CHAPTER 5: The Tale of the Fire Spirit
01
Siegmund was an unlucky person.
His looks and intellect weren’t bad, and his combat abilities were A Rank. Whether or not his personality was agreeable depended on the person. Still, he endeavored not to be haughty, lazy, or negligent. To be a man honest enough not to make Mariela feel uncomfortable, faithful enough not to make her feel insecure, and attractive enough that she wouldn’t look away from him.
At least the man himself believed that, and superficially, he conducted himself as planned.
So people in the Labyrinth City who were somewhat acquainted with him considered Sieg to be the ideal young man.
As far as Mariela went, she saw through his diligent attempts to keep up appearances and appeal to her, but she viewed both his facade and his true side favorably. In other words, the people around Siegmund, Mariela included, recognized him as quite the high-spec man.
If one had to name the most unfortunate thing about Sieg, it would be his bad luck rather than his tendency to deviate somewhat from the sphere of common sense when it came to Mariela.
Even if he had angered Mariela, there was plenty of room for an explanation. He’d simply had no chance to defend himself due to a series of regrettable incidents coming one after another.
If he properly clarified and apologized from the bottom of his heart, surely Mariela would forgive him.
Thinking as much, Sieg had gone after her, venturing deep into the Fell Forest, but…
“This place is…a tower?!”
He could’ve sworn he’d been in a marshland in the Fell Forest. The instant he’d laid his hands on a door within a shrine there, he had a sensation like an earthquake. Sieg had felt as though he would lose consciousness from extreme vertigo, so he’d reflexively shut his eyes, and upon opening them, he was in a tower.
Damp air blew in through the tower’s many windows, and outside was pitch-dark, without a single visible star, but he could faintly feel Mariela’s magical power from far below him.
“!!! Mariela! I’m coming!”
Sieg practically flew down the stairs that led to a spiral staircase running along the round tower’s inner wall.
“Two doors… Which one?!”
Sieg reached the fourth floor—though he didn’t know what level it was—at an astonishing speed, and he’d lost track of the direction Mariela was in due to going around and around on the coiled steps.
“Her magical power is… It’s no use. It’s too scattered…”
A storm blew violently outside, perhaps created by magical power. It drowned out Mariela’s energy, as she wasn’t using it. Hoping to locate her visually instead, Sieg invoked his Spirit Eye while scanning the outside through a suitable window. Before long, he spotted a place resembling a spacious courtyard and a building resembling a temple towering in the center.
“?! Gh!”
As soon as Sieg’s Spirit Eye perceived the temple in the center, his magical power was absorbed in the direction of the temple via his Spirit Eye, like it was being dragged out of him.
At the same time, the dark water was rapidly filling the world, centered on the temple.
“Water?! Damn it, I’m trapped!”
The image of rising water reflected in his Spirit Eye made Sieg feel he needed to get out of there right away. At present, he stood in the chamber of a tower with two doors opposite each other. There was also a staircase leading down, but since Mariela wasn’t in this tower, descending didn’t seem very valuable to Sieg.
Right or left? Mariela had to be on the other side of one of the doors.
The wind blowing in through the windows seemed to signal that the water was rising more and more. Sieg didn’t have a moment to lose.
“Mariela! Guide me!!!”
His mind made up, Sieg rushed for one of the doors and flew out into a passage on the outer wall.
The outside was filled with damp air too dense to be called mist, enough so that even breathing was difficult. Moreover, the barricade connecting the tower Sieg had been in with the neighboring one had collapsed, and there was a considerable distance between them. Even if Sieg tried to leap the gap, jumping from the fourth floor he was on now to the exposed third floor hallway would be the best he could manage. In other words, after he jumped once, he didn’t know if he would be able to return to this tower.
Sieg’s path was clear.
He’d already decided on this door with the conviction that it would lead him to Mariela.
And there was no longer any time to waver on that point.
“Ahh, the hell with it!”
Sieg leaped over to the hallway connecting to the neighboring tower and ran through it. He understood from the weight of the air coiling around his body that the water was approaching the area around him.
As far as Sieg was concerned, the fact that the door to the tower he finally reached was broken might have been his only bit of luck. When he got there, the vicinity was filled with water, and if the door hadn’t been broken, he probably wouldn’t have been able to open it due to the water pressure.
Sieg somehow managed to slip into the tower, and he swam to the floor above, seeking air.
“Pfaw, the room is flooded, but the top of the tower isn’t…?”
If the chamber above wasn’t underwater, surely Mariela was at the top of this tower.
Siegmund thought this way, trusted his luck in this way, and he ran up the spiral staircase without catching his breath.
Mariela had to be there.
What should he say in apology? How should he explain?
No, since this was Mariela, maybe she would warmly embrace him simply because he’d followed her this far.
No doubt about it.
Surely, Sieg would be able to see her smiling face.
Mariela, Mariela, Mariela…
Siegmund was an unlucky person.
At least to the point where it got a laugh from those around him.
“Eek ook!”
After running up the tower, what Sieg found wasn’t Mariela, but Edgan making monkey noises. Sieg’s expression was so comical it made Grandel and Donnino, who happened to be there, too, think, I’m glad we accepted this job.
02
“Ook?”
“…Mariela.”
“Eek ook, eek, eek ook!”
“…Mariela.”
Did Sieg belong to the society of peculiar animals like Edgan?
Although Sieg hadn’t lost a single memory, was the shock so nasty that he’d been robbed of his sanity?
Mariela had no such miraculous power that could answer Siegmund’s plea of “Mariela, guide me,” and above all, she’d run away from home in anger and had no reason to help him. If the regulars from Sunlight’s Canopy were here, there was no doubt they’d be eating this up with their eyes as they treated themselves to tea and cakes.
“Don’t be so discouraged. Comin’ this direction, well, I can only say it was bad luck, but you can go outside when the night arrives. You’ll be able to meet up with the young lady before long.”
“Indeed. There is no woman in the world who wouldn’t be delighted you came all this way to get her.”
“Ook!”
Grandel and Donnino consoled Sieg, who couldn’t hide his dismay.
The male-only room gave a shabby impression, but its occupants were quite gentlemanly. Well, the last one was really just a nuisance.
“So Mariela is safe, huh…?”
At last, Sieg raised his head and asked a question in a weak voice. While Grandel and Donnino were surprised he wasn’t using Mariela-ese, they replied, “She’s safe. She’s doing great,” and began to explain the situation.
“In other words, we can only go outside during the night, and that window of opportunity is short?”
“Exactly. The plan is to meet Yuric and the others in the southeast tower.”
“Ook.”
“What about information on the enemy? Anything other than having black, sticky bodies?”
“There are also normal monsters, which generate and grow in the daytime. They seem to be hostile toward the ebon ones, and they prioritize them when attacking.”
“Eek ook.”
“Then the problem is simply the sheer number of those inky things…?”
“Well, there’re several black monsters that look like bigwigs. We dealt with the main enemies, but there’s this one really nasty group in the courtyard. Right now, a petrified lamia is keepin’ ’em in check, but we don’t know how many nights that’ll last. Well, now that you’re here, Sieg, we can probably handle anything that comes our way.”
“Eek ook!”
Sieg, Donnino, and Grandel exchanged information while Edgan interjected in monkey language on every little thing. Perhaps he was trying to converse, but he kept getting up into Sieg’s face and peering into his eyes, which got very annoying.
