Sedam, Reyha, and I were at the Castle Getaeus gate. Soldiers were lined up on each side, creating a path for us to pass through. Everyone had gathered to watch us go, including the servants and Schultz clan.
Out of all those people, it was Diane who came up to me.
“Hey, Your Lordness. Are you sure you don’t need me to go? You know I’ll do anything to protect you.”
“Yes, I know that.”
I almost gave in, seeing the desperation in her request. Somehow, I managed to stop myself. I didn’t plan to ride into battle this time. While I was grateful for her faithfulness—which might have grown dangerously close to fanaticism—her hasty nature wasn’t suited for this kind of meeting.
And so I told her, “Don’t forget, you also have a duty to your clanspeople.”
“Right. You’re right. I know.”
Sedam came to whisper something to me. I’d only heard it in passing before, but the Schultz clan apparently described themselves as descendants of the Divine King, who’d become the first Epicenter. It would be far too dangerous to take her along this time.
“I’m leaving you here because I want you to protect everyone in the castle. Take this task as a sign of my trust in you.”
“Trust?”
“That’s right. Everyone in that castle is like family to me. I’m asking you to protect them. To me, that’s the most important role in the castle.”
“But…what if my lord doesn’t return? Then I…”
I wasn’t trying to lie to her, but it would be hard to convince her logically while she was so emotional.
“If something like that happens, Clara will take my place. She will take over my work and do it well. Consider her words to be my words, and do whatever you can to help her.”
She didn’t respond.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clara take charge of the vacant-eyed warrior, her own eyes a clear and piercing blue as she looked at me.
“Clara’s words are your words? So, if I do what Clara says, that would make you happy?”
“Absolutely.”
“I see… Well…okay.”
It took a long time to get her on board, but Diane finally relented.
Clara didn’t look entirely comfortable. “Margilus…”
“I’ll leave you to it.”
I spoke matter-of-factly, leaving only my parting words with an annoyed-looking Clara. Inwardly, I marveled over how well she’d handled what I’d just asked of her. Well, given all we’d been through, it would take more than this to put her off her game.
“Take this Staff of Wizardry, and let it be the proof of your authority. Use it at your own discretion in case of an emergency.”
That morning I’d charged Fireball and Lightning attack spells into the staff before handing it off to her. That much could fight off troops of five hundred or even a thousand humans or daemons.
She was someone who would always rise to a challenge.
“Leave everything to me,” she said. “Do what you need to do, and don’t worry about anything here.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Once I was finally ready to go, I nodded to everyone I’d kept waiting—the mystic who called herself a repository of knowledge, the warlord Canberils, the warchief Lade, and their two guards. The ten warriors who had previously been stationed at the castle were to remain.
Ild wished us well. “Hurry back.”
“Be safe,” said Djirk.
We took these farewells as our signal to leave. When I looked back at the castle gate one last time, I saw little Mora waving her hands furiously. I could feel her calling out my name so fervently, it hurt my heart a little.
✦ ✦ ✦
We were walking.
After such a lively and cheerful send-off, the endless mountain path felt somewhat anticlimactic.
“I think you can go ahead and tell me now,” I said to Lade’s massive back.
“Tell you what?”
“How to get to the warrior clan’s castrum.”
Sedam followed up on my question. “I get that you all live and die by your secrecy, but you could at least tell us how many days it will take.”
The clan flatly refused to tell us where the castrum was, or how to get there. There were lots of excuses. It was their law, and they were hated by many people. But we were already on our way there.
Moreover, when Canberils had previously said he would go to the castrum to consider the results of the inquisition, he was gone for two months. I felt I had to be ready for at least a month-long trip each way. But it was even rougher to keep trudging along without any explanation or even an estimate of how long it would take.
Both Sedam and I wanted more disclosure. Reyha said nothing, as usual.
