The relationship between Mineha and Ax.
And their conflict with Ax's mother had somehow been resolved.
Honestly, I think it went really well.
Thinking back, I feel like Ax had been looking for some kind of opening to forgive his mother.
Deep down he already knew the truth, but he just couldn't make peace with it.
Of course he couldn't. It's not something you can just rationalize away.
But as he became a delver, his understanding of what it meant to be one grew deeper and deeper.
Was it a complex about Relics? Or his own past attitude?
He couldn't bring himself to take that first step on his own.
However, there was something on my mind.
"Um, you two. Mind if I ask something?"
"What?"
"What is it. Wof. Oh, hey, thanks. If you hadn't been there, I would've made the worst possible choice. I'd have regretted it for the rest of my life."
"I'm glad it worked out for the best. Ax, your mother's partner — were they the one who helped when you were kidnapped?"
"That was an old acquaintance of my mom's."
"So the partner is..."
"My mother."
Mineha planted both hands on her hips and fixed me with a cold stare.
"So you're saying your mother is a Rank I delver!?
"That's right. She's still active."
"She's pretty famous, you know—'The
Fairy Empress.'
Can't believe she's Mineha's mother."
"She's the one I'm aiming to surpass. But Wof, seriously— I don't want to keep repeating myself, but if you're going to be a delver, even if your whole life goal is just scraping by at Rank V! At the very least, you should have the basic common sense to know every single Rank I delver! Especially as the Witch's apprentice."
"Um... do I really need to know every single Rank I...?"
"Yes, you do! Especially you!"
"W-why?"
"Well, putting that aside—knowledge is a delver's power. As the Witch's apprentice, you should understand that."
They both scolded me.
When something doesn't interest me, I'm completely ignorant about it. That's my bad habit.
I nearly died because of it, and yet I still haven't learned from the experience.
But why does the Witch keep coming up?
Come to think of it, the Witch was a delver too.
A thought suddenly crosses my mind. The reason I've never bothered looking into it is that I'd probably just get scolded again, so I won't say anything.
What rank is the Witch, anyway?
"............"
I guess I'll just ask her myself when we get back.
I smiled wryly, thinking about how many things I now need to discuss with and confirm to the Witch.
"Wof. About this Relic plate..."
"Here you go. It's yours."
"But... why were you trying to give this to me in the first place?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah..."
"Well, um, I thought that if Axe had a Relic, maybe he could have a real conversation with Mineha."
The whole reason any of this happened was because there was no Relic.
If that problem was gone, and Axe had a Relic...
That was the thought behind it. That was the momentum I had going.
Axe just stared blankly.
"You can't be serious... you told me to use this just for that?"
"You. Don't you even understand how incredible this is!?"
"Wof. This plate isn't meant to be used for something like that."
"That's right. It's not something you throw away for something like that."
Their attitude got under my skin.
"I don't think it's 'something like that' or 'something like that' at all! Axe, you'd notice something precious. It could be the trigger for Mineha to open up about the past. And the two of you could reconcile. If it's for that, I wouldn't hesitate to use it. So please don't call it 'something like that'!"
I ended up putting more feeling into it than I intended.
Axe and Mineha exchanged a glance, then looked back at me.
"You kid... the trigger wasn't that plate. It was you, Wof."
"I was able to talk because of Wof too."
"I..."
"Just the two of us — me and Mineha — wouldn't have been enough."
"Me too… I don't know how I would've put it into words. I probably never would've said anything."
"We needed someone. That someone was you, Wof. If it hadn't been you, it probably wouldn't have worked. The way you thought about us… going so far as to use the plate…"
"All I did was stick my nose where it didn't belong."
"Maybe so."
Axe smiled.
Mineha…
"You're right. You really are a busybody, you know that?"
"Y-yes. Sorry."
"What are you apologizing for? Come to think of it, I still haven't said it to you yet, have I?"
"Huh?"
Then Mineha hopped right up to my face.
"Thank you, Wof."
She smiled bashfully, almost glowing.
"Mineha…"
"Hmph. That's all, so don't make a big deal out of it."
She quickly turned her face away with a poof and stepped back.
She must've been embarrassed. Her ears were red.
I was blushing too.
Axe stared at the plate.
"Wof. This plate — are you really sure it's okay for me to have it?"
"Yep. I've accomplished what I set out to do."
"Go on and take it."
"You don't want one, Mineha?"
"Hmm. If I could know what kind of Relic I'd receive, I'd want one. But from the sound of it, you can't tell in advance, so no thanks."
"You're awfully nonchalant about it."
"Partly I never really wanted one in the first place. And partly I'm proud of my own Relic, I suppose. That reminds me, though. Wof, you said you think of Relics as tools or techniques, didn't you?"
"I did. I still do."
