Chapter 2: The Priestess of Atlantis, Nyanyan
Chapter 2: The Priestess of Atlantis, Nyanyan
“An ethereal being...?”
“Yes. You see, if you take the ether—the smallest unit of life—out of the physical body, it can be preserved indefinitely. It is through such a ritual that you see me before you here. But whereas I have been released from the mortal coil you know, my spirit is now bound to this place,” the exotic-looking girl who introduced herself as Nyanyan explained.
“So you’re kind of, like, haunting the place?”
I didn’t understand this whole “ether” business, but it sounded an awful lot like being a ghost. Basically, she was immortal in a way, but it came with serious drawbacks.
“And Rain ran into you underground and mistook you for a ghost, dropping her mic in her surprise?”
“Yes, I’m very sorry.”
Rain’s shoulders slumped as she sunk to her knees—her tail transformed back into legs, of course. Shirley and I had both told her it was fine, but she was a conscientious girl by nature and was still apologizing.
“Well, putting that aside... Who are you and what are you doing here, Nyanyan? If you’re bound to this place, you must have some connection to Atlantis, right?”
She was a ghost haunting—no, she was an ethereal being bound to a sunken temple of Atlantis. If she were really a ghost, that would imply she had died. But she’d said something about a ritual. That implied that she—or someone else—had made her this way.
“Listen, Nyanyan, if someone forced you to become an ethereal being and is keeping you prisoner here, I’ll—”
I probed into the possibility the ritual had been against her will, but Nyanyan shook her head gently.
“Thank you for your consideration, but I chose to become this way. You needn’t worry.”
That was a relief to hear for now, but it also brought us back to my original question: who was she and what was she doing here?
“I used such extreme means to evade the clutches of death and have waited here, vigilant and alone, all these years... I did it all to fulfill but a single wish.”
“A wish?”
I repeated her words in a question, and she nodded her head solemnly.
“So, please, I beg of you... Save my homeland from destruction.”
Hearing those words left me bewildered for a moment.
“Your homeland...? You mean Atlantis, right?”
“Yes.”
“...”
How was I supposed to tell her that it had already been destroyed? Like, hundreds of years ago. Did she not realize we were already on the bottom of the ocean? Was there even a way to save this place? I looked over at R just in case.
“You guessed it. She’s a heroine.”
Yeah, go figure. But that meant that there still had to be some possibility of saving this story. No, hold on... I can’t get ahead of myself. Based on what Nyanyan had said, she became ethereal on purpose so she could wait here for someone. Surely she wouldn’t have done that without a plan—without a plan to save Atlantis.
“Nyanyan, do you have some idea of how we might save your homeland?”
“I do,” she said with a nod. “Please continue through to the innermost sanctum. Your vehicle can make it there, though you must be careful not to bump the pillars.”
Following Nyanyan’s instructions, Shirley began carefully navigating ahead.
“Sorry, do you have a moment?”
While we were moving deeper into the temple, Hibiki approached Nyanyan.
“Yes. How can I help?”
“If you’re Atlantian, is there any chance you’ve seen this crown before?” Hibiki asked, indicating Sherlyn’s head.
“That’s...!” a shocked Nyanyan gasped when she laid eyes on the crown.
“Do you know it?”
“Most certainly. That is the very same crown that has been passed down through generations of the Atlantian royal family. There is no way that I would mistake it,” Nyanyan declared with confidence.
That seemed pretty definitive, yeah.
“Okay, then do you know about the curse cast on it too?”
“Yes... I believe so,” she answered, this time averting her eyes.
If she knew about the curse and what it did, then she probably understood what kind of situation Sherlyn was in right now. That would explain her reaction.
“Great. That means we can cut to the chase. Is there any possibility you know how to undo the curse? If you do, please share it with us.”
“Very well... But I would ask that you be patient. It will be much easier for me to explain how to remove the Mouse Bind once we reach the inner sanctum.”
I was guessing “Mouse Bind” probably referred to the name of the curse. Hibiki and Sherlyn both agreed to wait, however, and we all looked out the windows as we made our way to our destination. We eventually made it through the room with the pillars and arrived in a wider room with what looked like a rectangular altar enshrined in the center.
“This is the temple’s divining altar,” said Nyanyan.
“Divining altar?”
“This is the technological heart of Atlantis... and why I chose to become ethereal.” There, Nyanyan took a graceful bow. “Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Nyanyan, the daughter of the previous king of Atlantis and the first in line to succeed the throne.”
“Which means... you’re a princess?!”
I mean, I thought she was extremely elegant and regal—despite being a ghost—but I hadn’t expected her to be a princess.
“I figured you were royalty, but to think you’re the crown princess... So, you do know about the curse—this Mouse Bind—don’t you?”
In stark contrast to my surprised self, Hibiki was calmly asking Nyanyan for details.
“The Mouse Bind is a charm to prevent thievery. If anyone other than an Atlantian—or rather a member of the Atlantian royal blood—wears it, it will continue to constrict around their head until they perish. The only one that can undo it is the king of Atlantis himself.”
“The king of Atlantis? So... there’s no way for you to undo it?”
“No... I’m afraid not,” Nyanyan said as she lowered her head.
Those words should have induced utter despair in the subject of said curse. But all Sherlyn had to say in a voice that didn’t sound panicked at all was...
“Jeez... What a pickle.”
Which left me freaking out instead.
“Aren’t you worried, Sherlyn?”
“Hm? Oh, sure I am,” she replied almost indifferently.
“Sure doesn’t seem like it...”
“There’s still time yet. And if I’m going to cry, I’ll save it for the one-hour mark, you know? It’s not like sniffling about it right now is going to save me.”
That comment left me as awed with Sherlyn as I was when we met. It seemed my first impression of her wasn’t that far off the mark.
“Ohoho, what’s this? The older sister type heroine turns out to be manlier than the hero himself?” R cackled.
...And I couldn’t argue.
“Now, don’t get me wrong. If you’re telling me there’s absolutely no way of saving me, even I’m going to be upset,” Sherlyn said, looking to Nyanyan with a wry smile.
It was like she was asking if there was still a way. And in response, Nyanyan answered...
“There is... one way.”
There, everyone’s eyes fell on her.
“The divining altar has a great many powers, but among them is the ability to stitch together space-time coordinates and jump between points.”
“Bwuh?!”
Several people on board sputtered and stared at the ethereal princess with unbelieving eyes.
“Wait, what...?” I asked. “What does ‘stitch together space-time coordinates’ mean?”
“Erm...” Shirley wiped her mouth, hesitating to explain for once. “To put it simply for you... It’s not dissimilar from the save function in a video game. The stitched space-time coordinates are quite like the timestamp on a save file. So if what she says is true... If things ever go wrong, you could use this so-called altar to return to your previous save point and redo them.”
“H-HUH?!”
Yeah, okay, the video game analogy made sense to me, but once it made sense, it blew my mind. A free pass to go back in time for infinite mulligans had to be breaking some kind of rule! And, actually, that raised another question altogether...
“If you have such an amazing hidden trick up your sleeve, how did Atlantis come to sink in the first place?”
“There’s a complex reason for that,” Nyanyan answered, casting her eyes downward with a forlorn expression. “Traditionally, the space-time coordinates for Atlantis were stitched together anew once a year so that, should a natural disaster or some other great calamity befall us, the king could return to the past to prevent it. That was how we maintained our prosperity. However...”
“Did something happen?” I asked.
