Chapter 1

1. The Language of Beginnings It had started with a hole. A hole that, for no logical reason, opened right in front of her. After appearing from nowhere, it quite resembled a nonreflective, full-length mirror. There had been nobody else around. No other humans could’ve taken her place. Whenever she thought back on it, she found herself helpless to do anything but scratch her head in confusion. Why in the world had that wormhole linking two worlds chosen her of all people? “It’s so hot…” Blistering sunlight poured down from above. Shizuku Minase lugged her heavy, black bag back onto her shoulder. It lurched to one side, pulling her along. It was the first day of summer vacation. Much to Shizuku’s contempt, it was exceedingly hot, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The temperature rose year over year. Soon enough, just taking a stroll outside would be akin to burning. The first-year university student trudged along the scorching hot sidewalk. “This weighs a ton…” No sooner did Shizuku say the words than she frowned. What if speaking the thought aloud made her bag feel even heavier? She tried telling the bag that it was light instead, hoping to make it so. In addition to her two dictionaries, her bag also contained several other bulky books. As if her own possessions weren’t weighty enough, she’d borrowed some materials from the study room to help with her summer vacation report. The English-Japanese dictionary and German-Japanese dictionary that she carried with her everywhere certainly weren’t helping the problem, but they were necessities. When she happened to look up, Shizuku saw the straight road had become distorted by heat haze. The shimmering in the distance caught her attention. Shizuku wiped the sweat from her forehead. It was when she brought her hand back down again that she noticed it. “What’s that?” A hole had appeared before her without her noticing until now. The large, floating aperture had shown up without warning or realistic explanation, rather like a magic door springing from nowhere. Pitch-black and elliptical. Shizuku stopped in her tracks to examine it. “Maybe I’m seeing things…” Perhaps it was heatstroke. If so, she needed to find shade before passing out and inconveniencing someone. Intending to do just that, Shizuku tried to walk past the hole. However, when she caught a glimpse of it from the side, the sight of it shocked her. “…A line?” From the flank, the hole became a singular line, almost perfectly flat. This thing was just like one of those wormholes that showed up in old movies. Shizuku felt incredibly frightened yet undeniably curious. She gently extended her hand toward it, almost near enough to touch its black surface. As close as she was, she couldn’t sense any differences in temperature or pressure. The very next moment, she was struck by a sudden gust of wind. There’d been no change in the weather. The hole had abruptly started pulling in the air that surrounded her, as though to swallow her. “What?! W-wait!” Panicked, Shizuku tried desperately to keep her feet firmly on the ground. She looked behind her, frantically searching for something to hold on to, but she found nothing that would help. The street was empty, and no one had noticed what was happening to her. Shizuku’s mind went blank save the instinct to escape. She outstretched an arm behind her. She wanted to scream but could produce no sound. Despite its weight, her bag was pulled into the hole, followed by her left hand, then half of her body. “Somebody, please…,” Shizuku begged, but her strained cry floated up and away into the hot summer air. She made one last grasp with her right hand. With that, Shizuku Minase silently vanished from the world without a trace. White space stretched on indefinitely. Shizuku couldn’t see a thing. She couldn’t even open her eyes. She had the feeling she was floating in some kind of thick substance. Everything was there—silent. Unrestrained power. A detached perspective. Shizuku shuddered slightly. Something used this as an opportunity to weasel its way into her. It sneaked its way in then settled. It was an overwhelming change. Her very existence was being warped out of shape. For a moment, she grasped everything, but then she forgot it all again. “O-oh…” Shizuku heard the noise escape her lips, but it didn’t sound like her at all. She placed her hand on her neck. Her recollection of what had happened felt uninterrupted yet fractured. Shizuku squinted against the overwhelming heat. When she looked up at the sky, she saw something soaring high above. Its shape wasn’t quite avian, and it wasn’t big enough to be a plane. It slowly beat its wings as it glided into the distance. “A dragon?” Shizuku muttered idly; however, she soon realized