Chapter 8: The Cries of A Young Maiden

“Please,” Miyu whispered into the charged air, voice trembling but clear—like a bell rung in a storm.

Her tears fell in slow, deliberate drops, each one landing on the Kitsune’s Pearl with a soft hiss, as if the jewel drank her sorrow. Monica and Mei didn’t speak. They couldn’t. The Pearl pulsed once — not with light, but with intent, like a breath held too long.

“I want… everyone to keep smiling…” Her words didn’t rise above the chaos. They cut through it. “Just one more time.”

The air thickened, humming with mana so dense it tasted of honey and iron. Light surged outward, bending the cavern’s edges like heat haze. A crack split the floor with the sound of a felled tree, racing outward faster than thought — faster than fear.

And then, silence.

***

The world returned in fragments.

First came scent: cool linen laced with mint — the kind steeped into festival tea and healer’s poultices. Then sound: murmured voices beyond thick stone walls, one reciting a prayer in clipped, rhythmic syllables. Then light — soft gold spilling through a narrow window, fractured by smoked crystal.

As his consciousness slowly came to, Allen’s body felt like it had been buried alive. When he shifted, pain flared along his ribs, sharp and immediate. A groan escaped before he could swallow it.

Above him, the ceiling arched in pale stone, etched with looping runes that pulsed faintly. Not just decoration—ward-veins. Old magic. Protective, persistent. His gaze followed their rhythm until it blurred.

“Where… am I?” His voice scraped out dry and cracked, like paper dragged across stone.

Footsteps echoed in the hall — hurried, uneven. The wall‑runes picked up the cadence, glowing in faint sympathy, as if the room itself could feel urgency. The door swung open.

Monica filled the frame, breathless. Her hair was slightly mussed, but it wasn’t the only thing out of place. She wore a frilled black‑and‑white maid’s dress, the crisp apron marked with the faint scent of spices from some earlier errand. At her collar, her locket glimmered a soft, steady orange — a weaker glow than he remembered.

“Allen…” Relief softened her whole face. She crossed to the bed in three strides, pouring water into a wide‑mouthed ceramic cup. He noticed the glaze was chipped and painted with a crest.

“Slowly,” she murmured, tilting the rim to his lips. The water was cool, touched with mint, and carried a faint mineral tang from subterranean springs.

“You’ve been unconscious a week,” Monica said once he’d drained half the cup. Her voice stayed calm, but there was a tightness under the words. “We weren’t sure you’d wake.”

Memory flickered: the cavern, the roar, the Orc Lord’s gaze. The crack of ribs. Monica’s scream, distant and sharp. Miyu’s cry. Then nothing.

“It’s blank after the ambush,” he admitted.

Monica eased onto the stool beside him, her hands folded. “After you fell, Mei and I tried to hold the line. You… stood again. Bleeding, broken. You shouted at him.”

She looked away, voice thinning. “And then Miyu—she held the Pearl. She wished for one more day where everyone could smile.”

Allen’s breath caught. The room felt too still.

“That wish cracked the world open,” Monica went on, eyes lowering. “The cavern split, and the Sabaku came.”

She didn’t need to describe them, but did anyway — voice dropping, almost reverent. Desert‑dwelling tapir, creatures of dusk and silence. By day, basking in sun‑cracked hollows; by night, swimming through the earth like water, vanishing at the first hint of threat… unless called by something deeper.

“They heard her,” Monica said, voice low. “When the rock fell, they moved with it. The ground opened like a mouth and took us in — carried us far below.”

Allen tried to sit up, but Monica’s hand was already on his shoulder, warm and firm. Her pulse thudded beneath her skin — steady, worn, like a drum that had been played too long.

“Don’t,” she said, gently but with the authority of someone who’d been making sure he survived all week.

He obeyed, not because he couldn’t, but because the bruised crescents under her eyes told him she needed him to. She sat beside him, fingers lacing together, and for a moment her composure faltered.

“Without them…” Her voice cracked. “I thought we’d lost you.”

The Sabaku dwelling had been unlike anything they’d imagined. The air shimmered with the mineral‑sweet scent of crystal bloom. The walls pulsed with a subterranean song that seeped into the ribs like a second heartbeat. Their medicine was limited, but their generosity was not. Through the Kitsune’s Pearl, Miyu had relayed the elders’ advice: the surface was the only place Allen’s wounds could truly knit.

Mei had gathered them in the bloom‑chamber — light refracting from hundreds of suspended crystals, drifting like frozen rain over tired faces.

