Once Ishida reached the gate and the barbed wire fence, he stopped to wipe the sweat on his forehead. He sighed in relief— no one had tried to chase him.
Ishida was still breathing heavily from the terrible fright the incident had given him when suddenly, he heard a distressful call for help from somewhere in the distance.
The voice did not sound like that of anyone on Mount Lagoda. It was a rather pleasant voice— a voice that resembled the sound of a small stream of fresh mineral water slowly trickling down a hill.
“Help!! Somebody, please help me! I’m drowning!” the voice called over and over again.
Ishida immediately forgot about what he had discovered in the abandoned factory and hastily climbed over the gate.
Upon reaching the safety of the inhabited side of Mount Lagoda, he sprinted down the slope towards the river.
There, he saw that a beautiful girl had fallen into the river and was about to drown.
The stranger was still desperately calling out for help, but her cries were growing softer as she began to sink into the water.
To make matters worse, the swift current was driving the drowning stranger towards a wooden water wheel that belonged to a cotton factory.
The water wheel spun rapidly, threatening to devour and chop to pieces anything that came in its path.
Without hesitation, Ishida took off his jacket, dove into the river, and swam towards the drowning girl. He had gone swimming in this river multiple times in his childhood and was able to make his way to the stranger and grab hold of her in the nick of time.
The girl seemed to have either lost consciousness or descended into a coma.
Ishida carried the stranger on his back and hurriedly swam towards the river bank to get away from the menacing water wheel.
Upon reaching dry land once again, he gently placed the person on a patch of grass and tried to wake her up.
“Hey! Are you alright?” Ishida asked the girl he rescued, who had just opened her eyes.
“W...where am I? And who are you?” she asked, sitting up and looking around.
Ishida was glad that she was alright after all.
The girl appeared to be about his age or perhaps a little younger. She had beautiful almond-brown hair tied in one long braid and sky-blue eyes. She wore a grey leather dress that didn’t look very expensive.
There were indeed a few pretty girls who lived on Mount Lagoda and were about the same age as Ishida. Of all of them, no one was nearly as gorgeous as the stranger Ishida had just saved.
“You can call me Ishida,” the young man told her. “You’re on the foot of Mount Lagoda, the largest industrial center in this country! Now it’s my turn to ask questions. What were you doing in the river? More importantly, where do you come from? You don’t seem very Lagodan.”
The stranger looked him in the eyes. “Are you the one who rescued me?”
“Yeah, I heard you calling for help,”
“Thank you, thank you a hundred billion times! I owe you my life...”
The girl stretched her arms out as if to embrace him, but she ultimately settled on shaking his hand.
Ishida smiled. “You’re very welcome. Feel free to stay here as long as you’d like. My house is on the top of the mountain.”
“My name is Rhina, by the way. I come from Lucada, a city past the Planum Plains, beyond the Coleis Plateau, and over the Montibus Mountains,” the girl told him. “It’s near the Jecoba River Delta.”
“The Jecoba River Delta?! You must have come a very long way!”
“I took the train to Bazantrum first, and then I walked here,”
“You walked here from Bazantrum? How in the world did you manage to do that?!”
It was then that Ishida saw the blue star-shaped earrings that the girl was wearing. They seemed to have enchanted him in some way.
“Woah, these earrings are amazing! They look like they’re magical,”
“Do they? That’s because they are.” Rhina winked, tapping one of her earrings.
She then strode to the riverside and motioned for Ishida to come. “If you trust me, hold my hand.”
Ishida shrugged. He followed her and held her hand.
“Now don’t let go!” Rhina said excitedly before stepping onto the water.
Ishida watched in amazement as Rhina placed both of her feet on the rapidly flowing water without falling in.
The young man stood there on the sand with his jaw dropped. He pinched his cheek as hard as he could, but he didn’t “wake up.”
“Impossible. Unbelievable,” he muttered. “This has to be a dream! Yes, I’m dreaming, that’s all. I’ll wake up any moment now.”
“It is possible! Everything is possible.” Rhina smiled.
Ishida tightened his grip on his cheek, which was beginning to turn red.
“Stop doing that, you’ll hurt yourself!” Rhina laughed as she pulled Ishida’s hand away from his face.
“It can’t be true. I don’t believe it!” Ishida mumbled. “Do me a favor, will you? Slap me on the face as hard as you can.”
“You aren’t dreaming, Ishida,” Rhina told him. “Come on, give it a try! Step onto the water.”
Ishida closed his eyes and took a step forward. To his surprise, the water felt as solid as the ground.
He took another step forward and opened his eyes. He was standing right on liquid water! He crouched down and slid his hand across the solid yet rapidly flowing river.
A large smile appeared on Ishida’s face.
“I’m standing on water!” he shouted, laughing hysterically. “So it is possible after all!”
