Chapter 197

01 “The west tower is where I woke up. I went to the northwest one the same day, but Franz refused to budge from there, so I decided to head for the temple.” After Mariela and Yuric safely pulled up Donnino with the rope ivy, they returned to the seemingly safe southwest tower for the time being to eat and exchange information. After parting with Franz, Donnino had gone down to the second floor of the southwest tower. He was probably trying to focus on the west tower, where he woke up, for exploration. Apparently, when he’d headed north before and reached the west tower, then descended to the first floor with rope, it happened to be noon when the black spider was less active. “To think that kinda beastie that’ll eat anything really exists. We’ll all need to be careful.” According to Donnino, that starving black spider seemed to eat monsters indiscriminately. Curiously, monsters would ignore Donnino and attack the black spider when it appeared. The horrible part was its appetite. No matter how many things it ate and how big its body grew, its hunger never seemed to be sated. “I only survived thanks to those things eating each other.” Midday was when the black spider had gobbled up most of the other monsters and also when it was the most wounded and unable to move. It was the safest time of day, when the black spider was weak and few other creatures were about. Mariela and Yuric had seen during their second encounter with the black spider what it looked like after being eaten by other monsters. Even after sustaining such grievous injuries, the horrible thing refused to die. Instead, it had continued consuming the remains of whatever it could and waited for nighttime. “In case you didn’t know, night’s real dangerous. That black spider comes back.” There was a fountain on the west tower’s first floor, but those inky creatures gushed out through the sluice gate. And the black spider absorbed those, restored its devoured body and broken limbs, and rapidly resurrected. The reborn black spider was fast, and its attack power was enough to let it single-handedly consume all the creatures remaining on the first floor. Donnino was tough, but his speed was lacking, putting him at a disadvantage. Above all, no matter how much he struck and pulverized it, the black spider continued to attack him indefinitely as though it felt no pain. It was not the sort of opponent one wanted to face head-on. The black spider seemed unable to open the large door to the second-floor hallway of the west tower, but the door on the first floor had broken and come off, so after devouring the remains of the tree and insect monsters in the west tower, the black spider wandered through the first level hallway in search of food. “The Necklace sleeps at night, and since I couldn’t open the door to the entrance hall, I stayed where the Necklace was. I was gonna make a hole in the Necklace’s hedge during the night and slip out, but the sucker’s tough.” The striking sounds Mariela and Yuric had heard were Donnino demolishing the Necklace’s foliage. However, the ivy covering the Necklace’s surface was as strong as steel, and Donnino hadn’t been able to destroy it. When the night was over, the Necklace would wake up, and the hairy caterpillars would attack. Although timing it was risky, if the hairy caterpillars and the black spider met, you could escape to another room while they were chewing on each other. After each night passed, tree monsters suddenly sprouted and grew to be large trees, and insect monsters hatched from eggs and grew wings, filling the first floor. And the monsters and the black spider started eating each other again. This cycle of rebirth and predation seemed to loop every day. “Maaan, the first decent meal in ages tastes so good,” Donnino said as he sunk his teeth into the meat Mariela had cooked. The two girls looked at each other for a moment, then forcibly diverted the conversation, which seemed about to shift to food. What had Donnino been eating in a place with nothing but tree and insect monsters? Donnino seemed to be in his late thirties, but even if you said he was in his fifties, his personality smacked so much of a middle-aged man it wouldn’t seem incongruous, and he also had a wild feeling about him. He’d probably eat anything if push came to shove, but Mariela and Yuric didn’t want to entertain that notion. “Anyhow, I’m glad you’re safe, Mr. Donnino. And if we can find Mr. Grandel…” Grandel was the only one still missing. If they each woke up in a different tower, Grandel should have been in the east one, but where on earth could he be now? “Grandel’s probably over there.” Donnino took out a folding telescope from his tool bag and indicated a place near the east tower through the window. “Whoa, you’re right…” “There’s water outside. Can he breathe?” Mariela and Yuric alternately identified the heavy armor for use on a raptor that Grandel had been riding inside. It had sunk into the courtyard near the east tower, and a giant snakelike creature had coiled itself around it. A lone, giant fish was swimming up to it. The upper half of the