LOVE LIFE ON LABYRINTH LANE: A BEHIND-THE-SCENES STORY
“What about you, Aiz?”
It was the dead of night, and the girls of Loki Familia were gathered on Daedalus Street to search for the Dungeon’s second entrance. The conversation, however, quickly turned to matters of love.
“There’s…not really anybody I…”
“Come on, there must be somebody! Somebody you like just a little bit more than the rest, maybe?”
It all started when the group ran into Filvis during their investigations. The girl had a reputation for being a bit aloof, and so to break the ice, the conversation had somehow veered to this subject.
Filvis herself had already been bombarded with so many questions by this point that her head was spinning, and she was barely responding anymore. And so Tiona directed her eager questions at Aiz, while Lefiya strained her ears to listen, and the rest of the group all waited in hushed excitement for what Aiz would say.
Cornered and with no hope for rescue, Aiz hesitated for what seemed like ages. Then, at last, with no other choice, she opened her lips to answer.
“I…”
Then it happened. A boy’s voice, unbearably embarrassed, caught the group’s attention.
“U-um, I’m sorry! I wonder if you could help me?”
Hm? Don’t I know that voice…?
The first to turn and look was Aiz. When she did, she spotted a source of light—a magic-stone torch—weaving its way through the darkness of the maze of streets toward them. The other girls all stared in confusion, and when the figure finally got close enough, Aiz could make out the stranger more clearly.
“I-I think I took a wrong turn somewhere…” he stammered. “D-do you ladies know the way out?”
A head of snow-white hair that lit up the night. A pair of rubellite eyes, now streaked with tears. It was almost like a little white rabbit had shuffled up to them.
“W-wait—it’s you!”
When the young man saw their faces, he was even more taken aback than they were. Both parties stared in shock until Aiz broke the silence.
“…Bell?” she asked, and with that, time began flowing again.
“It’s Argonaut!” cried Tiona. “But why?!”
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-what are you doing here?!” demanded Lefiya.
“L-Loki Familia?!” said the equally flustered boy. “A-and Ms. Aiz?!”
“Yeah…Good evening.”
“G-good evening!!”
The two exchanged confused pleasantries, with Bell bowing deeply. There was no doubt now—the boy who had appeared on the street was none other than captain of Hestia Familia and hero of the recent War Game, Bell Cranell.
At length, Bell raised his head and scanned the stunned faces of Loki Familia.
“B-but what are you all doing out here so late at night?” he asked.
“Oh, er…” said Tione, hastily fabricating a lie to conceal the truth of their investigation from Bell. “What’s that thing they do in the East? A test of courage! We’re doing that!”
“A…‘test of courage’?”
Bell didn’t seem entirely convinced by this but raised no objection.
“What about you, then?” Tiona asked. “What are you doing around here?”
“Oh, er…!”
There was no mistaking it—when Tiona said that, Bell seized up. While the girls eyed him suspiciously, Tiona came over and sniffed.
“Hm? What’s that smell on you, Argonaut? Are you wearing cologne?”
The animal people of the party all started sniffing, too. Aiz tried to follow suit, and when she did, she also detected a whiff of something unusual about the boy. It would have been strange for any man to be wearing perfume, let alone a country boy like Bell, and yet there it was, clear as day. A sweet, alluring, almost licentious scent.
“Oh, um…it’s…er…!”
The boy was sweating buckets by now and couldn’t seem to get out a single word. He refused to answer Tione’s question, instead looking left and right as if searching for an escape route.
“Wait…I know that smell,” said Aki, almost choking on the revelation.
Before she could say it, though, it was Filvis, silent up until now, who narrowed her eyes and muttered:
“Musk…”
Bell tensed his shoulders. Filvis shot him an ice-cold glare.
“B-by ‘musk,’ you mean…?” stammered the red-faced healer girl, Leene.
“Yes,” said Aki. “The thing they use all the time in the Pleasure Quarter.”
The Pleasure Quarter. Just the sound of its name silenced all the girls a second time.
…What?
Aiz was no exception. Slowly, she turned her golden eyes to the boy, who, even now, was dripping with sweat.
The Pleasure Quarter…? With all those…brothels?
The exact same moment Aiz’s train of thought arrived at that word, Lefiya exploded.
“Th…that…That’s IMMORAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!”
Her face turned bright red as she screamed, “You were in the Pleasure Quarter?! Visiting a brothel?! So just a few moments ago, you were with a lady of the night?! Doing th-this and th-th-that and a-a-all sorts of other things?! Wraaaaaaaaaaaghhh!!”
