.
Gaia screened our talk from scenario replay, so I could pick and choose what to reveal. I chose not to say anything just yet. Even Kanon had to make do with my assurance that, ‘I’ll tell you at some point in the future.’
After she left, I spent time on my own, cultivating, considering my options and seeking information from the Sea of Knowledge. Then, I brought Ryuu and his team back and we went over the strategy that they worked out. I made a few modifications, because Kanon and I had agreed on a strict limit to the things I was allowed to do in pixie form and they had made some false assumptions on what I could do. Once that was done…
The seashore of the Southern Continent appeared before Ryuu Kowa once again, but he wasn’t waking up this time. He appeared in the spot from which he left, confronting a pixie and an observation sphere. With the plan already settled, we didn’t need to talk. Ryuu immediately started his body magic and began running for his first destination.
That’s right. I decided to complete the promised training. Just like Gaia said, he was still a hero, whether or not he possessed the heroic destiny.
Mr. Kowa, I have a few spiritual techniques to accomplish similar results with your physique, I told him as I flew beside him. It must wait until we finish with other things, but I will teach you once we have an opportunity.
That opportunity also had to wait until I used them, myself, in my current incarnation. It was Fan Li who knew those techniques.
He snorted. “You sound like your other self right now.”
I blinked and thought about how I was speaking. Fan Li had a very careful, measured manner of speaking. Was it rubbing off on me?
Then he asked, “What’s the advantage of that over what I’m doing?”
The body enhancement techniques of Huade are harsh on your physique long-term, and can drain your pneuma. Spiritual techniques are less draining. However, the mana techniques can be more powerful. It would become a question of picking the right technique for the situation.
It took a bit less time to get there. Ryuu had upped his efficiency somewhat. We swiftly made it to the foliage on the south side of the little river, across from the village.
All appearances were the same as before, of course, and we prepared at this point roughly the same as before. Before, Ryuu had taken off his shirt, because he was determined to cover Chiara at the earliest possible moment, but we skipped that this time. He tightened his harness so that I could carry him, then carried his sword in hand as I flew him over the river.
But we didn’t overfly the crowd on the beach. We landed in the village and Ryuu ran through it, coming at the crowd from a direction they thought secure. Meanwhile, I Cloaked and dashed ahead, flying a critical reconnaissance mission. I met him at the village edge.
“Three!” I told him in chipmunkese, then turned and pointed at the first.
“[Earth Bullet]!” he chanted, while the village warriors had yet to notice him.
A single shot flew, with the mana comprising it guided by Ryuu’s Will. The first of three conch shells was blasted out of a villager’s hands, smashed into pieces.
Again I pointed, and Ryuu turned to the next target, repeating the action. Now, the warriors were alert, looking for the assailant, but two conch shells were already gone. The third conch-shell wielder did not realize what Ryuu was targeting and failed to hide it. But he was facing Ryuu with the shell in his hands, so Ryuu ended up gunning him down along with the shell.
The warriors were now counterattacking. I called, “[Wind Wall]!” and spread my hands wide, throwing out a massive wind wall. As it shielded us, I grabbed Ryuu by the belt and flew over the crowd.
Like we had done before, I dropped him into the crowd, which was now in disarray. He landed while yelling, “[Ground Slap]!” and disarray turned into panic.
Meanwhile, I had again cloaked and flown down to where Chiara waited. She was still nude and standing on the platform with her arms over her head, shackled to a tall wooden post. The shackles were glued to a hook in the post with magic, so she couldn’t be unhooked.
I had learned a spell called [Break Metal] when Chiara used it earlier. She couldn’t use it at the moment, because the shackles had an anti-magic formation on them, similar to the magic that had been on my shackles back when they tried to take me to the prison wagon in Copen. But, once Ryuu broke one of the shackle chains, destroying the anti-magic, she’d been able to use it to destroy the other chain.
That magic would be perfect right now… but I decided not to mention it as an option. The pixie is supposed to be limited, and that spell would be just too darned convenient here.
I kind of regretted that decision at the moment, because my job was to attempt to break the shackles by raw force, on the theory that, if I had the physical strength to lift and carry Ryuu, I might be able to overcome the latch.
By the way, I should mention, it didn’t matter whether the shackles were iron or not. Pixies don’t have the effect on iron that a fairy or Elder does.
So I inspected the shackles quickly and identified the latch. Rather than a delicate locking mechanism, it was a simple nail pushed through a pair of holes and bent to keep it in place. I got my little pixie fingers under it until I could grip it, braced my little feet against the shackle, and strained with all my might to straighten the nail.
Looking up from below me, trying to tip her head to see what I was doing, Chiara asked, “My Lady, what are you doing up there?”
Trying to free you. If I don’t succeed, we’ll go to Plan B.
Plan B was to wait with her and defend her until Ryuu could make it to the platform, after he had hopefully taken out the magic users. He would use some newly learned defensive techniques to counter the warriors while focusing on the real offensive threat of the village, the mages.
Without the conchs, they couldn’t call in the big player, the boss seawolf, so Ryuu should have time to manage it, especially once he was close to the platform and I could begin using [Wind Wall] to defend him.
