The anomaly didn’t disappear when Valeriam left.
That would have been far too convenient.
But it did calm down.
Caelum was the first to notice. The moment that mysterious stranger vanished with Valeriam, the pressure that had been warping the space around the gorge for hours began to weaken. Stones that had been suspended in midair slowly regained their weight, ripples running across the rock walls stopped spreading, and that unpleasant feeling that the world was slightly out of place finally began to fade.
The anomaly was still there.
That part mattered.
A section of road still cut across terrain it had never belonged to. Part of the cliff looked like it came from an entirely different region, and several trees had somehow taken root among rocks where, according to Caelum, there was absolutely no reasonable chance they had existed before the Rupture.
Nothing magically returned to where it belonged.
The world simply stopped getting worse.
According to Caelum, that was a considerable difference.
According to me, any day reality decided to stop trying to tear itself apart was a good day.
The Department of Dimensional Studies took quite a while to bring the area under control. Specialists arrived from Valcrest, barriers were established around the most unstable regions, and they began studying which distortions could be corrected and which ones would probably remain for a very long time.
Valeriam hadn’t necessarily caused the Rupture.
Caelum was extremely insistent about that part.
“There is insufficient evidence to establish a causal relationship,” he explained for the third time from the other side of a table covered in diagrams. “The only thing we can state with certainty is that the anomaly’s activity decreased immediately after her disappearance.”
Blazer sat beside me with half his body still wrapped in bandages.
“So she was making it worse.”
Caelum adjusted the rectangular lens over his left eye.
“That is an oversimplification.”
“But correct.”
“Partially.”
“So, correct.”
“Blazer.”
“Director.”
Caelum stared at him.
Blazer stared right back.
I raised a hand before it turned into a much less impressive battle than the last one.
“Can we just agree that the weird thing stopped doing even weirder things?”
Caelum was silent for a moment.
“Technically—”
I closed my eyes.
“My mistake. I should never have used a sentence that could include the word ‘technically’ around you.”
Blazer laughed and immediately regretted it. He clutched his side as a grimace replaced his smile.
“Shit.”
“That’s what you get for enjoying yourself while you still have broken ribs,” I said.
“You’re not exactly intact either.”
“My bones and I have reached a temporary agreement.”
That was a lie.
My bones hated me.
Morgause’s spirit had allowed me to keep moving during the fight against Valeriam, but it hadn’t healed anything. Once that borrowed energy finally faded, my body made sure to remind me of every single hit I had taken.
All of them.
In order.
For days.
Blazer had ended up even worse.
But he was alive.
That was what mattered.
The problem was that we were still only two out of five.
Elizabeth, Monkar, and Sogard were still missing.
And no matter how badly my body wanted to stay in bed until existing stopped hurting, I couldn’t forget about that.
None of us could.
The searches continued while we recovered.
The Rupture had complicated almost every known route. Places that had once been separated by days of travel could suddenly be right next to each other, while perfectly familiar roads now led into regions no one recognized.
Sometimes useful reports came in.
Most of the time, they were rumors.
A huge man with a shield protecting refugees.
A woman with a spear fighting displaced creatures alone.
An archer traveling with a caravan that didn’t belong anywhere near that region.
For the first time since all of this had started, those rumors were exactly what we wanted to hear.
Elizabeth was the first to return.
I was still recovering when the doors to the medical wing of the Central Summoning Hall slammed open.
“Finally!”
I lifted my head.
For a moment, I just stared at her.
Elizabeth was there.
Her spear rested over one shoulder, her clothes were torn in several places, and a bandage circled her forehead. Mud covered her boots almost to the knees, and she looked like she had slept about as little as the rest of us.
But she was there.
Standing.
Alive.
Everything I had planned to say disappeared.
“Elizabeth...”
She smiled.
“What? Do I look that bad?”
I stood up too fast.
Pain immediately stabbed through my side, but I ignored it.
Elizabeth barely had time to set her spear against the wall before I hugged her.
Her whole body went rigid.
“Nellie.”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t—”
I squeezed her a little tighter.
“Just shut up for a second.”
Elizabeth fell silent.
I felt the tension slowly leave her shoulders.
Then one of her arms wrapped around my back.
