“AHA! Ha! Ha!” Wind Spirit Sylmia laughed like a stormy gale after clearing the area of people. “I never would have guessed that Lam’s guests included the Spirit Priestess~!”
He didn’t look much older than Oswald, and frankly, didn’t seem one bit like a spirit. Flowers didn’t stop blowing around him as he gave a refined bow.
“Allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m the Great Wind Spirit Sylmia. May our relationship be ever beautiful.”
“Yes, I hope it will be! My name is Nichika. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance!”
The gorgeous spirit chuckled at the girl bowing to him in a panic. “You’re a different type from Yuna.”
“You knew Goddess Yuna too, Lord Sylmia?”
“Tch, tch, tch!” He wagged his finger. The air swirled with the movement. “Now there, save your questions for later. Doing something ill-mannered like chatting in the street offends my aesthetic. Why don’t we enjoy a long talk over a splendid cup of tea at my palace?”
“Haah…” Nichika and Oswald sighed.
And so the group headed to Sylmia’s palace. As they walked through the colorful streets, an emotionally drained Oswald weakly grumbled his complaints.
“I can’t take it. My body viscerally rejects his type.”
“Ahaha…”
He must’ve mentally associated the hyper and overly obnoxious wind spirit with the very similar golden celestial Ini.
“Hey, what is that?” Nichika asked, stopping when she spotted something strange in the middle of the road.
She pointed to the three green crystal balls floating next to each other at a head’s height. People were standing on each side, leaning forward with their heads thrust into the balls.
“Oh, that?” Lambert responded, hands folded behind his head. “It’s a thingamajig this dude created that allows you to talk to people far away.”
That explanation brought a modern invention to mind. “A phone!” she exclaimed.
“Fown?” Lambert sounded out the peculiar sounding word.
Sylmia walked up behind him with a confident smile and took hold of Nichika’s hand. “It’s not a fown, but my pride and joy called a Wind Whisper! You should give it a whirl since we’re here! Come! Come!”
He led her to the crystal balls and gave her head a gentle push inside one. It looked like rock-hard crystal from the outside, but once her face made contact with the cool surface, it sucked her in as if she were dunking her head in water. Yet she could still breathe. It was a strange feeling having her head submerged in a water ball and breathing just fine. Sylmia’s instructions outside the crystal sounded like they came from the other side of a stone wall.
“Think of the name of a person you want to talk to and where they are. The wind mana will assuredly carry your voice to them!”
“U-Uhmm, who should I pick?”
Nichika thought of all the different people she had met since coming to this world. One particular girl stood out among the rest.
“Yeah, I’ll go with her!”
✦ ✦ ✦
SHE was valiantly attired in uniform for military training that day, much as she was every day. She turned her hawkish gaze on the uniformed men and women of the Magic Gun Corps and fired off instructions.
“Keep your eye on the target! Keep your elbows down and in to support its weight! Relax your neck and let your cheek fall naturally to the stock!”
Bangs resounded in the training ground where the white sand dazzled the eyes under the unrelenting sun. This year’s recruits were quite skilled. Mass production of the magic wind bullets purchased from the Witch of the West was proceeding as planned. They didn’t have to worry about being easily invaded now.
The mutating monsters are worrisome, but the North’s recent silence is equally unsettling. Being prepared never hurts.
She took a break from instructing the troops to retie her hair that had been drastically shortened during a certain incident.
“Princess Yura!”
The general princess of Cherry Blossom Kingdom warily scanned the area for who said her name. That familiar voice caused her perfectly shaped brows to knit.
“Miss Nichika?” she uttered the name of her former guest.
“This is so awesome! It actually works!” the girl’s jubilant voice responded amid a gentle breeze.
“Wh-Where are you?!”
Years of serving in the military made her very uncomfortable not being able to see the other party.
Picking up on Yura’s restlessness, Nichika laughed apologetically beyond the wind.
“I’m currently in Windy Village. A contraption here is allowing me to project my voice to you. I have something to ask you.”
“Windy Village?”
Yura searched her memory using that village name as a keyword. Now that she thought about it, there was rumor of a technology in Windy Village said to exponentially extend the oscillation distance of air, effectively sending voices to distant lands. She had relegated the information to nothing more than hearsay, but it turned out to be real.
