Sinking
Rosia’s room was located in the palace annex.
The Prophet had suddenly appeared, dropped off a young girl, asked Rosia to take care of her, and then vanished into thin air.
Left as an unexpected babysitter, Rosia was utterly dumbfounded, but she couldn't just ignore the child, who was trembling with anxiety.
"Hello there. What's your name?"
Despite her gentle greeting, the girl only flinched beneath her heavy hood.
Rosia let out a quiet sigh.
It was clear the child had been through a terrible ordeal.
The scars on the top of her feet, peeking out from under the robe, immediately caught Rosia's eye.
Square wounds, looking as if they had been branded with a hot iron, were oozing clear fluid and yellow pus. Her scorched clothes were covered in black soot.
"...Excuse me."
With a heavy heart, Rosia gently pulled back the girl's hood.
Surprisingly, the child offered no resistance. She simply clutched the two books in her arms even tighter.
My goodness.
Rosia was horrified by the gruesome marks carved into the young girl's body.
She was covered in scars and burns. The wounds hidden beneath her thin clothing were likely even worse.
More than half of her face was raw, weeping yellow pus.
Rosia instinctively draped the girl's robe over the mirror on the wall to hide her reflection, then immediately began her treatment.
Fortunately, the wounds were relatively fresh. The moment Rosia's light magic touched them, the damaged flesh rapidly began to knit back together.
But the healing process was far from painless.
Draining the accumulated pus and drawing out the dead blood must have caused excruciating pain.
The girl writhed and screamed, but Rosia held her down firmly, refusing to let go.
Only after she had completely healed every visible wound did Rosia finally allow herself to breathe.
She leaned back against the sofa, waiting for the bathwater and clean clothes she had requested from the maid outside.
The girl, now utterly exhausted, crouched in a corner of the room, warily watching Rosia's every move.
"...Does it hurt anywhere else?"
Rosia had no way of knowing what the girl had experienced, or why the Prophet had brought her here, but she chose not to pry.
When the girl barely managed a nod, Rosia let out a deep sigh of relief and closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Her eyes felt swollen and stiff. Even in the royal palace, hot water wasn't always kept on standby for immediate use.
Because it was taking so long to prepare the bath, Rosia had to endure an awkward silence.
"...Aria."
"What was that?"
Rosia blinked and asked her to repeat herself, but she quickly realized the meaning behind the girl's whisper.
It was the answer to the question Rosia had asked when she first entered the room.
Rosia felt a quiet sense of pride. She must have seemed trustworthy enough for a child who had suffered such trauma to open her heart, even just a little.
A warm, gentle smile spread across Rosia's face, and Aria looked up to see it.
"That's a beautiful name."
Aria nodded. Just then, the door opened, and three or four maids entered, carrying steaming hot water to fill the tub.
Rosia dismissed the maids and began to wash Aria herself.
The warm water slowly began to soothe Aria's tense, rigid body.
"Are you a mage too?"
"Of course. A fully-fledged one."
Aria looked up at Rosia as she washed her hair. Rosia's vibrant, deep orange hair caught the girl's eye.
"I want to be a mage too."
"It suits you. Great mages must possess plenty of charm, after all."
Rosia boasted playfully, but cleared her throat when Aria's expression remained entirely serious. Her ears felt hot, though she tried to blame it on the steam from the bath.
"I am serious."
Aria's unwavering, solemn tone made Rosia hesitate. She struggled to decide whether she should encourage this poor child or gently introduce her to reality.
Seeing Rosia waver, Aria scrambled out of the tub in a panic.
Careful not to get them wet, she grabbed the books she had placed behind the screen and held them out.
"I even got magic books! They said I need them to become a mage. That's why I kept them with me no matter what, so I wouldn't lose them... This is really all I have left now. So please...!"
Rosia had been curious about the books Aria had been clutching so desperately. Hearing that they were magic books, she wiped the water from her hands, took them, and began to examine them closely.
It was true that one needed a magic book to become a mage. However, the circumstances were highly unusual.
The Magic Tower of Tyrancia had long since gathered magic books from across the continent and locked them away in their archives.
With new magic books being so incredibly rare, she couldn't be certain if these were genuine.
And two of them, no less.
"...Let's get dressed first."
Only then did Aria notice the puddle forming at her feet and hurriedly began to wipe the water away.
Rosia gently dried Aria's body and helped her into the fresh clothes the maid had brought.
A cool breeze drifted in through the open window.
Along with the wind came the faint, distant sound of soldiers' shouts and screams. Rosia promptly shut the window and locked it.
Magic books.
