Chapter 2: The One Boring Way to Clear an Underground Labyrinth (July 20th)

“Anyway, we’ve got another catalyst, so we can still return to Earth,” Harissa said.

She then took the Red Thread catalyst out of her pocket to show everyone. With that and the glove Hibiki had given me, we’d be able to get home.

“Whew... So, it’s not like we’re stuck here.” Tsumiki sighed in relief.

“But, um...” Harissa looked glum as she started to mumble.

I wondered for a moment what might be wrong, and then it dawned on me.

“That’s right... You only have one more of those, don’t you?”

“Yes...”

I knew what that meant, but the other three girls looked confused.

“The spell she used to get us here—and the same spell we need to get home—takes a magic item called a Red Thread. It’s something made in Harissa’s world, and can’t be replicated in ours.” Since Harissa didn’t look up to it, I explained. “And we only have one more of them. In other words, if we use it to get home, she can’t go back to Aburaamu.”

“Then...”

“Yeah. She’ll never be able to go home again.”

The whole point of this originally was for Harissa to be able to visit her home world. And since she was going anyway, I thought we could take Mio too to keep her safe.

“It’s fine... It’s my fault this happened. You don’t need to worry about it,” Harissa said, staring down at the floor. She clearly felt responsible, but she was also hesitant to use the last catalyst. To go home, or not...

Everyone fell silent, unsure of what to do.

“Hey, listen, everyone. Don’t worry.” I spoke up, hoping to cheer everyone up. “We need to find out what happened before anything else. We can wait until then to decide what we do with the catalyst, right?”

“Yeah. You’re right, Rekka,” Lea agreed.

The first thing you need to do in any situation is think. The only reason I’d managed to survive all my stories was because I never stopped thinking. And it seemed Harissa had taken my words to heart. She looked like she was gradually calming down. Mio was still worriedly clinging to my waist, but I figured she’d be doing that regardless.

“First, I want to check something important, Harissa.”

“O-Okay!”

“Did your spell really fail?”

“Huh?”

Harissa’s eyes went wide. It was such an unexpectedly simple question that it threw her completely for a loop.

“Um... I mean, we’re in the wrong world...”

“Sure, we’re not in the world we wanted to be in. But that doesn’t mean your magic didn’t work.”

“What do you mean?” Tsumiki interrupted.

“Let’s say you have a car accident on your hands. Maybe the driver made a mistake, but there also might be something wrong with the car. Maybe a traffic light wasn’t working properly, or maybe another driver is to blame. My point is that even if you have an accident, it’s not necessarily the driver’s fault.”

“Oh... I see.” Tsumiki nodded.

“I’ve been to other worlds a bunch of times, and when you go, there’s this feeling of weightlessness. It’s weird. And I definitely felt that when she used the spell. Harissa says this isn’t her world, but I think the spell still worked.”

I was sure of what I felt. It was unmistakable. It was something like the feeling you get when you close your eyes on a roller-coaster and can’t tell whether you’re going left, right, up, or down.

“It worked with the remote, right? Did you do anything different this time?”

“No, I don’t think so...” she said hesitantly.

“So if there was nothing wrong with the spell, then there must be another reason we didn’t make it to Aburaamu.”

“Another reason?” Harissa asked, a glimmer of hope in her voice.

“Like what?” Tsumiki asked.

“Well, that’s what we have to find out. And first things first, we need to figure out exactly where we did end up. So... let’s look around some more. We haven’t even seen what’s behind those yet.”

There were two doors in the room, and I had no way of knowing which went where. I took a stab in the dark and pointed to the door closer to us. Everyone walked over to it. The door itself was made out of what looked like carved stone, but there was no handle. How were we supposed to open it?

“What do we do? Should I break it down?”

Lea began to wind up for a punch. She would probably be able to break through it with ease, but Harissa stepped in and stopped her.

“Wait a moment. This is... Let me give something a try. Lugol Arie!”

She raised her staff in front of the door, and it began to slide open.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I once went to an ancient temple in Aburaamu, and they had doors that worked with magic. I thought I could try the same thing here.”

