TFOA Chapter 34

The full rainy season had begun.

Niksi was wondering what shape to form the water channel, but she still hadn't opened the waterway.

Day and night she agonized over whether it should be curved or straight, but no proper answer came out. Since she was searching for a shape that was artistic yet simple, it was unavoidable.

In the end, she decided to look for Gilbert, the god of agriculture, from early morning.

"Huh? He's not home?"

Niksi arrived at his empty house. The air inside was stale, though she couldn't tell how long he'd been gone.

"His umbrella is here though."

His adorable lace umbrella (which also served as a parasol) was neatly tucked into the shoe rack.

So where on earth could he have gone on a day like today when the rain was coming down in steady sheets?

Outside the window, the tedious rain fell pitter-patter.

"He's not one to leave his house much."

Eventually Niksi came out of his house.

She decided to sit in the empty chair on the terrace in front of his house and wait for the village head.

When her patience had dropped to about half, she could tell that someone familiar was walking this way from far off.

It was the painter, walking through the rain while holding an umbrella in his hand.

'Really, these people don't know to be afraid of drizzle.'

"If you have an umbrella, why don't you use it instead of getting wet like that? Who called you a scholarly type?"

And then when he becomes bald, only then will he regret it, thinking 'Ah, I should have used an umbrella even if people mocked me for being like a girl.'

Benjamin came into Gilbert's house terrace and shook off his hair.

He was already drenched, so shaking it out didn't change his completely soaked appearance.

"Should I lend you some fire? I just bought a pretty lighter."

He firmly declined her offer, which sounded similar to asking if she should burn his hair off.

"Gilbert Grace is..."

"Not home right now. But what brings you to the village so early?"

"Because it's raining."

He hung the umbrella he was holding in his hand on Gilbert's door handle. Ah, right. Come to think of it, this man had broken Gilbert's umbrella.

And yet he came all this way to bring back the one and only umbrella.

She couldn't tell if he was foolish, or foolish and inflexible.

"Well then."

Benjamin was about to head back into the rain. Niksi grabbed his clothes.

"If you have time, wait with me."

"If I don't have time, will you let me go?"

"You know the answer."

She winked playfully.

He had expected this from the moment he saw from far away that this neighbor was keeping watch in front of the house.

He sighed and sat in the chair opposite Niksi.

It was an early morning on a bone-chilling rainy day, but the country people didn't give in.

During the short time that Niksi and Benjamin sat in front of Gilbert's house waiting for him, the village people who had awakened one by one strutted about the village.

The village people passed by looking at Niksi and Benjamin, who had been occupying the village head's house and sitting there from such an early time, with somewhat pitying eyes.

They wouldn't know, but Niksi with her hair plastered down from the rain, and Benjamin with his lips pale from getting wet and cold, looked exactly like shabby country dogs waiting for their master.

Wretched and pathetic.

Even after waiting for a long time, not a single strand of Gilbert's brown hair could be seen.

Finally, Niksi, whose patience had run out, let out her doubts.

"I think we need to search the village. If we stay any longer, all my sweet potatoes will drown."

The painter, who was finally about to be released, also stood up from his seat, afraid he might have to sit back down.

"Oh! Helen!"

"Niksi! Ben..."

Helen walked up with perfect timing. Helen frowned when she saw the painter and cut her words short. Benjamin crouched back down.

He turned his back. Only then did Helen speak quietly.

"Gilbert's not here?"

"No. Do you happen to know where he went?"

"No. But he came by at dawn and gave me this, and the atmosphere seemed serious, so it's been bothering me. I came to see if something had happened..."

What Helen was holding was an envelope sealed with pine resin wax.

"It was strange that Gilbert gave me something like a letter."

'Helen. Please hold onto this for me.'

For a secret letter to send to someone, his expression was too heavy, and for an important document, Gilbert couldn't write or read.

The timing wasn't good.

After Helen heard the story about Mark Richter from the officer, when Gilbert came to find her in the morning, she cautiously let slip that the officer and Mark Richter were acquainted.

