Is There Meaning? (3)
Well... I wasn't gonna say anything.
I dreamed of something soft and soggy... a scarlet something wrapping my entire body.
Is this really the best you could do......?
Here and there I felt something hard as well, lined up in an even row so that it almost seemed like a railing.
Couldn't you have found a better way than carrying me in your mouth?
Ah... right. In that dream, rainstorms battered me without warning. The force was so fierce that rain kept driving in through the open sides. It even came from the ceiling.
Of course, the rain falling from the ceiling was somehow viscous and the drops were enormous, making me wonder if it was really rain at all... but in the dream I simply decided it must be my imagination and let it go.
I don't know......
Anyway, it was a truly strange dream. Not one I particularly want to have again.
“……!”
And then an unfamiliar ceiling. No—a cave ceiling?
Without realizing it I eased the tension from my eyes and rolled them carefully. My irises turned sideways and cautiously gathered the surrounding scene. In that tilted world, wondrous nature waited for me in tender colors.
This is truly beautiful.
I blinked in quiet admiration. A vast cave whose ceiling opened in the center, sunlight pouring down through the gap, every kind of plant that had grown fat on that light, clear spring water flowing between the greenery……
I say it again: it was a landscape that left no choice but awe.
“Does the scenery of the swamp please you?”
Yet no matter how lovely the view, I should have grasped the situation first.
I forgot that, and so when the question was suddenly offered I could only press my lips shut.
Why had I woken in this place, and who was the one speaking to me now? Had he known my identity when he helped me, or had he not? The belated questions hammered at my skull insisting it was not too late even now.
“You must not move.”
In the middle of that I tried to raise my upper body and reach for my sword, but the attempt failed. The other party restrained me, true, yet the decisive reason was that my body simply refused to obey.
The body that had lifted a fraction over the piled cloths flopped heavily back down.
“The fever has not fully subsided.”
The phrase “heavy as a thousand catties” was not far off. With that thought I let a groan slip through my teeth.
Doesn’t fit the concept? Even that only works if the pain stays within reason; this is the worst muscle ache I have ever felt. My whole body trembled, heavy, strength refusing to enter my limbs.
Honestly, the fact that I was conscious at all felt miraculous. A body that could not feel cold—prevented by item effects?—shuddered with chills, fingers twitching.
“…Why… why am I here?”
The only small mercy was that the face I glimpsed while lying back down was faintly familiar. I asked the high priestess of Serhang—or at least the person I remembered as such—in short, ragged breaths.
The one who had just been soaking a dry cloth in a bowl of water shrugged.
“It seems you have no memory. Lord Sangun brought you here.”
When she judged the cloth thoroughly soaked she pulled it out and wrung it firmly. Having several hands, she poured water into a cup with another while preparing the wet towel; it looked remarkably efficient.
“…When?”
“You first arrived here seven days ago.”
What? Seven days? I had been laid out for an entire week?
“Before anything else… please drink some water.”
I was so stunned I wanted to ask more, but she was faster.
She wiped the sweat beading on my skin—only then did I realize I was bare to the waist. I had neither the strength nor the will to protest, so I pretended not to notice—and brought the cup she had just filled to my lips.
“It is tea steeped from fruit with pain-relieving properties and herbs that lower fever.”
Perhaps thinking I might refuse, she added a mild explanation of its effects. Not that I possessed the strength to refuse in any case.
I parted my parched lips and accepted the water that trickled in little by little.
“Aori, how is Lord Thunder Snake?”
“He has just awakened. We will need to watch a little longer, but… at the very least he seems to have entered the stable range.”
For about five minutes I sipped like an infant, being wiped over every corner of my bare upper body. An unfamiliar face drew near.
Of course I might simply have failed to recognize someone I had seen before. My entire body felt heavy and hard as stone; as time passed my mind grew no clearer—rather, it only clouded further.
“A blessing. Until yesterday we could not even find a pulse, and I was worried……”
“He is no ordinary person, after all.”
Yet if I fell asleep like this there would surely be trouble… not of the health sort, but something else concerning safety……
I forced my steadily descending eyelids open and scraped the inside of my mouth with a rough tongue. A harsh, bitter taste rose, the same as when a cold dries the tongue. Even after drinking enough water to moisten my throat it remained. My condition really was terrible.
“I will continue nursing him for the time being. Could you bring something light to eat in my place?”
“Of course. I will bring it shortly.”
While I somehow clung to consciousness the conversation between the two ended. That meant the high priestess of Serhang had returned to my side and begun wiping my sweat once more.
Each time the lukewarm wet cloth approached, my skin shivered from the chills.
“…I.”
But I could not lose to mere cold.
I somehow dragged out my clouded voice. The result of wringing my throat with all my might was a sound cracked and dry as drought—somewhat pitiful, yet something I had to accept for now.
“Does… anyone else know… that I am here?”
More than that, when would the medicine I had drunk take effect? If it would only work a little, my body might improve.
“Set your mind at ease. The fact that Lord Thunder Snake is here has been told only to the priests of the swamp and the Great Chieftain.”