Hmm... So maybe this place was connected to Aburaamu somehow? It would seem strange that they used the same system for doors otherwise. Feeling encouraged, we all went through the door and were met with a sight not a single one of us had expected.

“...”

It was a naked girl.

“Why isn’t she wearing any clothes?” I wondered.

But that wasn’t the only question I had. Her pale limbs were trapped in some kind of strange stone that melded with the floor. It looked like a statue of a woman tied to a stone cross, but it was definitely a real girl... and, um... her long hair was covering her delicate parts, but it was hard to look at, honestly.

“Rekka, look carefully. That’s what a real woman looks like.”

“Don’t you dare stare.”

R and Tsumiki said the exact opposite thing, but I was taking Tsumiki’s side on this one. R was a terrible role model.

“Is she... asleep?” Lea asked the question we were all wondering.

The girl wasn’t moving at all, so she appeared to be sleeping... or even dead. It was hard to tell.

The base of the restraints confining her was shining with a pale light. It was similar to the light I saw when Satsuki or Harissa cast spells. I figured there was a good chance it was something magical.

“Harissa, Lea, do you know what that is?” I asked the two girls I thought would be most likely to know something.

“It’s probably some kind of binding spell.”

“I think so, too. It’s not the one that bound me, but it feels similar.”

Their answers were more or less what I figured. But that left me with the question of what to do about it. If it really was magical, I could probably use the Hero’s Sword to break through it. Before making a move, however, I asked everyone else what they thought.

“I feel bad for her. We should save her,” Tsumiki said pointing at the helpless girl.

I couldn’t blame her for feeling that way, either. She certainly did look like she needed saving. But...

“I don’t know why she was sealed, but there must be some reason. It might not be a good idea to set her free,” Lea said.

She’d once released a powerful being, Bahamut, who’d been sealed away for a very good reason. That made her cautious, and she wasn’t interested in making the same mistake twice. Harissa declined to say anything, and Mio just silently clung to me as she had been. With them abstaining, the vote was one to one.

“Hmm...”

This strange stone room was probably underground, and this girl was sealed away with magic.

“Wait...”

Something suddenly crossed my mind, and I turned to R. She was usually the first person I consulted when I came across something strange like this. But she didn’t notice. In fact, she wasn’t looking at me at all. I discreetly tugged her sleeve so the rest of the girls wouldn’t see. She finally turned around, but looked strangely upset.

“What are you doing? I’m trying to find the best angle right now.”

I started to ask what she meant, but then it hit me. She was trying to figure out if she could see through the girl’s hair. She wanted to see her completely naked. I tugged her sleeve harder and told her to knock it off.

“Jeez, what do you want?”

I was glad that she was starting to show some emotion, but why did her personality have to end up like this? A little peeved, I gave her a stern look. She then seemed to realize what I wanted.

“Yes, it looks like she’s a heroine,” she said like I’d asked a dumb question, and then promptly went back to trying to sneak a peek at the girl.

Hmm... I needed to have a long talk with R, but that would have to wait.

If this girl was a heroine like R said, that meant she needed my help somehow. And if I was going to help her, that meant I needed to save her first. Step one would be releasing this seal. Maybe she’d been kidnapped or something? Compared to Mio’s confusing story, this seemed a little more straightforward.

“All right, let’s save her,” I said.

Just in case, I had the girls step back. Mio was reluctant to leave me, so I had Lea take her.

It had been quite a while since I’d last held the Hero’s Sword, and it felt awkward in my hands. I’d fought by just flailing it around before. Swords just weren’t my thing, it seemed. But I could lift it up, and bring it straight down...!

“Yaaah!”

I swung the sword down on the shining part of the dais.

Clang!

The dais shattered, and the bonds restraining the girl seemed to shatter along with it. The next thing I knew, something fell down on top of me.

“Hmm... Dwaaah!”

It was the naked girl!

“Well, you destroyed the seal, so of course she’d fall down,” R said.

She was right, but I’d realized it too late.

“Oww...”

