Chapter 1: Secret of the War God

Chapter 1:
Secret of the War God

 

—1—

 

“HOLY FIST POMERA, we know this isn’t much…but please accept it.” said the Guild representative, bowing deeply before us.

“K-Kanata… Wh-what should we do?”

Pomera had been building up her self-confidence lately, but the pouches laid out on the table before us were a good reason to stutter. Each one was packed full of gold coins—a small fortune for defeating Lily, daughter of the spider queen called Mother.

Pomera’s face had gone pale, a stark contrast to Philia, who stared at the treasure with sparkling eyes.

“Kanata, Kanata! With this much money, Philia can eat all the sweet things!” she said.

It seemed the Guild had a hard time getting together a suitable reward to compensate Pomera’s (or, more

accurately, Philia’s) achievement. With so many adventurers hired to defend against the ragni outbreak, Manaloch just didn’t have the money to reward the unexpected defeat of what they thought was a demon king.

Even so, they managed to scrape together 40 million gold. To top that off, Garnet had given us 10 million in credit to use at the Mithril Wand. That meant we were now worth 50 million gold. I was starting to feel numb to the value.

I snapped out of my daze and noticed that we were drawing quite a bit of attention. Other adventurers in the guild hall were discreetly pointing their fingers at us and whispering to each other. First things first—it was time to load all the money into my magic bag.

“…Was Lily really that powerful?” I asked quietly as I scooped the cash from the table. Even if the Guild thought Lily was a demon king, this seemed like a little much.

“They think Lily’s level was over 400… I have no idea what Manaloch would look like now if Philia hadn’t been there…” whispered Pomera as she trembled.

I put a hand to my chin and thought.

Hmm… Level 400, that’s like twice Lovis’s level, fourteen times Octavio’s level. About a quarter of Philia’s. I just don’t get why that’s such a big deal!

I decided to be diplomatic. “She sounds fairly…strong?”

“Do you really think so, Kanata…?” asked Pomera, seeming uneasy as she looked at me.

To be fair, level 400 was barely any different from Evil Priest Notts. Which meant Manaloch had probably been in danger of being destroyed, right? For a country that feared Lovis, that sort of made sense.

Either way, it seemed there were all sorts of threats wandering around Locklore that could easily destroy an entire city. I’d accepted that this world was pretty messed up, but it was a miracle that it kept existing at all. That was probably due to Naiarotop and the other gods balancing things for dramatic effect.

“Those miserable pieces of…” I muttered without meaning to.

“Wh-what’s wrong, Kanata?” asked Pomera.

“Oh… Nothing, sorry. I was just thinking.”

I wondered if there was any way to free this world from the so-called gods. It made me sick to think that tens of thousands of people could be killed at a whim, all in the name of entertainment.

“Kanata, Kanata! Philia did a good job too! Buy Philia lots of candy!” Philia tugged at my sleeve.

“…Philia-chan, with this much money, I can build you an entire house made of candy.” I needed to stock up on sweets for her, but there were more pressing matters. “There are some things I want to spend some money on right away… Would you mind?”

I looked at Pomera and Philia. This reward wasn’t technically mine, and I couldn’t just go spending it without their input.

“…I honestly didn’t even do anything. I don’t have any reason to say no,” said Pomera, shaking her head and looking slightly crestfallen.

Her encounter with Lily made her realize her level was still lacking. At just over level 200, it was becoming incredibly easy for her to end up dragged into dangerous situations. If we were going to stick together, I had a responsibility to start raising her level again as soon as possible.

“Kanata can have all the money as long as you buy Philia lots of candy!”

If anyone deserved the reward for killing Lily, it was Philia—but it wasn’t too hard to imagine what she would do with 40 million gold if left to her own devices.

“Thank you, Philia-chan. I’ll pay you back for however much I use.”

That started a train of thought. If Lily was worth 40 million gold, it shouldn’t be too difficult to make loads of money if we went out looking for opponents of that level. Not much higher though—we wouldn’t want to stand out.

“Kanata, what would you like to buy?” asked Pomera, shaking me out of my daydream.

“Things for your leveling, Pomera. I want to mass-produce Blood Ethers of the Gods as soon as possible and get back to killing demons in the Cursed Mirror.”

The blood rushed out of Pomera’s face.

“N-now that you say it, we did talk about that…didn’t we? So, we’re going to be doing that again?”

“That’s what I planned, but do you hate it that much?”

Pomera clung uneasily to her staff, her mouth set in a firm line.

“P-please help me, Kanata! I understand now that I need to get stronger to stay with you. I’ll do my best!”

“Good! For now, let’s aim to get you to around level 1,000.”

“A th-thousand…?!”

To make the Blood Ethers of the Gods, we needed brains of a high-level demon, adamantine ore, and sap of the spirit tree.

I could get an infinite amount of the brains for free in the Cursed Mirror.

I could create the adamantine ore with alchemy and Philia’s help. We’d made a little of the stuff as an experiment before the ragni crisis, but it was expensive. With the reward and credit at the Mithril Wand, Garnet could get enough of the raw ingredients I needed to actually mass produce adamantine ore.

That left the sap of the spirit tree, but that shouldn’t be too difficult as long as we could make a contract with a high-level spirit. After that, we could summon it whenever we needed to and request that it get a little of the sap for us.

“First, I’d like to buy some catalysts necessary for the spirit contract.”

 

—2—

 

AFTER A QUICK SHOPPING TRIP and placing an order with Garnet for adamantine ore materials, we left Manaloch and walked toward a nearby forest.

“Forty million gold sure disappears quick,” said Pomera with a touch of bitterness.

“That’s because you’ve lost all sense of money’s value now that we’re rich,” I said.

“Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.”

The materials for the adamantine ore cost us 30 million gold. That was three times what we’d spent before. Even Garnet would need some time to source that many materials, but I was hoping he’d have at least enough to get us started soon.

The remaining 10 million gold went toward the summoning catalysts and buying Pomera a replacement staff. Pomera’s old staff had been held together with tape and string, and honestly, the gap between her level and her staff’s quality had just become too large. At this point, it was only useful as a big club. She desperately needed something new.

But the replacement they’d found still wasn’t balanced with Pomera’s current level. It might take a while to find something appropriate. For now, we’d have to make do with what was being sold in the city.

As for the summoning catalysts, I poured through the magic books Lunaère gave me to get some idea of what we should buy. We needed items suited to a spirit that was a high enough level to live in Yggdrasil, but it turned out those were pretty affordable. Sort of.

I’d always been a bit of a perfectionist, and I realized my eyes were only attracted to expensive items. If I was going to make a contract, then I obviously wanted a powerful spirit to form a partnership with. You get what you pay for, right?

And just like that, 40 million gold was gone.

