Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 1 - Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

The Queen of an Empty Country

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 jet-black sky, which shimmered 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.

Early the following morning, I awoke to a tremendous noise. Enemy attack! Enemy attack! my mind shrieked. My heart pounded as if I had just finished running at a full sprint. I jumped up with an ominous feeling in my gut and headed for the first floor, where the noise had originated, gripping my wand.

“Oh, good morning.” As I stormed around the first floor with my hackles up, Mirarose greeted me with a cheerful smile. She wore a different dress today, but it was just as tattered as the one yesterday.

Does she only have tattered dresses? Poor thing.

Wait, that’s beside the point right now.

“What was that sound just now? An enemy attack?”

“Enemy…?” She tilted her head in confusion. “I was just cooking. Was I really that loud?”

“…? C-cooking?”

I don’t suppose there’s any chance that what you call cooking is as violent an affair as I’m imagining?

“Yes, it’ll be done soon.” She nodded and turned to walk away. I followed behind her, and we came to the kitchen.

“Wait in the dining room next door. I’ll bring the food in.”

“…Um, can I help you?”

“It’s fine.”

“…Um, thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“……”

I withdrew, tail between my legs—not that I really had a choice. And so I headed for the dining room and had a seat in one of the chairs at the table. Then it occurred to me. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have left.

An incredible din was coming from the kitchen next door, like some kind of high-speed construction. Cracking. Slurping. Chewing. Grinding. Crunching. I’m begging you, spare my daughter’s life— Gyaaah! Scrubbing. Slapping.

Something like that.

Those were clearly not the sounds of cooking.

To make matters worse, I had heard someone scream. Thanks to Mirarose’s fierce cooking (or whatever it was she was actually doing), I had completely lost my appetite.

She brought the food out of the kitchen with a look of satisfaction. I don’t have to tell you that I was white as sheet myself.

“Oh my, are you all right? You don’t look so well.”

“…What on earth were you doing in there?”

“I told you, cooking. Here you go.” She placed a plate in front of me. Resting on top of the white plate were two slices of toasted bread. One of the pieces of golden-brown toast was spread with thick red jam. The other piece had a fried egg on top of it.

…Cooking? What on earth were those sounds…?

“Let’s eat.”

Seated across from me, she pressed both hands together, then crunched into her jam toast.

“…Thanks for the food.” I pressed my hands together, too, imitating her.

The more I thought about it, the more I was starting to wonder if I was just losing my mind, so I decided not to sweat the details. Worrying about it was probably a waste of time.

Unlike Mirarose, I started with the fried-egg toast. The flavors of the faintly sweet, delicate wheat and the perfectly fried egg spread through my mouth. It was a common, unsophisticated meal, and that meant it had been a long time since I had eaten anything like this. I smiled despite myself.

To put it simply, it was absolutely delicious.

“I thought we might discuss tonight, while we have the time,” Mirarose said.

“Tonight?”

“Yes. I want you to help me with the preparations for my plan.”

After nibbling my toast all around the egg yolk, I answered, “You gave me a place to sleep and fed me breakfast; you don’t need to ask me to help you.”

“Oh, then you’ll take down the Javalier?”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

Why do you have to fight it in the first place? I don’t see a problem with just leaving it alone.

Mirarose’s expression was gentle, probably because she had already predicted that I would be firm in my refusal. “It was just a joke, so you can set your mind at ease. I must deal with the affairs of my own nation. I’m certain that is what the letter writer would have wished for as well.”

“……”

I’m not so sure.

I was silent. Not because I was trying desperately to chew without letting the egg yolk spill out of my mouth. No, really.

“I’m not surprised you feel the way you do, Elaina. It’s obvious the letter is not entirely truthful. It would be foolish to believe everything it has to say when it leaves out all the important details.”

I was shocked. It was as if she had read my mind.

My words stuck in my throat. Ignoring me, she continued, “However, without any of that information, all I can really do now is fight. Even so…somehow I just can’t convince myself that the letter is lying. The writer really hated the Javalier and wanted it dead, and that’s why they wrote me that letter. I can just tell.”

I pounded on my chest in distress, and Mirarose quietly passed me a cup with water in it. Ah, how kind.

“…Phew! Thank you.” After I took a breath, I said, “No matter what you decide, I’m just a humble traveler, so this isn’t really any of my business. However, if you’ll allow me to say one thing, if I were in your shoes, I would completely ignore everything that letter has to say.”

“Why?” Mirarose smiled. It was not a sneer or an attempt to disguise some other unpleasant emotion; she was simply enjoying our conversation.

What an incredible person. Really.

“Because it’s suspicious. That’s reason enough. You’ve lost your memory, you don’t know right from left, and yet you’re swallowing everything in the letter whole. Of course, it’s easy for me to say that. I’m not in your position.”

