A Toast to the Fallen

A warm meal eased their tension, and getting back on their feet felt like a chore.

They wet a towel with water and wiped their faces. It made the fatigue feel a bit more bearable.

Their reluctance to move was mostly physical exhaustion, but this time, the mental toll was significant as well.

An unusually difficult labyrinth capped off by consecutive battles against intelligent, powerful monsters they'd barely managed to defeat.

And the bodies of fellow adventurers they'd found along the way were also quite the shock.

An adventurer's life was fragile.

If you survived, there was always the chance of being rescued.

But if you died and your body couldn't be recovered, the monsters would devour it, or the labyrinth would absorb it.

Consumed and digested as sustenance.

They'd known this intellectually, but actually seeing it happen stirred a visceral fear that they could be next.

Kazusa, who'd been traveling with the now-dead adventurers, had taken it the worst, but between the passage of time and the chaos of everything that followed, the edge had dulled somewhat.

Kazusa scrubbed the pot clean with fine sand from nearby, then rinsed it with water.

The oil and grime came off surprisingly well.

She wiped it dry and packed it back into her small bag.

After the meal, they sipped hot water to soothe their throats.

"Ahh, hot water is the best when you're this tired."

"It soaks right in…"

"Azu, how are you feeling?"

"Ahaha, thanks to everyone taking care of me, I can move a little."

"Good. Camping out here would be rough, so getting a room in that town would be much better."

"Oh, that run-down place."

Even Kazusa could tell Potram was run-down, it seemed.

Even calling it a city, it was barely larger than a village or town. Hard to blame her impression.

"I want to hand over the belongings of the dead adventurers to the Guild, too. Fortunately, I think we can make it before dark."

The sky was still bright.

It seemed they'd spent over a day inside the labyrinth without realizing it.

Azu drained the last of her hot water and stood up.

She wobbled a little, and she was far weaker than usual, but she'd recovered considerably since first waking up.

Kazusa lent her a shoulder.

"This should be easier to walk, right?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

They cleaned up and set off for Potram immediately.

Their pace was slow to match Azu's stride, but just as Kazusa predicted, they arrived before nightfall.

Not even a gate, just a flimsy fence, with no gatekeeper in sight.

Once inside, there was almost no foot traffic.

Apparently, everyone retreated indoors by evening.

"There's really no life to this place, is there."

"Well, it's true. Not even having a church is unusual, though."

Indeed, there was no church to be found.

Whether it was because of the low population, or because they worshipped something else, was anyone's guess.

She'd assumed the Guild would be closed at this hour, but then remembered it shared a building with the tavern.

Worth checking on a hunch, and sure enough, she was right.

The tavern was arguably the only place in Potram with any energy.

When they opened the door, the drunks were rowdily carrying on.

As usual, comments were thrown at Azu's all-female party.

They gave up on responding and headed for the Guild clerk.

The clerk appeared to double as a tavern worker, pouring drinks into wooden cups.

A man with an impressive beard lined up beside them to collect his drink.

She was fairly certain he'd mentioned the Blood Knight before.

How had he known about it? Normally, you could only fight as far as the Blue Knight.

Kazusa, too, wouldn't have thought to search for the Blood Knight's chamber if Azu hadn't gone missing, and finding the place would have been impossible.

"Oh, you lot. Made it back in one piece, huh."

"We came to drop these off."

They handed over the dead adventurers' belongings.

The Guild accepted belongings on behalf of the deceased and held them for a fixed period; if family came to claim them, they'd be handed over.

Granted, she'd also heard that almost no one ever came to collect.

She believed her Master, Yohane, would definitely come for hers.

"Right, right. Anything else?"

"No, we didn't take on a quest, so nothing in particular."

"Hey, you lot."

The man cut in.

"What is it? I have no business with drunkards."

Alexia put up her guard, but the man ignored her and looked toward Azu.

More precisely, at the hilt of the Black Knight's sword poking out of the pouch at her waist.

"The Black Knight's sword… Hey, did you meet the Black Knight?"

"Yes. Why?"

When Azu answered, the raucous tavern fell silent in an instant.

"Wh-what?"

It was a bizarre sight, and Kazusa couldn't help but flinch.

Men who had been drunk and rowdy a second ago slammed their drinks down and stared at Azu's group in unison.

"Can I help you?"

Elza, being the eldest, stepped forward and moved Kazusa and Azu behind her.

She didn't think they'd attack without provocation, but this was far from normal.

The Guild clerk seemed equally at a loss.

Could this have something to do with defeating the Black Knight?

"How did it end?"

"Well… after fighting with swords, I turned it to ash with magic."

"I see. That's good, then. Did you meet the Blood Knight?"

"We did. But how did you know? It didn't seem like you could reach him through normal means."

Exactly. She hadn't thought much of it on their first visit, but in hindsight, it was strange.

These men didn't look like adventurers. From what Azu could tell, they were just people who came to the tavern to drink themselves senseless.

"Of course we know. We've never met him in person, mind you. But everyone here is a descendant of the Blood Knight's soldiers. We knew they couldn't find peace in there."

"… I see."

That was all Azu could say, not knowing the full circumstances.

"We wanted to do something about it, but we could never reach him no matter what we tried, and the monsters in there are strong. Being descendants didn't earn us any mercy from the Black Knight. So we gave up and drowned our sorrows in drink."

It seemed the men in the tavern were people who'd once tried to clear the Hill of Lament.

At some point, they'd given up and taken to haunting the tavern instead.

"What did the Blood Knight do?"

She'd felt great power from him, but not much in the way of hatred toward humans.

The Blue Knight, from what she'd heard secondhand, had been different in that regard.

"A knight of unshakeable pride. The Black Knight, too. Some unknown party sent a horde of monsters crashing down on Potram. He led his men and held the line."

"Why do you say some unknown party?"

"Isn't it obvious? Because after the monsters came an army. They'd gone to great lengths to hide their affiliation. His men were already spent from fighting the monsters. They fought to mutual annihilation. The battle was so horrific that it spawned the labyrinth known as the Hill of Lament."

The man raised the drink he'd just received, murmured "to the Blood Knight," and drained it in one go.

The other men followed suit.

"They just ran away into booze, though…"

"Shh!"

Elza hushed Kazusa's muttered observation.

They didn't know why the Blood Knight and the Black Knight had known about the Ash King's sword, but the nobility she'd sensed from them even after they'd become monsters… now she understood where it came from.

Elza and the others ordered drinks of their own and drained them following the men's lead.

Azu and Kazusa had goat's milk instead.