If you use this map, you oughtta be able to get to the next country. Good luck, missy.
The head of the village I had stayed in the day before had said something like that and pressed a map into my hands, so I had tried my best to follow it.
I spent half a day flying my broom at a low altitude, grazing the ground with the map in one hand. Sure enough, I eventually made it to my destination without incident.
Still, well, how should I put it…?
"..."
This place is a ruin, isn't it? There's nothing here.
Everything was dead. The gate closing off the outside world was left open, and I flew right in without getting off my broom. The interior was in the same state—some houses were roofless, overgrown with moss; some were just skeletal structures; some had been reduced to so much rubble. Rubbish, debris, wreckage everywhere.
There was no sign of life at all, let alone people. Surely, the residents had left long ago. The palace, the symbol of any nation, had retained a comparatively decent exterior, though of course it, too, was abandoned. The outer wall was so full of cracks it seemed like it might crumble at the slightest tap. The wooden door to the palace, however, was unyielding whether I pushed or pulled.
"…Hmm."
I was at a loss. No, really.
Let me see, what should I do? I sat down on the stairs leading to the palace and started to pout, but there was no one here to ask if I was okay, so I just hung my head instead.
Do I spend another half day going back the way I came? Or do I spend a night here? These were the two options open to me. And I didn't want to choose either of them. If I tried to follow the road I had come down, night would fall before I reached a place to stay.
Even if I made it back to the village without incident, I didn't know if there was an inn there that would welcome me in. But deciding to forget about the village and sleep here was a troubling proposition, too.
I mean, this place was in ruins.
"…Sigh."
Unfortunately, staying the night in the abandoned palace was the lesser of two evils, and that's what I chose.
When push comes to shove…I really don't want to, but there's no way around it.
I'll stay here.
I stood up. I had to search for a place to sleep.
After surveying the small city from above on my broom, I concluded that the most intact building was the palace. The houses were not an option. Most of them were so crumbled they were useless.
The door to the palace was shut tight, but if you thought about it, the place was already uninhabited.
...Is it okay? …I can do this, right?
"…Hng." After checking to make sure there was no one around, I used a spell to set the door aflame, reducing it to ash in moments.
"Pardon the intrusion…" I went in.
Despite the cracked exterior, the inside of the palace was still in good condition. It was covered in dust, but I had no objections to sleeping there.
Well then, let's start the search. First up is securing a bedroom.
The empty castle was filled with an eerie atmosphere. It was vaguely disquieting, as if some strange thing might leap out at me at any moment. Feeling a curious chill, I searched for the stairs. I had walked through quite a few palaces as a traveler, so I knew very well that there would be no room to suit my purposes on the first floor. If there was a bedroom, it would be on the second floor. There should also be the bedrooms for the royal family higher up.
I found the stairs within minutes of starting my search and walked up along the dusty carpet.
And then…
"Who are you?"
…I heard a voice.
Reeling as if I had been stabbed in the heart, I looked up and saw a girl standing on the stairs in front of me.
I was about to cry, for more than one reason.
"I didn't think anyone was living here."
"I didn't expect anyone to come by."
She had shown me to an elegant bedroom. As far as furnishings went, there was only a desk and a bed, but the room was quite spacious. I guessed that the entire house I had stayed at in the previous village could fit inside this room. What is this? What's going
on? Has she been sleeping here? It's so luxurious.
"Where did you come from?" She pulled out a chair (a very expensive-looking chair, glittering in pointless gilded splendor) and sat down, then looked at me gently.
"I came from a country far, far away," I said, "I am a traveler."
"May I ask your name?"
"Elaina."
"Is that so? I am Mirarose. Nice to meet you." She smiled.
She had hair as red as blood, and as unkempt as if she'd been zapped with electricity. She wore a tattered dress, too. I was anxious that she might be prone to violence, but she seemed much nicer than I had expected.
"Why are you here, Mirarose?"
"…I don't know."
"Huh? What do you mean, you don't know?"
"I don't know why I'm here." Mirarose's expression twisted. "When I awoke, I was in this ruined place."
"That's…"
It must be amnesia. But how? The country hadn't met its demise yesterday or today. Even by a conservative estimate, it had already been in shambles for at least a month.
I asked her the first thing that came to mind. "Why haven't you left?
You could probably live a better life if you moved somewhere else instead of staying here. If you need money, I'm sure you can find some."
If necessity arises, you can always steal valuables from the castle, too.
"..."
She seemed to mull it over for a little while, and then stood up. She pulled a single piece of paper out of a desk drawer and beckoned me over. "Here's the reason why I can't leave."
She showed me the paper. It was covered from top to bottom in messy, meandering handwriting.
It seemed to be a letter. At her urging, I read it.