“N-no!” Bell protested. “I can explain! I-I mean it! I really can!”
“What is there to explain?! And now that I get a closer look, that torch you’re carrying was made in the Far-Eastern style! You really were at a brothel!”
Lefiya had all but lost her mind, pointing fingers and screeching accusations. Bell was faring little better, trying his best to explain the situation, but none of the girls were having any of it.
“Please, I’m begging you. Listen to me, Ms. Lefiya!”
“Never!! Don’t even speak my name with that filthy tongue of yours! Only the gods know where it’s been!”
“Gugh!”
“And I was just starting to think I was mistaken about you! I was just starting to think you put on a brave show during the War Game! Here I thought maybe you weren’t the worst human being to ever walk this earth, but boy was I wrong!!!”
“Gagh!!”
“What an idiot I was to believe that, even for a second, you were anything more than a lecherous, womanizing, dirty little rabbit that’s always in heat!!”
Bell was taking a serious verbal beating. Every curse from Lefiya made him double over like he’d been punched in the gut. By the time she was done, the elf girl was heaving with breath, tears in her eyes, and Filvis had to step between her and Bell to calm her down.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t sully yourself. He’s not worth it.”
Filvis looked at Bell in the manner usually reserved for pieces of excrement lying by the side of the road. It was her words, delivered by an especially graceful member of the beautiful elf race, that finally left Bell coughing up blood.
“Ghah!!”
And even if they weren’t quite as prudish as their elven comrades, the news of Bell’s alleged misadventures still came as quite a shock to most of the other girls of Loki Familia. Some were aghast, some were repulsed, while others were just plain embarrassed.
Aiz, meanwhile, was dead silent. At first glance, it was the same unexpressive look as always, but behind her emotionless facade, her eyes were spinning.
A brothel…where men go…to be with women…and to do…mumble, mumble stuff…
Aiz was fairly naive on what, precisely, such an encounter normally entailed, but she understood the basic concept. And now, she felt like the boy had graduated from her “private” lessons (about combat, of course) and was steadily drifting away. It was as though she’d suddenly discovered a secret hobby of the boy next door she thought she knew…or more like if she’d followed her pet rabbit and found he had a secret nest with a family she had no idea about.
“I guess all guys have their needs, even Argonaut!” mused Tiona. “Hmm…that makes me a little bit sad for some reason.”
“I’m telling you—you’ve got it all wrong, Ms. Tiona! I didn’t do any—”
“It’s okay! Amazons are like that, too! Well, most of us are! It’s nothing to be ashamed of! Probably!”
“No, I…!”
“I won’t judge,” said Tione. “You do what you have to.”
“I’m not doing anything like thaaat!”
In the end, even the two Amazons of the group were just as taken aback as the rest of them. Bell clutched his head, desperate to dispel the misunderstanding, while Aiz watched on in silence.
I can’t…calm down.
Aiz’s heart was racing fast. And just as she was trying to work out the reason why, Bell noticed her unbroken stare and turned to her.
“Oh…”
“…!”
When their eyes met, Aiz felt compelled to look anywhere else. She couldn’t say why.
That, for Bell, was the most crushing blow of the night. The look on his face said the world was ending. Even the other girls recoiled at the sight of him.
“…Oh, right. We’re heading back to the main road,” said Tione, eager to take the focus off Bell’s brutal public execution. “Would you like to come with us?”
“Yes, please…” said Bell, lacking the energy to raise his head or even give anything more substantial than a feeble nod.
And with that, the party set off anew, now with one more lost child among them.
“I really can’t believe it! The nerve of that rabbit!”
“Hey, Lefiya, how come you’re so angry with Argonaut anyway? When other people say and do stuff like that, you just get embarrassed.”
“W-well, that’s because he’s my rival—I mean…I don’t think he should get to play so fast and loose just because the fame he got from the War Game has gone to his head! It’s obscene! If he wants Aiz to teach him—I mean…if he wants to be a proper adventurer, he should have a bit more grit and ambition!”
Lefiya was red-faced and raving, while an awkward gloom descended over the rest of the party. The cause, of course, was the dour-faced young boy in their midst. A dark cloud seemed to ooze from his very being, and Aiz, who was normally the first to jump to his defense at times like these, was oddly subdued. Bit by bit, a strange gulf of detachment was growing between Bell and the girls of Loki Familia.
