Tales of Vesperia: The Golden Full Moon

Stories

## Character Introductions

Yuri Lowell

He was once a member of the Imperial Knights, and now lodges with a household in the empire's Lower Quarter. He and Flynn, who grew up with him, are as close as brothers. He is Repede's master.

Estelle

She lives in Zaphias, the imperial capital, in what amounts to house arrest, and conceals from the world the fact that she can use healing artes without a blastia. She and Flynn are very close.

Repede

Yuri's beloved dog. His ordinary behavior makes people suspect he can understand human speech, yet he never grows familiar with anyone lightly.

Karol Capel

A member of the monster-hunting guild the Hunting Blades, he calls himself the guild's first chair. His inborn timidity leads him into many mistakes, and in the end the guild dismisses him. After meeting Yuri, he sets out on the journey with him.

Rita Mordio

An authority on blastia research, with a tendency to grow excessively absorbed in the blastia she studies. She is poor at dealing with people, but takes a keen interest in Estelle.

Raven

An elusive middle-aged man who comes and goes like a ghost. He meets Yuri in the city prison and helps him escape. Day to day he acts as if nothing in the world concerns him, yet he is a first-rate hand with the bow and the short sword.

Judith

A bewitching beauty of the Kritya, whose weapon is the spear. While trapped in a mercenary company's base, she and Yuri break out of the predicament together. Gentle by nature, she never softens her words toward anyone she dislikes.

Flynn Scifo

An upright knight, respected by all, who dreams of reforming the empire from within. He grew up with Yuri in the empire's Lower Quarter, ...

## Chapter 1

Night in the imperial capital of Zaphias lay wrapped in a deep darkness.

(Was it always like this...?)

The night view once seen from this room was now only a blurred memory. Was it because that journey had been so strangely long? Or—

She had returned to her own room after so long an absence, and yet Estelle—Estellise Sidos Heurassein—could not wipe the gloom from her heart. She only turned from the window in melancholy.

The little bird Remilia was dozing lightly in her cage. Repede, napping on the floor as well, seemed to catch the scent of someone moving in the room. His nose twitched, and he opened his right eye.

"Whine..."

On an ordinary day, Repede almost never reacted to anything Estelle did. The harder she tried to draw closer to him, the more the dog held himself a thousand miles away. His reaction now only made her newly aware that his master, Yuri Lowell, was no longer beside her.

"Aren't you cold, Repede?"

She crossed the room quietly, careful not to come too near him, and at last sat on the sofa close by.

"..."

Repede did not flee, but he closed his eyes again. Estelle sighed softly, her gaze falling on the familiar war-rousing blastia fitted to the big dog.

"Will you stay and talk with me a little?"

Estelle tried asking him even so. In truth it was long past bedtime, and she had already changed into comfortable nightclothes, but the way he usually behaved always left one unable to help...

## Chapter 2

Some things have felt wondrous to me since I was small.

How do the people who write stories create the characters who appear in them?

Their hair, their clothes, their height, the color of their eyes, their voices—and, more important still, who they are, and their natures.

Reading chronologies and scholarly books is one kind of pleasure. Reading storybooks brings another feeling, one of excitement and anticipation. The two are somewhat alike, and yet they are entirely different things.

Only after I walked out of the castle could I truly understand that.

The person I used to be was like someone living in a lake with no way out.

The world outside was flowing, flowing at every moment without cease. The flowing was not wholly smooth or quiet, but it brought a great many revelations.

That was friends.

And companions.

At last I met the people I had always wanted to meet. It was far simpler than creating the characters in a story, and yet more challenging, and it made me happier.

When everything has come to an end—I mean to draw a picture book.

It may be only my own wishful thinking. But by then, perhaps I will have left my footprints on the road every creator walks.

Joy and sorrow. Beauty and ugliness.

It is precisely because I have known the good hours spent with my companions that loneliness has become so hard to bear; it is because I once stood in the dark abyss of death that I know how dazzling the sunlight at my back can be.

When I write these stories, those people will surely be there in my heart.

§

"Yuri really is so well liked by everyone..."

## Chapter 3

The tree of Halure scattered breathtaking petals of many colors.

From Ehmead Hill, a vast ocean glittered—

To me, out of the city for the first time, every natural sight was that fresh and that beautiful.

Even the cold rain in Capua Nor was so: the city I reached while following Flynn, the first city to show me the ugly machinery of the empire.

