Act 23 - Spring's drama

Seirei Gensouki 23 - Haru no Gikyoku, Spring’s drama.(精霊幻想記23.春の戯曲)

Synopsis
What lies ahead of the choice that makes fate diverge is…
 * -|English =

Rio travels alongside Sora in search of a way to overturn the transcendentals’ rules. His first destination was the place Saint Erika was summoned to. While following the saint’s footsteps Rio deepens his understanding of the heroes’ power. Meanwhile in Galarc’s castle, Takahisa is the only one of the four heroes gathered there that refused to train himself and goes down the path of isolation. Only one thing occupies the thoughts of that Takahisa… to restore his relationship with Ayase Miharu. 「Good for you... Aki, Miharu has already forgiven you.」 The actions of the boy that fell for the girl will soon even distort the world!!

運命が分岐する選択肢、その先にあるのは――
 * -|Japanese =

超越者のルールを覆す手掛かりを求め、ソラと共に旅立ったリオ. 彼が最初に目指したのは聖女エリカが召喚された場所だった. 聖女の足跡を辿る中、リオは勇者の力について考察を深めていく. 一方、ガルアーク王国城に集った四人の勇者たちの中で千堂貴久だけが自己鍛錬の機会も断り、孤立の道を進んでいた. そんな貴久の関心事項はただ一つ――綾瀬美春との関係修復のみ. 「亜紀は……いいよな. もう美春に許してもらっているんだから」 少女に恋焦がれた少年の行動は、やがて世界すらも歪め始める!!

Prologue.
Early morning, at Galarc’s castle, in the kitchen of Rio's mansion. Miharu is making breakfast while thinking about her dream from last night. She wonders what was that dream, about the feminine voice telling her that one day she will be asked to make a decision, a very important one. Miharu understands that it was a dream, that it is meaningless to ponder about it but then she remembers about the voice telling her to choose the option she herself will think it is absolutely wrong, she can’t get it out of her mind. She asks herself to whom that voice belonged, she feels she heard that voice somewhere before. Aki enters the kitchen and greets Miharu while she dwells in the feeling of something being off and Miharu also says good morning to her. Miharu smiles at Aki and tells her to come and hug her with a hand gesture, Aki obeys shyly while saying that it is embarrassing. While hugging Aki, Miharu thinks if she has to ever make a choice it must be about her. Miharu thinks she doesn’t want to see Aki’s sorrowful face again, she whispers to herself that it will be bad if she doesn’t do things carefully for the sake of that. Aki makes a surprised expression when listening to Miharu’s whispers, she asks Miharu what is happening with her gaze but she just tells her that it is nothing while tightening her hug.

Chapter 1: The two on a trip.
Close to the frontier between the Beltrum and Galarc Kingdoms, some hundreds of meters away from the fortress Celia has just escaped from, her durandal and Renji’s endless force blizzard clash and release a great light and shockwave. Both Renji and Celia are blown away by the explosion while the light blinds them. Celia tells herself to get a hold of herself while being shaken in every direction by the strong air currents, she thinks she doesn’t know if she will be able to keep fighting now that she used Durandal which uses a great quantity of magic power, that in her current situation her best choice is to run away instead of risking to fall into Reiss’ and Helmut’s hands, then she decides to use the force of explosion to propel herself further away from Renji and Reiss, once she gets out of the explosion’s radius Celia finally recovers the full control of her flight and gets away using the majority of her remaining magic power to accelerate towards the border.

Reiss thinks he has no option while being forced himself to fall back because of the strength of the explosion that almost sent him and Renji back to the fortress. Reiss flies towards the center of the turbulences with Renji in his arms while wondering about what happened to Celia, if she managed to escape or if the explosion made her faint and fall in the forest. Renji asks Reiss angrily while shielding his eyes from the light with his arm what happened and if he killed Celia. Reiss tells him that he doesn’t know and Renji asks him what was that, that Celia did. Reiss tells Renji that Celia countered his attack with one almost on the level of his. Renji asks Reiss if it is true and Reiss says that there is no mistaking it. Renji asks Reiss if his blizzard wasn’t stronger than the world’s most advanced attack magic. Reiss tells Renji that there is magic even stronger than the advanced ones. Renji screams at Reiss to not mess with him, that then advanced magic isn’t the highest degree of magic, that if there are magic spells that match his attacks then there is a great demon king behind the demon king, that things shouldn’t be like a story with that kind of hidden crappy setting.

