White hair that shimred in the moonlight.
A sharp jawline drawn at the perfect angle.
Flawless skin and a slender figure.
The two glowing eyes of gold held all of creation, and her stoic expression was calm as if she couldn’t be shaken by any storm that ca her way.
She looked exactly like soone Lotte knew.
“Aether?”
Her friend’s na was uttered unconsciously.
Lotte then covered her mouth as a tale that she’d once heard as a child from her mother crossed her mind.
The tale of the doppelgänger.
If soone in the Empire didn’t know this story, they’d be accused of being a spy.
The tale was about a curious girl who was wandering through a foggy forest one late night and t a doppelgänger that looked exactly like her friend.
It ended tragically–a brutal ending where the girl gradually had more and more encounters with the doppelgänger and eventually went insane, her friend dying as well.
This story had originally been made up by the grown-ups to reduce the number of children going missing in the forests. Once Lotte beca an adult herself and learned the story behind it, it was no longer scary for her.
At least, until a mont ago.
“Hm?”
She belatedly covered her mouth but it was too late. The white-haired girl saw her and slowly began to approach, stepping lightly on the leaves.
Shuff, shuff.
With each step, the chirping of the crickets faded. The serenade of love no longer resounded along the path she walked.
What should she do?
She kept thinking about that story.
Unconsciously, Lotte took a few steps back but the speed at which the white-haired, gold-eyed girl was nearing was many tis faster.
The girl who was now in front of her moved her lips.
“Aether’s my older sister.”
“Huh...?”
That was unexpected; she thought she’d be harassed.
It was then that Lotte cald herself and carefully observed the girl before her. She certainly looked like Aether but there seed to be so differences.
Anyway, what was a Golden-Eyed doing here?
That thought didn’t last long because she rembered her conversation with Aether from a few hours ago.
Just then, the girl jumped in abruptly.
“Oh, but look who it is? Aren’t you the daughter of the Count Saliere family?”
“Do you know ?”
Nodding, the girl took sothing from her inner pocket.
Mana grass. She seed to smoke habitually.
“I heard you and Aether have been hanging out together. Anyway, I never thought that I’d see you here.”
Sneering, the girl retreated a step back. No, it wasn’t so much retreating as it seed to be a move to scan her entire being.
“It was really annoying at first when I got assigned to a place like this unnecessarily, but it’s not so bad now that I got to see a person of interest.”
Lotte had no idea what she was saying, but there was sothing off about the girl’s words.
And Lotte, who’d been secretly fascinated by the fact that she was seeing another Golden-Eyed besides Aether, soon realized what it was.
Let’s see, did Aether have a younger sibling?
“Who are you?”
“? Aether’s younger twin sister.”
“Younger sister?”
“Of course. What else would I be if not her flesh and blood when we look so similar?”
No.
This was a lie.
“Aether said she only had one older sister.”
Lotte recalled the doppelgänger tale once more.
The doppelgänger in the story had one distinct characteristic: if you asked specific questions about the original figure, it would give slightly different answers.
She didn’t believe that a story character had appeared in front of her, but people didn’t act based on logic and reason alone.
Chantless Stock.
Lotte stored magic for imdiate firing in her fingertips just in case–two Advanced Magic and five Interdiates. This made her feel a bit better.
“She said that? Ah, I can see why, co to think of it. My sister lost her mories once.”
“Lost her mories?”
She’d never heard that before.
“Yeah, so it’s not so strange that she wouldn’t rember .”
There was a clear loophole in these words as well.
Let’s say that Aether really lost all her mories.
So if the mories of her family were gone, would she have ntioned that she had an older sister?
And what about asking to be sent ho in her sleep? Would she indeed have looked to Pitchblende Mountain and said significantly that her ho was beyond there?
“What would Lady Saliere be doing out at this hour of night?”
“I’m looking for Aether.”
“Ah, I see. So am I.”
The girl moved back a few more steps. Now there was about ten ters between the two of them.
“Go back. Today isn’t a good day.”
Her words were pointed.
“What?”
“I’ll look for her so you should go back, I said. If you stay here for long, you might find yourself in trouble.”
“This is our family’s territory.”
“It’s also a triple point that borders the beastkin nation and the Demonic Lands.”