Gilbert just smiled as if he knew everything.

'Don't worry, Helen. I'll handle it myself.'

That's what he had said just a few hours ago.

"Before I could even ask the reason, he went off somewhere. It seemed a bit much to open it without the owner's permission."

Niksi extended her hand as if asking for it. Helen reflexively put the paper on her hand.

"There!"

"Oh my!"

Niksi cleanly peeled off the wax with the back of her hand.

Helen let out a surprised exclamation at this brazen act that didn't have even a nail's worth of hesitation.

Niksi rustled the paper as she spread it open.

Helen, who couldn't overcome her uneasiness and curiosity rather than her conscience, also craned her neck forward.

"Hmm... what does this look like?"

"Hmm... unless my eyes are wrong..."

It was a house deed.

Niksi and Helen looked down at it with grave expressions.

"...By any chance, did Gilbert mortgage this to Helen?"

"No way. It's me who has debt, about 40 euros. When we went to the summer market, I forgot that I was supposed to bring my wallet, so I borrowed a bit."

"Summer market? It's summer now too. Was it a few days ago?"

"Last summer!"

"Last year? Helen, where's your conscience?"

"But why would he give this to me..."

Niksi couldn't understand it at all.

Would someone normally hand over such documents to others? Even family members wouldn't do that.

Helen seemed equally unable to understand this, as she looked at the house deed from various angles.

"It's not like he asked me to take good care of the house."

Right next to them, they were chattering away, so the painter couldn't help but hear the content even if he didn't want to.

Suddenly giving such an important-looking thing to a village resident and leaving?

No matter how much he liked giving things away to others, giving away something like that couldn't be summed up as just 'being good-natured.'

'Usually it's one of two things. Either he's an idiot, or he's about to die.'

The sound of rain pouring down, whoosh whoosh, that had seemed fine just moments before now painfully beat against his ears.

'In other words, if I keep my mouth shut, the villagers will get hurt. It's... it's all because of me.'

'It's all because of you. Because of you. If only you hadn't existed. If only you... if only you hadn't existed.'

'So I have to do it first...'

'...If only I hadn't existed.'

That dawn when the wheat field swayed making the sound of rain, and that time when he was dying in the pouring rain just like now.

One of two things. Either a fool, or about to die.

"No way."

Benjamin shot up from his seat. He immediately asked the neighbor and Helen.

"Listen. Where is Gilbert Grace?"

"Huh? We don't know either, that's why we're sitting here like this."

"Ha... let me rephrase the question."

No way, the thought that flashed through the painter's mind.

"Where might Gilbert Grace have gone?"

Gilbert Grace had gone to kill that man.

When it rained, the boy's house quickly became damp.

The house built of wood and mud never dried no matter how much they built up the fire.

When it rained, the boy's house became suffocatingly quiet.

On days like this, his father, who had hurt his Achilles tendon while out hunting, always said his lame leg hurt when it rained and drank alcohol.

When it rained, the boy's house easily became a wreck.

After his mother, who had gone out to pick wild vegetables in place of her husband who could no longer hunt, died from a venomous snake bite, it became a wreck even more easily.

The boy's father was becoming a monster as he himself had once warned, and he had no thought of controlling himself.

When it rained, the boy barred his room door.

Then the door panel broke, and his palm ended up getting cut on the sharp wooden splinters that were torn there.

The bedroom wall became dirty with bloodstains from the fight between the boy trying to keep the door closed and the father banging on it.

The boy who lived in that miserable house wanted to read the storybook he had picked up, rather than twisting wire to make traps that would catch well on beasts' necks. He wanted to know why the main character dog died at the end.

He wondered if he could even understand it since he couldn't read.

Bang bang! When it rained, when thunder struck, and when his father came, the whole world pounded and crashed.

"That day was the same."

Gilbert loaded the bullet.

Though the rough sound of rain might have drowned it out, the cool metallic sound didn't quietly disappear.

Looking at the gun barrel aimed at him, the hunter chuckled.

