The Choice to Leave
Land approaching from afar.
Climbing a tall tree and checking through the telescope confirmed it was not a continent, but an island of considerable size. Roughly twice the area of the Floating Island, it stretched long and narrow rather than forming the overall rounded shape of their home.
Chester folded the telescope he had been holding stretched out to his eye, hung it from his pocket, and climbed down from the tree.
"Judging by how fast that island is getting closer, the Floating Island seems to move a little slower than a horse pulling a carriage."
"A Duke's house horse?"
"No. Just a regular horse."
The Duke's house had gathered every kind of fine steed to form the Sky Knights, so even the horses that pulled carriages were thoroughbreds. They simply lacked the temperament for battle mounts and never became Sky Knight warhorses, yet in pulling power and endurance some of them outperformed the knights' own mounts.
"The Floating Island is slower than I thought."
"It rides the waves and follows the wind without ever stopping, so if you look at it that way, it isn't slow at all."
"If the island had gone all the way around the world, it wouldn't have taken that many years for one full circuit, would it?"
"Probably not."
Chester watched the approaching island for a moment, then turned his gaze to the sea.
"Monia."
"No."
"……."
"You're about to do something weird again."
"It's not weird."
"Then it is weird."
Chester pouted at Monia's decisive tone. She pinched his protruding lips between thumb and forefinger and gave them a firm shake.
"Ah—ah—ah! Huzh ma!"
"Don't you dare stick those lips out at me."
She released him and, seeing how red she had made his mouth, leaned in and kissed the spot she had pulled.
"So. What were you going to do?"
"Let's go to that island."
"……."
Just as she had expected—something weird.
"Why?"
"I saw boats on the beach. About four of them. But there were no real signs of civilization on the island itself. Not a single building."
"……."
"Which means someone is commuting from home to that island for work."
Monia's expression grew serious at his words.
"Of course, it probably isn't close. I didn't see any trace of a mainland nearby."
"……But the fact that there are boats—and more than one—means it isn't just someone who drifted at sea and happened to wash up there."
"Exactly."
An island that connected to a continent.
"W-wouldn't it be better to just stay on our island a little longer? The continent will show up eventually if we wait. We already have a stable foundation here."
"We don't know when or how the island might change course and head somewhere completely wrong."
Monia pressed her lips shut.
She knew he was right. Yet the moment a path off the island and toward a continent actually appeared, she realized her feet felt as if something heavy and strong had clamped them firmly in place.
Chester understood.
Sudden change in one's surroundings was always frightening.
He had felt the same.
When he went from being a hunter's son to a student at the butler academy, fear had swallowed him whole. There had been hesitation, and days when the sudden new environment made food stick in his throat.
And the most important point of all: they had no idea which continent that island would lead them to.
The world was vast.
Seven continents existed in this world, and the kingdom occupied only about forty percent of one of them. Of course, holding forty percent of a continent meant tremendous power, and the kingdom enjoyed excellent natural conditions and resources—aside from the periodic droughts brought by the desert. Still, it was only a fraction of the wide world.
The moment they used that island to reach another continent, they would be moving through a place where the language and culture were completely foreign. Finding their way back to the kingdom from there would be a long, long journey. They might never reach it at all, and die somewhere along the way.
Chester also knew that the fire of revenge Monia carried in her chest had grown small. In the middle of ordinary daily life it would surface only as a sudden, mild thought: Ah, right. I was angry, wasn't I?
That was a good thing. Whether revenge or anything else, intense emotions ate a person from the inside and drove them mad. Hatred, sorrow, rage—if you could control them, control them; if you could forget them, forget them.
So perhaps they would simply travel the world and settle somewhere convenient.
But even if she forgot her revenge, even if they never returned to the kingdom to seize the fortune in the Duke's secret warehouse, they still had to leave the island.
On this island Monia had properly grown a sense of self and matured as a person. At the same time, she had become someone confined to this narrow place.
Chester wanted her to see the wide world.
He wanted her to experience more.
He wanted the life of the person he loved not to end in a small place, but to grow rich with everything she saw, everything she went through, everything she felt.
"Monia."
That was why he spoke to the Monia who was afraid of leaving the island.
"Let's leave the island."
Moments of sudden change always arrived. You could not stop them.
They were leaving the island.
Once that decision was made, the biggest problem was Rex. Ant would of course go with Chester and Monia, but Rex was still Black Wind's child.
Even if Black Wind had given Rex to them as their son, that fundamental truth did not disappear. So Chester sent a thick column of smoke into the sky as a signal Black Wind would understand, then explained the situation when the giant and his wife arrived.
—We've decided to leave the island.
After they had been treated to a meal and heard those words, Black Wind and his wife reacted as if they had known this day would come.
The time had arrived. And for Rex, the moment of decision had arrived as well.
Would he leave the island with Chester and Monia, or return to the arms of his original parents?
On this one matter, Chester, Monia, Black Wind, and his wife were not allowed to say a single word.
Only Rex could decide. That was the choice of his four parents.
"……."
Told that the choice was his, Rex looked at Chester and Monia. Then he looked at Black Wind and his mother.
Rex loved all of them.
Life with Chester and Monia was fun, and learning the ways of the People of the Summit with Black Wind and his mother was fun too.
So he understood what the four of them were asking him to choose.
Whichever side he picked, he might never see the other two again. He understood that he had to make that choice.
"……."
It was a cruel decision for a child.
Yet Chester and Monia had no intention of stopping once the choice was made. They had chosen. They had decided. Therefore they had to move toward it.
Monia, at least, might hesitate; Chester especially had no intention of lingering.
Once you choose, you move. You do not cling to regret over the result of that choice. You simply keep going forward. Whether the choice was failure or success, the future would decide.
It was the same as hunting.
The moment you shoot at game, the moment you release the bowstring, the arrow flying toward the prey will never come back no matter what you do.
Whether the arrow hits or misses, whether it takes the prey's life or fails—all a hunter can do is watch the arrow he has already loosed.
If you miss, you wait for the next chance. If you hit but do not kill, you use the blood the prey has spilled to make the next chance easier. If you kill it, that is success.
Failure can be reversed, partial success is good, and success is perfect. That is all there is to it.
Rex suddenly climbed a tree.
High in the branches he lifted his head and gazed at the tall mountain rising in the center of the island.
Then he turned the other way and looked out over the vast sea and the long island drawing near.
As he watched, boats soon began to leave the beach of that elongated island.
Four boats, each carrying two or three people, unfurled their sails and headed out to sea. Catching the wind, they pulled away in an instant.
Farther and farther, toward a distant beyond whose end no one could know.
Rex watched them quietly.
Would he rise high, or spread wide? What kind of life would he live?
A short while later, Rex spread both arms wide, came down laughing, and clung to the top of Chester's head.
"I'm going with Papa."
"……Are you sure?"
"Yeah!"
Rex hopped lightly off Chester and latched onto Black Wind.
"Sorry!"
Then he laughed and hugged Black Wind and his mother tightly.
"I'm going!"
Black Wind and his mother looked quietly at the child speaking words they could not fully understand, then carefully gathered him into their arms.
They could not understand the language, but he was their child. They understood what choice he had made.
Chester and Monia stepped away and gave Black Wind and his wife the entire morning to spend with Rex.
And from that afternoon onward, Chester, Monia, Rex, and Ant began preparing to leave the island.