When the Snow Turns Red (1)
How much time had passed since the first snowfall?
Before long, the snow pouring from the sky began to turn the world white, so thick and relentless that the first snowfall seemed almost like a joke.
Branches snapped under the weight of it, and fallen leaves disappeared beneath drifts of snow.
Yuris, in the northern reaches of the empire, was used to snow; the people there naturally pulled out their fur-lined clothes.
Crunch—
I was used to seeing snow trampled into black slush beneath carts and boots, but here it was pure white, untouched by anything else.
Now and then, dirt and leaves would stain a patch of it gray, but there were hardly any of those. All I could do was stare at the flawless snow that rose all the way to my knees when I stepped into it.
“It’s a relief we didn’t get much snow this year. Last year, it was faster to just crawl.”
“...Is that so?”
Without any memories before this year, all I could do was tilt my head in confusion. Snow piled up to my knees, and this was called a light year; if I compared it to my old world, maybe I should think of Russia.
This was the north as well, so maybe it really was similar.
Thwack—
A snowball came flying out of nowhere and hit me square in the face.
For a moment, the cold seeped over my skin and I squeezed my eyes shut. When I wiped away the moisture and opened them to slits, Ropena came into view, giggling to herself with a mischievous grin.
“You can’t even dodge that? Heehee.”
“...Ha.”
Come to think of it, Ropena was still fifteen, wasn’t she? I was already sixteen, which meant I was older than her.
Maybe it was time I showed a little of an older brother’s dignity.
I held Ropena in a steady gaze for a moment, then casually packed the snow into a ball and tightened my grip around it.
Should I put some mana into it?
“Hm.”
At fifteen, she really was at the perfect age for pranks.
Of course, it wouldn’t have been wrong to let it slide, but the sight of Ropena grinning at me like that somehow made her look unbearably irritating.
I threw the snowball with all my strength, and it landed dead center on her head.
It must have hit harder than I expected, because her head jerked back from the impact, and it was honestly hilarious.
“Ah, no! Why would you throw it that hard!”
“You started it.”
“Could you at least remember you’re a knight? That hurt, it really hurt!”
“Yeah, I don’t know.”
Ropena, her face flushed bright red from the snow, shrieked at me, but I just shrugged and started packing another snowball.
When was the last time I’d had a snowball fight? Probably back in elementary school.
Ropena claimed to be furious, but the way the corners of her mouth were still lifted told me she’d been hit too lightly to really care.
Maybe I should just soak her with snow instead.
I kept throwing snow for a while, until a sudden presence from far away made me turn my head.
Near the entrance to the duke’s mansion, a banner was flying high in the wind — the unmistakable symbol of Roman, a feathered sword.
“Roman?”
As soon as I muttered it, Ropena clapped her hands as if something had just come to mind and opened her mouth in a small gasp.
Had she forgotten something? At my question, she turned back toward the manor and answered as she moved.
“I think we should go see the young lady. He must have come because of the Hunting Festival.”
“...Ah.”
Come to think of it, the Hunting Festival was tomorrow.
I looked down at the snowball still in my hand for a moment, then set it aside and started walking.
The Hunting Festival. I should probably go see Irene.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“You’re here?”
When I reached Irene’s rooms, she spoke as though she had been waiting for me.
But what drew my eye first were the banners set beside her.
When I stared at them in silence, Irene took a sip of tea and looked back at me.
“Tomorrow is the Hunting Festival, so I prepared a few things you’ll be taking with you. You’re the knight representing Yuris, after all. I can’t exactly send you off with shabby things, can I?”
“...Isn’t this a little much?”
There were five banners alone.
From the banner bearing the Yuris crest to the ones emblazoned with the emblems of the Yuris knights, there were even extravagant swords I had never seen before and uniforms, especially the jewel-studded one, and I could feel the pressure building in my chest.
Was the Hunting Festival more important than I thought?
I had assumed it was nothing more than a pastime for nobles.
But seeing how much had been prepared, I began to wonder if it was a far more significant event than I had realized.
“It’s not too much. It’s what you’ll be taking with you.”
“If I’m carrying all this, what hand am I supposed to hold my sword with?”
“...Ah.”
Apparently so distracted by everything else that she hadn’t considered that, Irene parted her lips in a small sigh.
Looking over the banner at her side with something like regret, she turned back to me and spoke carefully.
“You’re right. You wouldn’t be able to hold a sword.”
The swords and uniforms would be uncomfortable enough on their own, to be honest, if I had to move around in them.
I could tell Irene was disappointed, but that still didn’t mean I could go around dressed in something so restrictive.
