Tegami Bachi 23

International Translators / Scanlators: You're welcome to use this, but I'd appreciate it if you include a credit for Niphredil.

Line break: New speech bubble / text box within the same panel
Blank line: New panel
**Asterisked, purple: lines I wasn't sure about

-01-
Zaji: Chihaa!!
Zaji: It's Zaji, the Bee!
Zaji: I've come to collect your post!!

Woman: Zaji...!
Zaji: Hey there, Mrs. Hannah!
Zaji: Sorry I haven't come round lately!
Zaji: The Letters must've piled up, right?

Woman: That's the thing...
Woman: We'd gathered post from throughout the village when we thought you were coming, but...
Woman: It's all gone...
Zaji: !

Woman: The neighbourhood watch is looking into it at the moment...
Woman: Honestly, there really are some terrible people out there!
Vertical text: Lag's co-worker, Zaji, is on post collection duty!!

-02-
Zaji: ANOTHER Letter robbery?
Zaji: There sure have been a lot lately...

Zaji: Could that "Reverse" group have something to do with this too?
Zaji: What the hell...
Zaji: Do they seriously think they'll find Letters exposing government secrets, way out here in the sticks?

Zaji: ......

Zaji: Lag and Niche went off to the glacier village, following the Marauder's trail...

Zaji: It'd be better if it turns out to be nothing...

-03-
Name: Asada Hiroyuki
Text: Chapter 23: "Blue Notes Blues"
Lag: H...
Lag: Hey!!
Image text: Shedding light on Niche's background...?!
Lag: Wait up, Niche!!
[bottom right is adverts.]

-04-
Lag: What did you mean just now?!
Lag: When you said you were born here 200 years ago...
Lag: Niche?!

Niche: "About 200 years? Ago?"
Lag: Yes?
Niche: 2 years? Ago?
Lag: Huh?!
Lag: Um...

Lag: I don't really understand... (both answers are weird!)
Lag: But that village is your birthplace, right?

Lag: Does that mean you've known about it this whole time?

Niche: It's when Niche was a babe!
Lag: Babe...? Baby...?
Lag: Then... you remember stuff from when you were a baby?!

Niche: Somehow I do. Because I was a babe!
Lag: ...do you actually remember anything?...

-05-
Lag: But... Well, maybe there'll be people who know about you!
Lag: We'll ask around once we reach the village...
Niche: Lag...

Niche: It'd be better
Niche: If you didn't say anything about Niche

Lag: Huh...
Lag: Niche?!
Lag: ?!

Lag: ......
Lag: A cave...?
Man: HEY!!!

-06-
Man: What are you doing over there?!
Man: Don't get any closer to the sacred ground!!
Lag: Wh... Oh... I'm sorry!!

Man: ...Hey
Man: He's not from our town!!
Man: He's...

Man: He's a Letter Bee!!
Lag: Huh...?

Guy: Right this way, right this way!!

-07-
Guy: The mayor will be here right away!
Guy: We apologise for our impoliteness in not realising you were travellers!
Lag: It... It's nothing...

Guy: You really outdid yourself, coming all the way out here to us in the borderlands!
Lag: Y... Yes
Guy: Now, please! Sit yourself down!!
Guy: You must have been freezing!
Guy: You must be hungry, right?!
Guy: Why don't you try some of this freshly caught sliced Piko Piko fish!
Guy: And then some Freeze Burger, and Ice Potato, and Ice Strawberry, and...
Lag: Ah... No, that's okay—

Lag: Y...
Lag: You really didn't have to...

Mayor: Well then, how about some Ice Wine?
Lag: Alcohol?!

-08-
Mayor: Oh my, do excuse me!!
Mayor: I thought you'd be older, is all...

Mayor: I'm Harry Tonov, the mayor!
Mayor: Welcome to the glacier village, Blue Notes Blues!

Lag: I'm Lag Seeing, a Bee!

Lag: This is my Dingo—

Lag: !!!

-09-
ずわいがには！！？
**Lag: SNOWCRAB?!
[Okay... I... have no idea what's going on here. There's either some phrase that closely corresponds to this, or he's yelling it in fright at the feeling of cold claws sticking into his shoulder.]
Mayor: Wha?!

Lag: Niiiiiiche!! Claws!! Your claws!! Your claws are digging into my shoulder!!!

