Chapter 13

Chapter 13. "The Thing Bought from Them with Money." (7)

".........!"

At those words, Frid, who had been sniffling, quickly wiped the tears running down his face with the back of his hand, pressed his lips tightly together, lifted his head, and looked at Exel. Exel quietly looked back at him, then raised his thumb and grinned.

"That’s right. That’s how it should be."

Just then, Jonathan, who had closed the shop door and come to sit beside me, listening blankly and almost invisibly to our conversation, cautiously poked me in the waist several times. I leaned toward him, and Jonathan whispered in my ear.

'Hey, Mister Han, what did that mister just say?'

Hearing that, I smiled faintly, grabbed his ear, brought my mouth close to it, and translated exactly what Exel had said to Frid.

Because I had an elf wife, I had been forced, more or less, to learn their language.

'Did your mother teach you that an elf may show tears just anywhere?'

When I said that, Jonathan looked at Exel with a deeply moved expression, and Rene, too, sent him a somewhat meaningful smile.

But Exel calmly ignored their looks. I looked at the teacup set before me and the remaining bandages left over from wrapping Frid’s body and said,

"So then, where is your mother now?"

At once, Frid’s gaze changed. He looked at me with eyes burning with hatred and fury, but then he noticed Rene at his side, smiling at his expression with a faintly lonely look, and lowered his eyes slightly before saying,

"An abandoned house, a dark place, a warehouse."

I turned my head and looked at Jonathan.

"Jonathan, do you know of a place nearby where abandoned warehouses and ruined houses are clustered together?"

Jonathan was smiling.

Then, after looking over all of us, he said,

"If I tell you, will you let me join in? I don’t know much about wagons, though."

I turned my head toward Rene. Looking at my face, she smiled faintly, then stroked Jonathan’s head and said,

"If we let you drive the wagon, will you tell us where it is?"

"Yeees!"

"Is it there?"

"Yeees. Whoa there~ Right, from here on, you should go on foot. From what I heard from a man I know, it is supposed to start this evening."

Jonathan said that as he brought the wagon to a stop. From inside the roofed freight wagon, I spoke to him.

"This evening? So right now?"

When I said that, Jonathan turned his head from the driver’s seat where he was sitting, lifted the leather covering the doorway a little, and stuck his hooded head inside.

Then he looked at Frid, crouched inside the freight wagon and leaning against Rene’s shoulder, and said,

"Yes. That’s what I found out and heard. He’s lucky, really. He happened to meet Big Sis and you today of all days."

Frid had been leaning against Rene with both eyes closed, but at those words he opened one eye just a little and stared blankly at Jonathan. Jonathan smiled faintly and pulled his head back outside again.

"Hmm, what an astonishing coincidence."

That voice came from outside. When did he get down? I rose from my seat and got out through the back door of the wagon, and outside, Exel was looking around the area.

The surroundings were utterly desolate. Large warehouses broken down here and there, houses with their roofs entirely collapsed, crumbling stone walls.

The place where we stood was the very outer edge of the district where all the ruined houses had gathered.

They are holding an auction in a place like this?

At that moment, Jonathan, still seated in the driver’s place, pointed ahead and said,

"You can see it over there, right? That big warehouse straight ahead. That’s the place. Once you go inside, there is a way down underground, but there will probably be guards there. If they ask what you came for, say this: you came to kill some time. Then they’ll let you in. Oh, and one more thing, they say you cannot bring weapons inside. Gray-haired mister? Hide that sword of yours well enough."

I looked at Jonathan, who was speaking as though he could barely contain his excitement, holding one finger up, then said,

"Jonathan, where in the world did you learn all that?"

At that, he wagged the finger he had raised from side to side, closed one eye, and said,

"Oh~ Mister, if you do not know Red-Haired Jonathan in this Alcantria, then you must be a spy. There are all kinds of ways to find things out. Anyway, we’ll be waiting in the building right over there. Come out when you’re done. Understood?"

"...Understood."

