by Akira Kareno
“I see.”
As she found herself satisfied, Nopht reached forward and “borrowed” one of the biscuits Rhantolk held in her hand. It was dry and crumbly and not very good, but it was perfect for tricking her empty stomach into thinking it was delicious.
“There’s still more to this sentence. Um… The sixteen shards…sing the song of…the reimagining of the true world…and salvation for the end…sea and mother…fear…spoiled…a perfected heart…um, the void…dawn…?”
Nopht tilted her head in confusion.
That wasn’t a sentence. That was a string of completely unrelated words.
“Where’s your imagination?”
“No, it truly is just a line of words here. There’s no room for interpretation in the first place, much less imagination—”
There was a knock at the door.
Nopht furrowed her brow and let go of Rhantolk.
The two of them held special status. Everyone on the airship knew that. No one tried to get close to them or interact with them. Consequently, there shouldn’t have been anyone aboard who would visit this room. The only exception would be if this airship had encountered unimaginable danger that only the two of them could deal with.
But the ship was much too silent for that. They strained their ears, and the only thing they could hear was the humming of the furnace. They could not hear a single scream or howl or siren or artillery bombardment.
“You can come in; it’s unlocked.”
Cautious, they called out to whoever was on the other side of the door.
The knob turned.
“—Is this the convoy guard waiting room?”
A boggard man slowly peeked into the room.
He wore sturdy clothes, made solely with practicality in mind. He didn’t look like he belonged to the military at all. He didn’t even seem like a merchant.
“I need to speak to the guard who made preparations for the Beasts’ attacks… Hmm? Are you ladies the only ones in here?”
“I don’t know who you are, but please leave,” Rhantolk replied coolly. “According to fleet regulations, contact between us and the members of the research team is forbidden. The very act of approaching this room should not even be allowed. What is our guard doing?”
“Oh, him? He racked up a lot of debts to me in cards a while ago. I only had to ask, and he looked the other way for me.”
The boggard gave a friendly grin and, without a moment’s hesitation, stepped into the room.
“Whoops, forgot to introduce myself. I’m Glick. I’m usually a civilian salvager, but today, I’ve been hired by Orlandry to act as something like an adviser for the research team. Well, I’m not usually in a position like this, but I guess stuff happens… And? What might your names be?”
“You think we’ll tell you? We never asked anyway.” Nopht rested her cheek on her knees and waved him away.
“You shouldn’t defy the Alliance’s intentions, especially if you’ve been hired by them.” Rhantolk in turn also waved him off.
“Meh, they’re different. Wouldn’t you want to say hello to someone who’s gonna be watching your back from now on?”
“…You’re an odd one, old man.” Nopht narrowed her eyes. “The only ones here are us two. As you can see, we’re featureless, we’re girls, and we’re children. Do you think we look like amazing warriors meant to protect the fleet from the terrifying Beasts?”
“To be honest, I kinda both do and don’t believe it, but at the same time, I don’t want to. But you know”—the boggard pointed to the large sword wrapped in cloth, leaning against the wall—“young ladies with dug weapons sounds too much like a story I’ve already heard. Leprechauns, was it?”
“Why do you know that?”
“I had the opportunity to hear about them just the other day… And I’m not that old, by the way.”
“You’re older than us, at least.”
Glick’s expression indicated he only somewhat agreed with them.
“Oh, right, I brought you guys a present. You probably haven’t had anything decent to eat, since you’ve been on the surface for so long. Here, it’s a meat pie I got at a stall at the port right before leaving Island No. 31.”
He produced a package and placed it on the table.
Nopht’s shoulders shivered, her gaze bore a hole into the package, her mouth watered, and her stomach growled painfully. The boggard was right. It had been more than a month since they left Regule Aire to provide security for the research team, and the only things they’d been eating were dried meats and biscuits—food that was light and easily preserved, offering little in the way of actual taste. She missed real food so, so much.
“It’s just common sense for us salvagers to be particular about food if we’re gonna be on the surface for a long time. The guy who planned this research stuff is clueless about all this.
“…Oh yeah, I asked them to put more spices in so it’ll keep for longer, but you should eat it as soon as possible. Today, if you can.”
Nopht gulped.
But she couldn’t give in to her appetite right now. She concentrated all her willpower to tear her gaze away from the package. Then, with watering eyes, she glared hard at the boggard.
“You’re kidding. There’s no way you could win us over with such—”
“Thank you for such a kind gift.”
“—obvious bribery… Oh, come oooooon, Rhaaaaan!”
The tears spilled from her eyes as she turned to look at her best friend sitting beside her.
“Why are you doing this?! We’re not supposed to take it!”
“But it smells delicious. We’ve been eating biscuits for such a long time—I can’t resist the temptation.”
“I totally understand how you feel, and my whole body and soul agree with you, but you caaaaan’t!”
“It’s the boggards who have such a different sense of taste than we do, so if we refuse and give it back, the meat pie will just end up going bad. But more importantly…” Rhantolk’s gaze sharpened, and she smiled. “We have some free time right now. I don’t suppose it would be a terrible idea to have a little chat?”
