The pyer eborates his expnation when we continue to look at him with our mouths open.

  “We’re recruiting all the pyers who want to join us in a huge raid party. Our objective is to reach the hole that’s continuously spitting enemies and shut it down, ciming the reward for clearing the final challenge of the Mystery Event. But for this, we need all the help we can obtain. So, will you join us in the raid? Or will you go independently? We also need pyers to serve as a diversion for the other dangers.”

  My brain takes a while to process the information.

  A raid…? I’m sure he’s talking about that group of pyers pushing forward towards the hole. How can they coordinate so many pyers? And did they get some secret knowledge? Otherwise, how do they know what to do, or where to go?

  I open the mission screen and see that, indeed, the secret mission has been updated. It now says: ‘Find the ????? and destroy it before it’s too te’.

  Alright! Now we know what to do… Or not. It’s better than before, but still missing vital information. At least, we know we must find something and destroy it.

  It’s true that, if I had to look for something that must be destroyed before it’s too te, the first thing that would come to mind was the hole that devoured half the castle and that’s constantly spewing more enemies. It makes sense they created a raid to reach it.

  “Hey, Koa. What’s a raid?” Balmy, yet again perched on top of my head, asks me in a low voice. Since everyone else seems to know what a raid is, she doesn’t want the others to know she doesn’t.

  It’s payback time.

  “Why? The amazing little fairy doesn’t know? It’d be a shame if someone were to tell everyone else how stupid our little fairy is…”

  “Do that and I’ll scream right next to your ear.”

  I freeze. Ugh… No, thanks. Anything but that. Payback time has ended before it started. What a shame.

  “Ahaha, I was joking. Joking.” I force a ugh. “A raid is when a rger group of pyers than usual gather with the same objective. Can you see that group of pyers?” I point at the rge group. “That must be the raid he’s talking about.”

  “But I don’t want to go there. It’s too dangerous to be surrounded by enemies on all sides. And what if an ugly pyer takes a fancy to me? With so little space to move, I’ll have nowhere to run and he’ll do this and that to me…”

  What the fuck is she talking about? Furthermore, she’s tiny and has wings. She can just fly away if the need arises.

  “Shut up. You’ll do what the majority decides.”

  “Kyaah, nooooooo! I’m against it!” I cover my eardrums too te. Shit… So much for sparing my eardrums from suffering.

  Caban sees my troubled face and decides to step forward. He’s the one who engages with the unknown pyer in the name of the two teams.

  “If we join, what will we have to do?”

  “Nothing special. You just need to help defeat the monsters and push forward.” The pyer, using one of the recently added lizardmen as his Champion, has a slight speech distortion as he talks. Not the cssic elongation of the ‘s’ sound but something more guttural. He must be doing it on purpose, as the game doesn’t distort the voice by itself. It isn’t overly exaggerated, but it irks me. “The hardest part will be to join with the main group. The Camities don’t dare approach us because we can easily deal with them with so many pyers attacking at the same time, but that’s not true on our way there. They might assault us.”

  “But the same is true if we go on our own…” Caban shakes his head. “What’s in for us? And how do you know it’ll be worth it? How do you know we must reach the hole to complete the quest?”

  “Don’t need to ask! We aren’t going!”

  “Shut up, Balmy!” My struggle with the stupid and annoying fairy continues in the background.

  Caban sends me a sympathetic gnce, waiting for the hesitating lizardman to answer.

  “That’s… You’ll get the same rewards as everyone for clearing the secret mission, right?” He scratches his head. “As for the quest, we aren’t sure, but isn’t that hole the most suspicious?”

  Caban lets out a sigh. “So you’re risking everyone’s lives, chasing after something you know nothing about…”

  The lizardman pyer growls. It seems that Caban’s words hit where it hurts.

  “...aren’t you doing the same? Why did you come here otherwise? Wouldn’t it be safer to hunt monsters to obtain points instead of chasing after an enigmatic quest? If you wanted safe rewards, you shouldn’t have wasted your time coming here.”

  The two hold each other’s gaze for a while. “You’re right. Let us talk about this.”

  “Sure, but don’t take too long or we’re leaving without you.”

  After Caban’s answer, the lizardman leaves us alone and goes find another party to ask the same question.

  Caban turns around and signals for us to come closer. “What do you want to do? I think it’ll be safer to go with them.”

  It’s a pretty good question. One to which I have but a single answer.

  “No! We’re going back!”

  …and no, that’s not my answer.

  “We chose the path that allows us to protect our fnks and back. The buildings secure the sides and we just need to block a few streets. It makes our advance slower, with all the monsters coming from the same side, but also safer.”

  The lizardman pyer, who by the way is called Ferox, guides us through the byrinthic city. With the buildings and roads creating three-dimensional structures, I’m sure we would have lost our way if it weren’t for him.

  From above the cliff, before departing, we had a clear view of the whole city. The higher point of view made us think we could easily reach our destination. But after going down… let’s say it isn’t the same finding the byrinth’s path from above compared to when you’re inside it.

  In contrast, Ferox has memorized part of the path, and makes up the rest by using clues left by himself or the other ‘guides’.

