I realized I was getting flustered when I noticed I had unconsciously picked up my broom.
“I’ll try to pick up the thieves’ trail from the air. You go warn the people in the country down the road that the bomb has been stolen.”
“…” His eyes darted around for a second. “Ah y-yes. Understood.” And he dashed off on his horse.
And then—
“All right, let’s go.”
I got on my broom.
But the moment I did, the dreadful sound of an explosion blasted through the entire forest.
The shock wave ripped through the trees, and animals cried out in confusion. Looking up at the sky, I could see birds flying away, screeching.
The man and I looked at each other.
His complicated expression revealed a jumble of emotion.
This time, I felt a little bit of regret for dawdling about, making casual conversation.
In a confused panic, the man had said “Wait, I’ll go with you!” but I shook him loose and headed in the direction of the blast alone.
In case the worst had happened, I didn’t want the man who made the bomb to see whatever I found there.
…That was my outward reason, but I imagine I was also panicking a little. The explosive sound that reverberated through the forest had been terrifying.
When I had risen above the treetops on my broom, I could see sandy-colored smoke curling thinly through the air to the south. I headed toward the smoke and saw that there was a small settlement there. Emphasis on was.
“……”
The people who had been living there no longer existed.
Blood and sinew and scraps from their settlement were scattered all over the place.
The humans and their flimsy wooden houses had been completely obliterated. Anything and everything that had been there was in pieces, as if it had been sliced clean through with a sharp sword.
In the center of the settlement was a gaping crater, as if the ground had been punctured by something huge. A cloud of dust was billowing out from it, rising into the air like smoke.
“……”
It was there, on the site of the blast, that I picked up two ragged scraps of paper.
One appeared to be the instructions for the bomb.
The other was a letter.
I read it.
“…So that’s what happened.”
After pocketing both pieces of paper, I went back and told the man of my findings, omitting the detail of the notes.
He had only one thing to say in response.
“Is that so…? That’s too bad.”
And that was all he said.
“Are you all right, Mr. Merchant?! We heard a loud noise from the forest…” When we arrived at the country farther down the forest road, we were greeted not by the gate guards, but by the head vizier, who came out to meet us personally. And just like us, he was in a panic.
“Milord, I cannot possibly apologize enough.”
Then the man told him a simple version of the story that had led us here.
After he finished listening to the whole story of the terrible explosion, the vizier appeared struck with grief.
“What on earth…? How could such a thing…? And you weren’t injured, Mr. Merchant?”
“I was healed by this passing witch… Anyway, my wounds aren’t important. What matters is that I lost the bomb for the tunnel. I feel morally responsible for the incident. There is no question that this is my responsibility.”
“No, no! Please don’t put this on yourself! This was an unfortunate accident. Tragically, people’s lives were lost, but…”
Mm-hmm.
“But you were up against a bunch of thieves, right?” I interjected from the side, against my better judgment. “I suppose they got what was coming to them.”
The vizier glared at me. “Madam Witch. I cannot condone such a statement. Even if they were bad people, they were still people. It is always sad when lives are lost.”
“……”
What was that?
I placed a hand to the pocket that contained the letter and didn’t say anything further.
The conversation continued without me, and the man launched into an explanation, completely ignoring my comment.
“But still, it was really unforgivable… Do you think you could find it in yourself to give me another chance?”
“Hmm? Another chance?”
“Could you possibly allow us to build another bomb? I won’t ask for any payment. And I will refund you for the first bomb as well. As an apology for the delayed delivery, please allow us to build you a new bomb for free, under my authority.”
The vizier was clearly very surprised at the man’s proposal.
“Never…! I could never allow that! In fact, we were prepared to offer you some compensation for your…difficulties.”
“Please, don’t even think about it. I want to see my project through. Would you be so kind as to allow me to bring another bomb to your country?”
“No, you mustn’t.”
“No, no, I insist.”
……
Their unauthentic exchange continued for a while after that before reaching the compromise that the man would make a new bomb, and the vizier would pay him for his trouble.
The amount to be paid was one hundred gold pieces. It was a greatly reduced sum compared to the original amount. I wasn’t sure if the bomb maker and the people of the other country seemed satisfied with the new agreement.
“……” I remained completely silent as they spoke.
“All right, let’s meet here again in one week’s time.”
I stared at the bomb maker as he waved good-bye.
I met him again one week later, in the middle of the forest road.
“Oh, hello there. What a coincidence to meet again.”
I stood in front of the carriage blocking the way, waving my arms in the air.
The man looked down at me from atop the carriage. “Oh, Miss Witch. Thank you again for your help last week. I am truly grateful to you for healing my wounds.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Why don’t you take a ride in my carriage? I’ll get you a bite to eat as an expression of gratitude.”
