Chapter 43:

After a couple of minutes of eavesdropping, Cort deduced the reason behind Rine’s placement.

‘Origin racism?’ He thought with bewilderment. It seemed the fact that Rine was a Fire-focused magician was a problem with some people at the wind palace. Rather than surprised, Cort was more confused. According to his understanding, each of the elements had its own weaknesses and strengths but were all generally equally as strong. Furthermore, some elements actually complemented others; a classic example being wind and fire, which is why the two lands have been allies for so long.

However, he discovered that the relationship between the two was more complicated than he had originally thought. And as a result of this complicated status, Rine had been sent to the front lines.

Cort gathered that the same would be happening on the other side only with wind magicians fighting under the land of fire.

‘This is going to be troublesome,’ He thought as he approached Rine and the siblings.

There was something else that was bothering him. Rine was calm; far too calm for someone participating in their first war.

He watched Rine cheerfully speak with both Calvin and Amelia as if trying to cheer them up.

Calvin on the other hand was rather pale in complexion; as expected of someone heading to certain death.

Amelia looked anxious but not for her own sake.

‘Oh well, let’s just see how this plays out,’ Cort thought as he heard the guild master speak once more. The time to leave had come.

…………………………………………

“So you’re telling me you’ve seen this map before?” Rain asked in a slight fluster as she followed behind Lucy who was briskly walking through the library in search of something.

“Yes,” Lucy replied calmly.

“When? Back in the wind palace? Fire palace…”

“No no no, I’ve seen it recently, just a while ago in fact.”

“How? in the entire world, I have the only copy of the map.”

“You still believe that? Rain, whoever told you that was spewing bullshit. Cort already showed me the map.”

“Cort? Who is he?” Rain asked after hearing an unfamiliar name.

“Ah, found it!” Lucy averted the question.

Picking out an unremarkable book from a stack of equally uninteresting ones, she began to turn through the pages before stopping at a certain one.

“Here,” She said, tossing the book to Rain.

Barely catching the book, the frazzled Rain studied what was given to her. Written on a page that seemed impossibly old, she saw various squiggly lines that resembled text. Though foreign, the text seemed familiar.

“Wait, this is!” Rain gasped as she realized.

Lucy smiled, her hands holding up the map. Pointing at the side with writings on it, she explained. “Yup. It’s similar. Possibly the same language, if not related to it.”

Rain’s mouth became agape as she ran her finger through the old book in astonishment.

“The same language… then do you know what it says?”

“Nope.”

Shocked once again, Rain looked toward her friend with exasperated eyes. “Then what’s the point? What even is this?” She pointed at the book that seemed useless. At least the map, she understood, was clearly pointing toward something; hopefully, treasure. But the book? Wasn’t it just some random book?

“That’s a book written by Chance Freewing. A minor noble of the Verlau empire long long ago. The book is his personal journal, mostly talking about his everyday life as a socialite. The dances he attended, the wine he drank, and most scandalously of all, the women he slept with.”

Rain rolled her eyes as she heard Lucy explain. She plopped the book down on the table and sighed. Wasn’t this book utterly useless then? She could care less for the type of wine Chance preferred.

“Well, that was a waste of time. So, in short, you have no clue as to where the map is pointing?” Lucy asked, stifling a yawn. It was getting late, Cecil and Sophia should be growing antsier and antsier waiting outside.

“...You really are an idiot,” Lucy said, facepalming.

“What?”

“How do I know the contents of the book?”

“Cause you read-” She cut her words short. If Lucy had been able to read the book, then couldn’t she read the map as well? Were they different languages after all?

“I’ll answer your questions. No, I did not read that book. I read this one,” Lucy said proudly as she plopped another book on the table. Rain noticed it was the book Lucy had been reading when she entered the library.

Though she still couldn’t fully understand the words, they did at least look similar to a language she was familiar with.

“Isn’t this like the modern language of Verlau?” Rain asked.

“High speech, yes. An old form of it though. You see the old book was actually popular; so popular, it was rewritten to suit modern speech. Or at least what amounted to modern speech at the time.”

Finally, it all clicked into place for Rain. “You think you can use these two books to translate what is written on the map.”

“Exactly,” Lucy said with a smile. “Back then, when Cort showed me the map, I was more interested in the words written in a language I did not know. You know my thing with languages, right?”

Rain nodded, she remembered the long nights her friend would spend attempting to learn a completely random language just for the fun of it.

“Yeah, that’s why I couldn’t stop thinking of it. Finally, I found these books, but Cort hasn’t shown up again. So I guess you’re pretty lucky.”

Rain smiled wryly. “Lucky? Hah. I spent a lot of money on this thing thinking it was a unique treasure. Turns out someone else has the same map.”

“Oh cheer up, come help me decipher these words. Aren’t you curious about what they might say?” Lucy said as she tied her hair up in her usual bun.

“Alright, I’ll help. Tell me what to do.”

“Look through these books on this shelf for something similar to the language written on the map.”