how stupid that was and shook her head to dismiss the idea. It was really hot now, even more than before. Shizuku picked up her bag with a sweat-damp hand. It was only then that she finally took a look around. She’d noticed things were different before, of course, but she’d hoped to ignore that. The asphalt beneath her feet was gone. She was standing in a desert. A dry breeze blew past. “…A desert?” The sand stretched out for as far as the eye could see. Shizuku had never seen anything like it in movies or on TV. It was the very definition of surreal. There were no shadows. She couldn’t locate a point at which the desert came to an end, and this realization made the situation real at last. “This isn’t good…” The wind tossed a bit of sand against Shizuku’s face. That sensation was genuine, at least. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew standing around wouldn’t help. Shizuku looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a sleeveless white shirt and a pair of cropped fitted pants. As someone with minimal experience in the great outdoors, Shizuku wasn’t sure whether this outfit was apt or ill-advised for a desert. After scanning her surroundings in all directions, Shizuku spotted the edge of the desert on the distant horizon. Beyond, she spied a few short plants scattered around. Maybe that was where the sandy terrain gave way to a grassy plain. It didn’t take long for Shizuku to decide what to do. “One bottle… I wonder if I’ll make it.” She had one half-empty bottle of water in her bag. Shizuku had never found herself lost in a daydream before, so she couldn’t even say for sure that this was real. She could have pinned her hopes on this being an illusion and stayed put, but that would be gambling her life on a chance this was all fake. “I just hope I haven’t walked out into the road in real life,” she said to herself. Shizuku took her long-sleeved jacket out of her bag and placed it over her head before slinging her heavy bag back on her shoulders. She considered taking some of her books out for a moment but quickly decided against it. Leaving behind her own books would’ve been bad enough, but tossing aside the ones from the library was unthinkable. Remembering that she had her phone with her, Shizuku retrieved it from her bag, only to discover it had no signal. She smiled awkwardly, then looked back up. “Okay. Here goes.” If she’d found herself standing somewhere other than in a desert, she might have been upset and struggled to bring herself to move for a while. However, it turned out that her quiet fear of death pushed away any needless distress to the back of her mind. While applauding herself for staying astoundingly calm, Shizuku took her first step into this new world. She tensed up her toes to steady herself. With every stride, her feet sank into the sand, the gritty particles seeping into her sneakers. The hot breeze buffeted her, urging her forward. From the moment she inhaled, the dry air scorched her throat. “Ouch…” Shizuku walked and walked, but the grassy plain didn’t get any closer. Every now and then, she took a sip of water. It was lukewarm, but she found it quite pleasant considering the circumstances. Sensing her confidence waning, Shizuku shook her head in an attempt to snap out of it. “I wonder if everyone’s going to worry about me…” Shizuku lived in a university dormitory. How long would it take for her family to realize something was amiss? She was the middle child of three sisters, having grown up alongside her easygoing older one and her reliable yet ruthless younger one. Shizuku acknowledged that she was more realistic than her older sister and milder mannered than her younger one. Still, when she looked at herself outside the context of her family, she struggled to identify what kind of person she really was. She’d gone to the same elementary, middle, and high school as her siblings, and she’d always been compared with them. Even when she tried to reflect on her experiences, she had a habit of comparing herself with her sisters first. There was, however, one thing she knew for certain. When it came to looking for a job—a process she’d heard a lot about—having such an ill-defined sense of self was going to have disastrous consequences. Even if she managed to avoid calamity, she knew that being so unsure of herself wasn’t going to do her any favors. That was why she’d chosen to leave home and attend a women’s college in a different prefecture. The Faculty of Humanities offered a wide variety of liberal arts classes to choose from, and every day was enjoyable. She hadn’t joined any clubs, but she still had time to pick one, and she liked the idea of getting a part-time job as well. This summer vacation had been teeming with promise and potential. But