"What? You don't believe me now, Paul?" Claude retorted, holding the letter just out of reach. "Afraid your son is calling you out on your behavior?"

"Oops, my son just called me Paul! He's getting cheekier by the day!" Paul complained, though the pride in his voice was unmistakable.

Claude couldn't resist the opening. "Yes! He's an exact copy of you! Isn't that right?" he said, his voice dripping with mock innocence as he glanced toward the women in the room.

The ladies chuckled at his words, both shooting Paul looks of amused pity. The swordsman couldn't deny the truth in Claude's jab—his reputation precluded any defense. One need only look at Lilia and the circumstances of Aisha's birth to understand Paul's past indiscretions.

"Sigh... It pains me when you say that Rudeus's bad habits are my inheritance," Paul admitted, his shoulders slumping slightly. "I hope my daughters won't be like me."

Claude considered his next words carefully. From his fragmented memories of the anime, he knew far more about Rudeus's future than he should. The temptation to share these glimpses was always strong, particularly when it might lighten the mood.

"Well, I can see a future where Rudeus actually has three wives," Claude said casually, pretending to examine his fingernails. "So he's better than you in a way..."

The statement had its intended effect—Zenith's head snapped up from her embroidery, her eyes narrowing in a mixture of shock and disapproval. As a devout follower of the Millis Religion, which strictly enforced monogamy, the very suggestion was scandalous.

"Claude!" she admonished, though there was uncertainty in her voice. The boy's occasional predictions had an unsettling tendency to come true.

Claude quickly changed the subject, not wanting to cause genuine distress. "Tomorrow is the 22nd day of the 11th month, right? I hope your gift will safely arrive there..." he said, his tone softening.

The date hung in the air between them, seemingly innocent to the Greyrat family but laden with significance for Claude. Rudeus's birthday. The day before everything would change.

"Yes... Sylphy also gave him one," Zenith replied, her previous consternation forgotten. "I must thank you for the drawing you gave us... Aisha and Norn took a liking to it..."

Claude smiled, remembering the detailed sketch he'd made during his visit to Roa with Mike. It depicted the entire Greyrat family, including the absent Rudeus, gathered together in their home. A moment frozen in time—a moment that would soon exist only in memory.

"He's weaker than I expected," Claude said, deliberately shifting to a boastful tone to mask the sudden tightness in his chest. "Though I'm somewhat disappointed, my sparring with Ghislaine has made me stronger than I anticipated."

It wasn't entirely a lie. His training had progressed remarkably well, fueled by the desperate knowledge of what was coming. But the comment was calculated to provoke Paul, to maintain the facade of normalcy when everything within him screamed of impending disaster.

"Haha, you freak are outrageous..." Paul laughed, shaking his head. "When I thought my child was already a monstrous prodigy, someone even better suddenly shows up before me. Sigh... these old bones are hurting..."

The genuine admiration in Paul's voice made Claude uncomfortable. He didn't deserve praise—not when he might fail to save this man's family just as his alternates had failed so many times before.

"That's why you should train more and have less time with the ladies in your early days," Claude countered, forcing a smirk to his face.

Paul sighed dejectedly, unable to deny the accusation. While Lilia and Zenith might doubt the specifics, they knew enough of Paul's past to recognize the truth in Claude's words. They also recognized that Claude, despite his youth, was indeed a monster in his own right—his skills with sword and magic developing at a pace that defied conventional understanding.

As the conversation drifted to other topics, Claude's mind wandered. The preparations were complete. The children were as ready as they could be in the limited time available. The GPS devices were distributed. The emergency plans were in place.

All that remained was to wait for a catastrophe that he prayed would somehow not come—that all his preparations would prove unnecessary, that the memories from his alternates were somehow wrong, that this timeline would be different not because of his interventions but because the displacement simply wouldn't occur.

I hope the day after tomorrow will not come and our practice will be wasted... he thought, watching Norn stack her blocks higher only to laugh with delight when they toppled.

I genuinely hope so.

But the weight of countless alternate selves' regret told him otherwise.

Chapter 13: Dead End

 [Claude POV]

The terrain here isn't good...

A thought floated through my mind, less a conscious observation and more an echo from another memory, another version of me who had walked these same cold stone passages. My boots scraped against the rough dungeon floor, each step sending tiny dust motes dancing in the sparse light.

As expected, I've arrived here again.

The realization settled in my chest like a stone. Not just arrived—returned. The distinction mattered. In one fragmented memory, I died here.

In another, I never made it this far. In yet another, I survived only to wish I hadn't. The memories overlapped, contradicted, but all ended in failure.

As I treaded the path cautiously, the gleaming eyes of monsters pierced the darkness around me. Their gazes tracked my movement, hungry and patient.

They knew these tunnels better than I ever could. To them, I was just another meal wandering into their domain. Their breathing—raspy, wet sounds that echoed off the walls—raised the hair on my neck.

I couldn't push away the nauseating wave of nostalgia that washed over me. The fear and dread that had haunted countless versions of me sought out my soul once more, as familiar as an old friend and twice as deadly.

The cold, stale air of the dungeon interior carried the coppery tang of blood—some of it fresh, some of it ancient—and the musty scent of decay.

Yes.

I had once again arrived at the dungeon where I died.

Or rather, where one version of me had died. The distinction grew increasingly meaningless as I delved deeper into these cursed halls.

The memory flooded back unbidden, as vivid as if I were living it rather than remembering it—or remembering someone else's memory of it.

That day, the light of teleportation had appeared so suddenly. While subjectively it feels like forever in my fractured recollections, I know objectively that things happened in an instant.

That blinding white light had teleported everyone it touched and left nothing in its path. I could feel my body being disintegrated, molecules separating, consciousness splintering.

