Chapter 185 – Reasons to Move On.
It was in the silent darkness. I’m scared because I can’t even touch his toes, but somehow I have the urge to entrust myself to his arms. As I’m wandering in the darkness, I hear a voice from somewhere and wake him up.
[You came back here again.]
Is it the voice? It’s too foreign to say that, but I’ve heard it somewhere, and I miss it and it’s warm. The sound similar to the comfortable darkness surrounding him was somewhat similar to the voice he knew, but I didn’t really think it was the same.
[Poor Almighty. Don’t get us too close.]
What do you mean? I couldn’t understand. He himself was just sleeping. As soon as I thought about it, I felt a sense of alienation. How long have you been asleep? It was the moment when I realized that fact. He struggled to lift his heavy eyelids, as if they would never open, but his eyes did not come off as if they were sticking together, and he frowned. A gentle hand touched his eyes and removed the things that prevented him from opening them. When I finally opened my eyes to that familiar touch, the first thing I saw was the golden color of the girl.
The golden light filled with sweet and warm light met his gaze and bloomed as if surprised, and then opened his mouth in surprise at the moment of holding back tears.
“Bel…Ka?”
But his voice was so different from what he remembered. His voice cracked roughly as if he had been asleep for a long time, and he doubted whether it was his own voice. He tried to raise himself up with a curious mind, but his hands couldn’t touch the ground and he only repeated in vain. The girl grabs his hand, which can’t get up no matter how hard he tries.
“Did you sleep well?”
Belka’s soft voice that followed reassured him.
“Uh, I think I slept too long for something.”
It was only then that he looked around calmly and saw an unfamiliar landscape. A leather wall with a rough surface engraved with wave patterns, glass bottles and bone fragments of unknown use, and even stone fragments engraved with unknown characters. It was very different from the scene inside the castle he knew. And he realized belatedly that there were a lot of strangers around him.
“Oh, it happened! Thank goodness!”
Then, the woman who met his eyes widened her round eyes as if surprised. Dark black hair and eyes of the same color glittered like obsidian, full of curiosity. She stood between woman and girl, full of her vitality, but she was something else that caught his attention.
“Wing?”
The large gray-brown wings, which felt strange to be attached to a human back, were moving on their own as if claiming to be her body. And she wasn’t the only stranger to her.
“You’re awake now.”
“Your body will be very damaged, so it would be better not to move recklessly.”
A man wrapped in old cloth and not revealing any of his skin, and a man wearing an animal’s head bone like a hat and weaving bones together like armor.
“You’re finally awake.”
A woman with short hair of a unique color between pink and purple and a sharp impression is relieved to see him. At least she could tell that she was her maid because her outfit was something she had often seen in her castle, but what kind of harmony is it that even the air touching her nose feels unfamiliar?
“Velka? Who are these people? Where are they? Where are Uncle Donard and Sister Sif?”
But what was most confusing was the fact that the familiar and friendly people were nowhere to be seen. At the end of his words, they all shut up. The girl with wings rolled her gaze, while the man wrapped in old cloth watched silently. The bony man shakes her head and the woman in her maid’s uniform closes her eyes. With no one answering his questions, the only thing Usher could count on was the girl. When his gaze returned to him, Belka’s lips drew a thin arc. The girl said with a blurry smile that seemed to disappear at any moment.
“Usher, do you remember being knocked down?”
“I was knocked down? Ugh…!”
I just remembered her words. On a rainy day, she trains with Donar and worries about his physical condition. On the way back to her room. The last memory of falling down on the white floor without being able to control himself because the dizzy and disgusting energy fills his body passes through his mind.
“Is it because of a cold? Somehow, my body was too heavy, but I didn’t expect to collapse.”
She thinks it’s because she caught a cold from training in the rain, and worries about Belka, who must have been worried about her.
“Come on, it’s not a cold.”
As if the winged girl found out something unexpected, she was embarrassed and the other people’s expressions were strange. When he touched his head, feeling the discomfort that had been stabbing him in the back grow bigger. He realized that the feel of the hair poking through his hands was not what he remembered.
“What is this?”
As he picked up his hair with his hand and brought it in front of his eyes, his near-yellow hair was pulled right up to his eyes. It was strange. He didn’t usually care so much, but at least he knew that he wasn’t as long as girls. His hair was quite short, not unlike other boys. But how could such hair be pulled right up to his eyes so easily, without even a slight pull? His hair, which even faded in color, is so unfamiliar.
“Is it okay if I tell you?”
As he stared blankly at her hair, it was the woman in the maid outfit who opened her mouth. Although her impression was sharp, she looked at him with a gentle gaze, and because of her familiar clothes, she was able to meet her gaze without any burden on her.
“Come to think of it, my sister works at Mediane Castle, right? Where are Uncle Donard and Sister Sif?”
Then she shut her mouth for a moment, caught her breath, then opened her mouth.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not the one working for him.”
“Yeah? Well then.”
