BONUS CHAPTER: The Flickering Shadow
This is a story from the short period of time between the destruction of the Sea-Floating Pillar and the incident at the Aguinas estate.
Mariela had made a point of emphasizing how “it sure was rough getting up super early every day to make all that holy water!” Malraux then met with Weishardt and subtly weaseled his way into a negotiation to secure her a special invitation as an “affiliate” of the Black Iron Freight Corps.
The destination for the invitation was the Labyrinth’s fifty-fourth stratum, the beach cavern where the Sea-Floating Pillar had been.
“Wooooow! Sieg, look! It’s the ocean! And a cave! It’s so pretty and bluuue!”
Mariela was hyped up at seeing the ocean for the first time. And Sieg’s gaze moved around restlessly at seeing Mariela in a swimsuit for the first time. Well, it was really just a pair of shorts and a tank top that revealed about as little as leather armor, but just the fact he could see her arms and legs, which were normally covered by her clothing, made it seem different than usual. Whether from wanting to cover her or wanting to look at her, he hung around holding a cloth as big as a sheet, so if everyone hadn’t known him as her escort, he might have been arrested as a suspicious-looking person.
In contrast to Sieg’s shady behavior, Lynx eyeballed Mariela and made all sorts of rude comments: “Mariela, you got cankles,” “There’s too much meat on those kneecaps,” and “Those sleeves on your swimsuit? Oh, nah, it’s just fat.” She wanted to retort, but looking at his chiseled abs, she had nothing to retort with.
Only Sieg and Lynx were paying Mariela’s swimsuit clad figure any mind, as the gazes of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces soldiers assigned as guards were glued to Amber’s sacred peaks. Amber wasn’t wearing anything like a swimsuit, and her divine mounds and deep valleys were hidden by a summer dress, but just the sight of her strolling along the water’s edge like a lady was picture-perfect.
Captain Dick loitered around, trying to tempt her by saying things like, “Aren’t you going to swim?” and “The water feels great,” but he was shot down with a simple, “It’s been so long since the two of us got to have a leisurely stroll together.” Even the A-Ranker who dealt the decisive blow to the boss of this stratum lost face in front of Amber.
“Let’s dive in!”
Mariela was ecstatic. To no one’s surprise, she didn’t know how to swim, so she’d prepared a swim ring made of creeper rubber just for this occasion. It was written in the Library’s Essential Alchemic Products to Make Your Life Easier. She made it a little bigger so she could either get in it, put both hands on it, and swim by herself, or sit on it and be pushed around. She’d prepared for everything.
In any case, Sieg and Lynx were nearby. If both of them pushed her, she could move along the water’s surface as if she were gliding.
Splash, paddle-paddle-paddle-paddle.
“Eeeek, so fast! Whee!”
Sieg and Lynx grasped the swim ring and alternated flutter kicks. The only one having a blast was Mariela, as it wasn’t much fun for the two men pushing her.
“…Marielaaa, I’m tired of this. Let’s get out of the water,” groaned Lynx after a full hour of entertaining her. You could say he was quite service oriented. He was a really helpful guy.
“Oh, sorry for hogging it. I’ll lend you the swim ring, so you two can have some fun!”
Mariela noticed she’d been the only one enjoying herself and tried to give the swim ring to them on the beach, but what part of two guys jostling around in it would be fun for either of them?
“…Nah, I’ve had my fill. Let’s get a bite to eat, eh, Sieg?”
“…Yeah.”
The trio went to have a light meal in the dining spot prepared by the Labyrinth Suppression Forces.
Apparently, soldiers got sleepy after playing in the water and filling their bellies, just like ordinary people.
The trio collapsed under a parasol erected on the beach. Mariela spread out the cloth brought by the overprotective Sieg as a blanket, and they all seemed to be in the same nap mode. Blue light reflected among the swaying waves, and although they were lying on the beach in the mystical cave illuminated with it, it felt like they were being rocked to sleep by the waves.
Dozing off and drifting through a pleasant nap, Mariela was suddenly pulled back to reality by a shadow in the blue light hitting her eyelids.
Huh? Was that…a person’s shadow?
She thought she’d seen the shadow of a woman in the shade of a rock across the way.
She and Amber were the only women who’d come to the beach today. And Amber was enjoying a meal with Captain Dick at the dining spot, so whose shadow could that have been?
Looking around, both Sieg and Lynx appeared to be deep in dreamland, and Mariela couldn’t bring herself to wake them. This stratum was safe, and the Labyrinth Suppression Forces were nearby, so she figured she’d likely be just fine wandering around on her own. Mariela took the swim ring in one hand and began to walk toward the shade of the rock.
