Galad met with the person in charge of the subjugation village that had belonged to the Dragonfish family.
In the meantime, the rest of us decided to tour the subjugation villages.
"Still, the Finger Rock is really something, huh."
"First time seeing Finger Rock, but that's how everyone is."
"So this is all on top of the rock, right?"
Five subjugation villages, all based around the Finger Rock.
Even during the Forest Wave, the Finger Rock never gets attacked by monster hordes.
The position of each village differs depending on where it sits relative to the Finger Rock.
Some are on top of it, some below, some centered around it, and some inside it.
This village's Finger Rock had a shape like a flat platform.
It's at the tip of the finger. But it's no different from regular ground.
That building over there—is that a general store? Next to it were a weapon shop, an armor shop, and a tavern, all lined up in a row.
Plenty of people passing through.
I'd assumed they'd all be delvers, but there were people dressed in all sorts of other outfits too.
One carriage after another pulled up, and people laid out tents and carpets on every available patch of open space.
They were hauling cargo from the wagons, looking plenty busy.
"Street stalls, most likely. That's how it gets once the Forest Wave kicks off."
"Could be merchants from the Full Moon Bazaar?"
"There's plenty of those too."
A merchant, shrewd sense of trade.
That's probably just what it means to be a merchant. I could never pull that off.
"First stop's the guild, right?"
"Yeah. We need to get registered there."
"Now that you mention it, we never actually registered at all, huh."
We'd completely forgotten that we weren't registered as delvers.
It's a mandatory requirement for joining the Forest Wave.
A branch office works just fine, so we decided to handle our registration here.
We found the guild branch and headed inside. Every desk except registration was packed.
Well, I guess not many people bother registering at a branch office.
Registration was simple. All you had to do was hand over your delver tag.
Submit it, wait a little while, and you get a delver tag back when they return it.
"A different color variant…"
It's literally a palette swap.
"That's just how it goes."
"So what do we do now? Hm? What are you looking at, Wof?"
"…Oh, nothing. Just caught my eye."
Among the requests posted on the wall, one extermination notice stood out above the rest.
It had a drawing of a monster with a large X across its belly.
The exact same one we'd seen at the delver guild.
"......'Kizumono.'"
"It's huge after all, huh."
"It's even bigger than that in person. Big enough you gotta look up at it."
"Looks like it'd have some real bite to it, huh."
Probably planning to eat it.
"Well then, shall we go?"
We left the guild.
So what should we do now?
"The Heisen Great Forest. You can see it from here, too."
"Then I'd like to see it."
"Where can we get a look?"
"The tip of this finger."
The Heisen Great Forest.
I'd never actually seen what it looked like. Can't be helped — it was four days away.
The tip of the finger turned out to be a wall.
A stone wall curving along the finger's length.
"Looks like it'll cost money."
"Nah, this part's on the house. Just use that ladder."
A ladder was propped up against the wall.
Not rope, not wood. It was iron.
I climbed the sturdy ladder and stood atop the wall.
The wall was surprisingly wide, and here and there a few other people were scattered about besides us.
Iron railings lined the top to prevent anyone from falling off.
"So that side is the trade city of Heizen?"
I could see something glittering, arranged in a perfectly straight line.
It looked like the horizon, but beyond it was a real horizon.
Since Lake Rieve connects to the Claudia Sea, I guess you could call it the sea.
"Not that way. Over here!"
"Oh, right."
"It's amazing!"
At Bid's urging, I moved to the other side.
I headed over, not giving it much thought.
"......"
The sight before me made me catch my breath without thinking.
Plains stretched out ahead, and beyond them was the sea.
The sea. That was the sea.
Endless and vast, as if it reached the very edge of the world—it was a green sea.
That was the Heizen Great Forest... the sea of trees.
The great sea of trees, then.
"......"
Why a great forest, of all things.
"— Wow... we'd get so lost in there."
"— Yeah. In the great forest, delvers who stay inside for months at a time aren't all that rare — outside the Forest Wave, anyway. Naturally, there are plenty of disappearances too."
"— ...Can they make it back?"
"— ...If they're carrying one, the Forced Transfer Stone works for some reason."
"— Doesn't that already make it a dungeon?"
"— Yeah. But even so, it's hard to believe."
According to the witch, very few surface-type dungeons had been identified.
The fact that they didn't look anything like one at first glance was part of the reason.
"— Ugh, come on. So where's this Forbidden Land?"
"— Deeper in... there's something that looks like an island, apparently."
"— It really does look like an island."
Scattered across the sea of green.
There were islands of land.
"— That's Finger Rock."
"— There's one in the middle of the forest too?"
"— Yeah. It makes for a great landmark."
"— With Finger Rock, you don't get attacked by monsters, right?"
"— Right. You don't. Of course, some of them have delver villages too. Normally they're oases in the great forest, but during the Forest Wave, they're completely deserted."
"— Wait, so you don't get attacked?"
"There's no demand during the Wave. You can't leave the buildings day in and day out. You never know when it'll end. Who'd want to be in a place like that?"
"That's true, isn't it?"
"But it's a lifeline for us."
"That's also true."
"……"
We were heading into the Heisen Great Forest during the Forest Wave, bound for the Forbidden Land.
And we were going to defeat the anomaly in the dungeon.
That sounded like a suicide mission or a bad joke.
But the Forest Wave had no set end date.
It would be great if it ended in three days. A week would be fine, too.
But sometimes it took a month, or even three months.
Dungeon anomalies caused frequent EVENTS.
It would be a problem if something like the Barrow happened again.
Our target was the interval between the First and the Second.
The span from the First to the Second was the shortest at twelve days, the longest a full three months.
Incidentally, the span from the Second to the Last was the shortest just two hours, the longest only six days.
Even so, it's quiet.
I couldn't imagine a horde of monsters pouring out of that green sea.
The wind blowing felt faintly cool.
I noticed Bid-san gazing at the green sea with deep interest.
"Was that really okay, Bid?"
I couldn't help but ask.
"What d'you mean?"
She glanced back without looking at me.
"The dungeon anomaly subjugation. I'm the one inviting you, but..."
"I'm fine with it. Just didn't expect we'd be subjugating a dungeon anomaly in Heizen, of all places."
She kept her eyes on the scenery and let a wry smile cross her face.
The Holland drop earrings swayed in the wind.
"Yeah."
"The dungeon anomaly... brings back memories, huh."
"It was Crown, wasn't it?"
"Huh? It was the land catfish. What's Crown supposed to mean?"
Oh, right. That one had been altered.
I'm the only one who remembers that, aren't I?
As I was getting sentimental, something bumped into my back with a soft thud.
"Ah, sorry."
"Oh, pardon me."
We both turned around and apologized to each other.
She was a cute girl with white cat ears. Cat-people were rare enough as it was.
Huh.
"P-nyaaah! Wof!?"
"P-Pakira!?"
We were both startled. Totally caught off guard.