As a princess, I have been trained firsthand to handle political complications. For example, when my mother sought refuge in Britania, my father threatened to declare war on them if they did not return her to Merika. Of course, the solution was simple: I disappeared for three weeks, threatening never to return if he did not cease his foolishness. He calmed himself after that.

The reason for this story? I am meeting Lord Cashhouse, and not long after the nearby labyrinth had sapped his city’s shields to reportedly bash its entrance with a gun barrel—and this was not long after our arrival.

I do not think he is an unreasonable man, but I also do not think it unreasonable to tie the labyrinth’s revival with our arrival. Even I do not have an satisfactory explanation for this, however, or at least not one that I can divulge so easily to Lord Cashhouse.

The doors open. They are made of fine, carved wood, reaching high up to a ceiling that I might be able to reach with some effort in a standing jump. It would not be a jest to say that these are palace doors.

I welcome myself into Lord Cashhouse’s library. Filled shelves line the sides, and they extend high enough that a rolling staircase is set aside, more like a scaffold than a staircase.

Lord Cashhouse is standing by a revolving lectern, a quaint device that holds several books open at once. He is a well-fed man, fond of jewelries that ring his fingers and pierce his ears. His hair has been receding, as of late, but it seems that he has somehow retarded said recession.

He looks up and the corners of his lips pull up. As soon as the doors close, he takes a knee.

“How patronizing,” I tell him. This man is a lord of an independent territory.

He erupts into a guffaw and stands up. “I just wanted to try that at least once!”

Sigh. “I expected that you would be complaining about the labyrinth.”

His smile disappeared. “Never one for pleasantries, are you, Your Royal Highness?”

He spun the revolving lectern, which came to a stop at a thick ledger. He flipped some pages and placed a wooden panel over the page he had stopped at. He placed his hand on the panel, and a magic circle on it glowed.

It is an accountant’s summing board, if I recall correctly. Arithmetic magics are quite useful.

Lord Cashhouse is done with the assisted magic and faces me again. “I will forgive the momentary disruption of the city barrier. However, my mana battery factories are not as simple. Even a slight disruption in power will force my managers to restart all of the factory circuits—”

“I believe I understand,” I interrupt him. It is discourteous, but it is best to deal with this man swiftly. “The shutdown incurred costs; I am not so unread that I do not realize that. How much?”

“5000 gold coins.”

That is … not a lot compared to my father’s gambling addiction. This is fine.

“I understand. As I have stated in my letter, we originally and are still in need of materials and manpower. Those requirements have not changed, and we must still requisition them—with proper remuneration, of course.”

“Says Her Royal Highness, with a legendary ship casting a shadow over my city.”

“That is out of courtesy, of course.”

“Courtesy. Of course.” He paused. His rigid facade soon gave way to a guffaw. “You’re so great!” He wiped the tears from his eyes. “In some way, I must thank you. The labyrinth’s coming alive has actually enlivened the declining ley lines in this area. My mana battery factories will not be running dry so soon, and on top of that, I can expect the nearby desert to become green.”

He looked at me with sharp eyes. “Of course, I will consider these a gift.”

“Of course,” I answered. “Our friendship is worth as much. Rather, about the matter of the 5000 gold coins, would you be amenable to amortizing payment? Five years would be generous.”

“5% annual interest.”

“No interest and I will supply you with a design to magic missiles, courtesy of a certain Margarita Colada.”

“… Princess, you are willing to boost my army’s capabilities by leaps and bounds, just like that? Have you reached the end of your wits? This benefits me more than it does you, does it not?”

“Consider it an apology.” For bringing the attention of outside forces to you and your city, no doubt. Neither the Texans nor the North will ignore the activation of a dead labyrinth, and least so after Sir Grey’s visitation.

“An apology?” His face twisted into a frown. I’m sure he’s realized it, as well. “No. Of course. These are hard times, indeed.”

“Friends must look out for friends, after all.”

“Yes. I earnestly pray for your success, Princess.”

***

Ya gurl Marge is here! … Sort of!

“I’ll be seein’ ya around, ma’am.”