It was my general impression that one gold was approximately equal to one yen. In one day I blew more money than I’d spent in my twenty years in Japan.

“Philia-chan…I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can for these expenses…” I said.

“Philia’s happy to make money! Philia wants to earn loads more gold!”

I found myself so shamed by her inherent goodness that I couldn’t look directly at her. When she first started following me around, I’d worried what I was going to do with her. But it was embarrassing how well she pulled her weight without asking for anything in return. Other than candy.

“…Philia-chan, why don’t we go to the bakery again for some cake once we finish the spirit contract?”

“Yay!” Philia waved her hands and danced around giggling. Pomera’s leveling might be the biggest priority, but it would probably be good to keep the Sand of Dreams happy.

Location mattered when it came to spirit contracts. If you wanted to call forth a water spirit, you would go to a lake. If you wanted to call forth a stone spirit, you would go deep into the mountains.

The important thing was to do the ceremony in a place with a lot of nature, like a forest. If you did it in a city full of all sorts of man-made things, you’d be more likely to get a low-level spirit out of the deal.

“I’m going to use the Four Gates Ceremony to make contact,” I said. Using the Gold Magnet of the Adventuring King I received from Lovis, I checked the cardinal directions. Then I used the Heroic Sword of Gilgamesh (still sheathed) to draw corresponding symbols into the dirt.

The Four Gates Ceremony was a straightforward way to summon a spirit that we could bind in a contract. We would place an item at each of the four cardinal directions. Those items were sent to the spirit world and acted as down payment for opening a line of communication. I laid a monster heart on one of the cardinal points and then pieces of valuable ore on two of the others.

“Kanata, you only bought three items. Aren’t there Four Gates?” asked Pomera.

“I’m going to use this as the fourth. Makes no sense for it to sit around gathering dust.”

I pulled a large crystal from my Dimension Pocket. Inside the plum-colored gem writhed some shadow-like apparition.

“Wh-what is that?” Pomera readied her staff defensively, sensing its wrongness.

“It’s something Mother dropped. It’s probably worth a lot, but…it’s probably really unlucky to keep carrying it around, and it’s not something that should be circulating around Locklore.”

Just to be sure I wanted to do this, I consulted the Acacia Memoirs one last time.

 

MOON OF THE ABYSS

Value Class: Godly

A crystal imbued with evil magic. Formed via alchemy from a mixture of the blood of thirteen powerful demon kings. Fragments of their souls still writhe within the crystal.

It has the power to enable a demon king to control far more monsters than usual, and if embedded in a monster’s body, it encourages dramatic growth.

 

I didn’t know of any non-evil way to use it, so this seemed like as good of a use as any.

I flipped through one of Lunaère’s magic books to double-check the summoning process. The spirit that appeared would be influenced by the items, location, and magic of the caster performing the ritual—but beyond that it was still fairly random. If I was shooting for a low-level spirit, then my chances of getting exactly the one I wanted was better, but with the high-level magic that I was about to use, it was up to a roll of the dice. After that it depended on the spirit’s personality whether we could just make friends or if I’d need to perform some sort of service to win its favor.

“Okay… I guess I just have to stick my hand in the middle of the sigil and pour magic into it.”

“Kanata…maybe it would be better to not put in too much magic…?” said Pomera.

“It’s fine. According to the book, this ritual only summons spirits who like humans…most of the time,” I said with a smile, but Pomera’s eyebrows only furrowed deeper. Then I concentrated on the ritual. “Uhh, spirit who resides within the earth, lend your strength to this child of man.”

I placed my hand over the center of the magic circle and poured in as much mana as I could. The symbols glowed, and the items I’d prepared for the Four Gates Ceremony disappeared into the light.

And suddenly, there was a beast standing in front of us.

It was easily ten feet tall with beautiful fur the color of the sky. I wanted to stare at it forever. Two fluffy tails wagged in a friendly manner.

“Aw… It’s cute!” Pomera’s eyes had been wide with fear before, but now her cheeks were turning pink.

Just as she was feeling relieved, the beast in front of us opened its mouth to reveal huge fangs. Buckets of drool spilled from its reddish-purple tongue, creating a puddle on the ground. Its golden, predatory eyes opened wide.

“Eeek!” Pomera revised her opinion and hid behind me.

Well, it looked like I’d managed a temporary summoning at least. Next, I needed to win the spirit’s favor and seal the contract. If I couldn’t do that, then I’d just wasted the items I used.

I stared back at the beast in front of me while trying to keep it in check. Theoretically, it was open to negotiation, but it also looked like it would attack if I let my guard down. If things went well, I’d have a fulfilled contract in a few moments. If they went poorly, it might eat me alive.

I needed to know what I was working with, so I took a look using my Status Check.

 

Race: Wolzottl

Lv: 2164

HP: 7322/7322

MP: 14243/14243

 

“O-okay… Pomera-san, Philia-chan, step back a little bit. This might get dangerous. Philia-chan, if anything happens, protect Pomera.”

“Do you think something’s going to happen?!” Pomera blanched under Wolzottl’s gaze as the beast stood there panting.

This was the highest-level opponent I’d encountered outside the Mirror since leaving Cocytus—not counting Zolophilia. It was way more powerful than Mother, the real demon king. What had I just gotten myself into?

What had I just gotten Pomera into?

“Wh-wh-what should Philia do…? Philia’s not good with doggies…”

Philia had circled around behind Pomera. Perhaps she’d been bitten by a dog before she became the nucleus of Zolophilia, but I wanted her to protect Pomera instead of hiding behind her robe.

Wolzottl growled.

What should I do? Apparently, there are a lot of battle-loving spirits that will only submit to a powerful summoner.

Then again, there were some spirits who were happy with some food from this world or some sort of game. There were others who would only obey a beautiful person. It looked like Wolzottl was a battle-loving type, but I couldn’t go for a preemptive strike without being sure.

“Ph-Philia-chan, a treat… Give it a piece of candy! We’ll try that and see…” I said, but the moment I turned to look back behind me, Wolzottl charged.

Definitely the fighting type!

Wolzottl leapt high off the ground and then dropped straight down at me. The Heroic Sword of Gilgamesh wasn’t an option, since I couldn’t kill Wolzottl and still expect to get the sap of the spirit tree out of the deal. With no other choice, I stopped Wolzottl with my bare hands as it bore down on me.

“Sluuuurp!”

It licked me! I was horrified by the sensation. Not just the sticky, slobbery feeling—but the terrible pain. It sucked up my mana as it lapped my face.

“Awoooo!” It opened its huge mouth and came in to eat me. I forcefully flung Wolzottl away with my arm. “Aroo?!”

It seemed Wolzottl hadn’t thought it would lose to a human in a contest of brute strength. It rolled defenselessly across the ground for a few yards, then stood up and rushed back at me.