Nyanyan gave a small nod and closed her eyes. Then the space next to her warped, and an older guy with a tough physique and hair styled like a seahorse on his head suddenly appeared.
“Huh? Who? Where... Oh, it’s just an image?”
“This is one of the abilities of etheric technology. I am able to project memories from within my mind as images for all to see,” Nyanyan explained at our surprise. “This man’s name is Boboza... He was the younger brother of the previous king, my father. He’s also the man who staged a coup d’état to seize the throne after my father passed away.”
“A coup?!”
“So this Boboza man became the next king instead of you?” Shirley asked, adjusting her glasses.
“He staged things just before my coronation ceremony, to be precise. I was captured by my uncle and imprisoned in the dungeon of this temple.”
“...That’s despicable.”
How could he imprison a girl like that? A feeling of disgust welled in my chest, and I could tell it was showing on my face.
“No, I was simply too childish back then. There’s no helping the hatred my uncle felt for me... However, the detail of great importance here is that my uncle staged the coup d’état three days before Atlantis sank. Furthermore, in order to prevent me from returning to the past, my uncle restitched the space-time coordinates the day the coup succeeded.”
“So... In other words, the save point is now three days before Atlantis sank rather than a year before?”
“That is correct.”
Yeah, that made a big difference.
“But even if you can only return to three days before it happened, can’t you at least then warn everyone to run away?”
“The ritual to return to the past is a heavily guarded secret, handed down only to the legitimate king. As soon as the previous king passed away, I was entrusted with it... but returning to the past requires a certain amount of preparation. Atlantis sank with absolutely no warning at all, so it wasn’t possible to go back in time to that fated day. The best I could do was become ethereal, which was a ritual that didn’t require any advanced preparation.”
“I see...”
Basically, multiple events had conspired to spell the ruin of Atlantis.
“Even with this amazing technology, the city was still destroyed in the end...”
“Sadly, yes...”
When Nyanyan finished explaining everything, I paused for a moment before approaching the topic once more.
“Um, this is rewinding a bit, but basically what you want to ask of us is to return to the past and stop Atlantis from sinking, right?”
“Verily, it would be wonderful if my homeland were able to survive... But I know not why it so suddenly sank. Preventing it may be impossible.”
“Really? But then...”
So that wasn’t her wish after all? I was about to ask, but she gently shook her head.
“It’s true that is what I wished for when Atlantis first sank. But after taking this form and spending these many years at the bottom of the ocean all alone, I have realized just how many people I relied on to live before,” Nyanyan said, bringing her hands together as though in prayer and bowing her head. “That is why all I desire now is for the former citizens of Atlantis to survive. I wish for their safety and nothing more.”
“...I see.”
I refrained from saying anything unnecessary at Nyanyan’s earnest words.
But a story to return to the past and redo it, huh? I’d done something similar once before, and this seemed every bit as hairy.
“There’s just one thing I’d like to confirm. I’ve travelled to the past once via psychic powers, but in that instance, it was only my memories and my mind that were sent back. My body stayed where it was. But in this case, we’d be going back so far in time... It’s not like I existed hundreds of years ago, so how does this work?”
“If you exist in the time and space you rewind to, then your current body disappears and your mind slides into your body of the past. This is a phenomenon that occurs no matter what other conditions exist. It is likely the work of a higher power acting to prevent the paradox of two ‘you’s from existing at the same time—or so our kingdom concluded.” There, Nyanyan paused for a breath. “However, if you don’t exist in the space-time destination you’re rewinding to, said paradox is a nonissue. In that instance, both your physical and mental beings would travel to the past together.”
“Cool. That means getting back won’t be a problem.”
I crossed my arms and began pondering how we would go about doing this, but Hibiki took the opportunity to step forward.
“You mentioned a method to break the curse earlier. What would that be?”
“As I said, the only one who can do so is the true king of Atlantis. I am merely an ethereal being, and more importantly, I did not officially ascend the throne. And so, if you wish to lift the curse on that girl, you must travel to the past, see that the coronation ceremony takes place, and then have the next king of Atlantis free her.”
“All right, but just to be clear... You said the coordinates are set to after this Boboza guy completes the coup, right?”
“Yes.”
“So then the deed is done. Now, what to do...?”
“Shall we put our heads together?”
“Yeah.”
Hibiki and I included Nyanyan as we turned to the rest of the group and sorted out the situation. First we had Nyanyan’s story. In order to get her a happy ending, we needed to return to Atlantis of the past and save her people from the sinking city within three days. Then there was Sherlyn’s story. Saving it would also involve returning to the past, where we’d need to get either Nyanyan or Boboza on the throne and have them remove the curse.
“Wait, if we make Boboza king, won’t Nyanyan be killed?”
“You needn’t worry about me.”
Or so Nyanyan said, but Hibiki immediately shook her head.
“No, this is a legitimate problem. This Boboza guy already succeeded in his coup, right? If we show up with Sherlyn wearing the crown, he’ll treat us like thieves and imprison us too.”
“Well, I am a phantom thief,” Sherlyn added jokingly.
“You... You just hush for now,” Hibiki said, rubbing her temples and sighing. “Anyway, this means we’ll need to factor in a rescue operation as well. We’ll need to get Nyanyan out of that dungeon for her to take the throne.”
We may end up leaving that matter to chance... but oh, well. The biggest issue now was...
“...”
Persuading Chirika, who had been sitting out of the discussions with a silent, sour look on her face this whole time. Well, maybe persuade wasn’t the right word. I was kind of dragging her around against her will, after all. And I had yet to do anything about saving her story, either. The reason I wanted to bring her along was mostly because I didn’t want her acting on her own. Of course, it was also because I didn’t want to get separated and ruin my chances of saving her story, but... would she accept that?
“No... I have to persuade her no matter what.”
R once told me what happened to the stories that were abandoned by the Namidare bloodline. Even if I didn’t abandon her story, the same thing would happen if the heroine gave up on me. Chirika and I had argued till we were blue in the face over just her coming to the ocean with us, so I was fully prepared for things to come to blows this time. Or swords.
“Hey, Chirika...”
“...”
Chirika opened a single eye and glared at me.
“I’m sure you heard everything, but we’re about to go to Atlantis of the past... and I’d like you to come along with us...”
“...”
Chirika remained silent for a long moment, then suddenly reached for her sword.
“?!”
The moment she did, I instinctively prepared myself to get cut in half, but she just used it to help herself stand... and walked right by me without any violence. She then went over and joined the group with everyone else.
“Huh... Are you sure?” I asked Chirika timidly.
“It’s not a matter of sure or unsure. Or did you mean to leave me here at the bottom of the sea? While I might question one or two coincidences, this is the third presented instance of these ‘stories’ of yours cropping up. I admit that I have doubted you, but I believe my eyes are beginning to open.”
“R-Really?”
If she was starting to have some faith in me, that was the best possible outcome. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“And even if the time period is wrong, returning to the past in some form is better than sitting around and waiting here in the future. If the Gold Yaksha really is a yokai, he should have existed long before the time period I was alive. Perhaps I might eliminate him before he ever lays his hands on Princess Izuko.”
“Then are you all in agreement?” Nyanyan asked when it seemed like the discussions were over.
“Yeah, for the most part. By the way, while I’m fine with going to the past, there is a way for us to get back, right?”
“Yes. Once you’re in the past, please visit the Great Library of the Heavens. There you’ll find the person who designed this divining altar, which provides us with the technology both for stitching space-time and for becoming ethereal. They’ll be able to help you.”
The Great Library of the Heavens? I guess it must be in a really high place?
