Chapter 202
Chapter 202
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 202
Chapter Title: Kies' Letter
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In the green city of <Karshiko>, there was no place to quietly converse with the White Bow Palace, Serwebon.
The mayor and his aides had been taken away by the Special Task Force, and passage through the city for merchants, citizens, and tourists was restricted.
That was why, following Cora's guidance, we headed to the island. To the center of Linkland's main island, the very spot where Link was said to have been laid to rest.
"Just keep going straight down this path."
"Thanks."
"No need to thank me. You don't have to say that to us. Don't even bother."
It was a gorge thick with nightwood trees, filled with a sweet, bittersweet fragrance.
Over the graveyard where footsteps had been cut off by the Slayers' control, countless wildflowers had bloomed.
I stopped in front of the graveyard brimming with colors and found myself smiling faintly.
"Hey, Link."
"Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link."
The grave's location was easy to spot, thanks to the three-meter-tall stone statue modeled after Link.
"Three hundred years, huh. About two hundred for Pipi?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
Pipi shook its bandage-wrapped wings vigorously, expressing its joy at seeing Link with its whole body.
Serwebon, too, emitted a mournful glow several times, just like the moment it reunited with me after three centuries.
Then, as wind rushed through the gorge, sunlight danced across Link's face, overgrown with moss and vines.
"Aba, it's a stone person! It's huge and amazing!"
"Aki, that's not a stone person—it's a statue."
"Neunji, Neunji, Neunji."
"Arung."
Seeing Aki leap up onto Link's shoulder like that, I couldn't help but smile.
"Come down—it's dangerous."
It must have felt like this when others saw me riding on Link's neck. A little kid perched on a giant's neck.
"Aki's so cool!"
"Aruu!"
The yellow dragon wriggling on Aki's head let out a cheer, apparently thinking Aki's landing was awesome. Aki shrugged its shoulders in satisfaction.
'Has Aki been happy to get a little sibling?'
Not me, though. Not one bit.
Then, I sensed a presence like someone laughing from somewhere...
My eyes widened briefly as I looked that way, then softened into a deflated smile.
There, on top of the grave, leaning the White Bow Palace against it at an angle, sat Kies.
Pipi might have seen the same vision as me; it landed atop the White Bow Palace with its still-unhealed wings and wiggled its rear.
"Long time, long time, long time."
In response to Pipi's greeting, the White Bow Palace emitted a large, clear pulse.
The world tree's breath made the nightwood leaves rustle refreshingly. Light shimmered across Kies' face and the White Bow Palace as the leaves swayed.
It was around then that stems and vines sprouted from the White Bow Palace's bowstring. They twisted and tangled in the air, forming letters.
"Is this the letter you left for me?"
Kies smiled faintly at the corners of his wrinkled mouth, as if answering.
I couldn't tell if it was a vision born from my longing or the lingering thoughts of Kies manifested by the White Bow Palace's vitality.
I had no intention of using Bell Sidias to verify it.
Right now, at this noon fountain where sea breezes danced with fruit scents, just thinking I was with Kies made me happy.
I wanted to savor this scent of memories.
"Can I read it?"
Kies, who could never speak anyway, just nodded lightly as a courtesy.
"Want to read it together, Link?"
Whether the White Bow Palace had breathed life into the statue or it was merely a vision... Link stood to Kies' right.
Ha, I laughed brightly.
Both were much older than before, with hair turned fully white and faces etched with fine wrinkles.
Realizing that was the depth of time separating me from those two, I felt a fleeting sorrow.
After exchanging light smiles with them, I peered into the words forming from the White Bow Palace.
I read the feelings left behind by a friend from an era three hundred years ago.
* * *
"Bow Star, have you never once resented this world?"
Whenever I was asked that, I would brush it off with a smile.
But to you alone—to you, who taught me letters—I want to teach the truth.
The era I was born into was one where the abyss stirred, cracks formed in the dragons' rule, and many people's minds and bodies withered away.
—Kies, my son.
My mother, the hunter's wife, died of plague when Kies was three.
And when he turned eleven, he fled home, unable to endure his drunken father's violence.
He lost his tongue in court for falsely defending a street urchin friend he'd cared for. The friend was hanged from the gallows.
She was the first woman I ever loved, at twenty-one.
[I came to think that only strength was worth trusting.]
It was all because I lacked strength—that I had to endure my father's violence, that I couldn't save my friend.
So I devoted myself to the one inheritance from my father: archery.
I roamed the nation, shooting my bow in search of something strong.
Aside from eating and sleeping, I shot my bow.
After ten years like that, the world called me the Continent's Greatest Archer. The emperor of the time summoned me and bestowed the title of Bow Star.
"Amazing. How can you shoot so well even after drinking that much?"
The order was wrong.
Without alcohol, without the haze blotting out my painful past, I couldn't draw the string accurately or focus.
My mother, dead in childhood.
My fearsome father.
My friend's death, staring straight into my eyes and screaming to be saved.