It doesn’t look like it’s going to go down with just a bit of light damage. Maybe I should end this and try another summoning?

Wolzottl rushed past me, then dashed around randomly. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like it was going toward the girls. Even though she was far more powerful than Wolzottl, Philia was trembling as Pomera held her in her arms.

The spirit sped faster and faster as it ran around me gaining speed with each revolution. Suddenly, it flew directly at me, and I ducked to avoid it.

It rushed around me again, looking for an opening in my defenses. I parried its next lunge. Perhaps I should have put a little more force behind my counterattack, but I didn’t know how to deal with a spirit that I still wanted to bind in a contract.

Then, after it made a few more passes, I realized I was being pulled by something. Its two tails were wrapped around my body.

“It got me!” I shouted before Wolzottl dashed off, dragging me behind. Then it flung me into the air. “Gaaah!”

It leapt from the ground, straight up at me. I was still in midair and couldn’t possibly dodge.

I could evade with spacetime magic, but I’d had enough of this. I wasn’t going to pull any more punches. I twisted in the air and kicked Wolzottl square in the head, sending it flying straight back down.

It crashed into the dirt and lay there with its belly exposed. I landed on the ground beside it.

“…Did I hit it too hard?”

Wolzottl was still lying on the ground. Given its level, I was sure it could handle a hit like that… Then it glanced at me and let out a huff like it was expecting something.

Is this a submissive pose?

I carefully moved closer and rubbed its belly.

“Yip, yip, yip!” The high-pitched barks didn’t suit its appearance, but it wriggled about happily on its back.

“Y-you’ve accepted me…right?” I asked Wolzottl.

Wolzottl sat up, its two tails thumping the ground as they wagged. I took that as a yes.

I had a sudden thought and opened the Acacia Memoirs.

 

WOLZOTTL

Godly Rank

A high-level dog spirit. He is feared by humans as a spirit who rules over death.

He consumes the mana of anyone he licks. In the case of low-level individuals, this may result in the Wolzottl consuming their souls.

He loves attention and playing with others, but his power often kills or injures individuals he interacts with. Because of that, he longs for a strong human. He likes playing chase and play-fighting.

 

Huh. So spirits appear in the Memoirs too. That’s handy. In any case, for such a fierce spirit, I’m surprised he loves attention so much.

Back to business. Considering he was a spirit over level 2,000, he should surely be able to bring me sap of the spirit tree. Visions of Blood Ethers danced in my head.

“Y-you did it, Kanata!” said Pomera happily as she came closer. Philia followed her, creeping along in her shadow.

“Pomera-san, it might still be dangerous—”

Before I could finish speaking, Wolzottl bounced in front of Pomera and licked her across her face.

“Woof, woof!”

Pomera didn’t seem to understand what just happened. She stood for a slobber-covered moment, then the color drained from her face and she crumpled to the ground.

“C-c-cold… It’s c-c-cold…and h-heavy… And s-s-sort of s-s-sad…” She lay where she fell on the ground and wrapped her arms around herself, trembling violently.

“Pomera-san! H-hang, hang on!” I called to her as I crouched next to her. It seemed that a single lick had stolen away most of her mana. Philia looked like she thought the world was ending as she stared at Pomera.

As I explained to Pomera what the Acacia Memoirs had said about Wolzottl, he let out a small whine, and his tails drooped in dejection.

 

—3—

 

I LOOKED DOWN AND noticed a blue symbol in the shape of a wolf appear on my arm before melting away. It was proof that I was accepted by the spirit and the contract was complete.

“Looks like we’re good to go…” The symbol was no longer visible, but I could feel it branded into the mana in my body. Through that link, Wolzottl would be able to come to me any time I needed him.

With the contract in place, I decided to try negotiating for the last ingredient.

 

SAP OF THE SPIRIT TREE

Value Rank: A

A drop of sap from Yggdrasil, the World Tree, said to be the source of all spirits.

It has a powerful healing effect and is valued for its alchemical uses. It can be obtained by making a pact with a high-ranking spirit who has received permission from the Spirit King to reside within the tree.

 

It was only an A-rank item, so it wasn’t the highest hurdle on the list. It was something that any A-rank adventurer should be able to get their hands on if they worked hard. It should be easy for Wolzottl.

“Woof, woof!”

Wolzottl was sitting nicely, his two tails thumping the ground. He seemed…intelligent, but would he really understand what I was saying?

“K-Kanata, be careful. He’ll steal your soul like he did mine,” said Pomera. She stood a ways off, staring at the two of us.

“Oh, come on, Pomera-san, he just took some of your mana. It wasn’t that bad…” Or was it?

…No, Wolzottl was definitely a danger to her at her current level if he got overexcited.

“His t-teeth are so big…and scary…” Philia didn’t appear to be a dog person. She was still crouched behind Pomera, trembling. I imagined her using the Sand of Dreams to make four copies of Wolzottl to fight him.

“Uuun…” Wolzottl whined at the girls sadly, his tails drooping. It seemed he desperately wanted to become friends with them.

“Um, Wolzottl-san, I was hoping you could help me with something,” I said.

He looked back at me, then closed his eyes and turned his head away like he was ignoring me.

Wh-what…?

“Wolzottl-san?”

He let out a bored yawn, eyes still closed, and then curled up in a ball on the ground.

Huh, what? What’s going on? I wondered. “Um, Wolzottl-san…”

His triangle ears folded down. It was clear he had no intention of listening to what I had to say.

“What did I do wrong?” I asked, turning to Pomera for advice. She fearfully approached with Philia tugging on her sleeve. Pomera’s eyebrows knit together, her expression at a loss.

I decided to try buttering him up a bit first. I pet his head, and he let out a small, contented sound but then quickly closed his mouth. His tails wagged gently back and forth, sweeping over the ground, but stopped whenever I looked at them.

It seemed there was something he was unhappy with. He was pouting. I put a hand to my chin in thought, then Pomera suddenly let out an “aha!”

“Maybe it’s how you’re addressing him?”

It was true that it wasn’t until after I’d called him “Wolzottl-san” that he started to pout. Wolzottl was just his species name. I guess that would be like someone calling me Mr. Man. And despite his appearance, he had a friendly and playful personality. He probably didn’t like the formality.

“Wol, I was hoping you could help me with something…”

He raised his head toward me, his mouth opened in a grin, and his tails started wagging furiously again. He looked incredibly happy.

“Woof, woof!”

Wolzottl really is just a big dog, isn’t he?

“I’d like you to bring me sap of the spirit tree from Yggdrasil, can you do that?” I asked.

“Unf,” Wolzottl sat up and nodded.

Ah, he knows exactly what to do. I knew Wolzottl wouldn’t have a problem getting sap of the spirit tree. Good. I’ve finally got all the ingredients for the Blood Ethers.