I shook my head at her sidelong glance, and Irene smiled wryly before turning to Ropena.
“Ropena, call the others and have them put all of that away. It’s a pity, but it can’t be helped.”
“Those look pretty expensive, though. Couldn’t we use them later? I think the sword and the uniforms would be great for the knighting ceremony.”
“...Come to think of it, your knighting ceremony isn’t far off.”
“Right after the festival ends.”
Snow had already settled thickly on the ground, and every breath shattered into white mist in the cold air.
My knighting ceremony should have been held before the snow even started falling, and the only reason it had been delayed this long was because of the black mage.
Irene must have thought of the black mage too, because she frowned briefly before letting out a breath.
“Did you see the Roman banner outside? This year’s Hunting Festival will be held around here. Verdeng Mountain will be the stage for the whole event.”
At that, I nodded. I already knew the Hunting Festival was being held at Verdeng Mountain.
What worried me was the rumor that monsters sometimes appeared there.
If there was one thing that clearly separated this world from the one I had lived in, it was mana.
But there was another difference too: the existence of monsters.
Monsters were strange creatures that had existed since the dawn of this world.
They were clearly different from humans, yet they possessed intelligence, and they had survived by building their own societies alongside mankind.
Most monsters got along with humans, but a few were hostile, and the most notorious among them were trolls.
There had been rumors that trolls with jutting tusks, hunched backs like inverted bows, and blue or green skin sometimes appeared on Verdeng Mountain.
I couldn’t help wondering whether the Hunting Festival could really proceed like this.
Of course, this time Roman himself was overseeing the event, so there probably wouldn’t be any major problems, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried.
Apparently noticing my thoughts, Irene looked at me and spoke quietly.
“The trolls that live on Verdeng Mountain are rather quiet. As long as no one attacks first, they won’t come after you. And the festival takes place only at the mountain’s foothills, not deep inside it, so honestly, it’s more like a carnival than a hunt.”
“That’s more or less what I thought.”
“Still, don’t push yourself too hard. Even you could get hurt if a bear gets the better of you.”
Was there really any need to overdo it just to hunt a bear or a tiger?
Originally, I had planned to go lightly in the first place. But after meeting the duke, something in my thinking had changed.
I couldn’t just treat it casually. The duke’s warning when we spoke about the black mage — be careful at the Hunting Festival — still lingered in my mind.
That had to mean the black mage had some connection to the festival.
But I couldn’t begin to guess how or where they would appear.
The duke had only spoken of possibilities. I couldn’t declare with certainty that the black mage would show up.
Possibility. What, exactly, had the duke based that on?
Had he already become certain that one of the Five Great Houses had allied itself with the black mage?
Yet as I sat there lost in thought, those speculations slowly began to drift apart.
When my gaze met the blue eyes quietly watching me, I tore my eyes away from the empty air and looked back at Irene.
“You look like you have a lot on your mind.”
“...Do I?”
A faint chill passed through her eyes as she frowned in obvious displeasure.
With an awkward smile, I lowered my head, and she sighed before twisting the corners of her mouth into something dry.
“I know that all five of the great houses are participating in the festival this time. And I’m sure the house that wins will be bragging about it for ages.”
Cold wind slipped in through the open window.
Steam rose slowly from the tea, curling through the air, and Irene watched it for a moment before speaking again.
“I don’t care much about winning, even if Father does. There’s naturally a lot of pressure in being the representative of Yuris, but...still, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. The festival happens every year, after all.”
“......”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Had she mistaken my distraction for anxiety about the festival?
Well, I had been thinking about the black mage, so my expression probably did look serious.
My reaction seemed to puzzle her, and Irene narrowed her eyes a little. I smiled faintly and asked, “Are you worried about me?”
If this had been before, what would Irene have said? She probably would have told me to leave if I was going to keep making that face.
She had actually done that once, hadn’t she?
When I teased her, Irene glanced at me and ignored the question completely as she quietly lifted her teacup.
The aroma of tea filled the room, and with it, my heart seemed to settle.
Even the faint unease that had stirred at thoughts of the black mage, and the strange tension that came with representing Yuris, slowly drained away until my body felt languid and I closed my eyes.
Like water flowing in a calm stream, silence blanketed everything around us.
The only sound in that quiet room was the soft clink of Irene setting her teacup back on the table.
For a moment, that clear sound wrapped around my ears — and then Irene’s voice cut through the silence.
When I opened my eyes at the gentle, slightly cool tone in her voice, I realized her gaze was already on me.
“Are your injuries all healed?”
“...If you mean my shoulder, then yes.”
It had already been two weeks since I fought the black mage.
