Chapter 12

Chapter 12. "The Thing Bought from Them with Money." (6)

Without even looking back, I carried the child and walked outside. He was breathing in ragged, wheezing gasps.

The shock to his insides must have been severe. Carrying him in my arms, I walked back out into the market alley, and no matter what the people around me might say or do, I shamelessly kept walking straight toward the place where Rene was waiting.

"Oh my? Isn’t that the man who went FWAK! and leapt into the air earlier? Now that I look at him, he’s handsome."

"You’re right. But what is that rag he’s carrying?"

"Um... isn’t that a child? Is it his son? Ahh, what a waste. If only he weren’t married, I would’ve somehow...."

"And what about Jason, then?"

"...Pretend you didn’t hear that."

...Honestly, those girls are impossible.

The people around us were chattering about all sorts of things, but I paid them no mind. If humans were not like this, other races would find it far easier to approach them.

Far more attention than anyone needed.

You say this place is this way. That way. Some other way.

How noisy.

When you do not even understand your own thoughts properly.

In fact, while I was carrying the child back, there were even people who walked right up to me and asked why I was carrying around a ragged child, but I only smiled faintly and lightly ignored the question.

After walking for a while while ignoring the heated stares of the crowd, I saw Rene ahead, surrounded by people (mostly men).

The moment she noticed me walking toward her, she abandoned the cart and strode toward me quickly, ignoring the people around her. Then she clung tightly to my arm and said to the people behind her,

"He is my husband. So please stop asking me questions as though you mean something by them."

As though they meant something by them?

I looked at Rene, and she smiled softly back at me with drooping brows. Without saying a word, I handed the child I was holding over to her, and Rene took him with a startled expression. I strode toward the cart and said to the people standing nearby,

"I will give you ten seconds to disappear from here immediately."

"Ah, now see here, we were only...."

"Nine."

"You must be very happy to have such a beautiful wife."

"Eight."

"No, I...."

"Seven."

As I slowed my pace and walked forward little by little while counting down at the same time, the people all muttered something or other and scattered in every direction at surprising speed.

I watched those humans in silence for a moment, then kicked up the dirt on the ground hard.

Fwak!

I may be human too, but honestly....

As I stood there looking up at the sky and drawing in a breath, Rene came up beside me carrying the child and said carefully,

"Um... honey, are you all right?"

So she had been worried.

I lowered my head and showed her a calm expression, and at once Rene smiled brightly in relief. Then, still smiling with those drooping brows, she said,

"I’m sorry. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them to go away... so...."

I wrapped one arm around her shoulders and said with a soft smile,

"It’s all right. More importantly, Rene."

"Yes?"

"After all, the forest suits us better than this place, doesn’t it?"

Rene smiled radiantly.

"Yes."

"So, you’re back. Did you buy everything you needed?"

"Ah, more or less."

"Really? But then...."

Seated at the table with a teacup in one hand, Exel raised his other hand and pointed at the child slumped over my back as he asked,

"What is that rag hanging off your back?"

A rag....

I turned my head slightly and looked the child over once more. Filthy cloak. Bare feet, with strips of cloth wrapped around them in place of boots.

And around his head, a bloodstained kerchief tied there to hide the long ears that marked him as an elf. By all appearances, anyone would have called him a rag.

Just what in the world has he been through?

With Rene’s help, I laid the child down on the table a little while later. Just then, Rene called out to Jonathan, who was walking out from the kitchen with a pleased look on his face.

"Jonathan, where is Mr. Graham?"

"Ah, Father’s friends came and called for him earlier, so he went out. He probably won’t be back until midnight. But what is that child, Big Sis?"

Rene glanced over at the child lying on the table, then answered with a faint smile and lowered eyes.

"Ah. There are circumstances. More importantly, Jonathan, there is a first-aid kit here, isn’t there? Could you bring it for me?"

"Yes."

Jonathan gave the child on the table another quick glance, then hurried back into the kitchen.

The moment he disappeared, Exel lifted the teacup in his hand to his lips, then set it back down on the table and looked at the child lying there, still breathing roughly.

"Hmm, wherever he came from, he has certainly taken a beating. But why has an elf child been delivered to the two of you in this sort of condition and dressed like this?"

"You’ve got a good nose."

"Rather than a smell, it’s more of a feeling. More importantly... Miss Tarsis? May I hear the story behind this child?"

At his words, Rene shook her head.

"That is what I would like to know as well."

"Is that so? Then let’s ask him directly."

With that, Exel began unwinding the kerchief wrapped around the child’s head. A moment later, the child’s ears were revealed.

An elf child’s ears are smaller than an adult elf’s. I did not know that.

Exel gazed quietly at the child’s ears, then said,

"Has he fainted?"

"Mm. It seems so."

"Is that so?"

At that, Exel lifted his hand and lightly tapped the child’s cheek as he said,

"Na iira tina. Gillat ran erpeu e lurint gallamiri?"

Hm? Exel can speak the language of the elves too?

