Published at 17th of August 2019 7:49 am

Volume 10, Chapter 3: The Lost Tribe

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Part 1

After parting with Koutarou, the girl had stopped after walking along a mountain path for a while. And without doing anything, she silently waited.

“Nana-chan!”

After some time passed, another person approached her. That person was a woman in her late twenties, and she made quite an impression with her long hair and large bow. The girl called Nana had been waiting here for her.

“Kanae-san, it was a miss.”

Nana called the woman approaching her Kanae. Kanae cooperated with Nana and they had been working together since a while back.

“So that really was the case...”

Based on the fact that Nana had returned without fighting, Kanae could guess what had happened, but she still dropped her shoulders. This was a disappointment for her. Kanae was gentle, so she didn't want to use her bow to fight, but it would be better for a fight to occur for her to fulfill her goal.

“Since there was a reaction for summoning, necromancy and mind manipulation, I was sure this time was the one... but it was someone completely opposite.”

“Opposite? But if he used all those, he has to be a bad person, right? Didn't he use necromancy to possess that girl?”

Through summoning, necromancy and mind manipulation, one could summon the spirit of the dead and employ them. This was a method that a type of evil wizards, called necromancers, liked to use. Necromancers tended to use the dead for their own gain.

“It looked like that at first, but that wasn't the case. That man used the sword's power to summon the girl's dead mother and let them meet in her dream.”

The man had ordered the sword to summon the girl's mother's soul in a temporarily stable form, and then let the girl meet her mother in her dream. Though he had used the same kind of spells that necromancers did, the end result was completely different from what Nana had expected.

Nana had approached the mysterious man to confirm what kind of spell he had cast. Though she could confirm what type of magic had been used from afar, she couldn't tell how it was being used until she got closer.

“So you mean it was a good necromancer?”

“Yes. It's an extremely rare case. This is the first time I've met a good necromancer...”

As the girl said that she looked back. She was normally very strict, but her eyes showed a very gentle expression at this time.

Nana had never seen a necromancer use magic like that before. If it was only to speak with the dead, fortune telling magic was more effective. Going through the trouble to summon a soul and invading a dream was just a waste of magic power. But by going through that effort, it made the caster's goals quite clear.

He didn't just let the two of them talk, he actually had them meet and let them touch one another. Technically it's a kind of possession, but... to think that a necromancer could do that...

In the organization that Nana was a part of, private use of magic was forbidden. That was because if there were a lot of people that could use magic, some would appear to abuse it and satisfy their own desires. Firearms were under strict control in modern nations for the same reason. And Nana had fought against people who abused magic to fulfill their own desires many times. However, now she had seen someone who was quite the opposite of that.

“If the world was full of magicians like that... our job would be a lot easier...”

It was like a flower blooming in a bloodied battlefield. If that flower sowed a lot of seeds, their futures might become brighter. That's how Nana felt.

“But Nana-chan, don't we need to report this?”

Regardless of the reason, it didn't change the fact that the man had made private use of magic. Nana had an obligation to report to her organization and formally eliminate him.

“There's no need for that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes... fortunately, he used magic of a different style than ours. Since he wasn't abusing it, it's not in our jurisdiction.”

There was more than one style of magic. Magic theories have been created in different times and places, and there was also a difference in how spells were cast.

And Nana's duty was to keep people from casting magic for private use. More precisely, her duty was to keep people from her own country from casting magic for private use. It was also her duty to stop anyone who would use magic to hurt others, regardless of style.

Because of that, the people who weren't abusing magic, but instead were using it for private use in a different style fell into a grey zone. And if Nana didn't sense any danger, she didn't have any obligation to report them.

“Hmm, isn't that great, Nana-chan.”

“Eh?”

That might be true. I probably wish for a world where magic and people can coexist like that....

Nana wouldn't forget what she had experienced today. This experience would without a doubt be of great help to her in her future fights.

“That's true. I think I'm happy. But I can't get carried away. Our investigation has gone back to square one after all.”

Nana said as she erased her smile and showed a serious expression.

She was currently trying to resolve an incident involving magic that had occurred nearby. She was happy having met the mysterious magician, but her investigation having been sent back to square one wasn't good. And if they couldn't resolve it quickly, it might have a bad effect on the magician she had just met. Nana wanted to solve this case as fast as possible.

“I hope Soutarou-san and that child are alright...”