  “We’re almost there. When we turn right at the end of the road, we’ll be on the same street. All that will remain is going straight. The path from here on should be safer, and when we reunite with the main team, you won’t have to worry about safety anymore.” Ferox is quite the chatterbox. It’s nice he expins what’s important. It isn’t so nice, though, that he keeps talking while distorting his voice like that.

  It’s… uncomfortable.

  He says we’ll be safe after meeting the main group, but I’m not so sure. After all, we’ll have to deal with an endless wave of monsters... I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t call having to deal with an endless amount of enemies ‘safe’.

  The four teams, including mine and Caban’s, quietly follow after Ferox. When we left the cliff, we were divided into several groups, one for each guide, and we took different paths. To avoid catching the attention of pyer killers who used the chaos to hunt down other parties, and especially, the attention of the surrounding Camities.

  At the start, we had five teams instead of four. As for the missing one… they (un)willingly volunteered to be a sacrifice, so that the rest of us could escape a Camity that found us.

  Would it have been safer to fight the Camity together? Sure, we could probably defeat it without any casualties.

  The problem is that it would have taken quite a lot of time, and we might have lost track of the main group. Furthermore, the main group needs constant reinforcements to keep pushing forward, they need fresh warriors with all their EP and MP. If none of the other groups makes it, if we were te it could spell doom for the entire raid.

  A noble sacrifice indeed. We’ll never forget them… Uh, who was I talking about? Haha, just kidding.

  “As you all know, it’s hard to leave tracks inside a dungeon because this is a game. It isn’t unusual to find indestructible walls and terrain, so you can’t rely on marking them with a scratch or simir things. Some pyers have designed a way to communicate with the corpses of the defeated enemies or allies, but as you all know, it doesn’t apply in this Mystery Event in particur.” Ferox the chatterbox continues his expnations. “I’m sure you’re wondering how are we coordinating the reinforcements, then, right?”

  “You’re using a skill.” Warpoke surprises everyone by answering Ferox’s question. “Since long ago, there have been small arrows of different colors on the walls. You’ve been using those to find the path.”

  Since when was Warpoke so perceptive? I completely missed the marks he’s talking about.

  Ferox crosses his arms and raises one eyebrow. “Oho? Can you tell me more?”

  Well, lizardmen don’t have eyebrows, so he raises the meaty part on top of one of his eyes instead, but it does look simir.

  Warpoke seems intimidated by the sudden attention he gets from all the pyers. But when he notices I’m staring at him too, he mutters something to himself and continues his expnation.

  “From what I’ve seen so far, we’re following the blue arrows. The green arrows must show the shortest path back to the cliff, for when you go look for more reinforcements. I’m sure the red ones mark the path the raid party took. There are other colors too, which might be reted to the other guides.”

  Ferox nods enthusiastically. Then he comes closer to Warpoke and he gets slightly intimidated, but he quickly rexes when Ferox puts his hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re good! Hahaha, what a nice surprise!”

  Warpoke fidgets nervously. He doesn’t know how to react.

  “Hey, wouldn’t you be interested in joining us as a guide? I’m sure that with a few tips, you’d be as good as, if not better, than me. When we rejoin the main group, I’ll propose you for the role. How about it?”

  “Uh, I…” He timidly looks at the members of his team. He then sends a gnce my way before shaking his head. “N-no, I’ll stay with my teammates.”

  “Oh, what a shame…” Ferox shakes his head too. “Though it’s understandable if you want to finish the event with the teammates you’ve known for a while…” He suddenly stops and makes a serious face. “Say… would you like to join our guild after this ends? We’re always looking for pyers like you.”

  “I-I…”

  “Don’t worry. There’s no need to answer right now. Just remember my name: Ferox. Once this event ends, you can send me a message anytime.” Ferox cps his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Alright! Let’s continue. We can’t waste time.”

  Some of the pyers send envious looks at Warpoke, who has frozen, before following after Ferox. We follow after our guide too, dragging the dumbfounded Warpoke with us.

  Still, a skill to leave marks on the walls, huh…? I haven’t heard about anything like that…

  But it makes sense I haven’t because a skill like that is completely useless. Only in a situation where you expect to py with a lot of other pyers, where there’s a high chance you’ll have to coordinate with them, and where you need an easy-to-understand way to do so would you ever pick such a skill.

  Which, now that I think about it… Doesn’t it make complete sense to pick a skill like that for this Mystery Event?

  Before starting, we knew we would be assigned to random teams, and that there would be thousands of pyers pying together. The chances of teaming up with them weren’t negligible.

  Furthermore, there has always been something hidden in every Mystery Event, that’s why they’re called like this.

  As expected, people from a guild think differently from normal pyers. They’re used to having to coordinate rge groups of pyers. It isn’t a surprise that Ferox belongs to one, and that he and his guildmates are the ones coordinating this raid.

  The default party size in DMA was four pyers; and tournaments, special events, and everything else was designed with this number in mind.

  But not dungeons. After a certain level, the pyers were allowed to change the maximum number of invaders and turn their dungeon into a ‘raid dungeon’: dungeons designed for groups rger than four. As with other games, the pyers created guilds to defeat them.