RMGCFW — Chapter 101 - Heading North Once More

"I can hardly take it anymore!" Roxy's nerves were fraying.

Nearly a month had passed since the day she accidentally stumbled upon the maid's secret.

In that time, she kept hearing strange sounds drifting from the maid's room, the kitchen, the living room, the balcony. All over the mansion, at all hours.

In public, Tsubaki Rurikawa was always so poised, so proper. Could the desire for that sort of thing in private really be that strong?

And besides... doing it alone, and still making that much noise.

"T-The very last time... Tomorrow. Tomorrow I really have to warn Miss Rurikawa that doing too much of that is bad for her health..."

Dressed in a thin white nightgown, small face burning red, Roxy crept down the hallway to the room next door.

The maid's room. Separated from hers by a single wall.

The sounds leaking through that wall, the kind that made your face flush and your heart stutter, had robbed Roxy of a single peaceful night for weeks.

"R-Really. The absolute last time..."

Listening to the soft, broken sounds from behind the door, the petite blue-haired girl's legs slowly gave out beneath her, and she slid down the wall.

She sank against it, knees drawn to her chest, breathing coming apart at the seams.

The night was still. Only those faint, half-muffled sounds from behind the door, and the girl's own quickening heartbeat, tangled together in the dark hallway.

...

Morning. The dining table.

Heavy dark circles hung under Roxy's eyes. She looked completely hollowed out.

The elf ate expressionlessly, soft bread, one small bite at a time, vegetable soup in careful sips.

Miss Rurikawa, the maid, had asked the master of the mansion for the morning off due to feeling unwell. Permission had already been granted.

"Return to Fundamentals at lv.2. That really is something," Banxia reflected privately.

Even the elf hadn't noticed a thing.

The concealment techniques that came with Return to Fundamentals let him move through that sort of activity without leaking so much as a whisper of his aura or energy.

"Banxia, are you leaving today?" Roxy set down her spoon and looked up at him.

"Yeah. I've stalled long enough — time to get back on the road north." Banxia took a bite of soft bread, a sip of soup. "Don't worry. My body's basically recovered. I'll pack up this afternoon and head out."

"Come to think of it... your stomach trouble took this long to clear up. Did you eat something bad in the labyrinth?" The elf looked puzzled.

"Not exactly." Banxia waved a hand. He thought it over, then said, "I was cursed by a Life Spirit. A few matters led to that."

"Life Spirit?" Roxy had a vague feeling she'd come across that term somewhere in an old text.

The elf beside her had far more experience with the world, and drew a sharp breath. "You were cursed by a Life Spirit?!"

"Yeah. But the curse is already lifted."

His tone was so matter-of-fact that Roxy didn't read it as anything too serious.

She turned to the elf. "Is being cursed by a Life Spirit really such a big deal?"

The elf: "..."

A long pause. Then a long, slow exhale.

Thinking back on everything strange about the young man over these past weeks, there seemed to be nothing left to do but accept it once more.

Another thing that shattered the elf's understanding of the world, happened to Banxia, understated as anything, and already resolved.

"There are three main creation theories in circulation these days.

The first is the most widespread: creation by the Goddess, backed by the Church and the nobility.

The second is creation by the ancient demonic dragon, believed by a minority — Xiaoyan's existence alone is difficult to explain otherwise.

As for the third..." The elf looked between them.

"...it's the version most elves hold to. The world was created by various 'spirits.' Like the mana drifting through the air, they have no independent consciousness. Every law of the world is a unified whole. Together, they are what built this world."

Roxy understood immediately why the elf had reacted with such shock. Being cursed by a Life Spirit was the equivalent of a fragile human body pitting itself against something like a natural disaster given collective will.

And he had apparently won.

Utterly unbelievable.

But unlike the elf, who was still reeling from one revelation after another, Roxy had long since made peace with the inexplicable things that happened around Banxia.

Sometimes she even wondered if he might be someone from another world, someone who had sensed the disaster bearing down on this one, and come here with companions to face it.

Because she truly couldn't imagine what kind of existence could be described as an "unimaginable monster", something that even this man had found troublesome.

Whatever it was, it had to be something far beyond Great Demon Geist, Xiaoyan, mythological labyrinths, Oberon Holstein the greatest warrior in history, mythological great monsters, some ultimate existence beyond any measure she knew.

Had Banxia's companions not stopped it at the cost of their lives, this world might have already fallen to ruin.

She watched the young man across the table, quietly drinking his soup, and slowly tightened her fingers in her lap.

Mr. Banxia cared about people so deeply. And yet he had always walked alone, at the very front of it all.

If there was a god who saved the people of this world, it had to be Mr. Banxia.

...

That afternoon, the elf took a nap and woke up clear-headed and refreshed. Ready for the long road ahead.

Coming out of the room, the elf found the Shinomiya master and servant in the living room with Roxy, deep in discussion about whether to invest heavily in renovating and expanding Mr. Banxia's mansion. As the residence of the South's strongest, the current state of it was, admittedly, a little lacking.

"...Where's the adventurer?" A few minutes of listening to that conversation was more than enough. The elf scanned the room. No sign of the young man anywhere.

"Miss Elf, you're up." Roxy glanced back, voice carrying a note of surprise.

"Hm?" The elf tilted their head.

Waking up from a nap. Was that strange?

Kaguya Shinomiya answered:

"Mr. Banxia left for the north on his own at noon."

"Hm?"

Looking at the elf's utterly baffled expression, Roxy sighed and said gently:

"Mr. Banxia said taking you north would be far too dangerous. For your safety, he decided to go alone — so he slipped a sleeping draught into the tea you had at noon."

"..."

"Ordinarily, it would keep a normal person asleep until evening. I didn't expect you to wake up this quickly." Kaguya Shinomiya also seemed mildly surprised.

That potion had come from the Xiaye Chamber of Commerce by Mr. Banxia's hand, so they knew very well how potent it was.

It seemed Miss Elf was not only noble and striking in appearance, but a formidable warrior besides.

Still, even a Platinum-rank adventurer was, in the end, a burden on Mr. Banxia's journey north.

"Oh? Miss Elf, is something wrong?"

"...That idiot!"

Cheeks puffed with indignation, the blonde, blue-eyed elf stomped the floor.