Chapter 61

The Snow-Play Unit DD—it was a group in Isberg with a needlessly flashy name.

A self-proclaimed collective of experts in frolicking in the snow, its members ranged from their mid-teens to their late twenties. Formed for the purpose of venting the frustrations of youth who could no longer endure the lack of entertainment typical of the countryside, they were, in short, a bunch of unemployed slackers with too much time on their hands.

“Stop giving fake explanations!! We work as hunters and processors and stuff whenever we aren’t free!!”

…So protested Pickelt, the captain of the DD.

“No, honestly, I still can’t believe it. I was certain you guys were just loafers. I mean, look at you—every single member of the DD is wearing one of those tacky, shocking-pink hats.”

“This is the DD emblem! Plus, it makes us stand out in case something happens on the mountain!! Wait, is that considered tacky in the city!?”

Apparently, in Isberg, which was physically far removed from the Royal Capital, values regarding fashion were fundamentally different. In the capital, shocking pink—which was needlessly conspicuous and painful to look at—was considered a color that signaled a shallow mindset, effectively saying, “Look at me, I’m super noticeable, aren’t I so cool?” It was a dangerous color, one that could engrave a “dark history” into a person’s past, leaving them wondering, “Why did I ever wear that!?”

On the other hand, it was also often worn by people who didn’t care about others’ opinions. In a more positive light, it could be seen as proof of maintaining a strong sense of self.

“I don’t need that kind of charitable interpretation! I wanted to go my whole life without knowing that truth!!”

“When was it confirmed that the sea has no end? How many years ago did the theory that our planet orbits the sun become common knowledge? You never know when fixed concepts will be overturned. We live in an ambiguous world, after all.”

“Because of international society, the world has become small… too small!!”

The tragic wail of youth echoed hollowly through the mountains.

Setting that aside, we were currently in the middle of a snowy mountain installing traps.

The nearly thirty traps prepared through the joint efforts of the Tool Creation Squad and the Trap Master, Busse, were being steadily deployed with the help of the locals. Considering the vastness of the mountain, thirty felt nowhere near enough, but these traps ran the risk of catching other wildlife, and if we forgot to retrieve them, they could harm humans.

The more you set, the more maintenance they require; it wasn’t a case where more was always better, which was the tricky part.

“By the way, they made you build the traps and come out here to set them? Is this that ‘Black Workplace’ I’ve heard rumors about? It takes courage to say no if you hate it, you know?”

“No, I wanted to check how my feet move in deep snow to prepare for mountain combat. There’s a high possibility we’ll have to fight in this stuff.”

“Don’t bother. It’s impossible to fight a beast without losing your footing in this snow.”

“…So it seems. Snow is quite a nuisance.”

Nodding at Pickelt’s heartfelt advice, I shifted my weight and moved my feet side-to-side to test the sensation. With a dull shloop and light resistance, my foot pushed through the powder.

To put it bluntly, fighting an orc-class opponent in this terrain would be a suicide mission. In a mountain with nearly fifty centimeters of snowfall, just walking was a struggle as the snow caught your legs; being expected to leap around and swing a sword here was nothing short of reckless.

If I focused purely on counters or quick-draw techniques, I might just barely be able to manage, but snowy mountains were truly a terrain designed to kill knights. At this rate, the only things we could rely on were crossbowmen and traps.

“—By the way, how’s Busse-kun doing? He’s bad at socializing, so he hasn’t been rude to you guys, has he?”

“Ah, well, aside from one specific person, I think he’s getting along great with everyone.”

“That’s a relief… He’s a bit of an outcast in the village. I thought maybe with outsiders, he might… well, as long as he’s being accepted, it’s fine.”

“…?”

Something about Pickelt’s phrasing struck me as odd.

Though he sounded relieved, there was a certain detachment in his words, as if he were looking at the situation through a pane of glass. He had a general sense of goodwill, but it wasn’t the warmth of a close friend—it felt more like a passive acquaintance.