“Okay, sounds good.”
“Now, please move your vehicle to the middle of the divining altar. The preparations will take some time, so I do apologize, but I’ll have to ask that you wait a moment.”
“How long is a moment?”
“About three hours.”
“That’s... a couple of moments, but sure. Yeah, we’ll wait.”
“Thank you.”
With that, Nyanyan passed through the wall of the submarine and disappeared. Shirley moved the submarine over to the center of the divining altar as ordered, and we went about killing time while preparations for going back in time were complete.
▽
After we waited out the three hours, a strange light began filling the temple and pouring in the submarine’s windows.
“What is this light?” I asked.
“I don’t feel any magic coming from it... Maybe it’s just a part of the preparations for us to return to the past?” answered Satsuki.
There, Sherlyn walked up behind me and rather casually leaned on my shoulder.
“I gotta say, it’s hard to believe we’re actually going to the past... You really can’t predict what life’s going to throw at you, huh?”
“We came here to find a way to undo your curse... Sorry it’s turned into such a big ordeal.”
“What are you apologizing for? I had my whole life staked on a losing bet; you were the one who came along and dealt me some extra cards to play. Now I might actually stand a chance. So let me turn this around on you: are you really sure you’re willing to go to the past for me?”
“Of course I am. I’m the only one who can save everyone.”
“Heh, that’s right... You’re a hero,” Sherlyn said with a teasing smile and shrugged. “I was wondering what kind of guy could get the little-brother-obsessed Chelsea in such a tizzy, but go figure it’s someone like you.”
“...Huh?”
“Hey, Sherlyn! What lies are you telling Rekka?!”
Sherlyn slipped in a real humdinger there at the end, but the aforementioned Chelsea tore her way and started to interrogate her, so I never really got to the bottom of it. But it was just as well, I guess. That was about when Nyanyan stuck her head back inside the submarine and informed us she was ready.
“Everyone, the preparations are complete. I will now send you all to the past.”
“Got it,” I acknowledged. “Go ahead.”
“Very well. There is one last thing I forgot to mention, however. I cannot go with you, so I’m afraid you must proceed from here on your own.”
“Huh? Why?”
“...I’m sorry. It’s just not possible,” she said, a sad expression flashing across her face as she bowed her head deeply.
“Does that mean I can’t save you, Nyanyan?” I asked, somewhat staggered.
“Please do not worry... It may sound strange coming from someone who appears to be in such a desperate situation, but it is not me presently that you need to save. My past self is still imprisoned in the dungeon beneath this very temple. Should you wish to break the curse upon Sherlyn’s head, the Nyanyan of the past is who you truly need to save.”
Urgh... It was this Nyanyan whose story I’d gotten caught up in, so was it really okay to treat her and her past self as the same person? As far as their stories were concerned, I mean. Well, I guess they were ultimately in the same bind...
“Everyone... I wish you all the best.”
Nyanyan bowed her head once more in prayer and wished us luck as she disappeared. Then, the light flowing in from the window grew stronger and stronger until it was all we could see.
▽
Eventually, the light faded and the submarine suddenly tilted sideways with a loud clunking noise.
“Wh-What?!”
How could a submarine lose balance underwater? The answer, it turned out, was right outside the window...
“A-Are we on land?!”
I knew we were returning to the past and all, but shouldn’t we still be at the bottom of the ocean?
“Oh, duh...”
We were still in the same place, technically—the temple where the ritual had been performed. But we’d gone back to Atlantis of the past, which was still above water. That had to be it, probably... Right? Surely.
“Is everyone okay?!” I called out.
“S-Somehow...” Satsuki answered while rubbing her forehead, which she’d bumped against the floor.
It seemed several of the other girls had lost their balance when the submarine tilted too, but no one was really hurt.
“I think we’ve made it to Atlantis of the past and we’re still in the temple! Let’s get out of the sub and find somewhere to hide!”
I shouted orders to everyone while helping the girls up. In stark contrast to my panic, however, Tsumiki raised a lackadaisical question.
“What’s the big deal? Why are you in such a hurry?”
“If what Nyanyan said was true, today is the day Boboza succeeded in his coup d’état! What do you think he’s gonna do when intruders suddenly show up in the temple today of all days?”
There, there was a collective gasp in the room. It seemed we were all on the same page now.
“Everybody ruuuuun!”
“Hey, don’t run off on your own, you hopeless angel!”
Though I was irritated at Rachelle running ahead of everyone at a time like this, thanks to her opening the submarine hatch, we were all able to exit the sub and get out into the temple quickly.
“Who the hell are you?!”
But just as I finished helping Satsuki, the last person out, down from the hatch, several soldier-looking types appeared at the divining altar.
“Hmph! I’ll handle these.”
“Corona, no! Don’t attack!” I shouted, preventing her from going straight into combat. “We’re gonna run instead!”
“Rekka, this way! I memorized the floor plan of the temple!”
“Nice, Shirley!”
She’d probably taken a good, long look at it while searching the interior of the temple with the submarine. So right now, I was rather grateful she was with us. Thanks to her, we were able to slip through the temple corridors this way and that at a breakneck pace.
“Hold it!”
Yet even so, there were five people after us. From what I could see at a glance, they were outfitted with simple armor with spears. It only stood to reason that they’d be suspicious of intruders, but their intense expressions and murderous auras told me they were probably part of the coup d’état.
“Young man, why can’t we attack them?” Corona asked as she ran along beside me, though she looked more confused than unhappy.
“We have to save the Atlantians later, for the sake of Nyanyan’s story. If we attack them now and generate bad blood, that’ll only make things harder down the line.”
Corona seemed to accept my reasoning, and she generously nodded.
“I can see you’ve considered the future thoroughly, young man.”
“But with a group this big, it’ll be hard to outrun them!” Hibiki yelled angrily, interrupting our conversation.
And she had a point. We had slow runners like Satsuki and Harissa with us and everything... Of all the times!
“Hibiki! A smoke screen!”
“Got it!”
Hibiki took a smoke bomb out of the pouch attached to her waist and slowed down to edge towards the back of the group before chucking it at the pursuers trailing behind us.
“What?!”
We could hear the soldiers’ confused shouting through the smoke, and we took the chance to turn the corner and run out of the temple.
“Wow, so this is Atlantis...”
The temple was built atop a hill overlooking the entirety of the city. I’d heard that the whole land of Atlantis had sunk, but I could see the shoreline from the top of the hill where we stood. Either the city was much smaller than I had expected, or the temple was just that close to the sea.
“Harissa, could you cast your invisibility magic on everyone?”
“Sure.”
After we were all invisible and therefore undetectable to our pursuers, we left the temple grounds with peace of mind through a deserted back alley that went downhill. Along the way, we stopped to take a breather.
“Thanks, Harissa. You can dismiss the spell now.”
“All right,” Harissa said with a casual swing of her staff.
Nothing changed from our perspective, but if anyone else had been here, they would have seen a dozen or so people suddenly appear out of thin air. But that wasn’t what any of us were concerned about right now. What really mattered was our escape, and thusly catching our breath. After a short break, I took charge of the situation again.
“Even if we got off to a slightly rocky start, it seems we’ve at least made it to the past safely.”
“I got a glimpse of what the people were chasing us were wearing, which seemed to be quite similar to what Nyanyan had on. So it does indeed seem we’ve made it,” replied Hibiki, who was constantly paying attention to our surroundings.
I thought so too, but knowing whether or not we’d actually managed to travel to the past right now was of the utmost importance.
