Consciousness returned as the water was painfully expelled from my body.
“Taiga! Ahh, thank goodness!”
“Taiga, can you hear? Can you see me?”
Unable to respond to the disparate voices calling to me, I coughed up more liquid to the point where I thought my lungs were liable to come out.
When I finally lifted my face, I realized I was lying by the river, surrounded by everyone. I blinked.
“…What happened?”
“Astoria saved you from the river.”
Troach pointed. I looked that way and saw Astoria, her armor soaking wet, leaning against Snorts and pointing the black mirror at me.
“If you want someone to thank, it’s Snorts, not me. My mount was the one that jumped into the river, caught you in its mouth, and swam back to shore. Got that? Snorts.”
“…Thank you, Snorts,” I managed.
The wound-covered horse-lizard exhaled, not seeming very pleased.
“You weren’t breathing, so we were all panicking.”
“Yeah. We did our best to get you to spit up the water…”
Mizuho and Troach sat on the ground, looking drained.
“Thank you. Sorry for the scare.”
“You’re telling me…”
“I finally managed to lead everyone here, and you were on the verge of dying. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“Well, wasn’t that an incredible adventure? We defeated Balgor and saved everyone. Excellent, just excellent!” Astoria declared, the only one acting carefree.
“Get some good footage?” I asked the question sarcastically, but Astoria nodded, taking it seriously.
“Yeah. It was the best stream I’ve ever done.”
“Glad to hear it. Sorry I couldn’t record at the end. You were the highlight there, after all.”
“You mean pushing the flame demon into the river? No need to worry. I got it all right here.”
“How?” I inquired.
Astoria pointed to Snorts’s saddle.
“There’s a holder on the front of the saddle. If I put the mirror there, I can capture footage by myself. Everyone loves a first-person stream.”
I sighed and looked up.
There may not have been any actual sky to be seen, but there was no ceiling here. And this day was, somehow, a little brighter. In addition to the glittering starlight on the walls, a faint light was shining on us from higher up in the Great Fracture.
All cried out, “Hurrah! Three cheers for the Great Camp Bravo Kingdom!”
As I listened to their voices echo through the massive fissure, a peculiar thought came to mind.
…I want to drink some tea. Some nice, warm, real tea.
Still, no matter how hard I wished for it, tea leaves wouldn’t appear from nowhere as if by magic, and I remained forsaken and soaking wet. Resting on my laurels wouldn’t do. There were people who needed me. In that sense, maybe the situation was even worse now than it had been when I’d first arrived in Million Dungeon.
Sighing, I got to my feet. It looked like I’d have to rough it in this world a while longer—until I happened across some tea, at least.