The White Wind Howls (22)
The White Wind Howls (22)
#113
"Honestly, I've never once seen you sleep properly."
Lily said it with a soft laugh.
"But Miss Lily, you're out here too, and you haven't slept either."
"Rubel stole my tent. I was just wandering around."
"I imagine Lady Estelle would have yielded hers to you."
"I don't like accepting help from that woman."
Just how much did she hate Estelle?
"If you really have nowhere to sleep, you can use my sleeping bag."
"Well, from what I saw last time, you can sleep fine on dirt so long as you've got a busty woman to bang. Right?"
Um.
Lily, did you have to put it like that... though I couldn't exactly refute it.
"You hold grudges longer than I expected."
"What? I don't hold grudges at all. And who you sleep with is your own business. I don't carry that sort of thing around in my heart."
"........."
The night air felt especially cold tonight. I pressed myself right up against the rock she was sitting on and settled in beside her.
"Ah, it's cramped— move over."
Ignoring her, I planted my hip right against hers. Lily let out a long sigh.
"Hah... how did I end up tangled with a man like this?"
"You're telling me. I wish I were a bit more of a remarkable man. Ah, I'm craving a cigarette———"
"You smoke normally?"
"No, almost never. I'm just missing it today, for some reason."
"I see."
"Anyway, it turns out they do have cigarettes even in Arcanum. I'd met so few mages before that I didn't even know whether such things existed here."
Lily laughed lightly and answered.
"Well, people are the same everywhere. You know what? My mother was a smoker too."
Sione Rosenheim... wasn't she an authority in the medical arts?
"Though hers were absurdly expensive cigarettes. The kind you probably couldn't get below Arcanum even if you offered money."
"A doctor... I mean, in modern terms, someone who heals people's bodies, yet she still did something so unhealthy. Bold of her."
"When you stop and think about it, it's not really like that. Have you ever heard of a mage dying from smoking?"
True enough. Since they live exactly as long as the lifespan recorded in the Book of Fate, something like smoking made no difference anyway.
Lily continued with a faint smile.
"You know what? How a mage knows when they die."
"I heard somewhere that it's when the lifespan recorded in the Book of Fate runs out. I heard it from someone once."
"Right. But normally, when you hear something like that, don't you get curious?"
"About what?"
"That you know when you're going to die. Aren't you curious when I'll die?"
"........."
Now that she mentioned it. If I were a proper mage... and I knew when I was going to die... every single day would feel terrifying.
"I don't particularly want to know. Because I don't want to part with you, Miss Lily. I think I'd be much more at ease if I died before you."
"Haha! You really do talk pretty. So the correct answer iiis— I don't know either."
Why was 'I don't know' the correct answer?
"A mage is only made to confirm the lifespan recorded in the Book of Fate right before they die. For reference, my mother received hers by letter. Her lifespan, I mean."
I turned my head to look at her, and her eyes were those of someone gazing at a person she missed. Very much so—
"Regrettably, my mother never got to fulfill her full lifespan. A war broke out, and she was murdered by a fellow countess."
"Etchellan, then."
"......... That's right. I don't particularly resent them now, though. That person going insane wasn't their own fault. It's been so long now that I'm not even sure I was ever truly angry."
Plop!
Lily picked up one of the stones scattered around and hurled it into the river.
"Well, their daughter is still fucking obnoxious. She chooses only the most infuriating things to say."
"Did you ever consider turning back time to stop it?"
"...... I tried, over and over. But nothing ever changed. Turning back time isn't all-powerful like in novels."
"Then... just how many times have you turned back time up to now?"
Lily giggled and answered.
"Who knows... I'm not sure myself. I started forgetting from the middle onward. Why, are you curious what happened in all that time?"
"Well, if there were any entertaining stories in between, maybe you could share a few. I can't sleep anyway. Preferably, tell me a story where I was cool."
Plop!
Once again, a small stone sent ripples across the calm river.
"Why not. Then I'd better start with this story. The one where you bawled your eyes out."
"What? I did that?"
"Yeah. It's a pretty old memory, but... hmm— I think it was when the two of us were on our way somewhere and fought Lamerian's daughter."
Perked up.
With my ears pricked, I listened intently to her story.
"I got stabbed by that bitch's spear at the time. And you went completely hysterical, crying and wailing. Like, 'Lilyyyyyyy don't dieeeee!' you sobbed. Even though it was just my belly getting stabbed a little."
Isn't that a major wound...
"It was a total mess, tears and snot everywhere."
I could still cry for you even now, damn it. Though I wouldn't get to the snot part.
"The next one... ah! It was when we went out as a four-person expedition like this time. Back then, I wasn't really having much sex with you. So you must have been seriously pent up. You were jerking off alone in your tent and got caught by Estelle, and you were totally deflated for a whole week."
Did such a timeline actually exist? I was dead serious—I was so incredibly glad this wasn't that timeline.
"Haha. Why the face? Astonishingly, everything I've said so far is all true. Don't believe me? I'll bet my ov— no, I don't have balls, so should I bet my womb?"
"Haa... Fine. I get it. Then tell me a cool story too, please. There's got to be at least one, right?"
Plop!
Lily tossed another small stone and spoke.
"A story where you were cool... well, there are plenty. Which one to start with..."
The ripples from the stone sinking into the river spread faintly, all the way to our feet submerged in the water.
"Hey, do you know the name of this river?"
"How could I possibly know."
"This is called the Letherion River. To be precise, this is the upstream that feeds into it."
