CHAPTER 5

Arrival at Last

01

The bizarre, treelike hands twitched and stiffened, almost trembling, as they grasped at the sky. However, whatever they sought to cling to was now beyond their reach, and they wilted to the ground, never to move again.

“Have we won?” Leonhardt asked himself as much as anyone else as he gazed at the Wicked Hands of Creation. The stratum boss had quickly blackened and collapsed, just as proper trees would have if they’d been struck by lightning.

Leonhardt had felt neither an expectation of victory nor a reaction at finally routing their enemy. The job was not yet done, and there was no choice but to keep marching forward. There was no path that led home now, other than the one that demanded he and his allies brandish their blades to cut a way through to the future.

All their weapons and armor had been strengthened for the battle with the Bladed Beast of Many Legs on the fifty-seventh stratum. No expense had been spared; they had used the strongest materials they’d possessed. Adamantite, basilisk hide, and red dragon scales had all been liberally put to use. Additionally, they’d been provided with enough spare weapons, potions, and other supplies to engage with several stratum bosses. What was thought to have been more than enough had been furnished in preparation for the worst.

After they’d felled the Bladed Beast of Many Legs, Leonhardt and the soldiers had been given no recourse but to advance because of the corpses that flooded up from the stratum below. Thanks to the Sage of Calamity covering for them in the fifty-eighth stratum, all they’d had to do was push through the army of corpses and dive deeper in to the Labyrinth. Unfortunately, the fifty-ninth stratum had depleted far more supplies than expected.

Although their preparations had seemed perfect, what remained of the army had long since used up the spare weapons. Their armor was dented, and some had damaged joints, even coming apart in some places.

The cache of arrows and throwing spears that the baggage-carrying slaves and raptors had brought had very nearly run dry. Even the store of ley-line shards, critical ingredients for potions, had been exhausted. The potions themselves had been used up as well.

Even so, Leonhardt and his men continued to draw breath.

“We won…” Leonhardt clenched his fists. “We…survived!!!”

There had been no need to announce victory with a shout, as everyone knew that true victory still lay ahead of them. Contenting themselves here would mean not seeing Leonhardt’s lifelong desire made manifest.

Leonhardt looked back at his soldiers, at the comrades who’d fought alongside him.

Everyone was bone-weary and sitting on the ground. Their numbers were even lower than when they’d first arrived on this stratum, and not a single person was uninjured. All were steadily recovering, thanks to the special-grade Regen, but some were severely wounded and clearly needed further attention. Nonetheless, everyone still had hope in their eyes. They’d made it this far. They’d secured yet another stratum. Not one among them would hesitate to take the next step.

“Nierenberg, you all right?”

“Yeah, better than the general.”

Nierenberg approached, dyed in frightful colors from the blood of monsters and patients. Likely he had gotten involved in the fighting as well. The left hand he casually hid in his pocket bore a severe wound that traced its way up to his elbow, though it was currently healing, due to the effects of the special-grade Regen.

Most likely, Nierenberg had suffered other, less visible injuries as well. Although he approached Leonhardt with no small amount of difficulty, he wore the same sullen expression he would have any other day. Something about the sight elicited a feeling of gratitude from Leonhardt.

Leonhardt was the general, the leader. He was more inspiring to the troops than anyone else, and every member of the Forces counted on him to lead the way. However, Nierenberg hid his own condition from Leonhardt and feigned calmness so as not to cause the general unnecessary worry. Even the other soldiers, wounded and weary though they were, could see it. That Leonhardt was still able to stand on his own feet was a testament to those who supported him. The thought inspired a new well of energy from within Leonhardt’s exhausted body.

I can still do it. I can still hold my sword. The boss of the Labyrinth still lives…

Leonhardt took a breath, clenched his weapon tight in his hand, and issued an order to Nierenberg.

“Focus treatment on the soldiers who look like they can still fight. As soon as you’re done, we move onward.”

“Understood.”

It was a cruel order, but nobody voiced an objection. Even if they’d wanted to temporarily return to the surface, surely the stratum immediately above them was crawling with corpses. The Sage of Calamity had sacrificed herself to lure the corpses and open the way, but it was a whole kingdom’s worth of walking dead fused with the monsters that had destroyed them. No matter how unintelligent and weak their cobbled-together bodies were, their numbers were likely more than a single person could have ever hoped to burn to ashes alone.

Supplies were nearly exhausted, and many soldiers of the Forces were seriously wounded. The prospects of them overcoming another battle were slim. However, if they turned back here, if they gave the Labyrinth time to recover after they’d gone to great pains to weaken it, the city above would not survive.

Under Nierenberg’s direction, the Forces were able to gather some ley-line shards for Mariela, though only a few. All the shards had been recovered from monsters defeated on this stratum. Little remained of the magical power of the moon or the crystallized materials, and Mariela made sure to craft only the necessary concoctions that Nierenberg requested.

“These are the last two mana potions…”

“You two should drink those.”

“What…? But…”

Mariela’s colossal magical power had almost run dry from frequent potion making, as evident from her hazy grip on consciousness. Even so, she’d refused to drink a mana potion until she was at her breaking point, because once she finished making potions, there was nothing more she could provide.

Likewise, Sieg had expended nearly all his own magical power using his Spirit Eye. Although he had a few arrows remaining, he was probably unable to fire any more. He’d reasoned he could still protect Mariela with his sword, and that would be enough. That was why he hadn’t bothered to drink a mana potion.

“Drink them. Your work here isn’t done.”

“…I understand.”

“All right.”

Other than Leonhardt and Nierenberg, the only ones present who knew why Mariela and Sieg had been ordered to restore their magical power were the pair themselves. The four had heard it the day Sieg’s Spirit Eye had been restored. Freyja had explained it to those present in Sunlight’s Canopy at the time, though the “reason” she’d given was characteristically vague: “Endalsia’s about to be devoured, and those two are essential to saving her.”

Originally, even Nierenberg had believed that Mariela’s presence was essential because she could make the quickly deteriorating mana potions and that Sieg was needed as her escort. In other words, he’d thought the two were necessary because of what they could provide in terms of fighting power. However, now that they’d reached the deepest part of the Labyrinth, Nierenberg felt he’d been mistaken.

