Hydrangea

Hydrangea (ハイドランジア) is the frontier city where the story is set and the home of the protagonist Wof. Its name is said to mean "water container," and true to that, the city sits atop abundant groundwater, never wants for water, and is dotted with public bathhouses. Its pale stone walls and buildings are made of a material that repels monsters, which is the only reason the city can survive despite being surrounded by, and even riddled with, dungeons. Landmarks include a western-district plaza beside a bell tower, numerous bell towers that mark the hours of the day, a central park with a hero-statue fountain, a great theater (like an arena) in the central district, a governor's castle, a noble quarter, and a squalid slum district in the south where the poor sometimes die in the streets. Wof begins the story as a thirteen-year-old scavenging the "garbage dump" inside one of Hydrangea's dungeons.

Geographically, Hydrangea lies at the northwestern edge of a frontier region, ringed by dungeons and forests, with the towering Mazan mountain range walling it in to the north and the Little Riv River running nearby. Compared to the rest of the borderlands, it is considered a relatively decent, comparatively safe place to live, though still rough by civilized standards. The city is governed by a margrave (notably not of the Edda race), backed by a city council and the Explorers' Guild; entry to its dungeons costs 300 auro or free registration as an explorer at age fourteen. Its dominant power is Kuhnhunt, the largest clan in Hydrangea and indeed the whole frontier, whose influence looms over guild politics and events like the Full Moon Bazaar.

Hydrangea is inseparable from its dungeons. Its own dungeon is personified as "Ranjia" (ランジア), a proud sword-wielding avatar whose great sword is literally named Ajisai ("hydrangea"); she is one of the "Five Sisters," the collective will of Hydrangea and its surrounding dungeons. Local lore holds that the dungeons predate the city itself, possibly by thousands of years. Over the course of the story the city becomes the base of operations for Wof's party and the noble-backed party Torquetum, and it grows increasingly caught up in national politics — at one point facing the threat of being destroyed by the royal army on suspicion of rebellion.

In short, Hydrangea functions as the beating heart of the narrative: part cozy hometown (the Cidre Inn, fishing on the Little Riv, quiet back alleys) and part perilous frontier crossroads where explorers, clans, visiting nobles, dungeon spirits, and encroaching kingdom politics all converge.