in reality, she’d now found herself in a desert. “A desert… Why a desert…?” The only such place in Japan she could think of was the Tottori Sand Dunes. She didn’t know how she’d wound up in Tottori, considering it was hundreds of kilometers away. However, if she was truly there, then at least she’d be able to get home with some work. “If this isn’t Tottori, then…” Shizuku paused there and spent a moment collecting her thoughts. In an extreme situation like this, it was best not to let her mind run wild. For now, she just needed to keep her eyes fixed on her immediate goal. It wasn’t like she could see anything else. Her head began to spin, and her vision distorted. Soon, her body felt heavy. Despite this, Shizuku pushed ahead, thinking that if that hole was to appear again, she’d jump straight inside. The horse-drawn stagecoach made its way down a street too narrow to be called a main road. Several merchants sat comfortably inside the coach. Having finished buying what they needed in the big city, they were on their way back to their own town. “Cotton fabrics have gone up in price slightly, haven’t they?” “You can bet the uncertainty in Anneli is to blame. If anything happens there, cotton production will take a heavy blow.” “You’re not wrong about that. It’s why I stocked up a little. There will always be women who want to get their hands on some.” As the men continued with their quiet conversation, the young man at the back of the carriage opened his book. He had brown hair so light that it appeared nearly golden, and his eyes were a deep shade of blue. He wore a single-piece outfit and possessed androgynous facial features. The beautiful, expressionless young man quickly became engrossed in his thick tome, ignoring his fellow passengers’ discussion. The merchants’ topic of conversation meandered elsewhere. “Come to think of it, I’ve heard that there’s a strange disease making the rounds to the west.” “A strange disease? Could I catch it?” “Doubtful. I hear it only affects children. Your skin will crawl when you hear the details. You see…” At that moment, the stagecoach abruptly slowed its pace. A clunk soon followed, and the vehicle came to a complete stop. One of the passengers rolled back the drapes and looked outside. They hadn’t reached the town yet. A different man called out to the driver, “What’s the problem?” “Someone’s collapsed,” the driver replied tersely. The merchants exchanged glances. Two of them exited the carriage to have a look. Just as the driver had claimed, somebody was lying down on the grass ahead of them. As the men ran toward them, they realized it was a young girl. They bustled over to check on her. “Do you think she’s a traveler who passed out while she was walking?” “She’s covered in sand. She must have come through the desert.” “Surely not. She never would’ve made it dressed like that.” The young girl sported unusual attire. The men had never seen anything like it before. She had black hair with a slight brown tinge. Judging by her face, she was probably from abroad. That made it hard to judge her precise age, although they could tell she was young. One of the men placed his hand on her forehead. “Is she alive?” “…Seems like it,” replied a monotone voice from behind. The merchants turned around to find the young man who’d been sitting at the back of the carriage slipping between them and kneeling on the ground. He placed his hand on the young girl’s neck to feel for a pulse. “Are you a mage? Just the man for the job.” “I am indeed, but not the healing sort, regrettably. She’s breathing, so do me a favor and carry her back to the stagecoach to help her cool down.” “O-of course.” “Somebody fetch some water!” The men leaped into flustered action and carried the girl over to the carriage. The wives of the merchants, who’d been waiting inside, wet their flannels and used them to wipe the girl’s face. They also dripped some water on her black hair, which was still hot from the sun. While the young mage issued orders, he occasionally examined the item he was holding—a cloth bag that belonged to the girl. It was strangely shaped and extremely heavy. It wasn’t the kind of luggage someone would carry with them through a desert by any means. He gazed down at it for a short while, then deposited it in one corner of the carriage and sat down. With this new, unexpected consignment now on board, the stagecoach resumed its journey. By the time Shizuku woke up, night had already fallen, and they’d reached their destination. “…Leaving already, Shizuku?” Shizuku spun and saw her younger sister, Mio, standing at the entrance. She had big eyes and naturally long eyelashes. Her pretty face and can-do attitude made her something of a celebrity at her school. Shizuku gave her sister, who