CHAPTER 5: Lynx

01

The rain was pouring outside, but the weather had no effect inside the Labyrinth.

No rain fell here in the twenty-third stratum, the Shores of Eternal Night, to fill its many various lakes and streams weaving their way among the trees and lunamagia.

Clear water burbled on its path between the boulders, outlining each rock. Was the falling rain in the Labyrinth City the source of these waters? Mariela gathered lunamagia soaked in moonstone light, careful not to slip on moss and fall into the stream. With algae covering the surface of the water, she couldn’t even guess the depth of these pools.

“Sorry for taking you away from your busy schedule,” Mariela said sheepishly.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Mariela, protecting you is my highest priority.”

Lynx and Sieg waved their hands to reassure her it was nothing to worry about.

After the Aguinas family scandal, orders for high-grade potions had decreased for a little while, but Mariela kept churning out new potions with each passing day, as if this was no problem.

“At present, I don’t see any reason to believe that she’ll suddenly perish from the Magic Circle of Suspended Animation,” reported Nierenberg. That was enough for the Forces to resume their purchases of one hundred potions a day.

They were in a stratum that the Labyrinth Suppression Forces had already captured. By subjugating monsters in those parts, they could weaken the power of the Labyrinth itself. Those soldiers who couldn’t participate in the operation in the deepest part of the Labyrinth went into strata suited to their individual abilities, working hard to subjugate monsters. Naturally, this consumed potions. When high-grade potion orders were curbed, the Forces’ potion reserves neither increased nor decreased.

The remaining potion vials in the Labyrinth City numbered hardly more than five thousand. Seeing that it was impossible to collect empty vials when a life was on the line, it was inevitable that their numbers decreased from year to year. Over the past six months, many of those empty vials had been refilled with potions, meaning few were left.

The Aguinas household’s underground potion storage facility had recently resumed operations, allowing them to bring in barrels of high-grade potions to transfer into the facilities’ giant tanks.

Incidentally, the barrels used for transport were made of wood with the capacity to hold one hundred vials’ worth of potions. They were inscribed with Magic Circles of Antidegradation, just like potion vials, but the effect only lasted for a few days. The engraved magic circles disappeared with the passage of time. Take too long, and branches and roots would start to sprout from the barrels, perhaps due to the miraculous recovery effects of the potions.

The Aguinas family was put in charge of managing potions once again—but that was it. The Labyrinth Suppression Forces had the ownership rights. Since the Forces supplied the magical gems necessary to operate the storage facilities, it was more accurate to say the Aguinases were lending out their place.

The only people on the Aguinas side with knowledge of this situation were Caroline’s father, Royce, and his elderly steward. They were bound by powerful oath magic, including the promise not to pry into the source of the potions. After Caroline married and became the head of the Aguinas family, she would inherit the secret and the oath. At the very least, Royce didn’t want to burden her with needless responsibilities until then.

Of course, Mariela was unaware of these circumstances. It wasn’t mandatory for her to supply one hundred high-grade potions each day. She had been told to make potions “in moderation,” which must have been because they were scared of something happening to the sole alchemist in the City. And yet, Mariela succeeded in making a hundred potions a day—not even all in a single go, but she crafted them one at a time. Since Amber and the Nierenbergs were permanent fixtures at Sunlight’s Canopy, she used her free time to do the same work, many times over.

It wasn’t for money. She had already received compensation beyond her wildest dreams, beyond what she could count.

She had a hunch that in a short while, she would be able to make high-grade potions without using any tools at all.

To open her Library, she needed to make potions without tools using only alchemical skills. If she became able to make special-grade potions, she might even be able to restore Sieg’s eye. There would be nothing better as a congratulatory gift when he achieved A Rank and earned his freedom.

Although it took time and magical power, she made high-grade potions one by one with reckless abandon.

The only downside was that she’d caused shortages of lunamagia in the Labyrinth City from churning out ten thousand high-grade potions. Since the herb wasn’t profitable to ship to the imperial capital, significant amounts of lunamagia had never circulated the markets in the Labyrinth City. That was why she’d come with Lynx and Sieg to gather it last time, but what they’d gathered from that trip had already been used up.

She’d requested Malraux to scrape some together for her, but the next delivery wouldn’t be for another three days, and she was getting bored. When she’d asked Lynx and Sieg to help her, they’d told her yes, even though they were taking a break from subjugation.

She had made a point to let them know she’d pay a retaining fee.

“There are materials from lizardmen down there. Well, fine. I guess you can treat me to dinner,” Lynx had generously replied.

The Black Iron Freight Corps had just returned to the Labyrinth City, so the little group could even bring a raptor along to carry loads again.

Mariela was about to express her thanks to Jay—who was hauling their stuff—but his blue eyes were murky, like festering water in a ditch. He scrutinized her with those eyes, and she was unable to say anything.

This person…must be the one taking care of the raptors at Reymond’s slave trading company when I met Sieg for the first time, right?

Up to now, he’d always turned away when she spoke to him, but today he’d been throwing insolent glances her way. Mariela remembered how he’d been in the same place as Sieg during their first encounter. For some reason, he watched her every move like a hawk. She couldn’t even hand Sieg or Lynx any of the potions she’d brought with her.

Sieg’s eye was beautiful, inspiring a certain nostalgia when she gazed into it, but she couldn’t bring herself to look into Jay’s eyes. Though they never had really crossed paths, she could feel the extreme resentment welling behind his eyes. Mariela inched away from him and began leading the raptor to where lunamagia grew in abundance.

Although Jay watched Mariela with a rude stare, he made no move to do anything. He didn’t even try to approach her. He knew who she was and what would happen to him if he ever laid a finger on her.

“Jay—over here,” Lynx called out.

As with the last time that they were down here, Jay sluggishly picked up magical stones and pelts dropped by the lizardmen. A short distance away, Mariela gathered lunamagia, dried it, and loaded it onto the raptor’s back.

“Grar,” the raptor whined. More water, please?

Mariela replied, “Just a little” and cupped her hands into a bowl to offer some water.

Even though there was water everywhere in this stratum, the raptor seemed to prefer Mariela’s magic-infused variety. Magical power changed the flavor of the water, but this was undetectable to the human palate.

The Corps kept this raptor as a mode of transportation within the Labyrinth City, and it relaxed under the sacred tree at Sunlight’s Canopy whenever Lynx had brought it with him. It was very fond of Mariela, which must have been because she always gave it water infused with magical power.

The burbling of the flowing water and the rumbling sound of a waterfall were audible from far away.

Sometimes a lizardman would let out a death cry when Lynx or Sieg defeated it, but there were no other sounds.

The air must have cooled down. The last time that they had come to this stratum, it had felt warm compared to the outside, but now that spring had arrived, the stratum was the cooler terrain.

I’m getting cold. I think I’ll gather a little more, and then we’ll go home. Mariela rubbed her numbed hands together and resumed gathering.

And then, she noticed something. It was quiet.

She could no longer hear the voices of lizardmen.

Mariela was about to call out for Sieg and Lynx.

That was when the water of a nearby stream seemed to rise up, and something appeared.

02

“Shall we?” Leonhardt addressed the assembled adventurers and the Labyrinth Suppression Forces’ elite.

It was a little while after Mariela and the others had started gathering lunamagia in the twenty-third stratum.

Those with equipment weak to heat had swapped it out for basilisk leather. However, many of those here wore familiar expensive equipment. The only additional gear they had were the masks filtered with wyvern lungs, which made them look strange.

The plan was for Weishardt to protect everyone from the scorching heat with ice magic, and an A-Rank shield knight from the Labyrinth Suppression Forces would serve exclusively as his support.

The volcano walked slowly. If they plunged into the stratum while it was far away, they should be able to fight the red dragon that had swooped at them before. The strategy was to alleviate the disadvantageous lava zone with ice magic as they challenged the dragon. Once Leonhardt confirmed the volcano had moved far enough away, he gave the signal to charge.

“Ice Field.” Weishardt cast a weak ice spell on everyone.

This magic was often intended to envelop targets in cold air, slowly freezing them in place. But now he used it to protect the soldiers from the blistering land. Of course, he had to continuously keep it on a total of ten people who were moving around at high speed, so Weishardt had no leeway to participate in the offensive.

“Rrrrrroooar!”

As if to trample the worms who’d dared to invade its territory, the red dragon soared out of the volcano’s crater and flew at them with terrifying power.

One characteristic of the dragon species was that there were significant individual differences.

