06 — A Chance Encounter

06 — A Chance Encounter

Dhoran and Grand fell victim to horrible hangovers the next day. According to Pola, dwarves were heavy drinkers and loved their spirits, especially hard ones, but that did not protect them from the inevitable.

“You did this to yourselves,” she said, promptly returning to her workstation.

“Luciel,” Grand pleaded, “I’m beggin’ ya. Cast your spells on me!”

“I know my granddaughter’s right, but please, Mister Luciel!” Dhoran begged.

The sight of the two burly, stout, bearded men crawling on the floor with looks of death on their faces shocked and appalled me to the point where I yielded and cast Recover on them.

Grand let out a sigh. “Think I had one too many.”

“Nothin’s better for a hangover than another pint, but you gotta be careful or you’ll be in for a world of hurt. Physically. By your granddaughter,” Dhoran said ominously. They seemed back to normal to me. “Also, I can’t stand the fancy talk. Treat me like ya always have. I’d prefer things to stay like they were.”

“In that case, you can stop calling me ‘Mister,’” I said.

“Er, I’ll try.”

I was hoping for a little more than “try” but was happy our relationship could stay the same, even with that whole slave thing done and over.

I changed the subject. “By the way, I haven’t seen Trett.”

“Right, he’s been in a bit of a slump lately,” Grand replied. “Disappeared a while ago sayin’ somethin’ about going out ta find ‘inspiration.’”

“I didn’t know he could get slumps.”

“I dunno if it was a slump, so much as a fit... Never mind, I got measurements to take. Get your—er, guess they’re already here.”

“I think they’re excited to see what you can make.”

“Hear that, Dhoran? We got expectations to live up to.”

“Aye, we do, brother!”

They flashed the kind of powerful, confident smirks that only master smiths could make. Not even Lionel seemed to be able to withstand the sheer crafting spirit emanating from them.

Meanwhile, I found myself with an abundance of free time and decided to wander the city alone. Until Pola stopped me.

“I’ll go with you. Just in case.”

In case of what? Who could say?

“I’ll go as well,” Lycian chimed in, raising her hand.

At least her company made sense. She’d be living here from now on, so it would help for her to get more familiar with the area. I’d freed her from her slave pact last night too, but she only let me do it after some real convincing from Dhoran and Pola. I had taken the chance to offer Lionel, Ketty, and Kefin the same, of course, but to no avail. Unsurprisingly. This shocked Estia, though.

Still, I had to assume that Pola and Lycian had better things to do. Maybe this was their way of showing their gratitude, in which case I figured I might as well accept their kindness.

“Then let’s go. What’s so dangerous about going alone?” I asked.

“There’s all sorts of devices around town. And you haven’t registered your mana yet,” Pola replied.

“Oh, that thing from yesterday. Sounds like a plan.”

“Lead on,” ordered Lycian.

“Leading,” Pola said, taking the front as we departed.

The roads and paths of Rockford were diverse, from clean cobblestone to simple dirt and beaten walkways. The town seemed to be divided into districts. Near the forges, sounds of ringing metal could be heard throughout the streets. It reminded me of another time when I used to do business at the factories downtown and made me a little nostalgic. Following the smoke rising from the chimneys, up in the sky was the artificial sun, created by none other than Lord Reinstar himself.

“Is that the same thing that you made in Yenice?”

“This place isn’t made of several magic items working on their own,” Pola explained. “There’s more to it than just making the sun rise and fall. The climate is controlled too.”

Then it took many devices operating in tandem to produce the same effect in Yenice. Meaning that wasn’t the case here?

“You’re saying all of Rockford is a magical device?”

“Right. It absorbs magic from the air, so it can run indefinitely.”

Somehow, my uneducated guess had turned out to be more on point than expected.

“Almost similar to a labyrinth,” Lycian remarked.

“It probably uses the same mechanism,” Pola agreed.

I fell quiet. Something about that little comment had given me a sense of foreboding. A bad sort of feeling. A very bad feeling. Had Lord Reinstar taken some location that was on the verge of becoming a labyrinth and used spirit magic to transform it into the Rockford we knew? If that were the case, and considering monsters could appear in local mines despite none of them being dungeons, my hypothesis about a dragon slumbering nearby wasn’t that far-fetched.

