Letters Carried on a Summer Night
Kugugugugu—
Late at night.
Simon, who had been asleep in bed, rubbed his eyes and pushed himself up at the sudden noise.
"Mmmgh."
Blinking with a dazed expression, he climbed out of bed and shuffled across the floor. Then he flung the window open and looked toward the source of the sound.
Not far from here, high up in the mountains.
Not over the sea, but along the mountain ridge, fish that looked like deep-sea creatures were swimming through open air. The surroundings had turned into something like the bottom of the ocean—rocks and trees floated idly about as though the whole area had been submerged.
Simon leaned his elbows on the windowsill and rested his chin in his hands.
"I feel a little bad for the President."
Every night when Phantasos fell asleep, he produced strange phenomena that came close to a dungeon's anomalies. Because of that, he couldn't sleep indoors; he made a habit of bedding down on remote mountaintops instead.
Pwang!
Just then, the phenomenon dissolved. Like the bubble from a sleeper's nose popping, the fish around him vanished, and the trees and rocks that had hung in the air drifted gently down to rest.
Phantasos had woken from his sleep.
Simon turned away from the window. He pulled a fur-lined robe from the closet and draped it over his shoulders, pushed the window open wider, and swung a leg over the sill.
Then he leapt straight down from his second-floor room.
There was no particular reason to go see him. He was simply awake, and felt like keeping the man some company.
Phantasos was a necromancer who specialized in the Sleep curse, yet he had once said that in all his years, he had almost never managed a sound night's rest.
Simon clambered up the mountainside.
And a short while later.
"Hah... hah..."
Had he been having a nightmare? Phantasos was drenched in sweat from head to toe, gasping for breath. He whipped his head around.
"Who's there!"
With a sharp crackle of grass, Simon emerged from the thicket.
"It's me, President."
"...Ah, my successor."
Phantasos let out a faint laugh and sighed.
"What brings you all the way out here?"
Simon walked over matter-of-factly and plopped himself down beside Phantasos.
"Couldn't sleep, that's all."
"Hah hah hah! Is that so? As it happens, neither could I."
Simon glanced around.
The whole area looked as though it had been bombed—craters and shattered stone everywhere.
"It's a kind of side effect of my curse."
Before Simon could even ask, Phantasos spoke first.
"...A side effect?"
"Yes. I grew so obsessed with the Sleep curse that I craved ever greater power."
He pulled off his shirt. The permanent magic circles etched across his body writhed and squirmed like living things.
"I honed Sleep to its absolute limit in pursuit of Compello... ah, but saying that would mean nothing to you. Let's just say I crossed lines that should never be crossed—over and over again."
Simon's eyes flew wide open.
"Compello! I know about that!"
"You do?"
"Yes. I've experienced it a few times myself."
Phantasos gave an intrigued "ho?" of surprise.
"Naturally slipping into a trance state like you do—that's a fine thing. But I tore open the gates of Compello artificially every single time, and in the end something went wrong... Hm? Why that expression all of a sudden?"
Simon's face had gone deathly serious. He held out his open palm.
"You mean something like this?"
On his palm, Simon traced the magic circle of Compellonia.
Phantasos jerked upright in shock.
"Where did you learn that?"
His voice was utterly grave. Simon hesitated over whether to answer honestly, then decided that if anyone could be trusted with it, it was Phantasos.
"From Professor Bahil of the Curse Studies department."
"Professor Bahil... that man."
Phantasos pressed both palms flat against the ground and leaned back.
"That man, too, then..."
"Pardon?"
"No. Nothing."
Simon's eyes sharpened. From his reaction, it seemed Phantasos hadn't learned Compellonia from Bahil—but from someone else entirely.
"This is a word of advice for my successor: you'd best seal that curse away and never touch it again. The world doesn't need another victim like me."
Simon nodded.
"I've been doing exactly that ever since I used it once. I decided the technique was simply too dangerous."
"Oh, admirable! You tasted it once and still held yourself back?"
"Yes."
Simon was a necromancer too, of course—he had felt the pull.
The first time he had activated Compellonia, he had gained the Void, and from that technique he had distilled Chaos. So what would he gain the next time? And the time after that? Wasn't Compellonia the fastest, easiest road to power there was?
But he had held back.
"I will place a curse upon this world."
Because he had understood that Professor Bahil hadn't approached him out of pure goodwill.
"Hup!"
Simon stretched his arms to the sky and shattered the heavy mood.
"Well then, since neither of us can sleep—tell me a story."
"What kind of story?"
"Your days at Kizen, President. You drop little fragments of it in the middle of training sometimes, and it drives me crazy. I've been wanting to hear it properly, from beginning to end, someday."
The corners of Phantasos's mouth climbed all the way to his ears.
"HAHAHA! Great storytelling is the one domain where this Phantasos reigns supreme!"
And so Simon spent the rest of the night listening to Phantasos's Kizen tales.
The two had more in common than most. Like Simon, Phantasos had entered Kizen with no advanced preparation and no background knowledge, and he had stumbled through his share of failures.
"I never learned the Sleep curse because I wanted it, you know."
