IBTRFL Chapter 34

She'd been lucky.

She'd wandered the mountain for a long time without finding a single human trace. Instead, chaos beasts that hadn't so much as shown their noses came pouring out to block her path.

She'd meant to end the search for the day once she'd cut the seventh beast in two. If not for the presence she'd felt, far in the distance.

She'd taken it for a beast's shadow, but then came the sound of human voices. She'd chased the sound, come running headlong—

Aer looked over the faces once more. Every single one of them, without exception, was full of hostility toward the outsider.

It was the same look she'd met every time she'd visited a village of fugitives.

"Who the hell are you? Clear off, now!"

"Can't do that."

"What?"

Aer turned to the side without warning. Fons, riding on her back, lifted his tearful face.

"Mister, ma'am…"

"Fons?"

The sharp wariness melted away in an instant. The villagers threw down their weapons and ran toward Fons.

Aer, carrying him—the very person they'd been so wary of—seemed to go completely unseen.

"God, where were you! Do you know how much your mother suffered!"

"It's alright. It's alright. Thank goodness you're back. We were worried sick."

"Don't ever go off again! You must never leave the adults' side!"

Crying, or shouting in anger, or overjoyed. Everyone welcomed the returned child with their own particular emotion.

"Mela, wake up! Fons is back!"

A village woman shook Mela, wiping at her tears.

Fons. At the name of her beloved son, the closed eyelids twitched, faintly. The fingertips, cold and stiff, gave a small jerk, and then, slowly, Mela opened her eyes.

"Mela! Are you awake? Fons is back!"

Mela's eyes widened, and a hot breath tore out of her.

"…F-Fons. My child? My child, is it?"

"Yes! Fons is back!"

"F-Fons! My son!"

Mela trembled all over as she rose to her feet. She waved off even the village woman's attempt to steady her and ran toward where her son stood.

Amid the scattering people, the face she'd yearned for, desperately. Mela's eyes, which had been dying, sparked with joy.

"Mom!"

Aer quickly untied the rope she'd bound him with. Once he was down, Fons threw off the cloth covering his eyes and ran toward his mother.

The son threw himself into his mother's arms. Warm hands searched his face, pitying and careful.

"My—my child! I missed you so much."

"Mom, Mom, me too…"

The two held each other tight. The clearing, once so quiet, soon rang with the sound of several people sniffling.

"…"

Rough going, sure—but worth it, at that. Aer wiped her nose and turned around.

"Hey."

"Gyaaugh."

And nearly jumped out of her skin at a presence eerie enough to be a ghost's.

She clutched at her heart, which felt like it had stopped for a moment, and turned to face the old man.

A thick, unkempt white beard, long untrimmed. A sallow complexion in contrast to it.

It was a rude thought, but she found herself thinking she was looking at a dead man.

The old man called out to her.

"Hey."

"Ah, yes."

Aer, snapping to attention, scratched at her head beneath her hood and answered. The old man stared at her face and spoke.

"They call me Djite."

"…Rana."

"Really…"

Djite's throat worked. His deep brown eyes wavered with complicated feeling.

"Thank you. Truly, thank you."

At the unexpected gratitude, she found herself unable to say anything. Somehow, it had just ended up this way.

Aer scratched awkwardly at her cheek and looked away. But she had no choice but to wave her hands in alarm at Djite's next move.

"Grandpa! I really don't like this kind of thing!"

"No, you saved several lives. Truly, truly, thank you."

Djite bowed even lower. Aer was at her wit's end.

"You don't have to do that! No, please!"

Despite her pleading, the bowed back showed no sign of straightening.

"If there's anything this old man can do."

"Ah, seriously!"

Aer grabbed Djite's shoulders and hauled him upright in one motion.

"Enough."

"I can't just leave it. What you did—"

"That's not it!"

Aer said, fanning the air with her hand.

"Ugh, enough already! Let's just eat, okay."

"…What?"

"Just because..."

Djite stared at Aer, who wore an unreadable smile.

Deep in the mountains, in the middle of the night, a modest feast was held. Given the circumstances, she wasn't sure "feast" was quite the right word.

But the smiles blooming on people's faces meant Aer decided to just call it a feast anyway.

There wasn't much Aer herself had done. She'd handed over the food she'd taken from the bandits' quarters and pretended to have fetched the clean water she'd conjured with magic.

Grateful for the return of Fons, the villagers had let down their guard and thanked her with tears in their eyes.

Everything after that, the people managed themselves.

They washed the pot they'd grabbed while fleeing and gathered firewood to build a fire. Those seasoned in a life of hiding knew well how to build a fire while keeping the smoke down as much as possible.

Finely chopped jerky and every last scrap of hoarded vegetables went into the pot, filled to the brim with water. While the soup simmered to a fine flavor, bread was even prepared, cut and ready to go with it.

In the process of preparing it, the kitchen knife and ladle once aimed at Aer were put to use.

Even after long hunger and hardship, these good people hadn't forgotten to look out for one another. The weakest first. There was more than enough to go around, and even the last person's bowl was filled generously.

The villagers enjoyed a truly warm meal for the first time in a long while. In the place where despair had briefly stepped aside, small, quiet laughter took its place.

