Slayers - Volume 17 - Chapter 1

1: Suddenly, I Found Myself in an Unfamiliar Town

Suddenly, I found myself in an unfamiliar town.

“Huh?” I grunted in dumbstruck surprise.

Buildings lined the thoroughfare, dotted by stalls and shops. People were coming and going. Wagons rattled along, their wheels kicking up dust clouds.

But it was all wrong. The architecture. The color and feel of the stalls. Even the designs and patterns of the clothes people were wearing. None of it was familiar to me.

That said... judging by the blatant stares we were getting from passersby, it felt more like we were the ones who were out of place. I couldn’t grok what about us seemed so strange, though.

I wore a shortsword on my belt and my entire outfit was peppered with jeweled amulets, but I was primarily dressed in a black cape and bandanna. I kinda stood out in such a bright and cheery place—or maybe brought it down—but that’s basically standard issue for a sorcerer.

Meanwhile, my companion was tall, blond, and handsome. Gourry didn’t exactly have the typical rough-and-tumble appearance of a swordsman, but his light mail and longsword were pretty on point.

Something beyond that must have pegged us as outsiders.

“Say, Lina... just throwing this out there...” Gourry muttered softly. “But is this not Latka City?”

“I was just wondering the same thing,” I replied, staring out into space.

“No, this is Latka.” An accented, aged voice behind us caused us to turn around. There sat an old man on a bench in front of a residence. “Very sorry to eavesdrop, but this is indeed Latka City. And who might you be, travelers? Your outfits are curious, and you seemed to appear out of nowhere. Whence have you come?”

“Whence...?” From Latka City, of course—or so I was about to say, but I stopped myself. It was the truth, of course, but, to be more precise, Gourry and I had left Latka City for an unknown destination before winding up here.

See, it’d all started earlier that afternoon...

Guuulp—hack-ack! Augh! Hack! I forced myself to swallow my juice instead of spitting it out, leading to a massive coughing fit.

“Whoa! You okay, Lina?” Gourry asked.

It took a good while and a good bit of sputtering before I could respond, but I eventually got the words out. “Ah, I’m... f-fine!” I said before turning to the elderly shop owner. “Anyway, sir!”

The big lug and I were currently in Latka, a town close to Zephyr City, the capital of Zephilia. We’d arrived just before noon with the intent to make it another couple of towns down the road before getting lodging for the night. We were just stopping in for an early lunch.

Since it was still technically morning, however, the eatery we’d ducked into was practically deserted. So, apparently with nothing better to do, the proprietor had decided to chat with us while we ate. I mostly let his spiel go in one ear and out the other... until a seemingly innocuous comment had led me to my whole near-choking debacle.

“So, let me get this straight...” I began. “A wanderer just waltzed into town and settled in at the mayor’s place?”

“Yep,” the eatery owner confirmed.

“And the mayor’s whole family’s been acting weird since then?”

“Yep.”

“And what did you say this wanderer’s name was again?”

“Norst,” the old man filled in.

“Hrmmmmm...” So I’d heard him right after all.

“Ring a bell, Lina?” Gourry asked.

“Sort of. Maybe. Could just be my imagination, but...” I replied vaguely. I didn’t have much to go on, and what I did have was the thinnest of gruel. More of a paranoid daydream. A total “boy, would it suck if I’m right” kind of thing. But if there was any chance my speculation was correct, it was a portent of really-not-good stuff to come.

A stranger cozies up to some VIP, and soon after, said VIP starts acting funny. That sort of intrigue was common enough. My gut reaction was that I had no obligation to stick my neck out over it—as ignoble a thought as that was, and despite the likelihood that it’d eventually spark some conflict, big or small, if I let it be.

And yet... It was one thing when intrigue was the machination of a vengeful, greedy, or power-hungry human. But what if it was a demon?

Demons were creatures that sought the destruction of the world. The mortal enemies of all living beings. Their leader was Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, who was served by five lieutenants: Hellmaster, Dynast, Greater Beast, Deep Sea, and Chaos Dragon. Each of these lieutenants, in turn, had between one and four high-ranked demons known as Priests and Generals doing their dirty work.

Now, to most folks, this was all the stuff of legends. Some people didn’t believe they even really existed. But I, personally, had had no shortage of run-ins with their ilk.

One such run-in had been with a demon named Sherra, the General in service to Dynast. Over the course of our conflict, I’d learned that Dynast had three other Priest-slash-General underlings whose names were all derivative of his—Dynast Graushera. Apparently this was because Graushera saw his underlings as sacrificial pawns who weren’t worth the effort of a creative naming scheme.

So, dear reader... Do you see where I’m going with all this? I knew there were high-ranking demons out there with names akin to “Dai,” “Nast,” “Grau,” and “Sherra,” and I’d just heard there was some dude named Norst making things weird in town. That’s not too much of a stretch from “Nast,” now is it?

Plus, while lower-ranked demons took on easily identifiable monstrous forms, higher-ranked ones could appear indistinguishable from humans. That meant it was entirely possible for a powerful enough demon to take human form and infiltrate a city in the interest of some scheme or other.

