The third breath was the biggest yet.
The white storm filled the whole chamber. On the lizard's back, Luca kept his eyes shut. He didn't breathe. Powder slammed against his cheeks and ears.
He couldn't see a thing.
But his hands remembered.
Clink.
The single point on the seam. The same spot he had been striking all along. Even without his eyes, the hands of [Stacked Strike] found it, not a hair off.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Inside the storm of dust, Luca kept striking. Fifteen. Twenty. Under the pommel, the stone let out a creak.
The dust began to clear.
* * *
The lizard had slowed down.
It was just as Viktor had said. Maybe its belly was heavy from all the rock it had gorged on the third time; its legs moved sluggishly. When it raised its tail, there was less than half the force behind it there had been before.
"Luca! Are you alive?!"
"I'm alive!"
Celes's voice, from over by the door. Luca looked down at the spot under his pommel.
The thin line in the seam had grown thicker. It had branched, too, spreading out into the scales around it. Almost there.
Clink. Clink.
Slowly, the lizard turned its head. The tiny creature on its back. Maybe it had finally realized that the thing was trying to break its scales.
The huge head turned toward him. Behind stone eyelids, a yellow eye rolled and fixed on Luca. Its mouth opened, showing rows of teeth made for grinding rock.
Seven paces away, more or less.
It'll work now.
His old fire wouldn't have bothered an eye that big as much as a mosquito bite, even if it hit. But now—
As he breathed in, he built the shape inside his body. Gather it. Heat it. Sharpen it.
"Pierce."
Pop.
A walnut-sized spark of fire shot out. It flew the seven paces in a dead-straight line and burst against the lizard's yellow eye with a snap.
The lizard let out a grating shriek. It was the first sound like a scream it had made. It threw its head back and shook it. Its eye had no stone scales. That was the one place where even Luca's little fire was hot.
"...I'm glad it went up by one," Luca murmured, to no one in particular.
The mana honey he had stuffed himself with at the bottom of the shaft. One single mark, gained by pure chance. One mark's worth of heat had made a monster of stone flinch.
Clink.
It was the last blow.
* * *
With a sharp crack, the scales on the lizard's back burst apart.
Cracks raced out from the seam all at once. Three, then four of the scales over its spine broke loose and went tumbling and clattering to the ground. Beneath them was soft flesh, a dark, deep red. The wound was huge, as wide as a man's outstretched arms.
"Celes! The back!"
"I know!"
Celes was already running toward them from the door. She pulled the wet cloth away from her mouth. Raised her wand. Closed her eyes and breathed in.
Luca let go of the rope and jumped off the lizard's back. Curl up. Tuck the chin. [Breakfall]. He rolled across the ground and stopped beside the lizard's belly.
One. Two.
The lizard swung its head around and glared at Celes. But its belly was heavy. Its legs wouldn't move the way it wanted them to.
Three. Four.
The lizard raised its tail. Toward Celes.
Five.
Luca threw himself in front of her. Feet apart. Knees bent. Hips low, roots sinking into the ground.
Impact. At last, the shield split. His arm went numb. His feet slid across the ground.
But he didn't fall. He didn't give up a single step back toward Celes.
Six.
"—Become searing heat..."
Celes's voice, behind him. Heat swelled at his back.
Seven.
"...and pierce my foe!"
A fireball the size of a man's head flew over Luca's shoulder.
* * *
The fireball flew straight into the wound on the lizard's back and vanished inside it.
A muffled whump sounded from somewhere deep in the lizard's body.
Flames spurted out from between its stone scales. From the outside, nothing had done more than scorch it. From the inside, it was a different story.
The lizard screamed. The walls of the chamber shook with it. Its huge body writhed in agony. It lifted its forelegs off the ground and reared its upper body high.
Its belly came into view.
From its throat to the base of its tail, straight down the middle of its belly, ran a single line.
A white seam with no scales.
The last thing the man with the helmet had seen.
No stone there. Only there.
Luca was already running.
Right foot, half a step, deep. Drop the hips.
Theo's [Lunge].
At the very last instant, kick off as if to split the ground.
Grun's [Iron Legs].
Flip the resharpened dagger into a reverse grip.
[Reverse Grip].
His body flew like an arrow. The honed blade sank deep into the white seam, all the way to the hilt.
* * *
The lizard stopped moving.
Its raised upper body slowly began to tip over. Luca let go of the dagger and rolled aside. [Breakfall].
With a ground-shaking boom, the Stone-Eating Lizard crashed down in the middle of the chamber.