Whether it was for humans, animals, or monsters, there was an individual difference that existed in all creatures—be it body size or color. But they all fell within range: They were restricted in size and a certain color palettes. In particular, the dragons varied in shape, size, and abilities. They could appear to be different species all together. The only reason they were all lumped together under the dragon category was because there were so few of them. Even their ability for combat oscillated wildly.

The red dragon was a “dragon” by virtue of its two wings. That said, it couldn’t be compared to wyverns based on the sheer immensity of its size. After all, wyverns were a little bigger than horses, but the red dragon was colossal enough to swallow them in one gulp. Its skin was red and brown—like hot lava—and at a glance, its scales appeared dense and strong. It had the weight to match, too. Its wingspan was wider than its body was long. There was a thin membrane that stretched over the wings to catch the wind. Even though the wings weren’t small, it seemed inconceivable for them to be able to carry its weight. Plus, it didn’t even flap its wings once. The dragon had to be the type that used magic and aerodynamics together to fly.

There were some dragon species that had been alive for a millennium, but this red dragon wasn’t even two hundred years old. In a sense, it was young. But it had managed to grow to a great size in a short period of time. This might have been the work of the magical power that filled the Labyrinth.

“Gh.”

The strength of their foe finally sank in now that they were challenging it. One of the soldiers to let out a little squawk at the immensity of the creature. But no one could afford to be paralyzed in fear.

As the dragon streaked by overhead with a blast of fiery breath, Dick faced the dragon and launched one of the many spears he carried on his back. It wasn’t his favorite black spear; this one was made of mythril, forged specially for this battle.

“Rising Dragon Spear.”

“Wind Storm.”

As Dick shot his spear with his skill, Leonhardt reinforced it with his magic, while someone else added their wind spell. The mithril spear had a high affinity with magic, and the spell swirled into a tornado around it. Those who came in contact with this attack would be shredded to pieces by the wind blades before the spear could ever reach them.

But even this couldn’t withstand the red dragon’s breath.

It was fired at a trajectory slightly off from the dragon’s scorching breath, causing the creature to direct its attack away from the Forces. The mythril spear melted from the heat.

Tremors from the earth rumbled and shook the fifty-sixth stratum, and a hot wind blasted through it.

Without changing its altitude, the red dragon made a surprisingly tight, agile turn for its enormous body. It expelled its breath two or three more times, but all of the attacks were averted by Dick’s spears.

It wasn’t just weapons that had a certain range—magic operated in the same way, too. The red dragon didn’t move within that range. Dick’s spears didn’t directly hit its breath, but there was no attack that could reach the dragon, the spears included.

“We’ve come all this way just for you. Why not come down here? Don’t be shy!”

All Haage and the warriors of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces could do was strike their sword sheaths with their shields, clanging them to try to provoke the dragon.

“You’re just using an out-of-date strategy, aren’t you? That’s something straight out of a picture book.”

Haage had gasped at first at the sight of the formidable foe, but all the red dragon did was circle overhead and breathe fire at them. The breath didn’t even hit anyone due to Dick’s spears, charged with wind magic from Leonhardt and the magic users that diverted its trajectory. Weishardt’s ice magic protected them from being injured by the lava.

Haage’s work would begin after the dragon alighted on the ground. With his two other warriors, he was as bored as he’d ever been. They worked hard to provoke the beast instead.

“That reminds me, when I was a young’un, my grammie read me a story about a warrior who made noise with his shield to provoke a dragon.”

It was inevitable that Haage would start to recount a folktale in his carefree manner.

It was unclear if the dragon could understand human language, but of course, they were under too much stress to provoke it with insults anyway: “Hey, asshole! Yo mama is so massive, she’s like a volcano! And she’s got stubby legs!”

No one knew whether it realized they were provoking it, whether it saw an opening within Haage’s group, or whether it had a habit of collecting shiny objects, but after blowing its breath once more, the red dragon began a nosedive toward Haage.

With its sizable wings, the dragon was colossal. Did it plan to make a single strike and rise back into the sky again? Or did it intent to alight on the ground and fight there? It seemed as though the wind pressure created by the huge creature’s approach would be enough to blow the soldiers off their feet. As if to make sure that didn’t happen to him, Haage unsheathed his spare long sword and drove it halfway into the ground.

This action was a signal, and Haage and the warriors all leaped back as one.

Did the red dragon notice that Haage’s shout had thoroughly ensnared it in a trap?

“Lightning Empress! Take it down!”

“Heavenbolt!”

Ever since they’d alighted onto this stratum, Lightning Empress Elsee had been chanting at the back of the group to escape the dragon’s notice. As soon as it entered her range, her mighty spell, Heavenbolt, pierced the creature’s body.

03

“Hello. Elio, say hi,” prompted Pallois.

“H-hello.”

“Oh, what cute customers. Running errands in the rain?” called out Merle of Merle’s Spices.

Elmera’s sons had come to Sunlight’s Canopy.

In response, Elio shyly hid behind his older brother Pallois. They must not have totally mastered the use of umbrellas yet, because Elio was particularly drenched.

“Welcome,” Sherry said, taking notice of them. “Would you like to read a book together again?”

Elio happily nodded, running over to the corner of the shop to join her.

“Elio said he wanted to come play,” Pallois said in a slight whisper as if to apologize for coming to the shop without buying anything. He had an unusual amount of social awareness for a boy in the Labyrinth City.

“You can come anytime you like. After all, I always come visit for no reason in particular! Hey, before you go play, Dehydrate! And here’s some candy, too.”

Merle was well acquainted with Sunlight’s Canopy and prepared tea and sweets for the timid boy. This was an all too familiar sight.

“Your dad isn’t with you today?” asked Sherry.

“Yeah, Father said he had urgent work to do,” Elio replied.

“So did my papa. Miss Mariela and Mr. Sieg are out, too.”

While drinking the tea Merle had prepared, Pallois explained that Elio had whined about wanting to come play with Sherry, who had been so kind after he’d accidentally zapped her with static electricity. He was used to people running away instead.

Pallois was too innocent to notice the eyes of those eavesdropping on the conversation—Merle, Amber, and Caroline—which glittered brightly at the signs of bittersweet love coming from Sherry and Elio.

The sight of the children flipped a switch in Merle, and she shared a piece of gossip with Amber. “That reminds me—I hear Lynx recently took our little Mariela out to dinner, just the two of them. Edgan pulled Sieg away.”

“That’s right. The setting is important, isn’t it? I recommended a restaurant a customer took me to when I was working at the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion. But they wound up having a good time at the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion anyway.”

It was impossible for Caroline not to join the conversation after hearing of this development. This was just what happens when three women were gathered together.

“My! So Lynx made a move at last!”

“Well, except there have been no new developments.”

Amber guessed the outcome of the date based on Mariela’s behavior afterward, but the lack of excitement turned the topic of conversation to Caroline.

“So, Lady Carol, what do you think of Lord Weishardt?”

“Lord Weis? He is a kind person who always worries about his subordinates’ health.”

“…These girls…must cause men so much grief…”

Unlike Elio and Sherry’s deepening friendship, both Mariela and Caroline continued in blissful ignorance of their own affairs. Merle and Amber could only sigh in defeat. And conversation didn’t even end there; they were formidable indeed.

Pallois instinctually knew it was better not to participate in this conversation. He quietly left his seat to keep Emily company.

“Ooh, I like stories with princesses,” she would interject, butting in on Sherry and Elio.

The rain continued outside, and drumming against the skylight and the paved roads in a way that was remarkably loud.

The unchanging interior of Sunlight’s Canopy was an island of calm separated from the outside world.

04

In the instant Lightning Empress Elsee unleashed her attack, the lava of the fifty-sixth stratum became pure white. The image of the massive electrical discharge was burned into their eyes, even after they closed them.

It was accompanied by a thunderous, earsplitting roar. The Heavenbolt struck Haage’s planted sword like a lightning rod, unleashing tremors that shook the earth, demonstrating the tremendous power of the skill.

The Heavenbolt pierced through the red dragon, causing smoke to gush from all over its body and breaking its stance. It began to fall.

“Did we do it?!” yelled a soldier, and Leonhardt responded with another order.

“Not yet! It’s a dragon that lives in a volcano. Finish it off while it’s numb and immobile!”

Everyone started scrambling toward the red dragon while the earth shook under them with the impact of its body against the ground. As Leonhardt said, the only thing damaged by the creature’s fall was the rock it had landed on; the dragon itself, although scorched and smoking in places, had no other visible injuries. Was the twitching due to paralysis and muscle spasms?

They weren’t sure how long the Lightning Empress’s Heavenbolt would restrict the dragon’s movements, but they had to clip its wings while it was on the ground to take away its ability to fly.

