episode_0053

“Why did you go to Uncle Donar first? You could have gone with me.”

Usher grumbled, feeling inexplicably sulky as Belka seemed to like Donar. He had joked about it before, but seeing the girl without any reservations towards Donar made him feel a sense of crisis.

“He seemed hesitant.”

“Belka is more meddlesome than I thought.”

“Is that… so?”

The girl tilted her head at his words. She was still shy enough to wear a mask, yet she was strangely nosy.

“It’s not ‘is that so,’ it is. If you’re going to be like that, it would be nice if you kept traveling with me.”

Usher knew his words were forced, but he was worried that Belka might encounter something without even realizing it if he didn’t do this. He couldn’t help it. This fragile girl seemed to know everything and be able to do everything, yet she acted like a child who knew nothing.

“If Usher likes it, I like it too.”

Seeing the girl agree to his unreasonable demands as if it were natural made him think that even more. When they were living in the forest, he just thought Belka had a unique personality. But he realized it was a different matter, at least a little, when they went through what happened with Mac. He was too distracted by the sudden and shocking event at the time, but after the incident with Pan, he had time to think more calmly, and he could feel the unsettling feeling Belka had, which was different from other people.

But how could he explain that unsettling feeling? Because he couldn’t figure it out, Usher acted unreasonably, even though he knew it was wrong. That’s how they were walking between the wagons, holding each other’s hands without a care in the world. It was when a slightly moist grassy scent was carried on the wind. It was definitely different from the rough, metallic-smelling sand they had been smelling in the wasteland until now. He had only been out of the forest for a short time, but the grassy scent made him feel nostalgic, and Usher looked around to find the source of the smell.

“Usher, look over there.”

“Where? Where!”

The girl seemed to have already found the source of the grassy scent he was looking for and was pointing with her hand. Usher followed the end of her slender finger, and there was a meadow where grass grew up to their calves. He felt good at the sight of the freshness that was different from the desolate desert where he hadn’t felt any signs of life until now, as they had been riding in the wagons. Usher had learned the truth about Mac and the village, and giant insects had attacked the village, forcing them to leave the forest as if they were being chased, but he was still more familiar with the grassy scent of plants than the sand smell of the wasteland.

“Belka, let’s go quickly!”

As he urged the girl with a happy heart, Donar’s voice came from behind them along with a clearing of his throat.

“Ahem! You guys, didn’t forget something?”

“Yes? What do you mean.”

Usher looked at Donar following the voice and soon found the white horse with him. It looked like it was crying tears as big as marbles, as if it was very sad.

“Ah.”

Only then did he remember that they had a horse that they had ridden before joining this caravan. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t gone to see it even once since joining the caravan.

-Heeheeheeing!

The horse’s appearance, crying with all its sadness as if it had realized that he had forgotten its existence, stimulated Usher’s guilt. Come to think of it, he didn’t think he had ever given it food?

“I gave it some. Its diet is similar to Hildisvini’s, so whatever.”

Donar solved his question.

“This guy almost starved to death. Pay some attention to it. It’s a grassy field, after all. I have to feed Hildisvini.”

Donar said that and went to the wagon. Now that he looked, several wagon drivers were taking Hildisvini and feeding them grass in the meadow. More than that, Usher frowned when Loki’s figure was revealed behind Donar as Donar disappeared. He was the guy who had tried to do something terrible to the girl, even though it ended in failure.

“Why did you come?”

“Ugh, I just came to catch rabbits!”

Loki made excuses as if he was angry when he asked with a very displeased look.

“Rabbits? Do rabbits live here too?”

“Huh? Yeah. Those guys live everywhere.”

Fortunately, his excuse was enough to attract Usher’s attention. Rabbits were quite easy to see in the forest, so he was very happy. Usher, excited about the thought of being able to see rabbits while the horse filled its stomach, was about to take the horse, but the horse was already gone.

“Huh? Where did it suddenly go…”

-Heeheehing!