Further out on the outskirts of town were farms and small plantations. But I found the presence of so many wells outside those areas curious. There was one by just about every workshop.

“Why are there so many wells?”

“Nothing special. So everyone can have clean drinking water,” Pola replied.

“This town is so odd,” Lycian complained. “It feels like these fields are an entirely separate village from the forges.”

“I heard it’s modeled after Lord Reinstar’s home.”

“I remember hearing he grew up in a frontier village, didn’t he? His family were farmers,” I said.

“Right, but something happened to it in the past, and it doesn’t exist anymore.”

I hadn’t heard anything about that in the book I’d read. Interesting.

“I suppose I can understand the sentiment in that case,” Lycian said with a sad expression.

“It’s nice having places to relax away from the hustle and bustle. Let’s go handle that mana registering thing now,” I suggested.

“We can do that in the town hall at the center of the city,” Pola explained.

Town hall. Now there was a word I hadn’t heard in ages. It was always guild this, guild that around here.

Pola promptly guided us to the building. Inside, there was a sign marked “Reception,” but no desk or receptionist was waiting. It was a booth, occupied by a curious machine that looked an awful lot like an ATM straight from Earth.

“Stand there,” Pola instructed as I faltered. “A voice will talk to you. Just answer it. No lying. It’ll send you outside the town if you do.”

“Like one of those magic circles in the labyrinths?”

“Mm-hmm.”

What was Lord Reinstar, some physicist? Had he mastered spacetime magic? Whatever the case, the stories of him certainly hadn’t been exaggerations. This was pretty insane.

“Do you know how teleportation works?” I asked Pola.

“I’d like to figure it out in my lifetime,” she said, “but I don’t have the magic stones to make something that advanced.”

Normally, she’d follow that by begging me for said magic stones, but not this time. Perhaps they were a special type.

“Does their affinity matter? It needs a specific kind?”

“I’ve never even seen spacetime gems, so I don’t know. I won’t until I get my hands on some.” She looked frustrated. “And only people who’ve transcended the continuum can use spacetime magic.”

By the sound of it, only people who’d been reincarnated or gone through something similar could wield that particular affinity. Sorry, Pola, but I’m not about to out myself to the world. That’s just asking for trouble. No spacetime magic for me.

I approached the ATM.

“Please state your full name,” it said. Then, “Assessing your magical fingerprint. Please wait... Please state your occupation...”

They were easy questions, and I breezed through them simply enough until the last one.

“Are you reincarnated, transposed, or otherwise the dwelling for another entity?”

I glanced at Pola and Lycian behind me. If I answered honestly, they’d hear me and the cat would be out of the bag. If I lied, I’d get expelled from the city and the cat would be equally out of the bag. What a fantastic invention, Reinstar, you absolute bastard. Positively inspired.

I sucked it up and provided the best answer I could come up with: “Ja.”

Hoping that my response had sounded muffled enough to be misconstrued for “Nah,” I prayed that the machine was smart enough to parse German.

“Registration complete.”

That worked? I thought in amazement, but before I could pat myself on the back for my genius, I felt my consciousness fading. When I came to, a young man was sitting in front of me.

“Where am I?”

I was sitting directly across from him. A table separated us.

“Welcome to my astral plane. I made it myself,” he said. He lazily flicked his finger and a tea set appeared on the table. He smiled. “I spent many years pretending to be a steward, you know. I can brew quite the cup of tea, if I do say so myself.”

I immediately knew who the man was. “You’re Reinstar Gustard, aren’t you?” I asked.

“And I see they call you Luciel. That makes you the fifth Earthling to visit this world.”

His dashing grin was strikingly handsome. Coupled with his legendary abilities, as proven by this completely separate plane of reality that he’d constructed himself, it was small wonder that his presence lingered in the world to this day. But what was he doing here, alive? And what did he mean by “fifth”?

“Tell me,” he inquired, “were you reincarnated?”

