A Lifeline of Bamboo
When Chester returned home, Monia, who was already awake, glared at him for going to the river alone.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Hmph! It's nothing!"
Chester had slipped out without a word. Monia was annoyed by that fact, but since she didn't actually know why she was annoyed, she simply huffed and puffed in aimless irritation.
After eating breakfast with the still-fuming Monia, they resumed the task of boring holes through the bamboo, just as they had done the day before. The more they did it, the more they grasped the knack of the work and learned how to use their hands without aggravating the blisters on their palms. As a result, progress was much faster than yesterday.
"Are your palms okay?"
"Yeah. No problem."
"Really?"
"Really, truly."
Monia asked about the state of Chester's palms from time to time. This was because the bamboo stalks she was smoothing out inside were stained with his blood here and there.
When lunchtime arrived, Monia stopped Chester as he was about to eat.
"Give your hands a rest."
"I can just eat with my left hand. All I have to do is lift the bowl and drink anyway."
"I shall feed you! Hmph! You had better bow your head in immense gratitude!"
Monia had prepared the lunch. Using a single bamboo spoon, she fed the completed dish to Chester.
"How is it? Is it delicious?"
"……Yeah."
Chester answered, but in truth, he couldn't taste much of a difference. He possessed a palate specialized for survival—as long as it was edible, he could eat almost anything with relish.
"Fufu, right? I knew it!"
But Monia, seemingly delighted by Chester's praise, puffed out her chest with pride. She barely ate any herself, feeding the vast majority of the food to Chester.
"Eat up!"
"Okay. You should eat some too."
"Ah, right."
Only then did Monia scoop up a spoonful of food with the very same bamboo spoon she had been using to feed Chester and pop it into her mouth.
"Fufu, my palate is truly impeccable! Just how many delicacies of land and sea do you think I have tasted in my life?"
After finishing their meal, Chester organized all the bamboo pipes and began arranging them by thickness.
"We'll have the thinner ones pointing toward the waterfall and the thicker ones pointing toward us. We'll connect them by nesting them inside each other like this."
After fitting them together, Chester pointed out the gap between the joined bamboos.
"If the thicker end pointed toward the waterfall, the water would leak out through this gap."
"I see. But what about the ones with almost no difference in thickness?"
Monia tried to fit two bamboo pieces together, but they just clacked against each other, refusing to slide in.
"We'll shave them down to fit."
Chester took the pipe Monia was holding along with her claw knife and began to carefully shave the wood.
"Once it's shaved down to size, we apply resin here."
After applying resin to both ends, Chester slotted the pipes together and brought over some charcoal. He crushed the charcoal and stuffed it into the faint gaps between the bamboo pipes.
Next, he applied another layer of resin to the exterior, brought over a burning brand, and melted the resin to seal it. Finally, he wrapped rope tightly around the joint.
"Once it's all done, we can reinforce any parts that look weak. For now, let's stick to this basic process."
"……Alright."
Chester handed the claw knife back to Monia and continued working with his stone knife. Monia followed Chester's demonstration and began her own work.
"Is this why you've been gathering charcoal lately?"
"Yeah."
They weren't going to connect all the pipes at once. He planned to start from the house and work his way back step by step.
First, Chester took the joint made of the largest pipe and a slightly shaved pipe, carrying it over to hang it at the designated spot in the center of the bridge.
He carved a shallow groove near the very front of the pipe and tied a rope securely around it. Next, he fetched a reasonably sized stone and bound it to the pipe.
"What is that for?"
"Normally, we'll keep this tied up here so the waterway tilts upward, preventing water from flowing in. But when we want to use it..."
As he untied the end of the rope secured to a nearby branch, the weight of the stone and the bamboo pulled the pipe downward.
"We'll let it drop like this. Right now, it's just dangling and swaying because the other pipes aren't connected, but once they are, the waterway will naturally slope downward, allowing the water to flow."
With all the materials prepared, Chester and Monia quickly pushed forward with the final assembly.
Shaving the pipes to match, applying resin, slotting them together, packing them with charcoal, applying more resin to burn and seal, and then binding them tightly with rope. They repeated this cycle over and over.
From tree to tree, branch to branch, and along the guide ropes they had hung to mark the path, the waterway began to take shape.
Fortunately, the lush, towering trees supported the waterway at just the right height and distance. Of course, stray branches occasionally obstructed the path, but they chopped them all away to clear a path.
Because the distance was vast, the work required climbing trees, and they had to constantly move back and forth to inspect the joints, the process took a long time.
Fortunately, having marked the route beforehand with guide ropes allowed them to extend the line all the way to the waterfall without any major issues.
As he installed the pipes, Chester also adjusted the length of the ropes he had loosely looped around the tree branches.
These ropes would prevent the waterway from sagging too much, and when they needed to pull it up and secure it after use, they would make lifting the entire structure much easier.
Once darkness fell, they halted their work on the waterway, returned home, ate dinner, and rested quietly. Chester, of course, knew he needed to rest his hands to let the wounds heal. Aside from the urgent waterway construction, he intended to avoid moving his hands as much as possible.
While resting, Chester tended to his wounds and then supervised Monia's crafting.
Monia, eager to learn as many diverse skills as possible, didn't stop at twisting ropes or reviving dying campfires.
"Mmm. How is it?"
Since there was nothing else he could physically do, Chester decided to devote his remaining time before sleep to Monia, relying on the warmth of the campfire.
"It's too dark. I can't see it well."
At Chester's words, Monia carefully crept closer to where he lay resting. Leaning slightly against his side, she showed him the bow she had crafted.
