Editing Kino no Tabi:Volume2 Prologue (section)

==“In the Middle of the Desert · b” — Beginner’s Luck · b —==

It was raining. Water pounded the earth without pause. Nothing could be seen in the landscape except for the raindrops and mist created by the rain. The fierce sound of water pouring onto the earth never seemed to cease. Although it was daytime, the sky had a dark, gloomy hue.

There was, amidst this downpour, a solitary standing figure. The person was young — around fifteen. Her long brown coat sheltered only her body from the rain. Her short black hair was completely soaked; bangs plastered to her forehead. From there, water ran down her face. Her tongue caught the drops that reached her mouth.

“It is so unlikely for such heavy rain to fall in a place like this. How strange…” someone spoke to her. The voice sounded like a young boy's, but its owner was nowhere to be seen.

The brown-clad figure casually raised her head to stare at the sky. Rain mercilessly beat down upon the girl’s face and fell from her eyes like tears.

“Aha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha!”

Then, all of a sudden, she laughed. Head still raised, she opened her mouth wide and reached out to the sky with both arms.

“Aha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha!”

She continued to laugh gleefully, skipping and twirling her body around. The hem of her coat fluttered in the air like a gown.

“Aha ha! Aha ha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha ha!”

She danced and laughed maniacally for a while, then turned to a particular spot shrouded in mist.

“So what do you think?”

As the question went unacknowledged, she asked once more.

“What do you think, Hermes?”

This time there was a reply. “There’s nothing all that great about it…”

“Nothing?”

After hearing the previous words repeated, there came an unenthusiastic response, “I don’t find this amusing at all, but right now I’m having mixed emotions.”

“Aha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha ha ha——” 

The girl raised her head again in unrestrained laughter.

The voice asked, “Kino, what do you plan to do next?”

“I don’t know. What to do? Why bother worrying?”

After the girl named Kino replied, she began to laugh once more.

This rainstorm, perhaps, would continue for a while.


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{{Navigation
| Kino no Tabi
| [[Kino_no_Tabi:Volume2_Frontispiece|Frontispiece]]
| [[Kino_no_Tabi:Volume2_Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
}}
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