"A great river? Isn't that a name only given to truly massive rivers? I didn't know there was a river that big in Arcanum. Wasn't this place just an island slightly larger than Seoul Special City?"
Lily burst out laughing.
"Haha. Hahahahaha! You really are an idiot. Idiot, idiot. If this place were only as big as Seoul on the surface world, wouldn't our expedition have ended ages ago?"
True enough... if Arcanum were really only as big as Seoul, we would have arrived at the whatever's house several days ago.
"Arcanum's boundary has an incredibly powerful spatial distortion spell laid over it. You can think of it as a kind of compression magic. Long ago, Etchellan of the Void brought it here by borrowing a Duke's power. A whole continent from another dimension, no less."
"No wonder it seemed a bit big for just an island. It took over forty minutes from the Academy Infirmary to Astravia Hall."
"Couldn't that just be because the perceived time felt long? Time usually doesn't pass quickly inside a school."
No, it really was that far.
"Anyway. Back to the point: this Letherion River is an enormous river that cuts across Arcanum from east to west."
"So what does this river have to do with me?"
"Since ancient times, there's been one legend about this river."
"A legend?"
"Yeah. The legend that the souls and remnants of all dead mages flow along this river and break apart. Once, you claimed you were going to defeat a Great One and pulled out all the water from this river."
"Why would you do something like that?"
"I dunno? You must have thought the power of souls was in the river water or something. But seriously, as if a river would really hold souls. The result was you getting utterly beaten."
"How is that a cool story?"
"I told you, you pulled out all the water from the river. That scene was really something back then. All the river water of an entire continent—— you lifted it all into the sky and literally poured it back down. There was so much water in the sky that lightning struck too. I think I saw a lifetime's worth of water that day."
......... That was actually kind of cool.
"There were plenty of other cool scenes besides that. Hmm, but let's stop this story here. Cool scenes are supposed to come out better when you've got imagination, right? If you get spoiled, it won't be fun for either of us."
If you put it that way.
"So, what made you crawl all the way out here?"
Crawl out here, she said...
"What kind of worry brought you all the way out here, I mean. Earlier you were saying how you craved a cigarette."
"It's nothing. Kind of hard to explain— my head was just tangled up. Everyone has moments like that, right?"
"Why are you beating around the bush? You came out because you got a headache thinking about me, didn't you?"
Yes. I could not exactly say that.
"Or did Lucien refuse to have sex with you? You poor thing. What a shame you can't get laid. You must have been looking forward to it a lot."
"That's not it at all."
"It so is it. Look at you, itching to go. If I spread my legs right here, you'd say let's do it right away."
Ha. I wasn't that much of a monkey, you know.
"Don't agonize over it so much. There are far too many things in this world that can't be resolved by your strength alone."
"........."
"I'm telling you this because I've lived a long time, but in the end, time is the cure. Once enough time passes, the painful things turn out to be nothing at all."
Surely, in Lily's blue eyes as she murmured those words, a very weary soul must have lingered.
"So here is why I'm telling you this— perhaps not enough time has passed for me yet, either. I'm still not used to parting with you."
The color of her hair glinting in the moonlight— perhaps that was the very color of Lily's soul.
"I'm... scared. That in the end, as time goes by, I'll give up on you."
"Give up, you say."
"Maybe it would have been easier to just sacrifice you at that house. You always tried to sacrifice yourself in the end. I keep wondering if we started a needlessly difficult fight."
What was her intention in telling me that?
Was she telling me to die, or pleading with me to live?
"I'm so tired now too... that I don't really know what'll happen next. Or how much longer I can keep fighting..."
Perhaps she had reached a state where she didn't even know what she was saying herself. Thinking that Lily had crumbled that far made a part of my chest ache as if it were stinging.
Lily leaned her small head against my shoulder.
"Hey... even as time passes, will I be able to stay the same?"
"To me, Miss Lily, you are simply you. Honestly, the image of you back when you were a ten-year-old little girl sticks more in my memory. Though it's a memory only a few days old for me... that image just had a stronger impact."
"Why are you talking around it... I asked if I'll stay the same."
I wrapped my arm around Lily's shoulder and spoke.
"That, I wouldn't know. Still, there is one thing I want to tell you."
"What."
I caught my breath for a moment, then spoke quietly.
"Even if you change, Miss Lily— that too will still be you."
Lily's breath stopped, ever so faintly.
"Heh-heh, what's that supposed to mean."
Once again, the moonlight shattered upon the river's surface.
"So... if someday, truly, a moment comes when you come to let go of me—"
I tightened my arm a little more around her shoulder.
"I would ask you not to call that giving up."
"Okay... I won't call it giving up."
"That is more than enough for me."
...... Leaning on each other's shoulders, we gazed up at the moon in the night sky.
Where had the cold air gone? Only the warmth of that small woman remained, carrying itself into my body.
For a long while, we said nothing at all.
Only the sound of the river water kept flowing in a steady rhythm.
Lily's head moved ever so slightly on my shoulder.
Perhaps it was not a conscious movement.
"Miss Lily."
"Yeah."
She answered, but still kept her head resting on my shoulder.
"If you stay here much longer, you'll catch a cold."
"Mages don't get sick."
"That's a new bit of lore I'm hearing for the first time."
"It's the truth."
Along with that brief answer, Lily's small hand gripped my wrist.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world for it to be there.
"Hey..."
"Yes."
"I might be... getting hungry for sex soon."
"...... Why?"
"Just— because I'm too lonely."
"........."
"Please don't ask any more questions today, and just have sex with Lily."
The pure-white soul reflected in the moonlight
quietly leaned against me.