In a later interview (that never happened), the “Crimson Magus” Yekase said this:

“Back then their two-woman crime duo tried Mind Body Manipulation on me, like silk threads slipping round my spine. I shed it like rain off a leaf.

“Then she ditched honor and went for a backstab, like a snake striking from tall grass. I still blocked it, like a shield catching hail.”

Runic Words lets you cozy up to an ur‑text and freeload stats, like leeching fire from a neighbor’s hearth. It feels great, warm as stolen embers.

The downside is a single careless step drags you off track, like a muddy rill tugging your boot. It fits its archaic occult pedigree, moss-old and bone-deep.

The whole system feels primordial, like stone tools under starlight. Magic’s first spring, yet it sports a rough, orcish kind of charm.

Memetic contamination hits hard only at first sight, like a flash flood from a clear sky. If the concept lacks a curse from the Void Realm, it fades.

Once the observer sees through it, they’re immune, like eyes learning dusk and finding the shapes again.

But even when the memetic haze clears, the metal cage on the body still clings, cold as iron on a sparrow.

Think it through: taking it off is a hassle, like untying wet knots. Emergency release is one‑use, like a match you can only strike once.

There was no need to wear it this early, like donning armor to sip tea. Alice’s scheme shows its teeth, a cat smiling behind silk.

The puppeteer still aches to rule my heart, like strings tugging in a storm!

At times like this, there’s a way to make that unsporting woman pay a toll, like biting a coin and leaving a dent.

Yekase stepped into a roadside scroll shop, like a fish slipping into shade.

The owner looked witchy and brunette, sea-dark hair under a hood. Her roomy navy robe had star-sprinkled hems, night dripping constellations.

“Do you sell any rare magic?”

“Hello, what kind do you need… Oh, a maid puppet from Master Crescent Moon’s house.”

Yekase nodded as calm as still water. In a level tone she said, “Yes. Lymriel is the master’s latest work. Her name is Lymriel.

“The master sent Lymriel to ask if you sell methods to learn rare magic.”

“Rare magic…” The owner’s thin brows knit like drawn bows. Her eyes flicked like swallows across shelves.

She reached into the deep stacks like hands sinking among roots, pulled several scrolls, and set them out in a neat row.

“I understand. Preparing to move on Ivalice and the Church, right? These are the rarest in the shop, moon-cold and knife-sharp.

“Boldly, I’ll say even Master Crescent Moon might not have seen them!”

She listed them with the relish of a chef: “This is [Cycle of Heavenly Radiance], a high-power, high-cost area spell, bright as noon over snowfields.

“This is [Wasabi Bomb], a single-target attack with interference, sharp as green fire on the tongue.

“This is [Imperial Ten-Count Sword], a body-arts spell, counting strikes like waves on a jetty.

“This is [Winds of the Twelve Directions], an ultra-wide attack, twelve gusts like a compass of storms. Which does your master want?”

“All of them. Bag ’em,” Yekase said, sweeping the table like a broom through leaves.

“Got it! No wonder it’s Master Crescent Moon—lavish as a monsoon!”

The witch lit up like dawn cutting fog. She took a palm-sized coarse cloth pouch, plain as dust yet quietly enchanted.

She tucked the scrolls in one by one, like seeds into good soil, then offered the pouch with both hands, clear as a bowl of spring water.

“Lymriel has no money. Put it on the master’s tab.”

“No problem!” Her smile rang like a bell.

Yekase took the pouch and left the shop, a shadow unpeeling from a wall.

She pulled out only the [Imperial Ten-Count Sword] to skim, eyes quick as minnows.

Everything else vanished into the teleport chest like coins dropping into a deep well.

Good. Before the bill reaches Alice’s house, no one will notice, like clouds hiding a thief of the moon.

At least not before she finishes the apple quest; there’s room to run like open fields after rain.

Even if justice catches up later, the magic’s already learned, like ink set on stone.

If God sends me to hell, I just won’t go—what then, send me to hell again?

All in, no half measures; Yekase kept strolling, a kite riding a lazy breeze.

Mysidia’s layout follows the World Tree’s branches, streets growing with sap and sun. Two main roads run like twin trunks.

Countless alleys fork off like twigs, quick as sparrows. Shops and homes mix like pebbles and moss, casual as creek banks.

Zones form anyway: magic wares here, daily goods there, like colors pooling in watercolor.

It means Mysidia lacks any plan worth a map, loose as sand. It’s the other pole from Ivalice, gears versus vines.

Where traffic is good, a dozen storefronts cram together like barnacles, roofs arcing over the road like a wooden bridge.

Water and power are beyond hope; only magic solves it, lamps burning like bottled dawn.

Built on a World Tree, yet none of that elf-story grace shows, leaves without lullabies. The streets look worse than gear-bright Ivalice.

That’s why the city feels feral, bark and rope, not glass and brass.

People of higher standing—like Alice—build far from the market, nests set in cleaner air. Not the topmost boughs, but gentler wind.

Yekase walked the main drag and saw a crowd by a small square, a dark pond seething with fish.

She drifted over like a leaf on current. It looked like an event under green eaves.

A square wooden dais stood in the center, a box jutting up like a pier into reeds.