There was no logical basis for Nierenberg’s new presumption, but this flash of intuition was similar to what he’d felt that night in Sunlight’s Canopy when he was in the ley line and saw Endalsia. The sensation in his gut was the same. He understood that Endalsia had little life left and that these two were needed to save her. Nierenberg trusted that Leonhardt harbored a similar intuitive feeling.

Those few remaining soldiers gazed at the stairs that led to the stratum below. Though it would have been more accurate to say they stared down a hole leading into the abyss, as the path forward could no longer be rightly called stairs.

The seriously wounded soldiers who couldn’t be healed enough via potions or healing magic to return to the front lines stayed behind, reducing the Labyrinth Suppression Forces to about fifty people.

“Let’s go.”

With the few remaining troops, Leonhardt, Mariela, and Siegmund quietly proceeded toward the next stratum.

02

The place below was flooded with light, as though the darkness up to this point had been merely a bad dream. The soldiers could almost feel their weary bodies being healed and comforted by that divine glow, the dawn painting over the long, dark night in an instant. The light filled their bones, which had grown chill from the dark above. In that light, there was hope.

Although they were still in the Labyrinth, this stratum had no end, and other than the spot where they stood, even the ground seemed ephemeral. It reminded Mariela of the ley line. The reason the Labyrinth had dug deeper and deeper was to reach this place.

The last remaining monster, after consuming the people of the Kingdom of Endalsia and of the Citadel City, had devoured its fellow monsters. Then it had eaten its way below the kingdom, toward this strange location, while absorbing the power of the ley line and creating monsters as it went deeper and deeper. That path had become the Labyrinth, serving to protect from invaders.

Now Mariela at last understood the reason for the Labyrinth: it was all an effort to buy time. A stall tactic to ensure that the boss of the Labyrinth would reach this place.

On its journey, it had cast off its right and left legs, discarded its stomach, and even lost both hands before finally arriving here. This was as far as the Labyrinth boss had gotten, and the Forces had caught up.

Here, the sixtieth stratum of the Labyrinth, was where the boss had finally reached the ley line, though not physically. Instead, the immense magical power gathered by the enormous Labyrinth had allowed this sixtieth stratum to transcend mere physical distance, enabling it to connect to the far-off ley line.

In front of Leonhardt and the rest who had made it to the deepest part of the Labyrinth were the figures of the Labyrinth’s boss, their archenemy over the span of two hundred years, and the spirit Endalsia.

Long had it been said that only those who dared to challenge the Labyrinth would know its boss when they confronted it. When he looked upon the visage of this being, Leonhardt felt that old story was true. He sensed the will of the Labyrinth, his own hatred and that of his fellows who dared to descend deeper and deeper, from the monstrous thing before his eyes. But Leonhardt had never imagined the boss would look like this.

With no arms or legs or even a visible spine, the horrible shape possessing only a head and torso, the boss of the Labyrinth, had its teeth sunk into Endalsia.

Endalsia was a being with a silhouette so vague one could only barely recognize it as humanoid, though warm light still emanated from her. Mariela understood by way of her own Nexus that Endalsia was a part of the power of the vast ley line, the depth of which couldn’t be measured through mortal means.

Mariela and all other people, spirits, magical power, and life forces that couldn’t be seen or touched existed in the same world. The ley line connected all of it, and it was the very reason seemingly different substances and energy could exist together and change each other.

Endalsia, being unified with the ley line, most likely arranged and controlled the flow of Drops of Life and the energy that circulated through the ley line and the world. She used that power to continue protecting both the humans she loved and the kingdom they lived in.

This had been done through her eye, the Spirit Eye.

Unfortunately, Endalsia was now so frail that she seemed like she could vanish at any moment. To the naked eye, the Labyrinth boss seemed to be “eating” her, but what Mariela felt through her Nexus and what Sieg saw with his Spirit Eye was that even if the boss decided to open its mouth, Endalsia wouldn’t be set free. Her power as the warden of the ley line, and her very existence, were being absorbed by the boss of the Labyrinth.

Endalsia loved people and had chosen to live with them. She had refused to accept the Labyrinth boss’s desire to destroy humans and remake the land as a place only for monsters, even if that refusal came at the cost of her own existence. What remained of the Labyrinth’s boss as it slowly consumed Endalsia and grew ever closer to unifying with the ley line was being burned and destroyed. Perhaps that was Endalsia’s way of resisting.

The monster was already a pitiable sight without its limbs, but its blood was boiling, and its body was burned and blackened like coal. What skin there was looked lumpy and swollen, possibly from the boiling body fluids. The horrible creature’s internal pressure must have been fluctuating, as its eyes had protruded and ruptured, and bloody foam bubbled from its mouth.

No one dared to even hazard a guess as to what kind of monster the boss of the Labyrinth had been originally. This transformation had rendered it unrecognizable.

However, great power also streamed into the boss of the Labyrinth from its partial unity with the ley line. The ley line’s power was now the boss’s own, immediately healing any injury, and then the energy from the conflict immediately destroyed its body again. It was an endlessly repeating cycle of destruction and regeneration. What could the boss of the Labyrinth hope to achieve from such hellish suffering?

—I must get it back.—

Mariela had the feeling she’d heard the thoughts of the Labyrinth boss through her Nexus.

It’s just like that story Emily and the others were reading… Mariela recalled the story she’d overheard children reading in Sunlight’s Canopy, “The Legend of Endalsia.”

The poor monsters had been living peacefully with the animals and the spirit Endalsia, but then they were driven to another part of the forest because of the arrival of the human hunters. The monsters attacked the village of humans to try to take back their home, but Endalsia’s grief over losing her love, coupled with her powerful determination to protect her child, drove the monsters into the Fell Forest, and they were unable to return to their former home.

The Fell Forest was far, far larger than what eventually became the humans’ territory. It had plenty of places for the monsters to live. They could have easily found free and happy lives. At least, that was how Mariela had felt after she’d first heard that story. Now that she saw the state of the Labyrinth’s boss, however… Mariela realized that what the monsters wanted wasn’t the land itself, but rather the place where they could be with Endalsia.