Major Billy tips his hat as he goes into the prison. It’s a dainty-looking building that looks like a bunch of boulders stacked on each other, then it held together for more than 10 minutes, so they decided to call it a building.

He’d mentioned he’d be “savin’ some poor souls,” but I don’t get what that means? Texans, I tell ya…

He went in with some of his own men, so I guess it’s fine to go on our own way. I feel someone tugging on my sleeve.

—Where are we going?

It’s just Pashin, though—eugh! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the telepathic translation thingy she got from the labyrinth. Is this what Grey hears from November? He sounded like he was used to it, though… We’ll probably get used to it, too, then? I hope so.

“Ohh, I never told you originally, did I? We’re gonna meet a friend!”

Yep, the linguist weirdo. Apparently he wasn’t at the labyrinth at the time. The site manager said that he usually was, but I guess we just got unlucky. I got the guy’s address, though, so we should be good to go.

By the way, Grey’s marines and some of the Emperor’s ninja apprentices are with us. Obviously, the ninjas are blending into the background.

A suspicious cardboard box following us? Nonsense!

We begin walking, passing by a market street and getting into a scuffle with some slave traders.

“No, she’s not merchandise. Where’s your license, anyway, huh?”

The marines move in, and the two thugs are the ones surrounded now!

“H-hey now, we actually have a license, okay?”

They hand me a card. Huh.

“I’ll let you off if you do me a favor.”

Then I extorted street directions from them. All in my favor.

We finally reached Las Vegas University. If I had anything to say about it, it’s that this is probably the most pitiful university I’ve ever seen. I mean, sure, it’s still on a kinda-big plot of land. It’s a square, brick building, about two stories high. I guess it’s about as big as an Adventurers Guild branch in some small town?

What’s the enrollment in this place, huh? A whole of ten?

“Huh? Marge, is that you!”

I turn my head left and right—the acoustics here are so bad, I swear—then finally, up. From a second floor window, I see a pair of glasses and a head of fluffy hair. Dude’s stick-thin, as ever.

“Yo!” I wave. “I’ve got a favor!”

“Sure! Don’t bring all the scary-looking bodyguards inside, though!”

After he pops his head back in, Sue takes a look around and does some low-key signals. The marines that I do know of start to scatter and take strategic positions around the busy street. I can see some gaps, but that’s probably because I just can’t find the marines she put there.

It takes a good kick to get the door to budge open, but it does, and I go inside with Sue and Pashin.

There’s all of three people inside: one’s making coffee by the pantry, and two are sipping the stuff on either side of a coffee table. Actually, it took me a while to recognize that it was a coffee table. There’s just so many papers sprawled across it, how are you guys so messy!

“Marge!” Dave called from the mezzanine, then ran down the stairs to greet us. “And I know what you’re thinking! No, you don’t get to judge how messy we all are with our work, coz you’re the same!”

Tsch. “W-whatever do you mean?”

He chuckled. “Nice to see you again, too—though, who’s this?”

“Right. This is a bit of serious business. Can we take this to your office?” I paused. “You have an office, right?”

 

Okay, so it turned out it he did.

There was a bedroll in one corner. I guess, at least props to him for keeping the floor clean enough to sleep on?

We sit down around his desk—though Sue’s standing guard outside—and the first thing I do is pull out a bunch of paperwork with royal seals on it—stuff to swear him to secrecy and such. It was kinda scary when bestie pulled them out from her sleeves.

“Huh? You just keep all that in there?” “One never knows when one must swear another to secrecy.”

That was her reasoning, and y’know what? I agree. I agree wholeheartedly.

“Uhh, what’s in it for me?” Dave’s looking nervous with all the super official documents in front of him.

“Ancient civilizations.”

I made sure it was just a good-enough hint for him to connect the dots. Y’know, something like ‘Ancient civilizations? I’m a linguist? Ancient languages?!’ or some thought process like that.

“I see…” Woah there, your face is kinda scary. “I will undertake this mission with all my heart!”

He signs off on all the documents that could probably get him executed if he squeaks even once about it. Not exactly my problem, but man, I’m sorta concerned.

“D-dave, did you read all of that properly?”

“Hm? Yeah, I’m totally literate.”

How’s he making it sound like he’s not, what the heck.