He stared down at his own palm, then clenched it into a tight fist.
"Sleep was all I could do."
Back then, Sleep was held in poor regard. A mere support curse—or worse, dismissed as the single least versatile spell in existence, fit only for trapping monsters. His fellow students had laughed to see him fight his Duel Evaluations with nothing but Sleep.
But in his second year, at long last, his potential erupted.
"That was this Phantasos's true debut match!"
he declared, worked up all over again.
"The rules sent groups of a hundred onto an island to fight. And the instant the exam began, I put all ninety-nine of them to sleep right where they stood! The exam simply became a competition between the remaining ninety-nine—minus me!"
"Oh!"
Simon cried out in admiration, and Phantasos raised his fist to the sky.
"That feeling—when the students who'd always stood above me woke up and stared at me, utterly bewildered! Do you understand it?"
Simon grinned and knocked his fist against the older man's.
"Hearing it, I feel it right down to my bones."
And so Phantasos grew stronger and stronger, claimed the Student Council presidency in his third year, and was even offered the youngest seat ever in the Crow.
Though of course, he had turned down that glorious position of his own accord and lived on as an adventurer.
"And now the Student Council President of Kizen is you."
Phantasos said, gazing up at a night sky smeared with the Milky Way.
"Among the second-years, you know my younger sister."
"Yes, I know of her. I've never actually seen her face, though."
Merida Hugh Ikel.
Special Admission No. 4, and a prodigy who had held fourth place in the final rankings as well.
"Frankly, I assumed you'd recommend her for the presidency."
"Haha! My sister's vessel is too small for the role! She lives forever in this Phantasos's shadow, incapable of leading a life of her own!"
He shook his head.
"Her talent outstrips mine. It's her mindset that falls short."
"...Haha."
"Well. If only for that girl's sake—"
Phantasos flashed him a grin.
"Make this school a good one."
Simon nodded.
"Leave it to me."
White Ox Trading Company, headquarters.
Warehouse 17.
Creeeak.
Creeeak.
Dim lighting. Mottes of dust drifting through the air. And in the corner, grain sacks stacked into a mountain.
In exactly this stifling space, a boy slumped against a chair, rocking his body back and forth.
All around him, every manner of half-finished invention lay scattered across the floor.
Before long, a groan burst from the lips of the boy slumped in the chair.
"Borreeeeed."
Then he wilted again.
Creeeak— creeeak— Only the hollow creak of the chair echoed through the emptiness.
BANG!
Just then, the warehouse door flew open. Light spilled into the darkness.
"Dick! Di-Dick!"
"Di-Di-Dick!"
The fourth son, Bill Hayward, and the fifth son, Al Hayward, came clattering in.
"...Boys, let me correct you for the hundred and thirty-seventh time."
Dick said.
"My name is not Di-Dick, and it is not Di-Di-Dick. It's Dick. One syllable. Say it once. Understood, you testicle brothers?"
"You're the one with dementia at your age!"
"We're not the testicle brothers, we're the Bill-and-Al brothers! Get it right!"
"Potato, po-tah-to."
The three brothers snickered at their own dumb jokes.
"Oh! Right! Di-Dick! A letter came from Simon!"
At those words, Dick's head snapped up from his slump.
"So the awaited hour has finally arrived!"
He snatched the letter out of his brothers' hands and spun in a triumphant circle.
"Simon, my best friend, my roommate, my partner in soul! Your reply is far too late! And yet I have already seen through it—this is precisely the kind of high-level strategy that drives women wild with longing!"
"Bro. You sound kind of insane."
"What novel did you get that from?"
"Silence, testicle brothers!"
In a flash he tore open the envelope and skimmed the letter—and sheer delight spread across Dick's face.
"...The boring, dull, endless vacation ends today!"
He hurled the empty envelope toward the ceiling and shouted.
"A trip! We're going on a TRIP!"
Bill and Al loudly repeated after him: "A trip! We're going on a TRIP!"
"The flower of any vacation is a trip! And not just any trip—a cozy little getaway with just a few close friends! Well then, my dear brothers, I must be off to research the finest travel destinations!"
Envy brimmed in Bill and Al's eyes.
"That sounds so fun!"
"Can't you take us with you?"
Dick chuckled as he strolled out of the warehouse.
"Tsk tsk! Do you want Dad to beat you to death? Spend the rest of your lives moving boxes, testicle brothers!"
"No way! We're getting into Kizen next year too! Di-Dick!"
"Core contact. Opening negotiations immediately! Di-Di-Dick!"
Dick laughed loudly and disappeared out the warehouse door.
The city of vampires.
Touzeran.
"Yes! YES! Keep that fire coming! Show me what you've got, my daughter Camibarez!"
Beneath a blood-red moon, two figures clashed fiercely in an open lot.
On one side stood the Vampire Lord, Dietrich Ursula. And on the other, a girl caught in a raging torrent of dark crimson blood. She sprinted along the face of a building, fangs flashing.
"Do not be ruled by the blood! Resist your nature and hold your reason firm!"
THeong!
The girl burst through the building wall in a leap. Dietrich wrapped himself in his long cloak.
