episode_0001

Step by step, the large, dark beast in front of me was approaching with graceful steps. I don’t know if it could be called graceful, with its eyes sparkling with excitement at having found prey and its mouth drooling.

“Grrr… .”

The beast’s fur, shining in the moonlight, was covered with gray stripes that glowed like flames on a smooth black background. In the two large, blindingly bright eyes, a small boy was seen sitting with his eyes, red and yellow mixed together like fallen leaves, with dark brown hair like tree bark, and tears welling up in his eyes.

Of course, it was too dazzling to see, but at least that’s how it looked to the beast’s eyes. It was growling low-frequency sounds full of hostility and excitement, and its hips were twitching in preparation to rush in and bite the neck of an easy target who was scared of it at any moment. Even if it wasn’t a big, vicious beast that had been exposed to the cold wind all day with an empty stomach, it would be hard to imagine that the child sitting there with a blank expression was bursting into tears because of the memories of his past life that suddenly came flooding into his head.

“Sniff… .”

If you jump in and plunge your fangs into that pale neck, making a crunching sound, the screams will die down along with it. The beast, who was drooling nonstop, imagining the taste of blood that would soon seep into its tongue, gets hit by a rock flying in an unusually slow arc. It wraps its front paw around its nose and turns around to look in the direction the rock came from.

“Go away! Uwaaah!!”

A small girl, not much different from the boy who had collapsed, was reflected in his eyes. Her eyes were also filled with tears like the boy’s, but this time they seemed to be tears of real fear. At the end of a long stick about the length of his arm, the only thing the beast recognized as its nemesis flashed its eyes. A blonde girl, waving a torch and screaming, stood between the beast and the boy.

“… Swimming.”

The three words that came out in the boy’s voice were:

At that moment, the girl and the black beast look at him at the same time. As if they had used a vulgar expression in a formal setting, their gazes suddenly met, and the boy’s large eyes grew even bigger and he shook his head quickly from side to side. Only then did the girl and the beast stare at each other again.

As I took a step closer, swinging the torch more vigorously, the beast’s instinct to sense danger and something that could be called dignity or pride compromised, and the hind legs remained still, while only the front legs took a step back. The girl, who felt a little less scared at that sight, shouted.

“Can you get up?”

“Ah… Ugh… .”

An unbearable sense of discomfort arises in the immature boy’s brain. The native language that he had been using just a moment ago is awkward. It’s as if he had never been abroad for nearly 40 years and was learning a new foreign language only 6 years ago. But he could understand the meaning. The answer that it could happen also came to his mind. However, his brain, overloaded with irony, could not utter it.

“I called the adults, so run down to the village. Before this guy attacks. Shhh!! I said, get out of here!!!”

The girl understands the boy who temporarily lost his ability to speak because of the situation and thinks it is just because of fear, and in the meantime, she threatens the beast that is trying to take a step forward. The guy who always clings to humans by hanging on to the end of a wooden stick without any sense of justice, fixes his front paw in the air as he is about to take a step forward.

If he had had a satisfying meal, he might have thought that he didn’t mind getting scratched once or twice by the thing if he could just eat those two rascals. Then, the beast lowered its posture as much as possible and fixed its gaze straight on the girl’s neck. Then, it kicked the ground with its hind legs with all its might and flew up.

As the final image of the girl, her eyes tightly shut in fear, came closer before my eyes, I began to think that the end of the prey that had spoken up to me was somewhat bland, but the girl, who had been cowering, began to disappear from my field of vision to the left. The direction of the jump must have been correct, but my field of vision was gradually moving away from the direction where the girl was.

The dark mountain path around the girl also moved to the left. When he turned his head toward the target that he could not miss, the beast realized that something was deeply embedded between his ribs. And that it was not the girl who dodged to the left, but he himself who was pierced by the spear and pushed to the right.

“I finally found it. Today is your memorial day, honey.”

A woman with a triumphant smile strikes the beast. The beast falls to its side on the dirt floor, but immediately swings its limbs and gets back up, adjusting its posture.

“Grrr… Kyaaah!”

All the weak and small wild animals in the mountain that had been sleeping soundly wake up and let out loud cries that are so loud that it is scary, and they roll their gleaming eyes here and there trying to understand the situation. The annoying ones are glaring at me with more annoying things.

The face was similar to that of a small girl who I expected to taste at any moment, but it was large. There was no fear in these guys’ eyes, and they took a confident step forward to thrust the spear in their ribs deeper.

Even though he hadn’t even put meat in his mouth, his mouth was filled with the taste of blood. It was his own blood. Every time he let out a rough cry, red blood mixed with saliva would spray out of his mouth. A woman of similar height to the woman who had first attacked the beast, flashing a long spear-tipped blade that seemed to have pierced its lungs, stood in front of the girl and boy.

” Are you hurt anywhere? Stay right behind me.”

The two young children held on to the woman’s legs until the black mass disappeared into the mountains, leaving behind a red trail. Only then did the girl burst into loud tears, and the boy remembered that the girl’s name was Latia.

“Waaa …

” It’s okay now, Latia, you were really brave. ”

The woman who had hugged Latia with one hand was comforting the girl. Likewise, the boy who had been held by the woman who had struck the beast for the first time was also gathering his thoughts in her arms as he entered the village, which was also full of a sense of discomfort. No matter how much he thought about it, it seemed like he had been born once before.

And I have died again, and then been born again. In a very different environment than when I was first born. I am a race I have never heard of, speaking a language I have never heard of, enjoying a culture I have never heard of.

The girl is small like the boy, but the average height of an adult woman is 180cm. Of course, there is no such unit as cm here. If you think about the size of the person I called daddy after I was born this time, or the men in the village, they were not as big as the woman. They were about 160cm or so, and they had a somewhat rounded feel.

I look at Latia, who is crying while being hugged by the woman walking in front of her. And then memories flash through my head.

“If you’re a woman, you have to protect your man.”