Sita’s eyes turned dreamy like a romantic maiden. “I was discovering the past! If I can experience the excitement of unraveling mysteries, an all-nighter or two or three or four aren’t an issue for me at all!”
I did feel like she was on some sort of weird high. I guess she got oddly excited after pulling an all-nighter. After our hectic adventure underground, she’d gone to Noa for more information without taking a breather and had been analyzing Agard’s memoir until now. I was half surprised by her persistence as a researcher and half worried that she was pushing herself.
“Don’t push your limits,” I warned. “If you collapse, Rachel will faint from shock.”
“Heh, there isn’t a researcher in Kairomea so weak that they’d collapse after an all-nighter or two,” Orthoaguina replied. “All the researchers of the Grand Archival Tower are looking into Agard and Soul Materia as we speak!”
“All the researchers? How many people did you drag in?” I was tempted to smack the smug book to the ground as Sita showed it to me, but I held myself back.
“Hmm... I haven’t been keeping count,” Orthoaguina said. “But I’m having everyone there investigate.”
“You... Stop forcing everyone to do your bidding!” I snapped.
“Oh, no, all I said was that a certain Argent Holy Woman wished to look into it, and everyone happily obliged. Bah ha ha!”
“Don’t use me for your schemes!” I couldn’t help it. I delivered the smackdown on the insolent book who was up to no good while trotting out my name. I knew that my swift chop couldn’t hurt him physically, of course, so it was all a little jest.
“Lord Orthoaguina, did you learn something after getting everyone’s help?” Sita asked.
“There are many legends and tales about Soul Materia, so I assumed that it’d be easy to look into,” Orthoaguina said. “But while we found some instances in the shape of swords or staves, I found none that took the form of armor. Another unexpected roadblock in our research was that Mary’s kingdom doesn’t have many legends pertaining to this subject.”
He’s right. If the Argent Knight possessed legendary armor, the kingdom surely ought to have had the precise origin of the item or other stories related to its creation, yet I’d never heard of any such stories. Even the knowledgeable prince and Magiluka hadn’t heard of anything either, so it was only natural Orthoaguina’s research had failed to produce any pertinent information.
“Hmm, does that mean that there’s a chance that the Argent Armor was brought into this kingdom from somewhere else?” Prince Reifus wondered.
“Very astute, Your Highness,” Sita replied. “The memoir mentioned that the armor was brought in for research and experimental purposes. My money’s on the armor coming from a foreign nation too. But the writings in the memoir are so simple and concise that I can only guess.”
“If I were a betting dragon, I’d say that Nike’s to blame,” Orthoaguina added. “I don’t know where he brought it from, but it was probably without permission. Hence, he decided to conduct research in a land far away, hidden from people, to avoid any trouble.”
“But why did Sir Nike experiment on the armor?” His Highness asked. “Was it also part of his ultimate goal?”
“Undoubtedly. Soul Materia is the work of God. Perhaps he assumed that unraveling the mystery behind it would help him come a step closer to the domain of the gods. Unfortunately, I still haven’t a clue what he tried to learn from the armor and why he tried to activate it. If we can understand Agard’s memoir in full, we may be able to pinpoint a goal, but as for details, I doubt that we can expect much.”
The memoir was written from Agard’s point of view, not Nike’s. Unless Nike was someone who loved to share and ramble on end about his goals, we were out of luck. Needless to say, judging from what I’d heard about Nike so far, I didn’t pin him as the talkative type.
“I’d love to use the little girl as soon as possible to parse more of the text, but...” Orthoaguina trailed off.
I held Noa close to me to protect her. “No,” I said firmly. “I won’t let you make her pull an all-nighter or two. Not over my dead... Hmm, wait, maybe I should rephrase...” As a person who’d reincarnated, meaning that I’d already died once, I suddenly had some second thoughts about my choice of idiom, leaving me unable to firmly declare my intentions like a cool older sister. In the end, I came out of the situation looking very lame...
“What in the world are you on about?” Orthoaguina asked.
“In any case, as long as I’m here, I won’t let you push Noa too hard!” I shouted.