You, reading this letter, are the queen Mirarose. You know nothing, but I am certain of this.
Why are you here? Why is everything you see outside the window ruined? Why don't you have any memories?
You must be bewildered, faced with all these unknowns, but I want you to be at ease. I will endeavor to explain a bit.
If you are expecting this letter to unravel the great tangle of mysteries you face, you will be disappointed. But at least you can avoid ending your life early with a bad decision. In
other words, if you don't wish to die, read on.
By the way, is it currently daytime there, or is it evening? I'll write with the assumption that it's night. If it happens to be daytime, well, you can just tuck away into a corner of your mind the knowledge that what I am about to tell you will be
important later.
I want you to look out the window. You will see a monster on a rampage, I'm sure. That monster is the devil that destroyed this land and the source of your amnesia. It has no
name. If we were to borrow from the name of this place and give it a provisional name, we could call it the Javalier.
It rises at sunset and destroys everything it can until sunrise. If you leave the castle to find food, I recommend going during the day. You are safe inside there, as it is the only place the Javalier will not enter.
The goal of the Javalier is to kill everyone in this land. Every night it comes here and goes on a rampage, searching for the last remaining person.
That person, of course, is you.
It hunts for the last queen of an empty country. I'm begging you, please do not leave this place. If you do, the Javalier will follow you wherever you go. This is my one
request to you.
I want you to kill the Javalier using your magical powers.
You are trapped here until you do, so I don't think you have much choice in the matter. As a witch, you have your magic, so you should be able to take down the Javalier easily. Please kill that monster for our sakes.
For your own, so that you may live.
And for everyone who died in sorrow.
Night fell.
The letter was right; the Javalier was indeed a monster. Its body was huge, about the same height as the decaying buildings, and it was covered in scales as black as midnight.
It had been named the Javalier, but it looked exactly like a dragon if you removed the wings. I can't say for sure, but maybe that resemblance was why it had the terrifying power to breathe fire. It crushed buildings with its big, brawny arms and razed houses to the ground, searching for the last remaining person: Mirarose. It was in
an absolute fit of rage.
"Wait, Mirarose, you're a witch?"
"Wait, Elaina, you're a witch?"
"Come on, you can tell I'm a witch by looking at me." I was so
obviously dressed in a witchy fashion. Can't you see the brooch?
"Just joking." Mirarose let out a light chuckle as we watched the monster raging outside.
I followed her gaze. "The person who wrote that letter made a really unreasonable demand, don't you think?"
"They sure did. To fight and win against a monster like that…it's a fool's errand."
"…Come to think of it"—there was something bothering me—"why did they say that only the palace is safe?"
"I have no idea."
Oh yeah, that's right.
"Isn't that letter a little odd? All it really told you was that a monster comes here at night and that you have to kill it, right?"
Although all the little details of Mirarose's current situation were recorded in the letter, the most crucial information was missing.
Why did the Javalier appear, and why was it tearing the place apart?
Why was this girl the only person left alive? What was the relationship between the Javalier and her amnesia?
Mysteries, mysteries, and more mysteries. The letter was cleverly cut short, as if to intentionally avoid telling Mirarose the whole story.
Why on earth would someone do that?
"There is a lot I don't know, but I am Mirarose, the queen—and my country was destroyed by a monster. If those are the facts, then I have an obligation to defeat it… Don't you think?"
"Have you fought that thing?" I pointed to the monster outside the window, and she shook her head.
"Not yet."
"You would never, ever fight a thing like that if you could avoid it, huh?"
"Totally."
"How many days has it been since you first saw the monster, Mirarose?"
"Only seven. Not that much time has passed since I woke up. The place was already destroyed then."
She looked up at the sky. A round moon was glowing pale in the jetblack sky, whichshimmered with starlight. I wonder how she's feeling right now.
I didn't know. Nor could I know.
"..."
After a brief silence, Mirarose opened her mouth to speak.
"Tomorrow night, I'm going to fight that monster."
"Do you have any hope of winning?"
I didn't know whether I would be capable of challenging the Javalier and emerging victorious, myself. It was probably so strong that you could kill it twice and it would still come back to win the fight in the end.
"Of course I do. In the week since I awoke, I've been recalling how to use my magic bit by bit. I think I must have had considerable mastery of it before I lost my memory." She put her hand on her hip.
"Well, do your best. I'll be cheering you on…from a safe distance."
"Oh, you won't help me?"
"What good would that do me?"
"…At least you're honest. I can't really fault you for that."
"Well, thanks for that."
After that, we allowed ourselves to indulge in a friendly chat while watching the massive Javalier continue its rampage. It was a little ridiculous.
For a place to sleep, Mirarose allowed me to use one of the former servants' beds. I was grateful. It was soft and fluffy.