by Kiri Komori
“…Ah!”
But as I carried my pot and staff from the lake back into the inn, I saw a flash of what looked like Nakona’s back. She was running straight for the highway.
Wh-What… Wait, she was hiding the whole time?! But why?! Everyone ran off to look for her!
“Nakona! Wait!” I left my things behind and took off after her.
Oh, just stop…! You might be a kid, but there are some things you just can’t do! If you have to cause trouble for someone, let it be your family. Even Mister Giyaga’s out there looking for you…!
“Haa, aaah… W-Wait…!”
We were both kids, but she was eleven years old and I was six. I was no match for her stamina, but I couldn’t give up.
You selfish little brat…I’ll drag you to Dad and he’ll scold you until you learn your lesson!
“Haa, aaah, aaah!”
How…is she…aaah…so fast…?! Hii, hii… My throat’s so…dry… Aaah… it hurts!
“Haa, aaah… L-Leave me alone already!” she snapped back at me.
“Haa, hii, urgh…!”
“Wait, you sound like you’re dying!”
By the time I caught up to her, my knees were shaking. Or, well, my whole body was shaking. I thought my young body could handle the strain, but I guess I was wrong…
“Why did you follow me…?! Why you, of all people?!”
“Ugh, aaah, phew!” I tried to answer, but I was still gasping for air.
“…A-Are you all right? C-C’mon, take a seat.”
“Haa, haa, haa, haa!”
“F-Fine, I’ll go get you some water… Stay put, okay?”
Like I have a choice…after all that running! I feel so dumb, going after you!
The girl I was chasing is looking after me… I guess that means she’s kind at heart at least.
“Here you go.” She came back, carrying water in her cupped hands.
“Th-Thanks…”
She did spill most of the water on the way back, but I can’t complain. I drank the water from her hands, which refreshed me.
“Thanks, Nakona.”
“D-Don’t mention it…” she said awkwardly. “Why did you come after me anyway?”
“…I’m sorry. I just happened to be the one to see you… Dad…I mean, Marcus should be looking for you up on the mountain.”
Nakona’s expression was still displeased. I wanted to scold her, but I was still short on air… And she did bring me water. Also, the thought of her being all alone in the world with only her father to rely on did make me relate to her. She wasn’t unlike how I was back in my old life. Though, I still felt that she was a little too spoiled…
“…You don’t have to correct yourself,” she mumbled.
“Huh?”
“I mean, you don’t have a mom or dad, right? So call him ‘Dad.’ I mean…I do get it. Lashing out at you isn’t right.”
“…Nakona…”
“But I just…ugh! It pisses me off! I can’t help but get angry! He’s my daddy… I’m his daughter, but…what if Daddy doesn’t want me anymore, just like Mommy doesn’t?! Where do I go?!” Nakona clenched her teeth, tears welling in her eyes. “Why… Why was I even born…?!”
“Ah…”
She really is just a kid trying to cope with growing up. Hehe. She’s becoming an adult… It’s heartwarming…
I didn’t mean to poke fun at or patronize her though. She was serious about what she said.
“…You really love Dad, don’t you?”
“Th-That’s not it… I mean, I do like him better than Mommy right now. But I think I like him as much as anyone likes their Daddy. I mean, I don’t really know him that well.”
“You don’t?”
What does that mean? She doesn’t know her father…?
Seeing my puzzled expression, Nakona crouched next to me, hugging her knees. She then buried her face into her lap as she muttered, “…Ever since I was born, Daddy was out fighting in wars. He was a knight vice-captain, so he had no choice, but… He was never in the country. He kept going from one expedition to another. He’d come back for a little while, but it was always late and when I was asleep. And then he’d go back to work again. He’d hardly talk to me or play…”
“I see…”
“Mommy was always angry at him and was only happy when she went out for parties in the castle… But she was never around, every day…”
I could only listen in silence. I felt bad for her.
“…I spent every day outside until sunset, playing with kids in the neighborhood, or learning how to swing a sword from the knights… And I just had to watch all the other kids get taken home by their parents…”
Her life was harder than I thought…
My life’s been full of ups and downs from the moment I was reborn, but after Marcus picked me up, and I came to the inn, everything was pretty peaceful. The only real problem was the lingering mystery of what the Stone of Daybreak was. That and Grandma and Grandpa passing away, but that’s just life. And they passed away with their faces far more serene than the father in my past life did… They looked satisfied with their lives.
Nakona lived with her mother, but she was still neglected… It sounded awful.
“What did you do about food?”
“…Mommy always left me money. Instead of making me food… So, I had the knights take me to a dining hall or a pub to eat… Looking back on it, they weren’t knights that worked with Daddy. They were all from the Crimson Knights… Mommy was probably going out with the captain of the Crimson Knights even back then… That’s why his knights looked after me…”
That sounded like a complicated story… But leaving your lover’s child with your subordinates was…bad. On a physical level. She’d have been much better off with Marcus…
“Actually…”
“Y-Yes?”
“I think the captain of the Crimson Knights was married. At the time.”
“…I think I’ve heard that, yes.”
