Homeward (2)
Turning back along the path they had come was no great difficulty.
The tall grass that had grown chest-high while they lingered by the lake made things awkward, but Chester’s body was whole again now, and Black Wind was with them.
Black Wind especially, with those massive arms and hands, simply pressed the grass down and shoved it aside as if to ask what the problem was supposed to be, carving a path as he strode ahead. Thanks to him the three of them could travel far more comfortably than they had on the way out.
Perhaps that was why.
They soon left behind the long stretch of riverless ground that had once seemed endless, and found the river again with surprising speed.
There was no fear of taking a wrong turn. Ant, who had memorized the route by scent with perfect clarity, led the way, and they carefully checked every trace of their old meals and campsites as they went.
“Oh.”
“Water!”
In celebration of finding the river they drank their fill of clean water, recharging themselves, then continued toward a stretch deep enough to float a boat.
“Ugh. I never want to get water from grass again. It’s so bitter.”
“You’re drinking it better than before, though.”
“Hmm, true. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to it from eating everything else?”
Chester chuckled at that.
“That’s how you end up with a cheap mouth—after picking up and eating every scrap.”
“I don’t mind becoming cheap.”
Monia said it with a little pout of her lips, and Chester kissed her naturally.
When the kiss ended, Monia’s eyes were moist and her face flushed with a mix of shyness and joy; a soft smile melted across her features as she spoke.
“As long as Chester likes my mouth, that’s enough for me.”
“……Aigoo.”
Feeling a sudden heat deep in his chest at her face and words, Chester shook his head as if he couldn’t win.
“Did you learn that one from talking novels with your friends too?”
“Huh? No? I thought of it myself! How was it? Did you like it?”
“Yeah. I liked it.”
“Really? Truly? Hehehe.”
Hearing Chester’s answer, Monia nodded with a satisfied smile.
They walked like that for a while, then Black Wind and Chester took turns leading.
Having Black Wind push ahead the whole way would have been most efficient and fastest, but dumping every burden on one person was something you simply didn’t do.
Even if that one person knew it was more efficient, resentment would pile up deep inside, and piled-up resentment cracked things open.
Besides, how could you call yourselves friends if you only moved under the banner of “efficiency”?
By pure time spent together they had not known each other long—shorter, even, than the nameless villagers you might pass on the street in the same town.
Yet Chester and Black Wind already regarded each other as friends.
“All right, let’s give it a try.”
With both legs sound again, Chester swung his machete at the tough grass blocking the path and moved forward smoothly.
No longer hindered by one bad leg, he could brace his body firmly. No more flinching from pain mid-swing.
“Ah, I feel like I could fly.”
“That good?”
“Of course it is. You have no idea how easy it is every time I use my legs.”
“Then don’t get hurt from now on.”
“Yeah, I’d love it if there was nothing left to get hurt by.”
While Chester and Monia walked ahead, Black Wind tried to get closer to Ant.
They were already somewhat friendly, but Black Wind wanted more—wanted the level of closeness where Chester could give Ant all sorts of commands with just simple signals.
So now he was practicing whistling while looking at Ant.
— Hooo! Hooo!
— ……?
Maybe it was the shape of his mouth, but no matter how much he practiced the tips he’d learned from Chester, no whistle came out.
For the record, Monia couldn’t whistle either. In her case her tongue and lips were simply too soft; she couldn’t narrow the airflow tightly enough.
— Hooo! Hooo!
“……You okay?”
“Yes.”
Black Wind practiced whistling with great enthusiasm.
And every time he did, Monia, walking in front of him, had her hair whipped into a wild mess by the powerful wind blasting from behind.
“Everything’s fine except I’d really like to tell you to brush your teeth.”
“Ah…….”
It was bad—the smell.
Chester swallowed the words that tried to leap out on reflex, for the sake of his friend.
The People of the Summit.
They possessed great strength and keen intelligence, yet they did not have a civilization that had endured for ages the way humanity’s had.
So the knowledge and wisdom built up through long accumulation of time and information—things like the simple concept of “cleanliness”—did not exist among them.
Even humanity, which had known the link between cleanliness and health since ancient times, still lost countless soldiers on battlefields by neglecting the hygiene of the wounded, or carefully tended their own cleanliness while raising livestock in filth and suffering parasites for generations.
— Hooo!
“Ugh…….”
“Hang in there.”
“I know.”
Black Wind watched everything Chester and Monia did and tried to copy it.
Of course he imitated brushing his teeth after meals as well. He didn’t know why it was necessary.
But a mouth that had spent a lifetime tearing meat, fish, and roots, with residue piled up year after year, was not going to lose its smell after a few days of pretend brushing.
— Hooo!
Only Monia suffered.
Once they reached a stretch of river deep enough to float a boat, Chester quickly built a raft.
— Which of these trees floats best in water?
— This one floats well.
First step in gathering materials: find the wood that floats best.
Most wood floated, of course, but some was heavy enough to sink.
Ordinarily he would have simply cut whatever was handy and lashed it together, but now that he had a knowledgeable friend he decided to find the best-floating wood and use that.
While Chester and Monia chopped trees with axes, Black Wind picked up a stone and took a stance.
“Hm?”
