Secrets Revealed
A few days had passed since the dinner with Harrington.
Thanks to the sponsorship contract we'd signed with him, the situation that had once hung so precariously on Rena's debt slid back to normal without a hitch. I didn't know exactly how he'd arranged it, but someone from the Mercantile Association came to our inn in person and bowed their head in apology for attempting to collect a fraudulent debt. They said they would conduct their own internal investigation into who had fabricated Rena's debt, why, and to what end — though I had no expectation whatsoever that they'd actually find the culprit. Even so, we walked away with a generous settlement on top, which was more than satisfying.
Our rank promotions went smoothly, too.
Just as I'd predicted, Noah and I each rose two ranks to Rank 6, and Rena climbed to Rank 8. Killing the Bishop and rescuing the Count's daughter had been the deciding factors. Thanks to clearing Rank 7 and landing squarely at Rank 6, our party could now make use of the Guild's quiet second floor instead of trudging through the crowded first floor every time we needed their services.
They even hand out something like a... dignity maintenance fee? Ah, right, that's not the important part.
What mattered was that we were now high enough ranked to take on quests connected to dungeons. Which was why I'd begun gathering information on them — and why I was sprawled leisurely across the bed this morning, flipping through a book.
Flip...
Dungeons.
The word stirs the adventurer's imagination, but it was a little different from the dungeons of conventional fantasy novels. The term derives from underground prison, and perhaps because of that, most fiction portrays dungeons as fixed locations bristling with traps, eagerly welcoming intruders to their doom.
In reality, however — as we'd experienced firsthand during the defense of the old Pioneer Village — dungeons tended to materialize suddenly, in utterly unpredictable places. Since their entrances were usually semi-transparent, an individual trying to locate one on their own, without the aid of the Guild or some other organization, faced odds roughly comparable to finding a needle in a desert.
A dungeon that had just newly revealed itself in the world was called an Initial-stage Dungeon.
"Initial-stage? So there are other kinds, then?"
"Hold on... here we go."
At its core, a dungeon was a pocket of chaos temporarily projected into the physical world. Destroy the central Core, and it would quietly evacuate from reality — but leave it alone long enough, and the dungeon would advance to its next stage.
The Mid-stage Dungeon: its entrance gradually widened, swallowing all the surrounding space.
"Ah-ha. And after that comes the late stage, I'm guessing."
"Right."
If a dungeon that had reached its mid-stage was left unchecked, it would keep growing until, at last, it began to encroach on the world itself. A dungeon at this stage was classified as a Late-stage, or Erosion-type Dungeon.
By that point, the laws unique to the dungeon would come to overwhelm the laws of reality in the territory it had consumed. A kind of pseudo–Demonic Realm, in other words.
"This book is surprisingly useful. Information like this is hard to come by anywhere."
"It's like listening to old bedtime stories! So fun!"
"...You do realize it's a place we'll have to walk into eventually?"
"..."
Leaving Rena dumbstruck as a honey-glazed mute, I kept turning pages. This antique volume, trimmed with gold leaf, was another thing I'd gotten out of Harrington. I'd requested it because detailed material on dungeons proved utterly impossible to obtain, and reading through it, I found it genuinely helpful.
Break the core and you automatically exit through the original entrance... Initial and mid-stage dungeons limit the number of people who can enter... Just like a game.
Apparently, a dungeon's entrance could even appear in multiple locations at once — which meant parties could run into each other inside. And since a dungeon was a plane topologically separate from our own, communication with the outside was impossible, and once the core was destroyed the entire space vanished without a trace. Which made it a perfectly ideal venue for committing the flawless crime.
...Running into another party in there must spark some serious tension.
So why did people keep setting foot in such a dangerous place, again and again?
The answer was simple: it paid.
"Because breaking the core produces Artifacts?"
"Yeah. You're guaranteed to walk away with an Artifact, and dungeon-forged Artifacts are flatly superior in quality to begin with. Same goes for the magic stones you can harvest in there."
What's more, a dungeon's internal space would occasionally connect to unexplored Ruins, or open into chambers brimming with ingredients for rare elixirs. If fortune smiled on you, a dungeon could earn you far more than any ordinary commission. The Guild's cut stung — we couldn't exactly go dungeon-hunting on our own two feet, so there was nothing to be done about it —
But really, weren't these Guild guys shameless, skimming a percentage off the top?