“Anyway, I’m not going back until I find Aether.”
“... Is that so?”
The white-haired girl flicked her cigarette and let out a laugh. It was hard to tell if it sounded bitter or deceptively cynical.
But she realized one thing.
There was sothing unsettling about this situation.
Screee.
“What’s that?”
An unusual sound ca from the bushes, a little bit away directly from where the girl was standing.
It wasn’t a sound made by a human or beastkin, at least.
The rhythmical sound of an animal that walked on all fours like a dog or cat stepping on leaves as it road the forest.
Screee!
A normal animal didn’t cry like that.
The sound of a cylinder rotating and bearings engaging. A dull chanical howl from the open jaws of sothing tallic.
It was sothing that Lotte herself had heard once or twice before.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. A total of four thumps.
Two lupine Beasts erged from the oak trees.
“Fenrir...?”
Deep purple mane. Hydraulic suspension that protruded outward. Eyes like golden magatamas.
It was unmistakable–it was the Calamity, Cobalt Fenrir.
This was inside the territory managed by the Saliere family, a place where even high-level Beasts shouldn’t be found, let alone a Calamity.
There wasn’t any ti to unscramble her thoughts.
“Watch out!”
What was important now wasn’t why a Calamity had shown up here. Lotte scread towards the white-haired girl in front of her.
The Beast is behind you, you’ll get hurt if you stay there, get away now.
But Lotte soon realized.
“...!”
That the Beasts weren’t targeting the white-haired girl but her.
The two Fenrirs swiftly bypassed where the girl was and rapidly ca her way. It was in the blink of an eye. Lotte, who was slow to react, felt the freezing of her nerves.
A sharp claw swung towards her, a blade that looked like a three-dinsionally cast sickle. A blow from that would send her head flying.
The magic that Lotte had stored would be no match for it. Advanced Magic could only take down high-level Beasts.
Her life flashed before her eyes. Extre fear had activated her sympathetic nerves. Her legs shook and her heart pounded wildly.
“Ah....”
Lotte let out a low cry.
I’m going to die.
“Haa, why the fuck did they co out?”
Crash!
Sothing flew by in an instant. It was nearly at the speed of light so she didn’t catch what it was.
Almost simultaneously, an earth-splitting boom resounded. The shockwave caused the trees shake and the flow of air to change
“......?”
Lotte slowly raised her head from where she’d been cowering. A tsk sounded right in front of her.
Creak.
The two Fenrirs were laid out on either side of her, each badly wounded on the back and side.
“That surprised , suddenly jumping out like that.”
The white-haired girl lit another joint and summoned her staff. Staves pulled from subspace were built based on the level of that person’s magic or their past experience. The one that the girl took out looked similar to the one that Aether used.
Were they really sisters?
She jabbed the Fenrirs with her staff once and subdued them. The olive-colored tail made of bunched wires went limp, indicating submission.
“Oh my gosh.”
She subdued a Calamity at once. And she didn’t even kill them but brought them to their knees.
It was unheard of. There weren’t any records of soone ever taming a Magic Beast, but the girl right here had done it.
Screee, scree.
The girl frowned as she pet the two Fenrirs that had their tails lowered in submission in turn.
“I told you to go back because there are guys like this around. This place is damn dangerous right now so go to bed and sleep.”
Lotte was confused all of a sudden.
She’d thought of the Golden-Eyed just as the Golden-Eyed until now, an unfortunate race with yellow irises who couldn’t use magic without mana from an external source.
However, Lotte started having perplexing questions about the girl in front of her. And that question gradually beca one about the whole Golden-Eyed species.
“Just who...”
“Shut up and go.”
The girl’s tone was more aggressive than before. Her gold eyes of unfathomable depth flashed in the absolute darkness.
And because that unnerved her.
Because that girl unknowingly beca frightening.
Because she felt an inexplicable fear towards the Golden-Eyed race itself.
She didn’t think she could search any further.
“Why are you still here, daughter of Duke Saliere? Get out of here already.”
The girl stroked the Fenrirs and kept urging her to go. Forgetting about wanting to find Aether, Lotte turned away and desperately ran down the foggy mountain slope.
Reviews
All reviews (0)