At the same time as Nana's expression changed, Kanae looked towards the city at the base of the mountain. Far away in the direction she was looking was a large estate. In it was her husband and daughter. Kanae's worried look was aimed at the two of them.

Kanae's husband and daughter were actually victims in the case that Nana was investigating. More accurately speaking, her daughter was a victim, and her husband was using his own body to keep her alive. That's why Kanae was cooperating with Nana and urgently trying to solve the case.

Kanae's husband, Soutarou, was the heir to an old shrine. Kanae herself had been taking archery lessons in a grounds annexed to the shrine. It was there that she met her husband, and they eventually got married. Their daughter was born with a very high spiritual energy thanks to the husband’s lineage.

With the age of science, even the oldest shrines had forgotten about the methods to control spiritual energy. That's why the girl was completely normal, regardless of her dense spiritual energy. But to people who abused magic, people who had a lot of spiritual energy were quite useful. They could be used as catalysts for spells or as sacrifices for evil demons.

Kanae's daughter had been kidnapped by the evil magician and used in a magical ritual. Fortunately, Nana had quickly saved her, but because of the ritual she was losing a large amount of spiritual energy even now, and her life was in danger if left alone. So Nana used magic to connect the daughter and the husband. Since Kanae's husband had a lot of spiritual energy himself, it allowed him to protect his daughter for the time being. Having bought some time, Kanae teamed up with Nana and the two of them chased after the magician. Their goal was of course to defeat the magician and end the ritual, and save Kanae's daughter and husband.

“Let's hurry. Kanae-san, put away the bow. We're moving out.”

“Okay. Where to next?”

“To the river up ahead. It's slight, but the nature’s magic is distorted over there.”

“Then let's go back to the car, it'll be faster that way.”

“Yes.”

The two of them nodded and vanished in the darkness.

Part 2

While Nana and Kanae's hunt for the criminal continued, the criminal appeared somewhere neither of them had expected. The criminal was in a country far beneath the surface.

“Certainly, the crest on that plate, though slightly distorted, is the same as the one recorded on this old document. They wouldn't be this similar by chance.”

“To be more accurate, it's most likely the crest on the old document is the one that has been distorted. This stone plate was created at the same time, so it's been preserved to a greater extent.”

“So the accuracy of this manuscript has fallen while it was being handed down over the generations... that sounds possible.”

The criminal that Nana and Kanae were looking for was a woman in her late teens or early twenties, wearing an indigo outfit and holding a large cane. She was currently speaking to two men. The men were wearing outfits resembling Japanese clothes which were made using high quality cloth and thread. Their clothes showed that they held quite a high status.

“The lost seventh tribe... to think they actually existed, and that they prosper even now...”

“That goes both ways. To think I would be able to find a clue to the legendary native land in a place like this.”

The three were talking while comparing the stone plate and old document. The woman brought the plate, while the men had brought the old document. The men had invited her over so that they could talk. They were currently in one of the men's, Shijima Tayuma's, mansion. The Shijima family's mansion had the design of an old Japanese house, but it was well maintained and beautiful. One could tell that Tayuma was of high status just by looking at it. By the way, the other man was from a family that had served the Shijima family for generations. He was the one who had found the girl in indigo and brought her to Tayuma.

The Shijima family's mansion was inside a gigantic cave located underneath Harukaze city. Making good use of this space, a city had been constructed inside the cave, holding a population of over ten thousand. However, 10,000 was quite small considering the scale of the city. In the past, several tens of thousands of People of the Earth had lived here, but they were now in decline.

Since ancient times past, the People of the Earth had been far more advanced than the people on the surface, and they were very proud of their civilization. However, as the surface became modernized, the technological advantage had begun to shrink. In the latter half of the 20th century, while the people on the surface didn't have anything that can be compared to their devices that relied on spiritual energy, when it came to general life, they were practically equal to the underground people.

With the difference in general life eliminated, what occurred was not a problem of civilization, but a problem of culture. The underground civilization was indeed excellent, but its culture wasn't. In the end, they were just some tens of thousands of people that had passed their culture through the generations. They were no match for Japan's culture created by a population of over 100 million. The People of the Earth began admiring the surface as they experienced art and music, followed by amusement like books and movies, and eventually even food. What dealt the final blow was TV broadcasting that started on the surface.

Once TV broadcasts began on the surface, TV's were introduced to the underground as well. Because of this, the surface's culture began rapidly spreading through the underground. As a result, the admiration for the surface grew even more and underground people began leaving for the surface at an explosive rate. In just a few decades, the People of the Earth had lost the majority of its people.

