CH 21

After safely leaving the merpeople island, Chiharu and Maki rode the train through the second great open space in the tunnels. This time, they did their best to ignore any looks coming from out the window, even when they felt it staring at them. And still, the Gazer came.

“I didn’t look at it this time. I promise!”

Excuses were made, but when their eyes had met for a second, the Gazer looked very happy.

Such small incidents occurred along the way, but they safely reached Noir in the dwarf lands. By this time, they were feeling somewhat affectionate towards the Gazer and prayed that the archer wouldn’t kill it.

It was now in the evening.

As they stepped out of the train, they could see the town and its many lines of short buildings stretch out both inland and towards the sea. There wasn’t much open land near the shore, as small mountains were close by. It was slightly past these mountains that their destination lay.

Maki quickly looked at her surroundings. Where was that place the old ticket seller had told her about? Ah, there it was. And another thing. There. The carriage station.

“Kaider, Nyran, thank you for helping us. Well, goodbye.”

Maki said to them hurriedly, Chiharu too bowed her head and the two of them tried to rush off to the carriage station.

“Wait, wait. Where’re you going?”

“Where? To the town of Garonce.”

“It will take an extra hour to get there. And there are not many inns.”

“But, we already decided. It’s hard to adjust once you change your schedule.”

“But still…”

“There’s a carriage leaving for Garonce in 5 minutes.”

Some passerby had overheard them and muttered this before walking away.

“Good. You buy the tickets, Norfe.”

“Alright.”

“Ah, hey!”

The two split up. The younger sister went to buy some deep fried fish. Then she immediately went to the bakery next to it before running back to her brother.

“Oh, I guess I have no choice then.”

“Are you going too?”

“We can’t just leave those two alone.”

“But there are no Gazers or merpeople on land.”

“I just feel like there’ll be something.”

“…Well, you’re probably right.”

Kaider looked up at the sky.

“I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like there are a lot of bird people up there. Could it…”

“There’s no time.”

“Ah, yeah.”

They were just in time. There were carriages with three rows of four-seats. They were on the large side. The floating stones meant that weight was not a problem, but the mountain roads in the dwarf lands were not wide. And so it was necessary to use carriages like these for transportation. The passengers were two children, Kaider and Nyran, and the man who had muttered to them a moment ago. The rest of the carriage was full of other baggage.

“Huh? Kaider, Nyran.”

The two children with bags looked at them with puzzled expressions.

“Well, we decided that it won’t be too bad to go to the next town.”

“Oh. So we’ll sit together again.”

The older brother seemed quite happy about this, and so the two were glad of their decision. The sister sat next to them and cut open some bread with a knife in order to stuff them with the fried fish. She made two of these and cut one in half and the other into three pieces.

“Here. I was worried because the fish was so big, but it seemed to work out.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“Because there’s still quite some time until dinner.”

The sister also gave the other passenger some bread. While it was slightly cold, the fresh fish was seasoned with vinegar and salt, which went very nicely with the bread. After that, the siblings shared a bottle of fruit juice that they had bought at the station.

The carriage had windows on both sides. As it was going up a mountain, you could occasionally get a good view of the town of Noir. When the sun started to set, lights began to slowly appear throughout the city.

“Hey, Norfe, Chouze.”

“Yes?”

Norfe answered without taking his eyes away from the scenery.

“What are you two going to do in Garonce?”

“It’s only one stop for us. We are headed for Gromble.”

“Gromble. But that’s the deepest dungeon town. And it is close to the Shadow World. It is no place you ones so young.”

“But, we think our mother’s cousin is there.”

“Cousin?”

“An adventurer.”

“But adventurers will move from dungeon to dungeon like the wind. Though Gromble is vast, and many end up staying there…”

“We have to go. We have to see it.”

Norfe said as he looked on ahead. They decided that it was better to not ask any more questions.

“But where are you going, Kaider and Nyran?”

“We are…”

“Gromble.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. We are adventurers, after all. We were just thinking of going to Gromble.”

“Oh, I see. Have you been there before?”

“Of course, we have. It’s practically our home base. We just got a little bored, you know, and were spending some time in the elven dungeons.”

A little bored? Only a child would fall for that excuse. Nyran thought.

“Oh, and then from the elven territories, you went to Arthur’s kingdom. Did you ride an airship?”

“We did indeed. Airships only fly once a week, you know? It was actually my first time riding one.”

Hmm. They were falling for it. Airships were expensive. Too expensive for any adventurer to ride. Indeed, Kaider and Nyran had things they wanted to keep hidden as well. They couldn’t talk too much, as their story wouldn’t survive any scrutiny.

“Ah, we have now reached the highest point of the road. The rest of the journey to Garonce will be downhill.”

“Oh.”

The children looked forlornly at the sea. The carriage slowly descended the mountain road.

“Agh.”

Suddenly, the children looked downward and held their faces.

“What is it?”

Kaider asked with concern in his voice.

“My right eye…” “My right eye…”

They said.

“Right eye?” “Right eye?”

What did they mean?

“Ugh, aahh, just, hehe. It’s nothing. We’re just playing.”

“You should choose one, instead of laughing and acting in pain at the same time.”

The children said ‘Does it ache? It does, doesn’t it?’ to each other as they giggled while looking down, there hands on their foreheads. Then they seemed to grasp something and put it in their bags.

“The miasma is thicker now.”

“You can tell?”

“Kind of…”

Indeed, Noir was facing the sea, so the miasma could escape. But the dwarf villages in the mountains were different. Of course, as the dwarves often worked in the mines, they had a higher resistance to miasma. But humans were more likely to be affected by it. There were more adventurers now who were becoming crazed. And that is why he did not want them to go to Gromble.

They were all deep within their own thoughts, as the carriage descended into Garonce.