Sea of the Wind, Shore of the Maze, Prologue

like the kind his grandmother wore.
    When she was dressing him, Sanshi kept her silence. He thought that she sure was a quiet person, but it  didn't make him feel awkward. After he was dressed, Sanshi took his hand and lead him to the room next  door. He saw a table in the center of the room on which a breakfast had been set, and Youka standing next to  it.
    "Good morning, Youka."
    Youka smiled with joy. "Good morning. Did you sleep well last night?"
    "Very well. Did you make this breakfast?"
    "No, another person is specially assigned to make your breakfast."
    Taiki looked at her with surprise. "Then is there also someone who's specially assigned to sweep?"
    "Yes. Well now, please eat before your food gets cold."
    I've become the child of a rich family, thought Taiki, though in reality, he didn't actually know people  like that.
    He raised his hand to receive the long, white chopsticks that Youka handed over to him.
    He looked over the food on the table, none of which he recognized, and then he looked at Youka and  Sanshi.
    "Aren't you guys eating?"
    "Sanshi doesn't eat, and I've already eaten."
    "But I can't finish this all by myself."
    There were many dishes on the table, big and small.
    "It's okay if you can't finish everything."
    "Is it because I slept late that everyone's already eaten?"

    Youka laughed. "Sanshi doesn't need to eat anything, but if she did, her status does not permit her to  eat with you."
    Taiki tilted his head. Although he had heard of the word "status," he still didn't quite understand what  Youka meant.
    "Can't you all eat with me? Even if I woke up earlier?"
    "No."
    Taiki gave the food on the table a confused look. "Why?"
    "It's probably a rule here, but..."
    "Hm?" Taiki looked up at Youka.
    "It would make be feel very strange, because... um..." Youka's head went askew as she searched for the  words.
    "If you're punishing me for sleeping late by making me eat all alone, then I can understand. But there  are other people here and I'm the only one eating. That makes me feel weird. I think the food would taste  better if everyone ate together."
    "Well," Youka said quietly as she laughed. Then she nodded her head and called out towards a screen  in another corner of the room, "You should all take a short break. Taiki wants to eat with everybody!"
    It looked as if there was yet another room behind the screen.

    After breakfast, Youka took Taiki to visit the surroundings.
    Taiki held Sanshi's hand as he stepped outside and stared dumbfoundedly for a moment.
    There were no walls outside of the building, nor doors or windows, and the entrance was shielded by  only a screen.
    Three flights of stone steps led downward onto a small path, but here, there was no courtyard or gate.
    Although a relatively large space existed in front of the steps, it was almost the same as coming out of the  building and facing a cliff wall.
    The strange crags towered so high above that Taiki could not see the sky without tilting his head back.
    The small paths, which extended outward in three directions, were extremely narrow, and standing on one  was like standing in a small alley between two tall buildings. Looking back at the building he had just  stepped out of, he felt like it had shrunk, as if it was a small house hidden amongst skyscrapers.
    "This place is really beyond imagination," Taiki absent-mindedly mumbled to himself. When Youka  heard this, she laughed.
    "Is it?"
    "This question might be a little weird, but what is this place?"
    Youka tilted her head to the side. "This is Mt. Hou."
    "Oh... I wasn't asking about that. I was talking about..." Taiki wracked his brain for a way to express  his doubts. "This place should be pretty far from my house, right? I would like to know just how far is it  actually? Where in Japan is this? Or are we not inside the country?"
    Even though no one here was speaking a foreign language, everything was so unusual that he felt like  it wasn't Japan.
    "Or have I arrived in a fantasy world?" It was like something depicted in a manga where a secret  passage inside of a wardrobe leads to a fantasy world.
    Youka puzzlingly tilted her head. "I think it should be like that..."
    "Oh..." He felt that this was unimaginable. Everything in front of his eyes appeared to be reality, but  there was a big gap between this reality and the real world that he recognized.
    He thought carefully about what exactly was "reality" and what "reality" could be. The more he  thought,