Of course, there was the possibility that I was overthinking things. Maybe it was pure coincidence this wanderer had such a suspicious name. But then again, what if I looked the other way and happened to be right after all? What if it led to something even worse down the line? I was sure I’d regret not nipping it in the bud.

Moreover, Latka was close to my hometown. They were literally hitting me where I lived. And so...

“Could you tell me where to find this Norst fellow, sir?” I had to ask.

Ordinary—that was the only way to describe Latka City. Maybe the locals would object to that description, but if you asked ten travelers, I’d wager seven or eight would tell you the same.

Buildings lined the thoroughfare, dotted by stalls and shops. People were coming and going. Wagons rattled along, their wheels kicking up dust clouds.

We’d hit the center of town with the main road cutting through it. The mayor’s house was tucked away just beyond. It was a big house, though not so big I’d call it a mansion, surrounded by a low hedge with a nicely tended lawn.

So, how am I gonna approach this? While I stood outside the front door, thinking...

“Say, Lina,” piped up Gourry, who’d heretofore been silent.

“Yeah?”

“What are we doing here, exactly?”

“Oh.” That’s right. I forgot to fill him in. Maybe I should... Eh, nah. I knew there was no point in explaining things to Gourry, the master of playing dumb even about stuff he definitely knew. So I simply responded lightly, “I’m just... investigating a hunch.”

“Huh.”

No follow-up? Score! Normally I would have teased him about that, but no-questions-asked Gourry made things a lot easier in the moment. But just then...

“Can I help you?” A figure appeared from behind one of the trees on the lawn—an older fellow dressed in the dirty overalls, straw hat, and work gloves of a gardener. I assumed he’d been working and had only just noticed us.

“Ah, I’m a traveling sorcerer named Lina. I heard Norst was staying here, and I was wondering if he might be a guy I know,” I said, lying my pants off.

“I see.” The gardener nodded in understanding. “I should take you to meet him, then. Come along.” And with that, he headed for the door.

Wuh? I’d assumed this guy was a gardener, but given the way he spoke... Either way, knowing it would seem suspicious if I backed out now, I followed after him. “Um, are you...”

“The master of this house, yes.”

“Wait, you’re the mayor?!”

“That’s the natural conclusion, isn’t it?”

“Well... thank you for your help, Mr. Mayor,” I said, panicking internally.

Were we going to meet Norst right that second? It’d be all well and good if he turned out to be just some random guy. But... what if I was right and he was one of Dynast’s direct subordinates? It was just me and Gourry right now—we didn’t have the crew we’d had when tangling with Sherra before. I was also down the magic-boosting I’d had back then, which put a serious crimp in the strength and variety of spells I could use. If this turned into a fight, I wasn’t so sure we could win. The best I could hope for now was sizing up Norst, then playing dumb and getting the heck outta there.

The mayor guided us to a parlor on one side of the entrance hall. “If you’d be so kind, please wait right here,” he said, then walked away.

The parlor wasn’t particularly fancy in terms of decor, but it was plenty spacious. It hosted a big table and a set of sofas. The room looked like it could comfortably sit ten or more people, easy.

Gourry and I took a seat on a sofa and waited as instructed... until the door opened with a clack.

“Excuse me.” The man who entered appeared to be in his thirties. He was tall and wiry, with artlessly arranged hair of a very dark brown that fell just past his shoulders. He wore a moss green robe embroidered with gold thread, which seemed to hang off his frame at least one size too big.

Gourry and I stood up from the sofa to greet him.

The man regarded us with vague confusion. “I am Norst, a guest in this home,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “The mayor said you might be an acquaintance of mine, but... Lita, was it? I’m not sure I’ve had the pleasure.”

Lita? The mayor must’ve gotten my name wrong... Whatever. I had bigger fish to fry. To be honest, I hadn’t expected to get right to a face-to-face meeting so quickly. How to broach the subject, then?

“Er, it’s more a friend-of-a-friend situation, really...” I bluffed, thinking on my feet. “But I’m not entirely sure of the connection just yet myself.”

“Oh? And what might this mutual friend’s name be?” he asked.

I forced my voice to remain casual. “Sherra.”

As soon as I said that, the door behind Norst warped with a crack.

I gasped in shock as the door, made of a series of interwoven and intricately decorated panels, began twisting in a spiral and breaking apart until it went from being an identifiable object to a mere abstract pattern that soon spread to the walls, ceiling, and floor. At the same time, the walls also began to retreat into the distance. The next thing I knew, the table and sofas had disappeared, opening up a space between us and Norst. The walls continued to move so far away that I could no longer see them, leaving Gourry and me facing off against Norst in a vast space made up of only floor and ceiling.

“I see,” Norst said, a half-smile forming on his lips.

Right to it, huh?! I figured we would’ve had a little more back-and-forth to feel each other out, so this development really took me by surprise. Also, it probably goes without saying, but no human sorcerer could do something like that without at least a chant first. I’d all but confirmed his identity—which was well and good, but how the heck was I supposed to get out of this now?! Openly panicking here would be like admitting I didn’t have a plan.

