KEEPING THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATION COOL
Flatorte had been acting strange for the past few days.
“Eight hundred fifty-seven, eight hundred fifty-eight, eight hundred fifty-nine!”
She was doing sit-ups in the dining room.
“What are you doing? Into working out now? Or on a diet?”
Maybe 850 was normal for a dragon, but that was still quite a number. Once you get that high, you’re not just losing weight.
“Neither! Oh… I forgot my count…”
“Sorry! I shouldn’t have said anything!”
“It’s okay, Mistress. Not really keeping track of the numbers anyway. I’ve miscounted almost thirty times already.”
At that point, you might as well not keep count at all. But it’s easy to mess up once you get that high, to be sure.
“So what are you doing, then? I don’t think the floor is very clean.”
People usually wore their shoes inside in this world, after all. Halkara’s family was an exception.
“I asked Sandra, and she said it was better than the ground!”
Right, a plant would say that.
Laika came to stand beside us. “I admire your workout. I must not fall behind!” she said, joining in.
Wait, does she really need training to build muscle? Eh, I won’t stop her, though. Couldn’t hurt.
“I, the great Flatorte, am not doing something as stupid and simple as ‘working out.’ Oh, man… I totally forgot what number I was on…”
Oh, she was trying to keep count again… We shouldn’t talk during a workout.
“One, two, three—in that case—seven, eight—what are you doing—eleven, twelve!” Laika skillfully conversed and counted while she worked.
“Can’t you tell? This is why you red dragons are so useless. Your hot spring town makes you obsessed with the perfect temperature.”
“I can’t tell—if you’re disparaging me—or complimenting me—seventeen, eighteen!”
Yeah, you could use that in an ad for a hot spring.
“Then let me tell you.”
There was a smug look on Flatorte’s face.
“My body yearns for battle!”
“Ohhh, right, right—wait, you wanted to fight just the other day!” I said, while Laika complained at about the same time.
“Did you not let everything out at the bullfighting festival?!”
Like master, like apprentice.
“Mistress, that bullfighting festival didn’t totally satisfy my burning need for battle. That’s why I started working my abs, because it might help. One, two, three, four!”
She didn’t know how far she was in her count anymore, so she started over from one…
Still, this was the first time I’d ever heard someone talk about helping their need for battle in a sentence.
I guess that happens when you live for a long time. I still had a lot to learn.
“So doing crunches is helping you?”
I didn’t really want to do any dinner prep in the kitchen across from her doing her sit-ups. It was kind of unnerving.
“Honestly? Not at all! One, two, three, four!” She started at one again… “Mistress, are there any forests around here I can freeze?”
“No! No destroying the environment!”
“Okay… I’ll do all the crunches I can, so I don’t have to freeze anything…,” Flatorte replied gloomily. Her crestfallen sit-ups were a bit strange to watch.
Hmm… What could she freeze? Not a whole lot of options…
That’s when I heard the flapping of large wings.
When I went outside, I found a large wyvern soaring overhead. A delivery? Or a visitor?
The wyvern slowly landed on the highlands.
“Oi, oi, it’s Muu! Sovereign of the Thursa Thursa Kingdom. Specializin’ in one-liners an’ knot tricks. Ow, ow, this knot’s really pressin’ on me throat—Hey! This ain’t a knot trick; it’s a noose! An’ there ya ’ave it—I’ll be ’ere all week!”
“What a morbid way to say hello!”
All she really had to say was hi.
Muu was alone for this visit (except for the wyvern, but it was more like her car).
“Boy, once we star’ed partnerin’ wiv the demons and borrowin’ the wyverns, I’ve been goin’ far an’ wide!”
“That’s great, but make sure you don’t let normal people see you, okay? It might cause some complications. Although…maybe a regular person wouldn’t be able to tell you’re the queen of an ancient civilization.”
She didn’t have any unique-looking horns on her head or anything.