“Satsuki, could you see if we’re really in the past or not?”
“Sure.”
So to make absolutely sure, I decided to have Satsuki check using the Magic of Omniscience. But just as I asked her... I felt a someone’s eyes on me. I turned around to see Sherlyn watching me and Satsuki dubiously.
“I heard you specialized in research magic, Satsuki, but this is some serious stuff... Not only can you look up items and places, but even the very concept of time?”
“Huh?!”
“What?!”
Her unexpected question made us harmonize in unease. Crap... Was time really that much more of a complex concept to research? I didn’t know, so I’d asked Satsuki for help so casually and she’d replied without thinking, but... The Magic of Omniscience was a secret Satsuki’s family had passed down for generations. It was so powerful that it would bring about disaster if used for evil purposes, which was why we’d always taken extreme caution about mentioning it in front of other people—including heroines and especially other mages—but to think someone would notice here... We’d just gotten careless. I figured I could either try and brush it off or confess the truth, but just as I was trying to decide which...
“You can tell her, Rekka. Sherlyn has no interest in pursuing magic, and she’s not the type to sell others’ secrets,” Chelsea said with a well-intentioned smile.
I’d known Chelsea for quite a while now, and she said she’d been friends with Sherlyn for ages, so surely she was trustworthy too... And, honestly speaking, I didn’t get any bad vibes from her. Sherlyn was easygoing but at the same time had a serious aura, and she genuinely seemed like an earnest person.
“Hey now, what are you guys going on about? Let me in on the deets,” Sherlyn said in an overly exaggerated fashion, looking at the three of us with great interest.
She didn’t seem any too pleased about being left out of an important conversation like this. I was 90 percent sure how I felt already, but it was Satsuki’s secret to tell. I wasn’t about to share it without her consent.
“Satsuki, are you okay with this?”
“Yeah. I trust your judgment, Rekka.”
Once she agreed, I turned to face Sherlyn once more.
“The truth is...”
There, I explained the truth of Satsuki’s heritage. It would have been a shocking revelation for anyone, much less a mage. But when Sherlyn heard it all...
“I see. I was wondering what could possibly be that much of a secret, but now I understand. I won’t tell anyone, so are we all good now?” she replied rather casually.
“You’re really hard to surprise, aren’t you?”
“Huh? Well, that might be true. Let’s say you weren’t especially interested in a particular sport, but you suddenly got a chance to meet a super famous athlete that played it. Would you be excited, Rekka?”
“I mean, yeah, that’d be cool and all... But I guess I wouldn’t really get too worked up about it.”
“This is no different. I know Chelsea sort of said so earlier, but I cut ties with my family a long time ago. To me, magic is just a useful tool that helps me in my line of work, the same as my hat and cape.”
“...”
Satsuki looked conflicted over her heirloom magic being compared to an outfit, but at least we’d gotten that out of the way now.
“Satsuki, can you tell yet?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh, yeah... there’s no mistaking it. We’re definitely 1,500 years in the past now. That time frame matches up with what I learned when I looked up what happened in Atlantis before we left, so I think we’ve successfully travelled back to where we meant to,” Satsuki reported back after regaining her composure.
Since Sherlyn and Chirika now both knew about the Magic of Omniscience, I figured it was probably safe to ask her something else that had been on my mind.
“So now that we’ve travelled back in time, what happens to what you can look up with your Omniscient Magic?”
“I don’t really understand your question, Rekka,” Satsuki cautioned me like a school teacher would.
Okay, I guess that was poorly worded...
“Erm, well, the Akashic record details everything from the past to the present, right? So, if we’re currently in the past, does that mean your knowledge is now limited?”
I had to choose my words carefully so she’d understand what I meant. Hopefully that would get things across...
“Hmm... I think I see what you’re saying,” Satsuki said with an affirmative nod before explaining. “To start with the simple answer: yes. I can only access the Akashic record that presently exists. In other words, when I’m in the past, I can only access the Akashic record of the past.”
“I see...”
That made sense.
“Well, now that we’ve established that, next is...”
I was sort of turning things over in my head as I talked, but Chirika stopped me there.
“Wait,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She then turned to look at Satsuki and said, “You over there... Satsuki, right?”
“Me?”
“You said you can look up anything, no? Does that mean you can also look up the location of the Gold Yaksha? If he still exists in this era, that is.”
“Well...”
“If you can, please do so forthwith. So long as you can tell me where he is, I shall cut him down before he can lay his filthy mitts on the princess!”
Chirika was imploring her, but Satsuki turned a troubled look my way.
“Chirika, let’s calm down first, shall we?”
“Rekka, why didn’t you mention this so-called magic of Satsuki’s earlier? If I’d known such a thing existed, then I could have set off to help the princess immediately.”
“I’m sorry for keeping it secret, but Satsuki’s magic isn’t something I can just tell people about. You can understand that, right?”
“Let’s just say that I do... But now that I already know about it, why would you insist on stopping me from benefiting from its use? You know good and well that I intend to stop the Gold Yaksha as soon as possible, and this may very well lead me to him.”
“Look, I know how you feel... But let’s not get too hasty here. Our first priority right now is to save Nyanyan from her imprisonment in the dungeon.”
That was the most urgent matter at hand. We had to do something about Atlantis in the next three days. The Gold Yaksha would simply have to wait until afterward, especially now that we were even further in the past than the era Chirika had come from.
“...”
But Chirika fell silent with a displeased expression upon hearing my answer. I knew she didn’t like it, but she’d just have to deal with it for now. I’d make it up to her later.
“Let’s start from the top. We’re gonna sneak into the temple once again, then head for the dungeon. There, we’ll rescue Nyanyan.”
“I think that’d be for the best,” agreed Hibiki.
However...
“If we have to sneak right back in there, why did we leave in the first place? Soldiers of that level are no match for me.”
“Yeah! There hasn’t been much carnage yet, so I’m getting hungry...”
Certain parties were none too happy with our plan.
“Listen, Chirika. Like I said before, we have to do things as peacefully as possible, okay?”
I decided to completely ignore Rachelle and instead address Chirika’s concerns.
“Tch...”
It seemed like our previous exchange was still on her mind, as she clicked her tongue and turned away in a huff. What was this helpless feeling...?
“God, you remind me of how Hibiki used to act...”
“Wha?! What does that mean, Rekka?!”
“Oh, I don’t mean anything bad by it. It’s just that this blatant hostility kinda stings in a familiar way...”
Tsumiki and Fam had also been rather reluctant in the beginning, but in Chirika’s case, there was an especially tall wall between us. It was getting a little exhausting.
“I-I don’t think I treated you this coldly, though...”
Huh? Hibiki was mumbling to herself, but why did she look so teary-eyed?
“Boy howdy, it’s been a while since I heard one of the heroines complain about you like that,” said typical R, sitting cross-legged in the air as she observed all this in a disinterested fashion.
She looked like she was ready for a nap, but unfortunately, we didn’t have any time to relax. Even if Chirika and Rachelle were unhappy about it, the story we were in the middle of wouldn’t progress until we saved Nyanyan.
“Anyway! Harissa and I are going to go rescue Nyanyan. Everyone else should wait here and remain as quiet as possible.”
“Hold it. If you’re going to save Nyanyan, take me with you.”
When I brought up plans for the rescue operation, Sherlyn lifted the brim of her hat and asserted her desire to participate.
“You want to go too, Sherlyn?”