…Oh boy, here we go.
Nopht knew that nothing else she could say would matter.
Once Rhantolk started playing the role of devil’s advocate, there was no one in the world who could change her mind. About six months ago, even when she and that stubborn Chtholly mercilessly argued, it was Chtholly who ended up running out of patience in the end.
Chtholly.
…A name echoed in her memories, one she never wanted to recall again. Something inside Nopht panged her. The two were the same age, but she was nonetheless Nopht’s irritating senior, a friend she argued with often, and family she would never see again, all at once.
The anticipated day had already passed as they wasted time on the surface like this. An exceptionally large Six, Timere, would have launched its attack in the sky by then; Chtholly would have intercepted it and beat back their enemy in exchange for her life.
Just as planned, she would have thrown away her life in the anticipated battle. That was a leprechaun’s duty. There was no need to be afraid, no necessity of feeling sad.
But when Nopht thought about how that cheeky and captious cerulean-haired girl would no longer be there once they finished this tedious work and returned to the sky, she felt a little empty.
“Nopht? What is it?”
“…It’s nothing. If you say it’s okay, Rhan, then I guess it’s fine. Do what you want.”
She threw herself backward onto the cot.
And as she did so, she nonchalantly turned her face away from the other two. She didn’t want them to see her expression.
“I’m going to eat the whole meat pie.”
“Just take half.”
“Oh, very well, I suppose I will… Now, Glick, was it? You’ve been summoned here as an adviser—does that mean you’ve been salvaging for a long time?”
“Yeah, guess so. I
’m confident I’ve been doing it longer than the guys who’ve only been around a short while.”
“Then have you met a Beast before?”
Nopht shivered.
“Let’s see…” Glick pressed his finger to his temple in a thinking pose. “I’ve been attacked by Two and Three and Six. If we count the ones I’ve seen from far away, I guess we can include Five and Eleven, too.”
“That many?!”
Nopht pushed herself up. Her tears had evaporated.
“We’ve never fought anything else but Timere!”
“We’re not fighting them head-on like you ladies are. Every time, we come home in shambles, barely holding on to our lives.”
“—Yet it might be apt to think you are much more knowledgeable about the Beasts than we are.”
“I wouldn’t say I know enough to call myself knowledgeable. Oh, I get it. You want to ask me something about the Beasts, don’t you, Blue Girl?”
“Yes…”
The paper crinkled as Rhantolk unwrapped the meat pie, her voice hushed.
“I always thought it was strange. It’s been five hundred years since we were chased from the surface. We have lived thus far at the whims of the Seventeen Beasts. The miracle that we’ve managed to escape the looming jaws of the Beasts could even be called the very history of Regule Aire itself. Yet…we know much too little about what these ‘Beasts’ actually are.”
Heeere we go again, Nopht thought.
Rhantolk was, at any rate, smarter than Nopht.
By smart, that meant she was used to the act of thinking itself and was skilled at finding topics to ponder. Or perhaps that meant she had to find an answer she was satisfied with for everything.
There should be no better solution to things that could not be solved by thinking about them than to not think about them.
“What are the Beasts anyway? Perhaps you don’t mind if I ask your thoughts?”
She thought about things she didn’t need to think about; she wanted to know things she didn’t need to know.
Rhantolk’s gaze pierced straight into Glick’s amber-colored eyes.
2. The End of a Dream, the Beginning of a Dream
The warehouse lay deep in the forest on Regule Aire’s Island No. 68.
On paper, it was a facility owned by the Winged Guard, a place where the Guard stored the valuable weapons in their possession. While that wasn’t entirely false, it could scarcely be considered an accurate representation of the truth.
In that warehouse was a magnificent barracks, one that could easily house fifty people. Stored there—no, living there—were more than thirty very young girls. Incidentally, the Orlandry Merchants Alliance was paying for most of the maintenance management costs, and the actual caretakers of the facility were Orlandry employees; it was even designated on the map as “Orlandry Alliance Warehouse No. 4.”
Morning came once again to the warehouse.
The intense light of daybreak asserted itself by illuminating the room through the curtains. The birds sang, their chirping loud and relentless.
Chtholly propped herself up in her bed and stared absently at the ceiling.
It felt like her memory had fogged over, and she had trouble recalling everything that happened up until the night before.
“Ngh…”
She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands lightly.
Her spine shivered, unprompted. Winter mornings were cold. She would get sick if she stayed in her pajamas for too long.
She wondered if she should get up.
Her mind still fuzzy, she tried to remember what her plans were for the day. But she couldn’t. She felt like she remembered that there weren’t any missions planned any time soon. Then that would mean after her daily training course, the rest of the day was free. That was nice. She wanted to use all the time she had, all the freedom she was allowed to follow after him.
—Him.
The image of a young man with black hair appeared in her mind’s eye.
That was what spurred her vague memories of the night before to replay for her.
“…Whoa—”
Oh right—she had collapsed.
