“Well then,” Captain Morgan said, turning his gaze to the far north. “Head that way for five days more and you’ll reach the border. Beyond is the Duchy of Belheid, though I’m afraid I still haven’t heard anything about a country that borders a desert. I’ll return to the capital, say I was attacked by a group believed to be Neosfeed in Toltas, and that you and your companions were killed in the conflict.”
I appreciated the help, of course, but... “Why?”
“Ah, I’m just lazy. Oh, right... I also owe you for your help in beating the Dark Lord of the North.”
“Roger that. Well...” I almost said “see you,” but I had to stop myself. We were unlikely to ever meet again, after all. “Take care.”
And so the three of us and Captain Morgan went our separate ways. It goes without saying that the world is a big place. It’s big... but maybe it also goes without saying that it isn’t infinite.
“Mmm...” We stood in the cool shade of a tree on a tall hill. Ran stretched. “The weather’s nice.”
It was a leisurely afternoon. I sat down in the grass next to her and lazily replied, “It sure is.”
We were overlooking a line of fencing along green hills that almost looked like it belonged to a farm.
“We finally made it,” Gourry, sitting beside me, said in a meaningful voice, gazing in the same direction.
“We sure did,” I whispered as well. This half-hearted fence was actually the border between the Kingdom of Luzilte and the Duchy of Belheid.
Now... despite how calmly we were talking, I was planning on using my Levitation spell to get us over said border come nightfall! We weren’t up on this hill for a picnic, but rather to scout out border security. We saw the occasional soldiers from both countries patrolling their respective sides of the fence, but they were pretty few and far between. Thanks to that, we were feeling pretty chill about the whole operation.
Besides, it was important to take time to relax like this. When I really stopped to think about it, our future was extremely uncertain. Just because we crossed the border didn’t necessarily mean those Neosfeed guys would give up on us. I doubted human territoriality meant anything to them.
It’d be one thing if their “organization” turned out to be five dudes... but I wasn’t banking on that. And once Nelfic told the rest of the group about our abilities and how we’d killed two of their friends, they were likely to come better prepared next time. I’d also lost my magic-amplifying talismans before this far-flung journey, so my spell repertoire was smaller than before.
Now, if I could master spells that borrowed the power of the Dragon Lords, usable here in the outer lands, that’d be a different story. But there was no telling if that would be as easy as substituting a few lines from one chant with another. There was a lot that went into spellcasting, from understanding the incantation itself to control of one’s own magic flow to individual affinities. Ran had taught me the words of the wind spell she’d used, but I hadn’t gotten it to activate once in all my tries so far. There was a lot more for me to study and play around with.
Of course, I wanted to learn, partly to satisfy my curiosity and partly to help combat the Neosfeed guys—a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of situation.
“So, Ran, what will you do after we cross the border?” I asked as the question occurred to me.
“Do about what?”
“Well, you know. If you stick with us, you’ll keep getting caught up in various fine messes.”
“True...” Only moving her eyes, Ran watched a butterfly flitting around nearby. “If I don’t like it, I’ll say goodbye. But I’ll stick with you until then.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. If I’m not being a third wheel with you two.”
“Huh?!” Where had that come from? Gourry was spaced out and didn’t seem to have heard it, but... “That aside, Ran, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” I quickly changed the subject. “About that staff of yours...”
“The Cool Stick?”
“Yeah, that. You think you could give it a better name?”
“Huh? The Cool Stick is a great name. It just makes you think... ‘Wow, cool!’ Right?”
“Sure... Still, I mean, nothing against the taste of your kinsmen, but wouldn’t you want, you know, a more dignified name for it?”
“Hmm...” She thought a while longer. “Oh! The tree it came from has a distinguished name! We could call it that!”
“A distinguished name?”
“Yah! There’s an old legend back where I came from about the heroes Democain and Lamocael, who lived a super-duper long time. The tree’s also been alive for ages, so we named it after them, to basically mean ‘the really long-lived tree’!” She grinned.
“Oh? That sounds promising. So what’s the name?”
“The Mocamoca tree!”
“Why?!” I found myself shouting.
“Well, from De-moca-in and La-moca-el...”
“Why did you choose those parts?!”
If it really was a relative of the sacred tree Flagoon from the inner realm... and its real name really was the Mocamoca Tree... that was kind of disappointing in a lot of ways.
“Okay! We’ll use the tree’s name and call it the Mocamoca Stick! How’s that, Nissy Lina?” Ran nodded enthusiastically, seeming extremely excited about the idea.
“Wait, Ran, calm down. Can you think it over a little more?” I tried to stop her before she got too set on the idea, but...
“Why? It’s the Mocamoca Stick! Where I come from, everyone would think that’s super cool! Rostir Gou thinks it sounds cool too, I bet!”
Why would you put the question to someone who wasn’t even listening? At least, I thought he wasn’t, but Gourry, who perhaps had just so happened to tune in for a bit, smiled uncomfortably and said, “It’s not bad, but I’d have named it the Elder Rod or the Ancient Staff or something myself.”
Wow, those were actually cool! Or maybe anything sounded better than... Mocamoca Stick.
Ran puffed out her chest and grinned. “See? Rostir Gou thinks it’s okay too!”
“I just want to know why you chose those parts of the names!” I shouted.
We still didn’t have any clues about how to get home, and we had a long journey ahead of us.
But... I had a feeling the longer journey was going to be getting me and Ran to agree on what was cool.