"Exactly! Highway robbery!"
Clink.
"...Do remember, Rena, that the Guild also assesses each dungeon's danger rating and, if it comes to it, dispatches rescue teams. It isn't as though they do nothing."
Rena, ever sensitive about money, was indignantly agreeing with me when Noah returned from her errand. Jutting out from behind her back was a bow of modest size.
"Welcome back. Judging by the bow on your back... I'm guessing it didn't go well at the Repair Shop."
"No. The repair has been declined, apparently."
"Ah... damn."
Our sponsorship contract with Harrington came with a variety of perks. One of them was an introduction to a trading house that specialized in Artifacts. These were people who dealt exclusively with nobles and high-ranked Guild members — merely becoming a customer required a letter of introduction.
Noah had gone there hoping to have the Glacier Bracelet repaired. The Bishop's human-rope(?) technique must have done it in — the bracelet had been flickering in and out for days before finally giving out completely.
"They said there's no identical replacement?"
"Correct. Being closer to a cursed item than anything, they said every one they acquire gets broken down for materials. They have no repair expertise whatsoever."
"Hmm... then I suppose you should refrain from fighting on the front line from now on."
Given how things stood, Noah had no choice but to abstain from close combat until we could find an Artifact that boosted her body's durability, much as the Glacier Bracelet had. That was why she'd gone out and gotten herself a bow — to take over the ranged role outright.
Rena, evidently unable to follow our conversation, tilted her head and asked, "A curse? But wasn't that Artifact just a straightforward durability boost? If you're careful, couldn't you still fight up close...?"
"..."
A perfectly reasonable question.
Now that I thought about it — Rena still didn't know Noah's true nature.
Maybe this is a good moment to tell her.
I deliberated briefly, then reached my decision right away. Traveling with us as she did, she was bound to find out sooner or later. Thinking back to the battle with the Bishop, Rena had proven herself a comrade well worth trusting.
I met Noah's eyes, and we exchanged a short wordless consultation. The answer was yes.
"...Rena."
"...What? Why are you being all dramatic?"
"I think it's time you were in on a secret of your own."
Shk-shk-shk—!
I drew the curtains over the window. Since we were long-term residents of the inn, we'd bought these with our own money and had them hung — good, thick ones that blocked out the sunlight completely. Now only the lamplight eerily lit our faces. Sensing something deeply off about the atmosphere, Rena instinctively bolted for the door — where, of course, Noah was already standing.
Cornered on all sides.
"Wh... what is it?!"
"Rena, I am... well, how shall I put this. A kind of golem."
"A golem? Oh, come on, quit messing with me. What kind of golem looks like you, Unni?"
"Still don't believe me, huh? Noah, how about you just show her something shocking?"
"Shocking...? Rena, look at this."
Pop.
Noah promptly detached her own head at the neck and cradled it against her chest.
"HYAAAAGH—!"
"GYAAAH!"
"...Jun, why are *you* screaming?"
"Ah, sorry. It's my first time seeing it too. So that actually comes apart, huh."
"It's inconvenient, but possible, given enough time. Ah—"
Thud.
At the sound of something collapsing, I turned to find Rena rolled back, eyes spun white, dead to the world.
Was that too much?
Rena, reeling from the psychic trauma, didn't wake for about an hour. At first she tried to write the whole thing off as a nightmare, so we gave her a second head-detachment performance — whereupon she screamed herself half to death(?) trying to escape, and it took quite a while to calm her down. But perhaps thanks to the shock therapy, she came to accept Noah's true nature relatively easily in the end.
As if to soothe her, Noah released the mask she'd worn all this time — Thousand Faces — and showed her true face.
"That's... your real face?"
"It is. The mask was an Artifact I've been wearing all along."
"It's beautiful..."
"Seeing it again after so long, I can hardly get used to it."
Unlike human features, which carry inherent uncertainty written into their DNA, this was the appearance of a premium android assembled by hordes of the world's foremost scholars. It had long since blown past the uncanny valley and arrived at the summit of the Great Pleasant Mountain — a manufactured beauty capable of drawing goodwill from young and old, man and woman alike.
The very fact that Rena, who had fainted shrieking like something out of a horror show, could now poke and prod at Noah's face without a shred of hesitation was proof enough of that.
