Chapter 52 – Labyrinth City Lartania (1)

===================

Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

Great Mage Heinkel.

She was the first Great Mage to appear among humanity after the age of the forgotten gods, and in Psychedelia she was known to players as the Retry Witch.

The reason she was called the Retry Witch was simple.

If a player chose to play as a mage, then in most cases they were almost guaranteed to meet her.

She did not directly affect the story, but the items one could obtain each time after meeting her at certain intervals were tremendously helpful to mage players.

The problem was her personality.

Unlike her doll-like appearance, she was extremely eccentric, and if one chose the wrong dialogue option during the process of obtaining her item, she killed the player without mercy.

By the third encounter, one had usually grown close enough that choosing wrong only got one cursed out rather than killed, but on the first and second meetings there was no mercy at all.

There was even a notorious branch where if the player defended milk even a little in one of her dialogue options, she became deeply offended and killed them unconditionally, which was why she had picked up the nickname Milk Witch as well.

Anyway.

Because of all that, Alon was in an extremely tense state.

Even though he knew the topics and words she disliked, her personality was so eccentric in the setting that he had still come in thinking that something unexpected might happen.

He had even prepared several precautions in case things went wrong.

But.

“Eek….”

This situation was something he had never predicted at all.

Alon stared blankly at Great Mage Heinkel, who was looking at him with obvious fear, and while doing so he suddenly realized one thing.

She’s quite short.

Now that he looked properly, the white witch’s pointed hat only made her seem taller. In reality, she was shorter than Alon.

Quite a bit shorter.

“Well… I’d like to solve the riddle.”

That was a fact he had never known in-game, where he had only ever seen seated illustrations of her. In any case, after acquiring that new information, which was not especially useful, Alon spoke to Heinkel.

He had to solve her first riddle through conversation if he wanted the item.

But.

“I-I’ll.”

“You’ll?”

“I-I’ll give it to you, so.”

Heinkel abruptly said something like that and then, without having Alon solve any riddle at all, shoved a jewel box that came flying from somewhere into his hands.

Then.

“That, that’s enough, right?”

For someone who had appeared with such proud, wild poise against the blue moonlight, she kept glancing nervously at Alon like a frightened mouse.

“I-I’m going.”

Then she abruptly turned, ran off in tiny hurried steps, and scattered into blue mana before vanishing.

Unlike her entrance, it was a remarkably undignified exit.

“…Heinkel?”

Alon called after her in confusion, but she gave no sign of appearing again.

Standing there blankly with the jewel box in hand, Alon wore a puzzled expression but still canceled the spell he had been preparing in case something happened.

Ssssh.

The mana scattered like dust the moment Alon undid the hand sign hidden inside his pocket.

He stood there bewildered for a while, then finally came back to himself and opened the jewel box Heinkel had left behind.

“…It’s here.”

Inside was the exact item he had originally meant to obtain by solving the riddle.

What in the world was that?

She had vanished quickly, behaving nothing like the game, after merely handing over the item he was supposed to win through her puzzle. While recalling that, another thought came to him.

Behind me?

He had the feeling that Heinkel’s gaze had not been fixed on Alon himself, but slightly behind him, so he glanced over his shoulder.

“….”

There was only the library beneath the blue moonlight.

“….”

In the end, Alon got the item he wanted.

It was nice to obtain it so easily, but the whole thing left him with a small question.

* * *

For the next few days, Alon attended the magic conference, listening to various presentations and satisfying his curiosity.

For someone who had been learning magic through self-study until now, the theories presented at the conference were very helpful.

On top of that, always debating magic with Riyan at night helped develop his magic even further.

Unlike Alon, who had deep expertise in mana control, Riyan was talented at constructing the structural arrangement through which mana was implemented as magic, in other words, in the implementation of magic itself.

Through that, Alon began to feel that he might soon be able to attempt fourth-rank magic.

Of course, from fourth-rank onward his mana was too lacking to use it properly even once, so he still could not actually deploy it right away.

Then, on the exact fourth day of Alon’s stay at the conference.

“…An Outer God has appeared in Lartania’s labyrinth?”

“Yes. From what I’ve heard, the monsters across the entire labyrinth are mutating.”

Alon received news that an Outer God had appeared in the labyrinth of Lartania.

“How much time has passed since the Outer God was first discovered?”

“It’s not certain, but about five days by now. The information guild thinks it may actually have been around for about a week.”

“How far is Lartania from here?”

“Not that far from the tower. Roughly… five days?”

At Evan’s rough estimate, Alon seemed to think briefly, then immediately pulled out letter paper and began writing.

Not long after, when he had finished the letter in full.

“Send this to Lartania, then we move at once.”

“What? Right away?”

“Yes.”

Without hesitation, he began preparing to leave the Central Tower and move toward Lartania.

* * *

After finishing his goodbyes with Riyan, who seemed regretful that he was leaving a little earlier than expected.

And with Penia, whom he happened to run into before boarding the carriage, and who reacted with a strangely lively sort of disappointment when she heard he was leaving.

Alon set out for Lartania.

Five days later.

