Rei tilted his head at the scene spread out before him.
Nearly a hundred pregnant prostitutes.
But the abnormality lay in the fact that not a single one of them was awake.
"Hmm? ...Wait a moment. Aren't their bellies too small for how far along they are?"
The one who said that was Marina.
Dark Elves were a race that had extreme difficulty conceiving children, but Marina had been away from her homeland for a very long time. Because of that, she had seen pregnant women before, more than once or twice. Though admittedly, most of them had been married women in happy marriages.
Compared to Marina, Elena was busy with her own training, Vihera sought battles against strong opponents, and Byune had been too preoccupied with simply surviving on her own—none of them had ever really paid attention to pregnant women. Well, to be precise, they actually had seen pregnant women before, but it would be more accurate to say they had simply been too busy with their own affairs to remember.
That was exactly why they didn't understand what Marina was getting at.
"Eh? What's strange about it? Their bellies get bigger when they're pregnant, right?"
"That's right. But looking at them like this, none of these prostitutes look any different from normal pregnant women. Have you forgotten? They're supposed to be carrying Giants, aren't they?"
'!?'
Vihera, who had asked the question, and everyone else—including Rei—were caught off guard by Marina's words.
That's right. These women were supposed to give birth to beings called Giants—written with characters that literally meant "giant person."
If so, then naturally the fetuses inside their wombs should have been larger than normal. Yet the bellies of the numerous pregnant women before them did not look as though Giants were inside them at all.
"What does this mean? Do you think the fact that all the pregnant women are sleeping unconscious is somehow related to the size of the fetuses?"
"Even if you ask me that, I'm at a loss. But... if this isn't an abnormal situation but rather the norm, then couldn't you imagine the reason?"
Prompted by Marina's words, everyone present—including Rei—recalled a single entity.
The entity that served as the cause for birthing these Giants. That was...
The Black Crystal.
They recalled the name of that Magic Item. Though they called it a Magic Item, Rei didn't even know whether the Black Crystal was truly one or not. After all, just as its name suggested, there was a possibility it was simply a crystal.
...Even so, it was certain that it possessed some kind of special ability.
"What should we do?"
"Even if you ask me that, there's nothing we can do. They're unconscious, so we can't exactly take them all with us."
With nearly a hundred pregnant women, it wasn't hard to imagine how much effort it would take just to move that many people outside of Mejougo. What's more, they hadn't come here to save the prostitutes; they had come to retaliate against Jaya.
Of course, if they could save the prostitutes who were Jaya's victims, that would be fine too. But forgetting their top priority was something they absolutely should not do.
"Besides, what's inside these women's bellies are Giants, are they not? If we forcibly dragged them out of here, it's highly likely they would die before even being able to give birth."
She probably didn't have any definite proof to say so, but even so, from Rei's perspective, Elena's words didn't seem like a lie.
"Understood. Then... you're saying we should just leave them here as they are?"
"That would be best. Besides, maybe... and this is a real 'maybe,' but if the Black Crystal's influence is removed, they might not have to give birth to Giants."
"...Understood."
Though reluctant, Rei nodded at Marina's words and left the room.
When he checked the layout of the second basement floor again, he saw that several other massive doors similar to the one in the room they had just left were lined up. And considering what they had heard from the male researcher on the first basement floor, it was easy for Rei to imagine that this entire second basement floor was used to house pregnant prostitutes.
So that means there are as many pregnant prostitutes carrying Giants as there are doors. ...Just how many women have they abducted from the surrounding countries?
Muttering inwardly with irritation toward Jaya.
"Grru."
"Eh?"
Suddenly feeling as though he had heard his partner's—Set's—cry right beside his ear, Rei hastily looked around. But Set was nowhere to be seen.
Naturally. Set was supposed to be fighting Jaya's forces that were trying to enter the underground facility right now.
Rei didn't understand why he would hear Set's cry here. But somehow, he felt that Set was telling him to calm down.
"What's wrong, all of a sudden?"
"No, it's nothing."
Shaking his head at Marina, Rei understood that he was more irritated than even he had realized. Letting out a small sigh, he spoke again.
"Well then, let's go. If we can do something about the Black Crystal, there's a chance they might be saved."
Everyone nodded at Rei's words, and they proceeded down the corridor.
Strangely, there were no traps worth mentioning on this floor. Thanks to that, they discovered the stairs leading to the third basement floor without Byune needing to do anything in particular.
"What do you think? There were that many traps on the first basement floor, but none here..."
"If you think about it normally, it's possible that since all the traps on the first basement floor failed to activate, and the staircase trap meant to deal with us all at once was also easily bypassed, they decided that setting more traps would be meaningless."
"I understand what Elena is saying, but it's not like Jaya suffers any damage even if their traps are broken, right? Well, I suppose there's the labor of setting them and the cost of materials."
Even so, Marina didn't actually believe that Jaya had refrained from setting traps simply out of reluctance to spend the effort or money. In reality, her guess was that perhaps they hadn't anticipated anyone getting this far.
