Swamp Girl! Chapter 61

“Which way, Palmira?”

By the time I got out the door, the man was already nowhere to be seen.
I came out without paying it any mind, but quite unlike the time I entered, the foyer on the other side looked completely unfamiliar to me.
It was the same entrance hall, but its appearance was different, and gloomy in comparison to the entryway.

“There.”

Palmira pointed to the opposite side of the sprawling hall.

Looking over, I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be the man’s shadow disappearing through the door at the other end.
Picking up the hem of the dress, now nothing but a bother, I broke into a half-jog.
It was a pretty dumb way to carry myself, but still, I didn’t have the guts to ruin the hem of the dress.
Which made Palmira that much faster than me.
Maybe because no one else was around, she headed for the door at almost top speed.

“Is he in there?”

I finally caught up to Palmira, who stood stock still as she peered into the room.
At the same time, I took a peek myself.

— There was nothing inside.

It looked like a parlor of some sort. Or a reception room for guests. However, maybe because there were no plans to put it to its intended use at the moment, it was currently serving as a storage room. The light from the entrance didn’t extend far enough into its dark interior.
The room wasn’t that wide, but with a jumble of miscellany inside, it was difficult to see.
But even so, I could at least tell that there was no human presence here.

“Palmira, he came in here, right? The man just now.”

“He should have.”

Though Palmira more or less confirmed my thoughts, from the state inside, I wasn’t particularly confident in myself.
But considering I was sure enough to expect him inside, I put my faith in my own eyes and took a step into the room.

Inside were a sofa, table, large shelf, and fireplace. Besides those, there was a jumbled mess of wooden boxes and barrels. They looked as if they hadn’t been touched in a long time. The sofa and other furniture were broken in places.
Not much time should have pa.s.sed between the man entering the room and us looking inside. During that interval, the man had vanished.
On the other hand, there could’ve been something in this room able to conceal him that well. Maybe he was holding his breath in the shadow of those wooden boxes, or on the other side of the sofa.

But if that were the case, he was liable to attack the moment we found him. Only now did I notice that I was unarmed. I didn’t even have the black dagger with me today, though you might’ve expected me to bring it along.

“Chris, I’ll go. Wait here.”

As I realized the problem, my feet came to a stop. Palmira slowly proceeded past me, her hand on the hilt of her sword.
It seemed that Palmira had the same thoughts as me; first, she wrapped around to check the sofa, then, taking the long way around, she advanced to a position from which she could look behind the boxes.
Just watching, my heart was thundering in my ears.

“…Not here,”

Palmira said tersely after getting close to the boxes. She took her hand from her sword.
a.s.sured for the moment that the man wasn’t here, I heaved out a great sigh. Then, though suspicious of the fact that he wasn’t around, I stepped forward into the room the same way. While scrutinizing our surroundings herself, Palmira came back to me.

“Strange. I thought for sure that he came in here. What do you think, Chris?”

“I was sure he came in here too…”

“In that case, there’s probably a secret pa.s.sage around here somewhere.”

Secret pa.s.sage, huh?
Come to think of it, Leon’s estate in Telaberan had something like that too.
If I remembered correctly, there was a door hidden behind a moving fireplace. As an experiment, I approached the stove and tried pus.h.i.+ng against it with my hand — it didn’t budge an inch.

“Chris, here it is.”

While I was experimenting off to the side, Palmira was scrutinizing the interior of the fireplace. Looking where she was pointing, sure enough, a rectangular outline glowed faintly on the inside wall.
It was probably light on the other side leaking through. If so, you could say it was an unexpectedly sloppy hidden door.

“You’re right. Looks kinda like it’s been left open.”

“What will we do? Try going through?”

asked Palmira, looking over her shoulder at me.
I pondered it briefly. To be honest, I had a hunch that it would be seriously dangerous to proceed any further. I mean, why am I even chasing the guy to begin with? Because he bothered me. That’s all it should’ve been. So I just wanted to call out to him and get a look at his face or something.

Can I justify shouldering a greater risk than I already have to pursue a matter this trivial? I’d even ditched Leon in coming this far. I wasn’t okay with worrying him to get wrapped up in this weird business. Besides, it seemed like the dress would get dirty too.

