Published: March 21, 2026
Sorry for the wait!
When it's from the protagonist's point of view, there won't be any labels.
By request I reduced line breaks and increased text per paragraph.
We ended up spending the night in the boss room, and finally stood before the magic circle.
Even Night didn't seem to know where this magic circle would take us. Now that we knew this labyrinth was no place for sword training, there was no reason to stay. It bothered me that it ended at the 80th floor — neither a satisfying cutoff nor obvious — but it couldn't be helped. I didn't know where we'd go, but anywhere would do.
Night, transformed to kitten size, sat on my shoulder. Amelia gripped my hand tightly. If we got separated, Night and I could sense each other's positions, but Amelia couldn't. I'm confident I could find her wherever she went, but better safe than sorry.
"Ready?"
"I'm fine."
"Anytime," came a buoyant voice from the left and a deeper, huskier voice at my ear. I could handle being alone, but having others respond at a time like this wasn't so bad.
"Alright, let's go!"
We stepped onto the blue, glowing magic circle. The circle intensified, shining so brightly I couldn't keep my eyes open. I shut them reflexively; my feet left the ground and I felt a brief float before my soles struck some other surface.
This felt like when we were summoned to that other world.
The only difference was that last time we came out inside a building. This time we emerged in a forest.
"…Where is this?"
"…!?"
"Miss Amelia?"
I glanced around and confirmed there were only trees. Then Amelia's face suddenly twisted as if she'd noticed something.
Night called Amelia's name, puzzled.
Normally expressionless — poker-faced — Amelia was unusually unsettled. Watching her, I realized her gaze was fixed on a single point. Following that line of sight, through a gap in the trees, I saw an enormous — impossibly huge — tree. Its scale distorted perspective; it glowed faintly, and a cloud clung partway up its trunk, which still had no leaves. It was so vast I couldn't fit it all in my view even from a distance. Unimaginable. How many millions of years old must it be?
Night noticed it too and frowned, probably for his own reasons, then let out a low groan.
"The Sacred Tree… Elf territory."
"That tree is the Sacred Tree?"
"Yes. That's the pride of the Elf race. They'd protect it at all costs."
Despite her words, Amelia stared at the tree with a look of loathing. I was about to say something, but I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn't even tell myself what I'd wanted to say. Still, I could feel something between Amelia and the Sacred Tree.
— I shoved Amelia down onto the ground.
"!? "
"Close one."
"Good reaction, master."
Night said it cheerfully. Ignoring him, I watched Amelia flush while I pulled a shafted arrow from the ground a little distance away. The arrowhead was damp — definitely coated with poison. As an Assassin I had read every poison compendium I could find in the Royal Castle archives and had them memorized, but I couldn't identify this one. It was likely a poison unique to the Elf race.
Amelia noticed the arrow and its poisoned head a moment later.
"That…"
"It came flying right for your throat. You were royalty once, right? You don't look like it."
I fed the arrow to shadow magic to dispose of it and, keeping watch, tried to ease the tension. Amelia looked back at me with hollow eyes and laughed.
"I'm a pariah. There's no place for me here."
Her expression made my chest ache. She'd finally been smiling more lately, and now it felt like we were back to how she was when we first met. And it wasn't just my imagination.
"…Then if I strike back, it won't tarnish your honor, right?"
I grinned and took a small Demon Stone from where I kept my hidden weapons. After checking its weight, I lightly tossed it in the direction the arrow had come from. "Lightly" in my terms still meant it flew at serious speed.
After a short while, there was the sound of the stone hitting something, followed by a dull thud as that something fell from a tree. Using presence concealment and assassination technique, I approached the fallen object. I had Night keep an eye on Amelia via telepathic link, so she should be fine. The dense trees made swinging a sword difficult, so I pulled out one of my few hidden weapons. I silently snuck up on an Elf man trying to flee a short distance away and pressed the weapon to the nape of his neck.