episode_0001

Usher muttered as he felt the strands of golden hair, fluttering in the slowly blowing breeze, tickle his forehead.

“Ugh, I want to leave this damn village quickly.”

He had just come of age and was living in a quiet rural village. If there was anything remarkable about him, it might be that he was short for his age group. His strength and stamina weren’t particularly lacking compared to his peers, but strangely, he was on the smaller side. Someone might mistake him for a boy rather than a young man who had just turned adult. Perhaps it was common for him to mutter such things, for another boy beside him retorted as if scolding him.

“Are you still thinking about travels and adventures? Wake up. In our village, except for a few, men have been woodcutters for generations.”

“Ugh, come on! Robert! That’s why I don’t want to become a woodcutter!”

He shouted at his good-for-nothing friend, who was once again teaching him about reality. This boy, Robert, was tall among the village children, so Usher couldn’t help but feel annoyed whenever he came near. Having shouted thus, he stomped off as if pounding the ground with his feet.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“I’m going home!”

He answered irritably to the voice from behind, quickening his pace. It was a village he had lived in since he couldn’t remember when, but he had many grievances about it. From the fact that it was a secluded place that no one visited unless they knew someone, to the fact that the village could manage to make a living by cutting trees, and that the children who grew up there naturally became woodcutters, he truly hated this village. It might be a childish thought, but he had a dream since he was young. To be honest, leaving the village was merely incidental to that dream. His dream was to leave this stifling and closed-off village and become an adventurer.

If you were expecting a hero or knight defeating a demon king or dragon, sorry to say, but being an adventurer wasn’t particularly grand. It was just about traveling around the world, seeing different places. He had heard rumors that there were many dangerous things, but he was confident in his stamina. He didn’t think there would be any problems. He arrived at a shabby, old wooden gate. Creak. As he opened the unpleasant-sounding gate, it felt as if the tiresome silence was strangling Usher. Just one step. He had only entered his house, but it felt like stepping into a completely different world from outside the gate.

There was no one inside. He didn’t have a family in the first place. It wasn’t that he never had one. There was someone he could call family, at least one person. But she was no longer here. As emerald eyes flashed through his mind, he gritted his teeth and moved his feet. However, the place he was heading to wasn’t the small house inside the gate. It was a bit further back. A small space that wasn’t even visible unless you looked closely. It was a very narrow and dark space, but that wasn’t much of a problem for Usher.

He was even relieved because he wouldn’t get caught using what was inside. It was a space too cramped for adults to enter, but it was no problem for Usher, who was on the smaller side. It held a secret that others couldn’t know. If there was one unfortunate thing… “Eek! Is that another centipede!” Because it was dark and damp, there were quite a few unpleasant things like various bugs and spiders. Pushing aside those creepy things and going further inside, a large hole appeared. This hole wasn’t too big, nor too small; it was just the right size for Usher to crawl through.

In fact, he had hesitated a lot when he first discovered this hole. Aside from everything else, the large hole, with no light visible no matter how much you peered into it, was enough to inspire innate fear. But from some point on, he started using this hole steadily. If he slowly crawled up this inclined space, he could see light shining in from some point onwards. And when he reached the end. Large trees welcomed him. If he turned back for a moment, there was a wall with a hole of the same size as before. In other words, that hole was connected to a forest where huge trees grew.

Listening to the chirping of unknown birds, he made his way through the bushes. At first, even entering was difficult and tight, but as he frequently went in and out, it now easily opened the way for him. And the traces of a path where people walked were created by Usher alone, walking around this place. It was hard to believe that it used to be a place where even walking was difficult. Nevertheless, this place, with its dense trees and steep slopes, wasn’t an easy path for people to walk. If you were careless even a little.

“Cough?!”

He would slip like this and get hurt. Even if he was excited, it was essential to move carefully.

“Ouch. My leg.”

His knee was slightly scraped and bleeding, but it wasn’t enough to stop Usher’s relentless steps. As he walked, he could feel the faint light, obscured by the large trees, begin to brighten from a certain point. That light meant that he was about to arrive at his destination, and where she was, so he climbed the steep path, disregarding his injured leg. And when he finally arrived beyond the light, the first thing he saw was an enormous zelkova tree, even bigger and thicker than the other large trees.

