5
Their initial foray into the sandy region ended as soon as the sun set.
The biggest of the three sand times that happened each day occurred late at night. Before it happened, they were hoping to set up camp in an appropriate place for the night.
Perhaps because of the effect of the miasma, the stars were not visible. And of course, that meant that the Pleiades Watchtower they were using to navigate could no longer be seen, either, so it was best to just rest and recover for the night.
“Incidentally, will the demon beasts attack while you’re sleeping, Meili? Will we be okay?”
“…You scare too easily, mister. I’ve got that covered.”
After learning just how crazy the demon beasts of the dunes could be, Subaru had lost his nerve a bit, but Meili just sniffed, in a good mood at having put him in his place.
She was proud after having demonstrated her usefulness, but Subaru had experienced being killed by demon beasts before, so he was still uneasy. He was tempted to just sleep cuddled up with Meili if he had to.
“Upsy-daisy! This should be fine.”
Ignoring Meili and Subaru’s exchange, Emilia patted the ground where she had been squatting and then stood back up. Beside her, there was a big wall of ice that had just appeared.
She had formed it all around the carriage to provide their camp some cover. She was hoping to shut out the sandstorm during the night with her ice wall.
“I’m ashamed to have to continuously rely on your strength, Lady Emilia…”
“It’s fine. You and Subaru were doing your best the whole time while we were moving after all. And for some reason, I’ve been reeeally feeling good ever since we entered the dunes. It feels like I can do anything!”
“Really? Amazing. I got too much sand in my mouth and haven’t got enough water.”
Emilia flexed unimpressively as Subaru and Julius exchanged tired glances.
—There’s a special sort of heaviness to the air because of the miasma. The weird tiredness we’ve been feeling is probably a result of it, and it’s also probably why no one was talking that much while we were moving, especially later in the day. I’d like to get out of these dunes as soon as possible, but…
“We must not get impatient. I do understand painfully well your desire to rush ahead.”
Even though Subaru was just looking up at the dark eastern sky, Julius could guess what he was thinking and patted his shoulder. Subaru snorted and turned around.
“All right, time to rest in preparation for tomorrow. The sand time should end around dawn, so…”
“I have to take care of Ram’s treatment first.”
“Ah, right. In that case, I’ll leave that to you and Beako.”
“Mm-hmm, leave it to us.”
The two of them went into the carriage where Ram was waiting in her seat—
“—Ngh.”
Through the closed door, Subaru could hear the voices from Ram’s treatment.
The intense, trembling voice that sounded like it was biting back against the pain was Ram. Emilia and Beatrice were working together to do the job that her lost horn had done.
The burden that Ram bore was another of the things that Subaru had only learned about because of this trip.
“It’s ironic. Ram has the tough sort of mentality to be able to survive by herself, but her body can’t handle living on her own.”
“…I don’t know. It’s true that Ms. Ram has a self-reliant strength, but that does not necessarily mean it is something that she wishes for herself. After all, it’s not as if she is ashamed of her current state.”
“…Well, that’s true, too.”
No one really cared what some outsider’s unrelated imagination of them was. Ram had her own thoughts, and it was a bit insincere to talk about her on appearances alone.
“Still, you’re really observant of people. It’s not like you’ve even spoken with Ram that much.”
“Something I’ve learned from painful experience. People can’t live alone. Were it not for you still miraculously remembering me, I don’t know what I would have done by now.”
“ ”
Julius gave a relaxed shrug. He was acting calm, but Subaru also felt like there was a grave honesty in his words.
He wasn’t sure whether Julius realized it, but in the past twenty days, he had told Subaru about himself in all sorts of ways.
It’s probably partly the trauma of having been forgotten that’s making him do that.
“—Natsuki, Julius, you two have a moment? We should talk about the path going forward tomorrow.”
“Whoops, that’s a pretty important thing to discuss.”
Just when a solemn silence was starting to fall over them, Anastasia broke in. She struggled to walk on the sand as she came over to the two.
“Whew, that’s a pain. I’m amazed both of you can walk around normally.”
“I’ve trained with poor footing. Though I can’t exactly claim it was all for this moment.”
“When the footing is bad, it’s better to step forcefully. That’s the Clind school of thought.”
That was part of the fundamentals he had learned for running on poor footing from his parkour instructor.
Anastasia nodded, seemingly a bit impressed, and then she lowered the cloth covering her mouth slightly.
“The winds are bad, too, and it’s hard to get enough air. I’d love to get out of here soon so I can take nice and deep breaths again.”
“Same. Also, I want to take a bath. Your face and head end up covered in sand so fast out here.”
He had now learned from painful experience why people who live in desert regions wrapped turbans around their heads. It worked against the sand and extreme heat and cold. It made sense logically, but people who lived in extreme environments really did have good reasons for what they did. Subaru had not exactly done nothing, but halfway measures were not enough to protect against the sand.
“Agreed on the bath. But getting out of theses dunes is gonna be troublesome— You both noticed, right?”
Her smile disappeared, and her voice dropped a little bit.
Subaru and Julius glanced at each other and nodded.
“Yes. We spent half a day today going straight toward the tower, and yet…”
“—It didn’t get any closer at all.”
Julius finished Subaru’s line, and then they both sighed.
On the first day, they had confirmed that they could deal with the sand time and that Meili’s anti–demon beast effect worked. But put another way, that was all they had achieved.
“Was this trick why Reinhard couldn’t reach the tower…?”
