Chapter 199

“This’s bad.” “Let us withdraw for now!” “Ook.” Edgan’s animal cry was the only ook-citing thing, and even he wore a serious expression like everyone else. They all turned on their heels and began running toward the entrance on the south side of the outer wall. But could any of them escape from the horde that gave chase? Although the door was only a short jog away, the distance between it and Mariela’s group felt infinite, and even the damp air of the courtyard seemed to be hindering them. Would Mariela and her friends be consumed like debris against a crashing wave? Perhaps their memories and existences were doomed to be scattered and lost. Mariela was about to be overwhelmed by the looming despair when… “Groooooooar!” A wyvern? A dragon? A roar reverberated from the northwest. A tornado whirled from the direction of the cry, swallowing the sea of darkness behind Mariela and carrying it far away into the sky. A thunderous breeze blew. The gale caused by the whirlwind whistled past Mariela and the others. It was powerful and rapidly grew stronger. It even made breathing difficult, as though one had been submerged. Invited by the presence of water, the humidity gathered like a dense fog, and a light shone in through the darkness above. “It’s morning, the water’s comin’!” Donnino shouted and immediately threw the fire bottle at his waist with all he had before hoisting Grandel onto his shoulder and breaking into a sprint toward the entrance. “Let’s hurry back!” “Rar!” The one who responded to Donnino’s shout wasn’t Yuric, who was completely mesmerized as she stared at the tornado, but the raptor Koo, who carried her and Mariela. He took care not to let them fall as he scattered trampled black monsters and dashed toward the entrance. “Eek ook, eek, eek ook, ook, ook!” Ape-gan…no, Edgan, who had been holding back the dark raiders, drove his Dual Sword Elements into them as though to finish them off. Then, for some reason, he ran up the wall and returned to the northeast tower, the opposite direction from Mariela and the others. Night shifting into morning and the world filling with water took a very short amount of time. The whole group rushed toward the outer wall entrance to escape from the rising sea. Grandel, who had exhausted his stamina, lifted his head and looked in the lamia’s direction, despite being carried by Donnino. As though she noticed his gaze, the lamia stopped attacking the black raiders for just an instant and turned to watch Grandel depart. Grandel saw the lamia gazing at him from beyond the white fog that was growing ever denser. And, in the instant the lamia’s caution lessened, the ebon cavalry, which had decided the defenseless Grandel and the rest were their prey, began to charge. “This won’t do! They’re coming!” “Gh, we don’t have time to fight! We gotta run at full speed!!!” Despite losing many of their ranks to fire bottles and Edgan’s attacks, the dark raiders charged the group with bizarre speed. How could anyone possibly stop things that felt neither pain nor fear? “Wall, Wall! It’s no good!” Grandel’s Earth Wall had been able to keep the shadowy warriors in check precisely because he’d combined it with Shield. And his Shield skill was worthless when its target was far away from him. The likes of a fragile heap of stone and dirt could only serve as a blinder, and the dark raiders were rapidly closing the distance as they approached. “I’m no good at swimmin’.” “I am the same.” “Mr. Donnino?! Mr. Grandel?!” In order to keep the ebon cavalry in check and let Mariela and Yuric escape, Donnino stopped and assumed a stance with his hammer. Grandel, whom he’d been carrying, landed on the ground and used his remaining magical power to erect an Earth Wall and reinforce it with his Shield skill to stop the raiders’ charge. The black raiders’ attack should have instantly reached them. “What…?” “Hey, Grandel, that’s…” At the unexpected halt of the pursuit, Grandel peeked past the Earth Wall. “Oh…ohhh, the lamia…” The lamia, which he had spent the last few days with and had been fighting with until just a short time ago, twined around and constricted the shadowy soldiers to stop their charge. However, the dark raiders refused to relent, even with a lamia crushing them. They penetrated the lamia’s body, and black spears pierced through from the inner side. “Sha, shhaaa!” Although blood spilled from her and she became more and more like a pincushion, the lamia’s grip didn’t weaken. “What are you doing, lamia? Stop this at once.” Even if the massive monster didn’t understand Grandel’s words, perhaps she understood his feelings. The lamia lifted her head to look at Grandel, then bent her upper body back and forth and tightly hugged herself with her six arms, as though to restrain her own body. “Ssshhhhaaaaaaaaa!!!” she screamed to the heavens. Grandel