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Translator: Lizz
Proofreader: Xemul
The boundary between peaceful and not-so-peaceful days was a subjective thing.
To strong men, the meaning of the word ‘peaceful’ was broad, because they didn’t count trivial quarrels as troubles.
That was why her contractor’s broad definition of ‘peaceful’ could be considered the high tolerance level of a ruler.
―――― Tinassha, who had let her thought go that far with a smile, took a deep breath and spoke her mind:
“Are you an idiot?! I definitely won’t allow it!”
“What are you getting angry about? I’m not saying I’ll get out of the castle by myself.”
“Taking me along will not make it alright! Why don’t you understand your own position?!”
The next in line to the throne solemnly nodded: “I do understand.”
If he really had, he wouldn’t have said something like ‘Let’s go check out that mysterious ruin’. In the first place, Tinassha had come down from her tower to be by his side because he didn’t have an heir to continue the throne and couldn’t produce one.
Glaring at the ancient exploration document on the desk, the witch offered the sitting man some tea.
“If something happens to you there, I’ll carve ‘Here rests an idiot who didn’t understand his position’ on your gravestone.”
“If I die, doesn’t that mean you have also died?”
“Don’t just involve me whenever you like!”
Despite being yelled at consecutively in a short span of time, Oscar didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He leaned back into his chair and flipped through the document. It also helped a little bit that his worrywart of an attendant was taking a day off today. If he had been here, he probably would have burst into tears due to stomach ache. But then, Oscar might have talked to her about this now due to that very reason.
Tinassha pressed her finger into her temples; the blood vessels there seemed to have permanently popped out.
“And why do you suddenly want to go there?”
If she didn’t confirm the reason now, she wouldn’t be able to overlook the budding sprout of quarrel.
At her question, Oscar lightly tapped the scabbard of his favorite sword.
“Well, it’ll be handy if there’s another Akasshia, don’t you think?”
“…Not at all.”
She could only think of such a situation as a nightmare.
Akasshia, the only sword in the continent with absolute magic resistance, was the so-called symbol of Farsas’ royal family. It was yet unknown how it had been constructed or how it had come to exist, but it was said to have been taken out of a lake by a non-human being and given to the founding King of the country.
With not a single chip on its blade throughout hundreds of years, not only the miraculous sword’s existence itself was a mystery, but the lake where it had come from was also shrouded in enigma. It was recorded that Farsas had been founded on the shore of a lake called “The Silence Lake”, but there was no such lake existing anywhere.
“Maybe it was simply dried up or filled up?”
“That’s what I think. There’s a strange pond at the entrance of this ruin, and I saw a sword that looked like Akasshia in there. By some chance, it might be related to the Silence Lake, right?”
“No, no. The location is way off. And there’s no need for another Akasshia.”
Tinassha stopped there and checked the landscape spreading before her eyes; they were flying through the sky riding a dragon. When she spotted the rocky area in that exploration document, she commanded Naak to descend.
Next to her, her contractor looked down on the grey scenery with obvious interest. In the end, Tinassha had brought him here; she had decided that there would be less damage if she got involved and settled things immediately.
They landed on an area littered with gigantic boulders and set out to search for the ruin’s entrance. Oscar noticed that Tinassha was about to tumble and pulled her hand. He carried the petite witch as if she was a child and brought her to a relatively flat rock.
“Riding Naak was great. We reached this far away ruin in just the blink of an eye. Just as expected, it’s impossible to have a day trip to a historic ruin on the top of a mountain.”
“Could it be that you spoke to me about this for that reason? Farsas is just so vast, and it has too many ruins. I’ll cut down the travel time if there’s a chance.”
“If that’s the case, should we expand to the vicinity of your tower?”
“Do not come near it!”
Oscar found the entrance while they were chatting. Even though it had been 120 years since the castle exploration, the entrance was still standing in the middle of the rocks.
He peered into the deep pit surrounded by tall stone columns. The square hole was about two arm’s length wide on each side and pitch black. Its bottom was not visible; how deep it extended was unknown.
“It’s just like a dried up well.”
