Chapter 307:
The Forest of Light
AS WE WENT DOWNSTAIRS to go to the dump, Salifa peeked out from the dining hall.
“Good morning. Captain Tableau sent word that he wanted you both to swing by the branch today; think you can do that?”
Captain Tableau wants to see us? I wonder if he has a job for us. I looked at Druid, and he looked curious, too.
“Sure. We’ll swing by once we finish our errands,” Druid answered.
Salifa happily nodded and said, “Okay, thanks. Have a nice day.”
“You, too!” we both called out as we left the inn and headed for the dump.
“What do you think he needs us for?” I asked.
“Not sure. He didn’t mention anything yesterday.”
The previous day, we’d swung by Rose’s shop to see if she had the item we’d requested. Captain Tableau happened to return home from work while we were there, so we said hi, but he didn’t have anything to tell us then, so whatever it was must have happened after that.
“Do you think it’s because we told him we were going to hit the road soon?” I asked.
Druid pondered my question for a moment and said, “I don’t think that should matter, though.”
I supposed he was right. “Maybe we’re forgetting something?”
What could we possibly be forgetting about Captain Tableau? The feeling that something had slipped my mind was starting to annoy me. Wait a minute…
“Ah! The magic stones!” we gasped in unison. We were so frazzled with other worries that we had totally forgotten about them.
“That’s right, we never got our payment for all those magic stones we provided,” I said.
“Yeah, I completely forgot.”
Come to think of it, how many magic stones did we wind up donating in all? I’d been keeping track of it on a piece of paper, but I realized halfway through that there was a gap with several days missing. And after that, my records were a little disorganized.
“Do you remember about how many we gave them?” I asked.
“No, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“Well, knowing Captain Tableau, he’s probably got it covered.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s a good thing we remember now. Too bad about that magic item, though.”
We’d used Rose’s connections to do all kinds of investigating, but we just couldn’t find a magic item that stored magic energy. She did have one that could help us do laundry, though, so Druid bought that on the spot.
“Yeah, it really is too bad.”
The towns near the capital were much larger and more densely populated than the ones in these parts. That meant that even though the dumps were much bigger, they were also visited by more people and we would run a higher risk of being seen. We could get away with gathering swords and potions for Sora and Flame by ourselves, but Sol could only get its magic energy by being at the dump, making it incredibly inconvenient.
“I guess we’ll just have to find a way,” Druid said.
We’d already tried—and failed—everything we could think of. Even though we still had some time before we would reach the capital, I was scared that we wouldn’t come up with a plan by the time we got there. So far, we knew that Sol could do just fine without food for three days. Starting on the fourth day, it would get smaller and smaller, but that was the limit of our understanding. There was much more we didn’t know.
We greeted the gatekeepers on duty for the day and passed through the gate.
“Bye, Druid; bye, sweet Ivy. Be careful out there.”
We had gotten awfully friendly with the gatekeepers during the winter. Well, I guess that’s inevitable when you go into the forest every day like we do. They all knew us by name.
“Thanks, have a nice day.”
“Oh, I almost forgot! We got a report that a large animal was seen out there, so be careful.”
Were the big animals already waking up from their hibernation? But there was still snow on the ground and the winds were still freezing. It felt a bit early to me.
“Was it a fock?” Druid asked.
The gatekeeper nodded.
“Roger that,” said Druid. “Do you know where it was spotted?”
“Near the cave where the magic stones were discovered.”
That’s far from the dump. Thank goodness.
“Got it. Thank you.”
The gatekeepers waved goodbye to us. We waved back and headed into the forest.
“Isn’t it a bit early for animals to be waking up from hibernation?” I asked.
“Sometimes you can see focks even in the winter. This one has probably been covering more territory since the weather started warming up.”
If they could be seen in the wintertime, did that mean they didn’t hibernate? I didn’t even know there were animals like that. I had read up on the kinds of monsters that attacked humans, but I hadn’t really looked into harmless animals much, only dangerous ones.