Though Monia had once been deeply ashamed of showing her failures to others, she had failed and looked pathetic in front of Chester so many times by now that she no longer minded showing him her shortcomings.
"Hmm." Chester thoroughly inspected the bow Monia had made.
"Try making the stave a bit sleeker."
"Sleeker?"
"Yeah. It looks like you copied my bow, but with your strength, you'll find it too hard to draw."
"Okay."
Without returning to her spot, Monia stayed right beside Chester, untying the string from the bow and beginning to shave the stave with her claw knife. Taking advantage of the bamboo floor, Monia wedged the bow stave into a gap between the bamboo slats, using her thumb to guide the knife as she shaved the wood with practiced ease. Having lived in the wild for a month now, she actually looked quite proficient at these tasks.
Chester relaxed, listening to the chirping of insects outside, the crackle of the logs in the campfire, and the rhythmic scraping of Monia shaving the bow stave. Since he had spent almost every waking moment working unless it was too dark to see, it had been a long time since he had enjoyed such a peaceful, leisurely rest.
He had always believed that if one did nothing but suffer, the mind would rot even if the body held up, so he thought he had been enjoying himself enough. But perhaps he hadn't.
"Once it gets hotter, I plan to reduce our activity level. Maybe it would be a good idea to make some toys, not just survival tools and hunting gear."
Between the person who plans an efficient route and runs with a relaxed mind, and the person who blindly dashes forward in a frantic rush—Chester knew very well which of the two was stronger and could endure longer.
While Chester rested in tranquility, Monia also hummed a soft tune as she leisurely shaved the bow stave.
It was a beautiful, moonlit night.
Though the kingdom had barely managed to suppress the riots of the revolutionary army and the commoners, there was no time to rest. This was because, while the revolutionary army was running rampant, nobles from all directions had raised their armies and begun marching toward the royal capital.
Among them, the greatest threat was that the Duke's family stood at the very pinnacle of these rebelling nobles. The Duke's family was the lineage of the great commander who had led the vanguard during the founding of the kingdom, carving out its path of glory. That legendary tale had not faded with the passage of time; instead, it had grown grander, passed down as a heroic saga, a legend, and a myth.
It had reached the point where some even called it 'the nation created by the Duke,' despite the royal family possessing no small amount of power themselves.
The family that had built the nation had now betrayed it.
The reason was that the Prince had unilaterally broken the engagement—which was practically a sacred covenant between the royal family and the Duke's family—and chosen a commoner girl as his new fiancée. To make matters worse, in the eyes of the nobility, they had handed down an excessively cruel punishment to the Duke's daughter, Monia—a pitiful, beautiful, and innocent victim—by exiling her to the Floating Island.
Backed by an overwhelming justification, legendary achievements, and innate charisma, the rebel army marched forward.
"The Duke has personally taken to the front lines?"
"Yes, Your Majesty! Upon seeing the Duke personally carrying the standard into battle, many nobles are abandoning their resistance and defecting to his side!"
The mistake of the young and foolish Prince Jordy had tarnished the honor and trust of the royal family.
Just as the nobility's discontent with the royal family was peaking, the Duke moved, wielding the deeply human motive of 'avenging his daughter' alongside the righteous duty of 'purifying the corrupted royal family'—a cause perfectly fitting for a noble house and loyal vassal. The Duke's name and his righteous cause, compounded by the extreme circumstances of war, blinded the masses. Before the momentum of his overwhelmingly armed forces, many nobles lowered their banners in surrender.
"……."
This was bad. Truly bad.
The King silently acknowledged his mistake. Instead of stubbornly trying to preserve royal honor, he should have swallowed his pride, compromised, and handled the matter with greater tact and leniency. But he hadn't. Why had he failed to do so?
"……."
The King suddenly looked down at his hands. He saw withered, wrinkled skin.
"Ah, I see."
The King, who had fathered a child very late in life, thought of his young, immature son who still failed to comprehend the true weight of royalty. And then, he became acutely aware of his own deeply wrinkled hands. The crown upon his head felt as heavy as the weight of the entire nation, and the ceremonial robes he wore to maintain his majestic dignity felt as heavy as ten thousand pounds. Every single piece of jewelry felt like a shackle binding him down.
"I have grown so old that I cannot even make such a simple judgment."
All living things age. Time flows without stopping. It was a grand law of nature that no one could escape, yet because it happened every single day, it was a truth easily overlooked—until the day one was forced to realize it. That very obvious truth now weighed heavily upon the King.
He was old. His end was drawing near. And the one who was supposed to succeed him was so immature and foolish that he was still blinded by a woman, utterly ignorant of reality, wasting precious time.
"Send the Prince to the battlefield," the King commanded.
"Have him personally hold the standard, stand at the vanguard, and lead the army."
A member of the royal family would risk his life at the front. And it would not be the decrepit King, but the young Prince who was meant to succeed him. With this, the resolve and determination of the royal family would be conveyed to the nobility; those surrendering easily would dwindle, and those resisting the rebels would multiply.
"Furthermore, hear my words, for this is a royal decree."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Before the weight of the royal name, a cold and painful reality was descending upon the Prince, who had lived his life as if in paradise.
"Should the Prince attempt to flee the battlefield, or should he choose an unjust, foolish retreat, strike him down with the sword."
"Understood, Your Majesty."
"This is also a punishment for the Prince who has defiled the royal house. Let those who execute this decree carry it out with the same steadfast devotion they hold for the kingdom."
At the same time, this meant that Tiara, who had always been protected under the Prince's watchful eye, would be cast naked and defenseless into the brutal 'world of the nobility.'