coiled snake’s body cut through the water and sunk its teeth into the fish’s abdomen. “Whoaaa, Yuric, look.” Yuric received the telescope from Mariela, checked the upper half of the coiled snake’s body, and sighed. “Mm. That’s a subspecies of lamia. It’s got six arms, and I think it’s a fairly advanced kind…” It was so long, it could easily reach the second floor of one of the structures even if the lower half of its body stayed wrapped around the heavy armor Grandel was in. It seemed unthinkable that there could be a lamia so enormous. “Monsters get eaten by the black things during the night, but it seems like that lamia got that huge because it’s got Grandel’s shield protecting it. The fact that it’s still wrapped around the armor probably means Grandel’s fine, but…” “Donnino, think ya can kill that thing?” “Not by myself, that’s for sure. I need someone who can stop it from moving. Too bad Edgan ain’t here.” Yuric and Donnino pondered strategy for a moment. That lamia seemed to be quite the formidable opponent. Apparently, they could manage somehow if Edgan was with them, but if he left the northeast tower, a horde of black monsters would probably surge out from the north side where the defense had weakened. Could Franz hold out on his own? “If it’s a snake, there are a few potions that seem like they could be helpful, but…” The concoctions Mariela proposed were ones that either emitted an odor snakes hated, threw their vibration-sensing organs out of order, or robbed them of their body heat and stalled their movements. All of them were for terrestrial snake creatures, but this lamia was likely amphibious, and it might also hunt prey using sight in addition to sensing vibration. Given that it was such an advanced type, one had to wonder how effective Mariela’s potions would even be. Above all, she lacked a bit of each of the materials, and it seemed unlikely they could obtain them on the west side. “At any rate, we can’t do anything until we move to the east side. We’ll rest here until the sun goes down and move once it’s nighttime.” “Got it.” They ate when they could eat and slept whenever possible. With warrior-like judgment, Donnino was about to throw himself down and fall asleep on the spot, and Mariela hurriedly produced rocks from her pouch. “Mr. Donnino, here. I think these are your memory stones.” The ones Mariela took out had more subdued colors than Edgan’s: a chic light brown and dark brown. There were two of them. “Memory stones? What’re those?” Mariela told him about what they’d learned up to this point. Mariela and Yuric didn’t understand the conditions for recovering the stones, but the memories would definitely return if everyone gathered and slept in the same room, and in that case, Mariela and Yuric would get a glimpse of Donnino’s past. “I see. But, young lady, isn’t it best not to see people’s memories? You’ll end up biting off more than you can chew.” Donnino accepted the memory stones from Mariela and tucked them away in a pocket. “I’ll rest by myself in some random room. Hey, memories ain’t all good. It doesn’t make a difference to me if I don’t get one or two of ’em back.” After saying this, he opened the north door and disappeared into a nearby room. 02 —Yo, long time no see.— —You come so often, yet you never tire of it.— How many times had she met the lake spirit now? The other fire spirits felt this work of staying in the lamp and going through the forest was boring, and they hated it, but this one didn’t feel that way. When she thought about how she’d get to meet that lake spirit, the sluggish trek through the dark woods felt as brief as a wink, and on the way home, she thought of that beautiful creature until she arrived back in the city. These days, the place where the humans lived had too many people to call it a village. The question of how much time had passed was utterly meaningless to the fire spirit. If she couldn’t obtain nourishment or got tired of existing, she would vanish from this world and return to the ley line. That was how it was for a spirit. Birth, existing, vanishing. Everything had equal worth, and at the same time, was uniformly worthless. Spirits had no physical bodies to begin with. They came into existence easily, they changed quickly, and they vanished swiftly. Their consciousness was never exactly the same each time, but if you compared it to humans, it was something akin to whether or not they remembered what they ate yesterday. However, the rare one existed who had found something that became their foundation. For example, a sacred tree spirit or the like would take lodging in a newly sprouted sacred tree sapling and exist with it in the physical world. If a spirit didn’t dwell within a sacred tree, it would never grow, and if the tree died, its inhabitant would similarly vanish. The rare mature sacred tree spirits separated from their plant and existed independently, but that was a scarce example and unlikely to happen under ordinary circumstances. In particular, fire spirits were fickle and prone to change, and as exemplified by the phenomenon known as flame, not many maintained themselves indefinitely. Those few were ones who inhabited ceaselessly burning volcano craters or magma rivers deep underground, so a fire spirit who continued to exist while moving from light to light in a city was exceedingly rare. Since she usually hid herself in small streetlamps, the fire spirit herself hadn’t realized it, but after continuing to exist for a long time, she was no longer so transient that she could be extinguished with a single breath from the lake spirit. That was how she managed to exchange words with the lake spirit while the humans were performing their ritual. —The city of people is fascinating.