“I’m glad to see you too,” she murmured.
Ah.
That was all I needed.
I pulled away before either of us had to acknowledge too much of what had just happened.
Elizabeth cleared her throat and looked toward the bed beside mine.
Blazer had been watching us.
“What a beautiful scene,” he said with a tired smile. “Do I get one too once I can walk?”
Elizabeth looked him over.
Bandages.
Bruises.
A carefully exaggerated expression of suffering.
Her smile vanished.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Blazer opened his mouth.
Elizabeth was already walking toward him.
“Wait, don’t—”
She hugged him.
Not hard.
Probably because even Elizabeth could tell that might actually kill him.
Blazer went completely still.
“Oh.”
“Idiot,” she muttered.
Her voice trembled slightly.
Just a little.
Blazer stopped smiling.
He gave her back a small pat.
“Yeah. I’m glad to see you too.”
Elizabeth pulled away almost immediately.
“Don’t do that again.”
Blazer raised an eyebrow.
“Do what?”
“Almost die while I’m not there to see it.”
“That is weirdly specific.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together.
“You know what I meant.”
“No, but I’m afraid to ask.”
Her smile returned.
“I heard Nellie had to carry you out of a fight.”
Blazer’s expression died.
“Who told you that?”
Elizabeth looked at me.
I raised both hands.
“It wasn’t me.”
“Everyone,” she replied.
Blazer closed his eyes.
“I preferred the emotional part.”
I laughed.
For the first time since the Rupture, part of the room started feeling normal again.
Elizabeth later told us where she had ended up.
The Rupture had thrown her far north, near a small settlement that had suddenly received its own collection of displaced creatures.
“When I got there, they were already attacking the outskirts,” she explained, leaning against the wall. “The villagers were trying to keep them away from the houses with farming tools.”
“And you had a spear,” I said.
Elizabeth looked at me as if I had just solved the easiest mystery in the world.
“Exactly.”
That was so completely her that I almost laughed again.
She had spent two days defending the place before a search party finally found her.
Naturally, her first reaction upon seeing them had been to ask what the hell had taken them so long.
Sogard returned several days later.
His return was much more... Sogard.
There were no doors flying open.
No one came running to tell us.
I simply walked out into the Central Summoning Hall courtyard one morning and found him sitting on one of the low walls, his bow resting beside him and an apple in his hand.
I stopped.
He looked up.
Took a bite.
“Hi.”
My chest tightened.
“Hi?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
Sogard raised an eyebrow.
“Depends. Did you prepare a welcome speech?”
I walked toward him.
“You were missing.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“For days.”
“I’ve heard that too.”
When I reached him, Sogard stopped smiling.
Something in my expression must have given me away.
“Nellie...”
I hugged him.
The apple got trapped between us.
Sogard went still.
“This is unexpected.”
“Get used to it.”
“I’d rather you not crush my breakfast.”
“Sogard.”
The teasing left his voice.
“I’m fine.”
That only made me squeeze him a little tighter.
“I didn’t know if you were.”
There was a short silence.
Then I felt a hand rest on top of my head.
One pat.
“Yeah,” he said more softly. “I figured.”
I pulled away.
Sogard inspected the apple.
One side had been crushed.
“Tragic.”
“I almost cried over you.”
“And now my apple has paid the price.”
I punched his shoulder.
“Idiot.”
“Good to see you too.”
Later, we learned that he had spent those days accompanying a caravan of civilians who had also been displaced by the Rupture.
“There were children and old people,” he explained later. “Some of them didn’t even know which kingdom they had ended up in.”
His voice was still calm, but the usual carefree edge was gone.
“I could’ve tried to return alone, but leaving them didn’t feel like an option.”
I looked at him.
“So you stayed.”
Sogard shrugged.
“I knew how to use a bow. They didn’t.”
A simple answer.
As if it hadn’t mattered.
As if he hadn’t spent days guiding and protecting complete strangers.
Then he added:
“Also, they cooked pretty well.”
There he was again.
“Were you lost or not?” I asked.
“No.”
“No one knew where you were.”
“That means you didn’t know where I was.”
“That is being lost.”
“From your perspective.”
I decided to let him live.
