Chapter 231 - New Age (1)

The first king, an absolute monarch known as the Immortal King.

Lavigion III.

After his death, following thousands of years of rule over Raphdonia, his successor, the King of New Beginnings, enacted numerous policies to strip the city of his predecessor's deeply rooted legacy. The most notable was a reform of the calendar.

One year, thirteen months, 365 days.

To make the Labyrinth's opening cycles easier to calculate, each month was fixed at thirty days, and a thirteenth month of just five days was created to account for the remainder. The portals were also modified, changing the year's final Labyrinth cycle to thirty-five days.

Naturally, scholars debated the change. Wasting five days every year simply to make the calendar more intuitive was impractical, they argued. But the King of New Beginnings stood firm, winning the people's favor with a grand festival every thirteenth month. As the years passed and people grew accustomed to the new calendar, the controversy subsided.

Oh, and the era name was changed twice, too. Initially, it was named after the king himself, but his name was so long and difficult to pronounce that the people used his epithet instead. In time, the royal family began using it as well.

And so time passed—

May 2, Year 154 of New Beginnings.

Seven pillars of fire erupted from the Dimensional Plazas, blanketing the skies above Raphdonia. It was a catastrophe that would be inscribed in history by scribes and remembered for ages.

* * *

"Fucking hell."

Bracing a hand beside me, I laboriously push myself upright. Then I take the crutches propped by my bed and leave the room.

Ugh, these goddamn stairs.

"Bjorn! Why didn't you call when you woke up instead of struggling on your own, nyah?"

Misha, who was cooking downstairs, spots me and comes over to help.

This really makes me feel like an invalid.

Oh, wait. I am one, aren't I?

They said I'd need a month of rest, and I still can't get my arms and legs to work properly.

"Here, sit down, nyah. This is your first proper meal since we got out, right, nyah? I put a little extra effort into it for once, nyah."

While Misha goes to fetch Aynar, I hold my spoon and take a moment to catch my breath.

'Three days already.'

Three days have passed since that day. It hardly feels like it, though. On our first day back, all the survivors were dragged off by the royal family to give statements about what had happened in the Labyrinth, exhausted as we were. After I finally got home, all I did was sleep.

'... Crazy bastards.'

Remembering the moment those pillars of fire erupted still sends a chill down my spine. Who'd have thought they'd strike while everyone was away? I'd never dreamed they would plant traps in the centers of the plazas where the dimensional gates opened.

In all seven plazas, no less.

'... What's going to happen now?'

Those of us who returned normally when the Labyrinth closed suffered little damage, but the Third Royal Knight Order and countless major clans were literally wiped out. Not that there were no survivors among them. A lucky few whose dimensional gates had formed toward the edges of the central area retreated the instant the magic circles began to glow, saving their lives.

Around a hundred, was it?

Oh, and that's the total across all seven Dimensional Plazas.

It's a little ironic.

["A good commander isn't someone who makes perfect choices. He's someone who makes the choices that must be made."]

Those who made the necessary choice died. Those they abandoned survived after fighting for days with barely any sleep.

Their positions had reversed overnight.

What would have happened if I'd accepted his offer back then and abandoned my companions to escape?

"I'd have died."

The words slip out before I realize it, and Misha's voice comes from behind me.

"Hm? What did you say, nyah?"

"Nothing. Where's Aynar?"

"She won't budge even when I smack her back, nyah."

"She must be exhausted."

"Yeah, nyah. I'll just make her something later when she wakes up for a bit, nyah."

She must be just as tired herself.

While we did nothing but sleep, Misha kept waking up to prepare meals and take care of things so we really could do nothing but sleep and rest. She'd even found me some crutches somewhere.

A companion I couldn't help relying on in so many ways.

"Why aren't you eating, nyah?"

Only then do I snap out of my vacant stare at Misha and lift a spoonful to my mouth.

It tastes like the end of a long, hard day.

"... What are you going to do about Erwin, nyah?"

Misha asks as we're nearly finished eating. After the questioning on our first day back, Erwin had taken her sister's body to the elves' sanctuary.

"Well, she said she'd come see me after the funeral. I plan to talk things over with her then."

"Hmm, really, nyah?"

After that lukewarm response, Misha casually adds,

"Why not just have her move in here, nyah?"

What's this? Is she testing me? Or laying down a boundary in advance?

Several thoughts flash through my mind, but her tone doesn't sound like either.

"What do you mean?"

"Well... she lived with her sister, right, nyah? Staying there will only make it harder, nyah. But I'd worry about telling her to move out and live alone, nyah."

"And?"

"We can't enter the Labyrinth as a group of six, so there's nothing we can do about that, nyah. Still, I think we should look after her until she gets back on her feet, nyah."

Oh, right. This was the sort of woman she was.

Feeling oddly proud of her, I tease her a little.

"I thought you hated elves?"

