Chapter 193 – Reasons to Move On.
After hearing Usher’s words, Krikaliev stayed still and opened his mouth.
“You don’t even have to ask me. Just go apologize.”
Yeah, it was natural. Because it was all his fault. Still, the footsteps do not fall.
“Then do you want to stay here without doing anything and break up with the little girl forever?”
“That’s not it!”
“Then why are you procrastinating? It’s already been a month.”
“…I mean no.”
Even as Usher said that, he didn’t have the courage to face Belka. He still doesn’t have the strength to protect her girl, but can he, who only hurt her, go see her again? Does he deserve to be with her if he doesn’t have any of her pride? Questions that kept popping up haunted him.
“Think as soon as possible or do you think the little girl will wait her whole life?”
It wasn’t like that. That would be too harsh for a girl. But even though she still thought she had to go because she wanted to meet Belka, she still saw herself unable to move.
“Take this opportunity to think about it calmly. What is it like right now?”
Again silence fell around. On a brightly lit night, under the shade of a tree, I watched the softly shining floating stones floating on the jet-black water. The thoughts wandering through my head settled down like a silent night. The same was true of the lake where I washed myself with the girl on the day when the full moon rose brightly like today. The distance between her feet and the water was closer than I thought, so when I took off her shoes and dipped her feet in, I could see them as they were. The black water, which looked turbid as if it would become dirty if you put your body in, was actually transparent as usual.
The feeling of the cold water permeating the bandages and slowly climbing up her legs was blurry and distinct. The sound of Krikaliev pouring arak into a cup was heard.
“One more drink, please.”
“Huh. This is an expensive drink.”
Even so, he poured Arrak into the glass Usher was holding. The transparent liquor soaked up the moonlight like a memory of the night. Usher opened his mouth as he drank from a glass that would cover everything in one hand.
“Actually, I don’t think I wanted to do anything like travel. I was anxious to leave the place where I used to live.”
It was strange. I wanted to go on a trip like that, but when I met Donar and Sif, and hung out with Medea and Ludmilla with Belka, and stayed in Lantua, the thought of the trip disappeared. It was scary at the time, but now I don’t know why.
“Why did you want to leave your hometown?”
At his words, Usher pondered. Why did he want to leave the village even before he knew the truth about it? Suddenly, I remembered the rings that I had brought from the village but hadn’t even thought to take out since I had tucked them in a corner of my bag.
“I wanted to find my parents. I was an orphan.”
Living in the village, there was always a story to hear. The story is that he is an orphan abandoned by his parents in the village. To that, Usher always said he wasn’t an orphan. It was because he remembered that the village headman, who had once looked after him, said that one day his parents would come to pick him up. Looking back now, that was an obvious lie. However, he believed the lie and dreamed of the trip with the mindset that he would first find his parents who never came no matter how long he waited. I was thinking that if they forgot me, I would go find them myself.
“Then I met Belka.”
I remembered the day I first met the girl. A small girl hiding behind a large zelkova tree and staring at him with a surprised golden light. Her coveted red hair looked very soft and her fair skin dazzled as if it were going to be engraved in her eyes. Her heart swelled up like it was going to burst, so she stayed there in a daze. He tried to find her, but he couldn’t find her that day, so he found her girl in the same place the next day. Usher approached slowly in case she would run away like yesterday, but that day too, her girl had run away.
I wanted to give up, but I kept thinking of the golden light that had been staring at him, so I went to the zelkova tree every day. Fortunately, her girl was under the tree and Usher quietly met her eye to eye without rushing over. I never get tired of just watching the golden light that seemed to be soaked in sunlight in the bright marigolds, so the sun went down quickly. Every day he went to the zelkova tree to meet the girl. He liked being with her to the point that he wished her time had gone slower, even if it always did.
It was the same on that day. It was the same day as usual, just looking at each other over a large zelkova tree. As if the girl had made up her mind, she clenched her fists and slowly revealed her body from behind the tree. The girl, wearing a dark black dress with a hint of red, approached him cautiously bit by bit, and he forgot to even breathe and just watched her. Every moment was simply enchanting. There was no conversation, but it was the first proper meeting between him and her girl.
“Because I’ve been living like that. I thought that I would like to brag about it when I meet my parents someday.”
That I, who you forgot, is living this well, and that she will live with her in the future. Life with the girl was always fun. To the extent that I want to brag to everyone. Every moment with Belka was his happiness.
“It was just nice being with Belka.”
However, children’s secret places were bound to be discovered by adults one day. I’m afraid that my secret place will be found out like the other kids did. If that happens, I’m afraid that even the girl hiding there will be found out and become like Marie. I thought we should live together in a safer place.
“What, after all, it was because of that little girl.”
Usher gripped his chest as if his heart was being stabbed. Why? Why now
“Would you like another drink?”
I wanted to stop the tears that were about to burst out. The girl was everything to him, and he couldn’t bear it because he was so pitiful that he threw it away without even knowing it.