“Okay, so I’d like you to…” I started, but Wolzottl was staring at me like he wanted something.

Right, he wasn’t going to do it for free. The Acacia Memoirs said you could get it by trading with a high-level spirit.

The sap was a fairly valuable item, and I had to pay an equal price to get him to bring me some.

Money…won’t do. A safe bet would probably be food.

This probably warranted more research. The sap was valuable…but what was it worth? Garnet didn’t have any sap of the spirit tree, but surely he’d at least seen some. He should be able to tell us how much it would cost.

Besides Garnet, Lunaère would know about it…but I had no idea when I would see her again. I remembered when we met next to Mother’s fallen body. I had to make sure she couldn’t run away the next time I saw her…

With a sigh, I forced myself back to the present.

I thought I’d managed to find the last necessary ingredient, but it looked like it would take a bit more time.

“…Hm?”

Wolzottl had rolled over onto his back and kept glancing over at me. I crouched down and rubbed all over his pale-blue belly.

“Yip, yip, yip!” he cried in happiness.

We played around like that for a good twenty minutes before Wolzottl suddenly stood up. Light surrounded his body, and he disappeared in a flash.

Puzzled, I waited a little while before resummoning him.

He appeared with a large bag gripped in his jaws. He looked at me, dropped the bag on the ground, and then started wagging his tail. Inside the bag was a bucket. Inside the bucket was a viscous fluid.

I checked the Acacia Memoirs—it was sap of the spirit tree!

All he wanted for payment was a belly rub?! I should have a steak ready for next time, at least…

 

—3—

 

WITH THE SAP of the spirit tree in hand, we returned to our lodging in Manaloch, City of Magic.

One final chore remained. I went into the Cursed Mirror of the Warped Realm by myself to get the last ingredient for the Blood Ethers. After killing a few high-level demons, I returned.

“K-Kanata! Are you okay?!” Pomera wrung her hands anxiously when she saw me stumble back out.

“Gah, I got hit. I went after one I shouldn’t have,” I said.

The demons in the Cursed Mirror were tough. Really tough. Every once in a while, I’d come across a demon I’d never seen before and whose characteristics I didn’t know. Sometimes, I’d even encounter a demon that surpassed the level of any monster I’d checked before. It wasn’t a place to let my guard down.

“Were you able to get the ingredient you needed?” she asked.

I pulled a huge jar out of my magic bag and wrapped my arms around it. It was packed full of strange, colorful…stuff. Something that looked like an eyeball floated inside. It seemed like it was staring at Pomera.

“When I was gathering the brains, this thing took advantage of the opening and popped out of the corpse. I thought I was going to die,” I replied, pointing to a yellow spiral-shaped brain in the bottle.

“O-oh…oh. Well. I’m just glad you managed to defeat it.” Pomera’s face twitched as she nodded.

“Wooow! Hey, Kanata, do those taste sweet? Do they?” asked Philia, her eyes sparkling.

“Uhhh… I really doubt it.”

“Oh…” Her shoulders slumped. Thinking about it, Japan did have colorful gummy candy, and they probably existed here too. The brains looked sort of like that, maybe?

“Let’s get right to the alchemy experiments,” I said. We had the demon brains, the sap of the spirit tree, and enough raw material to make more adamantine ore. Philia could provide the Mask of the Ruler of Dreams to help us along. Things were finally coming together.

“Space Time Magic Level 18: Dimension Pocket.”

I made a magic circle and stuck my arm in the middle to pull out my cauldron and the items we had picked up from Garnet to act as base ingredients.

“We’re going to make it n-now?! Right here?!” cried Pomera.

“We don’t have anywhere else to do this. It’ll be fine, I’ll use barrier magic like when we were making adamantine ore.”

“But wasn’t it dangerous then too…? Besides, if you use that,” Pomera looked uneasily at the jar of brains, “I feel like things will get even weirder… Are you sure it’s okay? It’s not going to react with something and end with a huge explosion, will it?”

“It won’t explode. Brains don’t explode.”

“No, it’s just… Considering the absurdity of those demons, I don’t think it would be that strange if something did happen.”

“It’ll be fine. Just try to relax.” I smiled wryly.

To be fair, the last time we did something like this, I almost blew up the apartment block where we’d been staying. But that was just an accident that happened because I underestimated the Mask of the Ruler of Dreams. I pondered that a person could probably make a perpetually moving motor with the power of that mask. I couldn’t…but Lunaère probably could. It was a catalyst so powerful that wars had been started over it.

Anyway, I’d learned my lesson and wouldn’t be making that mistake twice.

“Philia-chan, can I have a mask?”

“Yep!”

“Pomera-san, can you silence the noise with spirit magic?”

“All right, I guess I’ll become a criminal with you. I’ll go to prison for you, Kanata,” said Pomera as she wiped tears from her eyes.

“Th-this isn’t illegal! Don’t be so dramatic…”

At that moment, there was a violent knock at the door. Pomera and I both jumped and snapped our mouths shut. Philia was the only one who looked excited as she quietly murmured, “A visitor?!”

“K-Kanata, what do we do?! You don’t have to kill them! Please let them go!”

“Calm down, Pomera-san! I told you… I mean, look, we’re not doing anything shady! Just clean up everything so they don’t see!”

“If it’s not shady, then why can’t they see…?!”

We weren’t doing anything wrong. We really weren’t. But the Mask of the Ruler of Dreams had thrown the world into massive wars on multiple occasions, and I wouldn’t know how to explain how we got the adamantine ore if we were asked. And high-level demon brains in a jar were sketchy no matter what the context was.

I jumped up and quickly grabbed the jar of demon brains just as the door burst open.

There was a goat mask peering through the open door above a black coat that flowed over heavy armor. The mask was half hanging off the visitor’s face, revealing a pattern of red makeup around tiger-like eyes.

It was Rosemonde.

“Listen, kid, if you’re in here, then answer the friggin’ door when somebody knocks. I took time outta my schedule to come check on you, and I ain’t got all day.”

She looked around the room before fixating on the jar in my hands.

“What…What the hell is that?” she asked with a scowl.

“Th-this is candy. From another country.”

“…It’s disgusting.”

I let out a heavy sigh as I quickly stashed the cauldron and other items in my Dimension Pocket.

“Please don’t burst in like that, Rosemonde-san.”

“Then don’t leave me hanging outside like a chump,” she sneered. “Like I said, I’m busy. But I still came all the way across town to give you a warning. I don’t even get any thanks for it.”

She was pushy and rude…but did she really go out of her way to find out where we lived and come warn us? She might be rough around the edges, but she was one of the few people that I trusted to look out for us.

“…You’re right. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry we weren’t ready to have you as a guest.” I bowed my head.

