Count Morash had little to offer Mina, Tanner, and Grandma. Neither wealth nor power interested them, and offers of payment only caused Mina to curl her lip in disgust. “I think it would be best if you used that money to take care of your people,” Jiyon said at last, taking pity on the man. “Submit a revitalization plan to me with a budget, and monthly reports of your progress, and I’ll consider my efforts repaid.”

The count spluttered momentarily, then deflated in acquiescence. “Thank you for your generous support, Your Imperial Highness.”

Jiyon smiled down, the very picture of a benevolent Crown Prince. “Of course, Count Morash. I shall look forward to your generous support as well in the future.”

“Oh? Oh! Y-yes of course!” Count Morash hurried to agree.

[Good for him,] Grandma muttered to Mina. [He’s secured at least one noble’s support for inheriting the throne.]

Grandma requested, and received, free access to the count’s private library. She and Fariel pored over the volumes, looking for anything relating to the ancient calamity he’d spoken of. They found a few mentions here and there, mostly as footnotes on the oral history of ancient peoples. Grandma marked up a map of the stories’ originating locations, along with annotations for the calamity’s severity.

“This would go faster with that book I mentioned,” Fariel sighed. “The author had already diagrammed the sources.”

“Where can we find the book?” Grandma asked, tapping one finger on the map in thought.

“It wasn’t very popular, the subject was esoteric and not well regarded, so only a few copies were produced.” Fariel considered. “Maybe in a library among the southern provinces? It’s more geographically relevant to them at least.”

“More traveling.” Grandma shook her head in dismay.

“I was thinking,” Mina said, popping up behind Grandma and giving her a hug. “Doing more traveling wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world either. Not to save people or anything, but just for fun. Those months that you, me, and Tanner were on the road were a pleasant time, aside from the whole being hunted thing, and the never having enough food to eat thing.”

“Minor details.” Grandma’s out loud voice was incapable of sarcasm, but Mina got the joke anyway. [Are you sure? Lynne will miss you, and Annetta too.]

[I hate to admit it, but Jiyon’s words bothered me,] Mina admitted. [I know,] she hurried to add, [I know it’s not selfish to want to go home, and live a safe, comfortable life. But I also want to find my mother.]

Grandma turned to give Mina a proper hug, stroking her hair gently. [Aha, I was wondering when you’d come around to that.]

[It’s not that I’m unhappy with you!] Mina buried her face in Grandma’s shirt, breathing in the faint scent of damp earth. [But you said once, that she didn’t abandon me. That the duke threatened her or something, probably. So I was thinking maybe I could look for her. And if we end up helping people along the way, then, I guess that’s all right.]

Grandma chuckled, a burble of mirth that popped and fizzed in Mina’s mind. [Of course, dear.]

The expedition that Jiyon had begged for continued through Eastplains, after the crown prince pried a great deal of food, as well as a sizable contingent of soldiers, from Count Morash. They found the rest of the province in varying states of disaster and despair, and did their best to leave the towns and their people in better shape than when they had arrived.

Mina closed a handful more dungeons, some shallow and young, some ancient; some malicious, and some merely indifferent. Each miasma that controlled a dungeon was different. The journey took several more months to complete, and they found themselves wintering in a small town in the southeastern tip of the province, right on the coast of the ocean.

After the winter released its grip on the ocean, Mina announced that she was leaving.

“What?” Donovan blurted, incredulous.

“I signed up for an expedition to aid Eastplains. We’re done now. I’m leaving.” Mina patted Donovan’s arm. “I have some stuff I want to do, Uncle Captain. Will you send my regards to Her Ladyship?”

“Is this the teenager’s rebellion that I’ve been hearing so much about?” Donovan asked with an air of despondence.

Mina laughed and hugged the man. “Oh Uncle,” she squeezed him fondly. “Don’t miss me so much.”

Fariel cleared his throat. “Actually, may I accompany you?” He flicked a glance at Grandma, and said, “I believe my current research aligns with your interests.”

[It would be helpful for me,] Grandma said to the girl, [but it’s your choice.]

“Very well,” Mina accepted.

“Then, may I also?” Jiyon perked up eagerly.

“Absolutely not!” came the adamant chorus, from Mina, Donovan, and several of Jiyon’s guards.

The crown prince looked stricken as he wilted under their ferocious glares.

“May I remind you, sir, that you’ve been away for the better part of a year now, and you need to return to the imperial court to report your success,” one soldier murmured.

“Yes, you’re right.” Jiyon hung his head.

“Anyway, I plan to head west after this. We’ll need to gather supplies now that we’re no longer part of an official expedition.” Mina slung an arm around Tanner’s shoulders and another around Grandma’s waist. She grinned, looking more carefree and excited than she had in months. “Let’s go shopping!”

A few days later, Donovan led the expedition back to Bow Harbor by ship, and Mina, Tanner, Grandma, and Fariel waved goodbye to them before embarking on their own journey. They had considered traveling by ship as well, but Tanner had pointed out that bringing all his beasts aboard would surely lead to trouble, so Mina had reluctantly agreed to going over land instead. They had thought it would be slower, but between Tanner and Grandma, their beasts could carry all of them plus their supplies, and still outrun any horses, so they made quite good time.

Now and again, they wandered off their charted path to dive into a dungeon, and they’d lose a few weeks roaming around exploring its insides. With no pressure to quickly find the master of the dungeon and resolve the mana overflow issue, Fariel conducted a great deal of experiments on mana generation, mana usage, mana exhaustion, and so on.

Over the course of the next year, they made their slow, steady way across the southern provinces, fighting monsters, closing dungeons, and learning a great deal about magic. Fariel used his status as imperial mage to gain access to a number of libraries, and they researched the history of the land, looking for the book he had mentioned, or any other references to the ancient calamity. Grandma’s map slowly filled up, spreading out as an arc of markers showed their progress.

[This looks like a part of a circle,] Grandma said one evening as they camped out under the stars. She pointed to the red markers, then the layers of orange and yellow markers below them. [More severe to the north, easing off the farther south we go.]

Now that it was just the four of them, Grandma lapsed back to golemhood, looping the others into her mental speech rather than fussing with her fake vocal cords.

“You’re right,” Fariel confirmed. “And that aligns with the theory I mentioned in that elusive book as well.”

[I wonder if we could calculate the radius of the circle based on this arc.] Grandma wished fleetingly that she had paid more attention in geometry, something she had never truly wished for at any other point in her life. [I don’t know the formula for it though.]

“Can we tie a string to a pencil and try different lengths until it looks right?” Tanner asked, peering over Grandma’s shoulder.

[We could, but I’d want more markers first before we do that.]

Fariel nodded. “We’ll keep looking. Who knows, maybe that book will eventually turn up and save us all the trouble.”

“How far are we from the western tribes?” Mina asked, changing the subject abruptly. “We’ve been traveling for a while now.”

[The western tribes are here, if I remember correctly.] Grandma pointed. [We should be quite close now. I wonder if we’ll start to see more people with blue hair like yours.]

As they neared the western tribes, the landscape shifted subtly. It wasn’t anything that they could discern with their eyes, but the miasma beasts all perked up and took notice. “The mana flows are broader here,” Mina said, her eyes unfocused, as Pluot sniffed the ground like a hound on a scent.

Fariel squinted around him, channeling mana to see the flows. “They seem more orderly too, almost as if they’ve been groomed that way, like irrigation channels.”

“You’re very perceptive,” a deep masculine voice said from startlingly nearby. A man stepped out into view, his eyes crinkled in a smile beneath glossy, deep blue hair. “Welcome home, little one,” he said to Mina, and bowed with palms extended.