Instead, I looked around me with a studied indifference. “Huh... Some kind of barrier?”

Norst snorted. “You seem awfully unperturbed. I assumed I’d have to cut off any possible route of escape, which is why I created a place that... isn’t.”

“A place that isn’t?”

“Yes. We are currently everywhere and nowhere at once. Which means the outside cannot influence us, nor can we influence the outside. You can’t run your way out of here, and there are no entrances or exits to flee to anyway. Plus, if you defeat me, it will undo the spell, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be returned to where you came from. The nature of being everywhere and nowhere at once means that when the spell is undone, you could end up on some distant mountain, in an unfamiliar city, or even over the ocean. Of course, that’s provided you can defeat me.”

Boy, that’s annoying... Long story short, it was basically impossible to escape unless he let us go.

“Now, you said you knew Sherra. From where, exactly?” Norst asked.

“Before I tell you, mind confirming something for me? You’re a General or Priest of Dynast’s, aren’t you?”

“You knew that and you still came to confront me, eh?” Norst said with a thin smile. “Impressive mettle. You’re right. I am Norst, General of the Dynast. What do you want of me?” The hostility flowing from him expanded around us like sediment.

Okay, yeah, the sitch was looking pretty darn grim. What’s my next move?

“What now, Lina?! He’s really raring to go!” Gourry said nervously. And when he did...

“Lina?” Norst parroted with a scowl. “I thought it was Lita.”

“The mayor just got her name wrong!” Gourry shouted.

“Wait...” Norst thought a moment, then looked back at me in shock. “Are you Lina Inverse?!”

So not good! If he could put that together just by my first name and the fact that I knew Sherra, he had to know exactly who I was—someone with massive demon beef. If just hearing Sherra’s name spoken had been enough to make this guy throw away all pretense and trap us in this weird barrier thing, there was no way he was gonna let me go now that he’d realized who I was. And of course, there was also no way at this point I could just say “sorry, mistaken identity.”

How to get out, then? Before I could think of something... Norst sprang into action. Gourry and I braced ourselves for battle!

Except Norst’s big move turned out to be kneeling down in place, planting his hands on the floor, and screaming, “You gotta be kidding me!” His voice was chagrined. “There’s no way! No! Freaking! Way! All right, get a load of this! Yes, I do some evil! I am a demon, after all! A General, no less... It’s not like I have quotas, but I do have my rank and reputation to think of! I can’t just stand around doing nothing! So here I am, laying the most basic of basic groundwork, not even actually doing anything yet. And just as I’m starting to consider doing a teeny-tiny little bit of bad stuff, suddenly there’s a knock at my door! ‘Hello! Lina Inverse here to kick your ass if you don’t mind!’ Can you freaking believe it?! This is the absolute worst!”

Uh... I didn’t quite know what to say. That certainly wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting, especially from a high-ranked demon. I had to entertain the possibility it was some ruse to get me off guard... right?

Since I had to be ready to chant a spell at any time, Gourry spoke in my place. “Is Lina famous among you guys or something?”

“Huh?!” Norst looked up, slightly irked. “Is Lina famous among us?!” He sounded almost offended. “She defeated the incarnation of our Dark Lord, then took the Great One into her body and defeated Lord Hellmaster without any harm coming to her! Then she vanquished Lord Dynast and defeated yet another incarnation of our Dark Lord! What idiot doesn’t know her?! You think we demons have no sense of self-preservation?! That we never share information?!”

Apparently my fights with demons were paying dividends. Of course, when you lined them all up like that, it was hard to deny that—while luck definitely played a huge part in it all—I really had done a number on the demons, huh?

“Yes, she’s famous! Infamous, even! She’s a harbinger of doom to demonkind! The Demon Slayer herself! Demons step past out of clear revulsion!”

“Clear revulsion?!” I found myself shouting. I’d heard that said about me vis-a-vis dragons, but demons?

“Clear revulsion!” Norst insisted, puffing out his chest for some reason. “See, there are some demons who think we should have our revenge on you. But some of us in the more high-ranking set, myself included, feel like going out of our way to take a shot at you would just mean heavier losses! It’s better just to avoid you altogether.”

“So... you don’t want to fight her?” Gourry asked.

“Of course not!” Norst responded furiously. “If you ask me, it’s not even a simple matter of strength! We demons are just a bad match-up for the being known as Lina Inverse!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I growled, unable to help feeling a little offended.

“There are those who believe that because the Great One briefly inhabited your body, some measure of that power still lingers within you... But what about everything before then, eh? The only answer is that you have some inexplicable quality—some kind of predestination or property that neither human nor demon logic can quantify! How are we to fight something as nebulous as that?! I say we can’t, so the best policy is to steer clear! Yet here you are! Right! Freaking! Here! No warning, no rhyme, no reason! You just bust down my door, happy as you please! What the hell am I supposed to do with that?!” After screaming his throat out, Norst suddenly straightened up and bowed low to us. “So I’m begging of you, spare me. Just this once! Please!”