— To a spirit, the only difference between humans and other animals was whether they walked on two legs or four, so while adults and children could be differentiated, it was difficult to tell individuals apart. But as this fire spirit continued to exist, she gained an interest in the way people lived. She could’ve sworn that up until quite recently, they’d lived in wooden houses, riddled with cracks, that could quickly be burned to nothing. Yet now they resided in domiciles made not just of wood, but plaster coatings and stone, and the only places fire spirits could dwell were in lamps, furnaces, and near fireplaces. Large iron-melting kilns had been built on the mountain a short distance away at some point, and that had recently become a popular spot among fire spirits. The fire spirit happily talked about the process of baking bread, where springy batter expanded to become fluffy and delicious-looking in kilns; festivals where people surrounded a large bonfire and got really lively; and the way warriors fought with a torch in one hand when they drove back monsters attacking the city. The spirit that lived in this lake listened to these tales with a gentle expression. —If you are able to find them that endearing, then I, too, can treasure them.— With a smile, the lake spirit drew the pitch-black corruption the humans had brought toward the water. “It… …hu… …don’t…” Human life was very busy, and its changes were dizzying. Right now, the fire spirit only knew joy, sadness, anger, and suffering as variations of emotion. Just as she watched the changing of the seasons, she observed people’s transitions with great interest. Of course, many human feelings weren’t positive. Such things gathered together and affected both people and the world negatively—as corruption. It killed crops, distorted the weather, and summoned epidemics. Perhaps the corruption in humans was extremely strong, as only those with extraordinary abilities could see it, and when those kinds of people purified that malign presence, the fire spirit always helped. Of course, there were things her power couldn’t touch. Today’s corruption was an example of that. A terrible disease had spread extensively and caused people to vomit blood and die. A sick person who shivered, not wanting to die. A mother who feared for the young children she’d leave behind even as she heaved blood. Sick people were stripped of all they had by traders who sold fake medicine or by greedy healing mages. Folks who didn’t know that poorly employed restorative magic would only ward off the symptoms of a disease for a short time used it to drag out the little remaining strength the ill had, merely appearing to heal them, and prolonged their suffering. The powerful plague that wouldn’t subside began to turn the healthy against the ill. Diseased people were burned alive, and young children were treated as sick and beaten to death. Even the healing mages and alchemists who examined the ill were thought to carry the plague and stoned. “It hurts. It hurts. I don’t want to die.” There was no way mere practitioners and spirits could do anything about such agonized cries. The ark carrying the corruption sank into the water at the lake spirit’s feet. To slowly return it to the world at the deep, unseen bottom. 03 “This place is a real mess.” In front of the enormous box blocking the staircase to the second floor on the third level of the southeast tower, Donnino gripped his hammer tight. “Think ya can handle it?” “Sure can. Splinters might go flyin’. You two should head up to the fourth floor.” After Mariela’s group had caught a nap until nightfall in the southwest tower, they’d returned to the southeast tower through the passage on the fourth level. Perhaps due to the effects of the fire bottles, the night was short, and since they had to slow down to make sure Donnino could keep up, they’d just gotten back to the southeast tower when it brightened outside. In any case, the group needed to go down to the second floor in this southeast tower to get to the temple in the center, and they could get to the northeast tower where Edgan was through the third-level hallway. Mariela’s silence wasn’t because they could get trapped in this tower or because they were losing time. The answer seemed so close to her now, yet it still remained elusive. While frustrated, the alchemist kept her thoughts to herself. Mr. Donnino and Yuric both said they didn’t have any dreams during that nap… Donnino had insisted he hadn’t