Shadow Light
At last, Lawrence reached the gap beyond the rift.
An unfamiliar landscape.
What spread across the parched earth were dead, dried-out trees.
Not a single thing matched the scenery from his memories.
Without thinking, he let out a breath of relief.
Thank goodness. It wasn’t the Lost Sanctuary in Spider Forest.
Just not having any Forest Spiders around meant he’d secured at least a minimum level of safety.
Acheron had said it was extremely dangerous to use magic that returned one from the rift to the material world.
Separate from opening a gap in the Spirit World, he hadn’t been able to specify where one would arrive.
So where was this place?
If he hadn’t left the kingdom, it was probably the southern region.
The reason was simple.
The weather was warmer than warm. It was brutally, oppressively hot.
But even that was a minor concern.
Sitting down, Lawrence thought of the lake of the star sea.
It had been a fleetingly dreamlike sight.
The starlight that had poured down seemed to still shimmer before his eyes.
The trail of the stars had driven back the darkness, so the boy spoke the words he had once uttered at dawn.
“Shadow Light.”
Shadows gathered together into a single form.
It happened in an instant, the dark orb taking on light.
The spindly tree shadows scattered.
The light born of shadow was almost like the sun itself.
There was no longer any reason to fear the coming of night.
A new kind of magic.
More than that, a mystery that banished darkness.
The spell, used again after so long, still answered the boy’s call.
Lawrence gazed at Shadow Light with delight.
But only for a moment.
Soon after, he dismissed Shadow Light and pulled back his hood.
It was too hot.
So hot that he couldn’t concentrate at all.
The air was not merely warm but sticky, and even breathing felt laborious.
His body felt as though something were clinging to it, weighing him down, while some strange smell kept tickling the tip of his nose.
He swept the surroundings with an irritated look.
Merciless heat and a desolate primeval forest.
Ground that looked half land, half water, a grotesque in-between.
Reeds floated over the shallow water, which carried a muddy tint.
This was nothing like the wasteland one might find near Hilton Village.
It looked almost like a dried-up pond or lake.
Or maybe like land that had gone barren after long months without rain.
A dry landscape he was seeing for the first time in his life.
Lawrence shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up at the sky.
It was bright to the point of burning.
The sunlight striking down showed no sign of letting up.
The stubborn heat kept gnawing away at his stamina.
It was so hot that the skin exposed through the ragged gaps in his robe felt as if it were being scorched.
This was no time to complain about the hood being hot.
He pulled it down again and started walking.
How long had he been moving?
His throat dried out just like the cracked earth beneath his feet.
Lawrence stopped for a moment and drew in ragged breaths.
It was hot. Insanely hot.
And it wasn’t just heat—the whole world felt grimy.
Sweat ran down his body, but his sticky skin made movement difficult.
What was even more suffocating was that he couldn’t take off his robe or hood.
By the hood at the edge of his vision, insects were crawling everywhere.
It felt as though bugs were tumbling around inside his robe along with the sweat.
It wasn’t his imagination.
He was already itching all over from how many bites he’d taken.
As though responding to his growing impatience, his feet kept sinking into the ground.
The damp earth was more like standing water than solid soil.
Three months in Dragon Valley.
He had thought he’d trained enough while keeping company with his neighbors, but whether he liked it or not, all he could feel was how lacking his stamina still was.
After sweating his way onward somehow, Lawrence came face to face with something roaming nearby.
A bear?
No. Not quite a bear.
Brown fur and thick hide.
A face that looked like someone had mashed a wolf and a bear together.
The massive shape certainly resembled a bear, but bears didn’t walk on two legs while carrying clubs.
It even wore something like crude shoulder armor.
It had to be a monster.
Stay calm. Make a cold judgment.
There was no need to fight a monster he didn’t even know the name of.
He was in poor condition, and even if he managed to beat it, there was no profitable byproduct to collect afterward.
No matter how he looked at it, there was nothing to gain from a fight.
The problem was that, unlike Spider Forest, there weren’t many places to hide.
That didn’t mean sneaking away was a good idea, either.
If he moved carelessly, he might draw attention instead.
For now, Lawrence crouched as tightly as he could behind a spindly tree.
Thank goodness for the robe, tattered as it was with dust and insects.
Unintentionally, it was helping him blend in right now.