“So what brings you here today? Rosalie should be floating somewhere in the house.”
The most likely reason she was here was to hang out with Rosalie.
“Not this time.” She made a big X with her arms.
Wow, that came across a little strong.
“I got a favor to ask of you. Figured you lot at the house in the highlan’s might be able to do somefin’.”
“A favor? Tell me what it is, then. We have to know that first.”
I had no idea what the ancient queen was going to ask of me.
“I want ya to cool down the Thursa Thursa Kingdom.”
“Cool it down?”
What did she mean by that? Was this some kind of metaphor? Did she want me to ruin her economy? She’s a ghost; what could that possibly mean?
“Well, I’ll tell ya the rest inside. It’ll take a while to explain.”
“Sure. Let’s go, then.”
But when I came to the door, I realized something was off and turned around.
Muu had only moved one step, if that. “Rgh… Just one step at a time… Just one step at a time an’ I’ll make it there ’ventually…”
“You still have no physical strength!”
Seeing this after eight hundred plus sit-ups gave me whiplash.
I just carried her into the house.
Muu’s request for us to cool off her kingdom basically went like this:
“The Thursa Thursa Kingdom is currently sufferin’ from climate change.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear about that issue in this world…
“But your country isn’t creating any CO2 emissi—Oh right, you don’t have the concept of CO2.”
Carbon dioxide probably existed in this world, but the presence of magic made the science a lot less rigorous.
“Don’t know ’bout no CO2 or CO1 or CO3, but our kingdom’s been ’round a long while. And fings’ve gotten a lot warmer in the meantime.”
I see… They did say that Earth was a bit cooler several hundred years ago… The world’s always gone through periods like that, even without the advances of science and technology.
“But you’re all already dead, so shouldn’t it not affect you?”
I wasn’t clear on what the downsides were here. Maybe for Muu, her physical body would decay faster, but I doubted she was here for such a personal problem.
“Climate change…is growin’ all sorts o’ plants we’ve never seen before…,” she said, her face pale.
“Wait… That’s it?”
That was a lot more trivial than I was expecting.
“‘That’s it’? Is that all you ’ave to say?! This is a bloody serious problem!”
She was angry with me, but I genuinely didn’t understand.
“I know that pollen from new plants can give us humans allergies and stuff, but it shouldn’t affect ghosts, right?”
“Pollen doesn’t affect me, either!” came a voice from my feet.
Rosalie’s head was poking out from the ground underneath my chair.
“Holy—! Where the hell did you come from?! You scared me! Took years off me life!”
Muu was just waiting for me to say something. Well, maybe not; I could tell the shock was real.
“Sheesh, don’t you get it? The new plants sprout between our graves! Could break ’em right up! Ha, graves in grave danger…now that’s a right bubble…”
I ignored that last part.
“Oh, plants can break stone with their roots.”
“Precisely.”
Muu pointed both her index fingers at me, with both her thumbs pointing straight up. Were those supposed to be finger guns? This sovereign was looking more and more like a desperate entertainer…
“Some real fast-spreadin’ buggers have gotten into the stone, an’ everyone’s families are in a pickle… At this rate, our ruins’ll be totally ruin’d in a hundred an’ fifty years…”
“Oh, a hundred and fifty years?”
That wasn’t me, actually; Flatorte jumped in this time. I was honestly about to say the same thing, though.
“If it’s that far off, then you’re still fine. I’m sure you’ll figure something out before then.”
“Listen! This stuff sneaks up on ya! It’ll still be damaged in a hun’red years! We needa act before that happens! If we only start finking of solutions in a hun’red an’ fifty years, then time ain’t on our side no more!”
That did make sense. If we didn’t hurry and come up with a solution, then we’d have far more repairs to do.
“That’s why I came all ’is way to ask for your ’elp.”
She sure sounded arrogant for someone asking for help… But she was a queen.
