* * * Those observing the scene thought they saw rainbow-colored light envelop Sieg’s arrow. The power of the spirits and their desire to help Endalsia, the queen of the forest spirits, amplified the Spirit Eye’s power and gathered in Sieg’s nocked arrow. This power was so great it surpassed the limits of Sieg’s own body. Weak from his many injuries, Sieg felt his joints, his muscles, and even his bones screaming. Please just hold out for this one shot… Through his harsh days spent as a slave and the daily training in the City, Sieg had come to terms with himself and grown stronger. In this final hour, his body moved in harmony with his wish. Sieg’s arrow flew unerringly—the shot of a true hunter. The arrow from the sacred tree flew like a huge rainbow-colored comet. The perfect shot carried the power of the spirits and hit its mark. And the boss of the Labyrinth… —I must get it back.— —It’s all right now. I don’t mind if you go home. Everyone is waiting for you.— —Everyone is…— —You were lonely for so long, weren’t you? It’s okay now. Go on, join them.— The light of Sieg’s arrow powerfully and gently washed over the boss of the Labyrinth as if it were wrapping the monster up. The creature crumbled in the dazzling light like piled snow melting in the warm rays of the sun, vanishing beneath that enveloping blanket. —I…can join…them.— The dazzling, radiant light wasn’t so bright as to be blinding; rather, it was a peaceful, gentle sort of glow. When it at last subsided, no trace remained of the Labyrinth’s boss. All that stood now was Endalsia, surrounded in a calm, warm light, and smiling. 03 —Thank you, my dear children… Ahh, all of you have truly grown into fine people. You went through so, so many difficult times. Oh, such strong, warm hearts you have.— Endalsia slowly took in the faces of Sieg, Leonhardt, Mariela, Dick, Nierenberg, and every other person who had struggled to reach this place. After lovingly gazing upon all present, she shifted her gaze back to Sieg. —Your eye is a beautiful blue, just like his was. You endured especially terrible hardships, didn’t you? My beloved child, heir of my eye, the eye of the spirits. My darling children, I will entrust this to all of you, the ones who will walk into the future…— Endalsia stretched her hand toward Sieg with her palm facing him, and a dark sphere emitting a dim light appeared before his eyes. “What is this…?” he asked. —That is the Core of the Labyrinth, and a manifestation of the power of the ley line’s warden. I wish to watch over all of you always, but I no longer have any power left. So please give this to a spirit with strength, a sacred tree spirit who can be my successor. Right now, this power is corrupted by monster miasma, but when it is purified in due course, it will protect this land once again.— Endalsia looked upon them as if they were her most beloved, precious people in the world. It seemed as if she was trying to etch their faces into her heart and memory as she parted from this world. The Core of the Labyrinth was the ley line warden’s power in physical form. The Labyrinth’s boss had sunk its teeth in Endalsia and weakened her existence for a long time. She no longer had any strength, even to exist as a spirit. Endalsia had endured the Labyrinth’s boss in expectation of this day, two hundred years after the birth of the Labyrinth. Endalsia had watched over this land for untold generations. Now it seemed that the humans of the land she had guarded for so long would lose her without being able to repay her for such a great kindness. With the Core of the Labyrinth in his hands, Siegmund looked back at Leonhardt. Only one way to save Endalsia existed, and it came at a tremendous cost. So heavy was this price that only Leonhardt, the successor of the house of Margrave Schutzenwald, one who had fought all his life to protect his home and its people, could make that decision. Leonhardt met Siegmund’s gaze and nodded calmly. “Mariela, alchemist granted to us from across the span of two hundred years…save the spirit Endalsia. Now is the time to create the Elixir—the greatest treasure of alchemy—by using the Core of the Labyrinth.” The Elixir was a legendary secret medicine, the ultimate miracle remedy. The peak of alchemy, which could heal any injury or illness at once no matter how severe. It was so difficult a potion that no one had ever made it before. Freyja, the Sage of Calamity, had informed Leonhardt, Sieg, and Mariela about it right before the expedition. “Mariela can’t make it yet, but there’s no time left. So take her with you. She can’t make it if she’s not