“Erm…come to think of it, I wonder if any of our boys do that sort of thing,” said Leene, frantically searching for another topic of discussion. “Do you think they’ve ever…erm…visited a prostitute?”
“You don’t have to talk about it if it makes you blush so hard,” replied Aki with a sigh. “But just for your information, Raul did use to go there quite often.”
“What?!”
“Apparently, some conniving wench got the better of him,” Aki went on. “You remember that time he stole all the money we made from our expedition? That was because he wanted to buy this woman a present.”
“Oh, Raul…”
“But you know what he’s like. He never got further than holding hands in the end…That silly boy, I don’t know if he was trying to broaden his horizons or what, but he didn’t have to go all the way to the Pleasure Quarter…”
As the entire group listened to Aki’s story, the party’s mood slowly transformed into a collective sigh at the shortcomings of the male species. Sensing the negativity take hold, Tiona attempted to lighten things up.
“Let’s talk about something more fun!” she said. “I know! Let’s go back to what we were talking about before!”
“What were you talking about before…?” asked Bell weakly.
“We were talking about if there were any boys we liked!” came Tiona’s cheerful reply, causing Bell to look away once more and chew on his words. “And we were just about to hear what Aiz had to say, weren’t we?” she added, jumping on the girl’s back.
“…!”
Bell snapped to attention. He suddenly started acting very oddly indeed, still trying to distance himself from the conversation but sneaking frequent glances in Aiz’s direction.
The other girls all simultaneously thought, Oh yeah, that is what we were talking about, and turned to Aiz expectantly.
“Come on, Aiz!” Tiona urged her. “What guy do you like?”
“I…um…”
Her eyes darted around for a way out, but eventually, Aiz’s stare fell on Bell, and she opened her lips to speak.
“There…isn’t really anybody I like…”
“…But…?” asked Tiona, sensing she still had something to say.
“…I don’t think I like…men who fool around.”
Stab!!
Everyone swore they could hear the knife that pierced Bell’s heart at that moment. They turned to see him clutching his chest.
“Or…men who go to the Pleasure Quarter…”
“Aghh!”
“Or men who smell like musk.”
“Guhh!!”
“I hate that.”
“Ghah!!”
Aiz didn’t so much as glance in Bell’s direction. She simply rattled off a list of misgivings that nearly folded the poor boy in half. It was clearly a hundred times worse hearing it from Aiz’s lips than it had been from Lefiya’s. Speaking of whom…
“I’m so glad to see we’re in agreement, Ms. Aiz! You really can’t trust the types of men who frequent those sorts of places!”
“…Yeah.” Aiz nodded. Meanwhile, the whole group was abuzz, with people turning to one another and muttering:
“What a strong opinion!”
“I’ve never heard Aiz talk for so long!”
“She must really hate those men!”
Tione and Aki grinned awkwardly. They weren’t sure what to make of this side of Aiz. Filvis, meanwhile, had her eyes closed like she wanted nothing to do with any of it.
And Bell…
“U…urgh…”
The boy weakly collapsed against the wall at the side of the street. He looked like he was about to be sick or like his soul were trying to leave his body.
“Hmm…”
Tiona glanced first at the boy’s sad state and then at the lonely-looking Aiz. She climbed off the girl’s back and jogged over to the back of the group, where Bell was hanging his head in shame.
“Hey, Argonaut?” she asked.
“Yeah…?”
“Did you really not do anything while you were there?”
Bell’s response was instant. “Absolutely not! I really didn’t! I didn’t do anything—I swear!!”
“You swear to the gods?”
“I swear to my goddess!”
“Hmm…”
Tiona crossed her arms and pondered. If Bell was willing to go that far to proclaim his innocence, then it was really hard to imagine he wasn’t telling the truth.
“But you were definitely there, weren’t you?” she asked. “So why?”
“Well, a new member of our familia went off by herself to the Pleasure Quarter, and we got worried. Welf…erm, my friends came with me to look for her, but I got separated…”
“Then why do you smell like musk?”
“Erm…well, one of the, er, Amazon ladies…kind of, er, abducted me…”
“Huh?”
Tiona’s eyes went wide.
“You mean, one of the prostitutes took you back to the brothel?”
“…Y-yeah…”
“A-are you okay?! Did they do anything to you?!”
Tiona was an exception, but by and large, Amazons were aggressive lovers. If a male caught their attention, they wouldn’t just sit back and wait for him to come to them—they’d take the initiative. Even Tione possessed something of this aggressive nature—though only when pursuing Finn, of course. Tiona was starting to wonder if the boy had been robbed of his innocence out there, especially once he looked up with sad, empty eyes.