When she got near it, someone’s shadow dived underwater with a sploosh and swam in the direction of the open sea.
I wonder who that was…, thought Mariela as she clumsily got into the swim ring and entered the water.
She could hear someone singing from the direction the shadow had disappeared to. Even though Mariela had up and left all on her own, Sieg and Lynx both continued to sleep and didn’t come for her. I really shouldn’t be going out to sea without waking them up first, Mariela thought, yet this all felt like some sort of dream, like someone was luring her into the water.
Splish, splish, splash.
Mariela’s kicks in the water were so weak that she should barely have been able to move forward at all, but the swim ring steadily carried her toward the open sea.
It’s calling me.
The moment the thought crossed her mind, Mariela entered a small cave in the stratum wall.
“I’m sorry to call you here like this…”
Blue light filled the interior of the small, confined cave even more than the outside. The human shadow floating there addressed Mariela.
“I’m injured and can’t go home… The pillar, the boss of this stratum, summoned me against my will, and although I hid, I was caught up in its collapse…”
The face that emerged from the water was that of a beautiful woman, no different from a human’s except for her large pupils and her big, fin-like ears.
“Please, won’t you give me a potion…?”
Blue hair that seemed to shine spread through the water. Mariela couldn’t see the lower half of the woman’s body, but there was webbing on the hand begging for a potion. Was the cave shining, or was this person’s hair shining? To Mariela, the brilliance was like the butterflies said to inhabit the southern countries.
Mariela had high-grade potions in the small pouch at her waist. She’d started keeping them on her person out of habit since it would be troublesome for the soldiers who didn’t know her situation to see them. She took one from the pouch and handed it to the blue-haired woman.
“Thank you. Thank you so much. Now I can return to the sea.”
After countless thank-yous, she downed the potion, then dived back down into the depths of the water, making a small splash as she left.
The lower half of her body, visible when she dived, had the tail of a fish.
A mermaid, just like the legends said! They’re actually real!
Somewhere between dream and reality, the figure of the mermaid was burned into Mariela’s memory. Right when the mermaid headed for the bottom of the sea and disappeared, the tidal current changed, and Mariela was pushed out of the small cave and carried to the middle of the sea in the fifty-fourth stratum.
“There she is! Mariela!”
Sieg and Lynx, who’d woken up on the beach, spotted Mariela and dashed toward the water, where they dived right in. Mariela was being steadily carried toward the shore, but to them, it probably looked like she was just floating in the middle of the ocean.
“I’m fine,” she was about to say when the water behind her swelled up with a big splash and something emerged from the sea.
Among the monsters known as krakens, there were those who had the shape of octopi in addition to the ones in the shape of squids. What appeared behind Mariela had to be…
“It’s dangerous to go out on the open sea alone!”
Glint.
It was a dazzling man who diffusely reflected the blue light of the beach cavern.
Mariela would probably come across as uncouth simply by asking things like how could he stand up straight in the water without leg support while flashing a thumbs-up, or why he was in the beach cavern when it was by invitation of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces only.
All she needed to know was that Haage, who’d appeared from the water, was greatly enjoying his ocean swim, and that the top brass of the Adventurers Guild were probably very busy working while their guildmaster played around.
“I’ll take you to shore!” proclaimed Haage, who pulled out a cord from somewhere, fastened one end to the swim ring, tied the other end around his torso, and began to swim to shore in a style where he moved his left and right arms symmetrically. The style was said to be like a butterfly. The hair of the mermaid had been beautiful like a butterfly from the southern countries, but the butterfly here was very dynamic. He moved toward shore with incredible energy. It had been fun to be pulled along while on top of the swim ring, but being pulled along while it was around her torso made Mariela feel like she was swimming herself, which was fun in its own way. Did that mermaid also part the waves like this as she swam?
After Mariela reached the shore, Sieg and Lynx were incredibly angry at her. They asked why she hadn’t woken them and why she’d gone into the sea alone. When she answered she felt like she’d seen a person’s outline, Haage, who’d appeared from the sea like a shadow, got a terrible scolding from the pair in her place.
Mariela thought maybe she should tell them about the mermaid, but she had a feeling the creature was a “person” like her in a different form, not a monster. The mermaid had simply gotten hurt and couldn’t go home.
I shouldn’t tell them about the mermaid. Better for them to stay legends, I think…
Mariela decided to remain silent and be scolded along with Haage.
In her pouch was a single mysterious, faintly transparent stone emitting a light like the moon, but Mariela decided to keep this locked away, too, along with her memory of the mermaid.