Chapter 12: Missing
Beryl and Andal rode on Chelsie in her dragon form, heading toward the royal capital. The plan had been to relax at Chelsie’s house for a little while longer, but once Ruri had heard that her parents had gone missing, she knew there was no time to rest idly. Kotaro had been disappointed that his time with Ruri had been stolen from him, but they needed to report to Jade, so he rushed along.
When Ruri arrived at the castle, she made a straight line for the royal office and rushed inside, forgetting to even knock beforehand.
“Master Jade, may I have a word?!”
“Ruri? You’re back earlier than I thought. Finished with your visit already?” Jade asked, confused.
Claus, who was present as well, blinked in surprise as Chelsie entered the room after Ruri. Once he caught sight of Andal following after Chelsie, his surprise turned into full-blown shock.
“Father?!”
“Heya there, Claus. How’ve you been?”
“What in blazes are you doing here?!”
“Dropped by to see Chelsie for old time’s sake, one thing led to another, and here I am.”
Not even Claus could hold back his amazement at the impromptu and overdue reunion with his father, Andal.
Jade had expected Chelsea to come, but he didn’t expect to see the previous Beast King. His surprise was apparent.
“Well, I never expected you to be here, Andal,” commented Jade.
“Ooh, Jade, been a spell, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, you seem to be doing well.”
“Still kicking,” Andal added with a laugh.
“I won’t ask what you’ve been up to, but you might want to pay Arman a visit every once in a while.”
“No thanks. I have an inkling that if I do go, he’s gonna greet me with a fist to the face. Well, not that I’d ever let the scamp land a free punch on me anyway. Gahahah!”
“What goes around comes around,” Jade uttered with an exasperated sigh.
The previous Beast King, Andal, had disappeared without properly handing over the throne, which had plunged the nation into a huge civil war over the succession. While it was unclear what Andal had been thinking when he did that, Arman, the current Beast King, undoubtedly had mixed feelings about the root of this evil.
“By the way, who is that behind you?” Jade asked, his attention finally turning to the last person to enter the room.
Ruri grabbed Beryl’s arm and brought him in front of Jade. “This would be my grandpa.”
“Your grandfather? I see. So, you’ve come to this world.”
“Yup. I’m Ruri’s grandfather, Beryl.”
“I’m the king of this nation, Jade.”
They both reached out and exchanged a handshake.
Beryl stared long and hard at Jade’s face before breaking out into a smile. “So, you’re Ruri’s husband, are ya? Damn, Ruri. He’s a looker. You nabbed yourself quite the handsome man. He’s got a face that’s Riccia’s type, so I’m sure she’ll be giddy when she finds out.”
Beryl was not the least bit intimidated even in the presence of a king. His crass behavior actually bothered Ruri more than anyone else in the room. She’d told him that he had things wrong, but in Beryl’s mind, he had already identified Jade as her husband.
“You’re impossible, Grandpa! Jade-sama, I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s all right,” Jade said. “He seems to be quite the lively gentleman, similar to you. But why is he with Chelsie and the others? Did you meet them on the way here?”
“My blockheaded grandfather apparently came here half a year ago. During that time, he and the previous Beast King hit it off and went journeying around the world. Even though I’ve been anxious about when he’d get here.”
“Well, it’s a good thing he did make it here safely, isn’t it? So, is it just Lord Beryl here? Where are your parents?”
Ruri’s expression suddenly turned gloomy. “Well, it seems that there was a problem when they came to this world, and we don’t know where they went.”
“What do you mean?” Jade asked.
Ruri told Jade what Beryl had told her, but since Beryl didn’t really know what happened himself, the cause was still a mystery. Even the spirits around Beryl were clueless.
“Space went all wavy!”
“Riccia got yanked through!”
“Dragged through a distortion in space, were they?” Jade mused.
“What could it be?” Ruri asked.
Jade had no idea. The only ones capable of moving between worlds were the spirits.
As they all pondered over what could have happened, Kotaro added his own conjecture.
“I can think of one thing,” Kotaro began as his face turned grim, “and that is the magic that summoned you to this world, Ruri. If summoning magic was invoked while they came over, there is a chance that is what pulled them away.”
“You don’t think something’s happening in Nadasha again, do you?” Ruri asked. But that couldn’t be since they’d destroyed all of the documents pertaining to summoning to prevent something like that from happening.
“No, I also thought that and checked Nadasha first, but there was nothing there. Not even a trace of people being summoned.”
