01 / 01
Section 1
## Character Profiles
Taiwan edition. Reprinted from the Fugen Novel Circle. Reiji A boy from the other world of Aeldai. After being summoned to the Kingdom of Kurantor, he becomes the Hero and fights with the legendary spirit sword in hand. Yukihime The spirit blade Reiji wields. Only a chosen Hero is permitted to touch her. Sakuya The woman who leads the Valeria Liberation Front against the Empire. A spirit-blade adept of the seven colors. Altina Princess of Fontina, the Forest Kingdom. She is the one who found Reiji washed up on the shore. Elmina A noble daughter of the Renbel frontier. She is a close friend of Ella, princess of the Holy Kingdom of Renbel. Rinrin Sakuya's close companion, a black-cat fairy who can speak human language and possesses vast knowledge of everything that makes up this world. She can take the form of a human woman. Roselinde An imperial shrine maiden who obstructs Reiji's actions. In truth, she is the one who summoned Reiji to Kurantor. Misty Called the Sea Witch, a dreaded woman pirate. Her bloodline inherits the blood of dragons, and her lifespan is exceptionally long. She carries herself like a queen. Fenrir A mercenary from Kurantor. After the Demon Dragon Empire annihilated his home village, he has been waiting for a chance at revenge. Vice-captain of the Valeria Liberation Front's combat unit. A hero tempered by countless battles, loved and looked up to by his subordinates. Rick
## Chapter One: "The Hero Reiji Appears in Another World and Takes Up the Spirit Sword of Ice and Snow"
Fantasy epics always begin in a dream. 1 He heard a voice in his sleep. Shut up, he thought. When you fall asleep while still turning something over in your mind, the words in your head melt into the dream and warp into absurd images with no thread connecting them, and the person dreaming never notices how strange they are. It felt like that. The voice clung to him and would not stop. Like the noise of a packed crowd, he could not tell where it was coming from, or what it was saying. (…I told you, shut up…) Shiina Reiji, irritated, wanted to click his tongue, and rolled over. Through the bedding he could feel the hardness of the floor for certain, and the moment he became aware that the floor was there, the noise cut off. There was a bed in the room, but he was not sleeping on it. He always threw spare things and clothes onto the bed, until there was so much piled there that he could not lie down, and he had no choice but to sleep on the floor. The harder the bed, it seemed, the better it suited his constitution. Sleeping on the floor, he slept more soundly. He had thought a radio had been left on, but that did not seem to be it. His awareness slowly melted back into the dark. Little by little he stopped feeling gravity, and in its place came a sense of floating. As if nine-tenths of his brain had sunk into sleep, while the remaining tenth stayed strangely awake. That tenth of his consciousness gave him the illusion that his body was turning like a compass needle. The psychic space-war anime he had watched as a child had an image like that. Please respond. A crack of lightning splitting across the brow, or a seed popping open. That kind of image. Please respond. Only when he got that far did he notice that, though it was like space…
## Chapter One-and-a-Half: "The Well-Spoken Sword, the Well-Spoken Cat"
Coming out of Christoph's Hall of Restoration, they saw the black cat sitting there alone, waiting for them. "Well done, Reiji. You worked hard." "Rinrin! I can't believe you came all the way out here. …And another thing. You suddenly kicked me flying and then vanished. Where on earth did you go?" "I am a busy cat. I don't have the leisure to look after you and you alone." Roselinde bowed politely to Rinrin. "Miss Rinrin. Good day." "Roselinde. Thank you for accompanying Reiji. It was hard work, wasn't it?" "Not at all. And I obtained a treasure that cannot be replaced." "Is that so?" Roselinde bent down and held out her hand. Rinrin nimbly ran up Roselinde's arm, and in no time at all had taken the place on her chest, in front of her armor. "Still, I didn't think it would go this smoothly. I meant to warn you: 'Once you reach the trial chamber, you must find the courage to catch the spirit sword in the blizzard.' But I forgot. Even so, you succeeded. Truly impressive." "Hey, what is wrong with you? That was an incredibly important hint!" "You got the result you needed. Why fuss over the rest?" "I nearly died." Rinrin, however, let Reiji's protest go in one ear and out the other. The black cat reached a paw into the air and scratched, calling to the sword in Reiji's hand. "Hey, Yukihime. Wake up." Then everyone present heard a voice inside their heads. [I slept a little too long this time. My consciousness still seems sealed inside the blizzard…]
## Chapter Two: "The Strange Incident at Argo Fortress"
1 Inside an extremely narrow, dim storehouse, the swordsman Gontim lay sprawled on the ground. He had fallen just inside the door. He lay on a disordered scatter of supplies, arms and legs thrown out in the shape of the character for "big." Sakuya crouched to examine Gontim's wounds, then stood, turned to Reiji, and said: "Someone attacked Gontim. This is an assault." The black-haired beauty Sakuya was Reiji's sword instructor. That was because she was the coach of that rumored "anything-but-ordinary kendo club." Nearly all of Reiji's swordsmanship he had learned from Sakuya, so he was always deeply respectful toward her. Only recently had Reiji learned that Sakuya seemed able to come and go freely between that world (Aeldai) and this world (Endias). Of course she did not travel between the two worlds for fun. There was a far weightier reason, but she rarely spoke of it. At present, Sakuya remained at Argo Fortress, built on the ruins of the fortress-city of Hildia, recruiting soldiers from all over the world and actively resisting the Demon Dragon Empire's invasion. "Sakuya of the Black Sword and the Valeria Liberation Front" had become, in all but name, the star of hope for the people of the Valeria region. For now, Reiji too remained inside Argo Fortress, under Sakuya's command, fighting alongside his spirit sword. When he learned that the commander-in-chief of the anti-Demon-Dragon forces and his teacher from that other world were the same person, he was too stunned to speak. And when he learned that Rinrin's "master" was in fact Sakuya, his astonishment…
