“Hey—”
My call echoed unexpectedly down the passage. I watched and waited for a few seconds but saw no signs of anyone reacting to it.
I approached the woman. She was slumped against a large piece of debris, but a cursory examination revealed she wasn’t grievously wounded.
Squatting down next to her, I brought my ear close to her mouth and nose.
She was breathing.
“Can you hear me? Can you answer me?”
“Uff…”
After addressing her again, her eyelids began to twitch, and she let out a soft groan, but nothing more. It seemed she was temporarily unconscious.
I carefully parted her hair and checked for any external head wounds. The locks were blue right down to the roots. So then this had to be her natural color. It was baffling, but I set it aside for now.
As I prodded at the skin of her head, I felt a slight elasticity. She seemed to have a little bump. No blood or fluids were leaking from her ears or nose. I used my fingers to lift an eyelid and shine my light into her eye, which contracted. This was normal pupil reaction. Her left eye didn’t show a significant difference in size from her right, either, meaning there was no evident brain damage. If the swelling on her head was the cause of her unconsciousness, then it couldn’t have been more than a slight concussion.
She was still soaking in cold water from her waist down, so I decided to bring her up on top of the debris after checking the footing. Otherwise, she would have quickly gotten hypothermia.
As gingerly as I could while remaining wary of possible fractures or dislocations, I picked her up under my arm and pulled her out of the water. Her face was white, and her lips were purple. Admittedly, I was soaked and feeling cold myself. We needed to get somewhere warm, and quick, or we’d be in danger.
I was one thing, but she was in more trouble. Wearing soaking-wet clothes while unconscious would continue to sap her of body heat. I wondered if I should remove her garments for now—any awkward predicaments when she awoke were something I hoped she understood the reason for—but no, even if I did, I had nothing to warm her with. Nothing to start a fire, and no dry clothing. Besides—
I glanced again at the outfit she was wearing. All it took was a glance to recognize how strange it was. From the roughness of the fabric to the detailed embroidery, it didn’t quite seem like something from the twenty-first century. What to call it? It wasn’t like a toga from ancient Greece, nor was it a monk’s robe. Colorful, decorative pieces of cloth adorned her shoulders and skirt, suggesting some sort of religious motif. However, her limbs were wrapped with material to protect her joints, and she wore well-used gloves and boots over them.
I knew there were people in the world who spent a large part of their lives participating in historical reenactments and video-game cosplays, but this was the real deal. There were minor stains and smudges, her sleeve hems were a bit frayed, and patchings and mendings stood out in a few places. It all looked, for lack of a better term, lifelike. Persuasive enough to make me think she wore this regularly.
The young woman’s features were odd, too. Her skin was paler than any I’d seen, and she had large eyes. Her build was on the short and slender side as well. On the whole, the blue-haired girl looked childish. I’d seen many different ethnicities, people, and cultures, but she matched none of them.
Who was this person? Where was she from? Some had found my mixed Japanese and British features strange before, too, so I was in no position to judge.
As I wondered what to do, the woman groaned and stirred. She had regained consciousness at last.
“Are you all right? Don’t move too quickly. Open your eyes slowly—”
Finally, my words seemed to reach her brain. Her eyelids snapped open, and her eyes focused. After seeing me, she sat up, seeming panicked.
“Awka! Hek twey pa? Neupa pooluf?”
“Umm.” Those were not words I understood at all. “Uhh, konnichi wa? Hallo? Nihao? Marhaba? Shalom?”
As I was listing off all the greetings I knew, an expression of surprise slowly crept over her face.
“Oh tangara! Hek yarha rahassa!”
“What language is that? Errr…”
“Rak Shanto? Rak Hyperboa? Rak Oars?”
“I’m sorry, I have no idea—”
“Rak Earth?”
I blinked. That last word sounded to my ears very much like natural Japanese.
The woman, perhaps gauging my reaction, emphatically continued. “Earth? You, yes, came, Earth, yes? Niet?”
