They feared him. His presence alone brought forth the instinctual fear of the unknown. While he wore the skin of a man, there was no way to know what was inside. One would suppose that it was only natural; to never truly know what a person is deep down. However, for them, it was different. They were a race that had more than words to communicate with one another. Far more than any other races, they could hear the whispers, the voices of Ether, for their god was its originator.

They were called the Alva, and though much had changed about them and they no longer appeared as they once were, they still call themselves so. Through Ether, the Alva could sense the feelings and intentions of one another and understood each other more than what the implications of the spoken word could ever bring. That was why they instinctively feared him, the one whose Ether could not be seen. It was unknown if he even had Ether dwelling within him at all. Perhaps he was like the Etherless 'Progenitors', the banished masters of the Alva that once existed so long ago. Hence, due to this nature of his, they call him the 'Hollow'.

"I came up with that one, by the way, the name 'Hollow', I mean."

Seated before Auguste on a fur carpet was a balding middle-aged man with a potbelly. He was just explaining to Auguste why everyone in the village started to refer to him as 'the Hollow'.

"As always, your naming sense is as bland as they come," Auguste replied, a little more than displeased by his new nickname.

"It's not bland, they're just straightforward. Names ought to describe the things they're naming. I don't care for roundabout naming conventions. They can save that for poetry."

"Uh-huh," Auguste gave a half-hearted response.

"Besides, the names are good enough that everyone is using them, which more than enough proves that they're good enough for the general public."

"That's only because Dungeoneers don't really care and the Scholars of the Abyss tend to default to whatever the Dungeoneers were already calling the things."

The man with the bland naming sense, the one seated before Auguste, was one of the original members of the expedition that discovered the Hidden Haven Dungeon and was the one responsible for naming it. Incidentally, he was also the one who named the Cobalt Shelled Crawlers some time ago. Yes, this balding middle-aged man was none other than Joseph, a former member of the late Conrad's party, friend of Tobias the Alchemist back in Iotas Tria, and currently an independent Scholar of the Mystic Arts living with the Alva of the Hidden Haven Dungeon in order to study them, or so he liked to claim. In truth, he was a prisoner, much like the Henrietta Company.

The Henrietta Company had been brought into the village of the Orcus. During that little scuffle with the Orcus back in the cave, after Auguste and Finn were taken down, Gladiolus managed to communicate with the Orcus and offered to surrender in a last-ditch effort to save everyone's life. The Orcus accepted, surprisingly enough, though not without a good reason.

The thing was, the Orcus, or rather, the Alva of Hidden Haven, did not speak the common tongue. Most of them, at least. They spoke the dialects of the Alva, a tongue lost to even the elves, the direct descendants of the Alva. However, Gladiolus spoke the Alvan dialect when surrendering, shocking the Alva of Hidden Haven and revealing that he too, was an Alva. It was only due to the ties of being of the same origin that saved the party.

Since the surrender, the Henrietta Company had become prisoners of the Hidden Haven Alva, given a degree of freedom to roam due to Gladiolus' influence but was unable to leave the village lest they be struck down on the spot.

Thinking back, the Henrietta Company all just assumed that Gladiolus was an elf since, apparently, the elves and the Alva don't look all that different, with the Alva being the ancestors of the elves and whatnot. In fact, much like the Orcus, some elven tribes still consider themselves Alva. Gladiolus was the genuine article, one that had lived to see the rise and fall of the civilizations before the five kingdoms and witnessed the very moment when those across the ocean first set foot upon these lands. If asked about his past, he'd probably have plenty to tell, not that it mattered since none of the members of this party seemed all that interested in one another's past.

"Putting that aside, did you fetched what I asked for?"

"They're right here." Auguste gestured towards the rucksack he had set down beside him.

The thing was, once every few days, one of the Henrietta Company members was allowed to return to town for supplies while the others were held as hostages should they try anything funny. Auguste tended to be the one chosen as he was the more discreet of the party.

"Much appreciated. You really saved me quite a bit of trouble. Unlike you guys, the Orcus do not allow me to come and go freely you see."

"I'm surprised they even took you prisoner."

"I'm sure my eloquence in the Alvan tongue had endeared them to me," said Joseph, his tone jesting. That being said, that part about him knowing the Alva's dialect seemed to be true, as he had been teaching some of them the common tongue of the five kingdoms ever since he was captured months prior.

"Sure, but why do they care?" asked Auguste. Though Joseph spoke the tongue, unlike Gladiolus, he was no Alva, he was not even an elf.

"Isn't it obvious? Now that the path to the surface had been discovered, they intend to go there. They require the language to better learn from their enemies."

"Enemies?"

"That's what they see us surface dwellers as. The Alva, you see, were a people well versed in conquest. Once, their empire extended to every corner of what was known and their conquest seemed unending. Until they came upon the humans, that is. Everything went downhill from there. The Alva here seemed to have kept the same mindset and are planning to conquer the surface. The fact that the five kingdoms are dominated by the humans doesn't exactly help the matter."

"You sure know a great deal about them," said Auguste, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door frame of the building. He was ready to leave, only waiting for Joseph to finish talking.

"I've met one before, traveled with him even. Not a talkative type, but on certain nights, he would recount some tales from his past. But enough about that, I see you're rearing to leave. I won't keep you."

"Yeah, I shouldn't keep the others waiting," said Auguste as he turned towards the door. He wanted to leave as soon as possible, that much was true, but there was a part of him that wanted to ask Joseph about something else. It was regarding that time back in Iotas Tria, when an old woman mistook Auguste for Joseph. It might have been a different Joseph, but still...