“No, thanks. I’m in a hurry.”
“That’s too bad. Well then, I’ll take my leave.”
Then he cracked his whip and set the carriage rolling again.
But it soon stopped. The horse stomped its hooves, snorting in irritation.
I was the one who blocked it. I stroked the horse’s head and exerted considerable force to thwart its movements.
“…? Just what could you be trying to do?” Anger flashed across the man’s face as he stared down at me.
I stood in front of the carriage, obstructing his way.
“Nothing. I just have something I need to talk to you about.”
“…? What?”
“The truth is…,” I started. “It’s about that bomb. The other country has canceled their order.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Oh my. You couldn’t hear me at this distance?”
“I meant that I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why would they withdraw their request for our bomb? And why are you acting as their messenger?”
“I wonder? Maybe they realized what kind of bomb you were intending to make.”
“……”
“Looks like your country tried to play a very clever trick.”
“……”
I took a step toward the carriage.
“There’s a bomb loaded up in the carriage right now, isn’t there? Would it happen to be made the same way as the last one?”
I opened the carriage to reveal a bomb.
…No, it was the scattered pieces of a bomb.
When the thieves’ camp had been destroyed, I’d gotten a look at the instructions for the thing—including the steps to assemble it. In the manual were suspicious warnings: “The bomb is extre
mely volatile. Even the slightest error in calibration will cause it to explode without warning.” and “Please assemble on site before placement.”
“From the very beginning, you all meant for the bomb to malfunction, didn’t you?”
“No. That was, without a doubt, an unfortunate accident.”
“Yes. It was an unfortunate accident that the people who died were the thieves—and not the people of that country, right?”
“…Just what are you trying to say?”
It was simple.
The bomb to be delivered was riddled with design flaws. It was far too powerful to be useful as an excavator, and on top of that, it was incredibly prone to malfunction.
To make matters worse—and this was just my own hypothesis—there was the undeniable possibility that the usage manual itself was inaccurate and following it would cause even more malfunctions. In short, this man’s country had set the whole thing up from the start, for the very purpose of snatching away people’s lives. They intended for an accident to happen as the recipients assembled the bomb, causing a pandemonium.
“I’m holding onto a message from the vizier of that country, you know. Will you listen to it?”
“……”
Taking his silence as an affirmative, I lied to him, as he had lied to me.
“They decided not to order a second bomb from your country. In fact, they’d like to ask you not to have any further dealings with their country at all… So please take the bomb home, as is.”
“…Quit messing around. Just how much money do you think we’ve sunk into the development of this bomb—?”
“Ah, now that you mention it, this is from that other country for your troubles. It’s not much, but please take it—Hup!”
I cut him off and loaded the hundred gold pieces onto the carriage.
It was extremely heavy. Ridiculously heavy, actually.
“This should be sufficient,” I said, stretching my sore shoulders. “You’re good to head home now, right?”
Then I said, “Since you went to all the trouble, how about trying to use that bomb to excavate your own mining tunnel?”
It was about a week earlier, before I met the man a second time and immediately after his incredibly insincere exchange with the vizier.
I took a certain letter out of my pocket.
“Your Honor, do you remember this?”
It was the letter I had recovered from the thieves’ hideout.
“…! That’s…” Staring at the piece of paper, the vizier went pale.
“So you do remember it.”
I mean, there’s no way you wouldn’t.
After all, the vizier’s signature adorned the bottom of the letter.
I had read its contents very carefully, trying to imagine exactly what use the vizier of an entire country might have for a gang of bandits and thieves. The more I read, the more questions I had.
I want you to steal the explosives for the tunnel construction. If you are successful, I will give you one hundred gold pieces, promised the letter.
It’s enough to make you wonder.
“It seems that the thieves’ attack was not a mere coincidence.”
I’d go as far as to say it was premeditated. Rather than paying ten thousand gold pieces to a country you’re on bad terms with, I guess you thought it would be to your advantage to get the bomb from thieves with no strings attached.
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
“…What do you want, Madam Witch?”
Is this the part where you try to buy my silence?
“Do you have something for me?”
“If you keep quiet about this, yes.”
“Is that so?” Then I spit out the lie. “But in that case, I think it’s better to offer something to the merchant, rather than to me. After all, he was with me when I saw the corpses of the thieves, and he knows about the letter.”
“What did you say…? But he just promised to make a new bomb…”
“Oh my. But haven’t you considered that the new bomb is meant to retaliate against you? I would strongly suggest that no one here have anything to do with items brought over from that other country.”
