“The day before you headed home, an urgent messenger arrived from a village called Leres, on Mismid’s west side. A strange phenomenon had been happening there for several days.”
“Strange phenomenon?”
Leen — settled in a living-room chair — picked up her teacup and sipped. Yumina and I sat across from her; Linze and Yae flanked us. Paula was perched neatly beside Leen.
“The first to find it were children from the village of Leres. They came across a small crack hanging in midair in an otherwise empty patch of forest. Couldn’t be touched, but it was unmistakably there. An odd, suspended crack.”
A crack in space…? What is that. Some kind of magic, maybe?
“In time, the children noticed the crack growing slightly larger each day. Alarmed, they told the adults; the village elder dispatched a messenger to the capital.”
Leen set her teacup back on its saucer. So that messenger had arrived the day before we left for Belfast.
“Intrigued, I went to the village with a Warrior platoon. But what we found was a village reduced to ruin. The crystal monster had slaughtered villagers, trampled the place to nothing. We tried to fight, but it was hopeless. Blades didn’t bite, magic was absorbed, even when shattered, it regenerated… a nightmare. Half the platoon was put out of commission permanently. The village was annihilated.”
“Same one we fought… You took it down, then?”
“Somehow. We found that magic that delivered physical damage worked, so we used earth magic to drop a several-ton boulder on its head. Once the head was destroyed, it didn’t regenerate.”
Probably the red sphere inside the head — destroying that shuts the thing down. So this really is the same monster we fought.
“I went to consult Charlotte, hoping to research the creature — and apparently something similar had happened in Belfast. And the one who’d defeated it was you. I was surprised, I’ll tell you.”
Leen turned a thoroughly mean smile on me. What is this — frog-pinned-by-the-snake situation? Unpleasant sweat is forming.
“I heard, by the way. You can use any null-spell, apparently? No wonder you knew [Program].”
“Ahh… If you could refrain from spreading that around, I’d appreciate it.”
Charlotte-san spilled it, huh. Or maybe — pressed for it. Hard to resist when your demon-master is leaning on you.
“From the surviving villagers — they said the crack in space split open and the crystal monster crawled out from inside it.”
Crawled out of a broken space…? So it didn’t get revived from ancient ruins, like ours did?
Leen pulled out a sheet of paper, spread it on the table. What was drawn on it wasn’t the crystal monster we’d killed — a different shape.
The one we’d fought had an almond-shaped head with six thin spindly legs — cricket-like. The one in Leen’s drawing had the same almond-shaped head, but no legs — instead a long body trailed from it.
If ours was a cricket, this one was a snake. A crystal serpent, body articulated like a Japanese sword bent at sharp angles.
“Different shape from what we fought. Ours was cricket-shaped — stretched its legs to strike.”
“This one extended its tail to stab and sweep. Like a sharp blade.”
The shapes were different. But I was certain these were the same thing. Like — butterflies and praying mantises look nothing alike, but they’re both insects. Same species, in the broad sense.
”…When I was small, an elder of my tribe used to tell a story. A demon called Phrase appeared from nowhere and nearly destroyed the world… Said the demon had a translucent body and was undying, immortal. In the end it vanished as suddenly as it had come, and the world supposedly went back to normal…”
“You think these crystal monsters are this Phrase?”
“I can’t say. The elder is already gone, and even he said it was a fairy tale he heard as a child. Plus, the fae have only opened up to other tribes in the last hundred-odd years.”
If those creatures are Phrase — where did they come from? Like summoned beasts, is someone controlling them? Why attack people? No matter how I turned it over, no answers came.
A threat — yes. But not undefeatable. If they show up again, we take them down. And if there’s a mastermind, we drag them out and take them down too.
“Well — no point us alone trying to crack it. Don’t want to meet that breed twice, but if they show up, we hit them. That’s it.”
“Agreed. Anyway — I’ll be staying in this country as Mismid ambassador in Origa’s place going forward.”
Eh? Really? Charlotte-san — my condolences.
“I’ll be visiting often, so. And Touya — you can use [Gate], can’t you?”
Ah — bad. She’s onto it. I went through the whole charade to keep [Gate] secret, but at this rate Mismid’s going to start eyeing us with suspicion.
Reading the panic in my face, Leen flashed a small smile.
“Don’t look like that. I won’t tell the Beast-King or any other chief. I’m kind to family, didn’t you know?”
“Family?”
“You’ll be apprenticing under me, won’t you?”
