Epilogue: Rising Stars

Yuui waited for the stagecoach to depart. The station reeked of beasts and feces. A dry wind blew through and whipped up a cloud of dust.

Beside her stood Ix. He’d come to see her off. He’d turned into quite the customer pleaser, compared with how he was when they first met.

Ix had decided to stay at Morna’s shop for the time being as an apprentice. The majority of the money they’d made selling the enedo teeth had disappeared into their dragon heart research. Even so, Morna’s shop didn’t have that much leeway in terms of finances, so they would certainly be unable to host him soon. When that time came, he planned on using his connections with the other apprentices of Munzil to travel from region to region by joining their shops. Depending on the scale of their operations, he could even be granted his craftsman license. He complained that it would be forever before he had his own shop.

They sat in silence for a while, until Yuui suddenly said, “Something has been on my mind.”

“What’s that?” asked Ix with a tilt of his head.

“The request form you found in the Adventurers’ Guild storage. The one on black slate. What was that?”

“That…? Who knows.” Ix shrugged, then spread his hands. “It was from a long time ago. The request probably came from someone who misunderstood the festival.”

“Can I tell you what I think?”

“What’s that?”

Yuui adjusted her seat and cleared her throat.

“It was a request from Munzil.”

“…What?”

“When he made this wand, he realized the connection between the dragon heart and agnasite. He thought there were clues to dragons in Mount Agnas. With that in mind, he went to the Guild and put in a request. Obviously, he didn’t think it would be fulfilled. He had an ulterior motive for submitting it. Do you know what that was?”

Ix stared at Yuui, dumbstruck.

“It was to leave a clue for his apprentice. He knew a time would come when his apprentice would need a dragon heart, so he carved a request on stone, which is sturdy, degrades little, and would stand out from the others above all else. If the Guild stored his request in accordance with their regulations, it would remain long after he had expired.”

“Th-that’s just a theory—”

“Furthermore,” continued Yuui, “your master may also have realized the mountain itself was the dragon.”

“H-how could you say that?” Ix’s voice trembled.

“Do you remember the characters on the request form? You thought it was written in old-fashioned grammar with no prepositions, but what if it was something that should have been written without them? In other words, it wasn’t meant to be ‘Research Dragon in Mount Agnas’; it was meant to be ‘Research Dragon Mount Agnas.’”

Ix went quiet for a while, then eventually shook his head.

“No…that’s impossible. I can maybe accept the idea that he made the request. I’ll even go out on a limb and say, for the sake of argument, that he noticed the relationship between the dragon heart and agnasite. But…for him to figure out the true nature of the dragon with only those few clues… No human could manage that. And he was human. Or at least I thought he was…”

“Well, I suppose.” Yuui was satisfied to see Ix looking more frightened than ever. “Forget about it. It was just a flight of fancy.”

She felt the wand in her inside pocket. The core had been swapped out, and its performance surpassed even its previous iteration. The memory of how she’d given it a quick test wave, then accidentally started a small fire because she’d miscalculated how much she should have held back, was still fresh in her mind.

The coach driver stood in front of the waiting area, gave a big wave, and shouted that the next car was leaving soon. That was the one Yuui would be taking.

Casually, she told Ix, “Try not to die.”

“What?” Ix said, his eyebrows knit.

“Don’t fail to handle a wand properly and go dying on me.”

“Dying isn’t on my to-do list.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s personal.”

Yes…all of it was personal.

Gratitude that seeing his face had helped her realize her misunderstanding.

She picked up her bag and stood.

As she went toward the coach, Ix cautioned, “Don’t break it again.”

“But you have replacement core material, yes?”

“Hey, that was for my wish. Next time, I’ll be asking for a real repair fee from you. There’s no more of that material in the world. Not even sure a country’s entire treasury would be enough…”

“So stingy.”

“I’m still just an apprentice.”

“All right, I won’t forget it.”

The coach driver came to take her luggage. She handed it over and waited for the other passengers to board before her.

