The Child on the Mountain
Lost? No. That much was obvious at a glance.
But if so, then how in the world had this child made it all the way out here? The mountain, and the whole stretch of country around it, belonged to my family. Outsiders weren't free to wander in as they pleased—not that we'd gone so far as to ring the entire boundary in barbed wire.
One thing, though, was certain. The kid was plainly exhausted, and hurt besides.
"What, did you trip on the slope and go tumbling down?"
Scrapes and scratches covered them all over. Ragged as they looked, they'd at least managed a hood and something to wear—yet they had no shoes at all, and their bare feet were caked in dirt.
"Ha. Seriously. What even is this."
I'd been swinging Excalibur around at my leisure, meaning to head home once the sky started to yellow, but at this rate I'd be getting back far later than planned. Even so, I couldn't just leave an injured child alone in a place where no one ever passed.
"Count yourself lucky. Good thing my father's a potion peddler."
I drew a glass bottle of Healing Potion from the pouch at my waist and stepped closer.
"Eek—!"
"I'm not going to eat you. It's all right."
Or had they been abused? I'd taken a single step, and the child let out a thin, childish shriek and curled in on themself. They hadn't said a word until now, so I'd half wondered if they were mute. At least I now knew they could scream. Small mercies.
"I mean it, you're fine. It's medicine. Medicine."
After a little coaxing, whatever I was trying to say seemed to get through. The kid finally let me come near. I brushed the dirt from their arms and legs at once and dabbed the potion onto every scrape I could find.
"Father says this is just a low-grade potion, the kind you use when a kid gets banged up playing around. Still, when it comes to skill, my father's the real thing, so you'll be better in no time."
I wasn't inventing comfort for the child's sake. This really was a Healing Potion. Back in the world I'd come from, even with ointment a cut took days at best and weeks at worst. Here, even a low-grade brew like this could close a simple wound completely inside half a day.
The truly expensive, precious stuff could supposedly regrow a severed limb. Sadly, I had yet to experience that particular effect firsthand.
"So. We'll have to get down the mountain somehow.... Do you remember which way you came from?"
"...I don't know."
The kid, who until then had done nothing but whimper, spoke like a person for the first time.
"And your family? You didn't come all the way out here alone, did you?"
"...I don't know that either."
Knowing how to talk and actually holding a two-way conversation were different matters entirely. I'd treated the wounds I could see, but the fear of a child this young left alone in the woods wasn't going to fade so easily.
No matter how I looked around, there was no trace of anyone else—least of all an adult. Which meant the kid really had come all this way from outside, alone....
It wasn't entirely impossible.
Our family's land was certainly vast, but with enough stamina you could cross it from one end to the other on your own. I knew, because I'd done it.
As for why I'd found this child alone halfway up the mountain... the likeliest answer was that some neighborhood kid from beyond the private land had wandered off and somehow ended up here. Or what—were they a born genius mage who'd teleported themself this far without even noticing?
"Ha... forget it. Let's just go to my house for now. My father will take you into town. We're the only ones who live around here."
I brushed myself off, got to my feet, and held out a hand. The kid hesitated a moment, then quickly took it.
"But seriously—what happened to your shoes?"
"..."
"Right. You don't know that either."
The child nodded without a word. I turned and glanced at Excalibur, lying discarded on the ground.
Even so, if a little kid walked a mountain path like this barefoot, the soles of their feet would be torn to shreds. So if I let them use the sword like a crutch...
"No good."
Even as a crutch, one foot would still have to touch the ground. And peeling off one of my own shoes to hand over would look ridiculous. Better, then, that I simply carry the child down myself.
"Climb on. I'll take you."
"I-I'm home."
"Welcome back, Emil. You're earlier than I expec—wh-what! And who is that child?"
I'd been running wild since I was old enough to stand, so I had no doubt my basic stamina was solid next to other children my age. I'd just come down the mountain with a kid about my own size on my back. At this rate, I might be taking down bears before I turned ten.
