Ch.39Corpse Collecting (6)

*

Naturally, I didn’t have the strength to right the overturned carriage.

Magic might have made it simple, but I wasn’t carefree enough to calmly calculate magic formulas in the middle of this forest where anything could appear at any moment.

Training had certainly made my magic activation faster, but that was limited to spells with minimal arithmetic formulas.

Calculations for precise magic were still slow.

Well, in the end, if your brain is lacking, your body pays the price.

I sighed and crawled up toward the top side of the overturned carriage.

The wooden body of the carriage, broken and torn in various places, creaked ominously.

“Ugh, this feels unsafe. Is it going to collapse?”

As I climbed onto the side of the carriage that was now facing straight up at the sky, it began to groan with a squeaking sound.

With the door fallen off and a gaping hole in the middle, it seemed to struggle supporting my weight.

The sound of twisting wood suddenly brought flashes of the carriage accident through my mind.

“…Damn it,”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

I almost cried without realizing it.

Not yet.

Not now.

Tears only cloud your vision.

I bit my lip and carefully dropped into the carriage.

Thud!

Creeeeeak!

As I landed on the opposite wall after falling through the doorway of the sideways carriage, it began to twist with a loud screech.

Rustle, rustle.

Though it was dark and difficult to see, I could hear countless insects crawling around inside the carriage.

It seemed this carriage, abandoned without an owner for over a month, had gained new residents.

But this is my carriage.

My family’s carriage.

For both illumination and pest control, I created a ball of fire in my palm.

A fox burning with orange flames lit up the dark interior of the carriage.

Hisssssss!

The insects that filled the carriage quickly scurried into the corners at the sight of the light.

There were more than I expected, which gave me chills.

Though startled, I couldn’t afford to waste time, so I hurriedly examined the inside of the carriage.

“Ah, please… please be here.”

If my parents’ keepsakes weren’t here, it would mean they’d been thrown somewhere, which would make things quite troublesome.

How would I know where to look if they’d been flung somewhere in the vicinity?

Moreover, if a crow or some other bird had picked up a shiny jewel and flown off with it, I might never find it.

“Please, Mother, Father, be here…”

I muttered as I thoroughly searched every corner of the carriage.

Just then, a small lamp that had been hanging inside the carriage caught my eye.

The glass was broken, but the wick seemed to be intact.

I picked up the lamp, placed my fox fire inside it, and carefully set it down.

The fox curled itself around the wick in the center and touched the tip of its tail to the wick.

“Huh, clever.”

It was a bit strange to see magic behaving like a thinking animal, but I didn’t dwell on it.

The lamp provided a more stable, soft light throughout the carriage than when the fireball was just sitting in my palm.

Though the oil had completely dried up, burning the wick would maintain the magic for a while without me having to sustain it, providing light.

I set the lamp on the floor and began feeling around the carriage with my hands.

Something shiny was caught in the corner inside one of the seats.

I reached my hand into the gap beneath the vertically positioned seat.

Hissss,

I could feel unknown insects crawling up my hand.

I quickly grabbed the object and pulled my hand out.

“Aaack!”

An enormous centipede, larger than any I’d ever seen, was crawling on my forearm.

*

As with all things in life, every situation has its good points and bad points.

My carriage search today was no exception.

There were both good and bad aspects.

Let me start with the good: the object I retrieved was my father’s jewelry box.

I clearly remembered that Mother and Father had put their rings, necklaces, and various other items in it.

Since the jewelry box was securely locked with a key, its contents couldn’t have disappeared.

Although the key itself was missing, which was a problem, someone like Miss Sylvia could easily open this kind of lock with brute force, so it wasn’t a major issue.

Since the main purpose of today’s ordeal was to find burial goods for Laila, I had achieved my most important goal, which was definitely a good thing.

The bad point was that I only now realized how terribly I hate insects.

Until now, I hadn’t particularly feared bugs.

Tiny insects? I’d seen and caught them several times at the cabin already.

But that centipede was truly enormous.

No lie, it was as long as my forearm and as thick as my index and middle fingers combined.

It was less like a centipede and more like a snake with hundreds of legs and a segmented body.

No, not a snake—a monster.

It must have been a magical beast.

Yes, definitely.

Well… in any case, there was nothing else I could salvage from the carriage besides my parents’ keepsakes.

