“I’m sorry, but I think one of my mates is calling me. My name’s Ektor, by the way. May I have the honor of knowing yours?”
“M-Miku…”
“Miku? What a charming name. I hope to bump into you again. See you around!”
And with that, the young man with golden hair named Ektor runs off. All I can do is stand there, staring at him.
“Miku…?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
That chilling voice, muttering my name as if breathing directly down my neck, from right behind me! She scared me half to death! But I knew the unspoken words in her voice, and everything was fine in that regard.
“I’m not in love!”
“Hmph. Good!”
I bow formally as I speak, and she answers in a huff, crossing her arms in front of her. There’s a brief pause before we both burst into laughter.
“Are you sure, though? You didn’t feel even a twinge?”
“Well, he was extraordinarily handsome, and I can’t deny I’m a sucker for a sweet face. But still…”
“Hee-hee! Thank you for being honest. Don’t worry. I can tell just by looking at you that you haven’t fallen for him. And thank goodness! Even I’m shocked by how closely reality is mirroring the story in my head. Maybe even down to the two of you falling in love…”
Claire sticks her tongue out at me playfully, before giggling like a naughty kid.
Is Claire a bit smitten as well? I can’t blame her, though. He was too good-looking to be real!
“Now then… The main problem starts from here,” she reminds me.
“Mm-hm. I know.”
She looks stressed as she clenches her fists. That’s right, this is when everything takes a turn for the worse.
“Have you noticed it yet?” she asks.
“Mm-hm. I wouldn’t have noticed at all if not for your intense training sessions.”
A foul presence is emanating from the direction of the Southern Wood. It means a swarm of monsters really is approaching…!
“All right, let’s go. We have business to take care of before they arrive.”
“Okay!”
We sprint out of the village, Claire holding a ball of fire in her hand and wings of light shining from my back. The arrival of the handsome young men, and now this ominous presence… I begin to feel an almost crippling fear take hold of me as I realize everything Claire endlessly told me about over the years is finally coming true. But everything will be okay. We’d prepared for this. Now is not the time to be afraid!
I shoot up into the sky, keeping a close eye on Claire, who is sprinting across the ground. As I try to desperately suppress the fear that threatens to consume me, my body shuddering, I look in the direction of the evil aura.
“A swarm of monsters!”
“Where?!”
“Right in front of us! We’ve almost reached the vanguard!”
At that instant, Claire’s entire body became engulfed in flames. Suddenly, she takes off even faster than before, and it isn’t long before her fiery flames attract the attention of the monsters. She swings her fist with all her might toward the horde, and I notice her tail is thicker than usual, swollen with concentrated magical power.
“TAKE THIS!” she shouts.
I watch as the fire from her hand bursts out toward the monsters. The flames swirl into a twirling vortex, quickly growing in size, and engulfs the first row of monsters.
It’s impressive, no matter how many times I’ve seen it!
I hear their howls of pain as the flames consume them. It pains me to see and hear the suffering of any creature… No, I can’t think that way. After all, if we were to hesitate for even a moment, they would not hesitate to set us on fire. I learned a lot from Claire’s harsh training, including what to do when faced with a dangerous situation.
I can’t let Claire face this alone!
“Miku!”
“On it!”
I’m up! I have to make it easier for Claire to attack! I fly over the swarm of monsters, focusing my power while clasping my hands together, almost as if in prayer. I can feel magic gathering in my tail. I use a spell to create a light veil that will trap the monsters within a glowing shell for a short period of time.
Unfortunately, I only have access to non-offensive light magic. Although I can’t attack, I can still offer support in a multitude of ways. With that said, I still have a ways to go in knowing how to properly wield my magic, making the radius of my light veil still fairly small. Plus, I can’t hold it up for very long. Honestly, I was surprised when Claire initially told me her plan of using the veil on the monsters and not us.
“If we use your veil of light on the monsters instead of us, we can hold them in one place, right?”
I gasped in surprise when she mentioned her plan during one of our training sessions. I’d always viewed my veil as a bubble of protection, but I could also use it as an impenetrable prison, trapping the monsters in place. The fact that Claire could come up with this sort of backwards approach was part of what made her so amazing in my eyes. Honestly, she has always been amazing in all sorts of ways! Since I couldn’t attack, my job was to trap the monsters in place and blind them. Then, once they couldn’t move…
“Flame Spin! Fox Fire!”
Claire would use the might of her fire power to take care of the horde all at once. She looks beautiful as she twirls in place, as if dancing. It almost looks like the flames engulfing her body are gracefully dancing along with her.
The monsters are unable to escape her ferocious storm of fire and I feel my heart break at the sight of such immense suffering as they burn alive, but such is the price to pay to ensure survival. Remember, these monsters mercilessly slaughter any and all living things! I shake my head before lightly slapping my cheek in an attempt to snap myself out of it.
“Fox Fire! Fox Fire!”
All that’s left is to rinse and repeat. Her straightforward strategy slowly eliminates the monsters, one by one. Although she has the potential to unleash fairly powerful magic attacks, these two techniques are all she can actually use right now. That’s right, we didn’t have a lot of options.
Being primarily self-taught, our magical abilities are still developing, and our power is limited in effectiveness. To be fair, there aren’t many others who can wield even this much magic. The other villagers only use as much as necessary to get by or to slay monsters. Most are satisfied with one or two basic attack spells, just in case.
“Haa, haa… Gosh!” she pants. “How many of them are there? They never stop! Fox Fire!”
“Claire, please don’t push yourself too hard!” I call out to her.
She’s breathing heavily. She’d been constantly twirling to keep her magic going and is clearly nearing her limit. Meanwhile, I’d been floating above everything, simply keeping the horde trapped in one spot. I can’t leave her here, exhausted and spent from continuously casting spells.
“It’s no good!” she shouts. “There’s still so many of them… Ah…”
“Claire? Oh…”
Clearly not ready to give up just yet, I follow her gaze only to find myself staring at a hopeless atrocity spreading out before me. The horde of monsters is only growing in size, spreading out as far as the eye can see.