Wait, so then what she came here to ask us was—
“Cool down all our ruins to wither up all the plants growin’ there! Turn it into a wasteland tha’ll keep all the bloody weeds away!”
Huh, that’s the first time I’ve seen someone ask to turn their home into a wasteland…
But I still had some apprehensions, so I had to check.
“It’s possible, I think, but we could erode or break the stone in the process of harming the plants, too.”
If the water in the stone froze, that could cause its own kind of damage.
“Not to worry! We’ll use a magic barrier to make sure none o’ the elements get inside the stones. Lower the temps to get every single one o’ those plants out! Please! Cheers!”
“Don’t say ‘cheers’ before I’ve given the okay!”
But in truth, it wasn’t such a bad proposal. I’d actually say that our interests lined up here.
“This is perfect for you, isn’t it, Flatorte?” I patted the dragon next to me on the shoulder. “Use your desire for battle to cool down their ruins. You could breathe all the ice you wanted!”
“I’d love to! I’ll cut loose! I can freeze everything to pieces!”
Flatorte’s excitement went from zero to a hundred in a second.
“To pieces? No, don’t do ’at… Don’t break our relics… Y’know you’re jus’ freezin’ up the plants, right?”
Muu was surprisingly calm about this.
To be honest, I was kind of scared to send Flatorte off on her own. Extremely scared, actually.
“Okay, then Flatorte and I will go to the Thursa Thursa Kingdom.”
“Oh, you’re comin’ wiv us, too.”
The us was actually referring to the first person—she was talking about herself. It’s a Cockney thing. Technically, it was a completely different language, but the magic translation made it sound like that to me.
“And why don’t you come along, too, Rosalie?” I said to the ghost, whose head was popping out of the floor at my feet. Why was she hanging out down there?
“I can go, too? I’ll definitely come along!”
There weren’t a lot of places with a bunch of ghosts, so I bet Rosalie enjoyed her time there.
I think we were all caught up in the situation. All we needed to know next was when we were—
“Right, so you’re coming wiv us now. I’ve got an inn ready for ya.”
“Wait, at least let me rearrange our schedule,” I said. This queen sure was impatient.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Just go in, bam, get it done, bish bash bosh, finished. Leave it for la’er, an’ we’ll forget ’bout it. Flatorte an’ Rosalie are unemployed, right? C’mon, the wyvern’s waitin’. Let’s go.”
So pushy. I had a lot of random drop-ins at the house in the highlands, but not many of them were this forceful about it…
But my schedule was open, and my life was relatively relaxed overall. I could stand to be away from the house for three or four days.
Getting it done quickly and coming home early wasn’t such a bad thought, either. Just in case, though, I’d leave someone in charge for the time being.
“Laika, you’re the boss while we’re gone.”
Frankly, Laika was the most reliable one here.
“Yes! I will take good care of it! I will protect the house in the highlands with my life!”
“Not if it comes to that! Your life is way more important!”
Now that I’d left the job in someone else’s hands, I went around to my daughters to tell them I was going.
“We’ll be good, so bring us back something fun~!”
“No need for you to worry about the house at all. Shalsha wants a souvenir, too.”
“I’ll just take dirt.”
Ah, right, travel gifts… Unlike the demon lands, they didn’t really sell things in the Thursa Thursa Kingdom. And I wasn’t so sure about dirt. If there were any seeds in whatever I picked up, then wouldn’t that lead to the spread of invasive species…?
“I’ll do my best,” I replied to them vaguely.
Rosalie and I hopped on dragon Flatorte’s back and departed for the Thursa Thursa Kingdom.
It was hard to say precisely if Rosalie was actually riding on Flatorte’s back, but Flatorte was sort of carrying her, at least.
“I’m starting to get used to the look of these ruins now,” I said as we stood among the rows of pyramid-like structures.
“All right, jus’ go and make it cool here. Freeze ’em up!”