It had been quite a while since I’d removed the bandages, but when she saw me, the memory must have come back to her, because she was staring at me with a darker expression than usual.
As if she thought this injury was her fault.
It was honestly hard to bear the way her face darkened every time she saw the bandage on me.
And yet, hadn’t she swung a sword herself? She must know that once a body begins to handle mana, it goes beyond its limits at least once.
An injury like this was nothing.
It had only been a bad wound, and not even one that had truly threatened my life.
So why did I feel uneasy whenever she made that face?
It would be better if she smiled brightly the way she had before, like that one time she had shown me.
At first I’d only wanted to see it once, but now I wanted her to always be like that. Humans really were such shameless creatures.
“I won’t get hurt this time.”
“...You had better not.”
“It’s only a bear, after all. Even if I wanted to get hurt, it wouldn’t be easy.”
Irene stared at me for a while after hearing that, then gave a small nod.
It was a little surprising that she was worrying about me like this, but then again, hadn’t she also told me not to get hurt when I fought the black mage before?
Maybe this was just a part of her that she kept hidden.
She wouldn’t need to hide it, though. The duke’s words kept circling through my mind.
Those empty eyes that had lost their heart and held nothing but blankness.
The thought that Irene, too, might one day have the same eyes as the duke made me frown.
Could I really keep that from happening?
All that lay ahead of me was a future blurred like mist.
No matter how much I knew about the future, I still couldn’t easily change a person’s heart.
And yet I knew I would still have to face it. Hadn’t I already resolved not to run away?
As if the vow had already settled deep in my heart, I had decided to remain by her side at least until the day I left this world.
“Evan.”
When Irene’s voice reached me again, I realized I had been staring at her for too long and quickly looked away.
But in my panic, my gaze had nowhere to go and wandered helplessly until Irene let out a sigh at the sight of me.
“I told you not to worry so much.”
I wasn’t worrying. I was thinking about you, actually.
But I couldn’t say that, so I just gave an awkward smile.
Irene watched me for a moment, then reached into her clothes and took out a handkerchief.
“...I heard somewhere that when war comes, a person gives the handkerchief they carry to their knight.”
“My lady?”
I didn’t even have time to ask what that was supposed to mean or why she was bringing it up.
Before I knew it, she had taken my wrist, and just like that, our hands were drawn together as if by a magnet.
Every time the thin fingers attached to that small hand brushed my wrist, a faint, electric shiver raced through me.
My lips parted slightly in my stunned face.
It seemed she had never done this before either, because the way she draped the handkerchief over my wrist looked clumsy in the sweetest possible way.
The cold air left her skin chilled to the touch.
Whenever I looked at her hand — smaller than most people’s — I couldn’t understand why my chest kept tickling so strangely.
Maybe it was because she was giving me this handkerchief herself.
Giving a knight a handkerchief — as she had said, that sometimes happened. But wasn’t it something given to the person one loved?
At that thought, my face seemed to grow hot, so I lifted my chin.
I couldn’t correct her, not with the innocent expression she was wearing as she tied the handkerchief around my wrist, so I merely kept my mouth shut and waited until she finished.
It had only been a very short time, and yet why did it feel so long?
I was only now beginning to understand how much human hearts could be shaken by something as simple as shared warmth.
36.5 degrees. Everyone had the same body temperature, and yet Irene’s skin felt a little cooler than that.
The touch of it wouldn’t leave my skin easily.
When her hand finally left my wrist, I was able to breathe out at last, though it came out rough and strained.
My face was burning from the lingering sensation, and when I dragged a dry hand over it, Irene moved her lips as if she wanted to say something before speaking carefully.
“...I’m giving it to you because you look too uneasy. You have to return it, so don’t get the handkerchief dirty.”
“Do you even know what that means when you give it to me?”
“Isn’t it something you give when you wish for someone to come back safely?”
“...Right. I’m glad you knew.”
A dry laugh escaped me at the realization that she truly didn’t know the original meaning.
Still, I should probably just think of it as my own misunderstanding.
I hoped she wouldn’t understand the meaning later and end up embarrassed about it.
When I looked down at the pure white handkerchief wrapped around my wrist, the corner of my mouth twitched before I knew it.
How should I put it? It felt like my wrist itself was being tickled.
And the fact that she was taking such care because I seemed anxious made me strangely happy.
Turning my gaze toward the window, I saw the round moon rising on the far side of the dimming sun.
The sky was stained red, and beneath it snow lay piled in white silence.
As I gazed at the breathtaking winter scenery, I sank into thought.
When the sun rose again, the Hunting Festival would begin.
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