“Hey!”
Someone shouted, but none of them heard.
A man ran toward Kunon’s group with surprising speed for his appearance—but it was already too late.
“…I failed.”
The boy he’d been chasing was flying off into the distant sky, moving quickly and ignoring the terrain beneath him. There was no catching up at this point.
The water fish continued to swim away until it was out of sight.
“…Haaah…,” The man sighed.
Rudin Gavant was sixty years old. He was a tall and slender man wearing pristine, wrinkle-free servant’s clothes. Despite his age, his stance and the sparkle in his eye were as sharp as a knife.
“……”
He stood for a moment, dumbfounded.
That was it. He had failed.
He hadn’t made a blunder this bad in years.
Many thoughts raced through his head, but the first was…
“Where is Mistress Serra…?” he muttered before turning on his heel.
He walked briskly away, his back somehow lonely.
Rudin was a butler of the Quartz family, and his charge, Serraphila, had yet to return.
Before disappearing, she had left a single message saying only, “Some upperclassmen invited me on a field trip in a flying ship, so I’m going.”
It had been days since then, and Serraphila had not returned to the house once. In other words, she was missing. Rudin had heard nothing about her trip lasting multiple days.
Actually, he had been informed of it sometime later. After the flying ship had already left with Serraphila on board, he’d received a letter conveying more details. It had said: “We’re going on a trip to gather materials. We’ll be back in about two weeks. Don’t worry about Serraphila. I’ll take good care of her.”
Ever since receiving that ridiculous letter, Rudin had been doing everything he could think of to figure out where Serraphila was. But he couldn’t get any clear answers.
Startlingly, no one seemed to know her whereabouts. When he asked the magic school, he was simply told, “Our institution does not monitor the activity of Advanced class students.” Next they said, “You think she was kidnapped? But she went willingly, correct? You can’t call that a kidnapping.” He continued to implore them for assistance, saying he had been told nothing about her sleeping away from home, but they said, “Didn’t she give her consent?” and the conversation went nowhere.
Unwilling to give up, Rudin began questioning the magic school’s students for more information.
He ended up learning Serraphila had met with a boy named Kunon the day before she boarded the flying ship, and that information had led him there.
He had been waiting by the school gate since early that morning, intending to capture the boy and interrogate him. He knew Kunon wore an eyepatch, and he’d managed to spot him from a distance.
Unfortunately, he was too slow.
The boy was swallowed by some kind of water fish and carried off into the sky.
“…Haaah. The lady has gone missing just days into the school year… How can I ever face the master…?”
The old man couldn’t stop sighing.
✦ ✦ ✦
Because Dirashik wasn’t a nation, per se, it seemed odd to refer to its territory or borders, but Kunon and the others eventually reached a region near the boundary between Dirashik and the Holy Kingdom of Saint Lance.
They didn’t cross the border, so technically they were still in Dirashik.
“Talk about unclear,” Kunon said.
Keym Village was a small settlement constructed on developed land near a forest. He voiced the thought after they’d arrived at the village and received a brief explanation from Satori about it.
Kunon hadn’t gone to the school for noble children, but he had the basic knowledge required for someone of his social position. He knew it was unacceptable for territorial borders to be vague. It had to be clear which nation citizens belonged to.
And yet Dirashik functioned like a country despite not being one. You just had to think of it as a special case where the typical rules didn’t apply. It was the only place where borders could be so ambiguous.
“The forest next to the village is home to rather unique plants and animals. Teachers and students from the magic school often come here to collect materials,” Satori said, continuing her explanation.
Their destination, the toxic swamp, was in that forest.
According to Satori, the poisonous substance found in the swamp was rare and had impacted the evolution of the forest’s plants and animals, turning them into fascinating specimens. One of the reasons this village had been founded was to preserve the swamp and its surrounding environment.
“Does the swamp affect the people who live near it?” Kunon asked.
He figured they were fine, since the village had been built right next to the forest.
“No. The swamp is far enough into the forest that it’s difficult to reach, and the village has antidotes in case of emergencies.”
“Oh, I see.”
The villagers were able to live near the swamp because they had a way of dealing with the poison.
“Greetings, Miss Satori. Welcome back to Keym.”
Kunon and the others entered the village and were greeted by the mayor and a group of elderly people.
“It’s been a while,” replied the professor. “I’ll be in your care for the next couple weeks.”
She had contacted the village beforehand, so their party was welcomed right away.
There were no young people in the crowd, however. They were all off working.
The villagers led the teacher and the three students to a large house built to serve as lodging for any visiting sorcerers.
“We’re departing right away,” said Satori. “Leave your things here.”
After the villagers saw them off, they would head directly for the research site. Kunon intended for this to be a day trip, so he hadn’t brought anything. He ended up waiting with Satori as Zaricks and Saiha set down their luggage in the house.
“This village is surprisingly close to the school,” Kunon said.
“Close enough for a day trip, right?” Satori replied.
“Yes. But now that I think of it, I realize I’ve passed up the chance to share a roof with an incredibly charming woman.”
“Excuse me?”
“Skipping out on an opportunity to spend the night with Professor Satori… This will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, really? What a shame.”
I thought he might have matured in his second year, but nope. He’s still the same old Kunon, Satori thought, refusing to engage.
Zaricks and Saiha returned a moment later.
“Let’s go,” said their teacher.
And with that, they took to the sky again, this time flying to the swampland.
The poisonous swamp had been fully investigated a long time ago. Satori and the students were simply checking the original data against the current conditions to see if there were any major changes. After that, they would move on to the next step in the process.
“Professor, am I doing this right?” asked Kunon.
“Yeah, that’s perfect.”
Kunon had returned after collecting a sample of contaminated soil. Once back, he started to prepare the research tools they’d brought.
Teachers and students from the magic school came to Keym all the time, so a building had been constructed on the edge of the village for research. People from the school were also free to sleep there.
Nobody owned the building, but it was essentially the magic school’s property, since its teachers and students could use it freely. The school paid Keym Village to maintain and clean it.
There was nothing special about the place, but it was spacious and a nice way to escape the elements.
Satori and the three students spread out their equipment in a large room, turning it into a simple research facility.
Kunon helped with the preparations. He hated cleaning, but his love of experiments and laboratory equipment had him excited for the task.
This project would require a lot of water tanks. The four assembled the tanks made with magically strengthened glass panels, then labeled them. Next, they placed the contaminated soil from the swamp inside the tanks.
They each wore a cloth over their nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the poison. Kunon did the same; between that and his eye mask, his entire face was covered.
“I think you know what we’re doing, but I’ll explain again,” Satori began. “This is an experiment using water-dancing bugs to neutralize and purge toxic substances. Its purpose is to determine how many water-dancing bugs it takes to remove a certain amount of poison. We will investigate their effectiveness in water with varying levels of contamination, breed the insects in contaminated environments, and then extract poison from them. We’ll want to test this in as many circumstances as we can think of, so share any ideas you have.”
And so, the exciting experiment began.
After putting soil in the water tanks, they filled each with different samples of water. Foul odors immediately permeated the room.
They’d dried the soil out somewhat, which caused the poison within it to evaporate and spread quickly through the air.
“I’m getting excited,” Kunon said.
“Me too,” Zaricks quickly agreed.
“Come on, Professor! Let’s put in the insects!” Saiha called out impatiently.