Come to think of it, there had been a few things bothering me. Even if he acted as a liaison and had the skills, a boy of about ten had come to the Knight Order all by himself, without parents or adult supervision. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, chalking it up to him being reliable, but normally, that’s a bit too much of a burden to place on a child.

Could it be that Busse hadn’t come alone by choice, but had been sent alone—?

Unable to shake the feeling, I decided to take the plunge and ask Pickelt.

“Hey, Pickelt. Is there some kind of story behind Busse-kun?”

“Eh? Well, I mean…”

“Can I hear about it?”

“…I suppose I owe you for the drinks. Just don’t go spreading it around that I was the one who blabbed, okay?”

Perhaps my hospitality with the booze had paid off; Pickelt seemed reluctant but willing to talk. As I tied a marking ribbon to a tree near a set trap, I listened to his story.

“Busse-kun—he doesn’t have any family.”

“Until last year, my grandpa was with me… but humans are so sudden, aren’t they?”

As Busse spoke of his past, his expression took on a fragile quality, shadowed by a gloom that seemed far too mature for a child his age.

Akina felt the anger that had been simmering since the “old man” comment slowly cool down. At the same time, she felt a prickle of irritation at herself for throwing a tantrum and making him say something like this.

After the incident, Busse had been so persistent in following her to apologize that Akina, thinking it would be even more of a pain if the others saw them, had dragged him into the Tool Creation Squad’s breakroom.

She swirled the cup of milk Busse had brought in, swallowing it along with her irritation. They said milk was supposed to calm the nerves; whether that was true or not, if you believed it, it might actually have an effect.

“Were you raised by that grandpa of yours?”

Struggling with how to interact with a child, Akina eventually decided to just talk to him as she would a colleague. It was a blunt way of speaking that people might criticize for being over-familiar or lacking manners, but Busse didn’t seem to find it strange and nodded earnestly.

“I think my parents raised me until I was about two, but I don’t remember it at all. By the time I was old enough to understand things, my mom was gone and my dad had died in an accident… Oh, these goggles were my dad’s, apparently.”

Busse stroked the goggles hanging from his neck as if he were searching for a trace of a parent.

“My grandpa lived in a secluded spot away from the village, so he was the only one around me.”

“What’s up with that? If you went to play in the village, you could’ve been with people other than him, right?”

“I thought so too, but it seemed like my grandpa didn’t really like the villagers much. Maybe that’s why the villagers were a bit distant… I don’t know the reason, but I wonder if something bad happened while my dad was still alive?”

A boy left on the outside of the circle could only speculate. The theories he voiced were likely nothing more than his imagination. Whether the problem lay with his grandfather or the village… it wasn’t the kind of information the locals would share with the Knight Order, who were outsiders no matter how welcomed they were.

“After my grandpa died, I started going to the village more often, but being an orphan made everyone extra careful around me. It felt uncomfortable…”

“So, instead of staying somewhere you felt out of place, you figured it was easier to be alone and got obsessed with trap-making?”

“My grandpa taught me the skills to survive on my own, after all.”

His face didn’t look lonely; it looked happy.

There must have been sadness and loneliness, but for Busse, inheriting what he could from his family was the most important thing. He had probably long since grown used to the solitude of not fitting in with the village.

A narrow world, but a comfortable place to go—to live.

However, that was somehow different from what Akina had once felt.

Unable to pinpoint why, she found herself thinking deeply, contrary to her usual character. Eventually, she reached a conclusion that felt strangely right.

“Ah, I see… You were lonely, weren’t you?”

“Eh? No, it’s not like I don’t see anyone at all…”

Busse hesitated and tried to deny it, but if he really didn’t feel that way, wouldn’t he have been more certain? His hesitation seemed like an act of shielding the villagers—or perhaps an act of turning his eyes away from his own subconscious feeling that being with the villagers wasn’t actually fun.