Leen looked at me with a very pleased grin. Ngh. If that isn’t blackmail, what is. I hesitated to answer — and she snorted.
“Hah. Joking. Not my taste, forcing someone who clearly doesn’t want it.”
Lies. About half of that was serious. I was glaring at Leen when the living-room door opened, and in came Cécile-san and Renee, balancing a tray with a fresh teapot and snacks.
“P-please… allow us to refill your, tea.”
Renee strung the words together stiff with nerves. Awkwardly she set the snack-plate at the center of the table and started topping up the cups. Cécile-san hovered behind her with a beaming smile.
“E-excuse uth.”
She bit her tongue. The two bowed and left. …Yeah, okay-ish. Pretty good for a first try, all things considered.
“You’ve hired quite a young one. She didn’t seem used to serving — new hire?”
“Just hired her recently. If she makes a mistake, please overlook it.”
I sipped from the refilled cup. Mm — a bit hot, and a bit strong. Not Lapis-san or Cécile-san level yet, that’s for sure. Not enough to mention, though.
“Anyway, back to before. [Gate] — you can use it?”
“I can. Catch is, it only goes places I’ve been.”
“Know the null-spell [Recall]? It reads another person’s mind and retrieves memories. Pair it with [Gate], and you should be able to jump to a place from another’s memory.”
Spell like that exists, huh… You sure know a lot. The fae tend to be born with null-spells, so I guess it’s natural for her.
“With that spell and [Gate], there’s a place I’d like you to take me. There’s something in an ancient ruin there that I want.”
“Don’t quite get it, but… where do you want to go?”
“Far to the east, the eastern edge. The divine nation of Eashen.”
“Eashen?”
I glanced at Yae without meaning to. Yae looked just as startled.
The country resembling Japan from my old world. Ever since coming here I’d been curious about it. Can we really go?
“This one was born in Eashen, yes? Read her memory and we can [Gate] to Eashen.”
“H-hold, pray! Reading my mind — that means mine!?”
“Don’t worry. [Recall] only retrieves memories the subject permits. Nothing you don’t want seen will be touched.”
Yae’s expression was unreadable. Well — everyone has stuff they’d rather keep to themselves. Even told it’s safe, she’d be uneasy. In her shoes I’d be the same.
“Null-spell [Recall] — you touch the subject and reach their mind to retrieve a memory. Skin contact is required, and a kiss is best, of course.”
"""""HUH!?"""""
“Joke.”
We all sagged in unison. Stop smirking like that, you gothic-lolita sadist! She’s just messing with us!
“Yes, yes — you two, come stand here facing each other. Hold both hands.”
Leen pulled us together; Yae and I were left facing each other, hands clasped. Uh — soft. Always swinging a katana around — but they’re this soft? Whoa, I’m getting nervous!
“Ah…”
“Hau…!”
I lifted my eyes and met Yae’s. She was staring at me, face brilliant red. Don’t make that face! That makes it twice as embarrassing on my end!
“All right, both of you, close your eyes. Yae — picture an Eashen landscape, as vivid a one as you can. A vague image, and [Gate] might open somewhere similar. Then Touya, touch your forehead to hers and cast [Recall].”
Doing exactly what Leen said, I gathered my magic and pressed my forehead against Yae’s. A faint, sweet scent threatened to break my focus — I held on and triggered the spell.
“[Recall].”
Something flowed dimly into my head. A great tree… a camphor? Something at its base — a torii gate, that is. And a small shrine. A pair of stone guardian dogs to either side. A small shrine in a forest. This is the Eashen in Yae’s memory, then.
“Got it.”
I opened my eyes and looked across at Yae. Weird feeling — sharing a memory with someone. Feels almost like I’d stood there many times myself.
“Ahem!”
“Oh!”
Yumina’s pointed throat-clear startled me — I let go of Yae’s hands. We’d been clasping hands and gazing at each other long enough that we both turned our faces away in embarrassment.
“If you saw Eashen, please open the [Gate]. May I ask?”
Tch — quit smirking already.
I called up the Eashen scene from a moment ago and opened [Gate].
Stepping through the floating doorway of light, we emerged in a forest — a great camphor tree, with the torii gate and shrine guarded by stone dogs at its base. Same scene as in Yae’s memory.
“There can be no mistake. This is my hometown, Eashen. The outskirts of Hashiba — the sacred grove by my family’s house.”
Yae, having stepped through behind us, looked around and declared it.
The far east. Eastern-edge country. The divine nation of Eashen. We had set foot in it.