thought that voice sounded more like the agonizing death of a maiden than an intimidating snake. “Lamia!” Advanced snake monsters sometimes had the power of petrification. Some species cursed humans to turn them to stone and then decorated or ate them. But had there ever been a serpent that turned itself to stone to help humans? “Let’s move, Grandel. The water’s comin’. There’s no time.” Donnino hoisted the dumbfounded Grandel once again and rushed for the exterior wall entrance. The courtyard filled with water, and the black creatures began to vanish like they were melting. Soon, monsters would be born anew in the gentle light. It was morning, a sight Grandel had seen many times with the lamia. The dawning sun hadn’t yet reached the courtyard surrounded by the outer wall, but the light brightening the sky reflected off the dense fog, and for a moment, this confined world sparkled white, as though the night’s corruption had been purified. The fog changed into water, which quietly began to fill the world and engulf everything. Within that silent ocean, the lamia, now stone and still wrapped around the ebon cavalry, stood in silence. 06 “No time to wallow in sentimentality. We gotta retreat before the Necklace wakes up!” At Donnino’s command, Mariela and the rest left the entrance and rushed into the hallway. Grandel and Yuric remained quiet. Their thoughts were elsewhere for a little while. The group somehow made it back to the first level of the southeast tower and took a deep breath in the brief moment of safety. “Thank goodness. We saved Mr. Grandel…” Mariela was happy at the man’s safe return, but Grandel looked unwell. While the potion he’d imbibed earlier had helped, his weakened body wasn’t back to normal, and he seemed unable to completely absorb the fact that the lamia, a monster, had sacrificed herself to save him. They’d confirmed Edgan was uninjured, but he seemed to have lost almost all his memories. Even so, Edgan was still Edgan, and he somehow looked like he was having fun, so his situation didn’t seem serious. But the fact that he’d forgotten human language and turned into a monkey wasn’t a predicament that could be overlooked. What’s more… “That tornado… That was Franz,” Yuric muttered as she stared northwest. The roar that seemed to summon the tornado wasn’t that of a person. What in the world had happened to Franz? Even Edgan, an A-Ranker with high attack power, had lost himself and become apelike. Franz may have forgotten even more than Edgan, so what remained of him? “We can’t leave those two the way they are.” They had to get the pair’s memories back, even if it was just a few. “Right. Shall we split into two groups here? The young lady and Yuric, and Grandel and I. We’ll go help those guys,” Donnino proposed. But Mariela knew. She’d realized by now the conditions for regaining memories lost here. The pair couldn’t regain recollections at the same time. Edgan, or Franz? While they were helping one, what would befall the other? “I’m headin’ out to help Franz by myself… Sorry, Mariela.” Yuric’s words were neither a proposal nor a request, but a decision. She’d probably long since prepared herself. Even though they were in the middle of a job, Yuric decided to help Franz. “We’ll go together, Yuric. Maybe I’ll get in the way, but surely I can also help.” Mariela grasped the other girl’s hand. “Thanks, Mariela. But this is our problem. I can’t put ya in danger for my own convenience in the middle of a job.” As a Black Iron Freight Corps member, Yuric turned Mariela down, saying she couldn’t drag a client into peril. “What’re you talking about?! I can’t just ignore this. We’re friends, aren’t we?!” If it was a question of danger, Mariela had already been exposed to plenty of that. More often than not, it was Mariela who led others into risky situations. In response, Yuric looked at her blankly. “……Friends?” “……Huh? Am I wrong?” Could it have been just Mariela who thought they were that close? As the tense atmosphere softened into a more complex feeling, Mariela’s thoughts revolved at high speed. Mariela knew hardly anything about Yuric and Franz. She’d spent a short time with them since she’d first met the Black Iron Freight Corps in the Labyrinth City, and she’d gotten a peek at their memories in this world. That was all. In particular, Franz’s memories had been of his daily life with Yuric in the imperial capital, and Mariela couldn’t even guess how that whirlwind from before was connected to him. All Mariela could imagine was what Yuric thought of Franz in that state. But Mariela felt that knowing someone well might not be necessary. The time she’d spent with Yuric wandering around in this world of water hadn’t been so bad. If it weren’t for the danger, she probably would have even thought it was fun. Even if she didn’t know her companion well, and