“I looked into it, and apparently, he married the former captain’s daughter to inherit the role.”
“Erm, then that’s…”
“A political marriage, yeah. But even if he doesn’t love the woman he married, it doesn’t mean he can just hit on someone else’s wife!”
“Y-Yes! I totally agree!”
“Right?! That’s just common sense…! But Mommy just let him flirt with her! Why did she even marry Daddy to begin with?! I mean, I was angry at Daddy for never being around too! He just left us behind and went to play in his stupid wars! Just wars and wars all the time! It’s like war was the only thing he cared about!”
“U-Uh…”
I don’t think he liked going to war…
Wars were one thing I didn’t really research much about. All I really knew was that there was a country called Edesa Kura that insisted mankind was a superior race and invaded the demi-human continent. An alliance of human countries led by De Marl tried to stop their ambitions.
De Marl made an alliance with the elven, dwarven, and other demi-human countries, becoming a center of trade. But even among the demi-humans, there were races like the lizardmen and ogres who insisted their species was the strongest and rejected contact with mankind. In fact, they even attacked humans on sight!
Those circumstances placed the world in a state of temporary chaos, but De Marl advocated peace and was able to quell the hostilities. De Marl sounded like a lovely country, and that was the ideal Marcus fought for. I thought it was a good thing.
Obviously, I felt bad for Nakona, who was neglected because of that, but…
“…I think you were pretty lucky, Nakona.”
“How come?”
“I mean, you can just go and meet your Mom and Dad if you want… But me, I…”
The first woman I saw in this world. She had golden hair, blue eyes, and a scarlet jewel embedded in her forehead. That was the mother that gave birth to me, and the brown-eyed man with the mustache next to
her must have been my father. They sent me down the river with tears in their eyes…
They likely ran into some kind of inevitable circumstances… But even so, they abandoned me. Where could they be now?
“Don’t you have any clues about them?” Nakona asked me. “I mean, the parents who abandoned you…”
“Um, I have this.”
“What’s that?”
I held up a pendant. Dad turned the gray stone he found me with into this pendant. I called it gray, but it wasn’t the same as a pebble. It had a glassy texture and was sheen with a unique shade of gray.
The Mythical Beast that saved me and had Marcus adopt me called it a pact stone. But he also said it’s only valuable for those who have made the pact… But since they left this stone with me, it must have some kind of meaning.
“I think they’re dead. My real parents,” I confided in her.
“Dead…?”
“It’s just a feeling, but…I can kind of tell…they’re not alive…”
This stone was like gray glass. It must have been because…it didn’t belong to me. And if that was the case…I got the feeling this wasn’t the stone’s natural color. It was cold to the touch, and even if I closed my fingers around it, it felt as if the warmth was leaving my hand.
It looked like a stagnant-colored pebble the size of my thumb, but I could tell it was more than just that. And something inside me told me clearly… Those people are gone.
If they were alive, I’d have quite a bit to complain about… But for some reason, the feelings flooding into me brought with them a surety that I’d never see them.
“…No…” Nakona clasped a hand over her mouth.
“So that’s why… Your mother and father are still alive… You can meet them again, if you want… So, don’t say those kinds of things.”
That was the face everyone showed me when I said my parents passed away. “I’m sorry,” they’d say. “I didn’t mean it like that,” they’d say… And start being needlessly considerate. And I could never tell if that consideration came from genuine kindness or from regret at having stumbled into an awkward situation.
But you, both of your parents are still alive… You can still repay them for everything. And I’m jealous of that. Your mother may have betrayed you, but she didn’t abandon you; she still took you with her when she left. She was so occupied with herself she ended up neglecting you, but she’s only human too…
You’ll probably get it when you’re a little older. Especially when it comes to romantic feelings. Not that I’m one to talk about that… Ahaha…
“…Yeah… You’re right.”
“…Let’s head back then.”
“Yeah, let’s go home. I should tell Daddy I’m sorry.”
“Yes. I’ll apologize with you.”
“…By the way, why are you always so polite?”
“Pardon?”
I mean, that’s because I’m…
“If you’re Daddy’s daughter, that means you’re my sister. So stop that. It’s gross. We’re family, so you don’t have to be so tense and formal.”
“Erm, but…”
“Oh, right, I’m older than you, and you became Daddy’s daughter later. So I’m the big sister, right? Right! So you can call me big sis! I’m giving you special permission.”
“E-Er…”
Th-This is going a bit too fast! How do you open up to someone that quickly?! And big sis? I can’t call you that, I’m twenty years old mentally! No way! I can’t!
“…Oh yeah, what was your name again?” she asked.
“T-Tinaris.”
“Okay, Tina, then!”
And she’s so flippant. What is this childish quality…?!
“…And, um…” She then spoke up, scratching her cheek awkwardly.
“Yes?”
“…Do you know how to get back home?”
Upon hearing her ask something that made her fail as the older sister, I decided I’d just keep calling her Nakona. But I was all for going back home. I looked around, but apparently, we were in the woods.
“…Where are we?” I asked aloud.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know either.”