He stretched the arm holding the stone straight back, drawing his whole body with it—an odd but unmistakable throwing posture.
Pulling himself taut like a drawn bow, Black Wind tensed the fingers gripping the stone, then swung his entire body and weight forward with all his might and hurled it.
KWA-JIJIJIJIK!!
The flying stone pulverized the trunks of more than ten trees along its path before shattering and vanishing. Trees whose bases had disappeared or been more than half destroyed toppled in every direction under their own weight.
“……Whoa.”
“……Are you some kind of cannon?”
Creatures like this lived up there? At the Summit of this island?
They were living, walking cannons.
And he hadn’t even seemed to put much effort into it.
No wonder they rule the island.
In pure force or destructive power a rhinoceros’s charge would still outdo the stone Black Wind had thrown.
That monster could casually trample dozens of trees as it went.
But the important point was this: even a monster like that rhinoceros would have no chance if dozens of Summit people started throwing stones the same way Black Wind had.
Numbers were power.
And throwing was the finest weapon for making those numbers count.
……What happens if they ever learn proper throwing technique?
Black Wind’s throwing form had looked clumsy no matter how you sliced it. Their limb proportions were different from humans, so he had to be careful saying so, yet it was still undeniable that the posture made it hard to put full power behind the throw.
If the People of the Summit ever learned correct form and could throw with precision and real force?
……Better stop thinking about it.
It was frightening just to imagine.
Chester decided to focus only on building the raft. Thanks to Black Wind the materials came together quickly.
Better use vines than rope.
Some of the vines on the upper levels were as thick as a man’s forearm, but others were ordinary rope-thickness like the ones below.
“If you tie vines well, they absorb water and tighten themselves even stronger.”
“Really?”
They weren’t the all-purpose tool that human-made rope was—able to adjust thickness and length on the spot for anything—but vines still made excellent rope.
“First we have to lash this around the logs that will be the bottom axis of the raft.”
Chester twisted the vine into two loops facing opposite directions, half-lapped them over each other, and slipped them onto the axial log.
Then he pulled the vine tight to fix it to the wood, and laid another log across it at right angles just above the knot.
He draped the vine over that log, crossed it under the axial log, and pulled hard to join the two pieces.
“Monia, you finished that side?”
“Yes! All done!”
“Good, then let’s put another log on.”
“Yes!”
They set two axial logs, one above the other. Chester worked the upper side while teaching Monia; Monia worked the lower side under his inspection.
They repeated the same process on each new log they added, and the raft came together quickly.
“Wow……. It’s a raft.”
“Let’s hang a cushion raft underneath so it floats even better.”
“Ah, okay.”
While attaching the cushion raft, Chester spoke.
“Actually there’s a simpler way to make a raft if you want.”
“There is?”
“Yeah. You just lay the logs side by side, put crosspieces above and below, and lash them tight with rope. It’s weaker than what we just built, but if you only need something quick for a short trip it’s fine. Done well it can still be pretty sturdy.”
“Why didn’t you do it that way?”
“The waterfall. If the raft gets smashed going over it, we’d get caught in the wreckage and hurt badly.”
Chester tied one end of the leftover vine to a rock and floated the raft on the river. Black Wind climbed aboard with curious delight.
The raft rocked hard once under his weight, but thankfully it settled and floated steadily on the water.
“Ooooh!”
Clap clap clap.
Monia applauded in admiration, and Black Wind, pleased, began to dance and sway his body.
Seeing that, Chester pulled Monia’s head close and gave her a light kiss on the forehead for a job well done.
“All right, hop on.”
“Yes!”
Once Chester, Monia, and Ant were all aboard, Chester pointed his machete at the vine still tied to the rock and said,
“Well then.”
“We’re casting off!”
“Cast off! Cast off!”
“You there! Untie the lines!”
Someone freed the ropes moored to the dock, and the thick-armed sailors on deck hauled them in and stowed them.
“Everyone aboard?!”
“Yes!”
“Then we start the final checks! First—provisions!”
After a thorough inspection before raising the anchor, Rotin shouted toward the ship that had been preparing separately behind them.
“We’re all set on this side! Are you ready over there?!”
When the signal came from the caravel behind that preparations were complete, Rotin nodded in satisfaction.
The ships Rotin sailed around the world with were these two vessels prepared in secret by his family.
One galleon and one caravel. The caravel was always packed with spare supplies, and among them were dresses and jewelry prepared for Monia.
The sails bore the jellyfish Rotin had taken as his lucky emblem, and the figureheads were a whale and a wooden statue of a sea goddess worshipped in a certain region.
When the bustling sailors stopped and looked his way, Rotin smiled and toyed with the pistol in his hand.
He poured powder and a round ball down the muzzle, then took the ramrod fitted beneath the barrel and packed it tight.
Next he carefully sprinkled a little powder into the pan beside the frizzen, finishing the loading, and raised the pistol high toward the sky.
The moment Rotin pulled the trigger, the frizzen of the pistol—improved from a kingdom lighter—snapped forward.
It scraped the flint hard, throwing a rough shower of sparks that instantly ignited the powder and set off the explosion.
BANG!
The ear-splitting roar struck him, and Rotin grinned as he shouted,
“Raise the anchor!”