282 279. First words.txt (1/2)

The beginning of ”The Story of the Starry Sky”.

It was a ringing of magical power that shook the earth.

No, to be precise, it was not magic power, but 'demon poison'.

The word ”magic” did not yet exist in this era.

The ”magic poison” that filled the world trembled, and the creaking sound of the buildings echoed around the world.

A crack appeared on the wall of a huge castle.

The name of the castle is ”Hoozeyer's Castle”.

It is the pride of the small country of Foozeyars, located in a remote part of the continent.

Surrounded by mountains and forests on all sides, the castle is a natural fortress that has been protecting the authority of the Hoosiers for nearly a hundred years. One of the reasons why the Hoosiers have been able to survive to this day, despite the fact that the country is not blessed with mineral deposits and other resources, is because of the extraordinary strength of the castle.

Therefore, everyone in the Foozeyards is proud of the castle. The castle is a symbol of the country and a source of pride in their hearts.

However, if you ask another country why, they might just tell you that it's a tasteless piece of land that's not worth taking away: .......

To put it bluntly, the Hoosier country is being left alone by the surrounding countries.

In some countries, the poverty problem is so severe that it is thought that if left alone, it will spontaneously disappear. In effect, the rest of the country's calculations are correct.

If there had been one more disaster, they would have perished in a flash. If it were not for one more disaster, the country would have fallen apart.

--But Hoosiers will survive. And it will survive for more than a thousand years to come.

There were positive external factors. And the external factors that brought them here were so out of the ordinary.

It was a disaster and a miracle that defied the expectations of the surrounding countries.

The name of that substandard was 'The Apostle'.

Three apostles. Their visit to this country changes the fate of this small nation.

The Apostle 'Diprakra', the apostle of the Lord's knowledge and the heart of moderation.

The apostle 'Sis', the apostle of the heart of the Lord's love and justice.

The apostle of the Lord's power and the heart of chaos, 'Legacy'.

The apostles will increase the number of substandard people in the land of Hooziyaz, where they have settled.

The name of the following disaster is 'Gentiles'.

The name of the first gentile was 'Aikawa Hitaki'.

And on this day, the second gentile was about to be summoned by the Fooziers.

The earlier 'Demon Poison' ringing was the aftermath of the summoning of the Gentiles.

And after the aftermath, under this night sky - this continent is covered by a black mist in the sky, but it's nighttime if you count the time - many soldiers are busily running around in the castle's large yard.

They are men in heavy armor, making the clattering sound of scraping metal.

Since there is still no such convenient thing as magic, the equipment of those who serve in the military is basically heavy. And unlike a thousand years later, the male to female ratio is ten to zero. The selection criteria for soldiers are also based on physique and health, so all of them are muscular and huge men without exception.

The giant men with full plate armor and huge spears let out exasperated voices as they speak.

''Where's the Called Gentile-sama ......!

'Just take your eyes off the road for a minute.' ......!　'He's terribly quick.' ......!

”'I'll make sure you get him and bring him in!　'He is the one whom the apostles called hope!

''This gentile has an eccentric costume, black hair and black eyes!　'Don't look at me wrong!'

The men call him ”Gentile-sama” from the word go.

It is easy to guess from their conversations that they are desperately looking for this ”gentile”.

Furthermore, you can guess that they are trying to treat the seekers politely (・・・・・・・・・・) if you know what they are talking about.

But, sadly, the reality was not so simple.

One of the trees at the edge of the yard where the soldiers were running around, one of the trees at the edge of the yard.

A dark-haired, dark-eyed boy hiding behind a tree muttered in fright.

'What the hell ....... What the hell is this ......?

The boy still did not understand the language of this world.

The 'otherworldly language', which was neither English nor Japanese, was hard to hear, as if it had been polished with a millstone.

Naturally, the only thing the boy feels when he sees the big men wrinkling their brows and muttering incantations - is fear.

If he was caught, he didn't know what would happen.

