The tip of the wand was scorched black. The grip was worn smooth where a small hand had held it, over and over again.
Luca took a deep breath. Then he closed his hand around the wand.
◆ ◆ ◆
—Darkness. A passage on the first floor where the lights have all gone out.
"Stay calm, Mel. Breathe in, breathe out. Gather the warmth in your fingertips at the tip of the wand."
Her teacher whispers beside her.
No matter how many times she tries, it never works. Today is her twentieth try.
"...Light, kindle."
The tip of the wand grows warm.
A ball of light the size of a fist rises up and lights the dark passage all the way to its far end.
"I—I did it...! Look, I did it!"
"Yes, you did. Congratulations, Mel."
She's so happy she waves the wand around. The ball of light twirls and dances along the ceiling.
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Lamplight].
"Whoa...!"
Excited, Luca raised the wand. Just like the girl called Mel, he breathed in, then out. He gathered the warmth in his fingertips at the tip of the wand.
"Light, kindle!"
Puff.
A flame about the size of a candle's flickered to life on the tip of the wand.
"..."
"..."
"That's tiny."
"It's tiny."
Grun gave him a look of pure pity.
"You've got next to no mana, huh. Seems you can inherit the skill, but not the mana that went with it."
Luca stared at the candle-sized light. The ball of light in the recall had lit the passage all the way to the end. This one barely lit his own hands.
He was a little disappointed. But a light was a light.
"It'll still be handy for going to the privy at night."
"You're an optimistic one."
"And I'll save on lamp oil."
"...Well, that does help."
From that night on, the light in Luca's attic was the little flame on the tip of the wand.
* * *
On the third day, it was a small bell. Brass, with a clear ring when you shook it. At the end of its cord was a clasp for fastening it to a belt.
◆ ◆ ◆
—Ring the bell. Just once.
The ting sinks away into the passages of the Labyrinth.
Listen. The way the sound comes back tells you everything. The right-hand passage is empty all the way to the end. In the left-hand one, the sound goes dull partway down. Something soft is blocking it.
"Three on the left. Giant rats. We'll go right."
The others nod.
How many times has this bell been rung? Over and over and over. Eventually, there was no need to ring it at all. The way the air stirs, the dampness, the faintest smell. Every one of them does the bell's job now.
The last time it rang was on the day of retirement.
"I can tell without you now."
The bell comes off the belt and is set down, gently, on the stone steps at the Labyrinth's entrance.
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Sense Presence].
Luca opened his eyes. The world looked a little different.
No. What he could see was exactly the same. The leftovers shelf. The counter. Grun with his pipe in his mouth.
But there was something beyond all that. Through the wall, in the kitchen, he could feel a pot slowly going cold. Out in the street, a cart rolling past. Up on the roof, the crow from yesterday, resting its wings.
"...Boss. That crow from yesterday is on the roof."
"You can't see the roof from here."
"I can just tell."
Grun went out the back door without a word. A little later came a crow's caw, followed by Grun clicking his tongue.
* * *
That afternoon, Luca went down to the third floor on a salvage job. He wanted to try [Sense Presence] in the actual Labyrinth.
Just walking the passages told him everything. Past the next corner, five giant rats. The branch on the right, empty. Back inside a crack in the ceiling, a colony of bats.
Before, he would have turned the corner, run straight into them, and only then run away. Now he knew before he turned.
This is really useful.
Luca steered clear of the rats and went into the right-hand branch. Then he stopped.
At the far end of the branch, behind a heap of fallen rock, there was a presence. Not a monster. It wasn't moving. But it was alive.
"Is someone there?"
When he peered behind the rocks, he found a boy about his own age huddled on the ground. A delver's tag hung from his neck, and his ankle was swollen and purple.
"Th-thank goodness...! I twisted my ankle and got separated from my party..."
"It's all right. I'll take you to the exit."
Luca lent the boy his shoulder and chose a route with no rats on it. They didn't run into a single monster the whole way. The boy kept giving Luca puzzled looks.
"You're a scavenger, right? How do you know which way the monsters aren't?"
"Just a feeling."