The thought brought back old memories. Rosia looked down at Aria, who was sitting quietly, waiting for her to speak.
"Not just anyone can become a mage."
"Is it because of my background?"
Rosia shook her head.
"Your background, age, and gender do not matter. Even someone missing a hand or unable to speak can become one."
Aria's anxious expression softened slightly.
To Rosia, that look of hope was even more heartbreaking.
"Then why?"
"Those who are meant to be mages will become mages, one way or another. It is not something determined by human will."
With those words, Rosia picked up the books on the desk.
One was a luxurious, pristine book bound in deep blue.
The other was so old and yellowed it looked ready to crumble into dust at any moment.
Rosia had never seen magic books like these in her entire life.
"Because we do not choose the magic books; the magic books choose us. It is difficult enough to win the heart of a single magic book in a lifetime... let alone two."
Understanding the weight of those words, a dark shadow fell over Aria's face.
The deeper we descended, the more grotesquely distorted the space became.
Flesh and blood vessels spread across the walls and ceiling, looking as if we were carving our way through the inside of a living creature. A path made of nothing but raw tissue lay before us.
We had entered a beast's domain.
I was absolutely certain of it.
To think such a massive domain existed right beneath the capital of a kingdom, near the very castle where the king resided.
...Are they coexisting with the beasts?
An absurd, unsettling thought began to creep into my mind.
An instinctive revulsion welled up from deep within.
"This place... feels disgusting," Bran said, looking around anxiously.
He nudged the fleshy wall with the toe of his boot.
Skrrrrt—
The wall, which had looked like a solid mass, squirmed rapidly and vanished into the shadows.
Startled, Bran instinctively drew his sword, but where his eyes landed, only a smooth stone wall remained.
"It shaped the environment to suit itself. You could get ambushed if you're not careful, so it's best not to touch anything unnecessarily."
"W-who would do such a thing?"
"A beast."
With those words, a wide chamber opened up.
It meant we had left the stairs and fully entered the creature's domain.
The air was lukewarm and damp.
Where the light reached, patches of squirming, scarlet walls were revealed, but most of the space was swallowed by a darkness so deep its end could not be seen.
-.......
Tirmisia was awake, opening its eyes.
Since fighting the two serpent beasts, Tirmisia had been waking up more frequently, but this was the first time it was so blatantly observing our surroundings.
'What is it?'
- "Mind thy own business and keep moving forward."
Unlike its usual self, Tirmisia's tone was sharp, making it impossible to ignore.
Tirmisia resided in my heart, and there was no telling when it might change its mind and run wild.
Though it was currently lending me its power willingly, Tirmisia ultimately held the leash.
'What's waiting ahead for you to act like this?'
- "...Thou speakest as if we are close companions."
In the end, I received no answer.
Provoking it further might cause unnecessary trouble, so I decided to let it be.
Even without asking, I could easily guess what kind of beast was waiting for us in the depths.
Yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it.
Who on earth had unleashed a beast in this vast underground?
Why did the beast block its own passage instead of trying to invade the human lands?
When the beasts first began to run wild, the King of Velastia had dispatched nearly his entire military force to suppress them.
The Chancellor had agreed, using it as a pretext to wage an all-out war to capture the rebel leader, Taren Mors.
That left only the rebels.
What if they had a reason for starting their rebellion in the pleasure quarters?
'So that's why.'
From the beginning, the royal army's struggle didn't make sense.
A man of the Chancellor's stature couldn't have been ignorant of the rebels' existence or their scale.
He wouldn't have failed to plan for maximum efficiency with minimum resources.
And the mercenaries.
Even I could easily guess why the mercenaries had turned their backs.
With beasts awakening everywhere and seizing human lands, why keep a deal with a kingdom for credit that would soon become worthless paper? They would naturally turn to a more guaranteed reward.
It was all too clumsy.
If all of this was operating under someone's calculations...
Step.
The knight leading the way stopped.
He raised his right hand, made a fist, and pointed ahead.
A shabby wooden door.
Weathered by time, it was covered in green moss and faded, but intricate carvings were engraved upon it.
Thick, pulsing blood vessels and flesh covered the area around it.
I could feel it instinctively.
Even Bran, who knew nothing of beasts, seemed to sense something. He tensed and stared intently at the door.
The knight grabbed the doorknob.
Just like before, the flesh covering the door squirmed, peeled away, and quickly retreated from the knight's hand.
A chilling creak of hinges echoed through the empty space.
And waiting for us on the other side...
Was a colossal mass of tumors, bound tightly from head to toe in thick cloth.