Unification of the South

by Hyougetsu

  Guardians of the Labyrinth

  The labyrinth city of Zaria had two labyrinths to its name, one upper one lower. At least, that’s what most people thought. But in reality, there was one more. One only I, viceroy of Zaria, had been informed of.

  “Whoa... this is awesome,” the kentauros general, Firnir, muttered in awe. Her voice echoed through the underground chamber until eventually the darkness swallowed it up. This was Zaria’s third labyrinth, the underground maze.

  “Zaria was actually founded atop the ruins of an ancient city.”

  I lit a lamp to banish the darkness, and handed a second one to Firnir.

  “Make sure you do not lose this. There are no other sources of light down here, so if we lose these two lamps, we’ll be stranded in darkness.”

  “Gotcha. Wait, but then what am I gonna do about my spear and shield... Oh wait, I know.”

  Foolish girl, don’t hang your lamp from your spearhead!

  “What are you doing!? If you have to fight anyone with that spear, one thrust will shatter the lamp!”

  Firnir turned back to me with a worried frown.

  “Wait, there’s enemies down here?”

  “There might be.”

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure myself.

  Together with Firnir, I continued down the long stone pathway.

  “Originally, there was just a permanent camp built near these ruins, but that camp grew until it became the city of Zaria. In truth, my ancestors who built this town had wanted to settle further north, but they couldn’t explore any further so they built here.”

  My father told me that before he died. I will never hear his kind voice or hold his gentle hands again. But I can’t continue to dwell on that fact.

  “The upper layers of the ruins are used by the residents as graveyards or warehouses. So we should be safe here at least.”

  While people didn’t come here often, this floor was still technically developed land.

  “The problem is we don’t know what lies deeper in the ruins. No one has delved that far down before... Or if they have, they haven’t returned.”

  “What the heck, that’s terrifying!”

  Firnir shrunk back a little. For how tough she looked, she sure scared easily.

  “Sh-Shatina, don’t you think we should bring some guards with us if it’s this dangerous?”

  “Master Veight showed me how powerful demons can be in enclosed spaces. Firnir, you’re a demon as well, aren’t you?”

  Among the kentauros, Firnir was lauded as a Champion. I was certain she could handle any threat that might show up. But to my surprise, Firnir shook her head, her legs trembling.

  “Please don’t put me in the same category as Vaito! He’s on a totally different level! He’s the strongest demon in the demon army! And it’s only werewolves who are good at fighting in enclosed spaces!”

  “So where do you rank, Firnir?”

  “W-Well... I’m a kentauros, so we like the open plains. But I’m pretty strong still, really!”

  “Really?”

  “If I can get a running start, I can trample anything. It’s just a little hard to run in tight spaces like this.”

  She’s surprisingly timid, considering how eager she was to explore when I told her about these ruins.

  “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you Firnir?”

  “Of course not!”

  In order to show just how not scared she was, Firnir raised her spear, the lamp still dangling from the tip.

  “I’m one of the demon army’s greatest generals, Firnir of the Swift Gale! The Champion who captured Thuvan and became its viceroy!”

  “Didn’t Master Veight do most of the work that battle?”

  “Maybe so! But I was still the commander of the siege! I mean sure, Vaito might have blown open the gates and forced the garrison commander to surrender, but still!”

  I tried to calm Firnir down, as she was starting to become hysterical.

  “Shall we head back? I’m nowhere near as good with a blade as my soldiers are, and it seems like you’re not confident you can handle this either.”

  Firnir turned to me, tears in her eyes.

  “I’ll be fine! I’m the Demon Lord’s disciple, I won’t lose my nerve that easily! Let’s go!”

  “Are you sure?”

  I’m starting to think it might be better if we went back.

  After talking it over, we decided to map out the first strata of the ruins, then head back. The upper floors should be safe. Besides, mapping out the top floor will come in handy when we eventually do explore the entire ruins.

  “So why are we exploring this place anyway?”

  “I told you when we came down here, remember? We need to investigate the ruins so we can figure out where to put walls and buildings. We can’t build on top of hollow cavities, or the ground underneath will collapse.”

  Now that Zaria had declared independence from the Meraldian Federation, it was free to expand as it pleased. We could build new walls and houses wherever we wished. But before we did, we had to make sure the ground was solid enough to build foundations on. Which was why I was inspecting these underground ruins beneath the city.

  “Though, originally I had planned on hiring someone else to survey these ruins...”

  Unfortunately, when I’d told Firnir, who’d come to visit, about my plans, she’d ended up convincing me to investigate them together with her. In secret, of course. This girl really doesn’t think before she acts, does she? Though I guess it is a little exciting to be exploring underground ruins with just the two of us. We just had to finish exploring before our aides realized we were missing, and they would be none the wiser.

  The ruins’ buildings were all composed of very sturdy stone, so Zaria usually harvested its building materials from down here. There were no quarries in the region, so we could only use as much stone was down here. That was why most upper floors were made with brick, which was more common.

