Chapter 7: The Storm(8)

MISTERLP

The reason Madam Tiamat called me the key and invited me to the Star

Dragon Mountain Range. Was it not because I was a hero, but because I

was Japanese, or I was from Earth, or from another world?

The language I used... I didn't know whether it was because it was

Japanese, because it was a language of Earth, or because it was a language

from another world, but Madam Tiamat must have known it would be the

key to stopping that cube.

"It could be that Madam Tiamat is familiar with your world to some

degree," Hakuya said. "If Madam Tiamat was certain that you'd know

about ryuus, that means she must have known that the world you came

from had a concept of what a ryuu is."

"Madam Tiamat... knew about the world I came from?" I murmured.

I had this conversation with Hakuya just a few days ago.

We inferred that Madam Tiamat might know something about my

world. I was becoming convinced of that now. Madam Tiamat, the cube,

and the world I came from.

If there was some link between them, did that mean this world and that

world were connected in some way, too? In other words...

This world, which I thought was another world, might not actually be

another world.

Oh, geez... I just don't know anymore.

I had a lot of different speculations flying around in my head, but none

of them were any more than speculation.

Even if I wanted to make a judgment on it, I lacked the information to.

There was just one thing I knew about this world, and it was that I still

knew nothing about it. Just as my mind reached an extreme state of

confusion...

"I see... That's why Tiamat..."

The cube started saying something again.

"The fam... are still... not... lost..."

Its voice was cutting out. It was hard to make out what it was saying

like that, but it didn't seem angry, or sad. It sounded lonely, but almost like

it was praying for something.

"...iliar one... I have... request..."

"The fam... iliar one? Oh, familiar ones? But what is this request?" I

asked the cube.

Perhaps because it understood me, the cube began to explain.

"Please... familiar one... before your li... to an end... beg you... ease...

give my children peace... days..."

Damn! We were finally holding a conversation, but there was too much

being lost in the middle. It seemed like the cube was speaking fluently, but

the static was so bad that I couldn't figure out what it was saying.

"I can't hear you when you talk too long!" I called. "Tell me what you

want, as briefly as possible!"

The cube answered in one breath.

"Go north."

Go north, huh?

With that, the cube vanished.

"I-It disappeared..." I murmured.

It didn't fly away, or anything like that. It just vanished in an instant.

Most likely, it used a teleportation technique, like Madam Tiamat.

When the cube vanished, the storm that had been raging so hard turned

into a simple mass of clouds that eventually spread out and dissipated.

Before I knew it, we were left beneath a sky with the sun going down. The

clear air and the red of the setting sun sparkled to an almost blinding

degree.

"It feels like we dreamed the whole thing," Aisha said in a daze. It was

the kind of abrupt change that would do that to you.

"But it wasn't a dream, right, Souma?" said Naden. "What did that

blocky thing say at the end?"

I answered her, in as much of a daze as Aisha. "...Go north. That's what

it sounded like."

"North? By north, that has to mean..."

"The Demon Lord's Domain... I guess?"

I felt like I had gained a lot of information from this incident. However,

it created more questions than it solved. About my world, about me, about

the connection between the world I came from and this one...

The only thing I could say with any clarity was that none of the

answers were going to be coming anytime soon.

"Whatever the case, the storm's passed..." I said. "Let's head back to

the others."

Naden nodded. "Yeah. I'm feeling really exhausted."

The situation was more or less resolved, but we didn't feel fully

satisfied as we returned to the ground.