The fang wolf hit the ground.
Celes was staring at Luca, her eyes wide.
"You're... from yesterday. The scavenger."
"I'm Luca."
He planted himself in front of her. Behind him, he could hear her voice trembling.
"Why are you here?"
"Later. Stay back and keep chanting."
"B-but—"
"I can't beat the bear. I need your fire magic, Miss Celes."
He felt her catch her breath. Then, in a shaking voice, the chant began again.
"Flame, gather in my hand—"
Three fang wolves leaped at once.
[Throw]. He pulled two knives from his belt and threw them, one left, one right. They sank into the eyes of two wolves, and the beasts went tumbling, yelping. The last one came straight at him, fangs bared. Luca caught its jaws on the little shield strapped to his left arm. [Shield Block]. The fangs slid off the slope of the shield. The wolf lost its footing, and Luca flipped the dagger into a reverse grip and drove it into its throat. [Reverse Grip].
"—become searing heat, and pierce my foe!"
Heat swelled behind him. A fireball as big as a man's head shot from the tip of Celes's wand.
It hit the gray bear square in the shoulder.
The bear bellowed in pain. The stink of burning fur filled the air. But it didn't go down. It swung its scorched shoulder around and glared at them, eyes blazing with rage.
"No, it's not deep enough...!"
"Can you do another one?"
"I've got the mana, but the chant takes time..."
"I'll buy you the time."
The gray bear charged.
It was fast. For all its bulk, it was as fast as a fang wolf.
Luca met it head-on.
Shield forward. Shoulder in. Hips low. Turn his whole body into a single stake, and push—
[Shield Charge].
The technique a rookie whose name he didn't even know had used one last time, on the fifth floor. The technique that rookie had used to try to shove back a giant with his life on the line, because he trusted his party.
The impact tore through his whole body. The little wooden shield cracked apart with a scream of splitting wood. His arm went numb. His feet skidded across the dirt.
But the gray bear's charge stopped.
"Now, Miss Celes!"
Luca was shouting the same words that rookie had shouted.
But this time, someone answered.
"—become searing heat, and pierce my foe!"
The second fireball slammed into the gray bear's face.
* * *
When Luca came back to himself, he was lying spread-eagled on the ground.
Pale light drifted down from the forest's ceiling. A short way off, the gray bear lay where it had fallen, charred black. The fang wolves had seen their lord go down, and the whole pack had fled.
That was when [Sense Presence] picked up something faint.
Behind the cave. Three people, slipping out through the crack in the rock and moving off deeper into the forest. They were in a hurry. And yet their steps were heavy. They walked like people hauling heavy loads.
...They were inside the den the whole time.
The whole time Celes was fighting the bear. They must have heard her screams. They must have heard the roar of the flames.
"...Are you alive?"
Celes leaned over him. Her silver hair was a tangled mess, and there was soot on her cheek.
"I'm alive."
"Thank goodness..."
Celes slumped down onto the ground. Then she jerked forward, as if she'd just remembered something.
"Are you hurt? Does anything hurt?"
"My arm's numb. And also—"
Luca's stomach let out a long, thunderous growl, like a rockslide rolling down a hill.
For a long moment, neither of them said a word.
"I'm hungry."
Celes's mouth fell open. Then her shoulders began to shake, and as if she couldn't hold it in anymore, she started to giggle.
"S-sorry. You just saved my life, and... but now? Really?"
"Sorry. My body just works this way."
Still laughing, Celes took a small package out of her pack. Shortbread. The rich, buttery kind they'd serve in a noble house.
"Here, have it. It's for emergencies, but still."
"Are you sure?"
"I hardly think one sweet is enough to repay someone for my life."
Luca bit into the shortbread. It was delicious. The most delicious shortbread he had ever eaten in his life. He followed it up with two loaves of black bread from Grun's bundle, one after the other.
Celes watched him in silence. Her laughter faded, and a shadow passed over her face.
"...I was bait, wasn't I."
"Yes."
"It was just like you said."
She pulled her knees up and hugged them.
"Yesterday I sent you away. I called it scavenger gossip. ...What an idiot I was."
"It's not your fault, Miss Celes."
"Yes, it is. I had no eye for people."
"They're good at fooling people who do. Theo, the other rookies... they fooled every one of them."
Celes raised her head.
"There are others?"
"A lot of them."
Luca told her what he knew. About Theo. About the shield on the fifth floor. About how many times the Golden Lions had signed out lure incense. He blurred the part about Recall, just a little.
Celes listened without a word. When he was done, she slowly got to her feet and wiped her sooty face with her sleeve. There was a strong light in her blue eyes now that hadn't been there before.
"What are you?"
"A scavenger."
"Do scavengers take down three fang wolves at once and stop a gray bear's charge?"
"Probably just me."
Celes laughed again, a little.
"Luca, was it?"
"Yes."
"If we go straight back and take this to the Guild, they'll just bury it again."
"Yes. They buried it yesterday."
Luca got up too. He looked around the bottom of the hollow. Shards of the broken jar lay scattered everywhere.
"So let's collect some evidence."
* * *
Luca crawled across the bottom of the hollow on his hands and knees, gathering up shards of the jar.
"What do you need those for?"
"The lure incense jar was sealed. And something was stamped into the seal."
He found the biggest shard. It was the mouth of the jar, with half of the wax seal still stuck to it.
A number had been pressed into the wax.
"...That's a Guild seal number," Celes said, peering over his shoulder. "The Guild puts a numbered seal on anything that needs a permit. If someone checks it against the ledger, they'll know exactly who it was issued to."
"So with this—"
"Yes. If this jar was issued to the Golden Lions, they won't be able to talk their way out of it."
