That Couldn't Possibly Be Reality (2)
"Walking all the way there, of all places... Trying to cross the Brute Mountains with nothing but your own two feet is reckless beyond reason, wouldn't you say?"
"......"
"The crossing alone would be punishing enough, but if you consider the things lying in ambush there, you'd be dead two or three times over before you knew what happened."
"If the road is hard for me, it will be hard for those who follow me as well."
"Even so..."
The stretch of the journey traveled by carriage was long indeed.
Being able to press on without ever needing to make camp was an advantage, if it was one at all — but it also left him feeling penned in, boxed up inside, and the closeness wore on him more than a little.
His one consolation was that Filbar proved a wellspring of stories on every manner of subject.
The current whereabouts of Elbart, the beloved sword of Grandeus, for instance.
"A forest somewhere in the Metran Kingdom, I'm told. Buried in a mountain valley in that region."
A country that shared neither a border nor a point of contact with the Empire.
Diplomatically, there was no friction to speak of between them — indeed, since Metran lay behind Dabas Kingdom, one might reasonably have called the two nations cooperative allies, if anything.
But culture, religion, and the matter of species layered atop one another, and it was impossible to call the relationship an easy one across the board.
Metran in particular was the region where Grandeus and the Relief Knights had conducted their most earnest work, and its people had all but deified the man for it.
And then — this.
Considering that nearly everyone who claimed, as good as gospel, that the Radiant Knight, the Hero Rueld, had struck down Grandeus hailed from Metran, the two nations could hardly be called on friendly terms without qualification.
...Which was, comparatively speaking, a fairly common state of affairs in this era.
Even so, it was said to be some five or six times better than the days of the Demon King's Army's invasion — so for anyone who had never lived through those times, there was simply no way to know.
"I have my own itinerary, so I can't accompany you to the end... but in its place, I'll introduce you to a capable guide."
"...Are you certain about that?"
At Cariel's words, Filbar curled his lips into a smile.
"Consider it my thanks for everything you've shown and taught me. You'd be surprised how rare a person is who hands me this much inspiration and material for my writing."
"......"
"There's no need to feel indebted. I received things from you, so I'm merely repaying what they were worth. That's all. Anyway —"
"Crossing the imperial border aside, if you're not planning to sneak into foreign lands, you'll want something that can prove your identity at least simply, or else a second identity you can operate under while keeping the true one hidden. If you have no plans in place for that, I can arrange it on your behalf. How does that sound?"
"......"
Come to think of it, he hadn't considered things that far.
More than anything — no matter how secretly he moved, the moment he revealed his identity, he might as well have broadcast his location to the world.
...He had assumed it would be enough to simply lie low. Apparently, affairs of the world were never so effortless after all.
"I'd be grateful for your help."
"Very well. Then let's have that seen to as well."
After that, Filbar continued to offer whatever guidance the journey required.
Under the blazing sun of high noon, he would calmly fling open the seat cushions, slip inside the carriage, and surrender himself to sleep.
And when his servants or Cariel's party needed rest, they would halt the carriage, see to their meals in leisure, and make camp as the mood took them.
Since Filbar volunteered himself for the night watch, that too was never a problem.
Whenever he was awake, he devoted himself wholly to his writing — something about how nature made a fine companion and backdrop, was it?
"......"
A little apart from the campsite, Cariel let out a slow breath.
Then, at last, he posed his question to the empty air.
"You're surprisingly quiet."
— What, were you hoping I'd nag at you or pester you or something?
"...You're quiet to the point it's strange, that's all."
— If you've got someone to talk to and I go poking my nose in, that makes things awkward for you too, no? I've been considerate of you, and this is the thanks I get! The nerve!
"......"
— So? Anything you wanted to say?
"No. Not particularly."
Everything worth asking, he had asked long ago.
Whatever occurred to him later, he could always ask when it did.
"Grandeus laying the groundwork like this while knowing the future... that can't possibly be how it was, can it?"
— That again?
What Cariel himself had witnessed would surely have reached her as well — her, the very Demon King.
If she knew nothing of it, then perhaps that was simply how it was.
— Besides, all that talk amounts to 'this was arranged for you, a chosen one, this and that and the other.' Aren't you being a touch too generous with yourself?
"......"
— Coincidence this perfectly orchestrated does border on inevitability, I'll grant you... but who's to say. I can't bring myself to declare it one way or the other. As you well know, refusing to hold convictions about anything uncertain is one of my many exhausting little afflictions.
"Was I right — to allow Alesia to accompany me?"
— Why are you asking me that? It's your life. Will you be consulting me about your marriage next? Asking my opinion before you scatter children about the place?
"......"
A hollow laugh escaped him.
"You're right, of course."
— Do as you please. Whether you end in misery or in happiness, that much is your share to bear.
"So — you've found it fairly entertaining to watch, then?"
— Hm? In what way?
Cariel's eyes were half certain, half conviction itself.
"Finding a good person is never easy. And yet on this journey, by some curious turn, it's been as though fortune has piled upon fortune... I've ended up entangled with impossibly good people, again and again."
— If you're self-aware enough to say that, then you haven't surrendered your reason entirely? Excellent. It means that even if one of them harbored black intentions and moved to cleave you from behind, you could respond capably. If growth is what we call that, then call it growth.
"...You're changing the subject."
— Me? Whatever for?
"You must have thought this, watching me."
He did not expect anything.
He was not a man who trusted, or dreamed.