If it's only death, it's still good.

It could be even more horrible.

It was natural to think so.

The first thing the boy was called out to was on top of a magic circle in a basement that could only be considered crazy in his modern sense. It was dark, with only candlelight, and was surrounded by suspicious figures dressed in robes. Furthermore, there were clearly some monsters among those figures that did not seem to belong to this world. Some of them had the appearance of 'elves' and 'beastmen' that frequently appeared in popular stories.

It is not surprising that he ran away from them on the spur of the moment.

And the boy who ran away hid his breath under the shade of a tree.

He moves to avoid being spotted by the soldiers.

As he walks, he comes to understand that he is in a place that looks like a fortress. This is another place that is terribly out of his modern senses. He has no idea why he is in this place, and he has no idea why he is here.

The confusion only grows.

The boy just walks on, unable to even calmly sort out the situation.

Probably, no matter how many times the boy was summoned, he would react the same way.

But even though he had no idea what was going on, the boy understood one thing about the situation.

Something he could feel as he moved around, out of breath.

'Hah, hah, hah--!　--Huh?

The air is unusually (...) good.

You can tell in one breath that it's different from that of the city.

The air is so thick and fresh - so sweet.

And my body feels lighter.

I don't think it's the air, but I'm definitely in better shape than usual. It's fair to say that I was able to escape from the soldiers because of this good condition.

The boy looks around, grateful for his good fortune in bad luck.

''Where, where is there somewhere to hide--!

I call out impatiently when there are no soldiers looking for me.

I know that hiding is not going to help. The best thing to do is to get away from this fortress. But first the boy needed a place to calm down.

A place that would give him time to calm down this mess--

Then.

---- and ----.

What?

From a distance, I heard a crystal-clear singing voice.

Can you sing ......?　It should be good.

It's like fresh water flowing down from a spring deep in nature - it's a voice that's much more beautiful than the men who were running around earlier.

The boy stopped in his tracks as he fell in love with the song.

It still sounded like an incantation, but the song had a strange charm to it, though it still sounded like a spell.

It wasn't a good one, but it gave him a sense of security that he wanted to listen to forever.

The boy guessed that she was a young woman, based on the height of her voice.

Then, as if by magic, somehow the boy walks off in the direction of the song. Perhaps it was because he was chased by men with wild voices all the time, but he was drawn to that high, soft voice.

Inside the castle, there are multiple towers.

A tower for watching things and a tower for storing supplies. The towers with various roles are lined up.

--Various indeed.

One of those towers.

A stone tower that stands quietly in a corner of the castle grounds.

The most peculiar area of the towers of Hooziyaz Castle.

Towards that stone tower, the boy approaches it, breathlessly.

After making sure there are no soldiers around, the boy walks through the large garden and reaches the door of the tower. Then, without hesitation, he slowly opens the door.

Fortunately, it's not locked. However, there was a squeak - louder than he had imagined, so he hurriedly enters and closes the door.

The door is closed and the boy is locked inside the tower.

The inside of the tower was even more modest than it looked on the outside.

There was not a single useless object, just a stone spiral staircase that crawled along the walls of the tower. I suddenly looked up and saw that there was one room on the top floor.

Entering the tower increased the volume of the singing voice that reached his ears.

The boy walked out of the tower.

Whether the boy was still confused or truly spellbound - he didn't know, but he was led on.

One step at a time up the stone stairs.

It was quite a few steps, but he was able to climb them without much difficulty.

At the end of those stairs was a single door.

It was an old wooden door, like something out of a Western painting, with a single old chain lock on it. The boy touched the lock, wondering if maybe it was a waste of time.

Then the lock fell to the stairs with a heavy thud.

It was not too old and decayed. From the beginning, the chain lock did not serve as a lock, it was just lightly wrapped around the door handle.

Rather than wondering, the boy thought he was being careless.

He simply decided that if he had forgotten to lock the door, it was common, and he twisted the door handle without hesitation.

