Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
Mary had also talked with Cutie about the possibility of an arcana user showing up.
But, since Calaria’s powers matched those of an arcana user, she believed that there were no others, so she was truly surprised that she was now on the receiving end of the powers of a sorcerer.
“An arcana user, here!? But you were hired by Dugan. Why would he entrap his own ally?”
“In the end, this is how mercenaries are always treated. Haha, I’m such a fool. I can’t believe I committed the same mistake twice…..!”
Calaria laughed as her shoulders shook.
(The same mistake…… Maybe Miss. Calaria fought against this sorcerer in the past.)
And something that happened in that battle had affected her.
Perhaps that was why she was in such despair now.
(Did my sister give me that advice because she knew about that?)
That wasn’t something Mary knew about.
In other words, this reduced the possibility that Francis was a hallucination.
In which case, the true identity of Francis became even more unclear.
“Please tell me, Miss. Calaria. What’s your connection with this sorcerer?”
“Disregarding the details of their powers, why do you ask?”
“From what I can tell, it doesn’t seem like you’re allies with them. And you’re a mercenary working for money, so I don’t believe your connection with Duke Slava is that strong either. The fact that you didn’t know I was an arcana user also helped me come to this conjecture.”
“Indeed, I never trusted them.”
“So, the sorcerer trying to kill me along with you, is the true underling of Duke Slava, and my real enemy!”
“Pfft. So?”
Calaria laughed scornfully.
She didn’t seem intent on listening to Mary’s words.
“Perhaps we could become allies.”
“……Such a naive face. You are just a sheltered little princess, after all.”
“Maybe so. But, if we can’t do this alone, maybe we can do it together. Don’t you think so as well, Miss. Calaria?”
“Because I lost to you?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You’re pretty honest. That hurts, you know.”
Calaria’s expression softened after that exchange.
Mary believed that some of the words she uttered must have touched Calaria’s heart.
“……Together, huh?”
Calaria squinted her eyes and thought back to her memories.
Then, she clenched her fists, as if trying to bite down on the regrets that came up.
“Indeed…… I suddenly feel like I want to talk to someone. It’s a boring story, but do you really want to hear it?”
“Yes. But, we’re right in the center of our foe’s powers. Perhaps when we have more time?”
“Time…… I think we’re alright on that front, for a few hours at least.”
“I’ll take my time and listen to you, then.”
“You’re quite the airhead, but I suppose I am as well. I learned about this person’s existence just a few months ago. Back then, I was working as a mercenary in a neighboring country with my partner, instead of here in the Kingdom of Orvis.”
Little by little, Calaria began talking as Mary wished.
Mary was only doing this because her sister told her to, and still did not trust Calaria.
But, feeling like she could relate to Calaria a little was not unpleasant.
“She was the arcana user of Justice. She was a good-natured woman, and an oddball who picked up and raised a kid who didn’t even know where she was born; me.”
“An arcana user became your parent…..?”
“She hated it when I called her mother, though.”
“That’s why you said ‘partner’, right?”
“She taught me how to fight, and how to live. Well, despite being a mercenary, she was ‘bad at living’ herself, and only took on jobs that barely gave any money……”
“You sound like you want to say ‘that was the point’, though.”
Mary leaned in close to Calaria.
This distance was too close for two people who were supposed to be foes.
They could maintain this distance only because both knew that by the end of this story, the two would be able to sympathize with each other.
“Who knows? Maybe I got used to it, but at the same time, I also didn’t want to turn out like her. Risking your life for others without proper compensation……. It was like that on the day she died as well. She took another job that paid scraps, and we headed to the building while I complained. It happened when we defeated the villain hiding there and were about to leave the building to go back to our employer.”
Calaria suddenly stood up and stepped into the darkness beyond the front door.
Then, she quickly disappeared on the other side.
“Ah, hey! Where are you going!?”
Mary was confused for a moment, then chased after her after shouting, ‘hey!’
She went through the darkness and arrived in a room she did not remember.
There was a long table in the room with a few chairs lined up – perhaps a dining room?
Calaria saw Mary and looked fed up, but also happy, and said:
“You believed me and followed? What were you going to do if this was a trap by me?”
“That’s mean, since you’re the one who tempted me to follow you.”
“That’s the world I’ve always lived in. Well, as you can see, we come back to the same building, even if we try to go out through an exit.”
