Chapter 39

Chapter 39 : Ice Blue (3)

“They say there is a hottest flame that blooms in the coldest place. Look for it if you ever have the chance. There is a legend that says it grants wishes.”

I had been summoned from early morning, so I could not overcome my drowsiness and waited at the meeting place with my mind half gone.

The story Selly had told me a few days ago had stirred my curiosity, but I had let it pass in one ear and out the other.

There was always at least one common legend like that. The sort that encouraged childlike wonder with wordplay.

Still, considering it had kept circling in my head and even appeared in my dreams, perhaps the image had been drawn too vividly in my mind.

A flower blooming loftily in a snowfield buried beneath a blizzard and extreme cold, scattering blue flames……?

Sitting on the long bench in the quiet immigration hall with my eyes half-lidded, waiting for someone to come pick me up, grew a little boring.

Maybe I should have brought my notebook.

I could complete the commission and deal with Pan’s whining. Two birds with one stone, and if I was lucky, I might even get a hint about the production method. If I was even luckier, perhaps I might intervene in the Original Work too.

Thinking that this schedule would not be all that easy, I glared at the entrance again.

Two figures were strolling in from far away, utterly leisurely and relaxed.

“You are early.”

“Good morning, Riwin.”

I stared at the two of them as they even waved at me in greeting, then checked the time again. I wondered whether I had gotten it wrong.

“It has already been an hour since the time I was told to come, and the two of you are remarkably relaxed.”

“We deliberately called you an hour early.”

“What?”

“It woke you up, did it not? Time for meditation, or something like that.”

I considered grabbing him by the collar, then gave up. Even if I did, I could already picture Pan cackling as he enjoyed my reaction.

Pressing hard at my eyelids, which were heavy with sleep, I rose from my seat.

“So where are we going?”

“Please wait a moment. I will go purchase the tickets.”

Pering dumped Pan onto me and disappeared toward the inner information counter at a very brisk pace. Feeling as though I had been saddled with luggage, I turned my head and stared hard at Pan.

“Why? What? Now what?”

“Go a little easier on your aide.”

“I am already taking it slow enough.”

“I meant not the work, but…….”

I was talking about that mischief-filled attitude of his.

I shrugged and followed Pan as he began walking. Since Pering would bring the tickets, we were supposed to head first toward the Gate leading to Sky’s Domain.

“You are following along more obediently than I expected.”

“Is that supposed to be a provocation?”

“I am just surprised.”

“You were the one who told me to go.”

“I heard you accepted a Fixer commission. Is it because of that?”

I stopped walking and stared hard at Pan.

For a moment, I wondered where the information had leaked from for him to know what I was doing—then belatedly realized my mistake.

Even if it was not me, he had seen everything.

The forest was not a place one lived in alone.

There were the four who came and went from the office all the time, the ones who rested there to escape their backlogged work, and the members of the forest who visited every day because they said there were fascinating things to see.

Pan had simply seen the members of the forest, and by extension, he had seen me beside them too.

This was an invasion of privacy.

I frowned and took one step away from Pan.

“Why are you looking at me as though I am a pervert?”

“Oh…….”

You understood that perfectly.

“You really have a hard life too.”

Having to know what you do not want to see, what you must see, and what you want to see, without distinction.

“What exactly did you imagine? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Right. The fact that you have not gone insane already means you are doing more than enough.

I shrugged and pushed Pan from behind, urging him onward.

The crow-tit, which had been quietly dozing on my shoulder, woke in surprise at the movement and began pecking at the nape of my neck with its beak.

I raised a hand and patted the crow-tit’s head firmly, then raised my brows at Pan, who had stopped with his arms folded.

“What? Did you not say it would be fine because only a few people can recognize it as a Phantasmal Species? I got permission to bring it along.”

“That is one thing. What was the commission about?”

“Are you interested?”

“……A little?”

“Do not ask unless you are going to solve it for me. No, before that, why are you testing me when you have already heard everything?”

If he could peek, then he must have heard it all already. Even if that was not the case, Pan’s hands and feet, who would happily tattle to him, were coming and going almost every day. The structure made it impossible for him not to know, even if he wanted to.

Besides, although he was pretending to harden his face stiffly and look full of displeasure, the corners of his mouth kept twitching as though he was forcing back a smile.

That was simply a provocation from someone who already knew most of it.

If I could receive his help, I had no reason to refuse.

But if Pan was asking now, then it was either because he wanted to interfere, or because he wanted to tease me.

Fortunately, just as I sighed and was about to say something, Pering returned.

“What is this atmosphere between you two? Let us go. We are short on time until the dock.”

“The dock?”

When I voiced my question at the unfamiliar word, Pan, who had been grumbling for a while, sidled closer and explained.

Sky’s Domain was situated on top of a gigantic life-form that swam through the sky.

It had a route it followed periodically, and there were docks where one could board it during its resting periods.

In other words, the place we were heading to now was not Sky’s Domain itself, but the dock that would let us get there.

I wondered why, of all things, it had to be a dock, but Pan shut his mouth, saying I should see for myself.

The Gate required us to pass through another tunnel inside. I had always wondered why this place was called an “immigration hall,” and now I learned that Gates existed to pass through each domain.

From the designated Gate to the dock, and from the dock to Sky’s Domain.

I imagined one of those enormous warp circles one only saw in books or movies, but I was left feeling a little deflated.

After we passed through the dark wooden passage, what appeared there was merely a single door blocking the path.

Its defining features were that the door was large enough for an elephant to pass through easily, and that it seemed to have been carved from smooth stone like marble.

“Have a pleasant trip!”

