Chapter 30: Journey

(Alistair’s POV)

“Niini, huh?”

“What’s wrong Alistair?”

“She-,” I adjusted Lei’s head as she slept, “sometimes calls out Niini and Otousyama, but she’s never called out for her mum before.”

“Come to think of it, that’s true. Otousyan, Niini and Hannah, huh.”

“Hannah’s the dead kid. She was wearing a maid uniform.”

“Oh, that was really sad.”

In Frontier, Hollows took the lives of those who were careless. Children and young women are told that they can’t go outside at night. It was the same in Lentforce, even though it was located in the barrier and was guarded during night. People who worked at night were the exception.

People weren’t allowed to go out at night in Lentforce because it was barely in the barrier. Not many people knew this, but the barrier would sometimes weaken, and the position would move. People in the middle of Kingdom probably didn’t notice this either.

So the people in Lentforce didn’t place too much trust in the barrier. Women and children wouldn’t even dream of going out at night. Did Lei and Hannah not know this? Or did they know this and were left in a helpless situation?

“Lei said she’s happy.”

“Yeah. You can tell just by looking at her. Even though something terrible happened to her, she still believes in adults and acts as if it’s obvious to follow what she says.”

“She even made us train our magic.”

“She’s a weird kid.”

“But, she probably doesn’t have a mum……”

I gently stroked Lei’s wind-tangled hair.

(Lei POV)

I was finally in a place I’ve never been before, so I wanted to see the towns too instead of staying in the prairie all the time. But Bart and his crew were very famous hunters even though they were young, and they would probably meet their fellow hunters in town.

“They’ve got a kid with them.”

“She’s got violet eyes.”

It was possible that those rumours would spread.

“We’re not going to hide you in Trentforce, but we don’t want to get involved in any trouble. So just play in the prairie.”

Thus, I always stayed in the prairie. They usually took turns to go into town; group one was Kyaro and Clyde, and group two was Mill, Bart and Alistair. But when Alistair went to town, he would bring back small sweets and unusual food, so it was fascinating.

“Hey, why are you buying weli nuts? Why do you know that Lei likes them?”

“They don’t sell this much at Kingdom,” Alistair answered Kyaro who was complaining. He was annoyed that I liked the weli nut that Alistair had bought. Kyaro and Clyde looked like they were thinking of unusual food to buy me, but they could only come up with sweets. Alistair had warned them not to buy too many sweets, so they just bought common things like cheese and dried meat.

Of course, it made me happy compared to bread and water.

“I want to buy something that would make Lei be more like ‘Amazing’ or ‘Wow!’~,” Kyaro scratched his head. On the other hand, Alistair only had his mother and himself, so he was used to going out shopping and doing housework since he was little. He also came to Frontier from Kingdom, so he remembered what food would be weird and delicious, so he bought them. Weli nuts, which were like sweet chestnuts, were also one of those food.

“Half of Walsall Mountains is located in Kingdom, so why don’t they have weli nuts?”

“The person at the shop said that they can’t be grown if you’re not by the sea.”

“No way!”

Kyaro looked disappointed.

“Lei wiwsh cheeshe.”

“Oh, Lei’s worrying about me. Yup. I’ll buy it for you again.”

“Ai.”

But cheese and dried meat have a lot of salt, so don’t buy too much.

Then, they sold the small magic stones in town and bought cheap empty magic stones. Like that, everyone would practice filling the magic stones after lunch. Apparently, it was interesting, and it was great since they could sell the full magic stones. Of course, I practiced too.

Everyone improved really fast once they realised that it was the same as sensing Hollows during hunts. Improving didn’t mean that they stopped channelling their magic until it was almost gone. Like Mill had done the other day, one or two people would always leave some of their magic and stand on lookout. The rest, including myself, used all our magic and took naps.

Maybe it’ll be better for brother to practice spreading his magic out of his body instead of just rotating inside, I thought as I remembered the magic circulation practice at home.

Even so, when I watched everyone hunt Hollows at night, I realised that it was impossible. No way would someone spread their magic out if they didn’t need to. WHIRR, when the Hollows appeared, something disgusting vibrated through my body. Nevertheless, they improved their abilities while remaining vigilant and tried to sense the Hollows as quickly as possible even if it felt gross because their life depended on it.

That was what a hunter in Frontier was.

The truth is I don’t know how much magic it took to shorten one’s life. But the young men were reckless, and they would channel their magic until it was almost depleted, so I ended up learning how to discern the subtle magic changes to stop them. I slapped the magic stones out of all of their hands many times while cautioning them, “No!”

Unexpectedly, I found out that their magic power had increased every time they had almost depleted it and recovered. However, it seemed like I was the only one to notice this.

They all concluded,

“I feel like my magic power has increased.”

“No way it has. You’re just making it thin and using it effectively like Lei said.”

“I guess so.”

“Hahaha.”

So, I thought that it wasn’t necessary to tell them.

It was supposed to take us three weeks to get to Lentforce, but we ended up taking a month. The beginnings of spring changed into spring, and I, who had become a little tan, was finally able to step into a town with people.