NICHIKA feared if she let the butler be, he’d start banging his head against a nearby tree while rattling off his incessant apologies, so she let Oswald tie him up and sit him on the ground. She couldn’t shake the feeling that their positions as hunted and hunter had been flipped.
“Okay, let me make sure I have this right,” she said, going over what he told them. “Angelica started acting funny after she bought a purple crystal?”
The timid butler nodded his head like a broken bobblehead doll.
“Yeeessss, ma’am. I think it was somewhere outside Windy Village when a merchant in a white robe called us over and gave it to her for cheap. Ever since she accepted that pendant, Her Ladyship, while always having been a greedy person, became the ideal model for greed. She doesn’t bat an eyelash at scamming people, and even went so far as to use her looks to impersonate the Spirit Priestess…”
The more she heard the more suspicious she became. It matched up almost perfectly timing wise, so there was little reason to doubt his involvement.
“Wouldn’t you say that merchant was Phantom?” Nichika checked with Oswald beside her.
“I’d say so.”
Judging by everything he told her, the crystal was most likely “greed”. Nichika was racking her brain on how to destroy it when the shouts and angry footsteps of the search party came too close for comfort.
“Where are you?! Stop your meaningless resistance and give yourselves up!”
“Uh-oh.”
Nichika and Oswald fled from the spoiled young lady’s high-pitched demands. Several minutes later they heard a loud “Oh dear! How could this have ever happened?! Do you all see this? Only foul cowards would do something so debase as tie up my attendant! I won’t let them get away with this. I shall punish them with the power of the gods!”
Aaaah, geez!
In any event, it didn’t look like they would get to sleep under a roof tonight. Nichika kicked the dirt to vent the anger she couldn’t take out anywhere else.
✦ ✦ ✦
AROUND that same time, another incident was taking place on the northern continent, far from Brownie Village. Far above the northern continent, to be precise.
A stunning black dragon flew over the sea of clouds. The boy, lying back on the dragon’s scales, exhaled white puffs of air as he drew the sides of his hood together.
“Uggh, sooo cold. Good grief, I hate the cold. Oh, but a hot spring would be awesome here. A hot spring where I can watch the snow fall! Now that sounds nice! I want one!” the boy exclaimed, rolling around on the dragon’s back. “That settles it! Let’s blow up a water vein and bathe in a hot spring on our way home, Vadnir.”
“Vuuu?” the dragon whinnied.
“It feels like heaven. In my world even the monkeys go in hot springs. It’s not that strange for a dragon to bathe in one. Hot springs are the greatest, I mean it. Boy, wouldn’t it be great if portable hot springs existed?”
The blue moon’s light reflected off the shiny black scales and rippled along the surface as the dragon flapped his wings.
The black dragon rumbled a warning to his master. Phantom sat up and discovered nine white, shining birds flying beyond the dragon’s snout. Their wingspan was wider than the black dragon’s, and their dead eyes appeared to be made of snow.
“Are those guardians? Figures they won’t let us have a pleasant flight into their space. Shouldn’t expect any less of the country that closed off its borders,” Phantom muttered then happily ordered, “All right! Get ’em, Vani! It’s flamethrower time! Haha!”
The black dragon exhaled black flames from his wide-open mouth. Three of the birds instantly evaporated. Two that barely flew out of the way disintegrated in the heat waves.
“Oooh? You’ve got a four times damage bonus for being opposite element types!”
The hit birds lost their shape and fell beneath the clouds. However, the rest didn’t show any emotion as they dispassionately attacked the black dragon. From the look of it, they weren’t living creatures, but attack dolls made of snow and ice.
“Tch,” Phantom pouted when he realized it. “We can’t collect any dark mana if they don’t have a soul.”
Holding onto the circling black dragon with one hand, he raised his other hand. A giant ring of fire spun at his fingertips.
“Well, I oughta get serious once in a while… Suck this!”
The released fire ring grew to ten times the size and minced up the remaining birds in one go. The boy openly rejoiced over crushing the guardians.
“Woohoo! I win!”
Standing up to brag about his victory exposed him to the strong winds, and he crouched back down shivering. With one hand he pinched his hood together, and fished through his belt pouch with his other.
“Aggh. Stinkin’ cold air. Let’s wrap things up lickety-split! Uhm, I think it should be around here.”
He pulled out a fist-sized crystal and stroked the surface before casually throwing it off the side of the dragon. The thick snow absorbed the crystal until it was out of sight. Lips curling into a sneer, the boy whispered in the direction of the white land far, far below him.
“Once upon a time, White Country fought equally against the entire southern continent. Actually, they were the superior fighters. They closed their borders and refuse to interact with other nations, but I’m willing to bet some deeply rooted desires are brimming under the surface.”
This was his last magic crystal. Phantom had been spreading them along the route he assumed the girl would follow, but this particular crystal was the one he wanted her to come across for sure. He knew she would have to come here eventually.
“She’s destroyed wrath, sloth, and jealousy. Four more to go…that girl is pretty persistent too,” Phantom said, thinking of his target.
The visage of that easy-to-deceive-too-good-for-her-own-good girl flashed behind his mind’s eye. He didn’t have a personal grudge against her, but she was guilty of the same crime the moment she joined arms with Ini.
The boy stared at his hands. The amusement that was ever-present in his voice gave way to the first hint of anguish he felt on the inside.
“There’s no need for a world that threw me away.”
The black dragon whinnied with concern for his young master. Phantom snapped out of it and hugged the dragon’s neck.
“Sorry. I love you, Vadnir. Come on, let’s get outta here before we’re discovered. Oh, and take me to a clearing without any foot traffic. Let’s dig up a hot spring. Hot spring, here we come!”
The black dragon sped up, relieved his master returned to his cheerful self. He plunged into the clouds while secretly looking forward to this hot spring thing his master spoke so highly of.