by Akira Kareno
Thunk.
Her head slammed on the table.
“Chtholly. The reading room must remain silent.”
“S-sorry… Wait, no I’m not! What on earth are you talking about, Ithea?!”
“Nya-ha-ha-ha, don’t get so bashful! You’re a winner just by falling in love, especially in this world where so many faeries pass before adolescence. Aren’t you glad you were born a girl?”
“Th-that’s not how I was looking at him—”
“I see…I shall go find several volumes on heterogamy for your reference.”
“Ren?! Wait, I really don’t need those!”
“Chtholly, the reading room must remain silent.”
“Who’s the one yelling here?!”
Outside, the ball flew high, drawing a big arc in the azure sky.
“…I really don’t, so please stop. I’ve finally managed to give so many things up, so I don’t want to make new regrets now.”
Chtholly spoke quietly.
“Okay.”
Ithea gave a sad smile, and without another word, she gazed out the window.
“…Mm.”
Nephren nodded slightly, and she, too, remained silent, opening the book in her hands.
Another week passed.
Of course, it was about time Willem started thinking something was off.
What had he signed up for? He was a weapons manager in name only. It was a military thing, a political thing. A world of metal and rust, of gunpowder and smoke. Well, he hadn’t thought he’d be close to any battlefields when he’d heard the position was only nominal, but he’d been under the passing impression that it was a vector that at least pointed in that direction.
Now that he was involved, how would everything turn out?
Tap, tap, tap, tap came the energetic sound of someone running down the hall.
“Willieeee!”
A beautiful dropkick with both feet pierced Willem straight in the back from a proper running start.
“Oof?!”
The attack had graceful form that blew away all differences in build and weight. The moment he lurched forward, short arms and legs skillfully attacked his joints.
“All right, got ’im!”
“Ahh no, no, that’s not right! That’s not what I meant when I said to get him!”
“All’s well that ends well.”
“Yep, no problem as long as he can’t get away.”
“It didn’t end well! Because we’re the ones supposed to be asking for a favor!”
“It is a basic military strategy to display your strength before asking for favors.”
“But that’s something only bloodthirsty people do!”
“Blooodthirstyyyy! Blooodthirstyyyy!”
“That’s not something you repeat like a song!!”
“…Oh…”
Willem somewhat managed to grasp the situation as his joints were squeezed, almost comfortably.
It was the energetic little animals known as children.
“What, did you guys come to ask me something?”
“Yeah, yeah, we did!”
“We’re going to read a book, so you have to come!”
“Th-th-that’s why you don’t attack the joints when asking for something!”
You’re right. I thoroughly support what you said, so please tell them again.
“…You want me to read you a difficult book? I hate to say it, but I’m not very good at reading and writing.”
“Huh? But aren’t you an officer? Shouldn’t you be smart?”
“Yeah, super-smart. I can read you stacks of ancient texts from five hundred years ago.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha. What?”
They tugged on his sleeve as they laughed.
“We can read ourselves. We just want you to stay close by.”
“Y-yes, it’s an old story, so we’re scared to read on our own.”
“I’m not that scared, but these kids really want you nearby.”
“H-hey, that’s not fair!”
As always, as words spilled from their mouths, together they pulled him somewhere.
“An old story?”
“An emnetwiht story!”
An emnetwiht story.
He felt slightly dizzy.
Intense déjà vu. His memories began replaying automatically.
His view of the warehouse on Island No. 68 wavered and was replaced with the old orphanage.
This was where he used to live.
It was a memory of when he’d looked after the youngest children as the eldest of those raised there.
“Willieee!”
“Geez, Dad, again?”
“Ha-ha-ha, that’s evidence you’re healthy!”
The floodgates cracked open. All the dear voices he’d tried so hard not to recall echoed in his head, one after the other.
He’d forgotten what was important. Why had he stayed so long on dingy Island No. 28? It was uncomfortable. A terrible place to live. No one accepted him as someone who was clearly scarred as a featureless. It wasn’t home.
That was fine.
That’s why he stayed.
Willem no longer had anywhere to go. Even if he wished to return somewhere, it would never be possible. Island No. 28 had reminded him of that as long as he stayed. He couldn’t forget it.
But here—
It was too much like that dear, old place.
—No, he told himself.
This was not his home.
Just look at the clothes you’re wearing. A black military uniform that didn’t suit him. An exaggerated rank plastered on as a pretense.
He only needed to work here a few months.
So he was all right. He hadn’t forgotten or betrayed that place.
He’d wavered for a moment.
“Willem?”
Someone called to him.
“—I’m fine. I just didn’t get much sleep last night. Anyway, what’s up with emnetwiht?”
“Oh yeah. I heard that people like that lived on the surface a long time ago!”
The girls tried their best to explain with their awkward grasp of language.