“When we spoke with him before, I had imagined something like this might happen…but it’s quite different to experience it ourselves.”
“Wait, so you noticed it, too?! Say so sooner!”
“I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to cause any undue alarm.”
“What’s with you people always doing this…?”
Julius had been concerned, but Subaru just glared up at him.
“Can you spare me that crap? I won’t be mad if you share your thoughts! If anything, that might be how we find the light at the end of the tunnel here. Where do all of you get the idea to just make a mental note and keep things to yourself? You think the situation’s just going to suddenly get better somehow that way? At least in my experience, there hasn’t been one time where I wished I hadn’t said anything!”
“O-okay. Apologies.”
“Even if it’s something that seems trivial, just tell someone immediately. ‘If you see something, say something’ is the most fundamental of fundamentals, right? And if you’re hiding anything else, Anastasia, you better spill it now.”
He reaffirmed for Julius and Anastasia the same thing he had told Ram. Julius looked like he was remorseful, faltering in a way that was unlike the finest knight.
Meanwhile, Anastasia put her hand to her mouth at Subaru’s broadside.
“Oh my. I never would have imagined being told off by you when we first met. But you’re right. I’ll have to reflect on my handling of it, too.”
“The first step in reflection is confession time. If you come clean now, I promise I won’t get too pissed.”
“You’re quite the charmer, Natsuki. This half day walking around the dunes, I firmed up a feeling I had. The reason we aren’t getting any closer to the tower is because the space around us is warped.”
“Warped…?”
Subaru cocked his head at Anastasia’s revelation. She pointed toward the direction where the tower was.
“Basically, the tower and the dunes are connected, but also not really connected. It’s possible we’ve just been walking around in circles in the same place this whole time.”
“And that’s why the Auguria Dunes are so impassable. It makes sense.”
Anastasia sounded almost indifferent as she explained, and Julius nodded deeply, as if understanding.
Of course, that was something that their guide Anastasia/Foxidna should already have known, though—
“I told you, didn’t I? It took me half a day of close observation to be sure of it.”
Sensing Subaru’s eyes, Anastasia waved both hands, pleading that she had not been deceiving them.
It was incredibly suspicious, but with Julius there, too, he couldn’t really press her too much further. He just let his suspicions go for the moment.
“Okay then, this twist in space has sunk countless adventurers before us, so how are we going to deal with it?”
“It’s a difficult question. And breaking through might even be the wrong way of thinking about it. This could just be a natural trap created by the thick miasma. There doesn’t have to be any intention behind it at all.”
“This is a trap created by nature?!”
Subaru’s eyes widened in shock at that unexpected possibility.
It was incredibly rare, but there were times when nature seemed to have an almost malicious lethality to it, so much so that it felt like nature had it out for people.
The mirages that could be seen in deserts, or snow overhangs that hid cliffs in areas with heavy snow, or more generally bottomless swamps or the ebb and flow of currents.
But for the dunes where the Pleiades Watchtower was built to be a natural trap—
“It’s possible the tower was built here precisely because of this occurrence. That’s a perfectly logical interpretation. It all depends on the intent of the watchtower’s builders and the purpose it was designed to serve in the first place.”
Julius’s words managed to pull Subaru back from the unthinking cul-de-sac he was on the verge of getting trapped in.
The dunes being a natural, preexisting menace that the people who built the tower used for their own purposes rather than a trap created specifically for the sake of the tower. That was a plausible explanation. Particularly since—
“—The watchtower was supposedly made in order to keep watch on the shrine, where the Witch of Jealousy…”
That theory made sense and meshed with what they already knew. Subaru had a bitter look on his face.
There was a shrine on the far eastern edge of the Auguria Dunes where the Witch of Jealousy was said to be sealed. The Pleiades Watchtower was said to be where the Sage could watch over that seal through the years.
If the twists in the dunes were a riddle created by humans, then solving it would lead them to their answer. But if it was just a natural mystery, then there was no guarantee that an answer that would satisfy them even existed.
“Maybe the reason the Sage never shows their face is because they can’t get out, either?”
“That’s an interesting theory… But don’t go underestimating me.”
“Huh?”
Subaru was feeling like he had stumbled blindly into a labyrinth, but Anastasia smiled fearlessly. Subaru’s eyes widened at her reaction, and there was a look of anticipation in Julius’s gaze.
“I’m the one who took the job of guiding us to the Pleiades Watchtower. Once a merchant takes a job, she follows through to the end. And I don’t plan to fail now.”
“Then you are able to see the path to the tower, Lady Anastasia?”
“Not me. But I do have an idea about who might be able to find it.”
Anastasia looked off in the distance toward the tower. The wind was gradually picking up speed. The sound of the wind and sand hitting Emilia’s ice wall started to get louder.
Listening to the sound of the sand, Anastasia’s eyes narrowed.
“The sand times when the wind picks up are connected to the effects of space warping and shifting. The sand time is when the twisted space starts to come apart. And beyond those cracks is the real sea of sand that connects to the tower.”
“The real…sea of sand…”
“And when it comes to finding that crack, the most important person here is—”
Anastasia’s mouth cracked into a smile as she pointed her hand to a certain point. Looking there, Subaru and Julius both furrowed their brows.
She was pointing at the carriage where Emilia and Beatrice were working on taking care of Ram—
“—Ram. Ram is our key to getting outta this labyrinth of sand.”
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