Chapter 42

“Quil.”

Quilbion placed his hand against his throbbing head.

“Stop sleeping and get up. You’re late.”

He got up while pressing firmly between his brows. He exhaled a deep sigh, and pure white breath poured out.

“Didn’t you manage the fire?”

He saw the fireplace that had gone cold and black.

“What are you talking about when there’s no firewood?”

Drich tightened his shoelaces while chuckling.

“Did I?”

Quilbion swept his hand down his face that was covered in beard. He came out from the blanket and shoved his feet into his shoes.

Ugh, they were cold enough to make his eyes snap open.

“It’s a stroke of heaven’s luck that we woke up without freezing to death.”

“My words exactly.”

Drich tossed him gloves and told him to hurry. He snatched the flying gloves with his right hand and stood up.

When he came outside, the violet dawn air greeted him. An old woman wrapped up completely walked down the street carrying two bundles.

“Let’s go.”

Drich said while giving him a light tap.

They walked along the main road then turned into the right alley. The workshop was visible in the distance.

The workshop with its lights on, alone between the dark guild buildings. When they went inside, the big pig stopped sawing and greeted them.

“Oink?”

“Yeah, we’re here.”

“Oink?”

The big pig waddled over. He smiled while holding out a mug of coffee.

“Thanks.”

He received the cup and took a sip. Yep, morning coffee is one of life’s pleasures.

The small pig opened the door and came in. It must have snowed in the meantime because the hat the pig wore was covered in white snow.

“Oink oink oink.”

“Freezing to death? Don’t worry. If you freeze to death, we’ll roast you and eat you deliciously.”

The small pig got angry at Drich’s words. Oink, oink, oink!

Quilbion watched him grumble and smiled slightly. How they could fight every single day over the exact same content—it was truly remarkable.

More than anything, talking about roasting and eating him to a pig.

How terrifying that was…

“Hm?”

Quilbion looked down at his mug.

Something was strange.

He didn’t quite know what was strange, but it was strange anyway.

“Drich.”

“What?”

“Doesn’t this feel a bit strange?”

“What’s strange all of a sudden without rhyme or reason?”

“Well…”

Quilbion set down the cup and looked at the brother pigs. The pig baking bricks and the pig sawing wooden boards.

It was an ordinary, natural scene.

Why did he feel a sense of incongruity?

It was when he’d been pondering for a while.

The door opened again. Air filled with cold wrapped around the workshop.

“Hey! It’s cold, close the door quickly.”

Drich said irritably. Quilbion turned around.

Twella said sorry while unwrapping her scarf.

“…What did you just say?”

Quilbion looked at Twella and asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Just now.”

“You’re going to be like that? Getting all upset because I closed the door a little late. If you keep doing that, should I just throw it wide open?”

“No, that’s not it. What did you really just say?”

Twella tilted her head with an expression that said she didn’t understand, then soon opened her mouth.

“Sorry.”

*

“…Ha.”

His mouth was cracking and splitting.

Where is this?

He wiggled his body stuck to the ground, then realized he couldn’t see ahead.

A sigh brushed past his tongue.

Was he dead?

Or was he alive?

The senses other than sight were intact. He moved his hand. Rough things touched it.

Grass, sand, pebbles.

“Is anyone there?”

He called for people in a murky voice.

What had happened?

In that woman’s hands for sure…

When he recalled the woman who’d descended from the sky, his whole body trembled. What had that been? She had the form of a human but wasn’t human.

Then a goblin?

He didn’t know. Even though he’d seen her with his own two eyes, he couldn’t know anything except that she had a female appearance.

It wasn’t like he could see nark either.

“Twella! You damn bitch! I’m alive! I’m alive!”

His hollow voice stretched out uselessly.

Silence descended.

Quilbion carefully stood up while feeling around on the ground.

Fortunately, his arms and legs were intact. He’d thought they’d become flat like the kids who died.

Urgh, his stomach churned.

The slaughter scene that had seemed so horrific it looked unreal came to mind again.

His eyes had lost their function but his brain showed him the past vividly.

Quilbion staggered and fell. He wanted to vomit up what was inside but nothing came out.

He dry heaved for several minutes.

Not even tears came out—all his moisture must have dried up.

“Fuck.”

All he could do was curse.

“Just kill me! Kill me cleanly! Why! Why the hell!”

After pouring out only empty cries, he curled his body into a ball.

“…Just kill me.”

*

How many days had passed?

He was feeling keenly just how much the sense of time depended on sight.

With nothing visible ahead, time seemed to flow sluggishly.

Thud.

Quilbion slowly felt what had touched his fingertips. It was tree bark with rough grain.

The moment he leaned his back against the tree and caught his breath, the thirst he’d forgotten struck his brain.

He felt like he’d go crazy from thirst.

He gathered saliva under his tongue and swallowed with difficulty.

It must have been several days since he’d pissed or shit. He couldn’t know the exact date, though.

“…Please.”

Cursing the world, hating ‘that woman’ and Twella, screaming in anguish—that was only for a moment.

When he fainted and woke up, fury became an emotion that didn’t matter how it turned out, and he just wanted to live.