“I’m following Usher, that is, you and the lady.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
Usher couldn’t understand what she was saying. She’s not Medea, she’s herself and the lady? She nodded her head in case she looked at her Belka and she was a woman. But that wasn’t the end.
“The disease you had was not a simple cold. It was a different disease carried by Cattsy.”
“If it’s Catsy, it’s not possible.”
Usher remembered the boy with cat ears and tail that Donnar had brought with him.
“Yes, you must be right. That’s why the young master has been sleeping for a long time.”
Then it was understandable that his hair had grown long and that he was limp and weak as if he had been sleeping for a long time. Even now, his head hurt as if it would break, but this was a common occurrence when he slept too long. But there was one thing I still didn’t understand.
“What about Uncle Donard and Sister Sif?”
“They…”
“Where are you!”
Seeing the woman sighing, Usher involuntarily became annoyed. Her head hurt so much that she couldn’t seem to turn her head properly. I should apologize, but first I was concerned about the whereabouts of Donar and Sif.
“The diseases carried by the Cattsy are special.”
At that time, the man who opened his mouth was a man wearing an animal head bone and wearing a bone armor. He tapped the floor with a cane made of bone and wood and continued his words.
“The Cattsie are extremely wary of their own people leaving Parz.”
He didn’t look at them, as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with them, but his words were heard clearly in the silence.
“It may be that they care about their own people, but the diseases they are born with cannot be dealt with anywhere other than Parz.”
Because the plants that can cure their diseases only grow wild in Parz. Usher thought again of Helena’s words at his words. It was said that the disease he had was not a simple cold, but a disease carried by Cattsy. If so, this is it. Once again the unfamiliar air hits my nostrils and an unpleasant sensation stings my back. His eyes caught a glimpse of a door through which light shone through a crack in the leather of the dugout.
“Usher, what’s moving now…!”
Belka tries to stop him, but he’s already got up, opened the dugout’s tent, and stepped outside. Then, a bright light temporarily blinded him and made him blind, but soon the light cleared and the world was revealed. And what came into his eyes was a world very different from what he knew: a white sandy beach that shone dazzlingly reflecting sunlight, a mirror of water that reflected the sky from a little distance away, and strange trees with tangled roots on the ground floating above it. . Even the salty, fishy smell that reached his nose was unlike the air he knew.
He came out and stared blankly at the scene until he realized that he was barefoot and that he was sitting on the ground as his legs gave out. He slowly turned his head to look behind him. There, Belka and the others who had followed him were standing and watching him.
“Is this Parz?”
“That’s right.”
At his feet, the woman in the maid’s uniform answered again. It was a strange feeling. It was true that he definitely wanted to go on a trip. He thought something would come to Parz someday. But he thought he was asleep for a moment, but he didn’t know what to say about this feeling, as if he had suddenly landed in a place he had never seen before. As he turns his head to the unfamiliar scenery again, he hears the sound of small footsteps behind him, and soon the familiar and sweet scent of flowers embraces his head. In an unfamiliar and unfamiliar situation, only one girl remained.
“Belka, what about Uncle Donard and Sif?”
“Aren’t they still waiting for us to come back?”
After hearing her words, Usher was barely relieved. But could it be because he moved his body in a hurry not long after waking up? Bones creaked, muscles ached as if they were aching, and there was no strength in the body. To make matters worse, the horses began to come in droves. There were still many things I was curious about and wanted to ask, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing.
“Can I sleep a little longer?”
“Please don’t sleep too long.”
“I’m just tired.”
He threw himself into the girl’s arms and went to sleep. Not long after, those who had been watching Belka and Usher came closer to look at him as he snorted.
“Whoa, I thought it was going to be a big problem because you suddenly ran out.”
As Nausicaa cleared her surprised heart and said, the others were speechless.
“Now that I’m awake, as long as I take good care of myself, there won’t be any problems. I have work to do, so take me to the inn.”
After that, Jeremiah glanced at Belka and Usher and went back to her pit while Helena approached Belka and asked:
“Are you okay, miss?”
“…Yeah, Usher is awake.”
Krikaliev crossed her arms and watched, then followed Jeremiah into the hut. What caught his eye was Jeremiah, who was examining the fragments of the artifact he had brought as a gift.
“So what do you think?”
He seemed to concentrate on interpreting the letters engraved on the fragment, but Krikaliev did not care. Jeremiah continued examining the debris and answered without looking back at him.
“You know better than that, don’t you?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be more accurate to see two people than one?”
“Is that too?”
He put down a shard and lifted another.
“Yes, the child of paradise was certain.”
“…Are the pilgrims finally here?”
Krikaliev sat down beside him.
“I should have recognized her from the moment she brought me. There is no guarantee that the child of paradise will be given to her heart unconditionally.”
“That’s right. You can’t even control his mind at will.”
They sat side by side, filled with silence, until Krikaliev spoke again.
“Can the pilgrim get the sea back this time?”
“Well. No one will ever know.”
The sea drawn on the rough wall of the dugout rippled along with the wind blowing from outside.
