Let's Build (3)
The feeling of having shared a bed with a beastgirl.
It wasn't as bad as I'd expected.
Oh, for heaven's sake.
Ye gods! Today I have lost a junior colleague!
First off, the smell I'd fretted over most was barely there at all. The idea that beastfolk reeked of foul odors turned out to be nothing more than prejudice.
It had been a little cold, too, but nothing I couldn't handle. All told, it had been a thoroughly satisfactory night's sleep.
"Hwaaaah."
The fox engineer let out a deep yawn, arms wrapped around her own tails. The instant she was up, she rubbed her eyes and launched straight into a stretch — arching her back like a cat, once forward, once back, her two tails swaying like reeds in the wind.
"Nngyaaaah-hwaaang-kkihyaaang!"
The ridiculous noises came free of charge.
"This bed was amazing. I'll give it a hundred and forty out of a hundred. For reference, the extra forty is a wilderness bonus!"
I'd been worried her sleeping habits might be terrible, but those fears proved unfounded. Contrary to appearances, she'd slept quite peacefully.
The Saint and the Valkyrie were up as well. Both of them had thoroughly bed-headed hair.
"Major Brokenheart, how are you feeling?"
"Much better than yesterday."
"Just to be safe, let's keep an eye on you through today."
A new day had begun. We loosened up with some light exercise, then settled on what needed doing. Not that there was much to decide — securing food and planning our escape from the island were essentially the whole list.
"It seems this island has a boss as well," the Saint said to me. "If we defeat it, we should be able to move on to the next island."
I nodded.
The boss.
After defeating the ghoul on the previous island, we'd obtained a bundle of ancient documents. Decoding them had revealed that each island harbored a being known as a "Gatekeeper."
Experience had taught us that defeating a Gatekeeper opened the path to the next island. It had been true with the siren, and true with the ghoul.
But why?
There does seem to be something deliberate about it.
True to her calling as a woman of faith, the Saint interpreted it through the lens of karma — defeat a Gatekeeper, and enough evil energy drains away for the fog to lift.
It wasn't a question I felt compelled to dig into. All I wanted was to escape.
"How should we divide the teams today?"
"The fox and I will move together."
"Are you sure that's all right?"
"Is there a problem?"
"No, it's not that it isn't all right. It's just…"
The Saint hesitated.
"I know what you're getting at. Mages of the Magic Kingdom despise beastfolk — see them as nothing more than animals, not people. That kind of talk is famous enough that I assume that's what's on your mind."
"…Yes, that's right."
"I'll admit I'm not entirely comfortable with them. But I don't despise them. They're different — not wrong."
The Saint's mouth closed.
"In an environment like this, what does race matter? If we can cooperate, they're allies. Comrades."
I shook out my uniform and put it on.
"I'll head out first."
I bid the Saint farewell and turned away. Before leaving with the engineer, I caught a last glimpse of her eyes — they were yellow.
For a Lumina, yellow signaled positive emotions: joy, affection, and the like.
Her Holiness seemed to be in a good mood today.
Today, another of Tiria's preconceptions had been shattered.
The mage showed no sign of discriminating against or despising the beastgirl. It wasn't even a matter of concealing his feelings.
He simply had no prejudice. The fact that he'd shared a stone bed with a beastfolk the night before was proof enough of his open-mindedness. Your typical bigot wouldn't share a meal with one, let alone a bed.
"He's so consistent."
After the mage and Liyo had set off into the forest, Tiria turned his words over in her mind.
"'If we can cooperate, they're allies. Comrades.'"
On this island, there was no Holy Kingdom and no Magic Kingdom.
Which meant, for the moment, there was no need to weigh anyone's national position.
She was not the Saint of the Holy Kingdom — she was Tiria Caston. And the man was not a mage of the Magic Kingdom — he was Erihi Ronshstein.
Likewise, Rachel was simply Rachel, and Liyo was simply Liyo.
Without a doubt, that was how the man saw things.
"What matters isn't the magic, but the attitude of the person who wields it."
The way he focused on what was essential.
The way he trusted people as they were.
Even the original scriptures emphasized dozens of times that one must love and respect others for who they are. The man may not have been a believer, but he had grasped that essence all the same.
If anything, perhaps he was more of a saint than she was.
What washed over her was shame — and a quiet gladness.
"Is this… enlightenment?"
Tiria picked up a yellow berry and chewed it slowly. It was one the mage had picked for her the day before — toxic in excess, but a mild analgesic in moderation.
A tartness, followed by a rush of sweetness.
It was not unlike the pain — and the pleasure — of dismantling the scriptures she'd always known and rebuilding them from the ground up.