dreamed about the past and showed her the memory stones. This proved that memories wouldn’t come back simply by bringing the rocks and their owner together. Of course, there was a possibility those stones didn’t belong to Donnino, though. Yuric also said she didn’t have any dreams this time… If Yuric didn’t have any, whose dream could that have been, and why did Mariela alone see it? Bang, smash. Crunch, crunch, crunch. “Whoa, this’s bad.” Mariela’s thoughts were interrupted by sounds of destruction and Donnino’s voice from the floor below. “Donnino, what’s goin’ on?” “Whatever this is, cleaning it up’s gonna be tough, Yuric.” Mariela followed Yuric down to the third floor, saw the large number of scattered potions there, and thought, Ahh, I knew it. The things had filled the towering box that blocked the stairs to the second floor. It need scarcely be said how many there were. Over half of the potion vials had broken and mixed together from the impact of the container’s destruction, but all of them were concoctions that had sold well two hundred years ago. “For now, I’ll dry the place. Dehydrate.” In one go, Mariela’s Dehydrate dried up all the potions that had soaked the room. “Ooh, not bad, young lady.” Donnino’s exclamation of wonder wasn’t mere flattery. Evaporating that large a quantity of liquid all at once wasn’t a feat just anyone could pull off. If it had been normal water, even Mariela, who boasted immense magical power, probably couldn’t have dried it this easily. Just like I thought. These are… Potions often had their medicinal efficacy extracted after Drops of Life was dissolved into magically created water. In other words, the liquid the brews were composed of was originally magical power. The water was created with magic because it was easier to exert influence on something made with your own magical power in the processes that followed. For example, when drying spilled water, there was a world of difference in the time and magical energy it took to dry well water versus magically created liquid. These are potions I made. The fact that they were concoctions Mariela had made herself was why she’d been able to Dehydrate them so effortlessly. Mariela looked around the room and realized she had some recollection of the numerous cheap sundries packed into the boxes there. Surely these are from the orphanage that looked after me… Mariela was convinced. This southeast tower was a tower of her memories. “Ow!” “That’s what ya get for daydreamin’. There’s lots of potions here, so get that healed up.” A glass shard had cut Mariela’s hand as she cleaned up the broken vials. The expanding drop of blood and the throbbing pain in Mariela’s fingertip told her this world wasn’t a dream. The answer was close at hand. Feeling that was the case, Mariela went down to the second floor with the others after gathering the broken potion vials to one side and clearing a path to the stairs down. The second floor had the same carpeting and identical construction to the southwest side. Rooms lined the hallway, and most likely the entrance was at the end of the west side. A place like an atrium with a greenhouse was at the end of the north side. “I don’t think it’s dangerous if we don’t open the door at the end, so I’m thinking I’ll go around to the rooms and make potions.” At Mariela’s suggestion, the three split up. Donnino went north to investigate the situation of the first floor from the east tower, and Yuric rode Koo up the stairs to replenish their fire bottles and food. Now on her own, Mariela opened the door of the room closest to the north side. “I knew it…” It was Mariela’s workshop, which should have been in the Labyrinth City. “Slaken’s…not here…” She didn’t know whether it was because Slaken was a living thing or because this was a reproduction of the room after Sieg had taken out Slaken. However, the rearing vessel for the artificial slime made of kraken somatic sells was empty, and Slaken’s viscous liquid was collecting at the bottom. The shelves were lined with a variety of crystallized medicinal herbs, and the selection was most likely better than in any of the other rooms. Since the Labyrinth had been defeated and materials were growing scarcer, Mariela had bought as much as she could while they were still available. Even so, there were things it lacked. “If this room exists, surely Lady Carol’s workshop should be around here, too, don’t you think?” “Rawr.” The salamander on Mariela’s shoulder made a noise in response to her question. It was incredibly reassuring to have this fiery lizard around. Its presence really reminded Mariela of someone. After gazing at the small spirit moving its big, round, golden eyes about for a little while, Mariela left her workshop for the moment and went to search the other chambers. 