“Well, what would you do if you were me, Elaina?”

“Run. Run away at full tilt and seek asylum in another country,” I asserted.

“But the letter said that if I left, the Javalier would come after me.”

“That makes it even more suspicious. All it does is tear apart the town; it doesn’t have a shred of intelligence. Could it really track you down? Plus, it doesn’t make any sense that it can’t come into the castle, and the author didn’t even sign their name… It’s a truly puzzling letter.”

“So you don’t believe it.”

“I don’t. Mirarose, have you made up your mind to fight that monster all the same?”

“Of course.” She nodded.

In that case, I knew what I had to do.

I took a bite of my jam-covered toast. The odd-tasting jam stuck to the inside of my mouth.

The preparations proceeded without delay. However, I did them all myself.

“……”

…I’m exhausted.

Mirarose was elegantly sipping tea and watching me work. “How is it?” she asked in a carefree tone. “Does it seem like you’ll finish?”

I turned around, still waving my wand around like mad, and said, “…H-how long do I have to do this until it’s finished anyway?”

Peering down into the hole, she answered cheerfully, “Let’s see. It looks like you’re about halfway through the digging.”

“…I’m gonna die.” I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but there seems to be an imbalance between the amount of manual labor I’m doing and what I’m getting in return.

If you’re wondering what she was making me do, I was digging a hole. “I want you to go to the broadest street in town and use magic to dig a hole large enough for the Javalier to completely fit inside.” That was her “preparations.”

According to her, the Javalier had no wings, so if it fell into a pit, it should take some time for it to climb back to ground level.

“If we cast magic spells at it nonstop while it’s down there, we should be able to bury the Javalier, right?”

That was her plan.

At first glance, one might think this was a reckless plan, but right now, this primitive pitfall trap was our best bet against the mysterious monster. Just one attack should be enough to blast the Javalier apart, so if Mirarose could simply block any sort of counterattack, we could expect the plan to be quite effective.

If the preparations didn’t kill me first.

“H-hup…urgggh…”

We had gathered up every single scoop and shovel, and even bucket, in the area, and I was doing my best to operate them all at once using magic. I think I deserved a pat on the back for that. I wanted to be praised for my efforts and hard labor.

Well, I was the Ashen Witch, and I had earned my title with real ability. Of course, I could have done this more efficiently—excavating directly into the ground, for example. However, that would have exhausted an extraordinary amount of magical power. I weighed the alternatives of my own physical labor versus exhausting my magic and chose plain hard work.

And this was the result.

“…Guhaaa…”

And yes, I did regret it.

This is so hard I might actually die.

Eventually, Mirarose started helping, and we made good progress. Even so, it took a good while, and the pit was completed around nightfall. The two of us stood there happily in front of our beautiful hole. After laboring together, I felt a somewhat strange friendship blooming between us. Maybe it was my imagination.

“…It won’t be long,” Mirarose said. She looked somewhat stiff from nervousness.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m f-f-f-fine. Yes, I’m all right.”

Somehow, I’m not convinced. “You’re shaking a lot, though.”

“I’m t-t-t-trembling with excitement. C-can’t you tell?”

“……”

Are you really going to be able to fight like this?

I racked my brain thinking about how to calm her nerves and hit upon the brilliant idea of changing the subject. I’m a genius.

“Come to think of it, I forgot to ask you something.”

“Oh? What could that be?”

“Why do you wear tattered dresses, Mirarose? Do you not have any nice clothing?” I said.

“Oh, no. It’s just that my clothes always get like this when I cook, and changing is a pain, so I just wear them this way.”

“What kind of cooking are you doing…?” I was disappointed by the trivial explanation. I was expecting her clothes to be hiding a big secret.

“Anyway, this will serve as my uniform for the battle.”

“But now they’re tattered and muddy.”

“Actually, my undergarments are also part of the uniform.”

“Are you planning to show them off to the Javalier?”

“It’s an attack with sex appeal.”

“If only that would work.”

As we continued our ridiculous conversation, the smile returned to her face.

Thank goodness. My strategy was a success.

However, just as the relief set in, she said, “Thank you.”

“…Huh? For what?” I turned my face away from her. The heat I felt in my cheeks was just from the sunset. Definitely.

“I understand what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to ease my nerves.”

“Hey now, we were just having a chat. I’m sorry if you felt that way. Don’t be upset.”

“You’re ridiculously straightforward, and yet you can’t be honest.” Mirarose poked me in the side with her wand. It tickled. “I’m fine. I won’t die,” she said. “Let’s meet up again afterward. I’ll treat you to my home cooking for dinner.”

“That’s all right. I’ll make dinner tonight,” I said. “So don’t die, okay?”

