Taming the Fireballs (1)
To be perfectly honest, the Gustatory Officer's emergency call wasn't something I'd been worried about.
'What kind of crisis could a rookie with less than a month under her belt possibly have?'
One month is far too early to taste the true bitterness of border duty. Give it half a year or so, and then she'll manage to set off one properly catastrophic incident.
At absolute worst, I figured it would be something like, 'A visitor's dog bit my hand!'
'Everything looks dire the first time you're caught in a sudden emergency, so... I can understand it.'
Panic dulls your ability to respond — that's just human nature. All the more so for a rookie. She'd almost certainly spooked herself over her first unforeseen situation and called me in a fluster.
And exactly as I predicted, the Gustatory Officer's urgent summons was not some enormous crisis.
It was a bloody enormous crisis.
"HERHANAHIN!!!"
-FwoooOOOOSH!
"Gyaaaaah! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Now, it was a chilly late-autumn evening. So why, I had to ask myself, were fire spirits roaring before my very eyes, spewing pillars of blue flame high into the sky?
Heat hotter than the hottest sauna chamber blasted in from every direction, and I could see the stone floor — freshly resurfaced just days ago — scorched pitch black.
By some miracle, the spirits were in the open lot outside the building rather than indoors. For races made of raw elements, like spirits, it was certainly wiser to conduct inspections out in the open than inside, where paperwork and other flammables abound.
The problem was why they were angry enough to turn blue — fire spirits who'd calm right down if you just tossed them a few logs of firewood.
"...What exactly am I looking at here?"
When I asked the Gustatory Officer's aide, who had escorted us out to the Immigration Office lot, she answered with complete confidence.
"No idea. Those fireballs just suddenly started going berserk."
Would they settle down just because you don't know? If it were that easy, why would we even be needed?
And fireballs? That's a slur against a race, and this supposed professional aide just blurts it out without a second thought?
My own attendant, reading my expression, hurriedly added, "Perhaps you should go to the Gustatory Officer first, sir. If this keeps up, she's going to be roasted alive."
The moment those words left his mouth, a girl in the distance — barely enduring the spirits' wrath with her whole body — spotted me and threw both hands up in the air.
"Ch-Chief Central Officerrrr!!"
That was exactly the face of a child lost in a marketplace, abandoned for three hours, then dramatically reunited with her parents.
Upon spotting me, the Gustatory Officer dodged past the azure pillars of flame and came sprinting toward us at a frankly astonishing speed.
Then she seized me by the trouser leg and wailed, dignity as an Immigration Officer be damned,
"Save me, save me, save meeeee!"
A whiff of singed hair drifted past. I lowered my gaze to find that the Gustatory Officer's naturally curly hair — she was a nomad from the Eastern steppes, after all — had been blown up into something resembling an afro bomb.
"Gustatory Officer. I came because you said you needed help."
State your business first, at least. Procedure is procedure.
"Within the bounds of this officer's discretion, I will cooperate in good faith. What do you need from me?"
"Everything!"
I squeezed my eyes shut. A headache unlike any I'd ever known came crashing in.
She couldn't even articulate what the problem was or what she was struggling with, and her answer is everything?
Re-education is confirmed for this one. We're starting her over from Hell's Basic Training.
'First, contain this mess.'
Letting out a long sigh, I unfolded my arms from behind my back and pried the girl off my leg.
"You certainly do look like you need a great deal of it. What on earth did you do?"
The Gustatory Officer's bright eyes welled up.
"W-well, I... I mean, this officer... Among the other visitors there were some people from the North, so I just asked them if it wouldn't be rude for them to lower their heat, that's all...?"
Hm. And that made them this angry? That doesn't add up.
Fire spirits are famous among elementals for their gentleness toward other races. One of their nicknames is literally 'Friend of the Hearth,' for heaven's sake.
Besides, they know exactly how much heat they radiate. If anyone's nearby, they instinctively suppress it.
"Is that all? Did you commit any other discourtesy toward them?"
"Other than that, I... as far as this officer knows, there was nothing else, eeeee..."
She didn't have the face of a liar. It was possible she really had made some mistake without even realizing it.