“Yes. I was a Japanese businessman in my thirties, but when I died, I found myself in a fifteen-year-old’s body. Here, in Galdardia.”

“Interesting. I had you pegged as someone else entirely from that hair color.”

I didn’t really appreciate the implication that this guy was calling me an edgelord. “I had a character customization screen and went a bit overboard.”

“Hey, whatever’s fun,” he chuckled. “I was Japanese too, and about your age when a sinkhole took me. The next thing I knew, Crya the Divine had given me new life as an infant.”

“You were Japanese? So were you from, like, the Edo period or the Meiji period or something?”

“No. I died in 20XX.”

“Oh. I died in 20X0, myself.”

It seemed Earth and Galdardia’s timelines weren’t exactly one-to-one. They were at least skewed enough for a difference of three years to equal three hundred in this world. For a moment, a spark of hope flashed inside me—hope for a way back—but it quickly died. I knew it was just wishful thinking.

“Well, if you’re here, that means my good friend the sage really managed to prevent the King of Darkness’s return,” Reinstar went on. “Color me surprised.”

Another thing I didn’t appreciate was him bringing up the Demon Lord. My heart couldn’t take it. “Um, so apparently, a hero’s supposed to be born in about forty years and will supposedly do battle with the Demon Lord.”

“Someone’s done their homework.”

I felt a wave of powerful magical energy emanating from him. “What did you just do?”

“Just took a little peek at something. Hm, I see you’re not any old healer. You’ve got a second job. That’s not a feat anyone can do without overcoming some harrowing trials. And you’re a dragoon too. All right, I’ll admit, I’m impressed by how far you’ve come in just six years, especially those resistance abilities. Those couldn’t have been easy to get so high.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re being extremely condescending?”

“Well,” he scoffed, “I did found the Healer’s Guild and the Church. Oh, speaking of, how has all that been going? Is Fluna well?”

“A lot’s happened...” I began. I went on to explain the struggles with the costs of healing, the labyrinth beneath Headquarters, and the happenings in Yenice. “...and that brings us to today.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have left Fluna alone.”

“I have to tell you, it blew my mind to hear that Her Holiness is your daughter.”

“You can’t have her.”

“Wasn’t interested. I’m not going along with this cliche overprotective dad act you’ve got going on.”

“My daughter’s not good enough for you, is she?”

“Moving on,” I continued, ignoring him, “the Wicked One has sealed the Eternal Dragons away, but I’ve already freed the Holy Dragon and Flame Dragon. That should be enough, right?”

“No,” Reinstar said, returning to a serious tone. “The hero would almost certainly lose to the next Demon Lord. The most we could possibly hope for would be a tie.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Just as the Divine is the foil to the Wicked One, so too is the hero of light the foil to the hero of darkness.”

“Okay?” And with that, he’d lost me.

“The Demon Lord is the monsters’ king, a king of darkness. The hero of darkness. Now, another player is the Spacetime Dragon, the guardian of Galdardia, but it has no interest in man’s war with the monsters, so forget I mentioned it.”

“What if we could borrow its power? Would that solve everything?”

“You could try to do that, but see, the Spacetime Dragon is Crya the Divine’s own icon.”

Wait, it wasn’t the Draconis? And hold on, he was just handing that information out? “If this were an RPG, that would definitely be a spoiler.”

“Too bad this is reality. Well, this isn’t, but what you’re living is. Anyway, the Eternal Dragons must be freed or else the only magic the hero will be able to command is light. This would give the Demon Lord power over all the other affinities except for spacetime. In your case, though, holy and fire magic’s been accounted for.”

“So you’re telling me that with every Eternal Dragon I free, the future hero gains access to the corresponding affinity of magic while the Demon Lord loses it? And that’s why they need to be freed. To give us an edge.”

“Correct,” he affirmed. “Back in my day, I had all the elements under my belt and beat the guy by accident. But if I hadn’t, I’d have barely scraped by, even with the spirits’ help.”

Had this guy seriously just pulled a “back in my day” humblebrag? I guess he was entitled to it seeing as defeating the Demon Lord was a heroic achievement.