"That's perfectly fine, but my master used to say the same thing."
"She did?"
"…When you said that, it reminded me of what she told me too."
Axe said, sounding a little sheepish.
Oh, so that's why he'd suddenly gone soft on the subject of Relics.
Having your attitude shift because of something your mother said — now that I thought about it, that was so like Axe.
"So anyway, my master told me: 'A Relic is no different from a convenient tool or technique. But the real point is how you use that tool or technique, and whether you can cherish it.'"
"How you use it, and whether you can cherish it…"
What could she mean by that?
"I'm not saying you have to worship or revere Relics or anything. People have all sorts of views on Relics, and if I dismissed them all, I'd be dismissing my own perspective too. But if you think of a Relic as a tool or technique, Wof, then I want you to take care of it. Because that's what you do, right? You sharpen and polish your knife."
"Y-Yes."
"Because it's precious to you."
"That's right."
"Your Relic's the same as that knife. Don't reject it — take care of it."
"............"
I — went completely blank.
White, empty, a tabula rasa.
I could feel that my heart had become that.
"............"
And in that blank white heart, I saw a path.
No — a path had appeared for the first time.
A road of light to walk forward.
Right. So that's how it was.
"Mineha."
"What."
"Thank you."
"Oh, sure."
She turned her face away, blunt as ever.
Axe let out a soft chuckle.
"That's good, Wof."
"Y-Yeah."
"Got it. I'll decide this after talking it over with both of you."
"Understood."
"Well, my answer's already decided, though."
"Axe?"
"Hey! Wrap it up already — it's time to go."
"Yeah."
"Okay!"
We set off. It wasn't like everything was resolved.
But the biggest concern had been taken care of.
And on top of that, I'd found a path.
A path of light had appeared in my heart — a heart that had been completely blank and empty.
When I happened to look up, there was a blue sky.
So my heart felt clear and open as far as it could go.
The other two probably felt something similar.
The air had shifted, and we continued our delve smoothly.
Two days later.
"Wh-what is this place...?"
"The outside?"
"...The outside?"
What we had arrived at was a massive hall.
That alone was surprising enough, but what truly stunned us was the blue sky above.
What stretched overhead wasn't a ceiling.
A blue sky. There were clouds, and they were moving.
But this wasn't the surface.
Going down a long flight of stairs and ending up at the surface didn't make sense no matter how you looked at it.
"I've heard there are dungeons that look like the outside, but..."
"Yes, it's something else seeing it in person. This isn't a real sky, though, is it?"
"Is that so?"
"Apparently a legendary is embedded in the ceiling, projecting what looks like a real sky."
"I think I've heard something like that too."
"...Projecting?"
Something like projection mapping, maybe.
But it was so realistic you'd never guess it was a projected image.
"That huge temple over there — wanna check it out?"
Straight ahead stood a massive, pure-white temple.
How grand.
"Of course."
"Yes!"
Grand, it was.
It must have been majestic once.
But now it was half-ruined, and all you could do was imagine its former glory.
The path to the great temple. A wide road.
A stone road wide enough to park several carriages side by side.
But the dozens of columns lined up along the edges were mostly broken and toppled over.
The stone statues standing beside them were also damaged.
However, these weren't the work of monsters.
I didn't know where this was, or what era it belonged to.
For some reason, the dungeon generated ruined structures as floor layouts.
"........."
It reminded me a bit of that abandoned village in the forest.
But around this great temple...
It had a Greek-style vibe to it. Especially those columns.
Then again, since humans built them, it wasn't surprising they'd end up with a similar feel.
I'd thought Hydrangea looked like a tourist town somewhere in Europe when I first saw it, too.
Partway through, we came across a cluster of white buildings.
"A temple district? And quite a large one at that."
"There might be treasures and such in there."
"...What if it's something we won't know what to do with again..."
"Hey, Axe. Don't say stuff like that with no tact."
"Sorry."
"Seriously, you don't want gold and silver treasures?"
"Isn't that a bit too mundane?"
"I want some. You do too, right Wof?"
"Not really."
"Ugh, men have no dreams."
That was more about greed than dreams, wasn't it?
"If I had to say, I want a knife."
"Practical."
"A gold knife? Silver knife?"
"Ideally just a good knife I can actually use."
That's what I wanted. A knife.
I was fond of my current one, but I wanted a backup.
No, that wasn't it. I wanted an OOPArt knife.
One that could be adapted to work with Banish.
"Boring. But you could get that with gold and silver treasures too."
"H-hey. Look over there!"
"What... smoke?"
"Smoke?!"
A thin trail of smoke was rising to the southeast, away from the grand temple.
A fire? No — if it were, there'd be more smoke.
Someone was there. Dungeon monsters didn't do this.
A delver. Which meant… which meant…
We ran.