Prologue 0-4: Lyun Sylpheed

There exists a magical realm called the spirit world. In its center lies the tiny village of Windsong Valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides.

Two young wind spirit sisters were desperately running between the trees of those mountains, panting and out of breath.

“Hahh... Hahh... Hahh...”

“S-Sis... wait!”

“Don’t stop! Just run!”

Lyun scolded her younger sister, Sophie, as she pulled her along by the arm.

“Rrrgh...”

“Come on, just keep moving!” Lyun urged her sister on as she turned around.

“Rrrgh...”

“Hrrrgh...”

“Rrragh...”

Chasing after them were wind fairies, moaning oddly as they ran.

The wind fairies, or sylphs, were smaller than the wind spirits. They were 30 or 40 centimeters tall at most, but some were even smaller. They had tiny wings and short limbs. Normally they were a cheerful race known for their charming laughter whenever the wind blew. But now their eyes were bright red, and the color had drained from their skin. Perhaps most unsettling of all was the constant groaning from their mouths, which hung slack.

The two sisters ran as fast as they could, faces frozen in terror. Their bare feet were bleeding from running across so many twigs and exposed tree roots.

The two girls were wind spirits, or sylpheeds. Spirits were more powerful than fairies. They could of course run faster and fly higher, too, but there were two things keeping the sisters from flying away right now.

One was that the sky overhead was filled with other sylpheeds who’d gone mad, as well. Lyun was one of the more powerful spirits, but Sophie was still too young to have the power or speed she’d need to escape while flying, and Lyun certainly wasn’t going to abandon her.

The other thing holding them back was maneuverability. Though sylpheeds could fly fast, they lacked precise control while doing so. So, while taking to the skies overhead wasn’t an option because of the maddened sylpheeds, trying to fly through the forest wasn’t a good idea, either. They could easily run into a tree and badly injure themselves.

And so the sisters’ only choice was to escape by foot. Thankfully, it gave them something of an advantage. The tree cover helped keep them hidden from the sylpheeds overhead, and even if they were spotted, the sylpheeds were in such a crazed state that they would likely just crash into the trees before they got to them. Lyun was also confident that they could outrun the slower sylphs behind them now.

But none of that solved the real problem. There were just far too many of them. Every time she tried to escape the valley, sylphs would appear and block her path. The two sisters lacked the stamina to get around them all and escape up the road out of the valley, so the only way to escape was to go back down into the valley, go back up a different side, hide to catch their breath, and then try again.

Why... Why is this happening?!

Lyun gasped. She knew the answer.

It was the virus that was driving all the fairies and spirits crazy. Anyone infected by it went violently insane. They lost all sense of themselves and started to attack others. Worse yet, anyone who was bitten by an infected sylph or sylpheed also became sick and went on to attack others.

It started with one, then spread to another, and within a day, the whole valley had been infected. Lyun thought it was too unbelievable to be true, but there was no denying what was right in front of her. The outbreak had already happened. Why wasn’t as important right now as how they were going to get out of this mess.

“Big sis...”

She had someone to protect.

“Everything will be fine. Just don’t let go of your big sister,” Lyun said with as bright a smile as she could manage to comfort her sister.

She was going to save Sophie no matter what it took. That’s what she told herself as she grabbed her little sister’s hand and held it tightly.