Chapter 23
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: The Journey
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#
Monsters originally referred to the creations of evil gods. In the age of gods, when the three deities—Kuncan, Takna, and Galpa—wielded their power in the heavens, the term applied to the descendants they had sown upon the world.
But over time, the meaning of the word 'monster' changed. This was because the creations of the evil gods either no longer served their creators or had died out, greatly reducing the number of beings to whom the term could apply.
'Monster' became a pejorative term for any beast that committed evil acts, regardless of whether it was a creation of an evil god. The monsters that attacked Luman's village were one such example.
About eighty years ago, a horde of monsters reached the County of Goeten.
No one knew where this species had originated or how they had come to be there. What was certain was that they were not from the Ice Peninsula. Dithmarschen stood guard over the peninsula. A single creature might have slipped through, but not a horde.
They were monsters with heads like pigs, walked on two legs like men, and stood slightly taller than dwarves. Their intelligence was lower than that of a giant, and they could not speak. However, they reproduced faster than any other monster. By the time their existence was first discovered, their numbers had already swelled to the hundreds.
Even so, it should not have been a major problem. It was a county, after all. This was also long before the Osnover Kingdom was engulfed in civil war. Surely the Count of Goeten could handle a mere horde of monsters.
The problem was the eroded sense of vigilance.
In the northern land of Dithmarschen, a man who had married into the ruling family had been governing for over two hundred years. As he culled the monsters of the Ice Peninsula, the people of the south had let their guard down completely.
'Surely, no monsters will come this way.'
Even if one or two happened to cross over by chance, they would be a weak species.
The soldiers who should have been guarding against monsters were instead consumed in battles to gain slivers of territory, and the monsters safely grew into a legion. The Count of Goeten must have realized his foolishness the moment he faced the monsters in his nightclothes.
It was then that Ulrich of Dithmarschen made his move. Upon hearing the news, he led his monster hunters and hunted the monsters that had become a legion.
The monsters, which had been capturing humans to increase their numbers, fled, and the last place they reached was Luman's village. The boy, Luman, was one of the children who survived that day.
#
The summer sun streamed through the wide-open window of the room.
Village Chief Luman stood before Ulrich, his gaunt legs supporting his emaciated body. He was also clutching Ulrich's hand with his own bony ones.
Ulrich, unperturbed by the old man's actions, closed his eyes as if lost in thought. Reflected in Luman's clouded eyes, he was young. So young, he looked younger than Luman's own grandson. But the reality was different. He was a man older than Luman.
Some said he had come to the northern frozen lands more than three hundred years ago. Luman had no way of knowing whether this claim was true or false. Nor did he have any intention of finding out.
Only one thing was important. The fact that the man before him was the same person he had met in the year he turned nine—the person he had met only once.
"I remember now."
Ulrich said, opening his eyes.
"There was a boy who fled with his sister on his back."
"Yes. You remember."
A deep smile spread across Luman's wrinkled face. Luman also remembered the day Ulrich spoke of. Even now, eighty years later, the memory of that day would surface with an uncanny clarity whenever he tried to recall it.
Time has a way of blurring even the memories one vows never to forget, painting over them with the veneer of nostalgia, but the memory of that day was an exception.
It was an afternoon when the world was stained red, whether by the sunset or by flames. Monsters appeared and killed the adults. The children were captured, and the boy's sister was wounded.
After felling a monster with his father's sword, Luman hoisted his sister onto his back and fled into the open plains where there was nowhere to hide. To his sister's feeble plea to leave her behind, the boy replied with a tearful 'No.'
The siblings had nowhere to run. Even the children on their own were too slow to escape; how could a boy carrying his sister possibly get away?
He felt his sister's blood soaking his back, and the sound of the pursuing monsters' footsteps grew louder and louder. Finally, the boy collapsed, and a monster snatched the siblings.
That was when Ulrich arrived with his party.
"When I fell, Lord Ulrich, you were the one who helped me up."
"What of your sister? Her wound must have been deep."
"Fortunately, a priest healed her. She was left with no disabilities and was healthy. She passed away twenty years ago. I was the youngest of the children you saved, which is why I'm still alive today."
Thirteen villagers survived that day.
They were all boys and girls who had not yet come of age, so they could not maintain the village. It was only after Ulrich brought adults from other similarly affected settlements to live there that the village barely began to take shape.
Afterward, he installed a new lord to the vacant seat of the Count of Goeten. She was someone from the Hilderson Clan. The Countess of Goeten aided in the recovery by exempting Luman's village and other affected areas from taxes for several years.
There's a saying that the ground hardens after the rain. Luman felt his life had been just like that. He had been swept up in a storm, but once it passed, his life had only improved. Of course, the wounds from the storm left scars that tormented him his entire life, but he had overcome them and stood tall.
"We once sent tribute... do you know of it?"
"I have no memory of that. You sent tribute?"
"Yes. We thought it was the only way we could repay you..."
Ulrich shook his head.
"You were mistaken. Did you think such things held any meaning for me?"
He was right. After finding stability, Luman and the other survivors had sent him tribute several times, but it was always returned. Sometimes it even came back with more than they had sent, and seeing this, they lost the courage to send it again.
"...Adnan must have done that."
Ulrich said he was a vassal who served him at the time.
"He was the one with blue hair, wasn't he?"
"So you know him. Did you ever meet?"
"When we visited, he was the one who received us."
At the time, Luman had thought that if their tribute was not accepted, he should express his gratitude in person. So he and his sister traveled to Dithmarschen, but the lord happened to be in a deep sleep. Instead, an old knight named Adnan greeted the Luman siblings.
