“Above all else, I didn’t think she could truly live happily in the village where my dead body was put to rest. It’s a conceited thing to think, I know, but I imagined that she might be weighed down by my memory.
“I’m certain she reached the country two days’ walk from here and searched for the cure-all there. I’m sure that she walked around the country for hours, days on end to no avail. And I’m sure she then opened my letter.
“I poured all of my feelings into that letter. I told her I would surely be dead by the time she read it, and that I wanted her to be happy somehow in the new country.
“I believe she’ll be able to find a wonderful man in that big country who can heal her wounded heart. There must be someone who can make her smile again.
“It’s so selfish, isn’t it? But that’s what I had been thinking for a while. She was meant for more than a cramped village like this. She ought to see the wider world.
“By the way, Miss Traveler, if you’re pretending to be Mina, that must mean she hasn’t returned, right? I believe two weeks have passed since she left the village.
“In that case, it must have happened. She must have found happiness.”
After his story was done, the sick man looked out the window with tired, vacant eyes. The wind blew; the withered leaves danced and, finally, fell.
“Are you all right with that?” They were trite words, but I couldn’t find anything better to say to him.
“Of course not. It’s a sad thing to be apart from the one you love.”
“……”
In that case—, I was about to say, but I stopped myself.
Both Mina and Abel were sad to be apart, but they would have to overcome it. And they seemed to be doing their best to make it through. An outsider shouldn’t butt in to such a private matter.
“I’m glad I met you, Miss Traveler. You’re not really Mina, but I still feel like I got to see her one last time.”
“…I’m also glad I got to meet you.”
“That’s good…,” he mumbled, and then said, “Miss, you’re a wandering witch. Does that mean you have mysterious magical powers?”
“Hmm? Yes, I do.” I was a little surprised by the sudden question, but I answered in the affirmative. Magic isn’t something that just anyone can deal in, after all.
“The magic you showed me earlier truly was amazing. It was like being in a dream world.”
“Thanks for saying so. I’m happy you enjoyed it.”
“Say, what else can you do with magic? For example, could you—?”
I left the hut and went straight back to the house where I had changed clothes. Then I had the crowd of women take the corset off. They had tied the back too tightly for me to take it off myself.
“Did it go well?” the old woman asked me after I had changed back into my robe.
I gave a phony answer. “Yes. He never suspected a thing.”
“Thank goodness. He must have been happy to be able to see Mina in his final hours.”
“……”
His final hours?
“So what is Abel doing now?”
“He was tired from talking after so long, so he said he was going to sleep. Please leave him alone until tonight.”
“I see. Understood. I’ll tell the village headman, too.”
The village headman must be the old man with the white beard. “Please do.”
I put on my star-shaped brooch and my pointy hat, and my transformation was complete. I had returned to my usual self.
“What will you do now? If you’re staying in the village, my house is open to you, but…”
I was happy for the suggestion, but I shook my head. “No, thank you. I’m going to leave the village now. I’m in a hurry to get going.” Also, I want to try to make it to that big country.
“…That’s too bad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re leaving without seeing the headman and the others?”
“If I saw them, they would probably try to stop me, right? I should just slip away. If you see the headman and Mina’s father, please give them my regards.”
“Going so soon?” said one of the girls who had helped me out of my corset.
“Too bad,” commented another girl.
“Come again, okay?”
As for me: “Sure, I’ll definitely come back,” I mumbled halfheartedly.
And so I left the village. I flew north, straight through the primeval forest, and didn’t look back. My hand was gripping the broom, but I could still feel Abel’s cold fingers.
And he…
“…Are you seriously asking me that?”
I was extremely perplexed after listening to his proposal.
“Yes, I’m serious… I’m going to die soon, right? I have no doubt that the end is near for me. It’s unbearably frightening. Day after day I fall asleep thinking that today could be the day I don’t wake up. It’s terrifying, and I can’t do anything about it.” From where he lay on the bed, he continued, “Besides, I know. Everyone in the village, even Mina’s father, doesn’t have any sympathy for me. Somewhere deep in their hearts, they’re all hoping for my death. When I finally die, they won’t have to take care of me anymore, they’re thinking. I can’t take it anymore. I’m at my limit. That’s why… Can I ask you…? Can I ask you to kill me?”
He wasn’t joking.
He was speaking seriously.
He was already at his limit.
However…
“I refuse.”
There was no way that I could accept such a request. I didn’t become a witch to kill people. Even if it was his final request, I couldn’t do it.
“…That’s too bad.” He was calm; I think he had never expected me to accept in the first place.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t need to apologize. Even if you don’t kill me, the villagers will do it themselves before long. Maybe even tonight. They’ll feed me poison or something, and it’ll look like I just quietly drifted off.”