It was said that the magical gems inside the bodies of monsters determined their form. Corruption in the world mixed with magical power to form those gems, and the corrupted magical power they exuded would gather to form monsters. Though monsters produced magical gems when killed, their source was the evil that people produced: malice, hatred, jealousy, terror, anger, and lust.

Hungry, thirsty, and unfulfilled, that corruption coagulated and produced monsters, so it was no wonder they hated people. If there just weren’t any humans, the monsters could have lived with Endalsia and the forest animals as gentler creatures.

Monsters couldn’t coexist with humans. If a monster and a human met, they’d have to be separated, or one would destroy the other. Endalsia loved a hunter and had chosen the humans. That was why she couldn’t be with the monsters anymore. Still, she didn’t have it in her to destroy the monsters, her former friends. So instead, she chose to stay sequestered from them. From the Kingdom of Endalsia. Even that decision had likely been born of Endalsia’s compassion. However, the poor monsters hadn’t understood those feelings. Maybe they’d felt like they’d been cast aside, or even robbed.

—I must get it back.—

Even though they’d been shut out of the hunters’ village, the monsters had probably been awaiting their chance from within the Fell Forest the whole time. The faint memories of their once-happy lives remained as the years wore on.

—I must get it back. I must get Endalsia back.—

Even now, a poor monster was consuming Endalsia and trying to absorb the entire ley line, urged to do so by those very same feelings as when the monsters had attacked the village of the hunters.

As Mariela and all the other onlookers found themselves at a loss for words at the unimaginable sight of the Labyrinth’s boss, Endalsia suddenly opened her eye as though she’d awakened from slumber. It was only her left eye that opened. It shone the same brilliant verdant shade as Sieg’s Spirit Eye. The color was a gentle, comforting shade to them, like new leaves sprouting on a dead tree in winter.

—I am so glad you have come. My beloved children.—

For the spirit Endalsia, who had lived for so very long, all people who dwelled in this land were her children: Sieg with his Spirit Eye, Mariela with her Nexus, Leonhardt, every single soldier in the Labyrinth Suppression Forces. She cast her affectionate smile upon all of them indiscriminately.

After Endalsia looked upon everyone like a mother delighted at the growth of her children, a terrible sadness clouded her expression, and she turned her gaze to the boss of the Labyrinth as it continued to consume her

—This child has not had a single thought ever since that day two hundred years ago.—

Had the loss of self-awareness been the price of obtaining power beyond any individual’s capabilities in order to consume humans and fellow monsters? Or was it instead the result of continuous regeneration and destruction over two centuries? Regardless, in its current state, the boss of the Labyrinth no longer understood that just because it was driven by a desire to get Endalsia back, that did not mean the day would ever come when it could live with her again.

This monster, the Labyrinth boss that was the mere shadow of its former self with no arms, no legs, and no abdomen, simply continued to devour Endalsia. It could not survive unless it devoured her and become the master of the ley line in her place. Even if it did become the master of the ley line, could it even endure it, now that its senses had been worn down until not even a fragment remained?

—Please set this poor child free.—

Endalsia gazed at Siegmund, who had most markedly inherited the blood of the hunter she loved. Then she turned her eye to Leonhardt, who had led the others in the fight to this point. Leonhardt nodded in affirmation of the request and focused his attention on the boss of the Labyrinth, his longtime enemy.

“Pitiful… This is the enemy that has opposed us for so long?” Leonhardt muttered as he stood before a monster that didn’t even have the strength to fight back. Perhaps, in that moment, Leonhardt felt something akin to compassion toward the monster that had tried so hard to go back to the happier days its kind had once known.

“Siegmund, release it from its fate, and save the spirit Endalsia.”

“Sir,” Siegmund replied in obeyance. He felt sure that it was for this very deed that he had regained his Spirit Eye.

“Sieg, take this.”

“Thanks, Mariela.”

Mariela handed Sieg a single arrow she’d taken from a wooden crate. Freyja had given it to her, saying, “Use this at the very end,” and Mariela had fastened it to the raptor. Surely if ever there was a time to use it, it was now.

The wooden arrow, bereft of a metal arrowhead, had been carved from the sacred tree behind Sunlight’s Canopy. When Freyja had spoken to the tree’s spirit, Illuminaria, the tree had dropped a branch, and Sieg had personally carved the arrow from it.

Endalsia was the queen of the forest spirits. That included sacred tree spirits.

An arrow made from the branch of such a tree wouldn’t hurt Endalsia. If Sieg used the arrow in conjunction with his Spirit Eye, it was possible to defeat the boss of the Labyrinth without endangering Endalsia herself.

Siegmund nocked the arrow and drew it back. The spirits, guided by Sieg’s Spirit Eye, gathered to save their queen.

Endalsia, queen of spirits, did you guide me here…? Sieg wondered. Had it been due to her guidance that Mariela awakened the exact same day Sieg was being transported to the Labyrinth City? His meeting with Mariela wasn’t the only happy coincidence, either. There was the time when the guidance of a forest spirit had saved his life back when he’d been taken to the Fell Forest by the son of the merchant who had been his master. Perhaps even the arrow that had defeated the wyvern by chance when the monster had crushed his Spirit Eye had been because of Endalsia. It all seemed to Sieg like some sort of mysterious guidance he’d been previously unaware of.

If that was the case…if even his meeting Mariela had been the will of Endalsia, or of the ley line…

My profoundest gratitude for your guidance, and for a destiny that allowed me to meet Mariela… Siegmund drew his bow, imbuing it with a magical power that only he possessed, along with his deep, unwavering gratitude.

*   *   *

Those observing the scene thought they saw rainbow-colored light envelop Sieg’s arrow.

The power of the spirits and their desire to help Endalsia, the queen of the forest spirits, amplified the Spirit Eye’s power and gathered in Sieg’s nocked arrow. This power was so great it surpassed the limits of Sieg’s own body. Weak from his many injuries, Sieg felt his joints, his muscles, and even his bones screaming.

