24 — A Wish

24 — A Wish

Near the Eternal Dragon’s doorway, a fierce battle was going on. I recognized one of the combatants.

“What’s Galba doing here?!” I shouted.

Yenice needed a leader now more than ever. I wanted to be frustrated, but I swallowed my words. Galba never did things without a good reason. I looked at Gulgar, who was watching his brother with great excitement.

“That’s my brother right there!” he cheered. “Walabis ain’t doin’ so bad either.”

I squinted and indeed saw, to my surprise, the tanukin fighting alongside many other adventurers. With my master at the head, we charged into the mob of monsters attacking them, piling up corpses as quickly as we carved through them. Not a single foe so much as touched me. The adventurers followed in a frantic attempt to remove the dead bodies.

A horrible stench covered the battlefield, and as wonderful as a shower of rain would have been to get rid of it, the sky remained contemptuously clear. I attempted to purify the air myself, trying not to think about the macabre job of deodorizing a growing mountain of corpses. Killing my nostrils with a mug of Substance X would have been so much easier.

“Gulgar! You’re alive!”

Suddenly, Galba appeared before us and threw his arms around his brother.

I didn’t have a clue when he had gotten back from Yenice, but I also didn’t doubt that it was entirely within his capabilities to fly here within a day if he needed to. Doubtless many monsters had met with a cruel death after he had learned of the wounds his brother had sustained. This might’ve been the first time I actually felt bad for them.

Walabis looked like death at a glance. Galba had surely placed him with Gulgar just to be certain he would know if anything happened to his brother. That relentlessly methodical side of him had probably only been made that much sharper during his time leading a country.

“Luciel helped a bit with that,” Gulgar admitted.

Galba looked my way and smiled gratefully. He’d probably been too worried about his brother to notice me earlier.

“Thank you,” he said.

“He’d have done the same for me,” I replied. “How’s Yenice?” I knew he wouldn’t have left them on their own.

“Things were fine before I left about three days ago. Your little company’s been a big help.”

Three days? If a round trip from here to Merratoni took a full day, then Galba really had flown all the way here in just a little more than one. A bunch of freaks of nature, these guys.

“Everyone was sad they didn’t get to give you a proper goodbye,” he continued. “Impressive that you managed to win over so many beastfolk.”

I laughed awkwardly. “Well, I had help from you guys.”

I didn’t feel like lingering on the subject, and thankfully Galba’s piercing glare did the job of changing it better than I ever could.

“Brod, I’m very proud of you for killing the chimera, but we’re going to have a problem if you keep breaking formation,” he snapped at my master.

“Lay off,” Brod said. “What’s the situation?”

He and Gulgar were clearly more than a little angry at the sight of all the wounded, but as leaders, they needed to keep calm. Like Galba. It was obvious that he wasn’t upset in the slightest, because we’d have all been cowering if he were. Brod knew that too.

From what I could tell, the fighting had ended. The adventurers seemed to be removing and skinning the monsters.

“They’re gathering, but we’re managing thanks to the fact that they get weaker once they’re on Shurulian soil,” Galba explained. “Nothing we can’t handle, and the worst we’ve had from the mine were some nasty, ailment-causing monsters.”

Everything appeared calm. I wondered if there was any point to us being here but kept quiet and waited for Brod’s instructions.

“The tanukin been any help?” Gulgar asked.

“Kind of?” his brother replied, uncertain.

Walabis could shapeshift, but how that translated to battle effectiveness was beyond me. Frankly, the fact that he had survived at all was worthy of praise.

“Iii’ve been using looots of smelling herrrbs, thank yooouuu very muuuch,” the tanukin droned. Evidently, he hadn’t changed much.

“How’s slave life treating you?” I asked him.

“The hell did you just...” He stopped when he noticed who I was and shuddered. “S-Siiirrr Saaaiiint! Whaaat a coincideeence!”

Was the trembling really necessary?

“Not a saint. I finished my term in Yenice so I’m visiting Merratoni.”

“This is a nightmaaare,” he moaned quietly. “Firrrst Galba runs me ragged for his brotherrr, whooose injuries I had nooothing to do with! And nooow there’s this ivory deeemon.”

From saint to demon in the blink of an eye. Impressive. And I wasn’t the only person who’d overheard him. Ketty and Kefin shot Walabis pointed looks, making his face turn its own shade of ivory. I no longer had the time nor the patience to continue entertaining him, though.

I glanced at the sealed doorway, still distinctly discernible from afar. What was it doing outside? And in the middle of the wilderness? This was starting to make my head hurt.

“So, when do we consider our job done?” I asked.

Brod and Galba exchanged looks, then Brod replied, “Good question. We’ve still got some monsters creepin’ in from the border, which’d mean we just have to wait on Grandol’s adventurers to take care o’ the labyrinth. But we’ve dealt with the worst of the bastards crawlin’ outta the mine, seems like, so we can probably handle it.”

