After scoring the help of Suiz Myran, Erin and I returned to the hotel where our party was staying. We explained the situation to everyone, then settled in while we waited for Suiz to contact us. We all had dinner at the hotel restaurant before returning to our respective rooms. We’d rented two—one for the guys and one for the girls. Naturally, that meant Erin, Roslia, and Sofie were together, while I was with Force.
So, in a room way too spacious for just two people, he and I were presently lazing atop our beds. It was still too early to go to sleep. With nothing to do either, Erin came knocking at our door. Apparently Roslia and Sofie had gone to the hotel bath, so she’d gotten bored sitting around by herself.
I gotta say, those two are surprisingly close... They go out a lot together back home too.
Such thoughts passed through my mind as I let Erin inside. She’d just finished bathing herself, and she dove onto my bed with her hair still damp. Of course, since Force was in the room too, it wasn’t awkward or anything.
As I sat on the bed watching Erin roll around, a question popped into my mind. “Come to think of it, how did Neme end up joining the Arrivers?”
Erin responded to me first. “What? Why’re you asking about that all of a sudden?”
Of course, I wasn’t just striking up a conversation. I was thinking about what Suiz had said earlier.
“For now, we should first investigate why they took the dwarf girl.”
He seemed to think the reason Neme was taken could help lead us to her, so I was hoping that Force or Erin might know something about her past. That hadn’t occurred to me until we were all sitting together... If Neme were with us too, it would’ve felt like old times back from when I first joined the Arrivers.
“You two knew her from before I joined, right?” I asked.
“Well, we were all in the same party together, yeah,” Erin replied.
“Hey, that’s right,” said Force. “Erin’s technically your senior member here, Note.”
“What do you mean by ‘technically’?!” she shouted. “I’m definitely his senior member!”
“Coulda fooled me.”
This scene took me back to the old days too. They used to bicker like this all the time—until Hurricane Roslia joined up and the power dynamics totally shifted, that is.
“I’ll admit that Note and I joined the party at around the same time, so I don’t know much about Neme’s past either.”
“I guess that means I know the most about her, huh? I am the senior-most member,” Force remarked.
“Could have fooled me,” Erin snarked.
“Show a little respect, will you? I’m your elder. Note’s always been polite, but you’ve sassed me from day one.”
“I’m not being polite until you earn my respect.”
“You little...” Force sighed tiredly.
Yeah, sassy was just Erin’s default mode... Not that I was about to say anything.
“Neme joined pretty early on, right?” I tried asking instead.
“She did. Jin and I founded the Arrivers, and she was our first real member.”
“I’ve heard that before, but it’s a shock to me every time...”
“Really? Things were rough back at the start.” Force looked up at the ceiling, reminiscing about days long gone by. “When Jin and I decided to start dungeon diving, we had a hell of a time getting people to join up.”
“That surprises me too.”
“Oh yeah? I hadn’t made a name for myself back then, and Jin was fresh out of the underworld. Two unknown adventurers would have a hard enough time forming a normal party, and the standards for dungeon parties are much higher. We had to make a name for ourselves on the surface first.”
“But you had Superior Sword Mastery, didn’t you?”
“You’d think that would help, right? I sure thought so before we founded the party, but we just kept getting invitations from other parties. People were willing to add us to their rosters, but no one wanted to join ours.”
“How come? I would’ve been happy to join a party with you in it, Force.”
“That’s because you don’t think, Note. But it’s still nice to hear,” he chuckled. “You know how having just one or two strong members in a dungeon team isn’t enough to prevent a party wipe?”
“Yeah...”
“That’s why no one wants to join a dungeon diving party built around one ace. It’s easy enough to recruit for a single opening, but there are too many vacancies to fill in a new party. That’s really why they rarely pop up in Puriff.”
That was probably insight he’d only gained as the founder of a party himself. It was true that new dungeon diving parties were a rarity in Puriff. There were plenty who ran the dungeon for loot, but the number of teams seriously aiming to clear it was limited. The most recent attention-worthy addition had to be the Princess’s Legion, and they were a special case—an all-star lineup gathered by an eccentric princess who let money do the talking. In its own way, making a dream team from scratch had to have been a challenge too.