It was precisely because they were people of such exceptional skill that they were here without any casualties, but in a small country like Reblurina, there would normally not be anyone of that caliber. That was why Jaya must have believed they were safe behind this multi-layered defensive formation—numerous defensive buildings placed around the underground facility, the entrance guarded by elites, the gate defended by the best of those elites, and the many traps on the first basement floor.
...They never could have imagined that someone would fly directly through the sky to the front of the underground facility.
And the fact that those who attacked were individuals like Rei's party, yet possessed extremely formidable combat power, must have been a major miscalculation for Jaya as well.
No, Jaya definitely must have received the information that we entered Rossi. If so, I'd think they should have taken at least some countermeasures... Was it simply that they didn't have time, or are those countermeasures yet to show themselves? Or is it that Giants are unexpectedly their trump card?
For Jaya, since Giants were a symbol of overwhelming combat power, it would normally be unthinkable for them not to send Giants against Rei's party.
Rei had never fought Giants before either, so he had no real sense of exactly how powerful they were. He had received some information from the Resistance, who had been attacked, but he didn't even know how accurate that information was in the first place.
A surprise attack launched suddenly at a place where the Resistance's main forces had gathered. Given that, it must have been a complete surprise for the Resistance. It would be one thing if they had waited for the enemy and lost in a head-on battle, but the information about the Giants' strength obtained under such circumstances was, for Rei, difficult to use as a benchmark for their combat power.
...Actually, it was precisely because they were such an unknown quantity that Rei was somewhat wary. If they were something he had fought before, he wouldn't have been as concerned.
"Anyway, let's go down. The Giants are being born on the third basement floor, right? Then we might get a chance to fight them too."
The one who said this with a beaming smile was, naturally, Vihera, who was looking forward to battling the Giants.
Rei honestly questioned whether that was the right attitude to have, but since they needed to descend deeper regardless, no one said anything as they went down the stairs.
Just like with the previous staircase, since the possibility of traps couldn't be ruled out, they proceeded while staying alert. But in the end, without encountering any traps, they arrived at the third basement floor after descending stairs that were even longer than the ones leading to the second.
Somehow, this feels like challenging a Dungeon. Well, I suppose Dungeons with doors like this aren't that rare.
The Dungeon where the Altar of Inheritance was located—the one Rei had headed to when he first met Elena. That place had floors with doors like these too.
"It kind of reminds me of when I first met you, Rei."
As if reading Rei's mind, Elena murmured.
"Ah, it was quite the rumor in Gilm too."
Since Marina had been the Guild Master at the time, she naturally knew about when Rei and Elena first met. Including, of course, the fact that Ara had suddenly attacked Rei.
"Eh? Is that so? Was there something that became a rumor?"
"...Setting that aside, let's figure out what to do about this third basement floor for now."
Even for Elena, the events of that time were apparently complicated. Ara's rampage was one thing, but someone she had considered a comrade had turned out to be a traitor, and had even gone so far as to kill a comrade. Strictly speaking, it was Rei who had killed them, but since that person had created the situation in the first place, that was how Elena perceived it.
Perhaps sensing something from Elena's expression, the others didn't press the topic any further and turned their attention back to the third basement floor.
There were several massive doors similar to those on the second basement floor, but the difference was that this floor was overwhelmingly louder.
What they could hear were groans of someone seemingly enduring pain, and what sounded like babies crying. The reason they didn't confidently call them babies was because the voices they heard were extremely loud. They had the volume of grown men screaming, and even for Rei, they simply didn't sound like infants' cries.
"What do you think?"
The others silently nodded in response to Rei's words, which implicitly asked whether the voices were loud because they were Giants. It was a response that seemed to confirm that his unspoken implication was correct.
The smell of blood is understandable given that births are happening, but... somehow, I'm a little afraid to open it.
Even as he thought that, seeing inside the room was absolutely necessary, so there was no option to leave the door closed.
Receiving the gazes of the others including Elena, Rei nodded and reached for the door.
With the sound of heavy metal creaking, the door slowly opened... and eventually, a strong stench of blood drifted in through the gap. It wasn't just from one or two people. It was the thick stench of blood from many more.
Rei furrowed his brow slightly at that, but once enough space had opened for them to enter, what came into their field of vision was an utterly unexpected sight.
No, perhaps they should have expected it the moment they smelled the stench of blood.
"Wha..."
What spread across the room was the sight of Giant children who had torn through—no, eaten their way out of—the pregnant women's bellies.
Despite having just been born, they were already about the same size as Rei.
Given that size, it was naturally impossible for them to be born normally. If so, it wasn't strange for them to tear through the pregnant women's bellies to come out.
However, the sight of them eating through the bodies of the mothers who had birthed them from the inside could only be described as abnormal.
Despite having just been born, instead of drinking breast milk, they were eating internal organs, flesh, skin, and bones—a sight that was enough to make even Rei, who had killed many people since coming to this world, stop in his tracks.
"Th-this is..."
Elena, who had been right behind Rei, naturally witnessed the same scene, and involuntarily came to a halt as well. Like Rei... no, she actually surpassed him in terms of pure experience running through battlefields, but even for Elena, the scene before her eyes was something she could not possibly believe.
"Such... such an act cannot be allowed!"
Elena's scream rang out, evoking the illusion of golden flames blazing behind her, and resounded throughout the surroundings.