“Of course not.” As she spoke, Mirarose used magic to hide the surface of the pit. This way, the Javalier should run right into it without knowing any better.

The last rays of the setting sun painted the distant sky red. The horizon split into distinctly red and blue halves, both of which would soon be overtaken by the darkness. And not long after that, the Javalier would come.

“All right, off you go.” Mirarose pushed me away.

“See you later,” I said, and she smiled gently at me again. And so I turned my back on her and walked off.

Hang on—who said I was leaving?

That was a joke. If I left now, it would be all over for my humanity. Though I think I was being very levelheaded when I turned her down at first.

At the moment, I was inside a house on the other side of the pit, waiting quietly for the right time to strike. The strategy was to make a concentrated attack. To be honest, I hadn’t been planning to help if I could avoid it. I mean, the situation didn’t have anything to do with me. I had no idea whether it was worth risking my life, or whether there was any real need to defeat the monster.

But my feelings had changed, just a little. I didn’t want to let that wonderful girl die. That’s why I was going to fight.

And I was going to fight hard enough to survive, of course.

Even now, I couldn’t just jump in and offer to help, but I hope it’s a forgivable offense.

“……”

Before long, I heard a dreadful roar that sounded as if it had welled up from hell itself. It was very near. When I sneaked a peek outside, I could see black scales slowly passing by.

If it continues on that path, it ought to fall right into the pit.

“…Phew,” I sighed deeply.

It was strange. Even though I had only just met her yesterday, I really wanted Mirarose to live. When this was over, we would make dinner together, and I would take the opportunity to see her fierce style of cooking. I was really intrigued by it.

As I lost myself in thought, at last the time came, and I heard the monster howling. The sound of its rampage was fainter than before, but the reverberations still reached my hiding place.

I stealthily peeked outside, where Mirarose was fighting an admirable battle. She was mercilessly launching spell after spell against the Javalier as it attempted to crawl up out of the hole. Spears of ice, balls of fire, swords and axes made with magic, blades of wind and lightning bolts, and other spells rained down on the monster.

Eh? Huh? She looks like she might win, I thought for a moment, but my first impression was mistaken. She was definitely doing her best, but Mirarose was struggling.

The Javalier was blowing flames up into the sky, negating Mirarose’s spells as it tried to crawl back up out of the hole.

If I’m going out there, now’s my chance. If we strike at it together, we should be able to send it back into the hole again. And then bury it there.

I shut my eyes and took another deep breath. I gripped my wand tightly. Let’s do this.

“Mirarose!” I readied myself and leaped out into the open.

Just as I did, something whizzed by my side with unbelievable speed.

Whoosh. Smearing my face with something as it went, it crashed into the house behind me with a thunderous noise.

I touched my hand to my face and noticed a faint iron smell. This slimy, lukewarm liquid was blood.

…Blood. No way. No, it can’t be…

Struggling to keep my pounding heart under control, I turned around.

“……Ah.”

There, buried in a mountain of rubble…

…it was…

…the black, dragon-like head of the Javalier. It had been cleanly decapitated, as if with a very sharp blade; fresh blood was pouring from the wound and pooling on the ground beneath it.

Why is the Javalier’s head here? Huh? Don’t tell me…don’t tell me she won without me?

I was standing there, unable to fully grasp the situation, when I heard a voice. “…While I was battling the Javalier, I remembered.” Her icy tone sent chills up my spine, and at first I doubted it was Mirarose at all.

But when I turned around, Mirarose was the one standing beside the headless Javalier.

“I remembered all of it, everything, everything, everything. Ah-ha, ah-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha!”

I wondered whether this girl was really the one I knew.

Tearing at her own hair, Mirarose cast more spells. Instantly, the four limbs of the headless Javalier were severed and flew off in different directions. The flying cuts of meat sprayed blood as they went, covering the already destroyed city with gore.

“……”

I shuddered.

She was smiling, bathed in blood. Her expression wasn’t the gentle smile she showed me this morning, but something twisted and dark.

“Ah-ha, ah-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Words failed me. I could do nothing but stand there in shock.

After we returned to the castle, Mirarose told me everything.

It was quite a tale, and she gave me all the details.

Several years ago, she had had a lover.

However, he was a servant, and they had kept their relationship secret from everyone. If her father had found out that she had fallen in love with a boy from a different social class, he would have disowned her. Out of fear, she kept his company in secret, so as not to be discovered.

The two of them had nothing but trust and love for each other.

However, all secrets come to light sooner or later, and theirs was no exception. The fact that she was in love with a servant became a well-known piece of gossip.

Then Mirarose became pregnant with his child. Realizing that it was no longer possible to hide their love, the two of them confessed everything to Mirarose’s father, the king.

