ass.”
“It’s too late to complain now.”
Loki leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed behind her head. Freya watched her out of the
corner of her eye, chuckling to herself.

“Oh, and by the way…Did you hear there hasn’t been one casualty among Rakia’s forces? How is that
possible?”
“Ain’t got much choice, not with all the merchants tellin’ ’em not to kill their payday.”
Loki sounded vaguely annoyed while answering Freya’s question.
Looking out across the plain and hearing the pandemonium of shrieks and groans, it was obvious that
Orario’s adventurers had been striking with the blunt edges of their weapons.
“That and I don’t want the kiddos in my familia dirtyin’ their hands with this pretend ‘war.’”
“That’s true as well.”
Loki fought back a yawn as the two goddesses made light of the farce unfolding before them.
“Ares, ya idiot, don’t attack an opponent ya know you can’t beat. You’re gonna lose a lot more than ya
bargained for,” mumbled the vermilion-haired goddess as her line of sight moved from battle to battle.
“Hey there, fine soldier! If you buy right now, a potion brewed right here in Orario can be yours for
just a thousand valis!”
Injured soldiers were carried into Rakia’s forward camp one after another, and business was
booming.
Countless tents had been raised in straight rows. The cries of the injured were relentless as they lay on
their backs in shade the tents provided. At the same time, noncombatant demi-humans and deities were
strutting around the camp.
Orario’s mercantile familias saw an amazing business opportunity and swooped in to sell their wares.
“Doesn’t that hurt? Isn’t the pain unbearable? Don’t you want to heal that wound right away?”
“Y-yes, I do…”
“Excellent! Let’s make a deal!”
A few of Orario’s deities stood over the badly wounded soldiers, smiling and dangling potions for
sale just out of the soldiers’ reach.
Indeed, these deities were selling not only to their own forces but to enemy troops as well. Their
entrepreneurial spirits knew no bounds. They’d found a market and were going to take advantage of it.
“No one can fight with a broken weapon! Come and buy a new one!”
“I’ll accept a trade!”
“Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! How do you like that, Miach? My goods are selling like there’s no tomorrow!
Looks like I win this one, too, wouldn’t you say, Amid?”
“No, Lord Dian Cecht. Lord Miach and his familia are not here.”
“What was that?! Chickened out, eh, Mi-aaaaaaaaaaach?”
Weapons, armor, and even magic swords changed hands.
It was all a simple case of supply and demand, and the fact that Orario hadn’t taken the slightest bit of
damage meant that demand was overwhelming. Merchants were champing at the bit. Orario’s adventurers
had completely destroyed Rakia’s supply lines and means of communication; these soldiers had no choice
but to buy. The commanding officers could not go against the will of their god Ares, and so they cried
rivers of tears watching a fortune disappear.
“Tsk, no real men anywhere…All the good ones must be commanding officers.”
“Aisha! There’re some really hunky knights a few rows over! It’s time to feast!”
“W-wait right there, Samira! Right behind you!”
A few of the prostitutes from the Pleasure District had also come to the camp. Not belonging to any
familia, the “free” beauties also came to conduct business. They offered services to some of the warriors,
but as soon as the fearsome Amazons found a knight who met their standards, they “devoured” him on the