"Hm? That old man…"

Watching from a slight distance, Aer tilted her head. Scanning the crowd once more, she still couldn't find Djite's face.

An unnecessary meddling, or not-bad curiosity. Between the two, the scale in her mind tipped toward the latter.

"Something about him just... nags at me, I guess."

Maybe it's the eyes. A little like Uncle Valor's, or something.

Smacking her lips, Aer slipped quietly away between the tree trunks.

The mountain, where not even a single insect chirped, was silent. If not for the occasional burst of laughter carried faintly on the air, she might have felt like she was adrift on an endless sea.

She pressed on through the dull dusk, the faint moonlight her only lantern.

After a long search, she finally found Djite, sitting in a spot where the night's shadow lay unusually thick.

Aer stared at him for a while before asking, deliberately cheerful.

"What are you doing?"

"…It's you."

"Yep, it's me."

Djite didn't reply. Aer, awkwardly looking away, sat down beside him.

"Why are you out here?"

"…No reason. Just—too much on my mind, I suppose."

"…"

The conversation didn't continue. Aer was desperately searching for her next words when—

"Why'd you come here."

"Looking for you, Grandpa."

"I see."

"…"

Aer, rolling her eyes idly, let out a sigh and continued.

"There's a baby and a new mother back there, too. How long can they hold out?"

Djite's brow furrowed.

"Why are you asking that."

"Going to catch it."

"…We've already received more than enough from what you've done so far. That's our business, not yours."

Aer nodded, her face sulky. Djite, who'd kept silent, fixed his eyes on the sky and spoke.

"Do you know we're fugitives? Criminals on the run."

"Yes."

"…Then why help us. People with nothing to be proud of."

His wrinkled hands trembled, faintly. Seeing it, Aer snorted and asked back.

"Is that really true, though?"

"…"

"The people here. Are they really nothing to be proud of?"

"…That's not so."

"Then that settles it."

"You don't ask any further."

"Then explain it to me."

Aer demanded, brazen as anything. Djite, turning to look at her, let out a short, hollow laugh he hadn't meant to. There was no ill will in it.

"You're quite bold."

"That's my strong suit."

"…Seems like it."

Djite let out a deep sigh and continued.

"Mela, Fons's mother, fled from the city. She refused a magistrate's advances and was framed for it. The man who leveled a ladle at you was cheated and sold into slavery, and barely escaped. The old man who shared out the soup was thrown away by a child hungry for his inheritance and taken in here. Sick and tired lives, all of them, unhappy in every variety."

"…And what about you, Grandpa?"

"Refused some high-and-mighty brat's commission. Been hunted ever since."

Aer blinked.

"What commission?"

"…A commission to forge a sword."

"You're a blacksmith?"

"I was. I don't make weapons anymore, though."

Djite lowered his eyes to look at his own hands.

Hands that had, for a lifetime, gripped iron and struck iron before a burning heat. The joints were bent this way and that, unsightly.

Callouses that would never fade were pressed into the skin, cooked to a coppery brown.

"I had a son. A boy so precious, you could've put him in my eye and I'd never have felt the sting."

"…You were married, then?"

"No. He wasn't my blood son."

Aer's body went rigid.

Djite quietly raised a hand and stroked the crown of her head, hooded beneath the robe. The touch was a little rough, maybe, but gentle, and warm.

"So what if the blood doesn't mix?"

"…"

"Give him your time, give him your heart—that's your child, then."

His hand withdrew. Aer covered the crown of her own head with one hand and looked into Djite's eyes.

The brown eyes, which had at a glance seemed benevolent, were hollow, empty. As though something important had been lost.

"He grew so fast it was almost a shame. It felt like just yesterday he was taking his first steps, and then before I knew it, he'd become a fine young man and left to find his own way. His useless old father never could give him a thing."

Djite closed his eyes, quietly.

"He wanted to become a splendid knight. All a blacksmith father could think to do was forge him a decent sword and give it as a gift."

"…"

"That was the last of it."

On his lap, his fist, rock-like, clenched tight. Djite's upper body shook, his breath growing ragged.

His son came home in a state he hadn't wanted to face even in his dreams. They'd said it was an accident, during a monster-culling mission.

Strangely, no tears had come. From the moment he'd faced the cold corpse, to the moment he'd covered the coffin with earth.

It wasn't that he wasn't sad. Just—that. That moment. He'd simply died alongside him.

He never forged a weapon again. He buried the sword with his son. The weapon the father had made had gotten the son killed.

If he hadn't given him that sword back then, if he'd only opposed the child's dream—would everything have turned out differently?

He knew it was a foolish thing to blame himself for. And yet, Djite was a father.

He couldn't blame his child, and he couldn't blame fate. All that was left for a parent was himself. Unfortunately.

It was a life already finished, one way or another. The only reason he hadn't ended the breath of this wretched body was the fear of one day never being able to see his son again.

He didn't believe in a god. But he believed in the heaven where his son must be.

Djite let out a trembling breath.

"…I got by, somehow, on my one talent for working metal. It wasn't a cure, but I thought it wasn't quite poison either."

A single line followed, something like a lament.

"But the world never once poured this old man a drink."