On top of that, there was yet another contributing cause for the People of the Earth's decline, and that was the exhaustion of resources. The People of the Earth had dug up their surroundings and gotten resources that way, but they were unable to meet the massive increase in demand since the 20th century. They were currently tunneling to far away regions and obtaining resources there, but they would eventually reach their limit, and they still hadn't found the means to avoid it.

The underground had scarce resources and a dark future.

Meanwhile, the surface had a bright future with its developed cultures of all kinds.

It was clear to anyone that the People of the Earth would eventually meet their demise. The response to their situation was divided into two different opinions. In the bigger picture, one could say they had the same opinion, as they both suggested that the People of the Earth move to the surface. But their methods were the opposite. One side wanted to secretly and peacefully move to the surface, while the other side wanted to invade the surface using military force.

The faction that called for peace was led by the current chief, Kurano Daiha. The surface's prosperity and the underground's rapid decline was obvious. However, they couldn't just sit around and wait for their demise. So they would slowly but surely move to the surface, and without the surface dwellers catching on, they would expand their territory and eventually establish a city for the People of the Earth.

Those who collided with this conservative faction and called for a military invasion of the surface was the radical faction with their extreme opinions. The current head of the Shijima family, Shijima Tayuma, was a member of this radical faction. The People of the Earth lived on the surface in the past, but they had retreated underground after the surface dwellers' ancestors had deprived them of their living space. The radical faction felt like they didn't need to be considerate when returning to the surface. They should just use force to secure their territory.

Of course, it would normally be hard for a civilization of around 10,000 to fight against surface dwellers. However, they had spiritual energy weapons, their ace in the hole. Weapons relying on spiritual energy certainly overwhelmed standard weapons in performance. It might be possible to prevail if they could mass produce the weapons.

The radical faction insisted on using force to invade while their weaponry was still superior.

“She holds the power spoken of in lore. And since she is knowledgeable about the surface, she should be suitable to deal with Kurano's daughter.”

“I see... Since she's from that forgotten tribe, and with those techniques... We won't have to worry about being suspected, and we don't have to borrow help from the surface dwellers... Fufufu, I like it.”

Tayuma was a very prideful man; he simply couldn't stand the conservative faction's stance of having the surface dwellers accept them. He was always on the lookout for ways to reduce the conservative faction's influence. That was when he received word that the Kurano family's daughter had gone up to the surface.

If the chief's daughter was murdered by the surface dwellers, the People of the Earth would surely never forgive them. And as a result, the radical faction would have an easier time getting their way. With that in mind, Tayuma plotted to assassinate the chief's daughter. However, Tayuma couldn't personally head to the surface because of the law. If he headed to the surface after completing the necessary procedures, he would be suspected even if there was no proof. Because of that, he had to summon an assassin from somewhere else, but because of his pride, he didn't want to use surface dwellers. That was when the legendary tribe, that which was described only in lore and that Tayuma himself doubted existed, came into play.

According to the People of the Earth's myths, they were originally castaways who had come from another land. Chased away from their homeland, they ended up in ancient Japan. However, on their way there, the seventh tribe that was said to hold mysterious powers had been separated from the rest. And now, someone who claimed to be from that seventh tribe, a woman wearing indigo colored clothes, had appeared in front of Tayuma. By using her, Tayuma's pride wouldn't be injured as they were originally allies. And since the seventh's tribe very existence was under question, they were practically the same as a ghost to the other People of the Earth. There was no fear of Tayuma being suspected.

“I've had an interest in new techniques my brothers of the different tribes have made. Let us combine our powers for both of our profit and for the tribe's prosperity.”

“For the tribe's prosperity you say.... I like you! Soldier from the lost tribe, what is your name?”

“It's Maya. In your style... my name as a soldier would be Dark Navy.”

The woman called Maya, dressed in indigo colored clothes, introduced herself as Dark Navy and smiled at Tayuma and the other man. However, in contrast to her friendly smile, she looked at the men with the scorn in her mind.

Dealing with the prideful is so easy, all you have to do is inflate their ego. Well, that's all the better for me, but I don't want to be involved if this man falls. It might be better to pull out once I've completely my objective...

Maya's objective was the information and technology that the People of the Earth held. Maya and the others might find information from the People of the Earth's old documents that would give them an advantage in their battle. And since Maya was a magician specialized in mind manipulation, she was very interested in the spiritual energy technology that the People of the Earth used. For example, she would love to get her hands on something like a capacitor that could temporarily store the spirit's power. That would be the first step to turn magic into a general weapon.