they didn’t have anything in common, being together was kind of enjoyable. While living in the Labyrinth City, Mariela had come to know the concept of getting along with such companions. “If you have one meal with someone, you’re already friends.” Mariela’s master had once said something like that, but was that actually a rule she’d come up with herself? Mariela somehow grew a bit embarrassed in the ensuing silence and stole a glance at Yuric. Yuric, too, seemed bashful as she answered in a low voice, “You’re not wrong.” “I’m so glad…” Since there had been a strange pause, Mariela thought she’d made a slightly embarrassing mistake. “…I’m not.” Yuric pouted very slightly, and when Mariela looked where she was glancing, she saw Donnino and Grandel, the two middle-aged men, watching the friendship drama between the two girls with uncomfortably warm smiles. It was just a bit before sundown when Mariela and Yuric, who had relied on those two middle-aged men and Ape-gan—no, Edgan—reached the third-floor entry to the southwest tower through the third-level hallway. Mariela had wanted to sleep a little on the way and learn something about the ebon cavalry through a memory, but healing Grandel with potions and replenishing fire bottles took longer than she’d expected. “Mariela, we’re goin’ to run at full speed. Hold on tight.” “Okay, got it!” When night came, Mariela and Yuric traveled on Koo up to the southwest tower’s fourth floor and headed for the northwest tower via the outer wall. Up to this point, the northwest tower’s vicinity had been brimming with those inky memory stealers. However, there were surprisingly few now, and Mariela and Yuric were able to approach the tower without effort. Mariela had an uncomfortable hunch. Although they progressed smoothly, uneasiness gnawed at her heart. How many times had they seen this landscape? The light of the torches filtering from the tower dimly defined the outline of the outer wall in the night. What crawled along that dim, outer barricade as though they were about to swallow even the light itself were monsters blacker than night. The things seemed to be closing in like a tide that filled the other side of the outer wall. Every now and then, a plume of flame erupted on the largely collapsed east side of the outer wall. Maybe Edgan, or Donnino and Grandel, who had hastened there, were using fire bottles. As though in concord with that, what lay just a little before the northwest tower Mariela and Yuric were heading for was… “Franz!!!” Yuric exclaimed. Did the silhouette that emerged from the darkness truly look like Franz to her? The fists flying out from the figure in a doubled-over posture moved so fast, Mariela couldn’t perceive them. The barehanded attacks tore the black monsters to pieces. The leaps that propelled the person were far quicker than those of any adventurer Mariela knew. Since he was so far away, it was all Mariela could do not to lose sight of him. The man’s agile, rugged, powerful movements seemed more appropriate for a beast. To Mariela, they appeared beyond what any human should have been capable of. Perhaps Franz had heard Yuric’s voice, as his head turned in their direction. She couldn’t confirm the face from far away, but she had a feeling she was gazing at something unfamiliar. From behind him, inky creatures rushed at Franz like a tsunami to crush him. “Franz, watch out!!!” Yuric screamed as loud as she could. There came a whirlwind that swept away the monsters and an inhuman roar that drowned out Yuric’s voice. “Rooooooar, graaaaaah!” “Franz! Franz!” “Yuric! It’s too dangerous!” Mariela desperately stopped Yuric, who looked like she was about to leap down from the raptor and break into a run. “Let go, Mariela! Franz is…!!!” Mariela clung to Yuric to try and stop her. The raptor’s rider was no longer leading him, and as soon as he slowed down in apparent bewilderment, a great number of tornadoes centered on Franz swept both the raptor and the girls into the air. “Aaah!” Below, Mariela could spy what lay beyond the outer wall. A dark path split the forest, stretching out like an endless plain, and it led to the temple. There was an obsidian torrent of catastrophe surging toward the temple through gaps in the broken outer wall. It lumbered toward the helpless Mariela and Yuric like a living creature, and at the moment when it seemed the sinister turbid waters would engulf them, Mariela realized she was frightened. It wasn’t the terror of preparing to die when facing monsters, but rather a fear of clammy entwinement, of her life being gnawed at from the inside, of being forced into an existence worse than death. Mariela felt the jet-blackness streaming in her direction like a wild river was a human heart distorted with anger, pain, sorrow, anguish, tyranny, hate, lunacy, and desire. The twisted ebon current