While the trees that made up the forest he had passed through usually stretched straight up to the sky, the zelkova tree had a thicker, fatter trunk that seemed to have grown crookedly and haphazardly as it pleased, which was impressive. Nevertheless, it had grown larger than the other trees and blocked the sky with its numerous arms. It protected the forest behind it with its thick waist, and it was even awe-inspiring to see it look as if it was anchoring the ground with its legs dug into the earth. Perhaps it was because of the unusually large tree? Other trees couldn’t approach the zelkova tree, and it was surrounded only by shallow grass. But what Usher was looking for wasn’t the zelkova tree.

At the base of that large and thick zelkova tree, he could find something noticeable on the dark bark. The first impression was red. From a distance, it looked like a red poppy flower, and he could see vivid red hair and skin as white as white wildflowers. If he got a little closer, there was a girl reading a book, leaning against the huge zelkova tree.

“Velka.”

Calling her name with slightly rough breaths from trekking through the rough mountain path, those golden eyes, like calendula, that had been gazing into a book with incomprehensible writing turned to Usher. As she took in his appearance, that gold bloomed brilliantly, filled with clear affection.

“Usher.”

As if answering his call, the girl spoke his name. Her expression seemed expressionless, but Usher could tell. That mysterious girl, like a witch who had stepped straight out of a fairy tale, was welcoming him. That peerless girl was the reason Usher didn’t mind the creepy hole and rough mountain path to come here. It had been quite a while since Usher had gotten to know this girl. How old was he? He had been looking for a place to hide while playing hide-and-seek with the children of the village, when he had found a narrow gap behind a house. Thinking that no one would be able to find him there, he had stepped inside and discovered the hole for the first time.

Frankly speaking, that old and dark hole was frightening enough that it was hard for the young him to decide to enter. He was confident that he wouldn’t be noticed by the other children even if he didn’t enter the hole. However, he was wrong.

“Usher! Where are you?”

He could hear the voices of the children getting closer. Startled by that, he bent down and put his body into the hole. The hole, which was quite large for the young him, gave him a surprisingly comfortable feeling. It was a bit dusty, but it was much better than being wet with water.

“Usher, I found… What, he’s not here either?”

And from the voice of the seeker coming from right nearby, Usher could tell that he would have been found if he had stayed there. He had thought that he was the first to discover it since it was his house, but it seemed that there was a child who knew this place. Fortunately, the seeker didn’t think of coming inside and couldn’t find him. As the footsteps moved away, he tried to get out of the hole but suddenly, curiosity grew rapidly. Where did this strange hole lead? Even if it was the back of the house, the seeker didn’t know about the hole here.

If really no one knew about this hole, maybe it led to a place that no one knew about? When he had that thought, Usher was looking inside the hole. The hole was so dark that not a single ray of light entered. That appearance was scary, but it made his heart pound even more. Even if someone discovered this place, no one would try to enter a place like this. If so, the place at the end of the hole would be his secret base. The thought of a secret base that only he knew about was enough to ignite the heart of a boy.

That special feeling of a place that no one knew, a place that only he knew, was something that men would have dreamed of at least once. Usher, who had seen the children of the village try to make such a place and then be disappointed when they found out that everyone else knew about it, felt his heart swell at the thought of a secret base that other children had failed to make. That swollen heart was enough to shake off the fear of the hole where he couldn’t see an inch ahead, and he began to crawl up the hole that sloped upwards. The inside of the perfectly round hole wasn’t wet, but it felt like he would slip if he wasn’t careful. Still, he liked that strange feeling even more.

However, he hated the spiders and grotesque bugs inside. Other than the occasional feeling of getting caught in a spider web, there was nothing to worry about. How long had he been crawling inside the hole like that? He soon realized that light was shining in from the end of the hole. He rejoiced at that sight. At first, he had been looking forward to it, but as the time spent climbing inside the hole grew longer and longer his anticipation turned into the uneasy thought that he might never be able to escape this hole. Just then, light was shining in. Gripping the wall that formed a perfect circle, he crawled vigorously towards the light, and finally, the moment he touched that light.

“Wow.”

Usher spontaneously exclaimed, blankly looking at the scene before him. There was densely overgrown greenery, as if proving that no human hand had touched this place, and huge trees with circumference so large that he couldn’t wrap his arms around it even with them fully outstretched, stood tall. The refreshing scent of grass brushed against his nose, tickling him. He was mesmerized by the sight of the trees that made his existence seem infinitely small, and he started to move forward. Following the sound of birds singing for the first time and the sound of the wind shaking the leaves, he moved forward and forward. And at the end, he discovered a wide field where trees didn’t grow, and in the center, a zelkova tree larger than any other tree.