Please just hold out for this one shot…

Through his harsh days spent as a slave and the daily training in the City, Sieg had come to terms with himself and grown stronger. In this final hour, his body moved in harmony with his wish. Sieg’s arrow flew unerringly—the shot of a true hunter.

The arrow from the sacred tree flew like a huge rainbow-colored comet. The perfect shot carried the power of the spirits and hit its mark.

And the boss of the Labyrinth…

—I must get it back.—

—It’s all right now. I don’t mind if you go home. Everyone is waiting for you.—

—Everyone is…—

—You were lonely for so long, weren’t you? It’s okay now. Go on, join them.—

The light of Sieg’s arrow powerfully and gently washed over the boss of the Labyrinth as if it were wrapping the monster up. The creature crumbled in the dazzling light like piled snow melting in the warm rays of the sun, vanishing beneath that enveloping blanket.

—I…can join…them.—

The dazzling, radiant light wasn’t so bright as to be blinding; rather, it was a peaceful, gentle sort of glow. When it at last subsided, no trace remained of the Labyrinth’s boss. All that stood now was Endalsia, surrounded in a calm, warm light, and smiling.

03

—Thank you, my dear children… Ahh, all of you have truly grown into fine people. You went through so, so many difficult times. Oh, such strong, warm hearts you have.—

Endalsia slowly took in the faces of Sieg, Leonhardt, Mariela, Dick, Nierenberg, and every other person who had struggled to reach this place. After lovingly gazing upon all present, she shifted her gaze back to Sieg.

—Your eye is a beautiful blue, just like his was. You endured especially terrible hardships, didn’t you? My beloved child, heir of my eye, the eye of the spirits. My darling children, I will entrust this to all of you, the ones who will walk into the future…—

Endalsia stretched her hand toward Sieg with her palm facing him, and a dark sphere emitting a dim light appeared before his eyes.

“What is this…?” he asked.

—That is the Core of the Labyrinth, and a manifestation of the power of the ley line’s warden. I wish to watch over all of you always, but I no longer have any power left. So please give this to a spirit with strength, a sacred tree spirit who can be my successor. Right now, this power is corrupted by monster miasma, but when it is purified in due course, it will protect this land once again.—

Endalsia looked upon them as if they were her most beloved, precious people in the world. It seemed as if she was trying to etch their faces into her heart and memory as she parted from this world.

The Core of the Labyrinth was the ley line warden’s power in physical form. The Labyrinth’s boss had sunk its teeth in Endalsia and weakened her existence for a long time. She no longer had any strength, even to exist as a spirit. Endalsia had endured the Labyrinth’s boss in expectation of this day, two hundred years after the birth of the Labyrinth.

Endalsia had watched over this land for untold generations. Now it seemed that the humans of the land she had guarded for so long would lose her without being able to repay her for such a great kindness.

With the Core of the Labyrinth in his hands, Siegmund looked back at Leonhardt. Only one way to save Endalsia existed, and it came at a tremendous cost. So heavy was this price that only Leonhardt, the successor of the house of Margrave Schutzenwald, one who had fought all his life to protect his home and its people, could make that decision. Leonhardt met Siegmund’s gaze and nodded calmly.

“Mariela, alchemist granted to us from across the span of two hundred years…save the spirit Endalsia. Now is the time to create the Elixir—the greatest treasure of alchemy—by using the Core of the Labyrinth.”

The Elixir was a legendary secret medicine, the ultimate miracle remedy.

The peak of alchemy, which could heal any injury or illness at once no matter how severe.

It was so difficult a potion that no one had ever made it before. Freyja, the Sage of Calamity, had informed Leonhardt, Sieg, and Mariela about it right before the expedition.

“Mariela can’t make it yet, but there’s no time left. So take her with you. She can’t make it if she’s not there, anyway. It’ll just be a little longer. If she makes plenty of potions on the way, that should be enough.”

The Aguinas family had stockpiled ley-line shards for over a hundred years. The majority of those had already been used to make special-grade heal potions and special-grade Regen before the expedition, but some still remained. Even in the course of this expedition, Mariela had tirelessly worked to make mana potions and other the concoctions they’d needed, using ley-line shards along with crystallized materials for each type of potion.

Even when Mariela had run out of the ley-line shards provided, she’d made more and more potions with the ones the Forces had obtained along the way. She’d made an enormous amount all by herself, an amount that would’ve otherwise taken a single city over a hundred years to produce. Perhaps, with her skills at such a point, she had indeed reached a summit none before her had? But even if the alchemist had indeed reached those heights, she couldn’t make the Elixir without the crucial ingredient—the Core of the Labyrinth, the crystallized power of the ley line’s warden.

No doubt if they gave the Elixir to a powerful spirit and its corruption was cleared away, this Labyrinth City would become a peaceful place free of monsters, just like the Kingdom of Endalsia had once been. If a person gained that power, it was unknown what would happen. No one knew if a human was even capable of wielding that much magical power.

The Elixir’s key material was the Core of the Labyrinth. To use it would mean relinquishing eternal peace and tremendous power. Yet when it came time to make the decision as to whether the Elixir should be made, Leonhardt hadn’t shown the slightest hesitation.

“The promise of peace will invite corruption—extreme power tempts ruin. We won’t survive without diligent daily training. The Labyrinth City is the city of us humans. We will protect it to the end with our own hands.” At Leonhardt’s decision, Sieg handed the Core of the Labyrinth to Mariela.

The Core was stained black, yet it emitted a continual light as it sat in Mariela’s hands.

It seemed to be a symbol for those who didn’t give in to despair.

“The Core of the Labyrinth… Uh, um… I…” After staring fixedly at the Core resting in her palms, Mariela turned to face Sieg and Leonhardt. She had a serious expression on her face that suggested she’d made up her mind about something.

“Um, I still…can’t make the Elixir!”

“What?”

“Whaaat?!”

Sieg and Leonhardt were dumbfounded.

“What should I do?” Mariela hung her head.

Leonhardt had pondered the question of what to do about the Core of the Labyrinth from many different angles, but he hadn’t expected this. What were they to do? Leonhardt, usually so calm and collected, turned to Siegmund with a bewildered expression.

