The Fomenting

The sunlight was bright.

In a port city on the southern edge of the Dragon Bone Continent, there was a great deal of goods and people moving about.

On the pier of the port, a youth stood gazing at the flow of people with something like envy.

He wore a short-sleeved shirt and thin trousers. Even so, around these parts, that counted as dressing warmly.

The sword hanging at his waist gave a slight martial impression, but overall he seemed like a calm, mild-mannered man.

Someone approached him.

Clad in a hooded mantle, the figure completely attracted everyone's attention. Looking closely at the slender build, one could tell it was probably a woman.

"I have arrived."

Her voice as well—definitely a young woman.

"Ah, good work. Sorry for making you come all this way. The work here was at a critical stage, so…"

"No, responding to His Majesty's summons is only natural for us retainers. Rather, we deeply feel our inadequacy in troubling His Majesty to act with his own hands—"

"No, no, that can't be helped."

The youth waved his hands dismissively.

"Those who can do something have to be the ones to do it. Though really, I'd like you to be in the country too."

"Such gracious words…"

The youth smiled wryly. Even though he thought he'd gotten quite used to it, after being separated for a while, their manner became exaggerated again. These precious retainers of his.

"So, the reason I called you here is because I want you to investigate something."

Just slightly, the youth's atmosphere became serious.

"It seems there's a human who defeated the Ogre King."

"The Ogre King?! Could it be the hero?"

"No, no, he should still be in the imperial capital, so it's a different human. And while I say they defeated him, they didn't kill him. That's precisely why they didn't get caught by my magic."

If it were the hero, there was a high possibility of the Ogre King being killed due to stereotypical thinking.

Moreover, the magic that had been placed on the Ogre King was merely one to let them know if he died. Without periodic checks from their side, they probably wouldn't have known even now.

"Also, a party has appeared that conquered Labyrinth's labyrinth."

That fact alone was enough to shake the woman.

Conquering that labyrinth would be impossible even for the Ogre King alone. Moreover, the timing was significant.

At this time, when the Millennium was near.

"The locations are close. Could it be the same person?"

"I don't know the details. But since it's spread even to this town, it must be a story from over a month ago."

Labyrinth City was one of the forbidden territories for the youth. That was precisely why he had no choice but to rely on hearsay.

"Having been conquered, Labyrinth's power should have fallen as well. If you go now, you should be able to conquer it too. Then I want you to meet Labyrinth and hear the full story from her. If you can receive even a little power from her, it should make things easier going forward."

Though he didn't think that capricious reincarnator would obediently share her power.

"Then what should we do about the one who defeated the Ogre King and those who conquered the labyrinth?"

At that question, the youth shook his head.

"Don't make contact. However, do investigate what kind of human they are. Use someone else, and be extremely careful that they don't discover our identities."

"Should we dispose of them while we still can?"

The youth smiled wryly at his retainer's dangerous suggestion.

"First, there's the question of whether we could even dispose of them. They're at least stronger than the Ogre King. Fighting them head-on would be too dangerous. Besides, they didn't kill anyone of the ogre race… well, they might not be human, but perhaps we could bring them to our side."

Not human, but possibly a demi-human. That possibility had been taken into account.

However, what the woman was concerned about wasn't that.

"As our comrade, you mean?"

"Is that strange?"

Normally one wouldn't think of that, the woman thought. But she didn't voice it.

What she said was the complete opposite.

"Indeed, that possibility does exist."

Once she voiced it, she could believe it. After all, these were the words of the lord she respected and admired.

"Then, Your Majesty, I shall head to Shashmeer immediately."

"Yes, I'm counting on you. Also—"

The youth lightly poked the woman's forehead.

"I told you not to call me 'Your Majesty' outside the palace, but to use my name, didn't I?"

"S-sorry, Ars-sama!"

The moment she vigorously bowed her head, the sea breeze blew and exposed her face.

Silver hair. Dark brown skin. And long, tapered ears like bamboo leaves.

A dark elf. Among the demon races, the most proficient in magic.

Since Ars quickly fixed her hood, no human noticed.

"Be careful. And make sure to properly use transformation magic. You're a bit of a scatterbrain sometimes."

Though she was treated like a child, she wasn't displeased.

No matter how many hundreds of years she lived, she couldn't match up to the lord who had known her since childhood.

"T-then, I'm off."

Her form disappeared. Then, riding the wind, she headed far toward the northeast of the continent.

After seeing her off, the youth sighed somewhat dejectedly and headed from the pier toward land.

His work in this country had reached a stopping point. Since he had moved quietly from the shadows, he hadn't been discovered by dangerous adversaries.

