◆Chapter 15: Signs of a Way Home
◆Chapter 15: Signs of a Way Home
TEN days have passed since the night of the black fog that brought Boneless Ham. I spent most of that time purifying the zombies flocking around the outer wall. There were so many I was starting to get fed up with doing it every single day, but that mission just ended a few moments ago. Grantz Kingdom is finally on the way to revitalization.
“I. Am. BEAT! Can’t move anymore.”
We’re in the outermost sector of the capital city. I plop down on the cobblestones near the castle gate. It’s improper to sit on the dirty ground in the middle of the road, but I couldn’t care in the least right now. Exhaustion ten times worse than ever before presses down on me—perhaps from the relief I won’t have to purify anything for a while.
Lots of people are walking around the city already. Reactions to the state of things vary from those who are debilitated by depression over their destroyed homes and those who quickly set about making repairs. As I watch them from the road, I’m struck by a sudden question.
“Hey, do you have enough building materials?”
“As you rightly guessed, we do not. We are especially lacking in wood,” Lex answers from where he stands attentively at my side.
“I wonder if we can use the apple trees.”
“Apple trees don’t make for good lumber, so the most it could be used for is smaller items,” Lex explains, shifting his gaze beyond the walls. “In any event, we have little choice but to set up an expeditionary squad to harvest trees.”
“You want to harvest the trees? Uh, aren’t they rotten everywhere?”
“Indeed. For that reason, may I request your saliv— AHEM! Your holy water, Lady Mizuha?!”
“You were just about to ask for my saliva again, weren’t you?”
“Never. I asked for your holy water, Lady Mizuha.”
Putting it that way sounds just as bad. On the flip side, digging in my heels about it is just going to make it worse for me, so I’m leaving it at that.
“Well, whatever. I plan to help out where I can if it’s for the sake of rebuilding.”
“Thank you very much. I wholeheartedly rejoice that you are who you are, Lady Mizuha.”
“…Let me be clear: I’m only helping out because I want a safe place to sleep and bathe. I still view this as your problem, not mine. I’m not the saint you think I am, Lex.”
“For your benefit, we shall leave it at that.”
“Grr! There you go again, deflecting what I’m saying!”
Things will just get too constrained for me if they expect too much of me as a “do-gooder.” I’m speaking from my experience as “Class Rep Mizuha” in elementary school. Just because I was the class representative they took advantage of me, saying things like “You can solve this problem” and “You can eat the school lunch without leaving anything on your plate” and “The teachers can leave you to watch over the class while they’re away.”
To this day, it’s still a huge mystery to me how following my brother’s cryptic advice to stop wearing my hair in braids actually freed me from the hell of being picked as class representative. When it all comes down to it, I just want to live in comfort. That’s my true reason for helping them with their zombie problem.
“Boss Lady!”
I look toward the main road where I heard that shout and find Rosso waving at me. The second he’s standing in front of me, he slams his hands on his knees and drops into a deep bow.
“Thank you for working hard at your duties today!”
“Didn’t I tell you to lay off that greeting?”
I hate feeling like he’s aged me to a working adult.
“Why?! Doesn’t it sound cool?!”
“When I say no, I mean no.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We’ve repeated this same conversation five times already. He hasn’t stopped yet, so it’s a given he’ll keep it up.
I sigh and ask him why he’s here: “So? What’s up? You must have a reason to come all this way.”
Given how annoyingly huge the capital city is, you work up a sweat coming to the outer castle wall. It’s hard to imagine him making the trek out here for nothing.
“Right, right. I do. That tiny scholar Pino entrusted me with a message for you.”
“Pino did? What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Come to the Royal Library to discuss that matter,’” Rosso relays, imitating Pino. I’ll keep it to myself that he doesn’t sound a thing like him.
“That matter” must be our discussion about the other world. I’d completely forgotten his promise to tell me about it once I’d liberated Grantz’s capital city from zombies.
“Thanks for the message, Rosso.”
“Don’t mention it. Anything for you, Boss Lady.”
At first, I had a tough time getting used to Rosso, a guy who looks just like a small-time villain, idolizing me, but now it seems so natural. I’m startled by my ability to easily adapt to these things.
“M’kay, I’m off to see Pino. See you two later,” I say in parting and run off, only to skid to a halt a second later. I look over my shoulder and ask, “Uh, where is the Royal Library?”
◆◆◆◆◆
THE Royal Library was constructed near the castle. It looks like a stone tower on the outside. Though shorter than the castle, it’s the second tallest structure. My curiosity about what this building was has finally been sated after all this time.