After riding in the carriage without missing a single day, he finally reached Labyrinth City Lartania.

“Oh… it’s changed a lot since the last time I came. It’s gotten even stranger.”

Just as Evan naturally exclaimed in admiration, Labyrinth City Lartania had a very peculiar appearance compared with the territories Alon had traveled through so far.

Its walls were not high enough to conceal the buildings inside from view.

And most of the buildings in the city were extremely luxurious and odd in form, utterly unlike what one would expect from a city known for mercenaries and explorers.

If one had to compare it, it looked like the architecture of the whole world had been gathered in one place.

That said, rather than making the city feel mystical, it only gave it a strange, patchwork appearance.

Wasn’t the setting that people from all across the continent, except the Empire, gathered here and each built what they wanted?

Recalling the setting of Lartania, Alon entered the city.

“It’s restless here.”

“It is.”

Just as Alon expected, the atmosphere inside the city was unsettled.

Because of the rumor that an Outer God was climbing up through the labyrinth, some mercenaries Alon saw on the road were already leaving the city.

Then, after driving the carriage through Lartania and reaching the southern district, his original destination, Alon arrived at the shop owned by Rine, Merd.

And as soon as he arrived, he could not help being impressed.

“…This is Merd?”

“Uh… yes, I think it is….”

The reason Evan answered in confusion was simple.

The shop was enormous.

So large that the four- and five-story buildings around it looked like toy buildings by comparison.

“…Wasn’t this supposed to be a shop?”

“It should be.”

Alon stared at the building with bewilderment hidden behind his blank face.

It was so huge that it seemed less like a manor and more like a temple.

Seeing him stare at it, Evan spoke.

“I had heard the shop was big, but honestly… I didn’t expect this.”

At that, Alon nodded in agreement.

He had heard from Evan that the place was thriving and that business was booming, but he had not expected it to be doing this well.

Honestly, I thought it was strange that a magic appraiser could hold so much power… Was this how she gained power in Lartania?

Alon found himself nodding.

In both his previous world and this one, the truth that money made almost anything possible still applied.

And that is exactly why I came to ask a favor.

In the first place, although his real objective was to deal with the Outer God, the reason Alon had specifically come to Rine, who worked as a magic appraiser, was because he needed to borrow her influence.

“Let’s go inside first.”

So Alon started walking toward Merd with Evan.

And the moment they reached the huge doors.

“Do you have a reservation?”

“…I need a reservation too?”

A person who seemed to be a secretary stopped them from entering.

“It’s a bit urgent. Is there no way I can meet her immediately?”

“Immediate meetings require payment.”

“…Payment?”

“Yes. To meet Lady Rine immediately without a reservation, you would need three thousand gold.”

“…Three thousand gold?”

That was enough money to buy an estate in a nearby territory, if not quite in the capital of Arteia Kingdom, and for a moment Alon felt faint at the amount before continuing.

“…Then if I make a reservation, when could I meet her?”

“If you book from now… ten….”

“Ten?”

“It would likely be about ten months.”

The impossible wait made him dizzy, and while he hesitated, he still continued.

“…Then can you at least pass on a message to Rine? That Count Palladio has arrived.”

“You’re awfully noisy. Get lost.”

Alon’s words never finished.

When he turned his head, a man who looked like he was trying very hard to announce how wealthy he was, probably a noble, was looking at him with utter disdain.

“Why is some penniless beggar hanging around here?”

Behind him stood a large number of mercenaries, and the man spoke with such reckless stupidity that it almost seemed he lacked the very concept of intelligence. For a moment Alon looked incredulous.

But the man acted as though Alon did not matter at all. He strode up, tossed a money pouch lightly at the attendant, and said.

“Open the door.”

Once the attendant checked the pouch, she bowed politely and immediately began operating something.

Rumble.

The huge doors opened.

Then, just before stepping inside, the man looked back at Alon again and gave him an openly provocative sneer.

“Beggar bastard.”

He started walking into the building, and at the same time Alon could see the same ridicule blooming on the faces of the mercenaries following behind him.

Their behavior, openly showing contempt without even checking who the other person was, was so foolish that Alon could not help frowning.

Before long, though, he realized who the man was.

The son of Lartania’s lord.

He could not remember the name.

But he did remember the appearance from Psychedelia’s illustrations: the son of the labyrinth city’s lord, fleshy and bloated, with a rat-like little beard.

He had behaved like a delinquent toward the player in the game too, but experiencing it in person was absurd in a different way.

Just as Alon was about to say something.

“You don’t need to come in.”

Rine walked out through the opened doors, her green eyes shining.

“Oh, Rine. You came all the way here because of me?”

The delinquent brightened with the biggest smile yet as soon as he saw her emerge from inside.

However.

“Get out.”

Tap.

Rine casually shoved his shoulder aside, cursed at him, walked straight past both him and the mercenaries, and came outside.

Then, pushing aside the secretary who hastily bent her head, she came in front of Alon and, unlike when she faced the delinquent.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Godfather.”

She bowed politely.

Everyone there stared blankly at Count Palladio.