The encroachment from her past life had beaten her down, and she fell into a deep sleep she might not have ever woken up from. But for some reason, she did wake up, bursting into tears as she clung to Willem in front of everyone else, her stomach growling. She’d devoured the oatmeal that Lakhesh had so considerately brought to her, then was immediately overcome by extreme fatigue, and she slept hard.
“Uuuuugh…”
What was all that about?
Maybe that’s what she was—a creature that operated only on her appetite and desire for sleep. Something that simply acted on instinct. Clinging to Willem with everyone present must have been one of her instincts, too. Where was her logic? There was a limit on how shameful something could be. Her face felt as if it would burst into flames.
But.
She felt a desire for food and sleep because she was alive. It was proof that her body was trying to continue on. When she considered that, she started to feel somewhat optimistic. No—from now on, she would convince herself to feel that way. Her spirit would wither away if she didn’t.
She lightly smacked her burning cheeks and took a closer look at her surroundings.
This wasn’t her room. This was the infirmary.
Someone must have carried her here after she suddenly lost consciousness in the hallway. Who that might have been was probably—no, definitely—Willem, but she wouldn’t think too hard about it. A smile burst across her face.
Chtholly Nota Seniorious was the eldest of the faerie soldiers and a grown woman. She had to be a good role model for the little ones. Though she’d probably marred some of that image already, that was the very reason why she could not afford any more mistakes.
She decided to get up. She should splash some cold water on her face before someone saw her. Just as that thought crossed her mind and she placed her feet on the floor—
“Oh?”
The door opened, and there stood a redheaded woman.
“It looks like you’re actually up now. What a relief.”
She was tall and a bit older than Chtholly—probably around twenty. Though she was clearly an adult, her expression was somewhat childlike, and she wore a frilly blouse and apron to match.
“Willem was really worried, you know! He wondered if you were going to sleep for a long time again or if this time you weren’t going to wake up. He insisted he stay by your side until you woke up, so I had to chase him out.”
The woman kicked up the heels of her slippers as she entered the infirmary. She opened the curtains, changed the water in the flower vase, and changed the day on the calendar.
“Well, you were sleeping with such a nice smile on your face, and your pulse and breathing and other vital signs seemed okay, so I had you brought here to the infirmary for the time being. So how are you feeling?”
“Huh? Uh, um…”
For a moment, she couldn’t understand that she was being asked a question.
She blinked.
“Nyggla…tho…?”
“Hmm?”
“Oh, uh, nothing.”
She waved both her hands, flustered.
Right. This woman’s name was Nygglatho. She had been dispatched by the Orlandry Merchants Alliance and held the high position of equipment manager here at the warehouse, and she also took care of the “equipment”—the young faeries.
“What’s wrong? Are you still drowsy?”
“Yeah, I think so…”
Her head wasn’t working as it should. It looked like the morning light and Willem’s name were still not enough to wake up her mind, devoured by inactivity.
“I don’t feel sick, but I feel blank. I think I’m going to wash my fac—”
“Miss Chtholly!”
The door that sat ajar burst fully open with a loud bang.
“You’re not a ghost, Miss Chtholl
yyyyyy!”
A small green-haired girl dashed into the room like an arrow and clung to Chtholly.
“Bwuh?!”
“Come, now. Don’t push Chtholly; she’s just recovering from injury.”
A small purple-haired girl peeked out from behind her.
“…Tiat. Pannibal.”
She said their names, as though confirming who they were.
She stared down blankly at the back of the head of the girl who clung desperately to her stomach.
“I’m sorry, Miss Chtholly.” Pannibal dropped her head. “Tiat was restless the entire time you were broken. I don’t think she slept at all last night, ever since she saw you.”
“Really?”
Now with an explanation, she asked Tiat for confirmation, but there was no answer.
She poked the girl, but there was no response.
Chtholly turned her over to check, and in that small time frame, she had fallen asleep.
“I see.”
It seemed it was true that Tiat hadn’t slept. The girl had worried so much about her, and that made her happy, or maybe it was heartwarming, or maybe she felt bad about it, or maybe it was precious, or maybe—
“You felt restless when you thought about someone dying, didn’t you?”
—it made her a bit sad.
“You’ve grown up, Tiat.”
They said that leprechauns were the result of babies’ lost souls, who died before they understood what death was. That was why, strictly speaking, they were not “living” beings. And that was why their instinct to fear death didn’t work. They didn’t have the feelings to mourn someone else’s death.
But that was when she was young.
As Chtholly grew into an older faerie, her feelings changed. Once her body matured and she began to walk the battlefield with sword in hand, she started to somewhat understand what death was. Her mind judged it to be an irreplaceable loss, something so sad and painful.
In terms of other races, that was considered growth. It was a good thing.
But for leprechauns, it was something terrible. They were beings born and raised to be spent on the battlefield. No one’s spirit could handle it if one chose to mourn every single faerie who vanished. That was why many faeries pretended not to notice those feelings as they welled up inside them; they turned their gaze away. They rejected it as something they didn’t need. They suppressed it as something they should overcome.