Mary climbed atop Snow and took to the skies, and Noa watched on, her heart filled with anxiety.
As the people around her had surely noticed, it seemed Noa was slowly but surely regaining her memories...but as far as Noa herself was concerned, it didn’t even feel certain the memories she was experiencing were truly her own. The scenes that would suddenly flash through her mind and assault her senses on a daily basis felt like she was gazing at them through the eyes of another person. The memories were mostly of her time with a man called Agard, but it all seemed so...distant. She felt like an outsider looking in.
That wasn’t to say she felt no emotional connections with the memories, however. Whenever she recalled her time with Agard, her chest grew warm with joy before it gradually tightened and brought her pain. This was very much the norm for her.
Noa sought to understand what her feelings meant, and while attempting to do so, she’d once asked Rachel about them, as Rachel’s interest in the opposite sex seemed to elicit similar sensations.
“Huh? Y-Y-You’re asking me why I seem to care a lot about Sacher?” Rachel asked. “W-Well, it’s partly because he saved me and I feel indebted to him...”
“But according to my big sister, I feel like you’re not indebted solely to Big Brother Sacher,” Noa pointed out. “Shouldn’t you feel the same way toward Big Sister Safina and Big Sister Magiluka?”
“Ugh... T-True... Um, how shall I say this...? I just can’t seem to leave him alone, you know? He’s always in some sort of danger, and I just can’t help but worry about him.”
“You see, Noa, this is love,” Sita joined in.
“S-Sita?!” Rachel yelped. “Stop trying to be a bad influence on Noa!”
“Love?” Noa asked. “But...he’s not here anymore...”
“Noa...” Sita started.
“Big Sister Rachel, aren’t you afraid of losing? Like how Agard...”
Noa wanted to say more, but her stomach tightened as it always did, and a headache washed over her, destabilizing her emotions. Her consciousness began to blur.
“Noa!” Sita cried.
It was as though Noa’s body refused to recall further information—like there was a primal urge to resist it within her. That discussion had drawn to a close, and whenever she’d try to ask about something else, she often garnered the worry of others. And so, she’d become withdrawn and refrained from talking.
Were her feelings and memories what the other ladies called “love”? Part of her wished that to be the case. Nevertheless, the fragments of her memories and the stories she’d heard from Queen Belletochka had allowed Noa to draw a different headache-inducing conclusion—she was somehow related to the Argent Knight.
The travels of the Argent Knight were awfully similar to the memories that Noa possessed; in fact, there were times when she thought she was the Argent Knight, but she knew that that couldn’t be it. There was another suit of Argent Armor prowling about, and said suit had exhibited a terrifying amount of murderous intent toward her. (Incidentally, her memories also ruled out that she was Agard.)
Furthermore, whenever the Argent Armor popped into Noa’s mind, her body was gripped with unfathomable dread, causing her to lose focus on reality. It was as though her true self, slumbering deep within the recesses of her mind, rejected the armor on an almost fundamental level. Who am I? she wondered. No matter how hard she thought, she always found herself back at the most basic question of all.
Even if she recalled some of her memories, they were all little fragments—disjointed pieces of a puzzle. If only she had something, anything, that could trigger her to recall everything, elegantly fitting all the pieces into its proper place... Unfortunately, she’d had no luck yet.
“Now then. Since we’ve left those troublesome suits of armor to Mary, let us have a nice chat with the spirit!” Emilia said loudly.
“Nay, Witch Princess,” Orthoaguina pointed out. “I find that the spirit will be more troublesome.”
The noisy discussion allowed Noa to snap back to reality.
“Lord Orthoaguina, since Frederika isn’t here right now, perhaps it’s not ideal to fight against the spirit,” Sita said.
“Sita, you were able to speak with the spirit tree, were you not?” Orthoaguina suggested. “I have faith that you can speak with this spirit as well.”
“Please don’t casually push everything onto her!” Rachel protested. Everyone else nodded along in agreement.
For all the bravado that the book had exhibited when he’d parted ways with Mary, Noa could still only see him as a talkative book and nothing more. Everyone claimed that the book was only his temporary form and that he was actually the great Philomath Dragon, but for now, Noa found no reason to offer him her utmost respect.
While everyone engaged in this lively chat, the water around the stage began to roil angrily, and a portion of the sea erupted into a furious plume of water. Tutte, sensing danger, tried to take Noa away and back into the ship for safety. The maid, while not much of a fighter in these situations, still managed to evade most threats due to her impeccable ability to precisely assess danger. Even Noa had taken note of Tutte’s skills as they traveled together. Noa offered no resistance and took Lily to follow Tutte.
Magiluka noticed the trio leave and stepped away from the rest to watch them go. Everyone else was laser focused on the change of the water’s surface.
A giant emerged before the group. Only the upper half of its body showed, but it was large enough to swallow the stage whole.
“A water giant?” Sacher yelped. “Is this the spirit’s physical form?”
No one could answer as they gazed upon the giant.
“K-Keep calm,” Emilia said. “W-We prepared ourselves precisely for times like these. Victorica taught us the language of spirits—she was apparently taught by an elven friend of hers. Heh heh heh, behold!”
The princess still looked scared, but with sheer willpower, she managed to regain her confidence and dignity as she spoke in an unfamiliar language. Could this deepen her ties with the spirit? Everyone looked on with surprise, but Noa couldn’t understand why Tutte and Safina began to fret.
A moment later, the water giant froze in place, with the princess standing tall and proud before it. Did she get through to it?
As everyone’s hearts held a ray of hope, tragedy befell Emilia.
“How dare you say, ‘Shut up you brat!’ to me!” An androgynous voice, much like a young boy’s, echoed throughout everyone’s minds, bellowing with wrath. “I’m a freaking adult!”
A mighty torrent of water shot out from the giant’s mouth and assaulted Emilia. “Bwaaaaaagh!” the princess cried.