Although they didn’t know the extent of the red dragon’s intelligence, these dragons as a whole were very clever. The provocation from shield clanging and the subsequent lightning attack had been effective only because this was the first time it had battled humans, and the ruse likely wouldn’t work a second time.

The dragon boasted overwhelming strength, but it had only used the same breath attacks on scouts and the maintenance unit. There were no other monsters in this stratum besides the volcano, which moved around but didn’t even have a head. The red dragon had passed the time with no intellectual stimulation. It was this lack of combat experience that gave the Forces an opening.

This situation could be likened to when the stratum opened to reveal a blast of gas. It had damaged the Labyrinth Suppression Forces so effectively because they had never confronted anything like it.

“Quickly! Now’s our chance to finish it off!” shouted Leonhardt.

With that, everyone’s will became one. They had to defeat the red dragon before it learned from this experience and began a complicated attack.

That was why they forgot a crucial detail: A Walking Mountain of Fire existed in this stratum.

Boom! Boom! Boom-boom-boom!

Without any warning, lava exploded from all the pools at the same time.

The Walking Mountain of Fire plodded sluggishly toward them. It was still far away. But was this entire stratum part of the monster’s body?

The soldiers must have been able to avoid a direct hit because of their A-Rank abilities. Weishardt’s layer of ice melted in an instant from the sudden uptick in temperature.

“Gah!”

The scorching air burned the lungs of those unfortunate enough to inhale. Others suffered damage to their hands and feet due to the weakened ice layer. Though gloves and other protective layers covered their hands and feet, they gritted their teeth, probably from the burnt skin and sores underneath.

“Ice Field, brother! The potions!” shouted Weishardt.

“These injuries can be dealt with later! Focus on the foe before us!”

As soon as they received the protection from the ice, all soldiers began to sprint forward again. Magma erupted from the surrounding lava pools in scorching geysers, creating a rain of lava rocks. Anywhere they touched without the Ice Field’s protection caused deep burns, but they couldn’t afford to pay any attention to that.

Along with another magic user who’d gotten in the range to use attacks, Lightning Empress Elsee prepared her spells to fire them all at once. Dick gripped his black spear and assumed an attack stance, while Leonhardt and Haage, swords in hand, tensed their legs to prepare to leap upon the enemy.

Just a little farther and the red dragon would be near enough for melee attacks.

Just a little farther.

They were so close.

And they would have gotten there if it weren’t for the eruptions caused by the Walking Mountain of Fire.

And the red dragon fluttered its eyes open right at that moment. Perhaps the Labyrinth owner’s ill will toward them had caused such a cruel twist of fate.

With a whoosh, it attacked its diminutive enemies in a billow of dirty smoke and hot air and soared into the sky once more.

“Thunderbolt!”

“Stone Lance!”

Lightning Empress Elsee and the magic user of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces launched their spells at the red dragon before it completely left their range. But their magic hadn’t been charged enough, and even the two attacks combined couldn’t compare to Elsee’s previous blow. It only served to provoke the enraged red dragon that they’d knocked to the ground before.

The dragon’s enormous maw opened. It still flew low to the ground, and there was no way anyone could avoid its hot breath at point-blank range.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

“Take thiiiiiiiiis!”

Each person faced the dragon rapidly rising out of their range and launched swords and spears at it. They at least needed to change the trajectory of its breath.

However, their attacks didn’t reach the red dragon, and it aimed its breath at Lightning Empress Elsee.

“Lightning Empress!”

At once Weishardt let loose a wall of ice to protect her, but it vanished like paper before the flames. Although Lightning Empress Elsee naturally tried to fall back, she couldn’t move out of the way fast enough at this distance.

Darling, Pallois, Elio…

Lightning Empress Elsee—no, Elmera, the one who went to war dreaming of a happy future for her family. What did she think of? What did she see before the scorching heat of the dragon’s breath consumed her?

B-b-b-booooooom.

The breath made impact with Lightning Empress Elsee at point-blank range without losing the slightest bit of momentum. It was an attack with enough power to shake the entire stratum. The surrounding earth was blown away, and the blast decimated the vicinity. The ice protecting her disappeared in an instant, and as Leonhardt, Haage, and Dick leaped at the dragon, their protection evaporated, too. The hot wind licked at their bodies as they went flying.

The fire was that powerful. Not even cinders would remain of anyone, human or otherwise, who were unlucky enough to take a direct hit.

The red dragon roared in triumph as it flew even higher. With every beat of its wings, gale-force winds ravaged the area, sweeping away the ashes of whatever had met its fire.

Lightning Empress…!!!

Leonhardt, Haage, and Dick couldn’t speak, only hack up blood. It wasn’t just their throats that sustained damage when they lost their ice protection and inhaled the blistering air; their very lungs had been burned, too.

And yet, they crawled along the scorching earth with a glimmer of hope that Lightning Empress Elsee still lived.

The site of impact had collapsed like a crater.

The ground had been exposed by the wind from the red dragon’s wings, and a lone man stood shielding Lightning Empress Elsee.

He was taller than average, clad in mundane clothing worn by commoners. He didn’t look like he belonged in the deepest part of the Labyrinth. Moreover, his sleeves and pant cuffs were burned to a crisp, and all that remained was what he wore on his torso. Despite his lack of clothing and his unwarrior-like build, his limbs weren’t even scratched.

But above all else, this man standing barefoot on the scorching earth with no ice protection didn’t have a single burn—not even something as mild as a sunburn could be seen on his exposed limbs.

The man had extremely gentle features. He looked in wonder at Lightning Empress Elsee from behind his glasses, of which nothing remained except a warped frame, and murmured, “Elme……ra?” as if groping for a vague memory.

“Darling!”

Crackle-crackle-crackle-pop!

Lightning Empress Elsee—no, the beloved wife of Voyd, Elmera threw her arms around her husband’s neck, or so it seemed as the mother of all popping sounds assaulted the man who’d saved his wife by a hairsbreadth. Her control over her electricity must have slackened due to her overwhelming emotion.

“!!! Ah, I remember now. Elmera. You’re absolutely electrifying, my dear.”

Not one person had the time to quip, “Physically, at least.”

The red dragon had certainly aimed for Elmera, and Voyd had saved her.

But how? Why did this man suffer not even a single burn in this stratum?

Voyd called out to Weishardt, who was almost possessed by this question. “You should expand your Ice Shield.”

Weishardt snapped to his senses and extended ice protection to everyone at once. All the soldiers had wounds covering their bodies, but after removing their masks and downing high-grade potions, they recovered to the point where they could move again.

Even as they did so, the red dragon steadily rose higher and higher, until it was too high even for Heavenbolt.

“Rrrrrrooooooooar!”

They could hear the creature’s sheer fury in its cry.

It had retaliated from being knocked to the ground. Although its breath should have burned its enemies to ashes, it hadn’t killed a single one of them.

Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh.

The dragon fired its breath at random. The strength of each shot was low, but they had more than enough firepower to burn an A-Ranker to death—and they came in rapid succession.

“Rising Dragon Spear.”

Although Dick’s attack averted the dragon’s breath, he had few mythril spears remaining.

“Wind Storm.”

“Ice Shield.”

With the mage’s wind magic, the dragon’s fire couldn’t generate enough power, and the shield knight let it hit his shield diagonally to divert it.

And yet, his left arm gripping the shield still suffered severe burns.

The dragon’s maw opened once again to fire the next attack. Would they be able to avoid this one?

“If you retreat, I will cover everyone.”

In the midst of the blast sweeping over the area, Voyd’s calm voice reached Leonhardt’s ears.

The operation is a failure. Leonhardt hesitated. The red dragon was in the sky again, aiming its rain of fire more precisely than before. It was unlikely to come down within range again, and even if it did, Lightning Empress wouldn’t have enough time to prepare her Heavenbolt.

But if we retreat now…

The red dragon would be further strengthened from the battle experience. By the time they challenged it again, it might have developed a resistance to the Heavenbolt that struck it down before.

Rrrrrrrrumble, rrrrrrrrumble. The volcano was getting closer.

If the battle lasted much longer, they’d have to fight it, too.

He looked at Haage, who put his life on the line; Lightning Empress Elsee, who’d almost died just now; and Dick, who gripped his few remaining mythril spears. He looked at Weishardt, who fought beside him, and the officers of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces.

They all understood the situation. Even if they kept fighting, they wouldn’t reach the red dragon.

They all knew what would happen if they retreated now, too.