Yet however grand and beautiful nature is, the hearts of the people who grow in this natural world differ in a thousand ways. Some are filled with malice, and we cannot always read the signs of it in a person's face.

I set out on the journey by my own decision, but until Yuri recovered the aqueduct blastia of the Lower Quarter, all I could do was follow in his steps.

Even so, when I learned that my power could be of help to people, I was truly glad.

On that journey I touched for the first time, with my own body, a world that had existed only in books. Whenever I healed someone's wounds, took away someone's pain, or simply talked with them, I was astonished by the thanks they gave me, and I felt proud of myself as well.

Looking back now, I seem to have grown a little too full of myself then.

If I had stayed in the imperial capital as a bird in a cage, I would have lived forever behind curtain after curtain, and never learned the truth—

§

"It's a shame we have to part."

On a corner of a street in Dahngrest, Karol looked up at Estelle, his eyes forlorn.

"When you come into town from now on..."

## Chapter 4

【Poison】

It is contained chiefly in animals and plants, and its action is to protect the self.

Some animals and plants, in order to display the toxicity they possess, take on appearances and features with obvious marks.

I once read books on toxicology. In words and pictures they introduced representative toxic structures throughout the animal and plant worlds, and I still remember their contents clearly.

But I never imagined that I myself was the toxin!

When Karol and Yuri founded the guild, the reason I proposed "Brave Vesperia" for its name may have been that, deep in my heart, I hoped something would light my future.

This toxin that I am does not exist in order to protect me.

Regardless of my own will, I might at any moment harm someone else without even noticing—or take their life.

I must never allow that to happen.

If on that day I had not chosen to leave the city, and had gone on living as the people around me arranged, nothing especially joyful would have occurred, but perhaps I would not have had to taste pain like this.

How I wish time could turn back!

How I wish this were only an empty dream—

When I understood what the poison meant, that was what my heart wished.

§

The desert seemed to have no end. Aside from the monster bones that showed themselves now and then, scarcely a cactus was to be seen along the way. Estelle and her companions could only keep pressing forward, for they knew that if they collapsed, their end would be the same as the monsters on the road.

"Ah~!"

She could barely even keep walking...

## Chapter 5

There is a saying: cities that are not on the map.

The land where I live—Terca Lumireis—also has cities that do not appear on the map of this land.

When I stepped outside the city, I thought I already knew this vast world, but the world was far greater and more profound than anything I knew.

Time of ancient source. Cities of ancient source.

When we lifted our faces to the sky, we saw a city drifting there.

The thought that everything could be neatly resolved if only one disappeared—that may be a thought belonging only to people who live in a small world.

When a person loses what they treasure, the world is no longer a world to them.

Time, space, and the human heart can each be a world.

When everything is over—I think I will create a picture book.

That adventure story I read countless times in the library.

The girl Remilia, who vanished midway through the story.

I want to invite her into my picture book.

Strong and gentle, able to decide for herself the road she ought to walk. Remilia will surely become a character like that.

§

"To think there's a city flying in the sky."

Raven stood on the deck of the Fiertia, lightly stroking his chin.

"Never mind that—what is that huge thing!? It looks like a living creature."

Rita turned and asked Judith.

Judith told everyone that it, too, was an Entelexeia.

The False Progenitor was already close at hand. Ba'ul entered through the bell of the jellyfish, and at last descended onto the streets.

Estelle and the others walked down from the Fiertia, ...

## Final Chapter

I always believed I lived in a narrow world, but somewhere along the way I found that this belief was only my own wishful thinking.

Each companion carried a different past. Over the long journey I gradually came to see what they bore. Set beside them, I, who could only keep making willful demands, was like a child who understood nothing.

When Raven came to explain everything to me, and let me see his heart blastia, I felt the same.

Having to sustain his life with a blastia that might stop at any moment, the unease in Raven's heart must have far exceeded anything anyone could imagine. If I stood where Raven stood, I think I would have done the same as he did, and perhaps traded even deeper sin for my own life.

But Raven was strong. He decided to begin his life over, and so he came to me.

And I made up my mind as well: by my own will, I chose to believe in Raven—

When Raven apologized to me, I told him I was neither angry nor did I hate him in the least, and that I hoped he would go on fighting shoulder to shoulder with us.

What happened while I was held by Alexei, Rita told me in full.

She said that no one had ever given up on me.

So I will not give up on Yuri either.

§

Repede's ears suddenly twitched.

"Woof!"

He stood with a nimble motion and began touching the handle of Estelle's door with the tip of his nose.

"Repede!?"