04 Donnino was in the second-floor hallway leading to the east tower. Strong light shone in through the windows, and the monster fish swimming nearby sometimes cast shadows. “The monsters should be resurrecting now. If this side is like the west side, the black thing’ll probably be out and about. But as long as I don’t bump into it, it’ll be busy with the other creatures and won’t notice me here. Perfect for scoutin’.” After confirming Mariela and Yuric weren’t nearby and thus no harm would befall them, Donnino approached the east tower’s entrance. No sounds could be heard from the other side of the door. There probably weren’t any battles happening nearby. Even so, after carefully and silently opening the door, Donnino reflexively groaned at the scene and smell on the other side. “…What an awful stench. What’s goin’ on with this place?” A narrow, complex cave system lay beyond. The west side had been an atrium with a wide, dome-shaped ceiling, yet dark red, fish-smelling things completely covered the expansive surface area in this place, and Donnino could see white objects here and there. “Is this…carrion?” When he touched it, the crimson surface of the wall conveyed elasticity and coldness through his glove. Since it had no warmth, this was probably the flesh of something dead. Donnino pulled his hand away and found dark red fluid still clinging to this fingertips. “At any rate, it sure does reek.” It was an unspeakably foul odor, one that was a mélange of orcs, goblins, blood and internal organs, and rotten meat. After covering his mouth with a cloth, Donnino traipsed farther into the cave. Both the floor and the walls of the chamber were formed of squishy lumps of meat. While there wasn’t sound footing, there were solid objects here and there that helped support Donnino, and his feet didn’t sink. “There’re even bones here…?” The white objects that protruded in places were probably skeletal remains. Thanks to his goggles that granted night vision, Donnino had no problem seeing. Perhaps for the benefit of whatever made this chamber its stronghold, a liquid different from the blood oozed here and there and emitted phosphorescent light. It wasn’t enough for the naked eye to see, but it could ensure sufficient visibility with the help of night-vision magic. As Donnino advanced through the cave, the flesh’s color changed here and there, making it appear as though several types of creatures were mixed into it. Donnino could stand up straight and walk in the wider parts of the passage, but it was so tight that he had to bend his knees and drop his rump to move forward when it narrowed. If he happened to meet monsters in a confined spot like this, the hammer wielder wouldn’t be able to fight sufficiently. Fortunately, the compact passage didn’t last long, and Donnino soon arrived in a small room that afforded more space. Many paths branched from this new chamber, and there were hole-like passages above and below. Donnino surmised that this network of caverns stretched in all directions. Several small rooms lay ahead in this one, and another kind of smell wafted from them. “What’s that? Melting flesh?” There was a pool with what looked like a muddy blend of melted skin and blood. The flesh-liquid swelled like foaming gas, and some of the bubbles bloomed like they were being torn and emitted screams like “aaa” or “gyaaa.” A baby’s first cry. The pieces of meat crawling from the flesh pool suddenly grew limbs, opened eyes, and made unpleasant cries as they crawled toward the deeper parts of the cave system, apparently not catching sight of Donnino. “Is this a monster nursery? I’ve never heard of things bein’ born like that before. Were those goblins?” As Donnino followed the newborn goblins and progressed through the cave system, their numbers increased. All of them seemed to regard Donnino as nothing more than a part of the caves, and the small ones slipped between his legs and proceeded deeper. As they went on, the chambers widened little by little, and newborn creatures with large bodies such as orcs and wolves mingled with the goblins. All the monsters were the kinds that ate weird food and had potent reproductive power like those that could be found in the Fell Forest or the shallow strata of the Labyrinth. The monsters surged from the cave system laid out like a spiderweb toward what was probably the center of the east tower’s first floor. Even if Donnino covered his mouth, breathing was difficult due to the stink of the cave itself and the monsters, as well as the unbearable stench wafting from ahead of them. Donnino crawled into a hole in a place a little higher up to escape from the monsters’ odor, because he felt a slight, cool breeze from there. This sort of cave had air holes. “Pwah, this’s unbearable…” Donnino, having managed to catch his breath at last in this small pocket of fresh air, cursed this place. The room had air holes stretching vertically that were so thin, not even a newborn goblin could pass through them, and the fresh breeze was flowing down from above. When he looked down the one shaft that connected directly to the lower floor, Donnino saw that the monsters seemed to be marching toward the central part of the first level. “Wuzzat?” The air hole was narrow, denying Donnino a full picture. What he could glean from the fragmentary field of view was monsters attacking a giant round object that looked like it had been painted pitch-black. The