"Then this sounds like a misunderstanding between racial cultures. Did you attempt to resolve it through conversation?"
"Ah, um... th-that is..."
The Gustatory Officer shuffled her feet, stalling.
"As an Immigration Officer, did you politely request a dialogue?"
She answered in a voice shrinking into the ground, forced out against her will.
"Th-they don't speak the common tongue, so... I couldn't."
"I beg your pardon?"
The absurdity of the answer wrung a double-take out of me.
"Even if not the common tongue, couldn't you have communicated in some other language?"
Do you have any idea how many languages exist in this world?
Common tongue aside, there's Runic, which the elves use. There are the pictographs of the ancient races.
Heck, there are sign systems made entirely of pictures.
The spirits use all of those too, and it never crossed her mind?
The minimum qualification for an Immigration Officer is fluency in three languages, you know?
Only then, as if the solution had finally dawned on her, the Gustatory Officer went wide-eyed and replied,
"Oh! I never thought of that!"
Good grief.
-Stagger.
"Ch-Chief Central Officer!"
I only stayed on my feet because my personal attendant barely caught me as I swayed from the shock.
"You didn't even try that, and you called this officer — who was minutes from going home — into work— ahem! You called this officer here, is that it?"
As I spoke with fury packed tight between every syllable, the Gustatory Officer hunched her shoulders to her ears.
"I-I'm sorry! You were the only person I could think of, Chief Central Officer..."
At that moment, her direct aide, standing behind her, cut in abruptly.
"Actually, I did attempt it."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"While the Gustatory Officer was in a state of panic, I tried communicating with those fireballs using Runic and hand gestures."
There she goes again with the fireballs. The slur just fires off automatically, doesn't it.
This is why nomads need to be retrained in etiquette from the ground up.
Setting that aside, though.
"And how did that go?"
"Complete failure. They didn't understand a word. It seems... they only speak the Spirit Tongue."
At that, my own attendant behind me frowned.
"The Spirit Tongue. No wonder dialogue was impossible."
"Ah, damn it."
My face twisted into exactly the same grimace.
The Spirit Tongue.
A language woven from mana itself — the oldest in the world, and one that can never be imitated by a mortal mouth.
Only now did I replay the words the fire spirit had spoken moments ago.
"HERHANAHIN!!!"
Words I hadn't heard with my ears so much as felt, driven directly into my mind.
Come to think of it, spirits have no vocal cords. A being made of elemental matter could hardly possess such a thing.
Their humanoid shape, after all, was nothing more than flame wearing the silhouette of a person.
But most spirits understand at least Runic — the language of the elves, who live closest to mana.
'If even Runic doesn't reach them, this must be quite an ancient line of their kind.'
It was clearly an ancient race, incapable of even minimal communication. The most finicky sort of spirit there is — one answerable only to the Spirit Tongue — and we'd landed ourselves exactly that.
It was only natural that the Gustatory Officer, who couldn't have known any of this, lacked both the experience and the wit to appease them.
It was equally natural that she couldn't even guess why they were angry.
'Frankly, calling me in a panic was the best move available to her.'
By the time I thought that far, my anger had cooled somewhat.
Nothing would change by grinding her down further. She was already trembling like a drowned rat, and honestly, the sight of it was starting to look pitiful.
'Whatever else, better to hear it straight from the party doing the raging.'
Having finally grasped the rough shape of the situation, I relaxed my expression.
"Very well. This officer will handle them personally."
"What? Are you... going to be all right? They look awfully angry..."
"That much is plain to anyone with eyes."
I turned my gaze toward the two spirits still burning blue in the distance.
'Now, then. How do we do this?'
Ordinary fire spirits take the form of young, beautiful women wreathed in orange flame, radiating a pleasant warmth and a gentle smile as a bonus.
These two, however, were blue flames in the shape of muscular men.
Worse, despite the blast furnace of heat around them, they weren't suppressing it at all — on top of that, they were venting pillars of fire directly over their own heads.
'That is genuine, bona fide fury.'
So this is what it feels like to see again the one scene I'd witnessed exactly once in my entire career. How nostalgic.
They were all but declaring that if things went poorly, they would burn everything here to ash — a posture bordering on outright threat.