Mayor: I... Is this one to your liking?
Text: He's a little selfish...
Lag: Ah... No... Huh?! Snow crab?
Lag: I don't need snow crab!

Lag: This is my Dingo, Niche, and Steak.
Lag: Sorry, she's very shy...
Mayor: Ahh!! What a stunning young woman you are, despite being so young!!

Mayor: That goes for you too, Mr. Seeing!
Mayor: You did well to walk the difficult path of Elk's Head! That one is difficult even for native villagers...

Lag: Oh... thank you! But...
Lag: ......

-10-
Lag: The sight of... "that"...
Lag: ......
Lag: Really... shocked me...

Mayor: "That"?
Mayor: Ohh!

Mayor: You must be talking about the ice antlers at Elk's Head!
Mayor: Though it's a common sight here!

Lag: ...So they really haven't noticed "that"...!!
Lag: I still don't know what it actually is... so it's best if I keep quiet about it...

Lag: S... So!! About the "man dressed in black"...

-11-
Mayor: Ah yes...
Mayor: It seems that this man here saw him.
Man: Yes! He was with a girl wearing all-white clothes!

Lag: Y... Yes, that person!!
Lag: That person, where was he, and what was he doing...?

Man: I came back here first because I thought I needed to report it to the Mayor
Man: But by the time I went back there, he had already disappeared...

Man: It was on the same glacier lake path you walked along.
Man: He was heading on foot to the cave ahead.

Lag: That big cave..!!
Lag: Thank you very much!! I'll go and investigate immediately!!
Lag: Let's go, Niche!!

-12-
Mayor: Wait!!!

Mayor: To us, that cave is above all sacred ground!!
Mayor: I cannot allow you to enter, even if you ARE from the government!!

Mayor: Also... I don't know who that man was, but...
Mayor: If he did in fact enter the cave, he will not escape unscathed...
Mayor: In any case...

Mayor: Because that cave is the underground lake abode of "Maka"...
Mayor: A road connected to Blue Notes Blues...
Lag: ?!

Lag: ......
Lag: M... Maka?!

Lag: You know where...
Lag: The legendary creature lives?!

Mayor: Of course.
Mayor: After all, there is a legend handed down in this village...

Man: You see, our mayor comes from a long line of mayors here, the office passed on from father to son.
Man: It was around Old Man Hii's time that a scholar came here to listen to the story for the book he was writing.

Lag: This book... I've read it before, at the Bee Hive...

Box: Vicious, yet beautiful...
Box: The intelligent, illusive creature, "Maka"...

-14-15-
Box: In the far distant past
Box: It is said that separated by a lake, "Maka" and "Humans" coexisted
Box: Acknowledging each other's existence.

Box: Large numbers of Blue Notes Blues inhabitants were witness
Box: To the wondrous sight, gleaming yellow and soaring through the dark sky.

Box: "Humans" worshipped "Maka" as a sacred being.
Box: "Maka", as a protector of this land, looked favourably on the "Heart" of "Humans".

Box: Yes...

-16-
Box: That is...
Box: Until the "Corrupted Heart" came into being... (excerpt from Edouard Cezanne's "Hint of Maka")
Lag: "Corrupted Heart"...?
この里のあさはなかる者が
**Mayor: A person from this village, who would not see another day
[Went with this since I assume he's referring to Celica who had been injured and was on the verge of death...]

Mayor: Ate the "Forbidden Fruit", which one must never eat.
Mayor: Maka was disappointed by this
Mayor: And she never appeared before humans again.

Mayor: We want to recreate an environment in which we can once again coexist with Maka!!
Mayor: We have been putting forth great efforts every day in order to become righteous humans that Maka can acknowledge.

-17-
Mayor: If you want to become cursed, then that's your choice...
Mayor: But do not forget that in this land, Maka is a god.
Mayor: Mr. Seeing.

Lag: C... Cursed...?!
Mayor: This is the historical record left in our village.
Mayor: I'm sure you'll understand the things I've told you once you read it.

Mayor: Anyway... Please take it easy and rest today.

-18-
Box: Around two hundred years ago...

Box: Blue Notes Blues was wracked with famine...

-19-
Box: The geothermal heat disappeared from the village entirely
Box: And the few fields there froze over.

Box: Many people died.

Box: Among the survivors
Box: There was a woman
Box: Called Celica, who had a child growing in her womb.

