Day One of the Journey: I Pick Up a Child
That child was definitely the one the merchant had been keeping, wasn't he?
Jagged black hair stuck out in every direction. His body was a map of wounds, and chains hung from his arms, his legs, and his neck.
Yes. It was the same child I had seen in front of the checkpoint. The clouded eyes that had been waiting on death were gone. Now he was looking at me with eyes that actually held life.
Had he liked my performance? Well... I am rather good at singing.
I nodded, thoroughly pleased with myself. I was a witch who had lived two hundred years. How could there be anything I couldn't do?
Still... the child was a slave. How had he gotten out of the iron cage?
Had he broken free on his own, for the sake of freedom? Even as I wondered, he only stood there, watching me in silence.
"Mm... did you have something you wanted to say?"
"Ah... uh... ah."
His stare was so heavy that I was the one who spoke first. But words did not come easily from the child's mouth.
More precisely, he had no ability to speak at all.
"Hold still for a moment."
"Ah... uh... eh."
I stepped in close, opened his mouth, and looked inside.
Where a tongue ought to have been, there was nothing. Who would do a thing like this?
He was a child who still belonged in his mother's arms, and someone had cut out his tongue. The thought burned straight through me.
"Taken an interest in the boy, have you?"
As if he had chased the child all the way here, the merchant—the one with that memorable brown beard—was coming toward me.
At his sides, like bodyguards, walked two men thick with muscle.
"Mister. Did you cut out this child's tongue?"
"I asked first."
He crumpled his face as though he were the offended party. Anyone watching would have taken him for an upstanding man.
"...Yes. It came up rather suddenly. Now answer my question."
"Did I cut out his tongue... Yeah. I did. The boy's a Cursed Child. Broke out of the iron cage himself, too. With his own arms."
What was a Cursed Child, that he would say a thing like that?
"A Cursed Child? Is that a problem?"
"Miss, you been living buried out in the woods? You really don't know a thing? A child cursed by the Demon King."
The Demon King?
At those words, a conversation with my mother from when I was small rose up in me.
Sleep simply would not come that night. Rain fell in a frightening downpour, and the sky was black. To soothe me, Mother told an old story.
"Daughter, do you know about the Demon King?"
"The Demon King... the king of the demonkin?"
"Yes. My daughter is clever."
She told me of him. King of the demonkin and their ruler, a being who wielded tremendous mana and magic.
"It was after the Demon King's fall that we witches were hunted."
Two hundred years ago—more precisely, before I was even born—the Demon King was slain by the Hero, and the demonkin declined with terrible speed. The witches, close as they were to the demonkin, could not escape the aftermath. That was how the witch hunts began.
Before he died, the Demon King left his curse as a gift to humankind.
And so the Cursed Children were born. In childhood they wore a human shape, but once they grew, they became monsters. A horrific curse.
"Well? Now you know who you're protecting, don't you, miss? So I'd appreciate it if you'd take your hands off my property."
The merchant flicked his hand as if to tell me to know my place, motioning for me to step away from the child.
...Even so, was it right to treat a small child this way? He hadn't been born because he wanted a curse.
The people who had been my audience began to turn their eyes back on us, drawn by the conversation.
"Ah... uh... ah."
Contempt, unease, anger, terror, dread—so many eyes, each carrying its own feeling, fixed upon the child.
Those gazes must have frightened him. He caught hold of my clothes and pressed himself close against me.
What would Mother have done...?
I closed my eyes and thought.
"Daughter, if there are people who need help, you ought to help them."
"Why? The people outside are trying to kill us..."
"Hmm..."
Mother seemed to sink into thought. Then she looked at the ring on her ring finger and spoke.
"The world isn't made of bad people alone, Daughter. So if there is someone who needs help..."
I didn't even need to think about it.
It felt like hypocrisy. I decided to do it anyway.
Hypocrisy, too...
was still a kind of good.
"I'll buy him."
"...What?"
The merchant's eyes twitched. A hollow laugh slipped out of him. He clearly hadn't expected me to say it.
"Miss, you even got the money? Back at the checkpoint you were scribbling up some contract... If you're truly short on coin, you could always settle it with your body—"
"If it's money, I earned some just now."
Before anything filthier could leave his mouth, I handed over the coins the audience had given me.
Eleven copper, and five silver.
It wasn't enough to buy a slave. But this child was a Cursed Child—unsellable goods, rotten stock.