How many times now had somebody landed on top of me? I tried to move her off me without really thinking about it... and grabbed something soft. It was another feeling I was really familiar with...!

“What are you doing?!”

“Fgyah!”

The sole of Tsumiki’s shoe came down square on my forehead so hard that it rattled my brain. I thought she was trying to split my head open.

“Don’t even think about looking up for a while.”

“...Okay...”

This didn’t really seem fair, but I decided to just go with it. Eventually Tsumiki told me it was okay, and I slowly stood up. As soon as I did, Mio ran over and grabbed on to me again.

When I looked, the girl was wearing some of Tsumiki’s spare clothes and was lying on the ground with her head in Lea’s lap. Fortunately, it didn’t look like she’d hurt herself falling from the dais. Soon she began to fidget a little, and then she slowly opened her ruby-colored eyes.

“Who are you...?”

She looked around at each of us. She was probably more interested in what we were doing here than our names.

“Um... we’re lost?”

She frowned. Apparently that wasn’t the answer she was hoping for, but unfortunately it was the truth, and I didn’t have a whole lot else to tell her. Suddenly, however, her eyes seemed to hone in on specific spot. She was looking at the Hero’s Sword.

“That sword... why do you have it?”

“Oh, do you know it?”

She seemed to recognize it. But if she recognized the sword, and the sword was from Aburaamu, did that mean that this was Aburaamu after all?

“Hey, can you tell me—”

“I’ll ask you one more time. Who are you, and why do you have that sword?” the girl cut me off.

The look in her eyes was the very image of seriousness. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t going to answer my questions if I didn’t answer hers.

“My name is Rekka Namidare. I used this sword to defeat the Demon King when this girl, Harissa, summoned me to her world, and I ended up taking it home with me.”

If she knew what I was talking about, that could be a good sign.

“I see. I understand the situation.”

She raised her head off of Lea’s lap. She still looked pale and didn’t have her strength back, but she managed to stand up on her own.

“First, my name is Corona. Thank you, boy from another world, for releasing the seal.”

This girl—Corona, apparently—seemed to have a strange air of authority about her in everything she said and did.

“S-So, about the sword...” I gently tried to remind her.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. The answer is yes, I know that sword you’re holding.”

“Really?!” I asked without thinking, and she nodded in response.

“Although, I suppose there’s a more precise answer to your question.”

“Huh?”

“That sword originally belonged to me.”

“What?!”

Both Harissa and I were shocked. But if that was true, then that would mean...

“I am the hero who saved that world. At least, I once was. If you’re the current hero, then I suppose I’ve passed the title on to you.”

“No way...” I shook my head in disbelief.

I mean, that would still make her a hero. And the real deal to boot. But that was one heck of a surprise.

“H-Huwah...” Harissa was so shocked that she could barely speak. Instead, she was flailing her hands about to express her surprise.

“By the way, you there...” Corona said, looking at Harissa.

“Y-Yes?!” She froze.

“What is your name?”

“H-H-Harissa H-H-Hope. It’s a p-pleasure to meet you, Her... Corona.”

Harissa cast a glance my way as she stopped herself from calling Corona “Hero.”

“Hmm, I see.”

Corona ignored her, however, and seemed to be lost in thought.

Was there something unusual about Harissa’s name? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, but I had more immediate concerns.

“Hey, Corona. Where are we right now? Is this not Aburaamu?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not. This place is known as the spirit world.”

“The spirit world?!” Harissa gasped.

“Harissa, do you know it?”

“Know it? This is where the spirits I summon live.” Harissa then looked around, whispering to herself in pure amazement. “So this is the spirit world...”

“Then are you a spirit, Corona?”

“Hmm... Well, something like that.”

“You’re a spirit...” Harissa whispered as she looked down at the ground.

I wasn’t sure why she had such a serious look on her face after finding out Corona was a spirit of some kind, but I decided to let it be for the time being.

“My next question is, where are we specifically? What is this building? It feels like it’s underground.”

“This is the lowest floor of an underground labyrinth called the Ruler’s Dungeon, I believe...”

“A labyrinth? And we’re all the way at the bottom?”

