"Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble."
—Lemony Snicket
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「 ✦ Shizuku Yaegashi ✦ 」
"Are you sure you'll be alright? We could stay a little longer, just in case."
Liliana gave me a soft smile that looked a little too calm for someone dealing with royal burdens. But then again, she'd always been stronger than she looked.
"I'll be fine, Shizuku. Really. That's why I brought the Crimson Knights with me, remember?" She stepped forward and pulled me into a gentle hug. "Stay safe, okay?"
"Yeah. You too."
Kaori and Suzu exchanged their goodbyes next, Suzu being her usual bubbly self and Kaori... still adjusting to that new body of hers.
By the time we boarded Nagumo's aircraft again, the capital was already disappearing behind us. We were heading toward the Sea of Trees—specifically, the Haltina Labyrinth. That probably meant more emotional trauma to come.
Yay.
It had only been an hour since we left, but the capital already felt far away. Rimuru hadn't left yet by the time we did. He said he had things to take care of, "detours" as he called them. After that, he'd go on his way. His entire goal alone still set me on edge, though I didn't know why. It wasn't like I had any right to feel that way.
Nagumo's voice resounded from the deck's speakers, cutting into my thoughts.
"We should reach Haltina in a few hours. No more stops, so get ready."
Straight to the point, as always.
The door to my room slid open behind me.
"Are you excited?" Kaori's voice had a kind of forced cheer I wasn't in the mood for.
I glanced over my shoulder.
There she was, all white hair and blue eyes, dressed like something out of a fantasy-themed modeling agency. Her body seemed like it was still new to her, and honestly? I wasn't getting used to it anytime soon either.
"I still can't get over how big your breasts are in that body," I muttered.
Kaori blinked, then looked down at herself.
"You think?" she asked, squeezing her chest a bit. "I mean... maybe a little, but it still feels the same, more or less."
I gave her a flat look. "Not the point."
She giggled and—of course—skipped forward and hugged me from behind like she always used to. The feeling of her against my back was a bit heavier now, and a little more awkward.
"You miss Rimuru."
That came so suddenly that I almost dropped the glove I was putting on. I couldn't help getting flustered.
"What are you even talking about?!"
"Come on, Shizuku~." Her chin rested on my shoulder now. "You can be honest. It's just us here."
I gave her a look in the mirror—one I hoped screamed you're insane.
"This isn't the time for that, Kaori. We have a labyrinth to worry about, remember? That ring any bellsssss?"
"But it is a time for that~!" she said in a teasing lilt. "You think you're hiding it well, but everyone sees it. It's kind of adorable, really."
I turned my head just enough to give her a deadpan glare. "See what exactly?"
She leaned her chin on my shoulder, still smiling. "That you're completely, stupidly, tragically head over heels for him."
I stared at her, silent.
She was joking. Obviously... probably? Hopefully. Definitely.
"...Can't a guy and a girl just be friends?" I said, more to myself than to her. "There's such a thing as platonic friendship, in case you don't know. People wrote books about it and everything."
"Oh, I know what it is," she replied easily.
"Then—"
"But that's not what this is."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please. You're being ridiculous."
Kaori's grin turned into something more... melancholic. Her hands dropped from my shoulders.
"Problem is, it might be platonic for him. That's the part that hurts, doesn't it?"
I flinched just barely, but she saw it.
"I'm not teasing you to be mean, you know," she said. "I just... don't want you to regret anything. Don't want you to wonder 'what if' for the rest of your life."
And for a minute, I didn't have anything to say. I looked down at my gloves—fingers flexing, fidgeting—then back at the mirror. My face looked calm, but my eyes must've given me away.
"...It doesn't matter," I muttered. "Even if I did like him that way—which I'm not saying I do—it's not like it would change anything." Kaori stayed quiet. I sat on the edge of the bed and finally exhaled. "You said it yourself. Maybe I do feel something. And maybe it's one-sided."
I stared out the window, where clouds moved far below us.
"I mean... It's not like—ugh, he-he's just way out of my league, okay? Like, galaxies out. I'd probably need a spaceship just to—never mind."
Kaori sat beside me. "I know," she said. "But it doesn't mean he's unreachable."
"It kinda does."
Another silence passed.
"...I'm not looking for a happy ending or anything grand," I admitted. "I'm not expecting some fairy-tale romance where he suddenly realizes I'm the love of his life. I just don't want to lose him as a friend. I don't want to screw it up by making things weird."
"That sounds like love to me," Kaori said quietly.
I let my head drop into my hands. "...Ugh. Please stop."
"You're really stubborn about this." She laughed, light and unbothered. "Right. Sorry. But you know I'm right. I know you really well, and you know I wouldn't be too probing about this if I wasn't at least a teeny tiny bit sure that I'm right, don't you think?"
I stayed silent because deep down, I hated that she might be right.
"It's that something about him that makes me feel like I don't have to hold back—like I can just be me—and yeah... maybe that's why I think about him. Nothing more than that."
Kaori watched me. Then smiled softly.
"I get it," she said. "I really do."
She totally understood what I meant. That's what she always thought of Nagumo, didn't she? But the first time I really became friends with Rimuru, it felt like I'd been standing my whole life—then suddenly, I sat down.
I didn't know what to make sense of it.
The intercom resounded again.
"Two hours until arrival," Nagumo's voice came through, flat as ever. "Meet at the lobby."