Reiss begins to laugh while Renji’s annoyance at the existence of magic as strong as the heroes’ attacks lowering their special-ness keeps mounting. Renji screams at Reiss to not mess with him and that it isn’t a laughing matter. Reiss apologizes and tells Renji that sometimes he says things really funny, then he explains to Renji that when people says the highest degree of magic they mean the world’s current highest degree of magic, but that it is said that in the past, in the ancient heroes’ era, magic was even stronger. Renji asks Reiss if he means that Celia used that kind of magic. Reiss says he does, that the chances of her having a powerful ancient magic tool aren’t zero but that she didn’t seem to be equipped with something like that. Renji says he isn’t convinced, he asks if that wouldn’t make Celia a user of a magic that shouldn’t exist. Reiss agrees and says that he doesn’t know why Celia can use that kind of magic either. Renji stays silent and looks dubiously at Reiss for a some time while he flies in search of Celia, but soon he gets annoyed at being carried by a sinister man and asks Reiss for how long they will stay like that. Reiss apologizes for that and tells Renji that it might already be time for him to learn to fly by himself, that he doesn’t fear anymore that he will just run away once he learns how to do it. Reiss thinks if it is the current Renji who wants to be taught more about spirit arts for getting stronger then he won’t run away unlike the Renji that had just been by beaten by Lucius over Esther’s matter, that the chances of Renji escaping aren’t zero but that if he offers the teaching as a way of selling a favor they should be lower. Renji huffs unhappily and tells Reiss to put him down so he can search from the ground and him from the sky. Reiss agrees and lets go of Renji’s body from twenty meters high but he endures the fall with his body strengthening.

At the same time that Renji landed, Celia lands herself and hides several kilometers away from the explosion’s epicenter, she thinks it doesn’t look like she is being pursued and pats her chest in relief while reminding herself to not lower her guard yet. Celia then makes note of her situation, she thinks durandal uses a ridiculous amount of magic power, that just her remaining magic power might not be enough for one more shot. Currently her magic power is almost used up and even if she uses that spirit stone she got from Rio to replenish it there will 20-30% loss if she doesn’t take her time absorbing the magic power into herself, all of the magic she learnt recently use a lot of magic power and right now she has no way of refilling the stone with magic power. Celia makes a resolved face while thinking of the magic power still remaining in the stone and looking at the Beltrum kingdom, then she decides to go back to Amande for the time being, she takes some magic power from the stone, casts force wing again and flies until Amande.

Celia reaches Amande safely after just a few minutes thanks to her new magic, she lands in the forest near the city and then walks until Liselotte’s mansion. She was worried about being rejected after coming without an appointment but Liselotte and Aria receive her despite that. Celia explains the two everything regarding Helmut’s letter, she having to deliver Christina’s answer to it and how she has just escaped from Helmut’s ambush. When her explanation is over Celia asks Liselotte if she can go to the capital to inform Christina and François of what happened while she apologizes for how it looks like she is pushing things into them. Liselotte can only a manage a confused “eeeh” after listening to everything, Celia’s summary of things doesn’t explain how she reached Amande safely after all, she cannot imagine how in the world Celia managed that and asks Celia for a moment to organize her thoughts, she asks Celia if she really is coming back from almost being captured after leaving Galarc’s capital for delivering Christina’s letter to a fortress in the Beltrum kingdom. Celia confirms it. Liselotte says she understands still perplexed.

Celia is serious but Liselotte is still confused, she doesn’t think Celia is the type to lie but that alone isn’t enough to just believe the kind of crazy story she has just been told, but she accepts to inform Christina and François of everything and asks Celia if she won’t go back to Galarc’s capital too. Celia says she won’t and that she plans to go back to the Beltrum Kingdom. Liselotte asks her why and if it isn’t better to go back to Galarc’s capital with the way things are. Celia says she wants to inform her family of what happened too, that thanks to Christina’s kindness her father should have become someone difficult to touch but that she doesn’t know what Helmut could do to him despite that. Liselotte asks Celia if she is worried about her family and she says she is. Liselotte takes a moment to think and tells Celia that she isn’t just Aria’s friend, that she is her important friend too, that if possible she wants to lend her a magic ship for taking her until the Claire earldom but that since Rodania’s raid her company’s ships were forbidden to enter certain places of the Beltrum kingdom. Celia thanks Liselotte and tells her that she doesn’t need to worry because she can go and come back by herself. Liselotte asks Celia if she isn’t being reckless. Aria nods agreeing with Liselotte, Celia says that it isn’t impossible for them to think like that but tells them that it is fine, that she has already come back from the Beltrum kingdom by herself.