“Alright.” Rain said as she enthusiastically rolled up her sleeves. But that enthusiasm soon died at the sight of what must have a hundred books packed into every inch of the shelf Lucy was pointing to.

Sigh….

…………………………………………

Hours passed by as the two friends busied themselves.

Seeing that their stay would be longer than she expected, Rain called Cecil and Sophia in, and after having a pleasant dinner with Lucy’s family, the two guards decided to take shifts guarding the library.

Rain’s eyes glazed over as she closed another book. Faintly, she could hear the snoring sounds of their supposedly alert guard Sophia coming from a nearby couch. “Tsk. Lucky…” She muttered, contemplating whether to throw her book at her or not.

“Leave her be. The library’s a safe place after all. You can take a break too,” Lucy told her without looking up from her book. Every now and then, she would drop the book in order to write some things down on paper.

“Nah. I’m fine,” Rain said as she reached for another book.

‘How can I take a break while you’re still rolling through,’ Rain couldn’t help but wonder why she always got competitive with Lucy around, but figuring out why didn’t really matter. What mattered was her not losing.

As Rain labored through the dull block of words, she remembered something that had interested her. “So who is Cort by the way,”

“A month or two ago, a random person wandered into the library in the middle of the night.”

“Why though? Surely not to read.”

“I thought so too at first but when I went to ask him for his purpose, I discovered that he couldn’t even speak the local language. Interest peaking, I Investigated further and after some time, we reached an agreement of sorts. I would teach him the local tongue while he’d teach me his own language.”

“There’s a language you don’t know?”

“Correction; didn’t,” She paused before continuing in English. “I’d say I’m pretty fluent now.”

Rain was taken by surprise. The language was familiar, but she was sure it wasn’t anything she had heard before.

“Anyway,” Lucy continued in her own language. “I wasn’t the only one to learn fast. Cort actually kept up with me and became fluent himself.”

“Whoa really?” Rain exclaimed. She knew how effortless it was for Lucy to learn new things, so saying that someone kept up with her was rather impressive.

“But what about the map?” Rain asked, thinking back to the topic at hand.

“He said he found it somewhere by mistake, thought it was interesting, so he decided to show it to me.”

“Found it by mistake? No way.”

“I also found it od- Oh!”

“What?”

“I think I’ve finally translated the text. It’s rather short.”

“What does it say?” Rain asked excitedly as she scooted over to Lucy’s side. There, on the paper Lucy had spent all this time scribbling on, were the words: [In the old cave we know.]

Rain tilted her head in confusion. “How’s that helpful?”

“It isn’t,” Lucy said as she nibbled on a fingernail.

“Stop that. You still have that bad habit.” Rain said as she lightly slapped her friend’s hand out of her mouth.

Lucy did not answer and merely kept on studying the pages sprawled out in front of her.

Rain smiled as she knew Lucy was in too deep now. In an attempt to help her, she also began scanning the map again when suddenly her eyes landed on a particular corner. There, barely visible was a strange letter.

“What’s that?” She asked.

Lucy’s eyes focused at the point she gestured towards. “Probably a random squiggle. Wait!” She interrupted herself before opening up another book and flipping through its pages. “It’s this!” She said to herself smiling.

Rain read the title of the book in her friend’s hands. The book seemed to chronicle historical events concerning Elemente.

Lucy, not waiting for Rain’s reply, continued on. “It looks like it’s an ancient form of the language spoken by the lands of fire. The letter is actually a symbol used to describe a full moon on its highest peak. In other words, midnight.”

“Again that’s not very helpful,” Rain replied.

“It isn’t. But I’m sure of it now.”

“Sure of what?”

“The two maps are not identical copies, Cort’s map did not have this symbol on one of its corners.”

“So the two maps are not the same?”

“They are for the most part, save for this,” Her finger ran along the symbol.

Silence once again overcame the two as they sat in contemplation.

“Hey, Lucy.”

“Yeah?”

“Where’d you say you got this from?”

Rain was momentarily shocked at the sudden question, but soon her expression warped as she smiled fiercely.

“Wanna see?”

“Wait! No!”

But Lucy was helpless. Within moments, a piece of paper was stuck onto her clothing and both girls disappeared from the library.

…………………………………………

“Woah!” Amelia gasped as she struggled to take in the intense majesty of the fortress. Its battle-scarred yet ever sturdy walls stood imposingly tall and unbending. All around the massive structure, violent winds buffeted and screamed, threatening to tear the place down brick from brick. Yet just as the mighty mountain refuses to yield to the winds, so did the fortress. In the face of unending pressure, it refused to falter.

At first, Cort was skeptical of the fortress’s defenses. Typically fortresses were built atop hills or on small islands surrounded by water, as a means of providing a natural terrain advantage. So when Cort heard that Sirocco was brazenly built on an open field, he found it laughable. But now he understood the extent to which he underestimated Himmel.

The fierce winds surrounding the fortress were no joke, rather they were a mighty deterrence. He couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to fight under those conditions.

‘What have I gotten myself into?’ He thought to himself.

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