"That day. That day, you say."

"I knew that if you were hanging around near the village, you'd definitely come here at least once."

"Haha. Are you talking about when you pushed me off this cliff?"

The hunter came closer.

The cabin that was falling apart everywhere. His small hideout. He and the past that he had lived.

Rain poured down through the places that had collapsed here and there, and the things that soaked the floor became sticky mud that made feet sink deep with each step.

"I find it so cursed that your blood flows in me. I should have just died back then."

Gilbert pointed the gun at the man.

His father had taught him how to shoot, saying that he too might end up shooting beasts someday.

That was already more than ten years ago.

Since then, he could count on his hands the times he had touched a gun, but his posture was perfect.

Just like a hunter's son with hunter's blood flowing through him.

"Why on earth. Why did you come back? Why did you come back alive? Why, why was it you who came back alive? Why did it have to be you who came back alive?"

"Gilbert Richter."

"Don't call me by that damn name!"

The man in front of his eyes was not his father. His father had died hit by shrapnel in the violet field. It was a picnic day.

The sky that had been clear until just moments before turned black, so he thought black clouds were rolling in, but it wasn't that.

The roar of fighter planes that covered the sky. Hit by the falling shells, his family vanished in a single moment like that.

It happened while he had briefly gone down to the village to get an umbrella.

"Why I came looking for you..."

"No! I don't need to hear your worthless babbling. I won't listen to your pathetic excuses. Say even one word. I'll blow your head off right away."

With each step Gilbert took forward, the man retreated one step.

Eventually they left the hellish cabin and reached the hill path where the cabin was located. The steep slope. The small stream that was good for catching fish when it wasn't raining. But when the rainy season poured down like this, it swelled up in an instant and became a muddy flood that opened its jaws. Above the riverside.

They reached the cliff.

"Are you going to push me like back then? You've become quite cruel while I wasn't looking."

'Gilbert. Do you think this thing will die like that? You have to twist its neck for sure. You always hesitate at the crucial moment.'

Rainwater got in his eyes and stung. Damn it, it stung terribly.

Actually... that said, it wasn't as if there were no good memories with this man at all.

There were good memories too.

When his mother was alive. When his leg was intact, the hunter was a kind and cool father. A normal father who carried him on his shoulders and taught him how to climb trees.

Memories were always like that.

They pile up bad memories like Mont Blanc, then make you smile bitterly saying there were good memories the size of a speck of dust. Revoltingly.

Gilbert had always imagined what it would be like if the monster before his eyes came back alive instead of dying like this. While sleeping, while eating, while resting, it would suddenly pop up.

Just in case. It couldn't be, but was he alive?

Then how was he living? Was he doing well?

If so, then die.

In the pouring rain.

His vision had become murky from being in the rain for so long. Fever was burning hot.

Gilbert clenched his teeth tightly.

Suddenly, through his blurred vision, his eyes met with the man in front of him who was looking at him intently.

He was a damn old man.

That moment the strength completely drained from his finger that was bent on the trigger.

"...I told you. You always hesitate at the crucial moment."

The hunter struck Gilbert's gun-holding hand with his crutch.

Dull pain surged from his shoulder.

—Bang!

One ear became muffled from the gunshot that fired into the air.

Soon heavy pain surged through his head.

The man who had picked up the gun had struck Gilbert's head hard with it.

Pitter-patter. Red drops of blood scattered to the ground. He could feel something warm with a distinctly different texture from raindrops soaking his head.

His vision spun dizzy as if it had been turned upside down.

He sat down, continuously clutching his ringing ear.

"Tsk, pathetic."

The hunter took out a bullet. Click, click. The bullet slid smoothly into the chamber.

"I thought I'd watch how well you were living after making me like this."

"Huk... uugh..."

"Disappointing, son."

"Who's your...!"

The hunter grabbed Gilbert's neck. Blood from his head dripped steadily to the ground.

The man dragged him by his collar and threw him to the ground.

On the cliff.

