In Mu En's eyes, the entire world underwent a dramatic transformation.
What had been like seeing flowers through a fog suddenly became a firsthand experience, as if in virtual reality.
He heard a clamor of conversation and footsteps, smelled the tar from the torches, and felt a faint tickle as the evening breeze brushed his cheeks...
Those long-forgotten sensations captivated Mu En for a moment, and he could hardly pull himself away.
Wait, where were these senses coming from?
Only after a moment did he remember that he shouldn't have had these abilities.
He immediately used the "source" as a springboard to probe his surroundings. At last, he "saw" Nausicaä, asleep on the one-eyed old man's back with a smile on her face.
What he had just experienced were Nausicaä's five senses!
Moreover, he seemed able to transmit his consciousness to her at any time, allowing him to speak to her remotely.
This kind of communication was very different from his earlier conversations with Nausicaä and the others, roughly like the difference between a loudspeaker and a radio signal.
Right nearby was another "source": the lucky old man named Gol.
He could likewise use Gol to observe their surroundings.
Mu En: ...
If Mu En had a face, it would surely have worn a strange expression.
Weren't his functions a bit too comprehensive?
He had never heard of the Golden Order being used as a video phone and a "true eye"!
At that moment, the crowd was chatting and laughing as they carried torches along the stone-paved road through the village.
The whole village consisted of compact stone houses with white walls and red-tiled roofs, much like the Mediterranean architecture Mu En remembered from his previous life.
Yet Mu En noticed that the whole village seemed lifeless. The occasional villager who opened a window to welcome the disaster relief party home looked listless as well.
But dusk had only just fallen. Surely it wasn't time to rest yet.
Besides, with their faces hidden by respirators earlier, Mu En hadn't noticed.
Only now did he see that not just the villagers greeting them, but the people in the party too, had gaunt cheeks and sickly complexions.
Seeing those details, Mu En sensed that something was wrong.
He put the question of the Golden Order's phone function out of his mind for the moment and began quietly observing his surroundings.
This new ability was just what he needed to gather information and learn about this Valley of the Wind, which differed from the one he remembered.
After passing through the village, they came upon a spacious square with an unobstructed view.
A wooden noticeboard stood at the edge of the square, and stall spaces had been marked out on the ground in black paint. This was probably a public place where the valley posted announcements and held markets.
The village stood on high ground near a cliff on one side, and with no houses in the way, the whole Valley of the Wind could be seen beneath the setting sun.
But none of that was the point.
The sight through Gol's eyes made Mu En draw another sharp breath.
This... was really the Valley of the Wind?
The setting sun bathed the valley in color, and the farmland spread out like a golden-red velvet carpet.
Facing the eastern coast, windmills built of white stone cast long shadows, their sails creaking as they turned in the wind.
Yet across this seemingly peaceful pastoral scene lay vast black scars.
They were several enormous drag marks, each over ten meters wide and hundreds of meters long. They had plowed brutally through the fields, churning all the nearly ripe crops into sludge.
The farmland around every drag mark had been burned to scorched earth, and those blackened patches covered almost half the Valley of the Wind.
Having read the original work, Mu En knew those were probably landing marks left by Tolmekian heavy transport ships.
But the question was, where were the people? Where had those arrogant, overbearing Tolmekian soldiers all gone?
The burned land, the pale and emaciated villagers, the vanished soldiers...
He was certain that the "Valley of the Wind" he was in was nothing like the harmonious, prosperous paradise of simple, honest people he remembered.
Judging by the devastation before him, far from a paradise, he would have believed they had just fought a hard battle.
Could this be the Valley of the Wind after the events of the film?
Puzzled, Mu En continued watching the crowd as they came to a stop at the far end of the square.
Ahead, the dark silhouette of a magnificent building happened to block the newly risen moon.
The base of the building alone stood dozens of meters high, and seemed to have been carved directly out of a cliff separate from the village's high ground.
The entire base covered an area nearly one-fifth the size of the village and was connected to the square by a single stone arch bridge.
Two towering windmill towers rose above the base, their enormous lattice-like sails turning at a leisurely pace and casting broad shadows over the square.
It was a castle, an enormous castle more than fifty meters tall.
It was Nausicaä's home, and also the actual center of the entire village.
Perhaps sensing that she was home, Nausicaä had already slowly awakened by the time the party reached the square.
"Grandpa Mito, please put me down."
"Your Highness, you fainted just now. You should let me..."
"I can still manage, and I have to announce this myself."
Though utterly exhausted, Nausicaä insisted that Mito put her down.
She knew that the more exhausted she was, the less she could afford to collapse now.
With Mito supporting her, she turned to face the smoke-blackened villagers and met their weary yet expectant gazes.
"Thank you, everyone! Thanks to your help, we saved the forest! Everyone who took part in fighting the disaster can collect an extra ration of food here shortly!"
The promise they had long awaited was finally fulfilled, and the thunderous cheers nearly shook the reddish-brown tiles off the rooftops.
Some were genuinely happy that the forest had survived, while more were excited that they would finally have enough to eat for the next few days.
The mood spread to everyone, and smiles blossomed on their weary faces.
Only Mito, who had removed his mask to reveal two thick black mustaches, kept muttering to himself.
"Ah, if the princess keeps handing it out like this, the food in the castle will soon..."
Still, he said it only to himself. He had offered similar warnings countless times before.
Under Nausicaä's direction, the castle guards with muskets on their backs quickly brought over food divided into small bags.
By Mu En's rough estimate, there wasn't much in each bag, probably only enough to feed one adult for three days.
The arrival of the food caused a commotion.
Feeling more and more weight pressing down on the arm supporting the princess, while the crowd collecting food continued to press together, a helpless Mito took a deep breath:
"Don't rush! There's enough for everyone. Line up and collect it one at a time, and once you've got yours, hurry home and eat!"
As the elder whose full-time duty was to assist the clan leader, and a comrade-in-arms of the old clan leader Jihl, Mito was second only to Nausicaä in authority in the valley.
At his urging, the crowd began coming forward in an orderly fashion to collect their food, then left together in twos and threes.
Soon, all the food had been handed out, and the square grew quiet.
Only then did Nausicaä pass through the castle gates, which stood more than three meters high, surrounded by several guards and the two elders, Mito and Gol.
"Phew... so much happened today."
The feeling of coming home finally allowed her nerves, which had been taut all day, to relax.