“…No way.”
“No, I’m sure of it. A person who just lies in bed and can’t get up has no worth in this village. He can’t do anything except wait for death.”
“……”
“The only reason I’ve been able to hold on until now is because the villagers were expecting Mina to come back. They were convinced that she had a lingering attachment to me…but it’s all over now.”
I realized what he meant…
“…And then I showed up.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not really blaming you, okay? This was my fate sooner or later.”
“……”
And then he smiled.
“Ideally, I would pass away while Mina’s twin is tending to me, but…I don’t want to force your hand. I’m sorry for making such a strange request.”
“No, don’t worry about it…,” I said.
CHAPTER 11
The Country That Persecutes Ugliness
A forest path cut through a stretch of nearly uniform trees. It was unpaved and uneven, little more than a gap where no trees grew.
Above it flew a single girl on her broom. The swaying branches whispered as she passed by, and the trees tossed their leaves into the air as if they were celebrating a toast.
The lovely young lady was a witch and a traveler.
Her ashen hair shimmered in the sunlight, and her lapis lazuli eyes seemed to be gazing beyond her path to somewhere far into the distance. She wore a black robe, a pointy hat, and a brooch shaped like a star, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that her witchy appearance only added to her appeal.
This young lady, who no one could possibly describe as anything other than lovely…who could she be?
That’s right. She’s me.
“……”
I had already gotten some information about the country that was supposed to lie ahead. Among the merchants who made their living in this area, that country was called all sorts
of strange names: “the big yet small country,” “the country of only handsome men and beautiful ladies,” “the walled country,” “the old-fashioned country,” “the forbidding country,” “the curious country,” and so on. I had come to wish that they would at least be a little more consistent.
Anyway, the only thing I was certain of was that a strange place lay before me. I wondered just what kind of strangeness it had in store for me, and what made it so mysterious. I had tried asking the merchants, but it was no use. In the end, if I wanted to know what the place was really like, there was nothing to do but go there and check it out myself. I was kind of looking forward to it.
A bit more time passed, and my destination appeared on the horizon. I could make out a relatively low rampart, and the wooden gate was standing open.
I parked my broom in front of the gate and dismounted.
A guard appeared out of nowhere and began with an overenthusiastic greeting. “Hey there— Oh, a witch? How unusual.” He looked at the brooch on my chest, and his eyes grew wide. “What brings you to these parts?”
“I am a traveler.”
“Oh-ho, that’s even more unusual.”
“Is that so?”
The guard nodded two or three times. “Indeed. By the way, Madam Witch, do you know anything about this country?”
“Well, I know a fair bit.”
“Oh really? In that case, I’m sure it’ll be all right.”
“…?” Wait, what will be all right? I was confused.
“Well then, Miss Witch, please answer a few simple questions before you come in. First of all…”
The standard questions dispelled whatever slight doubts I was feeling. The questions he asked me were ordinary things like my name, my age, how long I planned to stay, and the reason for my visit. I gave succinct answers.
“All right, that’s all we need. You’re free to enter.”
“Thanks.”
At the guard’s urging, I stepped into a new land.
Well then, what kind of place is this?
Just going on a stroll wouldn’t be enough to show whether this country was as odd as I’d heard. Stepping through the gate, everything appeared exceptionally ordinary, although it would have been more appropriate to call the place a walled village rather than a country of any description.
Most everything was built of wood, and every house appeared to have been made from rough timber. Most likely, people had simply cleared the path I had just traveled down and used the trees to build houses. The problem was that all of them were falling apart. They were so shabby that they looked like they’d had an encounter with the Big Bad Wolf.
By the way, the people living in the houses…were pigs!
…No, they were human, of course.
A thin woman emerged from one of the houses, holding a basket. After looking at me for only a moment, she turned and left.
What a perfectly disinterested reaction. Looks like visitors aren’t that rare after all.
It wasn’t just the woman holding the basket. Everyone I encountered seemed utterly indifferent. Or maybe I should say utterly ordinary.
There was the woman hanging her laundry to dry on a pole between two trees in a garden. There were the men sitting around a bonfire in the distance, having a friendly chat and tossing branches into the flames. There was the young man who was intensely focused on chopping firewood with an ax.
I saw the residents of the country from a distance, but as soon as they met my gaze, they would turn their eyes away, as if they were thinking, Oh, a traveler. Ho-hum.
Just as I had been told, they all seemed to be handsome men and beautiful women, and they were probably a bit old-fashioned. However, at present, I had no feelings about the land aside from finding it totally ordinary and rather boring. Not exactly living up to the reviews, is it?
“My, my, how rare.”
