EPILOGUE
GALE WIND’S NEWS
After defeating the enhanced species, our party left the lower levels together with Dormul, Luvis, and their companions.
We had suffered major damage and loss of our supplies, and therefore we took the shortest route to the Colossal Tree Labyrinth without making a single detour. From there we returned to the safety point of Rivira. The town’s residents made no fuss whatsoever over the armless Luvis and the other injured party members, as if seeing adventurers with irreparable injuries was just a part of daily life. We requested and received accommodation to treat the wounded here.
One full day has passed since my battle with the enhanced species.
“Are you…all right…?”
Our party has come to the inn to check on Luvis and the other wounded, who we’ve heard have made it past the most dangerous stage of their treatment.
“Sorry to worry you! It’s nothing life-threatening,” Luvis says, sitting up in bed. I can tell he is still exhausted, but he gives me a hearty smile. He’s sharing a large room built into a cave with a number of other adventurers, including other elves from Modi Familia and dwarves from Magni Familia, which Dormul belongs to. They’re all resting on beds or sheets spread on the floor. A boundary line has been drawn down the center of the room—evidence of the usual bad relations between the dwarves and the elves.
“Thank ye kindly. Yer kindness has warmed me heart and, well…yo-ho-ho?!”
Dormul blushes and bursts into laughter as he looks at Cassandra and Haruhime.
“I’m so glad you’re doing better,” the healer says.
“Are the other dwarves recovering all right?” Haruhime asks.
I glance over at Luvis, who has already changed into a spare set of battle clothes. No arm protrudes from the cuff of the short sleeve on the right side.
“I’m sorry we weren’t able to fix your arm…” I say.
As I had feared, there was no way to restore it. The severed limb that we recovered was already beginning to rot, and if we had attached it, it would probably have caused necrosis from the shoulder down. No healing item or magic has the power to reverse time and undo decay.
I was worried my apology might have sounded arrogant, but Luvis answers, “No, I was lucky.”
“Huh?” I say.
He brings his left hand to his right stump and shakes his head.
“I lost an arm, not my life.”
“…Mr. Luvis.”
“Don’t worry about me. This all happened because of my own carelessness.”
I follow Luvis’s eyes and see that several other bandaged elves are smiling, too. One female elf is missing a leg. I don’t know what to say.
“This is an adventurer’s life. This is the Dungeon,” Luvis says, drawing his thin eyebrows together.
“This is the price we pay in our quest for the unknown. It’s a reality we all must face.”
Like he says, the reality of being an adventurer is right here before my eyes. It’s not at all like a splendid fairy tale. It’s the hard truth of losing an arm or an eye or even your life.
Still—continuing the fight as long as you have your life is part of being an adventurer.
Seeing Luvis’s sudden smile helps me realize that.
“When we get back to the surface, I’ll go see Dian Cecht Familia and get them to make me the best prosthetic arm out there…Oh boy, it’ll drive our patron deity wild to hear we’re going into debt over that!”
Maybe because he’s imagining the moment he reveals the news, Luvis giggles. It’s a pleasant laugh, not in the least shadowed by bitterness.
The graceful elven youth looks up at me.
“Rabbit Foot…Bell Cranell. Thank you for rescuing us. I swear on the name of Luvis Lilix that one day I will repay this enormous debt…My deepest gratitude, comrade of the elves.”
He puts his hand on his chest and bows deeply. The other elves do the same, with smiles on their faces.
“…Hmph! Ye elves are too formal. Ye ought to do things more simply.”
Dormul, who had been watching my exchange with Luvis silently, approaches me with his companions.
“Thank ye, Hestia Familia and other adventurers. If ye find trouble in the future, we dwarves will help.”
We grin at each other, and then I grasp the massive hand Dormul has extended. Lilly, Welf, and the others shake hands with the other dwarves.
“Enough with these boring formalities! We’ve gotten through the worst; now I say it’s time for a few drinks!”
“M-Miss Aisha? What in the world are you talking about…?” Haruhime gasps.
“Thanks to that lumbering giant, our plans got all messed up and we had to give up the expedition halfway through. The least we can do is enjoy ourselves now!” Aisha answers smugly. The dwarves’ eyes sparkle at her suggestion, while the elves look astonished.
“Getting wounded people drunk, eh, Amazon?”
“We’re in!”
“Right, then, it’s a drinking party! We’ll drink this town dry!” Aisha says.
“Miss Aisha, this is absolutely not acceptable! The exorbitant prices of drinks in Rivira will be our ruin! At least wait until we’re back on the surface…!” Lilly shrieks.
“Stop being so stingy, Lilly! After all, we did bring back plenty of jewels from the lower levels!” Welf says.
“That’s a separate issue!! You think I’m going to let you waste my jewels on drinks?!”
“Back to the same old nonsense…” Daphne sighs, recalling a similar scene from the first day of the expedition. Cassandra laughs hollowly.
I smile wryly and sneak out of the large room. Maybe part of me wants to avoid getting pulled into the celebration, but mostly it’s that I want to tell the townsfolk who helped us out that Luvis and the others are on the mend.
Outside the cave-turned-inn, the eighteenth floor is bustling with midday activity. The chrysanthemum-like crystals on the ceiling are glowing with a soft sunlike light.
“Hey, Rabbit Foot! I heard you met up with quite the monster down there! Bad luck for your first expedition, I’d say!”
Bors, the head of Rivira, buttonholes me as soon as I step out of the inn. A smile on his unseemly face and a patch over one eye, he pounds me on the shoulder. His odd charm makes me smile back at his straightforward words in spite of myself.
“Tell me the whole story! I’ll pay for the drinks if you get the snacks,” he says.
“Uh, well, how about having a party with everyone, then…?”
“Right! Leave it to me!”
I make the suggestion thinking Aisha and the others will appreciate it, but just then we’re interrupted.
“Bors! Bors!”
An animal-person adventurer runs up to us.
“What’s all the fuss about?”
“…der.”
“What?”
“A murder! An adventurer has been killed outside of town!”
Both Bors and I stare in shock at the bearer of this news.
“Wait now, are you sure this isn’t the work of a monster?”
“No, a human! I saw the criminal!”
As the extremely upset animal person describes what they saw, I can’t hide my own distress.
Once again, death is close to me…A shiver runs down my neck, the blood drains from my face, and my stomach churns with an awful sound.
“Who is it you say you saw?” Bors asks, narrowing his eyes sharply.
The animal person hesitates for a minute, then goes white and speaks.
“Gale Wind…”
Huh?
I stand there like a statue, not comprehending what I just heard. The townsperson continues in a loud voice.
“It was the work of that blacklisted adventurer with a bounty on her head…Gale Wind!”
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