  “How long does this passage go on for?” Firnir grumbled. To be honest, I was beginning to get annoyed by its length as well. We were measuring distance in footsteps, and were using a large piece of parchment to record the map, but these ruins were larger than I’d anticipated. Judging by the numerous branching corridors, these ruins spanned the entire length of the city.

  “This is more than amateurs like us can handle,” I sighed. Considering the scale of these ruins, I’d need to hire a full team of surveyors to map them out. “Let’s head back, Firnir.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting tired of doing this anyway. Oh, by the way, you can just call me Fir.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Whyyy!?”

  Though we both agreed to turn back, we continued walking forward. Eventually, we went so far that my charcoal pen reached the edge of the parchment, and I ran out of room to keep drawing. I turned to Firnir and asked, “By the way, where are we?”

  “You don’t know?”

  It seemed we were lost.

  “Like I said!” Firnir poked the map. “The more tired you get, the smaller your steps become! That’s something every soldier knows!”

  “Well, I’m not a soldier...”

  It appeared marking distance in steps had led to a greater margin of error than I’d expected. Because of that, the map I’d made was inaccurate and we no longer knew which passages were where.

  “Even if we only go off by a step every hundred steps, that’s still a pretty big gap.”

  “I know.”

  I nodded, ashamed of my mistake. Firnir sighed and added, “You realize we’ve probably walked more than ten thousand steps right?”

  “I know.”

  Meaning my most recent measurements were at least off by a hundred steps. And since we’d been getting more tired the further we went, the mismeasurements were probably worse for the more recent additions to the map.

  “I see, so you can’t use footsteps as a unit of measurement for maps... I’m sorry.”


  While I was sorry, there was something nagging at me.

  “But why did you push all the mapmaking onto me in the first place, Firnir?”

  “Cause I’m really bad at this kinda stuff.”

  You can’t be serious.

  “Important tasks like these are supposed to be checked over by multiple people to make sure no mistakes have been made!”

  “I’m only your guard! I’m doing my job just fine!”

  “What job!? There are no enemies down here!”

  “Yes, there is!”

  “No, there isn’t!”

  “There definitely is!”

  We continued walking as we argued. But after a few steps, I felt the ground crumble underneath me.

  It seemed I’d momentarily blacked out from the fall.

  “Owww...”

  I heard Firnir groan through the darkness. Red and purple lights danced at the edge of my vision. Thank goodness, it seems she’s safe too.

  “Oof...”

  I struggled to my feet and examined my surroundings. A faint light shone underneath my feet, but aside from that, there was just darkness.

  “What happened to our lamps?”

  “They broke.”

  Firnir’s voice came from right next to me. It seemed the light at my feet was the dying glow of our lamps. The oil that had spilled out from them was still burning.

  “Oh no, the fire’s going out! We need something that can burn, now!”

  “On it!”

  Firnir pulled off her shirt and handed it to me.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Yeah, now hurry up!”

  “A-Alright... if you say so.”

  I suppose I am the only one who can see her. Impressed by her decisiveness, I dipped her cotton shirt into the puddle of oil. It caught fire immediately. Thank goodness it’s cotton, my hemp clothes wouldn’t burn that easily.

  “But I can’t carry it like this.”

  I wrapped the burning shirt around my scabbard, making a makeshift torch. It wouldn’t last too long, but we needed to keep this fire burning or we’d be blind. I then collected the broken lamp’s wick and transferred the flame onto it. Firnir glanced up and muttered, “We fell a long way...”

  I raised the torch overhead, but its light wasn’t able to reach the ceiling.

  “I’m amazed I wasn’t hurt worse from a fall like that.”

  As I muttered that, I realized something. I’d fallen a good story or more. If I’d actually landed on the stone floor, I should have broken a few bones at least. I looked over at Firnir, who smiled.

  “Nice to see you’re not hurt.”

  Did she save me? Firnir said nothing more and silently started gathering our scattered belongings.

  “This is a pretty big room, so we might find something that could help us.”

  “Ah, hey!? If you move around too much—”

  Firnir clopped off, and I hurriedly jogged after her.

  There were two exits in the room we’d fallen into. Both were pitch dark, and I couldn’t make out what lay beyond them. Let’s leave exploring for later. While the room we were in had no staircase, there were plenty of wooden splinters and broken boards everywhere. From what I could tell, they’d originally been pieces of furniture. But now they were just dried out shattered chunks of wood. Wait, did these break our fall?

  “These look like they’ll burn.”

  “Wait, you want to set these on fire!?”

  I hadn’t even considered burning the things we found in the ruins. What if they were precious artifacts?

  “What are we going to do if it turns out they were important relics? We might get cursed, or worse...”

  Firnir gave me a reassuring smile and started gathering up broken pieces of wood.

  “We can worry about that if it actually happens. Right, now we’ve gotta hurry, or the fire’s gonna go out.”

  She had a point. Her shirt was close to burning up completely. After debating it for a few seconds, I came to a decision.

  “Our safety takes top priority right now. Let’s burn this wood.”

  “You got it.”

  Firnir took out her hatchet and chopped the wood into cylinder-shaped pieces. She then stuck the ends of the cylinders together, creating a radial pattern that spiraled outward.