BOOOOM!
The clash thundered across the whole city. Soon, the girl's strength gave out, and the crimson torrent slowly receded.
From within it emerged a small girl with light-violet hair, gasping for breath.
Dietrich smiled.
"Well done."
Sending her to Kizen had been the right call. The daughter who had once been fragile in body and spirit alike had returned transformed—at least where her will was concerned. Camibarez was now overcoming her physical weaknesses through sheer strength of mind.
That boy must have been a good influence on her.
Thinking of the human called Simon Polentia, his daughter's friend, Dietrich stroked his chin.
"My Lord."
Just then, a vampire in formal attire approached.
"Forgive the interruption during training, but a letter has arrived for the young miss."
"A letter?"
"Yes. From one named Simon Polentia—"
PAK!
At that instant, Camibarez's glazed eyes flashed, and she shot away in a streak of brilliant crimson light.
Oh no! I was certain I'd worn her out completely!
Dietrich shouted in alarm.
"Dodge!"
But it was too late.
In the blink of an eye the vampire was pinned to the ground, and Camibarez bared her fangs in a chillingly sweet smile above him. Beyond her, the moon glowed red as blood, and crimson light shimmered in her eyes—and against his own will, the vampire squeezed his eyes shut.
Shhff.
But there was no pain.
Only the letter slipping free from his grasp.
"Ah..."
When the vampire came to his senses, the sight before him was of a perfectly ordinary girl, cheeks flushed pink, smiling shyly down at him.
"S-sorry about that! I'll go read it inside first!"
Clutching the letter, she darted off into the building as if fleeing the scene.
The vampire sprawled on the ground blinked, understanding nothing.
"My daughter Camibarez! Must you not at least seal your fangs away first?!"
Dietrich scrambled after her in a panic.
"Later!"
Thud! The door slammed, and the sound of a bolt sliding home echoed through the lot. A short while later, Dietrich trudged back out of the building.
"M-My Lord?"
His shoulders hung utterly defeated.
"Snrk! Gold or jade, what use is any of it when it comes to raising a daughter!"
"...My Lord?"
The Langerstein Grand Theatre, the empty lot behind the stage.
A girl with sky-blue hair, seated on the ground, breathed out a plume of frost and opened her eyes. A great pillar of ice stood rising from the deserted theatre grounds.
She stared at the ice with a blank expression, and then—
"Achoo! Achoo!"
—sneezed. Sniffing back a runaway drip from her nose, she hugged her shoulders and shivered.
...Uuugh. Why is it that no matter how much stronger I get, I still can't stand the cold?
"Training again today?"
In the middle of her solo practice, a stranger's voice suddenly rang out. When Meilin spun around, her eyes went wide.
"So diligent as ever, Meilin."
A blue-haired boy in a Kizen uniform was walking toward her.
It was none other than—
S-Simon?!
"The way you give your whole heart to everything you do. That's the part of you I love."
Simon approached, his eyes glistening.
"And those blue eyes of yours—cheer—tthoo!"
Simon's line never made it to the end. Meilin's flying roundhouse kick caught him full in the face and sent him tumbling across the dirt.
Scarlet to the ears, Meilin sprang to her feet and shouted.
"Simon does NOT say cheesy lines like that!"
"...Haha."
Presently, someone else rose through the cloud of dust—not Simon, but a lean, middle-aged man with a sharply pointed nose.
"Y-your kicks are as devastating as ever, Agent Meilin."
The illusionist who had once posed as an operative in the Neutral Zone, deceiving Group 7 with his abilities—Seywir. These days, he was living a second life as an actor.
Meilin crossed her arms and gave an awkward laugh.
"The Neutral Zone mission was ages ago. How long are you planning to keep calling me 'Agent'?"
"It's just stuck in my head... ugh! I think my ribs went out."
As Seywir wobbled, Meilin turned away with a huff.
"Then don't shapeshift into Simon when you don't want to get kicked!"
"...But you requested it first, Agent Meilin. When we ran lines, you said the other actors' faces were too ugly. You specifically asked me to wear Agent Simon's face for immersion—"
"GYAAAH! AAAARGH! STOP! Shut your mouth!!"
Face burning scarlet, Meilin flailed her arms wildly. Seywir smiled faintly and held out a letter.
"A letter came—from that very Agent Simon."
"Really?"
Meilin brightened and dashed over, snatching the letter from his hand—then shot him a withering glare.
"If you opened it, you're dead. Actually dead."
"...I would never cross a line quite that far."
"Anyway, thanks for delivering it."
Seywir bowed his head lightly.
"I look forward to the final performance tomorrow as well. There are more than a few audience members who come back night after night, simply to lose themselves in Agent Meilin's voice."
"If I ever set foot in this place again, call me not human!"
With that, Meilin hugged the letter to her chest and scurried off at a quick trot.
"What have you even been doing all break, taking this long to reply?"
Then she tore the letter open and unfolded it.
As she traced Simon's neat handwriting, a smile spread slowly across Meilin's face.
By the time she finished reading, she closed her eyes and let the feeling linger.
"...Fine. Just this once, I'll let it slide."