The king listened silently to their story, nodding seriously several times, and when they finished, he announced, “The servant will be executed.”

No one could appease his wrath.

The king carried out the punishment himself. He mounted a horse and dragged the servant around the city behind a carriage, carefully pulled his nails off one by one, smashed his teeth, submerged him in water, gave him just enough food to keep him from starving, held him teetering between life and death for two months, and tortured him in every other way imaginable until the boy went mad, then finally brought his wretched life to an end by burning him at the stake in front of Mirarose and all the citizens.

Then, after he was finished with the servant, it was Mirarose’s turn.

As she was his beloved daughter and the country’s only witch, the king didn’t kill her, but he couldn’t forgive her for carrying a servant’s child in her belly. The king paid a high sum to a local doctor to secretly terminate her pregnancy. Naturally, the child was never born, no matter how many months she waited.

And so, having lost everything, Mirarose made a vow. A vow to kill everyone.

She carefully developed a plan. The very first thing she did was to block off the castle. For the purpose of her plan, the castle would have to become a reliable safe haven. Since the other people who lived there were getting in the way of her preparations, she locked them all in the basement.

Everyone, that is, except the king.

She threw the king out of the castle and sealed him out. It was a seal so strong that only an individual possessing strong magic powers could break it—which was why I, a witch, had been able to enter.

Next, she had written a letter to her future self—rather, she had the letter written for her. She pulled one of the castle residents from the basement prison and ordered them to do the writing while she stood next to them dictating. If the letter had been in Mirarose’s own hand, it could jeopardize the plan.

Then, after concealing the letter she had written in a desk drawer, she looked down from the window of her room at the king, who was trying desperately to get into the castle. The king spotted her, and his ire rose again. He shouted awful things at her: “This is all because you got pregnant with a servant’s child” and “You are no longer my daughter!”

She calmly lowered her wand at the clamoring king and cast a spell on him…trading her own memory for the spell’s power.

The magical energy born from Mirarose’s memories and despair washed over the king and transformed him. He grew extremely large, scales appeared on his skin, and he seemed to lose all of his human intelligence. He became a black dragon.

The king’s name had been Javalier. It was no simple coincidence that the monster had the same name. With the creation of the monster that would only be active at night, her plan was complete. Her magic nearly exhausted, she fell into a deep slumber.

The next time Mirarose opened her eyes, she had forgotten everything. However, it had all gone according to plan. At that point, there was nothing to do but walk down the path she had laid out for herself. Mirarose’s battle against the black dragon was also part of the plan, as was the fact that during the battle, the memories bound to the monster would return to her.

However, I still had some questions.

Why had she gone out of her way to transfer her memories? Mirarose must have been quite troubled to have woken up with amnesia. Moreover, I wondered if retaining her memories would have made this less unpleasant.

When I asked her, she let out a little laugh. “I gave the king my memories to show him my anguish.”

In truth, King Javalier had not lost all of his human intelligence when he became a black dragon. Apparently, though his body had been taken over by the transformation, his human consciousness still existed within a corner of the beast’s mind. That was Mirarose’s plan for him.

She must have wanted to torment the king very badly indeed to go through with such a complicated plot. After becoming a rampaging monster, King Javalier had crushed his subjects with his own hands. With his head full of the memories that Mirarose had forced into him, he had slaughtered the subjects he had once loved, and then…

…And then the rest proceeded neatly according to her plan, and the story came to an end. She had become the queen of an empty country, all by her own doing.

The following morning, I left the castle without so much as touching the breakfast that Mirarose had fixed for me.

“You’re going already, are you?” she said calmly. She didn’t seem particularly saddened by the idea.

“I’m sorry. I am a traveler, after all. I must hurry to the next place.”

“Oh, is that so? That’s too bad. It was so much fun talking with you.”

“……”

“Can’t you spend a little more time here?”

“Please, stop.”

“I’m only kidding.” She smiled, but there was nothing gentle about it anymore. It was twisted and full of darkness. The girl I had come to know was nowhere to be found.

“What will you do now, Mirarose?”

“Let’s see, what shall I do…? If I feel up to it, I suppose I could go traveling.”

“I don’t recommend it.”

“You wouldn’t mind if I joined you, would you?”

“Really, stop.”

“Kidding again. The truth is, I haven’t thought of anything yet. For now, I want to savor my vengeance.” She rubbed her belly, just like a mother who was nurturing new life.

There was nothing more I could say, so I decided to wrap things up.

“Well, good-bye, then. Take care.” I got on my broom as I spoke.

“You too.”

I took off into the air and made a beeline through the wind.

She must be waving good-bye. But I don’t feel like looking back.

I left that place as fast as I possibly could, speeding past the rubble of her fallen land.