It never moved again.
* * *
The chamber went quiet. A little stone dust still drifted in the air.
Luca lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His arm was numb. His back hurt. His shield was broken. His dagger was still stuck in the lizard's belly.
"...Luca."
Celes leaned over him. Her silver hair had gone white with dust. There was soot on her cheek. Just like after the gray bear.
"Are you alive?"
"I'm alive."
"...We beat it, didn't we? Us?"
"Yes. We beat it."
Celes sank to the floor where she stood, all the strength gone out of her legs. Then she started to laugh, her voice shaking.
"I can't believe it. Ten days after making Rank Nine, and we took down a Gatekeeper. Ten days."
"It was thanks to your fireball, Celes."
"It was because you cracked its back open."
"It cracked thanks to the man with the helmet, and the miner, and the smith."
"...Honestly. That's so you."
That was when it happened.
A long, rolling roar echoed through the entire chamber. Luca's stomach. It was the loudest one he had ever heard.
Celes stared at him. Luca looked back at her.
"You did say I could let it growl today."
"There are limits!"
Laughing, Celes turned her pack upside down. Bundles of jerky tumbled out onto the floor, and Luca started stuffing them into his mouth, one after another.
On the far side of the chamber, the stone door to the eleventh floor slowly began to swing open on its own.
* * *
It took half a day to butcher the Gatekeeper.
Every one of its stone scales was a different kind of rock. Iron ore, green stone shot through with copper, white quartz. There was even a blue stone Luca had never seen before. He peeled off the scales with [Dismantle], split them with [Stone Reading], and sorted out only the pieces that looked valuable.
"...You're taking all of this back?"
"As much as fits in the basket."
"You'll be too heavy to make it home again."
Celes grumbled, but she still packed some of the sorted stones into her own pack too.
Last of all, they opened up its belly.
Besides the rock it had eaten, the lizard's stomach was crammed with all sorts of things. Fragments of rusted swords. The clasp off someone's helmet. Delvers' lost things, swallowed up along with the stone.
Among them was a single coin.
Luca's hands stopped.
He knew that crest.
"Luca?"
"...This is the same as the one I picked up before."
Luca reached into his jacket pocket. The old coin he had picked up in the northern hollow on the sixth floor. He had carried it with him everywhere since.
He laid the two side by side.
The crest was the same. Not one of the present kingdom's. A crest he had never seen anywhere else.
Gently, Luca closed his hand around the new coin.
◆ ◆ ◆
—Dark.
Deep. Somewhere deeper still.
Swallowed by a great mouth that eats stone. Rocking in the dark of its belly, on and on, for a long, long time.
But this isn't the place. This is still too shallow.
Deeper. Go deeper.
◆ ◆ ◆
Luca opened his eyes.
He listened, deep inside his head. The usual quiet voice, the one that told him an Echo had been inherited, didn't come this time either.
He wasn't hungry, either.
"Luca, what's wrong? You've gone white as a sheet."
"...I heard a voice. The same voice as the other coin."
"A voice?"
"It said, 'Deeper. Go deeper.'"
Celes looked down at the two coins in Luca's hand. Then she looked at the stone door to the eleventh floor, still standing open.
"...Let's take them back with us. Grun and Oldo should both have a look at them."
"Yes."
Luca wrapped the two coins in a cloth and tucked them away in the deepest fold of his jacket. For some reason, both of them felt just slightly warm.
* * *
"The mana stone of the Stone-Eating Lizard. Received, and confirmed."
Branch Master Valeria's voice rang through the Guild hall.
On the front desk counter sat a mana stone as big as a man's head, gray and knobbly. Next to it was the heap of scales Luca and Celes had hauled back on their backs. The delvers in the hall hung back at a distance, murmuring.
"Is that the Gatekeeper's mana stone?"
"The Stone-Eater? The one that sent even the Grafen boy's party running home?"
"They've only been Rank Nine for ten days..."
Valeria ran her hand over the stone once, then looked at Luca and Celes.
"For their achievement in slaying the Gatekeeper, Luca and Celes Ardia are hereby promoted to Rank Eight."
The hall erupted.
"We did it...!"
Celes had both hands pressed over her mouth. Her eyes had gone a little wet.
"Rank Eight. ...Rank Eight, Luca. And there are still more than five months left before my six-month deadline."
"Yes. Congratulations, Celes."
"You too, you know!"
* * *
"Here you go. Your Rank Eight tag."
At the front desk, Nora held out a new tag. Then she opened her ledger and clutched her head in both hands.