“You were some hero. But I don’t think I read anything like that in your stories.”

“I mean, I didn’t find out that he was the Demon Lord until way later. I wasn’t fighting to be a hero. I had a dream.”

“A dream?” I echoed.

“I wanted to build a flying city. The spirits gave me the power of flight magic when I was still a boy, and I wanted to share that joy with the world.” I said nothing. “So, hmm, I’d say you should definitely try to free the basic elements. Which leaves the Water Dragon, the Wind Dragon, and the Earth Dragon. That would leave the Demon Lord with only the thunder and poison elements, with some gravity-based attacks. You’d need a strategy, but the fight shouldn’t be too hard.”

Precisely what about this scenario qualified as “not too hard” was beyond me. You could work up poison resistance well enough, but how were you supposed to prepare for lightning and straight-up gravity attacks?

“Lord Reinstar,” I said, “I’m a weak person. I’m not heroic or brave, and I have no intention of putting my own life on the line to go liberating these dragons, nor do I want to be a pawn in any spirit’s game.”

All I wanted was a peaceful and quiet life. That was it. My ideals had evolved since becoming an S-rank healer, sure. But I wanted to heal people and save lives, not do battle with dragon deities.

Reinstar looked at me and said softly, “It’s impossible for me to know what’s going on in your world, but I can tell you’ve met dangers beyond my imagining.”

“That’s right. I’m so weak that even the most trivial monsters could be the end of me. I’m just not the person to be opposing the Wicked One, of all things.”

“The Wicked One...” he trailed off. “It seems we’re out of time. Shame. I would’ve liked to chat more, but that will have to wait, although you won’t be coming back here for many years.” He fixed his gaze on me. “Luciel, your coming to Rockford is but a step on a great path before you. On it you will meet with the Earth Dragon. And should it lead you to the City in the Sky, find the central fountain and shout these words...”

He spoke the words to me.

“What? Why?”

“I think you’ll be glad you did.”

“Hold on a second!”

I reached out but suddenly found myself back in the Rockford town hall.

“What are you waiting for?” Lycian asked.

“You look pale,” Pola added.

“I’m okay,” I reassured them.

Based on their reactions, I deduced that time hadn’t passed in the real world. I was reminded of just how incredible Lord Reinstar was for his powers to be able to create such an unbelievable experience, and I wouldn’t soon forget it. What I failed to understand, though, was the purpose of it all.

It seemed clear that although there was no labyrinth in this town, the Earth Dragon was nearby, and I was grateful to be able to skip the dungeon crawling this time. It also may very well have been from the dragon’s influence that the ant monsters had been running amok. The thought of leaving it all behind and returning to Merratoni or the Holy City crossed my mind, but Pola’s and Lycian’s worried gazes, and Dhoran’s renewed passion and vigor, took that idea off the table. Perhaps by releasing the dragon, the nearby monsters would get weaker, like they did in labyrinths.

Lycian completed her own registration before long, and I was ready to wander the town more, but the other two were concerned about my complexion, so we decided to return to Dhoran’s workshop.

Lest we all forget: life was never fair. The moment we exited the hall and were about to cross the central plaza, a violent earthquake struck, and the ground began to split beneath my feet. I lost my balance and only had time for a confused grunt before the hole swallowed me entirely. As I fell down the three-to-five-ish-meter cavity, I quickly summoned the Holy Dragon spear from the magic bag, infused it with magic, and stabbed it into the wall, stopping my descent.

“Thank goodness my body moved on its own. How did this hole get...here?”

The magically glowing spear illuminated my surroundings, revealing platoons of wriggling ants crawling up to the surface. I cast Area Barrier, pulled the spear from the wall, and plunged into the enemy. Now, if this had been any old weapon, there would’ve been no chance in hell I’d try pulling a stunt like that, but I knew I could tear through them with ease. I had to go wild to try and lessen the number of these things invading Rockford as much as possible.

I couldn’t help but wonder if my talk with Lord Reinstar had destined me for this free fall. And fall I did, on and on. The sinking sensation in my gut made sure I didn’t forget that fact. I gripped my spear and continued to fall faster but I managed to control my speed by piercing the ants covering the walls over and over. At least I could take solace in the fact that if I died, it wouldn’t be from gravity. Accepting Monsieur Luck into my life had to be one of the best decisions I’d ever made.