I knew why he was telling me that. The only reason I’d normally ask the question in the first place was because I wanted to leave. But this time there was something else deserving of my attention. And my hands were tied.

“So you won’t need a healer?”

“We shouldn’t. Things aren’t as bad as I thought. Now what the hell’s that look on your face?”

“So, uh, can anyone see that door over there?” I pointed towards it. No reaction.

Kefin understood first. “Sir, you don’t mean...”

The rest of my team looked my way in shock. Little did they know that the victor in terms of sheer disbelief was not them but me.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s that door. And we’re not even in a labyrinth.”

“Luciel, start talking some sense,” Brod said. “A door? Labyrinth? The hell’s going on?”

I thought that, as the guildmaster of an Adventurer’s Guild, he might have known something, but it seemed I was mistaken. Before I started to explain, though, I looked around at Walabis and the adventurers and stopped myself.

“I can’t say. Not around people I don’t trust.”

“Sounds important,” said Galba. “I can take care of Walabis.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I got the adventurers,” Gulgar offered.

“Thanks,” I said.

Galba grabbed Walabis by the collar and dragged him away, Gulgar following with the others. Once they were gone, I organized my thoughts and decided where to begin. But first, I had to take precautions.

“I’ll need to bind you by contract,” I told Brod. “All of you, actually. The price will be your memory of the next few minutes. If you try to tell anyone what I’m about to reveal to you, it will be paid and you’ll forget everything.”

“Whatever I gotta do,” he said. “I’m a guildmaster. It’s my job to know.”

The contracts were made, and I took a breath.

“So,” I began, “the doorways. Behind them are imprisoned beings called Eternal Dragons, and they’re meant to bestow their blessings upon the hero. When their seal is broken, a large magic gem may appear, and I need you to promise that you’ll let no one touch it. Ever. Anyone who does and everyone around them will die.”

“Huh. So it’s cursed? What is it, some important relic?” Brod asked.

I couldn’t really blame him for his curiosity. One’s first instinct upon seeing a magic stone was to pick it up. But I’d seen the damage it could cause.

“No. It’s just a trap meant to entice greedy souls into the Wicked One’s clutches. It calls him, and anyone who happens to be there is corrupted and turned undead. That’s pretty much it.”

Stunned silence fell. Even my team, who more or less knew the situation, couldn’t keep the astonishment from their faces.

“Then why not keep the dragons where they are?” Brod argued. “No stone shows up, no one dies.”

“Because then the world will be consumed by demons and monsters before the hero has a chance to save it. I know, I thought the same thing.”

The empire was already experimenting with creating its own demons. It was only a matter of time before it managed to fabricate its own demon lord. Not even Lionel knew about this hypothesis of mine.

My master was a good man, and that nature of his was why I had to involve him. I needed him to give me the strength to walk through that door.

I gave a weak smile, and reverent silence fell again. Whatever I was doing to inspire confidence, it wasn’t on purpose.

“Why’s it gotta be you doing all this dangerous stuff?” Brod asked.

“Luck, I guess. I was the one to free the first dragon, so...” I pounded my chest and smiled. “Here I am.”

“Hell, when’d you go and make yourself a proper adventurer?”

“If this is what being an adventurer is about, I’d like to return my guild card.” I laughed dryly.

Brod looked distant for a moment, then smiled. “You do what you gotta do. I’ll be here.”

“Thanks. Everyone else, deal with anyone who gives you trouble. Just don’t kill them. I’ll heal whoever I need to when I get back and we can all move on with our lives.” They saluted in response. “All right, I’ve got a dragon to free.”

I paced over to where the door stood solemnly, as if it had been waiting patiently for me. No monsters in sight.

“Here goes nothing, I guess,” I muttered. “Hope this dragon’s less eccentric than the others.”

I put my hand to the door and at once felt the magic drain from my fingertips. A yellow light snaked into the shape of an ornate insignia. The question now was did yellow mean light or thunder?

The door swung open. After one last look back, I raised my hand at everyone and stepped inside, my path of escape rumbling shut behind me. No stairs greeted me this time. It was a hallway, and at the end of it I could see blue, yellow, and black lightning arcing off the still body of a dragon. If this was a trap, I might as well have been dead where I stood.

I crept forward, slowly and carefully until the creature was in range of my magic circles. Then a voice echoed inside my head.

“Releaser of the seal, savior of my holy, earthen, and fiery brethren, come you now for me?”

It must have been the Thunder Dragon.

“How are you able to speak while still under the curse?!”

“I was the last to be imprisoned. As it happens, my time is actually far from running short.”

I examined his body and indeed noticed a lack of the usual dark blotches of miasma. The prospect of not being burned alive for once was a promising one.

“Then can I ask a few questions before I get on with it?”

“Very well. I will tell you what I know,” the dragon agreed lazily. His sharp eyes shot open, and he fixed me with his gaze.

Holy hell, this thing was scary. It felt like I’d be too petrified to move, much less speak, if I let my guard down.

“First question: how many of you are there?” I asked.

“We are eight. Once I am free, four will remain in chains.”