“You don’t know anything about it? Surely you had to traverse the dungeon to get down here to me.”

“Well...”

I proceeded to explain to her how we’d actually gotten here. When she heard our story, she simply said, “That sounds rough,” and nothing more.

“So, it’s your turn now. What were you doing sealed down here?”

Corona didn’t answer.

Before we’d undone the seal, Lea had suggested that there must be a reason she was here, but why would anyone have to seal away a former hero? I was definitely curious about that, but it wasn’t the only thing I wanted to know. And if she wasn’t going to answer, I decided I might as well try asking her something else.

“By the way, do you have anything from Aburaamu? Something with a strong connection to that world?”

“You mean for the connection magic you were talking about?”

“That’s right.”

I could piece together why we’d arrived here instead of Aburaamu now. We were using the sword to try and make the bridge between worlds because it had a strong connection to Aburaamu. We’d known from the start that connections to people were stronger than connections to places, but Harissa had never considered that the original owner of the Hero’s Sword could still be alive. That meant, however, that her spell was indeed a success. And now that we knew that the magic worked, all we needed was an item to connect us to Aburaamu, and we’d be fine. Of course, we might be out of luck if Corona didn’t have anything like that.

“Certainly.”

“Yes!” I cheered.

That would make this a lot easier. We could just—

“I do, but not here.”

“...Of course.”

Corona had been sealed away in this dungeon completely n-naked. She didn’t have anything on her, much less personal possessions. If she had something that connected her to Aburaamu, it wasn’t going to be down here.

“Then let’s go get whatever it is. I’d like you to let us borrow it for a bit. I promise we’ll bring it back.”

“That’s fine, but...” Corona looked calmly up at the ceiling. “How are you going to make it out of this labyrinth?”

“Oh.”

I suddenly remembered where we were: the lowest level of an underground labyrinth called the Ruler’s Dungeon. I only knew that because it’s what Corona had said, but it didn’t seem like she had any reason to lie to us. And that meant that the dungeon above was standing between us and whatever Corona had that could get us back to Aburaamu. In other words, without getting out of this dungeon, we were never getting home. I broke into a sweat, but R was casually doing somersaults in the air above me.

“So, it’s a dungeon this time, huh? Too bad there’s no princess with a string waiting to lead you outside. Will you be able to make it?”

I honestly didn’t know. RPGs weren’t exactly a specialty of mine or anything.

▽

“Uwaaaaah!”

We were running down the corridors of the Ruler’s Dungeon as fast as we could manage. Why, you ask? Well...

Rrrrrumble...

“A giant rock is rolling after us!”

“It’s your fault for pushing that weird button!” Tsumiki yelled.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault for finding the weird button!” Harissa yelled back.

“Stop talking and run!” shouted Lea, who was carrying Mio.

We were all booking it for everything we were worth, but we were quickly coming up on a dead end. It looked like we were going to get squished.

“Into that room over there!” Corona pointed to a door just up ahead.

We made a dash for it, and Harissa immediately started casting her opening spell.

“H-Hurry!” Tsumiki yelled.

Harissa shouted the spell as loudly and as quickly as she could, and the door slowly started to slide open. Damn, did I say it was slow yet? Come on, go faster!

“Nwaaah!”

We forced ourselves through the narrow gap that had opened up. I could hear the boulder rolling past us on the other side of the door, but before we had time to catch our breath...

Rumble, rumble...

“Huh?”

I heard what sounded like stones grinding together, and when I turned around, I was met with the sight of an earthen giant raising its equally giant sword overhead.

“That’s a golem!”

“Huh, sure would help if this dungeon had an easy mode or something.”

Thank you, R, captain obvious!

Rumble, rumble...

The golem swung its huge sword downward. It was trying to slice us all apart!

“Yah!” Lea shouted and stopped the blade by grabbing it with her bare hands.

“Lea!”

“It’s quite heavy, but...”

SNAP!

Lea clenched her fist, and the sword shattered between her fingers.

“It’s not as powerful as that vampire’s fists.”