"You have my gratitude, Erihi."
It was the moment a naive girl was finally reborn as a true seeker of the path.
It was nothing new, but the beastgirl and I couldn't communicate.
I'd started picking up a little Ascalian, but I was still far from fluent. I barely spoke with the Valkyrie at all, and most of my conversations with the Saint — who held the largest share of our dialogue — had been conducted entirely in the language of the Magic Kingdom.
Think about it logically. If you only ever speak your native tongue with a foreigner, how is your foreign language supposed to improve?
For that reason, I still couldn't speak the Holy Kingdom's language particularly well, and conveying my intentions to the fox engineer required every gesture and hand signal I could muster.
And yet.
Heroes recognize heroes.
"Whoa, these pebbles are going to be super useful!"
The engineer stripped off her top and fashioned it into a makeshift sack. She started gathering stones the way a country girl might dig for potatoes.
And she wasn't grabbing just any rocks. She was selectively picking the good ones — the ones easy to fashion into magic stones.
I was certain.
This girl was sharp.
"I can make a water purifier with these, and reinforce the stone beds too. Hehe."
Look at that expression — grinning ear to ear with an armful of rocks instead of potatoes. How pure and innocent could one person be? If you set aside the ears… no, she was cute even with the ears.
Senior?
Junior?
"Ah."
I slapped both cheeks with my hands.
I started scanning the surroundings myself, picking up any rocks that looked useful. Between that, chopping firewood, setting traps, and a dozen other tasks, we gradually made our way deeper into the forest.
And then.
"Huh?"
At some point, the character of the forest shifted.
Where moments before we'd been in a broadleaf woodland, we now stood in a bamboo grove.
"How dare you set foot in our territory."
Thuk. Thuk. Thuk.
Flowers armed with bamboo spears appeared.
These were not the flowers of fairy tales. They had finger-shaped petals the color of ivory, and they dragged their delicate roots along as they walked.
"Has it been a while since we last saw humans?"
"We should inform Lady Alraune."
"She already knows. We need only eliminate the intruders."
The flowers muttered among themselves in Whieon.
Faced with them, the engineer and I had only one response.
Prepare for combat.
"Seize them!"
"Turn the female into nutrients and offer the male as a stud!"
"The Bamboo Tribe shall earn glory for the first time in ages!"
The flowers hurled their bamboo spears. We each ducked behind a different stalk of bamboo. First priority: assess the enemy's numbers and positions. Five on the left, eight on the right.
Unlike the scattered group on the left, the ones on the right were clustered together — perfect for taking out in one go.
"Fox!"
I gestured to the engineer. She nodded and drew her axe.
Thud-thud-thud!
The fox beastgirl's agility rivaled that of a Valkyrie blessed by the goddess of war. Being assigned to the engineering corps didn't mean her combat instincts were lacking. Foxes were hunters by nature.
The engineer's axe found the first flower. Its pedestal was sheared clean through in an instant.
Kiiiiiik!
I pulled a magic stone from my pocket.
One I'd made yesterday.
A secondary mana-conductive body of the igneous rock class: a Haehwaseok.
The Haehwaseok was also known by the nickname "Sea Flame." Once it ignited on a target, it spun like a circulating ocean current, burning only that specific target and nothing else.
I'd been wondering how to deal with monsters without setting the forest ablaze, and yesterday I'd combined the igneous rocks I'd collected to create this magic stone.
The results exceeded my expectations.
Seizing an opening, I lobbed the Haehwaseok into the cluster of eight. They went up in flames all at once. For flowers, they certainly had mouths — screaming from every direction.
"Whew."
The smell of them burning was fouler than garbage. Once the flowers had burned out completely, I crushed the remains under my military boots to make sure the fire wouldn't spread.
"This side's done. How about yours?"
"All done!"
The engineer came bounding over like a dog. No — like a fox, in this case?
"Yesterday it was things that looked like oak and sawtooth oak coming at us. Today it's bamboo."
"This island has such a variety of timber. The soil looks incredibly rich in nutrients, too. Maybe there was volcanic activity here a long time ago?"
Either way.
Bamboo was an incredibly useful material. Bring this back and we could make all kinds of weapons and tools.
"Hmm, can't move it in bulk, though?"
"Hmm, can't haul a lot at once, can we?"
"Building a cart might help in the long run."
"Even a wheelbarrow wouldn't be half bad."
Our eyes met as we muttered to ourselves.
That's right. Heroes recognize heroes.
And likewise — an engineer recognizes an engineer.
Without a doubt, we were thinking the exact same thing.