In a quiet voice, Ix added, “But I was able to get it because of you.”

“What?” She turned toward him.

“Maintenance.”

“Huh…?”

Ix hid his mouth with his hand and said, “I’m saying I’ll do maintenance on the wand. You’ll probably use the heck out of it at school, right? Come back to my shop anytime I’m in town, and I’ll do it for cheap.”

It took Yuui a moment to realize what he was trying to say.

Did that mean…?

She let out a huge sigh.

They did such delicate work…

So why were these craftsmen always so…?

“You are so clumsy, it’s maddening,” she reproached.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked, totally confused.

Yuui ignored him and boarded the coach.

Then she turned back to him, where he’d frozen to the spot, and asked, “Are you aware how expensive it is to travel from the Academy to this town?”

“…Very?”

“The opposite.”

“Hmm?”

“Students of the Academy can use transportation for almost nothing.”

Yuui closed the door without waiting for a reply.

She desperately tried to hide her smile under her hood.

The boy picked up the stone.

It was red and shiny, and it felt warm to the touch.

He’d found it in the town square. It had fallen on the mound of sand that lay in its center. No, fallen wasn’t the right word for it. Just as he’d been about to pass in front of the sand mound, the stone had appeared.

He’d looked to the sky but had seen no birds flying by. It wasn’t as if anyone had thrown it, either. Besides, no one would ever toss out such a pretty gem.

So the boy had picked it up.

He didn’t tell anyone about it. He carried it around like a good luck charm.

The boy didn’t have parents. No one knew who his dad was, and his mom had died giving birth to him. Since then, it had always been just him and Grandma.

She called him names and had struck him on more than one occasion.

It wasn’t just his grandma. Adults and children called him names and beat him. He didn’t know how to fight back. All he could do was endure the pain and spend his days running from them.

And each time he did that, he saw the mountain.

The peak was easy to see from his bedroom window, towering over the town.

It always seemed so godlike to him.

So why did no one stop to notice?

There was nothing more fun than gazing up at it.

On windy nights, rainy nights, nights full of moonlight, and nights with a new moon, the boy considered the mountain.

And he spoke to it, within his heart.

He told it what happened each day.

What he liked.

What he hated.

He said he wanted to be stronger as tears streamed down his face.

He cursed them all, loathed them all.

And the mountain just towered over him, accepting his words.

Every night, after night, after night…

That was the boy’s only salvation.

Which was why he started to think:

Perhaps this stone was something the mountain had given him.

He knew it was a pathetic daydream.

But the strange thing was, when he held on to it, he felt courageous.

Maybe it was only in his mind…

The boy changed. Just a little.

If they hit him, he struck back. If they called him names, he spat insults in kind.

That didn’t end his torment, but it was indeed the birth of his pride.

Yet.

On that night, he stared up at the mountain as well.

The moon was nowhere to be found.

Thick clouds hid the sky, so it was pitch-black outside.

And yet the boy still stared.

He felt the warmth of the stone in his fist.

“…Huh?”

He tilted his head.

He thought he’d seen the mountain glow for just a moment.

He rubbed his eyes and stared again.

They weren’t deceiving him.

Shimmering golden particles burst from the mountain’s peak.

They climbed into the sky, illuminating the underside of the black clouds.

The heavens gleamed with stars.

As he took them all in, he forgot to breathe.

Dazzling light spread to fill the firmament.

So beautiful.

He’d never witnessed anything more beautiful.

The town continued to slumber.

The few people who were awake weren’t looking at the mountain.

Save for just the one.

Only that boy saw the star-filled sky.

Eventually, the particles lost their sparkle.

The gold light faded.

The boy continued to stare at the night sky, which was once again cloaked in darkness.

He was about to cry, which seemed odd.

Why…?

He was neither sad nor in pain…

He felt such joy…

The miraculous night spoke of an end, with only a single tear as compensation.

Mount Agnas never rumbled again.