“…So Edgan lost his memories, huh?”
“…”
“…”
“Eek, eek!”
The fact that a person lost their past when a black monster latched onto them had already been made clear to Sieg, but no one had an answer regarding Edgan’s present condition except Edgan himself.
Edgan had been following Sieg around for a little while now. Sieg didn’t know whether Edgan remembered they had been friends, or whether he’d come to ridicule Sieg with all his might for Sieg’s expression of despair when he saw Edgan and realized he’d magnificently made the wrong choice.
Ape-gan…no, Edgan…had once taken all comers in matters of the heart and chased women relentlessly, but ever since the Labyrinth’s subjugation, his sole speck of sense was not to get involved with married women or women who already had lovers. Yet, even if it was by her request, Edgan had led Mariela away from Sieg. He deserved death.
Well, Sieg was the only one who believed that, but if Edgan was really Sieg’s friend, he should have dissuaded Mariela from running off, or called Sieg, or something similar.
No matter how much Sieg was to blame, it was just a few hours between when they had the fight and when Mariela ran away from home. Sieg hadn’t been given a chance to defend himself, nor had he even been contacted, and he seriously thought about reexamining his friendship with Edgan.
Although, no matter what Edgan said now, no one would understand.
Even now, Edgan was trying to open the large pack Sieg had brought with him, and Sieg was firing arrows at him. Of course, he wasn’t firing them in earnest, so Edgan agilely dodged them with eeks and ooks. He appeared to be teasing poor Siegmund.
Sieg glanced at the eek-eeking Edgan, who was clearly enjoying himself, and let out a sigh.
“Well, if we can make it to the spirit temple in the center, Edgan will probably turn out fine, too.”
Donnino and Grandel reacted to Sieg’s nonchalant comment.
“Spirit temple?”
“Are you saying this is a spirit realm?”
“Eek, eek ook?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s most likely a water spirit. The instant I looked at the temple with my Spirit Eye, a considerable amount of my magical power was taken, so I think it’s quite a high-ranking spirit.”
“Eek ook!”
Sieg had revealed some critical information, and Edgan ruined the seriousness with his ook-ooking.
Was he ook-ooking, or was he ook-cited? Or could it be both? Either way, the monkey’s friend was steadily getting sick of it.
Grandel and Donnino discussed things like “When the place is full of water, do the black monsters not appear because of the spirit’s divine protection or something similar?” as though they understood and accepted what Sieg told them.
The fact that the night ended yesterday as soon as Sieg arrived in this world may have been because Sieg’s magical power was summoned from his Spirit Eye and forcibly purified the corruption. Although, they didn’t know whether the water spirit intended to help Mariela and the other humans or whether it had its own agenda.
Sieg waited impatiently for night to arrive as he gazed at Edgan, who had wandered into Sieg’s field of vision as he talked to the two middle-aged men, with a faraway look.
At that same moment, Mariela was…
“Mr. Franz, could you swim like a fish the way you are right now?”
“No. I can stay underwater for a long time and move quite freely through it, but I don’t have gills.”
“Mariela, what do ya intend to make Franz do?”
Mariela and the others of her group entertained such topics as they absentmindedly gazed at the ocean outside and waited for nighttime.
Perhaps because the group had burned and purified the calamities of famine and disease, normal monsters seemed to be gaining strength in the world of water. The fish monsters were clearly much larger than those swimming around when the group had first arrived in this structure. Mariela thought she saw a whale creature calmly floating by above them, though she only knew of whales from stories.
“That’s a whale monster, right?”
“Hmm? Ah, that’s right. It seems young still, though… Never thought that was even impossible.”
“It’s huuuge for just a baby. About thirty feet long.”
Despite having many dreams of Franz’s lost memories, Mariela and the others hadn’t been asleep any longer than usual. They had a lot of downtime on their hands as they waited for night.
Until just a short while ago, Franz had been checking for a way to the north tower—the newly generated one—by leveraging his special characteristics that enabled underwater activity. The north side’s outer wall was fragmented en route, and the north tower towered in the center, but it seemed the divided wall hadn’t been restored, and the gap between the tower and the outer wall was a little too wide to jump. In other words, Mariela and the others couldn’t get to the new tower from the northwest one where they were, and they would have to go around the south side to reach the northeast tower.
“Hmm, I wonder if what we need is a whatchamacallit and a thingamajig. Mr. Donnino could make that one thing, and I should be able to make that other thing if we go to the first floor…”
“What are ya plannin’ this time?”
Mariela talking about “whatchamacallits” and “thingamajigs” made her seem like a senile old lady. Although Yuric was puzzled, she offered, “If there’s somethin’ ya need, I’ll go look for it.”
“Thank you! The main part will be after we meet up with everyone, but right now, I’d like to get as much rope ivy and gepla as possible—the materials for fire bottles.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll help, Yuric.”
Yuric and Franz boarded the raptor to go collect the materials, and Mariela waved to them, saying, “I’ll make something delicious for when you get back.”
“I want to eat somethin’ fried again!”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Yuric and Franz’s reactions were extremely positive.
Mariela’s alchemical cooking had a superb level of heat and was more delicious than when she prepared things with her fully equipped kitchen in Sunlight’s Canopy. Dishes eaten on the road were seasoned with exercise and impressive vistas. It made the flavor of even commonplace foods better. And if the taste of the dish itself was good to begin with, then so much the better.
At the same time Edgan was saying “ook, ook” in the northeast tower, two people in the northwest tower were similarly ook-cited.
After seeing off Yuric and Franz, Mariela quickly finished her preparations, hugged the salamander, who was watching for a chance to snatch a bit of food, threw herself down on the spot, and curled up.
“Would you tell me just a little bit?”
“Ar…”
Could that have been a reply to Mariela’s muttering? The salamander made a small noise, then the two of them closed their eyes.
03
Ahh, one of those dreams again… I knew it.
It was a vision about traveling through the dark forest protected by the fire spirit’s lamp.
How much time had passed since the last dream? The woods appeared even denser, and it weighed on travelers’ hearts like the trees hanging over them.
The darkness of the night made the trees’ shapes, which twisted as though to block the people moving through the forest, feel even more terrifying. How many times had there been pilgrimages to the lake since that first, fateful ritual? Travelers carved a narrow path through the thickets and scrubs.
Was this place always so hostile? They looked like regular trees before…
No sooner had Mariela thought the woods seemed familiar than a pack of forest wolves attacked.
—Damn mutts!—
The fire spirit lighting the ceremonial lamp swayed in irritation as she waved her hands to drive away the beasts, but she hadn’t quite materialized. The best she could do with her meager power was to dazzle the crazed monsters and weaken their attacks.
“Forest wolves! Get in formation! Don’t forget the monster-warding potions!”
This group of travelers had weapons and armor that was far superior to the people Mariela had seen in the first dream of this place. Of course, compared with the equipment from the era of the Kingdom of Endalsia, let alone what the Labyrinth City’s adventurers wore, the gear was inferior. The armor was clumsy and lacked maneuverability, and the weapons were extremely blunt.
Even so, a squadron of humans wasn’t going to be overtaken by a few forest wolves. The travelers set to exterminating the monsters with swords and spells.
—You won’t get in the way of us seeing each other after so long!—
It had been a very long time since the fire spirit had been to that lake.