Gradually, the hole began to slope and even out. My velocity hadn’t been as low as I’d thought, though, and the impact sent a dull pain shooting through my body. I was easing the aching with repeated casts of Heal when my spear got caught in a hollow in the wall, abruptly halting my plunge. The handle bent a good deal, but its material was strangely durable and prevented it from snapping. My arm, however, didn’t fare so well against the sudden change in speed. I felt my arm get yanked from its socket, my tendons tore, and I let out an agonized scream.

“High Heal! What’d it get stuck on?” I groaned. “Is that a tunnel? Maybe the ants dug it.” I spied a spacious tunnel splitting off to the side of the cavern I’d fallen down. “I guess someone upstairs wants me to follow it. I didn’t hear Pola or Lycian, so I don’t think they came down here with me.”

I hooked my hand on the passage directly below me, willed the spear back into the magic bag, and rolled into the side tunnel.

“Now can we cool it for five seconds?”

I checked the area for immediate threats, then cleaned myself up with Purification and used the transformation dresser to change into full armor.

“Man, I thought I’d actually get to wear normal clothes for a change.”

I’d been wearing my clothes from Merratoni, and now they were all torn. I sighed, then got a move on—carefully. Unlike labyrinths, random caves carried the risk of plummeting to your death with a single misstep.

“I gotta remember to thank Pola and Lycian later.” I had asked them to make a handheld version of the headlight we’d used for the carriage. Thank god I had. Now that was a stroke of luck.

I changed my Illusion Staff into sword form. I didn’t find any traps, but the sight of the ants scurrying down holes as I shone my light through them sent shivers down my spine. Some went straight down.

“Yeah, that’d kill me if I fell down there.”

There was plenty of food in my bag, plus all the equipment I’d need. As long as I didn’t plummet to my death, I just needed to find out how to get back to town.

“This doesn’t look like any monster dug it. It seems almost natural.”

I had to stoop to keep from smacking my head on particularly low segments of the already low ceiling. The tunnel was a good three or so meters wide, though, so it wasn’t too claustrophobic. My light kept me from tripping over outcrops of rock on the ground. I walked for what felt like almost half a kilometer before stumbling upon a junction...as one might expect from a sprawling underground cavern. I decided to toss my Illusion Sword up and proceed down whichever path it pointed towards.

“Crya, god of fate, Buddha, ancestors, Monsieur Luck, please guide me.” I trusted myself to chance, and it pointed not to either of the two passages, but to the wall directly in front of me. “That can’t be.”

I took my sword back, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it, and pressed my hand to the wall. A mechanism of some kind sounded and it fell away, forming a third path. It was a well-lit, less craggy option that was very much reminiscent of the hallway of a labyrinth.

“Lord knows what’s gonna happen down there. Guess I’ve got no choice but to find out. Whatever happens, happens.”

Proceeding down the new passage, I soon came to a flight of stairs. At the top, the hallway became winding and twisting but without any divergences, so I eventually reached its end. A very forbidding door was waiting for me there.

“Does it open?” I touched it and indeed it swung open into a spacious room. “There’s nothing here,” I muttered.

“It’s Rein!”

“Rein!”

“Hey, that’s Rein!”

“Is it Rein?”

“Not Rein.”

“Who are you?”

One after another, I heard the voices of several boisterous children. But there was no one there.

“I must be imagining things. Lord Reinstar’s got me hearing voices now,” I told myself. “This room. It reminds me of the last one.”

It greatly resembled the room I’d fought the red dragon in. If I was about to fight a dragon of the earth, I seriously hoped it was a metaphorical dragon, like a mole or something.

Then, the voices returned.

“Hey, bub. Why you smell like Rein?”

“Humans can’t hear us, stupid.”

“But he’s got Tidey’s blessing.”

“Can this doofus see us, you think?”

“But I sense the dragons on him.”

“Hey, can you hear us?”