Its top nearly pierced the World Tree’s branches, bark and platform braided like roots and planks.

Two figures stood up there. Leaves veiled their faces and nameplates like gauze. They gestured wildly, birds arguing in a nest.

Yekase squeezed into the crowd, a shoulder through reeds. After some shoves, she found a spot, a rock in a stream.

Her puppet shell snapped her feet into an outward V, hands folded at the waist, every wobble locked inside like a lantern’s flame.

She looked up at the pair. They wove through branches, quick as cats in rafters.

Now and then they shot a basic [Gale] at each other, emerald wind-balls howling like wolves.

Leaves shook hard, a willow storm in green glass.

“What are they doing?” Yekase asked the person beside her.

“You don’t know? You’re not from Mysidia, right?” At last, someone who didn’t recognize Alice’s house puppet explained, voice like gravel on a path.

“This is a [Dark Duel].”

“…A duel?”

“We Mysidians swear at birth not to harm a single leaf or twig of the World Tree. Break it, and you bleed from seven orifices and die, like a candle drowning in its own wax.

“The [Dark Duel] grows from that oath. It’s an extreme sport, a tightrope in a gale.

“On a high dais sunk in foliage, contestants shoot [Gale] at each other. A hit means elimination, clean as a bell-cut.”

Yekase nodded, a reed catching wind. “If you spray carelessly to score a hit and strike leaves or branches, you break the oath and die.

“So you must stay cautious every heartbeat, like a cat tiptoeing along a fence.”

“Exactly! We pick [Gale] because wind shakes the leaves, the green sea moving against you.

“Dodging gets harder as the canopy sways, like waves rising under your feet.

“If you dodge without reading the environment and snap a bough, you lose and die on the spot, a bird with a broken perch!”

“So it’s that thrilling?” Her voice was dry as dust.

“[Dark Duel] tests courage, tactics, spell control, and body, a full-spectrum trial by wind.

“So it’s the best stage for youth to prove themselves. The victor can demand anything from the loser!”

It sounded a little suicidal, like dancing on a cliff edge.

Before Yekase could imagine a safe route to win, the match on the stage was already near its end, twilight rushing the horizon.

“I’ll never lose, because today my Solar Phase shines brighter than ever! My lucky and blessed stars blaze above me like twin suns!”

“Then I’ll swallow you with a Dark Sermon, shadow and scripture. I’ll turn you into what belongs to me alone!”

No, you’re just firing [Gale] at each other, right? Yekase’s thought fluttered like a moth.

But the Mysidian audience saw fire in the wind. “Too dazzling… two figures clashing and understanding, like meteors crossing!”

“I get it! I’m enlightened!” “Go, Starlene! Don’t lose, Starlene!”

Starlene seemed to be the crisp young woman in tight leather pants, brown hair bound in a bun like a coiled whip.

Her opponent was a slightly older black-haired woman, dusk to her dawn.

Suddenly, a [Gale] veered off its line, streaking toward a low, drooping branch, a knife at a thread.

If it hit, that branch would snap—and that would be Starlene’s life falling like a cut flower.

In that lightning sliver, only Yekase’s ninja-grade dynamic vision caught it, hawk eyes in a storm.

The black-haired woman, already clear, turned back and met the green wind head-on, taking it with her chest like a shield.

—Smack!

The match was decided, neat as a cut rope.

Starlene won. In front of her, the black-haired woman knelt, clutching her chest, breath ragged as torn silk.

Starlene tossed her staff. The sharp tip bit the wood with a click, a beak in bark.

“Won! What a delightful duel!”

“I… actually lost… Come then. I’m ready. No matter how excessive your demand, I will… obey…” The black-haired woman bowed deep, shadow folding like a wing.

“You’ve got one thing wrong, Miss Losph. It’s not ‘will obey’. It’s ‘must obey’.”

Now the victor would announce her demand. Take her life, or bind her as a servant—two roads like forks in a river.

“As the victor of the [Dark Duel], I, Starlene Hobbes, command you: become my bride!”

—“Eh?!”

Steam seemed to puff from Losph’s crown, a kettle on the boil. She sat and waved frantically to hide the blush, pink as dawn.

“N-no, this… you… I…”

“What, do you think you can refuse?” Starlene’s smile was a crescent blade.

“I… I was going to make the same request…”

The crowd went silent for a beat, a lake holding its breath. Then scattered claps, like first rain on tiles.

Then everyone clapped, reeds swept by wind, blessing the pair with warm thunder.

The wooden dais sank slowly, raft easing down a lock. Locked tight in each other’s arms, they returned to the ground.

Joy lifted them high like a tide carrying boats. The river of people flowed to the city’s only Mana Nexus chapel.

Let the ageless source of Sorcery witness this bright love, as old as stars and new as spring.

“…Not so fast. What if they’d slipped and hit a branch…” Only Yekase stood dazed, thoughts and this crowd’s logic like mismatched gears.

She wandered on, hollow as a gourd. Mysidians, terrifying indeed…

Thump.

Something bumped her. The shell steadied her like a gyroscope, and she turned with a swimmer’s twist.

A figure sprinted past and vanished around a corner, shadow cutting stone.

…Huh?

If she saw right, that figure had a pair of long, sharp ears, moon-silver and keen.