Both human technology and the city had flourished more and more. There were stockpiles of food in case of famine and methods for creating potions that cured illnesses. People’s dependence on the spirits had gradually lessened.
Many more humans now lived in the city, and from the fire spirit’s point of view, they were as cramped as a flock of sheep. What made her the most uncomfortable was that black mist-like corruption had become visible in the city here and there as the number of humans increased.
Filthy, shadowy vapor gushed into the city with every foul word someone spat, and with the tears of sorrow and anger that spilled from their eyes. The air in the large settlement felt stagnant to the fire spirit.
The fire spirit, who had continued to exist for a long time, understood that they were words of resentment and tears of bitterness. She understood that if the corruption accumulated and wasn’t purified, something terrible would happen.
That’s why she endeavored to purify the desecration as she moved from lamp to lamp in the city. However, this sprawling settlement, with its brilliant lights that stayed on all night, was full of gold and silver treasures more dazzling than any lamp. No matter how much corruption she expunged, the desecration gushing out from gaps in the gold, and the people themselves, never ran out.
Although more corruption surged forth than the fire spirit could purify, it never thickened beyond a certain point. The same could not be said of where the desecration flowed to: the lake. That had long troubled the fire spirit.
She couldn’t suppress her worry over the black corruption floating both ahead and behind them on the road, as though both pursuing the people hurrying toward the lake and guiding them.
The air of the forest, which had once been deeply peaceful, was now gloomy and damp like the breath of an enormous monster inviting unwary folks into the abyss. The woodland creatures that had once been gentle now had bloodshot eyes and attacked the humans without heeding the fire spirit’s attempts to restrain them.
The fire spirit had become aware this place was no longer the place she once knew, but she felt compelled to ascertain with her own eyes what awaited beyond this point.
The dark forest suddenly came to an end—to convey the truth to the fire spirit.
—Why…?—
The water’s surface, darker than the night itself, lay amid a silvery shaft of moonlight. The jet-black lake seemed to swallow up both the lunar glow and the illumination from the fire spirit’s lamp. The lake spirit slowly emerged in the very center, sluggishly moving their body, which looked like it was drenched in ink.
Was this the same place?
The fire spirit could have sworn the lake was so clear the first time she’d come here that she could easily count the rings of the trees submerged in its depths. The bottom of the pool had been visible when the lake took in the corruption of disease, too.
—It’s been a long time. I thought you had already disappeared.—
Though their body was dyed obsidian with desecration, though their eyes were blackened and dull, the fire spirit still thought the lake spirit was beautiful.
—I won’t go out. I won’t ever go out. Not now or in the future. Never ever. Because I… I will purify the corruption…—
As soon as she said this, the fire spirit looked back at the group she’d come with and scowled at today’s “offering.”
In that instant, the flames of a torch spread to the box of the offering the group carried, and it violently burst into flames.
“Wah, the fire!”
“What is this? Hurry and put it out!”
“B-but it was dried, and the fire is spreading fast…”
“Help!” “It hurts!” “The monsterrrs!” “Open the gaaate!”
The shrieks from the offering went unheard by those who’d carried it here. The voices of people crying, shouting, and unanimously begging for help.
—Did monsters attack you this time?—
—Yeah. There’s a ton of them in the forest. They surged into the city. I managed to drive ’em away, but a great many humans died.—
The only ones who’d fallen to the monsters were the poor who resided outside the outer wall. The people who possessed the brilliant gold and silver treasure were able to escape harm within the sturdy castle barricades, protected by brawny soldiers.
The rich ignored the voices of those who banged on the outer wall and pleaded for sanctuary, and they watched the monsters eat them alive.
The offering housed the resentment and anger exploited destitute, and the horror and grief of being attacked and eaten by monsters.
—Your bodies and souls are no longer in this world. I’ll burn all those painful feelings to nothing. You can turn to cinders and return to a brand-new, colorless, shapeless state, and melt into the atmosphere.—
—You once looked like you could be blown out with a breath, and now you’ve become so strong…—
The fire spirit smiled happily at the lake spirit’s earnest voice. She turned to look at them, and her expression froze.
—Why? Why is corruption still streaming in?—
She realized the black desecration endlessly drifting on the road that led from the city to the lake was flowing straight into the water.
—A path was made. People were coming to me to purify corruption long before you and I met. Yet, though I am the spirit who rules over the ley line of this forest, I have not the power to expunge desecration. This misconception people have was likely born out of their repeated visits to me.—
Over the centuries, humans had formed the notion that this lake was the place corruption returned to.
—Thus, they created a path for the defilement to move through, and it began to flow here like this.—
No anger or sadness could be seen in the lake spirit regarding the pool’s corruption, and their own, as they calmly spoke.
They simply received the desecration that streamed in just as they received the rainwater that fell from the heavens, the moonlight that poured down, and the fallen leaves of the trees.
—But, but… If that much corruption collects…—
The fire spirit understood why the trees and the monsters in the forest had transformed. This lake led to the forest’s ley line. The corruption that streamed in circulated through the woods and spread to all the trees and animals. The creatures that lived in and loved the forest likely wished to carry the desecration in themselves rather than have it pollute the lake.
—Even if I become twisted and dark, things in the forest will not change. They will just become a little bit mischievous.—
It was said corrupted magical power coagulated and formed monsters. That wasn’t a lie. Creatures that took so much corruption into their bodies, it overtook them changed into monsters.
Corruption was, in short, the negative emotions people emitted.
It wasn’t possible for monsters that had taken in such a thing and transformed to love humans.
Monsters didn’t hate people. People hated people.
The lake spirit calmly told the fire spirit that if it hadn’t been for humans, things in the forest would never have changed.
—Even so! That doesn’t mean they’re not tormented by the emotions in their hearts!—
The lake spirit smiled gently, looking at the fire one as she shouted.
—The structure has already been remade. Do not be anxious. Even if we go mad from the corruption, our existences are but a gentle breeze rippling the water in the eternal flow of time. Unless something unexpected occurs, our peace will not be threatened. It would be best for you to go, dear flame. You are too dazzling for me as I am now.—
After those final words, the lake spirit disappeared into the water, and no matter how much the fire spirit screamed and called to them, the jet-black surface, which didn’t even reflect the moon, simply wavered gently.
The fire spirit couldn’t forget the lake spirit’s gaze, radiant like a gentle night, nor the color of the eyes, black as the abyss. In their final moments, the spirit had turned that look upon the humans before sinking, never to be seen again.
04
“Ah, I knew it was you, Sieg.”
“Mariela! You’re safe!”
“Ook!”
“Yeah, Yuric and the others protected me.”
“I see… Mariela, I’m so sorry…”
“Eek ook.”
The following night, Mariela and Sieg safely reunited at last.
With the loss of the two gatekeepers, Franz and Edgan, the night seemed to have gotten longer. With Franz running alongside the raptor, Mariela’s group was able to make it all the way to the southeast tower before dawn came.
Thanks to the newly created north tower, the surging black monsters had abated, but how long would that last? Despite such concerns, Sieg, Mariela, and all the Black Iron Freight Corps members were delighted to at last be back together.
“Mariela, um, I…”
“Eek, eek ook, eek, eek.”
They’d finally reunited, yet because a certain monkey kept butting in, the conversation didn’t progress at all.