“…Why?”
“Lord Sangun commanded that it be kept secret.”
Hmm… that was somewhat fortunate news. I had been worried that the outsiders who had begun exchanging with the Great Forest might have heard of my presence……
“So do not fret and rest. Unless Lord Thunder Snake or Lord Sangun issues further orders, our mouths will remain sealed forever.”
Hearing even that put my heart a little more at rest. Not completely—just a little.
“I am being pursued.”
“…I see.”
That was only natural… if these people learned the truth their attitude might change. And if it did not, if they continued trying to help me—unlikely as that was—then that itself would be a problem. Should the outsiders discover they had hidden and aided me, calamity would fall upon the entire Great Forest.
“Protecting me… goes against what is right.”
“Is that so?”
Yet.
“If the Order learns of it, surely……”
“Black Thunder Snake, first of all we do not revere the gods of outsiders. What we honor is only Lord Sangun and nature; His will is the will of us all.”
Yet……
“Furthermore, Black Snake, you protected young lives with your sword and saved those oppressed by violence.”
I released a hot breath. The heat felt even in that wheezing exhalation would be far worse inside my body. Cold, and yet hot at the same time, and so painful.
“When others brought only blood and death by those means, you alone returned life and vitality.”
So pitiful.
No place to go, no place to rest my heart, and now sick on top of it all—I simply felt sorry for myself.
“Knowing you are such a person, we practice His will not by force but with sincerity, not with empty gesture but with action, and we do so gladly. So joyfully that His will and ours can no longer be told apart.”
And so sweet.
“Therefore please swallow those following words. If the Great Chieftain heard them he would grieve.”
Even knowing full well that I must not, I wanted to ask whether I might stay a little longer.
“…I will leave in three days. There is nothing good that can come of my remaining here.”
Yukgui lay quietly in the place allotted to him, savoring the leisure of a day after the typhoon had passed. The cave that Sangun had once used alone was truly spacious and still—perfect for enjoying idleness.
“Honored one, is there anything you lack?”
None.
That was not all. Perhaps because these were humans who had revered his descendants for generations, those charged with attendance proved remarkably perceptive.
They asked only what was necessary, never breaking the pleasant silence, cleaned around him, and replaced items as needed.
The bed they had prepared in a suitable sunny spot—looking to human eyes rather like a bird’s nest—also pleased him. Its generous width left half in sunlight and half shaded by the ceiling, so that he could sleep comfortably however he wished.
When rain fell he could rest in the shade; when the sun shone as it did now he could come out into the bright radius and enjoy a nap.
Yukgui purred contentedly at the warmth of sunlight soaking into his shell.
“Should anything arise that you wish ordered, call us at any time.”
Yeah.
Yet would there truly be occasion to call? It was not that he disliked putting others to work; it simply seemed there would never be any need.
Meals alone arrived punctually at set times, and snacks had already been placed about in advance.
They had not merely been left there, either. The moment he ignored something and its condition began to decline, it was promptly replaced. Under such circumstances he doubted any order would ever arise.
“…Heuh.”
…He truly doubted it.
Yukgui glared at the single thing in the cave that displeased him. It was a small bed situated in one corner of the cave, on ground lower than his nest. More precisely, it was the human who occupied that bed.
Hmm.
He looked down at the human whose breathing remained poor even after a full week—though half of that week had been spent traveling through rain.
If one is sick one should say so; the sight of him silently enduring alone made no sense. Preparing to leave while his body was still unhealed was the same. Truly foolish beyond measure.
At this rate he will die……
The declaration he had made earlier—that he would leave in three days—was equally ridiculous.
Did that human believe his body would be fine in three days? The swollen feet had only just lost their puffiness, and the fever remained unchanged.
Yukgui did not understand human bodies well, yet he could tell this was not a condition that would mend in three days. In the end it was simply human stubbornness. Foolish.
If the Order finds out, surely……
Truly, stupid.
“Ancestor, I’s come.”
Yeah.
Strange. He had thought the human fled because he did not wish to die, and was therefore the same sort of creature as those he had seen in that city—beings who cared only for themselves. That was what he had believed.
“On th’ way I picked me a few wild strawberries. Wanna have some? Sweet ’n tasty.”
Was he leaving because he feared the humans here would report him? That theory felt odd. So long as Sangun protected him, these humans would never turn against that man.
And yet, even after being told that fact, the human still intended to leave. Why? What were those “following words” the attending priestess had told him to swallow?
…Never mind. Do something about that human.
“Huh? What’s the problem?”
Says he’ll leave in three days.
“What???”
Well, whether he dies or not ain’t my concern.
“Aigoo, this knight fella.”
…Well, whatever the answer might be, it was hardly any of his business.
After all, that thing was merely a vessel containing a demon.
“This won’t do. Gotta stick right to him an’ hold him so he can’t go.”
Cheer up.
For that reason Yukgui decided he would half-listen to whatever Sangun said from then on. It was still a time when he did not yet understand that the future is never something one should be certain of.