“Pen!” Chris said. The entrance to the town looked . . . less guarded than expected, actually. The place looked like a peaceful castle town, totally free from the threat of the waves. I looked up at the big castle built on top of the iron towers. It definitely blocked the sunlight down here a bit. Having a castle on top of what was basically loads of Tokyo Towers was a pretty bizarre construction, all things considered.

We proceeded through the town. Chris led the way with his Kizuna-detector ability. We had to be pretty careful not to attract any attention, but I was pretty sure we’d be okay. We were just using a peculiar shikigami, that was all.

We made it through the main street and passed through the back alleys, then along a side street. Chris’s detection still cut off every now and then, but maybe because we were getting closer, he quickly picked the trail up again.

“I was worried maybe she’d fallen into the never-ending labyrinth again, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case,” I said.

“At least if that was the case, we would know she had a way out,” Raphtalia commented.

“When you came here before, you found yourself in a bit of a tight spot, right?” I asked her.

“I did. Thank you for reminding me,” she said, heavy on the irony. “My escape was pretty thrilling, I must admit.”

“Seeing as we’re talking about Kizuna, she might be stuck there again,” I said.

“I don’t know. The history of this nation does state that the town was built on top of an underground maze,” Ethnobalt explained. This sounded a lot like the nation that had sealed away the Spirit Tortoise.

“I’ve heard that the underground maze was once a place that adventurers explored,” Glass added. From the way she phrased that, I guessed it had already been cleaned out.

There was the never-ending labyrinth anyway and also the labyrinth library to which Ethnobalt belonged. So that suggested this world had its fair share of labyrinthine buildings. In our world, there were apparently a lot of old ruins called dungeons, or dragon’s nests, that had gradually been expanded in size. Wyndia, Rat, and Gaelion had told me about such places.

“Itsuki and his party can check out those things. We need to locate where Kizuna is being held,” I reminded everyone.

“Of course. Chris, what are you sensing?” Glass inquired. Chris proceeded to make a protracted “pen” noise, placing a flipper on his head and moaning before indicating the direction to take.