A revelation. I had not been hearing things. Despite their childlike tones, there was a mystical air about them. I was certain they had to be spirits.

“Yes, I can hear you. My name is Luciel. I fell down here when an earthquake opened up a hole beneath me. I’ll answer any questions you have if you can help me get back. How’s that sound?”

Contrary to popular belief, I was not keen on living out the rest of my days underground with sniffy earth spirits.

One of them cackled. “Look at this loser! Sucks to be you!”

“What a klutz. Rein was a klutz too, so maybe that’s just all humans.”

“I wonder why Tidey gave him the blessing.”

“He can hear us, but why can’t we send him back?”

“I bet the dragons’ blessing is keeping him from seeing spirits.”

“Maybe. It doesn’t look like he has a pact.”

At least one of them seemed to genuinely care about my plight. I liked him. Her? That one. I liked that one.

“How in the world did Reinstar keep these things in line?” I wondered aloud.

“’Cause Rein’s mana tasted sweet like honey!”

“Real honey’s good too.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Hey, doofus, give us some sweets.”

“Magic works too!”

“He reminds me of Rein. I bet his magic tastes just as good.”

One of the brats was starting to get on my nerves, but I maintained my composure. “How about I give you some honey and magic if you tell me how I can get back home?”

“He’s still a loser, but at least he’s nice like Rein.”

“Even klutzes can be generous, huh?”

“Maybe that’s why Tidey liked him. He’s kinda...”

“He drives a hard bargain for a doofus. That’s how you make it in life.”

“Gimme, gimme! I’ll tell you how!”

“Lots! We’ll pay you back!”

This conversation was starting to wear on me. I produced a large bottle of vespian honey and removed the lid.

“What do I do about the magic?”

“Hold your hand out and focus it there. Hey, leave some for me!”

“Like this?”

The voices vanished and in an instant the contents of the bottle were demolished. I set out another bottle, and this time the entire container disappeared with the honey inside. They had quite the appetite. Next, I felt my hand tingle as magic left my body.

“The honey was top notch. The magic? Eh, I’ve had better.”

“You gotta try a little harder, dude. Thanks for the honey, though.”

“I like both, but I could use more affinities in the magic.”

“Not bad.”

“Whoo, honey! Honey is the best! C’mon, we can’t let the dragons outdo us.”

“I didn’t taste any impurities. We all good?”

The spirits cheered in unison. Once about half of my mana was gone, I heard a mechanical voice go off in my head.

Title Obtained: Protection of the Spirit of Land

Choosing to ignore this for lack of any better options, I was about to remind them to tell me how to get out but was stopped short by the sight of several spherical objects floating in the air, pale white in the center and glowing brown around the circumference.

“I think he sees us now.”

“There’re two ways to leave.”

“Destroy the ants’ nest or free the Earth Dragon and exit through the magic circle.”

“Which is, y’know, whatever. I don’t like him, but he weakens the land with all his tantrums.”

“The longer he’s trapped, the worse the miasma will get, so we’d really like it if you could do something about that.”

“The worse the miasma gets, the stronger the monsters become. Won’t you protect Rein’s precious town?”

That sounded fine to me if it was just a quick run in, free the dragon, and be done with it, but that was never how these things went.

“Why aren’t the dwarves fighting the monsters down here?”

“They are.”

“But they’re stubborn and won’t ask for help.”

“They can barely protect their own kingdom.”

“And their only remedy is a keg of booze.”

“They’re overwhelmed.”

“Dwarves are sturdy, but they won’t last much longer.”

That was definitely a problem if the Kingdom of Dwarves was really in dire straits. Why did I get the distinct feeling that my indefinite future would be filled with absolutely nothing but trouble?

“Regardless, I can’t open the door to get to the dragon or free it until my magic recovers, so whatever I do it’ll have to wait.”

I sat down and began to meditate in front of the gate that the spirits said the Earth Dragon lay behind. Before disappearing with its companions, the spirit that always spoke last said something that stuck with me.

“What?” I faltered. “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Your fates are about to blend’?”

With some effort, I managed to clear my mind of the esoteric augury and focus on meditating.