Chapter 124: Nerve-wracking
"It is actually my second time in the Circle," Ken said after a while. "Well, it will be my second time."
"How was the first?"
"I was waiting for my father outside the entrance," he said. "Then I got curious and stepped inside for a moment. I took one look around, then stepped right back out."
"That is it?"
"The sky was literally green," Ken said. "And the rest of the world was normal. Blue sky, all of it. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen."
"Yeah..." I frowned. "What even is the Circle? How can a place like that exist?"
"No one really knows," he said. "Probably not even the gods. At least, not the whole thing."
"There is nothing written about it?"
He shook his head. "Nothing useful. Just that it is dangerous and that we should stay far away from it."
"But people live there, right?"
"In the safe zones, yeah," he said. "It is like a tiny city built inside a nightmare. You can walk down a street and have a perfectly normal day, and then the next second something out there can split your skull open for no reason at all. It has its own strange rules."
"Hmm."
I heard movement behind us and turned my head just in time to see a guard dragging a man down the corridor toward the cells. The prisoner had a sack over his head and his hands were shackled behind his back. The guard unlocked the neighboring cage and shoved him inside, but the man panicked the second he was released, stumbled forward, and ran straight into the far wall instead of the door. The impact knocked him flat, and the guard muttered something under his breath before shaking his head and walking away.
"Oh, man," Ken said with a slow exhale. "They really do keep us at the same level as criminals."
I shrugged. "Fine by me, as long as they do not kill us."
"They are sending us into the Circle," he said. "I think that is worse than death."
"Just a few items," I said. "How hard can it be?"
"Don’t say that," Ken cut in immediately. "Do not say that word. Please."
"Yeah, you are right."
A moment later, another guard appeared from the corridor and stopped in front of our cage. Without a word, he tossed a crumpled sheet of paper through the bars and then turned around and walked off again. That was weird. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
I picked up the paper and unfolded it while Ken stood up and came over to read it over my shoulder.
"Oh," he said after a second. "Just flowers. Rabbit’s Thorn and Junglereaper. We need to get these from the Circle?"
"What are those?"
"Plants that grow in the Circle," he explained. "By themselves they are mostly useless, but when they are ground together and mixed properly, they make a strong seasoning. Guess the palace wants them for food, maybe?"
"Hmm."
"It says we need twenty of each," Ken said, sounding a lot more optimistic than I felt. "Honestly, that is doable."
I threw the paper back onto the floor and shook my head.
We were risking our lives just to collect spice ingredients for a royal meal. Because the Queen wanted her dinner to taste better.
Each second I spent in this world made me remember how easy I had it back home, where I was the selfish one and not the one getting dragged into a death trap for seasoning.
Ken, looking a little uneasy, walked back to his spot and sat on the cold stone floor. "You... you’re sure there’s a third one?"
I looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah. The two men, Ed and the unnamed guy, were waiting near that tavern. But the third one? He was the one who triggered Jelda’s necklace."
"Someone scared her into activating it," Ken muttered, rubbing his face. "Fuck..."
"Ed was terrified," I added. "Scared to death to give me a name, even though his life was literally in my hands."
"Mm..."
"Maybe the third guy is a noble?" I speculated. "Is that why Ed was so quiet?"
"Could be."
"Do you know if Jelda had anyone close to her who was rich?" I asked. "Because those two at the tavern have no connection to her. And when Jelda was first attacked, she told me the man said something incredibly personal to her."
"I don’t know," Ken said, shaking his head. "Maybe her friends know?"
"Pix." I nodded, the name clicking into place. "I could start with her."
"If we get out of the Circle alive, sure," Ken said with a bleak laugh. "Go for it."
Yeah... the Circle. I already had enough bad experiences there to last a lifetime. That teleporter had nearly killed me and Mio. Damn, everything about that place was wrong, the monsters lurking inside, the way the whole thing worked, how it reset. And that giant building I’d seen floating in the sky?
None of it. None of it made any sense.
"We should sleep," I said, leaning my head back against the wall. "It’s going to be a long day tomorrow."
Ken nodded. "You’re right... wow."
"Hmm?"
"What a day, huh?" Ken asked, looking around the dark cell. "I mean, look at us. We’re in a dungeon. I’ve never been in a dungeon before."
Suddenly, the guy with the burlap bag over his head bolted upright. He panicked, scrambled wildly toward the cell doors, and slammed his head directly into the iron bars for the second time today. He crumpled straight to the ground, knocking himself completely cold.
Ken and I stared at the idiot, then slowly turned to look at each other.
"Let’s just sleep," I muttered.
Ken nodded, pulling his knees to his chest. "Yep. Good call."
ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ꨄ︎
The Circle looked as melancholic as ever, and the closer we got, the heavier the air around it became. I hated this place with every fiber of my being. It was the kind of place where reality stopped behaving the way it was supposed to, where the laws that governed the rest of the world simply did not seem to matter. Giant floating houses, monsters that could stretch their bodies or vanish and reappear somewhere else, and all the other impossible things waiting inside it made the whole place feel wrong in a way I could not really explain.
Ken and I sat at the back of a cart drawn by two tired horses, and this time our hands were not shackled. Thornhawk was not escorting us either, only a pair of guards riding with us while the cart rattled over the dirt road. The bars of the cage were to my left, giving me a clear view of the road as it stretched behind us. The sun was only just beginning to rise, and the chill in the air was sharp enough to make me miserable.
"Rabbit’s Thorn and Junglereaper," I said, letting the names settle in my mouth. "Twenty of each."
"Should be easy," Ken replied. "I know what they look like. If we get lucky, we might finish this whole thing in half an hour."
"Here’s hoping," I muttered.
"Yeah, here’s hoping."
We rode in silence for a while after that. The cold made it hard to feel relaxed, and the early morning air only sharpened the unease I already felt. From my side of the cage I could see the road stretching ahead, muddy and pale under the rising light, while the rest of the world remained dim and quiet.
"I’m freezing," Ken muttered.
"Yeah..."
A little later the cart slowed, and when I looked to the right I finally saw the Circle ahead of us. So this was it. Twenty Rabbit’s Thorn and twenty Junglereaper. It sounded like a ridiculous amount, but at least Ken knew what he was looking for, and right now that was the only reason I was not already regretting this trip.
The coachman turned the horses around so that the cart now faced the entrance, while he and the horses stayed pointed back toward the road we had come from. One of the guards jumped down and walked to the cage door, unlocked it, and gestured for us to come forward.
"Come back here when you have the stuff," he said. "We will be waiting."
At least they were not putting some collar on us that would explode if we tried to run. That was something, I supposed.
"If you two take longer than two hours," he added, "we will assume you are dead."
"Two hours?" I asked. "Is that even enough time?"
Ken shrugged. "Those are common plants. They grow all over the place. If we are really lucky, this could take ten minutes."
"You said half an hour before."
"No. I said if we were lucky. But now I’m saying if we are REALLY lucky. It’s..."
"No more talking," the guard said. "Get moving."
Another guard approached us carrying Ken’s dagger, bow, and quiver. He handed the weapons over without a word, and Ken immediately slung the bow across his back and sheathed the dagger at his side. My own dagger was already in my inventory, so I did not bother asking for it.
Together we stepped down from the cart and turned toward the entrance.
The warning sign was still there, the words BEWARE THE CIRCLE painted in large capital letters as if that somehow made the place any less horrifying. My whole body still ached from sleeping on the ground, and now I had to walk into this nightmare again. Wonderful.
"Kinda exciting," Ken muttered.
"You mean nerve-wracking?"
He did not answer, which told me enough.