I part ways with Rosso, who showed me the way here, at the entrance and go inside. I swing my inquisitive gaze around the building while Pino, who met me at the entrance, leads the way.
“Wow! This is my first time inside such a huge library…”
Innumerable bookshelves line the walls. The atrium structure allows you to see the upper stories from below, and every floor is filled to capacity with bookshelves. Sadly, the interior is constructed from wood, which rotted with the zombie blight. Because of that, I have to watch my step as the floorboards occasionally give way.
“This was normally a place of tranquility, but you can see the deplorable state it’s in now.”
“Do you think I can purify it?”
“Doesn’t hurt to try.”
With that decided, I spit on a nearby bookshelf while mentally asking for every librarian in the universe to forgive me. After the bookshelf glows, it regains its former glory. That test proves I can purify the books, but…
“Geh! It only did one shelf!”
I’d imagined the holy light spreading through the library, purifying the whole thing like with water, but things never go as easy as I hope they will.
“In conclusion, we can bring the library back if you spit on every bookshelf,” Pino states like the concluding paragraph of a research paper.
“Not happening.”
“I thought so.”
“I mean, it’s not like I can’t do it, but I don’t even want to imagine myself doing it, much less actually commit the act…”
Just from what I can see, there are more than a hundred bookshelves. In what world can you find a high school girl going around spitting on over a hundred bookshelves in a library? I don’t think there’s any person, let alone high school girls, who would do that. In no way do I want to cross that line into irredeemable weirdo-freak territory.
“Well, I don’t think we should rely on you for everything, Miss Priestess.”
“You really are the Grantz Kingdom’s conscience, Pino…”
“I simply want to prevent this country from stagnating.”
“Aw, there you go being modest. Want me to pat you on the head and tell you what a good little boy you are?”
“Don’t treat me like a child!”
As we’re having that conversation, we arrive at the reading space prepared in a corner of the first floor. We find a suitable table and sit facing each other.
“Time to begin our discussion.”
“Please teach me, Professor Pino.”
“…What’s with that form of address?”
“You’re going to teach me stuff, so I figured I might as well act like a student.”
“Please act normal.”
He sounds fed up with me. Darn.
Pino clears his throat and begins his lecture. “About this world…is where I’d like to start, but you should learn the basics about our god first. After all, you don’t seem to know anything about this world, Miss Priestess.”
“You are indeed correct, Professor,” I say with teasing formality before switching back to casual dialogue. “Say, is that god the same as the goddess Lex and the others talk about?”
“They are one and the same. God of love. God of fertility. The names vary throughout the lands, but they all apply to the same deity: Goddess Sadia. The being who created this world.”
“Goddess Sadia…” I repeat her name, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.
“However, the Goddess didn’t create the world from nothingness. Word has it that she created this one based on her own. This is lore from the beginning of time when the Goddess supposedly spoke with man.”
“It’d be reasonable for me to think of the world the Goddess is from as ‘another world,’ right? Do you know what that one was like?”
Pino laughs dryly like I’m a lost cause when I immediately latch on to the mention of another world. “Of course. I assume there are similarities between the two because the other world was the basis for ours. I have no doubt it’s more developed than this one too.”
“Hmm. Mine is definitely further along than this world, and there are a lot of similarities… Like the food, animals, and buildings.”
Obviously, there weren’t any zombies…unless people without caffeine count.
“Do you know anything else?”
“Regrettably, this is it. I’m sorry to have deceived you, but as you just heard, all I have is conjecture.”
Apparently, he has only this obscure information. “Ugghh,” I groan.
Pino folds his arms in front of his chest as he reclines against the back of his chair. “That being said, I believe it isn’t necessary for your world and the Goddess’s world to be one and the same for you to go home.”
“H-How so?”
“I sincerely doubt anyone aside from the Goddess is capable of the extraordinary feat of bringing someone here from another world.”
“You mean she summoned me here? For what purpose?”
“Ask the Goddess. The one thing I can say for sure is that she has the ability to connect this world to others. You don’t have to lose hope if you know that much, no?”
Using Pino’s hint, I voice my conclusion. “In other words, there’s a chance I can return to my world if I meet this goddess?”
“There you have it. Even if you can’t go straight home, that should take you one step closer to it.”
“But is a goddess someone you can meet? You can’t meet gods and goddesses in my world.”
Regardless of whether deities actually exist, gods visible to the public don’t exist in my world. There are beings who are worshipped like gods, but naturally none of them possess the power to create the heavens and the earth like this world’s goddess.