"Twenty-five days since you registered at Rank Ten. Ten days at Rank Nine. ...That's the shortest time anyone's spent at Rank Nine in this branch, ever. The old record was two months."
"I'm sorry."
"How many times have I told you not to apologize!"
Nora tapped her finger on the "Preferred fighting style" box in the ledger.
"...Is it really all right to leave this as 'A bit of everything'?"
"It is a bit of everything."
"Right. Of course it is. I knew that..."
Nora sighed, but she looked a little happy, too, as she stamped the Rank Eight box.
* * *
Viktor was standing in a corner of the hall, arms folded, leaning against the wall. Luca had no idea how long he'd been there.
"Viktor."
When Luca came over, Viktor pushed himself off the wall.
"...After the third time, was it?"
"Yes. It was just like you said. After it ate the third time, it got really slow. If it hadn't, its tail would have swept me right off its back."
"I see."
Viktor looked at the dagger at Luca's waist. It was the dagger Grun had passed down to him, pulled back out of the lizard's belly.
"A sword shouldn't have gotten through."
"It didn't. So I used a pickaxe, a hammer, and a grappling hook."
Viktor was silent for a while.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted, just barely. It took Luca a moment to realize he was smiling.
"That was well done."
"Thank you."
"But don't think that means I accept your way of fighting."
Viktor turned his back.
"I'll write to my father. I'll tell him a month isn't possible. ...But I will catch up. With my own forms."
"Yes. I'll be waiting."
"Don't wait. Go on ahead. Catching up is my job."
Viktor walked out of the Guild without looking back. His back looked much straighter than it had on the day of the exam.
* * *
That night, there was another party at Grun's Salvage.
Grun, Celes, Theo, Nora, and Oldo. Even Dario's party came, all three of them.
A whole big pot of stew was gone in no time. While Luca made a second potful, he showed Oldo the two coins.
Oldo looked them over with his sleepy eyes. Then, for just an instant, his eyes narrowed.
"...Can't say I know this crest either. It doesn't belong to any country from the last three hundred years, at least."
"From more than three hundred years ago, then?"
"Who can say. Try asking somewhere deeper in the Labyrinth."
Oldo handed the coins back to Luca and held out his bowl for more stew.
It was his fourth.
* * *
When the party was over, Luca climbed up to the attic. He lit an egg-sized [Lamplight] and opened his notebook. These days, he could read by his own light.
On a fresh page, he wrote out his Echoes.
[Lunge]. [Ladle Work]. [Reverse Grip]. [Silent Step]. [Shield Block]. [Throw]. [Lamplight]. [Sense Presence]. [Dismantle]. [Shield Charge]. [Fire Arrow (Lesser)]. [Iron Legs].
[Mapmaking]. [Stone Reading]. [Whetting]. [Short Chant]. [Hairbreadth]. [Poison Tasting]. [Grappling Hook]. [Breakfall]. [Disarm Trap]. [Hold Breath]. [Stand Firm]. [Stacked Strike].
Twenty-four.
Underneath, he added one more line.
Mana: two.
A little over a month ago, all he'd had was a scavenger's salvage tag. Now he had a Rank Eight tag, a partner, twenty-four techniques, and one extra mark of mana he'd gained by pure luck.
Footsteps sounded from downstairs, and Celes's head poked up from the bottom of the ladder. It had gotten late, so she was staying the night at the shop.
"Luca. You're still up?"
"Yes. I was counting my Echoes."
"How many now?"
"Twenty-four."
Celes sat down on the ladder and peeked at his notebook.
"Next is the eleventh floor, then."
"Yes. The underground lake, right? Nora told me."
"Mm-hm. It's a floor of water and darkness. ...Can you swim?"
"I have [Hold Breath]."
"That's not what I asked."
Celes laughed. Then her face turned a little more serious.
"And one more thing. Branch Master Valeria told me that from the eleventh floor on down, it'll be rough with just the two of us. We need a shield-bearer. Someone up front to take the hits."
"A shield-bearer..."
"Anyone in mind?"
"No. But it'd be nice if we could pick one up somewhere."
"People aren't something you pick up, Luca."
Celes said good night and climbed back down the ladder.
Luca put out the light. In the dark, the two coins inside his jacket were faintly warm.
Deeper. Go deeper.
That voice still lingered deep in his ears. Luca closed his eyes and thought about the eleventh floor, and the lake he had never seen.
There were bound to be plenty of lost things lying at the bottom of it.
(End of Volume 2)