“……”
The vizier fell silent, deep in thought, and I said to him, “Oh, that’s right. By the way, regarding the fee for my silence…” I clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “How about one hundred gold pieces?”
That’s quite cheap for protecting your people from that country that you hate, isn’t it?
It was always sad when people lost their lives, so I had tried to ensure that there wouldn’t be any more grief piled on top of what had already transpired.
As for the relations of two feuding countries after I left, that wasn’t for me to know as a traveler. If I had to guess, I’d say that their animosity continued.
One country hired thieves to cause trouble for its rival.
The other country tried to deliver a faulty bomb to deal a blow to their opponent.
How stupid.
I’d say having an aloof relationship was probably a little bit better than attempting to blow up one another. Maybe someday, in time, both the bombs and their rivalry would fizzle out.
That was why I was never going to stop hoping for the two countries to keep biding their time, staying rooted right where they were.
Until the day their bitter relationship ceased to exist.
CHAPTER 10
Travel Tales
A little while ago, I briefly reunited with my former teacher, Miss Fran.
“You know, I also admired The Adventures of Niche so much that I went on a journey of my own. I even started a novel while traveling,” she’d said, as if she had suddenly remembered it.
“…Wow, is that so?”
“You don’t seem very interested.”
“No, no, I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“Your reaction says otherwise.”
“I was just unsure how to react.”
Privately, I’d thought, What is this lady talking about all of a sudden?
“So when you say you started a novel, do you mean you gave up partway through?” I asked.
“No, I never said that. It’s more accurate to say I had no choice but to stop in the middle of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wrote it as a pastime and never showed the draft to anyone, but when the manuscript reached about one hundred pages, I read it over, found it painfully embarrassing, and lost any and all desire to write more.”
She had gotten a chill up her spine as she reread it. My teacher slumped her shoulders as she told me.
“So that’s why you had to stop?”
“Yes. I thought, Oh no, my writing is downright terrible and decided I would never write anything again. Then I stuffed the manuscript into the bottom of my bag.”
“Oh, so you didn’t throw it away?”
“I mean, it was my manuscript. After all the hard work I put into it, I couldn’t bring myself to just toss it out.”
“…You can disparage it all you want, but your actions don’t match your words.”
“Well, I guess you could say that. In the end, that pitiful past is a part of who I am, so I couldn’t really bring myself to abandon it. Not at the time, at least.”
“Hmm.” I nodded.
My teacher’s shoulders sagged even lower, and she let out a long sigh. “Of course, I didn’t feel like showing my novel to anyone—because those were my personal memories. But it didn’t take long for something terrible to happen.”
“What?”
“It all went down when I visited a certain country. A merchant who saw my bag said something like this—”
“Hey, you! That bag in your arms. Could it be the legendary traveler’s bag? It is, isn’t it?! I knew it! That’s the type of bag that the legendary traveler used to use! Sell it to me! Please!”
That had been what he said, allegedly.
Just what is he saying? Ba
ck then, Miss Fran had tilted her head in confusion. The bag was just some cheap thing she had purchased from a nearby pawnshop. She had no knowledge of any legendary traveler or whatever, and she certainly hadn’t known there was anything special about it when she bought it.
“Well, I guess one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure. That merchant offered me an unbelievable sum for the bag. I was so surprised. To the point that I wondered if it was some new scam.”
“Hmm…”
I felt like I could finally see where this story was going.
“And I was pretty strapped for coin at the time…so I agreed and handed over the bag. I poured out the contents, bought a new, cheap bag on the spot, transferred all my possessions, and handed the old bag to the merchant. And of course, I accepted a mountain of dough.”
“……”
“There was something about my own writing that was addictive. On rare occasions, I would want to read it over again, you know. A few days after I parted with the bag, I fished around in my new bag, searching for the novel I had patched together from my cringey stories. And in that moment, I realized something awful.”
“……” Don’t tell me. “…Your novel wasn’t there?”
“……………I was shocked. Apparently, I had handed over the old bag with my manuscript still inside.”
“Oh gosh.”
“I went straight back to the merchant’s place, but a week had passed since he’d bought my bag. The merchant had long since left for another country. Ultimately, even though I searched for the merchant, I couldn’t find him, let alone the bag.”
Miss Fran buried her face in her hands.
“…Sometimes, there’s something that I think about. What would I do if that manuscript was to fall into someone’s hands, and what if they read it? What would I do if I was made a fool of…?”
“Miss…”
Her ears were bright red. Is she gonna be okay?
“When I think back on my time spent traveling, when I remember my lost manuscript, I get uncontrollably embarrassed. It sends shivers down my spine. Oh, what should I do…?”
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, Vol. 2 Page 12