The air from the south had carried a faintly different smell since morning.
The pond’s surface was restless. Though there was no wind, the sacred rope on the Dragon God’s shrine swayed . Kopo sat on the edge of the curb, watching the swaying, arms crossed. He’d meant to strike a cool pose, but somehow he wasn’t in the mood for it.
“Spice, some device of yours was making noise.”
Passing in front of the workshop, he thought he heard a thin alarm sound. Spice didn’t even turn around, answering while staring at the screen of his wave sensor .
“A distant sea is stirring. Central pressure, nine hundred and five hectopascals.”
Kopo didn’t understand what the numbers meant, but Spice’s voice was lower than usual.
At the base of the weeping cherry tree, Sonchō was flipping through an old, weathered weather notebook. Fine figures lined the brown, sun-faded paper.
“Is this year’s the one they’re calling Shinrakou?”
“Yeah. For it to reach this scale in April — this is only the second time on record.”
Sonchō closed the notebook and looked toward the distant south.
“It had been growing, this whole time, at the bottom of a sea no one was watching. Diving into warm water, unnoticed by anyone, just turning, and turning. Not trying to prove what it was — just growing larger.”
Kopo silently watched the surface of the pond. Ripples kept vanishing and being born again.
“…That’s kind of cool.”
“Feh-feh.”
Sonchō narrowed his eyes.
“A power that isn’t meant for anyone to see — there’s no stopping something like that. Even the Dragon God might be watching that child right now with a slightly troubled look.”
The pond’s water stirred again. Spring light broke apart and sank to the bottom like bubbles. Kopo stood up and, for no particular reason, straightened his back just a little.
Margin note: That night, the light in Spice’s workshop never went out. On the sensor’s screen, the waves of the southern sea kept arriving, quietly, without end.
【Today’s Drop】
- Typhoon No. 4, “Shinrakou”: A violent typhoon that formed in April 2026. Reaching a central pressure of 905 hPa and maximum wind speeds of 60 m/s, it became only the second typhoon on record to develop into a violent-class storm in April, after Typhoon No. 2 in 2021. It was moving north from the Mariana Islands toward the Ogasawara Islands.
This is an English translation of “四月の底力”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).