* * *
The fourth and fifth days went to a butchering knife with a thick, heavy blade.
On the fourth day, the recall started the instant he touched it, and afterward he was hit with about two days' worth of hunger and ended up flat on his back in bed. So the testing had to wait until the fifth.
◆ ◆ ◆
—Across the campfire, his friends are cheering.
A great boar from the seventh floor. Tonight, they feast.
Set the blade into the gaps between the joints. Follow the bone and peel the meat away from it. For the hide, work from the inside, shaving off the fat.
The hands never stop. He's done this hundreds of times.
"Hey, Henrik. That true, you're retiring soon?"
"Yeah. This is the last one I'll ever carve with this."
He cuts the last piece free and sets the knife down.
"The young ones can take it from here."
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Dismantle].
On the morning of the fifth day, Luca laid out a fang wolf carcass in the back yard. He'd brought it back from a salvage run. Some delver had killed it and left it lying where it fell. Normally he would only have pulled the fangs and sold those.
He gripped the butchering knife. Set the blade into the gaps between the joints. Followed the bone. Worked the hide from the inside, shaving off the fat.
His hands moved on their own.
It took him less than an hour. Pelt, fangs, claws, mana stone. Everything lay there, neatly separated.
"...Well, look at that."
Grun held up the pelt and let out a low grunt. There wasn't a single nick in it, and the fat had been scraped off clean.
At noon, when Luca brought the pelt to the materials shop, the old woman who ran it goggled at it.
"Who skinned this?"
"I did."
"Don't you lie to me. This is the work of a seasoned delver."
Even so, she paid him double her usual price.
"Your butchering got better, so that cancels out your food bill," Grun said on the way home, counting the silver coins.
"All right!"
"Doesn't cancel all of it, mind you."
* * *
The night of the fifth day.
Lying in bed in the attic, by the little light on the tip of the wand, Luca counted on his fingers.
"Lunge, Ladle Work, Reverse Grip, Silent Step, Shield Block, Throw, Lamplight, Sense Presence, Dismantle."
Nine.
A week ago, Luca had had nothing. Just the legs to carry him through the Labyrinth as a scavenger, and an eye for things.
Now he had nine skills. Every one of them was a skill someone had used for the last time, in the Labyrinth or somewhere else.
Sometimes Luca thought about the people in those recalls.
Emma, who'd been making the stew, was probably still cooking somewhere. The air in that recall had been bright and cheerful.
Dag, the one with the shield, had been slapping shoulders with his friends after they drove off the orcs.
Mel had been jumping for joy over her very first light. The scout with the bell and Henrik had both put down their tools by their own choice and walked away from the Labyrinth.
Not all of them had come to a bad end. They'd simply let go of their things, for one reason or another.
But Theo was different.
Theo had been forced to let go.
Downstairs, a door opened. Luca remembered that Grun had gone out on another salvage job that evening. When he climbed down the ladder, Grun was setting his back-basket on the floor.
"Welcome back. You're late."
"Yeah. I went down to the fifth floor."
Luca's eyes went round when he saw what was in the basket. Shields, swords, packs, cloaks. All of it new. Cheap, sensible gear, the kind rookies bought.
"This much?"
"Strange, isn't it?"
Grun scowled as he undid the straps on his false leg.
"Lately there's been a strange amount of lost gear on the fifth floor. And it's always rookie equipment."
"Doesn't that mean—"
"I'm going back tomorrow. This time, you're coming with me."
Grun looked up at Luca.
"There's something I want you to take a look at. With those eyes of yours."
* * *
The fifth floor was a shade darker than the fourth. The ceilings were higher and the passages wider, and the monsters were bigger to match.
"Stop."
Grun's voice was low. Luca had already stopped at the same moment. [Sense Presence] was telling him something was waiting up ahead.
"Three... no, four. Small ones. Goblins, maybe."
"...You can tell?"
"Sort of."
Grun narrowed his eyes.
An old man with a false leg and a fifteen-year-old scavenger. Down here in the Labyrinth, anyone could see which side of the food chain they were on.
"We'll go around."
"Boss. Can I try?"
"What?"