“Light, dark, water, and wind. Is that right?”

“Indeed. There are six great spirits in total as well. You will have need of them on the path to sagehood.”

My eyes went wide. “You have knowledge about sages?”

If earning every single blessing was what it took to become a sage, then I didn’t know about all that.

“I am Eternal. I have knowledge of many things.”

“Then do you know how to stop the magic stones you leave behind from summoning the Wicked One?” I wasn’t holding back. Solving this problem would make things so much easier. If only it were that simple.

“What you speak of is no magic stone. It is the core of the labyrinth. Tampering with it will call the dungeon’s keeper.”

Man, nothing could ever be easy, could it? In any case, that meant the keeper of the labyrinths was most likely the Wicked One.

“Is there nothing that can be done? Like, I don’t know, some other god we can report the bad one to?”

“Removing the core from its home will destroy the labyrinth.”

Okay, but how was I supposed to do that if I couldn’t touch the damn thing? And then it hit me. Someone who had been reincarnated could learn to manipulate spacetime. They could instantly transport the gem out, but it would still mean one thing: they would die. One reincarnated life, one labyrinth. But I was the only one with this knowledge, and what good would it do to share it if no one would believe me?

“Wait, but what about this place? The mine’s collapsed and I found this door outside.”

“Truly? That is strange. The Labyrinth of Wiles on the border of Luburk and Grandol yet stands.”

“We’re not in Luburk. I found the doorway at the mine between Merratoni and Grandol, in Shurule.”

“What?!” The dragon stirred, lightning sparking more furiously than before. “Then there is no time. You must free me and fly to Grandol. To the Labyrinth of Wiles.”

I leaped to the side as an arc struck nearby. I just wasn’t feeling very confident in my ability to survive a lightning strike today.

“Hey, watch it!” Luckily, I emerged uncharred.

“The Sworn is in danger. Hurry!” The dragon’s voice keened in my head painfully. It was frantic, like a father worried about his family.

“Some directions, please?”

“You will return to whence you came once you exit this place. No time can be wasted! You must hurry to Grandol, enter the Labyrinth of Wiles, and rescue the Sworn!”

Another round of lightning crackled off the dragon’s body.

“I said watch it! I will turn right back around and leave you here, so help me god!”

“The wheels of fate can not be stopped. Fly to her aid!”

Wheels of fate this, wheels of fate that. I’d never ordered any wheels of fate. At the very least, though, I figured I had to see what I could do. A world of demons and monsters was vastly less appealing to me than a world of scary adventurers at this point.

“I can’t promise to succeed, but I promise to try.”

“Face adversity and triumph.”

I cast Sanctuary Circle and watched as the dragon endured the pain admirably. Lucky me, I’d gotten myself a free dragon at no peril to my very mortal life!

Gradually, the black lightning disappeared, and he cackled out loud. “Liberator, go with my blessing and power both. Lay your staff before me.”

I did, and the dragon’s light flowed into it as well as the necklace I was wearing.

“Forgive us for asking this of you,” he said. “And yet we must. Save the mystic. Defend the future.”

“I didn’t know your people had manners.”

“Luciel, oh holiest of clerics, I send you with our hopes for the world. Its very balance rests in your hands,” the dragon boomed. “And so the promise is fulfilled... La...fjilu...na...”

With one last gentle utterance of what sounded like a name, I was suddenly wracked with pain.

“High Heal!” I screamed. The moment the Thunder Dragon had fallen, a bolt of lightning had coursed through the entire room. “How am I not dead?”

After that very uncool parting gift, I collected all of the treasures around the room as consolation. Given how many items and how much money was left over, there could be no mistake that this was just like what I’d seen in any other labyrinth. I hadn’t the slightest clue what was going on, but what else was new?

Once I had gathered everything, I stepped into the magic circle.

Ping!

Title Obtained: Protection of the Thunder Dragon

After the usual song and dance, the light faded and I found myself a short distance from where the doorway had been. Brod and my team hurried over as I got my bearings.

“You whoop that dragon?” Brod asked.

“Welcome back, sir,” Lionel said.

Instead of wasting time explaining, I elected to keep my promise.

“We need to get to a labyrinth in Grandol fast. Last-minute emergency,” I said. “Master, Lionel, everyone, I’ll need your help.”

I lowered my head and immediately every one of them blanched. But only for a moment.

“Well, get the damn carriage out,” I heard one of them rumble. “I thought this was an emergency.”

“Where you go, we follow, sir,” I heard another add.

I looked up. It was Brod and Lionel.

“Thank you,” I said.

Gulgar and Galba would stay behind to hold the fort, but the rest of us were off.

“We’ll be back soon,” I told them. “Promise.”

“Feel free to take care of the other labyrinths while you’re at it,” Galba teased me.

“Got some lunch for ya,” Gulgar offered. “Don’t go hungry.”

I offered them a silent thanks for their kindness, and together with my trusted companions, we departed for Grandol—the Land of Labyrinths.