“S-so, now that that’s done!” I quickly cast a privacy barrier to cover the whole room. “Alright! Dave, this is Pashin. Pashin, this is Dave.”

“H-hello.” Dave waves shyly.

—Hi?

“Whuh?!”

“Oh. Right. She uses this telepathic translator thingy. Kinda weird that her mouth isn’t moving even if you hear her voice, huh?”

Dave eyes Pashin’s collar. “A telepathic translator? I’ll ignore the fact that that’s some neat stuff, but I study Elvish languages, you know? And I can actually speak enough of it to survive in Lesser Sharl!”

“I know, I know!” I shoot him a mischievous look. “Pashin! Turn it off!”

She presses something on the collar.

“Now say hi!” Ah. Wait. She wouldn’t understand me.

“… Ya?” (What?)

I fidget a little bit—coz this didn’t turn out the way I expected it to! I end up poking her collar, and she eventually gets my intention and she turns it back on.

—Sorry, what did you say?

“I-I just wanted you to give Dave here a demo of your language—”

I sense something. Something off.

Slowly, I turn to Dave. He’s already propping up his chin with his hands, and he’s frozen eerily still.

—Is he okay?

“Looks like we’ll have to keep ourselves entertained for a while…”

—W-what do you mean?

“Looks like Dave’s… loading.”

Pashin gasps—then looks at me quizzically.

—That’s… That’s not actually as serious as it sounds, is it?

“Oh, well, it’s not like he’ll die or anything. He’s just gonna sit very still and think about stuff.”

Still, I’m surprised he’s ended up like this just after hearing a single word out of Pashin. Guy’s a real genius when it comes to Elvish languages. I’m entirely unsure if it has anything to do with his elf fetish—chicken-and-egg sort of problem, I think.

Did his love of Elvish languages inspire a love of elves? Did his love of elves inspire his love of their languages? Beats me, and I don’t wanna know.

“Pashin! Let’s go down and grab some coffee!” I take her by the hand, but there’s a little bit of anxious tension in it. I turn up my bestest smile and play with her hand. “Don’t worry, the dudes around here are too sleep-deprived to think about doing anything to you!”

 

After a short adventure to the pantry and bringing back a cup of joe for Sue, we’re back at Dave’s office.

There’s a little bit of an aura wafting off of him. I still don’t get what it is, but it happens whenever he’s close to an answer.

“Any moment, now,” I tell Pashin. “He might suddenly stand up and say something loud, so don’t be too surprised, okay?”

She nods, and we enjoy the coffee for a little bit more.

—I think I’ll like it a bit sweeter.

“It goes well with sugar and milk, actually. Pantry didn’t have any, though.” I guess when you’re too sleep-deprived and bitter to enjoy life, it’d reflect in your drink, huh?

“AHA!” Dave springs up. Pashin is joggled a bit, but not enough to spill anything.

“Analysis!” I raise my cup to Dave.

“After cross-referencing and doing some evolutionary simulations, I’ve figured out that your friend speaks Old Elvish!” He continues mumbling. “Honestly, the word ‘Ya’ is pretty common, but not as a word. It’s usually a postfix attached to the verb. It turns the whole thing into a question asking for confirmation. So if ‘eta’ means ‘is’, then ‘So-and-so etaya’ is a question asking ‘Is something so-and-so?’”

He pointed to Pashin. “But! Modern Standard Elvish spoken in Lesser Sharl never uses it in the way this fine lady did!”

—F-fine lady…

“Yes! You’d never say ‘Ya’ as a standalone interjection to generally ask for confirmation! Nowadays, the cool kids say ‘Ja’!” He blushes and scratches his cheek. He blushes—I swear, this guy… "Honestly, it took me a while to remember that the Great Consonant Kidnapping happened that one time and the ancient elven dominions starting importing consonants from the surrounding human nations, which was where the ‘J’ sound came in—at roughly around the same time said human nations started to stop using the sound. I mean, gee, what a coincidence, really.

“And that happened, what, 2000 years ago?”

Pashin and I are just… this is just unbelievable.

 

2000 years? You can keep your skin this amazing for 2000 years?! That’s cheating!