Chapter Four: First Action
I
A fist shot out like a bolt of lightning, followed by an airborne spinning kick that cut through the air.
The year was Tempus Fugit 997.
With the dark red sun at her back, the girl moved freely around the training ground. All of a sudden, the air before her rippled, then was torn asunder. A thick black fluid came oozing out. The girl stopped what she was doing to watch as the fluid slowly assumed a familiar shape.
Z? What’s up?
Z gazed out at the western sky and asked, You will not hunt today?
No, I still have leftovers from yesterday, the girl replied. She pointed at a stone hut that stood in a corner of the training ground. Z had built it for her as a storehouse in response to her pestering, and she was very pleased with it. Z’s magic made it so that the inside of the storehouse was cold as winter all year round, so she didn’t have to worry about the spoils of her hunting going bad. Behind the door just now was strung up a vampire bird, bled and frozen. Z turned towards the storehouse, then back to the girl.
Go on. Pay me no mind.
Okay! the girl replied, suddenly in high spirits. She could count on one hand the times Z had joined her outside of observation. She went through all her skills one after another to display the results of her daily training.
“Hiyah!” Her final kick stopped right at Z’s throat. Z didn’t twitch, even as the wind generated by the blow pushed its hood back. Only the ever-present black mist continued to coil.
How was that? she asked.
Z took its time before it responded. When you made that final kick, your left foot pointed very slightly outward, and your toes were somewhat lifted, indicating that the axis of your body is off center. Repeat the kick, taking care with regards to those two points.
Okay! The girl steadied her breathing, then, focusing on Z’s advice, she threw another kick at its neck. There was a clapping sound as her foot pushed the air aside and Z’s robe billowed.
The girl stared at her own right foot.
Remember that feeling, Z said, then clicked its fingers. The black vortex that the girl had named “The Mysterious Mystery Box of Mysteries” spun into being.
Z plunged its hand in, then tugged out a soft white towel, which it used to gently wipe the girl’s face. This was so out of the blue that the girl, overcome by embarrassment, froze where she stood with her leg still outstretched.
U-Um, Z?
Z tossed the sweat-soaked towel back into the Mystery Box. Fourteen years old already... it said contemplatively. The girl felt that there was something odd about Z today, what with suddenly wiping her face.
Did something happen? she asked.
Z was silent for a time. Do you remember your lesson from two weeks ago?
Z sometimes asked her about past lessons for the purpose of revision, but only during observation time. This was very out of the ordinary.
The girl was perplexed, but even so, she spun up the Memory Wheel she had constructed in her mind and summoned the events of two weeks previous. This was her own special memory technique.
Umm. The thing about how it’s important to create an environment for your soldiers to build momentum rather than rely on their abilities.
A log on flat ground would stay where it was, but put it on a slope and it would roll away, gathering energy. It was a lesson in how to arrange conditions that would make it easier to take the advantage in order to achieve victory in battle.
Not that, Z said.
The thing about how to trick your opponent then?
Deception was at the heart of warfare. A weak soldier could defeat a stronger one through the skillful employment of falsehoods.
Not that either.
Then that just leaves... The girl considered. You said that the Asvelt Empire attacked Kier Fortress, which belongs to the Kingdom of Fernest?
Precisely. The Asvelt Empire successfully captured Kier Fortress. It will not be long at this rate before the empire unifies the whole of Duvedirica.
Huh... the girl replied absently. As part of her daily education, Z also kept her up to date on the current state of the world. Two years earlier, Emperor Ramza XIII of the Asvelt Empire had declared the unification of the continent and sent a great force to invade the Kingdom of Fernest. That was the beginning of the so-called Second Continental War of Unification. Now, the fighting between these two nations had spilled over to spread war everywhere. The girl knew all this; she just wasn’t interested at all. Her thinking was that so long as her life didn’t change when one of them won, she didn’t care.
Do you not want the Asvelt Empire to unify the continent, Z? The girl had never once seen Z display any interest in anything, so she doubted a mere human war had caught its attention, but she asked all the same.
Instead of answering her, Z only said, Already so little time remains, then vanished.
Little time remains? The girl repeated the words in her mind. She didn’t have a clue what they might mean, but they stoked a sense of unease within her.
This was one year before Z disappeared for good.
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