“And then, upon cross-examination, the two of them finally told us the truth.
“However, even knowing what had really happened, it was already too late to do anything.
“Elise has been different ever since the day of the fire.
“She doesn’t want to part with her sister’s body. Far from it, she’s treating the corpse like it’s alive. She gives it food, dresses it in clothes, and snuggles up with it to sleep.
“Due to the poor judgment of our country’s merchants, as well as my own, the poor girl has lost her grip on reality.
“The two merchants have confessed to everything, and news of her actions has spread to the people of the city. Even though the citizens pity her, they’re frightened and have begun avoiding her.
“Also, she’s stopped listening to anyone else. She actively avoids people, regarding others with eyes full of terror.
“This problem goes far beyond anything we can solve, and it’s been out of our hands for quite some time now.”
That’s what the official told me.
But I was still foggy on one crucial detail.
“…To sum it all up,” I said, sighing, “you didn’t mind taking in the pitiful child, but now that the situation’s gotten out of hand, you want to kick her out. However, your words aren’t getting through to her, so even though you’ve tried a gentle approach, she won’t leave. You don’t know how she’ll react if you try a more aggressive approach, so you’re making an outsider do your dirty work. Sound about right?”
“……”
The coward replied with silence, so I continued.
“…Are you telling me that’s the reason you’re banishing a child from this city?”
I headed for the partially destroyed house, debating whether to accept the commission, and I was very surprised when I saw you, Elise.
And that’s when I decided to take the job. Because I had met you once before, in the bakery.
Before I met you at the stall with the apples, I had carried out an impromptu survey inside the city. And in my research, I found that the people all had the same thing to say about you.
“The pitiful child.”
The people walking around town repeated the same phrases.
“She’s really pitiful.”
“To fall into such a state because of a group of bad men… It’s tragic.”
Even the housewives living in your neighborhood wrinkled their brows as they told me.
“She came to live here because of some horrible adults…right?”
“Right… How devastating. She doesn’t even touch the meals the official leaves for her.”
“Yes, look. Over there. That’s the lunch box she threw at the wall. She always does that—throwing what he leaves at the wall. She doesn’t care if it’s money or food.”
The man who owned the unmanned stand also spoke to me, rubbing his bandaged hand. “Yeah, it seems like she’s been stealing apples from us for a while. Well, I knew about her situation, so I didn’t really feel like scolding her, but—A kid can’t survive on nothin’ but apples, so I tried to get her to go somewhere else, thinkin’ she might eat something else if she did. But she just shouted some nonsense at me… And, well, this is what it came to.”
I even talked to the proprietor of the bakery.
“Oh, Miss Witch. You saw it, too, didn’t you? That girl always tries to buy bread with…you know. I know her situation is grave, but—I’m running a business here, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with her.”
The first day I met you, Elise, I caught sight of something strange in the bakery. A girl wearing a big hood pulled a heap of dead bugs from her pocket and tried to buy bread with them. A very peculiar sight.
The girl referred to the bugs as money.
After arguing back and forth with the shopkeeper, who gently explained with a concerned expression that you can’t buy bread with dead bugs, that girl screwed up her face in shock and flew out of the store.
I tilted my head in confusion as I watched you go.
And then, the following day, I realized that that girl was you.
And that’s why I decided to accept the request from the government, for your sake.
“Lies.”
Right after I finished explaining everything, Elise mumbled a single word.
From her spot next to Mirina, she raised her head.
“That story is a bunch of lies—all lies. Why? Why are you trying to torture me, too, Miss Elaina? Did someone make you do this? You saw everything that happened, right, Miss Elaina? Those people in the city are awful.
“The jerks from the city treated me like a monster. They burned my house. But my sister’s not dead. She’s alive and well right here beside me.
“So it must be a lie. That story is nonsense.”
She shook Mirina by the shoulders. The little girl had been dead a long time, and her head lolled unnaturally.
“See? Look. There. She’s alive, isn’t she? My sister can’t possibly be—”
As if to interrupt her, as if to betray her—the corpse she had been violently shaking fell right off the chair.
With a heavy thunk, Mirina slumped onto the floor.
“Ah—” In that moment, realization flashed over Elise’s eyes. “N-no… My sister is… Mirina is alive—”
She stood up, stretched a hand out toward the corpse, then stopped halfway. Her fingertips were trembling violently.
She made an unbelievably heartbreaking figure.
“Elise…”
“No. No, no, no…! No way, no way, no way, no way! Mirina has, I mean, she’s been living with me the whole time. She can’t be dead…!”
“……”
I stepped between Elise and the corpse and embraced the girl tightly. I could feel the rough texture of her long coat with my fingertips, still carrying the chill of the winter air.
“Miss Elaina…this can’t be. Mirina is…”
“…Elise.” I tightened my grip. “You can’t… You can’t run away anymore.”