That was why no one gave up. They were willing to fight to the last breath; if there was any possibility of defeating their foe, they wanted to continue the battle.

That’s why Leonhardt gave the order.

“Retreat!”

We must not exhaust ourselves here.

“A wise move,” called out Weishardt.

The group began to hustle toward the stratum stairs, and the red dragon blew out to stop them.

The shield knight and Dick served as the rear guard. They would divert and repel the dragon’s breath to protect everyone. The interval between the dragon’s successive attacks decreased and their accuracy increased, as if it was getting used to handling them. The dragon seemed to have lost its mind, firing at the group hurrying to the stratum’s exit. But the two in the rear no heed to their severe burns as they decisively parried the breath attacks. Leonhardt was their leader and held their lives in his hands, and he’d chosen to retreat. The pair who’d fought with him for a long time on the fields of battle understood what he was thinking. If Leonhardt decided to retreat, if he decided to prioritize the lives of everyone present, he would use everything at his disposal to return everyone to the surface. But Dick had a limited number of mythril spears, and the shield knight’s shield was steadily losing strength as the breath scorched it.

Before long, the spears ran out and the shield became unusable. The pair remained at the back of the group to protect them, and they were taking up weapons to face the red dragon when Voyd suddenly stepped between them and the creature.

“H-hey, you!” Dick blurted out.

He understood the man had just saved Lightning Empress Elsee’s life. However, he didn’t know how. This man who walked barefoot in the stratum without a single burn couldn’t be a normal citizen. But Dick didn’t detect any particular strength or any of the undulating magical power of a mage from this man.

By all appearances, he’s perfectly ordinary…

Shiver. The Ice Shield didn’t completely block out all the heat of the blistering stratum, yet Dick had goose bumps all over his body.

“Hollow Rift.”

To Dick, the motion of Voyd’s hand reminded him of shooing away gnats.

Something spread out from the tip of the hand he waved around, and the dragon’s breath in that spot vanished as if he’d erased it.

To assign colors to it, it could be said to be black and white. Pure black and pure white. These two colors were hardly ever seen together in the natural world, combining together like a mosaic, making them feel out of place.

But above all else, just looking at this something made him feel anxious and restless, like he was falling. Like he would be swallowed up without taking a single step. Like his own body was turning inside out.

He could detect no heat, mass, or volume from it. It had to have been the Hollow Rift, but the dragon’s breath vanished like it had no mass or heat as soon as it touched it.

“Now, let’s hurry. If I stay here, I may forget.” Voyd urged Dick on as if nothing had happened.

Dick’s hearing had finally recovered from Heavenbolt’s explosion, and it was picking up a sizzling sound coming from Voyd’s feet.

The soles of his feet are getting burned… But are they healing instantly…?

It wasn’t that Voyd took no damage from this scorching stratum. Rather, he had taken damage that was healed with incredible power.

This ability… That was as much as Dick could process.

His eyes met Voyd’s. The man had a horribly calm face, and his eyes, always concealed by glasses, were distinctly hollow themselves.

“Darling, darling! Why? You said you wanted a quiet life, so that’s why I…”

As soon as they were no longer in danger, Elmera embraced Voyd, sobbing. The group had managed to escape the dragon, taking refuge in the safe zone near the stairs—which could be attributed to Dick, the shield knight, and Voyd’s protection.

“My dear,” he tenderly replied, “life without you would be empty and meaningless. We should go home for today.”

Voyd still looked out of place in the deepest part of the Labyrinth.

Weishardt had a feeling he should find out the identity of the man who had rescued Elmera—and everyone else—from their predicament. He was about to call out to Voyd when Leonhardt stopped him. It was impossible for him to believe it was a coincidence, but he had a rough idea of this man’s identity. If he was correct, the other man wasn’t someone they could afford to call to carelessly.

“Retreat. Return to the base.”

The ceiling near the stratum stairs was too low for the red dragon to reach them while flying. But it had to be furious that its prey had escaped because it had low, unleashing its hot breath into the cave entrance at the stratum stairs. The explosions from the attack could still reach them.

The Walking Fire Mountain was approaching, and there was no way for them to predict what might happen.

With overwhelming sorrow, he made the decision to retreat. They couldn’t afford to incur injury here. After the bare minimum treatment, the group returned to their base via a Teleportation Circle and the underground Aqueduct.

After gathering at the lowest stratum, the strongest fighters in the Labyrinth City had retreated without so much as defeating the stratum boss’s guardian, never mind the boss itself.

It felt just like when Leonhardt received the petrification curse.

Even far from the fifty-sixth stratum, he thought he could still hear the red dragon’s roar. It didn’t want them to get away. It was trying to bury them here—so that they would never threaten this place, or the Labyrinth, again.

—It was a common phenomenon in the Labyrinth.

When a strong adventurer or group of adventurers was wounded and in retreat, the stronger monsters of the strata where they were would appear to deliver the finishing blow.

When Leonhardt had received the petrification curse, B-Rank krakens had surged out in abnormally large numbers in the thirtieth stratum, where only C-Rank monsters appeared. Dozens of C-Rank adventurers had been there. According to Lightning Empress Elsee’s theory, the krakens were one rank above those adventurers who had been deployed to defeat them. She undertook the task of dealing with them. An ocean water stratum had the maximum possible affinity with thunder magic, so she easily dispatched them, and the wholesale market flourished.

This time, two adventurers aiming to reach A Rank and an alchemist possessing immense magical power happened to be present in the twenty-third stratum, a place of perennial night.

05

Mariela couldn’t see what had appeared.

All she knew was that several “somethings” had appeared from the stream water, tall enough that she had to crane her neck to take them in. The one closest to her swung something resembling an arm down at her.

Bam. She heard the sound of something being smacked aside.

The raptor had whipped its body to strike away the arm with its tail, and the tail itself was torn to pieces. Only the raptor suffered injury, while the something raised its arm to swing down at Mariela again.

“Grar! Grar.”

Mariela couldn’t keep up with what was happening. The raptor lowered its head to scoop her onto its back, then broke into a sprint in the direction of Lynx and Sieg.

“Eek! Ah!” yelped Mariela.

It was a short distance, but the only reason Mariela wasn’t thrown off the back of the raptor was because she was practically buried in the large heap of lunamagia she’d face-planted into. And the reason the claws of the thing in pursuit only took off half the raptor’s tail was because the herbs flying off its back acted as a smoke screen. Lynx and Sieg came running to intercept them, and Mariela was able to join back up with the pair.

“Mariela! Are you hurt?!”

“Shit! Why are there death lizards in this shallow stratum?!”

Mariela slid down from the raptor, and Sieg hurriedly checked her over. She didn’t appear to be hurt. Instead, the raptor who saved her had lost half its tail, and although it had only run for a matter of seconds, it had exhausted itself.

That was to be expected. A death lizard was an A-Rank monster, even if its cognition was as fuzzy as a newborn’s. The raptor wouldn’t stand a chance—especially one who couldn’t even handle a C-Rank lizardman. But the raptor had managed to flick away the arm of the death lizard attacking Mariela, escaping with her on its back.

Death lizards crawled out of the streams one after another.

Although they were supposed to be superior to lizardmen, their backs were rounded like a previous step of evolution, and their limbs were lanky. However, they had four arms, and the way they crawled on all fours resembled spiders, as if their joints were neither human nor reptilian. They didn’t have individual fingers, and the sharpened tips of their limbs, like sickles or spearheads, made them seem even more repulsive.

Their faces had long snouts like the animals called “crocodiles” that she’d heard of in stories, but the huge mouths were divided into at least three parts. As the split widened between the top and bottom jaws, both of them split to the left and right as well, ready to grab something. Each mouth had split into six. If you only considered their shape, they looked like flowers. But whenever they opened and closed, they resembled mollusk tentacles trying to catch something. This movement was nothing like chewing. This body part appeared to be a head, instead of a hand. The only indication that it was a head was the eyes with three or four pupils that wriggled around at a normal eye location.

The body of every single one was pure white, though they appeared bluish-white under the light of the moonstones in the night stratum. The torn mouths and the tips of the limbs were dyed with a wet and shiny red like fresh blood, and veins visibly ran through the white bodies like parasites beneath their skin.

When the death lizards climbed onto land and stood on their two legs, the four bladelike arms glittered. Lynx and Sieg knew how sharp they were from the way they’d sliced up the raptor’s tail just by touching it.

“Mariela, head for the stairs while we hold ’em back,” Lynx directed.

Mariela nodded silently in response. She obeyed knowing that she wouldn’t just be unhelpful—she would be actively in their way. The raptor headed toward the stairs as if guiding her, and Jay followed after them.