But the next task would be different. Not just adversaries, but all the powerful figures on the continent would learn of it.

Even so, it had to be carried out. The Millennium. To avoid the tragedy of its conclusion.

In the busy streets, he quietly slipped into a back alley, and with meticulous caution, used teleportation magic.

Space-time magic.

If Serge had seen it, he would have been shocked at the precision of its composition.

Wary of his enemies' eyes, the youth headed for his destination—this continent's heart, the imperial capital.

For now, he alone knew his purpose.

Before her eyes was a mass of muscle.

Muscle that had been constantly tempered over many years.

She even found it beautiful.

Facing that muscle, Ria—pierced it with a needle.

"Uoh."

The voice that involuntarily escaped from Vargas wasn't one of displeasure.

Ria pierced needles along the line of Vargas's spine. These needles were also created with genesis magic.

She twisted the beaded heads of the needles to stimulate the pressure points.

"U～mu."

Sounds continued to escape from Vargas's mouth.

"D-does it really not hurt?"

Shizuna asked while watching fearfully. The other members who were similarly watching conveyed the same question with their gazes.

"Mm, it doesn't hurt. Rather… the pressure feels good."

It was the third day after finishing their first exploration.

Dark Labyrinth exploration usually involved about ten days of rest between expeditions, accounting for equipment repairs and recovery from fatigue. That had been Thunder's Fangs' pattern.

But Ria had objected to that.

"Equipment aside, three days should be enough for recovery."

At first, the members of Thunder's Fangs thought she was talking about magical recovery.

Certainly, fatigue could be recovered through magic. Wounds and such could be healed as well, of course.

But if you kept repeating that in a short period, both the degree of fatigue recovery and the speed of wound healing would decrease.

This was a well-known phenomenon among explorers, and even Carlos, who had been on repeated battlefield marches, knew it.

Ria hadn't known. Exterminating nearby monsters was a single day's task for her, and in Labyrinth City she could ignore damage to some extent—but above all, she herself had a constitution that recovered quickly from fatigue and healed wounds rapidly.

However, she did think a rest period of around ten days was quite long. On this point, the young Shizuna actually shared her opinion.

So what Ria decided to try was the acupuncture treatment from her previous life.

Of course, Ria had never performed acupuncture treatment in her previous life, nor had she held a license for it.

But as a patient, she had benefited greatly from it. After all, a martial artist could never be separated from injuries.

Sprains that should have taken two months to heal with scientific treatment would be cured in just a few days.

Acupuncturists with magical-like skill, qigong therapists, seitai masters—she had visited them many times in her previous life.

And while she hadn't gone as far as using needles herself, she had been taught to some degree how to stimulate pressure points to promote healing.

Her acupuncture treatment made use of that experience and intuition.

Of course, at first, no one wanted to receive such an unheard-of treatment.

In front of everyone, Ria calmly pierced extremely thin therapeutic needles into her own hands and feet.

… She accidentally hit a pain point once, but she endured it expressionlessly.

Then Vargas, who was interested in such things, volunteered as a test subject.

So she had been probing for pressure points and piercing needles into his back, where there were the fewest pain points.

(This might actually make for good magical power manipulation training.)

Just as the earth had dragon veins, humans had energy meridians.

In this world, what flowed through them was magical power.

Research on how taking a specific posture and meditating could speed up magical power recovery had been conducted even in Casalia.

The needles spanned dozens of points from his lower back to his shoulders and neck.

"I'm surprised. My body really does feel light."

Since Vargas said that while waving his arms around, the other warriors tentatively asked Ria for acupuncture as well.

Ria gladly treated them, creating disposable needles as she went.

After finishing all the men, she was just thinking that now it was time for the fun part—treating the women—when Ria's knees gave out.

"Eh?"

Her body trembled—from the tips of her hair to her toes, her entire body.

"W-what is this?"

She couldn't make sense of it. Even her mumbling voice was trembling.

It wasn't fear. Nor was it a warrior's trembling before battle.

Maal and Lulu hurried to support Ria from both sides in a panic. But after a moment, Maal and Cell sensed something abnormal.

"The spirits are in an uproar…"

Spirits dwelt in all things. They were agitated, as if the world itself were trembling.

Before long, the mages noticed it too. Far, far away, some tremendous magic had been used.

"In the direction of Anaias… no, it's a bit different… quite far away?"

Lulu murmured. Why could she feel magic from such a distant place? How much magical power had been released?

But what Ria was feeling wasn't anything like that.

Something had been lost.

A puzzle piece necessary for this world had fallen away.

She didn't know what had been lost. But something had been lost. Something that should never have been lost.

Amidst the enormous sense of loss, Ria could do nothing but tremble.