Arika, Feeling the Beginning of Purpose and Friendship

“Lady Arika?! Are you okay?!”

Rana was the first one who noticed that I woke up crying and sobbing, that she ran over to my bed worriedly. She kindly took her handkerchief from her pocket, and helped me wipe my own tears. I couldn’t even start explaining to her what’s going on, as all I did speak out turned into sobs.

“I— I’m…. I’m fine. Just give me time.” At least I could articulate those words in an attempt to calm Rana down. I decided to just switch her attention to something else– but then my stomach did it faster with my stomach rumbling. “Ahaha… I guess I was just hungry.”

“We still have the complimentary food from checking in. You should eat some, Arika.”

Rama was calm and composed as he said so, passing a fruit I couldn’t recognize from my former world to my hand. I started biting into the sweet and delicious fruit– and realized that it tastes a little like the mix of an apple and strawberry that I knew from my world. All while Rana was grinning as she decided to poke Rama’s cheeks as a form of teasing.

“Ah, you finally gave up and called Lady Arika by her name~ What happened last night when I was fast asleep, huuuuh~?”

“Ugh, shut up! This is why I don’t want to call Arika by her name!”

“But you just did~ my twinnie brother Rama really is a human fetishist~”

“D– don’t call it ‘a human fetish’! Call it ‘an interest in humans’, at least!”

Looking at those two bickering playfully like that, I couldn’t help but smile and giggle. Soon, that giggle turned into laughter. A laughter I haven’t had for a while, even in my past world— once I noticed that, I felt like I could cry again while laughing. Most of all, I started wondering if it’s really fine to call them my friends as my Grandma implied in my dreams. Maybe I should ask?

Nah, there’s much more important things we need to do at the moment, as I finished my eating.

“Lady Arika, what happened so that you’re crying like that, by the way?”

“I— It’s fine! I just had a dream about someone I missed so much…”

I chuckled, as I wiped my tears. Rama immediately clicked in understanding, while Rana ended up being confused.

“Someone you missed…? From the world you were in?”

“In some ways, yeah…” I smiled gently, as I scratched my cheeks and took a glance at Rama who immediately caught on. “But thanks to that, I think I found out what I needed to do here. And it’s not because the demons are attacking again and I was needed for it… for now.”

“That’s good, then.” Rama sighed in relief. “Then? What exactly did the dream tell you?”

“...Before that, what’s the plan for today?” I asked first before we could dwell deeper on the topic of my Grandma’s clue. “Don’t we need to find a way to contact Elder as well as getting things to create the magic item to hide the fact that I looked like Angelica— if not finding a way home?”

“Right! With the amount of money Arika has, we could just pay the ticket for a teleportation pod to teleport us back to Magifa! We could just get back immediately after Rana’s mana recovered!” said Rama, as an obvious answer finally clicked on his head. Rana, however, seemingly disagrees with her twin brother as she pouts, visibly annoyed.

“That’s no fun! I finally got to the big city of Marconne with an almost unlimited budget, and now we have to get back immediately?” Rana sulks like a little child. “I don’t want to! Let’s just play since we’re in the city! Let’s become city girls!”

“...’City girls’... I’m a guy, though…. and you’re definitely forgetting something important there….” Rama rolled his eyes. “I’m just worried about Arika… That Temple-called Comanet cult has a lot of members from what we’ve seen, and the larger the city is, the bigger the risk is to bump into another member that would try to capture her or do something…”

“It’ll be fine, Rama. This is a good chance for me to know more about this world, and confirm whether what I saw in that dream is related to my descent or not.” I patted Rama’s back in an attempt to reassure him. Rama sighed, seemingly having grown a soft spot to me, which I’m glad he has.

“Okay. But let’s be careful.” said Rama shyly, and to that meek reaction Rana’s reaction was;

“Really, what happened to you two in just one night? Should I just leave you two alone and get the items I needed on my own?”