Monkar was the last.
And as the days passed without any news from him, the jokes started disappearing.
Blazer stopped asking when he would be back.
Elizabeth began checking every new report personally.
Sogard spent more time around Caelum than usual, though he pretended he was only interested in the maps.
I tried not to think too much.
It didn’t work.
I remembered what Monkar had told us just before the Rupture.
Elena.
His daughter.
The life he had already lost before arriving in this world.
And every time I thought about the possibility that it had all ended for him without any of us being able to do anything, something cold settled in my stomach.
The report came one afternoon.
A search party had found refugees in the ruins of an old fortress.
Twenty-three people.
And one huge man with a shield.
We still weren’t five.
We were four.
We went to meet him.
No one had to suggest it.
We simply ended up there.
Elizabeth paced back and forth.
Blazer still leaned slightly on a crutch, even though he insisted he didn’t need it anymore.
Sogard stood beside a column with his arms crossed.
I watched the road.
The carriage appeared.
Elizabeth stopped pacing.
Blazer straightened.
Sogard uncrossed his arms.
I held my breath.
The carriage stopped.
The door opened.
Monkar stepped down.
His armor was damaged, several days’ worth of beard covered his face, and a new scar ran near his jaw.
His shield was so battered I barely recognized parts of it.
But he was standing.
Monkar looked at us.
We looked at him.
No one spoke.
He frowned slightly.
“Took you long enough.”
Elizabeth moved first.
She ran toward him.
Monkar barely had time to open his arms before she crashed into his chest.
“Idiot.”
Monkar blinked.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
“Idiot!”
“You already said that.”
Sogard reached him next and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He didn’t make one of his usual jokes.
“Good to see you, big guy.”
Monkar looked at him.
“Likewise.”
Blazer walked toward them more slowly.
When Monkar saw him approaching with the crutch, he raised an eyebrow.
“You look terrible.”
Blazer laughed.
“Yeah. Missed you too.”
They clasped forearms.
Then Monkar pulled him forward and hugged him.
Blazer made a strange noise.
“Ribs.”
Monkar let go immediately.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Blazer said, breathing carefully. “I think I still have a few left.”
I stayed a few steps behind.
Monkar looked up.
Our eyes met.
He smiled.
Barely.
But he smiled.
“Nellie.”
I tried to answer.
I couldn’t.
So I just walked toward him.
Monkar opened his arms before I even reached him.
I hugged him.
He practically wrapped around me completely.
“I thought we weren’t going to find you,” I murmured against his chest.
Monkar’s enormous hand rested on my back.
“But you did.”
“That doesn’t make it any less horrible.”
“No.”
His voice was softer than usual.
“I suppose it doesn’t.”
I pulled away and quickly wiped at one eye.
Elizabeth was doing something suspicious with hers too.
Sogard suddenly became very interested in looking somewhere else.
Blazer was smiling.
Monkar looked at all four of us.
“Is everyone okay?”
There was a pause.
We looked at Blazer.
Blazer looked at us.
“More or less.”
Monkar nodded.
“Good.”
Elizabeth let out a broken little laugh.
“‘Good’? That’s all?”
Monkar seemed to think about it.
“I’m also hungry.”
Sogard immediately raised a hand.
“Now I recognize him.”
The tension broke.
We laughed.
All five of us.
Together.
Maybe a little louder than necessary.
Maybe because for too long, none of us had known if we would ever get to do it again.
Later, the five of us ended up around a table with Caelum.
There were new maps, old maps covered in crossed-out routes, and enough paperwork to bury Hellista.
Caelum stood in front of us.
“With Monkar’s return, we can now confirm the location and survival of all five individuals linked to the original summoning circles.”
Blazer raised one hand.
“Translation: the Five Legendary Heroes are all still alive.”
“That is not an accurate translation of—”
“Caelum,” Blazer interrupted, leaning back against his chair. “Please.”
Caelum fell silent.
Elizabeth looked around the table.
“For once, I agree with him.”
“Same,” Sogard added.
Monkar nodded.
The three of them looked at me.
I smiled.
“The Five Legendary Heroes are all still alive.”
Blazer threw both arms into the air.
“Victory!”
Caelum frowned.