undulated. The mass of black monsters gradually rose to swallow Mariela and Yuric all at once. Hungry to savor another’s misfortune, black arms stretched toward the two to taste and deplete their joy and sorrow and all the memories they held in their hearts, the memories that made them who they were. “I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared. Help me, help me… Sieg!!!” In that instant, the sky and the earth shook as though the world were transforming. Dazzling light abruptly spelled the end of the night that seemed to have just begun. Pure water flooded the world, and the rapids washed away the black monsters. Mariela and Yuric felt like something was holding onto them as everything else shook violently. Amid the dizzying metamorphosis was Yuric mumbling “Franz…” and a seventh tower appearing in the broken northern outer wall as if to plug it up. …You’re late. Although Mariela felt a touch of bitterness, she was relieved. She yielded her consciousness to someone’s memory streaming into her. 07 The village elder had said this place was once a verdant land. A man, the last one born in this dry land, didn’t know how far back in the distant past that was. An endless horizon interweaving blue sky and scorched earth. That seemed to be the state of the world the man knew. When was the last time it had rained? The man sowed seeds in the parched earth again today. He made scratches in the dirt and dripped his own blood there. “Surfeit Heal.” Through healing magic that caused cells to excessively propagate, the blood spilled on the ground multiplied, decomposed, and changed into soil that brought a little blessing to the plants. The sown seeds grew literally from the man’s blood and bore the tiniest bit of fruit. “This place, too, will soon be swallowed by the desert…” All land in the surrounding area was slowly becoming a red desert. Before long, the ground here would turn to sand. The fruits on the crops were thin, and no matter how much one planted, the plants wouldn’t so much as sprout unless you put magical power into them. It was now only a matter of time before the tribe of men returned to the parched earth. “How long will we cling to this land? This place has been abandoned, and we have been forsaken.” The elders only shook their heads feebly at the man’s words. “If that’s the case, we have committed some kind of wrongdoing, and this is our punishment. Our flesh sprouted in this land, and our lives sprang forth from the earth. Our lot is to die in obscurity here. Everything is as the water spirit who governs this ley line wills it.” The tribe of men descended from water dragons had their blood to thank for their long lives and their tenacity. They enriched the barren land that ordinary creatures couldn’t live on and survived off meager nourishment using blood and magical power. The red desert was their gravestone. They slowly starved, died, dried up, and returned to the sands. This was the final land of the tribe bound by the chains of their faith. It was said that the man’s clan used to worship the water spirit governing this ley line and received its divine protection in return. The youngest man in the tribe hadn’t been told about when the water spirit disappeared. No one in the clan knew why or where the spirit who had governed the land and the people disappeared. The tribe clung to this barren earth, believing the spirit would return someday, and now they merely awaited their end. The frail women had already died out, and the man who was last to be born had no one to live with besides the decaying old men. “The red desert is proof of our tribe’s blood. Our desire is to return to the earth here. But, young man, you should depart from this place. The water spirit will surely forgive you, the one born last.” After bidding farewell to the final elder who returned to the earth, the man left the red desert behind. He walked and walked, yet the unchanging view continued. The cloudless bright blue sky was probably far more azure and clear than the sea he’d heard about in tales. The man recalled the fairy tale about how the unobstructed blue sky was a cruel sun god’s garments. The deity had grown angry and burned the land to nothing because it stained the hem of his beautiful blue attire. In this world, the moon goddess, who ruled over death, was far gentler than the sun. With enough of a chill to freeze you, she granted you eternal sleep, release from the hardship known as life. Just when the man began to believe that the divine protection of the water spirit was truly gone forever, and that this parched land and cruel sky were all there was, he saw a change in the distant horizon. Mountains. In the far-off mountain range, sand, not water, flowed like a river from between the peaks and into the desert. However, the man’s energy returned at the sight of the