“L— Like I said! You’re having the wrong idea, Rana!”

“Well, Rana seems like she knew better of the city, I’d be fine with her getting the magic items needed on her own.“

“Don’t just fire her up like that, Arika!”

~*~*~

On a tiny, dead-end corner of the city with not many people passing by, Rana carefully put the ruby-like gem brooch she just imbued with her magic on my robe. As the brooch clicked, Rama put out a mirror to confirm my transformation– in which I looked different. My long, curly strawberry blonde hair was much brighter in pink color and less curly, and obviously to hide my nature as a human, I in the mirror had elf ears.

My face doesn’t look that much different, though. There’s little freckles here and there, but that’s it.

“Can’t you do better with her face? Her face still looked similar.” said Rama worriedly as he looked at the mirror’s reflection of me.

“I don’t have much time and material to work with like with the necklace from before. With her face, we could just call it a coincidence…” Rana sighed as she explained her own limitations. “The freckles would be just fine in covering it up. I’m sure fanatics like Temple people would believe the Legendary Mage Hero have a flawless face”

“You know what? That’s fair. Let’s go before anyone sees us. Come on, Rui.”

Rui meows as he walks out, no longer covering our secret ordeal away from the busy streets. I wonder if Rana casted her magic on Rui until he walked out so that he looked like some kind of wall so that no one came around to disturb us. I can’t confirm, though, as we sneaked out of the streets only to see a little child holding hands with his mother, pointing at us–

“Mom! Look! The wall became a Cheshire!”

“Shush, don’t look! They must’ve been dealing with some bad potions! Let’s just go!”

…It confirmed my suspicions but at the same time also made me feel awkward. Did they think we were some sort of drug dealer or something? A big city, no matter which world, really feels dangerous just like that. I can’t blame them….

“Don’t worry much about that, it’s just a common occurrence in cities like this. Let’s just find a way to contact or find Elder now.” Rana huffs. “To a library with a Comanet connection we go!”

….She really is knowledgeable about cities in this world, despite never really going to one before this. She could even guess which way goes based on the signs and maps scattered throughout the city alone. Both me and Rama could read their names though I read them rather differently, but to guess which part of the city was rather different. Especially that Rana’s doing it while skipping joyfully.

I don’t think I would have the same talent as Rana to read maps even in my modern world with all its GPS and such. I’d consider it magic if I knew less of her.

“You’re having too much fun with this, aren’t you, Rana?” Rama rolled his eyes, as he followed his sister’s steps with a much lazier set of steps. “More importantly, what exactly did you see in your dream before this, Arika?”

“Ah, right. I was going to ask about this first. What exactly are ‘magic stones’ in this world?” I pointed to the brooch I was wearing. “This one that Rana used is a magic stone too, right? But it seems different from the one Dellney had that made us teleported here…”

“I guess that’s true. The one Dellney had didn’t feel like it could have any pre-imbued magic to it, but then it just teleported us here. It’s really mysterious…”

“Aw… Do I have to search every magic stone in this city, then?” I sighed heavily, finally realizing how impossible this mission could be. It may be easier just to go back to Magifa and live in hiding, but it feels wrong after I found this clue from my dream about what I should do…

“Wait, why are you asking about magic stones all of sudden, Lady Arika?”

Rana asked curiously, as she turned her head back to our conversation from leading the way. Looks like she did hear us out, and felt the need to barge in it too.

“It’s about that mysterious dream I had last night that might’ve been a clue on my descent…”

“That dream about someone you missed so much?” Rana, who understood my situation less than Rama at the moment, stopped her skipping steps at last to really turn to us, completely captivated by our conversation— until she clapped her hands, remembering something. “...Wait, I think I remember some kind of rumor that might’ve been related…. Let’s confirm it when we’re at the city library! Don’t worry, we should be close!”

“Wait, Rana! We’d get lost if you just went ahead like that!”