Ishida was so overjoyed that he began jumping up and down and prancing to and fro.
“Don’t let go of my hand, or you’ll fall!” Rhina warned.
But Ishida did not listen. As soon as Rhina lost her grip on his hand, the young man tumbled into the water with a big splash.
“Ishida, no!” Rhina gasped.
Bubbles began to rise to the surface, creating ripples in the water.
Soon, an inky black object emerged from the water. It was Ishida’s head.“That was fun!” He laughed as he waded through the shallow water.Rhina smiled in relief. She stepped back onto the sand and tapped her earrings once again. This time, when her foot touched the water, it did not float.“How is it that you were drowning just earlier, even though you had these magical earrings?” Ishida asked.“I wanted to know what it feels like to swim in the water. To tell you the truth, I have never done it before. That’s because my father hasn’t let me go outside in a very long time,” Rhina answered. “I didn’t think that water, the very substance that gives life, could al
It was a cold evening with heavy snowfall and long dark hours. After having dinner, Ishida offered Rhina his bed and slept on the couch.But a few hours later, he was still awake. As it turned out, he had not entirely forgotten the discovery he made at the ammunition factory that afternoon.I wonder what kind of people are operating the place and why they want to produce weapons, he thought.Perhaps another war is coming...?Ishida shook his head. No, it can’t be! The last war we had was over a thousand years ago! Still, what about those mosaic paintings?What do they represent? That mountain lo
"What's going on?" Ishida asked an elderly man who was limping by on a cane. “Get away from here as quickly as possible! There’s no time to waste!” the man warned him before hurriedly shuffling away.This was the first conversation Ishida had had with a person other than Rhina in years.Ignoring the warning, he did not head away from the town, for he needed to know what was happening.“What’s going on? Why is everyone in such a hurry?” he asked as a soldier with a rifle strapped to his back rushed by.There was no answer. The soldier, who wore a long white winter coat, continued marching. Following him were many more soldiers. They were all hurrying down the ridge.“
The villagers were evacuating the town when Ishida and Rhina arrived. Men took up their guns and prepared to defend their houses as women and children headed further up the mountain to seek refuge.As they were walking in front of a doorway, Ishida and Rhina were grabbed and pulled into a house by an old lady.Inside the house were a number of grandmothers who had armed themselves with wooden rolling pins and whisks.“You children can hide in our house,” one of the elderly ladies said kindly. “We’ll protect you from those nasty Medietans.”When Ishida turned around to thank the lady, she dropped her rolling pin and shrieked.“It&rsquo
The man droned on and on in an increasingly monotonous tone. Ishida was too tired to listen and eventually fell asleep. A while later, he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder.He was about to cry, “Ow!” when he remembered that they were prisoners and tried his best not to make a sound.“What is it?” he whispered to Rhina. “Listen! This is important,” the girl whispered back.“We have lost, according to our very precise and accurate estimates, one hundred and twenty tanks, five hundred and thirty-three soldiers, eighty-two rifles, one hundred and eighty pistols, ninety-seven assault rifles, ninety-nine daggers, fourteen bayonets, and seven
Ishida woke up to the sound of chirping birds. It was already morning.Not long after this, the door swung open and Medietan soldiers with guns in their hands marched in.Lieutenant Monte also came in, holding a paper scroll in his hand.He soon opened the scroll and began reading.“The rebellious people of Mount Lagoda rightfully owe the Medietan Empire five hundred thousand Koblos for the damage done to our armies sent here to stop this senseless rebellion. Furthermore, five thousand men from this mountain between the age of twenty and fifty shall be drafted into the Medietan Army. Signed, Emperor Derisus III of Medietus.”The lieutenant closed the scroll
Meanwhile, Ishida and Rhina discussed their plan in Ishida’s mountaintop cabin.“On the back of the mountain, there are many abandoned factories.” Ishida began. “Some of them are still operating. A few days ago, before I entered the ammunition factory, I also saw an aircraft factory. I’m pretty sure there are still lots of planes in the hangar.”“So what are we going to do?” Rhina asked.“We’re going to sneak into the aircraft factory, get in a plane, and fly away!” Ishida replied.“Fly away? What about the war reparations?” Rhina demanded.“What I meant to say was that we’re going to fly to the Gre
With the upper right wing burning, Ishida tried his best to control the plane. Just then, he spotted a raincloud.It’s never safe to fly near a raincloud. The plane could be struck by lightning, he thought.But seeing that there was no alternative and that the bullets were coming closer to them by the second. Ishida turned the biplane and headed under the grey cloud.At once, the fire was put out by the heavy rainfall.All of a sudden, just when Ishida thought they were safely out of the battleships’ firing range, a stream of bullets crashed into the plane’s fuselage.Strr-CLANG!