Fortunately, the bear-like monster headed straight for the river.
Once its body disappeared into the muddy water, Lawrence slowly rose to his feet.
And then it happened.
Suddenly, a mound of dirt nearby began to move.
“…?!”
An unknown man, his whole body caked in soil.
He had only raised his head while lying prone.
Without a sound, he put a finger to his lips as if telling Lawrence to stay quiet.
Lawrence couldn’t say a word.
The reason he didn’t scream wasn’t because of the man’s gesture.
It was simply because he was too shocked.
He had never imagined there was a person in that spot.
Feeling Lawrence’s gaze, the man changed his gesture.
This time the motion was broader.
He gestured again, telling him to hide behind the tree once more.
There was something urgent about the way he moved.
Danger. Warning.
There wasn’t time.
He decided to trust his instincts.
Lawrence hid behind the tree again.
Then the man, as though he’d been waiting for it, disguised himself as a mound of dirt once more.
A moment later, things started emerging from the river.
Bear-like monsters.
And not just one or two.
There were five of them in all, climbing out of the muddy water.
Their bodies were dripping, plastered with filthy soil.
Even after being drenched in that dirty water, their fur didn’t seem wet at all.
Their wary gazes swept the area.
The tree where the boy was hiding. The mound of dirt where the man had concealed himself.
After looking around in turn, the creatures eventually moved down along the riverbank.
Thank goodness.
If he had ignored the man’s warning, he would have been exposed for sure.
Just in case, he didn’t move right away.
The man disguised as a dirt mound didn’t rise either.
By the time some strange insect Lawrence had never seen before began crawling in front of him, the man slowly got to his feet.
The dirt used for his disguise was apparently a kind of robe; he draped it over himself as he came toward Lawrence.
Then, without warning, he smacked the boy on the head.
“What the hell are you doing? You trying to die or something?”
It hurt so much that his thanks got shoved right back down into his mouth.
“W-what do you mean?”
The man snapped back at the boy, who was clutching his head with both hands.
“Didn’t the adults tell you the Bugbear territory shifts around during the dry season? Be grateful to the gods. If I hadn’t been here, you’d be dead!”
Bugbear.
Lawrence remembered hearing that name before.
Then this place was...
It made sense that this scenery was unfamiliar.
This was Ulbazar Swamp, the place he’d only ever heard about in rumors.
* * *
Two hours later.
Lawrence arrived in the village together with the man, who had introduced himself as Neil.
It was a village with a strangely unusual atmosphere.
There was a nearly dried-up waterway and a wooden palisade that looked half dead, half skeletal.
Above it stood a bridge that vaguely resembled a drawbridge.
The checkpoint and watchtower were little more than patched-together rags of branches.
There weren’t many people crossing the bridge.
There was only one wagon being inspected by the gatekeeper.
It couldn’t even begin to compare with Redantus Village or Horos Village.
In terms of people alone, it was actually more like Hilton Village.
“This is Remington Village. Saint Dominic Monastery is beyond that hill, so you’re on your own now.”
“Thank you. If not for your help, Mr. Neil, I wouldn’t have made it this far.”
Neil didn’t even bother to answer and just headed into the village.
Watching his cold back recede, Lawrence gave a bitter smile.
At least the misunderstanding that he wasn’t a village resident had been cleared up.
He had explained that he was a mercenary who had gotten lost in the swamp, but Neil hadn’t seemed to believe him much.
Lawrence understood why he had reacted that way.
Even if he said he was a mercenary, he had no wood plate to prove his identity.
And that wasn’t the only problem.
He was supposedly a mercenary, yet he had no weapon and no equipment.
All he had to show for himself was a robe over bare skin.
There was nothing about him that inspired trust.
No.
There was one thing.
Magic.
But Lawrence hadn’t revealed that he was a mage.
It was true that he had been helped, but he didn’t know what kind of man Neil was.
Rather than recklessly admitting he was a mage, he’d judged that it would be better to play the part of a child in danger for now.
He thought that decision had been the right one.
After all, it had gotten him safely to Remington Village.
He did not follow Neil into the village.
There was nothing he could do in there right now.
Having no belongings at all meant that the money pouch he’d been keeping so carefully was gone too.
He was completely penniless.
What could he possibly do in a village with not even a single coin to his name?
Heading straight to the mercenary guild would be a problem too.