“I’m a phantom thief, you know? Prison breaks are a little specialty of mine... Though I’ve personally never been caught before,” she said with a teasing wink. “My magic is pretty useful. Nabbing keys and whatnot will be a piece of cake for me. Really, it’d be a good deal to have me with you.”
“Yeah?”
Was she talking about her magic? I wanted to know more, but we were suddenly interrupted by a commotion up ahead.
“What was that?”
I was worried our pursuers had discovered us, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I had Harissa cast her invisibility spell on me before I snuck down the alleyway and peered out into the street.
“Thataway!”
“Don’t let the target out of your sights!”
The soldiers were clearly after someone. I started to get nervous again, but...
“The princess escaped!”
After hearing that, I had a much better idea of what was going on.
“Corona, Harissa! And... you too, Rachelle! Follow me!”
“Aww, what about me?” Iris complained.
But there was no time. I’d have to explain later.
“Harissa, cast your invisibility spell on everyone. Corona, you carry Harissa. And Rachelle, you carry me. Then we’ll save Nyanyan from the skies! If anything happens, Satsuki and Hibiki will lead the rest of you to safety. We’ll meet up... somewhere!”
“Don’t drop the ball right at the end like that! You saw the shoreline from the top of the hill, right? Let’s meet there. All you’ll have to do is make it to the coast. Satsuki’s magic will lead us the rest of the way!”
I agreed to Hibiki’s revision of the plan, and Harissa then promptly cast her spell on everyone. I helped Corona get Harissa over her right shoulder, then waved Rachelle closer.
“Hurry! We have to save Nyanyan from the soldiers chasing her!”
“Awww... But I’m so hungry that I don’t have any energy left.”
“Argh, jeez! I’ll do anything you want later, so just make it quick!”
“Oh? You’ll do anything I want? That’s what you said, right? Yippee! I’ll do my best!”
“Huh? Ah, wait—”
I was just about to backpedal when she grabbed me by the sides and flew off. In a panic, I grabbed her arms in return so that I wouldn’t fall. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I’d just made a grave mistake... But either way, Nyanyan was more important right now.
“Rachelle, follow those soldiers!”
“Okaaay!”
Rachelle flapped her wings vigorously and picked up the pace.
“Waaah! I’m gonna fall!”
“Hold on tight.”
Corona, carrying Harissa, used her magic to keep up with us. As we followed the soldiers from the air, we watched them split up and veer off the main road down winding backstreets and alleyways.
“Hmm, the buildings are all clumped together. It’s hard to see anything from up here. You realize it’ll be tough to find her before the soldiers do, don’t you?” said Rachelle.
“That’s fine. Rather than looking, just listen out for any commotion.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ethereal Nyanyan didn’t appear to be particularly athletic. I doubt she’ll be able to run for very long.”
“So in other words, we’re not trying to find Nyanyan before the soldiers... just get to her before the soldiers can take her away?”
“That’s right.”
I shouted back to Corona to let her know the same, and we all strained our ears to listen out for the soldiers shouting.
“Young man, I heard one of them say they found something,” Corona said, pointing ahead about a kilometer.
I guess she wasn’t a Demon King for nothing. Her physical abilities were all insanely high spec.
“Let’s go!”
We then quickly flew in the direction Corona pointed, and it didn’t take long before we could hear the sound of a girl and several men shouting.
“Unhand me!”
We arrived just in time to see what looked like Nyanyan being seized by the soldiers.
“That girl’s the spitting image of the Nyanyan we saw at the temple. There’s no mistaking it,” I said.
“What are we gonna do now? There’re so many soldiers,” fretted Rachelle.
“Well, there’s a reason I asked Corona and Harissa to come along. I have a plan.”
I called them over and let them know what I had in mind.
“Hm, well, that should be fine. Leave it to me.”
“I’ll do my best!”
“I’m counting on you two. They might not be able to see you, but try not to hurt them too much, okay?”
“I understand,” Corona agreed with a nod.
After that, I watched things play out on the streets below as we waited for the right time to swoop in.
“Come on! On your feet!”
One of the soldiers grabbed Nyanyan by the arm, forcibly pulling her up before pushing her forward to get her walking.
“Now, Harissa!”
“Ealim Nekram!”
At my signal, Harissa cast her invisibility spell on Nyanyan.
“Wha?!”
“Where did she go?!”
The soldiers all began to panic the moment Nyanyan vanished. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. In reality, she was still surrounded on all sides, so...
“This’d be so much easier if I could use wind magic like Satsuki...”
Corona used a weakened form of her dark magic to blow away the soldiers encircling Nyanyan.
“Uwah!”
“Kyah!”
They were all knocked into the walls of surrounding houses, collapsing into a heap. For at least the time being, they were out of commission.
“Huh? What?”
Meanwhile, Nyanyan looked around in flabbergasted surprise. Corona then landed on the ground right in front of her, and because people with Harissa’s invisibility spell cast on them could still see each other, she jumped back with a start.
“Wh-Who might you be?”
“Just come with me.”
“H-Huh? Kyah!”
She grabbed a flustered Nyanyan with her free left arm and then took off into the skies again.
“All right, let’s make our way to the shore where Hibiki and the others are waiting,” I said.
And so we left behind the dazed and confused soldiers as we headed for the coast.
▽
After rescuing Nyanyan and meeting up with Hibiki and the others, we hid behind some boulders to stay out of view.
“Um... Wh-Who are you?”
Nyanyan was shaking like a leaf after being suddenly kidnapped and carried all this way. She was clad in some rather expensive clothes and had several capped jars hanging around her waist. They clinked together noisily with every step she tried to take backwards.
“Um...”
She seemed to be afraid of us. But that was unavoidable, I guess. As far as she knew, this was our first time meeting. It was a little strange, but I figured introductions were as good of a place to start as any.
“I’m Rekka Namidare. What about you?”
“I am... Nyanyan Atlantia. Are you all foreigners? Your outfits are... ever so strange. Did you save me just now?”
“Well, yeah, I guess we did.”
Hearing my answer, Nyanyan heaved a big sigh of relief. She was clearly drained of strength, and let her shackled hands drop in front of her with a noisy clank.
“Those shackles... Corona, can you break them?”
“An attack that precise would be impossible unless you don’t mind me taking a little off the top in the process.”
“I have a knife, but it’d take me a hot minute to get those off,” Hibiki offered with a troubled expression.
“Hahh... Allow me.”
There, Chirika drew her katana with a sigh and stepped forward.
“Wh-What are you doing?!”
The dull gleam of her blade made Nyanyan draw back nervously.
“Hold still.”
Chirika paid her no mind, however...
Snap!
And sliced through the shackles with one swing.
“Uwah... hahh...”
Though she was frightened at first, once Nyanyan saw her hands were now free, she once more sighed in relief. She took a moment to calm down, then smiled brightly.
“Good job, you lot. I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but you did well rescuing a damsel—no, a princess in distress. A most commendable deed.”
“Y-Yeah?”
In that moment, I’m pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing: “Huh?” Something about this Nyanyan was definitely different...
“Now, first and foremost, don’t you have any water? I haven’t had a thing to drink since yesterday. I’m positively parched.”
Once she knew for sure that she was safe, she lazily slumped against the bolder and began fanning herself. There, I took the opportunity to gesture everyone else to gather around for an impromptu meeting.
“So, uh, what’s happening?” I asked.
“She’s nothing like the last time we met. If anything, she seems kind of spoiled... Like Iris,” suggested Satsuki.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying I’m spoiled?” demanded Iris.
“D-Don’t fight...” Harissa tried to mediate.