was two years younger than her, an awkward smile, then slung her bag—which contained a change of clothes—over her shoulder. “What do you mean, ‘already’?” Shizuku replied. “If I don’t leave soon, I’ll be late for the dorm entrance ceremony.” “Why couldn’t you just stay home and commute to college?” “It’s three hours each way. I’ll be back for Golden Week.” Shizuku’s parents and older sister had offered to see her off at the station, but she’d turned down their proposal. Her things had been shipped in advance. Plus, it was a weekday. She would be perfectly fine on her own. The sight of her sister leaving so unceremoniously made Mio frown. “Why did you decide to leave home, Shizuku?” she asked. “Huh?” Shizuku looked over her shoulder, hand still on the door. Why was Mio asking that now? It felt like Mio was peering right through Shizuku. She couldn’t help but feel guilty… Shizuku’s eyes fluttered open. “Mio?” The room was dimly lit. Shizuku stared as hard as she could at the raised ceiling above. There were no lights on, but bluish-white moonlight filtered through the window. Shizuku hefted herself up and gazed around the small room. There was nothing in the shabbily boarded-up place but a small, western-style wardrobe and the bed Shizuku was in. “Wh-where am I…?” Shizuku shook her head in disbelief, then reflected on the events of that day. She recalled trying as hard as she could to keep plowing through the scorching sand. She thought that might have been a dream, but when she absentmindedly ran her fingers through her hair, she felt grit stuck to the strands. Looking down, she saw white sand on her fingers. “Huh? That was real?” she muttered to herself. The sound of her own voice made her shudder. Where was she? Evidently, she’d evaded death in the desert, but she couldn’t remember what had happened afterward. Shizuku slowly stepped out of bed. She put on her sneakers, which were sitting by the wall, and made her way over to the door. However, someone else opened the door before she got the chance to. Warm light came streaming in, causing Shizuku to shield her eyes with her hand reflexively. “Oh, you’re awake. That’s a relief.” The voice sounded like it belonged to a gentle woman. Shizuku’s eyes widened slightly when she saw its owner. She seemed to be in her thirties, and she regarded Shizuku with a warm, kind smile. Shizuku apprehensively responded with a question of her own. “Ummm, are you the person who saved me? I suddenly found myself in a desert, and I…” “Did you think you’d survive the Souit Desert dressed as you are? You collapsed while making your way across.” “The Souit Desert…?” That didn’t sound familiar. Shizuku couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Still, she needed to thank this woman. She gave her a deep bow. “Thank you very much for helping me. I wouldn’t be here without you.” “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s not like we could’ve left a young girl like you to fend for herself. Where were you headed?” “Well… That’s a good question.” Shizuku wished she knew. Where was that desert? There definitely weren’t any places like that near the college she attended. She pressed a hand against her stinging, sunburned neck. “I’m sorry, but could you tell me where exactly I am?” she asked. Shizuku remembered being confronted by that black hole and walking through the burning sand. If none of that was a dream, then… Shizuku looked at the woman square in the face. She definitely didn’t seem Japanese. If anything, she appeared white. The woman smiled at Shizuku again, her face the picture of genuine kindness. “You’re in a town called Wanope, in western Tarys.” “Tarys…?” “That’s the name of this country. You really don’t know? It’s a small nation on the east side of the continent.” “The continent…” Shizuku didn’t know the name of every country in the world, but if this wasn’t Japan, then how had she managed to get here? More importantly, though, something else didn’t feel quite right, something she couldn’t get out of her head. “Ummm…,” Shizuku began, trying her best not to seem apprehensive. “You speak very good Japanese.” “‘Japanese’? What’s that?” Suddenly, everything seemed to go dark. Feeling dizzy, Shizuku pressed her hand against her forehead. “The language you’re speaking right now,” Shizuku clarified. “It’s the one they speak in my country…in Japan.” “‘Japan’? I’ve never heard of that. Is it in the west?” Shizuku didn’t answer, unsurprised by the woman’s reaction. The moment she’d seen this woman, she’d been baffled by how fluently she spoke Japanese. As their conversation continued, Shizuku became more baffled by it. And that had led her here. Shizuku posed another inquiry, hoping to determine whether there was still a sliver of hope