"...Well, a face like that does make the whole golem thing easier to swallow. But where did you get made...? Wait, is 'made' even the right word...?"
"If we must classify it, you could say I am a golem made by the Ancients."
"Whoa! The Ancients! Did you find her in some Ruins, Mister?"
"Close enough."
"Wooow..."
Technically speaking, I would also fall under the Ancients' classification, but having nothing I could present as evidence, I took the liberty of adding a pinch of seasoning here. I told her the tale of how I'd stumbled into some Ruins by chance before becoming an adventurer and discovered Noah there, embellishing the parts of our shared history as needed. Since nothing I said was strictly false, the story poured out of me like a seasoned storyteller's.
For a good long while I held forth with Rena's gasping admiration as my audience, closing the tale at last with the part where Noah had received a gift from her original creator and walked out of the Ruins.
"...Anyway, that's why Noah can't recover naturally, the way ordinary people do. There's nowhere trustworthy enough to hand her over to for repairs — no, honestly, repairing her might not even be possible to begin with."
"Wh-then what are you going to do?"
"That's exactly why we're going to explore the Ruins. If we find one that still has power running through it, we might just discover a facility capable of repairing her."
But since the Ruins were said to be genuinely dangerous places, our plan was to cut our teeth on dungeons, whose environment was similar. With a little luck, we might even come across an Artifact resembling the Glacier Bracelet along the way.
Only then did Rena seem to grasp how the whole story fit together, smacking her fist into her palm.
"Ahh! So until you find a way to repair her, you're avoiding close combat as much as possible!"
"That's right. Until now we had the Glacier Bracelet, and you were still too green to handle the front line entirely by yourself, so Noah took the vanguard — but from here on out, *you're* the one who protects Noah."
"...! I'll do my very best!"
At the news that *she* would be the one protecting Noah, Rena's eyes went round. She met my gaze with such fierce determination that she seemed to have taken it on as a personal mission.
Good attitude.
"Needless to say, all of this is a secret, so don't you dare breathe a word of it anywhere."
"I won't say a thing even under torture! Not even if it kills me!"
"...If it looks like you're about to die, just go ahead and tell them. Ah — speaking of which, there's one more thing you should know. This one's a secret too, so be careful."
"There's *more*?!"
"Look, look. I can do this, see."
While I was at it, I showed her my magic stone absorption as well. It wasn't something I could hide once we started hunting together anyway, so better to lay it all out now. Otherwise, the moment the loot stones we gathered together began vanishing one by one, wouldn't she start getting suspicious? Any reasonable person would call it embezzlement...
Rena, apparently past the point of being able to muster any more surprise, replied with utter detachment, "Honestly, that one almost feels like a normal shock by now. So what do you do with the magic stones once you absorb them?"
"Hmm... let's just say I use them to get stronger."
"So jealous."
Frankly, the whole business about points seemed like it would complicate the story far too much, so I decided to keep that part a secret. It was simply too alien a concept to explain to Rena, who had no modern-world knowledge to draw on.
And truly, my sincerest apologies, but there was yet *another* thing we'd been keeping from her all this time.
The fact that Noah could use magic.
Having absorbed so many secrets in a single sitting, Rena seemed to have given up on complicated thinking altogether, reduced to a nodding doll.
"Lux esto!"
Pop!
The moment Noah recited the phrase [Let there be light!] in Latin, a small light welled up from her palm. A blob of radiance, roughly as bright as a lightbulb, driving back the pitch-dark gloom. A moment later, with a faint fzzt, it squeezed out one last burst of brilliance — even brighter — and vanished.
A phenomenon indistinguishable from magic.
No — it *was* real magic.
"It amazes me every single time. What does it actually feel like when you cast it?"
"I would describe it as reason and feeling blended in proper proportion. When I recite the incantation and add a suitable measure of willpower, the blueprint of the mana required appears in my mind. If I channel my mana along that blueprint..."
"...magic comes out? Bizarre."
"Completely amazing..."
It was the simple magic Noah had shown during the final battle with the Bishop. After returning to Bolston she'd attempted it over and over with nothing to show for it, but thanks to her persistent effort, she'd finally managed to reproduce it just last night.
According to that Bastard Bishop, only those who had received Baptism from the Magic Tower could use magic — but I hadn't the faintest idea what to make of that claim.
