Chapter 109

The location of the Lily Labyrinth we had entered was definitely Elkanpa National Park, situated west of Elkanpa—the capital and port city of the Tubilan Empire—overlooking the sea. The climate there was so mild that even though it was still spring, the sight of the lush, green foliage was truly impressive.

However… the scenery currently unfolding before our eyes was far different from that.

A city in ruins. A damp, desolate wind. A vast wilderness overflowing with the debris of weathered and broken buildings.

The sight of tall buildings and towers jutting out in shattered fragments gave a glimpse of past prosperity… yet they felt like the picked-over remains of a carcass left by hyena, casting a gloomy shadow over the heart. To make matters worse, heavy streaks of rain scattered in the wind.

Swaaaaaah…

If a monochrome world devoid of all color existed, surely it was this place. I let out a low groan while getting soaked by the rain.

“…Well, I can tell for sure this isn’t Elkanpa.”

Ailet displayed her analytical skills as a mage while catching the falling raindrops in her hand.

“…The communication artifacts aren’t connecting. Not to our guild, nor the Magic Tower. It’s likely a distance issue….”

At those words, Elizabeth looked up sharply.

“Could this be another continent? You see it in novels all the time. Someone gets hit by a mana-stone carriage, passes out, and wakes up on a different continent.”

“Another continent? Not another world?”

“Huh? Another world? Why would that come up?”

Hmm. It seemed that in this place, ‘other continent’ stories were more trendy than ‘isekai’ stories. Though, in a world like this, another continent or another world was essentially the same thing.

Ailet shook her head.

“I don’t think that’s the case. First, the climate isn’t significantly different from Elkanpa. And look over there.”

She pointed toward the sky, and Elizabeth gave her a look that asked what she was supposed to be seeing.

“The rain clouds are so thick that it’s hard to pinpoint our exact location… but that bright area over there is where the sun is currently positioned. If this were another continent, the sun shouldn’t be there.”

“Ah.”

“I might be able to figure out a more precise location by looking at the stars, but with the weather like this, it’ll be difficult for a while even after night falls.”

Chel asked Ailet.

“So what you’re saying is that we’re not actually that far from the Tubilan Empire?”

“My answer might change depending on your definition of ‘far’… but yes. That is my professional opinion.”

“But is there a place like this near the Tubilan Empire? No matter how I look at it, this looks like a city that perished hundreds of years ago… I’ve never heard of such a place existing near the Empire.”

Ailet hesitated for a moment, then scratched her cheek with a troubled expression.

“I’m not sure about that far… I think we’ll have to wait for the weather to clear and see the stars.”

Just then, as if something had occurred to her, Elizabeth let out a triumphant “Aha!”

“Can’t we just… go back into the labyrinth?”

“Huh?”

“We just came out through the ceiling. If we go back out through the entrance we originally came in, maybe Elkanpa will be there?”

The group let out sounds of admiration.

“That’s not a bad idea, is it?”

“You’re right. Shall we give it a try?”

“Right!? It’s a great idea, isn’t it!? Hmph. See, this is the kind of person I am.”

However, Elizabeth’s boasting lasted only a fleeting moment.

“…It’s gone.”

“It really is.”

“Hmm. Gone.”

“Wh-why? It was definitely right here?”

Indeed. In the short time we had spent looking around the surroundings, by some strange phenomenon, the crack in the labyrinth we had emerged from had vanished like a ghost.

If it were a matter of someone filling the hole in the ground with earth-attribute magic, we could at least try to dig through it again, but…

“This doesn’t feel like it was there and then got blocked; it feels like it was never here to begin with. Ailet.”

“Yes. Give me a moment.”

Ailet quickly went through a simple casting and recited the spell’s activation word.

“Reinforced Detecting.”

Then, with a thumping sound, a hemispherical wave of mana spread out from her. Closing her eyes to process the information delivered by the mana pulse, Ailet eventually shook her head with a bitter smile.

“This is just ordinary ground. There are no cavities or structures underground at all.”

“…Meaning the labyrinth has disappeared?”

“Yes. I spread the pulse shallowly and widely just in case it had moved nearby… but there’s nothing.”

Dismay and bewilderment clouded the group’s expressions.

“…Wow, this is a total wash.¹ Do we have to just keep waiting days for the stars to show? Oh, could we do something with teleportation?”

Ailet glanced sideways at Chel and spoke.

“You know I’ve only just barely reached the 7th Circle. Do you have the courage to ride a teleportation spell with an 80% success rate?”