“Er…”
The sun was still high in the sky, but we were surrounded by the woods. Looking around, I couldn’t spot a road, and the inn wasn’t in sight either.
This is bad… There could be bigbears and boars in the woods… And Mister Giyaga mentioned those monsters too.
“…By the way, where did you get that water from…?” I asked Nakona wearily.
“Over there.” She pointed at a trickle of water flowing between the rocks.
“Spring water…”
If we could follow it back to the river, we might find our way back to the lake…
“Let’s trace back this stream…”
“Wait! I just heard something weird!” Nakona said, her expression turning severe.
“Huh?”
A weird noise…?
Smash, crunch, crunch…
She’s right… I can hear something. It’s creepy… Are there bears fighting out there or something? But it sounds like it’s coming closer…
“Watch out!” Nakona called out, lunging at me.
“Aaah!”
Nakona pushed me down, and the moment we landed on the ground, something black and elongated passed above our heads. It looked like it was coated with black fog and was large enough to mow down the trees. As Nakona and I fearfully looked up, it reared its head to look at us.
It was a red-eyed creature, with a long, black tongue slithering out of its mouth. It had an elongated body wider than any of the surrounding tree trunks, and its black body was covered in smoke-like fog.
At first, I thought it was familiar, but then I realized that it was an entirely different kind of creature than the black beast that saved me when I was a baby.
“I-It can’t be…” I stuttered through chattering teeth.
“H-Huh…?” Nakona eyed me fearfully.
This wasn’t an animal. Nakona and I were both frozen in place by the ominous, sinister feel of its presence. It was a snake-shaped…monster.
Yeah, this is probably a monster…
It was the first time I’d ever seen one, but some part of me could tell.
I couldn’t begin to guess what it was thinking as it watched us, staying still. But it probably…wouldn’t let us go peacefully, would it…?
“Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Ah!”
It was said monsters attack and kill anything alive. And having decided that we counted as living beings, the monster opened its mouth as wide as it could and aggressively lunged at us. There was nowhere to run.
But then, Nakona covered my body with hers.
Y-You idiot, no, don’t! Why would you do that for me?!
“Gatling!”
“Hisssssssss!”
My eyes widened in shock as the sound of gunfire boomed in my ears. A large man in dark-blue armor rushed over and stood between the snake and us. Everything was happening so quickly I couldn’t keep up!
But I did notice the man was holding what looked like a gun in his hands. I didn’t know this world had guns!
“Phew… You all right, girls?”
“You’re…”
“We can talk later. I have to fend him off. Stay by my side, got it?”
“…Y-Yes.”
The armored man had a skull-shaped helmet, and upon closer inspection, his dark-blue armor was scraggy, rugged, and scary-looking. He looked like some kind of cartoon character… And, well, like a bad guy, honestly.
Still, I knew well enough to listen to what he had to say. The monster was by far the biggest threat.
“Gyshaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Tch…!”
Snakes are exceedingly agile creatures. I wasn’t all that knowledgeable about animals, but I’d seen documentaries about animals on TV, and snakes could move very quickly when hunting prey. That seemed t
o apply to this serpent monster too, as it rapidly slithered between the trees.
The man spread his legs, stabilizing his posture as he raised his palms in the direction of the serpent, as if preparing to catch it. The snake slithered around freely while the man struggled to aim at it, moving his palm in the direction the serpent was moving in.
But upon closer inspection, I noticed part of the knight’s leg armor seemed to be damaged…
No, it’s melting! He’s hurt!
“Ah…” I opened my mouth, but I realized now wasn’t the right time to speak up.
At first, it looked like the serpent was retreating, but before we knew it, it had slithered around behind us. The knight twisted his body and fired a ball of light from his palm. It missed its mark, mowing down the trees instead. It was powerful, but it couldn’t defeat the monster if it didn’t hit…!
“Ah…!” My eyes widened in realization.
No, he couldn’t defeat it! Because that monster’s body was full of Kathra! The moment it dies, it would release all that Kathra into the air, turning everything around it into monsters. So, if that knight defeats it now…
The two of us fell into stunned silence. We finally realized just how dangerous the situation really was. We would either be killed by that monster… Or the knight might kill that monster by mistake, becoming a monster himself. The only scenario we all walk away from here alive is one where the knight repels the monster.
Each time the serpent moved, the knight had to adjust his aim. The knight seemed to be adept at fighting from a distance, but it was hard to settle his sights on a target that moved this fast. Which meant this was a bad match for him…
Is he waiting for help? Reinforcements, maybe…? Because things aren’t going to get better… Isn’t there something I can do to help!?
“Haa, haa…” The knight started gasping for air.
Something was wrong. His breathing was gradually becoming labored. Meanwhile, the serpent was slithering around us, closing the distance little by little. The knight fired a bolt of light, which it dodged by moving away. It was a cycle with no end in sight. But something was wrong. It was like the serpent was waiting for something…
“Ugh!”
The knight fell to one knee, as if withstanding pain. Was he hurt…? He was bleeding… And given how much blood he lost, it made sense…