"I want to test something. Whether my nine skills actually work in a real fight."
Grun made a sour face, but he didn't say no. He drew the dagger at his belt and jerked his chin up the passage.
"If it gets dangerous, I'm stepping in."
"Okay."
* * *
Luca used [Silent Step] to creep up to the corner of the passage.
Four goblins sat around a campfire, gnawing on something. Jerky, probably, dragged out of somebody's pack.
Luca pulled two throwing knives from his belt.
[Throw]. Nothing but a snap of the wrist. One, two. The knives sank into the throats of the two goblins on the far side of the fire.
The other two let out startled shrieks and whipped around.
By then, Luca was already lunging. Right foot, half a step, deep. Drive off the heel. The dagger he'd borrowed from Grun went straight through the third goblin's chest.
The fourth brought a rusty hatchet swinging down at him. Luca caught it on the small wooden shield strapped to his arm. [Shield Block]. The face of the shield found its slant by itself, and the hatchet skidded off to the side.
The goblin stumbled, off balance. Luca flipped the dagger into a reverse grip and drove it into its neck. [Reverse Grip].
Then it was quiet.
Luca looked down at the dagger, then turned around. Grun was standing frozen in the shadows of the passage.
"Boss?"
"...Your form's a complete mess."
"Sorry."
"That's a compliment."
Grun gave a dry laugh.
"Throwing knives, that's a scout. The lunge is proper swordsmanship. The shield work's a heavy fighter's. And that last bit's a thief's trick. It's all over the place, and somehow it all connects. ...I've never seen anybody fight like that."
Luca's stomach growled.
So fighting made him hungry too, even without a recall.
* * *
Deep in the fifth floor, in a chamber where groundwater had pooled, Grun stopped.
"This is it."
The signs of a fight were still fresh on the chamber floor. A wooden shield was leaning against the wall. No, not leaning. It was lodged in the wall, as if it had been rammed there.
"I couldn't bring this one back yesterday. Took too long trying to work it loose."
Luca went over to the shield. It was a cheap rookie's shield, its face covered in countless scratches.
He laid a hand on its rim.
◆ ◆ ◆
—It's heavy. But he raises it anyway.
A huge shape looms in front of him. Gray fur. Sharp claws.
Shield forward. Shoulder in, hips low. Turn the whole body into a single stake. Push. Forward.
The shape staggers. Now, he shouts.
"Now, Leonhardt! Hurry—"
He looks back.
A man in a golden cloak is looking straight at him. Smiling.
Long golden hair. A handsome face. From his hand, a small pouch comes sailing through the air.
A sweet smell.
The shape's eyes change. In the darkness behind it, more eyes light up, one pair after another.
"Sorry, kid. Accidents happen in the Labyrinth."
The golden cloak swirls.
They aren't running away.
A red-haired woman and a small man are dashing into a side tunnel at the back, the one the monsters have just left empty, clutching empty sacks. The blond man follows them in.
—Why? That way is the monsters' nest.
Raise the shield. Raise it. Raise it—
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Shield Charge].
Luca's hand had fallen away from the shield.
His knees were shaking. Worse than the hunger was the cold spreading through his chest.
"Luca."
"...I saw it."
Luca told Grun what was in the recall.
Leonhardt. The leader of the Golden Lions. That man had smiled as he tossed a pouch at a rookie who'd trusted him enough to stand there holding up a shield.
Grun said nothing. He began searching the chamber floor. After a while, he bent down at the edge of a puddle and picked something up.
It was a small leather pouch, its mouth hanging open. A little dark powder was still left inside. When Luca brought it to his nose, it smelled sweet. The same smell he'd breathed in during the recall.
"Lure incense."
Grun's voice was low.
"It's incense that draws monsters in. Trappers use it. You need the Guild's permission to take the stuff into the Labyrinth."
"Permission?"
"Yeah. Who took it out, when, and how much. It all goes in the Guild's ledgers."
Grun gently pressed the leather pouch into Luca's hand.
"Lost things don't lie. ...That's an old scavenger saying."
Luca closed his fist around the pouch.
The sweet smell stayed on his palm.