The Witch and the Doll Swear

The source of life is the ocean.

On the great egg illuminated by the sun of Saigon and the twelve bright moons, the birth of the thirteen first dragons uttered the first long cry of the creatures under the sky.

The source of civilization is the river.

The goblins were born from the twin trees where the stars and the moon reflect each other, and built the first tree house with their natural talents by the Mamu River soaking the roots of the mother tree.

From then on, the history of the world began to flow.

"..."

The first page of the thick book, after reading the first few lines of the first chapter of the entire book, Tina raised her head from the chair in the cockpit.

"...Well, Miss Liliana, Miss Alice, why is the chronology of the Kingdom of Sinai written from the Mythical Era? And after just two sentences, it came to the end of the Mythical Era. That terrible event Undead Scourge..."

"...That's the preface, Miss Tina. When this "Chronology of the Kingdom of Sinai" was published, there was no custom on the mainland to place the preface separately in front of the table of contents and divide it into independent sections."

"...Uh, that is to say, this is a fairly old chronology?"

"Yes, and so far, there is no better book on the history of Sinai than this book, especially in terms of the degree of authenticity of the recorded history. This is still the most authoritative study of the history of Sinai before the third era. And the best history."

On one side is the tributary of Nile Klein, and on the other side are continuous sand dunes. The "Lightseeker" sailed at the border between greenery and yellow sand. Although the sunlight filtered through the glass windows was still scorching hot, the weather was very suitable for reading.

"That's right..."

Tina withdrew her gaze from Alice who was sitting next to the compass, paused for a moment on the witch holding the rudder, and then began to read word by word.

But a few minutes later, after turning over two pages, Ting Na pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath.

"This history book seems to be different from the ones I have read before. Should I say that the writing is too accurate or harsh? Or is it that this kind of layout makes people lose the motivation to read..."

The densely packed text forms a long snake of paragraphs, and the blunt descriptions without the slightest emotion are separated by punctuation marks. This seems to be an article written by a person without emotion, or it is like a cold and hard article taken out in winter. Bread, the girl chewed the words with great difficulty, her eyes and chin felt aching.

"... After all, this is an academic book. It was written by a group of top historians in Sinai at that time."

Liliana turned her head, the girlish complaint on her face was not as indifferent as she expected.

Of course, it's also possible that this is just her usual expressionless face. Even after traveling together for a long time, Tingna still can't tell the difference between the two.

"...every word in this book is appropriate and accurate, and every historical scale is so real that it seems to be remembered at the moment it happened, but there are no romantic anecdotes of heroes or vivid events here. The description is just coldly following the flow of time, engraving everything that happened and can be recorded, if you want to talk about legibility, um..."

The witch shook her head, her black pupils as deep as a starry night looked at the front of the boat again, she stabilized the boat, and lightly tapped her fingers on the tiller.

"...If you think it is too boring from the beginning, then Miss Tingna can take a look at some events that may make you interested in the history of Sinai. After all, Miss Tingna is not a professional scholar, and the history of Sinai is too much. If it’s too long, if you’re not interested, you won’t be able to read it.”

"Ah, ah haha... But, I don't know anything about the history of Sinai. I only remember the famous person in the second era, the Cleopatra... or because I have seen the opera about the death of Cleopatra..."

"Then let's start from there. The opera has done a lot of artistic and exaggerated treatment of history. For example, Cleopatra didn't actually love Caesar. They just used each other. Caesar needed Sinai to provide him with more With more food to expand the legion, Cleopatra hopes to join forces with Caesar to ascend the throne of Sinai, and let herself and Caesar's children ascend the throne of the Seven Hills Empire..."

"Eh, so... Cleopatra's being rolled up in the carpet and meeting Caesar was also added by the playwright?"

"...No, that's true. It was my plan for her."

"……Eh?"

"By the way, when Caesar was the general of the empire, he was the enemy of Lily, who was still the puppet queen at that time. Lily planned Caesar's death and finally regained power after that. Cleopatra's son returned after Caesar's death Assassinated Lily, but failed, since Lily had a good relationship with Cleopatra back then, Lily let her go."

"..."

Speaking of which, it's been a while since I heard it.

Liliana and Alice, witches and dolls who have lived through a long time, casually tell the shocking truth of history. Ting Na looked at the two who started to recall the past, and suddenly burst out laughing.

"...?"

"Ah, no, I just suddenly remembered myself when I was traveling with Miss Liliana and Miss Alice last year. I won't be too surprised to hear these words now."

"...it's a good thing to adapt. If you are interested in Cleopatra, just read the events related to her. Assassins, connected in series, is a legendary enough life. In addition, the more interesting event in the history of Sinai is the religious reform of the "pagan pharaoh" Akhenaten. It was the period of the ancient magic empire. The belief in God has indeed been successfully maintained for a period of time, but he died mysteriously soon after, and his son, Tutankhamun, the "God Resurrection" restored the belief, but he also died mysteriously when he was in his 20s, which is regarded as the history of Sinai One of the most mysterious histories in the world."

"I-I'll take a look at, um, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun..."

Writing down the two names in the notebook, Tina turned the book back to the table of contents and began to look for a year that Alice had given.

In that year, Cleopatra was born.

"But Ms. Tingna, why are you suddenly interested in the history of Sinai? And you only read it when Ai was studying... Could it be that you have a sense of competition?"

Turning the pages of the book froze in mid-air.

Seeing the knowing smile suddenly appearing on the little doll's face, Tingna shook her head silently, then nodded again. While doing so, Tingna pursed her lips tightly for a while.

"I, I can't become a magician, no matter how unwilling I am, only this, I can't compare with Ai anyway, so at least—"

After a while, the girl murmured to the witch's back as if admitting something that was hard for her to accept.

"At least, I should learn more knowledge, so that I can be qualified for the job of Miss Liliana's secretary. There is still a lot of time, right?"

Her gaze was fixed on Liliana's finger, the ring that had lost the inlaid gemstones, and the witch's gaze also fell on the simple color, and she nodded.

Bury Letopolesta, inside is the stone slab obtained from Seth, the god of the desert. That is what the witch is looking for. In this kingdom, the key to the secret realm that even the Nine Pillars Gods cannot touch.

But right now, that's just a slate.

"...It will be more than two months before Sirius rises to the top of the sky in Sinai, and the slate will reveal the location leading to the secret realm at that time, and the time is still long, so before that, whether it is studying or traveling, you should take it easy go a head."

"That's right."

— It's still a long time.

This is what the witch and the puppet have often said to her since she embarked on the journey last year. At that time, the girl could only smile wryly, and the clear and shallow ocean was always uneasy.

But what about now?

"It's still a long time."

Ting Na's words made the witch raise her eyebrows slightly. She turned her face, and the girl with deep ocean eyes lowered her head again, and began to read a legendary past in Sen Leng's words.

"..."

She turned her head and looked at Alice. The vultures and red herons in the woods by the river were startled by the roar of the sand boat, and flapped their wings and flew across the deck.

The future is still far away, and the journey is still long. Under the sky, the sand boat sailed leisurely, bathed in sunshine.