Chapter 28 (2/2)
On the other hand, I had other matters on my mind.
It wasn’t a single, so Leon wasn’t going to show up in the morning as he usually did, right?
To tell the truth, I had a lot to ask him. After all, I hadn’t heard anything about [Chris] since then.
I wanted to keep that conversation just between the two of us, if I could.
But for all that, that night by the riverbank made me hesitate. When I recalled how strange the mood had been — to be honest, I was pretty nervous about what might happen to me. So ultimately, I’d dragged things out this far without being able to ask.
Well, still, that’s alright…?
I’d leave it at that for now. Personally, I was in considerable violation of my motto — [People who don’t do it today, won’t do it tomorrow] — but actually, there was still quite a distance to go before the capital, and I’d be free during that time anyway, so I was sure I’d find a chance somewhere. Yep, sounds good to me.
“I’ll come again to call you for dinner, but I ask that you refrain from going into town.”
Why?
Before I could ask, Leon was gone. Even if it would be until dinner, there was still quite a lot of time left over, in my opinion.
I crossed the room to open the window.
As it had been at the estate, the room was on the third story of the barracks. From there, I could take in the entire city at a glance.
“Wow, what a lovely view.”
Following after me, Aira’s voice full of wonder. From the side, Palmira poked her face out too, with a similar expression.
In the unbroken panorama of the city, even though the sunset pretty far along by now, there were still quite a number of carriages coming and going. As you might expect of the highway junction, the streets running through the city were quite broad. Even carriages moving away from us were clearly visible. The people walking down there, too.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Brellwandy a lively city. While it was on the small side, plenty of merchant caravans stopped by on their way to — or possibly from — the imperial capital in the south.
My eyes s.h.i.+fted to the heart of the city, falling on a relatively large building around three stories tall. Its outer appearance plain and old, it was the local Adventurers’ Guild. If I could, I wanted to drop by while I was in town. Then I’d deal with Leon.
“What’s that?”
When I looked in the direction Palmira was pointing, I saw the sprawling ocher-stained stone maze outside the city. It was hard to see from here, but even though I said ‘maze’, it was one in appearance only. In truth, it was a half-destroyed city.
So the part aboveground wasn’t actually all that important.
For adventurers, it was the extensive underground labyrinths that made it famous. No one has a clue what it was built for, but the number of labyrinths had been verified. There were twelve, one of them being the maze I discovered. That should probably be all of them.
“That’s the Artor Ruins Cl.u.s.ter.”
Even I could tell my expression was complicated.
“Big Sister, that’s where you…”
“That’s right.”
Nicely remembered, Aira. But I had no good memories of the place, so I promptly confirmed it and nipped that conversation in the bud.
The twelfth labyrinth of the ruins cl.u.s.ter. I didn’t even know its name.
Inside it, I became a woman and was captured by slavers immediately upon leaving. I didn’t remember much about the time I was captured, so I couldn’t say for sure where it was.
However, what concerned me was its current status.
Maybe my original body was there even now.
To be honest, I’d been trying not to think about it, but I imagined that it was highly likely.
Then, if it hadn’t been specially preserved, it would definitely be decaying already… In that case, I’d never be able to go back to how I used to be.
But there was also the chance that that wasn’t the case. It was possible that something was preserving my body. What that ‘something’ might be, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. But possession was also pretty outlandish to begin with, so I couldn’t say for sure that preservation was impossible.
Then right now, all I could do is pin my hopes on that possibility.
That was the very reason I wanted to get information from the Adventurers’ Guild.
There were two things I wanted to confirm there.
First, whether they knew of the twelfth labyrinth’s existence.
Second, a.s.suming they did know, whether my body had been found there.
The twelfth labyrinth was my discovery, so I went in alone without a word to anyone else. So maybe the guild’s current tally was eleven mazes. If so, end of story.
But if they did know, I knew for a fact that the guild would have already issued a request for adventurers to search it.
Depending on the timing, that day might already be past.
At least, you could make a trip through the maze on foot, so the reinvestigation didn’t seem like it’d take that much time. Then maybe, if it were there, they should have discovered a single corpse unnaturally draped in treasure.
If they hadn’t found it yet, I still had a chance to return…
On the other hand, there was a much simpler way.
I could go to the twelfth labyrinth and verify it personally.
Yeah, if I could, I wanted to see it with my own eyes.
But that would be impossible in my current state. It was alright to rely on Leo, but somehow, I had the sneaking suspicion that the truth had been obscured.
Because Leon was still hiding something from me. Definitely.
Once my thoughts reached that point, I itched to do something.
Although I did say I had time to deal with Leon later, if the trip was thirteen days long, simple calculation told me that we’d be setting out tomorrow. In short, today was my only chance.
“Aira, Palmira.”
My eyes studying the guild from the window, I called out to the two of them.
“…Won’t you go into town with me?”
And without waiting for their reply, I made my proposal.
Author’s Notes
I thought it’d be alright to gradually write out the map.
Footnotes
1. Chris says “Asking Leon would be that“, which is kinda vague. I ended up a.s.suming that “that” meant the riverbank scene, since that was the last time Chris asked for any substantive information. ↵
<script>