The two couldn’t even make up, let alone exchange information. Sieg wanted to apologize and receive Mariela’s forgiveness properly, but Edgan, who had been thrusting himself between them with eeks and ooks for a while now, managed to hinder Sieg at every attempt.
“Oy, Edgan! Get lost!”
Sieg snapped at last and tried to catch Edgan, but all this did was delight the latter. Sieg chased after the monkey, who ook-citedly and happily ran amok.
“They sure get along, don’t they?”
Mariela smiled as she gazed at the two, but she was distracted.
The spirit’s dreams shouldn’t have ended with last night’s vision. What in the world were the dark raiders in the courtyard…?
They could help the petrified lamia. It was a simple petrification, but in the unlikely event it was a curse, Mariela also prepared a curse-removal potion, the same kind she’d once made for Leonhardt.
The real trouble was the ebon cavalry. Even with the lamia, Mariela wasn’t confident in her side’s victory. And the black monsters seemed to pour into the temple every night. Her conjecture from the spirit dream was that the swarm of black monsters flowing toward the temple was a mass of corruption. It had to be beyond any one person’s capabilities, let alone Mariela’s, to change an established current that may as well have been a raging river.
Just because they rush to the temple in the center doesn’t mean it’s their goal, though…
Mariela was thinking hard. Sieg, misunderstanding this as her still being upset, looked for a chance to apologize in a fluster, and the monkey pulled all the pranks he could.
“Ahhh, you are so annoyin’!”
The one who ran out of patience wasn’t Sieg, whom Edgan was pestering, but Yuric, who was watching.
Crack!
Everyone reflexively straightened at the high-pitched sound of Yuric’s whip striking the floor.
“Edgan! Down!”
“Ook!”
Mariela and Sieg were simply surprised at the sudden reverberating whip sound, but the effect on the monkey and the raptor was immediate. Edgan straightened up at the cracking of the lash, and when he was told “down,” he sat next to Koo.
“Animal tamer skills really do work…”
“Edgan, you…”
Mariela was astonished. And Sieg rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Where had his irritation from a moment ago gone? He seemed to have thought the monkey thing was just a facade.
“Edgan, drink.”
“Ook…”
Yuric placed a potion in front of Edgan, who had grown obedient due to her animal tamer skill. Edgan timidly lifted the concoction, then sniffed it and held it up to the light as though he wondered what it was.
“I said drink!”
“Ook!”
“Sir, yes, sir!” No back talk was tolerated in Yuric’s boot camp. If you showed even the slightest hesitation, her cutting whip would come flying. Well, since Yuric was a girl, maybe it should be “Yes, ma’am.” Edgan wasn’t speaking a human language, so who can say what the particulars of his reply were?
After giving a relatively good response for a monkey, Edgan drained the potion in one gulp, immediately fell backward with a thud while still in the drinking pose, and stopped moving.
“I knew a potion of Mariela’s would work well.”
“Yuric, what kind of potion was that?”
“A fast-actin’ sleep one. I had Mariela make it in case ya wouldn’t move from the tower, Franz.”
“Wha…?”
Yuric answered Franz’s question without showing the least bit of shame. Depending on the circumstances, Franz could have wound up being dragged along unconscious after being fed a potion. Yuric’s calm answer made Franz a bit at a loss for words.
“Mariela, return Edgan’s memories right now. I can’t take this anymore.”
“Yeah. We have to do our best for him.”
“It’s still a rough idea, but…,” Mariela began. She seemed to have some sort of plan in mind.
After hearing the outline of the strategy, Donnino, Grandel, and Franz hurriedly headed out to gather the needed materials so as not to anger Yuric further.
“I’ll keep watch here to make sure Edgan doesn’t go wild.”
Yuric’s words gave Mariela peace of mind, and she lay down next to Edgan. When she did, Sieg wedged his way between them with a sullen expression and lay down, too.
“Sieg?”
“………You shouldn’t be alone with him.”
Sieg wore an expression as though he’d just bitten down on a bug as he gave his short objection, looking neither at Mariela nor at Edgan, but at the ceiling. Although it was to restore Edgan’s memories, the idea of letting Edgan and Mariela sleep next to each other was detestable. Obvious jealousy.
“Hee-hee. Then you, too, Sieg. Here, a sleeping potion. One sip is enough.”
Mariela, who felt a little awkward seeing Sieg like this, took a sip of the potion, placed the warm salamander on her stomach, and closed her eyes as a laugh slipped out of her.
At the sight of the three lying parallel with Sieg in the middle, Yuric scratched her head and wondered how it had come to this. Edgan, who was sound asleep, scratched his rump now and then as he drooled.
05
Unconsciousness came immediately.
The smiling face of a woman with soft-looking reddish-brown hair told Mariela this was a memory from Edgan’s past.
How gently and warmly this person smiled.
Mariela’s master, too, had given her tender smiles when she was little, but this seemed to her far more pleasant, and full of never-ending love.
Eliade.
To Edgan, the woman with reddish-brown hair and eyes was the kindest and most beautiful creature in the world.
His mother, and the first person he ever killed…
Edgan wasn’t even ten years old at the time. He went to search for his mother, who had gone into the shallow strata of the Labyrinth and hadn’t come home by dinnertime. He’d heard by chance that a man-eating plant monster had appeared in a higher stratum where it was ordinarily safe for his mother, who couldn’t fight, to go gathering.
The woman often went to harvest nuts and edible mushrooms in those strata so the growing Edgan could eat his fill, regardless of the flavor.
Edgan rushed to her usual gathering spot, where potato-like plants could be collected, and there he found his mother in full bloom.
At the time, Edgan didn’t know what kind of monster it was, but it was a man-eating plant that ate its prey alive and sucked its blood to make its flowers blossom.
The body was standing upright, held in place by vampiric roots extending from its feet into the ground and by branches growing inside it. The skin, having been drained of blood, was so pale it was as though it had never known the touch of the sun, and the large, bright red flowers that broke through the woman’s flesh here and there beautifully highlighted Edgan’s mother, as if she was wearing a gorgeous dress.
Edgan remembered how beautiful it looked to his very young self.
And he could never forget the screams that felt like they were tearing him to pieces.
“IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HUUUUUURTS!!!”
His mother was still alive, tormented by the pain of being eaten from the inside and the agony of blooming flowers breaking through her skin.
Crack.
With a sound like joints disconnecting, his mother’s back lengthened.
The piercing screams no longer formed human words.
Edgan learned many years later that this plant grew from components it secreted when it sensed pain. At the time, Edgan didn’t know why his mother was still alive in this horrid state, but he could understand that she was beyond saving and that this pain wouldn’t stop until the little remaining life she had came to an end.
That’s why. Because he loved his mother.
Edgan picked up the hatchet his mother had brought for gathering and swung it at her.
The young Edgan was short. Even if he’d leaped, he had neither the leg strength nor the arm strength to cut off her head in one stroke.
Horrid screams carved themselves into Edgan’s mind, as did the sensation of swinging the hatchet over and over again as he cried and shrieked.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!!!”
The pair’s screams blended together into a gruesome chorus that Edgan could still hear to this day.
But Edgan could also never forget the smiling face of his mother as she uttered her last words: “Thank you.”
Eliade.
To Edgan, the woman with reddish-brown hair and eyes was the most beautiful and kind creature in the world.
Hollis.
Edgan’s enchanting, cheerful, adorable first love had blond hair and light brown skin.