“So you’re saying the same thing was happening back then too?”
“I quickly realized that only an arcana user could perform such a trick. She and I were trapped.”
“But, this is just something that shuts you in, right? Why did she die?”
Calaria began walking without giving an answer to that question.
She started investigating under the table, and the shelves.
Mary dubiously looked on while following behind her.
“Even an arcana user can’t isolate an entire building forever. Time and space take an unlimited amount of mana to restrict.”
“If the restriction is on time, that means all we’d have to do would be to wait, right?”
“Yeah, but no matter how many hours we waited, even after one day, this sorcerer didn’t let us go.”
“So the restriction was not on time, but space?”
“We thought about that possibility while waiting for time to pass, and looked for a place where we could escape the building. Then, we spotted a big and showy ‘box’.”
“A box…… So the same thing should be in this estate too?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll check all the rooms.”
“How will you – oh, those disgusting things?”
“Was it disgusting?”
“Especially when all the corpses were lined up. Couldn’t you make them look a little less ominous?”
“I see, then I’ll only make the eyes.”
Mary stood up and closed her eyes.
Bones protruded out of the soles of her feet, and spread around the estate, almost like tree roots.
They broke through the floor, and small eyeballs sprouted like flowers from the tips of the bones.
“……That’s much worse.”
Calaria was troubled after seeing this.
“I can only control corpses, so I can’t help it!”
Mary complained and pouted her lips.
The ‘results’ quickly came out after this exchange.
“This box, it’s pretty big, right?”
“Yeah, it should reach the height of your knees. Also, there’s a high possibility it’s near the center of the room it’s in.”
“This should be it, then. I found it, let’s go!”
Mary took the lead this time, and the two left the dining room.
Before they arrived at the location of the box, Mary stopped before a window.
She could see Captis through the window.
“Maybe we can leave through this window?”
“We’ll see if we try.”
The moment they opened the window, the landscape before them completely disappeared and darkness spread all around them.
Mary quietly closed it.
“That would have been too easy, I guess.”
“Hmph.”
Calaria bitterly smiled after Mary sulked, and the two walked off again.
Then, they spotted the box by the shadow of a shelf lined up with vases in a nearby corridor.
It had a boorish appearance; made of metal, with an almost rectangular shape.
Mary leaned down towards it and stared at the box.
“Is this it…..? How do that sorcerer’s powers and this box relate?”
“You could call this a ‘failure point.’ If you break this, this ‘infinite corridor’ will be destroyed. It’s impossible to isolate space for almost an unlimited amount of time unless a physical object like this is used.”
“In other words, we can escape if we break this box, right? But, your partner died while trying to do that, didn’t she?”
Calaria quietly nodded in reply to Mary’s words.
“Is there an explosive or something in this box?”
“You guessed right. It explodes if there’s an impact on the box. It’s a new spell, so even the most skilled people can’t lift it without the right tools. It’s powerful enough to destroy this entire estate, and even kill an arcana user.”
“But we have to destroy this in order to escape, right?”
“Indeed, we can’t escape the estate if we destroy it from afar either.”
“So there’s nowhere to run……”
But Calaria had survived.
As for how that came to be…
“That’s worrying, maybe I should have learned how to disarm bombs.””
“What do we do now, Yueri? We’re both going to-!”
“Alright, I’m going to start by putting up a barrier using my Justice. You go and hide behind me. We’re both going to survive this.”
“But, you just used your powers yesterday to save that injured person……”
“I’ll handle it somehow. At worst, I’m fine with you being the only survivor.
“What are you-”
“The time is now. I think it’s just my turn to receive retribution, y’know.”
“Yueri, stop it. Please, Yueri!”
“Sorry, I’m going to have to be selfish here. Live well, Calaria.”
“Yueriiiii!”
It was a cruel reality that the useless one had survived.
Calaria remembered these events vividly.
She also remembered those words Yueri said to her in the end.
She was sure that Yueri said those words with the future in mind.
But those words were now a curse for Calaria.
Whenever she remembered Yueri’s burned and unmoving corpse, she couldn’t help but feel such a heavy sense of responsibility that she wanted to puke.
“Hey, Yueri. I think it’s my time for retribution now.”
She uttered those words that she heard back then, and……
“Go as far as you can and protect yourself. You should be able to survive the blast.”
Calaria unsheathed her sword to destroy the bomb.