spherical, ebon object appeared filled to bursting, like a ripe pomegranate. Donnino could only see a portion of the black pomegranate through the air hole, and he couldn’t tell if it was turning into a tree or what the parts of it he couldn’t see were. Donnino did identify monsters jumping and snapping one after another at the creature’s stretched-full skin, however. They resembled ants swarming over a sweet fruit that had fallen to the ground. Rrrip. Without any warning, the black pomegranate’s flesh split. What spilled out from it wasn’t fruit, but countless black rats. The momentum of the overflowing vermin was like that of water breaching a dam, and although the monsters had been swarming the black pomegranate up until just now, the mass of rats swallowed them up after it burst. “This’s real bad.” Donnino rushed back the way he’d come with incredible agility considering his solid build. This cave system was complex, and it was difficult to tell one passage from another, but Donnino had left scratches on the walls so he would know the way back. Dark red liquid oozed from the scars that looked like lacerations. Though grotesque, they were landmarks for the way back, so Donnino relied on them as he hurriedly returned the way he came with the momentum of a startled hare. Monster howls and the noise of swarming rats echoed from the chambers at Donnino’s back. Munch-munch, munch-munch. An unpleasant sound reverberated in the carrion caves. 05 “Here, Mr. Donnino, drink this.” Donnino had somehow escaped from the east tower’s cavern system and reunited with Mariela and Yuric in the southeast tower. Seeing how sickly he looked, Mariela offered him a potion. “Phew, thanks, young lady. Finally feels like I can take a breather.” After downing the concoction he’d accepted from Mariela without confirming what kind it was, Donnino caught his breath and then began to explain what he’d seen in the east tower. “There’s likely some type of strange disease in there.” Donnino had confirmed as much with his eyes and ears. He’d witnessed the rats spilling out of the black pomegranate touch the monsters, which then collapsed as blood gushed from not just their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears, but from anything you could call a pore. And he’d heard the chewing of the rats devouring those bleeding creatures’ corpses. “Donnino’s not infected, is he?” asked Yuric. “He just drank a cure potion, so he’ll be fine,” Mariela answered. She’d anticipated what lay ahead. Because she now had a rough guess of what this place was and whose memory she’d seen in her most recent dream. “I know a potion that works on diseases,” she said. Yuric, who saw her sparkling golden eyes, felt she’d caught a glimpse of the face of Mariela’s master, Freyja, because it seemed like Mariela could see what was going to happen. “What Mr. Donnino just drank was a special-grade cure potion. It’ll cure any disease then and there, and the person who imbibes it won’t get infected for a few days. I’ll throw this into the monster nursery.” Mariela conveyed her strategy as she whittled a white horn. The group was in one of the alchemist workshops up on the second floor. It was the first time Yuric and Donnino had ever been in this particular one, but Mariela had been here many times. Among the expensive materials on display, the one categorized as the highest quality was what Mariela was whittling currently: a unicorn horn. Out of the many ways Caroline’s uncle, Ruiz, tried to communicate the secret art of the Sacrificials to the Aguinas family, only one had been successful—concealing it in this unicorn horn. After hearing this story, Mariela was shown the real thing, and she knew where it was stored. Yes, this place was Caroline’s workshop. She added the unicorn horn she’d whittled down with a gold file into lynus wheat vinegar and began to dissolve it. This vinegar was pure, made only of lynus wheat, which could naturally store Drops of Life, and the grain itself was also used as a raw material by removing the germs and polishing its surface. It could be refined into vinegar after a short time by putting it in a Transmutation Vessel with air and Drops of Life. The special-grade cure potions that used unicorn horns really couldn’t abide any impurities mixed in during the creation process. As such, it was necessary to perform the transmutation in a two-layered Transmutation Vessel without removing it once. “And this time, I’ll add crystallized shinogira root to it and combine it with a dissolved ley-line shard.” Mariela had made ten potions while the group had been split up, plus an additional twenty now. This many ought to be enough. After countless monsters—mainly goblins—had been birthed in the carrion caves, they would prey on the black rats, which were far greater in number. The goblins that ate the little animals would immediately spurt blood from not only their eyes, noses, and mouths, but even their pores due to the plague spread by the rats, and after they crumbled and died like their flesh was melting, they became food for the vermin. The whole situation was