Was I being asked if I came from Earth? She was making it sound like this was some other planet.
Questions swirled in my mind, but this blue-haired girl was waiting wide-eyed for my reply. Reluctantly, I opened my mouth to speak.
“Yes…but—”
“Oh tangara!” she cried out, standing up. Just as I wondered if it was okay for her to do that so quickly, she unsurprisingly staggered.
“Whoa there.”
I reached out to support her, but she seemed too excited to care.
“You, yes, came, Earth, person! You, Visitor!”
The last word had a clear emphasis, and the blue-haired young woman pointed at me as she spoke it.
“Visitor?” I repeated.
My inquiry prompted her to nod forcefully. “You, stay.”
Saying it as though giving a dog a command, she reached for her hip. Hanging from the clasps on her belt were several pouches and bags. She unhooked one of them, then unraveled the string tied tightly around the opening. Her hands seemed very used to the motion. Out came a feather about the length of a finger. It was bright and vivid, a gradient of red, gold, and green, reminding me of a tropical bird.
She brought the feather up to my nose. I tried to pull away from the ticklish feeling, but she made an intimidating “shh” sound to stop me.
“You, niet, go. Yes?”
She seemed to be telling me not to move. I didn’t know what kind of magic trick I was in for, but not seeing many alternatives, I acquiesced. The blue-haired girl nodded, her face serious, then continued tickling my nose with the feather.
What was going on?
The plume had a smell like coriander. Unable to process the situation, I wondered when I should stop her, the itchiness climbing up my nostrils. Sparks flashed behind my eyes. I immediately considered, in all seriousness, if this was some kind of mean-spirited drug—when from an unexplored region far behind my nose that I hadn’t even realized was there before now, a violent urge to sneeze crashed over me.
“Hah… Hah…hah… Achoo!”
The extra-large blast of air exploded out of me—and in that same instant, a huge bird squirmed through my nose and mouth and burst outside.
“What the—?”
I stared wide-eyed at the creature, which didn’t even turn back. It flapped its wings, then grabbed the feather the woman was holding in its mouth and disappeared into the darkness.
“What was that?! What did you just do?!”
“Oh, good. It must have worked.”
The girl’s voice sounded relieved, which made me even more confounded.
“What did?! Did a bird just come out of my—?”
“It’s okay. Just calm down. It was a Babel bird. That’s what they do.”
I couldn’t remember being this panicked for at least a decade. The shock was so great that it took me a few moments to realize we were able to converse now.
Finally catching on, I stopped my wailing. “…Did I just understand you?”
“Yes, Mr. Visitor.”
“Why now?”
“Because I used the down of a Babel bird. It was precious, something I inherited from my great-great-great-great grandmother. I’m so glad it worked.”
“A Babel bird…?”
“There’s a legend saying that this method works with Visitors who come from Earth. Apparently, you’re supposed to understand the words from the beginning, but a bird nests in your head that prevents you from comprehending.”
“My head? A bird? Nesting?”
“Yes, in between your ears, far behind your nose,” she stated plainly, washing her hands in the running water. I must have sneezed on her hands.
I rubbed my face with both hands in disbelief. I could still feel the bird’s body scraping against my nose hairs. I couldn’t even imagine how that thing had come out of me.
After she washed her hands, she stood up.
“I am Mizuho the Frequent Late-Nighter. What is your name, Visitor?”
“I’m, er…Taiga. Taiga Andou-Garrett.”
“And what is your title, Taiga?”
“My title?” Did she mean that epithet after her name? “No title. Just Taiga. Where am I anyway?” I asked, dazed.
Mizuho answered, “This is not the Earth you were in before, Taiga.”
“It isn’t…?”
“This is a world entirely engulfed in a labyrinth—filled with terrible monsters, ancient magic, and perilous traps. We call this place Million Dungeon.”
Million Dungeon—as those words sunk deep into my head, emptied as it was after chasing the Babel bird out, my feet started to shake a little.
Another earthquake.