Kaori straightened up and gave me a quick nod before heading to the door.
"You seem pretty stressed, so get some rest. And oh," she said, glancing back one last time. "Try to keep your blood pressure in check. You still got a fine man to pine over."
"Kaori!"
She disappeared into the hallway before I could finish the threat.
I sighed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. I wasn't sure if I was more afraid of facing deadly dungeons—or my own feelings.
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「 ✦ Rimuru Tempest ✦ 」
Haachoo!
I sneezed.
Which was ridiculous. There was no dust, no wind, no allergens, no people—hell, not even air out here. Just endless, undiluted nothing.
"...Someone's talking about me. Figures."
I drifted forward—if you could even call it forward. Directions here were... relative. There was no up or down, just whatever orientation I decided mattered for the next few minutes.
The creatures here used to be scary, or at least mildly annoying. Now they were just nosy. Background mobs in a game I'd already beaten. I didn't even need to raise a hand.
"Technique activation: Don'tcha Come Near Me."
The technique wasn't even flashy. It was just a finely tuned aura field layered with about forty-two micro-barriers, each imbued with spatial disassembly threads. Anything within thirty meters of me got dissolved.
One Cryptid tried to creep closer—some kind of blob with too many teeth and not enough structure. It brushed the edge of the field and turned into glitter.
"Thanks for stopping by," I muttered.
I kept drifting. It was oddly relaxing, like meditation, perhaps—if meditation involved being stranded in an interdimensional purgatory with only your favorite voice assistant and existential dread for company.
Still, I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would.
Then I felt a pull.
<
"You catching that too, bro?"
<<...Affirmative. The anomaly is a supermassive gravitational core. Analysis suggests it is the central point of a micro-universe collapse event.>>
"...So. A black hole?"
<
I paused.
A little far away from me, space had begun to bend subtly. Stars leaned inward and light twisted like it was being spaghettified. Even time felt a little slower here—just barely noticeable. It was beautiful in a terrifying sort of way.
I wasn't worried. I could manipulate gravity as easily as breathing. I could tear myself away from its pull, create a counterforce, even anchor myself to fixed points. This wasn't danger whatsoever, but I was curious and, above all, fascinated.
"Hey, question. If I hang around here too long, will time move differently for me?"
<
"How different?"
<
I floated in silence.
"So... if I spend a day here, it's what? A day and a half out there?"
<
"Hmm. That's not bad. Might even be enough for the others to catch up... but I probably shouldn't do that, right? There's no telling what might happen to them while I was gone, after all."
Eventually, I rolled onto my back and crossed my arms behind my head, staring up at a sky that didn't exist. A phantom started drifting close. It crossed the edge of the field and evaporated instantly.
"You know," I said to the empty space, "at some point, these things are going to learn to just avoid me entirely. Then what am I going to do?"
<
I blinked. "Did you just make a joke?"
<<...>>
"I think you did. I'm proud of you, Raphael." I yawned. "Wake me when something interesting happens."
<
And like that, I closed my eyes and went into artificial sleep.
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「 ✦ Yuka Sonobe | Capital of Heiligh✦ 」
The crowd clapped and cheered as the last of my knives whirled back into my hand.
It was a good toss. I juggled it twice more for show before bowing with a grin. The children squealed, tossing their tiny and cute little hands into the air. Coins rattled into the tin bowl near my feet. A few apples, too. Someone even threw a shiny trinket. Guess I was doing better than usual.
Performing had become a daily thing now. Something about it calmed me. The feeling of steel in my hands, the rush of precision, the gasps of the crowd—they were all things I could control, unlike everything else in my life. With the Divine Mountain rising behind me, basking in that clear midday sun, I readied my finale. A single blade for a single throw.
I flicked it into the sky.
My body flowed into a spin, hair whipping past my eyes, cape fluttering just enough to catch the wind. The knife reached its peak—and then it began to fall. Right as I looked up to catch it, something else in the sky caught my eye.
"Hm...? Wait, what's that?"
The blade caught the light just before something behind it eclipsed everything. A speck—a silhouette. Glowing and falling and sparkling like stardust.
I didn't catch the knife.
It clattered beside me, forgotten.
People started murmuring.
Whatever that thing was, it was coming from the mountain—straight down.
Toward us.
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「 ✦ Miledi Reisen | Reisen Labyrinth's Entrance✦ 」
I never really liked waiting.
Which made being sealed inside this stupid labyrinth for the past few centuries one long, miserable lesson in patience. Sometimes I passed the time by counting the cracks in the stone above me. Other times, I'd bully one of the golems into playing chess. They always lost.
But today was different.
Today, I sighed.
The image showed in the artifact before me showed the wide blue canvas of the sky above the Reisen Gorge. Then, a silver streak sped across it.
I froze, my fingers gripping the edges of the plain table.
The golem body I inhabited flinched, but it was the ghost of the girl I used to be that leaned forward. Blonde hair, sky-blue eyes. Not a trickster's grin this time, but a solemn expression I hadn't worn since the day we lost everything.
"So... it begins."
Was it time?
Was our long, winding journey finally crawling toward its end?
For the first time in ages, my voice sounded serious.
"I wonder if you'll find what we couldn't, Rimuru-kun."
The silver light vanished beyond the horizon, but the remnants of it remained. And I knew—soon, the apostles would come. And so would begin the final war.