This world is unfair. When I wake and refuse to rise, I am punished, forced to work, and given a single meal for the day. When I wake and push myself to the limit, I am still punished, forced to work harder, and given only a single meal.

Myself and this world are incongruent. One of them must be wrong. And because I know myself fully, for I am myself, it must be the world that is wrong.

—Unknown

“Pew, pew, pew! See?”

Along with sound effects, Sandy shot small projectiles of water from her fingertip out the open window of the carriage. They went a short distance before being picked up by the wind and scattered.

“I see. And everybody can do this?” I asked.

“Well, yeah! I can’t believe you don’t know anything about magic, Syco,” the girl said.

“I told you, she lost her memory, remember?” Cris chided.

“Look, I can do this, too!” Sandy gestured, and then sprayed a thicker, red liquid in the same way.

“Sandy, you know it’s rude to conjure blood!” Cris said. “Sorry Syco, this girl is…” She ended the sentence with a sigh.

“I see, blood too…” I said.

“Sandy, why don’t you tell Syco how they taught you the basics of magic theory in school? It’s changed since I went,” Cris said.

“Magic theory? Mm, that stuff was boring so I didn’t listen,” Sandy said. “Seeing is believing, right? That’s how I learn!”

Cris rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll manage an explanation, though it’s not my strong point. Umm, it’s like this: Magic is the transposition of forms in our mind into forms in the world. Which means something like, by holding the image of something in your mind, you should be able to create it at your fingertips. Like this;”

Cris grabbed a leaf from a passing tree through the window. Holding it in her palm, she concentrated, and the broken stem of the leaf began to gradually extend, developing new green forks and blooming leafy foliage. As this happened, the leaf itself dried up and became brown and brittle.

“Aw, you killed the leaf,” Sandy commented. She pointed her own finger at it, and the leaf began to grow green again, but then swelled and burst into water.

“And that’s why Sandy isn’t a doctor,” Cris said. “Back to the point, um, what was it again?”

“You formed an image in your mind and it caused the plant to grow?” I said.

“Yeah. But in this case, it’s not so much an image, but more like knowledge about how plants grow… but you have to look at it now as just an image, and just knowing or understanding it isn’t enough either! Umm…”

“Plants are hard,” Sandy said. “With water it’s just: think about water, and bam!”

“You could surely handle water or wind yourself, Syco,” Cris said. “But I’m no good at teaching, sorry~”

There seemed to be no risk in giving it an attempt. I imagined water. I also imagined water at the tip of my finger. But nothing happened. My hand felt slightly more moist, at the most.

“Maybe you need more experience. You know, my brother is reeeally good at making fire. And it’s because way long ago, we were in a big house fire, and then he became really good at shooting flames. They say he’s one of the best in the country!” Sandy boasted.

“Oh. Is your brother Karl, by chance?” I asked.

“Gosh, you know him?!”

“O-Oh yes, Sandy is Karl’s little sister,” Cris stammered. “I forgot to mention it.”

That was a fun fact. The two siblings couldn’t be more different from each other, so I would have never guessed. Karl was in a house fire when he was younger?

Thinking back on some of the ways he had acted, it could explain a few things.

An image in the mind, and direct experience… There must have been some connection there, but it was all very vague.

“Oh, and will!” Cris said. “I almost forgot because it’s such a natural instinct. It’s not possible to do magic just by casually thinking about it. There usually needs to be a reason or purpose behind it. The way they usually put it is something like, the more desperate the need, the more deft the flow.”

“They say things so weirdly in magic theory,” Sandy said.

“So when Sandy shoots water out the window, it’s because there’s a purpose to it?” I asked.

“Well, sure. She just wanted to show off, right?” Cris giggled at the girl. “Even a tiny little reason like that is enough.”

“Yeah, but, if there was a big raging fire, I’d be able to do a big water explosion,” Sandy said.

So an image, and will. I closed my eyes and thought about water, but instead my mind turned to a different experience. I remembered coughing on burning smoke, and how it had felt in my throat.

Just like that, wisps of black smoke consolidated in the air around my right hand, and dissipated into the air.

“You did it!” Sandy joyously hopped in her seat. Cris did a little clap too.

It really was that simple. However…

“Hm? It won’t happen anymore,” I said. After the first wisp of smoke, the effect just stopped.

“It’s a little difficult to get used to,” Cris said with a frown. “But hey, you did manage to do it! It’s possible that, since you proved to yourself that you could do it, you had no more reason to do it?”

Cris tried to get me to do a few other things, but I managed little more than blowing some air around (when I felt that it was getting a bit hot inside the carriage).

When it neared midday, the usual phenomenon occurred. Sandy was in the middle of a sentence when she stopped speaking and her expression turned blank. I took the chance to ask Cris if this always happened at this same time.

“Not exactly, but most of the time, it is like this. About an hour before midday, and a couple hours after,” she said. “But sometimes it doesn’t happen at all, or it’s at a completely different time. But that’s rare.”

Sandy began talking again, so the conversation ended there.

The trip continued on through the afternoon. It wouldn’t be until the next evening that we reached the capital, and we would be staying at an inn this night.

We passed through several small towns; some smaller than Amsterid, some larger. We stopped at none, having no mail or parcels to drop off, so what I learned of the world was only what I saw through the windows of the carriage—though Sandy, never lacking in topics to talk about, happily told me about whatever I showed curiosity in.

The most self-evident truth was that Vasileio (which Sandy had informed me was the name of this country and nation) was a greatly bountiful land, for the lush green grasses and sprawling forests in the distance never once dispersed. Farms of all kinds always lined one or both sides of the road, from fields of wheat and sunflowers, to orchards of apple trees and fruit-bearing vines (which Cris and I weren’t entirely comfortable looking at for too long).

