“Sorry ’bout that. There was a chance the Exinov might attack, so we couldn’t risk stopping. C’mon now, this way─we’ll have you all gather at the hall so we can explain life in the free district.”
Jiji had imagined a small village of scattered tents, but the building they were led to was a square, boxlike structure. There were no houses nearby, just this one strange building jutting out of the surrounding forest. One of the Ignas, beast ears on proud display, politely guided the hundred-odd Nurabehn inside.
“Huh?”
As they were filing into the building, Jiji noticed that the priest was no longer among them. He was talking something over with another Ignas, who passed him a satchel that was bulging at the seams.
“Hey, what d’you think he’s doing?” Jiji asked, poking Gil in the shoulder.
“Who knows. I’m sure the bigwigs have all kinds of business to attend to.”
“This building is huge, huh… The free district people must be amazing, making things like this.”
“Apparently they’ve got lots of Ignas on their side, so maybe they’re the ones doing the building.”
Once the Nurabehn were inside, they were guided down a flight of stairs and into an underground room. The subterranean space was empty save for glowing spheres fitted into the floor and walls, their faint illumination lending the room a vague, dreamlike quality.
“Those things are glowing with mana, right?”
“Yeah… Wow, I can’t believe there are so many wizard lights down here.”
Just then the doors to the hall slammed shut behind them.
Jiji turned to see the Ignas who had been guiding their group smiling in at them through a glass window set into the door. The Ignas opened his mouth, and a voice resounded from the room’s ceiling.
“Welcome, Nurabehn traitors. To die in ignorance of the situation would afford you no chance to regret your actions, so allow me to explain. This is a harvesting facility attached to an Exinov farm.”
Consternation filled the hall.
“In other words, you are all about to be converted into mana. Your long journey has saved us the trouble of bringing you here, so I thank you for that. Though I suppose it was our employees who did the driving.”
Jiji looked up at Gil in shock.
Gil looked back at him, his face pale. “That bastard…! He tricked us?!” Whether he was referring to the Ignas or the priest, not even Gil himself seemed to know. He raced over to the closed doors and began pounding on them with all his might. “Let us out! Let us out of here! Come on, everyone, help me push!”
Those Nurabehn who grasped the situation rushed over to help Gil─but the tightly locked doors didn’t let out so much as a creak.
The Ignas went on. “That man you call ‘Father,’ the one you Nurabehn were foolish enough to trust, has been a great help to us. Those false rumors we spread of a free district only brought us a handful of you…but for a reward, he offered to gather up rebellious Nurabehn and lead them here. We accepted, and here you all are. What in the world did he promise you, I wonder?”
“Shut up! Shut up, you bastard!” Gil howled.
The Ignas smirked. “Yes, I suppose I’ll do just that. And your filthy souls will serve to power the lights of a public toilet in the city. Good day.”
A dull sound reverberated through the room, and the lights turned from blue to red. The Nurabehn, instinctively terrified of touching the strange red lights, stood on tiptoe or spread blankets on the ground to cover them up.
“Gil, what do we do? They’re going to─”
“Shut up! I know!”
Jiji flinched at the angry shout.
Gil looked down at him in a panic, seeming as if he was about to burst into tears. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. Dying like this… Mana drawing would have been so much─!”
His words were interrupted by a sharp crack as the wizard lights set into the walls shattered. Shocked, Gil and Jiji could just make out Saybil standing with his hand pressed to the wall.
“Hm? So these are just lights… Then, where’s the actual thing that turns people into mana…?” Muttering to himself, Saybil took out a small bottle and splashed its contents into the air. A small white light pierced the gloom, floating up to illuminate the entire room. “Aha… The floor. I see, so it’s the whole floor itself. Then maybe…?” Saybil crouched down and pressed both hands flat against the ground.
In the face of Saybil’s strange behavior, the Nurabehn, who a moment before had been in a state of consternation, stopped and stared, unsure how to react to what was happening. The lights in the wall had been shattered─and this was surely Saybil’s doing. Then he had produced a sphere of light in the air that glowed without fire, something of which no Nurabehn should rightly be capable.
Jiji finally found the courage to speak. “Saybil, you…”
The young man looked up at him with drowsy eyes and cocked his head. “Sorry, can you all move closer to the walls for me? The whole floor might collapse.”
“Huh…?!”
For a moment, Saybil’s bluish-purple eyes seemed to sparkle with light. Beneath his hands the floor turned black and began to crumble away just as he had warned. An intricate system of wizard devices was fitted into the foundation below─and now Saybil was touching these directly.
A commotion erupted outside the room, and Jiji peered through the window in the door. All the wizard lights had burst, and he could see the Ignas in the hallway running to and fro in confusion. There were explosions, and some of the machines were spouting flames.
Vweeeh─! Vweeeh─!
A warning siren sounded, and then the doors silently swung open. Since the lights in the hallway had been blown out, only the room they were in remained illuminated.
“What just happened…?”
Saybil went out the door ahead of the stunned Nurabehn, and as the light source went with him, they had no choice but to follow.
“Saybil… Hey, what’s going on?! What the heck did you do?!”
“Er… I’ll explain everything later, but first we need to get out of here. I destroyed most all the wizard devices in this building, so it might start to collapse.”
“Y-You destroyed them…?”
Still at a loss, the Nurabehn made their way outside to find the twenty or so Ignas who had already evacuated the building standing there in utter bewilderment. The priest was with them, looking strangely unfazed. He walked straight up to Saybil and asked simply, “What’s the situation?”
“I destroyed everything. None of it’ll be salvageable. Should I bring down the building, too?”
“I don’t see the need. What about the mana stored in the harvesting facility?”
“I collected it. There wasn’t much, though.”
“How much?”
“Umm…” Saybil fished around in the bag at his waist and drew out three small bottles of faintly pink liquid. “This much.”
The priest looked down at the hooded child beside him, who relayed the information: “Three bottles.” He did have a blindfold over his eyes, after all, so it was only natural that Saybil’s reply hadn’t done him much good.
The priest nodded and took the three bottles from Saybil, then turned to face the Ignas. “Well now. Shall we get down to business once more?”