Spirit Migration - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: A new tomorrow

 

 

There was little chaos now that the illegalities had been subdued and investigated, and though the executive committee had undergone a bit of a massive personnel change and whatnot, the rumors had become less of a dinner topic among nobles and commoners alike and had subsided as of the present time.

 

 

Alice was making merry chatting away with her friends at the salon of the aristocrat school, but ’twas a certain matter that the moment she heard the hour-bell ring, she’d promptly make preparations to leave for home.

 

“Oh my, Alice. You’re leaving early today as well are you not?”

“You haven’t even invited us to tea as of late… Could something have happened at home?”

 

“Oh no, things are quite peaceful at home. I just have so much to do, so do forgive me.”

 

Saying even her goodbyes hurriedly, Alice left the school grounds. Her friends felt she’d become more cheerful than ever lately, but also felt her socializing had worsened, and so took to being concerned about her.

 

“What is it I wonder? Could it be she no longer wants to mingle with middle ranking nobles such as us, perhaps?

“Eeh? I’m sure that’s not the case; I’m sure she wouldn’t treat anyone different based on their rank.”

“That’s right; Alice even treats  me  normally despite my having risen from a commoner’s standing you know?”

“But… Lately she hasn’t so much as invited us to her home, has she?”

 

Even though she once used to invite them to her great mansion on a weekly basis for tea parties in the garden, she had lately only invited them once since the day she had returned from the town of Barassé, and that had been it.

“Now that you mention it…” said one among them as she remembered what she’d heard her parents discussing.

 

“This is merely what I heard from Father a short while ago, but he mentioned that Count Barmist brought his daughter onto the executive committee.”

 

“Alice in the executive committee?”

“Was it not around then? Her beginning to go home right as soon as the bell rings.”

“Mhmm, maybe something really happened after all.”

 

Tilting their heads in thought, they were indeed Alice’s friends.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Alice had returned to the mansion and then proceeded to the rearing room straight away to pick up Fausta, who she then carried to her room like that. Landon was still working in the mansion, for until his family could restore their farming business to the way it was before, he would be allowed to work there to provide for them.

And needless to say, he had properly apologized for how he had treated Fausta before and in addition had sworn to never return to his prior ways. As he was now a caretaker who groomed Fausta with sincerity and perfection, Fausta had lately ceased being menacing towards him.

 

Having entered her room and then quickly gotten changed, as the  samurai women  began to depart from her room, she hugged Fausta who looked small sitting on the bed.

 

“Kou, has there been anything out of the ordinary today?”

“Woof wooof~” [Same as always~.]

 

“Mhmm, I cannot understand anything from ‘woof wooof’. Well, let us converse through the written word today as well then.”

“Woof.”

 

Alice had in this manner lately been passing all of her days, by talking with Kou all day long through Fausta. Conversing in her room through pen and speech, and taking daily strolls in the garden were how every peaceful day went.

 

“Let’s be off, Kou.”

 

Wherever they would go…

 

“What do you think Kou?”

 

Whatever they would do…

 

“Hey, Kou what…”

 

Alice always took Kou around with her. She’d come to rely on Kou in one way or another, and with her earlier sort of sociability stepping further into shadow as she looked into the thoughts of others through him, even contact with her friends had gradually lessened as she’d ultimately begun not talking to people very much.

 

Being capable of understanding the very thoughts and feelings of others; that wasn’t necessarily always a very good thing. End up knowing another’s heart just once, and you’d always be so concerned with what sort of interest other people actually had in you, that it’d be troubling enough to make one find dealing with anyone a bother.

With Alice still being in a sensitive phase of life, this had made dealing with any person outside of family into a most irritatingly complex and terrifying task.

 

Yeaah, this really might not be too good for her after all.

 

Though he wasn’t opposed to staying by her side and supporting her forever from this point on, as Kou began to feel things were not great for Alice the way they were now, he thought of putting distance between them out of concern she was starting to get far too dependent on him.

 

 

“Well Kou, let’s head to sleep yet again.”

 

It was bedtime — Alice beckoned Fausta to her own bed like always instead of putting him back in the rearing room. Kou leaped onto the bed like “sproing!”, and found himself facing the negligee-clad Alice that very moment. Seeing Fausta staring at her, Alice asked “What’s wrong?” while tilting her head.

 

Out of nowhere, there appeared a memo pad. And Kou held it firmly as he wrote just as firmly onto it.

 

‘Let’s part ways.’

 

“… Eh?”