## Chapter Three: "What People Call Love"
1 The elf girl Altina was a famous beauty, yet the rough men around her were united in calling her "a beauty one could only regret." The elves were a fairy-like people who lived naturally in the forest. Unlike the little fairies, they possessed definite bodies, with builds much like humans, and their standards in music, art, and aesthetics were exceedingly high. Their average lifespan was about a thousand years. They lived inside a span of time like a great tree, and as a rule they disliked change. For reasons no one could name, elves were often especially beautiful, and Altina, among them, was outstandingly lovely. Her long hair was praised as "a silver more beautiful than white silver," cut in a natural feathered style that set off cheeks like cotton candy. Her ears were slender and long, like short swords meant as works of art. Her garments, patterned in an Art Nouveau design, were made from a complex twill that took years of weaving to finish. Perhaps because the one who wore them was restless by nature, the clothes were sleeveless and left the navel bare. Slender shoulders lay exposed beyond the cloth. From beneath a pleated skirt extended a pair of perfectly lined jade legs… It was only a pity that her personality had a small problem. The fortress-city-state of Hildia lay at the center of the Valeria region. The place was a crossroads of traffic. Should the region fall, the Demon Dragon Empire would be free to send great armies wherever it pleased. For the people of Valeria, therefore, holding Hildia to the death was the most important task of all. Southwest of Hildia…
## Chapter Four: "Lullaby of the Apprentice Witch"
Time slips back a little, to tell another story. This is a tale from not long after Reiji was summoned to the world of Endias, set out from Kurantor, and joined the Valeria Liberation Front at Argo Fortress. 1 "What am I supposed to do? This is such a bother…" A girl with pale golden hair, lovely enough to stir pity, said it with a deep frown. The slightly downturned corners of her eyes drooped lower still, and her willow brows drew into the shape of the character for "eight." For someone in trouble to say, straight out, "This is such a bother," was perhaps a rather rare thing. Had this been a city street, a crowd of young men might have gathered at once to say, "Do you need help?" That was because she—Elmina—was a slender, graceful beauty. Not the sort of beauty whose bearing was severe, but soft, and sweet. In the real world (Aeldai), the new term would hardly have begun before she became the most popular student in class, and over a single semester at least five people would have confessed their love to her. She wore a green sleeveless top embroidered with flowers, and a short skirt held out by a petticoat. Over that she had a traveling shawl. Every piece was in exquisite taste. None of it was ready-made clothing hung in a shop for anyone to choose. A girl like that, wearing a troubled face, ought by all rights to have had a hand offered to her at once. Unfortunately, this was deep in the mountains. "Miss Cat, what should we do?" Elmina tried asking the opinion of the black cat at her feet. "I don't know. And unless you want me to call you 'hu…"
## Afterword
This book is a novel adapted from the game Blade of Light. It does not, however, carry the original story over line by line. It tells stories of the characters that the main work never mentioned, each one happening on its own. In order of time, the first chapter corresponds to a prequel of the game, so even someone who has never played it should be able to grasp this work's world and its ideas. The book was written in the late spring of 2012. A digression. There is something I am not especially proud to admit: this book was particularly difficult to write, and for a long time I could not get the words down. With no other choice, I shut myself away in a conference room at the head office of Enterbrain Inc., in Sanbancho, Chiyoda-ku. "Shutting oneself away" means a writer locks himself in a room and is not permitted to leave until the manuscript is finished. Novelists of an earlier day often did this. I shut myself away for The Wind of Light and for 5 Centimeters per Second as well. This was the third time. In the past I could borrow the company's nap room, and, just as the words suggest, never set foot outside the company gates. After the rules changed, overnight stays at the office were no longer allowed, so at night I had to work in a hotel room. The hotel's desk and chair were not suited to writing for long hours. Within a few days I had ruined my health, and I had no choice but to go home and work there like a good boy. The strange thing is that, while writing a novel, the place where I sleep best and shed fatigue most thoroughly is neither the bed at home nor an oxygen capsule, but the carpeted floor of an Enterbrain conference room, where I collapse and sleep like the dead. That…