Upon his return to the inn, Anima fulfilled his promise to Luina and kissed her, then took her and the girls out to eat. They found a nice restaurant, where they enjoyed a filling breakfast of runny rolled omelets, crispy bacon, fluffy bread, crunchy salads, and sweet mangoes. When they’d finished, they made their way through the bustling streets and left Barjyo.
“How did you like Barjyo?”
“Was it fun?”
The couple asked the girls while walking the lovely little road through the plains. Their questions were answered with beautiful smiles.
“Uh-huh! The, the, umm, the tsime was so pitty!”
“We can listen to the chime all day once we get home, Marie. How about you, Myuke?”
“I loved how crazy the market was, and fishing was super fun!”
“Myukey catched lots!”
“You caught two as well, didn’t you?”
“Mommy and Daddy catched lots too!”
Their excitement from yesterday hadn’t waned, much to Anima’s delight.
“You two have a real knack for fishing. Can you teach me how to do it once we get home?”
“You bet! I’ll train you day and night until you’re an expert fisherman!”
“I don’t think we need to go that far, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Anima was elated at the prospect of fishing with his girls again, though that day wouldn’t come for a while. The monster had been dealt with, but he still had a number of things on his plate before he and the girls could return home. First, he had to get to the port and get a ferry to the capital. Once there, he would have to wait for Shaer to organize an audience with the king, where he would settle his unfortunate scuffle with Malshan once and for all.
“Where are we going now?”
“The port. I’m not familiar with the area at all, but maybe Luina knows a thing or two about it.”
“Mommy, whassa ‘pord’?” Marie asked, excited to visit another town she’d never been to before. Luina flashed a delighted smile, ready to live up to her daughter’s enthusiasm.
“The port is at the edge of the sea.”
“Whassa ‘sea’?”
“The sea is like a very big lake.”
“Seawater is super salty, though. It stings if it gets into your mouth,” Myuke explained, flaunting her knowledge.
“It tings? Wooow!”
“Well done, Myuke. That’s exactly right. Have you been to the sea before?”
“Nope. I just know some stuff about it,” she replied, a bit flushed. “Y’know, I’ve always wanted to visit the sea! I wanna see for myself just how big it is!”
“I’m glad you’ll be able to scratch that off your bucket list.”
“Thanks for bringing me along!”
Anima was happy from the bottom of his heart to see his daughter smiling so gleefully.
“We’ll find somewhere to sit and watch it from once we get there, okay?”
“That’d be awesome! I hope there’s a place we can get a really good look from.”
“There is,” Luina added.
“Really?”
“I’ll show you around once we get there.”
“Yay! Thank you! I hope we get there soon!”
“I hope!” Marie excitedly repeated her older sister’s words as the four continued down the road, happily chitchatting until the scenery around them changed from bright green to reddish brown.
“Reeed! I love red!” Marie exclaimed upon setting her eyes on the vast prairie spanning her entire field of vision. She leaped excitedly over and over again. Soon enough, though, she’d tired herself out, and she looked at Anima with sweet, pleading eyes.
“Daddy, up!” Anima wasn’t one to deny his adorable daughter’s request. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, but she immediately changed her mind. “Daddy, down!”
Despite his desire to hold his daughter, he honored her request, putting her down and holding her hand as they walked. As the sun began its descent below the horizon, Myuke stopped abruptly.
“I see something!”
She pointed in the direction they were headed, toward the crack splitting the ground. There was something visible within the bottomless divide.
“That’s a bridge,” Anima told her.
“The bridge where you faced Bram?”
“Exactly.”
He had told his family about his encounter with Bram while they were making their way to the restaurant earlier that day. He’d shared that her true form was a brown-skinned little girl, that she had used a magic stone from one of the Harbinger’s familiars to wreak havoc, and that she had promised to never do evil deeds again. Luina had been surprised to learn that Bram was a little girl, but she was outright shocked when she’d learned about the magic stone.
She had known about the existence of the Jade Dragon stone. Upon inheriting the Harbinger stone, she was told to ally with the families in possession of the Harbinger’s familiars’ stones. As such, she knew which families kept which of the powerful artifacts.
The Jade Dragon stone was held by the Boise family. What made Bram’s actions even more strange was that, unlike Merkalt, most families that possessed a Harbinger’s familiar’s stone lived overseas. Why would someone like her come here only to block a bridge?
“Bram is... not here,” Luina pointed out.
Just as she’d promised, she seemed to have given up on blocking the bridge. Shaer seemed to have been relieved by Bram’s absence, as she descended from the sky and scanned the area.
“Gotta say, this is quite the bridge,” Myuke murmured from the base of the natural bridge connecting the two sides of the divide.
“Are you afraid to cross it?”
“Nah, I’m all good!”
Myuke’s confident affirmation delighted Anima. She had been scared half to death to cross the rope bridge on their way to Barjyo, but she’d already overcome her fear.
“I go! With Myukey!”
“Okay! Let’s cross it together!”
The girls took each other’s hands, then Anima took Myuke’s and Luina took Marie’s. The four crossed the bridge together, walking side by side.
“Whassat?” Marie asked, pointing at the mountain of equipment piled up on the bridge. It was covered in a layer of dust and some of it was dangling over the ravine, but every single piece in the pile was inlaid with a magic stone.
“Magic stones! Look at ’em all!” Myuke shouted in excitement. Her eyes sparkled as if she’d found buried treasure, and she picked up one piece of equipment after another, polishing each one. “A gargoyle stone! Ah, and this one’s a cockatrice stone! Wooow, there’s even a skeleton stone in here!”
“How can you tell from just looking at them?”
Save for the different colors, they all looked the same to Anima.
“I’ve spent so much time in magic stone shops that I learned to tell them apart at a glance! Anyway, what’s all this doing here? Did a gust of wind pull everything out from a magic stone shop except the individual stones or something?”
“I would imagine that girl collected them here,” Shaer suggested as she landed alongside the group.
“‘That girl’? Oh, you mean Bram? Why didn’t she take them home?”
“I don’t believe she is interested in magic stones.”
“No? But then why’s she got so many?”
“Every Hunter who came here to face the monster was overwhelmed by her strength and offered their equipment in exchange for their lives. It had become a mountain of valuable gear by the time we were dispatched. Identifying the owner of each piece would be nigh impossible, but leaving them here would hinder traversal of the bridge. To that end, I have already informed my team about the current state of affairs and arranged for the temporary retrieval of the equipment.”
Shaer seemed to have already contacted the knights using a magic stone specialized for long-distance communication. As she and her knights responded directly to the king, there was a chance that the royals had already been informed of Anima’s feat.
“Oh... Well, whatever. I have a slime stone for myself, so it’s fine...”
The myriad stones laid out in front of Myuke were each infinitely more valuable than her slime stone, and though she had wanted to keep at least one of them for herself, the guilt from swiping one would be too much for her to bear. She stood up, looked straight ahead, and crossed the bridge with her family. By the time they reached the other side, she seemed to have completely forgotten about the magic stones, and focused on the port town that awaited them.
“When are we gonna get to the port?” she asked.
“At this rate, we should make it there by tomorrow morning,” Luina answered.
“Tomorrow morning, huh? I can’t wait to see the place! I’m super excited!”
“I am too.”
Anima couldn’t wait to see the awe and genuine smiles on his children’s faces the moment they laid eyes on the beautiful port town. Excited to reach their destination, he and his family continued along the road under the setting sun.