He could find it immediately if he turned around at the sound of the horse’s cry. The sight of the horse pushing its head against Belka as if it were acting spoiled.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t pay attention to you. But isn’t the distance too close?”

The girl was troubled by the horse’s actions and didn’t know what to do. Usher remembered something he had forgotten for a moment. The fact that the horse, no matter how handsome it looked on the outside, was a womanizing pervert.

-Heehee… Hee?

He grabbed the horse’s snout with both hands, which was trying to act spoiled with Belka. The horse was sweating coldly and rolling its eyes, trying to pretend to be innocent, but Usher had already watched everything.

“I think I told you not to hit on Belka.”

As he spoke, making direct eye contact with the horse, the horse’s cold sweat increased more and more.

-Heeheeheeheeing!!!

The pitiful cry of the horse echoed through the meadow, and the eyes of the Hildisvini briefly gathered at the sound, then they ate the grass as if nothing had happened. A little later.

“Just fill your stomach quietly and go back.”

Usher, who had entered the meadow, said while glaring at the horse, and the horse, which looked like it had bruises on its face for some reason, was quietly eating grass. Loki looked at him with a disgusted expression.

“Do you usually treat horses like that?”

He had never heard of taming horses with a fistfight at least. He didn’t know if it was even possible in the first place, but he had nothing to say when he actually saw that. Loki didn’t stop looking at Belka from time to time while doing that. The girl was looking up at the sky with an expression that didn’t know what she was thinking. Following her gaze, it seemed like she was looking at the cloud zone, but.

“By the way, aren’t you going to catch rabbits?”

“Ugh, I’m going to catch them now!”

Loki moved to catch rabbits, glancing at the girl one last time, feeling needlessly pricked by Usher’s constant wariness of him.

“Belka, what are you looking at?”

Usher approached Belka and asked while monitoring the horse eating grass.

“Clouds.”

“Come to think of it, it seems to have gotten bigger.”

The cloud wall he had seen from afar was bigger than he thought, and they had been running like that during the day. He was now right in front of the cloud zone. At this point, he couldn’t imagine how big the cloud barrier piled up in layers was. Suddenly, the girl murmured.

“How long do I have to be held onto like that?”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

He asked again, not hearing her words properly, but Belka didn’t bother to tell him. Then Usher realized that the grass nearby was making rustling noises. As if small creatures were moving underneath. He was nervous that some strange creatures might pop out, but he was surprised to see the creatures popping out of the grass.

“Rabbits…?”

They were all small rabbits. But unlike the forest rabbits Usher knew, they were smaller and looked different.

“The rabbits I know looked more fierce.”

Still, the rabbits with their cute appearance and fluffy beige fur were less repulsive than what he knew. Many rabbits gathered near Belka and twitched their cute noses, making him want to pinch them. The forest rabbits were okay for the villagers to catch and grill or make soup, but he would feel bad if he did that to the rabbits here. Belka also liked the rabbits that came to her without hesitation, and she smiled faintly and stroked the rabbits’ heads.

It was surprising that the rabbits weren’t afraid of people and came up to them, but it was a familiar sight to Usher. When he was with the girl, animals living in the forest would occasionally come and act cute, so. Usher, who was with her, was happy to receive the animals’ cuteness as well. Even if he picked up one and held it in his arms like now, the rabbit didn’t struggle at all, and the rabbit accepted the touch quietly with its small, fluffy body. He was spending time with the gathered rabbits, whether the horse that was eating grass under his supervision looked at them with resentful eyes or not.

“Hey, I caught a rabbit, but.”

Loki, covered in dirt as if he had rolled on the ground, approached with a rabbit in his hand.

“What is all this.”

Loki looked at the scene in front of him with a dejected look. Rabbits were small but fast animals. It took a lot of effort to catch such a rabbit. When he came back, Usher and Belka were playing with rabbits that didn’t run away as if nothing had happened, so all that effort became futile.

“What, you really caught one.”

