“Is someone there?” a man’s voice asked, directing the light at us.
Raising a hand to cover my face so I wouldn’t be blinded, I shouted, “Help us! I have one of your nation’s people here!”
“Who is it? State your name!” came the question from above.
Mizuho shouted back, “It’s me! Mizuho the Frequent Late-Nighter!”
“It’s the storyteller! She’s alive!”
“She’s safe?!”
A few different voices exchanged words, and several sets of little, pattering footsteps came closer to us.
“Mizuhooo!”
“Mizuho, you’re alive! Thank goodness!”
“Heeey, Mizuuu!”
What looked like small children were leaning out from the edge of the cliff. Mizuho waved her hand in response.
“I’m alive! I’m so sorry for worrying you!”
The man holding the light shouted, “Can you come up from where you are?”
“No, the foothold collapsed,” I answered. “We’re stuck.”
Confused noises drifted down. I continued, asking, “Do you have any rope up there?”
“Yeah!”
“Tie it to something and throw it to us. Does anyone there know how to handle tethers?”
Knowing the best knot to use was a professional skill. I understood enough, but ropes were actually pretty difficult to handle unless you were a sailor or mountain climber. I didn’t want to stake my life on an amateur’s ability, hence my inquiry.
After a stir, a guttural voice replied, “I do. Give it here—let me do it.”
“Oh? All right, then.”
A few moments later, a heavy cord, bundled into a circle, descended. It unraveled in the air during its approach.
“I’ve got it! I’m tying a lifeline to Mizuho now. When I give the signal, pull her up!”
I had Mizuho raise both arms, then tied a bowline around her stomach. A safe method—once fastened, it wouldn’t loosen or tighten.
“You’re doing great. Just a little more,” I encouraged with a smile, looking into Mizuho’s eyes. Thankfully, I must have seemed a little less stern than earlier, because she grinned back.
“All good!” I shouted.
With a few voices yelling “Heave!” in unison, Mizuho was quickly hoisted up.
Now we’d do the same thing. I had them throw another rope down and pull me up this time. As I neared the top, several people reached out for me and tugged me the final leg of the way.
As I caught my breath at the feet of the tilted statue of their nation’s king, Mizuho’s countrymen—Romans of a sort—looked down at me. My gaze met that of a short man with a leather hood. One end of the rope was tied to the thick wooden pillar standing beyond a gathered crowd. He must have been the one who had fastened it.
“That was nicely handled,” I complimented.
The man lifted his hood, looked down at me with goggling eyes, and snickered. “Of course it was. I’m an executioner. Hanging people is my specialty.”
I stood up and glanced around; several looks came back from those around me—people sizing me up, gauging my worth. We stood in the semicircle remains of a town’s common area. The ceiling was around four meters high, and the plaza extended ten meters from the cliff. Wooden doors and windows dotted the stone walls; they seemed connected to passages leading to homes and other establishments.
Enclosed as we were by the ceiling and walls, I would have been inclined to call the place a hall, but Mizuho and the others seemed to prefer plaza.
The space looked like it had once been circular, but given that it had been bisected, only half of that area remained. If that stone statue leaning against the cliffside was the concourse’s midpoint, like Mizuho said, that would mean the remaining portion had collapsed and crumbled into the void.
It was certainly not a very large plaza, and people were packed into it. Hanging lanterns cast a pale-blue light, draping folk in shadows. They must have evacuated to the square in fear of further quakes. There were men and women, young and old. However, there was a startling amount of variation in their features and body types. Far more than you’d expect from even a place that saw many immigrants of varying ethnicities. No two people even had similar characteristics. Several had beast-like ears and fur and moved about quickly and lightly, and there was even a scaly person with a tail.
“So who might you be?” asked a man with a good physique; he looked to be about forty. He wore a patched-up apron around his waist, and he held a lantern in his hand, which was gnarled and bulky. His was the same voice that had first called out to us.
“Only polite to give your name first,” I answered.
“I’m Potesara of the Free Appetizers. I was the proprietor of the Dancing Goblin, an inn facing the square—until a little while ago, at least. It’s gone, along with half the square and the nation’s front gate.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. I’m… You can call me Taiga. And before you ask, no, I don’t have a title.”
“Well, that’s unusual.”
“I actually just arrived here from a distant land, so I’m not very familiar with this area.”
“Oh—a traveler, then?”
“Essentially, yeah. I got caught in one of the dungeonstorms earlier, then ran into Mizuho while I was trying to figure out what to do. She guided me here.”
I still couldn’t tell how much of my identity it was safe to reveal, so I muddled my words and glanced over at Mizuho.
She had flopped down, tired, in the middle of the kids, but she still looked up and asked, “The dungeonstorm—how bad was it? What of His Majesty? Where are the Landmakers?”
A silence fell over everyone. Mizuho’s expression changed.
“…No…”
“Unfortunately, yes, Mizuho,” Potesara told her bitterly. “The Court was wiped out. The dungeonstorm struck the palace and temple directly. The chevaliers went to rescue them but got caught in a storm themselves; the government offices and halls were rammed into the remains of a kraken that had floated in, and everything was completely smashed. Neither His Majesty Flagstand nor any of the people in the Court survived. Support Roman Empire Post Five has been destroyed.”
“No, that’s…”
Others in the remains of the plaza began to voice their feelings.
“By the Calamity King’s watery feet! If the Landmakers are gone, we’re done for! What are we supposed to do now?”
“I knew we should have gotten insurance from Cogwheel. Chasing off that salesman last month was a bad idea.”
“I was a drifter before coming to this nation anyway. Just gotta hit the road again.”
“That may be fine for you, but what about the children?! Not all of us can make the journey through the dungeon to the next country!”
“That’s just how it goes, eh? In this world, the weak are the first to die.”
“What did you just say?”
“Eh? You picking a fight?”
“Stop, stop! Not now!”
“Pull them apart!”
“Waaahhh… Mooommyyy…”
I glanced at Mizuho and the children around her. If the people’s quarrels escalated into an all-out melee, I intended to make sure they didn’t get caught up in it.
However, for better or worse, that chance never came. Because once again, a terrible quake struck, slamming everyone to the ground.