Text: "Beneath the ground, where Maka lives, there is a lake."
Text: "If you drink that water, you will live for a thousand years."

Box: A bedtime story, borne of ravenous Hearts...
Box: However...

-20-
Box: Celica, hanging greedily onto life
Box: Made her way to the cave, in which humans had never set foot, holding it to be sacred ground...

Box: She set foot in the cave...

Box: As time had passed, the geothermal heat had slowly been regenerating.
Box: The famine was halted.
Box: Humans were able to support themselves.

Box: However, one day
Box: Celica returned.

-21-
Box: Without saying a word to anyone
Box: Celica continued living for a few months, without even eating
Box: As soon as she had given birth, she died.

Box: Everyone who saw *that*
Box: Knew that "humans" had been cursed.

Box: That dreadful *thing* which Celica's corrupted Heart had given birth to
Box: Were twins...

-22-
Box: The cursed twins, who resembled Maka
Box: With "sea-blue eyes" and "golden hair"
Lag: !!!

Box: And "beast claws"...

Box: ...Lived for twenty years, accepting only water,
Box: And remained in the form of children...

Box: And then, one day, they disappeared without warning.
Lag: ......
Lag: Was Niche...
Lag: Really born... two hundred years ago...?
Lag: As a...

-23-
Lag: Cursed...
Lag: Child...?

Lag: Ah—

Lag: It went back in...
Lag: ......

Lag: Owahhh!
Lag: Two...

Lag: ......

Text: If saying "Goodbye" will make you sad...
Text: Then Niche will stay by your side

-24-
Lag: Uu...

Lag: What am I worrying about?!
Lag: Niche is my precious friend!!
Lag: There's no way Niche is a cursed child!!!

Niche: Lag!
Niche: Are we going investigating?

Niche: In that
Niche: Gave!!

Lag: ......
Lag: Niche... It's "cave"...

-25-
Lag: Niche... do you remember this village?

Niche: Niche was a babe...
Niche: But...
Niche: Somehow, I've got a bad feeling about it...

Lag: I'm sorry, Niche...
Lag: For bringing you to this place we know nothing about...
Niche: It's fine

Niche: Niche is Lag's Dingo!
Niche: If Lag goes somewhere
Niche: Niche'll go together with him wherever he's going!

-26-
Niche: ......
Niche: ...Lag?

Lag: Thanks...
Lag: Niche...

Lag: Let's go...
Lag: Together...

-27-
Lag: Let's go...
Lag: To Maka's Cave!!

Mayor: ?!

Mayor: Those kids...
Mayor: ...!!

-28-
Mayor: ...It can't be...

Mayor: That...
Mayor: Dingo girl...

Lag: These are... huge traces of something being dragged...

Lag: There really is something in here...!
Lag: Let's go, Niche!!

-29-
Lag: Amazing!... Pillars of ice...
Lag: It's an ice tunnel!

Lag: !!

-30-
Lag: G...
Lag: Gaichuu?!

Lag: It...
Lag: It's...
Lag: ......

-31-
[no text]

-32-
Lag: F...
Lag: Frozen...
Lag: Gaichuu?!

Niche: Lag!
Lag: Niche!!
Lag: ?!

Niche: The biggest, fattest pillar
Niche: Is broken!!

-33-
Lag: Here too...
Lag: Cartridges from Gauche's Heart Bullet Gun!!

Lag: They look a little different from regular Gaichuu, but...
Lag: These and the one on Elk's Head must be Gaichuu too!!

Lag: Did Gauche lure that one away from here...?!

Lag: I get it!
Lag: To defeat a Gaichuu, you have to make the Heart within their bodies cry out...

Lag: These Gaichuu, frozen like this...
Lag: Are still alive!!

-34-
Lag: ......
Lag: Niche?!

Lag: ......
Lag: Niche...?

-35-
Lag: An underground lake...

-36-37- and -38-
[nothing, just ffffffff]

-39-
Lag: Is...
Lag: Is that...
Lag: M...
Lag: Maka...?!

Lag: N... Niche!!
Lag: We don't know what type of creature it is
Lag: Get back!!

Sis: Oh my... This is certainly a sup—
Sis: Surprise...
Sis: Ahh...
Sis: Visitors.

-40-
Sis: It's been about two hundred years, hasn't it
Sis: Little sister....
Text: Her twin older sister... but with a bunch of huge differences?!

Text: Tegami Bachi – to be continued.