Without missing a beat, Lea then stepped in and destroyed both the golem’s legs with a single kick. Now unable to move, it gradually shut down.

“Whew...”

Nothing else in the room moved, so it looked like that was the only trap. We could finally take a break.

“You know, I kind of figured it would be something like this when you called it a dungeon, but... there are way too many traps here.”

Since leaving the room where we found Corona, we’d run into at least 30 of them. Considering dungeons were supposed to get tougher the further down you went, that meant that we—beginning adventurers at best—had started off with the hardest part. Actually... Forget it. It was probably best not to think about it.

Lea was still okay, but the other girls were at their limits. Mio was physically fine since Lea had carried her the whole way, but I could see the fear on her face. She was stressed out, which wasn’t helping her previous exhaustion any.

“Is this just going to keep going... Corona?”

Corona, pale and spaced-out, took a moment to realize I was talking to her.

“...Hm?”

Apparently she was tired, too.

“Are you okay?”

“Mm... Oh, I’m fine.”

Even though she said she was okay, she didn’t look like it. The long time she’d spent sealed away must have had an effect on her. Come to think of it, how long had she been sealed down here, anyway? She saved Aburaamu... several centuries ago, right?

That meant that even though she looked like she was our age, she was way, way older than that. How long did spirits live? Or had she just not aged while she was sealed? I had a lot of questions, but she looked out of sorts enough that I decided to stick to what was most important. And right now, our most pressing problem was how to get out of the dungeon.

“Corona, how many floors does this dungeon have?”

She thought for a minute and said, “A hundred, I believe.”

That many, huh? We still hadn’t found a single staircase, so it was a tough number to get my head around. We’d managed to cheat our way straight to the bottom and save the sealed hero, but because of that cheat, we had no real way to get back up.

“Well, no point in crying about it.”

I knew these girls wouldn’t make it through another 99 floors of this, so we needed to come up with an easier way to get out. A shortcut.

“Let’s try to come up with a way to bypass all the monsters and traps.”

Like usual, it wasn’t the standard way of doing things, but I wasn’t concerned about the details on this impromptu dungeon crawl.

“I don’t know about that...” Tsumiki said with a frown.

What I was saying probably sounded crazy.

“Let’s just go over what we know about the dungeon for now.”

It was a huge labyrinth filled with traps. It was a hundred floors deep. It had traps and doors that seemed to be magical.

“I... guess that’s it.”

“It’s hard to even comprehend.”

“Yeah...”

Tsumiki and Harissa sighed. I looked at Corona.

“How much do you know about the way this dungeon is laid out?”

“...Hm?”

She was still pale. If anything, she looked worse than before.

“Are you really okay? Want something to eat?”

“Sorry, but I don’t think I could eat anything right now,” she said, stopping me when she saw me starting to go into my backpack. “This dungeon... Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot about it. I wasn’t the one who made it, after all.”

“I see...”

It was a fair point. If she’d known how the dungeon was set up, we wouldn’t have fallen for all those traps.

“Hmm...” I scratched my head.

“Rekka.”

“What is it, Lea?”

“I might have a plan.”

“Really?!”

“Yes,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “I can take my Leviathan form, and everyone can get on my back. Then I can just break through ceiling after ceiling until we get to the surface.”

“What?!”

Well, that would be a lot faster than walking.

“But there’s a hundred floors to this dungeon. We don’t know how sturdy it is. Damaging it too much might cause a cave-in.”

“...I’d rather not be buried alive.”

“With plenty of energy, I could protect everyone, but I don’t think I have enough right now.”

“Then...”

I looked at Tsumiki. The dark matter she created while practicing cooking was energy-dense and Lea’s favorite source of fuel. We had some food with us. It was mostly just preserved goods, but maybe...

“No, um... I didn’t bring any cooking utensils or anything...”

Okay, maybe not.

“Why didn’t you?!”

“I thought if we needed any, we could just use the castle kitchen! Besides, I had lots of clothes and things to pack...”

Come to think of it, I had asked her to pack clothes for Mio, too. I didn’t think that would come back to haunt me...