According to a picture book they read once, the land was full of scary creatures called emnetwiht.
They were scary because, thanks to them, orcs at the time were all trapped in desolate areas, elves had their forests burned, lizardfolk were cornered in the water, lycanthropes’ peace was shattered, and even dragons had their treasure stolen. And to top it all off, they even thrust aside the punishment delivered by the new Visitors, who were born to cast judgment, and easily struck down the gods one after another.
In the end, the emnetwiht called on the Seventeen Beasts from somewhere and brought about their own destruction. When that happened, they became even more wicked because they got everything on land mixed up with their problems.
“Isn’t it scary?”
Well, sure, when they put it like that, it was definitely scary. What villainous invaders they were.
“It was a picture book, so some of those things might not be true, you know.”
“But it said that it actually happened.”
“That’s what all made-up stories say.”
The girls looked at one another.
“Then, does that mean the Braves in the story were fake, too?” the purple-haired girl murmured.
“What? Oh no…” The rest of the girls were visibly troubled.
“Well, some parts might be true in there somewhere… But you’re most worried about the Braves being false?”
“Because…” The girls exchanged glances again. “We’re Braves, too, right?”
What?
He didn’t understand. They called the emnetwiht scary, so why did they liken themselves to something that could be called the very symbol of that threat?
Well, sure—to them at the time, the Braves were kind of like a weapon. These girls called themselves weapons, so it wouldn’t be unusual if they felt a sense of affinity for them.
<
br /> That was how he intended to swallow the feeling that something was out of place.
“By the way…Mr. Willem?”
One of them interjected timidly.
“Are you sure that doesn’t hurt…?”
He finally realized that he’d been massaging his joint this entire time.
3. Faerie Warehouse
Chtholly didn’t like her very much.
But that probably wasn’t true the other way around.
She’d said that she thought of Chtholly as a little sister and treated her that way.
Of course, faeries didn’t have big sisters or little sisters, since they weren’t born from a mother’s womb. Quite frankly, it was annoying how she acted so familiar, simply on the ridiculous basis that they’d been born in the same forest on the same island, though five years earlier.
She was apparently very proficient with her dug weapon, and that was one point that Chtholly definitely wasn’t thrilled about. She would fly into the battlefield, large sword in hand. Afterward, she would gallantly return, a grin on her face. Barging into the dining hall, she would wolf down the butter cake laid out for dinner and, with an expression of supreme bliss on her face, declare “I really feel like I’ve come home when I eat this.”
This happened every time she went out on a mission, and Chtholly, who was still young and didn’t know the battlefield, thought it was all to spite her.
“…Hey.”
When had that been?
Acting on a whim, Chtholly had once called out to her.
“You’re always wearing that brooch, but it doesn’t look very good on you. You know that.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha, you really just say what’s on your mind. Your big sis is gonna cry.”
“My big sis?”
“What? I mean, there’s no way I can be the little sister!”
“I am not asking you to change our relationship.”
After their typical banter, her smile had suddenly wavered.
“I had someone like a big sister a long time ago. I took it from her.”
“…Took it? Not got it?”
“It was her treasure. She always made sure to wear it on her. I asked her so many times to give it to me, but, eh, she never listened.”
What a demonic deed, stealing something so precious…
She ignored her little sister’s astonished gaze with a smile as she always did.
“The more she refused me, the more fun I started having. I challenged her to all kinds of competitions, and if I won, it would be my prize. Our grades in the training courses, eating competitions, card games. But I could never beat her. I could never win, so I kept challenging her. I had so much fun.”
Chtholly could guess how it would end after hearing that much.
Chtholly hadn’t known the faerie who could have been this self-proclaimed “big sister’s” big sister. She didn’t know her, which meant she was already gone by the time Chtholly arrived.
Maybe she shouldn’t have asked about it. That thought must have been visible on her face, as the other faerie patted Chtholly’s back.
“Well, in the end, I won by default. It’s not a very satisfying story. For some reason, that was the only day she didn’t wear it to the battlefield. She left it on her desk in her room. So I snatched it up.” She laughed out loud, like there was some sort of funny element to the story. “I know it doesn’t look good on me, but I feel like I have to keep wearing it. I can’t go anywhere without it.”
Chtholly would say it again: She didn’t like her very much.
But—when she thought back on it—she didn’t hate her that much.
That was why. The day she didn’t return from the battlefield, Chtholly visited her room.
The door was unlocked. She flung it open to find it messy inside. Underwear strewn about, a card game was still dealt… Everything was all over the place.
Among it all, only the desk was clean.
Not a speck of dust lay on its sparkling surface, and sitting there, left behind, was a single silver brooch.
Willem hadn’t seen some of the faeries for a few days.
Chtholly, and Ithea, and Nephren. The oldest girls in the faerie warehouse had all disappeared somewhere together.
