Chapter 12:
Why Are You Crying?
“FIRST, LET’S FIGURE OUT what we need to do before midnight.”
We needed to take stock of our situation. The festival started tomorrow at sundown. Before that happened, though, there was a possibility that Moichi’s donut shop would be attacked in the middle of the night. On top of that, Javagiir had come here the day before. So, the plan was to…look for Javagiir and get his help with protecting the village, I supposed?
“I think that would be a good idea,” said Filia, having read my thoughts.
Man, it was kind of difficult to keep track of everything when the story was so all over the place. “Oof, this is all gettin’ a little complicated. Filia, can you outline the situation in terms of muscles?”
“That isn’t one of my many talents,” she replied.
“Seriously? Come on, Filia, it’s an essential skill for any adult!”
“In what society would you need that kind of skill?” she countered.
In human society, right? Well, whatever. The sun was gonna set soon, and we didn’t have time to waste sitting around gabbing. The villagers were alerted to be on the lookout for Javagiir, and we had to start searching too, and as soon as possible.
“We’ll split into two groups,” I said. “Me and Loli Loli will be the eyes in the sky, and Filia, you and Ashley will cover the ground. Sound good?”
There were no objections, so we split up and started sniffing out Javagiir. I released my muscles and grabbed at the air with the soles of my feet. As I kicked, I soared up into the sky. Loli Loli, flapping her icy wings, followed right after me.
“Hey, Loli Loli? If you see a man with white hair who’s wearing a black coat, tell me.”
“Okay! I’ll do my best to find him!”
The villagers had the town covered, so we opted to search the surrounding area, where fewer things obstructed our view. With my eyes, I could clearly see a pebble three hundred feet away. I’d trained, after all. Now all that was left was to figure out which direction we should focus our search on, since the land stretched out in all directions.
“Oh, yeah, that reminds me. Loli Loli, you flew in from over that way. Did you see anyone?”
“Hm? Hmm…” Loli Loli put her hand to her chin, thinking it over. Then she put her thumb and forefinger together, making a zero. “Sorry, Yuri. I can’t remember anything. I was too busy taking in the scenery!”
“I see. Well, it’s all right.” Yeah—when you’re flying, you don’t really pay much attention to people walking down on the ground or anything. On top of that, a kid like Loli Loli would get especially distracted. “Okay, in that case, let’s just cross out the direction I came from on that Earth Dragon Bus. We’ll focus our search on the other three directions, in order.”
“Okey dokey!” shouted Loli Loli.
We didn’t have enough time to look everywhere. But we hadn’t passed Javagiir on the way here, so we’d avoid scouting the road from here to Jeepupp and would instead prioritize searching in the other three cardinal directions. With that in mind, we took off. We flew over the plains and scattered trees, but we saw no signs of anyone who looked like Javagiir.
Hmm. But wouldn’t it be more efficient to let him know we were looking for him? How could we do that?
“Javagiir! Come on ouuuut! Loli Loli wants to meet yoooou!” shouted Loli Loli as loud as she could with her tiny lungs, flapping her icy wings.
“Oh, calling out to him? You’re so smart, Loli Loli!”
That would make it easier for him to notice us. It was so efficient that I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it!
“Loli Loli is smart?! Am I a genius?!”
“Yep. I’m gonna start copying you right now! But, uh, before I do that, there’s something I gotta tell you. This is going to get really loud, so cover your ears.”
“Huh? Okay.” Loli Loli looked puzzled, but she put her hands up and covered her ears tight, blinking at me innocently.
I sucked in as much air as I possibly could…and converted it all to pure dynamic sound. “JAVAGIIIIR! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SHOOT SOME MAGIC INTO THE SKYYYYYYY!”
My voice boomed in all directions, the shout reaching everywhere equally. It vibrated the very air. Trees lost their leaves. Birds passed out mid-flight.
Phew! I let out a sigh of satisfaction.
Now if magic got blasted up into the sky from somewhere, we’d know there was an extremely high chance that Javagiir would be waiting for us at the source. That way, he could lead us to where he was, thereby dramatically increasing our chances of finding him.
I tapped Loli Loli on the shoulder, gesturing to her that she could uncover her ears now. When Loli Loli moved her hands away from her head, she shook them excitedly in front of her chest. “That was such a loud voice! If I hadn’t put my hands to my ears, it would’ve shattered my eardrums!”
“That’s ’cause I’ve trained my lungs and throat.”
“Ohhh? You say some really interesting things! How did you train those?”
“For my lungs, I held my breath for twenty-four hours straight. For my throat, I held a shout for twenty-four hours straight.”
“Ah ha ha! You’re an idiot. I like you!”
“I’m not an idiot, but thanks,” I replied gratefully. It was nice to have somebody who really understood me for a change, you know?
Anyway, for the time being, we decided to stick around to see if any magic signal was cast. While we waited, we made small talk.
“So how did you end up here anyway, Loli Loli?” I asked.
“I live in a place called the Demon Kingdom, actually. My father dotes on me so much!”
The Demon Kingdom…that was the country the majin were from, right? I guessed that made sense. There were probably some pretty strong people over there. Man, I just had to go there someday.
Loli Loli smiled even more than usual as she talked. She seemed really proud of her family. “All the doting makes me so happy! But…if I stay with Father forever, Loli Loli will never grow as a majin! So I have to leave home periodically!”
“You’re kind of a troublemaker, huh? I can empathize with what you’re sayin’, though.”
I, on the other hand, had always lived alone. I understood the importance of protection, though. I’d heard it said that children are the apple of your eye, so of course parents wanna keep them safe. Still, children always grew up when their parents weren’t looking. That’s what I’d come to believe, anyway.
Hey, wait a second…if children are the apple of your eye, did that mean that people really used to put apples in their eyes—or kids?! Was that where the expression came from? Wouldn’t that hurt? Could people do that? If so, that meant I was losing to Loli Loli’s dad. No matter how much I trained my eyeballs, it’d still hurt if I put a child in my eye. Damn it, was I really okay with just losing? No, no way!
“Loli Loli! Fly right at my eyeball!”
“What are you saying, Yuri?!”
“I’m just tryin’ to be my best self! You get me?!”
“No! Loli Loli doesn’t want to kill people!”
Unfortunately, Loli Loli didn’t have the slightest intention of shoving herself into my eyeballs. I endured my overflowing feelings of regret by biting my lower lip. I’d finally gotten a chance to train my eyeballs, but I couldn’t just force a child to help me.
“Hmph! You ruined my backstory, Yuri!” Loli Loli furrowed her well-maintained eyebrows and her smile turned into a frown. I’d put her in a bad mood by interrupting her.
“Sorry, it was an accident.” I just couldn’t stop thinking about training, no matter what. I knew it was a bad habit, but it wasn’t something I could just up and quit.
“If you think this is a problem that can be solved by saying it was an ‘accident,’ then you’re soft in the head!”
Ow! She was so sweet and innocent on the outside, but her tongue was so wicked! She really knew how to get you.
“Anyway!” shouted Loli Loli, getting us back on track. “I’d left home again, just like I’d done a bunch of times before! Then when I did, I saw that huge fire guy! Then I met everyone!” She had an especially big smile on her face now. “I’m happy that Yuri and Filia and Ashley accepted me! Loli Loli’s heart was saveded because of that! Or, um…savededed? Savedededed? I dunno?”
“You keep adding ‘-eds,’” I told her flatly.