He’d met her in the Labyrinth Suppression Forces, and due to her caring and frank personality, she and the newly enlisted Edgan soon grew close.
Hollis was senior to Edgan and stronger than him. She teased, “You’re hopeless,” when Edgan couldn’t handle his dual swords well, and she laughed happily when he got worked up over the needling.
Hollis had developed warrior-like arm and shoulder muscles, and her favorite civilian outfit was a rather lovely dress. She was a very sweet person who’d hung her head and said, “It doesn’t suit me, though.”
When Edgan had grinned and replied, “It looks good on you,” Hollis’s ears turned bright red, and she grew bashful.
Every time they fought in the Labyrinth, she’d earn a new scar, and gradually, her many wounds began to peek through the sleeves and hem of her dress, yet to Edgan, Hollis’s loveliness remained unchanged.
Hollis’s delighted look every time Edgan whispered how cute she was and her attempts to conceal her bashfulness weren’t flattery, and they showed her sweetness more and more.
As long as she was herself, Hollis’s loveliness would never change to Edgan.
Yes, even when her legs decayed, and her skin gradually began to turn bluish-black from her feet to her head due to poison from the Labyrinth.
Potions had run dry in the Labyrinth City. They were something supplied to the army’s elite, not to the reserve forces.
The toxin was so volatile that standard medicine was ineffective, and there wasn’t enough time to take Hollis to the imperial capital to receive treatment.
“Send me off before…my face changes color. While that dress still looks good on me…as you’ve told me so many times it does.”
Edgan wanted to grant Hollis’s wish, to save her from the poison that ate into her mind and body, yet his hand shook, and he couldn’t steady his aim.
“You’re…still hopeless with dual swords…”
Hollis endured pain so intense that even breathing was difficult as she flashed Edgan her usual smile. Unfortunately, Edgan was unable to return the expression.
“I’m glad I can die…the way I was when you told me I was cute…”
After leaving these words with him, Hollis, smiling, passed on.
Her last wish granted, Edgan dressed her in her favorite outfit and told her, “You’re so cute. It looks good on you.”
The setting sun dyed Hollis’s light brown face red, making her look like she was smiling bashfully.
Hollis.
Blond hair and light brown skin. She was cheerful and adorable right to the end.
Milmette, Margarita, Doris, Alma.
They all had their circumstances, yet they all believed in a better future.
Elda, Irene, Johanna, Camila.
They all had their merits, and were very adorable.
Clarissa, Lise, Sophie, Rosa.
They all smiled at him, yet no one stayed by his side.
Therese, Wilma, Clarina, Natasha.
Edgan asked them for love. He wanted them to beam when they saw him.
His mother, burned into his eyelids, smiled only when they did. Her excruciating screams paused.
Laugh, heal me, love me—
My equally kind, equally beloved femme fatales—
It should have been so peaceful.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!!”
Yet they didn’t stop the ear-piercing screams of the blooming flowers…
06
What horrible memories…
As she slowly sat back up, Mariela wondered if Edgan would be better off forgetting such things. Suddenly, Sieg embraced Edgan and began crying his eyes out.
“Edgaaan! Edgan, you were in so much paaaaaaain!!!”
“Whoa, Sieg. I…don’t swing that way…”
“Your words came back, too! I’m so glad! I’m so glaaad!!!”
“Y-yeah…”
Sieg’s time as a slave hadn’t dulled the emotional sensitivity his upbringing had instilled in him. He was a hectic man with various preoccupations who devoted himself to Mariela, the girl who had saved his life and who he felt was a goddess and his destiny.
Regardless of whether it was because he was occupied with Mariela or not, Sieg was typically silent. This led many to believe he was a levelheaded sort of man, but that wasn’t the case.
Even if Mariela was quiet and engrossed in something, her actions were comical and gave her a funny image. So Sieg simply appeared to be a relatively calm, cool, and collected man by comparison because he was always with her. To tell the truth, Sieg was more introspective and more sensitive than Mariela, perhaps only because of his Spirit Eye.
Conversely, Mariela was less sympathetic. She recognized the memories she’d seen up to this point—Yuric’s and Franz’s, the ones about past calamities that seemed to be the fire spirit’s, and all the others—as the playbacks of people’s pasts. Although she grieved at how heartbreaking the tragic ones were, she didn’t get too attached. But then, as a high-ranking alchemist, Mariela perceived existence not just through senses like vision and hearing, but also through the state of Drops of Life, so it might have been difficult for her to feel moved by images alone.
Unlike Mariela, who could classify the memories of the past as “things that happened in someone else’s history,” Sieg seemed to have empathized completely. He’d been crying for a while now, enough to cause a great flood.
Even the salamander, who should have been with Mariela, might have been drawn in by Sieg. It had climbed up on Edgan’s shoulder and licked his cheek as though to comfort him.
“Siiieg, would you calm down a bit?”
“But, but, Edgan. If something like that happened to Mariela, I surely wouldn’t be able to bear it…”
Apparently, Sieg had substituted Mariela for all the women in Edgan’s memories who’d suffered unnatural deaths. Despite not being real, to Sieg it seemed that Mariela had suffered endless terrible fates. One would think that Sieg would have envisioned himself gallantly coming to Mariela’s rescue before things got that bad.
“Well…it’s good ya get along. Edgan, this means you’re a human again?” asked Yuric as she turned to look at the three. She’d remained awake to keep watch. Then she nodded slightly and cracked her whip to confirm whether he was back to his old self.
“Edgan, and Sieg, that’s enough!”
At Yuric’s shout, Sieg came to his senses, hurriedly straightened himself, and moved to Mariela’s side, but Edgan stood stiffly at attention, so maybe just a tiny bit of his monkey side remained.
In any case, the group finally had enough fighting power to execute Mariela’s plan.
Sieg and Edgan. The two A-Rankers had assembled.
There was no need to delay the gathering of the more dangerous materials any longer with these two around.
“Thank goodness. With this, I’m sure we’ll manage somehow!”
Mariela had the notable characteristic of being able to obtain anything if she asked these two for it.
“Umm, Mariela? What’re you planning to make us do?” Edgan, who had been rounded up for miserable material gathering in the past, asked in fear.
“It’s not a snowy mountain this time, so it’s fine! First, I need wood.”
Mariela smiled innocently, while Yuric grinned wickedly.
So it not being cold automatically made things okay? Sieg and Edgan didn’t really understand Mariela’s criteria, but there was no way the two would do something as terrifying as destroying the two girls’ smiles.
“Leave it to us, Mariela! We can get anything.”
“Hey, Sieg, you’re promising too much…”
“Edgan, wouldn’t it have been nice if you’d said even a single word to me before you accepted Mariela’s request? I think so.”
Sieg had been in tears over Edgan’s circumstances, but apparently he still held a grudge about Edgan accepting Mariela’s running-away-from-home appeal without even briefly consulting him.
“Come to think of it, I was mad at Sieg,” Mariela muttered, as though Sieg’s careless remark had made her remember. “After we’ve gotten out of here, let’s have a proper talk, okay, Sieg?”
“Okay…”
Mariela, too, apparently wouldn’t just forgive Sieg as things stood, even though he came all the way here to rescue her.
“Pfff, tee-hee. Sieg, you’re dead meeeat.”
“Shut up! Edgan, we’re going!”
Although Sieg was frightened of Mariela’s smile, he seized Edgan and departed for the southeast tower.