“Ah… I guess there’s that.”

For the record, teleportation was a surprisingly dangerous spell. There was even a saying that one shouldn’t even attempt it unless the success rate exceeded 99 percent.

Exploding because of overlapping coordinates was actually one of the kinder fates. If a problem occurred with the coordinate settings, one might end up scattering ‘various things’ during the transit….

Well… anyway, just know that for a 7th Circle mage, the survival rate if it fails is less than half.

I spoke to the group, who were huddling under Ailet’s physical barrier to avoid the rain, not knowing what to do.

“Let’s rest for now.”

“Huh?”

“You seem to be forgetting because of the situation, but our condition isn’t great right now. We just returned from the labyrinth. Kelly isn’t doing well either. So let’s set up camp, eat something, and get some sleep. Who knows? A way might come to us after that.”

Chel looked at Kelly, who was on my back, and the other party members whose eyes were dark with fatigue, then gave a wry smile.

“Brother is right. Let’s rest first. Let’s start a fire, too. Come to think of it, I’m exhausted.”

“Good. Good thinking.”

“…Though it doesn’t look like the one who suggested it is tired in the slightest.”

“It’s just your imagination.”

With several mages present, setting up camp was a breeze.

They dried the ground and started a fire with ‘Fire Field.’ They dug drainage ditches with ‘Dig’ and installed walls and a roof using physical barriers. Then, by taking out camping supplies from spatial pouches or bags and arranging them like furniture…

Ta-da. A magnificent thirty-pyeong² house was finished in a flash. Ailet and Chel deactivated the barriers they had set up in place of a door and stepped outside.

“I’ll go and set up some alarm magic outside.”

“I’ll go with you. Just in case something happens.”

I waved to them as I lay down on a makeshift cot.

“Good luck. I’m going to sleep for a bit.”

“Brother must really be tired. Fine. Get some rest.”

Elizabeth puffed out her cheeks.

“Hey, Mister. Are you seriously not going to play with me? You’re just going to leave me here spacing out by myself?”

“No, I’m really tired. I’m going to sleep for at least three hours. So don’t bother me.”

“Ugh… fine. I’m going to sleep too, then.”

Saying that, Elizabeth wiggled her way into my bed.

“Hey, why are you coming to mine when you have your own bed?”

“It’s cold.”

“Really? It feels plenty warm to me… are you feeling sick? Fine. Come here.”

“Hehe…”

Elizabeth clung tightly to my side. Following my old habit of sleeping while holding Shia, I pulled Elizabeth into my arms and wrapped my hands around the girl’s back.

Tight. Squish.

She was a bit larger than Shia, but she had her own kind of charm when it came to hugging.

“Well then, sleep well, Elizabeth.”

“…U-U-U-Mister?”

“Yeah? What is it?”

I asked the girl, whose pupils were shaking violently as her face turned a deep shade of crimson.

“Th-this… it’s way too close…. It’s not that I don’t feel like, well, like this might be wrong, but…”

“You said you were cold, didn’t you? Then you should sleep warm. We can’t have you catching a cold in a place like this.”

For the record, I could use a healing miracle, but at my current level, it was only enough to alleviate symptoms.

“I-I-I see. Right. C-colds are scary. N-now that I think about it, even my dog back home died after catching a cold… I have a feeling that happened…. Yeah. Well then. It can’t be helped.”

“Right, right. Goodnight. I’m sleeping now too. Like I said, don’t disturb me for at least three hours, okay?”

I silenced Elizabeth—who was muttering something to herself—by pulling her into a tight bear hug, just as I did whenever Shia got too noisy, and quietly closed my eyes.

Her breathing felt a bit ragged in my arms, but it wasn’t enough to be a distraction, so I decided to ignore it. Concentrating on the sound of the rain outside, I submerged myself into my Imagery as if using the half-eye method.

Indeed. The reason I, who wasn’t even tired, spread out the bedding to sleep was to meet Bel and Sis. I figured that while I might not know, Bel, who possessed Yuribel’s knowledge, might know where this desolate place was.

And upon descending into my Imagery, I encountered an unexpected sight.

“Hello, Sword God.”

“Hello, Sword God.”

I rubbed my eyes as I watched two Sises wave at me simultaneously.

“…Bel. Why are there two Sises?”

Bel answered with a smile.

“Look closely.”