“Um...” How was I supposed to respond to a demon so powerful that I wasn’t sure I could beat him with an entire army and a gang of sorcerers treating me like a litigious unsatisfied customer?

He seemed to take my lack of response as dissatisfaction and quickly spoke up again. “I know! How about this?! I’ll send you safe and sound to Latka, and I’ll willingly pack up and leave town! And on top of that, I promise not to lay a hand on humans for five—no, ten years! In exchange, you let me leave without a fight, and if we do happen to pass each other in some other city somewhere, we’ll both just look the other way! We won’t even make eye contact!”

He committed to that compromise all on his own. Just how scared of me is this guy? It was starting to get on my nerves, but I wasn’t inclined to press the issue. Insisting on a fight would be the opposite of what I’d hoped to achieve here, after all. “Okay. Agreed.”

“Hooray!” Norst exclaimed with an exaggerated expression of relief and a celebratory pose.

Grr...

“I’d better get while the getting’s good, then...”

“You’re one to talk about ‘good,’” I snarked.

Ignoring my snide comment, Norst... didn’t move, exactly, although he’d clearly done something, because the countless patterns swirling on the ceiling and floor began to rise before me until they consumed my vision entirely.

The next thing I knew, Gourry and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar town.

The wind blew. Wagons rattled along...

“Now...” I thought for a minute, then spoke back to the old man on the bench. “This isn’t the Latka that’s close to Zephyr City, is it?”

“Zephyr? Where’s that?” he replied.

Hoo boy... “Pray tell, then, what kingdom are we in right now?!”

“What kingdom?” The old man furrowed his brow in confusion. “This has always been the domain of Luzilte.”

That name didn’t ring a bell. A minor member of the Alliance of Coastal Nations, perhaps?

“Man... he really got us,” I said, scratching my head.

“What do you mean?” Gourry asked.

“Norst tricked us,” I explained knowingly. “He shunted us from his nowhere-space into a totally different city!”

“But... didn’t he say he’d send us back to where we came from?”

“Not specifically, no. He said, ‘I’ll send you to Latka.’ He let us think he meant the Latka City we came from, then sent us to a completely different Latka.” Sometimes totally unrelated cities ended up with the same name. Apparently this was one of those cases. “So he got out of fighting us, but he sure managed to set us back... Darn it.”

I’d played a little board game as a child, in which it was possible to land on a space just before the finish line that sent you all the way back to the start... but I’d never thought that would happen to me in real life. That said, it wasn’t like I was in any particular hurry to get home. I was just headed that way as part of my leisurely journey.

I addressed the old man again. “To tell the truth, we’re pretty lost... Could I ask if there’s a sorcerers’ council in this city?”

The old man scowled at us in confusion for a moment. “Never heard of one.”

“Then is there a large city nearby that does have a sorcerers’ council?” I tried asking instead.

“I’m sorry...” The wrinkle in the man’s brow deepened, and he spoke apologetically. “But I don’t know a thing about sorcerers’ councils.”

“Oh, I see.” I finally realized the nature of the misunderstanding.

As the name suggests, a sorcerers’ council was a group of sorcerers designed to assist others of the same profession. Most large cities had a branch, and they handled magic items and long-range communications with other branches. However, while a sorcerer like me got a lot of use out of such councils, they were beyond the ken of most folks who didn’t practice magic. This old gent likely couldn’t have cared less which cities did and didn’t have councils, so I was gonna have to get my info elsewhere.

“Is there an inn in this town, then?” I asked instead.

“An inn, you say?” The old man finally smiled and gave us detailed instructions on how to get there.

Egh... I just managed to refrain from groaning out loud.

An eatery-slash-drinkery on the ground floor, open late, with guest rooms for rent upstairs—that was more or less what I’d come to expect from an inn. But the so-called inn Gourry and I arrived at was a perfectly average civilian house, no different in atmosphere or size than the other residences in the area. At first I thought we’d come to the wrong place, but near the entrance was a small sign that read “Inn” in what looked like the handwriting of a child who’d only just learned the word.

So we were probably in the right place. But it still looked like an ordinary house that just happened to have an open room to rent to travelers.

“What’s wrong, Lina?” Gourry asked from behind me as I stared out into space. “Why are we standing around here? Don’t we have to get to the inn?”

“Um, Gourry...”

“What?”

I looked back over my shoulder and pointed tremblingly at the house. “I think this is the inn.”

Gourry broke out in a big, broad smile. “You’re joking.”

“I’m serious.”

Gourry’s smile froze. “Huh? So we’re staying here tonight?”

“No way. The whole reason I wanted to find an inn was to rustle up info in a place with plenty of people.” It was only a little after noon, so if there was a large city nearby, we could easily walk there. We didn’t actually have to spend the night in Latka. And as for info... “Even if we go in here...”

“It’ll be dead as a doornail,” Gourry said, not at all shy about stating the rude truth. Granted, I was thinking the exact same thing.

So, with little other choice, we walked away from the supposed inn and down a nearby street lined with stalls and shops. There we found a fruit-seller. Her stall wasn’t particularly large, but it featured a lineup of produce I’d never seen before. I plucked out a couple of apples from among them.