She stared at me for a few seconds before pressing her hand to her forehead and sighing, “Now you’ve thrown me off my groove…”

“So, what was this warning?”

“The whole demon king mess has been cleaned up, but now we got another storm brewing.”

“A storm brewing?”

“That’s what I just said. But before we get into that, have you kids been up to something?”

I put my hand on my chin. Had we done something bad?

It couldn’t be related to the contract with Wolzottl. It was too soon for anyone to have figured out we’d done that.

Had someone figured out we’d been using our apartments for alchemy experiments?

Then I panicked as I thought maybe someone had seen me talking to Lunaère.

“It’s Aries’s Hand,” said Rosemonde, cutting off my anxiety attack before it got going. “She’s real quiet and keeps to herself. She didn’t even show much concern about the demon king. Hard to tell where she is or what she’s doing at any given time. On the surface she’s working with that old fox, Garnet—but she’s not someone you can trust. Yeah, she helped a bit when the city was in danger, but I’m not sure how serious she was about that.”

“I see…”

Aries’s Hand… Kotone Takanashi. She was also a traveler from another world. But I didn’t understand what this had to do with me.

“She’s been asking around about you.” Rosemonde prodded me in the chest with an armored finger. “We don’t see her for months on end, and now she’s sniffing around about you all out in the open. You piss her off?”

“Kotone-san is investigating me…?” Not totally surprising. I got the impression that she also thought we were from the same home world. “I don’t think we have to worry about that.”

I appreciated that Rosemonde had my back, but she was also kind of paranoid. And Pomera said that when Lily attacked the city, Kotone risked her life fighting to save Manaloch. Not to mention that I had a hard time believing someone from Japan would want to hurt me.

“You don’t get it, kid. The Aries’s Hand seriously hates people. In a straight-up fight, you lot would probably win… But she’s got that mysterious ability. Don’t let her get the jump on you,” she said while glancing at Philia. Philia looked back in confusion, which made Rosemonde shudder.

Then she knocked her knuckles on the table and continued. “A-anyway, there’s rumors that she’s acting weird on the down low. I know you’ve got a head full of sunshine and kittens, but don’t let her fool you. She’s a dangerous person. That old fox has her under his thumb, but who knows how long that’ll last. So heads up.”

“…All right. Thank you for the warning. I won’t forget it.” Maybe I should avoid blindly trusting other travelers like me.

Besides, they all had gift skills from the gods. Kotone’s gift skill was the Aries’s Hand, which meant she could use any weapon at full strength, regardless of if it was cursed or had level requirements. It could be an incredibly overpowered skill depending on what weapons she managed to get her hands on. I couldn’t be too relaxed when it came to any traveler with gift skills like that.

But Kotone was clearly incapable of keeping up with Lily, so no matter how high you estimated her level, there was no way she was over 1,000. She was likely just a little higher than Pomera.

“You and that monster over there won’t have a problem, but that’s not the case with Pomera,” said Rosemonde. “If the Aries’s Hand is hostile toward you, you don’t want her trying anything funny with Little Miss Holy Fist.”

“M-me…?” Pomera fidgeted nervously.

I gulped. It was true. If Pomera were fighting on her own, she probably wouldn’t be able to stand on even ground with Kotone.

“Just because you’re tough, Kanata, that doesn’t mean you can let your guard down,” said Rosemonde.

“…But she’s stopped adventuring work this past six months, hasn’t she? I didn’t get the impression she was a combative type,” I said.

“That just means she’s cautious and defensive, not innocent. People like that are dangerous. Cowards will do whatever it takes to protect themselves. And the fact that she’s the strongest adventurer in Manaloch means she’s getting special treatment. But right now, I think she’s more scared of Pomera than of you, Kanata.”

“Holy Fist…” murmured Pomera as conflicted emotions crossed her face.

“Hah!” Rosemonde snorted like she suddenly found something amusing. Pomera stared at her, and she returned to her irritated expression.

During the demon king incident, Philia had used the Sand of Dreams to make a giant arm to crush Lily. It ended up spawning ridiculous rumors that it was Pomera’s actual arm being buffed by a spirit. And the rumors spread and changed with each retelling. That’s how she got stuck with her hated nickname: Holy Fist Pomera.

But Rosemonde had been there when it happened, and since Rosemonde had been flung away by Philia’s summoned arms once before, she probably realized the truth.

Even so, the position of most powerful adventurer in Manaloch had switched from Aries’s Hand Kotone to Holy Fist Pomera. Was Kotone the kind of person to resent that?

When I saw her at the adventurers’ meeting, she’d seemed like an intelligent person, but she also left a cold and emotionless impression. I hadn’t thought she was hostile, but Rosemonde had been in Manaloch for a long time and knew more than we did.

She was right. There was no harm in being careful.

“We’re close to finishing the ethers, we need to resume Pomera-san’s leveling…” I murmured quietly to myself, and Pomera jumped. She looked unable to say anything and clung to her staff. Then I turned to our guest. “Rosemonde-san, you came to warn us because you were concerned for Pomera-san, weren’t you? Thank you.”

“Concerned for m-me?” Pomera pointed to herself in disbelief.

Rosemonde folded her arms, clicked her tongue, and looked away. “Tsk, wouldn’t be right to leave you hanging. Besides, it’s not just for your sake. It was annoying me so much that I couldn’t focus on my missions.”

Has she got to be prickly about everything?!

Rosemonde kept talking, “It’s not just the thing with Kotone, either. While you kids have been goofing off and not showing your faces at the Guild, there have been some fishy rumors floating around. You’re adventurers. You should want information! That’s half of the job!”

“I’m s-sorry…”

Now that she mentioned it, I did remember she’d said there was a storm brewing…whatever that meant.

“So what are the rumors?” I asked.

“What do I look like, your secretary? Go over to the Guild and listen around for yourself!” said Rosemonde in exasperation.

“R-right, of course… Anyway, thank you. I’ve been dropping the ball lately.” Getting information and networking in the Guild was an important skill that I’d been neglecting.

Rosemonde stared at me for a few seconds, then said, “Yesterday, a suspicious group came to the city. They aren’t registered as adventurers, but they all have weapons. One of ’em apparently looked like a bandit who’s been on some wanted posters,” she said.

Wait, so she’s going to tell us after all? Maybe she just has no confidence that we can fend for ourselves.

She continued, “It’s weird for a bunch of thugs not registered as adventurers to gather in groups like they intentionally want to stand out. Assuming they’re not idiots, the only thing I can think of is they’re trying to cause a panic in the city and are waiting for the right time to do it.”

If those rumors were true, I should be far more cautious of them than of Kotone.

“How high-level was the one that was on the wanted posters? A few hundred?” I asked.