Following her words, I examined the two Sises once more. I could see a slight difference between them. How should I put it? One was perfectly fine, while the other felt like she was a bit low-resolution….

At that moment, a thought flashed through my mind.

“…No way? Shia?”

The low-resolution version grinned, then ran toward me and leaped into my arms.

“Sword God. I missed you.”

“My god…”

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I spent a long time holding Shia tightly, as if time had frozen. Perhaps because it wasn’t a proper connection but rather something akin to entering through a spell, the sensations weren’t vivid—yet, Shia’s warmth was unmistakable.

“…How did this happen?”

“Are you and I not deeply connected? So… just in case, I asked Sodin to obtain the Lake of Gouphus for me to drink.”

I was moved by the depth of Shia’s affection for me.

“Good grief… you drank that devil’s excrement… for something that might not even work…”

“Is that not proof of how much I longed to see you?”

In return, I spent a good while rummaging through Shia’s hair before asking again.

“Still, it’s amazing that you can access someone else’s Imagery like this.”

“To be precise, my Imagery and your Imagery have been linked.”

Saying so, she pointed in one direction. Turning my gaze that way, I saw a massive ice castle I had seen somewhere before, piercing through the clouds and soaring high into the sky in the far distance.

“…Is that your Demon King’s castle by any chance?”

“Indeed. That is my Imagery. Would you like to take a look?”

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With Bel’s help, we flew toward the castle. What awaited us there wasn’t just an ice castle. It was a massive snowy field that seemed large enough to swallow half of China.

Yes. Recreated there was the Demon Territory I had glimpsed before, along with the Demon King’s castle beyond it.

“It—it’s huge…”

“That is not for you to say, considering you have the entire solar system as your Imagery.”

“Well, I mean, that’s true, but…”

Shia gave a bitter smile as she looked down at the world of snow and ice below.

“From my perspective, it is not exactly a pleasant sight. But what can I do? It is all I have seen throughout my entire life.”

“I mean, I shouldn’t really say this, but… it looks truly beautiful seeing it like this. Even if it looks hard to live in.”

“I am glad you said that.”

“So, will that stay there from now on?”

Bel, who was carrying me, answered in Shia’s stead.

“No. This is only happening because your Imageries were linked through the seal as a medium. Once the duration of the Lake of Gouphus ends, they will separate again. A trace might remain, but that’s about it.”

“That’s… a shame.”

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Descending back to the ground, we found an empty cafe and stepped inside. Shia glanced at the digital clock on the wall and began speaking with a slightly faster tempo.

“My dear. I had heard that your Imagery was vast and that the mana and divine power within it possessed personalities… but I never imagined it would take this form. According to these two, you’ve been up to quite a few interesting things, haven’t you?”

“Ah, that’s… well, there’s this thing called Pure Spiritual Power, and they take the form of mobs…”

“Specifically, I heard you played(?) around quite a bit with that child who resembles that wench Yuribel, forcing her to wear scraps of cloth that barely count as clothes…”

Ah, she was talking about that.

“The thing is, actually…”

Shia waved her hand at me as I tried to make excuses while breaking into a cold sweat.

“Enough. I shall listen to that in great detail after you return to the Northern Continent… More importantly, time is short.”

“Huh?”

“Three hours have already passed since I drank the Lake of Gouphus. It would have been better if you had connected a bit earlier…”

“Ah, about that…”

“I know. There is no way to send a signal from the inside to the outside. Regardless, considering the duration of that damn elixir, the time we have left to talk is only about an hour. There are many stories we must exchange during that time, are there not?”

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“I was incredibly flustered at first. But I soon knew you were alright through our connection.”

Shia began to calmly explain what had happened after I vanished, while preciousy stroking the Sealing Sword pendant hanging from her chest.

“…Disis, the West Demon King, said that?”

“Yes. Her obsession with you seemed quite extraordinary.”

“…Didn’t you say the Demon Kings’ territories were clearly divided? How was the West Continent’s Demon King able to show up in Seol, which is nearly ten thousand kilometers away?”

“I wonder. Seeing as she moved goblins in large numbers, I suspect she might have manipulated the Goblin God Krusha… but even I question how that was possible.”

“Hmm….”

“At any rate, it seemed Disis wished to become like me.”

“Like you?”

“She wishes to be released from the shackles of the system known as the ‘trial’ through a seal.”

I let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.

“I’m broke(?) right now, though. What on earth am I supposed to seal her with?”

“Indeed. It is impossible. But the problem is… that wench Disis does not know that.”