I was relaxing and watching Reina from behind as she made lunch as usual, when I noticed something strange going on in the forest. The monsters had been spooked by the presence of something powerful, and the trees were trembling as if in fear. This was a phenomenon that commonly occurred when one of the island’s insanely strong locals was running around.
“Who could that be?” Reina asked. “It can’t be Tailtiu or Luna, because they come as they please.”
“Everyone usually takes care to not stand out so much, so this is weird,” I said. “Are they in a hurry or something? Anyway, I’ll go greet them, so you can just keep making lunch.”
It was midday, so the number of visitors who would come here was rather limited. They were dashing through the forest, so if I had to guess, it would be the Divine Beastfolk warrior—
“Hey, Arata, sorry to interrupt,” Elga said.
“Ah, it’s you, just as I thought. What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’m here to pick up Luna. I told her to make absolutely sure to come back this morning, but she’s still gone.”
“You’re looking for Luna? I mean, she ate here last night, but then she just left like usual...”
I had heard before that Luna didn’t have any parents, so Elga and Livia had taken her in as family. The two of them didn’t have children, and it was obvious even from an outside perspective that they doted on her like a little sister or a daughter. Luna said that Elga was like an annoying stepbrother, but...she was terrible at hiding how she really felt; she treated him kindly regardless and was always doing things together with him.
Elga sighed. “Hahh... Where’d she run off to?”
“Did something happen to Luna?” Reina asked. She’d headed over to us while still wearing her usual red apron, probably because I was taking a long time.
“Elga says that she didn’t come back yesterday,” I said.
“That’s serious! We have to go look for her!”
“You guys don’t need to worry. She’s our problem,” Elga said. Roughly scratching his head, he sighed and turned his back to us. “But if she comes here, tell her to go back to the village...and to get ready for what’s coming.”
“Ah, wai—”
Elga leaped away with tremendous speed; by the time I reached my hand out to him he had already disappeared from view. At times like this, I was keenly aware that he wasn’t an ordinary human but rather a descendant of the incredible Divine Beasts.
“What should we do?” I asked.
“I think we’d still better go looking for her, don’t you?” Reina said. “Luna may be strong enough for the beasts in the forest around here, and smart enough to find her way back home, but something might have happened to her...”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
This was Luna we were talking about—she had hunted a massive Emperor Boar without flinching. Maybe she had spotted some tasty prey and ended up wandering off to some unknown place by accident.
“All right, Reina, I’ll go.”
“Good idea. I’ll just be a burden if I go with you... Please find her.”
“You can count on me.”
I headed off in the same direction as Elga. With speed no less impressive than his, I raced through the forest in a flash.
✦ ✦ ✦
I focused as I advanced along the path to the Divine Beastfolk village, making sure to pick up any telltale noises around me. I heard leaves fluttering in the wind and the faint sound of water running, but I couldn’t sense anything that would hint to Luna’s whereabouts.
“At the very least, she was with us until yesterday evening...”
If something had happened, I would have expected it to have been when she was making her way home, but she was nowhere to be found, even once I made it to the village. There was some commotion, apparently since Elga had already reported Luna’s disappearance. With no information, I didn’t think that anything I could tell them now would be of any use, so I headed back into the forest.
Luna wasn’t on the path from the village to the tent, so it would be quite difficult to track her down. I agreed with what Reina had said earlier—Luna wouldn’t lose to any of the monsters around here. To put it simply, the girl was one of the Divine Beastfolk, one of the strongest races on the island.
“Still, she’s been gone for an entire day. She’s either gotten into some serious trouble, or she can’t come back even if she wants to...”
As I dashed through the forest, I recalled Luna’s behavior the night before. She had been the same as always, playing with Tailtiu in the afternoon and eating dinner in the evening.
“Actually, come to think of it, she was more cheerful than usual. Uhh...that’s right, she said that Elga and Livia’s wedding anniversary is today, and the three of them are having a party.”
That was when I remembered: Luna had excitedly talked about how she was going to get them a present for the occasion. She had said that she needed to get something ready, so she was going to go home a bit earlier than usual...
“So, does that mean something happened while she was getting that present? That’s not much of a hint to go off of... Wait.”
Just then, I sensed a presence resembling Luna some distance away. It was quite far, but I recognized it right away. There was no way I would mistake something else for her. She didn’t seem to be particularly weakened, which meant that she probably hadn’t suffered any physical harm. I was relieved, but at the same time I wondered why she hadn’t come back if she was okay.
“Well, I guess I’ll go see.”
I broke into a sprint, dashing over to her. On the way, various monsters looked at me with shock and bolted away, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to them.
“There you are! Luna!” I called out, discovering the girl with her back turned to me, sitting down next to a large tree.
Surprised by my voice, Luna turned around in a panic, then started making some sort of gesture at me.
Relieved that she was in good health and didn’t look to be injured, I slowed my pace and walked up to her.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Once I got closer, I realized that Luna was hiding something behind her back. But she was so short that I could see by peering down at her from above. There were two puppies...no, monsters resembling puppies, sleeping on the ground.
“M-Mister Arata...”
“Uhh... What’s this?”
“Well...” Luna said, then clammed up, as though I had found her at a bad time. But then, realizing she couldn’t keep it a secret anymore, she gradually told me what was going on. “Today is Elga and Miss Livia’s wedding anniversary, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“I wanted to get them a present... And Miss Livia said before that she wanted kids, so...”
The monster puppies behind Luna’s back were probably a variety of wolf. Well, they still looked like puppies, so I supposed it was all right to call them that. Basically, Luna had been planning to give these wolf pups to Elga and Livia. It struck me as a childlike, somewhat charming idea, but then I reconsidered. These wolf pups had clearly only just been born. Naturally, there was no way they would be able to make it in this harsh survival-of-the-fittest environment without the protection of their parents.
“Hey, Luna? Where are these wolf pups’ parents?” I asked.
Luna flinched, then hung her head.
“Luna? Could their parents—”
Already be dead?
Before I could finish asking my question, Luna raised her face and hurriedly shook her head.
“N-No! It wasn’t me! When I got close, they were already...”
“I see...”
I hadn’t thought she had killed them, but some sort of accident could have occurred. I was relieved to hear otherwise. And there was no way Luna was lying—she just wasn’t the type of girl to lie.
“All right, you can take as long as you need, so can you explain to me what happened?” I said.
“...Okay.”
Then, Luna began to tell me what she had been doing since leaving our tent.