“Did she eat something strange?” asked Tsumiki.
“Why would that make her personality change? If that were the case, then the Nyanyan we met in the sunken temple would have been just as spoiled, no?” refuted Hibiki.
“Moreover, didn’t the other Nyanyan say that she was imprisoned in a dungeon? How was this one able to escape?” asked Shirley, her head cocked to the side.
True, that was a little curious...
“Hey, Nyanyan...”
“Do you need something? Also, I’ll have you know it’s rude to address a princess that way. But in my infinite generosity, I’ll forgive you just this once.”
“Th-Thanks...?”
The difference between the polite Nyanyan we met at the bottom of the ocean and this one was so night-and-day that I hardly had any idea how to react.
“So? What is it?
“It’s just... you were captured, right? How did you escape?”
“Oh, that. They were interrogating me in the dungeon when some intruders appeared in the temple. That distracted the soldiers, so I took the chance to flee.”
Said “intruders” were probably us.
“Okay, so because we showed up in the past, the circumstances of Nyanyan’s story are already starting to change.”
I could understand at least that much, but that still didn’t explain the discrepancy in her personality.
“I see...”
“Hm? What’s up, Chelsea?”
“That’s it, isn’t it? The reason why this girl’s so different.” Chelsea twiddled her thumbs a moment as she put her thoughts together. “In other words, she was so humble and polite before because Atlantis sunk, you know?”
“What? Seriously?”
“Seriously. Think about it. If your hometown was suddenly destroyed and you spent over a millennium alone, how do you think you’d be?”
“Huh...”
When she put it that way, it made sense. She was a spoiled princess who had a change of heart (?) after losing everything... Was that it?
“Yoohoo! Rekka, was it? What’s all this about? Why are you muttering about coming to the past and the destruction of the kingdom?”
Nyanyan seemed to be rather upset about being left out of the conversation and indignantly puffed out her cheeks as she glared at me.
“Erm, the truth is...”
There, I explained to her that we’d come from the future to save Atlantis from sinking in three days’ time. But when Nyanyan heard this all, she said...
“Are you crazy?”
And that was exactly how she looked at me—like I was crazy. While I couldn’t really blame her considering the situation, it was frustrating since we’d never get anywhere if we couldn’t get her to take the threat of Atlantis sinking seriously. As such, I continued to try and persuade her.
“Don’t you people have technology to turn ethereal and return the past and stuff? Is it really that hard to believe that I came from the future?”
“What?! How do you know that?! That’s a secret of the royal family!”
“That’s not the point!”
Her surprise wasn’t unwarranted, but it was a little misplaced. So, once again, I tried to tell her about the impending doom of Atlantis... but she still refused to listen to me.
“I’ve got it! You must be spies from a foreign kingdom!”
If anything, she started to doubt us even more.
“I’m telling you... The Nyanyan of the future is the one who requested we come back and help you. If anyone should know what happens to Atlantis, it would be her, right? But she couldn’t save the kingdom by herself, so she asked us for help. Do you understand?” I started to feel like I was just repeating myself. It was exhausting. “Seriously, why don’t you believe us? Technically, you yourself were the one that asked us for help. Shouldn’t you at least believe us a little...?”
“That’s exactly the problem!”
“Huh?”
“I would never do such a thing!”
Huh?
“The technology to return to the past takes an equal number of years off your life, you know? So if you lot travelled back 1,500 years, there wouldn’t even be a shred of an ethereal life form left! You wouldn’t even be able to be reborn in the circle of life! Something that scary... There’s no way I would ever do that!”
What? It takes... life?
“Wait a second! What’s this about taking years off your life?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like.”
Don’t tell me that was why Nyanyan said she couldn’t return to the past with us...
“Wait. Nyanyan was already like a ghost... How could she use up her life in that form?”
“Rekka... You heard her say she’d used a ritual to preserve the life from her physical body. That means she was alive in some capacity, even in that ethereal state.”
“Hibiki...”
“The circle of life part is probably something similar to samsara. Since they had the technology to remove and preserve ‘ether,’ their religion probably believed that was the most concrete form of life there was,” Hibiki continued mumbling to herself as though thinking out loud.
Her hands were tightly holding her arms where she had them folded. I could tell her gears were really turning... Honestly, I felt the same way as I gritted my teeth and looked up into the overly blue sky.
“Why would Nyanyan do such a thing...?”
“It was all probably because she was willing to sacrifice herself for her wish, don’t you think?” asked Hibiki.
I looked back down and my gaze met her serious eyes.
“It’s true that the Nyanyan we met may have used up her life, but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Saving her story will end up saving her, too.” There, Hibiki glanced over towards the boulder Nyanyan was standing in front of. “Am I wrong, Rekka?”
“No... You’re exactly right.”
My shock hadn’t completely faded, but I suppressed it as I turned to Nyanyan myself.
“I don’t really get what you’re saying, and I still don’t believe that this kingdom will sink... But to sum it all up, you’re here to save me, right?”
“Yeah, you can think of it that way for now.”
“Then I shall welcome you with open arms. Make sure you work hard for my sake. Start by punishing that foolish uncle of mine for starting this dreaded coup d’état. I have high expectations of you,” Nyanyan said with a smile.
“...”
I stealthily shot a look R’s way.
“It seems like this Nyanyan’s story isn’t about saving Atlantis, but doing something about the coup d’état instead. Regardless, she’s most definitely a heroine.”
Apparently, the direction of the story changed to suit the wishes of the heroine herself. For the Nyanyan here and now, the most important issue to address was probably her uncle’s coup. That was a hairy enough situation as it was, and I could certainly see how she’d need a hero. But just because she wanted to thwart the coup didn’t change the fact that Atlantis was going to sink in three days. And in that sense, what I had to do and what I came here to save hadn’t changed. Now I just had to do something about the coup on top of all that...
With newfound resolution, I clenched my hands into determined fists.
▽
A little while later... Actually, not much time had passed at all, but every second felt like its own little eternity when we were racing against the clock. The whole city was going to sink in three days, and we had to retake the throne from usurpers and get Nyanyan crowned before all that. If we didn’t, there would be no way to break the curse on Sherlyn. Plus, if we actually got Nyanyan on the throne, she’d surely be of use to us when it came time to save the Atlantians.
As for the crown, when Nyanyan first spotted Sherlyn wearing it, she immediately accused us of being thieving spies and her uncle’s henchmen. We managed to calm her down by telling her that we’d stolen it from her uncle so we could bring it to her... Sherlyn had just accidentally ended up wearing it.
“So, that being the case, we want you to take the throne so we can save our friend too.”
“Hmm... Well, I suppose if you were on my uncle’s side, you could have just made him the king and removed the curse that way. Very well. I’ll believe you. As long as you save me, I don’t care whether you’re really spies or not,” said Nyanyan.
“Okay, well, we’ve only just arrived in this kingdom and don’t know much about the situation. Could you fill us in?”
“I suppose. Let’s see...”
Based on what Nyanyan told us, things had started five days ago when the previous king—her father—passed away in his old age. Her uncle—Boboza—was the king’s younger brother and had had his eye on the throne for a long time, but only showed his true colors after his brother’s death. Nyanyan, who’d never expected such treachery, was caught completely off guard and was easily captured in the coup.
“Oh? You stood against his rule and all he did was imprison you?” Corona asked in a dubious tone.
“‘All he did’? You mean...”
“This Boboza man was trying the usurp the throne, right? Why wouldn’t he kill the princess on the spot? I can’t imagine there being a reason to keep her alive.”