“Wait, we can’t just rush into this. If we don’t approach this carefully, then you’ll regret it for the rest of your death. We should check out the place first.”
Rosalie was right. And it was more convincing with a ghost saying it.
“I, the great Flatorte, cannot be bothered. I just wanna let it all out.”
Rosalie and I were right to come along…
“I know you want us to cool it down, but we should still get a sense of scope on this whole thing. Just hold tight for a second.”
Right then, a Thursa Thursa Kingdom minister came to us.
“I am glad to see you all again. Has anything changed with you? As ghosts, we are exactly the same.”
The one who’d given us the weird greeting was Nahna Nahna, who basically acted as chief maid and minister. She was still wearing that outfit that showed her midriff, but I guess the cold wasn’t a problem for ghosts.
“Hey there. What kind of effects is this climate change having on you?”
“Well, it’s quite terrible, really. I would like you to take a look at these community commoner graves—every three rooms comes with a toilet and bath.”
“Your commoner graves look a lot like apartment blocks…”
We walked a short way to find some more ancient stone buildings, although these weren’t pyramids.
They were plain, rectangular buildings that looked like massive apartment blocks.
“Oh yeah! We’ve never come this way before, Big Sis,” said Rosalie.
“You didn’t know about them, either?”
Flatorte could hardly keep herself still—she was hopping in place and punching the air. No grace at all.
“As you can see, it’s just a residential area. Who’d bring guests out ’ere?”
“Indeed. There are no sights to see. Just a crowd of ghosts living their deaths.”
This was just how it was for this kingdom, but it kind of sucked to have to stay a commoner even after you were dead…
“And this is where the damage is especially bad.” Nahna Nahna pointed to a crumbling ruin completely covered in green ivy.
“Whoa, this is way worse than I thought!”
All I could see was green at this point. It was difficult to tell if the actual structure was made of stone.
“At first, the ghosts not-living here enjoyed the elegance it added to the building and said it would look very nice in illustrations, but the vines have grown so heavy that we can no longer ignore it.”
“It’s only a matter of time before it starts getting inside, right?”
“Yes. And to make matters worse, the gaps between stones are larger in commoner community buildings than they are in residences for the upper class, so damage spreads quite easily.”
Your status after death was so solidified—this was downright dystopian.
“Wow, the plants grow impressively fast…”
“Right? Knew you’d agree, Rosalie. They do way more damage than any ol’ ghost. At the rate they’re goin’, they’ll get into all the rocks an’ destroy all our buildin’s. We gotta get rid of ’em.”
I finally grasped just how alarming of a situation the Thursa Thursa Kingdom was in.
It was already in a warm region, but plants coming from even warmer regions became big threats.
“Yes. I, the great Flatorte, will take a deep breath, and—”
“Wait, wait! We still have to prepare!” I had to periodically hold Flatorte back to keep things safe.
“Miss Nahna Nahna, Flatorte’s breath is like a blizzard, so I believe it would be better if it didn’t directly touch the buildings. Do you have magic that will prevent that?”
A snowstorm would damage the construction—what if Flatorte ended up doing the same?
“Yes. We will cover all the buildings with a veil that will repel physical attacks, so we would appreciate it if you breathed from the sky.”
“On it!”
Flatorte suddenly transformed into a dragon. Fortunately, we were in a rather open space, but it was still shocking to see her suddenly turn massive right in front of my eyes.
“Mistress, I’ll be waiting up top, so let me know when you get the okay!”
I couldn’t get another word in edgewise, because she was already up high in the sky. She really wanted to let ’er rip.
“…Okay then, Miss Nahna Nahna, go ahead and take care of the magical barrier.”
“Certainly. I already have the technicians in place.”
A group of ghosts assembled around us, all of them with a large number of stone tablets floating in front of them. The tablets would be acting as remote controls, I assumed, and they were floating either by ghost powers or via magic.
But I recognized these people—specifically, their shiny bald heads.