He assumed there was some sort of reason for it and put it out of his mind.
Not thinking about it anymore, he simply accepted it for what it was.
It rained in the morning that day, and the ground softened.
It was just after the red team, who’d been cornered the entire first half of the match, finally earned the right to attack. Everyone on their team was in high spirits, going wild about smashing the ball into the white team leader.
Then, just as they hit the ball high in the sky, there came a strong wind.
The wind blew the ball into a deep thicket.
The only girl still chasing it hated giving up. She was the kind who paid no attention to where she was stepping when she looked up. Accounting for all these facts, there was only one way this could end. The girl’s feet slipped beautifully, and she plunged headfirst into the thicket.
“Hey!!”
Willem wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up with serious injuries—that’s how bad the situation was.
“Ow, ow, ow…I messed up, I messed up.”
So when she stood, smiling, speaking lightly, he was momentarily relieved.
Then, in the next moment, he shuddered. There were deep lacerations on her left thigh. Tiny branches had pierced her right upper arm as well. If he was judging by how much she was bleeding, her heart rate didn’t appear to have quickened—the only silver lining in a bad situation. At the very least, her injuries weren’t so negligible that they could just leave it at “I messed up.”
Willem quickly checked over her wounds.
“They’re pretty deep. I’ll treat them right away.”
“Aww, I’m fine though.” Her tone was indifferent.
Did I hear that right?
“But come on, let’s keep going! We’re gonna make a comeback!”
Could it be her injuries weren’t as deep as they looked? His eyes inadvertently dropped down to the open wounds—but no matter how many times he looked, there was no doubt they were severe enough that if not treated quickly, they might endanger her life.
“They…don’t hurt?”
“They do. But we were in a really good spot!”
A bright, wide smile, full of joy.
He could see faint beads of greasy sweat forming on her forehead.
He finally grasped what was going on. Just as she said, it wasn’t like she didn’t feel any pain. This girl—and the children around her who didn’t find anything unnatural about what she was saying—simply didn’t think being injured was a big deal.
He felt a chill.
It felt like he was surrounded by alien, enigmatic creatures. Or perhaps, it wasn’t a trick of his mind but something he simply hadn’t noticed until now—
“The match is canceled.”
Willem made his announcement one-sidedly and scooped up the girl.
“Awwww,” came cries of disappointment.
“…So why is it the girl herself isn’t upset but her escort is?”
Nygglatho, wearing a lab coat over her normal clothes, asked in a quiet murmur.
After they finished dressing the wounds, the girl, her arms and legs wrapped up in bandages, sat on the bed, muttering complaints about the game being canceled.
Willem sat on a chair, his head in his hands, and without moving, he questioned Nygglatho, who probably knew something.
“I hadn’t noticed it until today, but they’re completely indifferent about their lives, aren’t they?”
“They are. They certainly have that tendency.”
“That’s not normal. What are they anyway?”
“Hmm.” Nygglatho hummed, as though planning something, then asked in return, “Do you really want to know?”
Willem looked up.
“Though it is only a title, you are still the manager here. If you request information, I am in no position to deny your request.” She spoke with a vague tone, almost like she was having fun yet dead serious. “To be honest, I don’t want to tell you. When you hear this, you will treat the girls differently. I don’t think you’d be able to keep your relationship with them as it is now. I thought your attempt to play a nice older brother these past few days was pretty gross at first, but all in all, I’m grateful. I want things to stay as they are now for a little while longer, if possible.”
“…Tell me.”
“Oh, well. Very well.”
Nygglatho shrugged.
“Strictly speaking, those children are not alive. And since they’re not alive, their bodies have no fear of death. Their inner feelings are different, but they’re dragged along by their bodily senses when they’re still young, so it’s easy for them to grow careless.”
“…I’m sorry. I have no idea what you’re saying.”
They’re not alive? This must be some kind of joke.
But they lived out their days so stubbornly, so brightly, so loudly.
“Sure. I didn’t want to believe this logic at first, either,” Nygglatho said in a small voice, then she left the room and motioned for him to follow. “Come. Let me show you something.”
Willem arduously pulled himself up and followed her out of the room.
“You of course know about the emnetwiht, right?” Nygglatho asked as they walked down the hall.
“…As much as anyone else.”
“You don’t have to sound so modest about it.” She chuckled. “The legendary race that ruled over all the land over five hundred years ago. They were not blessed with any abilities whatsoever.”
Essentially:
They didn’t have enormous bodies like the giganto.
They didn’t have elaborate sorcery like the elves.
They didn’t have sophisticated engineering like the morian.
They didn’t have explosive fertility like the orcs.
And of course, they didn’t have overwhelming power like the dragons.
All their abilities were half-baked, and they were generally considered lesser beings. And yet, they made enemies of almost every other race and were the supreme rulers of the land for a long time.