there, anyway. It’ll just be a little longer. If she makes plenty of potions on the way, that should be enough.” The Aguinas family had stockpiled ley-line shards for over a hundred years. The majority of those had already been used to make special-grade heal potions and special-grade Regen before the expedition, but some still remained. Even in the course of this expedition, Mariela had tirelessly worked to make mana potions and other the concoctions they’d needed, using ley-line shards along with crystallized materials for each type of potion. Even when Mariela had run out of the ley-line shards provided, she’d made more and more potions with the ones the Forces had obtained along the way. She’d made an enormous amount all by herself, an amount that would’ve otherwise taken a single city over a hundred years to produce. Perhaps, with her skills at such a point, she had indeed reached a summit none before her had? But even if the alchemist had indeed reached those heights, she couldn’t make the Elixir without the crucial ingredient—the Core of the Labyrinth, the crystallized power of the ley line’s warden. No doubt if they gave the Elixir to a powerful spirit and its corruption was cleared away, this Labyrinth City would become a peaceful place free of monsters, just like the Kingdom of Endalsia had once been. If a person gained that power, it was unknown what would happen. No one knew if a human was even capable of wielding that much magical power. The Elixir’s key material was the Core of the Labyrinth. To use it would mean relinquishing eternal peace and tremendous power. Yet when it came time to make the decision as to whether the Elixir should be made, Leonhardt hadn’t shown the slightest hesitation. “The promise of peace will invite corruption—extreme power tempts ruin. We won’t survive without diligent daily training. The Labyrinth City is the city of us humans. We will protect it to the end with our own hands.” At Leonhardt’s decision, Sieg handed the Core of the Labyrinth to Mariela. The Core was stained black, yet it emitted a continual light as it sat in Mariela’s hands. It seemed to be a symbol for those who didn’t give in to despair. “The Core of the Labyrinth… Uh, um… I…” After staring fixedly at the Core resting in her palms, Mariela turned to face Sieg and Leonhardt. She had a serious expression on her face that suggested she’d made up her mind about something. “Um, I still…can’t make the Elixir!” “What?” “Whaaat?!” Sieg and Leonhardt were dumbfounded. “What should I do?” Mariela hung her head. Leonhardt had pondered the question of what to do about the Core of the Labyrinth from many different angles, but he hadn’t expected this. What were they to do? Leonhardt, usually so calm and collected, turned to Siegmund with a bewildered expression. Although Sieg had been dragged into his share of terrible, unfortunate developments, he, like Leonhardt, had never expected that Mariela wouldn’t be able to make the Elixir at this climactic moment. He returned Leonhardt’s look with one very much like it. Though all were stunned silent, everyone’s feelings on the matter were made plain by their incredulous expressions. “Mariela should be able to make the Elixir by the time you make it to the boss of the Labyrinth. That’s plenty of time, dooon’t worryyy.” That was what the drunkard sage had said. Perhaps it had been a mistake to trust those words. Still, although Freyja was always drunk and fooling around, she did seem to possess a tremendous understanding of the world around her, almost as though she could see the future. That was why everyone was content to trust her. “Ugh… It was a mistake to believe what Master said… She really was a good-for-nothing after all…” If Mariela had known this was going to happen, she wouldn’t have blindly trusted Freyja’s words. Instead, she would have used ley-line shards with greater care from the time she first started training to make special-grade potions. Mariela hung her head in defeat beside the still-bewildered Sieg and Leonhardt. “Ugh, it’s all over. This is the end. Everything, absolutely everything, is her fault…” Until a moment ago, the image of Freyja in Mariela’s mind had been that of a cool, gallant figure with a noble, self-sacrificing presence. A person who stayed behind alone in the Labyrinth’s fifty-eighth stratum. That image was shattered, replaced with the image of a useless drunk. Mariela thought so poorly of her master that it felt to her as if all the misfortune in the world were Freyja’s fault. She felt tears begin to well in her eyes. “Master, you good-for-nothing! You’re