They were the Hair Growth magic people!
“It’s nice to see you again, Miss Azusa. I am Dan Dan, supervisor for today’s defensive magic technology. No snow will even touch the top of the buildings. They will remain pristine and clear.”
Yeah, like your head!
I wanted to say it aloud, but that would be rude.
“We will form a barrier over all of the buildings here to protect them from physical attacks. These pristine barriers will ward off all kinds of physical attacks.”
“You just want to say pristine! Sounds like that’s a word you’re extra fond of.”
After the second time, I couldn’t help myself.
“Right, Dan Dan, get it done. Wither ’em proper. These plants’ll never show their faces round ’ere again!”
“Understood. We will create a world of death where no grass or leaf will ever grow.”
That sure was an extreme way of putting it, especially since everyone was dead already…
“Shouldn’t you make sure not to kill the plants that were growing here to begin with…? You’ll be destroying the environment in a different way…”
“We should be all right—the plants from hotter climates should disappear first. Our native plants will remain.”
I could see the logic. The native plants were growing somewhere in the area here, and even if they shriveled up a bit, they’d probably recover quickly.
Work proceeded swiftly after that. Five minutes later, a dome of light that was most likely the barrier appeared in the sky.
“Pristine dome, successfully deployed! So long as we remain inside, anything from spears to the sun cannot harm us!”
If the sun was close enough to make contact with the barrier, then the world would end. So I hoped that didn’t happen.
“Great. Then I’ll give Flatorte the signal.”
I flew straight up until I could see Flatorte myself.
The light dome was partially see-through, so she could almost certainly tell where it was.
“We’re good!” I waved my hand.
I could tell dragon Flatorte was looking right at me.
“Here I go! Five, four, one!”
“Don’t jump the countdown!”
Ah, I bet she couldn’t hear what I was saying.
She was already blasting the dome with the biggest cold breath she’d ever breathed.
Fwooooooooo!
The concentrated jet of frigid air gave me a chill just listening to it as it swirled around the outside of the dome.
When I returned to the ground, I could tell that the temperature had gone down.
“Brr! It’s freezing… Miss Nahna Nahna, do you have any blankets…?”
“We have nothing for the living. If you dig a hole for yourself, you might find the dirt warm.”
“I don’t want to dig my own grave for warmth, thank you.”
Oh well. I just had to put up with it. I wrapped my arms around myself and did all I could to keep my body heat from escaping.
“Whoooaaa! Nice one, Flatorte! That’s some real power!”
Rosalie was excited, too—she liked the dramatics.
From my vantage point on the ground, I could see lumps of ice colliding with the dome with high-pitched dinks. I guess those came out of Flatorte’s mouth, too.
Honestly, the whole sight was truly magnificent. A normal living person might be a little unsettled by this if they saw it, though. It won’t be so pretty once the magic effect wears off.
“Flatorte must be satisfied after all that. I’m always impressed by how big everything is with dragons…”
I’d never breathed any cold myself, but I was convinced such a massive release would be very helpful with her stress. I bet it’d been a long time since Flatorte last got to use her breath with all her might, too.
“If Flatorte and Sis Laika fought with all their strength, who do you think’d win?” Rosalie asked me with genuine interest.
“Good question… Probably shouldn’t find out. Their battleground would be a wasteland afterward.”
“Pretend they wouldn’t, then! What do you think?”
Ahhh, yeah, we were just speaking in hypotheticals.
“I really don’t know. But I have a feeling it’d be a hard fight for Laika. She doesn’t handle the cold well.”
Just a thought, but had Flatorte been holding back, at least a little, whenever she fought Laika and the red dragons? This frigid cold was so shocking that I was almost convinced.
…Nah, Flatorte would never hold back, would she?
And if she was being tied down by rules, then she might lose surprisingly quickly…
“Dang…it’s cold…” I huddled into myself. I might get sick after this.