Thus, the pair’s harsh hunting began.
07
“Whoa, they’re huge! Whoa, gross!”
As the steellike vines whooshed around, Edgan found footholds left and right, even on the walls, and dodged attacks as he waited for an opening, while Sieg ruthlessly sniped giant hairy caterpillars in silence.
The pair were in the entrance hall at the center of the first and second floors on the south side.
That’s right, the room with the tree monster, the Necklace.
Just as there were many types of plants, there were many types of monsters. Some were even capable of speech. The Necklace wasn’t, but it was a nasty monster that freely manipulated parasitic vines like feelers, caught its prey with them like a whip, and decorated itself with them in truly poor taste. These tendrils were tough as steel and wrapped around the trunk in place of armor to thwart attacks.
As further proof of its poor fashion sense, the mass of hairy caterpillars the Necklace kept in its branches grew to between three and six feet long as soon as it shook them out and then attacked their prey. The insects themselves weren’t especially strong, but because they sent poisonous fibers flying with a viscerally unacceptable visual effect, a lightweight short-range attacker like Edgan wanted to keep away from them as much as possible.
“Mr. Donnino said the Necklace’s wood is very solid and extremely flexible, so it would be perfect.”
Mariela had seen off Sieg and Edgan after conveying this snippet of Donnino’s extensive knowledge of timber.
The Necklace was too large to walk, but it could move its appendages. It was undoubtedly sturdy, and flexible as well. Its wood was indeed a high-class item, but the tradeoff was that it was a difficult creature to subjugate. It had melee attacks with its whiplike vines and long-range attacks with its mass of hairy caterpillars. How in the world could one take on such an opponent? Lightning or fire would end the battle pretty quickly but would render the wood useless.
“Gah, Sieg, be a little more careful! The juice! The juice is flying at meee!!!”
“I can’t do anything about that! It’s a trait of these insecticide potions!”
The insecticide potions called bug bombs that Mariela had given the two men as a countermeasure against the hairy caterpillars were made by mixing originally low-grade items with special-grade materials to boost their effects. In other words, they were Mariela’s specially adapted concoctions, whose increased potency alone made them special-grade equivalent.
“The Fell Forest had a lot of bugs, so I came up with many different insecticide potions to protect my medicinal herb garden. This is the first time I’ve increased the power to special-grade, but it should totally be effective!”
Just as Mariela had said, the bug bombs were indeed impressive.
Boom, boom, boom-boom! Using arrows dipped in the mixture, Sieg made every last one of the hairy caterpillars explode.
It was a tragedy. Every time one of the insects burst open, yellow body fluids splattered all about.
Since defeating a giant hairy caterpillar in a single blow required some amount of power from the Spirit Eye, this potion that made arrows poisonous was very helpful in curbing Sieg’s magical power consumption. Even so, the bug bombs were better banned or kept a secret. If they fell into the hands of a brat, the kid would probably immensely enjoy making insects explode.
When Mariela lived in the Fell Forest cottage, she didn’t have the leisure to play around with making bugs burst open, but the stench of dead insects scattered around the area had the convenient side effect of keeping others out of their away.
Where on earth was the Necklace keeping that many hairy caterpillars? Did they grow at ultra-high speeds after hatching? The tree monster sicced the hairy caterpillars on Sieg and Edgan one after another, and Sieg’s envenomed arrows caused them to pop.
Even Edgan, dodging attacks from the Necklace and the hairy caterpillars, couldn’t read the trajectory of Sieg’s arrows, despite them both being A-Rankers. He got heavily drenched in insect body fluids. Wherever he jumped, goosh! And again, wherever he landed, splat!
“This gunk stinks! It smells like buuugs! Siiieg, are you listening?! You couldn’t possibly be doing this on purpose, right?!”
After confirming that Edgan, who was angrily ooking from a distance, was filthy, Sieg nodded as if to say “hmm” and signaled to him.
“…Would now be a good time? All right, Edgan, I’ll cover you. Bring down the Necklace!”
“Wha?!”
Sparing no time, Sieg turned his arrows on the Necklace, loosing many in quick succession.
The projectiles struck the monster’s numerous vines with fearsome accuracy and pinned them back.
“Now, Edgan! The Necklace is wide open!”
For an instant, the Necklace, with all its vines pulled up and away by arrows, was completely defenseless.
“Nice one, Sieg! But the bugs… Huh?!”
Shockingly, the hairy caterpillar monsters seemed to be avoiding Edgan and advancing on Sieg, who stood at a distance with his bow at the ready.
“So that’s it! They hate the smell of the bug juice…”
“Hurry, Edgan! While I lure the hairy caterpillars!”
“!!! Got it, Sieg!!!”
“I’ll draw them away, so you deliver the final blow” sounded a little like a plot point in a story of friendship. It also seemed like a line that monkey-Edgan would be pleased to hear.
This noble-path-like development completely revved up Edgan, and he began to attack the Necklace with full force.
“My left arm is a pedestal for gales, my right arm a pedestal for adamantine. Abide in me! Dual Sword Elements!!!”
Edgan tempered his dual swords with the earth element and increased their momentum with the wind element. Then he began to strike at the Necklace’s trunk. The sharpness of Edgan’s weapons cleaved through the steellike vines, and their momentum whittled down the large tree as surely as any ax. If the monster had been an animal, the blow would have torn its flesh to pieces and even severed its bones; however, it couldn’t possibly sever a thick thing like the Necklace that easily.
“Not good enough?!”
Any other creature would have weakened after being struck so powerfully, but the Necklace had no sense of pain, and to make matters worse, the only emotion it did have was anger.
The tree monster lifted its hideously warped eyes, which resembled cracks in the bark, and screwed up its ugly mouth, then unwrapped all the vines that had been coiled around its trunk and bent backward to strike Edgan at range with its full power.
“Damn!”
The vines Sieg had pinned back were free and moving to strike Edgan. Even if he avoided those initial hits, the second group of tendrils that had been wrapped around the trunk wouldn’t miss him.
Despite the vines that spread like a net to block his retreat, Edgan searched for a way to recover from the hopeless development. He stood ready for the Necklace’s next attack, knowing that if he couldn’t escape, all he could do was take the monster down first.
All the Necklace’s tendrils were being used offensively, and its trunk was unguarded.
What would happen sooner: Edgan slicing through the Necklace’s trunk, or the Necklace’s vines knocking down Edgan and smashing all of his bones into tiny pieces?
Thunk.
In that life-and-death moment, a dull, powerful sound that originated neither from Edgan’s swords nor from the Necklace’s verdant lashes echoed through the chamber. Instantly, the great monster became nothing but a mere tree.
A single spirit arrow had ended the perilous struggle between Edgan and the Necklace.
“…Wha? Huh?”
Dumbfounded by the abrupt end to the battle, Edgan gazed at the now-motionless Necklace, which had an arrow shaft blooming from the base of a branch above its eyes on the top part of the trunk. Gravity pulled down the vines that had been poised to kill, and they became entangled in foliage.
Siegmund had been waiting for the instant the Necklace unraveled all the tendrils protecting its trunk.
For a split second, the Necklace had bent back its trunk and exposed its weak point, the base of a branch where its magical gem was located. Normally, that vital area was concealed behind vines and foliage.
Every type of monster had a magical gem.