There was no guarantee he’d get an immediate quest with an advance payment, and he had no idea how much it would cost to reissue his plate.
In the end, there was only one place he could go first.
Lawrence walked toward the building visible in the distance.
Thank the heavens.
The reach of the Church had extended even into Ulbazar Swamp.
Saint Dominic Monastery sat on high ground.
There was no sign of a wall or gate.
The monastery stood open on all sides, looking less like a religious building than an old inn.
Compared with Saint Charmant Monastery, it was downright shabby.
The monastery walls, which should have held some pale white sheen, were stained with grime throughout, and insect carcasses had piled up in the corners and along the edges.
They were clearly short on hands. He had never seen a Church building that emphasized cleanliness look this filthy.
Just then, he spotted a sister cleaning the area with a dry rag.
As if everyone was suffering from the heat, too, the young-looking sister kept fanning herself over and over.
Lawrence finally lowered his hood and greeted her.
“May the goddess’s blessing be with you.”
“May the goddess’s blessing be with you.”
Quickly lowering her hand, the sister bowed.
“What brings you to the monastery?”
“I’d like to see the chief priest.”
Lawrence took Blackwell’s letter from his robes.
After checking the letter stamped with the Church’s seal, the sister said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while. He’s in mass right now.”
“That’s fine. I’ll wait while listening to the service.”
“Understood. Please follow me.”
The sister, gathering her cleaning tools, guided Lawrence into the monastery grounds.
They passed through the cloister and entered the chapel.
Stained glass painted in a riot of colors welcomed the visitor.
The chapel, watched over gracefully by a statue of the goddess, was as comfortable a space as any.
The few chairs were easy to take in at a glance.
There weren’t many worshippers in attendance, either.
Still, a chapel was a chapel.
The chapel of Saint Dominic Monastery, small yet grand in form, inspired reverence in anyone who entered.
The chief priest stood up on the platform before them.
The sister who had guided Lawrence to the chapel bowed silently and withdrew.
Lawrence sat in the back and listened to the mass.
“And so, the goddess blessed the bread, broke it, and said: Take and eat all of you. This is my body, given for you.”
A small bell rang.
The priest lifted the bread in both hands high above him.
In response, the worshippers attending mass bowed their heads.
“Take and drink all of you. This is my blood, poured out for you.”
A clear bell chimed.
This time, the priest held up a chalice filled with wine.
The bowed worshippers silently brought their hands together.
The priest descended from the platform.
The sister followed behind him, carrying the reliquary.
When the bell ceased, the worshippers began to stand from the back rows first.
One by one, the priest met their eyes and distributed bread soaked with wine.
Those who received the bread did not chew it right away.
They returned to their seats with it in their mouths, as if letting it melt there.
Lawrence knew this mass.
But this was the first time he had ever seen it with his own eyes.
The Eucharist.
A sacred rite in which one partook of the goddess’s body and blood.
It was not a sacrament just anyone could take part in.
Only worshippers who had completed the Eucharistic celebration were granted the right of communion.
In truth, there were far more worshippers still seated than there were ones walking up before the platform.
After the mass ended, Lawrence sought out the chief priest.
“May the goddess’s blessing be with you.”
Standing before the chief priest, Lawrence was slightly surprised.
He hadn’t noticed from the platform because of the distance, but the priest with faded brown hair had a younger, more fragile impression than he’d expected.
He seemed closer to a woman than a man. His face was small, his neck narrow, and the wrists peeking from his sleeves were slender to the point of seeming frail.
Even if he was older, he couldn’t have been much past his late twenties.
He was surprised all over again that someone so young was a chief priest.
“May the goddess’s blessing be with you.”
Lawrence bowed deeply as well.
This was someone holding a higher rank than even Butler Blackwell.
He couldn’t judge him by appearance alone.
He had no idea how much ascetic hardship and training it must have taken for him to reach the position of chief priest.
“I am Ignatius, chief priest in charge of Saint Dominic Monastery.”
“I’m Lawrence, a servant of the Goddess Belche. I came to Saint Dominic Monastery because I was hoping to receive some help.”
Lawrence took the bloodstained letter from inside his robes.
“This is a letter from Butler Blackwell of Saint Charmant Monastery. There’s also a postscript from the pilgrim Lenard, so I’d be grateful if you could take a look.”