As I was walking around aimlessly, someone called out to me. I looked in the direction the voice had come from and saw an older woman, clearly a mage, walking toward me. When my eyes met hers, she grinned. It was a smile brimming over with a certain enigmatic kindness. Judging by her appearance, she was probably about the same age as my parents.
I looked behind me just in case she was speaking to someone else. After I was sure I wasn’t about to embarrass myself, I asked, “Me?”
The woman nodded. “Yes, you. You’re a traveler, right? If you came to this country, you must have really strange tastes.”
“Is that so?”
“Quite.”
“I heard it was a strange place, so it caught my interest.”
“Hmm, you’re an odd one.”
“Is that so?”
“Quite.”
This mage had inexplicably struck up a friendly conversation, then accused me of being an odd person with strange tastes. What’s going on? I don’t understand.
“But it doesn’t look very strange at all. I think it’s just a plain, ordinary, normal place.”
“Incidentally, what did you hear about us before you came here?”
“Um…” I told her the different names that the merchants were calling this country.
“…Hmm. ‘The country of only handsome men and beautiful ladies,’ huh… Oh-ho-ho, I’m blushing.”
“……” Are you only hearing the parts you want to hear?
“Well then,” the mage said, “you came with high expectations and were disappointed, is that right?”
“Yes, well, something like that.”
“…I see. In that case, I think you should come look at the interior. I suspect you’ll be able to find what you were hoping for.”
“The interior…? What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I said. Come with me.”
“Um, hang on—”
She grabbed my sleeve tight, and I found myself being dragged along by a mage whose name I didn’t even know.
…Why me?
She led me to a gate.
This wasn’t the gate that I had gone through to enter the village, but a more extravagant one. The top of the wooden gate was adorned with an iron frame. Somehow, this rampart seemed taller than the wall I had seen when I had first entered.
The gate was open, and a horse-drawn cart was parked to one side. Fat older men were unloading packages of all sizes while the horse munched on grass for lack of anything better to do.
What in the world is this?
“…Is there another country inside this country?” I asked, and the mage released my sleeve.
“Yes. Although the territory on the other side of this gate is the real country.”
“In that case, what’s on this side?” I pointed at the ground.
“I’ll tell you if you listen to what I say.”
“……” I have a bad feeling about this.
“You won’t do business with me?”
“Is this a business transaction?”
“Quite.”
“Depends on what you have to say,” I said, and the mage’s eyes glittered as if to say, “Got it.”
“Go buy me a book. I’ll give you the money.”
“…A book?” I thought she was going to ask for something crazy, but that was a very normal item. “Why don’t you buy it yourself? Or is there some reason why you can’t buy it?”
“Yes, I have a reason. Can I count on you?”
I was about to ask what the reason was, but I could tell from the look in her eyes that she would only dodge the question and promise to tell me after I brought her the book.
Well, if it’s just a simple errand, that should be all right.
I didn’t feel good about letting this mage foist her errand onto me, but I was also very curious about what was on the other side of that gate.
“I accept.”
I slipped past the sluggish-looking horse and the fat men and went through the secondary gate.
Inside was a whole other world, so different it made me wonder what on earth was the deal with the b
ackwoods hamlet I had passed through before.
The bare, unpaved earth I had been walking on…was no more. Solid-looking rust-colored bricks were lined up to form the road.
No, they don’t just look solid, they are solid.
The houses built along the gently winding road were also made of brick instead of wood. They would be sure to stand up to any huffing, puffing wolf.
As I walked on, the aroma of coffee reached my nose, and I spotted a café. A number of people inside were smiling at me.
Proceeding onward, I saw a bakery, just the type I love. This country didn’t seem to have any street stalls or any other roadside businesses. The bakery itself was set up inside an ordinary house. Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten anything since this morning.
But I should take a look around before I put anything in my mouth. Besides, since I went to the trouble of coming here, I want to eat something this place is famous for.
“Hey, hey, Mom, there’s an uggo over there. Look how ugly she is!”
“Shh! Don’t look.”
……
…Huh? What was that just now?
When I turned toward whoever had made that very, very rude comment, an obese mother and child were holding hands and wrinkling their noses at me in disgust.
Did they just say that about me? The mother and child met my eyes as they walked away, and the child started to holler.
“Eek, the uggo glared at meee!”
“Hey, stop looking! You’ll turn ugly!”
……What in the world is going on?
I puzzled over it, but no answer was forthcoming. Eventually, I concluded that I had been imagining things.
The farther I went, the worse it got.
Or should I say, the more people I passed, the more disapproving eyes turned my way. People sometimes said it while pointing at me and sneering, and sometimes while whispering to the person next to them.
Ugly, they said.
“Oh, my word! It hurts to look!”
“Goodness, what an awful face. She shouldn’t show that to anybody.”
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, Vol. 1 Page 14