It was Leonhardt who broke the silence.
"Lady Celes...! You're alive!"
His face lit up, and he threw his arms wide. As if he hadn't gone pale a moment ago, his whole expression was pure joy.
"Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness! We got separated, and we searched everywhere for you. I was sure you'd already..."
"Separated?"
Celes's voice was ice.
"You threw a jar of lure incense at my feet and ran off. Is that what you call getting separated?"
A stir went through the hall.
"Lure incense...?"
"Threw it? What does she mean?"
Leonhardt's brows drew together in sorrow.
"Lady Celes, you're confused. Who could blame you? You were attacked by a gray bear. You were terrified. Your memories have gotten mixed up—"
"I am not confused."
The nerve of him, Luca thought. This man lied as easily as he breathed.
"We have proof."
Luca unwrapped the cloth bundle. The shard of the jar. The wax seal, with its stamped number.
"I picked this up in the hollow on the sixth floor. It's the seal from a jar of lure incense. Nora, could you check who this number was issued to?"
Nora glanced at Baldo. Baldo scowled, but the whole hall was watching. He couldn't very well stop her.
Nora leafed through the ledger. Her finger stopped. She looked up.
"...Seal number 4-217. It was issued to the Golden Lions yesterday."
The murmuring grew louder.
But Leonhardt didn't so much as flinch.
"Oh, that jar. It was stolen last night."
"...Stolen?"
"From our room at the inn, along with the rest of our things. I'm sure I reported it to Deputy Branch Master Baldo this morning, before we set out. Verbally, of course."
Every eye turned to Baldo. His gaze darted around for just a moment. Then he nodded, very firmly.
"Y-yes. Now that you mention it, I did hear about that. Yes, indeed."
"Then tell me this."
Celes stepped forward.
"The honey crystals you delivered to the Guild today. Where did you get them?"
Nora looked as if something had just occurred to her, and she flipped open a different ledger.
"...This evening, the Golden Lions delivered two sacks of honey crystals."
"Dug out of the bear's den while I was fighting the bear, I imagine. While you listened to me scream."
The air in the hall shifted again.
But Leonhardt only gave her a troubled smile.
"While we were searching for you, Lady Celes, we happened across a den whose lord had gone. If we'd left it there, some other party would only have picked it clean. So we collected it, for the Guild's sake."
"Gathering materials in the Labyrinth is a delver's rightful work."
Baldo was quick to add his piece.
"All the more so if the lord had left its den empty. There's no problem here whatsoever."
Luca clenched his fists.
It was a lie. Any way you looked at it, it was a lie. But if the Deputy Branch Master said it was true, it would become true.
"More to the point—"
Baldo suddenly raised his voice. He pointed at Luca.
"Scavenger. You said you picked that up in the hollow on the sixth floor."
"Yes."
"A scavenger's salvage tag only lets you go down as far as the fifth floor. You broke the rules and trespassed on the sixth. Am I wrong?"
Luca shut his mouth.
He wasn't wrong.
"Your salvage tag is confiscated. And nothing a trespasser picks up will be accepted as evidence. Who knows where you really found it?"
"Deputy Branch Master Baldo!"
Celes raised her voice.
"If not for him, I would be dead!"
"Rules are rules. Having your life saved and breaking the rules are two separate matters, young lady."
Leonhardt was watching Luca. Behind that gentle smile, only his eyes were laughing, and they were cold.
Hyenas should stick to being hyenas.
That was when it happened.
"—What an interesting conversation."
The Guild doors swung wide open.
A woman in traveling clothes stood in the doorway.
She was tall. Her black hair was cropped short, and an old scar crossed her cheek. On her back was a greatsword nearly as long as she was tall. Behind her came a line of delvers, all in traveling gear just like hers.
"B-Branch Master...!"
Baldo's voice cracked.
"Branch Master Valeria, we weren't expecting you back from the expedition for another three days—"
"We wrapped it up early."
Valeria, the Branch Master, spoke as she crossed the hall. She stopped in front of Luca and looked down at the jar shard. Then her gaze moved slowly from Celes, to Leonhardt, to Baldo.
"I heard most of it from the doorway. A rookie is reported dead, and that same rookie walks back in alive. There's a jar of lure incense at the scene, and that jar has supposedly been stolen. And the Deputy Branch Master, for some reason, has only just now remembered being told about the theft."
Sweat began to stream down Baldo's face.
"We can't decide who's telling the truth here and now," Valeria said.
"In three days, we'll carry out a field inspection. The Guild will appoint an inspector, and the Golden Lions and these two will go with them to the scene on the sixth floor. Footprints, signs of the fight, anything left behind. All of it will be checked with the inspector's own eyes."
"Branch Master, surely—"
"The Golden Lions are forbidden to leave the city until the inspection is over. I'll rule on the scavenger's violation after the inspection as well. ...Any objections?"