I finally began bending this stupid nail, but it was slow work. Have you ever tried to straighten a nail? It will happily turn rather than unbend, right? And this was a great thick chunk of metal, not a wiry little nail. Ancient nails were more like spikes than modern nails.
I paused my effort so that I could check on Ryuu. He was still on his feet, making a mighty showing, and he was gradually getting to the platform. Nobody had noticed yet that something was amiss with the sacrifice.
One more mighty heave on that nail, and it bent far enough to get it to move through the pair of holes… halfway out. But it was stuck and unable to rotate, so I was able to brace and push against it again, and finally managed to pull it out.
I pulled the shackle open and Chiara’s hand came free.
See if you can cast the [Break Metal] spell! I told her.
She tried it and it worked. The second shackle shattered and she was free.
There was an Elder power I was allowed to use here, [Veil of the Mistress], because I had used it in the Island Escape scenario, Chiara’s training scenario that had led into this one. I was tempted to use it now, but it wasn’t part of the team’s carefully worked out plan, for the very simple reason that they hadn’t known I could cloak one of my Servants.
They did know, thanks to the fact that I had flown Ryuu, that I could carry her. So I did it now.
Hold your hands over your head like you’re shackled to the post, I told her.
Thinking that I was asking her to fake still being shackled to the post, she pressed her back against the post and raised her arms back up. It worked, though. I grabbed her by the wrists, wrapping the tendrils I had used when carrying Ryuu (which were, frankly, an imitation of vampire blood tendrils, although they were part of my made-up ‘pixie powers’) and lifted her off the platform.
“Huh?” she yelped as I headed straight out to sea.
The sea wolves were out there, but they were still far offshore, waiting for the call of a conch shell that would never come, and she didn’t have far to swim. Well, not far for a half-merrow. As we flew, I told her, Swim east three miles, then head inland and hide. We’ll find you!
Then I dropped her into the water.
I watched long enough to see her adapt to the water and dash eastward toward the forested shore miles beyond the river mouth. I flew back to find Ryuu now battling for his own survival rather than trying to reach the platform. I cloaked, grabbed him by the harness and took off.
He had already taken out the big-gun magic users and some of the warriors. The others made attempts to hit him with thrown spears as we fled, but he Willed those off-course and we escaped unscathed. I flew back across the river, beyond the bamboo stands, dropped below the level of the trees so they couldn’t see which way we fled, then dashed for the east as well, skimming barely above rice fields.
Fifteen minutes later, we were reunited with Chiara in a grove to the south of the village and Ryuu could finally give her his shirt and a long-delayed hug. The following day, we officially completed Chiara’s original scenario by reaching the port city forty miles to the east.
# # #
After reaching her destination and falling asleep in an inn, Chiara awakened to find herself on one of the bench-like beds of the Recovery Room in the Dragon Stage. Looking around, she found me, back in my Elder form, taking my breakfast as I waited.
“Wake up those two and come get your breakfast,” I directed as I smeared marmalade onto flatbread.
In a fairly short period of time, we were dining together. I listened with patience to various complaints and dislikes, while simply pointing out that they had all made significant gains. Ryuu was surprisingly quiet, though. It was mostly the other two, while he continued to brood.
Then my cousin asked, “Your Highness, can we really afford to be wasting so much time in this place? You have a crisis in your mother’s duchy, right?”
“Wasting time?” I asked innocently. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve already spent several days here!” she insisted. “I’m sure it’s been more than a week!”
Sighing, I told her, “Outside the mountain, it is still the morning after I brought you three into my small world.”
“The morning after…” Chiara echoed, confused.
I had already explained this to her, right? I rubbed my eyes and said, “In the eyes of the world outside, we left Oseri only yesterday.”
Dilorè and Chiara both gave me blank stares. Apparently they hadn’t understood my explanation the first time.
I sighed and then did my best to walk them through the concept once again. Ryuu already understood it, and I tried to enlist his help in the explanation, but he was brooding about something else and didn’t help much.
It wasn’t that they couldn’t do the math, it was the concept of time being stretchy in the first place that Dilorè and Chiara were having trouble coming to grips with. Huade didn’t have any stories like Rip Van Winkle or Urashima Tarō, nor did they have an Einstein or a Theory of Relativity.
Finally, I stated, “In fact, the fairies who tailed me back to my mountain when I returned from meeting with Mother are still flying around out there, wanting to follow me in. It hasn’t been a half hour yet since they tailed me back from the Fairy King’s Castle.”
“A half hour…” Chiara echoed, perplexed.
In fact, most of that half-hour had been from the time I returned to the small world until we entered the art gallery the next morning. Only a handful of minutes had passed outside the mountain while we were in training.
With another sigh, I said, “Let’s put it aside for now. You two completed a training stage each, and Ryuu has done two, so it’s time to discuss our next step.”
“Gonna see how much more unreasonable you can be?” Ryuu griped.
I smiled at him. I was actually kind of glad he wasn’t turning friendly on me after the reasonably affable time he spent with Fan Li. I wasn’t sure if I could handle that.
“I’m not asking for anything more than I’ve asked before, Mr. Kowa.”