“Two of these please, ma’am!” I called to the old lady running the stall.

“Sure thing. Four corsenas, if’n you please,” she said. She had a slight accent too, just like the old man had before.

I was pretty familiar with the local currency of most kingdoms, but I’d never heard of corsenas. “Do you accept copper coins from other kingdoms?” I asked.

“You a traveler, eh? ’Fraid not...”

“Then could I pay in silver and get change?”

“That’ll do.”

And so we completed the transaction. It was common enough for different countries to call their domestic coins by different names, and the coppers of some nations weren’t accepted beyond their own borders. But gold and silver coins, where the material itself had value, were pretty universal. I handed her the silver and studied the coppers she gave me in change. They were unfamiliar coinage with some kind of shell inscribed on one face.

“By the way, ma’am, I have a question. I assume we’re currently in the Alliance of Coastal Nations. Could you tell me roughly about where?”

“Eh?” she asked back blankly. I repeated my question, and she furrowed her brow in studied silence. “Sorry, what? What’s an allyants of coatsall nayshuns?” she asked at last.

“Uh?” Now it was my turn to stare blankly.

Someone with no interest in politics might not know the names of faraway locations. Not knowing the name of the alliance she lives in, though? That definitely isn’t normal.

“Erm, it’s a group of countries near the ocean... This isn’t one of them?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know much about our kingdom, but I never heard of us being part of some larger group.”

Huh? A sudden shiver ran up my spine, and a thought ran through my mind. Hoping to repudiate it, I said, “Okay, then have you heard of any of these countries? Ralteague, Zephilia, Saillune, Lyzeille...”

The woman shook her head apologetically.

“Th-Then... could you tell me the names of all the countries you do know?”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me, but replied, “All right, but I don’t know many. Let’s see...”

The names she proceeded to recite... Never heard of it, never heard of it, never heard of it. The longer she went on, the more I could feel the blood drain from my face.

“But this domain is known as Luzilte—” She stopped short. “Say, are you well? You’ve gone pale as death!”

“Ah... I’m fine,” I croaked.

“You sure you’re okay, Lina? What’s wrong?” Gourry looked down at me in concern.

“I just realized what’s going on,” I replied, hoarsely.

“What’s going on?”

The unfamiliar town. The strange fruits. The distinctive accents. That was all within expectations. But I didn’t know any of the countries she named, nor did she know any of the countries I named. Which suggested something I didn’t even want to consider...

I laid out the frankly absurd situation for Gourry. “We’re in the world far beyond the Desert of Destruction... outside the demons’ barrier.”

Legend has it that, long ago, the gods and demons fought for control of our world. On one side was Flare Dragon Ceifeed. On the other, Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu. Ceifeed wanted to protect the world, while Shabranigdu wanted to destroy it. They battled, and in time, their duel ended in a draw. The exhausted Ceifeed divided his power into four entities, creating the four Dragon Lords as pillars representing fire, earth, water, and air. The exhausted Shabranigdu was split into seven fragments and reincarnated inside human beings, his consciousness sealed, yet waiting for a chance to be reborn.

Then, nigh a thousand years ago, the demons rose to challenge Aqualord, protector of the Kataart Mountains in the north. Aqualord was thus pitted against one reborn shard of the Dark Lord. Four of his demonic lieutenants—Hellmaster, Dynast, Greater Beast, and Deep Sea—formed a barrier anchored in the lands surrounding the Kataarts in order to diminish Aqualord’s power and prevent intervention from the other Dragon Lords. This plan spelled the demise of Aqualord, but the revived Dark Lord was ultimately sealed away in ice. And so the Kataart Mountains were transformed from a sacred place into a demonic one.

This conflict came to be known as the Incarnation War. Since that time, the lands in which we lived—including my homeland of Zephilia, the Alliance of Coastal Nations, Saillune, et cetera—had been cut off by Hellmaster’s barrier in the Desert of Destruction on the edge of the Elemekia Empire. It made all the lands beyond inaccessible, and the same was true in other directions. Our sea routes (if there’d ever been any) were likewise cut off by the demons’ barrier. We were entirely sealed off from the “outer lands.”

Or maybe I should say we had been sealed off. Because right now, those outer lands were the only place I could imagine us being.

“For real?” Gourry asked. We’d taken a seat on some wooden crates next to the fruit-seller’s stall to enjoy our apples by the roadside.

“For real,” I whispered listlessly as I finished mine.

“Don’t be down, Lina. You’re acting like that Norst guy,” Gourry replied from beside me, fresh off his own apple.

“I don’t really care about that...”

“But panicking won’t get you anywhere, will it?”

I let out a deep sigh. “You just don’t get it, Gourry.”

“Get what?”

“We’re currently outside of the demons’ barrier... beyond the Desert of Destruction, I think.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” he said with a shrug.

“I don’t know how far away we are, or even what city we’re even in!”

“Sure.”

“I have no idea how to get us back where we came from!”

“Figures.”

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all...

