Chapter 47: Chapter 47: The secret of the hats

While I'm trying to process what I just heard I absentmindedly step in a puddle of water. I must have heard it wrong, did Arana say that she made a prophecy just now? Is she an oracle?

"Ara, are you seriously telling me that you made a prophecy just now?"

"We need to find Ranna... she probably has my hat... perhaps we can do a hat exchange."

"Does Ranna's hat have anything to do with it?"

"No, not Ranna's, I need my hat..."

Uh... I don't think that I'll be able to get anything coherent from her until I get her hat back, but I have no idea of where it is, maybe I could use Ranna's hat to lure her here?

Speaking of Ranna's hat, that puddle of water seems to have moved to just next to it, it's going to get wet. Wait a minute... I'm not an expert in fluid dynamics, but I'm fairly certain that when water is placed on a sloped surface it usually flows down, this hallway does indeed seem to be slightly sloped but that water is going up!

When the water notices that I'm staring at it, it begins to tremble a little, of course, I'm not going to let it escape.

'Mana corrosion'

"Ah!"

As I thought, when I take away her mana, Ranna's spell gets broken and she's forced back to her normal form, she immediately jumps to her hat and hugs it to her chest.

"This is mine... do not take it away..."

"Ranna! What are you doing here? Give me back my hat!"

Indeed, just as we thought, she has Arana's hat. So all we have to do is place each hat on the correct head and order will be restored to the world or something like that.

"Thank you very much for returning my hat, now if you excuse me I'll be on my way."

'Shadow bind'

Last time she was able to escape by turning herself into water, but this time she won't get away, it doesn't matter how many tricks she knows, she won't be able to use any magic after I took away her mana.

"Ranna! It's been a long time since we last saw each other, you really have grown... a little, how are you doing?"

"I've been doing well... thank you for asking..."

I believe that this is the first time these two sisters have seen each other in years, but for some reason, they don't look very happy.

"So... what exactly did you think you were doing? Do you have any idea of the kind of people you've been helping?"

"Uh... I was only following Cureva's plan, I know that some of the things that need to be done are really bad, but she said that this is the only way to make the world better for everyone!"

Who is Cureva? The moment Ranna said that name, I could see Arana's face contort into an expression of absolute hatred for a brief moment, I have never seen her like that before.

"Better for everyone? Better in what way?"

"I don't know, she didn't tell me the details."

"So you've been helping out a bunch murderers without even knowing why you were doing it? Didn't I tell you to never listen to anything Cureva says?"

"But you tried to steal all of the world relics! Isn't that why you left? That's why Cureva told me to take yours."

"Cureva told you... if Cureva told you to jump off a cliff would you.. why am I asking? Of course you would!"

Even if Ranna jumped off a cliff, I think that she would be fine if she turned into water, but that's probably not the point.

"Our oldest sister approved Cureva's plan, even if I don't like it, I have no choice but to obey her..."

"Of course you have a choice, you should be able to judge by yourself if something is right or wrong, instead of blindly following their orders like a tool you should have left as I did... uh, this is really my fault, I should have taken you with me back then..."

After that there's an awkward silence, it feels really out of character for Arana to look so upset.

"Ara, who is that 'Cureva' you were talking about?"

"She's one of my older sisters, the witch of wind, she's also the one person at the top of my list of people I want to kill."

"You have a list of people you want to kill!? Uh... am I on that list?"

"What are you even... why would you be on that list?"

"I don't know, I was asking just in case."

"Hahaha, Luna, you always know how to improve my mood."

I don't think that was funny, my life could have been in danger...

"So... are you going to tell me what the deal with those hats is? And how did you make a prophecy? Are you an oracle?"

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"Luna... that's supposed to be a secret, I cannot tell you."

"After the scene I just saw, you cannot not tell me."

"..."

It seems like she's thinking about it, but this time there's no way I'll back down, I'll make her speak at any cost!

"Aaaaah, alright, but you're the only one who can hear this, tell those three to go away."

Oh, the fairies are still here, did they hear everything so far?

"We want to know too!"

"This has nothing to do with you! Go away!"

Now that I'm alone with the two sisters, it's time for an explanation.

"Remember, it is very important that this remains a secret, you ABSOLUTELY cannot tell any of this to ANYONE."

"Of course! My lips are sealed!"

"As you might have already heard, Ranna and I are witches. Our race is different from the others, first of all, there's only six of us in the entire world, and that number never changes, a new witch is born when and only when a witch dies, the truth is that we are not blood-related, but we call each other sisters since there are so few of us."

Is that true? How can there be a race with so few people?

"One day I will tell you everything about us, but for now I'll tell you about the hats. You see, each witch has the duty of protecting one of the six 'world relics', incredibly powerful items that were each created a long time ago by a different ritual in which most of the world took part, and in order to make them easier to keep safe, they were all made to take the form of hats so that we could hide them in plain sight."

"What!? So your hat is not really a hat?"

"Well, four of them have a power that is not dependant on the form they take, so they are just hats with special abilities, for example, Ranna's hat allows the one wearing it to hear the voice of the world, all the prophecies that are told come from that hat."

"I thought that the ones who make prophecies were the oracles."

"That's what we want everyone to think since we don't want anyone to target her, but the truth is that all the oracles are the subordinates of the witch of water."

Really? From the way she looks, I would have never imagined that Ranna would be someone so important... wait, does that mean that the 'queen of darkness' prophecy was her fault? No, from what I've seen so far she probably cannot control what prophecies she makes.

"And what does your hat do?"

"The other two world relics are weapons, so they cannot be used while in hat form, look at this."

Arana takes her hat on her hand and a bright flash comes from it, when I look again, I see that she's now holding a fancy looking sword with a silver handle and a blade that's shining so brightly that it looks like it's made of light.

"Woah! That looks like a sword a legendary hero would use."

"That's because it is. Under normal circumstances my duty is supposed to be to find someone who's compatible with this sword and hand it over to them, then I would serve as a guide for that person, but because my older sisters decided to abandon their own duties nothing is the way it's supposed to be right now..."

"So you're not going to try to find the person who should get that sword?"

"The truth is, I think that I already found her, but it's probably not a good idea to give it to her just yet, she seems to be... easily misguided."

Arana transforms the sword back into a hat and places it on her head.

"One last thing, you might have guessed this already, but all witches have the duty to protect their world relic ingrained into their very being, losing it is like losing a part of ourselves, which is really bad because it makes it much harder to get it back..."

"Oh, so that's why you become that way without your hat..."

"So, that's all for now, are you satisfied?"

"Yes, I guess."

I still have a lot of questions, but I'll save them for later. To be honest, I'm having some trouble processing all the crazy stuff I just learned so it might be bad to add more things on top of that, I had no idea that Arana's hat was something so important...

"Now, if you don't mind, I would like you to leave me with Ranna for a bit. As her older sister I feel that it's my responsibility to get her back into the right path."

"Oh, sure."

"Eh!? Don't leave me alone with her!"

Ranna's face is as stoic as ever, but I can hear a hint of fear in her voice. However, this is a private family matter, I have nothing to do with it.

"Please, don't leave."

I'm glad that Arana was able to reunite with her sister, she caused us some trouble but all is well that ends well, now I can finally relax a little.

But why do I feel like I'm forgetting something important?