left. “What continent are we on? Eurasia?” “The continent’s the continent. It doesn’t have a name.” “R-right…” Shizuku’s knees almost buckled. She closed her eyes. She was able to communicate, yet she still didn’t know where she was. “So I know I’m not in Japan, at least. And…” “Hold on, are you lost? Do you know where you came from?” Shizuku knew that much. Unfortunately, telling this woman wouldn’t bring her any closer to the answers she wanted. She met the woman’s eyes. “I want to see a map. The biggest map of this country that you can find.” Shizuku didn’t know much about the paranormal phenomenon of teleportation. She’d only encountered the idea in fantasy novels she read as a kid—stories where people wound up lost in a totally different land or another era. Those stories, however, were entirely fictional, not the sort of thing Shizuku would’ve experienced herself. Shizuku’s mind raced as she rushed through the town at night. The merchants, who were shutting up shop for the evening, were startled by her hurry and unusual attire, but she didn’t have time to fret over what others thought. Shizuku kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as she sprinted as fast as she could down the street and into the big building on the corner. It was pitch-black inside. “A map? There’s one of the continent in the entrance to the library. It should still be unlocked at this time of night,” the woman had told her. Yet now that Shizuku was here, she realized the place was closed. There were no signs of other people, and the lights were out. Still, Shizuku was desperate. She had to know, and it couldn’t wait. Shizuku whipped her phone out of her pocket and used it to illuminate her path. The entrance hall was about the same size as a school classroom. She found the thing she’d been looking for on the back wall—a world map measuring roughly three meters wide. Shizuku held up the weak, electronic light to examine it. There it was—the continent, surrounded by water. Were she pushed to describe it, Shizuku would’ve called it oblong, almost rectangular. There were no continents of that shape on the world that Shizuku knew. “No way.” Her phone slid out of her hand, hitting the wooden floor with a harsh thud. Shizuku staggered forward, feeling like she might join the device at any moment. She clasped her hands over her mouth to stop a building scream. “…Ah.” That was the only sound she managed to muster. It felt like there was something hard stuck in her throat, blocking anything else from getting out. Her body felt weak. She couldn’t move. The blood drained from her head. Her body suddenly went cold. What was happening? She didn’t have a clue where she was or why she was here. Worse yet, she was all alone. Dumbfounded, Shizuku stood rooted in place. “Ah… Ah…,” she whimpered, wringing her throat just to make a sound. She shifted her focus away from her overwrought and fragile emotional state for a moment and forced herself to take a breath in. As hard as it had been to squeeze out, the sound of her own voice made Shizuku feel a little more grounded. She clenched her fingers and exhaled. “Hah…” Aware that she could end up hyperventilating if she wasn’t careful, Shizuku let out a long breath that echoed through the dark building. Shizuku took a deep breath in again, then released another audible exhale. Anxiety welled up inside her. Confusion threatened to become terror at any moment. She knew she needed to calm down before that happened. Either that, or…on the off chance that this was a dream, somebody needed to hurry up and wake her. Noticing her voice was starting to tremble, Shizuku gasped for air. Slowly but surely, the whole thing was beginning to feel real. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she felt her throat constrict. “Th-this can’t be real…,” Shizuku whispered. “Why is this happening to—?” Before she had the chance to finish, the voice of a young man interrupted her, causing Shizuku to all but jump from her skin. “Be quiet, would you?” the voice chided, sounding exasperated. Shizuku had assumed she was alone. Trembling with fear, she turned in the direction of the speaker. A young man emerged from the shadows silently. He had brown hair with hints of gleaming gold. His deep-blue eyes gave off an unusual sincerity, and his facial features were androgynous. He lit the candle he was holding and picked up Shizuku’s phone. “What’s this? A magic implement?” he asked as he walked over to pass it back. Shizuku had never heard such a term before. “The way you’re dressed is certainly very interesting. I don’t know which country you’re from, but you should know that making noise in the library is frowned upon. Understand?” He spoke to her as a parent would to an ill-behaved child, but Shizuku