“What do we do, Rekka? If we’re careful when we break through the floors, we might be fine. But who knows how long that will take...”

“Anyone have any other ideas?”

Since I still had Ellicia’s story to worry about, I wanted to get to the surface as soon as possible, but I wasn’t willing to risk everyone’s safety to do it. As I was pondering the dilemma...

“Ugh...” Corona groaned and fell over on the floor.

“Corona?!”

“Hahh... hahh...”

She was panting heavily. Had we pushed her too hard too soon after breaking the seal? I was kicking myself, but there wasn’t much point in dwelling on it. I had Harissa use a healing spell on her and tried to feed her a little food, but none of it helped.

“Ugh...”

“It’s no good. My magic’s easing her pain, but it isn’t fixing the real problem.”

“The real problem? She’s not just tired like Mio was?”

I patted Mio, who was now clinging to my waist again, on the head.

“I’m not an expert in healing magic, so I don’t really know... but I believe she’s suffering from some kind of illness.”

“Like what?”

“That I don’t know.” Harissa looked down.

“Don’t sweat it. Thanks for your help, Harissa.”

Even though her magic spell had actually worked properly, Harissa still felt guilty for bringing us to this world. I wanted to keep the conversation light so she didn’t end up feeling any worse.

After I talked to Harissa, Mio tugged on my sleeve.

“Rekka... what are we going to do?”

If Corona was sick, then we needed to get her to a doctor. But any doctors would be on the surface, and the only way to get up there right now was the brute force method. It was dangerous, but if we took the slow and steady route instead, we’d just be wasting time. And with each passing minute, Corona’s condition might be getting worse...

But hurrying meant more danger. Maybe we should just give up on Aburaamu and go back to Earth? No, there was no way to be sure that normal doctors could help Corona. We’d have to get her to the surface here to save her. But the only way there was risky, and I was hesitant to take it.

I leaned up against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. If there were some way we could get through the ceiling without destroying it, that would probably make the trip up a lot less dangerous. Something like what I’d seen Ellicia do.

“If only we could just pass through the ceiling...”

The instant I said that, it felt like the wall vanished from behind me. Since I was leaning up against it, I lost all my support and fell straight backward. Everything went black for a moment, but the light returned just in time for me to feel the back of my head colliding with something hard.

“OW!”

I grabbed my head, not knowing what had happened. It hurt so bad that there were tears welling in my eyes, but that wasn’t what was on my mind.

“...Huh?”

Everyone was gone, and I couldn’t hear anything.

Where was I? The walls were still made of stone, but... No, something was wrong.

Why were the pillars sideways and coming out of the walls? And why was my face so close the ground? And this feeling on my back... Wait...

It took me that long to process that I was lying face up on the floor.

“How...”

The instant I started to say something, I heard a sound I recognized.

Rrrrrumble...

“Is that...?”

Yup. It was a large boulder rolling straight towards me.

“Uwaaah!”

I quickly sat up to get out of the way, but then my vision went dark again. What... What was going on? I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but I could almost swear that...

“Did I just sit up into the wall?”

That’s certainly what it seemed like.

“Huh?”

I was talking to myself out loud, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. It was like someone had their hand over my mouth. Or my ears. Maybe both. But in the midst of my befuddlement, I felt someone grab my ankle and yank hard.

“Waaa... ah?”

Now I could hear myself screaming just fine. I timidly opened my eyes to see the girls again, and they looked worried.

“Rekka! Are you okay?”

“Huh? Wh-What happened to me?” I stammered.

“You fell behind the wall!”

“Huh?”

Tsumiki explained that while I was leaning against the wall, I’d suddenly fallen backwards through it. All that was left sticking out on this side was my foot at the base of the wall, and the rest of me appeared to be inside it. They’d all panicked, but Lea had taken it upon herself to try and pull me out of the wall.

“Sheesh... I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried that all that would come off would be your ankle when I pulled.”

“That’s terrifying! I don’t even want to think about that!”