Although Sieg had been dragged into his share of terrible, unfortunate developments, he, like Leonhardt, had never expected that Mariela wouldn’t be able to make the Elixir at this climactic moment. He returned Leonhardt’s look with one very much like it.

Though all were stunned silent, everyone’s feelings on the matter were made plain by their incredulous expressions.

“Mariela should be able to make the Elixir by the time you make it to the boss of the Labyrinth. That’s plenty of time, dooon’t worryyy.” That was what the drunkard sage had said. Perhaps it had been a mistake to trust those words. Still, although Freyja was always drunk and fooling around, she did seem to possess a tremendous understanding of the world around her, almost as though she could see the future. That was why everyone was content to trust her.

“Ugh… It was a mistake to believe what Master said… She really was a good-for-nothing after all…” If Mariela had known this was going to happen, she wouldn’t have blindly trusted Freyja’s words. Instead, she would have used ley-line shards with greater care from the time she first started training to make special-grade potions. Mariela hung her head in defeat beside the still-bewildered Sieg and Leonhardt.

“Ugh, it’s all over. This is the end. Everything, absolutely everything, is her fault…” Until a moment ago, the image of Freyja in Mariela’s mind had been that of a cool, gallant figure with a noble, self-sacrificing presence. A person who stayed behind alone in the Labyrinth’s fifty-eighth stratum. That image was shattered, replaced with the image of a useless drunk. Mariela thought so poorly of her master that it felt to her as if all the misfortune in the world were Freyja’s fault. She felt tears begin to well in her eyes.

“Master, you good-for-nothing! You’re so irresponsible! I’m holding you accountable!” Mariela easily put aside her own inadequacy and began to bad-mouth her master, though it was considered improper to speak ill of the dead.

“Just whooo is a good-for-nothing? If it’s anyone, it’s this ridiculous pupil of mine!”

“Bwah?! Master?!”

Freyja had come running to this lowest stratum of the Labyrinth as though in response to the crisis of her favorite pupil.

“M-Master, Maaasteeer! A-are you okaaay?!” Though she was on the verge of tears from all the recent chaos, Mariela was delighted to see that her master was safe. Freyja’s clothes had been scorched here and there, but she didn’t seem to have suffered any major injuries.

“Ah, Lady Sage. It’s wonderful to know you’re unhurt after that swarm.”

It was unbelievable to see that Freyja had made it through uninjured after facing down that army of corpses. Even Leonhardt was both pleased and astonished at her arrival.

“Ah, yes, yes. Mariela, calm down a bit. Well, you know, most of the corpses had saponified, so they burned up on their own after a few shots. Whoosh, whoosh. I actually started having trouble breathing. So I escaped to the stratum above for juuust a bit and wound up getting here a little late.” Instantly, Freyja’s explanation made her seem far less impressive.

Of course, the Sage of Calamity’s fire spirit magic was incredible. So incredible that even the soldiers of the Forces had trembled at the blast that had rocked the stratum while they charged on through. Still, they’d thought Freyja was outmatched, sheerly because of numbers. In particular, Mariela had thought the swarm of corpses who didn’t feel pain would take the opportunity when her master had run out of magical power to close in like an avalanche and swallow her up.

“Saponified”… I’ve heard that corpses that don’t decompose become like wax. So the fire just spread…

Not only were there a lot of corpses, but they’d all been closing in on the narrow stratum stairs, so when an adequate portion of them got there, apparently the blaze simply spread from one to the next.

“Anyhow, this is Master we’re talking about, so didn’t you send wind or something from the upper stratum down through the stratum stairs?”

“Ooh, very sharp, Mariela.”

Freyja loved fire magic, but she was pretty poor with anything even close to water magic. She was, however, quite skilled at using wind magic to stir up flames. Choosing magic that focused on firepower was very like Freyja. Regardless, she’d diligently supplied oxygen from the relatively safe stratum above to ensure that the corpses would keep burning until none remained. Was such a feat more befitting a “sage” or a “calamity”? Mariela and the others had to decide that for themselves. Either way, no one felt particularly inclined to praise Freyja.

“I would like to celebrate your safe return, but we have a problem.” Leonhardt, ever the pragmatist, quickly returned to the real issue at hand.

“Yup. Mariela doesn’t have enough experience, right?”

“Master…you knew?”

“Heh-heh, that’s why I came. To transfer all my alchemy experience to you, Mariela.”

“Transfer…experience?”

“Yup. When you connected to the ley line with your Nexus, I transferred experience to you to bring you back from the ley line, right? It’s putting that to use. Normally, it can’t be transferred while you’re in your body, but y’know, we’re super-close to the ley line here. I can give it all to you here, even if you’re still flesh and blood.” Freyja said all this with a cheerful smile.

“B-but…if you do that, you won’t be able to…”

Such a thing would mean that Freyja would become unable to create potions. For someone like Mariela, who’d spent so much of her life crafting the things, even finding purpose in making them, just the idea of that was unbearable. Mariela screwed up her face, displeased. Her master, however…

“Well, I wasn’t making potions to begin with. Too much work,” Freyja retorted.

That’s right… That’s why she can only make mid-grade potions…

Since Freyja had taught Mariela so many things, Mariela thought her to be a master of alchemy as well. However, the Sage of Calamity was more of a typical teacher—skilled in many things, including alchemy, but not a master of them.

“Okay, I understand. Thank you, Master.” Mariela had managed to calm down a little, but there was no time left. Even now, Endalsia’s existence was steadily weakening. She looked ready to disappear at any moment.

“Sure. Well, here you go, Mariela.”

Freyja wrapped both of her hands around Mariela’s, still holding the Core of the Labyrinth, and bumped her forehead into her pupil’s.

“My experience to my pupil. Guide her on the road ahead.”

Although Mariela had assumed it would be accompanied by pain, like the Imprints she’d suffered many times over, the transfer of experience was extremely gentle. She was enveloped in a calm, warm feeling that reminded her of Freyja leading her home by the hand when she was little.

“It’s done. This is all I can do for Mariela.”