“I’m not running—”
“You’ve been through a lot. There’s no denying that. I understand that you just want to run away from it all. But you can’t. Because if you keep averting your eyes and running away, you’re going to run so far that you’ll never be able to come back to reality.”
“……”
“I’ve worked so hard to become your friend, and I can’t bear to watch as your trauma slowly eats you alive.”
“……”
“Come back to reality, please.”
And then I asked once again.
“Please let me help you.”
There was no response.
Just silence as she opened her mouth, no sound escaping her lips. Her trembling fingers gripped my robe tightly as she mouthed incoherently, “No, no, no way, stop it.”
Before long, her mumbling turned to wailing, and she clung to me and cried and cried.
I didn’t let her go until the tears finally stopped.
“Hello.”
“Oh, Lady Elaina. Hi there… I see you’re eating bread from the bakery again.”
“Yep. I’ve taken a liking to it—but this is probably the last time I’ll be eating it.”
“…?”
“I told you: I finished the job without issue. After I leave the city, I’m not planning to return to this area again.”
“…Is that so?”
“A gloomy face, as always.”
“I told you before. We really didn’t want to cast the girl out. It’s just that was the only way.”
“In any case, that doesn’t change the fact that you were just going to throw her out—and let’s talk about my payment.”
“…Ah, right. There was that. Um—”
“I don’t need it, so would you send it to her house for me?”
“Huh?”
“I won’t repeat myself.”
“No, it’s just—”
“It doesn’t matter what you
say; I’m not taking it. End of story.”
“…Lady Elaina, how is the girl? Has she recovered?”
“Who can say? Not me, that’s for sure.”
“Is that so…?”
“Yes. I’ll be going now.”
“…Please take care.”
“Oh, right, right. I forgot to say one thing.”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“When she comes here again—do your very best not to make that kind of face again, okay?”
I had spent my time with the girl for a while.
We would run through the snowy scenery on sunny days, she would hunt, and we would cook together. Rinse and repeat.
I lived in this pleasant flow of time.
And then, when Elise had truly learned how to hunt on her own, suddenly she said, “I’m all grown up now.”
In front of the graves where the three members of her family rested, she said that to no one in particular.
“Well then, I guess my work is done.”
“I’m not saying you should leave, but… But thank you for everything, Miss Elaina.”
“No need. I just did what I thought was best.”
“What will you do now?”
“I’ll get back to traveling.”
“…I’ll be lonely.”
“…Me too.”
“In that case, I could go with you!”
“Ah well… That’s a little…”
“You’re too honest, Miss Elaina.”
“What are you planning to do now, Elise?”
She took off her hood and peered at the sky. Head tilted toward the clear horizon, her breath rose like smoke and disappeared in the cold air. The sun had given off the slightest warmth, but it was so weak that it was easily lost amid the frigid wind.
Elise turned to look at me.
“I think I’ll try going back to that city for a little while.”
“…Even though you have nothing but bad memories there?”
“Mm. If I go now, I feel like I can make some different memories,” she said. “Plus, since I did some bad things to the people there, I’d like to apologize.”
“……”
“I say that, but I haven’t decided for certain yet, you know. It’s just…something I think I’d like to do one day.”
“Is that so?”
I think it’s a good idea— I nodded.
“Well, in any case, if I go, it’ll be after I’ve made up my mind and finished saying good-bye to everyone. At least for a little while longer—at least until the snow melts, I’m going to keep living here.”
Just then, in the forest behind her, there was a rustling sound.
She turned around, and the snow that had been resting on a tree branch fell to the ground. The top of the tree swayed gently, and a bit of green returned to the pure-white world.
It seemed that the snow would be melting away little by little from now on.
However…
“I guess it’ll still be a while, huh?”
She slowly shook her head at my statement and smiled.
“Soon,” she said.
CHAPTER 7
The Inheritance
One day, when I was sightseeing in a certain city, a very strange man approached me.
“Hey! Yer a witch, right? Annat means ya can ride on brooms?”
What a silly question.
“Yes, I am a witch and a traveler, which means I can obviously ride a broom.”
If I couldn’t ride one, I wouldn’t be much of a traveler.
The man nodded in satisfaction. “That’s perfect! Hey, hey, I wanna ask ya somethin’,” he said forcefully. He pulled out a map and kept talking. “I want’cha to take me to this area on the map! There’s somethin’ I gotta do there.”
“Huh?”
The place the man was pointing to looked like an ordinary forest to me.
You have business in a place like that? Just what are you planning to do? Not that I care either way.
I answered, “I don’t really mind taking you there, but…it’s going to cost you.”
“Ya don’t need to worry about that! I’ll pay up, so rest easy!”
“Then it’s fine.”
