Departure
For several days after the blessing backfired, I’d lain in a sickbed.
Then came the days spent sailing toward Laxia.
During that time, I worked hard to learn the demons’ way of communicating.
The aftereffects of the blessing that had put me in bed were now only a faint trace, nothing serious enough to keep me from moving, but they still gnawed at the back of my mind with a persistent little scratch.
More than anything, not being able to communicate properly had started to feel increasingly frustrating.
As a result, I’d managed to end on a high note.
I still couldn’t understand an entire sentence at once, but I could at least tell what people were talking about.
For example, if someone said, “The apples are really cheap and delicious,” what reached me was more like: “Apples, cheap, delicious.”
It was a somewhat defective sort of information, broken into fragments and missing the connective tissue.
But the intent comes through so directly that it’s enough to understand the meaning.
In some ways, it was even easier than conversation.
Piecing together fragmented information only required enough vocabulary to read the context.
And even someone like me, who’d lived a life far removed from education, had that much vocabulary.
I still lacked experience, so sometimes I couldn’t read things properly, and sometimes my own words still didn’t get across, but that would improve little by little, so I wasn’t too worried.
“An… ambush?”
That was why I could understand Celine’s devastated voice as she looked at the corpses.
“No.”
I walked closer to one of the bodies sprawled along the beach.
It had begun to rot a little, but it still retained its shape well enough that I could guess the cause of death.
“If there aren’t any major wounds, I don’t think that’s it.”
The other corpses I’d glanced at were the same.
There were small injuries here and there, but nothing severe enough to explain death.
“Ugh…!”
Daeun kept gagging.
Well, of course. Daeun was an Earthling—what kind of life had she led that she’d ever have seen something like this?
Unless she’d lived in a conflict zone, but that didn’t seem likely either.
And though she wasn’t as badly hit as Daeun, Celine looked deeply shaken too.
“Then why are there so many people…?”
“Who knows.”
I’d only just arrived myself.
“We’ll have to find out now.”
What they’d died from.
And why the bodies had been left here like this.
...Do demons not have funerary customs?
That didn’t seem quite right, considering I’d seen Atisha running around busily, gathering up the dead.
The more I thought about it, the deeper the whole thing seemed to sink into a maze, so I forced myself to stop thinking for a moment.
By then, Daeun had finally stopped retching and was shuffling toward me, half bent over.
“Ugh, hhh… Cana. Are you okay…?”
“I’m used to it.”
It wasn’t as if this was the first time I’d seen a corpse in decomposition, and I’d been seeing them on and off since I was little. It was almost funny to make such a fuss over a few dead bodies.
I’d seen much worse than this.
More importantly, if I started heaving like Daeun after running wild on a battlefield, the dead bastards would laugh at me.
...
I didn’t regret killing them. If I hadn’t, they’d have killed me instead.
And yet sometimes I couldn’t help thinking: what if I’d listened to Dad and lived a peaceful life like he wanted?
Of course, even if I went back, I’d probably make the same choice all over again, but still—thinking about it didn’t cost anything, did it?
I let out a short breath and turned in a slow circle.
Celine, eyes closed, praying for the dead. Daeun, pale-faced.
Looking at the ring on Daeun’s finger, which now glowed far more brightly than before, I said, “We don’t have time. Let’s move.”
It was tragic, yes, but we couldn’t stand around here mourning forever.
That wasn’t why we’d come all the way here from the far eastern edge in the first place.
Whether we wanted to or not, once we reached the center, we’d learn the truth.
If Atisha was right, there seemed to still be demons alive there.
“U-um….”
...
I looked up at Daeun worriedly as she answered in a daze, like someone who’d lost half her soul.
Will she be okay…?
I’d dragged her along because I wanted to, but seeing how unsettled she looked made me wonder if I shouldn’t have brought her after all.
“Should I send you back now?”
The boat Atisha had taken was already quite far away, but I thought we might still be able to catch up.
Of course, we couldn’t catch it in the little boat we’d switched to, so I’d have to do a bit of the work myself.
“No! I’m really fine!”
“Really?”
“Of course! I’m fine! Don’t you see these bulging muscles?”
“I don’t.”
“Huh? I’ve worked out so hard—there’s no way! Come on, Cana, look closely.”
“I’ll admit it if you beat me at arm wrestling.”
“I’m a soft little slab of chicken breast. Please eat me deliciously. ...Owowowowow! You bit me?! You really bit me?!”
Daeun quickly snatched her arm back.
A clear bite mark had been left on the pale skin of the arm she’d been flexing with all her might a moment ago, showing off her muscles.
I wiped at the corner of my mouth and replied as calmly as if nothing had happened. “...Ptui. You said to eat you deliciously.”
“That was just a joke! Who takes that seriously?”
“Hmm, right here.”
“Aaaaah! You never listen to me normally, so why are you so obedient at times like this?!”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if you started listening well from now on too?”
“Fair enough. But….”
Daeun had been nodding as if she agreed, but suddenly her eyes gleamed.
“You’re not going to do that, though!”
“Mmmph—!”
This annoying little brat!
