“I’ll help too!” Metea declared.
“Please let me help as well,” said Mary.
“Thanks,” said Touya. “All right. Let’s take it slow and steady so we don’t get our hands stuck.”
The largest rocks were a meter in width and two meters in height, but most were small enough for the three to carry in their arms. Still, if the person carrying them were to trip or drop them, they were large enough to break bones.
Touya contemplated the pile of rocks, trying to decide where to start. Before he arrived at a decision, Haruka interrupted him.
“Just don’t throw any rocks over the cliff.”
“Oh, right, duh... Yeah, I know—I would never think of doing something like that.”
In actuality, the idea had obviously crossed Touya’s mind, but Haruka didn’t bother pointing that out. Instead, she folded her arms and stared silently into the chasm. Touya and Yuki exchanged a glance, shrugged, and set to work shifting the rocks toward the plank trail. Mary and Metea helped. In the end, Touya was able to split the largest rock into several smaller pieces by kicking it, so they were able to conserve Yuki’s mana and retrieve the rope ladder, but...
“This doesn’t look super usable to me,” said Touya.
“Yeah, climbing down it might be risky,” said Yuki.
None of the wires on either side of the ladder had broken, but some of the rungs were severely bent, so it was clearly unsafe for use in the dungeon.
“Well, let’s take it back with us and get it repaired before we—”
Touya and Yuki were still inspecting the ladder when Haruka suddenly put a finger to her lips and hushed them. “Shh!”
The sound of a whistle pierced the air.
“Yes!” Haruka exclaimed.
“Two times! That’s the signal that they’re safe!” Yuki breathed a sigh of relief.
The tense look on Haruka’s face relaxed a bit. “Those whistles ended up being useful after all.”
“Yeah,” said Touya. “When Nao came up with that idea, I didn’t think we’d ever use them. Guess I was wrong.”
In addition to their highest-capacity magic bags, the members of Meikyo Shisui each carried around an additional lower-capacity bag, too small to hinder their movements during combat, on their belts. Nao had come up with the idea of storing whistles in these bags after Mary and Metea had gone missing at the viscount’s mansion. The whistles enabled them to communicate over a distance if they were ever separated. It was a somewhat primitive solution, but none of the mages in the party had the ability to transfer messages magically, so whistles were an adequate substitute; their sound could travel a few kilometers in an open environment. Just as importantly, other noises didn’t block the shrill sound of the whistles, as witnessed by the fact that Haruka had heard one over a great distance despite the roar of the waterfall.
Meikyo Shisui had also devised a series of signals. Three whistles was an SOS, while two meant that the person who’d signaled was safe. They had also agreed upon a few other signals that employed long and short sounds similar to Morse code, but Haruka was the only one who had committed them to memory—even Natsuki and Yuki had to consult a chart in order to decode them—so they weren’t particularly useful.
“Yay! They’re okay!” Metea exclaimed.
“Yeah!” said Mary. “Oh, right, we need to respond!”
“Mm, of course! Will you do the honors, Touya?” Haruka asked.
“Sure.” Touya took out his whistle and looked at Haruka for confirmation. “Two times, right?”
“Yeah,” Haruka replied with a nod.
“Okay. Here goes.”
Touya took a deep breath and gave his whistle two blows.
“Whew. If they heard that, all we need to do is wait here until they get back,” said Touya.
“Yeah! If they’re in whistle range, they can’t be that far away,” said Yuki. “Nao can teleport them back no problem!”
Haruka breathed a sigh of relief at Yuki’s confident words. However...
★★★★★★★★★
“Why aren’t they back yet, Yuki?!”
“Uh, yeah, I know what I said, but it’s not my fault, Haruka.”
Initially, Haruka had been optimistic about Nao and Natsuki returning soon, but after two minutes passed, she began kicking her heels restlessly, and by the five-minute mark, she had lost her patience completely.
“I’m just confused,” said Haruka. “Does Nao not have enough mana to teleport back?”
“Oh yeah, that’s one possibility,” said Yuki. “You said before that neither of you have mastered Airwalk yet, right? So using it might have eaten up most of Nao’s mana...”
Casting a spell without having mastered it would put a mage at risk of expending excess mana and being rendered immobile. The mages of Meikyo Shisui were all too familiar with this phenomenon. Now that Yuki had reminded her of it, Haruka asked, “If that’s the case, is it possible that they won’t reunite with us for a while...?”
“They blew on the whistle two times, Haruka-san,” said Mary. “I don’t think we need to worry too much about them.”
“I’m sure big bro Nao and big sis Natsuki are fine!” Metea put in. “They’re different from big bro Touya!”
“...Yeah, I suppose you two are probably right,” said Haruka.
But whereas the sisters’ admonition had helped Haruka to calm down, Touya appeared shocked.
“Man, does nobody here believe in me? Do you all just think I’m some kind of oaf?!”
“I mean, the whole reason we think they’re probably fine is magic,” said Yuki. “Right, Metea?”
“Huh? O-Oh, yeah, of course!”
Metea hurriedly nodded. Young though she was, she was adept at reading the room when she had to. Unfortunately, however, Yuki’s excuse failed to convince Touya.
“Nah, that’s obviously not what you meant! Like, sure, Nao and Natsuki together have better odds than I would have, but still.”
But in spite of his sulking, Touya was well aware that Nao and Natsuki were, indeed, better equipped for this challenge than he would have been, including in terms of their ability to assess an emergency situation calmly, so he dropped the matter and looked up at the cliff overhead.