“Jin and I barely knew what to do with ourselves back then... We didn’t have a base or any funds, so we were trashing surface monsters just to make enough to scrape by. We were always talking about how we were never going to make it into the dungeon.”
“It’s hard to imagine Jin like that...” I muttered. The hardship must have brought him and Force closer. It had always seemed like they had a special bond within the Arrivers.
“Well, it was around then that Neme appeared,” Force continued.
“We’re finally getting to the point!” Erin stretched and sat up in bed.
Force glanced at her and continued. “Truth be told, I don’t know much about Neme’s past myself.”
“What, really?”
“She was in another dungeon party in Puriff before she joined the Arrivers. Things apparently didn’t go well with them, so she moved from team to team before settling with us. That’s pretty much all I know.”
“I can’t believe it... Doesn’t Neme talk about herself more than that?”
“Have you forgotten how shy she is?”
“Oh, yeah...”
“We could kind of have a proper conversation with her by the time you joined, Note, but she was really bad at first. Her communication skills were so abysmal that I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if her previous party kicked her out because of it. Jin and I both racked our brains over how to handle her—until finally Jin made some progress by baiting her with food.”
Jin... Where in the world did you get that idea? I considered him a rational guy, but every now and then, he sure did some wild and crazy things.
“That aside, Neme’s goal has always been to conquer the dungeon, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Even when we all went our separate ways, she formed a new party and kept dungeon diving without us.”
After Jin died and the Arrivers disbanded, Neme had gathered newbie adventurers together to create the Ultimate Invincible Partyz. I could still remember them all. Their abilities and achievements were nothing compared to the Arrivers, but they were still one of very few parties in Puriff that dared to take on dungeon conquest.
“Neme’s interested in the dungeon because she wants to meet God or something, right?” I asked.
“If she was telling the truth when she introduced herself, then yes,” Erin replied.
“Why’s she willing to go so far for that, though? I’m not a Cecinaist, so I don’t exactly get it.”
“Who knows? But if all Cecinaists were like that, then dungeon parties would be packed with them, wouldn’t they?”
“Good point. Maybe we could ask Roslia about it. She’s a Cecinaist too.”
“You really think so?” Erin asked skeptically. “Cecinaism teaches that you’re supposed to love one person all your life, so I don’t think a true Cecinaist would be an indulgent partywrecker like her.”
“Another good point...”
Just based on her past actions, it was hard to say Roslia was a devout Cecinaist. That was probably why she didn’t seem to care much about the dungeon’s supposedly divine origins. While I was contemplating that...
“Is Neme really a Cecinaist either?” Force asked, a pensive look on his face.
“Huh?” Erin responded, her brow furrowed. “She’s a priestess who just got kidnapped by a Cecinaist cardinal. Wouldn’t you say she’s a Cecinaist?”
“I mean, I thought so too, but what you said just now got me thinking. Neme’s always talking about being a ‘grown woman’ and how she ‘used to play around with lots of men,’ yeah?”
“You mean those obvious lies? What about them?”
“If Neme’s really a devout Cecinaist, would she lie about such impious things?”
“Huh...”
“You’re right...”
Erin and I were both caught off guard by Force’s point. Perhaps we’d had the wrong idea all along. As we pondered what this meant, a tense air filled the room.
“I guess maybe she’s not,” I said eventually. “If Neme were a true Cecinaist, she wouldn’t be so eager to lie about that kind of stuff. Dating multiple people is a sin in Cecinaism.”
“But hang on. Neme dresses like a Cecinaist priestess. How do you explain that?” Erin countered.
“Well...”
That stumped me. One of the reasons we’d assumed Neme was Cecinaist was because of her garb. If she believed in another religion, surely she wouldn’t wear the robes of a different faith.
“What if Neme is a Cecinaist, she’s just not really devout?”
“I don’t really get it, but that would explain things...”
I’d started asking about Neme’s past for hints, yet the mystery had only deepened. Perhaps this was the limit of what we could uncover by comparing the information we had.
“For now, let’s wait for Suiz’s report.”
“Right. We should also loop Roslia and Sofie in on all this. Maybe they’ll have some additional insight.”
“Sounds good.”
And so our dive into Neme’s past came to an end.