The Riesefalke Egg
Eckhart briskly tied the bag from Ferdinand onto his waist, the feystones inside audibly knocking against each other. “Rozemyne, Damuel—prepare to move the moment Lord Ferdinand captures the eiderot,” he said in a low voice.
We both nodded. I tightened my grip on Lessy’s steering wheel as I watched Ferdinand withdraw his schtappe and aim it at the eiderot, but the instant he did, the feybeast opened its mouth wide and belched fire.
“Eep?!” I shrieked, shutting my eyes tight and reflexively raising a hand to protect my face. The fire spewing from its mouth didn’t reach very far, its range ultimately being about as short as that of a street fire performer, but it certainly succeeded at making it appear threatening.
“Geteilt.”
A split second later, I heard a loud metallic clang accompanied by a throaty choke from the eiderot. I hesitantly lowered my arm and opened my eyes to see that it had been knocked back several meters, now hurriedly attempting to regain its footing.
It had apparently intended to tackle Ferdinand while blowing out more fire, but he had produced Schutzaria’s shield faster than it could charge him. He then turned the shield inside out to capture the eiderot as it attempted to tackle him a second time. This was exactly the same method I had used to imprison the goltze last year during the Night of Schutzaria, but Ferdinand was evidently much better at controlling his mana than I was, as the shield was steadily shrinking in size.
“Go!” he ordered.
We immediately raced past Ferdinand as he maintained the shield, the eiderot rampaging inside as we sprinted toward the innermost spring.
“Ferdinand, there’s another one coming!” I cried, turning my head a little upon spotting another eiderot reflected in my rear-view mirror.
“That will not be an issue,” came his reassuring reply. And with that, I knew he would be fine without us.
We passed through a narrow passageway and into a slightly more open area that looked entirely different from all the caves we had traversed. In a world dyed orange by the eye drops, only the spring before us faintly shone a pale blue color. White steam rose from its surface, distorting my vision a little and making everything seem even more fantastical.
I could tell from the bubbling sound that the hot water was rising from deep underground, and the complex patterns wavering on its surface were a sure sign that the spring originated from various sources. As I peered down at the shimmering water, I could just barely see the faint outline of some eggs. It was hard to tell since their outlines came in and out of sight, but there seemed to be about ten bunched up in total.
“Those are the riesefalke eggs,” Eckhart said while pointing into the water. “You must gather one yourself so as to avoid mana contamination, the same as the other ingredients. I imagine that you understand this by now.”
“I do,” I replied with a nod. “But am I going to have to dive into the spring? It looks really hot.”
I couldn’t give any exact figures since I didn’t have a thermometer, but the heat coming off the water was enough for me to know it was much hotter than the baths I usually took.
“Not as it is now, of course,” Eckhart said bemusedly, removing his gauntlets and tossing them to Damuel before putting on some leather gloves for blocking mana. He then reached into the pouch Ferdinand had thrown to him and took out a bag-shaped net tied shut, inside of which were many feystones—likely the empty ones Ferdinand had spoken of previously. At first glance, they looked a lot like those oranges you’d see bunched together in mesh bags at grocery stores.
Eckhart wrapped the string dangling from the top of the net around his wrist, then pulled out a feystone slightly larger than a fist from within and tossed it toward the eggs. I heard a thunk, at which point he started walking into the spring with the bag of feystones still tied to his wrist.
“Eckhart?”
“The feystones are absorbing the heat. You should be able to enter now. Come, Rozemyne.”
I experimentally dipped my fingers into the spring at Eckhart’s encouragement. Lo and behold, it was now about as warm as an extra-hot bath.
Wowee! Feystones sure are something else.
“The spring’s temperature will only remain lowered while the feystones are absorbing the mana. Once they are filled, the temperature will rise again.”
I stood in place, hesitant to enter while still wearing my clothes, which prompted Eckhart to heft me up and climb in himself. The water got up to my head in no time, and as I couldn’t feel the ground beneath me, I started clinging to Eckhart.
I have to say... aahh... the heat actually feels pretty good.
The temperature was perfect, but my floating clothes were getting in the way of me letting out a satisfied sigh. A part of me wanted to strip naked to do this, but my social status wouldn’t exactly allow that. Plus, the heat rising again once the feystones were full of mana meant that I probably couldn’t stay inside the spring for very long anyway.
What a shame...
We waded close to where the eggs were, the water now reaching Eckhart’s shoulders.
“Rozemyne, I will duck down and pull you underwater. Grab the egg the moment you can.”
“Okay.”
“Take a deep breath, and...”
A second later, Eckhart crouched, bringing me all the way down to his feet. I was completely engulfed in the hot water. It was whitish and a bit cloudy, forming a hard-to-see-through haze, but I was still able to reach out and grab the egg closest to me. It felt about as big as I assumed an ostrich egg would be, meaning I needed to use both hands to hold it.
On inspection, the egg seemed to be marble-colored and definitely didn’t look like something I would want to eat. Not that they were food anyway.