Leonhardt smiled brightly.
"None at all. It's a fine chance to prove our innocence. Please, leave it to us to lead everyone to the site."
* * *
Back at the shop, Luca told Grun everything. Grun puffed on his pipe and said nothing.
"Three days, huh."
"Yes."
"Luca. You think they're going to sit still for this inspection?"
Luca shook his head. He remembered the look in Leonhardt's eyes.
"There aren't any witnesses down in the Labyrinth."
Grun knocked the ash out of his pipe.
"The inspector gets separated from the group. A scavenger and some little noble girl get killed by monsters. For them, that's the quickest way to clean up this mess."
Luca caught his breath.
"They'll be coming to shut you up. Down in the Labyrinth."
* * *
The next morning, the knock on the shop door turned out to be Theo.
He was leaning on a pair of crutches, and there was sweat on his forehead.
"I heard, Luca. You're going down with the Golden Lions for the inspection?"
"Yes. Theo, is your leg all right?"
"I can walk now, at least. Never mind that. There's something I want to tell you."
Theo dropped heavily into one of the shop's chairs. Celes poked her head in from behind him.
"I came too. If we only have three days, I want to sharpen our teamwork as much as we can."
* * *
What Theo had come to tell them about was how the Golden Lions fought.
"Leonhardt's swordwork is all flash. He chains his strikes together: overhead cut, sideways sweep, rising cut. Three in a row. But after the third one, the rising cut, his left side is always open."
"His left side."
"I saw it again and again on the mentoring run. He doesn't even know he does it. The people around him are so strong that I bet nobody's ever gone for it."
Theo counted the rest off on his fingers.
"Gina's fire magic hits hard, but her chants are long. Bolz is the scout, and he's good at steering people. Really good. Next thing you know, you've been split off from everyone else."
"Theo... Is that how you—"
"Yeah. Next thing I knew, I was on my own."
Theo gave a bitter smile.
"Don't let that happen to you."
* * *
From noon on, Luca and Celes practiced fighting together in the yard behind the shop.
"My chant takes ten seconds, even at its shortest. While I'm chanting, you stand in front and buy me time. That part's the same as with the gray bear."
"Yes."
"The problem is that this time we're up against people. They won't just come straight at us the way a monster does."
Celes sketched a diagram in the dirt with her wand. Luca leaned over it.
"My fire arrow could work as a distraction, at least."
"That little fizz thing?"
"If something comes flying at your face, anybody will shut their eyes for a second."
Celes blinked a few times. Then she laughed softly.
"You really know how to use weak techniques."
"Weak ones are all I have."
* * *
Evening came.
After Theo and Celes had gone home, Grun called Luca into the back of the shop.
Past the leftovers shelf, farther back still, sat a wooden chest with a lock on it. Grun opened it and took out a single greave. The iron plate was badly crumpled, and the clasp had been torn clean off.
"My right greave. I lost it on the twenty-eighth floor, twenty years back."
"Your..."
"My party went back and picked it up for me afterward. Couldn't pick up the leg, though."
Grun set it in Luca's hands.
"Recall it."
"But Boss, you said your memories wouldn't be any fun to watch."
"They aren't. But they'll be useful."
Luca closed his hands around the greave.
◆ ◆ ◆
—The rock dragon's jaws open.
Behind him are four of his party. The mage is out of mana. The swordsman's arm is wrecked. There's nowhere to run.
Fine. Then he'll do it himself.
He gathers every bit of strength in his body into his right leg. He drives off the ground hard enough to crack it, and kicks up.
The iron greave slams the rock dragon's lower jaw upward.
Bone breaks with a sickening crunch. His leg or the dragon's jaw, he can't tell which.
"Grun!"
His friends are shouting.
Ah. Good. Everyone's alive.
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Iron Legs].
Luca opened his eyes. Grun was looking out the window with his pipe between his teeth.
"...One leg, for four friends," he said quietly. "I figure it was a cheap price. Still do."
"Boss..."
"That technique should go well with your [Lunge]. Step in, then kick. Put your whole weight behind a single point."
Grun said it without looking at Luca.
"Use it. You do the running my leg can't."
Luca wrapped both hands around the greave. The iron was cold, but his palms felt hot.
"...Thank you."
"Don't thank me. More to the point, how's your stomach?"
"Incredibly empty."
"Figures."
* * *
That night, up in the attic, Luca counted his Echoes.
"Lunge, Ladle Work, Reverse Grip, Silent Step, Shield Block, Throw, Lamplight, Sense Presence, Dismantle, Shield Charge, Fire Arrow (Lesser), Iron Legs."
Twelve.
Every one of them was a technique someone had used for the last time.
But just having them wasn't enough. Luca remembered the day Grun's stick had rapped him on the head. You can pick up the skill, but the head that uses it is still yours.
The inspection was the day after tomorrow.
He had to take the techniques he'd picked up and make them his.