spot. Every so often the wails of pleasure would break through the continuous moans of pain and despair.
With nothing to keep them in check, what was once Rakia’s camp for the assault on Orario had become
little more than a playground for the economic ambitions of the city’s citizens and deities.
“A-a report from the front! Battalions one through five have been wiped out, and our front lines are
retreating in an all-out rout across the board. The enemy seems to have predicted all our strategic ploys,
as each one ended in failure…”
“C-curse theeeeeem…!!”
—A god sitting under a tent at the very rear of Rakia’s forces clenched his fist in anger.
With golden hair as thick as a lion’s mane, the deity was clad in stark red armor. His masculine and
robust features would rival those of a male God of Beauty, the epitome of manliness.
He was none other than the instigator of this war, the true leader of the Kingdom of Rakia—and the
familia’s god: Ares.
He ground his teeth together as he listened to the messenger’s report, his immaculate face warping into
a frown.
“The forward camp has been overrun by Orario’s greedy scum! Swindled by Amazonian prostitutes,
our soldiers’ morals have been thrown to the wayside…Morale is at an all-time low!!”
“Orario ! How cowardly, to use such underhanded tactics!!”
Ares’s face flushed so red that it matched his armor. If Loki were there, she would be quick to hit him
with a one-liner such as, “Ya think we’d do somethin’ like that, blockhead?” Just the thought of it filled
Ares with even more rage.
The god himself would call it his innate urge to fight, but the people around him would refer to it as
recklessness.
Other deities described him as having 100 percent muscle between the ears. The young man currently
at his side took one look at his god’s infuriated state and let out a big sigh. His shoulders dropped as he
shook his head from side to side, obviously tired of seeing it.
This was the god of the military, otherwise known as the God of War: Ares.
He might have been a god of battle, but he did not control victory.
An air of defeat had already filled the tent of commanding officers. All of them fell silent. Only Ares’s
cries of rage echoed into the distance.
“Are you sure there’s no scheme you want to put into motion?”
As a particular god was roaring in frustration…
A white cape danced in the breeze on top of Orario’s city wall far from the battlefield, as the beautiful
young woman Asfi, leader of Hermes Familia, asked her god a question.
Her god was leaning against the chest-high guard wall and watching a pillar of smoke, most likely the
result of Magic, rise in the distance. He didn’t move as he answered.
“Even if I did find a way to introduce Bell to Ares…”
The breeze ruffled Hermes’s orange hair as his delicate smile thinned. He had to hold down his
traveler’s hat to keep it from being blown off his head.
“That’s not to say doing so wouldn’t make for a great show…but I’m a bit scared of how Lady Freya
would react, for obvious reasons.”
“…Has there been any communication from her or her familia since then?”
“Why, no. But that’s the scariest thing. Her silence is her way of warning me that there won’t be a next
time.”
The frenzy after the incident that took place in the Pleasure Quarter was starting to die down.

However, that didn’t mean the dandy god could do anything he wanted for just a little entertainment when
it came to Freya Familia. Hermes closed his mouth and turned to his follower.
“The annihilation of a familia is no laughing matter,” said Asfi with a stern glare.
“I know,” responded Hermes with a shrug.
“I had a few words with the Guild and made sure that there’s no way the Mission will come knocking
at Hestia’s door. Those children have been wrapped up in one incident after another recently; it’s time
they had a chance to relax and live a little.”
Leaning with his back against the guard wall, Hermes looked up into the clear blue sky.
“K-Kenki?!”
“It’s the Sword Princess!!”
“RUN AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!”
It was on the northern edge of the plain where the battle was taking place. A female knight had
appeared in the line of sight of a small force staging an ambush at the perimeter of the forest. In that
moment, every single one of the ambushers lost their will to fight.
Their commander yelled at the top of his lungs, trying to rally his troops, but it was in vain. The foot
soldiers threw down their weapons and ran back into the forest as fast as their legs could carry them.
“That was to be expected.”
“Dammit, Aiz, that’s why we told you to stay in the back of the formation. Now we gotta go round
them up. Gahh…”
“…”
Aiz stood ready for a fight, sword in hand. But her shoulders sank and her mouth shut tight as soon as
she heard the words of Riveria and the werewolf Bete.
With golden eyes and blond hair, Aiz stood out like a sore thumb and was easily identifiable even in a
large battle. Rakia’s soldiers feared the girl who had once slain a floor boss in the Dungeon by herself.
Aiz watched them disappear into the forest with an aloof expression on her face but was actually feeling a
little depressed.
“Aiz, do not stand idle. Pursue. We cannot allow any harm to come to the surrounding villages.”
“…Yes.”
“Let’s get this over with and head back to Orario. Being out here is a waste of time.”
Riveria and Bete led the other members of Loki Familia and charged into the forest. Aiz joined them
in chasing the panicked figures darting through the trees.
Directly to the southwest, a white tower tall enough to pierce the heavens stood as it normally did on
any other day.
This attack by Rakian forces would become known as “The Sixth Orario Invasion.”
Life went on as normal for the citizens of the Labyrinth City in spite of this war being drawn out longer
than usual. Several small, unnoticed stories unfolded between deities and their followers.