Loki wanted to hit Usher, who asked as if why he came back, but he couldn’t help but sigh because the thing he was pricked about was so big. Besides, he wasn’t confident that he could win if he fought. Loki approached Belka, stepping so as not to step on the rabbits.

“Here, this.”

And he held out the rabbit he had caught. There were so many rabbits around, so he wondered if it made sense to give it, but what was important to Loki was the opportunity to apologize to her. Every time he remembered what he had done, he couldn’t stand the self-disgust that came to him because it was terrible. He had been looking for a chance to apologize, avoiding Usher’s wariness, and this was the excuse. But he soon realized that something was wrong. Because the girl, who had been fine until just now, froze as soon as she realized that he was handing her a rabbit.

Loki heard about the punishment of Truth, who was framed for a crime, and realized how terrible what he had done to the girl while she was sleeping was. When Pan told him to do that, he only had a vague idea that it was wrong. The story that Truth was taking the blame and being punished was not realistic because it was before the punishment, and he impulsively tried to do that to the girl again. He apologized late, but he couldn’t bear the unbearable guilt with that alone, so he informed the adults that Pan, not Truth, was the culprit.

But the guilt didn’t decrease at all. No, it became unbearably large after seeing Pan being punished. He wanted to apologize to Belka properly, but he couldn’t dare to approach her, so he was just hovering around her.

“How long are you going to chase after those guys?”

“Uncle?!”

Loki was startled and moved away at Donar’s voice. Donar was one of the more friendly of the adults, but that made it even harder for him to raise his head in front of him. He knew what he had done. He thought that he would be scolded this time, although he had passed over it without any special stories at the time.

“I’m not scolding you. Don’t be so scared.”

“Then why.”

Loki was wondering if Donar, who often scolded him when he played pranks, was saying that he wouldn’t scold him.

“Don’t you want to apologize to that girl?”

“That’s!”

“There’s a good way, do you want me to tell you?”

Loki was tempted by Donar’s words. He was a trustworthy adult to the boy, and what he said was quite trustworthy. He said that the area near the cloud zone where they had arrived was an environment where plants could grow, so there was a wide meadow. And there were various animals living in this meadow. Among them were rabbits.

“If it’s a rabbit.”

“They’re small and cute, so they’re often raised as pets, right?”

Rabbits had excellent reproductive ability and adaptability to the environment, so they were one of the most common creatures. There were many kinds, and they were popular as pets or for food. Thanks to their cute appearance, there were often stories among girls that they had raised them at least once. Only then could Loki understand his intentions.

“You’re saying to catch that rabbit and give it as a gift?”

“That’s right.”

Rabbits were sure to live a lot in this meadow. Some of them even lived in the wasteland.

“Try to catch it alone if possible. It doesn’t matter if you ask for help if you can’t. You have to catch and give such things as a gift to have a good effect?”

“I can catch that rabbit easily!”

Loki was angry at Donar’s words that stimulated his pride, but he decided to hunt the rabbit himself as Donar advised, even if it was a little difficult. The rabbit here was smaller and the color seemed different than what he knew, but it was still a rabbit. The small rabbit, which was dodging quickly, was more difficult to catch than he thought, but he was able to catch a rabbit to give to the girl as a gift by throwing his body and rolling on the ground. To give it to the girl as an apology.

Yes, it was to apologize. Loki was embarrassed by the girl’s frozen appearance. Did she hate rabbits? He thought, but for some reason, there were so many rabbits around, and she even stroked the rabbits without chasing them away. It was strange to see her as hating rabbits. He knew what kind of reactions girls had when they didn’t like something when he played various pranks, so he knew for sure that the girl didn’t hate rabbits.

What was so heartbreaking? The girl looked at the rabbit he was handing her and slowly reached out her trembling hand. As if she really didn’t want to receive it, but she had no choice but to reach out. It was when Loki was about to stop handing the rabbit to her because of that girl’s appearance.

“Ah! Not knowing that I’m trying to let it go!”