“No… let’s leave off here for now.”

Though I shook my head, the fact is, I was incredibly worried about that man’s true ident.i.ty.
I’ve definitely seen him somewhere. But for the life of me, I can’t remember where.
I didn’t even remember what he looked like. Even so, plagued by a strange uneasiness, I couldn’t help but fret and fret over it.

“How about I try to open it? That’s all, just opening it?”

Sensing how relatively hesitant I was to say stop, Palmira offered a very appealing suggestion. Somehow, I felt like I was digging myself into a hole, but at least that much would definitely be clear. So the business of the man’s ident.i.ty aside, I wanted to try opening the door.

While I was growing even more conflicted, Palmira drew the sword at her waist from its scabbard and pointed it at the dead center of the glowing outline inside of the fireplace. Then, she looked at me.
Say what you will, Palmira was pretty bothered by this too. Wordlessly, I gave her a nod.
Getting the go-ahead, Palmira gently prodded the center of the door-like structure with the point of her sword.

Ga-kunk!

“Eh–?”

In that moment, the entire frame of the door-like thing slightly, but visibly, caved inward. Before I could fully form the thought ‘It’s not a door?’, the floor that Palmira and I were kneeling on suddenly tilted and sagged toward the fireplace.

“Woah–!?”

“Kya–!”

At that very moment, we lost our balance and tumbled down the slope.
We rolled our way down underneath the fireplace. Unable to clearly sort out what just happened, unable to reorient ourselves, we rolled off the edge.

–

–

“Ow-ow-ow–!”

It probably took just about a moment.
The two of us tumbled down the considerable slope in a tangle. Then, we were tossed out into a wide, brightly lit s.p.a.ce.

“Wh–What was that? Where are we?”

It was so bright. My vision was all blurry. Lifting myself up, I waited several moments for my sight to recover.

“Ughh…”

I heard Palmira groan behind me. I turned to look at her, but it didn’t seem like she’d sustained any particularly serious injuries. However, she might have been dizzy from that crazy tumble we took.

Once my eyes had adjusted, I surveyed the surroundings.
This room was completely different from the one we were just in. The walls were perfectly flat, constructed from a material that might’ve been metal, might’ve been stone, I didn’t know. The floor was slippery, too, and deliberately made that way. The whole thing was uniformly tinted a cobalt green.

“……”

If that hole we fell through was a trap, then was this a prison…? When the thought occurred to me, it didn’t seem to be the case. An ordinary hallway led away from the front of the room.
There was no door. The way forward grew darker the deeper it went, so I couldn’t get a good look at how far in it extended.

When I turned back around, I found Palmira peering into the hole we fell through.

“Does it look like we can go back?”

I asked, taking a look myself.
The hole extended upward from the wall, its insides pitch-black. I couldn’t see the top of it.
Because the walls and floor were made of the same slippery material, it didn’t seem at all possible to climb back up. Apparently coming to the same conclusion, Palmira shook her head.

“What a pain in the a.s.s.”

“I’m sorry, Chris. It was my mistake.”

While I wondered what the d.a.m.n thing’s deal was, Palmira apologized to me with a despondent look on her face. It seemed like she thought it was her fault for triggering the trap.
It was true that she’d tripped it, but I’d had the same thought as she did, of course. It was impossible to blame her.

“Don’t worry about it. I was thinking the same thing. More importantly, we have to think of a way to go back…”

I put my hand on her head and tousled her hair with a slight roughness. Taking it, Palmira nodded deeply and moved away from my hand. She seemed to be curious about the pa.s.sageway, all the same.
Even so, what a weird place. Its material was completely different from the stone primarily used in the castle. No, forget the castle, it obviously belonged to an entirely different culture than the one we currently had.

But I knew of a place with an atmosphere close to this.

The labyrinth.
It depended on the location, too, but the atmosphere here bore a slight resemblance to that of the labyrinths constructed during those so-called ‘ancient times’. It was a feeling of otherness that I couldn’t quite express. A structure built by a completely different civilization.

I placed my hand against the wall. Like the floor, its cold, mineral smoothness lingered on my hand, even through the glove. I couldn’t even get a good read on what it was made of.
If anything, the sensation was close to that of well polished granite, but I knew that wasn’t it. Granite didn’t come in cobalt green, for starters.

