"Yanan City..."
Standing on the road into the city beside a railway line, Christina read out the city's name from the wooden sign.
Strangely, despite the island clearly having a southern climate and likely being located between the Rorsted Archipelago and the Southern Continent, the city's signs were written only in Loenese. Unlike Bayam and Liberation Port, they did not use multiple languages to accommodate tourists and the diverse local population. It made Tina and Dorothy feel as though they had returned to some small town near Tingen City.
This was the location of the sixth, and second-to-last, seal provided by the Genie within the Magic Wishing Lamp. As early as when Miss Angel Gray, the Chariot, had dropped them nearby, Tina had guessed that she had once again been "arranged" by some sort of coincidence.
And upon seeing the sign at the edge of the city, she confirmed her suspicion.
Dorothy also rose onto her tiptoes and looked toward the main road leading to the city center, where quite a few people were passing by. She murmured:
"I've never heard of this city... Other places, like Bayam and the Giant King's Court, were at least mentioned in books... Wait!"
Her eyes lit up as she turned to Tina.
"Do you remember? Beside Resurrection Square in Cookawa City on the Southern Continent, Archbishop Anderson Hood of the Sun God we met said that deep in the Berserk Sea, in 'Yanan,' there was a mute painter with the same name and appearance as him. The one who had published lots of picture books.
"Could this be that Yanan City?"
At her sister's reminder, Tina also recalled what that unlucky archbishop had said—the one who kept falling down while mocking Flame Danitz for becoming Denise.
Under normal circumstances, I would have thought