A death lizard sprang at them to keep its easy prey from escaping, but countless shadow daggers skewered its body, while Sieg lopped off another individual’s limbs with his sword.

“I won’t let you pass,” Lynx called out to the death lizards to provoke them, while Sieg silently took a stance with his sword.

If their opponents had been the B-Rank needle apes or wyverns, they would already be defeated. But death lizards were powerful A-Rank enemies. The one skewered by the shadow daggers tore them out as it stood up, while bony protrusions grew out of the stumps of the other one to replace its missing limbs.

“Yah!” Sieg slashed at the death lizard before it could launch its next attack. One hit, then another. The death lizard’s claws stopped his sword, and he couldn’t deliver the fatal blow.

Lynx pierced his death lizard with shadow daggers once again to keep it in place, then leaped on it and sliced its neck with his short sword. Sieg infused his sword with magic to fight off four-armed attacks, then sent wind magic at the regenerated legs before finally cutting the creature down until it could no longer move.

Each of them killed one death lizard for a total of two. They’d defeated A-Rank monsters.

But while they were fighting death lizards continued to spring forth and surrounded the pair. Lynx and Sieg stood back-to-back to look out for each other and defended against the monsters’ attacks. Even if they fought them one at a time, they were outnumbered. Although their two swords whittled down the death lizards, their arms and legs sustained wounds from counterattacks. This was a losing battle.

But that didn’t bother them. As long as Mariela escaped. Even if they were surrounded by death lizards, Lynx and Sieg could break away if they didn’t have to protect her. As if understanding this, Mariela urged the raptor on while she ran with all her might toward the stratum stairs.

Just a little farther to the stairs. It was just a little farther.

If only there hadn’t been a small stream next to the tree near the stairs.

“Mariela!!!”

Was that Lynx or Sieg?

A death lizard rustled loudly as it crawled from the water on all six limbs. Lynx and Sieg could clearly perceive its movements, but Mariela had no hope of avoiding it.

They were far from her, and the monster crawling from the stream would reach Mariela much faster than they could break through the wall of death lizards and run to her.

Reaching her was impossible. The only outcome they could see was the death lizard’s sharp claws running Mariela through. They couldn’t allow that to happen, no matter what.

Lynx threw all the magical power in his body into an Order. “Jay, move in front of it.”

Jay immediately understood what he was being told to do: “Die in her place.”

She didn’t choose me! That’s why everythin’s gone wrong! This pain! This bullshit! It’s all her fault! And yet! And yet! You’re tellin’ me to die for her?! Jay howled in his mind, but he had no way to resist the Order.

He tried to stop his legs to fight against death, but all of Lynx’s magical power made his legs and his will submit. As he moved to the front, he experienced an agonizing pain in his legs like pins and needles shooting through his limbs.

Damn it! Screw it! Damn!

What could Jay do—the foolish, the pitiful, the weak? He couldn’t even disobey an Order to die; all he could do was spew malice and envy and bitterness.

I don’t wanna die ’cause of her! It’s her fault! Everythin’ is her fault! Damn it! If I die, if I die ’cause of her! Then I’ll……!!!

What could Jay do?

All he could do was seize the arms of Mariela—powerless and helpless—and thrust her in front of him.

He wasn’t disobeying his Order. But he felt a sharp pain in his Cursed Tooth.

A wicked, perverse sort of joy started to well up from the depths of his heart. It washed over Jay’s soul and dulled the pain from the Cursed Tooth.

When he seized her arms and shoved her in front of him, Mariela thought she heard Jay’s voice.

“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT—”

“JAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!”

“MARIELAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

The men’s howls echoed in the stratum of eternal night and faintly glowing moonstones.

The death lizard’s gaze had been on Jay, but now it shifted to Mariela once more.

Smirk. On its white face, its mouth looked like a bleeding wound as it split open in a sneer.

It raised its two arms overhead to strike at Mariela, who was petrified in fear.

This movement was extremely slow, and the monster appeared to be making sport of its pitiful, frozen prey.

Ah, the thing was almost close enough.

The slave brand burned onto Siegmund’s chest throbbed with pain. It told him his master was in danger. Mustering all his strength, Siegmund kicked against the ground. He cut a swath through the enemies in front of him and launched wind blades. But he was no mage, and the death lizards easily repelled his magic.

Mariela, Mariela, Mariela, Mariela… Sieg’s thoughts accelerated. Although the death lizard’s movements seemed incredibly slow, his own body wouldn’t follow his directions.

He wasn’t going to make it…

Was this what despair felt like? Like your heart being crushed?

But just before the blade of death could run her through, the very shadows filling the entire stratum stretched out to protect her.

“Gh…Urg…”

“Ly…Lynx…?”

Lynx had melted into the shadows and slipped through the path that Sieg had forged by cutting down the death lizards—and he had arrived in front of Mariela. His movements, his speed surpassed anything that he’d ever done before. It wasn’t just that his presence was hidden; rather, his very body passed through the shadows to move instantaneously. He had attained a shadowmaster’s state of mind.

Ah, Lynx had protected and saved Mariela by a hairsbreadth, and the death lizard’s claw protruded from his stomach.

“Go…,” Lynx urged Mariela to run as blood streamed from his mouth.

“Ah… Lynx! Lynx, you’re bleeding…”

“Raptor!”

As Mariela trembled with anxiety, the raptor grabbed her cloak in its mouth and began dragging her toward the stairs.

“Shadow Rend.”

Lynx’s skill ripped the shadow of the attacking lizard in half from bottom to top—and the body of the creature itself followed suit.

“Gahg…” When the death lizard had fallen, Lynx took a step forward and pulled out the claw in his stomach.

“Lynx, you good?!” shouted Sieg.

“I’m…not… You got a…potion?”

“Mariela has them.”

Jay’s excessive staring had bothered them, which meant today was the one day they hadn’t gotten potions from Mariela.

“You stay here. I’ll get to her.”

“What’re you saying? Don’t be…stupid…” With a cough that brought up a mouthful of blood, Lynx assumed a stance with his short sword. Blood was pouring out from the wound in his stomach and staining all the fabric below it completely red.

Ha-ha, I’m in deep shit now, huh…?

Lynx was aware he’d suffered injury to a vital organ. Nevertheless, he couldn’t afford to withdraw. Death lizards had caught the scent of blood, coming to surround him. He wouldn’t lead this many enemies to Mariela. Besides, it wasn’t possible for Sieg to face all of them by himself and survive.

I screwed up…

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sieg protecting him and continuing to fight despite his injuries, while Lynx himself used shadowmaster skills to confine the death lizards.

Can’t believe he used Mariela as a shield…

The cause of this predicament, Jay continued to follow Lynx’s Order: “Move in front.”

One step, then another.

“Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee!”

Jay must have been tearing his damaged vocal cords from making these sounds. His throat only let him breathe, swallow food and drink, and create this strangled noise. Was he laughing? Or was he screaming?

One step, then another.

His advancing feet were no longer touching the ground.

More than one death lizard had emerged from that stream. The second lizard had long since spotted Jay, and it ran the feeble man through.

“Ee-ee-ee-ee, kh-kh-kh-kh!”

The death lizard smirked at the red blood spilling from Jay’s mouth.

Stab. Two claws pierced his abdomen.

Grip. Another lizard’s claws pierced his left lung.

Pierce. Stab. Grind. Crunch. Spurt. Splat. Splurt.

The death lizards lifted the torn chunks of meat, and their mouths split into three, or four, or six. Those mouths didn’t look like they belonged on any normal creature, yet the expression they made was the picture of maniacal laughter.

Chomp.

How long did Jay’s consciousness remain intact? What was his final thought? No one would ever know. What was once known as “Jay” was something even less than pieces of meat; all that remained was the liquid staining the death lizards’ mouths red and dripping onto the earth.

Along with the rest of the Black Iron Freight Corps, Lynx valued Jay very little. Since they worked together, Jay had many opportunities to find out all sorts of information, which was why they couldn’t return him to his previous owner, even without the power of speech. They’d only found just enough value in him to not kill him outright.

That’s the sort of man who had been nearest to Mariela. It was no wonder Lynx thought to use him as a sacrifice.

He never considered Jay might grab her and use her as a shield. It didn’t matter whether he saw value in this slave because Lynx had never thought of Jay as a human being

I shoulda…been more careful. Damn it.

