by Hiro Ainana
After about five minutes, a single mansion came into view deep in the forest. True to its name, the front of the house was half-covered in ivy.
“Ivy Manor?”
“Yes, that’s probably it.”
It looked similar to Trazayuya’s house back in Bolenan Forest.
It was only about half the size of the houses in the noble quarters, but the area of land was about the same.
Just outside the hedge was a moat around six feet across, full of clear blue water. There were more hedges on the other side, too, so it must be part of the Ivy Manor.
This area was a little higher in elevation than the rest of Labyrinth City; the water that flowed through the moat passed into a thin waterway, which connected to the reservoir that provided Labyrinth City with water.
“There.”
Mia pointed at an arch of trees and a white wooden gate around waist height. However, there was another moat on the other side of the gate and no bridge with which to cross it.
Checking with my “Magic Perception,” I found that there was even a Space Magic barrier spell within the low moat.
Either Trazayuya was paranoid about security or Labyrinth City had been so dangerous back then that he had no other choice but to do all this.
“Notes.”
Mia produced a cute little memo pad from her Fairy Pack.
“
Mia read the written password out loud in Elvish.
She had pretty strong enunciation for someone who normally didn’t speak.
When she finished, a little girl’s face poked out through the gate on the other side of the moat.
As soon as our eyes met, she quickly concealed herself again.
“
I overheard a rather rude mutter with my “Keen Hearing” skill.
The girl, who had dark-black hair in a short ponytail, was the brownie of the house. Other house spirits of her race had helped us in Bolenan Forest, so I didn’t even need to consult my AR to figure out that much.
“
As Mia repeated the last part of the password, I held her up so that the brownie could see her.
Of course, I also lowered her hood so that her elf ears would be visible.
“
After a surprised exclamation from the girl, a bridge extended between the two gates.
It was a transparent bridge that almost looked like glass.
“Mm.”
Mia held out her hand again, and I took it as we walked across the bridge together.
“Lady Misanaria, I am Lelillil, guardian of the Ivy Manor, granddaughter of Gillil.”
It looked like Lelillil already knew Mia.
“Just Mia.”
“”
Lelillil had been speaking Elvish, while Mia spoke in short Shigan statements as usual, but Lelillil made the transition to Shigan.
“…But by all means, madam, you may call me Lelill for short.”
“Mm. Lelill.”
Lelillil was level 20 and had sonar-related skills, stealth-based race-specific skills, and so on. She would probably make a great scout.
Although she looked young enough to be in preschool, her actual age was around sixty, so I had better be careful about how I spoke to her.
If I let slip her real age, I got the feeling she would be angry.
“Incidentally, Lady Misanaria, who might this human whelp be? It is quite unacceptable for a mere human to hold hands with the likes of an elf. Shall I teach him a lesson in manners?”
Wow, we’d just met and she already had a problem with me.
The people of Bolenan Forest didn’t discriminate against humans, but this Lelillil seemed to think of them as lesser beings.
Had she come to dislike humans after living among them?
…For some reason, I felt like I couldn’t blame her.
“Mrrr, rude.”
Mia wasn’t enjoying Lelillil’s rude attitude toward me.
“Satou. My fiancé.”
“What? Erm…surely you jest.”
Lelillil flailed, completely shocked by Mia’s declaration.
“Mrrr. Parents agreed.”
“Wh-wh-what?! That, that can’t beeee…”
This was apparently too much to bear: Lelillil collapsed to the ground.
“Now then…”
I couldn’t just leave her like that.
Lifting the tiny Lelillil, I placed her on top of a sheet in the shade of a tree.
Between the clear water and all the nearby greenery, the occasional breeze was very cool and refreshing.
In the midst of the somewhat dusty, dirty Labyrinth City, this park area seemed to be part of another world entirely.
“…Ah, I just had a terrible nightmare.”
“Mm, nightmare?”
“Yes, that an honored elf was beguiled by a human whelp…”
That was a pretty rude thing to say after I had so kindly carried her into the shade.
Lelillil sat up unsteadily, then gasped and looked at Mia. Then, noticing me belatedly, she turned toward me with slow, jerky movements.
I’ll spare you the details of the ensuing chaos, but suffice to say that little girls could be terribly difficult to deal with.
“Now, Lady Misanaria, Satou, please come this way.”
Having finally reached grudging acceptance of my existence, Lelillil led us toward the manor.
I had her remove the Return Home spell from Arisa and the others, then contacted them with Telephone to have them meet us here. It shouldn’t take them long to arrive.
Lelillil was able to control the bridge, the security magic, and so on with the proxy medal she carried.
The medallion Mia had received from Gillil was also called a “warden medal,” so it probably had higher authority than Lelillil’s medal.
“So am I correct that you are the new master of the Ivy Manor, Lady Misanaria?”
“No.”
Mia shook her head and pointed at me.
“Satou.”
“What? That wh… Erm, Satou?”