“I’m okay, but…”
“B-but?”
“Women are scary women are scary Amazons are scary Amazons are scary—frogs are scary!”
Bell immediately hugged himself and shivered violently. What kind of desperate escape was he remembering? His complete mental breakdown caused Tiona to take a step back.
“Oh man…”
It seemed her fellow Amazons had given the boy a truly difficult time. Still, that was all Tiona needed to hear. She was sure the boy was telling the truth now.
“It’s okay, Argonaut. I believe you.”
“…Really?”
“I might not know a lot, but I know you’re not lying.”
Not after that embarrassing display, she tactfully omitted, and she shot Bell a sunny smile.
“Leave it to me,” she said. “I’ll explain to Aiz and the other girls that they’ve all got the wrong idea!”
“M-Ms. Tiona…!”
“Heh-heh! Just wait right here!”
Tiona left Bell, who was crying tears of gratitude, and set off to rejoin the rest of her party. There was a spring in her step, thinking how happy she was for Bell to be thanking her. She liked Aiz, and though she hadn’t known him for very long, she liked Bell as well. She couldn’t just watch on as two people she cared about fell out over some silly misunderstanding. She had to step in and do something.
“Aiz! Argonaut says he didn’t do anything at the Pleasure Quarter!”
“…What?”
“He was there for a good reason!”
Tiona decided to clear up the misunderstanding with Aiz first. Reattaching herself to Aiz’s back, she explained all she’d heard to the confused-looking girl.
“An Amazon…abducted him? And chased him around the district?”
“The Pleasure Quarter’s where the Berbera of Ishtar Familia hang out,” said Tiona. “I bet they all had their eyes on him after he got famous because of the War Game.”
“…”
After listening to Tiona’s explanation, Aiz fell into silent thought. Her eyes flickered over to the far rear of the group, where Bell was walking, awaiting judgment like a sentenced criminal.
“Tiona, I think I need to…”
“Yep! Go ahead!”
Aiz excused herself and slowed her pace so that the whole party overtook her, and she ended up walking side by side with Bell, at the very back.
“A-Aiz…”
“…”
Bell awkwardly froze upon seeing her. Aiz didn’t fare much better and hurriedly tried to think of something to say. Her eyes darted from side to side as the gears turned, and then finally, she parted her lips to speak.
“I heard…” she said, “from Tiona…Did that really happen?”
“Y-yes!”
Aiz studied the boy’s rubellite eyes for any trace of deception, but in the end, she came to the same conclusion that Tiona had. The uneasy feeling in her heart disappeared, washed away by a wave of relief…immediately followed by the utmost shame.
“Um…I, er…” she muttered.
“Hm?”
“I’m…sorry I doubted you…” she said, sadly looking down at her feet. She couldn’t believe she’d jumped to conclusions without even listening to Bell’s side of the story.
Wide-eyed, Bell waved his hands.
“N-no, no, no! I don’t blame you at all! In fact, I’m surprised you believed me in the end! P-please don’t feel bad about it!”
“…Thank you…”
Even when he was the one under attack, Bell always put others first. That only made Aiz feel even guiltier, but a faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared on her lips and in the corners of her eyes. Recognizing it for what it was, Bell blushed.
“Did anything bad happen to you?” Aiz asked.
“N-no, I’m fine…mostly.”
“That’s good…”
“E-erm?”
Aiz ran her fingers through his hair. Bell went bright red and tried to pull away, but she didn’t stop stroking his snow-white head.
A little white rabbit that ran away from home had finally returned to its master’s care.
Aiz smiled, daydreaming about picking up that small animal and rubbing its fur against her cheek.
And Bell, relieved beyond belief, smiled back.
“Mrrrgh…!”
Meanwhile, Lefiya grumbled to herself as she watched the pair.
Tiona was still going around the group, clearing up the misunderstanding, but Lefiya had already heard, and her heart was heavy with guilt.
Grr, I said all those terrible things. Maybe I should apologize…but it’s his fault for being so vulgar that I could believe it! …But I suppose I should have listened to his side of the story…Oh, darn it!
As she wrestled with the disparity between her preconceptions and the truth, Lefiya slowly realized that she needed to say something, so she headed over to where Bell was walking. Watching her handle her emotions maturely, Filvis gave a small, unseen smile and followed behind to offer her own apologies to the boy.
“E-excuse me!”
“Oh, Ms. Lefiya…” said Bell, pausing his conversation with Aiz and turning to face her.