Figuring he ought to be rid of the boy even cheaply, the merchant snatched the money and passed me a sheet of parchment.
"Should've said so sooner. Pleasure doing business."
He turned his manner inside out as easily as flipping a palm. Watching him, I found myself disliking humans a little more.
"What is this parchment?"
"Ah, that's the parchment with the slave's ownership written on it. Give the slave any order you like and he'll obey. For example..."
He broke off and shouted at the child.
"Get down!"
Thud.
"Ah...! ...uh..."
Just as the merchant had said, the child dropped flat in an instant. He seemed bewildered by his own body, and the pain showed all over him.
"Stop that. He's mine now."
"Ah... right. Just an example. Do business with me again sometime."
With that, he gathered his men and strolled off as if nothing had happened.
I was checking the child before the merchant had even fully vanished.
He must have thrown himself down too suddenly. His knees and palms were torn and bleeding, and his arms and legs were a mess of scrapes, abrasions, and fine old scars.
A child who had gone without food for a long time. His body had wasted down to skin and bone.
I lost the words for it. I was beginning to hate humans.
A soft rush of air—and I drew the red potions I had stored in Subspace, bringing one to the child's mouth.
"Ah... ah... uh?"
"Drink. Then it won't hurt."
He didn't know what a potion was, and the question was plain on his face, but I told him to drink anyway. I pulled the stopper. Red liquid ran down his throat.
Gulp.
Gulp.
He drank without much resistance. The change came a few seconds later.
Red light seeps through the child's wasted body. The blood at his hands stills, and torn flesh begins to knit.
Effect:Closes wounds and stops bleeding
Duration:Instant
"Ah... ack."
The mending must have hurt. He groaned. Just bear it a little. I don't like watching things in pain either.
The brief sound of suffering passed, and the child's wounds had closed completely. Scars remained, but the wounds being gone mattered more.
A metallic click. I undid the chain wrapped around his neck. There, too, were torn skin and red scars left by the links.
"...Mage. That isn't— a potion, is it?"
One of the people who had been watching asked it with a startled face. What was the matter with him?
"Yes. Why?"
I gathered the child into my arms and turned a cold look on them. I wanted to be gone from the capital.
This place was full of nothing but beasts that had only half managed to become human.
"Where did you buy that...? A potion they don't even sell in the Empire..."
"I made it myself."
"You made it?"
They wore the look of people certain it couldn't be so, and started glancing at one another. Why were they acting as if they'd never seen a potion before?
In the middle of all that mutual hesitation, a young girl was the first to speak.
"Um... big sister, could you maybe sell me a potion?"
She was the girl who had stood at my performance, clapping and cheering.
"You want me to sell you a potion?"
"Yes... My mom is sick... She's hurting right now..."
She trailed off and bowed her head. Had the thought of her mother sunk her into sadness?
I can't let my heart go soft. There are only beasts here.
"...How sick is she?"
"She... she hasn't opened her eyes in a month."
"...Lead the way."
"Y-yes!"
I followed the girl toward her house. No one else in the crowd came near me. It was because of the child in my arms.
"This... is it."
A little way out from the city inside the citadel, houses of packed earth and straw came into view. Homes of commoners who did not belong to the city proper.
The earth and straw stank. Cracks split the walls that held the houses up, and they looked ready to come down at any moment.
"Hold."
⟨ Hold ⟩
The moment I spoke, the walls of the house began to brace themselves. A spell to keep it from falling.
"Big sister... is this magic?"
"Yes. It's magic."
"Then... could I use it too?"
The difficult question pulled me into thought. I could not feel much mana from the girl. In other words, no talent.
I ought to have said something realistic and kept her feet out of the world of magic. Instead I gave her hope.
"Of course. Magic is open to anyone."
"Really? When I grow up, I'm going to be a mage just like you! A mage who makes people happy."
"Ah... uh... ah."
The black-haired child opened his mouth as if he agreed with her.
My stomach turned.
Lying for the sake of a child's heart...
Was the burn in my gut only my imagination, because I had lied? Or was it that I simply couldn't lie?
I needed to focus on what was in front of me.
"So where is your mother?"
"Ah! She's inside. Come this way."
I followed her into the hut, and a rotten stench rose to meet me.
So this smell had been reaching all the way outside.
I came face to face with its source.
"Mom, I brought a mage big sister... Big sister, please cure my mom..."
"..."
The girl's mother, who was already a corpse.