Daeun grabbed both my cheeks and pressed them down hard.
If anyone saw me right now, they’d probably think my mouth was sticking out like a goldfish’s.
“Hehe, you look like a fish. How cute.”
As expected, Celine let out a soft laugh and offered a comment much like the one I’d just imagined.
“Mmmphhh—”
Should I just spit on her?
But for some reason, I got a bad feeling and stopped myself.
Something told me I’d end up seeing the very bottom of humanity if I went through with it….
Still, it seemed like her tension had eased, so that was a relief.
Daeun probably had no idea I was showing her this much consideration.
I’m the adult here. I should understand.
Yeah. That’s right.
“Your eyes are looking pretty insolent, you know?”
“—Mmph?”
“Haa…. What am I supposed to say to a kid….”
“I can hear you.”
“I meant for you to hear it.”
Daeun pinched my cheek lightly, as if squeezing my face after holding it down so firmly, then finally let go.
Thanks to the new communication skill I’d picked up, I could now understand at least some of what Daeun was saying.
But—
“She fell for me first, so it’s her fault... what? You’re asking if I’m a lolicon? Hey! Just because I said I fell for her, you think it can only mean one thing? It can also mean I was just genuinely drawn to her! No, this won’t do. You need to cool your head and come back later. Anyone spouting that polar-bear nonsense gets kicked out too!”
Unlike Celine, even when I could understand Daeun, I still couldn’t really understand her.
...Polar bear? Why was a polar bear suddenly coming up?
The polar bears I knew were the bears that lived at the North Pole. Was there some other meaning?
“I don’t get it….”
Not just Daeun’s words, either. I meant the road ahead as well.
The fact that I felt more familiarity in the behavior of someone from my own world than I did from another human being like her probably meant I was closer to a Silian than an Earthling after all.
Even if there were still memories left behind that neither the violent vortex between dimensions nor the hardships I’d endured had been able to erase.
“...We still have a little time left.”
I’d think about it then. When the time came.
“May you rest in peace….”
With Celine’s solemn farewell as the last thing we heard, we left the corpse-strewn shoreline behind.
Celine seemed deeply troubled by the idea of leaving the bodies where they lay, but she didn’t insist on burying them before we went.
Instead, she simply promised herself she would return to the Ardeena Continent one day.
Following the path, just as Atisha had said it had been maintained, we set out toward the heart of Laxia.
And after walking for a long while—
...
...
...
To be honest, the road was in terrible condition.
The stone paving, laid down who knew when, was broken and uneven in all directions, and blackened shrubs and chunks of debris kept blocking the way.
One thing was certain: it wasn’t doing much to help us walk.
If the purpose of a road was to make travel easier, then this one didn’t seem to be fulfilling its role very well.
Still, I guess it’s better than having nothing at all.
“Wah?!”
Daeun apparently didn’t agree with me, because the moment I finished that thought, she snagged her foot on a jutting stone and staggered.
I grabbed her around the waist before she could fall.
“Be careful.”
“Th-thank you.”
Leaving Daeun to recover her composure, I looked around.
“This is stifling.”
“Huh? You mean me…?”
“No. The air.”
“Whew, I thought you were saying I was stifling….”
“You do have a stifling side to you.”
“What?!”
This time, I wasn’t talking about Daeun at all, but about the air that pressed down on us like a heavy weight.
Even the simple act of taking a step required more force than usual, because the Magi that saturated the surroundings resisted every movement.
Well, I didn’t know how big Laxia was, but if they’d called it a “continent” instead of an island, then it couldn’t be all that small.
And if it was already this bad, what would the center be like?
“Still no people in sight,” Celine said.
“But there are corpses.”
“Ah, um….”
There weren’t as many as on the beach where we’d first landed, but as we walked along the road, we occasionally found corpses lying cold and still.
“Do you think these people were heading toward the sea too, like the others?”
“Maybe.”
I gave Daeun’s words a vague affirmation and drew my sword.
A monster was approaching from far away, growling low in its throat.
“Don’t be troublesome.”
Graaahk!
It was stubborn, as befitted something still clinging to life in Laxia, but only that much.
The monster, baring its fangs savagely, sank into the world of eternal silence beneath a series of sword qi strikes.
What kind of creature had that thing once been?
Seeing the horns, maybe it had been a cow.
After a few more such encounters, as I dealt with the monsters that appeared along the road, Daeun finally edged toward me and spoke hesitantly.
“...Cana, why didn’t you tell me to fight this time?”
Ah.
So that was why she’d been so restless, grabbing and releasing her sword, lifting and planting her feet, unable to settle down—she’d thought I might order her to fight again.
“The ones here are pretty strong.”
That last one probably would’ve been manageable for Daeun if she went all out.
But if she wasted her energy and ended up poisoned by Magi, that would be a disaster.
With the fuse of the Magi bomb burning down minute by minute, there was no room for carelessness.
And one last thing—
“I said I’d protect you here, didn’t I?”
“Cana…!”
I’m only keeping my promise.
So there’s no need to look at me like that, all moved and teary-eyed.