A reason to keep her alive...? Maybe there was something, so I asked Nyanyan about it.
“My uncle wanted to make me give up the details about how to return to the past, a secret only shared with the true ruler of Atlantis. Without that knowledge and the crown, it’s pretty much impossible to be accepted as the king of Atlantis by either the council or the people.”
According to Nyanyan, a significant portion of Atlantis’s prosperity was attributable to their ability to return to the past. For example, if they were conducting experiments on the development of a new technology and something went wrong, they could infinitely go back in time and repeat the whole process with those mistakes in mind—essentially writing off all their failures for successes. Her father had returned to the past for the sake of medical advancements a little too often, however, which had unnaturally advanced his age.
“Everyone said my father was a splendid king...” Nyanyan said with a forlorn expression. She fell silent for a while, but eventually raised her head again. “Anyway, that’s how it is.”
“Thanks, I think I’ve got the gist of it now. It sounds like they’d be reluctant to kill you.”
On the other hand, we didn’t have any other trump cards to play. After seeing the soldiers chase Nyanyan like that, it seemed a large part of the kingdom—at least politically—had sided with Boboza. It would probably be best if we considered how thorough Boboza had been in laying the groundwork the coup. Now, as for us...
“Nyanyan.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Do you have any friends? You know, allies that might side with you?”
“Any allies?”
Nyanyan put a pensive hand to her chin. She hemmed and hawed out loud for a while. Then, finally...
“I don’t know.”
“You... don’t know?”
“I’m a princess. My father always praised me and everyone around me would bend to my beck and call. So if you ask me... I can’t really name anyone specifically.”
“Truly raised like a princess, I see,” Sherlyn said in a half-jesting, half-troubled way.
And it was something of a problem. If anyone and everyone had been Nyanyan’s ally simply because she was the princess, it would be impossible to tell where their real loyalties lay now.
“What will you do, young man? You said not to attack earlier, but I could just beat up this Boboza man and his henchmen. The best way to quell rebellion is with force, after all.”
Well, she wasn’t totally wrong. Boboza had been the first one to use force in his power-hungry quest for the throne, so it wouldn’t be totally inappropriate to respond in kind... But just then, Nyanyan seemed to think of something.
“Aha!”
“What’s up?”
“We were talking this and that about sides a moment ago, but I know someone who just might prove to be a powerful ally.”
“Who?” I asked.
Nyanyan then pointed directly up into the blue sky overhead and said...
“King Laputa!”
“Laputa? As in... the movie?”
Ha! I may not have known about Atlantis, but I definitely knew that one. Wait, that was real...?
“I know that might be the first thing you think of when you hear that name, Rekka, but Laputa is a reference to the flying island in Gulliver’s Travels.”
“Oh, okay.” I nodded unthinkingly at the explanation Satsuki whispered in my ear, but then turned to look at her. “But wasn’t Gulliver’s Travels a work of fiction?”
“That’s right.”
Her unfaltering answer nearly bowled me over, but I guess that didn’t really tell me what I needed to know. The legend of Atlantis had turned out to be true, so were we about to find out the same thing about Laputa? It didn’t seem like Nyanyan had any reason to lie.
“All right, let’s go meet the Laputian king. Where is he?”
“He’s always in the Great Library of the Heavens in the flying city of Laputa.”
“The Great Library of the Heavens?”
That was where Nyanyan had told us to go when we met her in the sunken temple. If I recalled correctly, she’d said someone there would know how to get us back to the future. I guess she must’ve meant the king of Laputa.
“Are we going to Laputa then, young man?”
“Yeah. It’s better than shedding any unnecessary blood. And besides, we need to visit this library in order to figure out how to get home anyway.” With that much settled, I turned back to Nyanyan. “So, how do you get to this Laputa place?”
“There are airships... but they’re probably being watched right now.”
Airships were exactly what they sounded like—boats that sailed through the skies. Boboza probably wanted to keep Nyanyan from fleeing the city, so it made perfect sense he’d be keeping an eye on them. That said, we’d definitely need one with this many people in our party. We had the option of flight magic, but it wasn’t really practical under the circumstances. We had more people who couldn’t fly than could, so it would mean multiple trips or leaving people behind.
“Okay, let’s go get us one of those airships. Can you show us where they are, Nyanyan?”
“Certainly. But first...”
“What is it?”
“Where’s my drink? I’ve been waiting ages.”
“...”
It seemed we’d have to get our hands on something else before the airship.
Okay, to be fair, staying hydrated is important. When I took a poll, it seemed the great escape had left all of our throats rather dry. So we took a small, stealthy detour to wet our whistles before sneaking our way to the airdock with Nyanyan’s guidance. Of course, everyone had Harissa’s invisibility magic cast on them.
“Those are the airships?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Nyanyan confirmed.
Said ships were small, dark gray vessels that could seat seven or eight people. They were also quite exquisite artifacts, with translucent roofs and delicate wings on either side of them.
“Is that iron? The color is kind of...”
“It might be made of bronze instead. Actually, that roof doesn’t really look like glass, either... Maybe it’s some kind of acrylic?” Satsuki was also looking at the airship with a rather dubious expression.
“Bronze, sure, but does acrylic even exist in this time period? That said, I guess producing anything like this would take some serious tech I hadn’t expected to see here...” Chelsea echoed, voicing her questions to no one in particular.
“Come to think of it, the floor of the temple was exceptionally smooth, but it was stone. Somehow, I get the feeling this is altogether different technology,” said Hibiki.
“Is that true, Nyanyan?” I asked. “Or is this thing Altlantian too?”
“Nope. The airships were gifted to us by the king of Laputa. Without them, we wouldn’t have a way to get there, after all.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said with an accepting nod and looked around once more.
There were ten airships total, parked in two rows of five ships each. A long strip led up to the two ships in the front. It looked like they would accelerate down it like a runway before taking off.
“So, uh, how do these things work?” I asked.
“They’ll start if you set the key on the ignition stand,” Nyanyan explained.
“And where are the keys?”
“They’re stored in that facility.”
She was pointing over to a single-story building that wasn’t all that big. Maybe it was just an office or something? Anyway, the real problem was the guards surrounding it. There was a whole crowd of ’em... No, I should say there was a wall. The soldiers stood two or three deep and encircled the whole building.
“What do you think?” I asked, turning to Hibiki, who was observing the building through her binoculars.
“Looks tough. You used invisibility magic when you saved Nyanyan, right? We have to take into account they may have figured that out by now. From what I can see through the window, the inside is equally packed with guards. You’d be discovered the moment you busted in.”
Invisibility was great, but it simply meant that people couldn’t see us; it didn’t change the fact that we were there. If we got surrounded, even invisible, there would be no escape.
“It’d be over just like that...”
“If all we have to do is sneak onto the airships, then I think we could pull it off. Since they won’t move without the keys, the guards are all focused on watching the building.”
Now that she mentioned it, it certainly did look like the coast was clear over by the ships. That being the case, it’d be more efficient to have a small group go and steal the keys while everyone else boarded the ships and waited for us. That would simplify everything and reduce the risks we were running. Now, the only thing left to figure out was how to nab those keys...
“Come to think of it, Sherlyn...”
“Yes?”
“You mentioned earlier that stealing cell keys would be child’s play for you. Does the same go for airship keys?”
“Hmm... As long as I could spot them and there was at least a single window open in the building, then yes,” Sherlyn answered casually as she twirled a finger in the air.
