Wanting an audience with Felfi Visrotte out of respect for the Dragon Lord’s power was one thing. But the story changed when you added attraction into the mix, if that was what was going on.
“You mentioned that you’d ask your sister to pass along the request for an audience to Felfi Visrotte. Are you okay with that, Ariane?”
A man asking a third party to serve as an intermediary to introduce him to a woman was hardly rare. However, it was also hardly rare for the woman not to return his feelings, making the situation uncomfortable for all involved.
Ariane scowled. “I mean, I didn’t promise that it would happen, so it should be fine. Still, I’ll ask my sister to do her best to convince Felfi Visrotte.”
On the surface, the Dragon Lord was a truly intimidating force. Thinking back on his childlike excitement, though, I couldn’t help but see him as an average guy with an unrequited crush.
“Well, let’s put that aside for now and head up to the spring.” Ariane brought us back to the task at hand.
We passed through the towering gray torii and marched up the moss-covered steps built into the mountainside. They’d been constructed at an easy, shallow angle, although about half of the staircase had sunk into the earth after being neglected for so long. Densely forested tranquility stretched all around us, the only sounds rustling leaves and bird calls. We didn’t encounter any large monsters, as we had in the Furyu Mountains and Great Canada Forest. Honestly, this felt a lot like a weekend hike.
That was undoubtedly due to the Dragon Lord, who made his home on the mountain’s summit, at the Lord Crown. No monster would want to live so close to a fearsome predator.
In the branches above, I saw a family of squirrel-like creatures, watching with great interest as strange intruders—the three of us—walked by.
We chopped a path through the low-hanging branches and undergrowth, surprising several birds and other animals along the way. I could feel Ponta’s reaction through my helmet with every encounter.
We reached the outcropping at last. The trees gave way to gravel and waist-high shrubs, offering a clear view of our surroundings. In front of us towered the Lord Crown, its massive trunk almost like a wall, its countless branches stretching high into the sky, blanketing the mountain’s summit in its massive shadow. Looking up at the Lord Crown, I felt as if I might tumble backward down the slope.
“I never would have imagined a tree could grow so large.”
The trees back in the Great Canada Forest were massive in their own right, but this was on a completely different scale. The Lord Crown reminded me of a gigantic tree I saw in an anime once, wrapping itself around a certain castle in the sky.
Ariane and Chiyome gaped as well, taking in the Lord Crown’s immense size.
Chiyome spoke in a murmur, squinting against the bright sunlight. “It’s practically a mountain on top of the mountain.”
“I’ve heard that there are more like it back in Canada, but I’ve never seen them.” Ariane pulled her waterskin from her bag, took a swig, and sighed. She wiped the sweat from her amethyst brow with one arm. “Well, we’re almost at the top. We’d better hurry up!”
With that, Ariane began making her way toward the summit. Chiyome and I followed.
The stone staircase ended abruptly at another, smaller torii, similar to the one at the mountain’s base.
The outcropping was desolate, and mostly devoid of trees, although the area surrounding the torii was covered in thick foliage similar to what we’d left behind in the forest below. Only the minimal sunlight broke through the dense leaf cover.
“It looks like that’s the way to go.”
I stepped through the torii and looked around.
It appeared to have originally been built in a small depression near the mountain’s summit, although the ground had flattened over the years as the undergrowth slowly took over. Fortunately, I could still see the occasional stone step peeking through the grass. Ahead, at the end of the path, sat a building that had fallen into ruin.
I couldn’t get a sense of the building’s original shape, since the wooden roof had collapsed. The moss-covered stone still stood firm, however, suggesting a design I was very familiar with.
“That looks like a shrine.” Ariane took the words out of my mouth.
She was right. Between the torii and the design of the building, it looked almost exactly like a Shinto shrine.
A series of windows, placed at regular intervals, dotted the walls on either side of the shrine’s entrance. This particular building differed from the Shinto designs I was familiar with, since it lacked a donation box or bells of any sort. The entrance stood empty; the doors had long ago rotted.
“So, this is the shrine where Hanzo lived,” Chiyome said. “It looks a lot like the house where our village elder lives now.”
With the massive Lord Crown as its backdrop, the gentle mist floating in the air, and the silence that surrounded us, the shrine’s ruins gave off an altogether mystical feeling.
Chiyome’s nose and ears suddenly perked up. She spoke up in a low voice. “I’m catching the scent and sound of water. But there’s something different about it.”
“Kyii!” Ponta cried out in agreement.
Since I didn’t even have a nose, I instead listened carefully and focused. Just as Chiyome said, I could hear water flowing. “Is that the spring?”
“It sounds like it’s…that way.”
Chiyome led Ariane and I past the shrine, down a stone path. We followed in silence. Behind the building, we met a most unexpected scene.
Warm water burbled from a rocky outcropping, steam roiling into the air. The water snaked down through a groove in the rock face, then accumulated in a stone-lined pool built into the ground below. Excess water poured over the sides of the pool, forming a small waterfall that ran down the cliff.
“Is that warm water?” Ariane’s pointed ears perked up.
Chiyome seemed surprised as well. A look of excitement captured her face. “It’s an outdoor bath, and a pretty large one, at that.”
She was right—the bath was around the size of two twenty-five-meter pools placed side-by-side.
The stone basin resembled a large bath at an old-fashioned Japanese inn, although moss covered the rocks surrounding it, due to the moisture rising from the water. Trees and other plant life grew close around the perimeter.
“I guess even springs can be heated,” I said. “But is this really the one we’re looking for?”