The maiden hidden beneath hood and robe stopped and bowed deeply to us. “I apologize for my rudeness. Please forgive me. Know that we will use a special means of transportation for this journey. If you can wait for just one more day, I am sure all your questions will be answered.”
Sedam and I decided we could manage that. And not just because it was a beautiful elf maiden who’d asked us to.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next night, our journey still continued.
We weren’t taking the Lawful Way, but instead we went through a forest valley that couldn’t even be considered a side path. The guards carried torches, and I used my Light spell, so I could at least see where I was putting my feet, but it was still awfully dark.
“We’re not going underground, are we? Or is the warrior clan land actually in this valley?” Sedam grimaced, a combination of curiosity and irritation. Meanwhile, Reyha was gazing up at the starry sky with a strange look on her face.
“What is it, Reyha?”
“My lord. The sky…it’s wrong.”
“The sky?”
Sedam and I joined her in looking up. Unlike the night sky in Japan, this sky was beautiful and full of stars…but what was this…?
“What is that?” Reyha wondered breathlessly. “A star? There shouldn’t be a star there…”
“You’re right,” Sedam said, fretfully. “It’s more like…”
Sedam was a ranger who specialized in outdoor activities, sort of like fantasy special forces. Reyha was an astute spy. Between them, there must have been a wealth of astronomical knowledge, such as how to reckon their direction and position based on the stars. The fact that both of them said this at the same time… I wasn’t sure what it meant.
“We’re here.” Canberils’s voice surprised all of us. I couldn’t see him in the shadow of a large boulder. At some point, the line of warriors proceeded farther back into the valley.
Just in case, Reyha went ahead first, following behind them.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What the hell? What is this?”
“Is it…a ship?”
It was. Enshrined in the bottom of the valley was a ship so big it looked like it could sail even on the open sea. It was probably around twenty meters long. To me, it looked like one of the so-called tall-masted ships, and there was a mast, but the sail wasn’t up. Actually, on closer inspection, it didn’t even have a sail. There were also a number of legs jutting out on either side, probably to provide stability on land.
“The special means you mentioned was this ship?” Clearly, this ship was beyond even Sedam’s knowledge. He stared at it, mouth agape. “How can a ship travel on land?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before…” Reyha’s eyes were round in surprise.
“I-Interesting…” While I was surprised, I at least had heard of something like this before. “I think I know what this is. An airship?”
Sedam blinked. “You’ve seen one before?”
“Well done, wizard,” said Lade. “Guess we underestimated you.”
I’d never imagined I would see something like this, and I’d never seen anything like it before, but I had heard of flying ships in a fictional sense—that is…fantasy airships, not dirigibles or blimps.
“As you say, this is the Moonlight Ship of the warrior clan. We’ll start it up without delay.”
Moonlight Ship? It was a pretty elegant name.
Sedam and Reyha wore expressions of doubt. “Hmm?”
Canberils signaled something to the warriors who were aboard the Moonlight Ship.
At that instant, some sort of purple light appeared around the thick, sailless mast.
“Hmm?”
The purple light shot up vertically, stretching farther and farther, like living threads. There seemed to be four or five beams of light. The mast shook as if it was tangled in them, their movements exactly like those of tentacles. Next, the number of threads, brightness, and thickness of the light all multiplied. Before we knew it, there was a canopy of purple light above our heads.
No way.
I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
It wasn’t that the purple light had just appeared out of nowhere. There was already something transparent and huge above the Moonlight Ship…a big, plush canopy. It was so big that when we looked up, we couldn’t see anything else. The entire thing emitted purple light and looked like a giant, round hat, but the vertex was more like a flower petal, flashing red and green.
I had seen something else like this before.
“No way…is it a jellyfish?” I murmured, stunned.
A profound sense of wonder. That’s what I felt. This real-life fantasy was going beyond my knowledge and imagination.
“That’s right. The Moonlight Ship flies in the sky with the aid of a nocturnal monster.” Lade looked prouder than I had ever seen him before.