When I got up, there were two fairies.
Judging from the conversation, she was Prim's older sister.
"Yuna!" (Prim)
"I should have made you smell the sleeping powder so you wouldn't wake me up." (Rhone)
Prim's older sister said something like that.
"Noa! Kumayuru, Kumakyu" (Yuna)
I call out to them, but there was no response. They were sleeping.
Was I okay because of the bear equipment?
"I'm sure it was Rhone. What do you mean you're not going home?" (Yuna)
"As I said. I'll stay here." (Rhone)
"Why, sister? If we're being captured by humans, let's run away." (Prim)
Rhone shook her head.
"There's someone important to me here. That's why I can't go home with Prim." (Rhone)
"Sister!" (Prim)
Prim screamed, but Prim's older sister ignored her and turned to Noa.
"I can feel my mana connection with that child." (Rhone)
"That's because sister's handkerchief went inside Noa." (Prim)
"I see. Well, that's fine. Prim, hurry up and get out of this town and go back to the fairy's forest. And forget about me." (Rhone)
She spoke in a way that seemed to push Prim away.
"Also, a word of warning, your mana will be taken away late at night. It may affect your physical condition, so be careful." (Rhone)
Prim's older sister turned her back to Prim.
Prim tried to say something but couldn't find the words. We couldn't let it continue like this.
"Wait a minute, even if you say something like that, Prim and I won't be able to accept it and go home like this." (Yuna)
Rhone turned around at my words.
"Answer some questions." (Yuna)
"Okay. I'll thank you for bringing Prim here." (Rhone)
"Are you giving power to the knight?" (Yuna)
"Yes, that's right." (Rhone)
"Why are you giving power to knights?" (Yuna)
"To collect magic stones" (Rhone)
"Why are you collecting magic stones?" (Yuna)
"To collect magical power" (Rhone)
"Why are you collecting magical power?" ()
"To keep that person from dying." (Rhone)
Wasn't it to make the knight stronger?
So, wasn't all the mana used for the knight?
Mana to keep the lord of this city from dying?
"That's the end of the story. There's nothing more to say." (Rhone)
"One last thing. What do you mean by forcefully bringing him back here?" ()
I moved.
"Yuna!" (Prim)
Prim screamed.
"Hehe, that's impossible." (Rhone)
When Rhone laughed, a wind stirred in the room, and she was no longer there.
She must have gone out the open window.
I looked out the window, but I couldn't see her.
This might be trickier than I thought.
"Sister..." (Prim)
Prim didn't even try to chase after her, instead looking at the window where Rhone left with tears in her eyes.
"Prim..." (Yuna)
"Yuna, I'm sorry. You took the trouble to bring me here." (Prim)
Prim apologized while holding back tears.
"Maybe you'll give up?" (Yuna)
"Yuna?" (Prim)
She looked at me with a strange expression on her face.
"If Prim's sister is helping something bad, we should wake her up and stop her. That's her role as a family and her younger sister, Prim." (Yuna)
I didn't know my parents because I didn't have an older brother, younger brother, older sister, or younger sister, but if you look at Fina's family and Noa's family, they cared about each other.
If such a precious family was heading down the wrong path, we should stop it.
...If it didn't cause any trouble to me, I wouldn't stop it.
"Prim probably came all this way because she was worried about her sister. If she isn't causing trouble to anyone and is living happily, I think it's okay to go home." (Yuna)
There were also stories of love between fairies and humans.
I was not going to deny that.
"But if it's based on causing inconvenience to other people, we need to stop it." (Yuna)
Guildmaster, Carla-san, and others, and the trouble to the town.
It was no longer a question of bringing her back or not.
Above all, now that I knew what was going on, I couldn't leave things as they were.
Prim was thinking deeply about my words.
"...Yuna. Yeah, I understand. I'll try talking to my sister again." (Prim)
Prim's eyes, which looked like they were dead, now had life in them.
Even if we couldn't bring her sister back, we had to come to an agreement with each other.
But, I wonder if I was really that meddlesome.
Maybe I had become a meddler since I came to this world.
"Then, let's move first." (Yuna)
"Move?" (Rhone)
"We received a warning from Prim's older sister, Rhone, that our mana would be taken away, so this is a countermeasure." (Yuna)
Even if our life wasn't taken away, it didn't feel good to have our mana taken away.
I brought bear transfer gate out, sent Kumayuru and Kumakyu back to where they were sleeping comfortably, held Noa in my arms, and grab Prim's bed basket.
Then, we went through the bear transfer gate and moved to Crimonia's bear house.