so irresponsible! I’m holding you accountable!” Mariela easily put aside her own inadequacy and began to bad-mouth her master, though it was considered improper to speak ill of the dead. “Just whooo is a good-for-nothing? If it’s anyone, it’s this ridiculous pupil of mine!” “Bwah?! Master?!” Freyja had come running to this lowest stratum of the Labyrinth as though in response to the crisis of her favorite pupil. “M-Master, Maaasteeer! A-are you okaaay?!” Though she was on the verge of tears from all the recent chaos, Mariela was delighted to see that her master was safe. Freyja’s clothes had been scorched here and there, but she didn’t seem to have suffered any major injuries. “Ah, Lady Sage. It’s wonderful to know you’re unhurt after that swarm.” It was unbelievable to see that Freyja had made it through uninjured after facing down that army of corpses. Even Leonhardt was both pleased and astonished at her arrival. “Ah, yes, yes. Mariela, calm down a bit. Well, you know, most of the corpses had saponified, so they burned up on their own after a few shots. Whoosh, whoosh. I actually started having trouble breathing. So I escaped to the stratum above for juuust a bit and wound up getting here a little late.” Instantly, Freyja’s explanation made her seem far less impressive. Of course, the Sage of Calamity’s fire spirit magic was incredible. So incredible that even the soldiers of the Forces had trembled at the blast that had rocked the stratum while they charged on through. Still, they’d thought Freyja was outmatched, sheerly because of numbers. In particular, Mariela had thought the swarm of corpses who didn’t feel pain would take the opportunity when her master had run out of magical power to close in like an avalanche and swallow her up. “Saponified”… I’ve heard that corpses that don’t decompose become like wax. So the fire just spread… Not only were there a lot of corpses, but they’d all been closing in on the narrow stratum stairs, so when an adequate portion of them got there, apparently the blaze simply spread from one to the next. “Anyhow, this is Master we’re talking about, so didn’t you send wind or something from the upper stratum down through the stratum stairs?” “Ooh, very sharp, Mariela.” Freyja loved fire magic, but she was pretty poor with anything even close to water magic. She was, however, quite skilled at using wind magic to stir up flames. Choosing magic that focused on firepower was very like Freyja. Regardless, she’d diligently supplied oxygen from the relatively safe stratum above to ensure that the corpses would keep burning until none remained. Was such a feat more befitting a “sage” or a “calamity”? Mariela and the others had to decide that for themselves. Either way, no one felt particularly inclined to praise Freyja. “I would like to celebrate your safe return, but we have a problem.” Leonhardt, ever the pragmatist, quickly returned to the real issue at hand. “Yup. Mariela doesn’t have enough experience, right?” “Master…you knew?” “Heh-heh, that’s why I came. To transfer all my alchemy experience to you, Mariela.” “Transfer…experience?” “Yup. When you connected to the ley line with your Nexus, I transferred experience to you to bring you back from the ley line, right? It’s putting that to use. Normally, it can’t be transferred while you’re in your body, but y’know, we’re super-close to the ley line here. I can give it all to you here, even if you’re still flesh and blood.” Freyja said all this with a cheerful smile. “B-but…if you do that, you won’t be able to…” Such a thing would mean that Freyja would become unable to create potions. For someone like Mariela, who’d spent so much of her life crafting the things, even finding purpose in making them, just the idea of that was unbearable. Mariela screwed up her face, displeased. Her master, however… “Well, I wasn’t making potions to begin with. Too much work,” Freyja retorted. That’s right… That’s why she can only make mid-grade potions… Since Freyja had taught Mariela so many things, Mariela thought her to be a master of alchemy as well. However, the Sage of Calamity was more of a typical teacher—skilled in many things, including alchemy, but not a master of them. “Okay, I understand. Thank you, Master.” Mariela had managed to calm down a little, but there was no time left. Even now, Endalsia’s existence was steadily weakening. She looked ready to disappear at any moment. “Sure. Well, here you go, Mariela.” Freyja wrapped both of her hands around Mariela’s, still holding the Core of the Labyrinth, and bumped her forehead into her pupil’s.
Chapter 189
12 min read