“…An ancient labyrinth underneath the castle…?”

It went without saying, but I’d never heard of such a thing.
Of course, if a place like this existed underneath the capital, to say nothing of the castle, adventurers wouldn’t exactly be in on it. Neither would the Guild, for that matter. And even if they were, there wasn’t jack they could do about it.
I mean, this was the Imperial Capital. Adventurers weren’t even allowed to enter; this was Empire business to begin with. There was no reason to call in the adventurers just because there was a labyrinth around.

“Chris, what’s the plan?”

Palmira returned from her cautious survey of the pa.s.sage ahead. There was what had just happened, too; she seemed to have grown quite wary.

Hey, even if you ask me what the plan is…

Once more, I took a look around the room we were currently in.
With the exception of the hole we tumbled out of, there was nothing other than the corridor in front. Climbing back up through the hole was impossible, so in the end, there were only two things we could do. Take the corridor, or sit tight.
Even if I say ‘take the corridor’, it occurred to me that this was essentially a labyrinth, and we were totally unprepared. Palmira had a sword, but that was more or less it. I wasn’t carrying anything on me — h.e.l.l, I was wearing a G.o.dd.a.m.n dress.
And high heels. I was the total opposite of battle-ready.

It goes without saying, but in a labyrinth, there are usually monsters or the enemies known as ‘guardians’ on the prowl. They’re strong enough as it is, but they come in great numbers too.
Whether the room was safe or not, at least it was better than going forward. Because there was no way I could promise that there weren’t any monsters lurking up ahead.

Still, I was also conflicted about waiting here. Leon had probably noticed our disappearance by now, and he might come to rescue us before long.

When I imagined that, my feelings grew genuinely remorseful.
Leon said he would protect me. And yet here I was, trying to run off by myself. It could even be considered a breach of his trust. He was most likely going into a frenzy searching for me. Thinking about that, my chest constricted painfully.

Really, what am I doing?

…But right now, I have to think about what to do.
For the time being, I’ll wait for Leon’s rescue.
As it stands, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I mean, we might be underground, but this is the castle — maybe Leon knows about this place too. I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but he’ll eventually make it here… probably.

However, I also had my reservations about continuing to wait and wait here. Looking at it from a different angle, this was a dead end, and I could hardly say for sure monsters wouldn’t attack us here. What’s more, there was nowhere to hide, and fighting back was out of the question.

So, isn’t it the same as going forward?
Besides, I was still concerned about that guy. I bet our mystery man came through here too. In that case, he should have taken the pa.s.sageway deeper inside. I didn’t know what his aim was, but under the current circ.u.mstances, following him wasn’t a bad idea either.
If we traced his steps, any monsters that were around would’ve attacked him ahead of us, so the risk would be a little lower —

“Let’s go forward,”

I said to Palmira. I was conflicted, but ultimately, I decided to proceed down the pa.s.sageway.
Though I continued to be extremely worried, Palmira would become anxious, and the man was gradually getting further away too. Besides, I was personally concerned about what would happen beyond this point, too.
After all, what is this place? The thought roused my adventurer’s curiosity. If this was an ancient labyrinth, then there must be something lying ahead.
Honestly, I was curious about that too, so what can ya do?

“…Understood. I’ll take point, so you watch the rear, Chris.”

“Okay. I’ll be counting on you, Palmira.”

Palmira nodded and drew her sword from her waist, holding it at the ready in one hand. Right now, her figure was rea.s.suring.
If worst came to worst, I might even have to use my power. Because I still wasn’t clear on what the activation conditions were, I could only take a gamble, but I had to consider it my trump card out of necessity.
Running berserk wasn’t out of the question, but it was way better than leaving behind a pair of corpses.

I took off one of my long gloves and left it behind.
To leave a trace, if Leon came here later.
At the same time, I apologized to the absent Leon.

Sorry. I’m going.

Following Palmira as she headed toward the pa.s.sage, I stepped forward.
Our double set of footsteps echoed awfully loudly down the pa.s.sageway.

Considering not much happened this chapter, I’ll have 62 up today too. Don’t say I never did anything for you guys~~