These stones, which were compact, portable, and could be sold at a high price, were not only essential spoils of battle—they were also the source of a monster’s power and its weak point. The Necklace’s magical gem had been shot through, and its life as a monster had ended in a single blow. It was now just a tree.
The location of a monster’s magical gem varied from one individual to the next, and although the approximate area for a given species was known, you wouldn’t know the exact spot without dismantling the creature’s corpse. Typically, smashing a magical gem halved the hunting profits, so using it as a one-shot kill was a rarely considered option save for exceptional situations where other materials were prioritized, as was currently the case. Sieg’s Spirit Eye enabled him to locate the magical gem and shoot the weak point, which had only been left defenseless for an instant.
“Hey, Siiieg? Was this how you planned it all along?”
“Gh, Edgan, there are still hairy caterpillars left! Help me out!”
Although Sieg had the leeway to relentlessly pierce the approaching hairy caterpillars at a distance and even magnificently sidestep the bug juice that came flying at him, he didn’t answer Edgan’s question.
He pretended to be in a tough spot against the large army of monsters, but his acting was a bit too shoddy.
“Hey, enough about finishing them off. Maybe, just maybe, you were squishing those bugs just to throw their nasty gunk on me? Hmmm? Siiieg?”
“Uh-oh, this is bad! Poisonous fibers!” Sieg exclaimed, wholly monotone.
By the way, the venomous barbs flying at Sieg never reached him because the wind created with one swing of his bow was enough to turn them away. To conserve magical power, Sieg only used his Spirit Eye a little bit, but it was enough to make the fight a relatively leisurely one for him.
“Why, you! I’m gonna cover you in bug juice so you’ll get dumped!!! Wind Edge!!!”
“Don’t say something like that and jinx it!!! It’s your fault for taking Mariela out in the first place!!! Wind Wall!!!”
Complain, complain, complain; wah, wah, wah.
The men’s stupid quarrel, harsher than their battle with the Necklace, continued until the entire mass of hairy caterpillars had been squashed, and they were both covered in insect guts.
Although Sieg and Edgan had defeated the Necklace, Mariela and Yuric told them they stank when they returned covered in bug juice. Until Mariela made a deodorizing potion, the pair weren’t allowed in the room and were made to stand in the hallway.
08
“This’s better lumber than I thought it would be! And the vines seem usable enough. Sorry, but could you lend me a hand, Grandel and Franz? Yuric, there should be a workshop ahead where we can process these. Use the raptor to transport them there. Edgan and Sieg, you can rest for a bit.”
Delighted at the quality of the Necklace’s wood, Donnino set about assigning tasks to everyone.
Edgan and Sieg, released from their job at last, groaned in reply and happily sank to the floor. Apparently, cutting down and processing the Necklace had been exhausting.
“Since we don’t have an ax, there’s no way around it,” Donnino had said, and so Sieg and Edgan had used their mythril longsword and dual swords, respectively, to break the wood down per Donnino’s instructions. Since the weapons weren’t meant for such work, it was terribly tiring.
Swords made to cut up monsters, and especially animals, weren’t suited for chopping trees. Thin, sharp blades could easily be chipped and blunted by solid, thick wood.
That’s why Sieg and Edgan applied magical power to their blades to strengthen them before splitting the timber, but apparently, both the unfamiliar motions of cutting and processing wood and the use of magical power over a long period of time were quite tiring, and the pair didn’t seem to have any energy left to bicker.
“Sieg, Edgan, I’m going to leave your meals here, so eat and then rest a little.”
Mariela recommended the pair have some food, then quietly left the room.
There was still something she needed to confirm.
“It’s been a long time since I slept here.”
The place Mariela had chosen in the hopes of having a dream was the room that was a re-creation of the cottage in the Fell Forest where she’d lived with her master two hundred years ago. Mariela had come previously to make potions, so she knew where it was, and she’d also confirmed the route’s safety.
The Fell Forest cottage was tiny; all it had was a bedroom and a chamber that served as a workshop, kitchen, and living room.
“I think I slept in the same bed as my master when she first took me in.”
How long was it before they slept separately?
Mariela’s master had given reasons like “It’s too hot” and “You want your own room, right?” but had she really needed to go as far as partitioning such a cramped space with a small dresser for them to sleep apart?
“Raaawr.”
The salamander wriggled around as if to say it wasn’t sleepy yet, and Mariela hugged it tight and whispered, “You can’t escape,” before crawling into her master’s familiar bed.
09
The city burned.
The people burned.
The world was filled with lamentations.
Fire spirits who had newly come into being didn’t possess the humans’ knowledge of good and evil; they merely gathered where there was fuel, crowded together, became hellfire, and engulfed the entire city.
The fire spirit became aware for the first time that the blood of the people put to the sword was as red as fire.
Voices of people crying and shouting, shrieks of those frantically trying to escape, cries of many begging for help.
Despite being of the same species as those suffering, some humans ignored or otherwise took delight in these terrible sounds, transforming them into wails of death. There was fighting with blades, sounds of heavy boots, and elated shouts.
People were killing people.
Humans were burning a human city.
The tragic sight was one that human history might remember for many generations, but to the many spirits who gazed at this terrible spectacle, it was like watching a storm as they thought, So this is the kind of creature humans are.
While many lives were being lost, the death toll didn’t reach that of an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. To the spirits, it seemed hardly any different from an ant’s nest being attacked by a different kind of ant.
Except for a lone fire spirit…
—No, no. You mustn’t die this way. Anger, sorrow, so many dark emotions are flowing in one after another…!!!—
The road had already become a black river. The dark emotions humans called corruption or curses passed through the woods they called the Fell Forest and streamed toward that lake.
A small amount would have been fine.
The corruption was melting into the water and spreading throughout the entire Fell Forest. And it came to rest inside the trees and the animals of the woods. More than half of the creatures living in the Fell Forest had turned into monsters. The beings known as monsters had wild temperaments and strong bodies, but excepting those features, they weren’t any different from any other animal that was born, ate, was eaten, reproduced, aged, and died.
Despite the desecration dwelling within them that consumed their minds and bodies, they purified it throughout their lifetimes until, at last, they returned to the ley line.
The balance between the human city and the Fell Forest had been passably maintained until the attack on the former. The corruption generated by the humans had been purified by fire as much as possible, but beyond that, the Fell Forest itself functioned well as a purging mechanism.
Unfortunately, no matter what, there was no way to completely staunch the flow of corruption from a calamity as terrible as an enormous settlement being attacked and razed to the ground.
—This is bad. This amount is unacceptable. If this much desecration streams into it, that lake, that spirit will…—
In the eyes of many spirits, the foolish act of war, in which people fought and killed, resembled animals preying on one another, albeit on a large scale. However, no other creatures besides humans raised their voices in resentment like this. No other animals cursed the enemies trying to take everything from them with feelings of anger, resentment, grief, and sorrow and spread corruption.
—No!—
An ebon, sootlike substance rose up everywhere, from burnt corpses to collapsed houses.
—No, I don’t want to let it through!—
Ghosts, unaware of their deaths, roamed through the city and groaned in miserable agony, cursing all around them.
—I don’t want to let it pollute that lake spirit any more than this…!!!—
Spirits were simply there.
They merely dwelled in the blowing wind and burning fire, flowed with the water, and nurtured life along with the soil. By all rights, neither happiness nor unhappiness, nor even knowledge of good and evil, existed within such things.