“Ugh... Good grief. All right, all right. I really do dislike overprotective parents,” Orthoaguina whined.
“You’re one to talk, Mr. Sita’s Dad,” I fired back, adding a nice stink eye on top for good measure.
“Grr...” He knew he’d been beaten and acquiesced. “N-Now then, moving right along, those characters are most intriguing,” Orthoaguina said. “I suspect that they have something to do with God.”
His way of changing topics made my heart thump anxiously. Those characters are from Japan, another world. It was God who’d brought Japanese people into this world, so I couldn’t confidently say that they were unrelated.
“I thought this may be sacred text, and I had everyone look into it, but no one could really find anything,” Sita admitted with a sigh as she slumped her shoulders with resignation. “This mystery really is a tough one for us scholars.”
If Japanese was seen as sacred text—that is, symbols of God—it made me feel a bit, well...awkward. It would also become increasingly difficult for me to admit that I could read them. That was close. Whew. Thanks to Sita, I could avoid revealing my secret and screwing myself over.
“But of course, if it were sacred text, I can understand why a certain lady may be able to read it,” Orthoaguina added.
Guh... This talking book really wants to point me in that direction, huh? And the scary thing is that he isn’t completely wrong. I pretended not to hear what he said and moved the conversation along.
“I-In any case, where did Agard learn to write with those characters anyway?” I asked.
“Judging from his memoir, Nike or the soul in the Argent Armor are strong possibilities,” Sita replied.
“No, between those two, Sita, the Argent Armor will be the more likely candidate,” Orthoaguina replied.
“You sound rather confident,” I observed. “Any basis for that? Is it because you’ve known him for so long?”
“Oh no, it’s a very simple reason, actually,” Orthoaguina replied. “He’s a terrible teacher. I also struggled to understand his ramblings at times. He’s absolutely atrocious when it comes to teaching others.” Orthoaguina’s tone made me assume that there was some kind of endearing tale between the two, but his harsh phrasing only earned a dry laugh out of me.
“It does make more sense that the armor that God made could parse sacred text instead of Nike,” Sita said. She clapped her hands together with satisfaction.
Isn’t it a bit too soon to assume that Japanese is sacred text? I felt like these scholars should proceed more carefully—and as a person who could read Japanese, I was internally sweating buckets, fearing that I’d reveal myself somehow. I could only quietly watch on. Okay, could anyone really blame me for keeping mum? If I try to steer them onto a different track, I might end up screwing myself over! I can only watch on for now! I made desperate excuses to myself.
“Let’s say that the armor taught Agard the language,” Orthoaguina said. “Who taught the little girl?”
“Huh? Me?” Noa asked. “I... I... I don’t know... Who taught me?” She did her best to trace her memories back, but they remained as vague as ever.
“Noa, you don’t have to force yourself to remember,” I said gently.
“Okay. I’m sorry,” Noa apologized.
“You don’t have to apologize either.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
Hmm... Sounds like she’s got the habit of apologizing for every little thing. Is there a reason she became like this? I was already used to her responses and petted the glum girl’s head.
“Speaking of which, Sita, you said earlier that you wanted to see the evening primroses,” Magiluka said. She changed topics after she saw me petting Noa. “Is it for research? Or is there something that bothers you which you’d like to look into?”
Magiluka admittedly looked a bit interested herself, but that was a trivial matter. I was grateful that she switched topics. If I was forced to say what I knew about Japanese, I was so sure that I’d screw myself over somewhere, so I wanted to pretend that we’d never mentioned it. I especially wanted to avoid speaking about it in front of the talking book.
“Hmm, the latter, I guess,” Sita replied.
“What do you mean? Did something happen?” I asked. As the daughter of the duchy’s lord, I couldn’t let that slide.
“Not really,” Sita said. “If I’m just needlessly worrying, then that’s fine, but I was just a little curious. I-I can’t say much until I look into it more.”
“Why are you being so tight-lipped? You’re making me curious now. Come on, out with it,” I pressed.
“Um... Well, okay. The evening primroses miiight wilt,” she admitted, casually dropping a massive bombshell.
“What?!” I froze up from shock. H-Huh? What? Did I do something again?!