His vision was starting to blur, but Lynx fended off the death lizards with his shadow blades. His body had lost a lot of blood and begun to stop cooperating with his brain. Meanwhile, his shadowmaster skills consumed an extreme amount of magical power. It wasn’t meant for drawn-out battles, but he couldn’t afford to hold back. Besides, soon…

The death lizard’s attacks played out frame by frame. No, his consciousness had started to get hazy. In the flickering, changing scenery, he recognized the claw of a death lizard rushing at him.

This…is it… Lynx gazed at the claw about to pierce his body as if this were happening to someone else.

In that instant, the image violently shook, and his body swung into the air.

“Lynx, let’s go!” Sieg had rushed at Lynx and nearly tackled him, carrying them both away from the death lizard’s attack and breaking into a run with Lynx on his shoulder.

Ah, so Mariela was able to escape…? Lynx managed to think. Thank goodness. His consciousness was nearly gone.

I’m glad. Mariela, that “ordinary girl,” made it out safe…

Memories from his childhood flooded Lynx’s mind. It was like going back in time and watching them in fast-forward.

Oh, this was when I was a kid.

Back then, when he had enjoyed fairy tales.

06

“Nah, girls like that don’t exist,” Lynx declared precociously.

The teacher at the orphanage adopted a slightly troubled expression.

There was a group of girls who also had been listening to the teacher reading a picture book aloud. At least, until Lynx interrupted her. With almost feral looks, they protested.

I mean, just look at how pushy they are. You’re tellin’ me this “ordinary girl” is humble and sweet and nice to everyone? You’re makin’ that up.

Born in the Labyrinth City and raised in the orphanage, Lynx had always been surrounded by girls with either physical or mental strength—and a lot of it.

That was inevitable. They were in the Labyrinth City, where the physically strong became adventurers or entered the Labyrinth Suppression Forces to subjugate the Labyrinth. More than half of them died or sustained serious injuries and ended up in the slums.

Even if someone rose up in the world as an adventurer, they might become a slum resident or monster grub the next day.

The shop owners and farmers were the only civilians with stable incomes. Only a miniscule fraction of adventurers with the means to survive became successful. Those with relative wealth continued to secure safe and stable lives for generations. Even if the girls from the orphanage had skills to run a business, they would be worked to the bone until they no longer served a purpose and were disposed of. They had little hope of reaching the upper echelon.

This was the reality for the girls in Lynx’s life—well, for the majority of the women in the Labyrinth City. That said, it never crossed their minds to catch the attention of a wealthy man to support them. Even from a young age, these pragmatic girls chose not to rely on sources of income that could be temporary, instead focusing on ways to make money themselves.

In itself, that wasn’t a bad thing. But they were too strong for the young boys who were busy catching insects for bug battle tournaments or balling up old rags to kick around until sunset.

To Lynx, he thought an “ordinary girl” who was unreliable and kind and stayed by your side without expecting anything in return was more of a fairy tale than any story his teacher had read to them.

As he grew older, this was further cemented in his mind.

Particularly after he joined the Black Iron Freight Corps to be near Dick, the famous black spear wielder and his idol.

They would stay at inns exclusively for men to rest, so he’d only come across women who had jobs to provide nighttime entertainment. Their affections were for sale. Even though he knew their sweet smiles were transactional, he was too pure at seventeen to indulge.

Which was why he was surprised when he first met Mariela.

To start with, she was unfashionable. Why’s she wearing a grass skirt? I finally meet a young girl and she’s a big mess, he had thought.

And her mannerisms and word choice. There was no doubt she was a very inexperienced country girl. She had to be hurting for money, but she never once tried to butter him up to get her needs met. Plus, when she changed into her new clothes in the Labyrinth City, she was unexpectedly cute. She had clumsy, pudgy little legs and a certain puzzled expression that showed up whenever something had gone over her head. The more he got used to these things about her, the more adorable she seemed.

And it wasn’t like she was stupid. She had such a wealth of knowledge about medicinal herbs that even old man Ghark liked her. She could use mysterious techniques that she’d unveiled at the forest when they’d first met.

She cut his hair for him and gave him her leftovers. He saw no intention of demanding anything in return. When he realized her smiles at him, their amazing conversations, her nonchalant kindness, and her considerate nature were all a matter of course to her—his heart sped up.

When she gave him cookies and he realized she was genuinely worried about him, he was incredibly happy.

He’d bought her that trick pendant as a souvenir, something he happened to find at a stall in the imperial capital. Although it wasn’t an expensive gift, he’d thought it would look good on Mariela. It was his first time giving an accessory to a woman, so he was somehow a little embarrassed when he handed it to her. He’d played a little trick on her, but Mariela always wore it. Every time he saw the pendant swaying against her chest, he felt overcome with joy.

Other than the fact she was a Pact-Bearer Alchemist who could make potions in the Labyrinth City, Lynx felt Mariela was the very definition of an ordinary girl.

Spending time with her was just fun.

She appeared so carefree, always laughing or fuming or pouting or stuffing her face—and no matter what, he just couldn’t take his eyes off her. He almost couldn’t stand how cute she was when she put on weight on her arms and legs and cheeks, everywhere that she didn’t need it.

When she passed time with everyone in Sunlight’s Canopy, Mariela seemed blissful—as close to a normal girl as possible. And when she excitedly explained potions to him at the cellar at night, he could just tell how much she loved alchemy.

Their time together had been comfortable, warm, as if the light from her candle let him see his own ambiguous future spread out before him.

With Mariela, he could become the person he wanted to become. He could even be proud of the underhanded shadowmaster skills he’d never asked for.

Being the sole alchemist in the Labyrinth City had to be a heavy burden on Mariela. An “ordinary girl” shouldn’t have to carry that. Every day as he carried potions, Lynx wondered if that weight would someday make her smile disappear.

We gotta destroy the Labyrinth, he’d recently started to think.

If the Labyrinth was destroyed before Mariela’s identity was known, and the ley line was returned to human hands, the number of alchemists would increase. Mariela could become an “ordinary alchemist,” living in Sunlight’s Canopy with her usual smile.

If he and Sieg became A-Rankers, if they got stronger and stronger, the Labyrinth’s fall would be that much closer. Lynx had invited Sieg to hunt wyverns with that thought in mind.

I want her…to smile…

Except in his blurry vision, he could see Mariela was crying.

“Lyyynx……! Hang on! Please! Why?! Why isn’t the potion…?!” Mariela screamed in grief, tears tumbling down her cheeks.

“Ma…riel…”

He wanted to tell her not to cry, that he wanted to see her smile, and yet…

Why wouldn’t his voice…?

07

Siegmund brandished his sword. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched the raptor trying to convince Mariela to move toward the stratum stairs.

To distract the death lizards heading in her direction, he fired off some particularly showy spells and drew their attention to himself. Lynx had been protecting Mariela and pierced through the stomach, but he was still using his shadowmaster skills to immobilize the death lizards despite his failing body. This was the reason Sieg managed to stay alive.

The basilisk leather armor on Sieg’s left arm turned aside the claws of the death lizards that endlessly swiped at them. If he hadn’t been wearing leather of a higher rank than the monsters, they probably would have already turned him into pieces of meat. The armor stopped the thrust of a death lizard claw a few inches from his body. As long as they didn’t repeatedly probe the same spot, it wouldn’t tear. But the unprotected part of his left arm already had several cuts. Although none of his vital organs had been damaged, his stomach and back had been lacerated.

He was careful not to let his legs get too injured, which would prevent him from escaping, but he was wounded all over.

She’s still not there yet…?!

Although she took a tumble, Mariela was making progress, and in a few steps, she would make it to the stairs.

As Sieg slashed at a death lizard going for Lynx and lopped off its two left arms, he took a blow to his own left arm from its right. With a pop, the claw broke through the armor and punctured his arm. This one had reached the bone. Despite the agonizing pain, he bit down a cry and whacked off the death lizard’s right arm and head.

She’s still not there…?!

As he was eradicating one monster, two more stabbed their claws into his back.

“Gah… Ph…” He forcibly swallowed the blood filling his mouth. If he spit it out, he would briefly leave himself open to even more blows.

She still hasn’t reached it…?

Just a few more seconds until Mariela reached the safe zone, but the time felt like an eternity. As he thought about her safety, he tried to reassure himself that he could still put up a good fight.

When he first came to the Labyrinth City and met Mariela, he was in worse shape than he was now. He hadn’t returned to that point. He was still alive. As long as he didn’t die, as long as he could draw away the death lizards, Mariela would survive, he told himself, and he mustered his courage.

Lynx’s movements grew more and more unsteady. He’d reached his limit.

Just then, Sieg heard the raptor’s cry confirming Mariela had escaped to the safe zone.