"I found them on the mountain."
"How did some other family's child get onto our land... no, that isn't what matters. Dear!"
Mother, who had been swinging a wooden sword out in the yard, went white in an instant and bolted through the front door. A crashing racket rose from inside, and before long she reappeared—dragging Father along by the hand.
"What's all this about all of a sudden? Don't tell me the child actually broke an arm or—"
Unlike Mother, who might as well have been screaming, Father took one look at the child on my back and went utterly still.
"I found them halfway up the mountain. They were picking fruit and eating it all alone—I think they snuck in from outside. They weren't even wearing shoes, and they were hurt all over, so I put some medicine on them."
"I-is that so. Let's get them inside first."
Father lifted the child off my back at once, gathered them into his arms, and set them carefully on the living-room sofa. Then he crossed to the seat on the far side of the table and dropped into it.
"I've never seen this face before. Are your parents somewhere nearby?"
The kid answered with a shake of the head, side to side.
"You came all this way by yourself? Do you know this whole area is private land?"
Another shake. Father, plainly rattled by a situation he'd never met in his life, scratched hard at his scalp, awkwardness written all over his face.
"All right. In any case, let's have a look at where you're hurt. If the potion's already on, a few hours should be enough to clean up a light scrape."
At least they understood what was being said. The kid rolled up their sleeves, then pulled off the hood they'd kept tugged down the whole time, baring hair that shimmered silver—
And in that same instant, every one of us, myself included, froze.
"..."
The face itself was just a child's. Those red eyes couldn't hide their unease, and it looked as if one startle from the side would set them crying on the spot.
But a pair of small horns rose from their head.
"Ah. Father."
"...This child seems to be of a race different from ours."
Fortunately, this world didn't appear to have a culture in which the dominant race oppressed others for growing horns or pointed ears. Father was startled, of course, and so was Mother—an adventurer who had made quite a name for herself in her day—but both of them were soon wearing nothing more than gentle smiles.
"R-right. Let's see the wounds on the arms and legs... they're fine."
"Huh?"
What was that supposed to mean? I'd carefully worked Healing Potion into every scrape on those limbs myself, but barely more than an hour had passed.
I went straight over and studied the slender arm up close.
The potion I'd applied was still on the skin. But the wounds that ought to have been knitting underneath were nowhere to be seen.
Somewhere between coming down the mountain and reaching the house, they had healed clean.
"Well... doesn't that just mean your medicine works ridiculously well?"
"...Or it's a trait of their race."
And what was I supposed to do with the very man who'd made the stuff answering me in the form of a question? Still, the child's wounds were gone, and that was all to the good. If nothing else, I couldn't bear the sight of a kid that young struggling, hurt all over.
Horns on the head, and a recovery speed that was frankly terrifying—those were differences, sure. But a kid was still a kid.
"Then let's get you washed up and have dinner first. It's already too late to head into town, so once it's light tomorrow we'll go look for your parents as well. Dear."
"Come along, then. I've just drawn the bath."
Mother took the handoff from Father and led the child off to the bathroom, leaving only the two of us in the living room.
"Emil."
"Yes?"
A brief silence settled between us. Father was the one to break it.
"That child. You really did find them on the mountain?"
"Of course. What would I gain by making something like that up?"
"Right. Honestly, even looking at you, I don't think you're lying."
"Don't tell me you were suspecting your one and only son just now?"
When I shot the question back at him, playful, Father shook his head.
"Not you, Emil. That child. Whether their parents are anywhere nearby. Whether they even know where this is."
"Then if we go into town tomorrow, we might not find them?"
"We may not even need to take them along."
"What?"
I asked again, but Father rose as if it were altogether too complicated a matter to explain to a child just yet, and walked off toward the kitchen.
After that I ate dinner with the freshly washed child, read a book I'd brought from Father's study, and went to bed.
And the next morning.
A dragon had come to our front door.