If we moved to Crimonia, our mana would not be taken away.
I put Noa, who was sleeping comfortably, on the bed.
I didn't want Noa to make a noise when she woke up, so I slept in the bed next to her.
"Yuna, thank you." (Prim)
Prim, who was in a basket instead of a bed, turned around and thanked me.
"Don't worry about it. It's just that it's difficult now that you can't bring her back easily." (Yuna)
"Yeah" (Prim)
At first, I thought I could just find her and bring her back.
Next, I thought she was being captured by the lord and thought I should rescue her.
However, Prim's older sister Rhone was on the lord's side of her own will.
It was true that things had become troublesome.
"Get some sleep and we'll do our best starting tomorrow." (Yuna)
"Yeah" (Prim)
"Prim, good night." (Yuna)
"Good night." (Prim)
The room became quiet, and I fell asleep, feeling calm after having rested in my home for the first time in a while.
The next morning.
"Uh, Yuna-san, good morning?" (Noa)
Noa woke up.
"Noah, good morning." (Yuna)
"Huh? Where is this? Yuna-san's house?" (Noa)
Noa said while looking around.
"A dream?" (Noa)
"No, it's my home in Crimonia. We moved last night." (Yuna)
"Why?" (Noa)
I explain to Noa what happened in the midnight.
"Then, did Prim-san’s sister come at night?" (Noa)
"Yeah, it seems like she has no intention of going home." (Yuna)
"Then what are we going to do?" (Noa)
"As I told Prim, if she's helping something bad happen, she needs to wake up." (Yuna)
"That's right. That's family, sisters. If my sister does something bad, I'll do whatever it takes to stop her." (Noa)
I thought Noa would definitely say that.
"I'm sure our voices won't be heard, so this is something only her sister, Prim, can do." (Yuna)
"Only me..." (Prim)
Even if Prim decided to give up and go home, I planned on staying.
Prim looked determined once again.
"...Yeah, I'll definitely stop my sister." (Prim)
"Then, let's go to the adventurer's guild today and talk to them." (Yuna)
That was why we returned to the city and went to the adventurer's guild.
"Yuna-chan and the others, are you okay?" (Carla)
Carla-san asked us this when we went to the adventurer's guild. Carla-san looked a little lethargic.
"It seems like your magic was taken away late at night." (Yuna)
Guildmaster was also affected, but this one seemed okay.
"We're fine. Prim's sister came and told us yesterday." (Yuna)
They looked surprised at my words.
I wanted to talk in detail, so we moved to a private room.
Carla-san seemed tired, so I took the refrigerator out of the bear box and took out a bottle from inside the refrigerator.
A bottle containing tea made from a sacred tree.
"What is that?" ()
"It's a tea that restores your mana. I think you'll feel better if you drink it." (Yuna)
Not only it recovered fatigue, but it also recovered mana.
I took out a cup and give it to Carla-san and Guildmaster.
Although the two of them thought it was suspicious, they still drank it. They wouldn't see an immediate effect, but over time, they should see an effect.
Meanwhile, I explained what happened last night. Of course, the thing about bear transfer gate was misleading.
"Then, you really have an older sister, Prim-chan." (Carla)
"Yeah, but she's going to stay in this town. But if my sister is doing something bad, I'll stop her." (Prim)
"I'm counting on you." (Carla)
"Anyway, the reason they're collecting mana is to keep him from dying." ()
"That's why she gave power to knights and collected magic stones." ()
"Is the lord sick?" (Yuna)
"As I said before, there is little information about the lord. Unfortunately, there is no information about his health." ()
"That doesn't mean it's okay to collect other people's mana." ()
"That's right. That's how much the city's residents are suffering. Some have lost their jobs and even died." ()
"But if the mana runs out, the worst that can happen is that the lord will die." (Noa)
Noa said something no one has ever said.
If Prim's sister's story was correct, the lord might die if the mana could be stopped.
That was what everyone here was thinking. But no one spoke. It made 11-year-old Noa said it.
"Ah, that's right. But that doesn't mean it can't stay like this." (Yuna)
"Yes. A lord must make sure his residents are happy. He must not make them unhappy in order to live." (Noa)
Noa said as if trying to convince herself.
Perhaps she was thinking about what would happen if the same thing happened to Cliff or Ellelaura-san.
Should I take the family or the residents? All we have to do was weigh this up in my own mind.
Author's Note
Prim's older sister appears.
As I wrote in the introduction, Prim's older sister's name has been changed from "Tina" to "Rhone".