“We need to decide,” she said, her voice firm but tired. “Do we wait for Allen to wake up… or move forward?”

They’d sat in a circle — Monica with her straight‑backed resolve, Miyu with worry twitching her ears, Protag‑kun slumped but attentive, Cinnamon in her lap like a tiny, furred sentinel. Every one of them bore bruises and the worn look of people who’d burned through their reserves. The silence stretched… then hands went up. One paw joined them.

The decision was unanimous: they would rest. Then they would climb back to the surface.

Time underground was slippery. Without clocks, the Sabaku measured time by the rise and fall of the crystal‑song and the blooming cycles of their gardens. When the group finally shouldered their packs, a white‑muzzled elder stepped forward with a shallow stone dish, brushing a trace of silver dust across each forehead. The dust was cool, faintly gritty, and left a shimmer in their peripheral vision — a send‑off ward against “bad earth luck.”

Protag-kun, ever the anime devotee, murmured something about “status buffs” under her breath.

Around them, the crystal‑eyed villagers dimmed their gaze in unison, like lanterns bowing. The song deepened into a slow harmony that pressed gently against ribcages — not heard so much as felt — and Allen, even in unconsciousness, seemed to breathe in time with it.

Mei adjusted her pack straps with her usual crisp efficiency and glanced sidelong at Protag‑kun. “Are you sure you should be doing this?”

It might have sounded braver if he weren’t listing gently under Allen’s limp weight, muttering about “carrying capacity penalties.”

Their Sabaku guide moved ahead, gliding through the tunnels with uncanny grace — feet never quite touching, as if shaping the path with each step. The climb was slow, the air thinning of magic with every turn. Monica’s locket dimmed to a whisper. Mei’s steps grew heavier. Even Cinnamon stopped squeaking, his tiny paws curled tight around Miyu’s collar.

The light changed, too — warm crystal glow giving way to slivers of cold daylight stabbing through fissures. The scent shifted from moss and stone-dust to pine resin and dry wind.

Two days passed in that gradient of change before they reached the cavern mouth. Miyu stepped forward, Cinnamon perched proudly on her shoulder. She bowed low in the Sabaku way — one hand over her heart, the other palm-up in thanks.

“Thank you for everything,” she said in the surface tongue.

The Sabaku elder embraced them briefly — arms cool as stone, touch surprisingly gentle — then retreated into shadow, leaving only the echo of the song behind.

The group emerged into a sky streaked in burnt orange, the sun dragging its last light toward the jagged black of the cliffline. The forest ahead pulsed with unseen life — chittering in the canopy, rustling in the underbrush, the kind of noise that made you feel watched.

No orcs. No blood. Just wind and trees.

Relief came quietly, like a breath held too long. Protag-kun dropped to his knees and kissed the dry earth with theatrical reverence. Cinnamon squeaked from his shoulder, tilting his head as if trying to understand the ritual.

“I can’t believe we’re back on ground level,” Protag‑kun muttered.

But relief didn’t change the math. The nearest human settlement was still far, and the path cut straight through monster-marked territory. The signs were subtle but unmistakable — claw scars etched into pine trunks, bone shards arranged in ritual circles, the kind of warnings that didn’t need translation.

The days wore on.

Mei’s boots split at the seams, her steps growing uneven. Protag-kun’s arms trembled beneath Allen’s weight, his bravado peeling away with each mile. Monica leaned on a stick cut from the trail, her mana flickering low, her breath shallow. Miyu stayed close to Cinnamon, whose cheeks had hollowed, his fur dimming in pulses of fading light.

“Dire wolf sighting, twelve o’clock,” Mei called out, voice clipped.

“Explosion, explosion—damn it…” Protag-kun hissed, adjusting his grip on Allen while trying to summon a spell. His fingers shook. The magic fizzled.

By the time the settlement’s stone wall rose on the horizon, they weren’t walking — they were enduring. Their silence was heavy, carved from exhaustion and grit.

At the gate, two guards in lacquered scale and storm-blue cloaks leveled their spears. The older one barked the standard challenge in clipped local speech: “Halt! Name and proof!”

His eyes scanned their bruises, their mismatched gear, the absence of guild tokens. Suspicion clung to him like smoke.

Monica stepped forward, voice hoarse but steady. “Survivors. We fled the Orc Lord. We need medical aid.”

The guard’s gaze lingered on Allen’s limp frame, the sunken cheeks, the blood-stiff clothes. Even his shoulders eased at the sight.

“Open!” he called, and the gates groaned wide.