He wanted to be a good kid, but his true feelings and his public face were drifting apart.

Akina found herself overlapping her past self with him.

“If you weren’t lonely, you wouldn’t be helping the Knights, and you wouldn’t be sticking to me like glue, would you? If I could be alone in a place where I could do only what I wanted, I’d stay there. The fact that you came to the Knights even though it meant stopping your own work means you were lonely after all.”

“I-I told you I’m not lonely!! It’s just, I wondered what kind of traps a Knight Order that fights orcs all the time uses, and what kind of people were there…!!”

“Funny, you haven’t asked a single thing about the traps we use, though.”

“Ugh…!”

She cupped Busse’s face with both hands as he flustered over her hitting the bullseye, and pulled her face close to his.

“Is it wrong to be lonely? Are you not lonely just because there are people around? I never thought so.”

If you don’t look like a “good person,” no one will hire you, yet the rejection in your heart won’t vanish—she remembered her own past self, disgusted with the world because she couldn’t fill that distortion.

She didn’t think Busse’s situation was quite that dark, but from Akina’s perspective—having finally found her place—his indecisiveness rubbed her the wrong way.

“Listen, there’s something I realized for the first time when I was given freedom in this Order. Even if you aren’t best friends, having people who back you up when you’re doing what you want to do is incredibly moving. I worked with all sorts of people before this, but the Knights were totally different. Do you know why?”

“…Because it was fun to build things?”

“No. It’s because there are people here who understand and accept what I want to do and what I want to make. Before this, I didn’t have anyone like that—and I only realized for the first time then that I had been feeling lonely.”

A true “home” has that. That place existing somewhere in the wide world is as wonderful as an oasis, if not a paradise. Once you find it, it becomes an addiction; you can’t leave.

“People often tell me I’ve still got the heart of a brat. But as your elder, I’ll tell you one thing… it’s okay for humans to just stop pretending and own it.”

“I-I don’t have any reason to ‘own’ anything! I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong, and it’s not like I hate the village—ah.”

“I didn’t ask a single word about whether you hated the village. But that’s your true feeling, isn’t it?”

—It came out. He’d let it slip.

A fragment of a true feeling that wouldn’t emerge unless he actually felt it.

Realizing that for the first time he had uttered words he would normally never say, Busse instinctively covered his mouth. In that regard, he was still just a child after all.

Whether he desperately didn’t want to admit it, or he was frustrated with himself for speaking it aloud, Busse let out large tears and spun around.

Akina reached out with an “Ah—”, but she was too late.

“Ugh… hic, WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!”

Busse sprinted out of the room as if running away from everything.

With huge tears welling in his eyes, it was as if he were saying he didn’t want to hear another word.

“H-Hey!! Dammit, what’s there to cry about!? This is why brats are a pain!! I have no idea what’s going through their heads!!”

I haven’t even told him the most important part yet, complaining inwardly, Akina stood up to chase after the boy. Not out of some adult responsibility, but simply because, as a “kindred spirit,” she wanted to tell him that one important thing.

The story Pickelt told under the cold sky was, unfortunately, the kind of content that made even the heart feel desolate.

“—And that’s the gist of it. Sorry, was that a bit unpleasant?”

“…You don’t need to walk on eggshells like that.”

Though he voiced his concern, my estimation of Pickelt honestly wavered a bit.

In short, as an extension of some feud involving the old man, Busse had no family and was semi-isolated in the village… apparently. To be honest, it was unexpected. Perhaps my eye for people is still immature, but I had thought Busse was naturally a boy with that kind of attitude.

Since it was a human relationship issue that hadn’t surfaced—unlike in Kliffia—it was hard to say it strictly concerned the mission, so there was no need to force my way into it. However, I think it’s actually harder to just “not worry” about it once told.

