Two hundred years…
Mariela knew no way to find out what had happened to them.
Even if they’d survived the Stampede, this knowledge would be lost in the centuries since, and she’d never see them again.
Now there was nobody in this “Labyrinth City” who knew Mariela, nor did she know anyone here herself.
Back in the Citadel City, people treated her quite harshly, and she didn’t have an easy life. Yet, although she could only make potions, she’d begun to feel that maybe, just maybe, she did belong there. That had certainly been the case on that day.
But now that she’d survived the Stampede and awoken from her slumber, neither the cottage her master left her nor the tiny niche she’d carved out for herself remained.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Heeey, Mariela!”
The reality of being asleep for two hundred years and the complete transformation of the Citadel City had sent Mariela into a daze. As Lynx shook her shoulder, she finally returned to the present.
“S-sorry. Guess I’m just tired.”
“You were walking all by your lonesome in the Fell Forest, after all. That’s gotta be tiring. But look, it’s the Labyrinth City. We’re here.”
Before she’d even realized it, the iron carriage had stopped. It looked like Lieutenant Malraux was requesting the gate be opened.
When she got down from the ramp and looked around, she saw the same outer wall she remembered so well.
There was no doubt that the place known as the Labyrinth City used to be the Kingdom of Endalsia.
This familiar white exterior had once surrounded the kingdom’s capital.
It must have been breached by the Stampede.
The wall had retained its white facade, but it showed signs of previous devastation and subsequent repairs. Wrapped around its surface was the ivy daigis, which concealed the presence of humans from monsters by absorbing the magical energy escaping into the atmosphere.
A large portion of the forest near the outer wall had been cleared away, and the monster-repelling plant bromominthra now grew there in its place.
Both plants had also grown in Mariela’s hut in the Fell Forest; they were necessary for people to live near monsters. But the daigis that twisted and turned resembled blood vessels eating away at the white wall, while the purplish-red bromominthra covering the ground was somewhat unsettling, and neither one flattered the Kingdom of Endalsia’s beautiful alabaster facade.
In the past two hundred years, the glory of Endalsia had become a mere fairy tale.
The large front gate of Endalsia’s outer wall, which used to remain open except during emergencies, was now firmly shut, and it looked as if a guard was stationed at the back door where only one person at a time could go through. Captain Dick seemed to be acquainted with the guard, and a short while after they exchanged salutations, the gate opened with a colossal noise. The iron carriage Mariela rode on passed through it and into the Labyrinth City.
✦ ✦ ✦
The interior had completely changed, too.
Unlike in the Citadel City, a town of refugees, all the buildings in the capital of Endalsia were made of sturdy stone. More structures remained there than in the Citadel City, which had transformed from a vacant plot of land into a forest.
Even so, over half the elegant dwellings had collapsed, and the remaining structures appeared to have been patched up with purely functional wood and dark stones. Compared with Endalsia’s ornate architecture, the bland stone and wood of the repaired sections simply looked distorted. It was upsetting, as if someone had smeared mud across a priceless work of art.
✦ ✦ ✦
The main street was once uniformly paved with stones and flanked by rows of flowers bursting into bloom. Now, it had been stripped of most of the stones, perhaps used for repairs in other places, and the earth underneath was exposed. Fine cracks had developed in the few stones that remained. The occasional tents hawking goods on the street occupied the sections where flowers used to be—they looked as if they were clinging to the buildings.
The people coming and going were all guards or experienced adventurers. Laborers squatted on the ground, perhaps because they had failed to find work in the narrow alleyways or because they were injured.
Witnessing the fall of the beautiful city that had once been at the height of glory would probably bring tears to the average onlooker’s eyes, but Mariela didn’t feel as shaken as when she’d seen the Citadel City. This place was meant for the citizens of Endalsia, so Mariela and the refugees who lived in the Citadel City didn’t belong here.
The front gate had stayed open to show off the city’s splendor, not as a welcome to Mariela and the Citadel City residents. She had been inside the gate only once, when her master brought her there for the alchemist certification ceremony.
To Mariela, the changes inside the gate weren’t her concern, and she regained her composure.
“Say, Mariela. You haven’t decided where you’re gonna stay tonight, yeah? In that case, come to our usual lodging. It’s pretty sketchy around here; there’s all kindsa stuff in the City. We have to unload our cargo first, but it won’t take long, so come with us.”
Come with us. Lynx’s words were what Mariela had wanted to hear since seeing the effects of the Stampede on the Citadel City. The fact that they hadn’t sent her on her way even after reaching town meant they were probably after more potions. Understandable that they’d be worried whether they’d be able to readily do business with her again.
But he seems genuinely concerned about me…
They had paid for the potions, and although she’d spent a short while with them in the middle of the forest with no one else around, they had neither threatened nor restrained her. She didn’t yet know them well enough to trust them, but going with them was probably much safer than being tossed onto the unfamiliar streets.
“Thank you. That would be a big help.”
When she replied with her honest thanks, Lynx grinned widely.
The warmth of his expression soothed Mariela’s raw and wounded heart.