“…No clue, probably level 30 or 40. If there was a guy walking around who looked like a criminal who was over level 50, there’d be way more of an uproar about it.”

“Right…”

That was…odd. I’d thought there’d be a bigger fish among them since they bothered to make their way into a city with an S-rank adventurer. Didn’t sound like that big of a deal to me.

“I just saw you relax, kid! Don’t relax. I kinda had a feeling about it before, but you three have seriously out-of-whack perceptions of the world,” said Rosemonde with a sigh.

“You really think so?” I asked. I’d thought I’d straightened that out recently, but it seemed as if all the time I’d spent in Cocytus still was affecting my outlook.

“M-my perceptions are just fine…” muttered Pomera with a frown.

Rosemonde ignored her and said, “That’s not the end of the bad rumors either. Sounds like something went down at the church in town too.”

“A huge incident…?” I asked.

“Eh, big enough. Listen, there’s this priest in town named Doàr. He’s an excellent white magic user and well connected. He’s got no interest in status or money. It’s a bit trite, but people around town call him a saint. Dunno if I’d go that far…but even I’ve got some respect for Doàr.”

“Did something happen to him?”

Rosemonde nodded. “Apparently an item was found in Manaloch with a horrible curse on it. He tried to break the curse while keeping it quiet. I guess he failed. Part of the church building was destroyed and Doàr’s gone and locked himself in the part that wasn’t. They say he’s still shaking in his robes.”

“Wh-what happened…?”

“No clue. If the rumor’s true, there are all kinds of disasters scattered around town. There wasn’t much else to hear about it. I don’t know if they’re trying to keep a lid on it to prevent people from panicking, but it’s a fact that part of Doàr’s church was destroyed and the clergy hasn’t made a peep about it.”

This many dark rumors floating around was definitely out of the ordinary. A group of armed criminals wandering about and looking for an opportunity, an explosion from a curse that couldn’t be prevented. There really was some sort of storm brewing in Manaloch.

 

—4—

 

POMERA, PHILIA, AND I started our alchemy experiment again as soon as Rosemonde left and we got the door closed.

Unfortunately, it ended in failure.

“I feel like we’re still missing something,” I said, grumbling as I read one of the books I got from Lunaère.

In the beginning, we were unable to get our hands on the proper ingredients, so I’d planned to use substitutes. Using the Mask of the Ruler of Dreams allowed me to massively increase the transformations that occurred during the alchemy spell. That let me force things into place, but there were so many other things I was improvising.

But with this experiment over, I finally knew what we needed. We didn’t even need any high-quality A-rank items. We could probably sort things out without too much trouble if we talked to Garnet.

The problem was the money. I’d already burned through most of our cash on the materials I needed for adamantine ore. Garnet was still tracking those down for us. I didn’t want to spend what little money we had left and end up in a bind if we ended up needing some other ingredient later.

“Maybe we could get some extra money by selling off some random Legendary item using Garnet’s connections…” I pondered.

Brains of a high-level demon, for example, would probably go for a high price. Thanks to the Cursed Mirror of the Warped Realm, I could farm as much of that as I wanted. It should have some use outside of making the ethers.

“I think that would cause Garnet trouble…” said Pomera, looking tense.

That was true. I’m sure he’d try to broker them for us…but would he end up with a ton of demon brains he couldn’t sell? And how was he going to explain that to his workers?

“Let’s just try talking to Garnet first. He could probably buy some of the sap of the spirit tree,” I said.

We needed the sap of the spirit tree to mass produce the Blood Ethers of the Gods, so I didn’t want to give it all away if I could avoid it. But until we succeeded in a trial, it was pointless to stock up on high-value materials to mass produce the ethers. One step at a time, and if giving Garnet some of the sap got us one step closer, then it would be worth it.

I wasn’t certain what side of the line the sap fell on in terms of being something we could treat casually—but being simply A-rank, it was better than the other items I had.

With that, Pomera, Philia, and I went off to the Mithril Wand. We soon found ourselves staring up at the square clock tower atop the building.

Garnet was a busy man. He was also the master of the Adventurers’ Guild. I was hoping we’d find him here when I saw someone I recognized in the entrance of the building: a black-haired girl wearing light armor and a light robe. Her expression was blank, her eyes incredibly cold. She almost made me think of a doll. A really scary doll.

I gulped. It was Kotone Takanashi.

Kotone and Garnet seemed quite close, and she’d probably come to see him as well. I hadn’t thought I’d run into her so quickly.

“K-Kanata, should we go somewhere else to kill time? We’ll run into her if we go in now,” said Pomera.

“…It’s all right. There’s no reason to think that she’s got malicious intent. Besides, even if she’s got something planned, she’s not going to attack me in broad daylight like this. Let’s just go in,” I said.

If she did come at me, that was fine too. Better to get it over with now. Considering our level difference, she wouldn’t be able to keep up with me using her normal physical abilities, though it wouldn’t be strange if she had a weapon that let her flip our level difference on its head. I should be on my guard.

“O-okay,” said Pomera. She started taking deep breaths.

“Don’t get so tense. She might think it’s suspicious,” I warned.

“Smile, Pomera! Smile!” said Philia, turning a huge grin toward Pomera.

“I’ll do what I can…” said Pomera without confidence as she patted her cheeks.

I suddenly found myself staring into Kotone’s long-lashed eyes. She blinked and stared back.

“K-Kanata, she saw us. She’s staring at you…” Pomera tugged on my sleeve.

Philia smiled and waved, but Kotone completely ignored her. The Sand of Dreams shifted into a pout of disappointment.

I bowed my head slightly. She was a fellow adventurer I’d seen around the Guild. I should at least greet her.

She didn’t return the greeting, but she did come straight toward us. Pomera looked panicked as she glanced between me and Kotone.

“Wh-wh-what should we do, Kanata?! I think we should run!”

“…It’s fine. Keep walking. She probably just had some business here,” I said, and we headed straight into the Mithril Wand.

We passed by Kotone. I bowed my head slightly again. Her expression didn’t change at all as she passed without stopping.

Nothing happened. I let out a sigh of relief, which is when Kotone stopped. I tensed and shifted my focus to what was behind me.

“Garnet isn’t here. He’s at the Adventurers’ Guild today and tomorrow,” she said.

I stopped and turned back to Kotone. “Oh…thanks for the tip. You’re Kotone-san, right? We saw each other at the adventurers’ meeting.”

Kotone looked at Pomera, then Philia, and then her eyes settled back on me.

“Kanata Kanbara. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. There’s a private room in the Mithril Wand where we won’t be overheard,” she said.

What is this about? Some sort of negotiation? Or maybe a trap like Rosemonde said? No, she’s probably just wary of me as another traveler and wants to check out my strength and confirm where I’m from. Either way, if she does try to spring a trap, then it’ll be a good opportunity to learn what she’s thinking.