Lynx! I’ll save you now!

Although Sieg’s left arm was still attached, he couldn’t move his fingers. He couldn’t afford to drop his sword, and he no longer had any strength remaining to defeat the death lizards approaching Lynx.

To hell with it!

Sieg threw his entire weight into pushing Lynx out of the way and scooped him onto his left shoulder. As he slipped away from the death lizards, one of them struck his right leg and took off a chunk of flesh.

But he could still move. He could still run.

Faster! Faster! Faster!!

He had to make it in time.

Mariela had just escaped. Lynx had saved her, and now Sieg would save him.

Six months ago, Sieg would never have fathomed risking his life to save the man who might take Mariela from him—and take the only place that Sieg belonged. But now Siegmund prayed from the bottom of his heart that Lynx would live.

Lynx had once rebuked him for focusing only on himself after meeting a wonderful master like Mariela. He had been thin and fragile even with his injuries healed, but Lynx treated this slave as Mariela’s escort.

And Lynx had showed Siegmund how to be Mariela’s guardian.

But more important that all that—ever since their training at the Ahriman Springs, when they watched each other’s backs as they fought together, Sieg had come to think of Lynx as his dearest friend.

“Mariela! Lynx needs a potion!”

Sieg and Lynx practically collapsed into the safe zone.

“Lynx!”

With shaking hands, Mariela took a high-grade potion from the pouch at her waist and sprinkled it over the gaping hole in Lynx’s abdomen. His complexion was as white as a corpse, and his body had lost so much blood that it was as cold as the stone walls of the merciless labyrinth.

“That’s strange. It’s not shining. It’s not healing anything. The wound isn’t closing up. Lynx’s…eyes aren’t…opening.”

Normally, the potion would activate a faint light, healing the wound and returning Lynx to consciousness. But neither was happening as his body grew colder and colder.

“Lyyynx……! Hang on! Please! Why?! Why isn’t the potion……?!” Mariela’s heart pounded against her chest.

That potion just hadn’t been enough.

Mariela took out one more, pouring it into Lynx’s mouth. Even if he didn’t swallow, his body should absorb it, but all the liquid spilled back out of his mouth.

“This is… This is all wrong! Completely wrong! Why?! Hey! Why, Lynx?! Why aren’t you waking up?” Mariela was repeating herself, feeling dizzy from the thoughts going around and around in her mind. “Lynx! Lynx! Hey, Lynx! I’m talking to you. Wake up! Please. Hey, you! Lynx!” Mariela gave Lynx more potions, shaking his body.

From his experience, Sieg knew that life was unalterable. As Mariela fell into a panic, Sieg had let his mind go to dark places, arriving at a bitter truth that he refused to accept.

“Hey, Lynx! You can hear me, right? Hey, please! Please don’t… No…” Mariela’s tears spilled onto Lynx’s cheeks.

Her voice—her deepest wish—must have gotten through.

At that moment, Lynx’s eyes opened just a little, and he murmured in a low voice.

“Ma…riel…I wanted…destroy…la…rin…to see…smile…”

“Lynx? Lynx! Lynx! Lynx! LYNX!!!” Mariela clung to Lynx and called his name like she’d lost her mind, and Sieg gently held her back.

“Sieg? Why? Lynx opened his eyes just now, right? I heard his voice……”

“Mariela, Lynx is…” Siegmund thought his eyes had met Lynx’s for just an instant. He didn’t know if Lynx had fully registered him. But he felt he could hear Lynx’s silent wish: I’m entrusting her to you. It had been the same sentiment that Lynx had shown him when he passed him his short sword in the rear yard of the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion—back when they first met.

That’s why he couldn’t stop for even a moment. For Sieg, there was no other option than to accept this charge.

“No… No. NO! This is horrible, Sieg. Why would this happen?! Why did Lynx…”

Potions were magic medicine. They could heal a person’s wounds instantaneously, even when their strength was gone.

However, they couldn’t bring back the dead.

In that moment when his life had burned so low, even potions didn’t work, Lynx had been able to open his eyes and speak. Was it from the potions given to him?

Or was it a miracle made possible by Lynx’s dying wish to see her, to look at her face one last time…?

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!”

Her wails echoed throughout the Labyrinth’s twenty-third stratum, the Shores of Eternal Night, painting it with grief.

08

Siegmund used the last remaining high-grade potion to heal his own wounds enough that he could move and to stop the bleeding on the raptor’s tail. Then he placed Lynx’s body on the raptor’s back, holding the weeping Mariela with his left arm before escaping from the Labyrinth.

At the entrance, the soldier in charge of the alarm bell was someone Sieg had met at the Ahriman Springs. As soon as he grasped what had happened to Lynx, he listened to Sieg’s story about the monsters before letting him and Mariela go. The soldier told the pair to take Lynx back to Sunlight’s Canopy and that he would contact the Black Iron Freight Corps.

Sieg bowed his head deeply for the soldier’s help. He led Mariela, who continued to sob in a foggy daze, toward the shop in the pouring rain.

Thank goodness it’s raining.

The downpour veiled Sieg and Mariela, including their expressions.

Amber was the first to notice them entering through the back door when they arrived at Sunlight’s Canopy. After seeing Lynx’s body and hearing from Sieg that the Black Iron Freight Corps had been contacted by way of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, she took charge without letting any emotion show.

“Something urgent has come up. I’m very sorry, but we’ll need to close the shop for the day,” she said, ushering the regulars home before locking the doors.

A carriage came to get Caroline, and Amber asked her to take the children home. After Sunlight’s Canopy was empty, she told Sieg to change clothes and treat his injuries. She took Mariela, who still looked like her soul had left her body, and gave her a bath before fitting her in a new outfit.

Lynx was laid on Nierenberg’s examination table in the section of the living room that had been remodeled. His facial expression struck them as a bit uncomfortable, but there was a serene smile that played across his lips.

Not long after Sieg finished changing, all the members of the Black Iron Freight Corps aside from Dick arrived at Sunlight’s Canopy.

All of them were lost for words at the sight of Lynx’s body, which was almost unidentifiable. Lieutenant Malraux quickly exchanged looks with the healer, Franz, and the animal trainer, Yuric, then sharply reined in Edgan, who had grabbed the unresisting Sieg.

Franz inspected the wound on Lynx’s body, while Yuric disappeared to the rear yard, probably to get information from the raptor.

Edgan had seized Sieg and raised his fist, but he saw the expression on his face and could neither strike him nor lower his fist.

“How…did this happen…?” Edgan spat at Sieg.

Malraux, too, pressed him in a harsh tone. “What of Miss Mariela? She’s safe, I gather.”

“Mariela is unhurt, but she’s in no condition to talk. We’ve lit dream incense to let her sleep. I’ll explain what happened in her place.”

Sieg described the situation: How they’d gone to the twenty-third stratum to gather lunamagia, how the death lizards had made a sudden appearance, how Jay had acted, and how Lynx had…

Yuric returned, and Franz finished his examination. They both corroborated Sieg’s account.

The raptor had witnessed the death lizards and the moment when Jay thrust Mariela in front of him, and it had explained this to Yuric. Well, “explained” would be giving it too much credit. The raptors didn’t have the intellect to use language. It conveyed what happened with a few scattered images.

Yuric understood that the raptor was fearful of the death lizards, angry at Jay, and consumed by sadness: I’m sad Lynx died. I’m sad Mariela is crying.

The information from the raptor and Lynx’s wound corroborated Sieg’s story.

“I knew it. We shoulda killed Jay back then,” Yuric snarled.

The other members of the Black Iron Freight Corps, Malraux, Franz, Donnino, and Grandel awkwardly kept their mouths shut, regretting leaving the agitator, Jay, to his own devices.

Dick finally came in, late. His face blanched when he saw the unrecognizable body of Lynx, who’d looked up to him like an older brother. Malraux explained what had happened, and at the part where the death lizards appeared, Dick gritted his teeth and clenched his fists hard enough that they started to bleed.

It’s because we retreated before killing the red dragon…

He never expected their failure with the dragon to be driven home this way. Lynx had lost his life because they couldn’t handle the monster. Burdened by his comrade’s sacrifice and Sieg’s narrow escape, Dick could find nothing to say.

“For today, we will take Lynx home. Sieg, I am sure you are exhausted as well, but I assume you understand your duty. Support Miss Mariela,” ordered Malraux.

“I will.” Sieg bowed his head deeply.

He was profoundly grateful for the man’s consideration—and almost trust—in letting him continue to protect Mariela, despite the fact he was worthless…and unable to save Lynx.

