“ “ “HORRRAAYYYYY!!” ” ”

“We made it!!”

The people of Elk were all extremely happy to get through the Flood without losing anyone for the first time in history, all of the combatants are dancing and celebrating and it didn’t take long for the townspeople to join them.

The Lord of the Town Alf, instead of celebrating with the people he started working on calculating the damage done to the town’s walls and looking around the town to look for any damaged structures, even if the monsters themselves were unable to reach the town themselves some of their long-ranged attacks did, so there are indeed some damaged buildings inside the town, that’s why the Lord’s first job after the Flood is to go and make sure all of the damage is fixed as fast as possible.

Ren and Dolan both headed towards Soma who is still standing in the same spot he spent the past three days in and looking towards the direction the monsters came from, both Ren and Dolan had a bad feeling about him standing like that.

“Soma! Is there something concerning you?”(Ren)

“It’s not done yet, the Flood is not done yet, that’s all”(Soma)

“…What?!”(Ren)

“Are there any more monsters coming?”(Dolan)

“No, it’s not like that”(Soma)

“The monsters’ actions were bizarre today!”(Marina)

“Whoa!! Where did you come from, Marina-san?!”(Ren)

“Where ever Soma-kun is you’ll find me!!”(Marina)

“Never mind that for now, What do you mean by ‘bizarre’?”(Dolan)

“Their numbers increased unnaturally today, why do you think they did?”(Soma)

“Their numbers did indeed increase, I remember you saying that there should be enough monsters to keep attacking us for more days, but they didn’t do that and instead they came to attack us all at once today…”(Dolan)

“And that’s what happened indeed…”(Ren)

“What if they saw that if they kept going at their same pace they would just die in vain without killing anyone and decided to attack us with everything they had today, after exhausting our combatants with two days of contentious fighting against the monsters”(Marina)

“That seems like a reasonable answer to them increasing in numbers like that”(Dolan)

“Me too”(Ren)

“But you both are missing one important point in the matter…. Do you think that these types of monsters are smart enough to come up with such a strategy?”(Soma)

“…T-That’s?!... You are right! The types of monsters that attacked us during this Flood should not have enough intelligence to come up with such plans!”(Ren)

“…Does that mean that there is perhaps a monster smart enough to come up with such strategies is the leader of the Flood monsters this time and that it's still out there alive?”(Dolan)

“…That is if the one leading the monsters is indeed another but smarter monster”(Marina)

“Wait! You can’t mean….”(Ren)

“That there might be someone out there who is causing the Flood and when he saw that we are different from every year, that certain someone had to change his plans and ordered all of his monsters to attack us at once…”(Dolan)

“I-Is that e-even possible?”(Ren)

“Ren, remember the pillar of smoke we saw when we went scouting together?”(Soma)

“… I do….Do you mean that the smoke pillar had something to do with it?!”(Ren)

“In fact, that wasn’t smoke, that was a pillar of Miasma being released from something”(Soma)

“Miasma? What is that?”(Ren)

“You could think of it as corrupted mana, for now, that corrupted mana is the source of all the monsters in existence, the more miasma there is the more and stronger monsters will spawn there”(Soma)

“…I have heard about something like that from my grandfather when I was back in Gillmot the Dwarf’s Kingdom”(Dolan)

“And since Miasma acts similarly to mana, there is bound to be Miasma Crystals like the Mana Crystals you all know about”(Soma)

“…But Soma-kun, you said that Miasma would turn into monsters, right? Will not that use the Miasma preventing it from condensing into crystals?”(Marina)

“That’s right! Good job thinking about it like that! Marina is right, Miasma Crystals are impossible to form naturally because all of the Miasma will be used to spawn monsters around its location”(Soma)

“…Then How? …No….I see, so that how it was”(Dolan)

“Dolan seems to have figured it out! Like I said it’s impossible for Miasma crystals to form naturally”(Soma)

“Which means that it’s possible to make them artificially!”(Dolan)

“It’s the first time for me to even hear about something like that, are you sure what you are saying is certain?”(Ren)

“Hadn’t it been like that for you since you met me?”(Soma)

“…So you are aware of that!”(Ren)

“And who else with knowledge that is similar to mine but instead of doing good with that knowledge they have been using it to harm this country for hundreds of years now”(Soma)

“…”(Ren)

“…Vitos, or more like the Love Goddess’s faith as a whole”(Dolan)

“So you are saying that they have been causing the Flood every year to attack Elk and killing its people this whole time! What for? And why Elk specifically?”(Ren)

“Maybe because Elk is the most troublesome town for them or maybe it’s not just Elk, maybe they are causing some kind of problems and disasters to each of the five towns of the Valc Kingdom but each in its unique way”(Soma)

“I see, that does make sense to me…”(Dolan)

“…But why? Why are they so hung up on destroying this country? What have my people done to deserve this?...”(Ren)

“Don’t worry! You have me here with you! The reason I came to this country was because I saw hope in its people to save themselves! And not just me, you are here as well, 【Favorite Child Of The Creation God】!”(Soma)

“…Y-You knew about that?! How?!”(Ren)

“I’ll tell you all about it later on, for now, let's see what we can do about the situation at hand! …. If the cause of the Flood is indeed someone affiliated with the Love Goddess’s faith, what do you think they are going to do seeing that their plan had failed?”(Soma)

“What if they have some monster that is stronger than all the monsters they sent to attack us and right now they are waiting for us to drop our guard before attacking us again with that monster?”(Marina)

“That’s the worst-case scenario and the one that mostly going to occur”(Dolan)

“In that case, we have to do something about it!”(Ren)

“How about we go and attack them first?”(Soma)

“I agree with that, and of course you can count me in!”(Dolan)

“Then let’s go as soon as possible!”(Ren)

“Go call your two Knight friends, they are going to be a huge help for us, and tell the people of the town that we are going to scout the area and don’t tell them about the theory we came up with”(Soma)

“Got it! I’ll be right back!”(Ren)

“…So he is the same as me, Huh?”(Dolan)

“That’s right…”(Soma)