“You surprised me. That’s a magnificent piece of technology,” she responded, honestly impressed with what they had accomplished.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to startle you.”
“Would it be possible to import that technology to my kingdom? I’ll buy it at top coin.”
“What? Ah, okay…yes…I understand…umm…”
Yura was only half serious when she asked, but Nichika started talking to someone else about it on the other side of the wind. Several minutes passed before she returned to the conversation with Yura.
“I’m sorry. From what I understand, this contraption requires the Great Wind Spirit’s power to operate. He said it won’t work anywhere but here.”
“Aw, that’s a real shame.” Yura laughed behind her hand and moved to the garden arbor. She leaned against the red railing and fixed her hair while she chatted with Nichika. “I’m glad to hear you’ve successfully met the Great Wind Spirit in Windy Village. Are things going well?”
“Yes! Thanks to all your help!”
“Rumors of you are slowly making their way here as well. People are talking about the Spirit Priestess who’s traveling with a raven-haired witch.”
The information put out by Elminage traveled through Lolo Village to Cherry Blossom Kingdom. And the information brought by travelers quickly spread throughout the land. From here, word would be carried by travelers boarding the large-scale aviation Whales to Seaside Blue Port, and spread westward from there. As ruler of one of the countries plagued by the increasing dark mana, Yura was grateful to Nichika.
“My people have been delighted by the news. There’s been so little good news lately, what with monsters growing more aggressive by the day.”
“Things are getting that bad?” Worry permeated Nichika’s voice.
Yura moved away from the balustrade to where she could overlook the city. Women armed with guns kept careful lookout from atop the watchtowers encircling the city walls. She watched them as she explained the current situation to Nichika.
“They haven’t breached our walls yet, but our biggest struggle lies in being unable to leave without armed guards. The children are sick of being cooped up. They want to play outside again.”
“I…see.”
The increasingly more aggressive monsters were attacking people now. Even the nocturnal species had started brazenly appearing during the day. Should things continue at this rate, it would eventually lead to normal citizens being unable to travel to other cities without extensive protection.
Hoping to change the dark mood she created, Yura cheerfully asked, “Is the mighty witch doing well?”
“All too well! I think he’s a perfect example of the saying ‘bad boys have all the luck.’ His personality is as twisted as ever, he’s a big pervert, and lazy to boot—YEOW!”
A dull thud was carried to her on the wind. Yura giggled. It appeared this master-apprentice duo hadn’t changed since she last saw them. She thoroughly enjoyed their banter going on beyond the wind as she waited for the perfect moment to interrupt them.
“Now that that’s settled, didn’t you have something to ask of me?”
“I did?” Had she forgotten her original objective? There was a pause before she cried, “Oh yeah!”
Cherry Blossom Kingdom’s princess couldn’t restrain the bubble of laughter at Nichika’s typical response. As usual, this girl from another world had a way of bringing peace to others. But Yura’s laughter apparently went unnoticed because Nichika got to the point in a hard voice.
“Princess Yura, do you still have the arrow fragment that was stuck in the Great Fire Spirit?”
“You mean that abominable arrow? You stepped on it and it broke.”
The incident involving some heathen controlling the fire dragon that protected Cherry Blossom Kingdom was still fresh in her mind. After Nichika destroyed the arrow, Yura meticulously collected and analyzed the splintered pieces, but the thick, nauseating purple aura had vanished without a trace. She had carefully stored the pieces that had become nothing more than junk just in case.
“Did you happen to see strange letters scribbled on any of it?”
“Letters? Now that you mention it…”
Yura recalled a report from a subordinate who was involved in the restoration work. She had examined the mysterious characters scrawled on the arrowhead for good measure, but could not decipher it either. Hand on her chin, she pondered Nichika’s question and gave her a truthful account.
“There were three letters.”
“That’s what I’m after! What did it say?”
“They are unreadable. My subordinates are currently looking into it.”
“I can probably read it.”
That was a surprise, but how could Yura explain what letters she couldn’t read looked like with words alone? Hot wind suddenly caressed her cheek while she was racking her brain for a good idea. A serene, rumbling voice whispered in her ears.
“Yura, I shalt explain for ye.”