Luca carefully wrapped the shard in a cloth. Then he picked up a wand lying on the slope of the hollow. Celes had dropped it when she threw herself out of the way of the gray bear's charge.
"Here's your wand, Miss Celes."
"Thank you. ...Oh."
Her hand stopped halfway to the wand. Luca had frozen, still holding it.
◆ ◆ ◆
—Flame, gather in my hand.
She's scared. So scared. But there's someone standing in front of her, his back to her.
A small shield. Thin shoulders. A scavenger's tag.
That boy is buying her time.
So stop shaking.
—Become searing heat, and pierce my foe!
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Fire Arrow (Lesser)].
"Luca?"
"Ah. Sorry."
Luca hurriedly held out the wand. Celes took it, eyeing him with suspicion.
"What did you just do?"
Luca hesitated for a moment. But he felt he could tell her. She'd fought a gray bear with him.
"My Gift is called Recall. I can see the last scene a lost thing was used in, and whatever skill was being used then stays with me."
"...Excuse me?"
"Just now I saw your wand's memory, Miss Celes. 'That boy is buying me time, so stop shaking.'"
Celes's face went red in an instant.
"W-wait a minute! That's the inside of my head!"
"Sorry. I just see it."
"You just see it...!"
Celes hugged the wand to her chest and glared at him. Then her eyes went wide, as if something had just occurred to her.
"Wait. Then the reason you knew about the Golden Lions—"
"I saw the memories of Theo's sword and the shield from that rookie on the fifth floor."
"...Well. No wonder you couldn't say. Nobody would believe you."
Celes pressed a hand to her forehead and thought for a while. Then she looked up.
"What do you mean, the skill stays with you? You can use my fire magic?"
"Probably."
Luca pointed a finger at a dead branch nearby. He called up Celes's chant.
"Flame, gather in my hand. Become searing heat, and pierce my foe."
Fizz.
A fleck of fire about the size of his thumb shot from his fingertip. The end of the branch got a little scorched.
For a long moment, neither of them said a word.
"I barely have any mana, you see."
"...You really are a strange one, aren't you."
* * *
"There's one more place I want to look at."
Luca led Celes around the rim of the hollow to the back of the cave. The crack in the rock was just wide enough for one person to squeeze through.
He lit [Lamplight] on his fingertip and went in. His little flame only lit up the ground at his feet, so Celes floated a ball of light for them instead.
"...That's horrible."
Celes caught her breath.
At the back of the gray bear's den, the cave opened into a wide cavern. Every wall was covered thick with dried honeycomb. In places, its surface had been gouged away. Chisel marks. Amber-colored dust spilled from the gouges and glittered in the light.
"These are honey crystals. Every last one of them has been dug out."
"They took everything the bear had been storing up. All of it."
Luca noticed something glinting at his feet. An amber shard about the size of his thumb tip. It must have fallen from the mouth of a sack.
He picked it up.
◆ ◆ ◆
—The sound of a chisel. Tok. Tok. Tok.
"Hurry. We finish before the bear comes back."
"Gina, another sack."
Far off, a girl screams. Flames crackle and burst. The bear roars.
"Oh, she's still holding out. We got a good one this time."
"The fire mages always last longer. That swordsman, Theo or whatever, barely made it."
Laughter.
"With this, we're the branch's top deliverers again this month. The Guild will be pleased with us. Next promotion's not far off now."
The mouth of the sack sways, and one shard tumbles to the ground.
No one bothers to pick it up.
◆ ◆ ◆
Luca couldn't move for a while, the shard still clenched in his hand.
The voice in the back of his head said nothing. A shard that had only ever been carried around, it seemed, held no skill.
"...Luca? What did you see?"
Luca told her exactly what he'd seen. Bit by bit, the expression drained out of Celes's face.
"...So while I was fighting that bear, they were in here laughing."
"Yes."
"They heard me screaming, and they said, 'She's still holding out.'"
Celes gripped her wand hard. She was furious, and she looked like she was about to cry.
"One sack of honey crystals is worth dozens of gold coins. Enough to pay off a real piece of my family's debt."
"That much?"
"Yes. Enough that people want it badly enough to use someone's life as bait."
Luca wrapped the amber shard in cloth and tucked it inside his shirt along with the jar shards. It couldn't prove who had dug it out. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to leave it behind.
Picking up what no one else would pick up. That was a scavenger's job.
* * *
The two of them left the Labyrinth before the sun went down. On the way to the Guild, they made their plan.
"First, we get the seal number checked against the ledger. Nora might look it up for us on the quiet."
"Then I testify. My house may have fallen, but they can't just ignore a noble's testimony."
"And we'll ask Theo to come too."
In front of the Guild doors, they looked at each other. From inside came a murmur of voices. Not the usual racket. Something heavier.
They pushed the doors open.
In the middle of the hall stood three golden cloaks.
Leonhardt's head was bowed, his face grave with grief. Gina was pressing a hand to her eyes, and Bolz stared silently at the floor.
In front of the front desk, Baldo was nodding solemnly.
"—I see. A terrible tragedy."
"Yes. We just weren't strong enough."
Leonhardt's voice was shaking. Every delver in the hall was looking at him with sympathy.
"Faced with the gray bear, Lady Celes charged ahead on her own... We couldn't stop her in time. By the time we reached her, she was already..."
His voice caught.
"Lady Celes Ardia has died on the sixth floor."
The hall went utterly silent.
Into that silence, Celes took one step forward.
"—Oh my. I'm dead, am I?"
Her silver hair shone in the evening sun slanting in through the doorway. Every eye in the hall swung to the entrance at once.
Leonhardt looked up.
Luca saw it clearly: every drop of color draining out of that handsome face.