“Considering the global consequences of the Rupture, ‘victory’ would be an extremely—”
“No one asked you,” all five of us said at the same time.
Silence.
We looked at one another.
Then we started laughing.
Even Monkar.
I leaned back in my chair and listened as they started arguing again.
Blazer provoking Elizabeth.
Elizabeth threatening to break the other half of his body.
Sogard adding comments purely to make things worse.
Monkar calmly eating as though he hadn’t just returned after being missing for days.
Caelum attempting to regain control of a meeting he had lost several minutes ago.
I watched them.
We had once been five strangers brought into this world at different times.
Five people whose lives had had absolutely nothing to do with one another.
Now, after everything that had happened, seeing one empty chair would have hurt too much.
But there wasn’t one.
There were five of us.
Beaten up.
Exhausted.
With a world that was still broken waiting outside.
But we were alive.
All of us.
And for the first time since the sky had split open above us, I felt like I could truly breathe again.
More time passed before the situation stopped feeling like one endless emergency.
The anomaly was still there, but Caelum and his people had managed to stabilize the most dangerous areas. Searches for displaced people continued. Some routes began reopening while others had to be abandoned completely.
Nothing was fixed.
Not even close.
But the emergencies stopped arriving one after another.
My wounds finally closed.
Blazer stopped using the crutch.
Elizabeth went back to training before any sensible person would have recommended it.
Sogard discovered that after disappearing for several days, he could no longer say, “I’m going for a walk,” without at least three people demanding to know exactly where.
Monkar went back to eating as though he were trying to make up for everything he hadn’t eaten while he was gone.
The world breathed.
So did we.
And eventually, one wonderful day arrived.
No one was missing.
No Goddess was trying to kill me.
No anomaly was threatening to swallow a mountain.
Caelum didn’t need to run another examination on me.
My body had stopped protesting every time I breathed too hard.
For the first time in a very long while, I had absolutely no emergency to deal with.
I sat on my bed for several seconds.
Looked at the wall.
Looked at my staff.
Looked back at the wall.
Nothing happened.
Weird.
I was starting to get far too used to the world trying to kill me every time I had five free minutes.
Then a certain sentence returned to my mind.
You already know where to find me.
Morgause.
Ah.
Right.
My life still had one emergency.
This one was just romantic.
I fell backward onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
I had had plenty of time to think about those words while recovering.
A lot of time.
Too much time.
I had analyzed them from every possible angle, including several that probably violated the laws of geometry.
You already know where to find me.
She hadn’t said come see me.
She also hadn’t said I want to see you again.
And she definitely hadn’t said Nellie, I have realized you are the love of my life and demand that you come immediately so we can begin preparing our wedding.
That version was mine.
But one thing was indisputable.
Morgause knew exactly who I was.
She knew how my mind worked.
She knew I could turn a simple “good morning” into evidence of romantic progress if given enough time.
And she had still chosen to say those words to me.
Which meant that after a completely objective, rational, and absolutely unbiased evaluation, there was only one possible conclusion.
Morgause wanted me to go see her.
Technically, Caelum probably would have found several problems with my reasoning.
Fortunately, Caelum had no authority over romantic matters.
I sat up suddenly.
The movement didn’t hurt anymore.
That made my smile grow.
It had been too long.
Too many monsters.
Too many anomalies.
Too many Goddesses.
Too many serious conversations about whether all of us might die.
I’d had enough.
I looked at my staff resting against the wall.
Then toward the window.
Somewhere beyond Valcrest stood the Demon Castle.
And inside that castle was Morgause.
My beautiful.
Powerful.
Terribly tsundere.
Extremely single, as far as I knew.
Demon Queen.
I stood.
Picked up my staff.
And felt something I hadn’t felt in far too long.
The kind of completely unjustified confidence that could only mean I was about to make an excellent decision.
Or a terrible one.
Usually both.
“All right,” I murmured as I straightened my clothes. “That’s enough resting.”
I smiled.
Attempt to Conquer the Demon Queen #35.
No more Goddesses.
No more dimensional catastrophes.
No more existential crises.
It was time to get back to my real priorities.
And Morgause had made a terrible mistake by reminding me exactly where to find her.