Okay! Gathering complete.
I turned around and nodded at Eckhart, who tensed his hands beneath my arms and started pulling me back to the surface. That was when I spotted something approaching us underwater. It seemed to be following me up.
When my head was above the water and I could breathe again, I saw a small monkey timidly swimming over, looking at us with wide, docile eyes.
A baby monkey...?
Just as I was starting to think it was cute, however, its eyes flashed and its arms shot toward the riesefalke egg in my hands.
“Rozemyne!” Eckhart yelled, pulling me up just in time for the monkey’s paws to miss. “That is known as a bataffe. This time, do whatever you can to stop the egg from being stolen! It is hardly a strong feybeast, but we cannot kill it here,” he repeated, scooping me up under his left arm while using his right to push aside the water as he strode back toward the edge of the spring. “Bataffes travel in groups. If you see one, assume there are thirty nearby!”
Wouldn’t that make them like my archnemeses from my Urano days, the nuclear-resistant bugs of evil and horror?
Eckhart’s warning made my disgust toward bataffes explode, and at the same time, I remembered how the ruelle fruit filled with my mana had been stolen in the past.
I’m not giving this up... It’s my very own hot spring egg!
I tightly hugged the egg to my chest while glaring at the bataffe. Its face twisted with anger at having failed to snatch it from me, and it started swimming toward Eckhart and me while gnashing its teeth. Not a shred of its former cuteness remained.
“Scree! Scree!” it shrieked, trying to sound as intimidating as possible as it violently clawed at the water to reach us. The fact that it wasn’t giving up just made me more and more frustrated.
“This one’s mine!”
The bataffe let out another hostile screech and reached out its arms yet again, but this time it wasn’t aiming for the egg—it was trying to attack me. I protectively hugged the egg and allowed my anger to flare, hitting the feybeast with my mana and Crushing it. Perhaps it hadn’t anticipated the surprise attack—or a mana attack at all, for that matter—as its eyes shot wide open in response. I could tell from its frozen expression that my victory was assured.
Eheheh! Surprised, huh? Well, I’m something of a fighter myself. And don’t you forget it!
I smugly looked down at the bataffe, only to see that it was now floating on its back and frothing at the mouth.
Oh no... Did I go too far?!
I anxiously scanned our surroundings and saw a group of enraged bataffes, baring their teeth as they leaped into the hot spring from an entrance opposite the hole we had come in through. An even closer look revealed there were also multiple shadows under the water racing this way.
“Eckhart! There’s a swarm of bataffes coming!”
“I expected as much.”
“Lord Eckhart, the riesefalke has returned!” Damuel shouted, pointing up from where he was keeping watch. I followed his finger to see a fairly large, predatory-looking bird rapidly descending from a hole high up in the chasm. It had legs that were unusually thick for a bird its size, dagger-like claws, and sharp eyes that were locked onto its prey—us.
The riesefalke diving at us seemed far more deadly than the eiderots Ferdinand was holding back or the bataffes rushing our way. And since I had its egg in my hands, it had identified me as an enemy. I swallowed hard as it lunged straight toward me.
“Ngh!”
Eckhart let out a loud grunt, swinging his free right hand to grab a bataffe and throwing it at the riesefalke as hard as he could.
“Bwughhauh!” I spluttered. As I was still under Eckhart’s arm, the sudden movement simultaneously resulted in me being dunked under the water. The riesefalke had dodged the bataffe and flown back up for safety, though, so I wouldn’t hold it against him—not that I was really in a position to complain in the first place.
The inside of my nose really stings, but you know what? I’m willing to forgive him.
The riesefalke stared down from its position high in the air, comparing Eckhart and me—who were now safely on land—with the shrieking bataffes kicking and splashing on the water’s surface as they began their retreat. Its sights soon locked on the bataffes aiming for the other eggs, and it began its descent once again.
Once he was back on land, Eckhart tossed me into my highbeast while I coughed with water leaking from my nose, along with the feystone-containing mesh purse and his leather gloves. No sooner was I inside than he barked “Run!” and dashed away himself, putting back on the gauntlets Damuel had brought to him.
This wasn’t exactly the time to sit still and rub my hurting nose, so I stuffed the egg into my own leather bag and hurriedly gripped the steering wheel again. My seatbelt could wait—time was running out.
Brigitte gestured for us to follow her back into the narrow corridor, which she had been guarding for us in the meantime, and we rushed through to return to Ferdinand. He was now maintaining multiple Schutzaria shields to contain five eiderots at once, and it appeared that those stuck inside the same shield were attacking one another. It had required my complete focus to capture a single goltze back in the day, but here he was containing five separate feybeasts at once with a cool, composed expression.
“Status?” Ferdinand asked, having noticed us running his way. Brigitte, who was in the lead, immediately responded that the mission had been a success.
“The riesefalke returned to the spring. We fled after determining that its attention had shifted to the bataffes stealing its other eggs, but it did see Rozemyne with one,” Eckhart added once he had caught up. “There is a possibility it will come after us.”
