Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

It had been some time since the kids from the slums had made a move to kidnap me.

While I’d noticed them watching us from a distance every now and then, they hadn’t tried anything directly since then. So, on the surface, things had settled into a fragile calm…

“Noche, have you been living here for a long time?”
“Nya?”

To be honest, I hadn’t intended to get too involved with Noche and Filia.

The plan was simple: borrow a place to stay for a while, and once I had my equipment in order, leave some sort of payment behind and get out of the city.

“Hmm, I guess you could say a while—about half a year, nya.”
“I see…”

That was why I hadn’t even thought about asking why two kids with such a clearly different level of education were living in a place like this.

Whatever their circumstances, Sufi was my priority. I didn’t intend to pry into things I didn’t need to know.

“What’s with the sudden question, nya?”
“Well, this area is pretty spacious and easy to live in, so I was wondering why the people from the slums don’t come near it.”
“Ah… hmm…”

What had caught my attention was the behavior of the slum residents. For some reason, this cluster of ruins was located inside the city walls, with part of the forest and ancient structures built right into them. The ruins were old but sturdy; while some parts had collapsed, they weren’t inconvenient to live in.

From what I’d seen of the slums, their buildings were mostly run-down, half wooden, half stone. Here, though, there were waterways inside the walls where fish could be caught, and plenty of edible wild plants to be found.

It seemed like a perfect place for homeless kids to live, yet the slum residents seemed to go out of their way to avoid coming here.

I could hear plenty of activity on their side, but aside from the boys who occasionally picked on Noche, nobody else even approached. Honestly, it was a little unsettling.

“It’s because of the Monster of the Ruins, nya.”
“Monster?”
“These ruins are super old, and there’s a huge underground area too, nya. There’s a rumor that a monster appears here, nya.”

That was troubling information. But if there’s a rumor about monsters being here, it makes sense that those kids wouldn’t get close. Monsters, generally speaking, aren’t something that normal people—those without training in martial arts or magic—can deal with barehanded.

Just to get food is a struggle for those who live in the slums, so they probably don’t have proper equipment either. Running into a monster would certainly be a death sentence.

…But still.

“…Just a rumor?”
“Yeah, nya. I once heard some weird growling noises, but when I checked it out, it turned out it was just the wind howling, nya.”

Apparently, no one’s ever actually seen one. Even the growl Noche had heard was just the wind blowing through a passage on a windy day.

“Well, thanks to that, we don’t have to worry about any annoying people coming here, nya.”
“Yeah.”

Even when I strained my ears in the ruins, I couldn’t hear any strange noises. Feeling relieved that there was no immediate danger, I relaxed a bit.

“Don’t worry, nya. If a monster shows up, I’ll take it down myself, nya.”
“…Okay.”

Noche flexed her arm to show off her muscles, bared her fangs, and flashed a wide grin.

At first, she was so openly hostile that she was a little scary, but before I knew it, she had started smiling so freely like this. That innocent smile overlapped with Sufi’s in my mind.

“Alice! Dinner’s ready!”
“We’re having fish tonight!”

Filia and Sufi, who were on cooking duty, came to call us. I finished processing the aserica herbs and stood up.

“Whoa…”

I staggered a little from dizziness, and Noche gently supported my back.

“You okay?”
“Yeah, thanks… Noche, you’re really kind.”
“…Well, being born frail ain’t your fault, nya. Don’t worry about it, nya.”

When I thanked her, she said that and turned away. Her face was a little red.

I decided to ignore the way her tail was swaying like she was embarrassed and went to eat.

“Alice, can you handle the bones?”
“Yeah, I can crush them.”
“Alice, even though you’re so tiny, you really are a wolf, huh…”
“I can do that much too, nya.”

Crunching the grilled fish bones to pieces with my molars, I watched the lively dinner scene.

…After Grandpa’s health got worse, meals were just Sufi and me.

That was still much better than the cold meals I ate alone in my past life, but honestly, food eaten with worry in your heart didn’t taste very good.

Dinner with the four of us was lively. The dishes on the table were so plain and humble that even the word “simple” wasn’t enough to describe them, yet somehow they felt like a feast.

When we set off on our journey someday, the two of them will… I stopped myself. They have their own lives, their own circumstances.

Even in this town, they’d do just fine. What we’re trying to do is a dangerous, unpromising journey across the continent. The chances of dying along the way are far higher.

Dragging along people who already have a place to belong, just because of our selfish plans—that would be wrong.

■■■

It was raining. A heavy, relentless downpour. Water poured in through holes in the ceiling, collecting in a hollow in the square and forming a puddle. There was so much water that it couldn’t drain fast enough into the underground of the ruins.

“Seriously, it’s been nothing but rain, nya.”
“Yeah.”

We live on a massive continent. The Kingdom of Roud, located in the southwest on a continental map, is geographically dry and warm. The weather rarely changes much, and drought is a greater concern than flood control.

So weather this stormy was rare.

For me, someone who always feels depressed on rainy days, this was close to the worst possible weather.

“Kyah!”

With rain continuing this long, even the air had turned chilly. The four of us were huddled together in the square. The rain pounding through the holes in the ceiling grew louder, and Sufi let out a soft, startled cry.

“It’s pouring.”
“The slums must be soaked through by now, nya.”
“Yikes…”

Buildings around here, in this dry, warm region, weren’t built to withstand this kind of rain. Even the relatively nice house where I lived with Grandpa had leaks everywhere whenever it rained.

“Well, this place drains all the rainwater down below, so we’re fine, nya.”
“You didn’t build it, Noche.”
“I’m the one who found it, nya!”

Perhaps to put us at ease, Noche puffed out her chest proudly and smirked as if she’d accomplished something great. Filia quickly shot back at her remark, and that sparked a small laugh.

“Come to think of it, where does all this water drain to? That underground passage, maybe?”
“Dunno, nya. No clue.”

I watched the water rushing into a hole in the floor. The ruins themselves weren’t designed with drainage in mind, so it must be flowing into some other place.

I thought it might be going into the underground passages, but the structure and depth I pictured in my head didn’t match the location of these ruins. It wasn’t flowing into the outer waterways either. Could there be another space below this place?

……?

A bad feeling ran through me, and a chill went down my spine.

“…Alice, what’s wrong?”

Sufi seemed to notice something was off and peered into my face with concern.

“…Noche, are there any underground passages running directly beneath these ruins? Or maybe another set of ruins?”
“Nya? No, not that I can think of, nya.”
“Um, there’s a path that’s collapsed and blocked off, though?”

Since this was only meant to be a temporary shelter, I hadn’t even thought to study the structure of these ruins.

After asking Filia for details, I learned that part of the underground passage had collapsed, making it impassable, but the underground itself extended much deeper.

…What kind of ruins is this supposed to be? I couldn’t understand why they’d be built that way.

“Sufi knows about it too. It twists and turns all over—it’s like a maze.”
“…I see.”

A tangled underground maze. A few purposes came to mind for building something like that…

One would be to keep intruders out. If something important was hidden underground, they could make the passages complex to prevent anyone from reaching it. That’s the first thing you’d think of when designing a labyrinth.

Another would be… to seal something away. Like in myths, where they’d lure an uncontrollable monster deep underground and trap it there so it couldn’t escape.

Like, say, the Monster of the Ruins… I mean, what are the chances?