After he repeated it several times, the child’s body, which had been lying limp atop the table, twitched a few times, then he abruptly sat bolt upright.

What the hell? He was pretending to be unconscious?

As I stared blankly at the child and Exel, Rene placed a hand on my shoulder with a faint smile and said,

"Elves have strong minds. Even if they faint, once their senses return, they can move at once."

Is that so? Humans usually stay a bit dazed even after regaining consciousness.

So elves are different.

At that moment, the child who had sat up looked around in slight confusion, then turned toward us, narrowed his eyes fiercely, and said,

"You people... what are you... planning to do... to me?"

"This brings back memories. More importantly, little one, what are you?"

Normally, this would be the part where one says, "When you ask someone else’s name, you should give your own first."

In any case, once Exel asked that, the child immediately grew wary. Exel was in human form at the moment. (Though I do not know whether it would have been any different in his original form.)

Exel quietly watched the child, who sat hunched atop the table, glaring at him with fierce eyes, then tilted his head from side to side, rose from his seat, and said,

"Miss Tarsis? Please do it. It seems this child does not like me."

Rene gave him a faint smile at those words and walked over to the place Exel had vacated. She was about to sit down, but apparently changed her mind.

Instead, she pushed the chair far away, remained standing, bent at the waist, braced both hands on the table, and began quietly looking at the child.

Then the child, who had been glaring at Rene’s face, suddenly began to change.

His face trembled into something that looked halfway between a smile and a sob, and then he began to shake all over.

Rene wore only a warm, gentle smile. A moment later, the child lifted a trembling hand and pointed at her face.

Then he said,

"Iira...."

Now tears were spilling from his eyes, snot was running from his nose, and from his mouth he kept repeating, "Iira... Iira...."

Rene studied the child’s eyes with that same gentle smile, then straightened her back, raised her hands, and used both of them to untie and pull away the black kerchief wrapped around her head. The moment her long ears were revealed in the afternoon sunlight, and then....

"...U-uh... uaaaaaaah!! Jaina ipiiin! Jaina ipiiin! Uheong~ ...harinun jirimian arihati.... Eoheong-eoheo!~~"

The child threw himself at Rene and began sobbing into her chest. In a voice clogged with tears and snot, he cried out,

'You came to save us, you came to save us. We were not abandoned.'

Beside me, Exel had both ears plugged with his fingers and was quietly staring at the child, who was now crying so hard that tears, snot, and eventually even drool were running down his face, all with a blank expression. Rene, meanwhile, held the child in her arms and patted his back, wearing a faint, slightly bitter smile.

And I could do nothing but stand there and watch them.

At that moment, Jonathan came out from the kitchen carrying a large wooden box. The instant he saw the child with drooping long ears (an elf’s ears droop when they are in a bad mood) clinging to Rene’s chest and sobbing, he scratched the back of his head vigorously, then grinned and said,

"Looks like we’ll be closing the shop early today."

...Exactly.

According to the child, he and his mother had stopped briefly in Alcantria because they had some business to attend to.

But by an accidental mistake from a passerby on the road, the kerchief his mother had been wearing on her head to hide her ears had come loose, and so it was discovered that she was an elf.

At first, they had not thought much of it. But that very night, when her business ended late and they were hurrying back out of town and walking through the forest to return home, heavily armed humans clad in armor and carrying weapons suddenly surrounded them.

The child’s mother tried to resist, but alone she could never handle more than ten warriors. So she made sure that at least her child could escape, and she herself was captured by them.

Rene stood there with both fists clenched tightly, looking at the child, who was speaking with a sorrowful face as though it had all happened only last night.

A little later, the child drained the cup of water placed before him in one gulp, then continued in a halting voice,

"So...."

"So I... had to... save Mother... somehow. Even if... humans kicked me... and even if I had to... learn to steal."

The child, who then introduced himself as Frid, slowly pulled Rene’s coin purse from inside his clothes and set it out.

Though he was only a child, he turned his head aside with a bitter smile and spoke. The side of his face made him look as though he had aged by ten years.

"I thought... if I had... the metal... inside that... I could save Mother. That is why... I did not... hand it over... to them. But now... I do not... need it anymore. I will return it. I am sorry. I beg your forgiveness."

Frid rose from his seat, stood up straight, and lowered his head to Rene and me as he spoke. Rene and I looked at each other, exchanged soft smiles, then said to Frid,

"It’s all right. More importantly, though you might feel bad hearing this from a human,

you did well, Frid. You endured well."

"That’s right. You endured well. So do not worry anymore. We will help you."

At that, Frid, still bowing his head, began sniffling again.

No matter what hardships he had suffered, human or elf, a child was still a child.

Just as I was thinking that, Exel, who had been quietly listening to everything Frid had said with one elbow on the table and his chin resting in his hand, watched him begin to cry at our words and said with a look of exasperation,

"Erpeu mi namitumiran rubi nar do jereutani, imira miruna di karsentami?"