“Oi, can’t handle the cold? Ain’tcha embarrassed, miss super-witch?”
“How tough it must be to be alive. I sympathize. I recommend dying sooner rather than later.”
The ghosts pitied me. I mean, I was the only living human inside this dome. Being in the minority made me feel small…
Flatorte’s cold breath was still hammering the dome, and the temperature inside was still dropping.
“We must be around freezing temps right now. I really want a coat.”
“You’re doing great, Big Sis. Life sure is full of hardships, huh?”
I can’t believe the ghosts are comforting me now!
“I’m about as hardy as humans come, so you don’t really need to worry about me. If you brought along a regular person, this could really affect their health.”
A pond near us was now covered in a thick sheet of ice.
I suddenly had a terrible feeling.
“Hey, if someone were outside this dome, wouldn’t they freeze to death…?”
I looked to the side and saw icy snow piling up.
Then came a loud rumble and a crash as some snow slid off the slanted part of the dome and fell to the ground below.
Because of that, only the areas right outside were under heavy snow cover. A good few meters of it at least.
“We’ve got our own little avalanche, too. The world outside looks like hell; I really hope no one’s out there…”
“Miss Azusa, no human ever ventures into such an elusive land as ours. You are making yourself anxious for no reason.”
“Yeah. What Nahna Nahna said. No human can even get here. If somehow they managed to get a gander at us, they’d run home in fear anyway!”
“I hope so… Ooh… Ah-choo!”
I’d never experienced it before, but my instincts were saying we’d dipped into the negatives. Maybe more, even. Less than negative twenty?
As I endured the cold, I heard Muu shout.
“Oi, it’s workin’!”
The leaves on the ivy around the ruins were turning brown. Finally, some withering.
“Almost there, Flatorte! Show us all you got! Keep it goin’!”
Muu was waving her arms around in excitement. Now was the one time that I was really jealous of her for not having a sense of cold.
All kinds of plants were starting to wither away. (And so was I.) Little by little, the green was fading.
“Yesss! Get ’em! Get ’em good!”
“Hey, uh, maybe take it back a notch…? This is uncouth, even for you. And you don’t have to wave your arms all the time…”
She was looking less like a ruler and more like a rioter.
“Oh, an’ my body’s not moving like I want it to. Can’t put me arm down.”
“Your lack of exercise is worse than I thought!”
All her movable parts were like an awkward-looking doll.
“Never had a problem wiv me arms before, though… Well, at least I can still see what she’s up to.”
All of the spirits in that building block had come outside now to watch Flatorte and the ivy. Flatorte was like a hero as she defeated the invasive greenery.
This was the best possible outcome for her, considering she was helping others while relieving her own stress.
“This should get rid of the ivy. What a happy ending we have now.” Nahna Nahna made small enough claps that they didn’t make a sound. Or maybe that was just because she was a ghost.
All the ivy clinging to the buildings crumbled to the ground like a melting ice statue.
It was finally cold enough that the plants totally froze over, and we could see the stone walls of the buildings. Our plan was a success.
“Well, I’m super cold, but…I’m glad the plan was a success. That went off without a hitch.”
I really should’ve kept my mouth shut. I jinxed us.
“The hell, I really can’t move… It’s ’bout time I get my arms down. Hah!” Muu mustered her strength, put force into her arms, and—
Pop!
Muu’s right arm fell off.
Thunk…
That was a hard sound when it hit the ground. Two rock-solid objects making contact.
“Gaaah! What on earth?! Why’s me arm fallen off?!” Muu exclaimed in shock. But she wasn’t freaking out, at least not yet.
Everything happened so fast after that.
Muu’s body parts plopped off one by one, just like the ivy falling off the building.
“Aaaaaaaagh! Holy crap! This is like a horror scene now!” I covered my eyes.
“What the hell is going on?! Why’m I fallin’ apart in the cold?!”