Then, just like the tower door, it was opened with another squeak - and a loud noise.

The moment the door was opened, a cold night wind blew against the boy's body.

The wind almost closed his eyes. But the boy did not close them.

He couldn't close his eyes at the sight in front of him.

The room was located on the top floor of the tower. Its contents were busy and miscellaneous, in direct contrast to the simplicity of the tower's staircase.

It was covered with a dark dark dark brown carpet and not a single stone floor was visible. Above it was full of wooden furniture carved with fine carved designs. In the center is a table. There is one rocking chair next to it, and a row of shelves by the wall. And on all the furniture was a large amount of what seemed to be books - bundles of parchment. Books filled the table tops, books were rocking instead of people on the rocking chairs, and on the shelves, on top and next to each other - all books.

There was one window in the room.

And right next to the window that reflected the dark sky, there was one wooden bed. A large number of books had been brought into the bed, and to be honest, it was in a state where it didn't seem to be able to function as a bed.

There was one girl sitting on that bed.

Her long, shining hair, which was neither white nor yellow to the boy, hung down, and she was wearing two thin layers of clothing. She was a year or so smaller than the boy, and if they were side by side, the girl would have her head around the boy's waist.

The girl used the plush stuff as a cushion, grabbing the blanket with both hands and pulling it up to her chest, staring in amazement at the boy as he walked into the room.

The singing had already stopped.

That singing voice belonged to a girl, and it was interrupted by the boy's entry.

First of all, the boy was ashamed that he had interrupted that beautiful song.

It shouldn't have been that bad, but first and foremost, he felt he had to apologize.

'I'm sorry ....... I heard that ...... beautiful voice and I was wondering what kind of person was singing .......

He lowered his head.

The girl tilted her head at that and returned the words.

”'Good evening' ......?　'Brother,' 'Why are you here?' ......?

”Well, ...... I don't understand the language over here ......

”'Eh', 'e'?　'Wait,' 'What now?' ......?

Naturally, they can't communicate with each other.

The boy and the girl make the same troubled face and try to find a way to communicate with each other.

And the boy first resorted to body language.

With a poor gesture, he manages to convey three things: that he is not hostile, that he has been taken away before he knows it, and that he is in great trouble because he is being chased by scary people.

The clever girl immediately sensed that the person in front of her was trying to convey her will with a gesture. She follows the boy's movements intently, trying to read his true intentions.

However, his serious eyes did not last long.

''Hmph--''

I laugh.

I couldn't bear to gush over the boy's awkward and poorly executed dance, which I could only assume was awkward. I thought it was disrespectful to the other person and endured it for a few seconds, but it was funny because the boy was seriously desperate and desperate and that's why the dance was so funny.

'Yeah, well, you will be: ......'

The boy blushed a little resignedly as he thought back on his own poor gesture.

He knew himself that he had tried to tell her three at once when he could have told her one thing at a time, and he knew that he looked hapless.

The girl's laughter could be heard.

Naturally, that was because the window in the room was open, so the voice could leak out to the outside of the tower.

In response to that laughter, a loud voice comes back from outside.

''Princess!''　”Is someone there?”--?

It was the voice of the soldiers ahead of them.

The soldiers, unable to find the boy, continued their search under the stone tower.

Immediately the girl leans out of bed, looks out the window and screams back.

...... 'Nope', 'I was just mumbling to myself like I always do'!　'What are you guys doing?'!

The girl, who was a born liar, was deceived on the spur of the moment.

Whether she was just as confused as the boy, or whether she was under a spell - I don't know, but the girl 'chose' the same path as if she were guided.

''That's why,'' ......, ''our guest-dono got lost in the castle, and we're all searching for him.'' ......!

”'We have a guest here' ......?

''Her features are dark hair and dark eyes'' and ''I think you can definitely tell at a glance!

The girl looked into the room, realizing that the person the soldiers were looking for was the boy who had wandered into this stone tower.