"Gah, what kind of person do you take me for, nyah? After all the trouble I went to cooking for you, spit it all back out, nyah. All of it, nyah!"

Misha grumbles and glares at me.

It's a strange feeling. Only moments ago, all sorts of thoughts had weighed heavily on my chest.

"Why are you smiling, nyah? It's annoying, nyah."

"I'm just grateful."

"... Ugh, out of nowhere again, nyah."

Misha looks away as though irritated and gulps down her water. I watch her quietly.

Really, aside from the ears on top of her head and her tail, she looks like an ordinary human. Her short red hair has grown a little longer since we first met. A well-defined nose and eyes that tilt slightly upward at the corners. A few words with her are enough to reveal what a goof she is, but when I first saw her face, I'd thought she'd be terribly prickly and aloof.

"..."

"..."

Belatedly, I realize how quiet it's become. An inexplicably awkward silence hangs over the kitchen.

"Um..."

Just as Misha is about to say something—

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

Someone knocks at the front door.

"I'll get it."

"... Okay, I'll clear the table, nyah."

I make my way over on my crutches and open the door to a welcome face.

"Kyle Pevrosk."

"Haha, good to see you. Have you been getting some rest?"

"I've done nothing but sleep since I got home. I only just woke up."

"Then you have time for a little chat?"

"Of course. Come in."

I step aside, and Kyle enters the house, exchanging greetings with Misha as she clears the table.

"Oh! Master Kyle, nyah?"

"My apologies, Miss Karlstein. It seems I've interrupted a private moment between the two of you."

"Gah, don't tease me, nyah! We're not like that, nyah."

"Hmm, you're not? Then forgive my presumption."

Kyle apologizes as though he genuinely hadn't known. Misha gives me a pointed look, then abruptly turns away and resumes her chores. We take a seat on the living room sofa.

"I'd meant to visit sooner, but as you know, I've had a great deal to do myself."

"I understand. After what happened..."

"Yes, quite..."

Mentioning the incident brings an uncomfortable silence.

Soon, Misha sets some cookies she'd bought earlier on the coffee table, then retires to her room, telling us to take our time talking.

"Oh, these are from Lanemus Bakery?"

"Are they? It must be a famous place."

With the mood lightened, I speak a little more comfortably.

"If you have enough time, I'd like to hear it from the beginning."

"I have quite a while before my next appointment, but what beginning?"

"The Scholar of Destruction. What happened between you and that old geezer?"

I'd been curious but never had the chance to hear the story. When I woke up, the seventh day was nearly over, and I'd needed to look after Erwin. As for after we returned to the city, that went without saying. The Dimensional Plaza that day had been chaos itself.

"Ah, that..."

Kyle bites into a cookie and begins his account. Since he's describing a battle with a mage, there are quite a few parts I struggle to understand, but the gist is simple.

He lost the duel.

Before he could properly use the Awakening he'd spent years preparing, an overwhelming sequence of spells drove him into a corner. He activated the spell in its incomplete state and managed to inflict some damage, but...

"After all that effort, I thought I'd finally caught up to him. It was all a delusion. No, if anything, the gap seemed even greater than before."

Kyle had come up against a wall. A wall he could never overcome, no matter what he did.

More humiliating still was the fact that he had survived.

"... He said it would be a waste of my talent. Isn't that laughable? I wasn't even a worthy opponent to him. Had he not been trying to keep me alive, I doubt I'd have inflicted even that much damage."

By the time Kyle finishes, his face is clouded with gloom.

"That can't have been something you wanted to talk about. Thank you for telling me."

"I thought you ought to know. After this, you may become a target of theirs."

Whew. So he thinks so too.

"After this incident, the royal family raised the Scholar of Destruction's threat level by one tier. He's now just below the Commander. Frankly, having faced him myself, I think he could be ranked on par with the Commander... But no matter how many times I tell them, they don't believe he's that dangerous."

"You can't know until you've experienced it yourself."

A mage whose basic attacks pierced the Mana resistance setup I'd painstakingly assembled. How many monsters like that could there be in this world? If we happened to encounter him in the Labyrinth with both sides at full strength, we'd inevitably be wiped out within minutes.

"In any case, I wanted to warn you to be careful."

Hmm. Given that bastard's personality, I doubt the Scholar of Destruction would bother coming after me for revenge.

The Clown, on the other hand...

"What happened to the Corpse Collector?"

"No news yet. I heard you dealt him a critical wound just before he left, but I imagine he's alive."

"... I see."

At least the Clown is more manageable. He lost a corpse legion numbering in the thousands this time. Rebuilding it should take an enormous amount of time. At least I'll have time to grow stronger.

"Oh, so how many survivors are there?"

"You mean those who left through the dimensional gates?"

"Of course. I think I heard around a hundred survived."

Kyle sighs.