 

Alice’s eyes were like dots. Seeing that reaction, Kou wondered if him only ever writing short sentences due to his small vocabulary had made that  too  short and then wrote on the memo pad anew.

 

‘I think that I should leave the mansion.’

 

“Ehh? W- why?”

 

‘If left in this state, you will only end up hopeless.’

 

In order to urge the anxious Alice to treat her friendships with more care than this, he had to show her that it was also important to talk to people even when you couldn’t know all their feelings.

Not having a definite body to represent himself with, Kou would never be able to have the standing of a distinct individual in this world. He knew since, from his waking up at the old altar all the way up to now, he had always only ever existed through borrowed forms. Being able to live as an individual in a world of individual people, was a very happy thing.

He had reassuring allies in the mansion as well in people like the butler Sebas and gardener Halburd. They would surely be there to help her when she needed it.

 

‘Your growth, Alice, is not something I want to be responsible for hindering.’

 

“Kou….”

 

To some particular extent, Alice had been conscious of the state she was currently in and so couldn’t raise any strong objections.

 

“When you leave the mansion… Will, we never be meeting again?”

 

‘Oh nothing of the sort; I think we will meet again someday.’

 

It was possible he’d have to borrow Fausta’s body again, or that he’d encounter some other body he could use. He didn’t know when exactly that would come to be, but Kou promised he’d come and see her for sure the moment he got any sort of opportunity to stop by Kurakaru again. With him carefully persuading her about this all night, Alice reluctantly agreed to it.

 

 

 

 

The next day began. Kou possessed the messenger bird that had been provided for use during that last investigation, and took off from the window of Alice’s room into the still gloomy skies preceding dawn. Alice quietly saw him off as she held a sleepy Fausta in her arms.

 

Through the only window that was still lit in the now otherwise asleep Diretoss manor, Kou caught sight of Alice looking up to the morning glow as she waved him goodbye; and after circling the whole perimeter of the mansion once as a way of bidding farewell, he set his course for the eastern skies and left the town of  Kurakaru  behind.

 

 

 

 

“Landon, are you awake yet?”

“Young mistress…? You’ve come here rather early this morning.”

 

The Lady Alice who would normally come down and leave Fausta in his care after it was time for breakfast, had come at dawn today instead and consequently left Landon showing surprise on his face. And her carrying a sleeping Fausta in her arms was yet another oddity in itself.

 

“I think continuing to look after Fausta may be a little harder from this day forth, but please do so.”

“Ah, yes; with certainty.”

 

Alice put Fausta down on the pet bed and then quietly made her way out of the rearing room. Seeing her seem somewhat fragile walking away, Landon began to wonder if something had possibly happened, and then turned his feet toward the head butler’s waiting room for the time being.

 

 

 

 

Alice aimlessly visited the garden by her lonesome while still dressed in her bedtime attire, and was then called out to by Halburd, who’d been tending to the flowerbeds since before dawn.

 

“Well now, are you all by yourself today? That is certainly an unusual sight.”

“Kou has… left this place.”

 

“He said farewell,” Alice muttered in sadness, turning her gaze to the skies that were beginning to turn bright at the east.

 

“Oh? Could it be he left because you were sticking to him too much… Hey- whoa now! That’s really dangerous! Please stop swinging that hoe around!”

 

“My lady, it will be far easier to swing should you grip the middle in your right hand, and hold the end of it in your left.”

“Sebas! You bastard!”

 

Sebas, who had come into the garden at some point, sidled up to Lady Alice in the middle of her hoe wielding and set about giving her advice. Landon could be seen walking away from this and heading back into the mansion.

Watching on as the gardener Halburd ran every which way to flee the young mistress swinging a hoe around, the butler Sebas surmised that the young mistress Alice’s current state likely had to do with Kou.

 

[Again and again, I truly have to thank him for it all…..]

 

As Halburd now picked up an earthworm, bluntly waved it around while lumbering forward, and hence caused Lady Alice to drop the hoe and flee, Sebas presented her with some welcome information.

 

“Young mistress, I’ve heard tell that an instructor teaching at a  vocational school  in the town of Barassé is well acquainted with Kou. How about writing her a letter or somesuch?”

“The town of Barassé? … Indeed, I still had things I wanted to discuss with Kou.”

 

He recalled hearing that it was this same instructor’s house where Kou had been looked after as a cat. It was coincidentally the same town where Fausta had been possessed. If it happened that Kou was returning to Barassé, then it could even be possible to exchange letters with him directly.