Inside, the fort was taut with purpose. The air smelled of oiled leather and inked runes. Smith-hammers rang from the armourers’ yard. Mage-scribes bent over ward-slates, tracing sigils with silver styluses. Healers moved like clockwork, arms full of bandages, eyes sharp. The orc threat wasn’t a rumor anymore—it was a countdown.

They were given space in the infirmary: a narrow cot curtained with rough linen, a wooden bucket of water gone tepid, the soft creak of bowstrings being restrung somewhere outside. A single healer knelt beside Allen, fingers cool and precise.

“These wounds…” he murmured, tracing the bruises with practiced detachment. “Poultice won’t be enough. Mana infusion. Stabilization wards. But it’s going to be costly.”

Monica emptied their pouch onto the tray — cracked monster cores, some twitching faintly with dying energy. The healer counted them silently, his expression unreadable.

“This buys bandages. Pain draught. Not the infusion.”

Her throat tightened. “We can’t—”

“This world runs on coin, not heroics,” he said, not unkindly. Then, softer: “But I made an oath. I’ll do what I can. The rest… will be on him.”

Allen’s eyes adjusted to the now-familiar arch of the infirmary ceiling, the herbal tang of mint still lingering in the air like memory. Pain pulsed in his ribs — dulled, but insistent. Monica’s voice echoed faintly in his mind, her account looping like a dream half-remembered.

Then the door slammed open.

“Allen!” Mei skidded into the room, her oversized maid shoes squealing against the flagstones. Her apron was dusted with flour, and the scent of honey-glaze clung to her like perfume — sweet, spicy, and absurdly comforting.

Behind her came Miyu, Cinnamon perched proudly on her shoulder, his miniature apron knotted crookedly around his belly. And then, Protag-kun—lace-trimmed, stiff-backed, and visibly suffering. Each uniform bore subtle differences in pattern and trim, denoting rank in the café’s service hierarchy. On Protag-kun, the fitted bodice gaped awkwardly, a tragic monument to misplaced confidence.

Allen blinked. “I… haven’t woken up in some weird dream, right.”

“Nope,” Mei said dryly, resettling her frilled headband. “Welcome back to us.”

Miyu waved shyly, her ears twitching beneath her bonnet. Cinnamon squeaked and puffed out his chest, adjusting his apron with the solemnity of a knight preparing for battle.

Protag-kun crossed his arms, the frills rustling indignantly. “I wanted a cool job. Guard duty. Monster hunting. Something heroic. But with the orc alerts, all the big postings are locked down. And apparently, my language skills max out at ‘dish duty.’”

After the guard warnings, half the civilian quarter had shuttered. The Sugar Plum Café remained one of the few places still open — a strange hybrid of surface-world novelty and local dining hall. In exchange for kitchen shifts, they’d secured two rooms upstairs and partial board. It was the only way to keep Allen’s treatment going without draining their coin-purse to dust.

“And these,” Mei gestured to the ruffles, “were the only uniforms left in the storeroom.” A carved placard downstairs promised “Mirthful Maids with a Smile” in both elegant local script and clumsy phonetic surface-letters.

Allen let the absurdity sink in. “You’re… working at a maid café.”

Monica entered behind them, balancing a tray of rice porridge. Her expression was calm, almost serene—but her eyes flicked to Allen’s bandages with quiet calculation.

“Your treatment costs more than we planned,” she said. “The cores barely covered the basics. This… helps.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“We wanted to,” she said, her tone soft but final. “We don't abandon each other. This is the least we can give back.”

From below came the clatter of ceramic on stone, the uneven chorus of servers greeting patrons in accented local tongue, the scent of honey-glaze and spiced root broth curling up through the rafters. In that mingling of homey sounds and ridiculous frills, something inside Allen loosened—a knot he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

They were together. Still moving forward.

Mei stepped closer, pressing a hand to his shoulder. “Rest. Real rest. We’ll bring you something better than porridge later.”

One by one, they slipped out — Miyu’s hug warm but fleeting, Cinnamon’s farewell squeak dignified, Protag-kun muttering about “maid PTSD” as he ducked through the doorframe. Mei lingered just long enough to tuck a stray strand of hair from Allen’s forehead before following.

Only Monica remained.

She stood in the doorway’s spill of lamplight, fingers curled around the frame. Her gaze met his—steady, unreadable. Something flickered there. Regret, maybe. Or something she wasn’t ready to name.

“Monica…”

Her lips parted, then closed. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she murmured, almost lost beneath the café’s hum.

The door clicked shut.

Allen lay back, staring at the ward-light’s slow pulse. Somewhere below, his friends were playing maids to keep him alive.