Garbage Dump
Garbage dump.
By dictionary definition, it was simply “a place designated for throwing away trash.”
But in the western reaches of the continent—on land that had once belonged to Grasis—the people used that word to mean something else entirely.
A place where trash that could never live among humans gathered together.
A place where the demons from Laxia had come to live.
That was the garbage dump they meant.
* * *
After leaving the noisy city and heading toward Laxia, Da-eun, who had been lost in thought the entire way, suddenly spoke up.
“Kana, did you know people call the place where demons live a garbage dump?”
“That’s what you were thinking about?”
I’d wondered what she was brooding over so seriously. Turns out it was nothing much.
“I knew. Why?”
“Well…. I guess people hate demons more than I thought.”
“Garbage dump is mild. There are harsher things they say too.”
“This is mild?”
“Yeah. For example—”
Beep────, or beeeeeep────.
“…Wait, Kana!”
“There’s also beeeeeep──, and—mmph!”
“N-no bad words!”
A thin, narrow palm clamped over my mouth.
I shook my head and tried to wriggle free from her grasp, but Da-eun held on stubbornly and refused to let me go.
“Mmmph-mmph!”
“You mustn’t use nasty words like that! Understood?”
“…Puh. I was just telling you because you seemed curious.”
“Still no. If you use bad language, what will the people listening think? And if you put those words in your mouth, your brain gets worse and even your cute face turns ugly.”
“That’s some impressive side effect.”
Still, when I looked at nobles and royalty, the reason their brains seemed to rot probably wasn’t bad language.
The intent behind the things they said was impure, but their manner of speech itself was elegant.
They thought direct speech was vulgar, so even simple words got twisted three or four times before they came out of their mouths.
What sounded like praise was an insult, and what sounded like an insult was an insult.
Or maybe, come to think of it, it had just been insults all the way down.
...Was that why I always got angry listening to them?
“Jeon-i. What do you think if someone says, ‘You have a natural talent for swordsmanship’?”
“Uh… if they say I’m talented, isn’t that praise? I think I’d feel pretty good.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
That meant, in effect, “You’re so stupid you’ll spend your whole life waving a sword around.”
Da-eun looked at me with skeptical eyes.
“…Isn’t that a bit of a stretch? Maybe they’re just sincerely complimenting you.”
“Maybe. But once you actually live through it, you won’t say things like that.”
People always had a hard time grasping a saying until they experienced it themselves.
So I didn’t really feel like convincing her and just shrugged lightly, steering the conversation back on course.
More precisely, I put it back on the original track.
“Anyway, do you get why I called it mild?”
“W-well…. Compared to those things, I guess it’s kind of cute….”
Da-eun said it with a sour look, clearly remembering the far uglier things people said about demons.
“But still, garbage dump? That’s a little….”
It was better relatively speaking, sure, but in the end it was still calling the demons living there trash. So Da-eun’s discomfort made sense.
What was interesting was that the demons themselves didn’t deny it.
Some of them even blamed themselves more harshly than the humans did.
“They think of themselves as sinners.”
They had no choice if they wanted to live, but they were sinners who had taken the lives of countless people on the Ardina Continent.
And sinners who had abandoned their duty and fled.
That was why the demons never gave the place where they lived a name.
They believed sinners like themselves didn’t deserve the right to name anything.
“…Duty? What duty?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Hmph….”
After all, that was why we were going to Laxia in the first place.
I answered Da-eun, who had puffed out her lips, and looked ahead.
On the far edge of the horizon, a land of sinners had begun to emerge, shrouded in thick magi.
Step by step.
The denser the magi grew as we neared the sinners’ land, the more it threatened me, but it couldn’t pierce the mana wrapped around my body and could only flick its tongue in vain.
When I glanced at Celine, she still wore her usual gentle expression, so it seemed this level of magi didn’t bother her at all.
I’d expected that much. The real problem was Da-eun.
I turned to look at her—the weakest among us, and therefore the one I was most worried about.
“Hoo…. I-I’m fine. It’ll be okay.”
Fortunately, Da-eun, the frailest of our party, still seemed all right.
Her face was a little bloodless, but that seemed to be from tension.
And judging by the ring on her finger glinting in the light, the magic tool was doing its job.
Well, if it had been made with a Dragon Orb and done nothing at all, that would have been stranger.
The real question was whether it would still work once we entered Laxia.
“It’s dark….”
“It’s dark?”
“It means there isn’t much light.”
“Ah, I see.”
And she was right. Even though the sun still had plenty of time before setting, the surroundings were already quite dim.
Sunlight clearly poured down from above, but my vision felt as though I were looking through an opaque screen made of the magi in the air.
If an ordinary person had come here, would they even last a few minutes before coughing up blood?
“Oh, I can see the village.”
Celine had been shielding her eyes with a hand at her brow, squinting slightly, when she called out in a bright voice.