At one point, the road skirted the edge of an enormous valley, in which I learned that a variety of certain rarer plants that preferred the relative cold thrived. Living in almost constant shadow, the ecosystem was rather different down there.

Seeing all of this made me wonder why this nation had found it necessary to launch an attack on Demon-kind’s land. For this land was already rife with blessing… But if the demon that we had encountered was anything to go by, it was not unexpected that the citizens would prefer those demons kept back at a safe distance.

Eventually the road changed to a stone surface, and the farms finally gave way to a spot of untouched, open plains. The sky was a swirl of orange and red by the time we rode into the final town we would encounter for the day; it was called Lupich.

“The travel payment gets you basic accommodation, but if you pay extra, this place has fantastic hot springs,” the coachman explained. We were in the middle of a large stone courtyard half-circled by an expansive wooden building, constructed of dark, expensive-looking woods and exuding a sense of exotic architecture. This apparently-renowned inn was atop a wide hill, elevated above the rest of the town which sprawled below it. The road up had been lined with fanciful lanterns that hung from the buildings, many of which served food or other services, and crowds of travellers and locals thronged.

Cris rummaged through an inner pocket of the bag she carried with her.

“I-I didn’t have much time to prepare,” she said with a frown. “Ahh, coming all this way only to realize that I have no money to try any of the things here; country life really is the worst.”

“Of course, the same goes for me,” I said. “Though I would like to eat today.”

“Ah, your accommodation comes with a meal too,” the coachman said, though he wore a bitter smile and whispered “I’d recommend checking the street food instead, honestly.”

“Syco, don’t worry, I’ll pay for both of us to find something to eat,” Cris said.

Sandy laughed. “I remember Cris, you took all of Syco’s money so you could pay the coach! How evil~”

“That was Cris’s money in the first place,” I said.

“But it was your payment,” Cris said. “A-Anyway, that’s why I said I’ll cover you… What about you, Sandy?”

“Hehe, Karl gave me lots of spending money,” the girl replied, lobbing a pouch of jingling metal between her hands. “I’m gonna get hot springs, hot springs~” she sung.

A young man, at that moment, walked up to Sandy.

“There you are,” he said, passing her a folded note. “This is a message from Ariel. They’ve already gone ahead to the capital rather than wait for you here, so I stayed behind to accompany you. Though it looks like you have that taken care of?”

“You must be Hal,” Cris said, to which the young man nodded.

“Cris, I assume? Pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Have you gotten your rooms? Here, I’m friendly with the innkeeper, so I’ll handle things.”

Hal led us inside and had us wait while he stopped a girl wearing a frilly uniform. Supposedly he was getting us rooms, but he sure was making the girl giggle a lot.

The area we were in was a large open space filled with benches where customers sat and ate meals, and there was a large reception desk in the back; seemingly the kitchen was attached at the far wall from where we stood. The place wasn’t packed with people, but could be called busy.

“Here you go, your room key,” Hal said on return, grinning and handing over a key strung to a sturdy wooden plate. “No need to thank me, anything to help some pretty ladies.”

“S-Sure, thank you,” Cris mumbled. “Is this for all three of us? I’m not sure if Sandy—“

“Frankly,” Hal interrupted, “I’ll have you share a room regardless of your preferences. There should be three beds, at least.” His previously carefree attitude had completely switched. He lowered his voice and continued. “You haven’t eaten, right? Feel free to explore the street, but come back before the sun sets. Or else I’ll be keeping this.”

He held up a silver ring.

“Hey!” Cris said, swiping to grab the ring, but Hal deftly removed himself from her range. “I’ll give it back when you get back. Before night. I was charged with protecting Sandy and her companions; this is how serious I am.”

It was some rather incredible vanity to swipe a girl’s jewellery and make yourself out to be the good guy for doing so. I thought about grabbing hold of his arm to help take back the ring, but I saw the twitch in Hal’s expression. His confident visage was keeping back something more uncomfortable.

“What are you talking about?” Cris asked angrily.

“Ahh, it’d be a bother to explain,” Hal smirked.

“Hal, you can’t just take Cris’s stuff!” Sandy complained.

“Okay Sandy, then you give me something important to hold on to, so that I can be sure you’ll come back before night time. Will you do that?” Hal said.

“You’ll give it back when we come back in here, right?” she asked.

“I promise,” Hal said. Sandy reluctantly handed over the thing she had been carrying along with her bags. Now that I saw it clearly, I realized that it was a cylindrical wooden bat. It must have been something that held sentimental value to her.

“… Alright, that will do. But, I will seriously destroy it if you break your promise. You understand?”

“Yes, I get it!” Sandy sulked. “I’m hungry, Cris. Can we go?”

Cris took back the ring Hal had stolen and placed it back on her finger. I wondered what kind of skills he must have to have done that without Cris noticing.

Shrugging with the bat in his hand, Hal waved us off as Cris shot him a confused glare.

“I had heard that man was a bit of a swindler, but a gentleman nonetheless,” Cris said as we headed back outside. “I would have smacked him if he weren’t a friend of Karl’s…”

“Is that why you accepted what he said?” I asked. “Don’t tell me he’s just overprotective and paranoid.”

“No, quite the opposite, supposedly,” Cris said. “I’ll talk to him when we return.”

We all agreed that hunger was our priority for now. With Sandy following closely along, Cris and I began walking down the slightly declining street, and quickly became enveloped by the decadent smells of frying foods and appetizing aromas.

It would be a couple of hours before night fell. In this festive, peaceful environment, I couldn’t imagine what danger could befall simply due to nightfall.