When Liselotte is having problems to be convinced of Celia’s plan she tells her to keep just among them that it would take her just three days to go and come back to Amande. Liselotte is surprised, walking the distance until Creia and back is supposed to take months and going by horse at maximum only can halve that time while going and arriving in just three days is even faster than using a griffon. Celia meanwhile isn’t saying that those three days are just under the premise of her not running out of magic power, that without the magic power inside the stone and if she doesn’t fly slowly to control her magic power consumption the go trip might be complicated. But she still tries to have Liselotte to understand things by telling her that recently she learnt magic that no one else can use yet that lets her fly through the sky, that it was because of that that she came directly to Amande after crossing the border. Liselotte says she had been thinking it was strange for her residence to be the place she reached first and alone at that instead of any of the fortresses along the way. Celia tells Liselotte that she was sent to the border by the escort knights prepared by Charlotte but that she had to separate from them because Helmut specified that she couldn’t bring companions. Liselotte asks Celia where are those escorts right now. Celia tells Liselotte that they should be in the fortress the closest to Galarc's side of the border waiting for her return because Charlotte ordered them to bring her back to the capital the moment she returned. Liselotte says she understands now why Celia came directly to her residence, because if she had talked first to her escorts they would never have given her permission to go back to the Beltrum kingdom because it would go against Charlotte’s orders.

Celia lowers her head remorsefully and apologizes for the problems she caused. Liselotte says that as a friend she is happy about being relied on but that now it will be even worse for her if she doesn’t take Celia to the castle. Liselotte holds her head with concern while thinking now she will be the one disobeying Charlotte because she understands Celia’s wish of wanting to warn her family of the danger. Celia agrees with her own troubled expression and asks Liselotte if she can do something about that, that she needs to leave quickly because Helmut might do something at any moment and then she lowers her head again because she knows she is being unreasonable. Liselotte says she understands and tells Celia to leave reporting to the capital to her and that she will also do something about her escorts. Celia thanks Liselotte but Liselotte tells her she has a condition. Celia asks about the condition. Liselotte tells Celia she has to take Aria with her as her escort. Celia looks hesitatingly at Aria without understanding the reason for Liselotte’s condition. Liselotte tells Celia that as a friend it is impossible for her to send Celia alone to somewhere she knows will be dangerous and that she can’t compromise on that because Charlotte will also be angry otherwise. Celia tells Liselotte that it will be an international problem if anyone discovers that she helped her.

Liselotte says that it is precisely because of that that she is just sending the minimum personnel in the form of Aria, that Celia should already be familiar with Aria’s skill and that Aria was once a noble from the Beltrum Kingdom so she can somehow make excuses for her presence. Celia says that it might be like that, but that Aria is supposed to be the sword by her side and that then she will be the one unprotected. Liselotte says she still has some skillful personnel even if they aren’t at Aria’s level, that if she tightens her security to compensate for Aria’s absence she will manage, then she orders Aria to be Celia’s escort. Aria sighs and says she understands while nodding her head. Celia asks Aria if she is fine with that, if it won’t be bad if she isn’t there to protect Liselotte. Aria says she can’t help it because it is her lord’s orders. Liselotte tells Celia that if she cares so much about her escorts she must also understand her own worry about Celia's safety. Celia says she does guiltily after Liselotte hit her in her sore spot. Liselotte tells Celia to return quickly if it is like that and Celia says she will do her best. Liselotte says she will wait for it and asks Celia if she can do anything else to help her, that she can lend her a griffon or magic stones if she needs them. Celia thanks Liselotte and says that she is in her debt, then she tells her that she will need magic stones and a sword. Liselotte says she understands and tells Aria to prepare those things while she prepares herself to leave. Aria says she understands and leaves.

Next volume's preview

 * TLN: As usual, the summary of the whole book will be posted 10 to 14 days after the book is published the 1st of February, or in the other words at anytime between the 10th and the 14th of February.

Short stories:

 * 1) Toranoana - Holding hands: Rio and Sora are forced to walk through crowded streets during their trip, then Rio offers Sora his hand...
 * 2) Melonbooks - Tsundere sleeping beauty: Haruto and Satsuki talk in the student council's room. What happens when Satsuki complains about having to be the sleeping beauty in a play?
 * 3) Bookwalker - Teatime with a friend: Celia and Aria make some time to rest after things calm down. While they drink tea the stories of the past blossom...