And yet, perhaps.
"That somewhere, sometime, I might meet people as kind as they were again. That even if I wished for such hope or didn't, I would come to carry it regardless."
People like Alesia, perhaps.
Or the folk of Baronnes's household.
The kind souls he'd met in Cariela.
And —
Someone like Filbar, so easy to talk with, a little suspicious perhaps, but unmistakably open in his goodwill.
"But good fortune like that — lasting forever — makes no sense at all."
— ......
The Demon King, who had been silent,
openly,
broke into laughter.
— K-kuh, kekek! Ah! A sharp mind is such a nuisance at times like this! I wanted to see that face of yours, soaked in the setbacks and despair still waiting down the road! You mean to tell me you'd already guessed all of it? Honestly! Your foresight borders on the absurd! You really have grown! Beyond my expectations!
"......"
— So that's why you've worn that gloomy look to the very end? Here I was thinking you were trembling like a wary little cat, too frightened to trust a single soul — and I was wrong? I read you completely backwards!
Toward the merrily laughing Demon King, Cariel exhaled a sigh.
"Because I never want to taste that again — reaching for hope, only to be destroyed by it."
Rather than pursue happiness, he had chosen to learn the art of never being disappointed.
And having learned it, having mastered it —
...I will never repeat that same mistake again.
"Besides — to hold gratuitous expectations of someone in whom I've taken hope, only to falter under the weight and be disillusioned... if that isn't a discourtesy, I don't know what is."
— More than that, you're afraid of a situation arising where you'd have to hope at all, aren't you. Aren't you?
"......"
— The present is murky and the future unchartable, so bury them and be done. If only the past remains beautiful, you think that alone will be enough for you?
And that was precisely why.
Alesia's affectionate attentiveness, her blunt and unadorned love —
...had been a joy that overflowed all its banks.
And so —
If I can hold on to that memory, it is enough for me.
The morning dew is lovelier than any jewel.
And it is, in truth, a fleeting, meaningless thing.
And yet —
To me, that fleeting, meaningless instant
was something I needed.
More than anyone, that truth was precious to me.
— How strange. I never taught you a word of it, and yet you've arrived at a conclusion remarkably close to my own way of thinking? My own view of happiness? Is this what they mean by growing alike when you keep company?
"...Is that so for you as well?"
— I live in the past, always. The present is a bonus, and the future is none of my affair.
And so it troubles me not at all — not in the slightest.
And that is exactly why I can watch the present situation the way one watches a play, purely for amusement.
"We lived through the past, you and I. Some merely skimmed across it, living free of charge... but I suspect I'll remember it until the day I die. I'm not like them."
— And yet it is the privilege of the living to look upon the present and walk toward the future.
"...If I say any more, by your standards I'd be lectoning you on your own doctrine, so I'll spare you the words."
— Quick-witted as ever.
The Demon King grinned.
— Secure Elbart as soon as you can. Only then will you be able to resist the lingering obsession that's clung to you.
"...What in the world is that thing, exactly?"
— It won't reveal its nature even to me — how should I know? It likely has some connection to your past... but you can't remember it, so what would you have me do?
"......"
Most likely, it was an obsession that had fastened onto him during those days of wandering from place to place as a hostage.
Both the Demon King and Cariel had long since settled on that conclusion.
"If I truly take Elbart in hand, can I resist it? By what principle, exactly?"
— You can puzzle that out when the time comes. I govern the Wisdom Realm, remember? The Truth Realm is beyond me. If I had that too, I'd be carving stone and whittling wood and paving roads every single day of my life, like Grandeus or the Great Demon King — or, in your people's terms, like those mages who prattle on about being seekers of truth, or those sword-mad fools who declare they walk the path of the blade — spending an entire lifetime hunting for an answer where none exists. Probably. Most likely.
"...What nonsense are you spouting now?"
— What else? The road you have ahead of you.
The Demon King snorted.
— Whether you carve stone, or whittle wood, or pave roads. That's for you to decide, on your own.
"......"
Still she spoke in riddles.
But this was Wisdom herself talking. It was not the kind of content one could afford to brush aside.
Their contract was ironclad, after all —
and she stood on the side that aided him.
Yet the judging and the accepting were entirely his own burden to carry.
He could not assume that her standard of 'helping' matched the standard Cariel himself held.
— One thing is certain: your growth is accelerating faster than even I predicted. Whether that turns out to be coincidence or inevitability — see to it yourself, and see to it well.
"......"
Without being told.
Without needing the reminder.
...That was already my resolve.
But he did not bother to say it aloud.
He had already heard the answer to that long ago.
Resolve, was it.
She had once said this:
That the very same letters, the same words, the same expressions — even the same voice, the same timbre —
would, depending on the listener's circumstances, their depth, their station —
never be understood in the same meaning, never applied in the same way.
[And if it weren't for that, the fact that you bore such a miraculous fruit would be nearly impossible to explain. Perhaps even that simple resolve I passed on to you held something I myself do not know?]
And that too, first of all —
[Grandeus sought the Great Demon King's instruction on it, and refined it in his hand.]
In other words, it belonged to a domain that even the Wisdom Realm could not pierce with certainty.
And therefore it could not simply be dug apart at will.
Only conjecture was possible.
Because it was —
...the Truth Realm.
Taking that conjecture as counsel, as a lantern in the dark —
through a domain where not even an inch ahead could be seen —
he would have to forge his own way forward.
And that, in the end —