“The first people to enter this place were amazing. If it was me, I’d just fill it up.”
“Well, wait a bit. I’ll go down and check it.”
“You’re too troublesome!”
According to the exploration document, the hole was about five storeys deep. Tinassha placed a shrunk down Naak on a nearby rock to keep watch and beckoned her contractor over. She took his hand, slowly adjusted her floating magic, then descended into the hole. A magic light went ahead of them and lit up the hole’s interior; the surface was smooth with no seams at all. When Oscar noticed that, he exclaimed in wonder:
“Amazing. How did they make it?”
“Probably with elemental magic. Most of the ruins that still exist today are kept together by elemental magic.”
“I see. They were good at manipulating nature.”
The pale magic light reached the floor and went still, and they also landed soundlessly. Tinassha snapped her fingers, and the light split into eight and scattered around.
The square chamber was not that big; they could see a door at the back of it. Seeing the carvings on it, the witch nodded:
“Okay, shall we go back now?!”
“No no, wait. I haven’t seen the pond yet.”
“You’ve seen enough… Isn’t this good enough?”
“Don’t say so. You can wait here if you like.”
He said easily as if there was no sense of danger, then patted Tinassha’s head and went for the door.
No matter how many protective barriers there were, he shouldn’t not falter at an unknown place. The witch decided that it was caused by ignorance and hurriedly followed him. Just as he touched the door, she jumped and caught his arm.
“Wait a biiiiitttt!”
“What, what? You want to go too?”
“No matter what, I want to turn back! I don’t want to go there!”
Tinassha pointed at the door he was touching:
“Behind this is probably a labyrinth.”
On the door carved a crest with four ropes intertwining intricately. The witch spoke of the meaning of the carving:
“It’s an enormous trap built in the Dark Age, a site designed to kill people.”
Before the so-called Age of Witches, the continent had been caught in a long period of warring, the Dark Age.
It had been a chaotic period, where countries had been founded and destroyed. It had left behind distorted scars everywhere, then gone.
The witch pointed out that this ‘labyrinth’ was one of those scars.
“Originally, labyrinths were constructions where elementalists hid and lived to escape wars. Besides disliking to get involved with humans, they were also considered heretic by ordinary magicians. So they built hidden villages here and there and lived in them.”
“So why was this designed to kill?”
“It was abandoned, and was altered by someone else.”
Tinassha reached for the double door, her pale finger tracing the chipped characters under the crest. Oscar looked closer; it seemed like a person’s name.
“Queeg? …Who was it?”
“An advocate of inorganic magic theory.”
Tinassha stopped her explanation there and began a chant. In addition to the barrier protecting her contractor, she covered both of them with a barrier to defend against magic. Oscar’s barrier alone was almost a perfect defense, but she still did just in case.
Finally, the witch signalled Oscar to open the door. He pushed at the stone door with strength, and it swung open inwards without a sound.
Tinassha lit up her fingertips and went in ahead.
“You fought against the stone gargoyles in my tower, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did. They were quite tough.”
“Quite tough… Well it’s alright.”
There was no end to meeting this guy’s standards.
Tinassha threw the lights on her fingertips forward. The reflection of a water surface could be seen on the floor ahead of them. It was probably the ‘mysterious pond’ in the exploration document. Water had oozed out from somewhere and gathered to form an elliptical shape on the floor of the expansive room; it eerily swelled up on the floor just like water on the brim of an overflowing cup. Rather than a pond, it was more like a large puddle. It reflected the light and sparkled with a blue gleam.
Tinassha let Oscar, who was brimming with curiosity, peered into it all he liked. She watched the two stone statues near the wall instead.
“He was the one who created the original theory to build artificial magical creatures like these. He had studied the magic to intercept his opponents using lifeless raw materials. For that reason, he had also researched elemental magic and come to abandoned constructions like this. Then, he turned them into his own works while studying them…”
In the puddle, a mysterious shadow waveringly appeared. Oscar bent over to look at it. The dark shadow rose to the surface.