However, the People of the Earth weren't just going to hand over old documents or technology because she said she wanted it. They were top secrets that only the people of the highest positions could get their hands on.

That was when Maya set her eyes on Tayuma. He was a genuine People of the Earth supremacist, and was easy to control. By stroking his pride, he would easily hand over the necessary information and technology. The problem was that Tayuma's position was in an uncertain place. That's why Maya didn't want to have a long-term association with him, since she didn't want to get involved if he ever were to fail.

“So, who do I need to kill?”

With a serious expression, Maya requested that Tayuma continued speaking. Regardless of her true intentions, there would be no problem with creating a friendly relationship between her and Tayuma for now. She hid her intentions and dealt with the men in a as friendly manner as possible.

“This girl. She is the Kurano family's lone daughter, and has gone up to the surface for certain reasons. Her guard should be lowered, and she will be easy to kill.”

Tayuma picked up a photo from his desk and gave it to Maya. On it was a girl who had only just turned six years old. She was the daughter of the conservative faction's leader and the chief for the People of the Earth, Kurano Daiha.

“The daughter of the conservative faction was it?...Is the goal to turn the conservative tribes against the surface after killing this daughter of his?”

“Indeed, indigo soldier. That's correct.”

“If the goal is to break down the conservative faction, it would be best if it didn't look like an accident, would it? Do you have any suggestions for how to kill her?”

“I'll leave that to you. Since you can understand that much, just do it in whatever way is easiest for you.”

Hearing Maya's answer, Tayuma's expression distorted into a satisfied smile. Her answer showed that she had seen through his intentions, and had convinced him of his success. Because of that, his smile was very cruel and ugly.

There were several methods to reduce the conservative faction's influence, but having a conservative member be murdered by the people on the surface would produce the fastest results. Even more so if the victim was a young girl. That's why Tayuma wanted it to be clear that the girl hadn't been involved in an accident, but rather that someone had intended to murder her.

The ideal would have been if the government on the surface, knowing she was from the underground, tortured and killed her to extract information. Creating such an ideal condition would be difficult, but if something similar to it were to happen, it would surely make the conservative faction's stance waver. Currently, the majority supported the conservatives, and the plan to peacefully create a base on the surface was very likely to be turned into a reality. However, if the chief's daughter was disposed of, the conservative faction would lose their momentum, allowing the radical faction to gather influence. This assassination plan was Tayuma's move to turn the tables on the conservatives.

“Okay. Then I'll do it the way that is most convenient for me.”

Maya began thinking about how to deal with her target.

Hmm... maybe I should use this girl as a ritual sacrifice as well... as long as I make it look like it was done by the police or the Self Defense Forces... and if that's too hard, maybe I'll pin it on some cult?

Maya herself wasn't too fond of the act of murder. So if she had to kill someone, she wanted to make the most of their death. The idea was to use her target as a catalyst for magic, or also known as a sacrifice. In other words, the same as she had done with Kanae's daughter.

Kanae's daughter was still alive because Nana had saved her before the ritual was complete, but normally, since a person's life force was drained from the ritual, once it ended, you would have an uninjured corpse. After that, she only needed to make it look like her target had been murdered. She could pin it on the government or on a cult located in the region. Both of them would make the People of the Earth question the safety of the region.

Having thought of all that, Maya was satisfied and switched to the next topic.

“And, will you accept my demands?”

The new topic was regarding the reward.

“Of course. I will prepare what you ask for. Take a spiritual energy capacitor with you as upfront payment. I will prepare a transcript of the old documents, so come get it when the job is finished. I will present you with the other spiritual energy equipment at that time as well.”

Maya demanded some of the spiritual energy technology and transcripts of the old documents as her reward for the job. Since Tayuma supported a military invasion, he was influential in the spiritual energy weapon research department. He was capable of selling surplus parts illegally. The situation was similar when it came to the old documents. And since Tayuma valued his relationship with the legendary tribe that Maya had come from, he had no hesitation in offering those.

“That's good. Then I'll get on my job right away.”

“Please do. I will await your return.”

Thus, both parties reached an agreement. Their intentions were completely different, and the same held true for the feelings regarding one another and their ultimate goals. Despite that, the smile both of them showed at this time had the same kind of darkness behind it.

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