A palisade stood out through the thick magi.
Celine must have spotted it and cried out.
The palisade in the distance was so tall it could easily be mistaken for a castle wall, and it looked sturdy enough too.
Yes, it did look quite sturdy… but if someone tried hard enough, couldn’t it still be brought down with ease?
“…Kana?”
“No, I’m not saying I’ll do it.”
I meant monsters, or demons, or humans… not me.
If I had been talking about myself doing it, I wouldn’t have phrased it as a guess like “couldn’t it be brought down?”
If I could split castle walls, why wouldn’t I be able to break some palisade?
“Fair enough.”
It was a little strange to be reassured by that, but in any case, I’d managed to convince Da-eun.
While we were having that pointless exchange, the palisade that had seemed so distant suddenly came right up to us.
“Stop!”
Just as we found the entrance without much trouble and were about to go into the village, a rough voice rang out overhead.
When I looked up, a man with a bloodless white face and black horns on either side of his head was staring down at us from a watchtower.
“What business do humans have here?!”
“We came to take a ship.”
“What did you say?!”
As the man barked at us, Da-eun flinched and rolled her eyes around nervously.
“He doesn’t think we’re invading Laxia, does he?”
She whispered worriedly.
But her concern didn’t last long.
“I can’t hear you! Speak louder!”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“R-right….”
Da-eun let out an awkward laugh at the man’s next words.
I poked her in the side.
“You tell him for me.”
“Why? Can’t you understand him?”
“If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have answered.”
“Fair enough. ...Huh? He isn’t even speaking Granic, so how did you understand him?”
“Worry about that later and hurry up. He’s waiting.”
“Okay, okay. Besides, if you can understand him, then there’s no need to rush me—Kana can just speak directly.”
“I’m too lazy to shout.”
Raising my voice? What an irritating thing to have to do. What more was there to say?
Having declared my position so boldly, Da-eun fell silent.
She looked at me with a face full of things she wanted to say, but when I tugged on the hem of her clothes again and again, she sighed and shook her head.
I think I heard her mutter, “That obnoxious little brat…,” but that was probably just my imagination, right?
“We came to take a ship bound for Laxia!”
“…Laxia?”
The man, who had been shouting at the top of his lungs, suddenly went quiet.
Dong—
Daaang—!
And then the bell in the watchtower began to ring.
A moment later, there was a commotion inside the palisade.
Gugugugu—
With the heavy sound of something being dragged, the enormous gate in the palisade slowly began to open.
What emerged from within was, naturally, a group of demons.
Roughly ten in number at a glance, they gripped their weapons tightly and showed us strong suspicion.
“K-Kana… can I borrow your hand?”
Looking at how openly wary they were, Da-eun seemed tense and clutched my hand tightly.
Her hand, as white as her face, was damp with sweat.
“Why are you so nervous?”
“Why? ...What if a fight breaks out?”
“You did just fine fighting last time.”
“N-no, that was….”
Da-eun trailed off awkwardly.
The confident girl who had said she’d fight the one-armed swordsman with no hesitation was gone, replaced by a coward once more.
See? I’d told her a person’s nature didn’t change so easily.
After enjoying my little victory for a moment, I squeezed the hand she was holding.
“I’ll protect you, so don’t worry.”
There was no way I’d lose to a bunch at that level.
Da-eun, who had been staring at me blankly, smiled softly.
“Kana. Can I fall for you?”
“…That would be a little difficult.”
“Ahaha, I’m kidding! I wouldn’t fall for my little sister, would I?”
Still, that was cool.
She muttered it under her breath, then gripped my hand just as tightly as I had.
“I really didn’t need to be nervous at all. Why was I acting like that when I’ve got such a reliable little sister?”
I knew it was rather embarrassing to say, but…
All that mattered was that she’d relaxed, right?
“What business do you have in Laxia?”
While that was happening, one of the demons who had approached us stepped forward and asked.
Judging by his armor, the man who had questioned us seemed to be the highest-ranking demon present.
“I’ll explain.”
Before I could answer, Celine stepped forward.
The holy power blooming from her hands drifted gently through the air and then moved toward the demons.
The demons, who had looked flustered at the sudden approach of holy power, soon felt it soothingly brush over their bodies and relaxed, lowering their weapons.
“How is that? Is my explanation enough?”
“So you were a nun serving Lady Edel.”
The man’s rather forceful attitude changed in an instant.
“Huh?”
Da-eun looked bewildered at the sudden shift, but the man kept right on going as if he’d never been hostile to begin with.
After bowing his head, he gestured with his hand.
At his signal, the demons who had surrounded us stepped back to either side.
“I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“No, no. You were just doing your duty. More importantly, would it be all right if we went in and talked?”
“Anyone serving Lady Edel is always welcome.”
Celine turned back to us with a bright smile.
“We’ve been granted permission, so let’s go in.”