“You listen here!” I declared. “Mouth-watering milsafish and flavorful autumn nigi-mushrooms! Otarl sea bream that tastes of the divine when sautéed, and mineva duckling packed with savory deliciousness! We’ll never get to eat any of those again!”

“For real?” Gourry said, slumping down to the ground limply.

“For real.”

Tears began to flow from his eyes.

You’re crying, dude?!

“Lina, I... I don’t know what to do...”

Somehow, seeing Gourry even more depressed than I was about our future food prospects inspired a perverse streak of optimism in me. “Hey, c’mon, man... I know how you feel. But it’s too soon to give in to despair.”

Slowly, I stood up. “I was pretty shaken, I’ll admit... but not all hope is lost.”

Gourry just gazed up at me blankly.

I nodded firmly to reassure him—moreover, to reassure myself. “It’s true! Let’s try looking at this differently. After all, we might get to try all kinds of tasty foods we can only find here!”

“Oh!” The light returned to Gourry’s eyes.

“We’ll travel the land sampling new forms of deliciousness! Besides, we can still find a way home! We’ll walk as long as we have ground at our feet, and if we run out of ground, we’ll just find a boat!”

“Great points, all!” Gourry stood up with renewed vigor. He stared straight into my eyes. “And... I’m not alone! Because I have you, Lina!”

“...”

Wait... what the hell is he saying?! I felt my face go hot.

After a moment, he continued, “As long as you’re here, I don’t have to worry about money! Because you’re so reliable about stuff like that! Wait, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Oh, uh... right.” That’s what he meant?! I let out a quiet sigh. “Anyhoo! Nothing to it but to do it! Let’s ask around and set a course based on what we learn!”

“Yeah! You handle the asking and the planning!” Gourry proclaimed, happily leaving the hard work to me.

Still, right now, we were all about momentum! Which was why I opted not to yell at him!

And so, after being flung into the outer lands by a tricky jerk, Gourry and I resumed our homeward journey.

Whether in the inner or outer lands, people were still people. They practiced all the same professions. Meaning...

“All right, you lot! Strip down! Leave yer clothes where you’re standin’ and we’ll spare yer lives! Ya got it?”

Yup, bandits who attacked travelers, spitting the same old cliché lines and flashing their swords—there were dudes like that here too. Go figure.

Gourry and I had heard that if we left Latka and followed the main road, we’d make it to the rather large city of Maricida by sunset. We’d set out right away, but not long after beginning our walk down the more-or-less deserted road, we were met by a group of ten or so men.

Mr. Mohawk, naked from the waist up with a tattoo on his cheek, flashed his shortsword and sneered. “Well? What’ll it be?”

Hoo boy. What’ll it be, huh? You guessed it...

“Fireball.”

Kra-koooom! The ball of light I unleashed landed smack in the middle of the bandit gang, exploded, and sent them all flying. (I’d chanted the spell while Mr. Mohawk was running down the same old trite script, see.)

There we go... After making sure all the guys in front of us were down for the count, I turned right around. Not far off was another band of five or six bandits.

Ah, I knew it. Stop your prey in their tracks and drone on to keep their attention while a detachment moves in to pincer them from behind. Theoretically, an effective ambush strategy. But after watching me blow away their main force with a single spell, the flying column wasn’t doing much but standing there in shock. I was about to start another chant, but before I could...

“W-W-Wait a minute!” A member of the detachment, dressed in a bear skin, spoke up hastily. “We’ve seen how powerful you are! We’ll leave you alone! So, please...”

“‘So, please, let us continue our lawless rampage elsewhere’? Is that it?” I pressed him.

Seeming to detect the edge in my tone, he went pale. “I-It’s not like that! It’s not like we wanted to be bandits! I had lousy parents who beat me as a kid—”

“Aha. Now that you mention it, yeah, I’m sure nobody wants to become a bandit.”

“R-Right?!”

“And I am sympathetic to your past.”

“So then...”

“But I don’t feel sorry for anyone who, rather than refusing to be like the people who hurt them, decides to become an abuser instead.”

“Huh?”

I smiled brightly at him, and...

The roar of a second Fireball echoed through the forest.

“Well? What now, Lina?” Gourry asked me over breakfast the next day.

Yet again, however, we’d been unable to find a proper inn. We’d made it to Maricida, and while the place was indeed rather large, it was pretty sleepy. It felt less like a planned city and more like two or three villages pasted together.

After arriving the afternoon prior, we’d done a brief once-around looking for lodging, but unlike cities in the inner lands, there were very few houses here with a second floor, and only a handful of those had any size at all. There were no large shops, just a few stores here and there like what we’d seen in Latka.

But what bothered me the most was that, unlike back home, there just wasn’t much in the way of facilities catering to travelers. The “inn” we’d found in Maricida wasn’t quite as small as the one in Latka—by which I mean that it had a handful of spare rooms instead of just the one. There were no extra amenities, so we’d had to find dinner and breakfast elsewhere.

Having an eatery on the first floor of an inn allowed travelers to go straight to their rooms after dinner, rest up, and grab breakfast the minute they woke up in the morning. I’d grown so accustomed to that setup that the lack of it felt especially frustrating. Fortunately, there were quite a few stalls outside the inn that were open late into the night and early in the morning, so at least we hadn’t starved.