“Master…”

Freyja was kind at heart. She was an arrogant drunkard and a good-for-nothing who caused trouble for others, but she was also a wonderful person who lavished love on a child like Mariela with no special skills other than alchemy.

In the depths of the Labyrinth, Freyja had taken on a swarm of corpses alone and shown everyone the way forward. Even though she should have been in dire peril, she had managed to slip from the jaws of death and come running at just the right time to help Mariela out of a tough spot. However, despite seeming to know everything, Freyja refused to do any kind of housework, and she was a tactless scatterbrain. That was why, even though it seemed that the sage had managed something truly incredible, what came next wasn’t a surprise to Mariela.

With an extremely clear understanding, Mariela faced her master and shouted, “Master! It’s still not enough!”

04

“Whaaaaaa—?!”

The legendary Sage of Calamity had known of Mariela’s lack of experience and had used it to make a cool entrance. She’d even looked the part of a noble sage in the way she’d taken it upon herself to transfer her experience to Mariela. Yet the Elixir was still just a tiny bit out of Mariela’s reach.

“Uh…how? You’re kidding, right?!”

“I’m not! It’s all ’cause you slacked off on your alchemy! Aaargh, what do we do?!”

“Wow. So about how much more do you still need?”

“Erm…probably…one special-grade potion’s worth?”

The alchemist master and her pupil were both completely flustered.

Leonhardt, Sieg, and indeed all the present members of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces had become mere spectators to this display, dumbfounded and wondering what would happen next. As for Endalsia, she had a somewhat distant look in her eyes as she quietly continued to fade.

“One more potion’s worth? You’ve still got medicinal crystals, right? So you just need a ley-line shard! Right, all of you! Yes, you, soldiers! Everyone! Jump right now!” With an incredibly threatening look, Freyja barked out an order. Whether it was because of the presence she commanded or because her masterly ways evoked some sort of childlike obedience in the soldiers, the Labyrinth Suppression Forces began to jump up and down. Clinking accompanied the hops, along with flying coins.

It was chaos.

The medical staff hadn’t gone to the trouble of healing the soldiers for a charade like this. Nierenberg shoved his glasses upward as he turned his pockets inside out to check whether he’d forgotten about any ley-line shards. The only ones who didn’t join in the ridiculous jumps were Leonhardt, who hadn’t been picking up materials, and Sieg. Sieg had sunk to the ground next to Mariela; his grip on consciousness had grown hazy after sustaining so many injuries and using up his magical power to kill the boss of the Labyrinth.

Even Mariela was jumping up and down in the hope she might have a shard. Perhaps the raptor and the salamander on its head both thought it was some kind of game, because they jumped, too, with little growls.

Despite the rather absurd efforts, not a single ley-line shard fell from anyone’s pockets. Before they’d come here to the deepest stratum, though, they’d resolved to do their utmost and scraped together everything they had to make potions, so it was no surprise that no shards remained.

Endalsia’s existence continued to fade as they wasted time in a futile effort. All Mariela needed was just a little more…just a tiny bit more…

“Ahhh, what should we dooo?!” Mariela shouted, looking ready to cry again. Sieg, still on the ground, hurriedly searched his own pockets in vain.

“You reeeally are a klutz, huh?”

“…Lynx?!” Mariela could have sworn she’d heard Lynx whispering in her ear. She whirled around to look behind herself, and the pendant Lynx had once given to her swung, and the chain broke with a snap, sending the pendant flying.

Thunk, thunk-thud.

The water droplet-shaped trick locket bounced and rolled on the Labyrinth’s floor.

“Ahh, my pendant!”

Flustered, Mariela rushed over and picked it up. The trick locket, which she had never opened, now readily bore its concealed contents in her hands. A ley-line shard tumbled out.

Lynx had given Mariela this pendant around the time she’d first come to the Labyrinth City. It had a complex gimmick to it, and no matter what Mariela had tried, she’d never been able to open it. As a prank, Lynx had shut a ley-line shard within it, where it had remained until both Mariela and Sieg had forgotten what was inside. Even so, Mariela had always carried it close to her as a memento of him.

“Lynx…”

Had the voice just been a hallucination brought on by exhaustion, or, now that they were so close to the ley line, could Lynx have provided them with a miracle? The ley-line shard in Mariela’s hand was unable to answer, but it gave her a more nostalgic feeling than anything she’d ever touched before. This shard was the final piece. With this, the puzzle would be complete…

“Mariela, that pendant…”

“I know, Sieg. Lynx is helping us.”

Leonhardt and the Labyrinth Suppression Forces were wide-eyed at this inconceivable development. Even Sieg was surprised at Lynx’s unexpected aid.

Mariela entrusted the Core of the Labyrinth to Sieg for the time being and put power into the ley-line shard Lynx had given her. The process of refining special-grade potions was the same one she’d repeated many, many times over—quite possibly the last refining process she would ever perform.

“Transmutation Vessel.”

When I’d just started making special-grade potions, I made the Transmutation Vessels too strong and wasted magical power. Mariela expanded the Transmutation Vessel as she reflected back to when her master had first arrived in the Labyrinth City.

In her peripheral vision, Mariela spotted her master wearing an expression that said “I knew it.” However, Mariela chose to ignore Freyja for the moment. Turning away, Mariela decided to play back the memories of that time with a more glorified, responsible version of her master instead.

Dissolving a ley-line shard into Drops of Life required high temperature and high pressure, but that didn’t mean she could just force it in. You could say a ley-line shard was the crystallization of a monster’s vitality, formed inside its body. So traces of the monster’s consciousness remained. Each ley-line shard held traits related to vague qualities about the monster it was once part of.

Some melted easily at high temperatures; some preferred sudden changes in pressure; some wanted greater pressure and lower temperature. If you put magical power into Drops of Life and adjusted the environment in accordance with preferences like those, the shard would melt surprisingly well.

I wonder what kind of creature this was, Mariela thought.

Lynx had said he had gotten this ley-line shard from a monster he’d defeated on the way to the Labyrinth City from the imperial capital.

What kind of monster did Lynx fight, and how did he fight it? As she recalled Lynx with fondness, Mariela probed the ley-line shard as if she was asking it questions.