Or more accurately, nothing else could be salvaged anymore.

Terrified by that unidentified monstrous creature crawling on my skin, I unleashed a massive fire spell from my palm that exploded the carriage.

As a result, the lamp and everything else burned to ashes.

I collapsed in the middle of those ashes and let out a hollow laugh.

The noise was loud, so Miss Sylvia would probably arrive soon.

“…I can already picture it.”

I’m already worried about how much Miss Sylvia will tease me when she finds out.

Though she’s not the type to laugh mockingly, she does enjoy teasing people subtly.

I could clearly imagine her raising one corner of her mouth and poking at my nerves with her pointed remarks.

But I had an excuse.

It was a really, REALLY fucking huge centipede.

I sighed and looked down at the jewelry box covered in black ash.

When I rubbed it with my thumb, its original shiny color reappeared.

Judging by the box’s intact condition, the contents inside probably hadn’t suffered much damage either.

I was about to put the jewelry box into the bag I’d brought, feeling relieved, when I paused to look at it thoughtfully.

Keepsakes.

Items left behind by my deceased parents.

Though I hadn’t witnessed their deaths directly, they surely didn’t survive.

They were minor nobles with no domain or private army, who had lived their lives far removed from wars and conflicts.

It was already miraculous that they managed to get us siblings away from all those assassins who stormed into our home.

Uncle Hardy, my father’s old friend and the gardener at the Count’s mansion, had taken the coachman’s seat…

Ah, Uncle Hardy.

Come to think of it, we never even found his body.

Honestly, I hadn’t given it any thought until now.

He was a man who adored us siblings, especially Laila.

In a way, I’m alive today because Uncle Hardy frantically fled from the pursuing assassins.

Though one could say he bears responsibility for Laila’s death, I never thought of it that way.

The burning image of our home that I saw through the carriage window, and those assassins who relentlessly pursued us on black horses, leaving ash and flames behind…

Uncle Hardy’s decision to head into this forest might have been unavoidable.

He probably knew how dangerous this forest was.

Ah, why had I forgotten until now?

He too was someone who risked his life for us siblings until the very end.

What an ungrateful bastard I am.

The carriage,

I burned it just because I was startled by mere insects.

This jewelry box wasn’t the only keepsake.

This carriage, hastily prepared by my father, was also his keepsake and the last thing touched by Uncle Hardy’s hands.

Of course, Uncle Hardy had a family too.

I met and played with them a few times.

Eric, the neighborhood leader.

Once, he caught a frog to surprise his sister Maria and secretly put it in her bag.

Actually, I never told her, but I went with him to catch that frog.

It was really absurd when that frog ended up becoming Maria’s pet.

I remember Eric’s blank face as he watched Maria place the frog on the bridge of her nose, cooing at how cute it was.

In the end, Uncle Hardy scolded both Eric and me.

Haha,

Happy memories…

Ah.

I had forgotten all of that.

Eric, do you know?

That Uncle Hardy died because of me.

I had forgotten.

How ungrateful can one be?

Surviving alone after abandoning my little sister.

Not even knowing enough to be ashamed.

The brilliant morning, the birds’ songs, the warm sunlight, all too happy…

My daily life with Miss Sylvia was so happy…

Drunk on happiness that didn’t suit me, I stupidly forgot how many lives were trampled for me to be alive like this.

Tears fell onto the jewelry box.

Ah, Laila…

Sister.

Mom, Dad…

“I’m sorry… I’m… sorry…”

Count, Countess,

Lady Alice.

Uncle Hardy…

Eric…

“Ugh… I’m… sorry. I’m sorry…”

Miss Sylvia.

Sylvia.

Please come quickly, hurry…

A minute felt too long.

Perhaps… Miss Sylvia might bring back Uncle Hardy’s body.

I desperately hoped she would.

That’s when it happened.

I heard movement from the top of the slope where the carriage had tumbled down.

I wiped my tears and turned my head.

“Miss Sylvia!”

“Was there an explosion sound here?”

Ah,

It wasn’t Miss Sylvia.

It was a man’s voice.

“Oh, there’s someone down there!”

A man was looking down at me.

I froze in surprise.

Like an idiot.

Another man’s voice came from behind him.

“Hans! Is that really—”

“…”

“Hans?”

The man’s eyes are red.

Like mine.

.