“Uh-huh!” said Kanata. “I figured it would give them a shock if we suddenly appeared on top of them, so I took us just a liiiittle ways out.” Nobody bothered to ask whom Kanata was worried about shocking. “I told them I’d be back for summer vacation, though, so there’s no problem!”
“Back for summer vacation...” Zag’giel repeated to himself. “Where have we heard those words before...?” Zag’giel looked around. They had come here to avoid the eyes of the Holy Church in order to throw off the Temple Knights’ pursuit, and true enough, there was no sign of a church anywhere among the scattered farmhouses dotting the landscape. At the very least there was unlikely to be one of the Church’s communication mirrors anywhere nearby. “This does seem to be a sparsely populated area, we suppose...”
Perhaps the reason there were so few workers in the fields was because it was lunchtime. They must surely all be resting and taking their meals in the shade of a tree somewhere. There were a number of people who spotted Kanata from a distance and bowed their heads in her direction. Kanata waved.
“Acquaintances of yours?” Zag’giel asked.
“Yup!” said Kanata. “I’ve known them since I was a little girl!”
“Since you were a little girl, you say...” Zag’giel mused. It seemed he had realized something that had yet to strike the other two furballs. “Then, that would mean this place is...” Back in the Royal Capital, Zag’giel had met Kanata’s little brother Alus and had a brief conversation with him. Thinking back, Kanata had promised to return home for summer vacation, hadn’t she?
The wagon continued on down the road, and soon a house came into view.
“Is that the house of the village chieftain?” Elizavett asked.
“Nope!” said Kanata. “It’s the house of the lord of this land!”
“This?! But it’s not even as grand as my old run-down castle!”
It really didn’t look like the house of a lord. It was a bit nicer than the nearby farmhouses maybe, but still well within the range of an utterly normal house, with no trace of the grandeur suggested by its station. Even the lord of a small fiefdom in the hinterlands would not stoop to living in such an utterly common house.
“Mom! I’m home!” Kanata cried as she stepped through the threshold, causing Zag’giel to spring up to attention.
“W-We knew it!” he said. “Kanata! A moment! A moment, if you please!” He jumped down from Kanata’s head to her left shoulder, and whispered something in her ear that made her stick out her tongue in protest.
“Whaaaat?” Kanata said. “No way!”
“Please! We beg of you!” Zag’giel said, entreating her for all he was worth. “At the very least, for our first greeting!”
“Hmmm...” Kanata frowned. “Well, all right. Since you insist. But just for a bit, okay?”
“Our deepest gratitude!” Zag’giel exclaimed.
The other two furballs were left pondering what all that fuss could have been about.
† † †
“Mom! I’m home!”
The woman washing plates in the kitchen looked up with a start at the sound of that voice. It was the voice of her daughter, who had left to go to an academy in the Royal Capital, saying she wanted to become a Beast Tamer. Rather than it feeling like a vacation, it had been lonely with her daughter and son both so far away. But still, she hadn’t thought it had gotten to the point where she was hearing voices...
“Hellooo?” The voice continued, much clearer than last time. “Mom, are you there? I’m coming in!”
Realizing in a flash that her daughter was actually speaking to her and she hadn’t been hallucinating after all, the woman dropped the plate she had been holding to the floor.
“Kanny?!”
Her son Alus had told them that Kanata had become a Beast Tamer and left the Royal Capital on a journey, but that the two of them would be visiting for summer vacation. Still, this was a very abrupt visit, even for Kanata.
“I wish you would have written ahead that you were coming!”
Despite her scolding words, Kanata’s mother’s voice cracked with emotion. Her dear daughter had come home. She had become a Beast Tamer, just as she’d always dreamed of since she was very small. She must have already begun befriending magic beasts too. A girl like her daughter was sure to be accompanied by some astonishingly powerful beasts. She made up her mind not to be afraid, no matter how terrifying Kanata’s new companions were.
“Just a moment, Kanny!” she said. “I’ll get the door!”
She ran over, her feet pitter-pattering on the floor, and opened the door wide.
“Kanny! Welcome home!”
“We are honored to make your acquaintance, esteemed mother of Kanata,” said the tall, horned man who greeted her at the door. “We are Zaggy, your daughter’s companion.”
Kanata’s mother went stiff. For a long moment, she just stared at the man’s face. She took a deep breath.
“Esteemed mother of Kanata?” the man repeated.
“A-A hot guy?!!!”
† † †
Not far away, Boldow Aldezia, the lord of the fiefdom, was just beginning one of his famous lectures.
“Gentlemen, I ask you. What is magic?”
“Hahh...” A palpable sigh of disappointment went up among the students. They had gathered in a sandy lot large enough to practice in, only to find that their instructor had set up a blackboard right in the dead middle.
“Magic is the miracle of our world!” Boldow declared, striking the blackboard with enough force to snap the stick of chalk he was holding in half. “Magic is the dream of humanity! You cast a spell, unleashing it with words of power! That is the true moment when magic is made manifest!”
“Hahh...” Another sigh.