You were about to say “whelp,” right?
Well, I guess that’s not wrong, since you’re really an old lady.
“Gillil told me that we could use this manor if we were staying in Labyrinth City. He gave us that medal, too.”
It wasn’t me exactly who he had said that to, but there was no need to make things more complicated.
“Tch, that senile old geez… Errr, I mean, my grandfather? I don’t believe it.”
Come on, Lelillil. You were clearly about to say “senile old geezer.”
“Mrrr. True.”
“Perhaps he is simply losing his mi… That is, in less than perfect health?”
“Satou saved Bolenan Forest. Friends with Aaze.”
That was a pretty long statement for Mia.
Although I would’ve preferred that she call us “potential love interests” or something more hopeful like that.
“Aaze… Surely you don’t mean Lady Aialize the high elf?”
Lelillil jumped back in shock.
If this were a manga, her eyes would probably be popping out of her head.
“…Preposterous! A high elf showing herself in front of a mere human? And they’re friends? But high elves are celestial beings, demi-gods even!”
I couldn’t help but smirk a little.
Such dramatic titles like “celestial being” and “demi-god” didn’t exactly fit the airheaded Miss Aaze.
Except maybe the Goddess Aaze I met in the memory storehouse of the World Tree.
“…T-truly?”
“Yes, I have the great honor of her close acquaintance. She taught me Spirit Vision and was even kind enough to bring me to the observation deck of the World Tree.�
�
Lelillil’s eyes widened.
“I… I’m so terribly sorryyyyyyy!”
Then she threw herself on the floor in apology for how rude she had been.
On top of that, she started calling me Mr. Satou, saying that “I cannot address even a human by name alone if he is a friend of a high elf!”
Incidentally, when the rest of our group arrived and I told her that they were friends of Miss Aaze, too, Lelillil fainted all over again.
Hang in there, Lelillil.
“Lady Misanaria and company, please come this way.”
Lelillil guided us into the manor. The inside was the very picture of an ordinary Shiga Kingdom house.
In one corner of the entrance hall was a narrow, easy-to-miss hallway, which led to a single mirror that let off a powerful magic energy.
Lelillil held up her medal, and light rippled across the mirror’s surface.
Ooh, this looks like the kind of mirror that would lead to a parallel world—oh, wait, this is a parallel world.
“Follow me, please.”
Without further ado, Lelillil leaped into the mirror. Looking at my map, I saw that she was now in a location about thirty feet underground.
“Looks like this is some kind of teleport gate,” I informed my surprised companions, then jumped into the mirror as well.
After a sensation that was more like the warping of Space Magic teleportation than being teleported by an Elvish fairy ring, I arrived in a different area.
It seemed like a grassy courtyard and was incredibly bright despite being underground.
The ceiling was over ten feet high, so this felt more like natural light than magic.
There must be some of those optical fiber plants, like the ones on the ceiling in the cavern containing our labyrinth vacation home, or a spell that somehow relayed the light of the sun.
As I looked around the courtyard, the rest of my group came through the mirror as well.
“This is the main area of the Ivy Manor. The building up above is a mere construction, only used for guests.”
Lelillil’s words reminded me of the treetop guesthouses in Bolenan Forest and the futuristic city where the elves actually lived.
Clearly the elves had a penchant for this kind of thing.
Checking on the map, I saw that in addition to a residential area of more than a hundred rooms underground, there were even workshops and equipment that Trazayuya had once used.
“Quite a cautious fellow, wasn’t he?”
“Lord Trazayuya was known as the sage of the elves. He developed many magic tools and techniques. When the sage was in the labyrinth, lots of thieves and even whole nations sometimes targeted his property, according to my grandfather.”
So he wasn’t paranoid—he was just protecting himself.
“Even now, each time a new viceroy takes power, they send armed forces to attempt to take the manor by force.”
And it still hasn’t fallen? That’s pretty amazing.
“Couldn’t a group of high-level explorers break in here?”
“No one who lives in this city would ever attack the Ivy Manor.”
Lelillil answered Arisa’s question with extreme confidence.
“After all, the False Core in this mansion preserves the water source of the city.”
“Whoa, taking hold of the lifelines, huh? Nice one, Trazayuya. Guess they didn’t call him a sage for nothing.”
Arisa looked impressed.
Lelillil didn’t seem to know too many of the details, but this False Core was described in Trazayuya’s documents.
According to those, it was a magic tool designed after a City Core, made with the giant core of a level-50-or-higher monster and a considerable amount of Holytree Stone.
It was a pretty useful system: It absorbed magic from nearby sources to power the manor’s barrier and other magic devices, could operate connected magic devices from a distance, and so on.
Could it be…?
Does the False Core steal magic from the source that’s supposed to go to the City Core?
I wondered that at first, but when I continued to read the explanation, I found that was an unnecessary worry.