The rabbit, which suddenly twisted and moved violently in Loki’s hand, kicked his hand with its hind legs and accidentally, or intentionally, went straight into Belka’s arms, who was reaching out her hand. Then she reflexively returned her outstretched hand and hugged the rabbit that had jumped into her arms so as not to hurt it. As the rabbit jumped in, the mask the girl was wearing fell off and her bare face was revealed. The girl with golden eyes, not only filling them with sadness, but also seeming like they would overflow at any moment, but not overflowing in the end, looked down at the rabbit that had jumped into her arms.

“No. You could have lived a little longer. But why?”

Belka’s muttering was very small, but it wasn’t unintelligible. But what on earth was she talking about? It was like talking to an animal, but the content was meaningless. He knew that her personality was unique, but seeing her talking to the animals, thinking that she could communicate with them, looked cute. But what was filling her golden eyes was not joy, but sadness. Loki wanted to ask why the girl was sad at this point. However, he couldn’t disturb the girl, who was accepting the rabbit’s actions, as if the rabbit was saying goodbye to Belka and telling her not to be sad, and was waiting. The rabbit suddenly jumped out of her arms like when it escaped from Loki’s hand.

“Ah!”

Belka reached out her hand as if trying to catch the rabbit that was trying to escape from her arms, but unfortunately, her hand waved in the air. The rabbit was running, and Loki or Usher who were watching her had a sudden incident and missed the timing to catch her. The rabbit ran across the gaps of its species that were gathered around her. In the direction the rabbit was running, there were Hildisvini and Donar eating grass, and Usher was about to tell Donar to catch the rabbit.

“Uncle Donar!”

“Why? Is something wrong…?”

“There’s a rabbit there…!”

However, Donar and Usher stopped talking at the same time at what happened next. It would have been fortunate if the rabbit could have escaped as it was. It was when the rabbit was passing near Hildisvini. Hildisvini, which had been eating grass peacefully until just now, quickly moved its head, bit the rabbit that was running away as if snatching it, and threw it into the air. The appearance of the small rabbit thrown high into the sky was slowly engraved in the eyes of everyone there.

Even though it couldn’t be, the rabbit thrown into the air seemed to be falling very slowly. It was so slow that the tooth marks with red blood flowing on the rabbit’s back could be seen clearly. Eventually, the sight of the rabbit entering the three-pronged mouth was also engraved in their eyes.

-Crunch crunch

Hildisvini, who had been bowing its head to eat grass, raised its head at some point, and the sound of chewing something hard echoed between them. A refreshing wind blew, and a fishy smell brushed the tip of their noses. It was definitely not the ambiguous metallic smell mixed in the dry sand that they had smelled in the wasteland, but the scent of red blood. Everyone was staring blankly at Hildisvini. It swallowed and crossed its Adam’s apple, then ate the grass in the meadow as if nothing had happened.

Hildisvini, which had suddenly turned into a skilled hunter, had returned to a docile herbivore just as quickly. A suffocating silence continued. Usher looked back at Belka first, and everyone’s eyes turned to her. The girl was painting her already white face pale because of her skin.

-Crack crack

The evening time, which had come again. While the flames of the brazier were spitting sparks, Donar and Loki were staring blankly at the brazier fire. Usher and Belka usually sat next to Donar, so they didn’t have a chance to sit together, but they didn’t come out to eat now. Donar was the first to open his mouth.

“I, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would turn out that way.”

Hildisvini doesn’t not eat meat. But usually, they would eat corpses, but they wouldn’t actively hunt. Donar could say for sure that it was the first time that had happened. If not, he had never seen what Hildisvini did at night, so they might have been actively hunting small creatures like just now only at night. But even if there was such a side to it originally, the problem was that he showed that side when the rabbit that Loki gave to the girl ran away. Donar tried to comfort Loki by talking nonsense, but dinner was another problem.

“I’m done with dinner today too.”

What came out for dinner was rabbit roasted whole, with a glimpse of its appearance in life.