“Is there an inn in this town, then?” I asked instead.
“An inn, you say?” The old man finally smiled and gave us detailed instructions on how to get there.
Egh... I just managed to refrain from groaning out loud.
An eatery-slash-drinkery on the ground floor, open late, with guest rooms for rent upstairs—that was more or less what I’d come to expect from an inn. But the so-called inn Gourry and I arrived at was a perfectly average civilian house, no different in atmosphere or size than the other residences in the area. At first I thought we’d come to the wrong place, but near the entrance was a small sign that read “Inn” in what looked like the handwriting of a child who’d only just learned the word.
So we were probably in the right place. But it still looked like an ordinary house that just happened to have an open room to rent to travelers.
“What’s wrong, Lina?” Gourry asked from behind me as I stared out into space. “Why are we standing around here? Don’t we have to get to the inn?”
“Um, Gourry...”
“What?”
I looked back over my shoulder and pointed tremblingly at the house. “I think this is the inn.”
Gourry broke out in a big, broad smile. “You’re joking.”
“I’m serious.”
Gourry’s smile froze. “Huh? So we’re staying here tonight?”
“No way. The whole reason I wanted to find an inn was to rustle up info in a place with plenty of people.” It was only a little after noon, so if there was a large city nearby, we could easily walk there. We didn’t actually have to spend the night in Latka. And as for info... “Even if we go in here...”
“It’ll be dead as a doornail,” Gourry said, not at all shy about stating the rude truth. Granted, I was thinking the exact same thing.
So, with little other choice, we walked away from the supposed inn and down a nearby street lined with stalls and shops. There we found a fruit-seller. Her stall wasn’t particularly large, but it featured a lineup of produce I’d never seen before. I plucked out a couple of apples from among them.
“Two of these please, ma’am!” I called to the old lady running the stall.
“Sure thing. Four corsenas, if’n you please,” she said. She had a slight accent too, just like the old man had before.
I was pretty familiar with the local currency of most kingdoms, but I’d never heard of corsenas. “Do you accept copper coins from other kingdoms?” I asked.
“You a traveler, eh? ’Fraid not...”
“Then could I pay in silver and get change?”
“That’ll do.”
And so we completed the transaction. It was common enough for different countries to call their domestic coins by different names, and the coppers of some nations weren’t accepted beyond their own borders. But gold and silver coins, where the material itself had value, were pretty universal. I handed her the silver and studied the coppers she gave me in change. They were unfamiliar coinage with some kind of shell inscribed on one face.
“By the way, ma’am, I have a question. I assume we’re currently in the Alliance of Coastal Nations. Could you tell me roughly about where?”
“Eh?” she asked back blankly. I repeated my question, and she furrowed her brow in studied silence. “Sorry, what? What’s an allyants of coatsall nayshuns?” she asked at last.
“Uh?” Now it was my turn to stare blankly.
Someone with no interest in politics might not know the names of faraway locations. Not knowing the name of the alliance she lives in, though? That definitely isn’t normal.
“Erm, it’s a group of countries near the ocean... This isn’t one of them?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know much about our kingdom, but I never heard of us being part of some larger group.”
Huh? A sudden shiver ran up my spine, and a thought ran through my mind. Hoping to repudiate it, I said, “Okay, then have you heard of any of these countries? Ralteague, Zephilia, Saillune, Lyzeille...”
The woman shook her head apologetically.
“Th-Then... could you tell me the names of all the countries you do know?”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me, but replied, “All right, but I don’t know many. Let’s see...”
The names she proceeded to recite... Never heard of it, never heard of it, never heard of it. The longer she went on, the more I could feel the blood drain from my face.
“But this domain is known as Luzilte—” She stopped short. “Say, are you well? You’ve gone pale as death!”
“Ah... I’m fine,” I croaked.
“You sure you’re okay, Lina? What’s wrong?” Gourry looked down at me in concern.
“I just realized what’s going on,” I replied, hoarsely.
“What’s going on?”
The unfamiliar town. The strange fruits. The distinctive accents. That was all within expectations. But I didn’t know any of the countries she named, nor did she know any of the countries I named. Which suggested something I didn’t even want to consider...
I laid out the frankly absurd situation for Gourry. “We’re in the world far beyond the Desert of Destruction... outside the demons’ barrier.”
Legend has it that, long ago, the gods and demons fought for control of our world. On one side was Flare Dragon Ceifeed. On the other, Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu. Ceifeed wanted to protect the world, while Shabranigdu wanted to destroy it. They battled, and in time, their duel ended in a draw. The exhausted Ceifeed divided his power into four entities, creating the four Dragon Lords as pillars representing fire, earth, water, and air. The exhausted Shabranigdu was split into seven fragments and reincarnated inside human beings, his consciousness sealed, yet waiting for a chance to be reborn.
Then, nigh a thousand years ago, the demons rose to challenge Aqualord, protector of the Kataart Mountains in the north. Aqualord was thus pitted against one reborn shard of the Dark Lord. Four of his demonic lieutenants—Hellmaster, Dynast, Greater Beast, and Deep Sea—formed a barrier anchored in the lands surrounding the Kataarts in order to diminish Aqualord’s power and prevent intervention from the other Dragon Lords. This plan spelled the demise of Aqualord, but the revived Dark Lord was ultimately sealed away in ice. And so the Kataart Mountains were transformed from a sacred place into a demonic one.
This conflict came to be known as the Incarnation War. Since that time, the lands in which we lived—including my homeland of Zephilia, the Alliance of Coastal Nations, Saillune, et cetera—had been cut off by Hellmaster’s barrier in the Desert of Destruction on the edge of the Elemekia Empire. It made all the lands beyond inaccessible, and the same was true in other directions. Our sea routes (if there’d ever been any) were likewise cut off by the demons’ barrier. We were entirely sealed off from the “outer lands.”
Or maybe I should say we had been sealed off. Because right now, those outer lands were the only place I could imagine us being.
“For real?” Gourry asked. We’d taken a seat on some wooden crates next to the fruit-seller’s stall to enjoy our apples by the roadside.
“For real,” I whispered listlessly as I finished mine.
“Don’t be down, Lina. You’re acting like that Norst guy,” Gourry replied from beside me, fresh off his own apple.
“I don’t really care about that...”
“But panicking won’t get you anywhere, will it?”
I let out a deep sigh. “You just don’t get it, Gourry.”
“Get what?”
“We’re currently outside of the demons’ barrier... beyond the Desert of Destruction, I think.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that,” he said with a shrug.
“I don’t know how far away we are, or even what city we’re even in!”
“Sure.”
“I have no idea how to get us back where we came from!”
“Figures.”
He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all...
“You listen here!” I declared. “Mouth-watering milsafish and flavorful autumn nigi-mushrooms! Otarl sea bream that tastes of the divine when sautéed, and mineva duckling packed with savory deliciousness! We’ll never get to eat any of those again!”
“For real?” Gourry said, slumping down to the ground limply.
“For real.”
Tears began to flow from his eyes.
You’re crying, dude?!
“Lina, I... I don’t know what to do...”
Somehow, seeing Gourry even more depressed than I was about our future food prospects inspired a perverse streak of optimism in me. “Hey, c’mon, man... I know how you feel. But it’s too soon to give in to despair.”
✦ ✦ ✦