However, what he found there wasn’t just the large zelkova tree.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Just, when we first met.”

Usher pillowing his head on her soft lap and looking up at Velka’s bottomless, beautiful golden eyes, replied as if it was nothing. Yes, under that zelkova tree, he had first met this girl. From the first time he saw her, Usher thought this girl was an elf or a witch. A very kind and beautiful one at that. Because as far as he knew, he had never seen such a beautiful girl in the rural village. The sight of her red hair, tied up on both sides, flowing with the wind was vivid in his mind.

Usher couldn’t dare to forget his first meeting with the girl. Smaller and more delicate than even him, who was the shortest among the boys in the village, with a body that was flawless, and skin as white as an untainted white wildflower to match. Her lips were like peach blossoms that had been bitten, and her hair had the alluring fragrance of red poppy flowers. The ends were adorned with gold eyes like calendula, that seemed to hold something good. Yes, Velka was a girl who seemed to have been made by carefully selecting the finest and most beautiful parts of flowers. If a girl was this beautiful, rumors would have spread, but since that had never happened, he knew that she wasn’t a girl from the village where he lived.

Indeed, when he asked her where she lived, she simply pointed to the zelkova tree. When he asked if she didn’t live in the village, she shook her head. And he thought that was fortunate. It meant that he alone could monopolize this secret space and the beautiful and mysterious girl who might have received confessions all the time if the boys in the village saw her. Whenever he came, the girl was always sitting in the inwardly curved space at the bumpy base of the zelkova tree, reading a book without even a cover. Whether he came quite early or arrived late, the girl was always in the same place, waiting for him.

“Ugh! Wait, can’t you make it hurt a little less?”

“It’s Usher who came injured today. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Currently, the girl was applying medicine to his scraped knee. While stating firmly that it was his fault, the girl’s golden eyes were filled with concern for him. The medicine the girl used was a little different from the medicines Usher knew. The girl said it was a medicine made by drying and grinding an herb he had never heard of called “Mumiya,” and if he applied this medicine to his wound, it would heal quickly. The girl put the dried grass-like Mumiya into a white porcelain container, turned a stick made of the same material, and ground it into a powder. She gathered her delicate lips, blew on the powder, and sprinkled it on his injured knee.

“Ouch! It stings!!”

The injured area hurt so much that he wanted to scratch it and tear it off, but after just a few seconds.

“Okay, it’ll be fine now.”

As Velka said, when he looked at his knee, he could see that the wound he had gotten on the way here had disappeared as if it were a lie.

“This Mumiya thing is really amazing. It would be great if it weren’t so painful to apply.”

Before the wound was treated, the incredibly stinging and painful sensation felt like it was forcibly digging into the wound, which was distressing, but it was truly amazing that it recovered as if there were no wound in just a few seconds. When he looked at the place where the wound had been, only the bitter scent and the fine green powder unique to the herb told him that there had been a wound there. How long had it been since she applied the medicine? The completely disappeared wound was like watching magic that he had only heard about in rumors. However, the one drawback was that he could never get used to the unimaginable pain felt before the sore was completely healed..

“If you didn’t get hurt, you wouldn’t have to apply the medicine. Can’t you be a little more careful?”

Then, Velka’s voice filled with concern for him returned. Did the girl know? That it made him happy to be worried about like this, so he often got hurt on purpose even when he could have avoided it. More than anything.

“It’s because I always want to see Velka quickly, so I can’t help it.”

Even though it sounded like flattery, it was his sincere feeling. At his words, the girl’s face, which had been like a doll because of her white skin, which was comparable to the white porcelain, and her expressionless face, was dyed a lively red color like her hair.

“I like you. Velka.”

Usher couldn’t help but whisper those words into the ear of this lovely girl.

“…Me too.”

The girl’s reply, so small that it would be buried in the sound of a gentle breeze, barely reached his ears. Perhaps that was the best this shy girl could do. A peaceful afternoon where slender sunlight, managing to penetrate through the dense leaves, tickled his eyelids.

Under the zelkova tree, unknown to anyone, the boy and girl were whispering their affection to each other.