“Ah yes, I see now,” Nahna Nahna said calmly. “Miss Azusa, this is not an emergency for Her Majesty. There is no need to worry.”
Uh, how exactly is this not an emergency?
“Well, you know Her Majesty has a physical body, unlike the rest of us ghosts.”
“Yeah. She’s your queen, so she gets special treatment or something.”
“There is a certain degree of moisture within her body. Otherwise, she would be too desiccated to move.”
“I get that much.”
“Now that that moisture has frozen, it has broken her body. It seems we are no longer within an acceptable temperature range for regular creatures to live. You would have died by this point were you not a great and powerful witch. I am glad you are one.”
“One wrong step and I could’ve died… You sound way too calm for this.”
Good thing I didn’t bring my daughters along, geez.
“I get what’s going on, but are you sure it’s okay to leave Muu like that?!”
I knew it was important for the minister to remain calm, but she was barely reacting at all.
“No matter how physically cold she may get, it will not harm her spirit at all, so this problem is trivial. We will simply need to piece her back together soon.”
“Yeah. I broke, an’ that’s that. We’ll deal wiv it later.”
Muu herself was already calm. She had no nerves at all—both figuratively and literally now.
But I could barely even look at her.
“This is gruesome! I need someone to blur this all out for me before I can look at you!”
This was just straight-up gore!
And not only that, but a new kind of gore. It was nasty, like a human body had been completely dried out and then thoroughly crumbled to bits. Her face didn’t even look like a face anymore… I was taking actual psychic damage.
“Whoa, you’re a mess! Yuck,” said Rosalie.
“Right? You can literally see my ribs!”
As I listened to them, I started to feel like I was losing it out here.
“Hey, how are you talking now, Muu?”
“It’s me spirit talkin’. Me body has nuffin’ to do wiv it. If I was makin’ physical sounds, then ya wouldn’t be able to understand me ancient parlance, an’ I wouldn’t be able to understand what you’re sayin’.”
I see. Her body really was just a vessel for her divine spirit—or whatever.
“Oi, I’m used to this now, so I can move.”
Muu, whose body was shattered into hundreds of parts, stood up. Well, floated up, since she wasn’t using the muscles in her arms and legs.
All her parts were generally in the right place—but off just by one. Her face, especially, was a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey mess. Her nose was at her throat, and her ear was at the back of her head.
Out of context, this horrifying picture would stay with you until you died…
“Now this is new. I’m gonna go take a little walk.”
“How can you be so calm?!” Don’t act like this isn’t a big deal! A walk is way too normal for this!
“It’s fine, Big Sis. Muu’s in great shape, so she’ll be fine.”
“You sure about that? I feel like she’s beyond reviving with any kind of restorative magic…”
Living people’s perspectives were totally worthless here.
Muu did indeed walk off after that. Er, maybe walk isn’t the right word, either? Her leg muscles were completely useless at this point anyway. Language that uses humans as a default creates all sorts of inconsistencies.
About the same time as she left, Flatorte’s cold breath stopped. That sound that made you colder just hearing it was finally gone.
“Hey, how was that? I, the great Flatorte, am satisfied! I haven’t been able to cut loose completely in forever!” I could hear Flatorte’s voice echoing from the top of the dome.
“Very good! It was a great success. All the invasive plants have perished. Please take a look. As you can see, the commoner buildings look quite different now,” Nahna Nahna replied.
The rectangular buildings were the color of rough concrete.
“Now you may stop the magic. Dan Dan?”
“Of course. I am glad to see not a single hair was harmed on anyone. And certainly not me!”
Please, no stupid jokes, thank you. I was starting to think bald jokes were the only reason he was bald at all.
When the ancient magical device stopped, the dome of light vanished, and warm air gradually started to fill the space.
“Oh right… I totally forgot when I saw that disaster with Muu, but it really was cold in here.”
How far into the negatives had it gone? Either way, it was probably too dangerously cold to hold a conversation in regular clothes. Any normal person would have been in peril the second the chill entered their body.
