“I presume you already know the story of the spirit who guided the ancestors of all the beast tribes of the forest to this place.” Amara asked and Elise nodded in response “Then, considering the amount of knowledge you’ve shown, I believe you would also know the true nature of that spirit.”

“Yes. An Agent of the Cycle. A being who helps maintain this world.” Elise replied.

“Exactly. And while the original settlers were unaware of that, over time some members of the tribes who obtained knowledge from the outside also figured out the truth.” Amara said “However, the chiefs of the tribes came to an agreement to hide that truth so as to avoid others coming to try taking advantage of the Agent, which is why the common story ends with the spirit leaving to parts unknown.”

“Instead of resting beneath the village, where it could be vulnerable.” Nalia understood the idea.

“Yes. And so time passed, eventually reaching the mark of 100 years after we had settled here, which was the amount of time we had to protect the forest for in accordance with the agreement made with the Agent. And so, we thought that they would reappear before us and then move on to continue their work in another place… Is there anything wrong?” Amara asked, having seen Elise’s expression turn into a frown.

“Just that I think I figured out what was the problem.” She replied “The Agent never showed up, and so you began to think something was wrong, right?”

“Right. Do you have any insights regarding that?”

“Everything was caused by just a simple misunderstanding.” Elise spoke gravelly “You guys heard about the Agents of the Cycle, but your information was incomplete, otherwise you would have known that there was no way their rest would last for only a mere 100 years.”

“… Do you mean to say that Agents usually spend much longer than that resting?” Amara asked after considering Elise’s words for a few moments.

“Yes. Usually it would be something on the scale of a thousand years.” The girl sighed.

“But if that’s the case, why did the Agent only task us with protecting the forest for a hundred years?”

“I cannot be certain of their exact motivations, since Agents also have varied personalities, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that they didn’t want to force such harsh impositions on the settlers.” Elise replied “Protecting the forest was just a way for the beastkin to repay the Agent for giving them a place to live, since it’s not like they needed people there to recover their strength, that just made it easier.

“Perhaps the Agent didn’t want to put such a heavy burden on people who simply wanted a place to live, or perhaps they were being pragmatic and thought that forcing the settlers to do something for that long would breed resentment, which could cause some of them to lash out.” Elise said “And regardless of the reason, it was also quite likely that the beastkin would come to consider the forest as theirs after living there for one hundred years, and so would stay without the Agent needing to force anything.”

“That sounds… Quite plausible.” Amara had a sinking feeling “And if that’s the case… Then I understand how you feel. To think that such a simple misunderstanding could cause all of this…” She wasn’t completely convinced, but felt deep down that things were likely just as the mercenary had said.

“Yeah. I imagine that the beastkin who were in the know became alarmed and tried to figure out what may have happened. Their attempts should be the reason why the knowledge about the Agent was leaked. But you should probably continue your story and tell us the specific details.” Elise said.

“Right. As you said, the beastkin who were aware of the situation back then decided to try and figure out what had happened, and for that they formed a secretive group that would research the matters related to the ‘spirit’, that group was known as the Spirit Keepers.” Amara continued.

“And you are a member of said group.” Nalia spoke.

“Indeed. It has been close to three hundred years since then, and the Spirit Keepers did a lot of research on the spirit, their connection to the forest and the powers of their blessings.” Amara explained “Our group is secretive, but it’s been so long that I’m not surprised information regarding the Agent has leaked. Still, I’m fairly sure none of our members are in cahoots with the enemy.

“But going back to the previous subject, the most important thing we’ve learned over the years was the existence of the Spirit Realm, the hidden world that was created by the Agent and serves as their resting grounds. That realm is connected to our forest, but it is difficult to reach.” Amara continued “The places where the spirit’s power overflows are simply spots where small gaps form connecting our world and the Spirit Realm, but those gaps are so small that even energy struggles to get through them, so they can’t be used as actual passages.”

“Ah… So you suspect that our enemies’ plans involve going inside that realm and interfering with the Agent directly.” Elise realized.

“Exactly. The Strangers are mainly trying to gain control of the places where there are connections with the Spirit Realm. I believe they intend to set a formation focused around those spots in order to open an actual passage… Or at least that was the intention.” Amara sighed.

“But they’ve completed given up on their attempts to capture this place, which is obviously a very important node of the connection with the Spirit Realm.” Nalia began to work it out “Plus if making a simple formation was the only goal, there wouldn’t be a need for them to do things like exterminating entire villages. So perhaps they wanted to set up a full ritual, using those lives as sacrifices.”

“Yes. I was going to get into the matter of the sacrifices later, but the most important issue is how their plans changed.” Amara said “They’ve apparently given up on the formation idea, which must mean they have some sort of alternate plan.”

“We’ve also thought of that.” Elise said “And since they knew enough about rituals to try and do that sort of plan, they should also be able to repurpose the sacrifices they already made to serve as fuel for a different ritual. But without having the advantage of being able to use the natural gaps in between worlds as anchors for the ritual, their options would be limited.”

“We have more or less worked all of this out, but that’s where our deductions stopped.” Amara said “Now that you have a full understanding of the situation, do you have any insights?” She asked both Elise and Nalia.

“Using a ritual… And it must be something more localized, so that their lack of control of the important areas wouldn’t matter…” Nalia began to mutter as she thought.

“And it’s probably an extreme method with large downsides, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered with the previous plan.” Elise also thought.

‘I don’t know much about rituals, but if they can’t open “the door” properly to get inside the Spirit Realm, wouldn’t the next option be simply breaking through “the wall”?’ Nina spoke mentally to Elise for the first time since the meeting started.

