I slept for about five hours before waking up. Right away, I looked toward the campfire. Several people were already up and around it, speaking in hushed tones. I went over to see. Weakening the flame by putting some ash on it before sleeping had proven effective—the campfire was still burning slightly in the embers, without actually producing much of a visible flame. Blowing on it helped strengthen it, and I added some wood.
We had almost no fuel left on hand.
The refugees were steadily waking up, too. After asking someone else to tend to the flames, I left.
I departed the camp and descended to the rubble heaps. It was brighter here than it had been the previous day. I looked up and saw several bright spots in the now-exposed labyrinth cross section. Most of them were in the same places as the light I remembered seeing last night, but they’d grown brighter.
Mizuho called this sublime canyon that had split apart Million Dungeon the Great Fracture. She claimed that no disaster like this had ever happened in all their history, but I was a bit skeptical. Not only were paper and stone tablets their only means of recording information, but everyone was divided by the labyrinth. Even if something had been documented, getting it to some sort of large, shared repository couldn’t be easy. That was why storytellers like Mizuho traveled around, imparting knowledge through word of mouth. Either way, none of this world’s denizens had ever witnessed such a cataclysmic upheaval before. This sort of thing hadn’t occurred even during the Island Whale’s Sleep-Tossing or the Dungeon Tsunami in the distant past.
I heard footfalls behind me. Mizuho had caught up.
“Morning.”
“Good morning…,” she replied with a yawn.
Pointing to the wall of the Great Fracture, I asked, “Any idea what those lights are?”
“Lights… Oh, those? Those are stars.”
“Stars…?” I repeated, tilting my head.
Mizuho snapped her eyes open. “Oh! Now I remember—in your world, stars sit in the ‘sky.’ They don’t come down, right?”
“Right…”
“A lot about this world is pretty different. The Dungeon Calamity didn’t take much time to swallow everything up, so even the stars said to have hung in the ‘night sky’ couldn’t escape. Those are the lights of star fragments, buried within the labyrinth.”
“They’re brighter than yesterday,” I remarked.
“Well, of course… Daytime is brighter than night, after all.”
Judging by Mizuho’s face, I’d made another odd comment.
“Which means when they’re bright, it’s daytime, and when they’re dark, it’s night?”
“That’s correct!”
According to her, stars came in many varieties. These included calendar stars, which waxed and waned at regular intervals, and firefly stars, which could be used as portable sources of illumination. (She mentioned these were the objects within lanterns, which was something I’d been curious about for a while.) Not all the stars were cold, either; some gave off warmth, like whiteheat stars, which were hot enough to boil water, or infrared stars, which people used as body warmers. There was a myriad of types, all employed for different purposes.
“They sure aren’t anything like the stars I know,” I commented as I listened. Mizuho actually opened her lantern and showed me a firefly star. To me, it appeared like a naturally luminescent crystal.
“What are your stars like, Taiga?”
“They’re very far away in the sky, and incredibly big. Each one moves in a path over exceptionally long periods of time.”
“We apparently have ones like that, too. I’ve never seen any, though. I hear they’re massive and take forever to make a complete course through the labyrinth. Apparently, you can tell exactly where they go from the beautiful circular passages they leave behind.”
Among the little visible stars, shadows were moving here and there. It was hard to make out since the glowing things were distant and the light was scant, but I could see what appeared to be groups gathered at a few spots.
“There’s people over there, right? What are they doing?”
“Where?”
“The right part of the wall—third star from the bottom.”
Mizuho peered as hard as she could through her glasses but eventually shook her head in resignation. “I can’t see it at all. You must have good eyes to see that far.”
“Not really…,” I started before it hit me.
Given that she wore glasses, Mizuho must have had poor eyesight, but maybe everyone who lived in Million Dungeon had weaker vision in general. If they lived their whole lives in a dungeon, they wouldn’t need to see very far.
Which meant it was natural to assume that many of these people could probably see better in the dark at limited distances. Making assumptions based on what I knew from Earth would be dangerous.
Mizuho took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes before putting them back on.
“I can’t see them, but they must be people who live nearby gathering to harvest the star. They could also be crossing-fish or burrowing-birds—they like to flock around stars, too.”
“If they’re people, should we try calling out to them for help?”
“I wouldn’t. We could be attacked.”
“Should I assume others are hostile, then?”
“They’re not necessarily all dangerous, but adjacent kingdoms always end up in territorial disputes. And many races view humans as enemies.”
“Like the elves you mentioned yesterday?”
“Not only them. Humans are among the weaker inhabitants of Million Dungeon.”
Under the (relatively) bright morning light, mist coming off the river licked at our feet. The wind blew from the bottom of the Great Fracture, causing the morning fog to shiver and squirm like a living creature before disappearing into the air.
A few people who had left the camp were standing around, beholding the incredible sight. It was just as much an unbelievable sight for them as it was for me. Yet still, their faces shone with the drive to create a new kingdom, despite having lost their old homes and neighbors only the previous day.
Potesara was among them. The ex-innkeeper had taken a seat on the outskirts of our little haven, and tears were dripping down his cheeks. Mizuho quietly told me his wife and son had been carried away with the inn.
The people they’d been separated from hadn’t necessarily died in the dungeonstorm, but in a complex this vast and confusing, who knew what the chances of finding them were?
“Mizuho, what about you…?” I asked.
She shook her head and smiled a little. “I was living alone…but I’ll never see more than half of the people who always came to listen to my stories again, and thinking about it makes me feel lonely. I’ll have to make sure I don’t forget any of their names.”
That was all she said.
So that’s how it is, I thought. This world’s inhabitants were strong. Constantly exposed to a hostile environment, they were well aware of their own weakness. Their safe and peaceful lives of today could be gone the next day. Accepting that and getting on with their lives was the only recourse. The people of Million Dungeon were a lot like locals living in an area of constant warfare.
Feeling as though I understood their mindsets now, I felt respect for them. However, I also knew that it wasn’t my place as an outsider to say as much without forethought.
Thus, I said nothing as the refugees shed their tears in the morning mist.