CoESC Book 18-11.1: By the Sea (Patreon)

The address from the Bellemer pager led Yuriko towards one of the nicer neighbourhoods, though really, District 2 was nicer overall compared to the other districts. The coastal area was filled with resorts and marinas as opposed to the industrial dockyard of District 3. 

Yuriko took in the view from a tall building she scaled to orient herself. The coastline curved subtly towards the northeast, and the district was divided by a tall, wooded hill that jutted out into the water. Beyond that landmark were the more private and exclusive beaches, or so Amalia heard, having never been there before. Well, a first time for everything, she supposed. 

She bypassed District 2 last month during her trip, though she did use the coastal road up north. Her projected path to the safehouse was past the Ridge and into the suburbs beyond. C-8 highway led directly towards the hill, and crossed it through a tunnel.

But that was the problem. It was a checkpoint, and even from her perch, she could see the roadblock. She’d either have to find another road or she’d need to cross on foot. With a sigh, she dropped down from the rooftop and landed softly on her feet. She pulled out her bike and headed generally north, thoughts meandering on which path she’d take. She didn’t pedal at speed and took a couple of hours to get close enough so she could use Enhanced Sight to observe the tunnel entrance. 

Well, the good news was that while there was a checkpoint, it was operated casually. The guards simply waved the vehicles across after peering at the drivers and passengers through the windshield and windows with the aid of a flashlight. The trouble was that she didn’t see anyone cycling across, and she wasn’t sure if self-propelled vehicles were allowed in the tunnel. So she could either risk it or play it safe by climbing the Ridge. The latter wouldn’t be much trouble, though it was probably another half hour to cross carefully rather than five minutes in the tunnel. 

Well, tomorrow was when the Bellemer Magi were leaving, so she had the rest of the afternoon to reach the safehouse. She veered away from the tunnel and headed west by a couple of longstrides. She stowed her bike, then jumped across the retaining wall. The forest was thick, and there was barely room to squeeze into the underbrush, so she didn’t even try. The trees were just robust enough to serve as an arboreal highway, and the Ennoia of the Unyielding Guardian Sword actually had a curious effect in allowing her to see which branches would snap at her weight, and which ones would hold. Without Animakinesis, she couldn’t reinforce the branches, and she couldn’t anchor her weight into the planar canvas, nor could she use it to widen her footsteps. But Truths were curious things. 

They weren’t just better ways to use energies, and they weren’t just repositories of power. Truths were the way one interacted with the wider world, and to an extent, were influenced by knowledge and Willpower alone. Hence, she knew which ones would break if she put weight on them. She knew how to take advantage of the break to move faster, and she knew how to reinforce the branch just enough so that it would hold long enough for her to launch herself away from it. It meant she didn’t have to take much care in her steps, and that it took less than a minute to reach the top. There, she landed on a thick branch that gave her a view of the suburbs while she avoided being skylined. 

Her gaze shifted to the coastline first, and she was struck by how pristinely white the beaches looked compared to the ones south of the ridge. That went beyond the city limits by a couple of leagues, perhaps, with larger resorts and retreats in tucked away bays and lagoons. Anything more than an hour away from the city on cars looked abandoned in comparison to the built-up elegance of the nearby resorts, but if she squinted and used Enhanced Sight for distance viewing, she could see smaller resorts along the coastline. 

Well, that wasn’t where the safehouse was anyway. The address was on 34th Falling Blossom Road, which was actually close to C-6 highway. She brought out a map booklet of the city, and paged towards District 2 after checking the index. She then traced the route from the endpoint first, then moved towards the Ridge tunnel. Twenty-one longstrides along the route, shorter if she cut through other paths, but she suspected that she’d be accosted if she did, either by more Sporoids or by the bloodsuckers. Or the police and military, she assumed. 

She made her way towards C-8 and followed a service road that ran parallel to the highway. The shadows felt threatening, but no more of the walking corpses found her. That was a bit of a relief. The regular walking corpses weren’t much of a challenge and were a pain to fight. Mindful of what the Bellemer Magi told her about overt use of Arcana Weaving, she couldn’t even use the basic bolt spells or Helpful Hand in a confrontation… at least not while being observed by mortals. Miss Elaine Nimdahl didn’t actually specify what the backlash for violating that rule was, except that she showed signs of fear as she mentioned it. So Yuriko wasn’t going to risk things until she understood more. Perhaps insight would allow her Anima to become unchained. It was wearying to be unable to use her kinesis, not when she’d grown used to relying on it. 

Or rather, she’d grown lazy with it, huh? Her greater selves tended to use kinesis for everyday things when she could get away with it. Well, she continued to train physically so she wouldn’t have gone flabby, but habits had formed and were hard to break. Even now, it took a strand of consciousness to override instinct. 