found herself nodding obediently anyway. She took her phone back and gazed down. “Th-thank you. I’m sorry.” “You’re the girl who collapsed earlier today, aren’t you? I’m glad you’re okay, at least.” “You know about that?” Shizuku looked the man in the face for the first time. Much like the woman she’d met earlier, he didn’t seem to be Japanese. His appearance suggested he was in his early twenties, and his face was strikingly handsome. However, he seemed somewhat unapproachable, perhaps because of his disagreeable expression. The man nodded in reply to Shizuku’s question. “I was a passenger on the stagecoach that found you. Where did you come from? Are you lost?” “I don’t know if I’m lost, exactly…,” Shizuku answered. “I came from Japan. Do you know of it?” “No.” She’d been prepared for this answer, but the incongruity of hearing it still made her gasp involuntarily. If lost was the right word for it, then she was hopelessly lost, more lost than anyone had ever been before. She was eighteen years old, yet she had no idea how to get home. To make matters worse, she wasn’t sure whether getting back was even a possibility. As this doubt crept into her mind, Shizuku felt a cold shiver of terror. Tears formed in her eyes again. She shook her head frantically to fight them back. Crying and screaming wasn’t going to help anything. Shizuku had made it through the desert. Back then, she’d kept herself calm and fierce. She simply needed to return to that mindset. She needed to do whatever she could, no matter how insignificant. Otherwise, she wouldn’t get anywhere. Shizuku clutched her phone and gently raised her hand. “I’m sorry, but could you give me a minute to compose myself?” “What?” After asking the young man for his permission, Shizuku closed her eyes. She placed her hands on her knees and did some deep breathing. She wanted it to be audible to reassure herself, but that was out of the question. Instead, she pictured a person in her mind and watched them charge ahead. As a kid, there was one thing that Shizuku fell back on to cheer herself up. Whenever she felt unsure how to continue, she envisioned a person marching forward. When Shizuku was little, it had been her older sister. She was a flexible person—the kind that kept smiling and never lost heart, no matter what came her way. As Shizuku grew older, she sometimes found herself imagining her younger sister doing the same thing. Nothing daunted Mio or caused her to lose her confident attitude. But now Shizuku only had herself. Thus, she envisioned herself striding forward this time. It felt as though she was trying to catch up to a different version of herself. One that was already several steps closer to her goal. Shizuku lightly slapped her knees and looked up. She straightened her posture and gave the young man a firm look. It was time to take her first step. “Nice to meet you. My name is Shizuku Minase. I’m eighteen years old and a first-year student of humanities at my college. I’m from twenty-first-century Japan,” she announced. “Who are you?” Shizuku’s unprompted self-introduction made the young man’s eyes widen in surprise. However, judging by his composed response, he seemed to pull himself together quickly. “I’m Erik, a mage from Tarys. I’m twenty-two. I work here as a librarian. I specialize in magic lettering…I suppose.” “…A mage?” Shizuku had noticed him using a peculiar term that she didn’t understand earlier, too. Shizuku took a moment to process exactly what he’d said, then asked, “You’re not a magician, are you? Is this that kind of world?” “I don’t see what’s so surprising. There are plenty of mages all over Farsas,” he said. “My work focuses on research, though, so I confess I’m not especially powerful.” The young man then scratched the side of his head, evidently unsure how to act around this strange visitor. Shizuku, on the other hand, simply kept her gaze fixed on his deep-blue eyes. There were times when Shizuku had wished to escape to a distant place where no one knew her. Still, she hadn’t expected to end up in a magical world. When she’d dreamed of being swept away, she’d been thinking more along the lines of Tottori. Once the two departed from the library and started making their way back up the street, Shizuku stifled a sigh. “A different world?” said the young mage, repeating what she’d just told him. “Yeah…” Now that Shizuku had introduced herself successfully, she was returning to the home of the merchant who’d taken her in. She understood now that she was in a different world, but that was where her comprehension of her predicament ended. She’d left her bag at that merchant’s house, and the woman had probably started to worry. It had been a while since Shizuku dashed out, declaring that she needed to see the map.