As the town of Kurakaru also housed a branch of the Adventurers’ Guild, they could expect to have steady and regular communication if they made use of them.

 

“The name of that instructor?”

“If I recall, I believe she is known as Elmel.”

 

This Elmel now working as a vocational school instructor was an ex-military adventurer swordswoman. That was the individual that Alice soon set about writing a letter to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eastwards from the town of Kurakaru, Kou had perched the messenger bird on a carriage after having flown about a half-day’s worth of distance. As this place was hilly regions as far as one could see, the surrounding scenery was practically just the many lush, verdant green hills and the grey rocky mountains. The several thin roads that weaved and cut through these lands, ran very much like unravelled strings.

 

Having taken off again and now wondering whether to head back to Barassé or not, Kou spotted from his high altitude what seemed faintly like the silhouette of a town far off in the approaching distance. A bird might get there in one day even if a carriage would need two.

As he scanned his field of view for any signs of where a trainee campsite might be, suddenly, he caught sight of carriages travelling through the cliff lined roads of these scraggy, rocky mountains.

 

Oh? That’s…

 

Around the two slowly advancing carriages were a group of people wielding arms, fighting off the pack of beasts that were behind them in relentless pursuit. The carriage that was in front was a sort that was in very common use among nobles and could easily be spotted travelling about downtown, but the carriage that was following right behind was large enough to cover the whole road, and had a rugged appearance as well with all the weapons that furnished its roof.

 

It seemed that this carriage was guarding the one ahead of it. There were two noticeably larger creatures among the pack of beasts that were chasing after them. Those monsters had wolflike heads with twisting black horns, and possessed bearlike physiques that were covered in white fur. Kou willed the messenger bird into beginning a nosedive, and set his sights on one of the two monsters.

 

 

 

“Raise the speed just a bit more! Deace, climb onto the roof and assist Karen!”

“Yes sir!”

 

“Captain, they’re coming from the right now… Do we attack?”

“Wait till we can slow down one of the Hornbears.”

 

The captain of the group defending the carriages was giving out orders in rapid succession. The job they’d accepted this time had been to escort a particular merchant aristocrat out to a bit of a far off location; but having left the safe road in favor of these mountains due to it being a matter of urgency, they had fallen under attack from a pack of mutant wolves led by the monsters.

Because the carriage the servants were on had gotten broken, they had either carried the luggage with them onto the carriage that their master was riding in, or were running alongside the carriage for their lives. The escorting carriage had taken in the injured as well, and was already packed full. They were fighting as they continued onwards since they couldn’t particularly raise their speed much.

 

These people familiar with and specialized in subduing threats wouldn’t have been in such a precarious state up to now if it had only been some mutant wolves; but to their misfortune those beasts that possessed tremendous destructive power and just a little bit of intelligence, the hornbears, had also been amongst the wolves and had caused the destruction of one of their carriages, putting them into the danger they were in now.

As the hornbears kept on chasing while keeping themselves at a safe distance, occasionally, they’d incite the mutant wolves to attack in a way that felt like they were timing it. Eventually, the subordinate acting as lookout on the escort carriage’s roof saw something to warn about.

 

“There’s a rope bridge ahead! That’s bad news Captain; we won’t get through unless we go one by one!”

 

“Tch. No choice but a defense line at the bridge huh?… But it’d sure be bad if they tried to push through.”

“Let’s bring our carriage close to the cliffside and get off there. We can use the cliff against the dogs; but those hornbears are trouble aren’t they?”

 

Their carriage could be said to be of fairly sturdy construction when compared to the average carriage, but not to the point of withstanding all out attacks from nearly three meter tall monsters. Forget “degree of damage”, the damage and whatnot inflicted would leave a very unpleasant sight on these isolated mountain roads.

 

“Take the injured across first and then let the servants on foot get through; get the client’s carriage across afterwards. Karen and Deace, stay on the roof and wait; Lef, go join them.”

 

As they made their own carriage into a wall, they made long range attacks to avoid attacks from the hornbears and had subordinates get on the roof and wait for orders, hence creating a more or less reinforced protective barrier as the mutant wolves were given absolutely no way of going under the carriage. Blocking two-thirds of the mountain road with the gaps leading to the cliff, they eliminated the wolves that tried getting through by driving them off the edge.

 

“Captain! There’s a wolf on the other side of the bridge!”

 

“Damn it. Rippa, Daido, go with Daido!”

“Got it.”