Exel started walking first toward the place Jonathan had pointed out, and before following him, I turned my head toward the inside of the wagon and said,

"Honey, I’m off."

"Be careful. Do not forget that your body belongs to me."

"Mm. Do not worry."

With that, I started walking slowly, and when I passed by Jonathan in the driver’s seat, he made a face as though he had gooseflesh and said,

"...Whose body does Mister belong to?"

"Han’s body belongs to Rene."

The answer came from Rene inside the wagon, and I grinned as I followed behind Exel, leaving Jonathan staring back into the wagon with a dumbfounded expression.

Exel was waiting for me in front of the gate to the ruined building ahead. Once I came close enough, he turned away again and started walking, and I called out to him because there was something I had been wondering about.

"Exel."

"What?"

"Why did you come along? You do not really have any reason, do you?"

"A reason? If you ask it that way, I suppose I would answer that it seemed like it would be fun."

"That’s all?"

Without turning around, he kept walking, looking only ahead. Then he let out a small sigh and slowly began to speak.

"Try living on and on like I have. At first, the world is truly interesting. But then, at some point, there comes a moment when the purpose for continuing to live simply disappears. When that happens, day after day begins to grow dull. There are even times when you find yourself wishing to die like a human. Once it reaches that point, living a long life becomes something unbearable. You understand that too, do you not? Ah, no, did you say you were sealed away from the past? Then perhaps you do not. Well, you have been given plenty of time, so experience it slowly for yourself, how important a purpose is when it comes to living a long life. But you have Miss Tarsis, so I suppose that will never happen to you."

"Is that so? Is living a long life really that joyless?"

"Ah, well, more or less. Though after living long enough to encounter books, I suppose it is not entirely so. I live for the joy of reading books, after all. I came out to town to buy books in the first place. And there is one more thing. Recently, there have been a few things that have made living feel enjoyable for me again, and one of them is...."

One of them?

I stared at his back with a curious expression. At that, Exel stopped where he was, turned his head back toward me, and grinned.

"It is you, Reed, and Miss Tarsis, the ones who handed me the red fur cap called friendship."

At his words, I smiled at him as gently as I could.

For a while, Exel looked between me and the roofed freight wagon in the distance, which had slowly begun moving forward again, then turned his head back and walked on. I looked at his back and fell into thought.

Because we are friends. Is that it?

If so, then what can I do for him in return?

***

Uooooooooh~~

It has now been proven through this experiment that writing late at dawn has a tremendous effect not only on one’s health, but also on one’s writing.

Everyone, do not sit there stammering your way through writing at night. Just go to sleep.

Experimenter: Typist.

Test Subject: The Experimenter Himself (That is, Typist)

Experiment Report,

Symptoms that appear when writing at dawn, and their remedies.

1. First of all, your head feels a little fuzzy.

Because of that, things like story developments and dialogue do not come to mind properly.

2. You get hungry.

At night, if you are asleep, you do not need to eat, but if you are awake like this, the continuous consumption of calories makes you hungry.

Because of that, your nerves do not focus on your brain, and your attention keeps drifting toward your stomach instead.

3. Your shoulders stiffen. Your fingers also stop moving the way you want them to.

Since you are pounding away at the keyboard for a long time, I think it is because of the shoulder muscles and the abnormal overplay of the brain, so your fingers do not move the way you think they should.

As a result, typos occur, and you repeatedly type the same thing over and over again. (The one doing the typing does not notice.)

4. Due to VDT Syndrome, you begin seeing hallucinations of the walls warping.

Because you have been staring down your monitor for so long, this sort of phenomenon occurs.

Therefore, all you typists across the country, take breaks while you type.

5. Your body grows sluggish. Your body has no strength in it, so once you collapse, you cannot get back up.

At present, your head, shoulders, and fingers are all fighting a desperate battle against the monitor and keyboard, but all the other parts of your body are currently asleep, which is why this sort of situation occurs.

The remedies for these five symptoms are as follows.

...Just go to sleep. That is the best remedy.