“All right, time to go, everyone. And good job, Lara.” Max had finished taking care of his shop’s inventory and was finally ready to go on a journey with his old companions.
“Goodness. I never imagined I’d be stuck cleaning up after Grace now.” Lara was complaining about having to get involved in all this unnecessary trouble and all the work that had come with the Grace incident.
Lara had conducted an investigation into Grace’s activities alongside her disciples and a royal shadow organization. They’d concluded that Grace—once hailed as a genius during the great war—had made every preparation possible, yet had only happened to turn into a being of light when she’d been cornered, by pure luck. It seemed that the success of the ritual that used the dungeon to turn oneself into a higher being was a miracle with almost zero reproducibility.
“Goodbye, Town of Labyrinths. You’ve been good to me.” Max bid farewell to the town, a place he had no particular feelings about. For a moment, his gaze alone was serious, likely directed where his brother was, but he quickly returned to his usual carefree attitude. He’d once been a man ready to die to protect his country, but he’d since accomplished that goal, burned out, and his comrades had also destroyed his common sense along the way, so now he could be called an extremely carefree, happy-go-lucky guy.
“It’s been a while, so I’d like to eat some squid at the beach. What do you think, Sazaki?” Max said.
“Oh, nice idea. Squid, octopus, shrimp, and sashimi from the Eastern countries,” Sazaki replied.
“I’d also like to eat some fresh blueback,” Stein said.
“Ha ha, so you want blueback, Stein? That sounds good too.”
There was such a lack of fanfare to Max boarding the carriage with Sazaki and Stein that it was hard to believe he had been traveling alone for almost seventy years after the war. When comparing the decades he’d been wandering around alone to the time he’d spent traveling with his companions, the latter had been far, far more eventful.
“The ocean was really vast. It got me all excited to see it.” Ferd also joined the conversation, looking nostalgic. For someone raised in a rural area, the ocean had been the most shocking place to see.
“Same with me.”
“Yeah. Stein sank straight to the bottom, though.”
“That was natural given my muscle mass.”
Elrica, the church’s treasured creation, Max, who’d grown up in the royal palace, and Stein, who’d been raised in the mountains, all felt the same as Ferd.
“Been forever since I got to go fishing while drinking. It’ll be nice,” Sazaki said.
“When was the last time we went?” Lara wondered.
“I think five years ago?”
It seemed that the two of them had been out and about together for one reason or another.
This is nostalgic, but also a fresh experience. Max felt a mix of emotions as he idly chatted with his comrades on the carriage.
During the great war, everyone besides Sazaki had been on a mission to defeat the Great Demon King, so they’d been unable to completely relax during their carriage rides. Now, however, their current objective was just to go and greet some friends, so there was a world of difference. However, there was one person missing.
“Still, Erhard could have at least told us where his grave might be,” Max complained.
“Tell me about it,” Ferd agreed.
Erhard, their deceased comrade, had been afraid that his remains would be used for some nefarious purpose, so he’d told Ferd and the others that he’d rest in peace in an unknown location, then quietly disappeared from the public eye. As a result, none of them knew where his grave was and couldn’t visit it to pay their respects.
“Well, he was a weird guy.” As Sazaki also reminisced about their comrade, everyone felt the need to point out that he wasn’t one to talk.
Elrica decided to ignore Sazaki and turned toward Lara. “Where do you think his body might be resting?”
“Who knows? It might be some secluded area, or even the bottom of the Great Labyrinth,” Lara replied.
“I see. The Great Labyrinth, huh?”
“It’s nothing more than a guess.”
“No, I think it’s quite possible.” Elrica nodded several times in response.
Just as its name implied, the Great Labyrinth was a dungeon beyond ordinary measure. Its lowest reaches had yet to be discovered, and it was said to be a hundred or even a thousand layers deep. Some also believed that it was the entrance to a bottomless abyss that stretched on into eternity. The person who they presumed to have chosen the bottom of that dungeon as his grave was certainly anything but ordinary.
“So, where are we going next?” Max asked.
Sazaki then gave his wife a meaningful glance, and Lara’s mouth twisted in an unusual way.
“Ah, I see. So we’re headed to Greer, the Academic City-State.” Max shrugged his shoulders, having figured everything out from their little exchange.
Their next destination was a slightly special location. Greer was an independent city-state inside the Rin Kingdom and where the Magic Council was established, making it the headquarters of mages. In other words, mages who’d been active during the great war often chose to retire there, and many of Lara’s associates lived in it.
“How many acquaintances do you have there now?” Ferd asked Lara, not worrying about her frown.
“Well, I’d say a few,” she replied.
“What about Falke or your disciples?”
“They should be there.”
“Speaking of Greer, it’s famous for its Magic Academy. Does it offer lessons on proper muscle nutrition?” Stein asked, getting straight to the point.
“I’m sure it does,” Lara replied, looking genuinely bothered.
“Oh! That’s great to know! Can we sit in on their lessons?”
“It’s not impossible.”
“As expected from a place where you and your colleagues are honorary deans. I can only presume it was wonderful.”
“I’d also like to visit the academy.” Ferd had no connection to the academy, but he was interested in it.
“Same here.” And the same was true for Elrica.
For Lara, Greer wasn’t just a place she only had some ties to and where a few of her acquaintances lived. As the center of all magic, Greer had a large school for educating mages. During the great war, the school building had also been turned into a fort within which students and teachers alike had barricaded themselves against the demon army, and during the fighting a considerable part of the building had collapsed. When it was rebuilt, the names of great mages of the time—including Lara, of course—had been engraved, and all those women had been awarded the title of honorary dean, and even had bronze statues of them built. However, Lara had asked to be excluded from both the honorary title and having a bronze statue of her younger self built, but they had been forced onto her for various political reasons.
“Well, nothing I can do about it, I guess.” Lara didn’t want to go to Greer, but she had no choice but to give in, since there were people there she felt she at least had to see one final time.
“Let us get going then,” Ferd said.
“Yes, it’s about time.”