“Well, Flatorte got some stress relief in, and we saved the Thursa Thursa Kingdom, so I’d consider this a win-win, huh?”
Just as I finished speaking—
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!”
—I heard a scream from beyond the ruins, right where the buildings and the forest met, basically.
“What? What happened now?”
I didn’t recognize the voice; it sounded like it belonged to a man.
“I doubt it is of any importance. Please pay it no mind.” Nahna Nahna breezily brushed it off.
“I honestly don’t think that’s possible, Miss Nahna Nahna.”
“That was not the voice of one of ours. If one or two humans were to enter our territory, we would be able to drive them away.”
Honestly, it was hard to believe what she said, but—
“If you say so, Minister, then I’ll trust you.”
Later, the fragmented Muu came back.
“Thought I’d put meself back togeva on me own, but I failed~”
She looked way worse than when she left—her head was practically buried in her chest.
“You messed up, big-time! You’re a total monster now!”
“Well, people need a mirror to see themselves. Y’know how ya can’t scratch an itchy back? Couldn’t totally fix meself.”
“Please don’t chat with me when your body is scrambled.”
I’m sure my panic made me seem to be the odd one out, but don’t get the wrong idea—I was the only one who wasn’t being weird.
“An’ I ran across some explorer guy, too.”
“That’s who was screaming!”
“He passed right out, so I sent ’im outside the forest wiva spell. An’ I made sure to use magic to mask our ruins. Doubt he’ll be back.”
“Ah, perhaps we were temporarily visible to humans due to the defensive dome magic,” Nahna Nahna offered, and it sounded reasonable to me.
“Humans shouldn’t be able to see our ruins, but we stopped the illusion magic we usually ’ave. Musta been his lucky day, eh?”
“Your Majesty, are you sure that should be considered good luck? Those who live in blissful ignorance of us are the fortunate ones, I would say.”
“You might be right~ Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
I knew why, but these ghosts were extra unique. Other ghosts would probably consider them an affront to ghostkind.
Either way, our job came to a peaceful end, so all was well.
Oh right. There was one thing I wanted to do before going home.
“Hey, do you have anything I could take home for my girls? They were asking for stuff.”
I wasn’t really expecting much, though.
“Oh, hmm…” Muu thought for a little while, and she finally looked down at the ground. “You can take home as much dirt as you want. I bet all the li’l creatures in there are dead. Might still be some seed, but I doubt they’d grow way up in the chilly ’ighlands.”
I had no idea I’d actually end up bringing some dirt home…
“O-okay, then I’ll take some of that for Sandra… Do you have anything for Falfa and Shalsha?”
Maybe I’d stop off in some village on the way home to find something.
“If you’d like, Miss Azusa, feel free to take some of that with you.” Nahna Nahna pointed to the outside of the ruins—and a wall of ice.
So much snow and ice had fallen outside the dome that the entirety of the ruins now looked like a walled city.
“They would be able to play in the snow if you brought some back,” she explained.
“Miss Nahna Nahna—”
“What, were you going to complain that it’s not much different from dirt?”
“What a refined suggestion. I’ll take you up on that idea.”
It might be fun to take some snow home. It didn’t get that hot in the highlands, but it didn’t get snow like some other colder places did. I was sure Falfa and Shalsha would be happy with this.
“Hmm, these compliments are making me uncomfortable…” Nahna Nahna clearly did not enjoy receiving such direct approval. I’d never seen this side of her before. “My duodenum itches.”
“That’s very…specific.”
“It is no more than a sensation. All of my organs have long since ceased functioning.”
I knew that, but as a living person, I thought it was a strange thing to imagine.
I hung a large box of snow (and dirt for Sandra) around dragon Flatorte’s neck. I doubted the cold from the snow would bother her much, so it was the perfect arrangement.
It wasn’t so bad to help out the ghosts every once in a while!
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