hellish. The black rats devoured the dead monsters and the caves themselves, so it seemed like even the terrain was changing as new passages took form and uneaten carrion coagulated to become part of the floor. The group decided that Mariela, who was no match for the rats, would stay with Koo in the safe southeast tower. Yuric and Donnino would throw the completed special-grade cure potions into the countless monster nurseries in the carrion caverns. The potions would grant the newly birthed monsters in the nurseries a resistance to the plague, albeit only as long as the effects of Mariela’s concoctions lasted. Thus, even if they ate the black rats, they wouldn’t immediately die. Over time, the balance in the caves would probably invert, and the rats would be exterminated. However, since there wouldn’t be much potion per monster, one had to wonder if the effects of the alchemical mixture would even last half a day. It was certain that the number of both goblins and rats would significantly decrease in the next few hours. “All we can do now is wait.” “Rar.” The raptor Koo brought his face close to Mariela, who felt just a little helpless, as though to say everything would be okay. “Thanks, Koo.” Now it was just Mariela and Koo. The salamander had gone to the carrion caves, riding on Yuric’s shoulder. Whether it was worried about Yuric’s fighting power or it just wanted to go to the tunnels was unclear. It had voluntarily moved to her shoulder. “Oh, hello. Are ya comin’ with us?” Since her animal training skills didn’t work on the salamander, a spirit, Yuric couldn’t converse with it, but she looked thrilled. Yuric must have been an animal lover through and through. “Surely I’m not wrong about using those potions…” Mariela had turned all the materials Yuric had gathered for her into fire bottles, and she’d also cooked some monster meat. Not knowing what to do with herself, Mariela reclined on Koo, who was seated, and waited for Donnino and Yuric to return. 06 “Mariela, Mariela, wake up. It’s time.” “Wha—? Yuric, did I fall asleep?” Yuric shook Mariela awake, and Mariela rubbed her eyes as she sat up. Apparently, she’d been resting. And it seemed to have been a deep sleep, as she’d completely recovered her magical power. I didn’t have any dreams… Mariela straightened up her outfit as the salamander, who had returned to its usual place on her shoulder unnoticed, licked her cheeks to tell her to wash her face. “Around what time is it?” “Probably about noon.” Donnino answered Mariela’s question as he chewed a lump of monster meat. Although Mariela’s biological clock was entirely out of whack due to the extremely short nights, Donnino and Yuric had been living on the road for a long time, and their senses of time seemed to be very accurate. At Yuric’s recommendation, Mariela had just a light meal in case she vomited from the smell, while Donnino and Yuric partook of their food with gusto. Afterward, the trio headed for the carrion caves in the east tower to check the potions’ effect. “Well, I’ll be damned. Who woulda thought it’d go this well?” Mariela gave a vague, disingenuous laugh in response to Donnino’s surprised muttering as she gazed at the lump before them, which resembled a nearly rotten pomegranate that had ripened and fallen from a tree. She hadn’t spoken of her dream about the plague. Since the others hadn’t said anything about it, either, Mariela was probably the only one who had seen that vision. Mariela’s master had told her about that disease once. It had run rampant a very, very long time ago. In those days, potion technology hadn’t yet discovered mixtures that could cure disease, and no one knew that if healing magic was used poorly, even the sickness would be restored. That’s why people intending to cure the illness misused restorative spells, whittled away the stamina of the sick in vain, and unwittingly spread the infection. Those who feared the incurable disease quarantined people who showed symptoms from the city along with their families and incinerated the sick’s houses, possessions, and even their livestock. Despite the afflicted being quarantined, no one cared for them. It was functionally just leaving those poor folks to die. Of course, it wasn’t as though no research was done on illnesses. Money was freely poured into study on potions that could cure plagues, and at last, a single brew was completed. The disease abated thanks to that mixture, which became the prototype for high-grade cure potions, but by then, the city’s population had decreased to less than half of what it had been. High-grade cure potions were potent. So there could be no doubt about their effects if they were special-grade. Moreover, this time Mariela had added crystallized shinogira root. Shinogira was a purple flower that bloomed rarely in tropical forests, and both its petals and particularly its roots possessed powerful antibacterial properties. Even in the subtropical strata of the Labyrinth crawling with monsters that spread disease, it was said you’d be fine if you simply drank from a body of water where shinogira was growing on its banks. The