“For what it’s worth, I haven’t met her,” Pino says dully, resting his chin in his hands. “Accounts of people beholding the Goddess can be found in old texts, but their authenticity is up for debate. And let’s face it—the world has literally gone to hell. What is our goddess doing, then? It’s reasonable to assume she’s not here right now.”
“Seriously? Then what am I supposed to—”
“Don’t panic just yet. I’ve already thought about that.” Here it is again—Pino’s killer smirk. “You see, there’s this theory that the Goddess and the Dark Djinn are opposite sides of the same existence. The basis for this lies in their power. The Dark Djinn’s power to corrupt everything stands in direct contrast to the Goddess’s power to purify everything.”
“You’re right… They are polar opposites.”
“See? So when you apply that theory to my idea that she ‘isn’t here right now’…it leads to but one conclusion.”
“Oh! I know what it is!” I think I have the right idea, but I’ll run it by him to be sure. “Let’s see… There’s a single entity called God, and while Goddess Sadia is in control, the Dark Djinn sleeps. Then when the Dark Djinn is in control, the Goddess is asleep… Does that fit?”
“Correct. So, what do you think we should do based on that information?”
“If the Dark Djinn is also the Goddess, we just have to meet the Dark Djinn to find her. Uhh, but doesn’t that bring us back to the beginning? We don’t know where the Dark Djinn is either.”
“Unlike the Goddess, we actually have information on the Dark Djinn, you know?”
I can’t remember ever hearing anything about where the Dark Djinn is. But Pino is acting like I should know. In other words, I’ve obtained the information along the way without realizing it. The Dark Djinn is the god of evil, so he should be the symbol of evil things.
“The zombies?”
“Wrong.”
“The rotten earth?”
“Wrong.”
“Grr…” I childishly puff out my cheeks. I can think of only one more possibility. “…How about the black fog?”
“Correct. Though I had expected you to get it on your first try.”
“Sorry that I suck at guessing.”
“Don’t pout. I wouldn’t call this an apology, but I’ve already located the source of the black fog, based on the information you provided me before.”
“I knew I could count on you, Pino!”
Exasperated with how fast I bounced back, Pino spreads a map out on the table. “Take a look at this. The black fog has shown up in two spots. First, on the highway leading to the capital. Second, Grantz Castle. The black fog moved the short distance between these two locations. You can find the origin by following its course.”
Pino’s small finger traces the line drawn from Grantz Castle until it eventually intersects with the line extending from the highway. The intersection point is right where a forest is drawn on the map.
“Are you suggesting the Dark Djinn is around there?”
“If we leave out the unanswered question of whether the black fog only travels in a straight path.”
“This is a case of ‘it doesn’t hurt to look,’ huh?”
“Exactly. In addition, we don’t know for sure if the Dark Djinn itself is there. But you are very likely to find information relating to it.”
We’re groping for clues at this point. Anything that can be tested should be tested.
“I’ll investigate into the matter for you. It’s a given the knights will jump at the chance to help you if I throw your name out. Even if they have to slobber all over themselves to do it.”
“Slobber all over themselves…?”
“Oh, my bad. It’s our holy priestess who slobbers,” Pino says with a smirk. “Whoa. Down, girl. I’m sorry for joking around! So please put that chair back down.”
“You should be sorry!” I grumble as I place the chair on the floor. Taking my seat again, I run another one of my questions by him. “But wait, aren’t we forgetting something important. Even if we find this Dark Djinn, Goddess Sadia is supposedly asleep. What do I do when I find it?”
“The answer is right there, no?”
I follow Pino’s gaze to my right hand resting on top of the table. “My hand?”
“It has the power to remove the Dark Djinn’s curse. Maybe it’s capable of giving control back to the Goddess.”
“Hmm… I wonder if that’s really possible.”
“We literally have no other hand to play. I, at least, believe it’s worth a shot.”
What form has the Dark Djinn taken? What kind of powers does it have? Not even being able to imagine it makes me uneasy, but nothing will happen if I don’t act.
“I see what you mean… Okay, I’ll try it.”
“Understood. Then I’ll expect you to move according to that plan. I’ll contact you once I finish my investigation. Feel free to do what you want until then.” Pino stands and walks toward the door before he finishes talking. “I’ll be taking my leave now.”
“Aw, you’re leaving already?”
“I have to, because a certain someone has just stuck me with a ton of work.” He doesn’t look like he hates that as much as he makes it sound. Maybe he’s excited as a scholar to learn more about the Goddess and the Dark Djinn.
“Pino, thanks for everything!”
“Don’t worry about it. This is a cheap price to pay to thank you for saving my country.” Pino waves at me over his shoulder.
I watch his tiny back leave the library, thinking how mature he is for his age.