Chapter 420
Chapter 420
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Hide-and-Seek (1)
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Plop—
When he closed his eyes, the sound of a water droplet leaping onto the surface of a silent lake echoed.
Plop—
The faint touch of thin water brushing against his toes. Endless darkness. Wandering footsteps, and an unbelievable sense of comfort.
Plop—
Who am I? Where is this place? Why am I here, and where must I go?
As he wandered aimlessly, something out of place in this darkness-shrouded space broke through the water’s surface and rose up.
Old, very old. A shabby sofa, clearly bearing the marks of long use by someone.
The moment Hyde faced it, he felt his heart pounding with an inexplicable anxiety. The water’s surface rippled in time with his heartbeat.
‘Find it.’
A faint voice. From beneath the churning water, someone whispering.
Find what?
‘Find it, and return.’
Find what? Return where?
Plop—
Suddenly, Hyde recalled that this unfamiliar yet familiar space had been a bit more vibrant than this.
Yes. Behind that old sofa, something neatly arranged. In the sky, a small galaxy sparkling like jewels, like shards.
What could it be? Why did he feel this anxiety, this longing? For what? Exactly what?
‘Find it. Find ---.’
Who?
‘....Hyde.’
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****
He bolted upright!
With the blankets flung back in a snap, cool morning air brushed against his sweat-soaked back.
“....Ugh, damn it. That dream never changes, not even once.”
Hyde shook off the lingering emotions from the dream along with the tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
An orphan, Hyde had been plagued by this recurring nightmare for as long as he could remember.
No, calling it a nightmare was a bit off. After dreaming it, he felt anxious, restless, his heart pounding so he couldn’t stay still, but at the same time.... a longing and comfort from some unknown source followed in its wake.
[Find it. Find ---.]
[....Hyde.]
“....Damn. At least tell me what I’m supposed to find.”
Hyde muttered in response to the dream voice that echoed like an auditory hallucination.
He had to find ‘something.’
He didn’t know what it was, or who.
The only clue he could guess at was his heart, which sometimes raced like it had arrhythmia.
‘I don’t know, but the [Whisper] lodged somewhere in my head along with the nightmare does, and it knows what I need to find.’
‘When my body reacts, it means that’s news, an item, or a destination related to that [something].’
Relying on such vague speculation, he had wandered the shattered continent for 15 years now. The 13-year-old orphan boy who left his hometown had become a 28-year-old man with stubble upon waking, and the bright kid who once earned the full expectations of the priest had turned into a wandering shard hunter known by all as a ‘weirdo.’
‘Sigh. Such is my fate.’
Truth be told, he was half-resigned to never finding that ‘something,’ or escaping the cursed nightmare. He had roamed for 15 full years, surviving countless brushes with death, groping blindly through the world guided only by faint tremors in his heart to reach this point—but he still didn’t even know what he was searching for. Fifteen years of empty pursuits made it too long to move with any certainty.
“....What can you do. Guess I’m fated to live like this forever.”
Wandering cities, scraping together money desperately, spending it all on tickets for the mana train and moving again.
By now, he just accepted it. He had grown quite accustomed to the drifter’s life and even found some enjoyment in it.
For example.
-Clack.
Opening the door without a second thought like this,
“....Huh?”
“Huh?”
“You, youyouyou! You’re Hyde, right! Hyde!”
“Gah! Why the hell are you here?!”
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
He lunged!
“Gah hah hah! It’s Hyde alright! You bastard! Pay up, you trash!”
“Waaah!”
Running into an old connection he hadn’t expected, something like that.
****
“In the world, to think ‘Fidgety Hyde’ was at the same station and I didn’t even know!”
“Three years? You’re still kicking, Katur.”
“Says the guy who came all this way without turning into a debtor yourself. I figured you’d gotten caught freeloading and ended up in some labor camp by now.”
The bald man leaning against the staircase in the second-floor hall spotted me coming out of my room and barreled over, scooping me up in a hug.
Katur. The guy who got cursed out daily on cramped trains because he was half again taller than average.
“When’d you roll into Wigen?”
“Four days ago. You?”
“Two weeks. As you know, the ‘Dynamite Lady’ is an older mana train that needs frequent repairs.”
“Ah, that rough iron lady. She shakes like crazy—kinda scary.”
Katur had been an engineer on a train I rode briefly years ago. Times were tough, money was short, but his impulses and obsessions grew worse by the day, so he ended up handing over everything he had—and covering the shortfall with a month as an engineer—to board the ‘Dynamite Lady,’ the mana train his crew ran. And man, they worked him like a dog—nearly killed him. Slave drivers even Satan would envy.
“You still wake up early, huh.”
“You’re the last guy who should be up early. Do the ‘Dynamite Lady’ engineers pull night watches at stations too? Wigen hasn’t had any incidents.”
“It’s not about needing watches—it’s that without it, no one can sleep deeply. You know, right? You rode with us for a month.”
“Yeah, I did. I respect myself for lasting that long.”
The one perk for a drifter on the shattered continent was chances like this to run into old connections now and then. Mana trains ran fixed routes, and drifters hopped between them to roam the world. So staying at stations meant occasionally bumping into familiar faces.
“How’re Michi and Keilson? Last I saw, things between them were getting intense.”
“Keilson.... got off. Michi’s not great because of it.”
“Ah, damn.”
“He went out cool, at least. I recovered the body myself—guy was smiling. If he was satisfied, that’s what matters.”
