Day came, then night came, then day again, over and over in their eternal, unceasing cycle.
Tiat and Collon returned from their mission.
Ever since it happened, Lakhesh had been in a deep sleep. Although she had no external injuries, she remained unconscious. Calling her name, squeezing her hand, slapping her cheeks—no matter what they did, nothing could interrupt her slumber. It was as if her soul had left her.
“Do you remember when we talked about their names?”
Feodor tilted his head up from a nearby hospital bed. The injury to his left leg hadn’t healed yet, and the anesthesia had worn off sometime overnight, leaving him in such pain that he wanted to scream.
“Eh?”
“Apple and Marshmallow’s official names. Didn’t we contact the faerie warehouse about it?”
He considered Tiat’s words, digging through his memories until a certain conversation returned to him. Yeah, we talked about something like that. Using the name of a past faerie is taboo, so their nicknames have to be short and simple until they’re given official names.
“Yeah, I remember,” Feodor said easily, wearing a smile on his face. Because he was an imp, he was confident he could hide even a double suicide behind a smile. “What’re you getting at?”
“They finally got their names. Rhantolk came up with them.”
“Ah…”
Of course. That’s normal. If something’s bound to arrive sooner or later, it’s only natural it could arrive at any time.
The nicknames they’d used until now had been full of inconveniences. Feodor was sure that Rhan-something must’ve rushed things because of that. Even so, she hadn’t made it in time. Only one recipient was left to accept those names.
“So from now on, we’ll call Apple—”
“I don’t care.” Feodor shook his head. “I’d rather you not tell me. She’ll always be Apple to me.”
“I-I understand, but—”
“Change your names however you want. I’m not going to keep up with all that.”
“…All right,” Tiat said with downcast eyes.
Apple disappeared with Croyance. Lakhesh Nyx Seniorious remained in an unwaking slumber. These two pieces of news brought both hope and despair to the 5th Division. Being unable to utilize Seniorious’ top-class combat power during crucial battles was definitely a reason for despair. Yet, hope remained in the fact that the Eleventh Beast, normally impervious to all conventional attacks, had been destroyed by a leprechaun opening the gates to the faerie homeland.
Apple’s tiny body had been able to blow away the Beast even without a dug weapon at her disposal. If she could do that, then by comparison Tiat, Collon, and Pannibal, fully fledged faerie soldiers, could wipe anything out. The grand honor of this discovery belonged to Feodor, in First Officer Talmareet’s sardonic words, so he’d surely be due for a promotion any day now.
“Fine… I’ll just tell you Marshmallow’s new name.”
“She’ll be taken away to the warehouse soon, won’t she? What good does it do me to hear it if I won’t see her anymore?”
“You’re not serious, are you? Stop being stubborn. You suck at telling stupid lies like that.”
Feodor didn’t have a response ready for that comeback.
“The way it’s spelled is R-Y-E-H-L. You say it like Riel.”
“What a pain.”
Tiat rolled her eyes. “That’s just how it is, okay? We get our names by taking the old alphabet and lining up letters until we get something that sounds good. It’s a hugely complicated process…or so I’ve been told.”
“Huh.”
Certainly, the names Feodor had heard up to now were unique enough to have come from another species. He could understand that there was meaning in their names based on that.
…That said, there wasn’t much of an upside to knowing random trivia like this. “That Ry part is weird. How do you say it again? Rell? Rye-Hell?”
“It’s pronounced Riel, but you spell it like Ryehl.” Tiat traced the individual letters in the air as she spoke. “Marshmallow’s name from now on is Ryehl. Make sure you remember it.”