Once even my thirst for power was fulfilled, everything felt emptily terrifying.
Always drowning in alcohol, the emperor must have seen me as a headache and sent me as the empire's representative to the final hero party.
'Good timing. I don't want to live anymore anyway. Perfect place to die.'
And there, I met you.
A genius mage, but too young and prickly, so I figured some academy had dumped their problem child into the fray.
It felt strange.
At first, I watched you, thinking you resembled me, but soon realized you didn't.
—Kies, come here. I'll teach you letters.
—Kies, this is Tureina. My disciple? What nonsense—this is just a headache.
—Kies, teach me how to cook too.
You were simply pure, without a speck of dirt. Just honest to a fault in human matters.
Pretending to be gruff while smiling brighter than anyone, acting indifferent while being more attentive than most.
And deep inside, you carried 'salt' that changed those around you with your scent.
From a prim little kid at first, after five years, you'd become an adult inheriting Rista and Fride's light.
—I want to have a kid someday.
Watching you like that brought back an old voice in my head.
—One that looks just like the two of us.
Words my gallows-bound friend had shyly said to me, like fleeting soap bubbles.
—Will you teach that child a lot? So they won't be tainted by this era.
And at some point, I realized.
The world is like you.
It can be dyed black or golden. If only guided and taught right.
'Then doesn't this world still have hope?'
I'm just a freak drowning in booze, a fool who woke up to find himself the spitting image of his father.
But if I could save you—who overcame all the pains of youth—and send you to the future.
If I could let you grow into that adult.
Someday, the world might take the shape that childhood me and my friend dreamed of. That's what I thought.
—Win for sure...
But in the moment of life and death, you were the one who sent us to the future.
Though it must have hurt, though the encroaching poison tormented you, though the fear of everything you'd built ending in your youth must have torn at you.
In the end, you smiled at us. A smile like spring flowers blooming.
—I'll come back...
What was so joyful?
We didn't resent the world, the one that killed a child like you...
Before that question could finish, you vanished into some endless era.
Back in the empire, I pondered the meaning of your smile on that final day.
It took a month after returning to shake off the shock of it all.
You weren't in the future you'd made for us.
The moment I realized that, I wept in silence for a week, day and night.
The day my tears finally ran dry, I vowed to myself—the self that had only awaited death in a drunken stupor.
I would advance into the future.
So that on the day you returned, I could push your back to let you go there too.
[Behold, after my death, I shall bequeath the White Bow Palace to the most outstanding among my blood and disciples. Let the successor pass on the bow to the next generation by the same standard.]
When I wrote my will in the letters you taught me, I added one condition.
Serwebon's successor must forever strive endlessly for the Lin who will one day return.
And on the day Lin returns, they must use that strength for Lin.
[But anyone whose heart twists even slightly from this will, no matter their skill, shall not be chosen by Serwebon.]
In the future you sent me to, what I raised wasn't a mere disciple. Nor did I sire mere blood kin.
They were ones to carry on my will.
I am old and frail, unable to follow your life's journey any longer.
But if Serwebon, knowing my will, and someone inheriting it could reach out a hand in my stead when you need help...
That struck me as something truly beautiful.
[Lin, where are you now?]
Thinking of you as I received these letters, I finish this one.
The memory of that twilight meadow flower field I saw with you and the others remains vividly clear even on this final day.
Countless memories have faded with age. Even my mother's, father's, and friend's faces no longer come to mind.
[Has my heart reached you?]
Has this final message from me reached you, who gave your life for us in your youth?
I sired descendants, raised disciples, passed on everything I had—did my heart reach you too?
But it's strange, isn't it?
The Osarius Academy, grown from your death's nourishment, seems to shine more brilliantly than my archery faction, which I watered and tended in life.
No, that's not quite right.
Your final smile was the sustenance for my life's work, allowing me to nurture the faction.
Link felt the same, bequeathing his sacred weapon to his descendants.
Fride pondered the method, and just before Link's death, he completed some ritual. If the gods permit, I should meet Link too.
It might be presumptuous to convey Link's feelings in my words, but I believe he shared my heart.
Enough of laying bare my worthless life—let me convey my true feelings.
In the future you sent me, just recalling your smile let me forgo the alcohol.
Finally, I wanted to say this.
* * *
The succession of letters formed by new shoots sprouting into the air from the White Bow Palace came to an end.
Rain stared at it in silence for a long while, then bit his lip and began to shed tears.
Quietly, for a long time.
Whoosh—the sea breeze blew pleasantly, rustling the leaves and caressing his cheek. Sunlight stroked his hair.
In that harmony of nature, a wondrous sight flashed briefly in the eyes of the yellow dragon squirming atop Aki's head.
【Kies and Link.】
Was it merely a hallucination seen by the young dragon, or a momentary miracle born from the youth's earnest wish?
【Each stroking Lin and Pipi's heads, exchanging smiles.】
Whether true or not was unknowable, but surely, certainly, the youth and the beast felt the same warmth.