“Do you drink only on an empty stomach? It seems like there’s a side dish. Just wait.”
Instead of pouring a drink into Usher’s empty glass, he swung at his fishing pole. The fishing rod swung around and at the same time the float stone bounced into the air, and something rose beneath it with the sound of water gurgling. It was Dvyaka, a large fish with long, cylindrical bodies and brown scales with leg-like fins.
“Hwiik! It’s a big deal! Let’s eat right away.”
“Here?”
I wondered how he was going to do it when he didn’t even have a flimsy tool, but he pulled out his knife from somewhere.
“This is the point, so I hid some stuff.”
Then he placed Devayaka on a stone flat enough to reflect the sky like a mirror. Then he stabbed him in the neck with his sword. Puck! Whether or not Usher frowned at the sound, he took out the intestines neatly, cut them in half lengthwise, peeled them, and sliced them into thin slices.
“Now, let’s eat.”
Krikaliev then poured an arak into his glass and held out two twigs he had picked from nearby, which Usher accepted without hesitation.
“Ku! This is the taste.”
Krikaliev asks as he watches him eat thinly sliced dhayaka by lightly placing it on a mangrove leaf he picked with a twig.
“Huh? Why are you drawing it?”
“Can I eat this raw like this?”
It seemed familiar when I saw Dvayaka, which was left with only flesh in an instant, but it was a strange feeling to eat it raw.
“When you catch a good fish, there are only three things: fry it! Boil it! Cut it!”
I wanted to say that it was not such a problem, but Krikaliev continued.
“Actually, I like to boil Dvyaka, and I like Tebrani to fry or sashimi, but I can’t cook. Just eat it. It’s better than no side dishes, right?”
Watching him continue to devour Dvayaka’s flesh with a twig, somehow made him hungry. Picking up Dvyaka’s flesh with twigs and eating it on a mangrove leaf, as Krikaliev had done, the soft flesh, slightly salty and with the scent of grass, touched my mouth. Contrary to what I was worried about because it was raw, it was very delicious.
“How are you, aren’t you okay?”
“It’s delicious.”
“Then drink again.”
As he handed out a small glass, Usher remembered the customers clinking glasses together, and he too clinked glasses and drank them in. Arak was still a strange taste, so I couldn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it. While drinking arak and fishing with him like that, dawn was coming.
“It’s already morning.”
“Time flies quickly when you’re fishing.”
Arak and Devayaka were already gone, and there were so many fish in the pots that were immersed in the water that you could see them gathering even from the water. Usher said, watching the sun poking out from beyond with Krikaliev.
“May I go fishing with you next time?”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re going to stay here forever.”
He tidied up the things he had brought and stood up.
“Okay then let’s go.”
“What about traps?”
But when he asks him who doesn’t take care of the trap that holds the fish in if he forgot, Krikaliev shakes his head.
“Even if you leave it there, it will live for quite a while. And now we have somewhere else to go.”
“Where are you going?”
Didn’t they just come to fish? As Usher wonders, he suddenly recalls a conversation they had had the night before.
“No way.”
“Isn’t today on vacation anyway? I’m going to go meet you to get rid of the bullhorn. That little girl.”
He started walking first, and Usher, barely coming to his senses, hurriedly followed.
“Do you know where Belka is?”
“Aren’t you going to take me there?”
“But how.”
“I just met him as he came and went. No matter how much he worried about you.”
Usher shut his mouth. The girl was still waiting for him. After hearing his words, she was relieved, but also sorry. Even though he was pathetic, ugly, weak, and hurt. But more than that, I was happy to see Belka again. It was when she was walking along Krikaliev, she thought, that she would accept him back, but she apologized. He suddenly stopped walking. Although he had been walking for quite some time, so he thought he had reached where the girl was.
“What is this?”
What came to be heard was Krikaliev’s panicked voice. After hearing him, Usher, feeling that something was wrong, came out from behind him and looked ahead. One small house had a door that was left open, revealing the inside of the house. He wanted to think no, but as Krikaliev entered the house and inspected it, he went inside and saw the mess in the house. Here and there, shards of broken glass, torn objects and clothes were scattered on the floor, and there were large footprints and dirt on the floor.
Usher wanted to think no, but he found among them an object familiar to him and picked it up.
“…How did this happen?”
It was a pair of small shoes that Usher had given the girl. It felt like I was suffocating. I’d rather believe that the girl abandoned it. The other pair of shoes is nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t know. When I came to see it the day before yesterday, they were selling medicines for treatment.”
Krikaliev couldn’t understand the current situation as Krikalev did. If Jude had been looking for it, there would have been no problem. Even if it was painful for the girl, she had the power to dispel her magic, and even if Helena lost the battle for her power, she could resist and make a fuss even for a moment, calling the people around her. However, the problem was that no matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t see this as an individual act. It might be possible if you control a lot of people with magic, but it was impossible because it was limited and the efficiency was bad, so I couldn’t explain the current situation. It was then.
“Are you here now? It’s so fast.”
Usher heard the voice of a strange man.