What kind of special-grade potion was she to make with this last shard? Mariela had repeated the refining process so many times she’d lost track, and she’d also gradually become better at tuning in to the individuality of ley-line shards. Moreover, now that she’d inherited her master’s experience, Mariela’s proficiency in alchemy had been boosted so much that it was only a hair from the highest level possible.

Recently, Mariela had fervently handling shards en masse, so she’d been unaware of their individuality. However, now that she had a moment to focus her awareness on one, she found that grasping the unique qualities of the material came surprisingly quickly. Mariela had always understood well the condition of medicinal herbs and the processing they’d gone through, but now the ley-line shard transmitted even the memories of its host from when it was alive.

Oh… This was a wolf monster. A strong force, the ley-line shard, suddenly formed in its body, and it ran wild. Its friends were the same way. Some of them went even wilder… Then they attacked Lynx and the others, who defeated them.

This ley-line shard had come from a black death wolf. Some of its comrades went on to evolve all the way to werewolves, but this individual had been the only one with a ley-line shard inside it. Since it had been a wolf, Mariela reasoned she could raise the temperature and pressure in her vessel to simulate the creature running through the forest.

Black death wolves are strong, but not so strong that they have ley-line shards in them. This is unusual. I wonder what it could’ve eaten? Mariela thought.

I want to run, I want to dash. Faster, faster, faster. Such were the feelings coming from the shard.

As she radically changed the temperature and pressure of the Drops of Life to fulfill the desire of the ley-line shard, Mariela further attuned her awareness to its history.

These wolves attacked a merchant caravan… This is horrible. Everyone’s so thin, and they don’t have decent equipment… Wha— This is…

Mariela turned an eye toward Sieg. This ley-line shard had dwelled in the black death wolf Lynx had defeated. That black death wolf had evolved from a black wolf that had attacked a certain merchant.

The memories flowing from the ley-line shard replayed the details of the attack to Mariela. A lone man climbed onto a raptor and fled while the pack of black wolves attacked the merchant caravan and devoured their poor victims. Although the fleeing man wanted desperately to escape, he stopped to save a man in heavy armor, allowing the pursuing black wolves to close the distance.

A wolf sank its teeth into the man’s left leg and tore flesh from his calf before eating it. And so it consumed the flesh of a man beloved by the spirits and filled with power.

This wolf tried to eat Sieg…

When Sieg was still a debt laborer, he was taken into the Fell Forest by his then-master’s son. Wolves had attacked him, and he’d survived the ordeal but suffered a grievous wound to the leg.

That flesh and blood, full of great ability and loved by the spirits because of the Spirit Eye, was what had allowed the black wolf to evolve into a black death wolf after consuming only a relatively small amount. That was why a ley-line shard had formed within the monster. Another monster had evolved all the way to a werewolf, and that one had indeed devoured many of the poor debt laborers. However, only the black death wolf who ate Sieg’s flesh had absorbed enough Drops of Life into its body to produce a ley-line shard.

About a month after Sieg had been attacked, the Black Iron Freight Corps had defeated the werewolf and the black death wolves. Lynx had given the ley-line shard to Mariela, and the wolf had ended up back near Sieg again, in a way.

This was the final shard, the last piece, connecting the present to the future.

What a turn of fate. It’s like it was predetermined. No, that’s not right. This is more than just fate, Mariela reflected as she crafted the potion. She believed she’d survived the Stampede and woken up two hundred years later in order to be here now. However, she’d only made it here because of her own actions, her own will.

Mariela could have just as easily drawn Magic Circles of Suspended Animation and escaped with her master and Sieg. She’d been aware of that option, yet she had chosen to come here, to the deepest part of the Labyrinth. Mariela fixed her gaze on Sieg.

When Mariela looked at Sieg during her potion-making process, Sieg stared back at her, the Core of the Labyrinth still in his hands, wondering what she wanted. He had pushed himself so hard in order to defeat the Labyrinth boss that even standing was a monumental task.

“Sieg, you’re always wearing yourself out, aren’t you?”

“Hmm? Ah, sorry. I’m just resting a little so I can recover enough to protect you.”

“That’s not what I meant. Sieg, you’ve always given it your all. You’ve worked super-duper hard.”

Sieg was always worrying about something, lamenting something, and yet he’d come all the way here with Mariela without even the slightest hesitation.

“Sieg, you always do your best and never give up. That’s why I’m here right now.”

Although it did seem like both the timing of Freyja’s awakening and her teachings followed a predetermined destiny…

Surely fate alone wouldn’t have been enough, Mariela reasoned. Sieg’s tenacity, and this journey he and Mariela had walked together, were by no means the workings of destiny.

“Anchor Essence.”

Mariela completed the final stage of the special-grade potion refining process. With the potion finished, Mariela understood that she’d finally reached the end of her training, the pinnacle of alchemy. And she’d done so by her own will.

05

At last, Mariela could refine the legendary potion, the Elixir. She understood now that she was capable of making it. First, however, Mariela had the Sieg drink her newly made special-grade heal potion to relieve his exhaustion.

Sieg had pushed his Spirit Eye to the limit and was about ready to keel over. He likely had a few torn muscles, too. Yet he suspiciously turned down the offer.

“I’m fine,” he said.

So Mariela simply thrust the concoction into Sieg’s mouth with a “Hup.” Although he gagged on it at first, he did drink it down.

Didn’t something like this happen on the day we first met? Mariela wondered.

Since the pendant had opened, all Mariela could think about was the past. As she reflected with nostalgia on her time since awakening in the world of two centuries later, Mariela accepted the Core of the Labyrinth back from Sieg.

The recipe for making the Elixir wasn’t recorded in the Library, but Mariela no longer needed the likes of a recipe. She understood what to do. The Core of the Labyrinth would tell her.

“I’m going to start,” Mariela announced; then she slowly expanded a Transmutation Vessel.

The Core of the Labyrinth was a mass of pure, high-density energy. The miasma of the monster that had been the boss of the Labyrinth had permeated it, turning it black and corrupted. Which meant the first thing to do was excise the corruption.