That being said, Auguste wounded up deciding against it. Even if he asked, Joseph could easily deny any associations. Even if he did come clean, does Auguste really want to know? It might just be turned out to be a 'I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you' situation. Curiosity kills the cat, as they say.

In the end, it didn't matter. Whatever part he had to play in someone else's scheme, it couldn't be all that important. He wasn't all that important. Besides, the hi-catalyst the old woman handed over to him had been handed over to Albert, so it was no longer his burden to bear and thank goodness for that.

Leaving the wooden hut the Hidden Haven Alva let Joseph stay in, Auguste headed towards the plaza of this village. In this village, while most of the buildings were made of wood, they weren't quite the wooden buildings Auguste was used to. To being with, can it truly be called a building when they weren't technically 'built'? These wooden 'buildings', rather than being made out of cut lumber, looked more like they were house-shaped trees grown from the ground up. In fact, once in a while, the residents had to trim these 'buildings' to make sure they don't overgrow. When asked if the villages of the elves were like this, Gladiolus said that it depends, so apparently, it's just one of the things the decedents of the Alva do.

Arriving at the plaza, Auguste spot the rest of his party as well as a group of what seemed to be the hunters of the village. Upon spotting Auguste, Elaine waved him over.

"What's going on?" Auguste asked.

"The warriors wanted to train with Finn. They heard about what happened in the cave and got pretty impressed."

Turning towards Finn, Auguste watched him talking to what seemed to be a female Orc, having a more pronounced breast, a more diminutive stature, a pair of smaller tusks, as well as having a more slender figure. Looks like he'll have a friendly sparring session with her or two. Auguste had thought of the possibility for a while now, but should Finn ever becomes more confident in himself, he's going to be a hit with the ladies.

Looking around further, Auguste noticed that Gladiolus was missing. As he was about to ask, the said missing member returned to the plaza, seemingly in thought as he walked.

"How did it go?" Elaine asked him.

"How did what go?" Auguste added another question of his own, desiring some context.

It happened only shortly after Auguste left to deliver the supplies to Joseph. One of the Orcs called out to Gladiolus, telling him the chieftain wished to speak with him. Naturally, there were more reasons to not refuse than otherwise, and as such, Gladiolus allowed himself to be led away.

"I was asked to investigate a ruin not too far from here, towards the northwest."

"A ruin? In a Dungeon?" This time, it was Morganna who chimed in. She was having an early lunch with Henrietta, feeding her pet Slime at the same time.

"It is the place where the Alva here came from."

"Where they came from?" Auguste raised the question, realizing that he never did hear about how the Alva of Hidden Haven even wound up here in the first place. If they truly were Alva as they claimed, then they could not have been creatures born in the Dungeon, could they?

"The Alva were not born underground, so they must have come from somewhere else," Morganna suggested.

"Sure, that much I got," Auguste retorted, "but where exactly did they come from?"

To that, Morganna had no answer either. Most people in the world today had more or less heard of the Alva and knew that they were the ancestors of the elves. However, any more details than that seldom came up.

At nearly the same time, Auguste and Morganna turned towards Gladiolus, the Alva himself.

"That's a difficult question to answer. I myself have never seen the Alva homeland. I was born on one of the voyager ships that formed a part of a massive fleet, you see. The ship was my home for the longest time, until we reached human lands that is, but that's a story for another time. The short of it was that I don't truly know either. For as far as I am aware of, the Alva were wanderers."

There was a surprising lack of information from Gladiolus, but then again, it's not as if most humans have a full grasp of the history of their own race either, so perhaps it only natural that he does not know.

"Hey, Gusty!"

While Auguste was still digesting the information fed to him, a call from Finn turned his attention towards the center of the plaza.

"Something you need?"

"The warriors, they want to spar with you too."

Auguste turned towards the others, his eyes stopping on Henrietta, who was lying on the ground with a full belly. In truth, Auguste was about to have lunch. He wasn't exactly hungry yet, but it felt like it was about time anyway. As a Dungeoneer, it's better to eat ahead of time than to suddenly feel hungry in the middle of something, usually something dangerous. Still, if he ate, it'll be a while before he gets to do any intense exercise again.

"I'll be with you in a bit," Auguste eventually replied. It's not as if he had anything better to do while imprisoned in this village. Who knows when he'll see some action again. At the very least, he shouldn't let his skills get rusty.

"So about the ruin? What's that has to do with the Alva here?" said Auguste as he turned back to Gladiolus.

In return, Gladiolus nodded and gave his answer.

"I believe it's one of the voyager ships, the same kind I was born on."

"A ship!? Elaine exclaimed in confusion. "I might not have seen a ship before, but aren't they supposed to be on water? This is underground the last time I checked."

"The ships of the Alva are not like the ones you know of," Gladiolus said with a firm voice. "These ships were capable of sailing over the sky, across the sea of stars, even through the Abyss."

"Through the Abyss...?" Morganna's eyes opened wide at those words, the curiosity peaked.

Had it been before, she would have dismissed it as nonsense as the books and tomes she had read clearly stated that nothing could survive being within the Abyss. However, she had since learned that not everything written down was correct. In fact, she herself had traversed through the Abyss just once, by the magic of the one called Lyudmila back when they were exploring the Cobalt Shelled Crawlers' den.

"Gusty!" Finn called out once again. "They said that they can't wait any longer. They're starting to say that you're scared of them."

Looking over towards Finn and the Orcus female by his side, her hands on her hips with an impatient look on her face, Auguste furrowed his brows.

"Oh, they know how to pick a fight alright," Auguste remarked.

"We can talk more about this later. I'll have to see the chieftain again for more details anyways."

Auguste nodded before turning right over to Finn and the rest of the Orcs, cracking his knuckles as he prepared to show these cave dwellers what for.

***

End of Chapter 62