Adnan had said,
"His Lordship does not wish for such things. How many lives do you think he has saved? If every single one of you did this, it would only become a burden to him."
And he sternly told them never to come again.
"Right. Adnan was that kind of boy."
Ulrich chuckled lightly and nodded.
"He always said he served me, but in reality, it was more like he was protecting me. He had a knack for acting before I did, for keeping things from reaching me. He was like a nanny."
"To us, he was simply a fearsome man."
"I can see why you'd feel that way."
Luman gave a wry smile.
"Back then, I thought we were quite unlucky."
"It must have been when I was asleep. The timing was off."
"Yes, it was. But... in the end, we meet like this."
"Fate is a strange thing," Luman said, studying Ulrich's appearance. He didn't just look young. He looked exactly as he had on that day, when he stood before the nine-year-old Luman.
The boy had become an old man and lived long enough that his end could come at any moment, yet the other had not changed in the slightest. It was as if the past had been placed unaltered into the present.
He had no doubt. Who would concoct such a lie just to fool an old man in this remote place? And who could remember his old appearance so perfectly as to imitate it like this?
Luman sometimes thought his life was too long. The days weren't painful, but he felt they stretched on tediously. But in this moment, he felt he understood why it had been so long.
#
Ulrich stayed in Luman's village for only one day.
Even though crossing the snow-covered forest had given them some leeway in their schedule, he seemed to have no intention of lingering before reaching Eisleburg. Luman gently asked him to stay a few more days, but he shook his head.
However, their departure time the next day was postponed until the afternoon. This was because there were several babies in the village who had not yet received the Infant Sacrament, as well as people with minor illnesses. For some reason, the priests of Goeten had not been visiting Luman's village.
No matter how incompetent or corrupt a priest might be, they would not carelessly postpone the Infant Sacrament. Hadn't Roberta herself performed this year's sacrament before embarking on her journey? Yet such a preposterous situation was unfolding before her very eyes.
Finding it strange, she expressed her wish to Ulrich to perform the sacrament and healing in place of the Goeten priests. That was the reason they ended up leaving the village after noon.
"Lord Ulrich."
As the party led their horses out of the village, Luman and the villagers came out to see them off. The people's gazes were fixed on Ulrich. It seemed they had heard something from Luman.
"Do you see? This is what has become of the children you saved."
Luman approached Ulrich and said. Gunther tried to support him, but Luman refused, standing on his own two gaunt legs. He then stretched out his arm and gestured toward the villagers.
The nine-year-old boy Luman grew up to have six children. Those six also grew up and had children of their own, and the twelve others who survived with the boy walked the same path.
A few other refugees in similar circumstances joined them. Before long, time passed, and eight decades went by; now, the number of people making up the village was close to two hundred.
Some might scoff. Thinking that, in the end, it was just a small village. But Roberta, upon seeing this small village, was reminded of the story of a certain man.
Hestio. When he descended from the heavens and gave fire to humanity, their numbers had not been much greater than this.
"I have taught my children about you. And I will continue to do so. Even if I die soon, my descendants will remember your name and pass on the story of what you did..."
"No, do not do that."
Ulrich shook his head.
"I only caught you so you would not fall from the cliff's edge. You are the one who climbed back up. I did not raise you. Even if one is given everything, it is all for naught without the will to act."
"Lord Ulrich—"
"With time, gratitude only turns to faith. There is no need to be bound to me. You have proven your life with your own hands."
"...In your eyes, does it seem my life has been a decent one?"
"Yes. More than I could have hoped for."
The boy who had become an old man smiled without a word.
Seeing that smile, Ulrich mounted his horse. He gave a slight nod, then turned and rode away. Roberta and Fritz followed behind him.
The village was situated in the middle of a wide, flat field. Even after they had ridden a good distance, when they looked back, they could still see Luman's people watching the three of them.
As Fritz kept glancing back, wondering when the people would go inside, Ulrich spoke.
"Roberta, do you remember the ruins we saw on the Ice Peninsula?"
The ruins on the Ice Peninsula... how could she forget?
"The civilization from before human history... you mean?"
On the day before their fortnight on the Ice Peninsula was up, while on their way to meet the dragon named Narbakayani, they had taken shelter from a blizzard in a certain tower.
On the wall of that tower, an ancient people had carved an inscription. In an ancient script, it meant, 'We die here,' Ulrich had said. She had found it ominous, feeling it was like the death cry of a long-lost civilization.
"Actually, there was more to it."
"Was there?"
"It said that in the end, even if they died, they were not defeated."
She gazed blankly at his back, a few paces ahead of her.
"I like those words."
A back has no expression, yet for a moment, she felt as if she had seen a smile.
"Because they held the meaning that though their civilization was destroyed, humanity would achieve its purpose. That humanity was not created for defeat, and that even in the face of death, it would rise again."
*Was this the reason he came to Luman's village?*
He had said it was to shorten the journey, but Roberta thought that perhaps, in truth, he had chosen this path to retrace old memories. For him, Luman's village must have been a confirmation—a chance to see that humanity, once fallen in his memory, had risen again.
And so, too, would be the journey ahead. For a man who had lived through long ages and under many names—Ulrich, Laurent, Oscar—a journey would be a voyage through memory.
"Those are... very fine words."
Roberta smiled softly and guided her horse to ride alongside Ulrich on his left. Fritz followed, taking his place on Ulrich's right.
The three of them crossed the horizon. The sun was already high in the middle of the sky, yet they descended below the line where earth and sky met. Luman watched until the very moment their backs sank from view.