To look away from the darkness of a boy I’d be acting with for a while felt like a declaration of defeat—an admission that as an adult, I couldn’t help a child. Regardless of the outcome, I wanted to reach out as far as I could.

“The cause of the feud with the old man… is that something better left unasked?”

“…Sorry, I don’t think it’s my place to talk about that on my own.”

“What’s with that? Do you need village permission to hear about one person’s circumstances? I don’t get it.”

“You’ve gotta understand… if people find out I blabbed, things will get awkward for me!”

A faint trace of panic and fear appeared on Pickelt’s face.

In a closed community, the weight of interpersonal relationships can be completely different from the city. Primitive discrimination, like being ostracized, often happens without the perpetrators even realizing it. Deciding that further questioning would be cruel, I cut it off—and suddenly, I smelled a foul odor and looked up.

“Hm? What’s this smell? Like a cowshed or a stray dog… a beastly stench?”

“True… looks like there’s a beast upwind.”

“But this smell is so thick… I’ve hunted beasts before, but I’ve never smelled anything this strong.”

The distinct body odor of a beast that never washes. It’s a smell that sometimes wafts off the Tool Creation Squad when they work through the night without bathing, but what I felt now was as thick as the lingering scent of catching every stray dog in the area and stuffing them into a tiny room.

Just how pungent is the beast here?

I’d imagined winter mountains to be more of an odorless space.

“If we’re talking smelly creatures, maybe a lynx? I hear they’re super stinky if they get close.”

“Not a chance. They don’t live—whoa, the blizzard’s picking up!?”

Along with Pickelt, who immediately denied the possibility, we covered our faces against the sudden gale of wind and snow. We were equipped with goggles, but even so, the sub-zero blizzard made any sliver of exposed skin sting. Visibility had worsened rapidly; it would be best to retreat before the blizzard truly set in.

“Sheesh, what kind of beast shows itself in front of people in this weather? A wolf? A deer? A boar? Don’t tell me it’s a bear!”

“A bear? This close to the village, and at this time of year?”

“Occasionally there’s one that moves even in winter! But it’s so rare the old folks only talk about it as something from the past, so there’s no way it’s a bear—”

The rest of his sentence froze at the sound that pierced our ears the next instant.

“Grrrrrrrrrrr…!!”

A low, heavy sound, like a rumble from the depths of a stomach. It clearly wasn’t the wind; it was a breath, a growl. A moment later, the beastly stench I’d been sensing became so dense it made me gag. And the owner of that voice—the massive identity that suddenly cast a shadow over us—emerged with an eerie presence as the wind weakened and our vision cleared.

I already had nothing but a bad feeling, but I looked to confirm the truth. There, a scene spread out that I could only describe as being exactly as expected.

“You went and triggered the flag, Pickelt…”

“Stop casually blaming me!? More importantly, what is this monster…!?”

Standing there was a giant, man-like physique covered in pure white fur, stained here and there with reddish-black spots. Bare fangs and claws reflected the light, and its face—displaying a fierce, naked killing intent—carried bloodshot eyes that glared at us.

An intimidation factor that made even the face of Pro, the wolf I met in the motive carriage, seem pale by comparison.

Both Pickelt and I correctly recognized the identity of this four-meter-tall white beast.

“A pure white… bear…!?”

Yes, it was exactly the “bear” Pickelt had intended to exclude as a possibility—no, I couldn’t say for sure since I’m not an expert, but it was clearly a creature closely related to a bear. I cursed our luck at this worst-timed encounter.

“Goddammit, of all times, we run into it in this deep snow!?”

“GUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“—! It’s coming! Get ready!!”

An ear-splitting roar echoed through the mountains, and my hand naturally flew to the hilt of my sword.

To think I’d be forced to draw my prized blade so soon—and to think I’d end up facing the true identity of the white beast so unexpectedly.

Poor visibility, terrible footing, no reinforcements, and one person to protect.

A battle in the worst possible situation imaginable was about to begin.