The roads in District 2, especially the northern half of it, were wider and cleaner compared to the previous two districts. There was even a lane on the streets dedicated to bicycles. She followed behind other cyclists while she meandered closer to the safehouse, and after an hour, she reached the correct suburb. Falling Blossom Road gently curved towards the coast from where she entered, and the buildings alongside it were a mixture of cookie-cutter dwellings and brownstone apartments. The indicated address was on the 31st, so she walked her bike on the pavement while she stared at the numbers. Some were easy to spot—ornate bronze numbers set next to doors, pale plaques with curving numbers—while others took her perception aura scan to spot. 

It was easy enough to find the safehouse just by counting the building numbers. The 31st was a five-storey apartment building, brownstone just like every building that wasn’t a cookie-cutter house…

Yuriko tilted her head at how familiar she used the frankly strange description for a dwelling. Cookie-cutter? Her gaze roamed down the road, and the detached houses along a row looked like they were identical copies of each other, save for paint colour and personal touches that each homeowner made. The term came from Amalia, of course, and it was couched in derisiveness. She didn’t understand why, though, considering how each cookie-cutter house turned out along Falling Blossoms. Anywho, she walked up the main entrance and entered the antechamber. It wasn’t much, just a wall with mailboxes that corresponded to the apartment numbers. The message on the pager indicated the apartment number she needed to go to was 202. 

There was a security camera pointed at the entrance, but once she moved past it, she was clear to stow her bike. She climbed up the stairs and went left once she reached the correct floor. Apartment 202 was right next to the central stairwell, and there was a young man across the doorway, leaning against a wall with a lit cigarette on his lips. His dirty blonde hair reached his shoulders, and his brown eyes were sunken. He looked like he was on the edge of starvation…

They exchanged glances for a moment before his eyes darted to take the whole of her. She could actually feel his sticky gaze on her bosom and hips before they abruptly dragged upwards back to her face, with a tinge of red on his pale cheeks. How cute. 

“Bellemer?” Yuriko asked pointedly. 

“Ah, yeah,” he pointed with his cigarette at the door across from him. “Boss is inside…I think.” 

Yuriko giggled softly, which also deepened the young man’s blush, “Are you an…er, apprentice?”

The young man brightened. “Ah, yes.” Then he jolted and glanced up and down the hallway, before sagging in relief. “I’m still not used to it. The secrecy.” 

“Of course you aren’t,” Yuriko agreed, “who would be at the start. Anyway, I think Miss Nimdahl would like to talk to me.”  

The young man nodded and pointed again at the door. Yuriko nodded amicably and went to knock. 

“It’s open,” came the feminine voice. Yuriko tried the doorknob, and it spun freely. It opened into a short hallway, barely a pace long, which then opened into the combined living and dining room. Elaine Nimdahl looked up from where she was seated on the sofa, along with Lucian, who was seated perpendicular to the coffee table, in an armchair. 

“Amie!” He jumped from the armchair and rushed to her side, lunging for a hug. Well, he tried to. Yuriko casually sidestepped the lunging hug and casually noted that he’d lost a bit of weight. Lucian nearly tripped over his own feet until his entire body shimmered for a moment and he quickly regained balance. 

“You’re wasting motes, boy,” Elaine said gruffly. 

“Ah.” Lucian chuckled awkwardly, but the older woman ignored him. Standing next to each other, Yuriko was taller by a few inches. A month ago, the difference swung on the other side, and Yuriko saw the moment he recalled it. The flinch was quickly suppressed, but his expression stiffened for a long moment before he sighed and relaxed. Perhaps it helped that her features were no longer really his sister’s, but some facet must have remained the same. Either way, she stepped around him and sat next to Elaine. 

The magi raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment any further. Instead, she asked, “I assume from your presence that you’ve accepted Bellemer’s offer?” 

“I have,” Yuriko said. “Though only so that I could get out of this rotting city.”

“Ah, you still wish to reach the east continent.” 

“Yeah,” Yuriko agreed. “What are your terms?”

Elaine leaned over as she placed her elbow on her knee. “Well, first things first, I’d like to ascertain your Arcana Weaving potential.”

“Hmmm, and how are you going to ascertain that?” 

Elaine smiled and said, “This would merely be a formality considering what I can detect from you, but here.” She rummaged through her things and pulled out a small card, then handed it over. “Place a finger over the glyph, and the card will do everything else.” 

Yuriko arched an eyebrow as she examined the thing. Glyph? It looked like a runescript line that had been twisted and curved around critical nodes so that the entire thing looked like a self-contained image. This one was a circle that had been twisted, then bent on itself so that it looked like one small circle inside a slightly bigger one. The particulars of the runescript were too small to easily see without Enhanced Senses, but there was enough information that she could intuit its purpose. Simply put, it was a Light spell composed of five runescript components. 

With a shrug, she placed her finger tip at the centre of both circles and waited. The reaction was immediate. Energy was drawn according to the glyph, and with Radiant being so excessive within her, it was what the glyph took. It projected a near blinding ball of light above her fingernail for a fraction of a second before the glyph overloaded and burnt the card to a crisp. 

“Huh.”