Meanwhile, Tinassha passed by the pond and went to the door at the back of the room and examined its surface. There was a black magic circle branded upon the ropey crest. She wordlessly admired the strength of the power put into the circle. Then, she continued her explanation.
“To promote his own theory, Queeg had actively invited people into his labyrinths. Many were sacrificed. Most of these labyrinths had been buried or destroyed during the Dark Age though. It’s very rare for one to still exist today.”
“But there was no death mentioned in the exploration document.”
“Yes, because someone sealed it.”
Tinassha pointed to the black magic circle.
“I don’t know who did this, but this serves both as a seal to prevent the ruin’s activation and a transfer device. Anyone who opens this door and advances will be thrown to a different, harmless ruin. It’s quite elaborate.”
The witch shrugged one thin shoulder in wonder, then returned to Oscar’s side.
The small pond waveringly reflected the light as if having a will of its own. Oscar looked up from the water surface and patted Tinassha’s head.
“What about this pond?”
“Probably a bait to lure people into the labyrinth, I think. It seems to reflect the desire of those who peer into it. Was the thing you saw what you desire?”
“I think so.”
“That said, those stones probably can move.”
But the large stone birds near the wall didn’t even twitch. It was probably the effect of that magic circle.
Who on earth could do that much? A few names came to Tinassha’s mind, four of which were other witches. But would they really do something like this? She was wondering about it when Oscar clapped her shoulder.
“Well then, Tinassha, break the seal.”
“I thought you’d say so! I won’t!”
“But didn’t someone go through so much trouble to seal this place? Don’t you want to break it and find out why?”
“…I don’t.”
Actually, she was a bit interested, but she definitely wouldn’t say it out loud. If it was just a ‘labyrinth”, they could forcibly break through it and get it done with. But as it had been purposefully sealed, she didn’t know what it hold.
Tinassha looked away from Oscar’s blue eyes. She hoped this trouble would go away if she ignored it.
But just at that moment, Oscar lightly stabbed Akasshia, which had been unsheathed, into the puddle.
Tinassha felt as if she could hear the air crack. She unthinkingly opened her mouth and watched the water level decrease.
“What did you do…?”
“Well, I was just curious.”
Just as Oscar replied, the floor of the room completely vanished.
In the darkness they were falling into, they reflexively held on to each other to form a floating mass.
She extended her left arm to catch him, but was supported by his hand instead.
In the short while until her magic took effect and illuminated them, the unpleasant floating sensation enveloped her body. The remaining water in the puddle, which had fallen together with them, hit Tinassha in the face.
“Blerg…”
“What are you doing?”
She just wanted him to be cautious; as the witch thought and opened her eyes, she was startled by what flitted by her field of vision. It seemed like the water had not only wetted her face but also got into her eyes. She could see things that already didn’t exist anymore. Bygone scenes, her younger self, warm memories ―――― the scenery of a ruined country.
“…Tch!”
Before she could rub at her eyelids, they cleared off.
The witch extended both arms, as if refusing and pleading. She didn’t notice that her body was falling. Her hands lit up, unable to keep the magic configuration. Oscar grasped them.
“What is it?”
His strong arms embraced her. He stroked her hair. Tinassha buried her face into his chest and closed her eyes after several seconds. The present pushed the past away.
Once her heart, which had been riled up by the splash, had calmed down, the witch smiled wryly while still leaning against Oscar.
“It’s nothing. Sorry.”
“You not getting mad after I made us fall down makes me feel uneasy.”
“Please don’t worry, I’ll get mad later.”
Tinassha finally lifted her face while adjusting the magic to prepare for the landing.
He was watching her, and looked a bit worried at her smile. His eyes, which had the color of the sky just after sunset, looked at Tinassha as if wanting to melt into her. Facing that gaze, she slowly hid her emotions in the depth of her heart.
“What did you see in that pond?”
“You.”
“Could you please stop seeing other people everywhere as you want like that? It gets on my nerves.”
“What did you see?”
He ignored her complaint and asked. Tinassha laughed at his question.
“Nothing.”
“Is that so?”
She was grateful that he simply accepted her transparent lie.
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