Chapter 19

Chapter 19 : Free Event to Celebrate the Grand Opening (5)

It was not until the evening of the second day that I began to realize this was a path I never should have taken.

The food the children’s parents had prepared in advance had run out, the children’s determination to be on their best behavior had worn off, and my patience was reaching its limit.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.

Chiru came flying down the stairs as if he had wings, circling the table and demanding food. We had only just eaten dinner, and even the snacks were gone, so there was nothing left for me to give him.

“Mister, Chiru’s hungry.”

He only came up to my waist, so where in the world had all that food even gone?

“Mister can’t cook. Should we go to bed early? If you sleep and wake up, you’ll get to eat lots of delicious things.”

“……So mister was stupid.”

“What?”

“A stupid mister who can’t even cook. Chiru’s heart hurts.”

He narrowed those huge eyes at me, and for a moment I genuinely could not tell whether he was being adorable or picking a fight.

“Hic. Chiru ate two cookies and saved one, but stupid mister ate it. Hic, snfff!”

The tears that filled his big eyes spilled over, rolling down his plump cheeks in heavy drops.

“No, Chiru, that’s not—”

“Mister’s a glutton?! Why did you eat Chiru’s cookie?! Waaaah!”

“It wasn’t me who ate it……”

My excuse drowned under his crying before he could even hear it.

Only then did I realize he was not angry, only hurt.

As I wiped the tears and snot from Chiru’s face, now a complete mess, cold sweat poured down my back.

When I lifted my head at the ominous feeling, Konu was standing by the stair railing with a book in one hand, rubbing his eyes as though he had just woken from sleep.

For such a little brat, he wore an impressively savage expression.

“Mister, child abuse?”

“No?!”

Where had he even learned a phrase like that?

And you were the one who ate the cookie, you little brat.

I shoved down the unfairness and did my best to soothe the crying child, but my skill was miserable. I had always been the sort of person who found taking care of tiny children terrifying because I was afraid they might break.

Looking at Chiru, who was sobbing his heart out, and Konu, who calmly brought his book over and sat down right beside him to start reading, I had a terrible feeling this was only the beginning.

What was I supposed to do about this commission?

---

I already knew well, from experience, how much the quality of one’s sleep affected one’s life.

But when the quality of your sleep collapsed while your stamina hit rock bottom and your mental strength was gnawed away on top of it, all one could do was shake one’s head.

This was, quite frankly, the full-course route to hell.

I trudged after the two children as they raced ahead of me, glaring at their backs while walking the swaying path.

At first, I had crossed these bridges clutching the ropes for dear life. But after having to control the children’s restless and unpredictable behavior one by one, I had clearly become infected with the same carelessness about safety that they had.

“You look quite exhausted. Pfft.”

It was Ochel, who had volunteered to guide the way since I still did not know the city’s layout well. She began in a voice full of suppressed laughter and then finally broke into open amusement.

“Ahem. In just a few days, you seem to have aged terribly.”

“You said you perceive people in other forms, so how did you notice I’d aged?”

“Because your energy is in disarray. I told you before, didn’t I? Riwin is rather pretty. But right now……”

“Right now?”

“You’re less pretty.”

“Ha ha……. I can now proudly say I possess the mental fortitude to be completely unbothered even by teasing like that.”

After being tormented by those devilish brothers, I had acquired nerves that were numb to most things.

The mere fact that Ochel had come along and lightened some of that burden had already made me grateful enough that I was willing to let any teasing slide.

“You really are very tired.”

“That I am. Looking at those two—no, those lively little monsters—I’m sure they’ve drained all my energy away. Is this vampirism? Since it’s energy, would that make it energy-sucking instead?”

“What if you looked at it another way? Being dragged all over the forest city by those children has let you explore all sorts of places. If you think of it that way, isn’t it rather a good thing?”

For the past three days, being dragged around by the children had indeed taken me everywhere.

I had never properly looked around the night market because I was always stuck in the office, but now I had wandered all over it late at night hunting for food.

I had learned how beautifully the greenhouse glittered by night.

I had even gone to the large library in the square, apart from the Record Archive Ru managed, and looked through the books there.

It turned out that all the books Konu liked to read had been borrowed from there.

On top of that, I had adapted enough to walk the aerial bridges naturally now, and I no longer got tricked by the directions and wandered onto completely wrong paths quite so often.

Now that I laid it all out like that, there had been quite a few positives.

“That was survival, all of it. Like learning better when you’re forced to do it on the edge of a cliff.”

There was a very good reason I had grown gaunt.

But perhaps Ochel liked the look of me this way, because she nodded and contradicted me.

“I think the gains outweighed the cost. You do realize, don’t you, that the gazes of the other members of the forest have softened considerably since you started walking around with those children?”

“That…… I can’t deny.”

“It is also a very desirable result in terms of the improved perceptions Lord Pan demanded.”

“Yes, yes.”

Everything she said was true. I knew that too……

Then I looked at the brothers up ahead, laughing and running around in excitement, and immediately felt the back of my neck tighten again.

I still had to do this for two more days.

This was harder than a horror game on hard difficulty. At least for me.

“It makes me happy to see Riwin enjoying your work so much.”

“If it looks that way, then I suppose that’s how it is.”

The place we were heading now was a playground not far from here.

I had already received one great cultural shock when I first came the other day and realized that this playground was on an entirely different scale.

Because, this being an aerial city, even the playground was in the air.

It was built connecting tree to tree.

Of course, a huge safety net was spread beneath it, but it was still quite a thrilling playground.

As long as there was no real problem with safety, I had no reason to interfere.

My role here was simply to sit in a place with a good view of the playground, blank out peacefully, and let the wind blow over me while keeping an eye on the brothers.