“What kind of animals are focks?”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head no, and he told me they were large animals with long tails and hatchet faces. Hatchet faces? I couldn’t picture it one bit.
“Are they dangerous?”
“A little. Their tails are poisonous.”
Poisonous?
“Doesn’t that make them more than a little dangerous?”
“They don’t attack you unless you attack them, so they’re mostly harmless.”
So I guess they’re okay, then.
By now we were quite far away from the gate, so I opened my bag. Flame and Sol were both awake today, and they jumped out as soon as I opened it.
“The gang’s all here today, I see,” Druid said.
“Yeah. Okay, let’s get to the dump!”
I searched the area for auras as we made our way there. We would need to gather enough potions to last us for our trip. Since Sora and Flame made blue and red potions, we no longer needed those, but we did need the other two kinds: green and purple. We also needed to gather potions and swords for Sora’s and Flame’s meals.
“Hey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while,” Druid said.
“Yes?”
“Your final destination is the capital, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
Ciel returned to adandara form, and the three slimes jumped onto its back. Ciel sure did baby them all.
“There are three towns connected to the capital… Which one are you going to?”
“Well…I don’t know.”
“What?! Why not?”
Well, I asked the fortune-teller several times, but she never told me the name of the town.
“The fortune-teller told me to go to either the town next to the capital or one of the ones nearby. She said I would understand when I got there.”
Now that I thought about it, when I asked her what it was like there, she said she didn’t know because she had never been there herself.
“You’ll understand when you get there? Wait a minute…maybe she meant the Forest of Light?”
“The Forest of Light?”
“Yeah, people say it’s the place where this world began.”
Why do I need to go somewhere like that?
“It’s a very mysterious spot. Then again, I’ve only heard stories about it. I’ve never been there myself.”
“What’s so mysterious about it?”
“There’s a tiny church deep in the forest. The chosen ones can enter just once and have their wishes granted.”
A church? Then I don’t really want to go there.
“And that church is different from the other ones in this land. It apparently has no members.”
“What?! Then who manages it and cleans it?”
“Nobody, but it’s always clean. Well, the roof is, anyway.”
“The roof?”
“Yes. Since nobody goes into the Forest of Light, all you can see of the church is the roof, peeking out from among the trees.”
A church in a deserted forest… A place where the chosen ones can enter only once… It reminds me of a fantasy novel.
“It sounds just like a fantasy story.”
“Huh? What’s a fan-tuh-see?”
Huh? Oh, maybe that word belongs to my past life.
“Um, I guess it’s a word from my past life.”
“I see.”
So nobody here knows what a fantasy is…
This world really was full of mysteries. Sometimes, things from my former world existed here. Some of the foods were the same, and some of the items had similar names to the ones in my past life. It really did make me think that there were other people like me in this world.
“So, do you think we should head for the town of Kashime in the Forest of Light?” Druid asked.
The Forest of Light… It definitely piqued my curiosity, even though I wasn’t sure whether that was the place the fortune-teller was talking about.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
“Kashime, huh? I’ve never been there, either.”
“You haven’t?”
“Yeah. I’ve avoided it since I don’t have a great history with churches.”
That’s right. Druid has had a troubled past because of his skills, too.
“Are you okay now?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I stared hard into Druid’s eyes. He didn’t look like he was lying, so I supposed he really was okay. I still had complicated feelings about my past, but I no longer felt disdain for the church. I used to hate just the sight of one. Hmm…maybe that’s not the right way to describe my feelings. It wasn’t hate. It was fear.
“There’s a lot of new trash here, huh?” Druid said.
I looked at the dump and saw that he was right. There was a huge new pile of trash.
“It looks like the village dumped all the winter trash they were storing.”
The trash from the whole village is here, eh? That means it’s an all-you-can-dumpster-dive! Ooh, look how excited the slimes are.
“Let’s grab as much as we can.”
“Yes, let’s.”
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