Kays Translations

Chapter 143: The Lake Mystery

Feeling rather disappointed, we headed straight for the lake, the town’s other tourist attraction. Unlike the hot-spring district we had just visited, the lakeside was busy with families and people dressed like merchants strolling along the shore.

We watched them as we approached the water.

The lake had looked small from our room at the inn, but up close it was surprisingly large. We could see the opposite shore, but swimming across would still be quite an undertaking. Sunlight glittered over the surface as though the lake itself were dozing peacefully.

“It seems lively over here. The lake is calm, and the breeze feels pleasant—Brother Cain? Is something wrong?”

“This is strange.”

“Strange? What is?”

Brother Cain had been staring intently at the water. He finally turned towards me with a crease between his eyebrows.

What a waste of a handsome thirteen-year-old face.

Brother Cain’s sharply defined eyebrows were supposed to be one of his best features.

“Look at the lake… Actually, is this your first time seeing one? Anyway, look. You can’t see the bottom, can you?”

Now that he mentioned it, I couldn’t see the lake bed at all. The water quality seemed to have deteriorated.

From the way Brother Cain said it, I guessed that hadn’t been true before.

“No, I can’t. Could you see it before?”

“Yes. This lake is famous around here because you can see the bottom even from quite far away. But now…”

“No matter how I look at it, I can’t see anything.”

I stared as hard as I could, but something invisible wasn’t going to become visible just because I glared at it.

Maybe whatever normally purified the lake had stopped working.

Or perhaps tourists had been throwing rubbish into the water, causing the quality to deteriorate. Then the Lake Spirit got angry and stopped the hot springs…

That actually sounded possible.

“Do you think there’s some cause?”

“Maybe.”

“Perhaps the Lake Spirit got angry?”

Pfft!

Brother Cain burst out laughing.

What was that supposed to mean?!

I didn’t know why, but it felt incredibly rude. I gave him a long, sticky, accusing glare until he apologised with a half-suppressed smile.

“Sorry, sorry. I just didn’t think you actually believed the story about the Lake Spirit. So Julius has a childish side too.”

How rude.

I was only ten years old. I was literally a child.

Besides, I’d met the gods of this world. I thought there was a very good chance spirits actually existed.

That was exactly why I’d wanted to throw an axe into the lake.

“The spirit exists! Look, right there!”

“What?”

I pointed towards what I thought was empty space.

Or at least, I meant to.

Instead, a turtle’s head suddenly popped out of the water exactly where I was pointing. Without hesitation, the turtle swam smoothly towards us.

What magnificent swimming technique.

“How did you notice me?”

“I-it talked!”

“I-it talked!”

Brother Cain and I shouted at the same time.

Naturally, our escorting knights shouted too.

Fortunately, the area was already fairly lively, so we didn’t attract much attention.

“To think someone could see through my concealment. It’s been hundreds of years. How delightful.”

The turtle was small enough that I could hold it with both hands. Its eyes and mouth looked almost like a smiling emoji.

The turtle sounded extremely pleased.

Meanwhile, the rest of us were probably staring with our eyes reduced to dots.

What was I supposed to do now?

That had only been a tiny childish joke.

I looked towards Brother Cain for help.

His face twitched.

My eyes were probably overflowing with sparkling stardust as I silently begged him to deal with this.

At last, Brother Cain resigned himself to his fate and addressed the turtle.

“Um… I take it that you’re the spirit of this lake. If so, why is the water so… well… how should I put it… dirty?”

He was clearly struggling to say it politely.

Sorry, Brother Cain. I’d forced the unpleasant role onto him.

The turtle closed both eyes with an expression that seemed to say, Ah, that.

“My mana…”

“Your mana?”

“My mana has run out.”

Apparently, the Lake Spirit had simply run out of mana.

Even spirits had a finite supply of mana. I hadn’t known that.

Brother Cain and I looked at each other and both breathed sighs of relief.

So humans hadn’t polluted the lake after all.

“And lately, quite a few people have been throwing rubbish into the lake.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

We apologised on behalf of humanity.

That part was definitely our fault. No question about it.

The turtle looked at us and laughed heartily. At least the tone sounded amused.

“Raise your heads. The two of you aren’t the ones doing it.”

Apparently, the Lake Spirit remembered the faces of the people who had dumped rubbish into the water.

Scary.

One of these days, divine punishment might come crashing down on those people.

Maybe the saying that heaven is always watching when you do something wrong was literally true here.

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

Brother Cain, who was practically made of a sense of justice, asked without hesitation.

I had a very bad feeling about this.

Brother Cain was better with a sword than with magic.

I was good at magic.

And the turtle’s problem seemed to be a lack of mana.

In other words, if anyone was going to have to do something, it would be me.

“You’re kind children. If only my mana could be restored… I could purify this lake once again and return the hot springs around here to the way they used to be.”

The Lake Spirit sounded lonely.

Apparently, the spirit was just as unhappy as everyone else about the state of the lake and the surrounding area.

After hearing that, Brother Cain’s next move was—

“Julius, can’t you do something?”

I knew it!

He turned the problem over to me without even a moment’s hesitation.

What an astonishingly fast and unreasonable request.

If I hadn’t been me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to respond quickly enough.

“Well, I brought several mana-restoration potions with me, so we can try those first. But I’m not sure they’ll be enough, so I’d also like to try a magic potion that gradually restores mana over time.”

“I know about mana-restoration potions, but you brought something like that too?”

I clicked my tongue and wagged a finger in front of Brother Cain’s face.

“If I don’t have one, I can just make it now. Fortunately, you said there’s a Green Corridor nearby, didn’t you? There might be magic-potion ingredients there!”

“…”

Brother Cain silently opened and closed his mouth like a fish stranded on land.

Then the turtle leaned forward eagerly.

“I’ll accompany you. I know the medicinal herbs around this area.”

Apparently, the Lake Spirit didn’t spend all its time inside the lake and sometimes wandered around the surrounding area.

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