‘Breaking through… Directly?’ The contractor girl considered that idea ‘A brute force method would fit with I’ve been thinking, since it would likely result in the passage being dangerously unstable. But I don’t think the sacrifices they’ve made so far would be enough for a ritual capable of breaking through the boundary directly. They would need more sacrifices, but the remaining tribes are defending themselves fiercely, and they don’t have the time to gather people from outside the fores-’

“Ah!” She interrupted her own thoughts with an exclamation as an idea sprung up from her mind.

“What happened?” Nalia asked.

“I think I may know what the enemies will try to do… But I really hope I’m wrong.” Elise replied.

“What is it?” Amara asked.

“The most direct way of entering the Spirit Realm would be by breaking a passage open with force, but that would take more power than what their current sacrifices should be able to provide. But there is a method they could use that would both provide the extra power needed and also aid in what the ritual would try to do: They could use the forest itself.”

“The forest… Itself?”

“Since the realm is tied to the forest, damaging it can also serve to damage the boundary in between realms. So they could set fire to a large portion of the forest to sacrifice it while also weakening the boundary and making it easier for an opening to be made.” Elise spoke gravelly.

“Those…!” Nalia, trusting Elise’s opinion implicitly, immediately reacted with anger at the idea.

“But…. But it’s not like the Strangers have complete control of the traitor tribes. If they try to do something like that, there will be a lot of push back.” Amara reasoned.

“Only if they understand what the plan is. It’s possible that the Strangers would task the tribes with making ritual preparations while lying about their purpose before having their own people actually trigger the fire.” The mole man who accompanied Amara spoke for the first time since the meeting started.

“That sounds… Far too plausible, but it’s still only a possibility. And even if it is the case, preparations for that sort of ritual would take some time to make, so we’d be able to discover that something was happening beforehand.” Amara said “We should continue our vigilance and keep this possibility in mind as we plan our next moves.”

The others agreed with her, and so the meeting came to a close.

+0+

Elise and her partners went back to their training after that, waiting for the situation to develop further while the alliance members did their best to gather information, with Amara herself leaving to take charge of that endeavor. A week later Amara sent the group a message that was delivered by an owl tribe man called Hitoshi. Said message informed them that the traitor forces had retreated to the northern areas of the forest and were working on consolidating their defenses while the Strangers had mostly vanished. But there were also some indications that their enemies might be doing other things in the background.

“This could mean that they are preparing for a ritual like what I thought. But it could also mean a lot of other things, since it stands to reason that they would be planning something to reverse the current war situation.” Elise commented.

“The area controlled by our enemies is still too large. It’s not easy to figure out what sorts of things they’re doing when there’s so much room for them to maneuver.” Nina replied. Nalia was using magic to conceal their conversation from the surroundings, so she didn’t have to worry about being overheard.

“Yeah. And I don’t like having to just wait here for news.” Nalia said “Having time to train is good, but I keep worrying about what might happen.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Elise replied to her with a knowing smile that gave the fairy a bad feeling.

“I’ve been waiting to see how the situation would develop, but I was also thinking of ways we could participate more actively, and with the things being as they are I decided that it would be a good idea to use one of them.” The girl continued.

“What exactly do you want to do?” Nina asked.

“The most important thing right now is information about the actions of our enemies, so I think now is the time for another scouting mission. But given the current situation, it would be better for the two of you to go while I stay behind.” Elise said.

“Why is that?” Nina asked, while Nalia seemed to be thinking furiously about something.

“The enemies are already familiar with my smell, but they’re not as familiar with Nalia’s since she doesn’t give off as much scent due to her size.” The girl began to explain “And you have no smell at all, of course. So I thought of sending you two, with Nalia hiding inside your armor to make her scent harder to detect, and I think this should give some good results.”

“Why not just send me by myself?”

“You might have no smell, but there are other ways of detecting people, so it would be better to have Nalia around to help in getting around those.” Elise answered “And it can’t be just her inside the armor because moving it would take extra magic power and make it more detectable for those sensitive to magic. She can make her concealment and detection spells harder to sense, but that’s only because they don’t take much power.”

“I see. And we can keep in touch via the contract connection, right? Or would it be too far away?”

“It’s not too far away. The distance will make it so communications aren’t as clear, but it should still be fine.”

Nalia sighed and began speaking as well “I don’t like the idea of leaving you behind, but when I was thinking about that, I realized that it should be safe here. We’ve already proven our worth to the alliance, so they’re not gonna let anything happen to you.”

Elise smiled “Not to mention they’ve seen your abilities, so they definitely don’t want to make you angry by doing anything to me while you’re away.”

“Yeah, that part doesn’t seem to be a problem, but I have another question: Would this mission be too dangerous for us? I think we should be able to run away in case things go bad, but we need to think about the worst case scenario.” Nalia said.

Nina nodded her head in agreement with only a bit of reluctance.

“In the worst case scenario, I can call you back to your Rooms.” Elise replied “It should take from a minute and a half to two minutes for the transfer to trigger from such a distance, but the two of you can hold out for that long if necessary, can’t you?”

Nina nodded but looked at Nalia instead of saying anything.

The fairy closed her eyes in thought for a few seconds but then replied with a “Yes. I think that’s a reasonable assumption.” She shook her head and smiled wryly “In that case, I guess I don’t have any big issues with the plan.”

“Then unless you have anything else to add…” She looked at the armored rabbit girl, who simply shook her head in response “So it’s decided. I’m gonna have to send a message to the higher-ups proposing that idea, and I’m sure they’ll be able to indicate a good route for the infiltration, but when all of that is done…

“The mission will start.”