“So you’re saying that someplace other than Nadasha summoned them?”
“I’ll need some more time to investigate further,” Kotaro said. Not even he could do everything at once; he wasn’t omnipotent.
Ruri knew that, but she was still impatient. Even as she spoke, she couldn’t help but worry about her parents.
“Ah, quit your worrying,” said Beryl. “Those two will be just fine. You’re worrying too much, Ruri.”
Contrary to Ruri, Beryl kept a positive attitude—a very irksome, positive attitude.
“Why are you being so optimistic, Grandpa?!” she asked, wanting to know where this confidence of his was coming from.
“If we can’t find ’em, we can’t find ’em, right? Panicking won’t make them pop up. You need to have a broader mind. You must train your spirit to go undaunted!”
“Your grandfather is, how do I put this, quite the easygoing character,” said Jade.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it. But you don’t have to mince words, Jade-sama. My grandpa is a total meathead.”
Ruri let out a deep sigh. Though she couldn’t be as calm as Beryl, she knew that talking wouldn’t produce anything, so she decided to wait for Kotaro to finish his search.
A few days later, Kotaro brought Ruri the results of his search. Ruri kept her excitement and anxiety in check as she waited for what he had to say.
“I couldn’t find them. I used the winds to search high and low, but your parents were nowhere to be found.”
“No way!”
“I had Earth help me just in case, but none of us could find them.”
“So if you and Chi can’t find them, does that mean they aren’t in this world?”
Kotaro was the Spirit of Wind. Wherever there was air, he had free passage to. However, they were somewhere the wind couldn’t reach. Not even Chi, the Spirit of Earth, could turn up anything.
A place with neither wind nor ground didn’t seem likely to exist in this world.
Rin fluttered over to Ruri’s cheek, nuzzling against it. “Ruri, just calm down. He isn’t done speaking yet.”
“Rin...”
“There’s no way that Earth and I would come up empty. That is, given one exception—Spirit Slayer magic. Our powers have problems reaching places where it’s housed.”
Before Ruri could ask where someplace like that would be, Jade stepped in with a grim face and an even grimmer tone. “So...Yadacain?”
Kotaro nodded. “No other place in the world would be using Spirit Slayer except there. If they landed there, then it makes sense why I can’t find them.”
“Then again,” Rin added, “I could see this happening if that spirit was involved too.”
Rin’s words caught Ruri’s attention. “Who is ‘that spirit’?”
“Our brethren, the Spirit of Light. Light’s barriers make it so that no other spirit’s powers can pass through. Not even Kotaro would be able to tell if Light was hiding them. But I can’t think of any reason why Light would hide a couple of people from another world, so I’d say the most likely candidate here is Yadacain instead.”
Yadacain was a nation where witches dwelled and spirits didn’t. Because of their use of Spirit Slayer, it was known as a place abandoned by the spirits.
“That land is a mystery in more ways than one. Plus, it wouldn’t be surprising that a witch would know about summoning magic. After all, the priests of Nadasha were capable of doing it.”
Yadacain was the birthplace of Spirit Slayer magic, and the Nadashians had used Spirit Slayer for their summonings. It would make sense that Yadacain had somehow passed it on to the Nadashian priest.
“If I recall, Joshua is on the way there right now, isn’t he, Jade-sama?” asked Ruri.
“Yes, he might have gained a lead by now. As much as I’d like to get in touch with him, that land inhibits any contact, so we’ll just have to wait for his regular correspondence,” Jade explained. Even his hands were tied in this situation.
“Aaah, of all the places to wind up, why thereeee?!” Ruri howled, clutching her head. However, it wasn’t set in stone that they were in Yadacain; it was just highly likely that they were.
Jade placed his hand on his chin. “Yadacain is a closed nation. I think any outsider just showing up would raise some flags, but if the people of Yadacain did conduct a summoning, it must’ve been done with a purpose. That being said, I’m not sure what that purpose would even be.”
“Well, I hope they’re both all right,” said Ruri.
If they were a closed nation, then it wasn’t as though they were looking for someone to spearhead their war efforts like Nadasha had been. Still, no one knew what else their goal could be.
“I’ll send some operatives other than Joshua there. Just have faith and wait, Ruri. I assure you, it’ll be okay,” Jade said, petting her head in a consoling manner.
She gave a small nod in response. Right now, she could only believe in what her grandfather had told her—along with his mysterious sense of confidence.
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