The hunter, who had stepped on him with one leg as he lay there in a wretched state, fixed the gun barrel against his head.

It was the act of stepping on a barely breathing animal and then cutting off its breath.

"Let's end this now."

The hunter's hand pulled the trigger without hesitation.

—Bang!

He closed his eyes. A sharp ringing sound came from his muffled ear.

It was strange. The sensation of raindrops falling on his closed eyes was still vivid.

"...Let... go... of... him!"

"What... the..."

Sounds muffled as if waterlogged. His body seemed to be shaking wildly.

For a moment, he felt the hunter's foot that had been weighing down his body lift away.

"Gilbert!"

He snapped his eyes open.

"Gil, are you okay? That crazy bastard says he's your dad? Is this how they do family education these days?"

"Niksi..."

"Oh, no. Damn, that can't be right. For someone like that, there's a better word than daddy, isn't there?"

Niksi tore her sleeve and pressed it against Gilbert's head to stop the bleeding.

The painter was in the middle of a scuffle with the hunter, holding onto the barrel part of the gun he was gripping.

"Painter! Do something about that trash!"

The moment the hunter pulled the trigger, the painter grabbed the gun and lifted it upward, so the bullet was fired into the air instead of lodging in Gilbert.

Because of that, Benjamin came to be facing off with the hunter, and in that opening, Niksi was able to get close to the collapsed Gilbert.

"Make. Some. Sense."

The painter spoke as if chewing each word.

He had hastily grabbed anything and happened to touch the barrel right when it fired, so his burned palm was burning hot.

He was grateful that the rainwater immediately cooled the heat, but it was uncertain how much longer he could hold off the hunter with the gun.

"Gil. Can you move?"

"...How... ugh... can I."

"We have to try somehow."

'If only I could do something about that gun...!'

Niksi grabbed a stone that was lying on the ground. When the power struggle was evenly matched, recklessly intervening could be more dangerous.

She aimed for the leg of the man who was slightly limping on one side.

The stone aimed at his knee fell making a dull sound. The hunter's eyes turned sharp in an instant.

When the man's stance wavered, Niksi immediately dove between Benjamin and the hunter.

She struck the man's jaw with her elbow, then spun her body to twist the hand holding the gun and started to pull the gun from one arm.

'I should just bite off this arm...'

That moment. Her vision flashed white.

—Boom!

Something that resembled the first firing sound of artillery.

Something similar to a signal that war was about to begin.

Something that made hands and feet turn cold and pupils expand wide.

Thunder.

"Kyaah!"

Niksi covered her ears and crouched down.

"You...!"

At the same time, the hunter knocked the painter's hand away with his elbow.

While he staggered back, the man fixed the gun barrel on Niksi.

"Niksi!"

Gilbert grabbed the man's clothes and pulled.

—Bang!

The gun barrel barely went off course. But one of the several bullets grazed the painter's arm.

"This son of a bitch!"

The hunter, enraged to the top of his head, struck Gilbert's head with the gun butt.

With a dull sound, Gilbert crumpled down.

'Damn it!'

His arm burning fiercely. The rain that wouldn't stop pouring. The sticky ground. His hand that was beginning to hurt.

Benjamin surveyed the situation while desperately suppressing his phantom pain.

The hunter beat down Gilbert and turned his head toward him.

A roulette wheel turning with a click. One arm that had no strength.

He clenched his teeth hard.

No matter how much he tried to find a way to escape, every conclusion was desperate.

What remained then.

Benjamin hoisted the fallen Gilbert onto his back. At the same time, he grabbed the wrist of the crouched Niksi.

All that remained was to run.

He turned his back to the hunter and ran.

'Stupid thing. Showing your back to a hunter?'

The man aimed at the painter's back.

When he was aiming at Benjamin's back, which was becoming blurry in the pouring rain.

"Niksi."

"...Ugh... huh... painter..."

"If you're conscious, hold your breath!"

Benjamin jumped off the cliff.

"......"

"......"

—Splash.

The black maw that had swallowed them vomited up a great muddy surge.