Quickly purging that thought from my mind, I tried putting it all together. I must’ve literally fallen through the wall and landed on the other side, which was out in the hallway. That big rock coming for me was probably the same one that had tried to crush us earlier. It was weird enough as it was, but weirder still that I’d just been thinking about doing exactly that.

“Is this... Ellicia’s power?”

It was precisely what I’d seen her do, and it didn’t seem like there was any way that was a coincidence. There had to be some reason I could do it now, too.

“Hmm...”

I thought back to when I’d met her. Going over what had happened in my head, what stuck out to me was that she’d hugged me while she was telling me that Yang was after her. I could understand why she’d told me that, but why the hug? It didn’t make sense. And let’s see... Just before that, I remember her running her fingers through her hair...

“...”

I started patting myself down.

“Sir Rekka?”

“Rekka, what are you doing?”

The girls seemed confused, but I kept searching until I found something. It was a small object in my back pocket.

“What is that? An earring?” Tsumiki asked when she saw me pull it out.

She was probably wondering why I had something like that. Of course she would be. It was clearly a girl’s earring. But it was Ellicia’s, not mine.

When Ellicia was pretending to run her fingers through her hair, she was really taking off this earring. And when she’d hugged me, it was so she could slip it into my back pocket. As for why she’d done it... Well, she probably didn’t want to share her wall walking ability with me. She probably wanted to keep Yang from getting his hands on it. Giving it to me was just her way of making sure it would stay safe even if she was captured.

There was no way of telling what power the earring really had, but the one thing I knew for sure was that it gave me the ability to pass through walls. It was probably something very important in Ellicia’s story, but for now it was going to be our ticket out of here.

“Lea, I’ve got an idea.”

▽

After that, I tried going through several walls to figure out the limits of the wall walking power. First, I learned that the power needed to be activated. You had to imagine going through a wall for it to work. Next, it couldn’t go through the earth. You would just sink downwards through the floor until your feet hit whatever natural ground was below.

Lastly, and mostly importantly, I learned the power didn’t just work on one person. It affected the person holding the earring as well as anyone or anything they were touching, but the important part was that they had to be in direct contact. For example, if I held Harissa’s hand and Harissa held Tsumiki’s hand, Harissa and I could go through the wall but Tsumiki couldn’t. That meant the easiest way for us to get out would be to have Lea hold the earring while we clung to her and she flew up through the ceiling, but...

“All right, let’s go.”

“R-Right.”

I nodded timidly. Lea was still in her human form. That made c-clinging to her a little difficult for me...

Our first plan was to get all of us to ride on her back while she was in Leviathan form, but there was a passed-out Corona to consider. Since we’d be going straight up, there was a danger that she’d fall off. So instead, we decided that Lea would carry Corona on her back, and everyone else would grab on to her body somewhere.

“Rekka, don’t be shy. Squeeze tighter. I’m holding Corona, so if you fall, I won’t be able to grab you, too.”

“Y-Yeah...”

Lea was right, but...

“...”

“...”

Tsumiki and Harissa were glowering at me.

But I had to ignore them. I didn’t want to die, so I took a deep breath and squeezed Lea tighter... Wow, she was really soft. There were plenty of... handholds... to grab on to, but I knew if I picked the wrong one, I’d be the one needing a doctor. Tsumiki was vicious when it came to that stuff.

“Okay. Tsumiki, Harissa, Mio, are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Yup.”

“...Yes.”

Mio answered last and the least enthusiastically, but her arm was wrapped tightly around Lea’s waist nonetheless. With all of us clinging to her, she looked like some kind of tree that grew people instead of fruit, I thought.

“All right, here I go,” Lea said, and then her feet floated off the floor.

When we got high enough in the air that we were closing in on the ceiling, I closed my eyes. It looked like we were going to crash straight into it... but then the power activated, and we passed right through. Lea started picking up speed, but I couldn’t feel anything pulling me downward. Her flight magic completely freed us from gravity, so as long as no one let go, there was no way we’d fall on the way up.

Eventually, we passed through all one hundred floors that way...

“Whoa!”

And were welcomed to the surface by the light of a brilliant sun.