"103, to be precise. Though I'm not sure we can call them alive."

"What do you mean?"

Once again, Kyle explains things using all sorts of mage jargon. To sum it up:

"So it was an unusual spell incorporating dark magic, and even Divine Power couldn't heal them properly?"

"Exactly. They're all unconscious at present. We don't know when they'll wake up. No, we don't even know if they can."

"What a fucking mess."

Once we finish discussing the survivors, we turn to the incident itself. How on earth had it happened? Kyle, who could be considered fairly high-ranking within the royal establishment, tells me everything he knows without holding back.

"We were baffled at first, too. A spell like that would take at least several months of preparation just to have a chance of working. How could they prepare something like that in the plazas in a single day?"

It was the question every explorer, myself included, had asked that day. The answer was remarkably simple.

"As it turned out, they'd drawn the magic circles in the sewers to avoid detection."

Fitting for bastards who lived in a hole underground. They'd done it all from below.

"Our investigation found nothing wrong with Noark's barrier. In other words, either they have a way to get outside, or they'd already smuggled people out beforehand."

I smile awkwardly at his speculation. It was probably people they'd smuggled out beforehand.

For example...

'Amelia.'

A spy from Noark who had infiltrated the city.

Until now, it had been difficult to call her an outright enemy. I'd thought their hatred was directed at the royal family, not me.

But...

'I should consider her an enemy now.'

That woman would keep working for Noark, and if I was unlucky, that work could cost me my life.

Unless I went over to Noark myself.

"Now, let's get down to the main point."

"The main point?"

"The city's situation is dire. We've lost a great many people essential to keeping it running. At this rate, the economy will be the first thing to collapse."

I'd expected as much. Explorers are miners who extract resources from the Labyrinth. Knights may be strong, but in this respect, they can't hold a candle to explorers.

And the high-level explorers had been wiped out.

Well, a few major clans that had been boycotting the Labyrinth were still around, along with a fair number of high-level explorers who'd remained wary even after the identification tags were introduced and had waited to see what happened...

But the real problem lay elsewhere.

"They probably won't want to enter the Labyrinth anymore. Not until they're convinced it's safe, at least."

An unsafe Labyrinth.

A ridiculous expression, but I understand. Fewer than two thousand of those who entered the Labyrinth this cycle returned alive. Who would want to go in and collect magic crystals under these circumstances?

"... That's inevitable. Until now, the identification tags and the Third Royal Knight Order's presence reassured the explorers. But now the truth's come out."

The knights who'd promised to protect us from Noark in the Labyrinth had deliberately conspired with the major clans to open dimensional gates. Then they'd fled, abandoning tens of thousands of explorers.

"I'm ashamed to say someone even remarked during a meeting that perhaps it would have been better if there had been no survivors at all."

I smile bitterly at Kyle's words. The more I experience of this world, the crueler it seems.

Not that complaining will change anything.

"So now, on top of the Scholar of Destruction and the Corpse Collector, I need to watch out for the royal family too?"

"Haha, of course not."

Kyle waves off my half-joking, half-serious concern.

"You've been at home all this time, so you may not realize it, but you've become extremely important to the royal family."

"... Explain."

"Even as we speak, the survivors who made that journey with you are spreading stories about you. In a few more days, there probably won't be a soul in this city who doesn't know what sort of man you are. You're the rising star who reduced the Corpse Collector to that state single-handedly!"

"... Single-handedly? Please, I'm begging you, don't go spreading ridiculous rumors like that."

"You really are modest."

No, this isn't modesty. It's genuinely too much pressure.

A decent guy who worked harder than anyone else on the front lines? That much I could live with, but this was a reputation I couldn't handle. If anyone had fought single-handedly, it was the Clown. Even while fighting our team, he'd used his vast corpse legion to press the main force of hundreds of seasoned explorers.

'When I put it that way, he really is a monster too.'

I put that passing thought aside and return to the point.

"So what does that have to do with the royal family? They must have explorers at my level coming out of their ears."

"But very few have your symbolic significance."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Distrust of the royal family is already taking root, isn't it? This incident will clearly serve as a catalyst. The royal family has concluded that if you were to become a rallying point for those people, it could spread into a great conflagration..."

Fucking hell.

"... Hm? Why that expression?"

I answer honestly.

"Because that sounds an awful lot like they're going to eliminate me."

I mean that with complete sincerity. But whether Kyle realizes how worried I am or not, he laughs heartily.

"Don't worry. How you'll be treated has already been settled in a meeting."

Already settled?

Oh, is that why he'd said I didn't need to worry about the royal family?

"Stop keeping me in suspense and tell me. Now that I think about it, that's why you're here today, isn't it?"

At my urging, Kyle continues with a smile, looking even prouder than I do.

"Congratulations. Before long, you'll be receiving a very, very, very substantial reward."

The royal family had decided to offer me a carrot.