Somehow, I had to calm them. Otherwise those pillars of flame would soon become a firestorm that swallowed this entire area.
Spirits are creatures excessively honest with their own emotions, after all.
Just then, my attendant asked carefully, "Shall we call the border guard? If they refuse to submit to control, this will escalate."
"No, there's no need."
Call those blockheads over a crisis? Are you insane?
They'd turn this into a real violence incident — no, an arson incident — and then my zero-accident record would be dust, wouldn't it?
"I'll go and see. I can't resolve anything until I at least attempt a conversation."
"What? Th-then I'll come with you! If we've done something wrong, I should at least apolog—"
"No. You will stay here."
"B-but..."
She pushed out her lips and looked up at me.
"That sulky face won't get you anywhere. And even if you came along, you'd be nothing but dead weight."
"Uuu... th-that's so mean..."
Ignoring the Gustatory Officer as she wilted under my cold honesty, I walked straight toward the fire spirits.
Seeing me approach, the two spirits blasted their flames even harder into the sky.
"HIRAH HERHANAHIN HITAH!"
-FwoooOOOOSH!
An unmistakable expression of grievance. With that furious cry, the hot wind grew fiercer still.
"Ngh!"
"Chief Central Officer!"
"Stay back! That is an order!"
The heat was no joke. But retreat was not an option.
A host must receive his guests properly. That is the first virtue of an Immigration Officer.
Rather, I advanced boldly — closer, straight into the fire — and the two spirits surged toward me in turn, looming with such menace that they seemed ready to incinerate me on the spot.
And at last, with exactly one step left between us, we stood face to face.
In that utterly uncontrolled heat, sweat began pouring down me despite the late autumn chill.
I did not wipe it away. Letting on that you're hot in front of a fire is poor manners.
Instead, I straightened my attire, then cleared my throat, slowly.
"Ahem. Ahem."
I gathered my whole mind and stilled my breathing.
"Hoooooh..."
Then, little by little, the energy within my body began to converge on my throat — precisely, on my vocal cords.
This familiar feeling.
That strange sensation of something alien scraping against my voice.
"Ssssaaah—"
I drew in a deep breath.
And then,
Between the two wildly raging pillars of fire, I opened my mouth.
****
Meanwhile, the Gustatory Officer, left behind, was going through hell.
"Wh-what do we dooo!? The Chief Central Officer is in danger!"
Spirits are ordinarily gentle creatures, slow to anger — but once their eyes roll back, they become lethally dangerous beings.
Because they are made of the elements themselves, their fury typically escalates to the level of a natural disaster.
And now her own clumsy, hapless incompetence had sent her direct superior off to face such spirits alone.
She wanted nothing more than to sprint over, prostrate herself before the spirits, and beg them to take their rage out on her instead — but the face of the Chief Central Officer's attendant, gripping her shoulders firmly, was the very picture of serenity.
"Yes, it's going splendidly."
"How is he planning to persuade someone he can't even talk to — I mean, spirits he can't talk to!? We need to call the b-border guard! The border guard!"
"Ah, you haven't been commissioned long, Gustatory Officer, so you wouldn't know. This will work out just fine."
"Aren't you worried, Attendant? Wh-what if he gets roasted golden brown like that? What about the funeral?"
"The state will handle that in his place. Besides, nothing of the sort is going to happen."
"But...!"
At the sight of the Gustatory Officer imagining worst-case scenarios, he shook his head as if to say it was nothing.
"Gustatory Officer. Do you know how the Chief Central Officer came to be the overall commander of the Southern Border, only four years after becoming an Immigration Officer?"
"What? Well... because he's extraordinarily good at his job, obviously..."
"That's true as well. But there's one more reason. A special ability that only the Chief Central Officer possesses."
"A special ability?"
The attendant smiled knowingly.
"The Chief Central Officer is a Talent Awakener — one of only ten said to exist on the entire continent. He can speak every language in this world."
"He can what?"
The Gustatory Officer's eyes went wide with astonishment and turned toward him in the distance.
"Even languages no human ability could ever produce."
At that very moment, far away, Nathan opened his mouth.
The surrounding air churned as a wave of mana — something no human mouth could ever produce — rolled out across the open lot.