Of course, most of the people he knew ended up as death notices.
To lighten the suddenly heavy mood, Katur boomed even louder.
“Ahem! Eulogies later when we’re off the train.... So, how’s that ‘search’ of yours going?”
“....No. Still don’t know what it is. Feels faintly closer, maybe.”
“Heh heh heh heh! Bet you it’s a woman. A woman, I tell you. Only a woman—your fated one at that—could rattle a man’s heart like this! Your destined mate, or maybe a mother you were forced to part from for some reason. One of those two—I’d stake my eye on it!”
“Hmm, dunno.”
‘A woman?’
....Thump. Thump.
Nah, doesn’t feel right.
‘....A mother?’
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Oh, a slight reaction there.
“....Both iffy. Since arriving in Wigen, these faint responses keep popping up randomly.”
“Weirdo. Anyway, hope you find it this time. Show me when you do. Pay up then.”
“Huh? Not now?”
“Forget it, man. Which engineer running Old Teldrat routes doesn’t know your wallet’s situation? Heard you blew a fortune on an express to Wigen again. Some call you the ‘Angel Who Brings Money.’ You scrape it together bone-tired just to blow it all on tickets. Hell, if it was Wigen-bound, why not wait and hop our loop? You know our route.”
“Uh, well.... That ‘impulse’ hit super strong all of a sudden. Felt pulled straight to Wigen, so I grabbed the first train before it vanished.”
“Oh, you idiot, moron, sucker....”
Katur pitied Hyde for tossing away enough cash to buy four or five houses in the city just because he was ‘in a hurry.’ He’d learned plenty about the guy’s bizarre ‘wanderlust’ during that month together on the train.
“....Still no thoughts on swearing loyalty and joining up somewhere?”
“Don’t wanna be tied down.”
“Even if it doesn’t interfere with your ‘wandering’?”
“Yeah.”
“Even if the famously elite Silver Lion Knights and their masters, the great noble Gainax family, are desperately seeking the ‘Aura-less Aura Knight’ who explored ruins with them?”
“That’s a hard no. Bailed with a ton of pricey artifacts. Their eyes were murder.”
“Hey, man, that’s—”
‘....An amount you could pay back in a month with the knights.’
Katur swallowed the words. Hyde knew damn well how huge the perks were for an Aura Knight tied to a territory.
Territory-bound Aura Knights rode all passing mana trains for free, could snag rare intercontinental ship tickets if needed, and got noble-level treatment: eye-popping salaries, exemptions, judicial rights, even ownership of small mineral zones or wastelands—benefits beyond imagination.
That’s why nobles coveted Aura Knights. Compared to Shard Knights—short-lived, constantly demanding expensive shards, prone to rampages—Aura Knights lived long, were stable, and loyal. Who nobles wanted by their side was obvious.
Short-lived Shard Knights were pricey expendable fighters; Aura Knights, treasured vassals. Long story short.
Someone of Hyde’s caliber? Any noble would snap him up. Handle big city jobs, take a month off to ‘search’—his wandering itch wouldn’t suffer. Hell, less time scraping fares might speed up the search.
‘No one as smart as Hyde in my life, so he knows all this without me saying.’
And yet the guy stuck to drifter life. What if a reaction hit mid-important job for a territory? Fifteen years of nothing, but what if that crucial ‘someone’ or ‘something’ passed by right then? Couldn’t be tied down for that.
“....Do what you want. Weirdo.”
“Thanks for thinking of me, Katur.”
Katur dropped it at the polite but firm refusal. Everyone had their path; if it was his choice, nothing to do.
“....Hey.”
“What now!”
“No, different thing....”
Katur yelled after Hyde, already heading off.
“Just curious, but if you actually find that ‘something’ you’re after, what’ll you do? Your dream only says find it—nothing about what next!”
“Oh, that?”
Hyde, who’d been a bit glum, brightened like he was glad someone asked and grinned.
“I’m gonna beat the crap out of it!”
“What? After all that hardship?”
“Exactly! Gonna pack 15 years of my misery into one massive ass-kicking!”
Hyde swung his fist like that someone was floating right there in the air, declaring it.
As he walked off, at the station fence he chatted with some noble brat who looked like a houseboy, then grabbed the kid by the scruff and dragged him off somewhere.
From afar came Hyde’s “Wahaha!” laugh and the boy’s faint “Newsboy—” protests.
“....Weird bastard.”
Katur had seen a lot of cities as an engineer, but never anyone like that.
Aura Knights he’d met all said, “I can feel his aura,” but the guy himself couldn’t use a speck of it. Yet his physical prowess, senses matched an Aura Knight’s, and his combat sense was off the charts—an utter freak.
With skills to claim a spot anywhere, for 15 years he scraped cash obsessively, blew it all on train tickets, and wandered ragged—just so he could bolt at a moment’s notice if that ‘important moment’ hit.
Claims he likes solo work, but lights up obviously when company’s around.
‘Aura-less Aura Knight,’ ‘Best Passenger in Old Teldrat Territory,’ ‘Mega-Sucker,’ ‘Fidgety Hyde,’ ‘Last Wandering Knight’....
Nicknames piled up with connections, known to everyone worth knowing in Old Teldrat.
Hyde. Aka, Pathfinder.
“....Total freak anyway.”
Chasing something he didn’t even know, desperately, endlessly.
Until he found it.
Or died.
“Least the journey ends either way.”
Katur shook his head, watching Hyde vanish like some kidnapper.
****