Upon hearing that, Ferdinand furrowed his brow and turned his gaze to the corridor. “It is all but guaranteed that it can smell the mana from all of these shields. We would be wise to retreat at once before it comes to investigate. I shall remain here and contain the eiderots until the very last moment. Go!”
“Yes, sir!” Eckhart said with a nod, taking the lead and dashing for the exit.
Ferdinand would be guarding our rear after keeping the eiderots contained. We had taken several small breaks on our walk here, but now we would have to sprint back without any at all. That wasn’t an issue for me since I was riding in my highbeast, but nobody else was quite so fortunate; they had to run themselves, since the corridors were too narrow for me to expand my highbeast and let them in.
“Will you be okay, Brigitte? I wish I could let you ride with me.”
“I am beneath your worry, milady.”
“Enough chatter. You are only wasting your energy,” Ferdinand barked from behind us.
Brigitte and I exchanged a quick glance, then promptly shut our mouths and kept running to the exit.
Only when we had nearly escaped did Ferdinand determine that we were safe from being followed and allow us to stop. While I was blowing my nose and wiping my face, everyone else decided that if we were going to rest anyway, we might as well press forward a little longer and eat lunch outside. And so, we washed the eye drops out of our eyes with cleansing magic and continued heading for the exit. The knights were all breathing heavily, which was no surprise considering how far they had run without any breaks.
Once outside, the color of the world changed dramatically. The bright sun illuminated a dazzling stretch of green as far as the eye could see, with the sky above similarly bursting with color. It was still a hot summer day, but the air was crisp without the stench of sulfur overpowering our senses. That alone was more than I ever could have asked for.
Now that we were no longer restricted by the tight space inside the chasm, everyone summoned their highbeasts and we flew to camp.
When we arrived, I napped in my Pandabus while everyone else was preparing rations and boiling water for our slightly late lunch. It seemed that, thanks to me having stayed in my wet clothes during our long escape, I had caught a cold in the blink of an eye. My head was all fuzzy, and while Brigitte used cleansing magic on me and changed my clothes, my chilly shakes weren’t going anywhere. My neck twitched, and I could feel goosebumps spread across my entire body.
“Here, Rozemyne. Eat. You cannot drink potions on an empty stomach,” Ferdinand said, holding out more of the rations we had eaten that morning. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I knew that I wouldn’t get better without a potion, so I took a defeated bite.
For some reason, it tasted better than it had earlier. It was somewhat like thick porridge, and maybe due to how terrible I was feeling at the moment, it was actually delicious.
“Strange... These rations taste better than they did this morning.”
“Did I not say that you used too much warm water? Your rations were half the size of ours, and yet you used the same amount as us. Of course the flavor would be diluted.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant. That’s why I was so confused—I was sure I’d used the same amount of water as everyone else. I guess the reason it tastes good now is because you’re the one who made it, Ferdinand. I thank you ever so much,” I said with a dopey smile.
He offered no more than a tired sigh in response and started eating his own food.
“Ah— ACHOO!”
“This is not a problem; I anticipated that you would get sick,” Ferdinand said as he took out the excessively bitter potion and forced me to drink it.
As far as I was concerned, something being expected didn’t make it not a problem, but I didn’t have the energy to protest. I was just too tired.
Now looking so sickly that anyone could surely see I had a fever at a glance, I made Lessy big enough for everyone to sleep inside him. With that done, I promptly reclined the driver’s seat and collapsed onto it.
“Does this help at all, Lady Rozemyne?” Brigitte asked with a worried expression, placing a towel that had been chilled in the icebox across my forehead. Her kindness washed over me like a gentle wave. A thoughtful act like that was something neither Ferdinand with his potions nor Bonifatius with his barking about weakness would ever think to do.
“Eckhart, where is the leather bag?”
“Pardon me, Lord Ferdinand. It is right there.”
Ferdinand retrieved the gloves and small feystone pouch that were inside Lessy, then tossed them to Eckhart and told him to clean them up. His eyes then came to rest on my leather belt, which was resting on the passenger’s seat. He undid the gathering bag from it and held it toward me.
“You will be unable to move until the potion takes effect. For this reason, you might as well clutch the riesefalke egg while you sleep. Considering the mana-rich environment your highbeast produces, it shouldn’t take long at all to dye.”
I took the bag from Ferdinand, sighing at the fact that he would demand efficiency even from a sick person, and removed the egg from it. “I guess this just leaves the ruelle fruit in autumn. Ferdinand, let’s get it for sure this time,” I said, frowning a little in frustration as I remembered last year’s failure.
Ferdinand returned a grimace himself and glared at me. “Of course. I will not fail a second time. Rest well now so that you are prepared for when the time comes. We cannot do anything until you have recovered.”
“Right. Goodnight.”
That night, I fell asleep while hugging the riesefalke egg and pouring my mana into it. When I awoke, my fever was gone and the egg had turned into a blue feystone.
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