  “What the heck’s with that shape? Don’t you think that’s a weird way to organize the wood?”

  Firnir set fire to a stick in the center and said, “Just watch. This is how kentauros do things.”

  Firnir’s fire started out tiny. Among the sticks she’d laid out, only the ones in the center caught fire.

  “Hmm, I might have made it too strong.”

  Firnir pulled out one of the few burning sticks. With a significant portion of its fuel gone, the fire grew even weaker. I was starting to grow a little irritated at how small she was keeping it, but Firnir just nodded in satisfaction. She beckoned to me and said, “This should be good. I’m kinda tired, so let’s rest for a bit.”

  “A-Alright...”

  The fire wasn’t too hot, but still large enough to light up our surroundings. Firnir continued adjusting the position of the sticks to regulate the fire.

  “It’s not that cold down here, and we’re not cooking anything, so we don’t need to make the fire big yet. This is how kentauros make the most of the wood they have.”

  “I see... I get it now.”

  She had a point, we didn’t need a fire any stronger than this if we were just going to rest. When I realized that, I felt a little embarrassed.

  “You’re absolutely right, Firnir. There’s a limit to how much wood we have. I’m sorry for doubting you. I would have just wasted all of our precious light.”

  As I’d been born the daughter of a viceroy, I’d never once had to worry about saving firewood. I’d never even realized other people would want to use it efficiently to make the most of what little they had. The firelight illuminated Firnir’s open smile, and I felt even worse for being so foolish.

  “Firnir, did you collect your own firewood before you became viceroy?”

  “Yep. I used to burn anything I could get my hands on actually! When you’re living on the plains, kindling’s hard to come by.”

  Though she smiled so cheerfully, I could tell from that statement alone that she must have had a much harder life than me. In fact, compared to her, I was just a sheltered little girl who didn’t know anything. Feeling useless, I started digging through my pack. I fished out a crushed loaf of bread. It had actually been flat to begin with, so the fall hadn’t altered its shape much.

  “You haven’t eaten anything since we came down here, right? Would you like some bread?”

  “Yeah, thanks!”

  “Hey wait, don’t eat it all! What kind of person even does that!?”

  Firnir, who’d just taken a huge bite out of the bread and was about to take another, tilted her head quizzically.

  “Thish washn’t jusht for me?”

  “It was for the both of us, dummy! Give me half!”

  I’d forgotten kentauros ate way more than people. I guess it made sense, since they were as big as horses. Even if I have the right knowledge, unless I utilize it, I won’t be able to do everything perfectly like Master does...

  “I’m glad the air isn’t super musty or anything.”

  After finishing her half of the bread, Firnir took a few small sips of our precious water supply and flashed me a smile. I’m amazed she can smile in a situation like this.

  “Should it be?”

  “Yeah. Generally, air that’s been trapped underground for ages smells musty. It’s bad for your body, so it’s better not to spend too much time in places like that, like caverns or mine shafts.”

  “I see...”

  “In some places, the air’s been stagnant for so long that a single breath can kill you. That’s what my clan head told me.”

  I ate through half of my own portion of bread and wrapped the remainder up
in a clean cloth before putting it in my bag.

  “By clan head, do you mean your father?”

  “Nope, I’m the clan priestess, so the head can’t be my dad.”

  Firnir folded her legs underneath her and rearranged her pattern of sticks.

  “I was born with more mana than usual. That’s why I’m stronger and faster than the other kentauros. And it’s why I’m our priestess.”

  “Priestess?”

  I had heard that even though she was around my age, she was the leader of the kentauros race. I guess in kentauros society, the priestess holds the most power.

  “So you worked your way up to the top by proving yourself. Unlike me, who just inherited her father’s position.”

  “We’re not actually that different, you know.”

  Firnir shook her head and pushed a few of the longer sticks together.

  “I wasn’t doing anything with my talent, so the clan head started getting annoyed. Then before I knew it, he’d started forcing me to learn martial arts, strategy, and everything in between. Then when I finished his training course from hell, he made me become the Great Sage Gomoviroa’s disciple.”

  “Gomoviroa is... the Demon Lord, correct?”

  I hadn’t met her myself, but apparently she was Master Veight’s master. He’d said that her powers were so great they rivaled the gods’. Firnir smiled bitterly.

  “Yeah, but the problem is, I can’t use magic at all! I’m too dumb to master any of it!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Still, she taught me how to read and do numbers. Kentauros don’t have a written language, so I’m one of the few literate kentauros out there!”

  “I-I see... It seems you went through quite a lot.”

  Even if that didn’t sound impressive to me, it must have been hard for her to learn. As I thought that, I absentmindedly muttered, “You’re amazing, Firnir.”

  “Huh? Wh-Where’d that come from!?”

  “Oh... don’t worry about it.”

  I took off my sword belt and laid down atop my cloak.

  “I’m going to take a short nap.”

  Sleeping would refresh my thoughts and help me think clearly. At least, Master Veight said sleep was good for that. Right now, it was important for me to regain my composure. And sleep would help with that.