The only time I was allowed to rest at all.

Long live the playground.

While following the brothers with my eyes, I suddenly felt it strange that there were no other children around.

What, were there no kids here because they were all off at cram school or something? Then again, those two didn’t seem to attend any educational institution at all.

“Are the other children off at school or something? It’s quiet.”

I asked Ochel while watching Konu plunge downward on a net-swing and then surge back up again.

Ochel’s reply came after a brief pause.

“……You really do think in very human ways, don’t you?”

“Pardon?”

“School. Lord Pan said you were a slave taken in lieu of debt from some remote little kingdom…… Could that actually be true?”

“……It isn’t.”

“Hmmm. I thought perhaps you’d been tainted by human ways of thinking in some remote kingdom. Especially since you didn’t know about Frames.”

I had no idea how a question about school had suddenly turned into a debate over identity, so I could only stare at her in confusion until Ochel let out a small sound of realization and nodded.

“You really don’t understand at all.”

“Then please explain it simply.”

“There are cadet academies that recruit from each domain. But there is no such thing as a school in the sense you meant.”

“Because of…… the enemy?”

That was one way to make me remember that this whole setting was still one of hostility between two sides.

And now that I had already admitted to myself that I belonged to the enemy’s side, Ochel’s words landed as something heavier than mere knowledge.

The sight of those children running and playing like that, not knowing when something might happen, suddenly seemed a little pitiful.

“You’ve become serious.”

“You’re the one who brought up a heavy subject.”

“Pfft. Ah, sorry. It isn’t for such a serious reason. It’s more a matter of lifespan.”

“Lifespan?”

“Humans live briefly and pass on, don’t they? But we live far, far longer than you’re imagining.”

Well, in my own world too, we’d at least been dreaming of an age where people lived to a hundred.

“Since we have a great deal of time to spend learning and acquiring skills, there is no real need to gather children into a group called a school just to force basic knowledge on them.”

I understood.

In other words, their lives weren’t the kind where they had to force out results in a short time and grind themselves down in the process.

Then again, perhaps that was precisely why two sides could remain in opposition for so long and still keep going like this.

If you wanted to put it kindly, their lives were leisurely and unhurried.

If you wanted to put it less kindly, they were complacent and indolent.

And if I had to name one more reason, it was probably because this genre simply didn’t need schools in its background.

The odd feeling that this was real and yet somehow not real made my stomach churn.

“Then how do people learn?”

“The way I’m telling you things now.”

“……?”

“From the older generation to the younger. From those who know to those who do not.”

“Then how about, as one who knows, you explain Frames to me?”

“Ah! He fell.”

Ochel sprang to her feet and hurried down beneath the playground.

Konu was hanging in the safety net below, laughing his head off.

You really do have an easy life.

---

Perhaps because of the playground buff, Chiru fell asleep rather early after eating his fill.

I slid over and sat quietly beside Konu, who was sprawled on the floor reading a book.

“What is it, mister?”

He asked the question in a flat tone without even taking his eyes off the page, as though he meant, Stop bothering me and go to bed already. I let out a hollow laugh.

“I heard you read so many books that you’re known for making wise judgments.”

“Who said that?”

At last, Konu lowered the book and looked up at me.

Who else? Me.

Given what I’d gathered about his personality, it seemed to me that he’d react more to talk about himself than about others, so that was the bait I chose.

“Ochel noona said so earlier.”

Yes, I did put a little butter on that one.

“Hmmm. That noona was a little scary, though. Unexpected.”

Konu fully shut his book and sat up a little straighter, putting on a cool, reserved expression that clearly said, Go on, then.

“So, there’s something mister’s curious about……”

“Don’t try to freeload off me without looking it up yourself.”

“……I’m asking because I looked and still couldn’t find it. Konu, aren’t you a future sage?”

“Flattery won’t work on me, but I’ll listen.”

I lowered my voice as much as I could, just in case some other inconvenient person might be listening beyond the window.

“Do you, by any chance, know anything about Underfolk Frames?”

“I know about Frames, but not much about Underfolk ones. Hmm—fair enough. I can see why you couldn’t find it.”

“Even just the parts you do know? Like how they differ from Surface Folk Frames?”

At my persistent questioning, Konu narrowed his eyes and looked at me as though I were pathetic.

“Mister, maybe you forgot, but I’m only eleven, and they don’t lend out books full of Underfolk information to children this age.”

“Fair.”

Would you believe me if I said I was grabbing at straws?

The last time I tried fumbling through this on my own, I only caused trouble everywhere, and now I wasn’t even sure whether this was the sort of thing that came out with practice at all.

Lately, I’d lost my motivation.

Whenever I asked anyone likely to know, the moment the word Frame appeared, they all quietly evaded the subject as though it were taboo.

Ru, Ochel, Pering, Pol—they all did it. Pan went without saying.

Anyone looking at it would conclude the same thing: they’d obviously been instructed from above.

That was why I’d hoped Konu, who read so much and was unusually mature for his age, might help me a little.

But in the end, I really had been grasping at straws. I admitted my line of thought had gone badly astray and let it go.

“But mister, Frames aren’t something you learn as knowledge.”

“It’s fine. Go back to reading.”

“No, what I mean is…… ah?”

Konu, who had just reopened his book, clutched his head and screwed up his face.

I’d been about to stand, but instead sat back down and reflexively reached out to press a hand to his forehead.

“Does something hurt? Your head? You don’t have a fever.”

“My head…… it’s pounding too…… much.”

Konu clutched at my clothes and leaned against me, shaking his head violently.

It happened in an instant.

Before I had time to understand what was going on, Konu lost consciousness and went limp in my arms.