The employee guiding us in front of the door operated something, and the door slid open. Beyond it lay a completely different view.

At a glance, it looked as though blue waves were rolling.

From far away came the sound of waves—

“Riwin, if you go that way, that is a cliff.”

Pering caught my arm, tilted his head, and pulled me back.

If Pering had not stopped me just before I wandered off the path as though entranced and stepped into the mist, I would have fallen straight off the cliff.

What I had thought were waves was dense mist. It surged beyond the horizon, rolling over mountains in the wind and winding around gorges.

I glanced back at the closed door behind me, then safely reached the place called the dock at the cliff’s edge under Pering’s guidance.

The dock was shaped like a flat, broad rock jutting out alone into empty air. In other words, I had truly come within a hair’s breadth of death.

“You are not even a child, so how did you get fooled by something like that?”

“Maybe you should have explained it first?”

“If you looked roughly, the energy…… no, of course you would not have recognized it.”

“Yes, yes.”

Lowly me is merely Slave No. 1, forced to obey.

Sick of it and thoroughly annoyed, I folded my arms and sat down on a chair placed at the dock.

Beside it, the light of a streetlamp with a curved tip flickered.

“Who is in charge of repairing this place? Why is it still like that?”

Pan looked at the streetlamp and asked Pering.

“The person in charge of repairs retired last month, and a newcomer took over…… but from what I heard, he ran away.”

“Ran away? Where?”

“To Mist’s Domain.”

Pering pointed to the rolling mist at the edge of the cliff where I had nearly fallen.

So that must be Mist’s Domain.

“Of all places, why run to the Mist……?”

“His senior was from the Mist.”

“Ah, the one who came with Ochel?”

“Yes. That is why things are said to be unstable for the time being. This Gate was used after as much stabilization work as possible, but we will have a difficult time on the way back.”

“That will become a headache. Would it be better to stop by the Spring on the way back instead?”

“Your personal motives are showing.”

As I listened carefully to their conversation, a question arose.

What exactly was that streetlamp for them to be worrying so seriously about the future, and why was there even a separate repair person for it?

When I glanced up, the pale vermilion light flickered again.

I tapped Pan, who was sitting beside me, and pointed at the streetlamp.

“What is that thing, anyway?”

“Ah…….”

“Please stop looking at me like I am an idiot who does not even know the basics.”

“Did my eyes say that? Surely not.”

He was still holding a grudge over my earlier pervert remark.

Not that it did any damage.

When I stared at Pan expressionlessly, he cleared his throat and hooked one arm over the backrest of the bench.

“That is an energy-maintenance device and sensor.”

“……?”

With no understanding of this world’s power system, there was no way I could know what that really meant just by hearing the words.

I stared at Pan in place of a question.

“It visually shows the stability of the Gate we passed through.”

“Then if it is flickering now…….”

“It means it is extremely unstable and would not be strange if it blew at any moment.”

I tilted my head back again and stared at the flickering streetlamp.

If that thing exploded, what would happen to me sitting here?

“I have to admire your nerve, sitting here without the slightest hesitation.”

“Haa…… please tell me the important things in advance.”

Pan cackled, then put on a feignedly serious expression, brought his hand to my ear, and bent his upper body down.

“The plan has changed. You are going to be discarded before we reach the main city where the negotiations are taking place.”

“……?”

The work Pan had demanded from me was to attend during the negotiations as a witness and show that I, despite being Underfolk, was fitting in and adapting well to the Surface World. The plan was to use that to steer the agenda in their favor.

“Discarded?”

“Yes. You have to go to the second city.”

“What are you scheming? If you are going to explain, do it before we arrive.”

Ice Blue pigment was an item only handled in the main city.

The very same main city where the negotiations were taking place.

But what? The second city?

Pan stared at me as I grew flustered, then curled up the corners of his mouth in a sly smile.

“That is because…….”

At first, it was a shadow.

My gaze was stolen by the dense shadow encroaching from the edge of the broad rock, and the darkness that soon swallowed even Pan and me made me lift my head of its own accord.

The streetlamp flickered eerily and wavered.

A pure white cloud crossed the sky, and beyond it, a whale that had swallowed the sky emerged.

It pressed down on me as though an enormous mountain range had been hurled into the sky whole and was now falling over my head.

More than anything, the red threads filling the space around it and clinging to it insisted that its true identity was a Phantasmal Species.

It looked as though all the Power of Phantasm across the land had plastered itself to it, holding fast and refusing to let go.

I was so enthralled by that vast and enormous sight that I stopped thinking altogether.

“You are bewitched. Completely bewitched.”

Just as I was beginning to feel something like awe, Pan’s palm waved across my entire field of vision.

I glared half-lidded at Pan for throwing cold water on my first full, satisfying moment of appreciation in ages, then remembered that he had stopped mid-sentence.

“Go on with what you were saying earlier.”

“You were the one whose mind wandered.”

“You could have said it before that.”

“Please stop arguing, both of you, and prepare. It is time.”

Even as Pering forcibly dragged him away, Pan grumbled the entire time and did not explain properly.

When I stood on a round circle similar to the pattern I had seen at the Execution Ground, it began shining as though prepared in advance.

I opened my eyes wide, wondering whether this was the real warp, and only after seeing Pan’s grinning eyes did I realize something was going wrong.

“Someone invited you. Go there first and come back.”

Pan patted my shoulder, and the two of them stepped outside the glowing circle.

It happened before I could react.

Just before I vanished, wrapped in light, Pan pointed at the pocket of my clothes.

Besides the crow-tit, I felt a rustling sheet of paper.