Spirits existed regardless of whether the current of abundant rivers watered the earth and lights illuminated cities brimming with life, or drought caused the land to dry up, ponds to vanish, forests to catch fire, and many lives to be lost.
They accepted everything as it was, and it was that nature that should have rendered them incapable of a strong desire for anything.
If a spirit truly wished something, if it sacrificed something for that aspiration, it was likely no longer just a spirit, the embodiment of a phenomenon. If it gained a “self,” it could never again simply dwell in the city lights or return to being a mere flame that swayed and was snuffed.
That fire had a wish and wanted desperately to see it realized.
After existing for so long, that fire spirit now held the power necessary to grant her own request, albeit through only a single method.
—I won’t let it through. I’ll burn it all to nothing.—
Because she, a fire, possessed no other way to do so.
The spirit would furiously burn the city to the ground. The people, the houses, the food, the treasures.
The flame decided she would turn the humans to cinders. Enemies and allies, the living and the dead.
The force of the rampaging blaze, the tempest-like fury, engulfed everything belonging to the humans, from prayers to curses, like a muddy stream and scorched it until it was merely ashes.
—Burn it, burn it, burn everything. I won’t let even a fragment of a curse or a sliver of corruption reach that lake…!!!—
The flame even enveloped many fire spirits, burning brighter and spreading farther.
Black smoke and soot blew upward.
Fiery pillars sprouted so that not even ash and cinder could escape, dyeing the clouds crimson.
Whether the terrible sounds were those of humans screaming or the city collapsing, no one could be certain.
However, even a conflagration of this scale couldn’t stop the air currents or change a river’s course.
The shadowy corruption that slipped through gaps in the purifying hands of the blaze, the people’s feelings of grief, sadness, resentment, and anger at this tragedy, with no place to go, streamed toward that lake as water flowed from a high place to a low one.
—I won’t let it get away. I won’t let it through. No, no, this can’t be happening!—
The inferno that engulfed the city and razed it to nothing stretched itself all the way to the forest, chasing after the cascade of desecration.
The flame had a wish. She wanted nothing more than for the lake spirit to know no further pollution or suffering.
She was aware that she’d assigned value to something. The fire spirit had judged the negative emotions humans produced to be filthy and evil.
Thoughts about what was superior and inferior had entered her mind. She’d had ideas about determining good and evil. The lake spirit was precious, and the fire spirit didn’t concern herself with the lives of the people who had polluted it. Hers was a self-righteous desire to help the lake spirit, even if that meant sacrificing others to the flames.
—I’m coming for you.—
The fire spirit understood that she wished to see the lake spirit. She understood the nature of her own feelings in sparing no effort to muster her power for the lake spirit’s sake.
That was why she torched houses, shops, roads, and the city.
The forest smoldered, insects crumbled, animals burned, and people died.
She consumed infants, the elderly, men, women, the living, the dead, everyone, and sent them back to the ley line.
And at last, the fire spirit reached the lake in the Fell Forest. Incinerating everything indiscriminately was simply part of the phenomenon known as fire.
—To burn and cleanse the corruption. So no more of it will come here. So it won’t corrupt you any further…!!!—
On the bank of the pitch-black pool, the fire spirit screamed as she seared the corruption that coiled around in bits and pieces.
—Is that truly what you plan to do…?—
Like a black lagoon inverting and rising, the lake spirit floated up from the surface of the water and asked the fire spirit this question with the calmness of the night. Their dark hue made it clear to the fire spirit that she’d been too late. Helping that beautiful creature was beyond her power.
—If the corruption flows into me, then so be it. Is it not the way of we spirits to accept things as they are and simply exist?—
The lake spirit’s form was dyed so ebon from the desecration they had taken in that it took the fire spirit’s breath away, yet the lake spirit neither resented nor hated the humans who had twisted them so.
Monsters attacked people simply because the corruption within them that detested humans compelled them to do so.
Sparks crackled and spilled from the fire spirit’s eyes in place of tears at how much the lake spirit had changed. Their black eyes motionlessly gazed at her and smiled just a little.
—Your feelings toward me are warm. Your unsettled heart rampaging in anger, sorrow, and suffering is the very embodiment of flame. But have you not realized? Thinking of another and mustering strength for their sake is the way of a human heart.—
At this, the fire spirit gasped and then put words together as though she were squeezing them out of herself.
—If I have a human heart, then you’re the one who gave it to me…—
Crackling embers streamed from the fire spirit’s eyes, and something powerful clawed at her heart. Though buried beneath so much dark corruption that the lake spirit’s life seemed a flickering thing beneath it, the sight seemed both like a light forever illuminating the shadow of night and a short-lived flower that bloomed and fell. The lake spirit thought it beautiful.
They moved toward the fire spirit as though they were gliding across the water’s surface and stretched their arms toward the fierce, fickle, flickering flame.
—Come.—
The lake spirit beckoned to the ebon desecration that coiled around the fire spirit even as her body incinerated the ominous substance.
—No! You mustn’t take any more…—
—I do not mind. It seems that I, too, desire to take in your corruption.—
The two spirits stretched their arms toward each other so naturally that it wasn’t clear who did so first, and their palms pressed against one another. Even before their fingertips touched, the lake spirit’s digits fizzled to steam and rose into the air, while the fire spirit’s own began to wane.
No matter how long they existed, no matter how much power a spirit possessed, water and fire never made contact.
As long as water was water and fire was fire, the spirits were bound to their nature.
—Even so, I want to purify your corruption. How do I do it…?—
—That is a wish that surpasses what a spirit is capable of.—
The lake spirit laughed that it was impossible, and instead of responding, the fire spirit asked for something else.
—Hey, would you tell me your name? Even if you’re corrupted, you remain noble. If I know what to call you, no matter where we are or what we become, our hearts will be connected. And I want you to remember my name and my feelings.—
Then the fire spirit introduced herself to the lake spirit.
—I… My name is Freyja, spirit of flames.—
—That is an excellent moniker worthy of your fierceness. Then I, too, will give my name. It is…—
The name the lake spirit gave evoked their crystal-clear waters of days past. Freyja yearned to return the lake spirit to the way they used to be back when she’d first met them.
10
“I figured as much…,” Mariela muttered after waking in the bed in the cottage of the gloomy Fell Forest.
This place, where memories of Mariela’s master dwelled, tore at the girl’s heart all the more.
Drop, drip-drip.
Tears spilled from Mariela’s eyes and began to leave spots on the sheets.
“I was fine with the other visions, but…”
Considering its distance from the Fell Forest, that ancient city had probably been in the place that was now called the imperial capital.
Mariela had never been to the imperial capital, but she had a vague understanding that the war she’d witnessed had occurred more than a few hundred years ago.
If so, just how long had her master been alive?
When she thought about that, Mariela grew so sad that her chest tightened, and large tears spilled from her eyes as she continued to hold the salamander tight.
Mariela recalled the day her master left the Labyrinth City.
“I can’t stand all the melancholy.”
Freyja had said those words with a laugh, but how many people had she left behind—who now only existed in her recollections of them?
Undoubtedly, Freyja had taken on countless pupils, raised them, and said farewell when they’d died.
It had all been for the sake of just one, solitary spirit whom she’d offered her heart to…
“Awr.”
As Mariela quietly sobbed, the salamander licked away her tears to comfort her.