Gourry and I had stopped by one such stall for breakfast, and were currently eating some kind of flat, flour-based noodles topped with a bland, sticky vegetable and finely marbled meat. It didn’t look much like what we were used to, but they called it saury. It had a homey sort of taste to it, but there wasn’t much variation to the menu (it being a stall and all) and the portions were on the small side.

Perched atop the wooden crates left out to serve as seating, Gourry and I sated our growling stomachs with two bowls apiece. Then, at last, it was time to decide our next move.

“Hmm, we have options,” I said, thinking for a moment. “We could get a third bowl, but I think I’d like to hit up a few other stalls first. Fried chicken is always good, but it’s not like I haven’t had it before... so let’s go for foods that look out of the ordinary. Obviously, there’s a chance we’ll find something we don’t like, but we’ll never know unless we try it.”

Okay, don’t laugh about the fact that we were still talking food! Sleeping and eating are the most important elements of survival! When visiting a new place, it’s important to learn about the local cuisine!

The food here was different from back home in all kinds of ways, see, and there were tons of ingredients I’d never seen before. So when Gourry and I inevitably ended up roughing it out on the road, we could easily end up eating poison. If we could more or less stick to what we’d seen for sale at stalls and such, though, I knew we’d be okay. So in order to be able to make the right calls, I had to feel out the local food scene as much as possible.

“But once we’re done with that—” I began before stopping abruptly.

There was a tension in the air. When I realized that and looked in the most likely direction, I saw an armed group walking along the roadside a little ways off.

The town guard, perhaps?

It was a roughly twenty-man force that seemed like a real motley crew. Only five of them looked like real soldiers with proper helmets, armor, and spears. As for the rest, they seemed to just be carrying whatever weapons and armor they could scrounge up. It was clear from the way they comported themselves that they didn’t have any bona fide combat training. Still, their faces were grim and battle-ready.

This is...

“Let’s go, Gourry. We’ll hit up the stalls later.” We’d paid in advance when we put in our order, so Gourry stood up to join me and we quickly began moving in the direction of the armed group.

“This isn’t like you, Lina,” he said. “You don’t usually like sticking your nose into other people’s business.”

“To be clear, I still don’t like it—but it’s best to earn the trust of the locals, right?” My exact involvement would depend on the nature of the conflict, of course. But this was a golden opportunity to break the ice. “Excuse me!” I called as I approached the group.

The men stopped and looked back at us. “What is it?” responded the guy at the lead. He had a red beard and looked around thirty years old.

“We’re a traveling sorcerer and mercenary.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Has... something happened?”

The lead soldier looked us over with an appraising eye. “A sorcerer... A magician, you mean?” His grim expression eased slightly.

Apparently the term “sorcerer” wasn’t all that common around here. “More or less,” I replied nevertheless.

“Perfect! Please help us! We’d be so grateful!”

“Give us the deets first.”

“I’ll explain on the way. We must make haste,” the soldier said, already on the move again.

“Sure thing,” I responded and began to follow him.

“I’m Bronco, captain of the guard in this city. Those behind me are my men.”

They look like mostly newbies, I thought, but kept it to myself. “I’m Lina. Lina Inverse. And my companion here is Gourry. We’re kind of on a wayward journey, and you guys look like you’re in some trouble, so we figured we’d see what was up. So, what’s up?”

My question provoked a grave silence from Bronco. “I’m not sure how to put it... It’s complicated. Just come with me. It’s possible you’ll know more about it than I do.”

“Is it serious?”

“I hope I’m wrong, but...” Bronco said, trying to hide his expression but looking rather pale, “it could be the end of Maricida City.”

The moment we saw it, we all came to a halt.

“What in the world is that?” someone whispered numbly, his voice trembling with fear. The sight before him must have been just that shocking to him.

“I don’t know.” Bronco’s response was similarly tremulous. “But... there’s some kind of monster in the area. We can say that much for sure.”

“Say, my grandfather told me a story once...” Another soldier spoke up. “He said that back when he was kid, long before Maricida got so huge, a wicked greater demon appeared and laid into the town. Hundreds of soldiers were sent from the capital to destroy it, and they managed to slay the demon, but half of them perished in the battle and Maricida was nearly destroyed. Do you think... maybe the demon has come back?”

“Don’t be absurd!” Bronco barked. “I’ve heard that old story before! But... there’s no way!”

“Then tell us what, Captain Bronco! What else could have done this?!”

While I listened to their exchange... I was filled with regret.

The soldiers continued. “What else could so effortlessly destroy the bandits who’ve been tormenting us?! And... to scorch the very ground itself? What kind of monster could have done this?!”

I’m really sorry. It was totally me.

The spooked Bronco—sorry, Captain Bronco—and his men had taken me and Gourry down the road between Latka and Maricida where I’d chucked two Fireballs at the poor bandits from yesterday. Needless to say, there were still two large, burnt craters in the ground.

