Chapter 19: Transmission

「Wouldn’t it be faster to just throw a spear?」

That was Yuuka’s impression on seeing the crossbow.

I realized I’d asked the wrong person.
A crossbow’s greatest advantage is how little training it needs.
Handling it is closer to a gun than a bow; with a bit of practice, anyone can use one.

That mindset is the exact opposite of a Sword Saint who’s spent over two hundred years training with a blade.

「What do you think, Inis?」
「Mm‑hmm. Like Sensei says, if hundreds of people leveled these and fired, that’d be a pain, I guess.」

In front of Inis, who was sprawled on her sofa, Invisible Butler went kacha‑kacha, toying with the crossbow.

「Eeh, that won’t hit me.」
「Wanna try it?」

Yuuka made a come‑at‑me gesture, and bashun, a bolt snapped off the string.
Yuuka snatched it out of the air and stopped it.

「You’re the only one who can do that, Yuuka.」

Nina could probably do something similar by manipulating plants, though.

「Either way, it doesn’t look very effective against spirits…」

Inis said regretfully, eyeing the crossbow.
Even after Sorcery spread and the license system took shape, spirit rampage incidents didn’t disappear; rather, they have increased year by year with its spread. Yet no truly effective method of dealing with spirits had been established.

「How dutiful of you.」
「I never said I was researching this for Ara.」

Yuuka said with a smirk; Inis spun around and turned her back.

「I’m not doing it for Ara‑kun either, you know.」

The half‑elf girl’s mean smile deepened, and Inis groaned in annoyance.
A universal method against spirits still hadn’t been found… but talent‑driven, individual workarounds had matured.

Mel counters by calling stronger spirits; Inis cages them with swarms of magic‑powered devices; Yuuka can defeat spirits outright with a sword. Among them, only Ara lacks an effective way to oppose spirits.

That said, his excellent physique is a huge help for rescues and the like, so I don’t think he needs to worry.

「Oh? So you told Yuuka about you and Ara too?」
「You’re the one who told me to ask, Sensei.」

Inis, sounding a bit sulky.

「All I got was being made to listen to some stranger’s lovey‑dovey stories. Useless.」
「Well, I only know my father and mother after they got married.」

Well, sure. Yuuka is the child born of their love; of course she wouldn’t know Yutaka and Light Blue before they dated.

…Hm? Is that really true?

「I’m full up on ‘even cross‑race couples can be happy.’ Tell me how to actually become mutually in love with the person I like. Preferably the easiest way possible.」
「Then you should ask Onii‑chan instead of me, shouldn’t you?」

The faint wrongness melted away the moment the topic was steered to me.

「There’s lots to go on. Like Ai Onee‑chan’s story, or Yuuki‑san’s…」
「If you know stories from that far back, you should know your own parents’ story too.」

Right—the Sword Clan keeps past tales in exhaustive detail through oral tradition or whatever it is they do.

「Eeh, I don’t know those. Neither of them ever talked about that time.」

Is that how it is? It’s odd to know stories from nearly nine hundred years ago yet not know ones from only three hundred.

「My story, though…」

When I folded my arms to think, Inis fixed me with an expectant look.
If it’s the story of the time before marriage—how we became mutually in love—then…

「She fell for me first, so I didn’t really do anything.」

The instant I said it, bashun, a bolt flew. It grazed my cheek, pinged off the wall with a sharp kan, and fell to the floor.

「H‑hey, you said you wanted the easiest way possible!」
「If that were the situation, I wouldn’t be asking in the first place!」

Even knowing they weren’t aiming to hit, having a bolt zip past right beside you is scary.
When I talked back, Inis shouted in annoyance. Fair enough.

「…This… why does the bolt fly?」

Suddenly, Inis said that as she studied the crossbow.

「It’s not a very complicated mechanism, is it?」

Pull the trigger, the catch holding the string slips, and the bowstring snaps forward under the bow’s tension. The bolt is pushed and flies. Strip out the parts for drawing the string and holding the bolt, and even I can grasp how simple the structure is.

「It’s the Spirit Principle, Sensei. Things don’t move on their own. The things of this world—」
「—move only by will.」

Picking up Inis’s words, I said it.
That’s why a waterwheel sunk in a flowing river or a windmill raised in a windy valley won’t turn on its own.
It’s the foundational logic that separates Earth’s common sense from this world’s…

I named it the Spirit Principle.