“All right,” I said. “I actually had something I wanted to talk to Garnet about, but if he’s busy, that means I don’t have any plans for the day. Let’s go, Pomera-san, Philia-chan.”

Kotone shook her head and held up a hand. “You come alone.”

Was this really some kind of negotiation?

If she just wanted to talk about being from another world, then I didn’t mind if Pomera and Philia found out. I hadn’t gone out of my way to explain to them that I was from another world, but I trusted them. And it looked like Kotone already knew.

“It’s better for me if the two of them come along,” I said.

“Fine by me if you don’t want to talk,” said Kotone as she turned away and started walking. Apparently, this offer was take it or leave it.

“Okay. We’ll do it your way,” I said.

“Follow me.” Kotone turned back and looked at me, then she walked into the Mithril Wand.

I looked at Pomera and Philia. “I’ll be back in a bit. Go on home without me.”

“A-are you sure, Kanata? This is obviously a trap…” said Pomera.

“I’m fine. Philia-chan, you protect Pomera-san for me, okay?”

She puffed up her chest. “Leave it to Philia!”

It wasn’t inconceivable that Kotone would pull me away from Pomera only to have some followers of hers attack while I was gone. I steadied my breathing and followed Kotone.

 

—5—

 

WE BORROWED a meeting room in the Mithril Wand and sat at one end of a long table, just the two of us. The walls were decorated with majestic paintings, and cases held decorative pottery and gemstones. Large, artisan-made wooden chairs sat around the table. This room was probably used by Garnet himself in his capacity as the Wand’s administrator.

But there really wasn’t any need to borrow a room like this. It felt awkward having just two people stuck in the corner of this huge space. Was this normal as an S-rank Adventurer, being able to borrow a room like this?

I waited for Kotone to start talking, but she sat with crossed arms and a closed mouth.

What was this about? Was she testing me somehow? She stared at me with her cold-as-always eyes, like she was sizing me up.

Was she using Status Check? Or perhaps she was planning to buy time to spring a trap on Pomera and Philia. It seemed best if I got the conversation going.

“Don’t you think we would’ve been fine with a room a bit less…this?” I said as I looked at the walls. Magic circles were drawn into the patterns on the wallpaper. As a meeting room in the Mithril Wand, they went all out on preventing eavesdropping.

But was that all? Those magic circles probably had a reinforcing effect as well. A battle could happen in here without affecting the rest of the building. I wondered if Kotone had fighting in mind.

She was silent for a while. Not even an eyebrow moved—her poker face was even better than Lunaère’s. I was at a severe disadvantage in terms of negotiation.

“One of Garnet’s assistants suggested this room. It seems like Garnet wants me to owe him a favor,” she said, finally.

“…I see.”

I’d gotten that impression from Garnet as well. It seemed he gave Kotone preferential treatment. That made sense.

“I also want to do everything I can to keep this conversation from being overheard.”

“And what is this conversation about? I heard that you’ve been investigating me. I know you’re a traveler from another world too. Is there something about that you want to talk about?”

“Good. That speeds this conversation along. There’s something important I need to ask you about.”

Something important regarding being from another world? An image of Naiarotop flitted through my mind. Kotone must want to talk about the gods and how we came here. If that were the case, it made sense why she was so thorough about keeping other people out of it. At least this probably meant she didn’t want to fight me.

I heard she generally hated people. So if she didn’t want to fight, it had to mean there was a problem she couldn’t handle alone.

“How long ago did you come here?” asked Kotone.

“Not long. You’ve probably been here much longer than I have. Is that relevant somehow?”

“I thought that might be the case…” said Kotone as she closed her eyes and crossed her arms. She was silent for a while. She seemed uncertain of what to do, almost like she couldn’t find the words to ask the question she needed to ask.

She must have found her answer because her eyes suddenly opened. Her expression was blank, but her cold eyes were different. There was a fire behind them.

“Do you know the manga magazine Step?”

“What…?” I blurted out. “Uh, I do know it, but why do you ask?

I used to read Step, the manga magazine. It was published weekly, featured manga in a variety of genres like action and romantic comedy, and its primary audience was boys. It was the most popular manga magazine in Japan, regardless of the readers’ gender or age.

Kotone clenched her fists and pounded the table. She leaned forward into my personal space and I raised my arms, feeling suddenly threatened.

“What about BERUTO?” she asked.

It was the title of a manga. It was set in a near-future setting and was about a trainee ninja named Beruto who fought alongside his friends to protect their country.

“It…it finished. About a year ago,” I said.

Kotone let out a small shriek and leaned even further forward and reached out to tightly grip my shoulders. Her cold facade was crumbling.

“Tell. Me. Everything. I came here three years ago,” she said.

“What?!”

 

***

 

What followed was a four-hour conversation about manga taking place in the Mithril Wand’s meeting room.

I spent about half of it giving Kotone an overview of what she hadn’t read of BERUTO. Then she asked about every detail, then we naturally transitioned into talking about the characters we liked, and we ended with Kotone grilling me for more manga news.

I glanced at the wall clock—four hours had passed. Pomera was probably worried sick about me. She would never guess that Kotone and I had just been talking. I certainly wouldn’t.

“I wanted to read it all…” said Kotone sadly as she leaned back in her chair.

I was surprised what kind of person Kotone turned out to be, and that Rosemonde had been so far off the mark.

No, it wasn’t Rosemonde’s fault. It was just that there was such a huge difference between what Kotone showed to the world and how she acted in private—up until now I’d only ever seen the cold, severe persona that she presented to the public.

“There isn’t a manga culture in Locklore, is there? I miss it a bit too,” I said with a smile, which made Kotone jump, then lean forward.

“You miss it?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You miss manga?”

“Well…yeah,” I said hesitantly, wondering where this was going.

She cleared her throat. “I’m actually, you know, um, writing one,” she said. A blush spread across her cheeks.

“Oh, you’re writing a manga?”

“I figured I could start a trend.”

She’s incredible… That must be why she started doing less adventurer work.

“I’m not good at drawing, but…if you want to see…” she said.

“I’d love to.” I smiled, and Kotone smiled slightly back.

We promised to borrow the meeting room in the Mithril Wand to have another secret chat sometime in the future, then left for the day. I wondered when Kotone would introduce manga to this world, but it seemed she wanted to keep it a secret until she felt more confident.

I didn’t expect our talk to take that long, but I had fun discussing our old lives in Japan. It was something I hadn’t been able to do in so long. I never imagined I’d run into someone here who could talk about Step with me.

“I don’t want to pry, but you got a gift skill from Naiarotop too?” asked Kotone as she pushed her chair back in place. I smiled awkwardly, thinking this should have been a topic we discussed before talking about manga.