components extracted from shinogira root had many impurities, so it wasn’t generally mixed with the unicorn horns used as materials for special-grade cure potions. However, since Mariela blended it in as medicinal crystals containing no impurities, she successfully created the potions. You could say these were special-grade potions specialized for this disease. Their effect was tremendous: The goblins generated from the nurseries the potions had been thrown into were eating the plague-spreading black rats without contracting it themselves. Several surviving goblins had attacked Mariela’s group along the way, but they were still just weak monsters at the end of the day. With one swing from Donnino, they were reduced to being part of the cave system. The party had expected the surviving monsters to attack and threw the potions only into nurseries that birthed goblins, so you could say this also went as planned. When Mariela and her companions at last reached the lowest level of this system of caverns, they found corpses of goblins whose potions had worn off collapsed in heaps. The giant pomegranate-like lump Donnino had spoken of lay at the center, and it blew out a rotten smell as though it was breathing. The fissure the black rats had spilled from ran in four directions from the bottom like a split, ripened fruit, exposing its dark red interior. Could the dark red fibrous tissue growing densely within be cilia? Gooey liquid resembling bloody pus that coiled and squirmed indicated that the thing wasn’t entirely dead yet. The group could hear a noise from the riven pomegranate-like lump, which expanded as though breathing and spit out a rotten odor. It resembled the sound of wind blowing and reverberating through the caves made of dead flesh, and Mariela heard it as the following: “It hurts. It hurts. I don’t want to die.” “Your lives and your bodies aren’t in this world. You’ve already been released…” Mariela opened a special-grade cure potion and threw it into the black pomegranate. In that instant, the thing stiffened like a fruit contracting, as though its insides were being squeezed out, and then it drooped like the skin of produce that had lost its interior and stopped moving. The black pomegranate rapidly shriveled and dried up, and it felt as though the group had seen a fruit ripening, rotting, and decomposing at an accelerated speed. “It… …rts. I… ant… die.” Did that sound have the tone of wind blowing through the carrion caves? When Donnino and Yuric threw fire bottles at the black pomegranate, flames swallowed up the surroundings. “Even if the salamander’s protectin’ us, we’ll be baked at this rate. Let’s pull out for now.” At Donnino’s orders, the party beat a retreat from the carrion caves. Only the salamander on Mariela’s shoulder as she rushed for the exit was staring at the burning black pomegranate. 07 “Now, we gotta decide on our next plan soon.” The group briefly returned to the second floor of the southeast tower and discussed the strategy from here on out. Whether they were going to help Grandel or simply move forward, they needed to get to the courtyard. If they simply went to the courtyard, the best course was to wait on the south side where the entrance was and go outside at dusk when the Necklace went dormant. “There might still be monsters or the black spider on the first floor.” “Right, I’ll go check for that when the fire’s died down. But the problem’s that snake woman. The one with Grandel. It’s probably no big deal if we leave that alone, but… Young lady, do you have all the materials for a potion that might work on a snake?” Mariela shook her head at Donnino’s question. “I’m missing one reagent, but if we search the first floor, I think we’ll almost certainly find it.” “Almost certainly, huh…?” Donnino glanced in the direction of the east tower. After he’d returned from scouting, he’d most likely contracted something. Mariela had offered him a potion as though she could tell. It almost seemed like she’d even known how to defeat the disease nesting in the carrion caves. That’s why Mariela saying that she would obtain the final material on the first floor, which they hadn’t yet been to, had a mysteriously persuasive power. “You decide, young lady,” Donnino said to Mariela. “That lamia’s too much for me on my own. Do we call Edgan, or do we open the way with potions? Either way, it’ll take too much time. Edgan’s not around, and we don’t have any potions made yet.” The surest way to rescue Grandel was to rely on Edgan. As much as they hated to admit it, there was no doubt that Edgan’s fighting power as an A-Ranker would bring down even the likes of that titanic lamia. However, if they asked him for help, there would no longer be sufficient defense in the north. How long could Franz hold out by himself? Mariela shifted her attention to Yuric, who was facing north and looking a little restless. Was she fretting over Franz or Edgan? Mariela was certain Yuric was worried about Grandel, too, but it seemed like she had greater concerns than that. “Mr. Donnino, Yuric…” Mariela began to outline their plan going forward.