This world runs on the will of spirits. On the surface it resembles Earth’s physics—but beneath, it’s nothing alike.

Even if you prepare the same environment, the same conditions, and run the same experiment, you won’t necessarily get the same result.
It isn’t a matter of experimental precision—this world runs on different first principles.

「I’m only putting my will to ‘pull the trigger’ on it.」

She went kacha‑kacha with the trigger as she spoke. The bow wasn’t drawn, so, obviously, nothing fired.

「But the bolt I haven’t even touched flies… why?」
「Eh? Isn’t that obvious?」

Yuuka drew the sword at her waist, took her stance, and cut the empty air.

「When I cut something with my sword, I’m not touching the thing myself. My will travels through the blade and propagates to the target. Same idea here.」

Right. On the surface, that event is the same under both Earth’s laws and this world’s.

「…Yuuka‑san, try drawing this.」

Looking as if something had occurred to her, Inis handed the crossbow to Yuuka. Though she looked dubious, Yuuka gave it a light yank. …Ordinarily you’d brace the tip with your foot and haul with your whole body, but the kid just did it with her arms…

「Right now, this bow…」

She stroked the big curved limbs and murmured.

「It’s carrying Yuuka‑san’s will. It’s staying on it—being preserved.」

She nocked a bolt and aimed at the wall.

「When I pull the trigger, that will is released…and the bolt flies.」

Bashun—the bolt shot out and buried itself in the brick wall. The power was clearly higher than before.

From Earth’s physics, that’s odd. A bow’s power depends on its material and how far it’s drawn—who drew it shouldn’t matter.

But this world is different. Draw the same bow the same distance, and Yuuka’s draw far outstrips Inis’s.

In other words, even though Inis pulled the trigger, that shot’s power came from Yuuka’s will.

「Will can be…stored. And passed to someone else.」

Staring at the bolt jutting from the wall, Inis murmured.
I didn’t yet grasp what that implied.

But I could tell she’d caught hold of something—
—perhaps something that could change the world.


* * *


「…Are you really leaving?」
「Yes.」

At my question, Nokia nodded.

「If I remain in Hiiro any longer, I fear I won’t be able to leave your side, Sensei‑sama.」

Compared to when she first came, her speech had become quite fluent.
It’s been nearly a year since Nokia came to Hiiro.

「You don’t have to go. If you settled in this village, everyone would be glad.」

A gentle, sincere traveler with many exotic tales had become a village favorite in no time. If she decided to stop wandering and remain here, no one would object.

「Everyone… would?」

Nokia looked steadily into my eyes as she asked.

「Yeah. Chryse’s really attached to you, and Inis, Ara, and Mel will miss you. Nina, Yuuka, and Rin too. Everyone else as well…」

I reeled off every name I could think of, but Nokia just stared at me in silence—as if to say there was one name I’d failed to include.

「Give it up. He’s like this.」

Nina let out a deep sigh and told her. Nokia answered with a wry smile. I get the feeling I’m exasperating them both…

「Oh—right, I forgot to return this.」
「…What is it?」

Nokia tilted her head at what I held out.

「The crossbow I was holding for you.」

No wonder she didn’t recognize it.
…Because Inis had overhauled it into a different beast entirely.

「You can still use it the old way, but the base holds ten bolts, and after each shot the next one auto‑loads. As long as they’re the same thickness you can use most bolts—reload from the bottom after you fire. The power’s way up, too; within a hundred meters, they say it’ll punch straight through iron armor from the front.」
「How could you possibly make it do all that!?」

Honestly, I’d like to ask that myself. I did ask, but I couldn’t understand the explanation.

「Let me give you something as a send‑off, too.」

Saying that, I stepped back so I wouldn’t crush her, shifted into my dragon form, peeled a scale from around my shoulder, and held it out to her.

「It’s my scale. Keep it inside your clothes and you’ll be warm even in winter, and it works as armor. You could probably sell it for money, too. …Nokia?」

Puzzled by her lack of reaction, I returned to human form.

「You know…」

Nina said in a thoroughly exasperated tone.

「That’s probably the first time you’ve shown that form to Nokia.」

Nokia—the woman who’d been gasping in surprise almost daily since coming to Hiiro—was standing there with her eyes rolled white, fainted dead away without a peep.

In the end, her departure ended up being delayed by about a month.