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“Somebody, please hear…his… Something like that?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische nodded.
“That’s what I got from it. But who’s the guy it’s talking about? And his…what? I wish we had a little more to go off of.”
Fische shook his head. If only I could hear a little more of the voice, then maybe we’d know what it was saying.
“I’ll look to see if there’s somewhere I can hear the voice better,” I said.
I slowly moved alongside the cliff. I had to go slowly, since the voice wasn’t always talking on a constant loop.
“Some…lease…rue.”
Wait, now it’s farther away?
I stopped and strained my ears.
“…lease…”
Yeah, it’s harder to hear now. Which means the last place was the best spot to hear it? But I didn’t even go that far away…
My mind swimming with doubts, I returned to the former spot and strained my ears.
“body…me…ish…ue.”
Yeah, this is the spot.
“Ivy…what’s going on?” my father asked me worriedly after watching me without talking for a minute. He was probably concerned that I had said I was going to look for the voice and wound up back where I was.
“This is the best place to hear the voice,” I explained.
The men looked around. I also scanned the area, thinking maybe I’d missed something, but there was nothing to see. What did any of this mean? I could definitely hear a voice, but nothing else.
“As far as I can see, there’s nothing here,” Zinal said.
“Yeah,” Fische agreed, his gaze shifting to the cliff.
“Which means the only thing left to check is the inside of the cliff,” Zinal said, reaching out and knocking on the rock.
“Right. But…how do we even look inside? If we just search blindly, it’ll take way too much time.”
I think so, too. This cliff is huge.
“We won’t have a very wide range to search,” my father said. “If we go more than a couple meters away, she can’t hear the voice anymore, so this little area is all we need to search.”
I nodded. He was right—just a few steps in one direction, and I couldn’t hear the voice anymore.
“I guess you’re right, there,” Zinal nodded, setting his magic bag down on the ground. I gave him a questioning look. “I have a magic item that helps see inside cliffs. I think it’s in here somewhere…where did I put it?” Zinal pulled out many different magic items and craned his neck.
“I keep telling you to organize your bag—that’s why you can never find what you need when you need it,” Fische admonished him. “But anyway…what’re you even doing? If you remember what kind of magic item it is, shouldn’t it come out right away?”
Oh, they must be using a magic bag with a Link function! That function sure comes in handy. If you picture the item you need in your mind, your hand reaches right for it. Of course, that only works if you know which magic bag you put the item in…
“Can you remember what kind of magic item it was?” Zinal asked. Fische craned his neck. You had to remember perfectly what the item was or else the function didn’t work.
“I remember it was a four-cornered box—that’s all,” Zinal said.
I looked around his feet, where there were quite a few four-cornered boxes. Maybe one of them was the magic item he was looking for.
“What?! But isn’t it a round board?” Fische asked.
…A round board?
“Huh?! A round board?” Bewildered, Zinal repeated the words. Apparently, they were remembering different shapes. I decided to check the boxes first. Seemingly having the same idea, my father was reaching for a box near Zinal’s feet.
“Let’s just start looking,” Fische said.
“Yeah, now that you said it’s a round board, I’m beginning to think it’s not a box after all,” Zinal conceded.
“Me, too.”
As we laughed at Zinal and Fische’s conversation, I took a step away from the cliff wall to help. Then a gust of wind blew, enveloping me in a blue light.
“What?!” I froze in shock, and then a force yanked me backward.
Mrrrow!
“Puuu!”
“Ivy!”
I saw my father’s terrified face and a silhouette charging at me—that was Ciel. Boy, what a fast runner.
Bonk.
I hacked and wheezed as the sharp impact knocked the wind out of my lungs.
“What…was…that…?!”
I turned around, trying to see the cliff, but there was a heavily wounded serpent lying there.
“What?!”
I had no idea what had happened. When I tried to come over and help, I felt a sudden tug from behind…
Did the serpent get hurt…from protecting me?
“Ivy…you okay?” my father asked.
I nodded in a daze. My back only hurt a little, so I’d be fine. But Snakey…
“Pu! Pu, puuu.”
No sooner did I hear Sora’s voice than the slime had enveloped Snakey.
That’s right. Sora’s here.
“Thank goodness.” My muscles gave out in relief.
“Whoa there. Sit, don’t fall.”
My father held me under my arms and helped me sit up. I watched as Sora healed the serpent. I couldn’t see its wounds through the foam, but I was sure everything would be all right.
What happened? Did somebody hurt Snakey? And what yanked me backward?
“A trap?” Zinal asked.
I looked at him, and he stared grimly back at me. I looked at the cliff wall but saw nothing.
“What happened?” I asked.
“A summoning circle showed up on the cliff.”
When Fische said the words summoning circle, my breath caught in my throat. My father gave my back a few soothing pats.
“Why a summoning circle…?” I mumbled.
Who was that trap for? But Snakey brought me here and got hurt protecting me… Does that mean it didn’t know about the trap, either?
“Pefu! Pefu! Pefu!”
“Sol, what’s wrong?” Zinal asked, a strange catch in his voice.
I looked over at them. Sora had just left Snakey, which gave me a better look at it. The wounds were gone and Snakey was stretched upward and back to normal. What a relief.
“Thanks, Sora.”
Sora jiggled happily in reply. It really was a relief. Sensing a gaze on me, I looked up to see Snakey looking down at me worriedly. I slowly reached up and Snakey lowered its head, so I gave its nose a little pat.
“Thanks for saving me.”
“Agh!” Zinal yelped.
I looked at him and saw a blue summoning circle glowing on the cliff. The serpent moved protectively in front of me and my father.
“Pehhh-fu!”
Sol expanded itself to cover the summoning circle.
“That’s right…Sol can neutralize summoning circles,” my father remarked.
Yeah, Sol can do that. So many things had happened back then that I’d completely forgotten. The summoning circle was absorbed into Sol’s body before our very eyes…until its blue light disappeared.