He cleared the tall city walls with a leap. Onward to his house, the house where a certain goddess lived—
Upon arriving home, Shouzou found his whole family waiting to greet him at the door.
He briefly explained the situation, then asked Emalia to come with him, as she could supposedly use tracking magic.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. My tracking magic can only be used on someone that I’ve met... hold on. Elf, glasses, going by the name of ‘Sofie’—”
“Sofie-onee-sama~!” Hina cried out energetically.
“Ahh! I remember now. But I only talked with her for a brief moment, so I’m not sure......”
“Just knowing her general direction would be enough.” Due to the urgency of the situation, Shouzou did not give Emalia time to protest. He simply shouldered her like a sack of rice and dashed off again.
“I kind of feel like I’m being treated quite crudely!”
Emalia’s cry echoed into the moonlit night—
Watching the two of them disappear into the distance, Silvia cupped her cheek and murmured to herself.
“That’s a bit worrying......” If possible, she would have liked to help out as well, but as she had never met Sofie......
(Ah, but that reminds me, Hina’s met her before, hasn’t she?) Silvia stared long and hard at her own child.
“......”
(Stare—)
“...Okaa-sama, what business do you have with Hina-sama~?”
“Hina-chan, how clearly do you remember Sofie-san’s face?”
“Hina-sama is not confident about how many eyelashes she has~”
“We don’t need that much detail.”
Silvia gave a magic lecture so simplified that even Hina would understand it. After that, a half-transparent window appeared in midair.
“Bring up the image of Sofie-san inside your mind.”
For some reason, Hina twitched her nose several times.
Then, on the map displayed in the window, a red dot appeared and began flashing.
“My, my, now this......” The unexpectedness of the flashing dot’s behavior caused Silvia’s brows to scrunch up.
With this, she became quite convinced that Emalia’s tracking would not do the job.
“I need to tell Shouzou-san quickly, but......” Even if she was to bring Hina along, she couldn’t leave Yuna and Kana by themselves.
“Mama, we’ll be fine.” So saying, Kana brought her fingers to her mouth and whistled.
From behind the house, they heard a flapping sound. Then a single young dragon landed close by.
It was the blue dragon that they had picked up from the nearby forest. Perhaps due to having been fed all the magic it wanted day in and day out, it had grown so large that its height upon standing up straight now exceeded even that of Shouzou.
“Oh that’s right, we have Puru-chan.” It was a blue dragon, thus the name “Puru.” The reason why the voiceless “P” was adopted instead of the voiced “B” was “because it’s cuter that way,” apparently. Because Puru was a girl.
“Wait a moment, Kana. We’re riding on Puru’s back? Even though there’s nowhere to hold on?” Yuna protested, her face turning pale.
“Puru’s scales are squishy and really easy to hold onto, don’t you know?”
“No no no no. That’s impossible for me. How fast do you think we’ll have to go to catch up with Dad? In the first place, you know I’m bad with heights!”
“What a high maintenance girl......” Kana sighed, then grabbed Yuna while ignoring the “K-Kyah?! Wait! Kana!”
“Why a princess carry?!”
“Because I will be the one to protect Yuna-nee.”
“No more ikemen lines!”
In the end, Yuna stopped protesting (she zoned out from the fright), so Kana leaped onto Puru’s back with Yuna still in her arms.
“Everyone ready? Hina-chan, make sure to hug Mommy properly, all right?” Silvia floated up.
And so, Silvia and her daughters flew off into the night sky—
Having returned to Treia first, Shouzou sped here and there, before eventually taking up position on top of the clock tower that stood proudly in the middle of Central Plaza.
Emalia, who was still on his shoulder, was concentrating with her eyes squeezed shut.
“That way, I think. I’m sorry, the direction changed again......” Along the way there, Emalia had corrected the direction toward Sofie several times.
By now, it had been quite a while since Sofie had been kidnapped. Although the city was large, it was still more than enough time for her to have been locked up in a base somewhere.
But in spite of that, let alone Sofie’s location, even the direction toward her location was still not yet settled.
“There are still a lot of people on the larger roads at this time, so the tracking magic is not very stable...... I’m sorry.”
“......”
“But even so, this is strange, isn’t it? Could it be that they are interfering with the use of some anti-magic spell?”
“......”
“But if that’s the case, then the tracking magic shouldn’t even activate in the first place...... In the end, it must be because I’m just not good enough. I’m sorry......”
“How troubling. It appears that we have been under a great misunderstanding.” Shouzou scratched his head with his free hand.
“We had been thinking that Sofie-san has already been locked up somewhere, and so we need to find that place and storm it, but......”
Emalia peered into Shouzou’s face, and found him looking off at a point in the distance with the face of the two wrathful Deva kings who stand guard in front of Buddhist temples.
“They are not holed up at a specific location. They have been on the move this whole time.”
★
A carriage clattered on.
The small box carriage’s curtains were drawn, such that there was no way to see outside. Instead of heading toward a destination, Sofie felt more like they were just aimlessly circling around inside the city.
Ever since she was kidnapped, the carriage had been running on and on, as if there were no destination in mind.
Back when she was seized, she had even been afraid for her life. Paralyzed with fear, all she could do was pray silently again and again for that person to come save her.
But that said, the other party seemed to have no intention of hurting her, and she had not even been tied up.
However, she was extremely exhausted, both mentally and physically.
“And so—you are still with me, yes?—in light of that, as for why I forcefully made you come along with me—” Sitting across from her, with legs crossed, was none other than Jirahal.
After being shoved into this carriage, the entire time she had been forced to participate in this unending conversation.
While lending an ear to what he was saying for the time being, Sofie tried to sort out the situation she was in.
Since she was not tied up with a rope, escape was possible. She might be weak, but even she had enough strength to unhinge the carriage door with a kick. However, although they were not going very fast, jumping out from a moving carriage was akin to commiting suicide. So far, Jirahal had not displayed any intention of getting rough with her, so it probably would not be a good idea to provoke him unnecessarily.
What she should do at the moment was to buy time.
(Onigawara-san is definitely coming to save me.) Believe, and wait. She resolved inside her heart that this was her best option.
(Still, stalling for time is easy to say, but......) Sofie looked straight forward wearily.
The man was still prattling on. What he was saying was completely incomprehensible.
Even if she was to go along with what he was saying to drag it out, she wasn’t very confident that she could get onto his wavelength. The reason being that this man was under an enormous misunderstanding.