Episode 129 – A O (1/2)

Episode 129 – A O

Previously:

While writing a letter to her fiance, Nelaira thinks about the events that led to her current predicament She re staircase clih the reen valley filled ildlife and ruins of a village Nelaira uses her day off to explore the ruins and finds a diary hidden inside a pillar While picking herbs Luki finds a patch of land where a large quantity of ash is buried under the soil He finds it suspicious but his coree Nelaira stue that contains food that is 16 years old Nelaira gives their archaeologist the diary to translate The writer of the diary is the village chief’s son and he talks about his life It seee wars, which e if not the wars

Nelaira wanted to investigate the possibility of survivors but her superiors ordered her to proceed towards the Valley of Eternal Snow The diary speaks of outsiders that cae one day from a utopia without Ink The outsiders were capable, beautiful people elcomed with opened hands by the natives Both the writer of the diary and his sister set their sights on an outsider

One day, Nelaira had been ordered by her superiors to stop translating the diary and to destroy it

Episode 129 – A O

The diary was returned to Nelaira’s possession, and now she had to find a way to translate it without anyone finding out about it She did study the subject of ancient runes in Muni so she could understand theh to translate the diary

Thus, she cauard duty often, so she could translate the diary when everyone else was sleeping And so she could secretly sneak a peek at the ancient rune dictionary carried by their archaeologist when he was asleep

It took her considerablydiary entries than it would have taken their archaeologist, but it helped that there wasn’t much left of the diary to translate After about a orth of sleepless nights she was confident that her translation wasn’t far off

When they offered to help us o, yet soon after, a ruThe word on the street was that the outsiders were descendants of the ers are vehe we kick theht that so false rumors, but Cammy confirmed that the outsiders were indeed the descendants of that ood intentions that shouldn’t be condemned due to the sins of their predecessors

I’m worried that even Cammy can’t see into their deepest, truest self I fear that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…

Cammy took her boyfriend to the Lands of Eternal Snow

I feel happy for her, but also, kind of bitter She used to only go there with me I used to be the only one to admire her snow sculptures

And now…Gods only knohat the two are doing there… alone… together…

Gods, I hope …

The outsiders received new orders froroups My Goddess, her man, and my sister’s new boyfriend were ordered to move north towards the Valley of Eternal Snohile the fourth one was ordered to help us move to their land

They clai in any danger fro towards the Valley of Eternal Snow because I am familiar with the place

They toldmy mind so as to not come into contact with Ink What kind of instructions are those? If I don’t spread ic

Are they so afraid of Ink they’d rather run around blind? Apparently so They area monster They seem to think that even a little contact with Ink would taint the into a monster How did they survive all this while if they don’t even kno to purify Ink?

Surprisingly, father didn’t veto h the Valley of Eternal Snow Probably because even if I didn’t volunteer, Caed him to let her coo anywhere even reerous, but I suppose he felt assured that her new boyfriend would protect her from any potential har from a mile away surely helped with his final decision

I was supposed to go with Caroup towards the Valley of Eternal Snow, but the other group expressed their desire to reunite with Ca us to their land Apparently, not all of them were needed for the teleportation

Soroup, but they had to supervise the transport

Thus, instead of going along with Caroup, my departure would be delayed for several days until the other group was done with their business Then I would lead them towards the Valley of Eternal Snow and reunite with Cammy

Cammy left towards the Valley of Eternal Snow today

I didn’t see her off I hate goodbyes, and ould see each other soon anyway

Also, I didn’t want her to notice as bothering me

I didn’t want her to feel my irritation, annoyance that I had to stay behind

It ht be irrational and unfounded, but it felt as if… as if she was leaving me behind As if my place in her life was taken by someone else As if she had replaced me…

Nelaira finally reached the last untranslated entry in the diary, still unsure of why her superiors wanted the diary destroyed She doubted that perhaps purifying Ink had so to do with it If there really was a way to purify Ink they wouldn’t be so helpless against it nor would the forbidden zone be so… well… forbidden

But hoould her superiors even know that the diary spoke of such a thing? It had never been mentioned before in the translated entries she had sent their way

Another possibility entered Nelaira’s mind Perhaps it was the lines about a madman who doomed them all? If these outsiders were indeed from the Lands under the shi+eld, then the is Arite who had created the shi+eld of Aegis?

But ould they refer to him as such? Could it be that the portrayal of the history books that glorified hiht? Could it be that he could have saved much more people than he chose to save? Could it be that he intentionally left so those that chose to submit or those that were the closest to hi if that was the case After all, it’s the victors that write history It would explain why her superiors were afraid of writings left by the survivors Any such writings could potentially reveal that they had been discarded by the Arites and left to die

They certainly wouldn’t be willing for their virtuous and saintly ie to take such a serious blow

Perhaps she was thinking too much into the matter Perhaps she will never know the real reason behind it There wasn’t much left in the diary, and she doubted those last feords could explain theuntranslated entry in the diary was short and hastily written, which made it more difficult to identify the runes used to write it

They are burning down everything Houses, people, books, parchmentsTheir superiors ordered thele building standing, not a single person alive

Nelaira stood under the fullat the piece of paper with the translation of the last diary entry she had just finished

This…can’t be!

Her grip onto the paper momentarily loosened and as if it was a ht, it floated towards the ca it back that only ended up pushi+ng it further towards the fire

It took only an instant for the fla only ashes and sray paper flakes

And for what? All because they wish to keep their citizens chained under their rule! Unaware that pure ht! Unaware that Ink is not as deadly as they think!