Was That A Phantom Cry Echoing Through The Alley?

“…Hm?”

I suddenly stopped and looked toward the far end of the alley.

Ouri, who had been walking beside me, asked,

“Hey, what’s up?”

“No… I could have sworn I just heard the Elf Queen scream.”

Hearing that, Ouri burst out laughing.

“Why the hell would the Elf Queen be in Fahrenheit?”

I stroked my chin as I answered.

“Three days ago, I sent a ‘messenger bird’ to Her Majesty. I told her, ‘Taisho is dead. His son Ren has come. He served us delicious ramen’… Her Majesty had also been concerned about Taisho’s whereabouts. I thought that if I was going to inform her, the sooner the better.”

Messenger birds were used for urgent communications.

Several were captured from their nest and carried around in a cage. Whenever there was a message to send, a slip of paper bearing the written message was tied to the bird’s leg before it was released. The messenger bird would then fly straight back to the nest where it had been born. A companion stationed there would find it and read the letter aloud.

Hearing that, Ouri tilted his head.

“Even so, it takes two months to get here from the elf village by horse, and even with a wyvern it still takes six days, right? There’s no way she could be somewhere like this already.”

I shook my head.

“No, no, not necessarily. If Her Majesty used her servant, the ‘Sky-Cleaving Bird,’ she could arrive in less than a day.”

“What the heck is a Sky-Cleaving Bird?”

I answered Ouri’s question.

“It’s a gigantic white bird that carries people on its back and flies as though slicing through the heavens. It climbs so high that the air grows thin, nearly reaching the stars, and moves faster than the wind. Since the altitude is too high to breathe, you ride it while protected by a barrier. It can even cross the Neptu Mountain Range, the highest mountains in the world, in a single flight!”

As I spoke, I traced several mountain peaks in the air with my right hand, then swept my left hand over them.

Ouri let out an impressed whistle.

“Wow! Elves keep some incredible birds!”

“With one of those, perhaps… Still, it takes two days for a messenger bird to reach the elf village. Even if she used a Sky-Cleaving Bird after that, she would only just barely make it here by tonight…”

In the end, the timing was still too tight.

I laughed off my own suggestion.

“Unless she flew for an entire day and night without eating, drinking, resting, or sleeping, there would still be no way… and someone as wise as Her Majesty would never do something so reckless. Yes, Ouri, you are right. There is no possible way Her Majesty could be in Fahrenheit. Come, let us go home!”

And so, clutching our stomachs made heavy by the “Jiro-style” ramen and belching the scent of garlic, we each made our way home…