Excise? No, it’s more like sending it back.

If the world’s corruption, which made monsters what they were, had been created by humans, then it was a part of those humans. That being the case, Mariela reasoned that she should be able to send it back.

“Drops of Life.”

When she filled the Transmutation Vessel containing the Core of the Labyrinth with Drops of Life, the Core sucked up the Drops of Life like a thirsty beast drinking water, and it began to swell gradually with the amount it took in. As she constantly drew up more Drops of Life for the Core of the Labyrinth to absorb, Mariela lowered the pressure and temperature a bit at a time, little by little.

The control was precise, exact, and advanced enough that only a person worthy of working with Core of the Labyrinth could have ever done it. She didn’t deviate even slightly from the needed temperature or pressure. To others, it might have seemed incredible, but to Mariela, it was hardly anything. She’d done work like this many thousands, tens of thousands of times since she was a child.

When she lowered the pressure below what one would have found atop the highest mountain in the world and the temperature below the air of the frigid north, the Core of the Labyrinth suddenly turned jet-black. In the next instant, the black color was replaced by pure white, as if the darkness was being erased.

After that, Mariela changed the temperature, pressure, and atmosphere in accordance with what the Core of the Labyrinth, now fat on Drops of Life, wished. There were as many steps as there were stars in the sky, and Mariela dared not risk a single error among them.

Such technique combined minute, precise, and fundamental methods in limitless combination. This was a peak of alchemy that only those who had made potion after potion after potion could reach.

Searing lava leaping within the deepest reaches of a volcano’s crater. The unreachable bottom of a fissure in the sea. A hot, massive, ancient site shut away in the deepest reaches of the earth. Mariela changed the Transmutation Vessel, changed her world, as if she was traveling to the most extreme places known to man. With each alteration, the Core of the Labyrinth changed color, changed size. Before Mariela knew it, the Core had become a liquid floating within the Transmutation Vessel.

The red of blood, the red of the setting sun, and the deep, fiery red of the swaying autumn trees.

The light yellowish-green of new leaves in spring, the bright green of jade beads, the deep green of the trees in the Fell Forest. The indigo of the sky when nighttime nears, the blue of the endless seas, the blue of Sieg’s eye.

No sooner had the Core of the Labyrinth taken on a large gaseous form, filling its container like a cloud, than it condensed. The vaporous form rapidly shrank, coalescing into something like a berry or nut. The mass winked out of existence and immediately began growing like a sprouting plant.

The silver of the moon, the gold of flames, the luminescence of fireflies, the lightning on a dark night. Pale, fierce, gentle, intense. Both the color and the light shifted, and the transitions themselves appeared unstable. It was as though everyone present was watching a world change at a rapid speed.

What they were seeing in the transformations of the Core of the Labyrinth—or rather, the core of the ley line—might have been its very memories.

“Ahh, how plentiful and beautiful, this ley line,” Freyja murmured in wonder as she attentively watched the growth of her favorite pupil and the refining of the Elixir. And just as she spoke, the Elixir, the legendary secret medicine, suddenly reached its completion.

“It’s…done.” Mariela breathed a big sigh and offered the glittering liquid in the Transmutation Vessel to the spirit Endalsia.

“So this is…the Elixir.”

“It’s shines just as the ley line does.”

As Leonhardt and Sieg watched attentively, the spirit Endalsia shifted her focus to the Elixir, then to Mariela, Leonhardt, Sieg, and each of the other humans.

—Are you truly certain? If you help me, the Elixir will disappear. Even if it extends my life, I can no longer manage the ley line in this weakened body. I am now a mere spirit. I have not the power to manifest in this world, and only a little remaining to watch over you all and illuminate your path—.

At Endalsia’s question, Mariela looked back at Leonhardt, Dick, Nierenberg, the soldiers of the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, Sieg, and, finally, her master, Freyja.

All of them nodded reassuringly at Mariela and Endalsia.

“That’s plenty. We might make mistakes sometimes, but when that happens, just try to light our way a little. We can handle the rest; we can move forward on our own.” It was with these words that Mariela offered the entire Transmutation Vessel with the Elixir to Endalsia.

—You have my thanks.—

The instant Endalsia touched the Elixir, the Labyrinth’s sixtieth stratum filled with a gentle glow. A cascade of placid, warm light.

Before the light flowing from Endalsia blanketed everyone’s field of view, Mariela saw Endalsia look at someone and smile.

—Thank you for guiding the children.—

The only ones who could hear what the spirit said were those closest to her.

Who is she— Sieg? No…it’s… But the light engulfed their surroundings faster than Mariela could follow Endalsia’s line of sight. After dazzling display subsided, the sixtieth stratum of the Labyrinth was nothing more than an empty cave. They could no longer sense the ley line that had felt so close just a moment ago. Only the salamander atop Koo the raptor’s head provided illumination for Mariela and the others. It was a small lamp in a pitch-dark cavern.

*   *   *

“Is it…over?” Leonhardt asked quietly of no one in particular.

In the middle of the sudden darkness, everyone’s gazes naturally went to the salamander and the raptor, the sole source of light in the place.

“Rar?” the raptor asked at the sudden attention, as if to say “What should I do?”

“Raaawr—let’s go home!” the salamander on the raptor’s head said in reply.

“The salamander…talks?!” Mariela cried in surprise at the salamander’s sudden use of human language.

“I see… Dominion of this place has been returned to the people. It’s our land again…” Understanding that their desire had at last been fulfilled, Leonhardt looked back at the soldiers who’d come with him to this place and proclaimed, “Let’s go home, my friends! Our wish has come true! This land is now ours!”

He paused for a moment and took a deep breath.

“This is our victory!” he shouted, thrusting his fist into the air. The stratum erupted into a chorus of cheers.

“Whooo!!!”

“Let’s go home! We’ll make our triumphant return!!!”

“A triumphant return! We’ll have a feast when we get back!”

“Boooooze! I’ll drink up the entire wine cellar!”

“…Master, you didn’t have to say that.”

“Rar!”

Thus, the hard-fought battles of two hundred years at last came to a conclusion.