The False Core’s power source was really magic that was supposed to flow into the labyrinth, so it was actually hindering the labyrinth’s growth and protecting the city.
“But if politicians target this place, it might not be the best location for our base.”
“That’s true. We’d be fine inside the manor, but if anyone was seen wandering around outside, they might get held hostage or caught up in all kinds of trouble.”
Arisa agreed with my concerns.
“But I do want to use the equipment here…,” I mused.
“Why don’t we buy a dummy house in the city and teleport in and out of here from that? You or I can just use our teleport magic.”
“Good idea. Let’s do that.”
I could probably ask at the explorers’ guild if they had any leads on a house we could buy for our purposes.
While we were here, I requested that Lelillil show me around Trazayuya’s workshops.
“A mere human won’t be able to use the equipment down here.”
“It’s all right. I used the underground laboratory in Bolenan Forest, too.”
“Th-the sage’s main headquarters…? I can’t believe that senile old geezer allowed you in there.”
Hey, you forgot to correct yourself on Gillil’s title this time.
“Well, I was doing research to help save the World Tree from imminent danger.”
Lelillil still looked doubtful, but she showed me to the control panel without further explanation, probably figuring she could test my mettle that way.
That was no problem—it was the same setup as the one in the underground research lab in Bolenan Forest.
“Let’s see what kind of equipment we’ve got loaded in here first…”
“Hmph. So you can operate the panel at least, insolent whelp.”
Ignoring Lelillil’s muttering, I focused on satisfying my own curiosity.
There wasn’t quite as much machinery as the underground lab in Bolenan Forest had, but there were still elf-style giant Transmutation Tablets, cauldrons, and even cultivation tanks for fine-tuning homunculi. That was more than satisfying.
There was a magic device for formatting and engraving cores and Holytree Stones, too, albeit an older model. If I remembered right, this was the one even the elves avoided using because it was so hard to operate.
“…Excellent. I can make all kinds of magic tools with these.”
I’d found tons of rare materials in the labyrinth, so I wanted to get cracking right away, but it was probably best to refrain for now.
“Thank you, Lelillil. I’ll be back to use this machinery often, if that’s all right.”
“Just make sure you don’t destroy the sage’s precious equipment, all right, whelp?”
“Yes, of course.”
Once my little underground tour was through, we had a tea party on the terrace in the garden aboveground to celebrate our new acquaintance.
The castellas I served along with the tea were a huge hit with Lelillil.
Before we went back, I placed a Return seal slate, and we left the Ivy Manor behind for the time being.
“Are we going to buy a house next?”
“Yeah, I’m planning to see if the west explorers’ guild has a place we can stay.”
The explorers’ guild in the east probably had more openings, but I wanted a place with easy access to the labyrinth, so I chose the nearby west guild.
We followed a different path out of the forest area than the one we’d entered through and found soldiers stationed at the wall.
There hadn’t been any at the entrance through the noble quarters, so I stuck my head out of the carriage window to address them.
“Did we need permission to come through this way?”
“Not at all, good sir! There are no restrict
ions on nobles’ passage here.”
I hadn’t shown them any identification or anything. They must have gathered that I was a noble because I was coming from the direction of the nobles’ quarters in a fancy guarded carriage.
There didn’t seem to be any problems, and I apologized for distracting them from their duties and moved on.
Farther down the road, we found ourselves near the lively south gate.
This and the north gate seemed to be the entrances generally used by commoners and merchants, so there were plenty of carriages coming to and fro.
Many of them had escorts, probably because of the nature of Labyrinth City. In addition to runosaurs and horses, there were some ostrichlike birds and dulldeer carrying riders or baggage.
“Livelyyy?”
“Lots of shops, sir.”
Tama and Pochi looked around excitedly, following the passersby with their eyes.
There were many merchant shops lining the main road from the south gate, along with some wholesale stores near the gate.
The stores marketed toward the wealthy could be found around the halfway point on the road leading toward the nobles’ quarters.
“Mm, diverse.”
“That’s true. There are lots of beastfolk and a lot of nomads and Westerners, too.”
It was a melting pot of races and peoples, in a different way from the old capital.
“…Thank you very much.”
I heard Lulu speaking from the coachman’s stand, so I peered out through the window.
A group of weaselfolk merchants had realized our carriage belonged to a noble and cleared a path for us.
I waved to them from the window, which seemed to startle them considerably. I guess most nobles didn’t bother greeting lowly merchants.
We continued along the castle wall and through an area of small farms and fields, emerging near a livestock ranch.
“Meeeat?”
“They look tasty, sir.”
Tama and Pochi pressed their faces to the window, staring at the livestock.
“Horses, sheep, and…is that Ohmi cattle?”
“It seems they’re a breed called ‘Celivera dullcattle.’”
Lulu was pointing at some round, short-legged cows.
According to a book I’d bought in the old capital, their meat was fatty and average-tasting, but they produced a great deal of delicious milk.