The whole group was quickly abuzz with fearful speculation about the “legendary demon” reviving. Judging by their reactions, I presumed the Fireball spell wasn’t common in these parts. Back in the inner lands, it wasn’t so universal that all sorcerers knew how to cast it, but its name was widely known. It wasn’t unusual to go up against a foe who could use it. Even rank-and-file soldiers and mercs at least knew it was a spell that involved shooting a ball of light that exploded on impact.

“We... We’re finished...” The soldiers slumped to their knees, weeping.

“Lina.” While that was going on, Gourry placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “I think you’d better say it sooner rather than later.”

“You’re right...” I didn’t have a choice. I timidly raised a hand and said, “Listen, I—”

Captain Bronco gasped. “Wait a minute! I knew seeing something like this might make you want to run away! I won’t ask you to fight with us. But please, if you know anything, share it with us!”

“Um, this is kinda hard to say, but...”

“I don’t care! We’re ready for any truth you might reveal to us!”

“Actually... I did this. Me.”

Captain Bronco froze up for a few moments, then muttered, “What?” He was glaring at me. Super hard.

I found myself looking away as I continued, “Er, well, see, um... Yesterday, me and Gourry were out here... and bandits attacked... and I used an attack spell that... y’know... went all ’splodey.”

“Ahh...” As if he’d come to some realization, Captain Bronco’s gaze suddenly softened. “You’re trying to put me at ease. If only everyone could believe such a kind lie... But I have a duty to protect Maricida. Even... Even if we’re dealing with a monster. Even if it’s an unwinnable battle.” He cast a forlorn gaze out over the horizon.

So he’s the kind of guy who needs to see to believe, huh? He’d brought this on himself. I recited the incantation and took aim at a spot a safe distance from the group. “Fireball.”

The whole task force groveled before me.

I’m sorry... Really sorry...

The bar was so loud it probably should’ve gotten complaints from the neighbors. It was so raucous that there was nary a moment without an awkward cackle from some drunkard or other.

After we’d cleared up the whole demonic revival misunderstanding and I made it clear to the town guard that I was responsible for the craters, the men instantly moved to celebrating the bandits’ demise. We’d thus returned to Maricida and begun a drinking-slash-eating party. It wasn’t evening yet—in fact, it wasn’t even lunchtime. But they’d apparently been so run ragged by the bandits that booze was the first order of business.

Captain Bronco called in the rest of his soldiers (security brigade—whatever they were) who were on watch, bringing the total headcount to forty or fifty. There were too many of us to fit inside one building, so half of the guys were drinking out front. I really was worried we were disturbing the peace.

“Well, well! Mistress Lina! Your magics are truly incredible!” Captain Bronco bellowed.

With his helmet off, I could see he had disheveled red hair to match his beard. Years in the business had given him a forbidding gaze, and he was a big, muscular man. In other words, he kinda looked like a ruffian. If I ran into him on the road at night without knowing him, I’d definitely blast him on the spot with an attack spell and whisper to myself, “Whew, close call.”

“‘Fireball,’ you called it?” he continued. “To think a single spell could do so much! Not even the magicians of the capital are capable of that!”

Gourry gnawed on a chicken leg as he listened to Bronco gush. “Is Lina’s magic really that special?”

“You bet it is!” the captain said. “Such powerful magic could— Ah, Master Gourry, I’m sure you’ve gotten used to Mistress Lina’s magic after spending so much time with her, but I’ve never seen such a powerful spell! Normally folks never get to see magic at all unless they know a court magician! I myself only saw it once when I was a young lad, and it was nothing so incredible! They simply turned the horizontal stripes on a handkerchief to vertical ones.”

You call that “magic”?! Let me tell you—I had opinions about that. But at any rate, real magic was apparently quite rare out here in the outer lands. Even Captain Bronco, who made his living on the battlefield, knew next to nothing about it, which told me he’d never fought anyone who could use it.

“Say, you mentioned court sorcere—er, court magicians...” While I waffled over the wording, I asked Captain Bronco, “So if we go to the capital, might we find a sorcerers’ coun—rather, some kind of magical association or school?”

“A magical association or school, eh?” A furrow appeared in Captain Bronco’s brow. “I’ve heard of no such thing... but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There are rumors that the high priests of Ceifeed can call upon divine miracles, but that’s not exactly an organization or school.”

He was right about that. Maricida had a temple to Ceifeed, which I’d visited the day before, but the priests and shrine maidens there couldn’t use any spells. Where I came from, most priests learned a basic Recovery spell as an easy way to grant blessings. I’d just assumed the churches here rolled differently, but it turned out there was more to it than that.

“Hmm... Could you tell us the way to the capital, then, Captain Bronco?” I asked.

“Absolutely! I’ll give you a simple map to Palbathos. Oh, and speaking of, I have an acquaintance in the guard there. I’ll write you a letter of introduction!”

That sounded great, and I was certainly grateful... but Gourry and I still didn’t have any leads on getting home.

What would I learn in this capital of theirs? Fighting back the anxieties in my chest, I decided to take this night to make small talk with Captain Bronco’s crew and enjoy all kinds of unknown foods.