“An open window, huh? Hibiki, you see any?”
“No... I see windows, but none open. They’re all shut tight.”
“Okay, what about the keys? Do you see those?”
“I don’t see anything particularly key-like, but I don’t know what an airship key looks like to begin with.”
Fair. Actually, Nyanyan had said we needed to “set the key on the ignition stand,” not “insert the key in the keyhole.” Maybe this was something unusual after all.
“Nyanyan, can you come here a sec?”
“What?”
“Can you borrow Hibiki’s binoculars and tell me if you can spot the keys anywhere through one of the windows?”
“Binoculars? You mean that thing that girl was just holding up to her face? You’re going to let me borrow it?” Nyanyan asked, excitedly looking between me and the binoculars Hibiki was holding.
It seemed she’d been interested in them ever since Hibiki pulled them out. Hibiki didn’t object, and she graciously handed them over to Nyanyan, who immediately peered through the lenses like she’d seen Hibiki do.
“Ooh, this is amazing! You can see faraway things so clearly!”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s great! Just keep it down! Even if you’re invisible, people can still hear you... Now, see those keys anywhere?”
“Hmm... Oh, there they are. The second window from the right.”
“I’m gonna need a little more than that... What do they look like?”
“What? They’re the round balls sitting there next to the wall.”
“Balls?”
I wanted to see this for myself, so I asked Nyanyan to return the binoculars.
“Hrm...”
“Um, you kind of have to let go.”
She was rather reluctant to hand them over, but I eventually got them back safely and held them up to my eyes. I looked through the second window from the right... And sure enough, there were some round, stone-like objects neatly lined up against the wall just like she’d said.
“Take a look, Sherlyn.”
I handed the binoculars to her next.
“Let’s see... Oh, that’s them? There’s ten in total. That lines up with the number of airships, so that seems to check out. I can steal them as long as the window’s open.”
That was the real problem now. Considering how well guarded the place was, it wasn’t like we could just walk up to the building and crack one open. Really, I wanted to keep as much distance as possible and maybe come up with some way to get one of the guards to open a window...
“Hmph, my turn! I would like another turn!” Nyanyan tugged at Sherlyn’s sleeve and whined as she fanned her face with a hand.
Looking around, she wasn’t the only one fanning herself, either. Satsuki, Iris, and the others were all looking rather pink in the cheeks, and I found myself tugging at my collar without even realizing it.
“You know, it’s pretty hot here...”
Maybe it was because we were out in the middle of the ocean, but the bright and beaming sun was pretty intense. You couldn’t stay out in it for too long. Nyanyan and the other people of Atlantis were all pretty tan, but even they too... Huh. I just had an idea.
“Hey, can anyone here use magic that creates a bunch of fire? Or more specifically, heat?”
Everyone tilted their heads at my sudden question, but Satsuki then hesitantly raised her hand.
“I’m pretty sure I can find something like that with my Omniscient Magic, but why?”
“I might have a plan.”
And I quickly explained it to everyone.
▽
Satsuki, Sherlyn, Corona, and I hung back while everyone else stealthily boarded the two airships at the front of the line. There were a couple of guards patrolling the area, but Iris and Corona knocked them all out before they even had a chance to blow our cover. We then hid their bodies in the shadows for now.
“How’s it looking, Satsuki?” I asked.
“It should work just fine. Much like how a lens focuses light, I’ll be gathering the heat in the area and concentrating it on that building.”
“Got it. You ready to go too, Sherlyn?”
“You betcha.”
Sherlyn nodded as she continued to stare through the binoculars at the building, her gaze utterly fixed. Even without binoculars, my eyes were glued to that window too. And before too long...
“It’s open!” Satsuki cheered.
And it looked like she was right.
What we had done was extremely simple: we raised the temperature inside the building until one of the guards inside got hot enough to open a window. Atlantis was hot enough as it was, so turning up the heat on a closed-up building would sooner or later become too much to bear. Sooner, in this case.
“Sherlyn!”
“Leave it to me!”
With an energetic cheer and the binoculars still held up to her face, Sherlyn raised her free hand like a gun and pointed her index finger at the building.
“Mark!”
There, two small beams of light fired from the tip of her finger in rapid succession. Both sailed through the air and went right in the open window. Then...
“Steal!”
She then curled all her fingers together and drew her clenched fist closer like she was pulling in a rope. There was immediately a commotion coming from the building... and two strange spheres flying our way. They looked just like the airship keys Nyanyan had pointed out to me earlier.
“All right, got them!”
They flew right to Sherlyn like they were being sucked into her hands.
“Well? What do you think of my magic? I use Mark to lock on to a target and Steal to pull it towards me. Useful for a phantom thief, no?”
Sherlyn fiddled with the round keys in her hand like a magician, explaining her trick to us with a proud smile.
“Nice one, Sherlyn! Now, Satsuki, Corona, get us to the airships with your flight magic!”
“All right!”
“Understood.”
“Not so fast, Rekka. Don’t forget to take one of the keys.”
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
We’d have to take two airships, so it was important that we each had a key when we split up. I took one from Sherlyn and then flew over with Satsuki to the ships. Corona and Sherlyn followed behind us.
The soldiers who had been on guard spent a while running around like chickens with their heads cut off after what happened, but someone eventually realized that the keys being gone meant that the airships were being stolen. All the guards came pouring out of the building after that... Just about as I was boarding the airship on the right, and Corona and Sherlyn on the one on the left.
“Shirley, it’s all yours!”
“Leave it to me.”
As soon as I was on board, I tossed the key over to Shirley at the helm.
“Erm, I just need to place it here, right?”
Shirley placed the key into the rounded indentation on the ignition stand. It then suddenly came to life with a hum as the translucent roof and wings of the ship began flashing the colors of the rainbow. Then we heard a low tone, like the ship’s systems had booted up or something.
“Okay, here we go!”
Shirley rolled the key in the stand forward, and the ship slid ahead as though to match its movements.
“Amazing... I don’t sense any magic at all. I wonder how it’s moving...” Satsuki looked around at the ship in wonderment.
Just to make sure, I looked up through the half-transparent roof to make sure the airship Sherlyn and the others were on had taken off safely too. Iris was in charge of piloting that one. As for the reason... It was simply because, like Shirley, she was used to driving a spaceship.
I mean, to be fair, none of us had ever helmed an airship before, but we all decided it would be best to leave the piloting to the people who had... you know... at least some piloting experience. For the record, even though she was familiar with the airships, Nyanyan was a princess and had always had someone to drive her around. She didn’t know the first thing about flying one herself.
Anyway, the short of it is that this whole flying adventure was risky business. Takeoff was a little harrowing, but once we achieved liftoff, the ship ascended rather smoothly.
“I was a little worried considering how it looks, but it seems it can fly just as well as an airplane,” said Tsumiki.
She was sighing with relief just like I was, but perhaps that was premature. There were still eight ships in the airdock. The enemy could still catch up to us... Or rather, they might have if we hadn’t taken countermeasures already. I glanced behind me to see that playing out exactly as I’d hoped.
The runway we’d just taken off from was shrouded in darkness that crept all the way back to the office building. There was no way anyone was taking off under these conditions.
“Looks like Corona did a good job.”
Part of my plan had been for her to use her signature dark magic to basically blackout the dock after we left. And it seemed to be working. With that all said and done, I would love to say it was time to take a breather... But we were just getting started. In spite of what lay ahead, however, I decided to at least enjoy the trip heavenward.
“So it’s off to meet the king of Laputa, huh?”