V1C23

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Zappy backs away from Tarō. “Marron, are you sure this guy’s okay… like in the head? He laughs so weirdly, and what cause could he have to shout ‘let’s freakin’ gooooo!’ so loudly?”

I can’t say that I blame her—Tarō’s being disturbingly weird right now. “How am I supposed to know? From where I’m standing, it looks like it’s already too late for him, but Old Man Japan says his condition usually clears up in two or three years without treatment.”

At the moment, Tarō looks like he’s indulging in some strange fantasy, he’s making quite a racket. I’m sure he’ll come back to reality soon enough. While we wait for that to happen, I decide to ask Zappy for something.

“Hey Zappy, the shiny gem you gave me won’t light up anymore. Would you mind filling it up again?” I reach into the bag on my belt and pull out a crystalline gem large enough to cover my palm.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what a ‘shiny gem’ is. Nor do I know who ‘Zappy’ is, for that matter. You’re a big girl now, Marron—you can remember the proper names for things. It’s not a ‘shiny gem’, it’s a Fairy Gemma Lucis; my name isn’t ‘Zappy’, it’s Altrosen.”

“I do remember your name. It’s just too long and too hard to say.”

“I suppose it is at that. It’s settled then—you, Marron, have special permission to call me Alto. I hope you recognize this for the honor it is. Before now, only my mother’s been allowed to call me that.”

“Got it. I’ll call you Alto, then. Okay, yeah, that is a lot easier to say. That helps me out a bunch!”

And that, just now, was the story of how Zappy became Alto. No, wait. That’s not right. I’m forgetting the main thing I was trying to do!

“So, Alto, could you put some of your power into the gem-ah-luchee please?”

“Gem-ah-luchee…? You really are a helpless child. I suppose it’s better than ‘shiny gem’, in any case.” She takes the game from my hands and flutters a dozen feet away from me, for my safety apparently.

Then the crackle and snap of electricity echoes through the glade. This time, instead of aiming her powers at Tarō, she makes them flow into the gem.

She flies back and holds the gem out to me. “There, you should be good for another couple of weeks.”

“Thank you, Alto! This makes me life sooo much easier!” I’m in a great mood as I accept the now fully charged gem from her.

Tarō, apparently finally back among the living, points at the gem in my hand. “Uh, Marron? What’s that?”

“This? It’s a gem-ah-luchee that Alto gave me. It’s super useful—the gem starts to shine whenever it’s dark out.”

This mysterious gem converts Alto’s zippy-zappy power into light. It has the ability to store her power too and lasts about half a month on a full charge.

According to Alto, it’s one of the fairies’ hidden treasures, which makes it very valuable. It’s much brighter than a candle, but, most importantly for me, it can’t accidentally set anything on fire.

Tarō holds out both of his hands greedily. “Oh really? That’s a nice luchee you’ve got there. Sure wish I had one. Come on, let me get a good look at it.” He stretches one clawed hand out, reaching straight for the gem.

“No, you idiot!” I don’t even have time to stop him before his fingers brush up against it. A bolt of white light cuts a jagged streak straight for him, crackling like lightning.

“Gaaaaargghhggh…” he howls and falls backward to the ground, where he lies twitching.

This guy never learns, does he? Don’t just do things, and listen to what people are trying to tell you.

“Would you look at that?” Alto begins, a smirk playing on her lips. “The anti-theft functionality seems to be working as intended. I’m glad we were able to test that out finally!”

According to Alto, the gem is capable of registering its owner. If anybody but the registered owner tries to touch it, the anti-theft functionality activates. That anti-theft functionality is what put Tarō down just now. The stored fairy power becomes a zap instead of a light and drives off the would-be thief.

She had also told me before that there had never been a big enough idiot to try to steal one of the fairies’ hidden treasures, since everybody believes they’ll curse you if you cross them. So, she’d never heard of the anti-theft functionality actually activating. Until now.

I guess that makes Tarō Big Idiot #1.

I put my hands on my hips. “Well, I’m not. Look at the poor guy, twitching on the ground again. Plus, a shock like that must have used a bunch of the gem-ah-luchee’s power.”

“It’s his own fault. It only happened because he tried to lay his hands on somebody else’s things without their permission. And besides, what kind of fool really thinks they can get their hands on one of our hidden treasures just like that?” Alto looks at the collapsed and twitching Tarō with an exasperated expression on her face.

Then, she takes the gem from my hand, flies away, and once more refills it for me. “Okay, there you go. I charged it back up to full. Make sure not to show that to anyone else accidentally, okay? Humans are a greedy race. Any one of them could try to steal it from you.”

“Yes, ma’am! I won’t take this out anymore where people can see, and thank you so much for refilling it for me.”

I didn’t think that Tarō would just try to take it from me out of the blue like that. Since people like Tarō exist, I decide it would be best to do as Alto says.

“Aye yai yai, everything hurts…” Tarō, after some time, groans and gets to his feet unsteadily. “Seems kind of excessive for just touching it a bit. Geeze.”

What a relief. He’s not dead.

“You tried to touch Marron’s property without asking. You only got what you deserved,” Alto snaps icily.

“Come on, put yourself in my shoes—wouldn’t you be unable to help yourself too if you saw something that useful and you didn’t already have one? Like, I used a candle for the first time yesterday, okay? And it sucked. I didn’t know candles were so bad at their job. They’re such a pain in the ass to use. Come on, fairy, just give me one of those rocks.”

Oh no. Here we go with the arrogant demands again.

I can see a vein throbbing on Alto’s temple. “The Fairy Gemmis Lucis are one of my people’s hidden treasures. What makes you think we’ll just give one to you so easily? The only human—ever—that we’ve given one to is Marron. And that’s only because she was—and still is—so young. It was too hard for her to light a candle by herself, and the risk of her accidentally causing a fire was too high. We gave her, a poor little girl, one to help and protect her.

“You are not a poor little girl, and if you keep up this pompous attitude of yours, you’ll find yourself unable to even enter these woods ever again.”

Oh boy, now you’ve done it, Tarō. She’s pissed.

He kicks at the ground limply. “Dang, no need to be so mean. I’ve got it, alright. I’ve got it. It’s just that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to be like nice to me, the guy who got summoned here from another world. Maybe I’m supposed to end up being like the hero who saves the world or whatever, you know?”

Yet more nonsense.

Alto flutters next to my ear, leans in, and whispers to me, “I’m sorry, Marron. I think I may have actually broken his brain with that lightning strike. Maybe it was a little too strong. Do you think I should hit him again to try to get him back to normal? Because we can’t just leave him like this. There’s delusions and nonsense, and then there’s the hero who saves the world.” She cringes to emphasize her point.

I really think we ought not to. I don’t think he’d get up after a third, and it’s not like he hasn’t said worse stuff since yesterday. The best thing to do is just to ignore it. If his brain’s broken, it must have been broken from the start.

I tell her that, and she lets out another exasperated sigh.