Through eyes that weren't quite mine anymore, I watched the bodies of my parents being decomposed by the same light. Their faces—frozen in confusion and terror—were the last thing that version of me saw before everything went dark.

I hope they're safe. The thought came automatically, though I knew better than to trust hope. Hope was a luxury for those with ignorance.

I had too much knowledge—fragmentary and incomplete though it was—to indulge in such comforts.

Once I awoke after the teleportation, I found myself here, in this dungeon again. The place where my memory of the future had ended horribly for so many versions of myself.

Until now, I never knew the name of this dungeon since there's no future where any version of me escaped this place alive.

However, the Mushoku Tensei storyline I glimpsed through my fractured memories told me more about the outside world than any one version of me could have learned firsthand.

Since I already knew what would happen in the future, I understood that I would likely be the only one who dies here. The others—Paul, Zenith, Rudeus, the villagers—would be scattered across the wilderness or on other continents and kingdoms.

There's also Zenith, who would eventually be stuck inside the mana stalactite, her consciousness trapped for years.

The thought made my stomach twist. In how many timelines had I failed to prevent that fate? Too many to count.

I exhaled slowly, my breath visible in the cold dungeon air.

I could only be grateful for my fast-learning ability—another quirk of being a Miko, I supposed.

Fragments of skill and knowledge from other versions of me sometimes surfaced when I needed them most. Not always reliable, but better than starting from scratch.

As I moved forward, monsters continued to attack relentlessly. Some skittered on multiple legs across the ceiling.

Others lurched from shadows with gnashing teeth. I dragged the weapon box I'd created before the teleportation event, its weight slowing my progress as I carved a path forward, leaving a trail of viscous monster blood in my wake.

The metallic smell clung to my clothing, marking me as a predator to some creatures and prey to others.

The weapon box was an enchanted container I'd created to store all the weapons I'd forged, along with the whetstone, anvil, and hammer, within a single space.

Since my personal storage space couldn't hold that many items, I only kept essential condiments and materials inside it.

Although I could have made the weapon box smaller in dimension, its weight remained the same regardless.

This box of three by five meters wasn't really a box at all, but more like a coffin—an apt comparison given my circumstances.

Weighing more than a ton, it made my movements painfully slow. Each inch of progress required significant effort, the scraping sound of metal against stone announcing my presence to every creature in the vicinity.

However, what choice did I have? I couldn't abandon it here, surrounded by monsters in all directions.

The enchanted weapons inside might be the only thing keeping me alive.

As expected, my body—enhanced through rigorous training and perhaps something more from my Miko nature—could manage dragging over a thousand kilograms of weight while simultaneously wielding my sword against the dungeon's denizens. The strain made my muscles burn and joints ache, but pain was an old companion by now.

I sat atop the weapon box and stared toward the stairs leading downward, allowing myself a moment's rest.

I didn't know why these stairs headed deeper rather than toward the surface, but from what my fragmented memories entailed about this dungeon, I could deduce that there was something fundamentally wrong about this place.

My knowledge of this dungeon from the Mushoku Tensei storyline was frustratingly incomplete. There was almost nothing substantial to guide me.

I could only count on vague recollections of Zenith's rescue when it came to dungeons in the original story.

While it remained a significant question mark in my knowledge, from texts I'd studied before the teleportation incident, I knew that dungeons were nature's creation—a god's will, perhaps. Something that existed outside the realm of human intellect.

Several artifacts could only be obtained from dungeons—powerful items that enabled their wielders to protect or destroy entire countries.

Was that why I was drawn here? Did some version of me seek such power to prevent the catastrophe, only to fail?

The distant growl of a monster interrupted my thoughts. I rose to my feet, sword already in hand.

Garr.

A creature lunged from the darkness.

Slash.

My blade met resistance, then cut through.

Ping!

Metal scraped against the stone wall as I overextended.

Boom!

The monster's body hit the floor with a wet thud.

Once I had rested enough, I moved forward and methodically dissected the monster I'd killed. With clinical detachment, I separated edible portions from toxic ones, using knowledge pieced together from multiple lives.

I cursed my own oversight. I'd been so stupid not to include food and water supplies inside my weapon box.

Instead, I had been forced to drink monster blood and eat their meat raw to stave off thirst and hunger those first few days.

They tasted foul! The memory of that first desperate swallow made me gag even now.

"Ugh..." I groaned, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. If only I had a clean source of water...

It had been three days since I arrived here. The trail left by dragging the weapon box had grown thinner as I passed one floor after another.

The box itself had become lighter as weapons broke beyond repair, and I could only discard them, unable to fix them without proper facilities.

It was only later that I realized I could create water using magic and drink from it, then make fire to cook the monster meat. Such a simple solution, yet it had eluded me for days.

I was so stupid... It took me seven days to realize this basic application of magic, during which time my stomach had ached horribly from the raw meat and tainted blood. Another failure to add to my collection.

As I prepared to continue my descent, I couldn't help but wonder if this dungeon would be where my story finally ended, or if it was just another chapter in the endless cycle of a Miko's existence.

[Mike POV]

"It's already been a month, and you said that we've yet to find all the Buena Villagers and our merchant group?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose as I examined the reports scattered across the makeshift command table.

My eyes burned from lack of sleep, and the constant stream of bad news was doing nothing to improve my mood.

The scout—a young man who had once been one of my caravan guards before Claude's training transformed him into something more—shifted uncomfortably.

"Y-yes, sir," he replied, his voice cracking slightly. "We're still searching."

I exhaled slowly, measuring my response. "I was already expecting this, but I'm counting on you to continue the effort." The weight of leadership—a burden Claude had unceremoniously thrust upon me in his absence—pressed down on my shoulders.

 cut - continued in the next chapter

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