 

A pale looking swordsman took off running towards the rope bridge along with a taciturn seeming fighter. While Captain Gavik started hurling some colorful language at his troops as they adjusted their formation to protect the defense line around their carriage, Vice-captain Mandel made conversation about the pack of mutant wolves they were currently having to deal with.

 

“An ambush huh?… Seems like the pack’s territory is around here then.”

“Yeah, their craftiness is seriously getting on my nerves.”

 

“Anyhow, fending them off’s our only choice.” Right as Captain Gavik said that and readied his stance, one of the archers on the roof of the carriage spoke in a very relaxed sounding tone.

 

“Captaain,  something’s  kinda strange you know~?”

“What is it Karen… No, what just happened Deace?”

 

“Er, well that’s umm, one of the hornbears suddenly,,,”

“Well ya know~, they’re having a brawl now~?”

 

 

 

Kou had nosedived the messenger bird he’d possessed close to one of the hornbears’ heads from behind, and had immediately tried to take control over it.

The hornbear that to some extent had merely usable intelligence yet a high capacity for thought, had a very different will from any of the beasts and mutants he’d possessed thus far and proved to put up a strong resistance to his control as well; but the moment Kou’s superior intellect managed direct contact, he got drawn straight in like its will had withered. Like back then with the demon dogs, Kou’s control over it had extended to its entire body. And being able to maneuver the hornbear like it was literally his own hands and feet, he’d then proceeded to attack and scatter the pursuing mutant wolves.

 

 

“What….?”

“Could this be, infighting?”

 

Suddenly, the hornbear that had started knocking the pack of wolves around, had then begun a furious fight with the other hornbear as well. Seeing that both leaders of their pack had started fighting each other and weren’t as interested in chasing their prey anymore, the mutant wolves just cautiously paced about. Several of them had also decided to just flee elsewhere instead.

 

“Shall we go wipe out the remaining wolves right now? If we take down the hornbears too, we could make some pretty good money out of it.””

“… The safety of our client comes first.”

 

The client’s carriage had now gone across the rope bridge as well. Captain Gavik muttered out “I’m retiring,” before turning his heels back around to head towards the bridge. Vice-captain Mandel then followed after him as he led the horses that were drawing their carriages.

 

 

 

 

Having made sure that the armored carriage parked before the bridge had now started going across it, as Kou used the beast he’d possessed to keep doing battle with the other similarly strong beasts, he decided to try out a strategy that he’d been thinking of for a while.

He could just reuse that same old tactic from the dungeons wherein he’d made use of possession to dispatch his foes without a fight, but he was thinking that winning battles the proper way was important too. Picking the right timing, he chose something suitable from the massive assortment of weapons he kept in a pocket dimension, and made it manifest.

 

He charged forward and made a single strike with the sword that had come out of the bear’s mouth. He swung it with his claws and unleashed a massive all-out attack that mowed down everything before him. It was a somewhat over the top and morale crushing attack.

Having witnessed such an incredibly mysterious attack, the other hornbear considered itself outmatched and ran away with its tail tucked. The mutant wolves that were led by that beast followed suit afterwards, whereas the mutant wolves led by the beast that Kou had possessed spent a moment bewilderedly shifting their gazes back and forth between Kou’s hornbear and the fleeing hornbear before also running away.

Then, sensing the presence of humans only a few moments later, Kou disappeared into the rocky mountains like the fleeing hornbear had. It seemed those wolves had picked it as their new leader.          

 

So they’re gone now. I guess it wasn’t really good I didn’t take them all down.

 

That someone else would come by this place sooner or later and possibly get attacked as well was a fact he had to worry about, but Kou was now in a good mood having managed to take care of pressing matters. Looking back towards the bridge, the leading carriage had already gone and not a single person from the escorting carriage could be seen either. It also looked like the bridge hadn’t collapsed.

 

Come to think of it, those people that were defending the carriages back there…

 

He’d seen those people somewhere before. He was also thinking of how there were a fair number of the injured being carried from the scene of battle in the sturdier of the carriages, as well as beginning to feel worried for the people who looked to be servants and were running alongside the leading carriage despite becoming ever more exhausted. It was likely they’d be completely worn out further down these roads.

 

I  do  happen to have a lot of energizing tonics and restoring medicines with me… Might just come in handy.

 

Kou just could not keep his true nature as a kindhearted sort from revealing itself, because a now concerned Kou had decided to begin following after them. Entrusting the messenger bird that was perched atop his head with a letter addressed to Alice, Kou turned towards the rope bridge and then walked toward it with lumbering strides.