“Um…I, er…I have something to say!”
Lefiya faltered, unable to meet his gaze. But just as she began to speak, something clattered after falling from Bell’s waist pouch.
“…Hm? What’s this…?”
It was a small vial about the shape and size of a chess piece, filled with a brilliant red liquid. Lefiya bent down to pick it up, but before she could even get a good look, Bell swiped it away at the speed of sound and hid it behind his back.
“Oh, that? That’s just a little…something…Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha…”
Lefiya studied his awkward smile. He was acting very suspiciously indeed. It didn’t take a genius to know he was hiding something. Lefiya’s eyebrows furrowed.
“What was that thing you were trying to hide?” she demanded.
“Oh, er…don’t worry about that. Somebody, er…gave it to me, or…forced it on me…it’s, er…really not that important!”
Bell was sweating waterfalls and making little sense, which only reinforced the notion that it was something Lefiya ought to know. But just as she was about to press Bell for details, Filvis spoke up in a flat tone.
“That was a virility potion…”
The air froze. Time stopped. Everyone—Aiz, Lefiya, every girl within earshot, and even Tiona, busy defending—went silent. A single bead of sweat worked its way down Bell’s pallid cheek.
Filvis’s second bombshell of the night had brought all the panic of the musk fiasco right back.
“Wh-whaaaaat?!”
Lefiya exploded.
“A v-v-v-virility potion?! Why on earth do you have that? I thought you said you didn’t do anything!!”
“I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t! I mean, I did do something, obviously, but I didn’t do anything!!”
“You’re not making any sense whatsoever! Hand that over and let me see it!!”
“W-wait, Lefiya! You’ve got it all wrong!”
Ignoring the boy’s panicked cries, Lefiya marched straight over to him and tried to wrest the potion from his grip. A struggle ensued, and the two struggled for control of the vial before…
“Uh-oh.”
With a mighty tug from Lefiya, the glass bottle flew out of Bell’s hands. The stopper worked itself free and, as if ordained by fate, the uncorked vial sailed gracefully through the air before landing on Lefiya’s head and spilling its contents all over her hair.
“Oh…”
Bell paled. Aiz couldn’t speak. Filvis froze. Tiona, Tione, and all the other girls stood in shock, mouths agape.
“…”
Lefiya’s arms dropped limply. The scarlet potion seeped into her amber hair and beautiful skin, giving rise to a strange odor not at all fitting for a modest young elf girl.
A dark cloud descended over her, robbing the light from her eyes.
“I…I…”
She shivered, unable to speak a word. Then, all at once, she unleashed the grandest explosion of the night.
“I hate men like youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!”
“I’m sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”
Bell swiped the empty vial off the ground and scampered away like a startled rabbit, and Lefiya took off after him.
“L-Lefiya!”
“Argonaut?!”
Aiz’s and Tiona’s shouts did not reach them. Tione, Filvis, and the other girls watched on blankly as a gust of wind swept past them, and the boy and the girl vanished into the darkness of the mazelike streets.
Aiz’s group quickly abandoned any hopes of regrouping with Loki’s party and instead turned their efforts toward searching for the missing Bell and Lefiya.
It was dawn of the following day when they finally came across a single elf girl, sobbing by the side of the road, sad and alone after failing to catch the white rabbit.
Watching the girl cry into Riveria’s breast, Loki muttered, “What the heck’s eatin’ her…?”
Lefiya refused to speak about what had transpired, and Aiz and the other girls all averted their gazes when questioned. The high elf simply stroked the girl’s amber hair and sighed.
And due to the scars suffered by one young girl, Loki Familia withdrew from Daedalus Street and returned home.
“Phew…I think I got away…I’m so sorry about that, Ms. Lefiya…”
Meanwhile, battered and exhausted, one adventurer boy crawled out of Orario’s tangled backstreets. He had been running all night, and as the morning light scorched his eyes, he cursed his rotten luck.
However, the worst was yet to come.
For, unbeknownst to him, someone was watching him leave the shadowy back alleys. A goddess who had grown worried about his prolonged absence had come to look for him. Bell failed to notice her watchful gaze, which turned scornful the moment she smelled the musk on him and saw the half-empty vial of aphrodisiac in his hands.
Bell was forced to kneel silently and listen to her complaints for the rest of the day.
Why did I bring that bottle with me…?
The next day, Bell kneeled before an uneasy Aiz and a mentally scarred Lefiya to explain the situation and beg their forgiveness.
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