Disgustingly, he really wanted to live.

Even after going through that, even after losing his eyes, he didn’t want to let go of the breath clinging to him.

If the employer had seen this, he probably would have said: You’re one tenacious bastard.

He’d survived even when kids dropped dead in the warehouse.

Inescapable fate?

If such a thing truly existed, maybe he was fated to live.

Even now he’d survived like a cockroach.

“Aaaah!”

He’d walked carefully on his knees but ended up falling over anyway. His body rolled round and round following the slope.

Without being able to see ahead, fear was doubled. What if it was a cliff? What if there was a rock in the way?

He covered his head with both hands and curled his body as much as possible. A strong impact struck his side and his body sank downward.

And then.

Splash!

Water caught his body.

He flailed his hands and feet, then realized it was shallow enough for his feet to touch the bottom.

He stood carefully.

“…I survived.”

He bent his knees and brought water to his mouth with both hands. It was cool water.

He didn’t gulp it down greedily.

There were more than ten alley kids who’d died after drinking water too fast when they were hungry.

First he moistened his tongue and the inside of his mouth, then let water flow down his throat that seemed to be cracking and splitting.

“Ha, haha.”

A sad laugh came out.

*

Was it night, or was it day?

After reaching the stream, Quilbion couldn’t tell how much time had passed.

When he got tired he slept, and when he woke he screamed.

When he finished screaming and suddenly realized he’d been left alone, he stopped all his actions and curled up his body while muttering.

“Please… anyone…”

His feet tingled and he came to his senses.

He must have fainted again.

A rotten laugh came out. He’d solved the water problem, but humans couldn’t survive on water alone.

After the terrible thirst was resolved, what followed was hunger squeezing his stomach.

That disgusting black porridge came to mind. If a goblin appeared with porridge, he was confident he’d bow and lick it up.

He crawled with the stream on his left.

He explored the surroundings without straying far from the water’s edge.

“Hey, hey! Dammit, answer me!”

As time passed, he felt like he was becoming more childish. No, had he been immature from the start?

At some point, hallucinations started.

The voices were varied. At first he ignored them, but gradually he listened to the hallucinations and responded.

Of course, communication didn’t work.

Still, he didn’t give up the soliloquy disguised as conversation.

If he kept his mouth shut, he felt like he’d really go insane.

“Yeah, sleep well.”

It was when he answered with a giggle.

He heard Twella’s voice.

He flinched and turned his head. Even knowing he couldn’t see, why did he turn his neck toward where the sound came from?

Twella recited her story in a languid voice. The conversation topics were varied.

Quilbion listened to the story in silence.

He knew. That it was a hallucination, and that the content Twella was talking about was fake patchwork from inside his head.

“Twella.”

The hallucination stopped.

“If you were going to do it, you should have done it properly. You should have killed me. Then I would have hated you less.”

Twella’s voice that had subsided came back to life.

Quilbion felt around the ground and gripped a rock. He threw the rock in the direction where he heard the sound.

“Please, please fuck off.”

As if mocking Quilbion’s actions, Twella’s voice grew louder.

She whispered close to his ear, then chattered from above his head, and soon prattled while running around him.

“Die! Die!”

Quilbion hurled rocks at the darkness while holding them.

Hahaha, hahaha, hahaha.

Clear laughter circled his ears then disappeared.

The cruelest thing to humans can be other humans.

The words Lil had said became a red-hot branding iron that seared his entire body.

“…It’s too fucking terrible.”

Quilbion kept crying while curled into a ball.

Thanks to drinking plenty of water, his tears flowed well.

*

After he’d gone blind, the senses that had become extremely sharp were dulling again.

Quilbion was certain.

That he’d die soon.

He’d struggled so hard not wanting to die, but in the end he was dying.

If he had one last wish, it was only to die peacefully like falling asleep.

Neither hatred nor sadness remained in his shriveled body.

Emotions were luxuries, after all.

It felt like his body was melting and seeping into the ground.

He grew hazy and became blurry.

So this is the end.

It ends like this.

On that day when his father led him by the hand and sold him to the employer—was all of this predetermined then?

No matter how tenaciously he endured, was this a life where he’d be caught by the nape by something called fate and die in the end?

“Fuck, why are you doing this to me?”

He spoke while squeezing out his last strength.

It was a will no one would hear.

Now he couldn’t even hear hallucinations.

Everything was being cut off one by one.

It’s the end, the fucking end.

That’s what he was thinking.

Screeee!

From far away, a sharp cry reached him.

A hallucination?

The distinctive sharp cry of a bird of prey gradually grew closer. He heard the sound of wings flapping too.

It wasn’t a hallucination.

He didn’t know where the strength came from, but Quilbion jerked his upper body upright.

Thud—something struck his crown. The unidentified thing that had hit his head fell to the left.

He felt around with his hand and gripped ‘it.’

It was a familiar shape.

He brought it to his nose with trembling hands.

A fragrant, sweet smell.

Crunch!

Quilbion bit into it without hesitation. His whole body tingled at the sweet juice spreading through his mouth.

It was an apple that had fallen from the sky.