09

After the Black Iron Freight Corps departed, Sunlight’s Canopy was dim and silent.

The veil of darkness had descended unnoticed, and pale moonlight shone through the skylight that imitated the sacred tree. The rain seemed to have stopped.

Sieg heard a door open on the second floor and hurried up the stairs.

“Did you wake up, Mariela……?”

Inhaling dream incense through a pipe gave one good dreams, but breathing the smoke directly would induce a short nap. Its effect had worn off. Mariela had gotten out of bed, standing in the corridor looking vacantly at Sieg.

“Sieg, where is Lynx…?”

“Captain Dick and the others took him home.”

“Ah…” With her ghostly complexion, Mariela stood still and gazed at Sieg for a short while, then slowly shuffled toward the stairs to the rooftop.

“The rain stopped.” Mariela feebly headed up, and Sieg followed her with a blanket.

The spring wind howled.

Up in the stratosphere, the stronger winds were scattering the heavy rainclouds. A while ago, moonlight had poured into Sunlight’s Canopy, but at the moment, it was hidden.

On the dark rooftop, Sieg started to worry that the night might steal Mariela away, so he approached her.

“Mariela, nights are still chilly,” he said, placing the blanket in his hands around her. In the dark, he couldn’t clearly see her face looking up at him, but he could sense her pain. It tore at his heart.

“Sieg, it’s…” Mariela opened her mouth.

It was best to listen. To allow her to let it all out. Even though he knew this, Sieg found himself wanting to stop the words that Mariela was about to say. Because he knew she was going to say something that would hurt herself terribly.

“It’s my fault.”

“No it’s not. Not at all.”

Lynx’s death couldn’t possibly have been her fault. Hadn’t Mariela herself almost been killed?

“It’s because I said I wanted to go herb gathering even though I can’t even take care of myself,” she started.

“No. You had two B-Rank people with you. It was more than enough for the twenty-third stratum. And we made it back with no problems last time. No one could have expected this surge of monsters.”

Sieg said all he could to stop her from blaming herself.

“It’s still my fault. I didn’t give him potions. I had them, but I wasn’t able to use them right away.”

“We’re the ones who didn’t ask for them. Mariela, you had nothing to do with our error in judgment.”

Even from an objective standpoint, Mariela did nothing wrong. Sieg and Lynx were the escorts, and Mariela was the client. The fault lay with them, the ones who had put her in danger, and she was the victim.

But Mariela looked down and quietly shook her head. “No, you’re wrong, Sieg. I… I…”

She raised her head and looked at Sieg. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“I…dreamed of a quiet city life, and that’s why…”

Tears spilling over, Mariela continued. Lynx’s death had left her with a profound sense of loss—just like the day of the Stampede when she’d lost everything.

“When the Stampede happened, I…escaped alone. I couldn’t save anyone from the monsters, so nobody helped me. Well, that’s not totally accurate. They all let me escape because they knew I couldn’t help even if I stayed behind in the Citadel City. I…escaped alone. I only saved myself……”

It had been spring then, too.

She’d spent winter in the Fell Forest all alone, where the cold was nearly enough to freeze her heart, too. And just when spring had arrived, the Stampede had taken everything from her.

When she had woken up after her sleep of suspended animation, two hundred years had passed, and nothing was left. Many, many people must have died in the Stampede.

Her new acquaintances, the people and her relationships in the Citadel City, and even the little house in the Fell Forest her master had left her had all been swept away by the flow of time.

She’d thought winter was finally over, but it had just welcomed another autumn, and another winter was on the way again…

But Mariela hadn’t been alone.

Lynx had made sure of that.

Ever since they’d met by chance in the Fell Forest, he’d always been nearby. Even after she had arrived in the Labyrinth City, he showed her around the Yagu Drawbridge Pavilion and around the City. He introduced her to his acquaintances and told trivial stories that made her smile.

And everyone—oh, everyone in the City was so kind. She was a stranger, and they had welcomed her. The regular customers came to Sunlight’s Canopy almost every day. She was happy when people came to buy medicine, but she was ecstatic when they told her, “I came to see you.”

Even the chemists who were once malicious toward her treated Mariela as a colleague. They taught her valuable information, assuring her they were only repaying a debt. But in all honesty, Mariela felt she was the one who owed them.

She made friends: Carol, Elmera, Amber, Sherry, Emily. She loved every single one of them, from the women to the children who she all thought of as her siblings. Mariela had never known how fun it would be to talk and make food with other girls.

And then there was Sieg.

He was always at her side. He was always concerned about her.

Being together with him was almost too comfortable. In fact, when he went to the Ahriman Springs, she was astonished at how used to it she’d become.

“Every day has been so full of fun and joy, I just never thought about it. I knew, and I looked the other way. I thought they’d manage somehow. Just like the injured adventurers who helped work on Sunlight’s Canopy. I knew there were people out there having a hard time without potions, but I never came forward…”

She’d realized what the alchemists had done, as they survived the Stampede two hundred years ago in the coffins in the Aguinas family’s basement.

She knew they’d risked their lives to keep making potions, yet she hadn’t given up her way of life in Sunlight’s Canopy.

“Even if I sell potions to the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, they won’t reach the masses. I have magical power left over every day after making a hundred high-grade potions, and there are so many people in the Labyrinth City who need them, and I should have been spending all that time in Sunlight’s Canopy making more, but I…!”

Only she had survived the Stampede with no consequences, and even in the Labyrinth City, she was the only one of them enjoying her life.

“Back in the Labyrinth, that man told me it was my fault. I bet he realized I’m an alchemist. He knew I only think about myself, that I didn’t reach out to the people I should have been helping.”

She must have thought this was her punishment. Lynx had taken the retribution meant for her.

“That’s why…Lynx…d…died… It has to be my fault,” she finished her monologue, stricken with guilt.

Sieg reflexively hugged her tight. “No. You’re wrong. You’re wrong! It’s not your fault, Mariela. You did nothing wrong. You saved me, right?! And those adventurers! You healed their injuries so they could return to the Labyrinth. Your medicine has helped heaps of people! Don’t believe that guy. You don’t have to listen to people who just want to blame their own weakness and misfortunes on others. Mariela. We… Lynx…didn’t save you because you’re an alchemist. Lynx saved you because you’re you. As for me, even without potions, even if you never healed me, I would still serve you for as long as I lived. You healed far more than my physical wounds. So, Mariela. Please don’t say that. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t let Lynx’s feelings be for nothing. I… We……”

Sieg couldn’t tell her what he would have said next.

Because Lynx had said he would confess his love to Mariela when he reached A Rank. And now that day would never come.

“Sieg…” Mariela continued to weep, and Siegmund continued to hold her tight. “Sieg, I…”

Mariela formed the words as if she’d made up her mind.

“I…want to destroy the Labyrinth.”

“Destroy the Labyrinth,” Lynx had said to them at the very end.

If that was his wish, she wanted to make it come true. The labyrinth was what remained of the Stampede two hundred years ago. It took away the Kingdom of Endalsia, the Citadel City, and the place where Mariela belonged, and now it had taken Lynx, too.

“I’m going to make potions so we can do it. I can’t fight, but I can reveal myself to the Labyrinth Suppression Forces and make potions. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Even if it meant she could never return to Sunlight’s Canopy again, if she could just give all she had to annihilate the Labyrinth…

Her determination had become something like a solemn vow in her heart.

Nevertheless, despite her firm resolve, Mariela couldn’t be alone. She was terrified of going all by herself into that dark, grave-like place—it was too similar to when she activated the Magic Circle of Suspended Animation under the fear of impending death.

“Please, Sieg. Don’t…don’t leave me all alone…,” she begged in a strained voice.

Her entreaty gently bound Sieg to her.

“Of course, Mariela. I’m yours. All I have is yours…”

It wasn’t a slave Order. She hadn’t put the slightest bit of magical power into it. She’d only ever given him a single Order. “Don’t tell anyone I’m an alchemist.” That was it.

Mariela had saved both Sieg’s life and his soul and expected nothing in return. She was content with the familial affection that she received in her quiet life, and she sincerely wished for Sieg to be free.

Oh, how he longed for her. How he wanted her to yearn for him.

But Sieg had no say in whatever Mariela desired.

Even if she came to him only for some temporary respite from a deep wound, he wouldn’t mind as long as he could feel her warmth in his arms like this.

Mariela shook feebly with sobs, and Siegmund held her close.

Was the moon peeking out from between the clouds waning or waxing?

The wind swept the clouds together, and the last beam of moonlight was lost behind them.

Their night quietly wore on in darkness.