“That’s great—Oh, but I’m gonna hafta pay you after we get there. That okay? Heh-heh.”
“Or…you can pay up front.”
Somehow, I don’t think I can trust you. I get the sense that you might run off after I get you there. I can almost see you want to rip me off. It’s practically bubbling out of you. The way you’re speaking and acting is a dead giveaway.
“Hey, wait! Don’t be in such a rush! If ya get me there safely, I’ll pay up. I’m headin’ over there to get the money, see?”
“Oh. And it’s in the middle of a forest, is it…? Are you going to dig up buried treasure or something?” I asked sarcastically.
But the man nodded enthusiastically at my words.
“Exactly! My inheritance is buried in this spot!”
Okay, I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting that.
Looking back and forth between the map and road, I advanced toward the center of the forest.
A cord was tied to the handle of my broom, and the man was riding on a sled attached to the end of cord. I flew toward the spot he had indicated as the hiding place for the buried treasure.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!”
There was some screaming coming from behind me as I plowed through the forest, but I didn’t pay it any mind. An hour had passed since we had headed out on the broom. Right after he had gotten on, the man had complained, “What’s with the sled? Lemme ride behind ya on the broom,” but I had replied ever so kindly, “If you even think about trying to ride behind me, I’ll leave you right here and be on my way.”
But as time passed, it became clear that even bringing him along was a pain. Unfortunately, it turned out that the man loved to chat. From his spot on the sled, he went on and on about his many feats of heroism. According to him:
He was the son of a legendary gambler and made a decent living as a gambler himself. Following in his dead dad’s footsteps, he had been making easy money up until a few years ago.
But recently, his luck had run out, and his fortune had dwindled.
“When I win, I’ll pay you back.”
“I promise I’ll pay you back.”
His debts to his friends had piled up, and he continued to gamble, but as if the universe was mocking the flustered man, both his luck and his money had evaporated like morning dew.
To make matters worse, he had used up every bit of goodwill with his friends and acquaintances, and his father’s friends ended up whispering behind his back, “A cursed child was born of a blessed parent.”
However, not long ago, as he was worrying about dying broke and in debt, the man happened to find a map in his family home, showing where his father’s buried treasure was hidden.
“Well now, looks like the gods haven’t abandoned me after all!”
He danced with joy.
Then the man found me, a traveler, and decided to make me his guide.
Oh, this must excite the gambler in him.
I didn’t really get it, but that seemed to be the gist of his situation.
“This’ll show those jerks who treated me like a fool! I’ll prove to ’em that the old saying that ‘the apple never falls far from the tree’ is true!”
But that’s an insult that the child will inherit bad characteristics of their parents, no matter how hard they try… Well, whatever. I let it slide.
After that, he just kept telling me about his life up to this point, regardless of whether I wanted to hear it or not. He spoke about his highest earnings in a single day, his passionate affairs with a beautiful girl, and all kinds of other stories.
At first, I politely kept up with the conversation, but it became more and more annoying the longer he went on.
So I may have decided to start flying less carefully.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!”
<
br /> Ah, that’s better.
And so we arrived at our destination.
“Bleeeeeehhh.”
The man leaned against the thick trunk of a nearby tree and let out a long stream of vomit.
Gross.
“Are you all right?”
“Never better! This ain’t a big deal compared to finding my old man’s inheritance!”
“By the way, where is this inheritance?”
“Um…” He wiped his mouth and looked at the map. “Here, maybe? Oh, no… Well, here? No, that’s not it. Um…”
He held the map in his hands and turned it around and around.
Aren’t you going to throw up again if you keep doing that?
Indifferent to my apprehension, he kept turning it, and then—
“Oh. It’s this tree. I’m pretty sure my inheritance is buried under this tree.”
He pointed to a thick tree.
“……”
“……”
It was right where he had thrown up.
“…Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“…Ah, nah, that don’t bother me none…”
My job was finished, so I obviously didn’t lift a finger to help him dig. That would have been a pain. Staring vacantly at his back as he used a shovel to dig up the soil around the tree’s roots, I was just waiting for time to pass.
“Buried treasure…! Buried treasure…! Buried treasure…!”
He looked just like a robber.
The dirt made a crunching noise with every strike of the shovel, and by the time the shovel rang out with a sharp, metallic clang, a mountain of loose earth had formed next to him.
I stood up at the sound, and he turned around and gave me a thumbs-up.
“I found it! Hey, look here! The buried treasure!”
He held the shovel up and tossed it my way. A tin chest rolled over the ground.
“Oh-ho, is it inside the case?” I asked.
“Yahoo! Let’s open it!”
I nodded, and he opened the chest.
He peered in at the contents.
“Heh-heh-heh… With this, I can make my comeback as a rich man… Huh?”
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, Vol. 2 Page 8