“Actually…I sort of pissed them off. They didn’t give me anything.”

Kotone frowned ever so slightly, then nodded, “Oh…really? That’s why you were the only one who wasn’t there when the spider monsters attacked Manaloch.”

“Well, the thing is—” I started.

“It’s fine. Seems like you already have two reliable companions, but if you ever need help, you can count on me. I might not be as strong as the child with her strange power, but I’ve got some skills. I’d be happy to help someone from home.” Apparently, Kotone already knew about Philia.

For a moment I wondered if that meant I could ask her for a loan, but I shook my head and pushed the thought away. An S-rank adventurer like her would surely have extra money, but that would be asking too much. It was probably better to sell items to Garnet.

“Thanks,” I said. “And if there’s anything I can help you with, I will. We travelers should stick together.”

 

—6—

 

AS KANATA was heading to the Mithril Wand in search of ingredients for the Blood Ethers of the Gods, a lone figure observed him from the rooftops. It was, of course, Lunaère.

She stood inside a magic circle drawn on the roof and stared at Kanata and company walking in the distance. This was a barrier spell called Colorless Sign, and it camouflaged whatever was inside. People outside the barrier could still see her, but she would be…boring. Even if someone noticed Lunaère standing on the roof, they would subconsciously decide that she was unimportant and find something more interesting to look at.

However, the effects of this spell were greatly influenced by other people’s awareness. For example, it couldn’t hide Lunaère from someone who was actively searching for her. All it did was make her presence less noticeable to people who were already paying attention to other things.

Case in point…

“Hey, Lunaère. Being a stalker again?” said Noble, appearing quietly behind her.

She jumped, surprised that someone spoke to her.

“N-Noble! N-no, I’m simply taking a little walk, and I stand out too much wearing the Impurity Sealing Robe. I wasn’t trying to watch Kanata,” said Lunaère, her face turning red as she made excuses.

“Right. Obviously, you have to take precautions,” said Noble dubiously.

“O-of course. A-anyway, good job finding me. It must have been difficult, as I was concealed by Colorless Sign.”

“Eh, wasn’t that tough. I just had to look for Kanata.”

Lunaère glared at Noble, but she could make no counterargument. His method had actually worked.

“A-anyway, I’m glad you’re unharmed,” said Lunaère. “I haven’t heard from you since you were taken away by that Doàr man. How did you manage to escape?”

“I didn’t want to make a big scene. I planned to act like a normal treasure chest and then run when that corrupt priest guy wasn’t looking, but…uh, that failed.”

“Failed…?”

“Yeeaahh… The corrupt priest caught me raiding his pantry.”

“What in the world were you doing…?” muttered Lunaère in exasperation. If Noble had time to raid the pantry, he should have had plenty of time to give Doàr the slip.

“So anyway, I smashed through the wall and ran,” continued Noble. “That priest turned white as a sheet and collapsed, even wet himself. It felt good! Been a long time since I’ve done actual mimic stuff like that!”

Noble laughed, and Lunaère closed her eyes as she held her head in her hands in frustration.

“Poor man… Though considering how he’s been acting, I suppose he had it coming,” she said, thinking of how excited Doàr had looked when Noble was carried off. He never expected the treasure chest would pillage his kitchen and then bash a hole in the wall.

“Anyway, good thing I found you so quick. Who knows what you’d get up to without my supervision,” said Noble, rocking the lid of his chest in a show of annoyance.

“Don’t go making yourself my caretaker. I’m not the one who makes a habit of doing ridiculous things.”

“Are you…serious?” Noble was dumbstruck.

So far, Lunaère had swung between extremes of joy and misery whenever she thought of Kanata. She threw hissy fits and threatened to go home only to keep stalking Kanata, and she decided she hated Pomera at first sight—even though the two of them had never spoken, she used a high-level spirit to eavesdrop on Kanata’s conversations. She provoked Philia, and she ran away from Kanata barely a few minutes after the two had reunited. The list of her ridiculous actions was endless. If she was really unaware of how ridiculous she’d been acting, Noble needed to watch her closer than ever.

“Don’t worry, Lunaère. I’ll stop you from becoming the world’s greatest threat,” said Noble. In his mind, he could see an image of a humanoid dragon wanted poster with Lunaère’s picture on it.

“Noble…are you making fun of me?” Lunaere began, but she was distracted by the scene playing out below her.

Kanata had just run into Kotone. With tension between them, they went into the Mithril Wand together.

“Hm, so they’re both from another world?” said Noble.

“That girl is dangerous. I doubt she has anything good in mind,” said Lunaère.

“I doubt she’d suddenly just attack him though.”

“I hate not being able to hear their conversation. I really should use Medjedross more in the future.”

Medjedross was a high-level spirit that looked like a bird covered by a tablecloth. It could pass through gaps in the fabric of spacetime and hide itself completely. Lunaère was guilty of using the spirit in the past to snoop on Pomera and Kanata’s conversations.

“Don’t you dare!” said Noble.

Lunaère waited for Kanata and Kotone to exit the building. An hour passed. Then two. Then three, and they still didn’t come out.

“N-Noble, I have to go in, don’t I? I have no idea what could be happening to Kanata…” she said pensively.

“Nom nom… Hee hee, you’ve got some nice snacks, you corrupt priesty…” Noble snored softly as he talked in his sleep.

Lunaère looked at him without expression and leveled a finger at him. “Gravity Bo—”

Noble woke up with a jump.

“Y-you’re gonna give me a heart attack. Don’t scare me like that!”

Four hours had passed since Kanata and Kotone went into the Mithril Wand. Finally, they appeared at the entrance.

“Look, he’s not hurt. That’s good. Right, Lunaère?” said Noble.

Kanata and Kotone seemed to be engaged in fun conversation. They were clearly getting along better than when they first went inside. Noble knew that this was good news that only meant bad news for Lunaère.

She was glaring at Kotone, her eyes emotionless. She turned and stretched a finger toward the Aries’s Hand.

“Calm down! You can’t cast Gravity Bomb!” said Noble, wrapping his tongue around Lunaère’s arm and pulling it down.

“How…nice for her,” said Lunaère. “She’s from the same place as Kanata. They must have so much to talk about, and they know that there are so few people in this world who can understand them.” Lunaère sat down within her magic circle, hugged her knees to her chest, and turned her face away. “I wish I could see the world Kanata came from, but that will never happen.”

“N-no, they just look like they’ve made friends. You don’t have to be so worried…” said Noble.

Lunaère raised her face and bit into the fleshy underside of her finger. The white skin split, and blood ran free.

“…I will observe that girl for a while. I have to discover what her plans are for drawing Kanata in like that,” she resolved.

“Good thing I found you when I did…” sighed Noble.