Where The Wind Takes Them

The ship we were on had taken a certain course towards the East, was moving unabated, and was standing in the air carrying as much cargo as possible with us.

At that time, everyone else was gathered next to me, arguing in the middle of the ship about our next rotation. We were discussing exactly where the location where we could arrive first in the third kingdom should be, when we would arrive, and even the reason why we should go there, down to the smallest detail. On top of the barrel in our environment, I kept a map that we needed to determine the location and that I always used.

After placing my thumb slightly at the upper point of the map and preventing it from flying, I looked at the rotations one by one. I was investigating the fastest and most reliable way that we could have to take to get there. And the red dot shining on it, indicated that the next person we were looking for was quite ahead of the third kingdom.

"So this map shows our next rotation, doesn't it?" Mila said, as she lifted her head up to talk to us,

"That's not exactly the principle of the map. For obvious reasons, it doesn't exactly show the areas we are in, it just tells us where to go, like a footpath, and which person we are looking for."

"Which person you are looking for?"

"Yeah, it is a magical item that we buried our heads in. Other than that, we don't have anything like a compass to show our way. And if that gets damaged too, then we are going to get lost." Hiroshi said, as he added to the conversation,

"But if so, why haven't you gathered more people to come after you much before?"

"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. This map only shows people who can help us with this, which is quite a small number of people who can travel with us for such a purpose, and it continues not to appear in the same way in people with sufficient abilities that do not follow the first."

"But how then will you find your way? After all, even to get to those people, you need more than a certain route."

"We will continue to do what we are doing." I said, looking at Mila and answering the question,

Then looking at everybody one by one, I added,

"We may be far away from having perfectly counted members in our group, but at least we have to know what we have to do."

But pointing out the map once again, Hiroshi talked about something we didn't realize at first,

"The destination on the map has never shone so much before too. Even when we fought with the ones before, it was just like a little dot. But now it shines much brighter. It is actually quite eye-catching."

"The will of the person we are going to encounter must be quite strong." Lezlie replied, looking at the point that Hiroshi just talked about.

"How do you know about that?"

"I discovered it while reading the manual "Magic Items and Basics of Sorcery" in the palace back then. Obviously, among the magical items that contain a lot of information, this map was decently forgotten and poorly equipped with information, but I still couldn't help but notice it, how much value it occupied within.

"So how does it work?"

"No matter what a person or object is looking for, the more powerful it is, the more difficulty the map has in reading it. Sometimes it doesn't show, sometimes it's too bright, and sometimes it is just a mystery for the user to find out. Just like we had the previous time when we were looking for the other person."

"It seems you all have faced this problem before our first encounter." said Shou, from the recent memory which we all had together.

"And from the looks of it, we are going to encounter something like this again. It is no assurance that we will be left out with every answer and key in our hands. So taking this as a pinch of salt, we only have to remember the essentials we learned from past moments we lived."

Babu then replied, trying to get away from the reality and the conclusion we might have,

"Does that mean that the next person is stronger than we faced just now?"

"I have no idea. But continuing the way we have, we will face many more. Strong or not."

"And if, as the king said, the kingdoms unite and fight together with us, then it will be easier for us to win. We have done this in a war like this. So it wouldn't be a problem for us to do it again."

Babu was desperately trying to make up a shortcut for us to get away from this. But nevertheless, we couldn't run away from our problems like that. The King just had entered a war and had lost hundreds of men to protect a handful of people, leaving us with a huge responsibility on our shoulders on our behalf to repay him back.

I wasn't angry at him too, it was a necessary thing. But seeking out many options, I now realized that we could only take the paths on the safest points they lay. We could only act so very carefully, plan out everything before we did it, and stop a great evil power from destroying a whole generation, we had to do the same with greater power.

We had to raise our fists once more.

But before I said something, and Hiroshi continued his sentence, something happened,

"You are thinking very quickly, Pa-"

As Hiroshi was trying to finish his sentence, a strong voice rose from the back of our necks. A strong sensation, and a vibration that shook us from the position where we were standing.

It was a voice I had heard before but didn't recognize.

But soon after, that become unsolved too.