clouds drifting in the sky above them. There were clouds. In other words, rain fell in those mountains. The man no longer recalled how long he’d been traveling. Regardless, he moved forward, crossing arid, rocky mountains and pushing through a dry lake of salt as it rustled at his feet. The pool of salt was white and bone-dry. No vegetation grew around it, but water soon gushed forth when he dug into it. The water was briny at that point and couldn’t be drunk, but it evaporated in the heat of the day and changed into cool, fresh water at night. It was indeed a miracle that the man who followed the shadows the clouds cast and ate sparsely growing herbs and beasts running among the rocks as he roamed found his way to a river. He followed the winding thing, clouded with fine sand, upstream, and he grasped the truth of his birthplace when he finally reached its source. The one who dwelled in the headwaters was the water spirit his tribe had longed after. The moment they met, the man knew the spirit was the focus of the faith engraved in his own blood. “O water spirit, pure, loving master and origin of life, why did you abandon us? Please, heal our land with your mighty power once more.” After finally finding the life giver, it was all he could do to ask it to restore the land. —Descendant of water, our youngest child. You have done well to reach this place after all your suffering. However, I am not the water spirit you and your people know.— This creature told the man that it had no connection to him and that the one who had protected his birthplace disappeared a very long time ago. —We are born, and we disappear. Our transitions are not fixed. I was born in this source and am merely one spirit who exists for a brief time. A change occurred in the ley line in your land once, did it not? When one considers the timeline of the world, it is not an unusual occurrence. When the flow of a ley line changes, spirits lose their power. Even water will fade away.— “Then where did our water spirit go? How will it restore our land?” —The spirit of that land no longer exists in the world. Even people are born and eventually die, do they not? This is no different. Human child descended from water, the water in this place, too, will soon fade. Go, seek water. Even if there is no spirit, the kindness of water will never run dry.— There was a drought in the land that had led to the slow death of the man’s tribe. And not due to any wrongdoing they had committed. It wasn’t a punishment or anything of the sort. The ley-line change was simply a natural disaster, no different from an earthquake or a storm, that caused the land to wither. “If so, why were my people such prisoners in that land? We were abandoned and forgotten, yet what is this feeling that consumes my heart…?” The man’s journey wasn’t over. This was a distant memory engraved in blood… 08 “It seems the blood of dragons flows within me,” Franz told Mariela and Yuric after he awoke. The memory of a man who sought the water spirit. Franz explained it was his ancestor’s memory, engraved into his blood. Franz’s face was hidden by the hood worn low over his eyes and couldn’t be clearly seen, but the little bit that was visible was covered in blue scales down to the bottom of his neck. The tips of his boots had torn, and sharp talons extended from them. Sharp claws on fingers covered in scales had cut through his armored gloves. Most likely, Franz had lost too many of his own recollections, and his dragon blood had run rampant. “Strangely, my memories of my time with Yuric in the imperial capital remained. So I think I never completely lost my self.” Franz’s recollections that remained were the ones he recovered when Yuric and Mariela saw him a few days ago. Apparently, once you regained a memory, you wouldn’t lose it again. If they hadn’t visited the northwest tower back then, Franz might have wholly transformed into a dragon. Perhaps due to the effects of his metamorphosis, Franz was able to spend a long time underwater, and apparently, he had brought Mariela and the others, who were caught up in the tornado, to the northwest tower. The salamander, who had been clinging to Mariela’s shoulder, may have crawled into her cloak, since it looked unharmed as it clambered up the raptor Koo. “Franz, are ya all right?” The worried Yuric nestled up to Franz without showing the slightest fear of his scaly face or sharp claws. Mariela felt this wasn’t her usual boyish appearance, but that of a mature girl. “Sorry I made you worry, Yuric. I’m a little confused, maybe due to remembering past events all at once, but I’m all right now.” Mariela and Yuric had brought Franz’s memory stones, and Franz himself seemed to have collected some, too. He probably hadn’t regained all he had lost, but he seemed to be far more like himself than he had been before.